Despite protective laws passed by council and church, the majestic creatures were slowly vanishing from the face of Stratos. It was rare to sight one anywhere near habitable regions. The things I’ve seen, Maia thought, noting the one, great compensation for her adventures. If I ever had grandchildren, the things I could have told them.
Then she recalled some of Renna’s stories of other worlds and vistas, strange beyond imagining. It brought on a pang of loss and envy. Maia had never thought, before meeting the Earthling, of coveting the stars. Now she did, and knew she would never have them.
“I just remembered …” young Brod said contemplatively. “Something I read about zoor and such. You know, they’re attracted to the smell of burning sugar? We have some we could put on the fire.”
Women turned to look at him. “So?” Naroin asked. “You want to invite ’em over for supper, maybe?”
He shrugged. “Actually, I was thinking that flying out of here might be better than trying to sail that raft. Anyway, it’s an idea.”
There was a long stretch of silence, then women on both sides laughed aloud, or groaned, at the sheer inanity of the idea. Maia sadly agreed. Of all the boys who tried hitching rides on zoors each year, only a small number were ever seen again. Still, the notion had a vivid, fanciful charm, and she might have given it a thought if the prevailing winds blew toward safe haven … or even dry land. While terribly bright, Brod clearly did not have practical instincts.
His longing expression, followed by sheepish blushing, finished off one lingering doubt Maia had nursed—that Brod might just possibly be a spy, left here by the reavers to watch over the prisoners. She had grown suspicious after all that had happened, the last few months. But no one could fake that sudden shift from wistfulness to embarrassment! His open thoughts seemed more like her own than old Bennett’s had ever been. Or, when you got right down to it, most of the women she had known. He was much less romantically mysterious than her hearth-friend, the Earthling stranger, but that was okay, too.
You’re turning into a real man-liker, Maia pondered, patting Brod on the back and turning to go back to work. Perkinites, who only use ’em for sex and sparking, just don’t know what they’re missing.
The raft had been prepared in four parts, to be linked quickly by hand as each was lowered at high tide. The vars practiced all the necessary movements over and over again, on a clearing by the converted winch. While it would doubtless be many times harder on bobbing seas, they finally felt ready. The first window for a launch would come early the next morning.
There were reasons for haste. Provisions would run out in eight to ten days. A lighter from the reaver colony was due about then. Inanna and the others wanted to leave well before that.
And if the lighter never came? All the more reason to depart soon. Either way, they’d be hungry but not starved by the time they reached the Méchant Coast.
No one tried very hard to persuade Maia and Naroin to change their minds and come along. Someone ought to stay and put up a pretense, when and if the supply ship came, thus giving the raft crew more time to get away. “We’ll send help,” Inanna assured.
Maia had no intention of waiting around for the promise to be kept. Those left behind would set to work at once on Naroin’s alternate plan. Maia had motives all her own. If a crude dinghy did get built, she would not sail with Naroin and Brod to Landing Continent, but ask to be dropped off along the way. It had to be possible to find out which neighboring island held Renna and the rads—the secret reaver base where Maia planned on snaring Leie, pinning her down, and getting a word in for a change.
The night before launching day, eighteen women and one boy sat up late around the fire, telling stories, joking, singing sea chanteys. The vars kidded young Brod about what a pity it was that glory had been so sparse, and was he sure he didn’t want to come along, after all? Though relieved in a way, by the kindness of the weather, Brod also seemed ambivalently wistful at his narrow escape. Maia guessed with a smile that something within him had been curious and willing to take up the challenge, if it came.
Don’t worry. A man as smart as you will get other chances, under better circumstances.
The mood of anticipation had everyone keyed up. Two of the younger sailors, a lithe, blonde sixer from Quinnland and an exotic-looking sevener from Hypatia, started banging spoons against their cups to a quick, celebratory rhythm, then launched a session of round-singing.
“C’mere C’mere … No! Go away!”
That’s what we heard the ensign say.
