13

Maia was soon disoriented in the stealthy dash through dark corridors and down unlit stairs. Kiel, who led the way, kept rushing ahead and then causing a bump and jostle each time she stopped abruptly to use a small penlight, consulting a hand-drawn map.

“Where did you get that?” Maia whispered at one point, pointing at the vellum diagram.

“A friend worked on the digging crew. Now be quiet.”

Maia took no offense. A few gruff words were nothing compared to what else Kiel and Thalla had done. Maia’s heart was full to bursting that her friends had come all this way, at untold risks, to rescue her.

And Renna, she reminded herself. As they hurried through the gloomy halls, she tried not to look at the person she had just seen for the first time, whom she had beforehand thought she knew so well. A creature from outer space. Perhaps sensing her discomfort, Renna hung a few paces behind. Maia felt irritated with him, and with herself, that her feelings were so obvious. “Is he telling the truth?” she whispered to Thalla, as Kiel consulted her map again near a meeting of two vast, unlit dormitory chambers. “About being … you know?”

Thalla shrugged. “Never know with males. Always goin’ on about their travels. Maybe this one’s been farther than most.”

Maia wanted to believe Thalla’s nonchalance. “You must have suspected something when you picked up the radio message.”

“What radio message?” Thalla asked. As Kiel motioned them forward again, Maia found her confusion redoubling. She pursued whispered questions as they walked.

“If you didn’t get a message, how did you find us?”

“Wasn’t easy, virgie. Day after they took you, we tried following the trail. Seemed to be takin’ you east, but then a big gang of sisters from Keally Clan rode up and drove us off. By the time we circled round, the tracks were cold. Turns out they pulled a switch over by Flake Rock, so it wasn’t east, after all.”

Maia shook her head. She had been unconscious or delirious during most of the ride out from Lerner Hold, so she had no idea how long it had taken.

Thalla grinned. The tall woman’s pale face was barely visible in the reflection of Kiel’s swaying beam off stone walls. “Finally, we got wind o’ this Beller creature, comin’ upland with an escort. Kiel had a hunch they might be headin’ for this abandoned site. We got some friends together an’ managed to tag along out o’ sight. An’ here we are.”

Thalla made it sound so simple. In fact, it must have involved a lot of sacrifice, not to mention risk. “Then you didn’t come just for … him?” Maia jerked her head backward, toward the one taking up the rear. Thalla grimaced.

“Ain’t a man a man? It’ll drive the Perkies crazy he’s gone, though. Reason enough to take him, at least till the coast. There he can join his own kind.”

In the dark, Maia could not read Thalla’s features. The woman’s tone was tense and perhaps she wasn’t telling the whole truth. But the message was sufficient. “You came for me, after all.”

Thalla reached over as they walked, giving Maia’s shoulder a squeeze. “What are var-buddies for? Us against a Lysos-less world, virgie.”

It was like a line from that adventure book Maia had read, about stalwart summer women forging a new world out of the ruins of a brittle, broken yesterday. Suddenly, Kiel interrupted with a sharp hiss. Their guide covered her light and motioned for quiet. Silently, almost on tiptoe, they joined her near an intersection, where their dim corridor crossed another one, more brightly lit. Kiel cautiously leaned out to peer left, then right. Her breath cut short.

“What is it?” the man asked, catching up from behind, his voice carrying startlingly. Thalla’s hand made a chopping sign and he said no more. Standing still, they could hear faint sounds—a clinking, a low rattle, voices rising briefly, then fading to a low murmur. Kiel moved her hands to pantomime that there were people in sight, some distance down the cross corridor.

What now? Maia worried, a tightness in her throat. Clearly Kiel’s map was incomplete. Would it offer an alternate route? Was there enough time?

To Maia’s surprise, Kiel did not motion for them to turn around. Instead, she took a deep breath, visibly braced herself, and stepped boldly into the light!

Maia knew it was only her dark-adapted eyes overreacting. Still, when Kiel entered the wan illumination of the hallway, it was as if she had briefly gone aflame. How could anyone not notice such a shining presence?

But no one did. The older var glided smoothly across the exposed area without a sound, reentering darkness in safety on the other side. There was no change in the mutter of conversation. Thalla took the next turn, trying to imitate Kiel’s liquid, silent stride. Sudden reflection off her pale skin seemed even more glaringly impossible to ignore, lasting two ponderously long seconds. Then she, too, was across.

Maia glanced at the man, Renna, who smiled and touched her elbow, urging her to go ahead. It was a friendly gesture, an expression of confidence, and Maia briefly hated him for it. She could just make out the two women, dim figures across the bright intersection, also waiting for her. To Maia, her own heartbeat sounded loud enough to echo off the rocky walls. She got a grip on herself, flaring her nostrils, and stepped forward.

