Glory Season (40 page)

That brought more hooting. Maia gave in with a smile of gratitude. Before hurrying toward the luring smell of steam and soap, she unstrapped the little sextant from her wrist and handed it to Renna. “Maybe you can stop the sun filter from wobbling. Give you something to do with your hands.” Thalla sputtered in her beer and several others guffawed. “Shouldn’t be too hard for a hotshot star traveler to do,” Maia finished.

“You kidding?” he protested. “I barely make it to the can and back without a computer!”

“Would he be here with us, if he didn’t have a knack
for getting lost?” Thalla agreed, shouting after Maia, then added, louder still, “Innkeeper! More ale!”

The bathroom lay up a double flight of plank stairs. Closing the door behind her, Maia could still hear the women below, joking and laughing, and Renna’s deeper voice joining in occasionally. Mostly, his contributions sounded like questions, though Maia could not make out words. Often, his queries brought on gales of laughter, which he seemed to take in good grace.

It felt strange undressing in the richly tiled bathroom, equipped with amenities she had to remind herself how to use. Maia kicked her soiled garments into a corner and went first to the shower, adjusting the knobs until hot water from the rooftop heater flowed steadily.
They probably use good ol’ Port Sanger coal
, she thought incongruously. Stepping under the stream, she proceeded to lather her body. The soap was harsh and doubtless homemade, but less expensive than importing the real thing from some specialist clan, far away. Nevertheless, it felt luxurious. Turning off the water between rinsings, Maia proceeded to scrape off layer after layer of grime, until her skin squeaked when rubbed. Then she started on her hair, scrubbing her scalp and working out tangles.

Don’t know why I bother
, she wondered.
It’s in such a state, I’ll probably have to hack it all off anyway.

Rinsing carefully one last time, Maia turned off the tap and tiptoed over to the broad wooden tub, by a small window overlooking the wharfs of Grange Head. She flipped back the hinged cover, exposing the steaming surface. To her relief, the water was pristine. There were stories about male sailors who forgot—or had never been taught—the proper procedure, and who actually used the
bath
for cleaning themselves, leaving the tub coated with soap and scum for the next person. With men, one just
never knew what to expect, and as an alien, Renna might have been doubly confused.

Then again, perhaps there was only one civilized way. However barbaric their unmodified sexual patterns, cultured people on other worlds probably bathed the same way as on Stratos.

Alas, there would be no time to ask about that, or countless other quandaries, before escorted aircraft came from the west to whisk Renna away. At odd moments during their escape, she had pictured going with him all the way to Caria and seeing the city’s wonders. But in more lucid reflection Maia knew—she might as well ask to be taken along when he departed for the stars.

I wonder if he’ll remember me when he’s hobnobbing with savants and council members … or flying between planets long after I’m food for worms.
It was a tough, wry contemplation, appropriate for the type of hard, worldly person she decided to become—ready for anything, shocked by nothing. And, especially, vulnerable to nobody.

The shower had been tepid, but the bath was so hot that it stung her innumerable cuts and scratches. Maia slipped lower by stages, until water sloshed over the sides into a waiting drain.

Heaven! Heat seemed to melt every part that was tense or callused, uncoiling muscles that had been taut without her noting. Troubles and worries she still had, but they went limp for the time being, along with her body. The sensuousness of lying completely motionless matched any active pleasure she knew.

Languidly, Maia lifted one arm to look at it from all sides, let it drop, and did the same thing with the other, regarding where recent months had left their marks. Next she examined each leg. A small scar on this shin, a healing scratch on that ankle, a couple of tender spots saddle-rubbed during that long ride on horseback … and one small battle wound that she made a mental note to keep
clean over the days ahead, lest it get infected. Even here, in “civilization,” medical care was catch-as-catch-can, and she hardly had the resources to pay.

There was a knock, and the door started swinging. Thalla stuck her head in. “Everythin’ all right?” the stocky woman asked.

“Oh! Fine, great … I’ll get out.” With a sigh, Maia reached for the rim.

“Don’t be silly. You just got in!” Thalla chided. “I just heard the innkeeper’s got a washload goin’. We’re tossing in our grungies. Want yours done, too?” She nodded toward the filthy garments in the corner.

