Glory Season (73 page)

“Great Mother of life!”

The exclamation made both girls look up from the transfixing sight. Still blinking in surprise, Maia saw that Captain Poulandres and one of his officers stood in the doorway at the top of the aisle, staring with dumfounded expressions.

Maia’s initial thought was pragmatic.
How are they able to see the sextant from all that way up there?

“I …” Poulandres swallowed hard. “… came to tell you. The pirates say they want to talk. They say …” He shook his head, unable to concentrate on his urgent message. “By Lysos and the sea, how did you two manage to do that!”

It dawned on Maia that the captain
couldn’t
see the tiny letters glowing on the sextant’s face. He must be looking at something else. Something above and behind her back. Together, as if pulled by the same string, she and Leie turned around, and gasped in unison.

There, spread across the huge, formerly pale front wall of the hall, now lay an immense grid of faint, microscopic lines, upon which danced myriad, multihued particles, innumerable, smaller than specks. An orgiastic,
colorful spectacle of surging, flowing patterns panoplied in whirling currents, eddies, teeming jungles of simulated structure and confusion … ersatz chaos and order … death and life.

Despite all trials and experience, some aspects of character might be too deep ever to change. Once more, it was Leie who recovered first to comment.

“Uh,” she said in a dry, hoarse voice, glancing sideways at Maia. “Eureka … I think … ?”

The effect was even more spectacular when, a while later, the pirates tried to intimidate the escapees by cutting off the lights. Power no longer flowed to the string of electric bulbs. By then, however, those of the Manitou crew not on guard had already gathered in Renna’s former cell, under the storm of pigmented, convoluted shapes that slowly twisted across the “Life Wall,” as they called it. The men sat in huddled groups, or knelt below the dancing display, spreading open their treasured reference books, riffling pages by the soft, multispectral glow and arguing. Although they had confirmed that the eighteen simple patterns were components of this particular pseudo-world, not even the most expert player seemed able to make any more sense of the vista of swirling shapes.

“It’s magic,” the chief cook concluded, in awe.

“No, not magic,” the ship’s doctor replied. “It’s much more. It’s
mathematics.
”

“What’s the difference?” asked the young ensign Maia had met on the Manitou, speaking with an upper-clan accent, trying to be blase. “They’re both just symbol systems. Hypnotizing you with abstractions.”

The elderly physician shook his head. “No, boy, that’s wrong. Like art an’ politics, magic consists of persuadin’ others to see what you want ’em to see, by makin’ incantations and wavin’ your arms around. It’s always based on
claims that the magician’s
force of will
is stronger than nature.”

The colors overhead laid lambent, churning reflections across the old man’s pate as he laughed aloud. “But nature doesn’t give a fart about anybody’s force of will! Nature’s too strong to coerce, an’ too fair to play favorites. She’s just as cruel an’ consistent to a clan mother as to the lowliest var. Her rules hold for ever’body.” He shook his head, sighing. “And She has a dear-heart love of math.”

They watched the awesome gyrating figures in silence. Finally, the young ensign complained angrily. “But men aren’t any good at math!”

“So we’re told,” the doctor answered in a heavy voice. “So we’re told.”

Overhearing the conversation, Maia realized the crewmen would be of little help. Like her, they were untrained in the high arts on which this wonder must be based. Their beloved game was a fine thing, as far as it went. But the simple Life simulations they played on ships and in modern sanctuaries were no more than an arcana of accumulated tricks and intuition. It was like a bowl of water next to the great sea now in front of them.

She had tried peering at individual dots, in order to decipher the position-by-position rules of play. At first, she had thought she could make out a total of nine colors, which responded four times as powerfully to nearest neighbors as to next-nearest, and so on. Then she looked more closely, and realized that
every dot
consisted of a swarm of smaller specks, each interacting with those around it, the combination blending at a distance to give the illusion of one solid shade.

“Maia.” It was Leie’s voice, accompanied by a tap on her shoulder. She drew back and turned as her twin gestured toward the back of the hall, where a messenger could be seen hurriedly picking his way down the stairaisle. It was a tricky task in the shifting, ever-changing
illumination. The cabin boy arrived short of breath. He had only three words for Maia.

“They’re comin’, ma’am.”

