“Who, Renna? Why, nothing much. There are some areas of technology we want to ask about. He may not know the answers in detail, but he can give us a general idea what’s possible and what isn’t. The solutions may lie in his ship’s computer.
“Mostly, though, we want to take him somewhere safe and comfortable, while we dicker with certain people in Caria.”
“Dicker? About what?”
“About how to get him back to the State Guest House without an accident happening along the way, and from there safely to his ship. He won’t really be out of danger till then.”
“Danger,” Maia repeated, rubbing her shoulders. “From whom?”
“From people who’ve convinced themselves they can forestall the inevitable. Who think contact would mean the end of the world. Who would fight it by killing the messenger.”
Maia had figured as much. Still, it was chilling to hear it confirmed.
“Oh, it’s not the whole government,” Kiel went on. “I’d say the majority of savants, and a good many council members, realize change is coming. They argue over ways of slowing it down as much as possible …”
“And you don’t want it slowed,” Maia guessed.
Kiel nodded. “We want to speed it up! Lots of us aren’t willing to wait two or three generations till the next starship comes, and then through more delays, and more. The old order’s finished. Well past time to turn it on its head.”
“So Renna’s a bargaining chip.”
Kiel frowned. “If you want to put it that way. In the short term. Over the long run, our goals are compatible. If he does have a legitimate complaint or two about our methods, can he honestly say he’s not among friends? We want him to live and accomplish his mission. The rest is just details.”
Against her own wishes, Maia found herself believing Kiel. Am I being gullible? Why should I even listen, after what she tried to do?
“You could help him call his starship, to come and get him.”
Maia didn’t like Kiel’s indulgent smile, as if the suggestion were naïve. “The ship had but one lander. Anyway, it can only be sent back into space from the launching facility at Caria.”
“Convenient.” Maia sat on the edge of the bed. “So Renna’s stuck down here, where he just happens to be useful against your enemies.”
Kiel accepted the point with a nod. “You met some of them in Long Valley. Mighty old clans, holding place in a static social order not by competing in an open market, the way Lysian logic says they should, but by conniving together, suppressing anything that might bring change.
“Take that drug plot you uncovered. Suppose they have their way and alter the balance of reproduction on Stratos. There’d be almost no summerlings born! Nothing but clones and a few tame males, raised as drones to be milked dry each winter.”
“I already figured that out,” Maia grumbled uncomfortably.
Kiel’s eyebrows arched. “Did you also figure out why the Perkinites didn’t eliminate our visitor from the stars, just as soon as they got their hands on him? They plan to squeeze data out of him, like juice from a doped-up sailor.”
“So? You want information, too.”
“But with different goals. They want to learn how to shoot down hominid starships”—Maia gasped; Kiel went on without a pause—“and much more. They think Renna can help solve a problem that stumped even Lysos: how to spark clonal pregnancies entirely without sperm.”
“But …” Maia stammered. “The placenta …”
“Yes, I know. Basic facts of life we’re taught as babes. You need sperm to trigger placental development, even if all the egg’s chromosomes come from the mother. It’s the basis for our whole system. Meant they had to arrange things so a few ‘normal,’ sexually induced pregnancies occur each summer, in order to get boys to spark the following generation. Vars like you and me are mere side effects, virgie.”
Maia shook her head. Kiel was oversimplifying by leagues, especially about the motivations of Lysos and her aides. Still, if the great clans ever found out how to reproduce at will, without even brief participation by males, it would make Tizbe Beller’s rutting drug look like a glass of warm tea.
“Did Renna mention anything like this, when he was in Caria?”
“He did. The big dummy doesn’t comprehend that there are some things people simply oughtn’t to know.”
Maia agreed on that point. Sometimes Renna seemed too innocent to live.
“You see what we’re up against,” Kiel concluded, forming a fist. Her dark complexion flushed. “Sure, we Rads are also proposing big changes, but in the opposite direction! We’d redirect life on Stratos toward more normal modes for a human species … toward a world right for people, not beehives from pole to pole.”
