Glory Season (34 page)

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.