It wasn’t easy to tear herself away from the dazzling wall display. She felt sure she’d be more useful here. But after several fits and starts, the reavers were apparently sending their delegation, at last. Poulandres insisted Maia join him to speak for the escapees.

“Why can’t you do it yourself?” she had asked earlier, to which he replied enigmatically. “No voyage lands without a captain. No cargo sells without an owner. It is necessity.”

Poulandres met her at the doorway. Slowly, allowing for her limp, they walked toward the strategic corner. The shifting colors followed and Maia kept glancing backward, as if drawn by a palpable force. It took effort to shake free of the contemplative frame of mind. Their prospects for successful negotiation did not look good, and she said as much to the officer.

“Aye. Neither side can charge the other without taking heavy losses. For now, it’s a stalemate, but with us stuck at the wrong end of a one-way hole. Given enough time, they can flush us out several ways.”

“So it’s a death sentence. What is there to talk about?”

“Enough, lass. The pirates can tell something’s happened down here. They won’t rash us till after trying persuasion.”

Maia and the captain found the ship’s navigator prone at the corner, nursing the rifle, peering along its sights toward a faint glow that hinted the distant flight of stairs. That much light remained so that the reavers could detect any assault staged by the men. Otherwise, a surprise melee in the dark might cost them their advantages of arms, numbers, and position. The impasse held, for now.

Two faint blobs moved against that remote grayness. Even at maximum dark-adaptation, it took Maia’s eyes
time to clearly discern twin female silhouettes, approaching at a steady walk.

“Ready?” Poulandres asked. Maia nodded reluctantly, and they set off together with the navigator aiming carefully past them. Now that it was a matter of protecting comrades, she felt certain the officer could overcome his queasiness, if necessary. At the other end, markswomen were just as surely drawing bead past their own emissaries.

The blurry forms took shape, resolving into arms, legs, heads, faces. Maia almost stopped in her tracks when she recognized Baltha. The other delegate was the assistant to the reaver leader, Togay. Maia swallowed and managed to keep walking, half a pace to the captain’s right.

The two groups stopped while still several meters apart. Baltha shook her head, a swish of short, blonde hair. “So. What d’you curly-pecs think you’re accomplishin’?” she asked.

“Not much,” Poulandres replied in a lazy drawl. “Stayin’ alive, mostly. For a while.”

“For a while’s right. You’re still here, so don’t pretend
you’ve
found a secret way out. What’s your pleasure, Cap’n? Want to see your men die by fire? Or water?”

Maia overcame her dry mouth. “I don’t think you’ll be using either right away.”

“Stay outta this, snip!” Baltha snarled. “No one asked you.”

Poulandres replied in a low voice, icy calm. “Be polite to our adopted factor-owner.”

Maia fought her natural reaction, to swivel and stare at the man, who spoke as if this were a negotiation over some contested cargo. Clearly, his feint was meant to shake up the enemy.

“
This?
” Baltha asked, pointing at Maia, as incredulous as Poulandres might have wished. “This unik summer trash? She’s even lamer than her dead prissy-sis.”

“Baltha, use your eyes,” Maia said evenly. “I’m not
quite
dead. Anyway, where does a shit-stealer like you get on, calling others names?”

“… 
Shit-stealer …?
” Strangling on the words, Baltha abruptly stopped and stared. Moving involuntarily forward she breathed, “You?”

Pleasure overcame Maia’s reticence. “Always a fast learner, Baltha. Congratulations.”

“But I
saw
you blown to—”

“Shall we get back to the subject at hand?” Poulandres interjected, with graceful timing. “Each of our respective sides has certain needs that are urgent, and others it can afford to give up. I, for instance, have a personal need to see every last one of you bitchies put in chains, workin’ like lugars on a temple rehab farm. But I admit that’s a lower priority than, say, gettin’ out of this mess with all my men alive.” He grinned without humor. “Tell me, what is it you people desire most, and what’ll you give up to get it?”

Baltha continued staring at Maia. So it was the other woman who answered in a prim, Méchant Coast accent.

“We seek the Outsider. Less than his recovery is unacceptable. All else is negotiable.”

“Hm. There would have to be assurances, of course.”

“Of course.” The Méchanter seemed used to bargaining. “Perhaps an exchange of—”

Baltha visibly shook herself free of the quandaries implied by Maia’s presence. The big var interrupted acidly. “This is crazy. If they knew where the alien was, they would of followed. I’m callin’ your bluff, Cap’n. You got nothin’ to trade.”