“You’d take us back to when men were … fifty percent?”
Laughter broke Kiel’s earnest scowl. “Oh, we’re not that crazy! For now, our near-term goal is only to unfreeze the political process. Get some debate going. Put more than a few token summerling reps on the High Council. Surely that’s worth supporting, whatever you think of our long-range dreams?”
“Well …”
“Maia, I’d love to be able to tell the others you’re with us.”
Kiel was trying to meet her eyes. Maia preferred looking away. She paused for a long moment, then gave a quick half-nod.
“Not yet. But I’ll … listen to the rest.”
“That’s all we can ask.” Kiel clapped her on the shoulder. “In time, I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive us for stupidly underestimating you. That’ll be the last time, I promise.
“And meanwhile, since you’ve shown yourself to be such a woman of action, who better to choose as our guest’s bodyguard, eh? You’d keep a special eye on him. Prevent anyone from slipping things into his feed, as we did at Grange Head! What better way to make sure we stay honest? Does that sound acceptable to you?”
Kiel was being wry, but the offer appeared genuine. Maia answered with grudging respect. “Acceptable,” she said in a low voice. It was irritating to know that Kiel could read her like a book.
Game tokens lay scattered across the cover of the cargo hold—small black and white tiles with whiskerlike sensors protruding from their sides and corners. At first, Renna had marveled how each piece was built to meticulous precision. But, after spending all morning winding one after another of the watchspring mechanisms, some of the romance went out of contemplating them. Fortunately, the efficient gadgets needed just a few twists with a winding key. Nevertheless, Renna and Maia had only finished prepping half of the sixteen hundred game pieces by the time lunch was called.
How do I keep getting talked into weird stuff like this? Maia wondered as she got up and stretched her throbbing arms. I’ll be a wreck by evening. Still, it beat peeling vegetables, or the other “light work” tasks she’d been assigned since being let out. And the prospect of her first formal Life match had Maia intrigued, if not exactly breathless.
Maia dutifully supervised the dishing out of Renna’s food, making sure it came from the common pot and that the utensils were clean. Not that anyone expected an assassination attempt way out here on the Mother Ocean. More likely, someone on the crew might try to dope him, just to stanch the endless flow of alien questions. It was always easy to find Renna on board. Just look for a disturbance in the sailors’ routine. On the quarterdeck, for instance, where Captain Poulandres and his officers took on harried looks after long sessions of amiable inquiry. Or teetering precariously, high in the rigging, peering over sailors’ shoulders as they worked, thoroughly upsetting the protective pair, Thalla and Kiel, who watched anxiously below.
When Renna mentioned his curiosity how the Game of Life was played at sea, Poulandres seized a chance to divert the strange passenger’s attention. A challenge match would take place that very evening. Renna and Maia against the senior cabin boy and junior cook.
Hey, Maia thought at the time. Did anyone hear me volunteer?
Not that
she really minded, even when her wrists ached from the endless, repetitive twisting. A fresh east wind filled Manitou’s electric generator and stretched its billowing sails, causing the masts to creak gently under the strain. It also filled Maia’s lungs with growing hope. Maybe things are going to work out, this time.
I’m going to see Landing Continent.
If only Leie were here, so we could see it together.
Unlike the creaky, old Wotan, this was a fast vessel, built to carry light cargoes and passengers. Its sailors were well-accoutered, befitting members of a prestigious guild. Cabin boys, newly chosen from their mother clans, ran errands with enthusiastic dash. Maia found the officers’ uniformed splendor both impressive and more than a little pompous.
After her spell in Long Valley, where men had been scarcer than red lugars, it seemed strange now, living with so many around. Her experience with the Beller drug undermined Maia’s confidence in winter’s sure promise of male docility. What was it like before Lysos? she wondered. You never knew which men were dangerous, or when.
Surreptitiously, she watched the sailors, comparing them to Renna, the alien. Even the obvious things were startling. For instance, his eyes were of a dark brown hue seldom seen on Stratos, set anomalously far apart. And his long nose gave the impression of an ever-curious bird. Mild differences, really. But if Renna’s not from outer space, Maia thought, then he’s from someplace equally strange.