Time seemed to telescope, fractional seconds stretching into subjective hours. Maia’s distant feet moved on their own, freeing her to glance right toward a searing image of bracketed flamelight … of broken furniture burning in a chiseled fireplace, while silhouetted figures drank from goblets, leaning over to watch the arcing fall of dice onto a wooden table. Their cries made Maia’s skin crawl.

The scene was so dazzling, she became disoriented and veered off course to collide with a sharp corner of the intersection. Thalla had to yank her the rest of the way into blessed darkness. Maia rubbed where her forehead had struck stone, blinking to reaccustom her eyes to obscurity.

She looked up quickly. “Renna?” she whispered, casting about.

“I’m here, Maia,” came a soft reply.

She turned to her left. The man stood with Kiel a little farther down the dim hallway. Maia hadn’t heard or sensed him cross. Embarrassed by her outburst, she looked away. This person was not at all like the sage, older woman she had envisioned. Though there had been no lies, she nonetheless felt betrayed, if by nothing else, then by her all-too-human tendency to make assumptions.

Unless it has to do with the ships or sparking, you just suppose a person is female till you learn otherwise. I guess that’s not very nice.

Still … he should have told me!

Now she and Thalla took up the rear while Renna and Kiel forged ahead. For the first time, Maia noticed that the man was carrying a small blue pouch at his belt and something much larger strapped across his back. A slim case of burnished metal.

A Game of Life set, she realized. Oh, he’s a man, all right!

I was such an idiot, picturing some noble savant who’d figured out how to send such clever messages out of pure resourcefulness. I don’t suppose those tricks were difficult for a man who’s spent his whole life playing the game.

It was obvious enough, now. But trapped in her cell with only clicks in the night for company, she had been looking more through wishes than reason. How strange, to feel a sense of mourning for a friend who stood just a few meters away, alive, healthy, and, for the moment, free. Yet the Renna Maia had imagined was dead, as surely as Leie. This new Renna was an unwelcome replacement.

Unfair? Maia knew it.

LIFE’S unfair. So? Find Lysos and sue her.

Minutes later, Kiel led them to a narrow door where she knocked twice. The wooden portal swung open, revealing a stocky blonde woman holding a crowbar like a weapon. The door showed signs of damage, its lock-hasp pried away, a broken padlock on the floor.

“Got ’em?” the gate guardian asked. She was tall, rangy, fair-haired, and tough-looking. Kiel only nodded. “Come on,” Thalla said, leading the way down another short flight of stairs. Maia smelled the night even before a chill wind touched her skin. It had a freshness she had never felt from the open window of her cell. Then they were outside, under the stars.

•  •  •

From the postern gate they stepped onto a broad stone porch, just one meter above the level of the plain. Kiel strode to the edge, brought her fingers to her mouth, and whistled the call of a gannen bird. From the darkness came a trilling reply, like an echo, followed by the sound of hoofbeats. The tall blonde pushed the door back into place as four women came riding up, each holding the reins of one or two spare mounts.

Unleashing bundles tied to the back of one animal, Thalla thrust into Maia’s hands a rough wool coat, which she gratefully slipped on. She was still buttoning when Kiel took her arm and motioned toward the edge of the platform, where a sash-horse had been brought alongside. Moonlight glistened along the beast’s striped flanks as it snorted, blew and stamped. Maia couldn’t help cringing a bit. Her riding experience had been confined to tame beasts guided by skilled Trevor wranglers, hired for springtime outings so Lamai summerlings could check one more item off their mothers’ “life-preparation” syllabus as quickly and cheaply as possible.

“He won’t bite, virgie,” the woman holding the bridle said, laughing.

Pride overcame apprehension, and Maia managed to grab the saddle horn without trembling. Slipping her left foot into the stirrup, she swung astride. The horse danced, testing her weight. She reached over to accept the reins, feeling elated when the creature did not bolt the next instant. Relieved, Maia bent to pat its neck.

“What the hell is that?”

They were gruff words of protest. Maia turned to see the man, Renna, pointing at the beast in front of him. Kiel came alongside and touched his arm, as if to ease his fears.

“It’s a horse. We use them here for riding and—”

Renna cocked his head. “I know what a horse is. I meant, what’s that thing on its back?”

“On its back? Why … that’s a saddle, where you ride.”

Perplexed, he shook his head. “That blocky thing’s a saddle? Why is it different than the others?”