Maia winced at the thought of ever wearing them again, but they were all she had. “Yeah, please. Kind of you.”

Thalla swept up the clothes. “Don’t mention it. Enjoy your bath. An’ have all the luck in the world.”

She closed the door and Maia sank back into the tub, relishing how the heat swarmed in again. It had been disappointing, thinking it was over so soon. Now she felt happier than if she had been left undisturbed! Not that everything melted in the hot water. The sound of the locomotive, its electric thrum along the rails, was still in her head. Nor, try as she might, could Maia push aside all her worries.

Staying ashore was out of the question. Tizbe and the Joplands would surely catch up with her. The sea was her only option. With what Maia had learned about navigation—and the Game of Life—perhaps some captain could be persuaded to give her a trial billet on crew, not just as passenger, second class. Ideally a slot to last through late spring, when rut season forced women ashore. By that time, she ought to have saved a credit or two.

In all justice, she should get a small portion of the reward Kiel and Baltha were collecting. Maia trusted
Renna to stick up for her, though from the size of the getaway cabal, her share still wasn’t likely to be large.

There was also the matter of her appointment with the PES investigator, now long overdue because of circumstances beyond her control. Was it too late to make good her promise? Would testimony before a local magistrate suffice? Part of her determination was personal.
Tizbe Beller locked me up to keep me from talking. So that’s exactly what I’ll do!
Of all the sensations warming her—freedom, cleanliness, the physical luxury of the bath—she dwelled for a few minutes on revenge.
The Bellers and Joplands will be sorry they ever made me their enemy
, she vowed grandly.

It wasn’t a sound that tickled Maia’s attention. Rather, she grew gradually, uncomfortably aware of a certain
lack
of sound. Frowning, it began to dawn on her that it had been a while since she’d heard the murmur of conversation on the porch below. Or the pacing of the var on watch, or the clinking of bottles, or Renna’s persistent, naïve questions.

Suddenly, the bath no longer felt luxurious, but confining.
I’m probably turning into a prune, anyway
, she thought. Her relaxed muscles had to be coaxed into lifting her weight out of the tub. While toweling herself, Maia could not suppress a rising sense of foreboding. Something was wrong.

Maia lowered the cover of the bathtub and climbed on top to reach the solitary window, wiping the foggy pane and pressing close to peer down, onto the veranda. Rows of empty bottles lay along the balcony railing, but where the women had been sitting, no one remained in sight.

Probably Kiel and Baltha came back with news
, she thought. But nobody was visible near the main entrance, either.
Did they go in to eat?
she wondered.

Maia shoved upward against the window until it slid along wooden tracks, sash weights rattling on both sides. Fresh, chill air streamed in, sowing goose bumps as moisture
evaporated from her skin. She stuck her head out and called, “Hey! Where is everybody?”

A few locals were in view near a warehouse, loading a horse-drawn wagon. When she stretched a little farther and turned left, she saw a crowd down at the embankment, far below, moving toward one of the piers. Maia’s heart surged when she recognized Thalla’s stocky form and Baltha’s shock of blonde hair.

No. They wouldn’t do that to me!

But there was Renna. Taller than Baltha, walking awkwardly with his arms around two of the women, rocking from side to side.

“Lysos!” Maia cried, hopping back onto the tiles. Her clothes were gone—no doubt to help strand her here. With a curse, she now recalled Thalla’s parting words, which
had
seemed odd for someone you expected to see again!

Clutching a towel, Maia dashed from the room and swept downstairs, only to be blocked momentarily by the innkeeper, holding a cloth bag and a paper envelope.

“Oh, it’s you, miss. Your friends told me to give you—”

Her words cut off as Maia pushed her aside and streaked out the front door, leaping down the steps onto the gravel road. Shopkeepers stared and a trio of three-year-old clones giggled, but Maia dug in, kicking pebbles as she ran, ignoring the bite of cold sea air. Turning fast at the embankment, she skidded and sprawled hard onto hands and knees, but was up again in an instant, not bothering to check for bleeding or to pick up the spilled towel. Maia ran naked past loading cranes and moored ships, to amazed looks from sailors and townswomen alike.