Other differences ran deeper. Renna was always peering. His visual acuity was fine; he simply hungered for more light, as if daytime on Stratos was dimmer than he was used to. This counterbalanced an uncanny sensitivity to sound. Maia knew he overheard the jokes people made about him.
No one made fun of his beard, now lustrous and curly dark. A summer beard few Stratoin men could match this time of year. But there was some teasing concerning his diet. Normal ship’s fare was all right—grain and legume porridge, supplemented by fish stew. But he politely refused red meat from the ship’s cooler, citing “protein allergies,” and would not drink seawater under any circumstances. The cook, grumbling about “finicky land-boys,” tapped a freshwater cask just for him. Kiel shrugged and paid for it.
Maia felt she was well over the hearth-pangs that had filled her lonely solitude at the prison-sanctuary. Except in his intelligence and essential goodness, Renna bore no resemblance to the person she had pictured while exchanging coded messages in the dark. It was just another loss, and no one’s fault, in particular.
Still, why did she find herself occasionally washed by illogical feelings of jealousy when Renna spent time talking to Naroin, or Kiel, or other young vars? Am I attracted to him in a … sexual way? It seemed unlikely, given her youth.
Even if I were, what would jealousy have to do with it?
Maia sought within. Some thoughts seemed to make her feel all wound-up inside. Others provoked disconcerting waves of warmth, or desolation.
Then again, maybe I’m making a big deal out of nothing.
It might have helped to talk out her confusion, but Maia wasn’t comfortable confiding in strangers. For that, there had always been Leie.
The sea had Leie, now. Although an endless reach of ocean surrounded her, Maia didn’t like to look upon it.
After lunch, Renna excused himself to the curtained platform that extended from the poop deck over open water. He always took longer than others with his postprandial toilet, and there were wagers concerning what he did in there. Passersby reported strange sounds coming from behind the screen.
“Sounds like a lot o’ scrubbin’ an’ spittin’,” one sailor reported.
Maia made sure nobody intruded. Whatever his alien needs, Renna deserved privacy. At least he kept himself cleaner than most men!
The women on board, all vars, fell into three types Maia could discern. Half a dozen, including Naroin, were experienced winter sailors, comfortable working side by side with the more numerous male crew. Worldly and capable, they appeared more amused than interested in the political obsessions of the paying passengers.
Next were twenty-one rads, partners in the bold scheme to hustle Renna from captivity. Thalla and Kiel must have taken jobs at Lerner Forge to cover their real mission, ferreting out where the Perkinite clans held their prisoner. Maia wondered, had her ex-housemates cleverly followed the alien’s trail halfway around the world? More likely, their team was one of many sent to scour the globe. Either way, the Radical cabal appeared large, resolute, and well organized.
In high spirits after their successful foray, the rads were talkative, excited, and clearly better educated than the average var. Their soft-voweled city accents hardly impressed the third group—eight rough-looking women, most of whom spoke the low, drawling dialect of the Southern Isles. As Naroin put it, Baltha and her friends were along as “hired sticks.” Mercenary guards to fill out the expedition’s complement. The southlanders scarcely concealed their contempt for the idealistic rads, but seemed happy to take their pay.
Renna emerged from the toilet platform, zipping his blue pouch. He stretched, inhaling deeply. “Never thought I’d get used to this air. Felt like breathing syrup. But it kind of grows on you after a while. Maybe it’s the symbiont at work.”
“The what?” Maia asked.
Renna blinked and was thoughtful for a moment. “Mm—something I took before landing, to help me adjust to walking around on a different planet. Did you know only three other hominid populations are known to live at such atmospheric pressures? It’s because of the thick air that Stratos is habitable. Keeps the heat in. Normally, no one would look for real estate near such a small sun. Lysos made a brilliant gamble here, and won.”
Almost as brilliantly as you changed the subject, Maia thought. But that was all right. It pleased her to see Renna learning to control what he revealed. At this rate, in a few seasons he might be able to play poker with a four-year-old.