All the women, even Maia, burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. The question was so incongruous, so unexpected. Maybe he was from outer space, after all! Renna’s look of confused consternation only made her giggle more, covering her mouth with her free hand.

Kiel, too, tried to conceal mirth. “Naturally, it’s a sidesaddle. I know you’d prefer a wagon or palanquin, but we just haven’t got …” The woman stopped in mid-sentence and stared. “What are you doing?”

Renna had jumped off the porch and was teaching underneath the mount selected for him. “Just … making a slight … adjustment,” he grunted. “There.”

To Maia’s astonishment, the bulky, cushioned saddle slid sideways and tumbled to the ground. Then, even more surprisingly, the man took the horse’s mane in his hands and, in a single bound, leaped aboard straddle-wise, like a woman! The others reacted with audible gasps. Maia winced at an involuntary twinge in her loins.

“How can you—” Thalla started to ask, dry-mouthed.

“Stirrups would be nice,” he interrupted. “But we can take turns riding bareback till we rig something up. Now, let’s get the hell out of here.”

Kiel blinked. “Are you sure you know what you’re—”

In answer, Renna flicked the reins and set his mount cantering, then trotting toward the place where the sun had set hours ago. The direction of the sea. As they stared after him, he let out a cry of such exultation that Maia felt a thrill. The man had given voice to what wanted out of her own lungs. Amazement gave way to pure joy as she, too, dug in her heels. Her mount complied willingly, hastening on the same bearing, kicking dust toward the memory of her imprisonment.

The escape party didn’t take the direct route to safety, toward the outlet of Long Valley. The Perkinites would surely look there first. Kiel and the others had a plan. After that initial exuberant trot, the caravan settled into a brisk but deliberate walk, roughly south by southwest.

About an hour after departure, there came a faint sound in the distance behind them. A low clanging. Turning around, Maia saw the thin, moonlit, rocky spire where she had been jailed, by now diminished with distance and beginning to sink into the horizon. High along its dark flank, several bright pinpoints told of windows coming alight.

“Bloody moonset!” Kiel cursed, clucking to her mount and setting a quicker pace. “I was hoping we’d have till morning. Let’s make tracks.”

Kiel didn’t speak figuratively, Maia soon realized. The band kept purposely to open ground, where speed was good but the horses’ hooves also left easily-followed impressions. “It’s part of our plan, so’s to make the Perkies lazy,” Thalla explained as they rode along. “We have a trick in mind. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not,” Maia replied. She was too happy to be concerned. After running the horses for a while, they halted, and the tall, rough-looking blonde rose high in her stirrups to aim a spyglass rearward. “No sign of anyone breathin’ down our necks,” she said, collapsing the tube again. The pace slowed then, to keep their mounts from tiring.

Prompted by a brief query from Thalla, asking how she had been treated in prison, Maia found herself spilling whole run-on paragraphs about her arrival at the stony citadel, about the terrible cooking of the Guel jailers, how awful it had been to spend Autumn End Day in a place like that, and how she never hoped to see the insides of a man sanctuary again. She knew she was jabbering, but if Thalla and the others seemed amused, she didn’t care. Anyone would jabber after such a sudden reversal of fortunes, from despair to excitement, with the fresh air of freedom filling her lungs like an intoxicant.

There followed another period of quick trotting and more brisk walking. Soon a lesser moon—Aglaia—rose to join Durga in the sky, and someone started humming a sailor’s chantey in greeting. Another woman pitched in with words, singing a rich, mellow contralto. Maia eagerly joined the chorus.

After listening a few rounds, Renna added his deeper tenor to the refrain, which sounded appropriate for a sailing ballad. He caught Maia’s eye at one point, winking, and she found herself smiling back shyly, not terribly displeased.

More songs followed. It soon grew clear to Maia that there was a division among the women. Kiel and Thalla and one other—a short brunette named Kau—were citybred, sophisticated, with Kiel clearly the intellectual leader. At one point, all three of them joined in a rousing anthem whose verses were decidedly political.

Maia recalled the melody from those nights sharing a cottage at Lerner Hold, listening to the clandestine radio station. The lyrics conveyed an angry, forceful resolve to upset the present order, making a determined break with the past. The other four women knew this song, and lent support to the chorus. But there was a sense of restraint, as if they disagreed in some parts, while thinking the verses too soft in others. When their turn came again, the others once more chose songs Maia knew from school and creche. Traditional ballads of adventure. Songs of magic lamps and secret treasures. Of warm hearths left behind. Of revealed talents, and wishes coming true. The melodies were more comforting, even if the singers weren’t. From their accents and features, she guessed the two shorter, stockier ones must be from the Southern-Isles, legendary home of reavers and sharp traders, while the other two, including the rangy blonde, spoke with the sharp twang typical of this part of Eastern Continent. Maia learned the blonde was named Baltha, and seemed to be the leader of the four.

