I guess by now they’ve filled you in, and I’m kind of rushed getting this off before the Gentilleschi takes you away. So here’s what happened from my point of view.
When you didn’t return by an hour before dawn, I pulled in the cable, as you made me promise to do. I hated doing it, but then something changed my mind. Just after sunrise, fighting broke out, down on the ships. I later learned it was the rads, who you’d helped escape—
Maia blinked. I what? All she had done was make a promise to Thalla, one she never got a chance to keep. Unless the big var had managed to use the scissors, somehow. As a lockpick, perhaps? To slip their chains, then trick the guards? Or perhaps Baltha and Togay had already pulled the sentinels away, when battle seemed imminent with the men.
The revolt went well, at first. But then reavers rushed out before the rads could set sail. There was shooting. Some rads escaped in a little boat after setting fire to both ships.
It didn’t seem a good time to lower myself down. I paced like crazy, worrying about you, till I arrived at the east end of the tooth, looking to sea. That’s when I saw the flotilla coming up from Halsey. Not just the creaky old Audacious, which had been on duty when I was last there, but the Walrus and the Sea Lion, too! I guess the guild finally decided it had enough of its former clients, and was coming to settle accounts.
I ran to the elevator, went downstairs to the bathroom and broke a mirror. Grabbed a piece and hurried back up. The sun in the east made it easy to signal the ships. To give them some idea what to expect. There was shooting when they tried to enter the lagoon, then Sea Lion broke through just about the time everyone else in the world arrived!
One pair of fancy ships swung around the south side of Jellicoe, waving temple banners. And up north, I saw several fast cruisers appear. Later learned these were from the Ursulaborg Commercial Police Department! A little out of jurisdiction, but who cares? Naroin had called ’em out as militia, it seems. Honest, local cops with no Council connections.
Just as this crowd was jostling into the lagoon, and smoke started pouring out of the old sanctuary, that’s when a big, smuggy zep’lin showed! I didn’t like the looks of the clones leaning out of the gondola. (They were mad as hell!) So I turned on the winch and lowered myself. Made it down in time to help my guildfolk settle with the temple nuns and Naroin’s posse that we were all on the same side.
It took a while overcoming the reavers’ rear guard—they’re hellion fighters—then we ran after them while they chased after you …
Maia’s eyes blurred. Although Brod’s simple account was dramatic, she had only limited stamina and her mind felt full to bursting. Not rushing matters, she waited for vision to clear before resuming.
Things were a mess, especially outside the auditorium, where your Manitou people had fought the reavers. Fortunately, there were docs along, to care for the wounded.
That wall of lights stopped us cold for a moment, and I got scared when I saw Leie, groaning on the floor, and thought it was you. She’s fine, by the way, but I already said that. Just woozy from a bump on the head. Leie wanted to chase after the ones chasing you. But I was told to help her out to where the air was better, while Naroin’s pros led the pursuit from there.
We limped outside just in time to get knocked to our knees by what seemed like thunder. We looked up and saw the space launcher fire its pod into the sky … and what happened next.
I’m sorry, Maia. I know it must hurt awful, like when they brought your poor body out, and I thought you were dying. To me, that felt like you must have, when you saw your alien friend blow up.
Again, Maia’s heart yawned open. This time however, she was able to smile poignantly. Good old Brod, she thought. It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her.
Leie and I waited outside while the nun-doctors operated on you. (That’s the one group I still can’t figure out where they came from, or why. Did you call them?) Meanwhile, there were so many questions. So many people insisting on hearing what everyone else knew, even though it meant repeating everything over and over. The story’s still coming out, bit by bit, while more boats and zeps keep arriving all the time.
Oh, hell. I’m being called again, so this’ll have to be it for now. I’ll send more, later. Get better soon, Maia. We need you, as usual, to figure out what we oughta do!
With winter warmth, your friend and shipmate—Brod.
There was an afterword in another hand—a left-handed scrawl Maia instantly recognized.
Hey, Sis. You know me. Lousy at writin’. Just remember, we’re a team. I’ll catch up, wherever they take you. Count on it. Love, L.