The sailor shrugged. “Take a look behind us. See the strange light? Even from here, you can tell we’ve accomplished more than you did in almost two days of searching.”

Baltha glanced past their shoulders at the faint, shifting,
multihued glows reflecting off the distant wall. Frustration wrote across her hard features. “Help us get him back, and we’ll leave you livin’, with the Manitou, when we sail.”

Poulandres sucked his lower lip. Then, to Maia’s surprise, he nodded. “That’d be all right … if we thought we could trust you. I’ll put it to the men. Meanwhile, you’d help your case by turning the lights back on. We’ll talk in a little while about food and water. Is that all right with you for now, Maia?”

The hell it is!
she thought. Still, she answered with a curt nod. Surely the captain was only buying time.

Baltha started to respond with a snarl, but the other woman cut her off. “We’ll talk it over among ourselves and send word in an hour.” The two reavers turned and departed, Baltha glancing poison over her shoulder as Poulandres and Maia began their own walk back.

“Would you really turn Renna in?” Maia asked the man, in a low voice.

“You’re a varling. You know nothing about what it’s like to have many lives depending on you.” Poulandres paused for several seconds. “I don’t plan on making such a devil’s deal, if it can be avoided. But don’t take it as a promise, Maia. That’s why you had to come on this palaver, so you’d know. Guard your own interests. They mayn’t always be the same as ours.”

Sailor’s honor
, Maia thought.
He’s bound to warn me that he may have to turn on me, later. It’s a strange code.

“You know they can’t afford to let you go,” she said, pressing the point. “You’ve seen too much. They can’t let their personal identities be known.”

“That, too, depends,” Poulandres said cryptically. “Right now, the important thing is that we’ve won a little time.”

But what happens when no time remains? When the reavers run out of patience? “Fire or water,” Baltha said. And if
those don’t work—if they can’t pry us out by themselves—I wouldn’t put it past them to send for help. Perhaps even calling their enemies.

It wasn’t farfetched to imagine the gang striking a deal with their political opposites, the Perkinites, in exchange for whatever it might take to tear this rocky citadel apart. In the end, both extremes had more in common with each other than either did with the middle.

The navigator’s dark young features relaxed in relief when they rounded the corner, and he put the weapon back on safety. Leie embraced Maia, and she felt her shoulders relax a fierce tightness that had gone unnoticed till now. “Come on,” Maia told her twin. “Let’s get back to work.”

But it was hard concentrating at first, when Maia stood once more before the massive stone dais, looking alternately at the little sextant and the vast, ever-changing world-wall. Her task was to find a miracle, some way to follow Renna out of here. Yet, Baltha’s offer and Poulandres’s disturbing answer unnerved her. Suppose she did manage to solve the problem. Might that only doom Renna, and in the end prove futile for them all?

Soon, the fascinating vista of ever-changing patterns overcame her resistance, drawing her in. So much so that she hardly noticed when the string of faint bulbs came on again at the back of the room, evidence that the reavers were at least considering further discussion.

It was Leie who made the next breakthrough, when she discovered that the sextant could be used to
change
the wall scene. Fiddling with the finely graded dials, which Maia normally used to read the relative angles of stars, Leie turned one while the little tool was attached to the data plug. At once the patterns shifted, left and right! They moved
up
when she twisted the other wheel, disappearing off the top edge of the display, while new forms crowded in from below.

“Terrific!” Maia commented, trying for herself. This verified what she had suspected, that the great wall-screen was only a window onto something much vaster—a simulated realm extending far past the rectangular edges before them. Its theoretical limits might stretch hundreds of figurative meters beyond this room. Perhaps there were no limits at all.

The eye kept grasping for analogies amid the swirling patterns. One instant, they were intertwining hairy fingers. The next, they collided ecstatically like frothy waves breaking on a seashore. Rolling, convoluted configurations writhed without hindrance across the borders of the display. By turning a little wheel on the sextant, the humans might follow, but only in abstract, as observers. Only the shapes themselves knew true liberty. They appeared to have no needs, to fear no threats, to admit no physical bounds. The thought conveyed to Maia a sense of untold freedom, which she envied.