“I know I promised to attack,
But I lost the knack,
Seems I just lost track,
Can I come back?
Is it spring, today?
C’mere, c’mere, c’mere, c’mere,
Oh, c’mere you … No, go away!”
It was a famous drinking song, and it hardly mattered that no one had anything to drink. The singers alternately leaned toward Brod, then shied off again, to his embarrassment and the amusement of everyone else. Taking turns one by one, going around the circle, each woman added another verse, more bawdy than the last. At her turn, Maia waved off with a smile. But when the round seemed about to skip past Brod, the young man leaped instead to his feet. Singing, his voice was strong, and did not crack.
“C’mon up … No, Stay away!”
The mothers of the clan do say.
“We really didn’t mean to goad,
Or incommode,
We thought it snowed,
But it rained today.
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon,
Oh, c’mon up … No, Stay away!”
Most of the sailors laughed and clapped, nodding at the fairness of his comeback. A few seemed to resent his jumping in, however. The same ones who, days back, had argued against counting the vote of a mere boy.
More songs followed. After a lighthearted beginning, Maia noticed the mood grow steadily less gay, more somber and reflective. At one point, the girl from Hypatia looked down, letting her hair fall around her face as she chanted a soft, lovely melody, a cappella. An old, sad song about the loss of a longtime hearth-mate who had won a niche, started a clan, and then died, leaving clone-daughters who cared nothing of their var founder’s callow loves.
“There is her face, I hear her voice,
Images and sounds of youth gone by.
She lives on, unknowing me,
Immortal, while I’m bound to die.”
The wind picked up, lifting sparks from the ebbing fire. After that song, silence reigned until two older vars, Charl and Trotula, began beating a makeshift drum, taking up a quicker beat. Their choice was a ballad Maia used to hear on Port Sanger’s avenues from time to time, chanted by Perkinite missionaries. An epic of days long ago, when heretic tyrannies called “the Kingdoms” fluxed through these tropic island chains. The period wasn’t covered much in school, nor even in the lurid romances Leie used to read. But each springtime the chant was sung on street-corners, conveying both danger and tragic mystique.
Strength to rule, mighty and bold,
Bringing back the father’s way,
As in human days of old,
Strength to rule, their legacy.
By the light of Wengel’s pyre,
Taking fiercely, eyes aflame,
Came the bloody men of fire,
Summer’s empire to proclaim.…
Sometime between the Great Defense and the Era of Repose—perhaps more than a thousand years ago—rebellion had raged across the Mother Ocean. Emboldened by their recent high renown, after the repulsion of terrible alien invaders, a conspiracy of males had vowed to reestablish patriarchy. Seizing sea-lanes far from Caria, they burned ships and drowned men who would not join their flag. In the towns they captured, all restraints of law and tradition vanished. Aurora season was a time, at best, of unbridled license. At worst, horror.
… Summer’s empire, never chosen,
By the women. Cry at fate!
&nb
sp; For a destiny unfrozen,
Cry for vigilance, too late!
When Maia had once asked a teacher about the episode, Savant Claire had smirked in distaste. “People oversimplify. Perkies never talk in public about the Kings’ allies. They had plenty of help.”
“From whom?” Maia asked, aghast.
“Women, of course. Whole groups of them. Opportunists who knew how it had to end.” Claire had refused to give more detail, however, and the public library posessed but scanty entries. So curious had it made Maia, that she and Leie tried using their twin trick to feign clone status, briefly gaining entrance to a Perkinite meeting—until some locals fingered them as vars, and tossed them out.
During the lengthy ballad, Maia watched attitudes chill toward Brod. Women seated near him found excuses to get up—for another cup of stew, or to seek the latrine—and returned to sit farther away. Even the Quinnish sixer, who had flirted awkwardly with Brod for days, avoided his eyes and kept to her mates. Soon only Maia and Naroin remained nearby. Bravely, the youth showed no sign of noticing.
