Suddenly, Maia’s heart sped. Just ahead, standing at the curb where the carriage was about to pass, she saw Clevin, her father, talking earnestly with Iolanthe. Odo spoke to the driver, who flicked her reins. The horses sped to a canter as Clevin looked up, met Maia’s eyes, and started to raise a hand.
The moment passed too quickly. Odo let out a short, satisfied grunt as Maia sank back into the plush upholstery.
The men need help, she thought, miserably. If I were free, maybe I could buck up their spirits. If only …
She shook her head. Nothing was worth spending her sister’s life or Brod’s. Certainly not in a cause that was lost from the start. No effort on her part would change destiny.
They rode back to Persim Hold without another word. Maia tossed off her stiff clothes, exercised, ate, and crawled into bed.
The next day, on her breakfast tray next to the orange juice, Maia found a newspaper. A simple, four-page tabloid, printed on fine, slick paper. From the price and circulation, both written on the masthead, it was clearly meant only for subscribers at the pinnacle of Caria’s manytiered social strata. Several portions had been razored out. The lead article was riveting, nonetheless.
Strike Outlook Positive
While seaborne, traffic remains snarled in most ports along the Mechant Coast, analysts now predict a quick conclusion to the work-stoppage by seventeen shipping guilds and their affiliates. Already, defections have weakened the resolve of the ringleaders, whose objective to pressure the Planetary Reigning Council into reopening the infamous Jellicoe Sanctuary, appears no longer to have any realistic chance of success.…
So, Maia thought. It was her first partial accounting of events since her capture. Also her first clue to her status as a pawn in big-time struggles.
The reavers were crushed. Kiel’s rads are broken. Loose alliances of liberals, like those backcountry temple vars, might lean toward change, but they lack cohesiveness. The high clans have long experience coping with such grumblings.
But there’s another group giving them a scare. The sailing guilds.
In Ursulaborg, the Pinnipeds had spoken of propaganda. The Great Former means nothing, they had been told. The Wissy-Man was not your kind.…
Maia didn’t overrate her own contribution. The sailors might have rejected the official line anyway. But her narrative must have helped when she told what she had learned about the ancient Guardians—about a forlorn struggle by ancient men and women to devise another way. A way of including more than one round patch of earth and sea and sky, in the Stratoin tale. A way to amend, without rejecting, what the Founders had once willed their heirs.
And she had spoken of Renna, the brave sailor whose sea was the galaxy. The man who flew, as no man of this world had since the banishment. When they departed on that day, she had felt certain the seamen knew her friend from the stars. That he was one of them. That he was owed a debt of honor.
The Persim brought me here to help undermine the strike. That’s why they flaunt me around town. The men at the opera must have reported back to their guilds. If I was in Odo’s company, how serious could I ever have been, about being the starman’s comrade?
Reading between the lines, it grew apparent why the high clans were concerned. The sailor’s job action was hurting.
… Half of the sparking season was over before the walkout was declared. Still, it is clear that lack of male cooperation will depress this winter’s breeding program.
That caused Maia to smile, proud that Clevin and the others hadn’t missed a trick.
Perkinite priestess-advocate Jeminalte Cever today demanded that “those responsible for this flagrant neglect of duty must be made to pay.”
Fortunately, this radicalization took place after Farsun Day, so politicians needn’t fear a rush to polling booths by disgruntled males. Their irate minority vote might have swung several tight races in recent elections.
Will it remain a factor by next winter? Estimates based on recent episodes of male unrest, six, ten, and thirteen decades ago, lead savants at the Institute for Sociological Trends to suggest that this somewhat more severe interlude may not pass in time to prevent short-term economic loss to many of our subscribers. However, they predict that, by next autumn, only residual ferment should remain, at a level corresponding to …
It went on, describing how the guilds would predictably fall away from each other, accepting generous deals and compromises, unable to maintain righteous ire in a season when the blood ran cool. Maia sighed, finding the scenario believable, even predictable. The dead hand of Lysos always won.