Maia reread the last few paragraphs, then folded the letter and slipped it under her pillow. She rolled over, away from the soft light, and fell asleep. This time, her dreams, while painful, seemed less desolate and alone.
When they wheeled her on deck the next day, to get some sun, Maia discovered she wasn’t the only recuperating patient aboard. Half a dozen other bandaged women lay in various stages of repair, under the gaze of a pair of militia guards. Naroin’s young clone—whose name was Hullin—told her that others rested below, too ill to be moved. The injured men were being carried separately, of course, aboard the Sea Lion, which could be glimpsed following a parallel track, so sleek and powerful it almost kept pace with this white-winged racer. Hullin couldn’t give Maia any information about which of the Manitou crew survived the fight at Jellicoe Sanctuary, though she promised to inquire. There had not been many, she knew. The doctors, inexperienced at treating gunshot wounds, had lost several on the operating table.
That news left Maia staring across the blue water, dejected, until a presence wheeled up alongside. “Hello, virgie.… S’good to see you.”
The voice was a pale shadow of its former mellow, persuasive croon. The rad leader’s nearly-black skin now seemed bleached, almost pale from illness and anemia.
“That’s not my name,” Maia told Kiel. “The other thing’s none of your business. Never was.”
Kiel nodded, accepting the rebuke. “Hello, then … Maia.”
“Hello.” Pausing, Maia regretted her harsh response. “I’m glad to see you made it.”
“Mm. Same to you. They say survival is Nature’s only form of flattery. I guess that’s true, even for prisoners like us.”
Maia was in no mood for wry philosophy, and made her feelings known through silence. With a heavy sigh, Kiel rolled a few feet away, leaving Maia to watch the world-ocean glide by in peace. There were questions Maia knew she should be asking. Perhaps she would, eventually. But right now, her mind remained stiff, like her body, too inflexible for rapid changes of inertia.
A little before lunch, ennui began to rob even petulance of its attraction. Maia reread the quick-scrawled letter from Brod and Leie a few more times, allowing herself to begin wondering about what lay concealed between the phrases. There were tensions and alliances, both stated and implied. Local cops and priestesses? Acting at odds from their official bosses, in Caria? Had their union with the Pinnipeds extended only to wiping out a band of pirates? Or would it go farther?
What of the special, secretive defense clans who had also arrived at Jellicoe to secure their hidden base?—which was no longer hidden, after all. Then there were Kiel’s radical supporters, on the mainland. And the Perkinites, of course. All had their own agendas. All felt passionately endangered by possible change in the order of life on Stratos.
It might have been a situation fraught with even more violent peril, perhaps risk of open war, had the object of their contention not evaporated in midair before everyone’s eyes. With the centerpiece of struggle removed, the frantic mood of excess may have eased. At least the killing had stopped, for now.
It was much too complicated to focus her mind on, for long. She was glad when an attendant came to wheel her back to her room, where she ate, then took a long nap. Later, when Naroin knocked and entered, Maia felt marginally better, her mind a little farther along the pa
th toward rational thinking.
The former bosun carried a stack of thin, leather-bound volumes. “These were sent over before we sailed, for when you felt better. Gifts from the Pinniped commodore.”
Maia looked at Naroin. The detective’s accent had softened quite a bit. Not that it was posh now, by a long shot. But it had lost much of its rough, nautical edge. The books lay on the side of the bed. Maia stroked the spine of one, drew it closer, and opened the fine linen pages.
Life. She recognized the subject instantly and sighed. Who needs it?
Yet, the paper felt rich to the touch. It even smelled voluptuous. Brief glimpses of the illustrations, featuring countless arrays of tiny squares and dots, seemed to tease a corner of her mind in the same way that a bright, sharp light might tickle the beginnings of a sneeze.
“I always figured that for some men it was, well, addicting in a way, like a drug. Is that how it is with you?” Naroin seemed genuinely, respectfully curious.
Maia pushed the book away. After several seconds she nodded.