All told, it seemed a tough, confident bunch of vars. They had no apparent fear, even if by some chance Tizbe Beller and her guards caught up with them.

The singing died down before their next break to adjust tack and trade mounts. After resuming, for a while everyone was quiet, allowing the metronome rhythm of the horses’ hooves to make low, percussive music of an earthier nature. No longer distracted, Maia took greater note of the cold. Her fingers were especially sensitive, and she wound up keeping her hands in the pockets of the thick coat, holding the reins through layers of cloth.

Renna trotted ahead to ride next to Kiel, causing some muttering among the other women. Baltha was openly disapproving.

“No business a man ridin’ like that,” she said, watching from behind as Renna jounced along, legs straddling his mount. “It’s kinda obscene.”

“Seems he knows what he’s doing,” Thalla said. “Gives me chills watchin’, though. Even now that he’s got a normal saddle. Can’t figure how he doesn’t cripple himself.”

Baltha spat on the ground. “Some things men just oughtn’t be let to do.”

“Right,” one of the stocky southerners added. “Horses were made for women. Obvious from how we’re built an men aren’t. Lysos meant it that way.”

Maia shook her head, unsure what to think. Later, when happenstance appeared to bring her alongside Renna’s mount, the man turned to her and said in a low voice, “Actually, these animals aren’t much different than ones I knew on Earth. A bit stockier, and this weird striping. I think the skull’s bigger, but it’s hard to recall.”

Maia blinked in surprise. “You’re … from Earth? The real …?”

He nodded, a wistful expression on his face. “Long ago and far away. I know, you thought maybe Florentina, or some other nearby system. No such luck, I’m afraid.

“What I meant, though, is that your friends back there are wrong. Half the worlds in the Human Phylum have horse variants, some much stranger than these. Women ride more often than men, it’s true. But this is the first time I’ve heard it said males aren’t built for it!” He laughed. “Now that you mention it, I guess it does seem strange we don’t hurt ourselves.”

“You heard all that?” Maia asked. At the time, she’d thought he was too far ahead.

He tapped one of his ears. “Thicker atmosphere than my birthworld, by far. Carries sound better. I can hear whispers quite some distance, though it also means I get splitting headaches when people shout. You won’t tell, will you?”

He winked for the second time that night, and Maia’s sense of alienation evaporated. In an instant he was just another harmless, friendly sailor, on winter leave after a long voyage. His confidential disclosure was natural, an expression of trust based on the fact that they had known each other and shared secrets before.

Maia looked up at the starry vault. “Point to Earth,” she asked.

Rising in his stirrups, Renna searched the sky. At last he settled back down. “Sorry. If we’re still awake near morning, I should be able to find the Triffid. Sol is near its left eye-stalk. Of course, most of the nearer stars of the Phylum are hidden behind the God’s Brow nebula—what you call the Claw—just east of the Triffid.”

“You know a lot about our sky, for someone who’s been here less than a year.”

Renna let out a sigh. His expression grew heavier. “You have long years, on Stratos.”

Maia sensed it might be better for the moment to refrain from further questions. Renna’s face, which had appeared youthful on first sight, now seemed troubled and weary. He’s older than he looks, she realized. How old would you have to be, to travel as far as he has? Even if they have freezers on starships, and move close to the speed of light.

She couldn’t put all the blame for her ignorance on Lamatia’s selective education. Such subjects had always seemed far removed from matters she had expected to concern her. Not for the first time, Maia wondered, Why did we virtually abandon space? Did Lysos plan it that way? Maybe to help make sure no one found us again?

If so, it must have only made for a worse shock to the savants and councillors and priestesses in Caria, when the Visitor Ship entered orbit, last winter. They must have been thrown into utter chaos.

This has to be what that old bird was talking about, on the tele in Lanargh! Maia realized. Renna must have already been kidnapped then. They were putting out feelers, trying to find him without disturbing the public.

Maia knew what Leie’s thought would be, at this point. The reward!

It must be what Thalla and Kiel and the others are after. Of course Thalla had been lying, back in the sanctuary corridors. They hadn’t come for her, after all. Or at least not her alone. Their main objective must have been Renna all along, which explained the sidesaddle. Why else bring such a thing all this way, unless to fetch a man?

Not that she blamed them. Maia was accustomed to being unimportant. That they had bothered to spring her, as well, was enough to win her gratitude. And Thalla’s attempt to lie about it had been sweet.