No wonder they let me see this. She allowed for the fact that the reporting was biased and incomplete. Nevertheless, the newspaper left her depressed.
Odo arrived as Maia finished dressing. She expected the Persim matriarch to gloat over the article, but apparently Odo had other matters on her mind. Clearly agitated, the old woman dismissed the maids and bid Maia sit down.
“There will be no excursion today,” she said. “You have a visitor.”
Maia lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing.
“Shortly, you will meet Brill Upsala in the east conservatory. You’ll be supplied pencils, paper, other equipment. Brill has been informed that you are willing to be examined, under the terms of ancient law, but that you do not wish to discuss matters having to do with the alien.”
Odo met Maia’s eyes. “We will be listening. Should you make liars of us, or imply distress of any sort, you might as well accompany the Upsala when she goes … and live forever with guilt of your sister’s fate. Let it be on your head.”
Maia knew she had stretched Odo’s patience once, almost to the limit. Odo and her cohorts were busy pulling a thousand threads, political, social, and economic. Open and furtive. If they felt Maia and Leie and Brod were more trouble than useful as pawns in their game, she could expect ruthlessness. Maia nodded agreement, and followed Odo out the door.
By now, she knew the Persim household well. There were Yuquinn maids and Venn cooks and Bujul handywomen, all of whom seemed nimble and content in their inherited niches, needing no command or incentive to anticipate every Persim whim. Why not? Each was descended from a var woman who had served peerlessly, and been rewarded with a type of immortality. An immortality that could end any time the Persims withdrew patronage. No violence would be required. No one need even be fired. The Persims had only to stop sponsoring expensive winter matings for their clients, then wait the brief interval of a generation or two.
Was the relationship predatory? Unfair? Maia doubted the Yuquinn or Venn would think so. If they were prone to such thoughts, their lines would have ended with the natural passing of their first var ancestress. Of late, though, Maia had come to adopt Renna’s attitude. All of this was well-designed, as natural as could be, and from another point of view, appalling.
I am no longer a daughter of Lysos, she realized. I’ll never adjust to a world whose basic premise I can’t bear.
“In there,” Odo said, pointing through a set of double doors. “Behave.”
The threat, implicit, sufficed. Odo turned and walked away. Maia entered the conservatory, where the striking, dark-haired woman she had met at the opera was laying papers on a fabulously expensive table made of metal frames supporting nearly flawless panes of glass. While one of Odo’s younger clone-sisters observed from the corner, Brill indicated a chair. “Thank you for seeing me. Shall we begin?”
Maia sat down. “Begin what?”
“Your examination, of course. We’ll start with a simple survey of preferences. Take these forms. Each question features five activities—”
“Um, pardon me … what kind of examination?”
Brill straightened, regarding her enigmatically. Maia experienced a fey sensation of depth. As if the woman already saw clear through her, and had no real need for exams.
“An occupational-aptitude test. I’ve accessed your school records from Port Sanger, which show adequate preparatory work. Is there a pr
oblem?”
Maia almost laughed out loud. Then she wondered. Is this a pose? Might she have been sent here by Iolanthe Nitocris and her allies?
But then, Odo would have checked Brill’s bona fides. The small civil service of Stratos was supposedly outside politics, and its testers could go anywhere. If this was a pose, Brill made it believable. Maia decided to play along.
“Uh, no problem.” She looked left and right. “Where are your calipers? Will you be measuring bumps on my head?”
The Upsala clone smiled. “Phrenology has its adherents. For starters, however, why don’t we begin with this?”
There followed a relentless confrontation with paper. Rapidfire questions, covering her interests, tastes, knowledge of grammar, knowledge of science and weather, knowledge of …
After two hours, Maia was allowed a short break. She went to the toilet, ate a small snack from a silver tray, walked in the garden to stretch her back. Ever business-like, the Upsala clone spent the time processing results. If she had been sent to convey a message from Naroin or Clevin, she was good at concealing the fact.