It was so unfair. He had had no part in crimes of long ago. All might have remained pleasant if Charl and Tortula hadn’t chosen this damned song. Anyway, none of these vars could possibly be Perkinite. Maia contemplated how prejudice can be a complex thing.
… So to guard the Founders giving,
And never the fate forget,
Of those future, past, and living,
To be saved from Man’s regret.
No one said much after that. The fire died down. One by one, tomorrow’s adventurers sought their beds. On her way back from the toilet area, Maia made sure to pass Brod’s shelter, separate from all the others, and wished him goodnight. Afterward, she sat down again by the coals, lingering after everyone else had turned in, watching the depleted logs brighten and fade when fanned by gusts of wind.
Some distance away, toward the forest, Naroin lifted her head. “Can’t sleep, snowflake?”
Maia answered with a shrug, implicitly bidding the other woman to mind her own business. With briefly raised eyebrows, Naroin took a hint and turned away. Soon, soft snoring sounds rose from scattered shadows on all sides, lumps indiscernible except as vague outlines. The coals faded further and darkness settled in, permitting constellations to grow lustrous, where they could be seen between low clouds. The holes in the overdeck grew narrower as time passed.
Without stars to distract her, Maia watched as sporadic breezes toyed with the banked campfire. Stirred by a gust, one patch would bloom suddenly, giving off red sprays of sparks before fading again, just as abruptly. She came to see the patterns of bright and dark as quite unrandom. Depending on supplies of fuel, air, and heat, there were continual ebbing and flowing tradeoffs. One zone might grow dim because surrounding areas were lit, consuming all the oxygen, or vice versa. Maia contemplated yet another example of something resembling, in a way, ecology. Or a game. A finely textured game, with complex rules all its own.
The patterns were lovely. Another geometry trance beckoned, ready to draw her in. Tempted, this time she refused. Her attention was needed elsewhere.
Quietly, without making sudden moves, Maia took a stick and rolled one of the stronger embers into her dinner cup. She covered it with a small, chipped plate from the supplies left by the reavers, and waited. An hour passed, during which she thought about Leie, and Renna, and the ballad of the Kings … and most of all, about whether she was being stupid, getting all worked up over a suspicion based on nothing but pure logic, bereft of any supporting evidence at all.
Eventually, someone came to sit by her.
“Well, tomorrow’s the big day.”
It was a low voice, almost a whisper, to avoid waking the others. But Maia recognized it without looking up. Thought so, she told herself as Inanna squatted to her left.
“Wouldn’t of expected you being too excited to sleep, seeing as how you’re staying behind,” the big sailor said in casual, friendly tones. “Will you miss the rest of us so much?”
Maia glanced at the woman, who seemed overly relaxed. “I always miss friends.”
Inanna nodded vigorously. “Yah, we got to choose a mail drop, maybe in some coast city. One time or another, we’ll all get together again, hoist brews, amaze the locals with our tale.” She leaned toward Maia, conspiratorially. “Speaking of which, I got a little something, if you want a nip.” She pulled out a slim flask that swished and gurgled. “The Lysodamn reavers missed this, bless ’em. Care to lift a couple? For no hard feelings?”
Maia shook her head. “I shouldn’t. Alky goes to my head. I’d be no good when you need help launching.”
“You’ll be no good if you’re up restless all night, neither.” Inanna removed the cap and Maia watched her take a long pull, swallowing. The sailor wiped her mouth and held out the flask. “Ah! Good stuff, believe it. Puts hair where it belongs, an’ takes it off where it don’t.”
With a show of reluctance, Maia reached for the flask, sniffing an aroma of strong mash. “Well … just one.” She tipped the pewter bottle, letting a bare trickle of liquor down her throat. The ensuing fit of coughs was not faked.
“There now, don’t that warm yer innards? Frost for the nose and flamejuice for the gut. No matching the combination, I always say.”