The open plain ended abruptly when they arrived at broken ravine country similar to the type Maia remembered, where Lerner Clan dug their ores and spilled slag from their foundry. She guessed this was much farther north and east, but the contours were similar—tortured eroded canyons crossing the prairie like scars of some ancient fight. Carefully, the party dropped into the first set of narrow washes, descending past nesting sites where burrower colonies made vain, threatening noises to drive the humans and horses away. The chirruping sounds grew triumphant as their efforts seemed to work, and the threat passed.

Baltha took over navigating the increasingly twisty maze where, at some points, only the topmost sixty degrees or so of sky were visible, making for slow going even after two oil lanterns were lit.

A halt was called by a shallow, gurgling stream and everyone dismounted, some gingerly. None more so than the man, who hissed and rubbed his legs, walking out stiffness. Baltha’s colleagues nodded knowingly. In fact, though, only embarrassment kept Maia from hobbling about just like him. Instead, she stretched surreptitiously, behind her horse. Nearby, the leaders gathered round a lantern.

“This must be the place,” Kiel said, jabbing a map sketched onto lambskin, so much tougher than paper. Baltha shook her head. “Another stream, a klick or so on. I’ll tell ya when.”

“You’re sure? We wouldn’t want to miss—”

“Won’t,” the tall blonde said, curtly. “Now let’s mount. Wastin’ time.”

Maia saw Thalla and Kiel look at each other dubiously after Baltha left. “Comes off knowin’ the place like her own back-hand.” Thalla muttered. “Now how would that be? Only Perkinites grow up ’round here.”

Kiel made a cautioning sign to her friend. “One thing for sure. That’s no damn Perkinite.”

Thalla shrugged as Kiel rolled up the map. “There’s worse,” she said under her breath. When the two of them walked past Maia, Thalla gave her a tousle on the top of her head. The gesture would have seemed patronizing if there hadn’t been something like genuine affection in it.

With the elation of escape starting to fade into physical fatigue, Maia realized, There’s more going on here than I thought. I’d better start paying closer attention.

Half an hour later, they reached another stream under looming canyon walls. This time, Baltha signaled for everyone to guide their mounts into the shallow watercourse before she spoke.

“We split up here. Riss, Herri, Blene, an Kau will go on toward Demeterville, making tracks and confusing the trail. Maia, you’ll go too. The rest’ll wade upstream about two klicks before heading west, then south. We’ll meet sou’west of Clay Town on the seventh, if Lysos guides us.”

Maia stared at the strangers she had been told to accompany, and felt a frisson course her spine. “No,” she said emphatically. “I want to go with Kiel and Thalla.”

Baltha glowered. “You’ll go where you’re told.”

Panic welled and Maia’s chest was tight. It felt like a repetition of her separation from Leie, when they parted in Lanargh for the last time, on separate ships. A certainty overwhelmed her that once out of sight, she would never see her friends again.

“I won’t! Not after all that!” She jerked one hand in the direction of the prison tower that so recently held her in its grip. Maia turned to her friends for support, but they wouldn’t meet her eyes. “The upstream party ought to be small as possible …” Kiel tried to explain. But Maia learned more from the woman’s uneasy demeanor. This was arranged in advance, she realized. They don’t want me along while they escape with their precious alien! A heavy resignation swarmed into Maia’s heart, overwhelming even her burning resentment.

“Maia comes with us.”

It was Renna. Maneuvering his horse next to hers, he went on. “Your plan counts on our pursuers following an easy trail to the larger party, while we others make our getaway. That’s fine for me. Thanks. But not so good for Maia when they catch up.”

“The girl’s just a larva,” Baltha retorted. “They don’t care about her. Probably aren’t even looking for her.”

Renna shook his head. “You want to risk her freedom on a bet like that? Forget it. I won’t let her be taken back to that place.”

Through surging emotion, Maia saw a silent interplay among the women. They had thought of Renna as a commodity, but now he was asserting himself. Men might rank low on the Stratos social ladder, nevertheless they stood higher than most vars. Moreover, most of these vars must have served on ships, at one time or another. It surely influenced matters that Renna had a well-cultivated “captain’s voice.”

Kiel shrugged. Thalla turned and grinned at Maia. “Okay by me. Glad to have you with us, virgie.”

Baltha cursed lowly, accepting the swing of consensus, but not gracefully. The rangy blonde brought her mount over near her friends, who were taking the other route, and leaned over to clasp forearms with them. In a similar manner, Thalla and Kiel embraced Kau. The parties separated then, Baltha carefully swiveling her mount down the center of the current. Taking the rear, Maia and Renna called farewell to their benefactors, who had already begun climbing a thin trail up the next canyon wall. One of them—Maia couldn’t make out who—lifted a hand to wave back, then the four women disappeared around a bend.