Two longboats had already set out from the pier, oars-women pulling with steady, even strokes. When Maia
reached the end of the wharf, she screamed at Kiel, who sat near the helmsman in the second boat.

“Liar! Damn you! You can’t just—” Stamping, she sought the words to express her fury. Kiel’s jaw dropped in surprise, while several of the vars Maia had fought next to now laughed at the sight of her standing there, unclothed and quaking with anger.

The dark woman cupped her hands and called back. “We can’t take you along, Maia. You’re too young and it’s dangerous! The letter explains—”

“Julp on your damn letter!” Maia screamed in anger and disappointment. “What does
Renna
have to say about …”

Then she saw what she had not noticed before. The man from space had a glazed, unhappy look on his face, and was not focusing on anything or anybody in particular. “You’re kidnapping him!” she cried, hoarsely.

“No, Maia. It’s not what you—”

Kiel’s voice cut off as Maia dove headfirst into the frigid water and came up sputtering. She inhaled a painful, salty rasp, then set out after the boat, swimming with all her might.

C
loning, as an alternate mode of reproduction, was used long before the emigration from Florentina World. An egg cell, carefully prepared with a donor’s genetic material, is implanted within a chemically stimulated volunteer, or the artificial womb recently perfected on New Terra. Either way, the delicate, expensive process is generally reserved for a world’s most creative, or revered, or wealthy individuals, depending on local custom. I know of no planet where clones make up a significant fraction of the population … except Stratos.

Here, they comprise over eighty percent! On Stratos, parthenogenetic reproduction is as easy or hard, as cheap
or dear, as having babies the normal way. Results of this one innovation pervade the whole culture. In my travels, I have never witnessed such a bold experiment in redirecting human destiny.

This was the essence of my address before the Reigning Council in Caria. (See appended transcript.) There was an element of diplomatic flattery, since I left all my troubled questions for another occasion. Time and observation will surely reveal cracks in this feminist nirvana, but that by itself is no indictment. When has any human culture been perfect? Perfection is another way of spelling death.

Some in the audience seemed eager for my proxy recognition of their founders’ accomplishments. Others smiled, as if indulgently amused that a mere man might speak to a topic beyond his natural ken. Many simply stared blankly, unable to decide.

Then there was the quiet, polite rancor I could not miss on the faces of a large minority. Their hostility reminded me that Lysos, for all her scientific genius, had also been leader of a militant, revolutionary band. Centuries later, there remains a deep undercurrent of ideological fervor here on Stratos.

The season of the year is no help. Can it be coincidence that consent-to-land was finally granted during midsummer, when suspicion of males runs highest? Were opponents of contact hoping I’d misbehave, and so sabotage my mission?

Perhaps they count on assistance from Wengel Star. Or from hot season’s shimmering aurorae. If so, the
Perkinists will be disappointed. I am unaffected by glowing cues in their summer sky.

Still, I must take care. The men of this world are used to being few, surrounded by womankind, while I was shaped in a different society, and have just spent two lonely years of my own subjective span in cramped isolation between the stars.

I
ncised figures on a granite wall … geometric forms … nested, twining-rope patterns … a puzzle, carved in ancient rock …

“
We can’t stay down here much longer. I told you! Your code’s no better’n a Lamai’s spit!
”

Focus on an image … of a child’s hand … reaching upward toward a star-shaped knot of stone …

“
Shut up, Leie. Lemme think. Was it this one? Um—I can’t ’member.
”

 … yes, this one. The star-shaped knob. She must touch the stone. Twist it a quarter turn. A quarter turn to the right.

It was hard to do, though. Something was making her sluggish. A force of will was needed just to make her arm extend, and motion felt like pushing through a jar of bec honey. The dank air of the cellar felt humid, smothering. The stone outcrop receded, even as she stretched out for it.

 … a star-shaped stone … key to the sequence of opening.

The image wavered. Her own hand warped, growing indistinct behind swells of dizzying distortion. The surrounding,
twining-rope carvings began to slither, twisting and writhing like awakening snakes.