Indeed, Maia felt a spreading heat from even that small amount. When Inanna insisted she have another, it was easy to show ambivalence, both attraction and reluctance at the same time. Despite her best efforts, some more got by her tongue. It felt fiery. The third time the bottle went back and forth, she did a better job blocking the liquor, but heady fumes went up her nose, making her feel dizzy.
“Thanks. It seems to … work,” Maia said slowly, not trying to fake a slur. Rather, she spoke primly, as a tipsy woman does, who wants not to show it. “Right now, how-ever, I … think I had better go and lie down.” With deliberate care, she picked up her plate and cup and shuffled toward her bedroll, at the campsite’s periphery. Behind her, the woman said, “Sleep well and soundly, virgie.” There was no mistaking a note of satisfaction in her voice.
Maia kept the appearance of a tired fiver, gladly collapsing for the night. But within, she growled, now almost certain her suspicions were true. Surreptitiously, while climbing under the blanket, she watched Inanna move from the fire ring toward her own bedroll at the far quadrant of the camp. A dimly perceived shadow, the woman did not lie down, but squatted or sat, waiting.
I never would have figured all this out before, Maia thought. Not until Tizbe and Kiel and Baltha—and Leie—taught me how sneaky people can be. Now it’s like I knew it all along, a pattern I can see unfolding.
It had started with the debate, soon after their internment, over whether to build one big raft or a couple of small boats. Naroin had been right. In this archipelago, a dinghy with a sail and centerboard might weave in and out past shoals and islets with a good chance of getting away, even if spotted. A raft, if seen, would be easy prey.
But that assumed reaver ships were just hanging around, patrolling frequently. In fact, lookouts had seen only two distant sails in all the days since their maroonment. It would take a major coincidence for pirates to show just when the raft set forth.
Unless they were warned, somehow.
Maia found the whole situation ridiculous on the face of it.
Why would they intern a bunch of experienced sailors on an island without supervision? They’d have to know we’d try escaping. Try to get help. Alert the police.
Naroin’s sullen mutterings after the crucial vote had set Maia on the path. There had to be a spy among them! Someone who would guide the inevitable escape attempt in ways that made it more vulnerable, easier to thwart. And, especially, someone well positioned to warn the pirates in time to prepare an ambush.
What’s their plan? I wonder. To capture those on the raft and bring them back? The failure would surely cause morale to plummet, and hamper subsequent attempts.
But that won’t guarant
ee against other tries. They must mean to transfer any escapees to a more secure prison, like where they took Renna and the rads.
But no. If that were the case, why not put the sailors there in the first place?
Coldly, Maia knew but one logical answer. As ruthless as they seemed after the fight, breaking the Code of Combat and all, they couldn’t go so far as deliberately killing captives. Not with so many witnesses. The men of the Reckless. Renna. Not even all of the reavers’ own crew could be trusted with a secret like that.
But to take care of things later on? Use a small ship, manned by only the most trusted. Come upon a raft, wallowing and helpless. No need even to fight. Just fling some rocks. Gone without a trace. Too bad …
Maia’s anger seethed, evaporating all lingering traces of alky high. Lying as if asleep, she watched through slitted eyes the dark lump that was Inanna, waiting for the lump to move.
It might have been better, safer, to check out her suspicions in a subtler way, by going to bed when everyone else did, and then crawling off behind a tree to keep watch. But that could have taken half the night. Maia had no great faith in her attention span, or ability to be certain of not drifting off. What if it was hours and hours? What if she was wrong?
Better to flush the spy out early. Maia had decided to make it seem as if she intended to stay up all night long. An irksome inconvenience, perhaps causing the reaver agent to feel panicky. Speed up the spy’s subjective clock. Make her act before she might have otherwise.
And it worked. Now Maia had a target to watch. Her concentration was helped no end by knowing she was right.
The dark blur didn’t move, though. Time seemed to pass with geologic slowness. More seconds, minutes, crawled by. Her eyes grew scratchy from staring at barely perceivable contrasts in blackness. She took to closing them one at a time. The patch of shadow remained rock-still.