“Thank you,” Maia said to Renna softly, as their mounts sloshed slowly along. Her voice still felt thick from that moment of surprise and upset.

“Hey,” the man said with a smile. “We castaways have to hang together, right? Anyway, you seem like a tough pal to have along, if trouble’s ahead.”

Of course he was jesting with her. But only partly, she realized with some surprise. He really did seem glad, even relieved, that she was coming with him.

Traveling single file, they fell into silence, letting the horses pick a careful path along the uneven streambed. Fortunately, they were out of the wind. But the surrounding winter-chilled rocks seemed to suck heat right out of the air. Maia put her hands under her armpits, squeezing the coat tight, exhaling breath that turned into visible fog.

Anyway, it was reassuring knowing that each minute put more distance behind them. The escape plan was a risky one, counting on panic and excessive haste on the part of their pursuers. True professionals—like the Sheldon clan of hunters back in Port Sanger—wouldn’t be fooled by so simple a trick. Maia hadn’t heard of tracking skill being much famed among Long Valley’s farmers, but it was still an assumption.

Even if they slipped their immediate pursuers, they remained surrounded by enemies. Few places on Stratos were politically more homogeneous than this upland colony of extremists, with allied Perkinite clans stretching all the way to Grange Head. Once aroused by the news, there would be posses and mobs swarming after them from all directions.

Maia thought she could now see the big picture … how desperate the Perkinites must be. Much more was involved than their radical plan to use a drug to promote winter sparking. The hive matriarchies of Long Valley had become involved in a far more brazen scheme: kidnapping the Interstellar Visitor—Renna—right out of the hands of the council in Caria City. It was a risky endeavor. But how better to reduce, maybe eliminate, the chance of restored contact with the Hominid Phylum?

Nothing would make extreme Perkinites crazier than having the sky open up. Spaceships calling regularly from those old worlds of “animal rut and sexual tyranny.” Worlds where fully half of the inhabitants are men.

Half.

Despite having read those lurid novels, it was hard to picture. What, in the name of Lysos, did a world need with so many extra males? Even if they were quiet and well-behaved most of the time, which she doubted, there were only so many tasks a man could be trusted with! What was there for them to do?

Contact would change Stratos forever, polluting it with alien ideas, alien ways. Despite her hatred of those who had imprisoned her, Maia wondered if they might not have a point.

She found herself reacting tensely again, when Renna maneuvered his mount alongside. But all he had for her was a smile and a question about the name of a species of shrub that clung tenaciously to the canyon walls. Maia answered, guessing it related to a type found at the Orthodox temple in Grange Head. She couldn’t tell him whether it was a purely native life-form or descended from bio-engineered Earth varieties, released by the Founders.

“I’m trying to get an idea how introduced forms were designed to fit in, and how much adaptation took place afterward. You have some pretty sophisticated ecologists at the university, but figures are hardly a substitute for getting out and seeing for yourself.”

Although they were hard to make out in the dim starlight, his features seemed revived from the earlier moodiness. Maia found herself wondering if his eyes would shine strange colors by day, or if his skin, which she had only seen in lantern or moonlight, would turn out to be some weird, exotic shade.

Perhaps it was a mistake to interpret an alien’s facial expressions by past experience, but Renna seemed excited to be here, away from cities and savants and, especially, his prison cell, finally exploring the surface of Stratos itself. It was contagious.

“All told, it seems your Founders were pretty good designers, making clever changes in the humans, plants, and animals they set down here, before fitting them into the ecosystem. They made some mistakes of course. That’s hardly unusual.…”

It felt blasphemous, hearing an outsider say such things. Perkinites and other heretics were known to criticize some of the choices made by Lysos and the other Founders, but never before had Maia heard anyone speak this way about their competence.

“… Time has erased most of the errors, by extinction or adaptation. It’s been long enough for things to settle down, at least among the lower life-forms.”

“Well, after all, it’s been hundreds of years,” Maia responded.

Renna tilted his head. “Is that how long you think humans have lived on Stratos?”

Maia frowned. “Um … sure. I mean, I don’t remember an exact figure. Does it matter?”

He looked at her in a way she found odd. “I suppose not. Still, that fits with the way your calendars …” Renna shook his head. “Never mind. Say, is that the sextant you told me about? The one you used to correct my latitude figures?”

Maia glanced at her wrist and the little instrument wrapped in its leather case. Renna was being kind again. Her improvements to his coordinates, back in jail, had been minimal. “Would you like to see it?” she asked, unstrapping the sextant and holding it toward him.

