Demon (GAIA) by John Varley Page B

had figured out what they ate, or why they flew. She suspected they had been made merely to give the place the proper atmosphere. In Gaea, that was not an unreasonable assumption to make.
    She reached the end of the passage and cautiously looked over the edge.
    The floor of the cavern was a hundred meters below her. It was a passable copy of the chamber through which a foot-high rubber model of a gorilla had stalked in a movie from the 1930s. There was a shallow lake and many rock formations resembling stalactites and stalagmites—all of them much bigger than could have been formed through geological processes in Gaea’s three million years. Like many places in Gaea, it was a carefully constructed setting.
    But it was a ruined setting. Many of the rock formations had been snapped off. The lake was churned to sludge, the muddy shoreline pocked with footprints three meters deep. The water had a pink tinge. And centered in the weak, slanting rays of light that found their way through the vaulted ceiling was the star of the show; the mighty Kong, eighth wonder of the world.
    Cirocco remembered when he’d looked better.
    He was on his back, surrounded by Lilliputian swarms of Iron Masters who were busy dismantling him.
    They went about it with their customary thoroughness, speed, and efficiency. A rail line had been run in through the southern entrance of the mountain. Cirocco knew it would connect with a funicular down the slope, probably joining a new spur from their Black Forest roadbed, in turn joining the main Phoebe-Arges line. A train idled at the railhead, a 2-10-4 chromium-plated steam engine presiding over twenty hopper cars normally used for iron ore from the Black Forest, now full of bits of Kong. The Iron Masters were good at railroads.
    They were good at a lot of things. They had Kong down to a head, a torso, and part of an arm. There were massive bones being sliced up by noisy steam-powered saws.
    It was gruesome, but fascinating. Cirocco had expected Kong would stink to high heaven after three hundred revs—almost two weeks. Not that the place didn’t stink—it had in the best of times, she recalled, because it had never occurred to Kong to shovel out the tonnes of manure he generated every kilorev or even to step outside to relieve himself. But he did not appear to be rotting.
    This annoyed Cirocco. Okay, so there was no law saying he had to rot, but the bastard
ought
to rot.
    Still, there he was, hacked away up to his surprisingly complex ribcage, looking as fresh as the day he was slaughtered. Iron Master crews were cutting at his body with big flensing knives on long sticks, detaching hunks of pink meat, lifting them with hooks powered by a donkey engine and a tall mast like the ones loggers erect deep in the forest.
    Another hectorev and he’d be gone.
    It was no loss to Cirocco. She doubted anything could ever make her feel sorry for the great, idiotic beast. If anybody wept for him, she would invite the bleeding heart to spend a year in Kong’s dungeons, watching him bite the heads off live Titanides. His huge head was turned toward Cirocco. Funny about Kong: he didn’t look like a gorilla. His was a chimp’s head, complete with silly-putty lips and flapping ears. His pelt was orangutan-brown and matted with filth.
    There were only two things about the scene that really interested her, aside from the good news of his demise. Who had killed him? And why did the Iron Masters have his one remaining arm strapped down with heavy cables?
    Meet, meet, meet, meeeeeet!
    Cirocco turned slowly at the sound, spotted the little bolex perched ten meters above her in a rocky niche. It goggled down at her, quiet now.
    Ah
ha!
she thought.
    “C’mere critter,” she crooned, climbing up after it. “Here boy, c’mon, I won’t hurt you.” She made all the whistling and tongue-clicking sounds appropriate to summoning a puppy, but the bolex squealed and backed into its niche, which was deeper than Cirocco had