“It’s beautiful.” Her throat was too thick to say more.
“Hm. With all the time I’ve spent around sailors, you’d think I’d see it, too.” Naroin shook her head. “Can’t say as I do. I like men. Get along with ’em fine. But I guess some things go beyond like or dislike.”
“I guess.”
There was a moment’s silence, then Naroin moved closer to sit on the edge of the bed.
“That’s why I was on the ol’ Wotan, when you first came aboard, in Port Sanger. My experience as a sea hand gave me cover for my assignment. The collier would make many stops along the coast. Let me look around all the right places for clues.”
“To find a missing alien?”
“Lysos, no!” Naroin laughed. “Oh, he was already kidnapped by then, but my clan wasn’t brought in. Our mothers knew somethin’ fishy had happened, all right. But a field op like me sticks to her assignment … at least till given clear reason to switch tracks.”
“The blue powder, then,” Maia said, remembering Naroin’s interest in events at Lanargh.
“That’s it. We knew a group had started pushin’ the stuff again, along the frontier coast. Happens every two or three generations. We often pick up a few coinsticks helpin’ track it down.”
There it was again, the change in perspective separating vars from clones. What a summerling had seen as urgent must appear less pressing in the patient view of Stratoin hives. “The powder’s been around a long time, then. Let me guess. Each appearance is a bit less disrupting than the last time.”
“Right.” Naroin nodded. “After all, winter sparkings don’t have any genetic effect. It’s only during summers that new variants come about, when a man’s efforts profit him in true offspring. Males who react less to the drug are just a little better at stayin’ calm and passin’ on that trait. Each outbreak gets a smidgen milder, easier to put down.”
“Then why is the powder illegal?”
“You saw for yourself. It causes accidents, violence during quiet time. It gives rich clans unfair advantages over poor ’uns. But there’s more. The powder was invented for a purpose.”
Maia blinked once, twice, then realized. “Sometimes … it may be useful to have men …”
“Hot as fire, even in the dead o’ frost season. You get it.”
“The Enemy. We used this stuff during the Defense.”
“That’s my guess. Lysos respected Momma Nature. If you want to push a trait into the background, fine, but that’s not the same as throwin’ it away. Thriftier to put it on a shelf, where it might come in handy, someday.”
Maia’s thoughts had already plunged ahead. The Council rulers must have flooded Stratos with the stuff, during the battle to fight off the Enemy foeship.
Imagine every male a warrior. Almost overnight, it would have multiplied the colony’s strength, complementing female skill and planning with a wrath like none other in the universe.
Only, what happened after victory?
The good men—those who might have been trustworthy on any Phylum world, even before Lysos—would have voluntarily given up the powder. Or at least kept their heads until it ran out. But men come in all types. It’s not hard to picture a plague like the Kings’ Revolt erupting during the chaos after a war. Especially with tons of Tizbe’s drug floating around.
Was that enough cause to betray the Guardians of Jellicoe?
Maia knew that the Council didn’t do things without reasons.
“I guess your assignment changed, by the time we met again,” she prompted Naroin.
The petite brunette shrugged. “I heard some odd things. Known mercenaries were gettin’ offers, down the coast. Radical agents were reported drifting into parts around Grange Head. Wasn’t hard to figure where I might get a billet close to things going on.”
Maia frowned. “You didn’t suspect Baltha …”
“Her treason, going over to the reavers? No! I knew there was tension, of course. Lookin’ back, maybe I should have surmised.…” Naroin stopped, shook her head. “Take it from an experienced hand, child. It’s no good blamin’ yourself for what you couldn’t prevent. Not so long as you tried.”
Maia’s lips pressed together. That was exactly what she had been telling herself. From the look in Naroin’s eyes, it didn’t get much more believable as you got older.
That evening she learned who had lived, and who had died.