“I saw two of your sisters after we spoke at the opera,” Maia commented, aware of the watching Persim clone. “One of them played Faust …”
“Yes, yes. Cousin Gloria. And Surah, at the baton. Bloody showoffs.”
Maia blinked in surprise. “I thought they were very good at what they did.”
“Of course they were good!” Brill glanced sharply. “The issue is what one chooses to be good at. The arts are fine, for hobbies. I play six instruments, myself. But they pose no great challenge to a mature mind.”
Maia stared. It was passing strange to hear a clone disparage her own kin. Stranger was the implication of her words.
“Did you say choose? Then your clan doesn’t—”
“Specialize?” Brill finished the word with a disdainful buzz. “No, Maia. We do not specialize. Shall we resume work now?”
The return to neutral professionalism cut short Maia’s line of inquiry. Brill next presented a wooden box, and asked Maia to grip two levers while peering down a leather-lined tube. Within, a horizontal line rocked back and forth, reminding her of an instrument she had seen in the aircraft carrying her from Ursulaborg. “This is an artificial horizon,” Brill began. “Your task, as I add difficulty, will be to correct deviations …”
An hour later, Maia’s finery was damp with perspiration, her neck hurt from concentration, and she moaned when Brill called time for a halt.
“O-oh-h,” she commented in surprise. “That … was fun.”
The Upsala clone answered with a brief, thin smile. “I can tell.”
After more physical tests, there came another break, for supper in the nearest of Persim Hold’s many dining rooms. To Odo’s clear irritation, Brill seemed blithely to assume she was invited to table, obliging the Persim matriarch to attend as well, keeping an eye on things.
She needn’t have bothered. The conversation was less than enthralling across an expanse of fine-grained Yarri wood, embroidered linen, and fine porcelain, lit by sparkling chandeliers. For most of the time, Brill shuffled papers, except when meticulously thanking the servants for each dish that was served. Maia enjoyed the effect on Odo. Clearly, the matron thought the test-taker’s visit a chess move by her faction’s opponents, and was writhing to figure it out. Also clearly, it frustrated Odo to spend so much time worrying over a mere pawn.
Was that all it was? A gambit to waste the enemy’s time? If so, Maia was pleased to help. The exams were exhausting, but a pleasant diversion. She only wished Brill seemed more sensitive to her own efforts hinting at messages to be relayed to Naroin and her father.
“The Upsalas are a funny lot,” Odo commented while the main course was cleared away, and she finished her third glass of wine. “Do you know of them, summer child?”
Maia shook her head.
“Then let me enlighten you. They are a successful clan by normal standards, numbering about a hundred—”
“Eighty-eight adults,” Brill corrected, regarding Odo with relaxed, green eyes.
“And my sources say their fortune is secure. Not first rank, but secure. There are two Upsalas on the Reigning Council, and forty-nine with savant chairs at various institutions. Nineteen at Caria University itself, in diverse departments. And yet, do you know what’s most peculiar about them?” A servant refilled Odo’s glass as she leaned forward. “They have no clanhold! No house, grounds, servants. Nothing!”
Maia frowned. “I don’t follow.”
“They all live on their own! In houses or apartments they purchase as individuals. Each makes her own living. Each makes her own sparking arrangements with individual men! And do you know why?” Odo giggled. “They hate each other’s guts.”
When Maia turned to regard Brill, the examiner shrugged. “The typical Stratoin success story demands not only talent, upbringing, and luck to find a niche. Gregarity is another customary requisite … self-sacrifice for the good of the hive. Sisterly solidarity helps a clan to thrive.
“But humans aren’t ants,” she went on. “Not everyone is born predisposed to get along with others identical to herself.”
Nerves and alcohol had transformed the normally-aloof Odo, who laughed harshly. “Well put! Many’s the time a bright young var gets something going, only to see it spoilt by her own pretty, bickering daughters. Only those at peace with themselves can truly use the Founders’ Gift.”