He handled it carefully, first using his fingertips to trace the engraved zep’lin design on the brass cover, then unfolding and delicately experimenting with the sighting arms. “Very nice tool,” he commented. “Handmade, you say? I’d love to see the workshop.”

Maia shivered at the thought. She had seen enough of male sanctuaries.

“Is this the dial you use for adjusting azimuth?” he asked.

“Azimuth? Oh, you mean star-height. Of course, you need a good horizon …”

Soon they were immersed in talk about the art of navigation, picking their way through a maze of terms inherited from altogether different traditions—his using complex machines to cross unimaginable emptiness, and hers from a heritage of countless lives spent refining rules learnt the hard way, battling the elements on Stratos’s capricious seas. Renna spoke respectfully of techniques that she knew had to seem primitive, in view of how far he had come—from those very lights Maia used as guideposts in the sky.

Sometimes, when a moon cleared the canyon walls to shine directly on his face, Maia was struck by a subtle difference which seemed suddenly enhanced. The long shadow of his cheekbone, or the way, in dim light, his pupils seemed to open wider than normal for Stratoin eyes. Would she have even noticed if she didn’t already know who, or what, he was?

They cut short the discussion when Baltha called a break. Their guide indicated a path to take their tired mounts onto a stony beach, where the party dismounted and spent some time rubbing and drying the horses’ feet and ankles, restoring circulation to parts numbed by cold water. It was hard labor, and Renna soon stripped off his coat. Maia could feel heat radiating from his body as he worked nearby. She remembered the sailors on the Wotan, whose powerful torsos always seemed so spendthrift of energy, wasting half of what they ate and drank in sweat and radiation. As cold as she was, especially in her fingers and toes, Renna’s nearby presence was rather pleasant. She felt tempted to draw closer, strictly to share the warmth he squandered so freely. Even the inevitable male odor wasn’t so bad.

Renna stood up, a puzzled expression on his face. Scanning the sky, his eyes narrowed and his brows came together in a furrow. Only as Maia rose to come alongside did she begin to notice something as well, a soft sound from overhead, like the distant buzzing of a swarm of bees.

“There!” he shouted, pointing to the west, just above the rim of the canyon.

Maia tried to sight along his arm. “Where? I can’t … Oh!”

She had seldom seen flying machines, even by daylight. Port Sanger’s small airfield was hidden beyond hills, with flight paths chosen not to disturb city dwellers. Not counting the weekly mail dirigible, true aircraft came only a few times a year. But what else could those lights be? Maia counted two … three pairs of winking pinpoints passing overhead as the delayed rumbling peaked and then followed the glitters eastward.

“Cy must’ve heard!” Renna shouted, as the canyon cut off sight of the moving stars. “She got through to Groves. They’ve come for us!”

For you, don’t you mean? Maia thought. Still, she was glad, intensely glad. This certainly verified Renna’s importance, for Caria to have sent such a force so far, impinging on the sovereignty of Long Valley Commonwealth, and even risking a fight.

Baltha, Thalla, and Kiel refused to even consider turning back.

“But it’s a rescue party! Surely they’ve come with enough force to—”

“That’s good,” Kiel agreed. “It’ll distract the bitches. Keep them off our trail. Maybe they’ll be so busy scrapping and arguing, we’ll have smooth sailing to the coast.”

Maia saw what was going on. Kiel and her friends had invested a lot in rescuing Renna. Apparently, they weren’t about to hand him over to a platoon of policewomen, who could claim they would have had him free tonight anyway. Far better from Kiel’s point of view to deliver him personally to a magistrate at Grange Head, where their success would be indisputable and the reward guaranteed.

Maia saw Renna consider. Would the women try to stop him if he turned around by himself? A male’s strength might not compensate much for the world-wise ferocity of Baltha, who looked like a born fighter and was never far from her effective-looking crowbar. The match was doubly dubious in winter, when male tempers ebbed toward nadir. Renna’s odds would improve with Maia by his side, but she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to fight Thalla and Kiel.

Anyway, suppose he did turn around. Tizbe wouldn’t have waited long to set out on their trail. Even if the prison-citadel was taken by Carian forces, Renna and Maia were likely to stumble into the Beller and her guards on the open prairie. They’d only be captured and taken to another hole, probably far worse than the one they had just left.

We really haven’t got much choice, Maia realized.

Still, in that moment her loyalties crystallized. She moved to stand next to Renna, ready to support whatever he decided. There was a long pause while the drone of engines faded gradually to a whisper, and then nothing. At last, the man shrugged.