“We have more pieces to wind,” she reminded him. They went back to the cargo hatch where he sighed, lifting a squarish game token. “And to imagine, I called these little devils ingenious. I still don’t see why they refuse to use the game board we brought from the citadel.”
“It’s tradition,” Maia explained, gingerly turning one of the tiles, careful of the protruding antenna-feelers. “Those mass-produced game boards are powerful … I never knew how powerful till getting to play with one. But I do know they’re lower in status than handmade ones. They’re meant for summer, when most men are cooped up in sanctuaries. Unable to travel.”
“Because of the weather?”
“And restrictions by local clans. It’s a rough time for men. Especially if you’re unlucky, and get no invitation to town. When it’s not raining, there’s the aurorae and Wengel in the sky, setting off frustrating feelings. A lot of men just close the shutters and distract themselves with crafts and tournaments. My guess is that right now a computer game board reminds them too much of a time they’d rather not think about.”
Renna nodded. “I guess that makes sense. Still, it occurs to me perhaps there’s another reason sailors prefer mechanicals. I get a feeling you aren’t considered a real man unless you can build all your own tools, with your own hands.”
Maia reached for another game piece to wind. “It has to be that way, Renna. Sailors can’t afford to specialize, like women in clans do.” She motioned at the complex rigging, the radar mast, the humming wind-generator. “You’re never sure you’ll have the right mix of skills on a voyage, so every boy expects to learn most of them, in time.”
“Uh-huh. Sacrificing perfection of the particular in favor of competence in the general.” Renna pondered for a moment, then shook his head. “But I’m convinced it goes deeper. Take that miniature sextant on your wrist, so much more ornate and clever than needed for the task.”
Maia put down the winding key and turned her arm to regard the sextant’s brass cover, with its ornate, almost mythological rendition of a huge airship. Renna motioned for her to open it. Next to the f
olded sighting arms and finely knurled wheels, there were sockets for electronic hookups, now plugged and apparently unused for ages. Renna reached over to touch a tiny, dark display screen. “Don’t let the vestiges of high tech fool you, Maia. There’s nothing that couldn’t be handmade in a private works, using techniques passed on from teacher to pupil for generation after generation. It’s that passing on of skill that interests me.”
Maia felt for a moment as if she were listening to Renna rehearse a report he planned to give at some future time and place, describing the customs of an obscure tribe, located at the fringes of civilization. Which is what we are, I guess. She inhaled, suddenly acutely conscious of the weight of air in her lungs. Was it really heavy, compared to other worlds? Despite Renna’s remarks, the round, red sun didn’t look feeble. It was so fierce, she could only look straight at it for a few seconds without her eyes watering.
Renna went on. “I find it interesting that such elaborate skills get passed on so attentively, far beyond what officers need to teach in order to get good crew.”
Maia folded the sextant away. “I hadn’t thought of it that way before. We’re taught that men don’t have …” She searched for the right word. “They don’t have continuity. The middies adopted by sailing masters are rarely their own sons, so there’s no long-range stake in the boys’ success. Yet, you make it sound almost like the way it is in clans. Personal teaching. Close attention over time. Passing on more than a trade.”
“Mm. You know, the more I think about it, the more I’m sure it was designed this way. Sure a family of clones does it more efficiently, one generation training the next. But at base, it’s just a variation on an old theme. The master-apprentice system. For most of human history, such systems were the rule. Progress came through incremental improvements on tried-and-true designs.”
Maia recalled how, as children, she and Leie used to peer into the workshop of the Yeo leatherworkers, or Samesin clockmakers, watching older sisters and mothers instruct younger clones, as they themselves had been taught. It was how young Lamais learned the export-import business. You wouldn’t imagine such a process to be possible among men, no two of whom ever shared the same exact talents or interests. But Renna implied there was less difference than similarity. “It’s a traditional system, perfect for maintaining stability,” the star voyager said, putting a wound-up game piece aside and lifting another. “There is a price. Knowledge accumulates additively, almost never geometrically.”