John Varley - Wizard

Hornpipe, the Titanide she had met in Cirocco's tent, had been her guide, singing translations to merchants who did not speak English.

"Don't worry about it," he had said. "You'll notice no one else is paying money either. We don't use it."

"What's your system, then?"

"Gaby calls it noncoercive communism. She says it wouldn't work with humans. They're too greedy and self-centered. Pardon me, but that's what she says."

"That's okay. She's probably right."

"I wouldn't know. It's true we don't have the problems associated with dominance that humans seem to have. We don't have leaders, and we don't fight one another. Our economy works through chords and earned entitlements. Everyone works, both at a trade and on community projects. One accumulates standing-or maybe you would call it wealth or credit-by accomplishment, and by aging, or by need. No one lacks the necessities; most have at least some luxuries."

"I wouldn't call it wealth," Robin pointed out. "We don't use money, either, in the Coven."

"Oh? What is your system, then?"

Robin thought it over as dispassionately as she could, recalling the assigned community work backed up by a schedule of punishments, up to and including death.

"Call it coercive communism. With a lot of barter on the side."

La Gata Encantada was near the trunk of the great tree. Robin had been there once, but the darkness was perpetual in Titantown, and there were no road maps. There were no roads. One needed a lantern and a lot of luck to find anything.

Robin thought of the core of the city as the entertainment district. The description would serve, though as everywhere else in Titantown there were shops and even homes scattered among the dance halls, theaters, and pubs. There was an area between the outer ring and the trunk which held few structures. It was the gloomiest part of Titantown, given over to small garden plots that thrived in the warm, damp darkness. Most of the town was lit with big paper lamps; here there were few of them.

It was the closest thing she had seen to what she thought of as a park. Her mother had warned her about parks. Men hid in them to spring out and rape women. Of course, few humans came this far into Titantown, but there was nothing to prevent them from coming. She had thought she was over her worries about rape, but she couldn't help it. There were places where the only useful light was that cast by her own lantern.

There was a hissing sound that made her jump. She stopped to discover the cause and found lines of low, fleshy plants emitting a fine spray. No one reared in the Coven, with its chugging lines of sprinklers crossing the curved agricultural floor, could have failed to see the purpose of the mist. She smiled and inhaled deeply. The smell of damp earth took her back to her childhood, to simpler days spent playing in fields of ripe strawberries.

The pub was a low wooden building with the customary wide door. A sign hung outside: two circles, the top one smaller and with two points on top, slanted eyes, and a toothy grin.

Why a cat? she wondered. And why Spanish? If Titanides learned a human tongue, it was invariably English, but there it was, painted above the doorway, "La Gata Encantada," without even the customary Titanide runes. They were a strange race, Robin decided. They were so like humans in so many ways. Most of their skills were the same as human skills. The things they made were, for the most part, things humans made, too. Their arts were similar to human arts, with the exception of their transcendent music. Their odd system of reproduction was the only thing distinctly their own.

But not quite, she realized, as she walked into La Gata, past the water trough that was a fixture in every Titanide public building. The floor was sand with a layer of straw. All in all, the Titanides dealt with the problem of combining urbanization and incontinence better than, for instance, New York City in the horse-and-buggy era. The city swarmed with small armadillolike creatures whose sole food was the ubiquitous piles of orange balls. In private homes the problem was dealt with as it occurred, with shovels and waste bins. But where many Titanides gathered it was impossible. They threw fastidiousness to the winds and simply did not worry about it. Hence the water troughs, to wash one's feet before going home.

Other than that, La Gata Encantada looked very like a human tavern, but with more space between the tables. There was even a long wooden bar complete with brass rail. The place was full of Titanides who towered over her, but she had ceased to worry about crushed toes. She would have fared worse in a crowd of humans.

"Hey, human girl!" She looked up to see the bartender waving at her. He tossed her a pillow. "Your friends are in back. You want a root beer?"

"Yes, please. Thank you." She knew from her first visit that root beer was a dark, foamy alcoholic brew made from roots. It tasted like the beer she was used to, but stouter. She liked it.

The group had gathered at a big round table in a far corner: Cirocco, Gaby, Chris, Psaltery, Valiha, Hornpipe, and a fourth Titanide she didn't know. Robin's drink arrived before she did, in a monster five-liter mug. She sat on her pillow, putting the table at the level of her breasts.

"Are there cats in Gaea?" she asked.

Gaby looked at Cirocco, and they both shrugged.

"I never saw one," Gaby said. "This place is named after a march. Titanides are march-happy. They think John Philip Sousa is the greatest composer who ever lived."

"Not quite accurate," Psaltery objected. "He is neck and neck with Johann Sebastian Bach." He took a drink, then saw Robin and Chris were looking at him. He went on, by way of clarification.

"Without being condescending, both are basic and primitive. Bach with his geometry of repeated sound shapes, his calculus of inspired monotony; Sousa with his innocent flash and bravura. They approach music as one would lay the bricks of a ziggurat: Sousa in brass and Bach in wood. All humans do that to some extent. Your written music even looks like brick walls."

"We had never thought of that," Valiha contributed. "Celebrating a song and then preserving it to be performed exactly the same the next time was a new idea. The music of Bach and Sousa is very pretty, with no needless complications, when written on paper. Their music is hyperhuman."

Cirocco looked owlishly back and forth between the two Titanides, then shifted her gaze to Robin and Chris. She had trouble finding them.

"And now you know as much as you did before," she said. "Never did like Sousa, myself. Bach I can take or leave." She blinked, looking from one to the other as if waiting for them to dispute her. When they didn't, she took a long drink from her glass of beer. A lot of it spilled over her chin.

Gaby put a hand on her shoulder. "They're going to cut you off at the bar pretty soon, Captain," she said lightly.

"Who says I'm drunk?" Cirocco roared. A brown-gold sudsy wave washed over the table as her glass toppled. The room was quiet for a moment, then noisy again as all the Titanides took care not to notice the incident. Someone appeared with a towel to mop up the beer, and another glass was set in front of her.

"No one said that, Rocky," Gaby said quietly.

Cirocco seemed to have forgotten it.

"Robin, you haven't met Hautbois, I believe. Hautbois (Sharped Mixolydian Trio) Bolero, meet Robin the Nine-fingered, of the Coven. Robin, this is Hautbois. She comes from a good chord and will keep you warm when the cold winds blow."

The Titanide rose and executed a deep bow with her front legs.

"May the holy flow unite us," Robin mumbled, bowing from the waist, while studying what she assumed was meant to be her companion on the trip. Hautbois had a plush carpet of hair seven or eight centimeters deep. Only the palms of her hands, small areas around her nipples, and parts of her face revealed bare skin, which was a rich olive green. Her pelt was also olive, but marbled with whorls of brown like fingerprint patterns. Her head and tail hair was white as snow. She looked like a huge, fluffy stuffed animal with big brown button eyes. "You met Hornpipe, didn't you?" Cirocco went on. "Our Horny here is the ... well, call it the grandson of the first goddamn Titanide we ever met. His hindmother was the first Hornpipe's Mix-oeey... ." She paused, having trouble with the word. "Mix-oh-eye-oli-nee-an. Mixoiolinian. She was the first Hornpipe's Mixoiolinian get. Then she bred with her forefather. That doesn't sound so hot from the human standpoint, but I assure you it's great eugenics with Titanides. Hornpipe's a Lydian Duet." She belched and looked solemn. "As are we all."