“All right, let’s ride.”

Peripatetic’s Log: Stratos Mission: Arrival + 40.157 Ms

 

Cy complained about having to use archaic codes to guide my shuttle down the ancient landing beam. I was too nervous to be sympathetic. “Who had to learn an entirely new language?” I groused, while white flame licked the viewing ports and a heavy atmosphere tried to crush my cocoon like a grape in a vice. “It’s supposedly a dialect based on Florentinan, but they have parts of speech nobody’s seen before—feminine, masculine, neuter, and clonal … with redundancy cases, declensions, and drift-stop participles …”

I was jabbering to stave off raw terror. Even that diversion vanished when Cy asked me to shut up, letting her concentrate on getting me down in one piece. That left nothing to do except listen to the shrieking-hot wind against the hull plates, centimeters from my ear. Normal landings are bad. But I had never heard sounds like these. Stratoins breathe air thick enough to swim in.

It being summer when the Council finally voted permission to land, aurorae followed me down—curtains of electricity tapped into magnetic coils streaming off the red sun’s dwarf companion. I was headed for low latitudes, but even so, ribbons of ionic lightning caused sparks to crackle along a console, uncomfortably near my arm.

Ballistic crisis passed. Soon the lander was cutting tunnels through vast water-vapor clouds, then turning in a braking swoop over a quilt of dark forests and bright meadows. Finally, a riverside gleam led to clear signs of habitation and industry. For most of a Terran year, I had looked on this terrain from space, half-dead from the ennui of waiting. Now I pressed the window, drinking in the loveliness of Stratos … the somber luster of native vegetation and more luminous greens of Earth-derived life, the shimmer of her multicolored lakes, the atmospheric refraction which gives every horizon a subtle, concave bend. Hills rose to surround me. With a final stall that set my stomach spinning, Cy set the shuttle rolling across twenty hectares of pavement, split here and there by shoots of intruding grass. By the time the shuttle cooled enough to let down a narrow ramp, a welcoming party was already waiting.

I imagine their embroidered gowns would have fetched magnates’ prices on Pleasence, or even Earth. Of the five middle-aged women, none smiled. They kept their distance as I descended, and when we exchanged bows. No one offered to shake hands.

I’ve had warmer receptions … and far worse. Two of the women identified themselves as members of the reigning council. A third wore clerical robes and raised her arms to make what sounded like a cautious blessing. The remaining pair were university dons I’d already spoken with by videx. Savant Iolanthe, who seemed cautiously guarded, with sharply evaluating gray eyes, and Savant Melonni, who had seemed friendly during the long negotiations, but now kept well back, regarding me like a specimen of some rare and rather dubious species. One with a reputation for biting.

During the months spent peering in frustration from orbit, I’ve seen how most settlements rely on wind and solar and animal power for transport—fully in line with what I know of Lysian-Herlandist ideology. Industrialized regions make some use of combustion-powered land craft, however, and I was shown to a comfortable car equipped with a hydrogen-oxygen engine. To my amazement, nearly everything else, from chassis to furnishings, was crafted out of finely carved wood! I later surmised that this doesn’t just reflect the planet’s comparative poverty in metals. It is a statement of some sort.

I sat alone in one compartment, isolated from the others by a pane of glass. Which was just as well. My intestines complained noisily from prelanding treatments and, despite having spent several megaseconds acclimatizing to a simulated Stratos atmosphere, my lungs labored audibly in the heavy air. An assault of strange odors kept me busy stifling sneezes, and the carbon dioxide partial pressure triggered recurrent yawns. I must have been a sight to behold.

Yet, none of that seemed to matter in my elation to be down at last! This seems such a sophisticated, dignified world and folk, especially in comparison to what I met on Digby, or on godforsaken Heaven. I’m certain we can reach an understanding.

As our vehicle reached the edge of the landing field, escorts fell in ahead and behind … squadrons of finely-arrayed cavalry, making a splendid show in glittering cuirasses and helmets. The impression of uniformity and discipline was enhanced when I saw that the unit consisted entirely of tall women from a single family, of Stratoin clones, identical down to each shiny button and lock of hair. The soldiers looked formidable. My first close view of clan specialization in action.

On leaving the landing area, we passed the other part of the spaceport, the launching facility, with its ramps and booster rails for sending cargoes skyward, which must eventually carry my own shuttle, when the time comes to depart.

I saw no sign of activity. Through an intercom, one of the scholars explained that the facility was fully functional. “Carefully preserved for occasional use,” she said with a blithe wave of one hand.

I could not imagine what the word “occasional” meant to these people. But the word left me uneasy.