Thalla, Captain Poulandres, Baltha, Kau, most of the rads, most of the reavers, nearly all of the Manitou crew, including the young navigator who had helped Maia and her twin find their way through the dazzling complexity of the world-wall. The tally was appalling. Even hard-crusted Naroin, who had seen many formal and informal battles, could scarcely believe the prodigious manufacturing of bodies that had taken place at and near Jellicoe. Is this what war is like? Maia thought. For the first time she felt she understood, not just in abstract, but in her gut, what had driven the Founders to such drastic choices. Nevertheless, she felt determined not to let Perkinite propagandists seize on this episode. If I keep any freedom of action at all, I’m going to make sure it’s known. Poulandres and his men were forced to fight. This was more than a simple case of males going berserk.
What was it, then? There would surely be those who pictured Renna as the culprit, a blight carrier whose mere presence, and threat to bring more of his kind, inflamed the worst in several branches of Stratoin society. To Maia, that seemed cruelly like blaming the victim. Yet, the point could be made.
After dinner, while Hullin wheeled her along the promenade deck, Maia encountered Kiel a second time. On this occasion, she saw the other woman more clearly, not through a curtain of resentment over things that were already ancient history. The rad agent had lost everything, her closest friends, her freedom, the best hope for her cause. Maia was gentler with her former cottage-mate. Commiserating, she reached out to console and forgive. In gratitude, the forceful, indomitable Kiel broke down and wept.
Later, as dusk fell, the western horizon began to glitter. Maia counted five, six … and finally ten slowly turning beacons whose rhythmic flashes cut across the miles of ocean with reassuring constancy. From maps studied in her youth, she recognized the tempos and colors and knew their names—Conway, Ulam, Turing, Gardner … famed lighthouse sanctuaries of the Méchant Coast. And, beyond far Rucker Beacon, a vast dusting of soft, glimmering diamonds covering a harbor and surrounding hills. The night spectacle of great Ursulaborg.
She was taken to a temple. Not the grand, marble-lined monument dominating the city from its northern bluffs, but a modest, one-story retreat that rambled over a fenced hectare of neatly coppiced woods, several kilometers upriver from the heart of the busy metropolis. The semirural ambience was an artifact, Maia could tell, carefully nurtured by the small but prosperous clanholds that shared the neighborhood. Clear streams flowed past gardens and mulch piles, windmills and light industrial workshops. It was a place where generations of chi
ldren, and their daughters’ daughters, might play, grow up, and tend family business at an unhurried pace, confident of a future in which change would, at most, arrive slowly.
The walled temple grounds were unprepossessing. The chapel bore proper symbols for venerating Stratos Mother and the Founders in the standard way, yet Maia suspected all wasn’t orthodox. Vigilant guards, arrayed in leather, patrolled the palisade. Within, the expected air of cultivated serenity was overlaid by a veneer of static tension.
Except for Naroin and her younger sibling, none of the women looked alike.
After passing the chapel, the lugars bearing Maia’s palanquin approached an unassuming wooden house, detached from the main compound, surrounded by a covered plank veranda. The doctor who had treated Maia aboard the Gentilleschi conferred with two women, one tall and severe-looking, dressed in priestly habits, the other rotund, wearing archdeaconess robes. Naroin, who had walked alongside during the brief journey from the riverside quay, took a quick lope around the house, satisfying herself of its security, while Hullin briskly looked inside. Upon reuniting near the porch, the pair exchanged efficient nods.
With the help of a nurse-nun, Maia stepped down, bearing stoically the profound pain spreading from her knee and side. They assisted her up a short ramp into the house, pausing at the entrance when the tall, elderly priestess bent to meet Maia’s eye.
“You will be at peace here, child. Until you choose to leave, this will be your home.”
The round woman wearing deacon’s robes blew a sigh, as if she did not approve of promises that might prove hard to keep. Despite pain and fatigue, Maia felt she had learned more than they intended. “Thank you,” she said hoarsely, and let the nurses guide her down a veranda of polished wood into a room featuring sliding doors made of paper-thin wood panels, overlooking a garden and a small pond. The mat bed featured sheets that looked whiter than a cloud. Maia never remembered being helped to slip between them. The sounds of plinking water, and wind rustling boughs, lulled her to sleep.