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silent for a full minute, Chris’fer cleared his throat.
    “I didn’t know any of this.”
    She snorted again.
    “I’m surprised you came here and took this job, feeling the way you do. And … I’m surprised that you sound like you resent Gaea. I thought she was, well, like a God to Titanides.”
    She regarded him levelly, spoke with no emphasis.
    “She is, Herr Minor. I came here because she is God and because she told me to come. If you meet her, it would be best to remember that. Do what she tells you. As for the resentment, of course I resent it. Gaea doesn’t require that you love her. She just wants obedience, and she damn well gets it. Nasty things happen to those who don’t listen to her. I’m not talking about going to hell; I’m talking about a demon eating you alive. I don’t love her, but I have a tremendous respect for her.
    “And you’d better watch it, I’d say. There’s a streak of fatalism in you. You came here unprepared, ignorant of things you could have learned if you’d even read the
Britannica
article. That won’t work in Gaea.”
    Chris’fer slowly realized what she was saying but still could not quite believe it.
    “Yes, you’re going. Maybe it’s your luck working for you. I wouldn’t know about luck. But I got a directive from Gaea. She wants some people who are crazy. You’re the first one this week who qualifies. I can even feel good about sending you. I was bracing myself for turning down a great humanitarian in favor of some slobbering killer. Compared to that, you’ll do fine. Come with me.”
    The outer office now held a swaying but revived Titanide and three humans. One, a young woman with reddened eyes, came toward the ambassador. She tried to say something involving a child. Dulcimer (Hypomixolydian Trio) Cantata danced nimbly by her and hurried out into the corridor. Chris’fer saw the woman seek comfort in the arms of a hard-faced man. He looked away hurriedly. He could not have seen accusation in her eyes; there was no way she could know he had been chosen.
    He caught up with the Titanide in the tunnel and had to jog to equal her walking pace. They went around the fort on the north side, by the Bay.
    “Get rid of that apostrophe,” she said.
    “Huh?”
    “In your name. Change it to Chris. I hate the apostrophe.”
    “I—”
    “Don’t make me mention that I wouldn’t send someone with a silly name like Chris’fer to Gaea.”
    “All right, I won’t. I mean, I will. Change my name.”
    She was unlocking a gate in the fence that kept the public away from the bridge. She opened it, and they went through.
    “Change your last name to Major. Maybe it’ll jar you out of that fatalism.”
    “I will.”
    “Have it done in court, and send me the papers.”
    They reached the bottom of a huge concrete bridge support. A metal ladder had recently been bolted to it. It dwindled in the distance but appeared to reach all the way to the roadway with no safety cage.
    “Your passport is on top of the south tower. It’s a little Gaean flag, like the one outside the embassy. Climb this ladder, go up the cable, get it, and come back. I’ll wait here.”
    Chris’fer looked at the ladder, then at the ground. He wiped his sweating palms on his pants.
    “Can I ask why? I mean, I’ll do it if I have to, but what does it mean? It’s like a game.”
    “It is a game, Chris. It is random; it makes no sense. If you can’t climb this measly ladder, then you aren’t worth sending to Gaea. Come on, get going, kid.” She was smiling, and he thought that, despite her professed sympathy for humans, it might amuse her to see him fall. He put his foot on the first rung, reached up, and felt her hand on his shoulder.
    “When you get to Gaea,” she said, “don’t expect too much. From now on you are in the grip of a vast and capricious power.”

3.
The Screamer
    The Coven was established late in the twentieth century, though not under that name. It was more political than