Maia recalled countless times she and Leie had been less than selfless with each other while growing up. They had attributed it to the rough passage of a summer background, but was that it? Might the tense affection between them worsen with prosperity, rather than growing into perfect teamwork? Maia sensed an evolutionary imperative at work. Over generations, selection would favor the trait of getting along with different versions of yourself. If so, perhaps the twins’ plans had always been moot, as likely as frost in summer.
“There are exceptions,” Maia prompted hopefully. “Your clan manages, somehow.”
Brill sighed, as if bored with the topic. “Eventually, we Upsala learned how to maintain the needful functions of a clan, without all the trappings or constraints.”
“She means they have grand meetings, about once an old Earth year. Half of ’em don’t attend, they send their lawyers!” Odo seemed to find it hilarious. “They don’t even like their own clone daughters. That’s why their numbers grow so slow—”
“It’s not true!” Brill snapped, showing the first strong emotion Maia had seen. The woman paused to regain her composure. “Everything’s fine until adolescence, when …” She lapsed a second time, and finished in a low voice. “I get along fine with my other kids.”
“Your vars, you mean. That’s another thing. Upsala prefer summer breeding! Makes ’em popular with the boys, it does,” Odo slurred as she sloshed more wine. “Your way would never work in the countryside,” Maia told Brill, fascinated.
“True, Maia. City life offers public services, a wealth of career choices.…”
“Tell her about career choices! Don’t you all pick different professions ’cause you hate to even run into each other?”
While Odo chuckled, Maia stared. Apparently, the Upsala excelled at anything they tried, starting from scratch with each cloned lifetime. Maia wondered if Renna, her late friend, ever encountered this marvel during his stay in Caria. If not handicapped by one defective trait, the Upsala might own all of Stratos someday. No wonder this one’s presence had Odo nervous, despite Brill’s innocuous chosen profession.
In their case, genius overcame a crippling lack of harmony. Leie and I aren’t geniuses, but we don’t exactly hate each other, either. Maybe something in between is possible. If we both get out of this mess alive, perhaps we can learn from the Upsalas.
Brill took out a pocketwatch and cleared her throat. “That was awfully pleasant, yes? Now might we get back to work? I’d like to finish soon. My babysitter charges extra after ten.”
br /> The next series dealt with Maia’s “cryptomathematical talent,” or her unforeseen affinity for games like Life. For an hour, Maia waged midget battles on a computerized board like Renna’s, trying—usually in vain—to prevent the gadget from wreaking havoc on her patterns. Brill kept demanding that Maia use new “recursion rules,” meaning ways to make things progressively, then impossibly, harder. It was a tense, sweaty exercise of guesswork and raw skill. Maia loved it … until the patterns started blurring and her endurance ran out.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she moaned at the end.
“It is suspected that you may qualify for a niche,” Brill answered dryly, turning off the machine. Maia rubbed her eyes. “What niche?”
Brill paused. “I can tell you what not to expect. Do not hope for entry to the university based on your talent with patterns and symbol systems. If it carries across generations, a winter child of yours might apply on its basis, but for you it is already too late to be a mathematician.”
Thanks, Maia thought, with bitterness that surprised her. Who asked, anyway?
“Moreover, you appear to have too high an action potential for the contemplative life,” Brill went on, scanning a chart. “That isn’t a drawback to my client, although other factors—”
Maia sat up quickly. “Client? You mean this isn’t for the civil service?” She sensed the Persim clone edge forward, suddenly alert. Brill shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. “I’ve been commissioned by a member of my own family, to seek workers for a new venture. Frankly, it’s a long shot, not a safe niche, by any means.”
“But …” Maia sensed anger in the tense silence of the Persim cloneling. “Odo assumed this was for—”
“I’m not responsible for Odo’s assumptions. Any potential employer may contract with the examination service. This isn’t relevant to Persim Clan’s present political struggles, so Odo has no cause for concern. Now, shall we get back to work? Our last item will be—”