Free Wizard by John Varley Page A

approach she held her right arm close to her side. The conviction was strong that if she reached out, she could touch it, though she knew she must be more distant than that. When she was past, she twisted in the air once more and watched the thing recede from her.
    * * *
    One hour didn’t sound like that much time. Surely one could remain in absolute terror that long. She began to wonder if something was wrong with her because she no longer felt terror. Before the approach of the cables had rekindled her fright, she had attained a kind of peace. She felt it stealing over her oncemore and welcomed it. There is a sweet calm that can come with the realization that one’s death has arrived, that it will be swift and painless, that there is no good to be gained by sweating and clawing air and cursing fate.
    * * *
    It couldn’t last forever. Why couldn’t it last just twenty more minutes?
    She was skipping back and forth now between fatalism and fear. Knowing there was nothing she could do was not enough. She wanted to live, she was not going to, and there were no words to express the sorrow of that.
    Her religion was not one that believed in answered prayers. The Coven did not pray at all, in that sense. They asked nothing. There were things they could demand, positions to be earned in the afterlife, but in a tough spot you were on your own. The Great Mother was not going to interfere in anyone’s fate, and it never occurred to Robin to ask Her to. But she did wish there was
something
she could turn to for help, some power in all this vastness.
    And then she wondered if that was what Gaea wanted. Could she listen, all the way down here, minutes from destruction? After the first tremendous shock of it, Robin had not been greatly surprised that Gaea had done this terrible thing. It seemed to mesh well with the insanity she had been talking. But now she wondered why, and the only reason she could think of was to terrorize Robin into acknowledging Gaea as her Lord.
    If true, there might be something Gaea could do. Robin opened her mouth, and nothing came out. She tried again and screamed. Through some welcome spiritual alchemy, her fear was transmuted into anger so consuming it shook her more powerfully than the winds.
    “Never!” she shouted. “Never, never, never! You stinking cancer! You abomination! You loathsome, repulsive perversion! I’ll meet you in your grave, and I will disembowel you and choke you with your reeking guts! I’ll stuff you with coals; I’ll bite out your tongue; I’ll spit you on cold iron andfry you for eternity! I curse you! Hear me now, oh Great Mother, hear me and mark me well! I pledge my shade to the eternal torment of the one called Gaea!”
    “Good for you.”
    “I’m not even
started
yet! I’ll—”
    She looked toward her feet. One meter beyond them was a grinning face. There was not much more she could see, considering his angle; just his shoulders, amazing bulge of chest, and the wings folded on his back.
    * * *
    “You’re taking this very calmly.”
    “Why shouldn’t I?” Robin asked. “I thought I had it figured out, and I’m still not sure I was wrong. You swear, by whatever powers you hold holy, that Gaea didn’t send you?”
    “I swear by the Squadron. Gaea knew she was not tossing you to certain death, but she had no hand in this. I do it freely, on my own.”
    “I figure I’ll hit the wall in about five more minutes.”
    “Wrong. The bottom of the spoke flares, like a bell, remember? It’s enough that you’ll come out and fall at a sixty-degree angle over East Hyperion.”
    “If you’re trying to cheer me up …” But it did have some effect. Her first estimate of sixty-eight minutes was right, it turned out. But her figure for terminal velocity was low; she would be falling longer. She wondered what the angel could do to help her with that.
    “It’s true I can’t carry you,” he said. “Really, you amaze me. I get all sorts of reactions from