Glory Season

Without another word, he was on his feet and gone. "Help me up," Maia told her sister, although leaving the fresh airstream was like tearing away from life itself. Coughing, they both managed to reach the sextant. "Aim downward!" Maia gasped as Leie seized one of the measurement wheels. It was increasingly difficult to see the image of the dim room, portrayed on the magic wall. It jiggled at Leie's touch, then took a jerk upward. There was a glimpse of naked rock, some dark emptiness, a quick blaze of color, and then dark rock again.

"Don't say it!" Leie snapped, bending over to focus on one thumb and forefinger, despite her body's quivering. Maia marveled at her twin's concentrated intensity. In her own case, it was all she could do to keep from folding over and vomiting.

The picture wall jittered, shifting in fits and starts. Must break the sextant, if reavers get through, Maia reminded herself. Mustn't let 'em see the simulation … or know that the wall can come awake.

More shattering booms echoed, and there were loud cries. Had battle been joined? If so, the scene outside was appallingly sinful even to imagine . . . men against women … a Perkinite propagandist's dream come true. In fact, sex had almost nothing to do with the issues in question — crime versus law, ambition against honor. Gender was incidental, but legend would say otherwise, when and if word ever spread.

The picture jogged again. A bright wedge appeared across the upper fifth of the wall, hurtful in its brilliance. Leie grunted and tried again; the bright patch shot downward so that now the lower half of the screen blazed.

Blinking through the choking haze, Maia saw something she hadn't expected. It was not a simulated image of a room, some chamber below this one, but an abstract set of nested rectangles. Against a radiant background, three squares contained distinct glowing symbols — a snowflake, a fire-arrow, and a sailing ship. As Leie gradually nudged the scene so that it filled the wall before them, the borders around each of the squares began to throb.

A red dot appeared. Responding to Leie's controls, it wandered about. Both twins reached the obvious conclusion, at the same instant.

"I'll pick the sailboat," Leie said. But Maia shouted, "No!" She coughed, a series of rasping hacks, and shook her head. "Too obvious . . . go . . . with the arrow."

Behind them, they now heard screams. More gunfire and an angry clamor of combat. Leie's brow furrowed, running with perspiration, her eyes riveted on the screen. Wheezing from the effort, she brought the red dot into the square chosen by Maia.

A deep-throated tone rose beneath their feet. A growling,, deeper than the groans coming from the hallway. Those shouts grew closer as Maia and Leie fell back from the podium, which began vibrating powerfully. Rumbling from age and disuse, a hidden mechanism rolled the heavy stone aside. Light spilled from the widening gap, along with a welcome rush of cool, fresh air.

Masked figures were tumbling down the aisle behind them. The first rush of males arrived in an orderly fashion, bearing wounded comrades. After them spilled others, panicky, near-doubled-over, their makeshift smoke veils askew. There was no time for organization. "In here!" Leie cried, guiding refugees toward a set of stairs that had appeared below the podium. Sailors tumbled downward, pell-mell, although Maia now wondered.

What have I done?

A rear guard fought on, five or six men wrestling desperately with twice as many smaller figures, expertly wielding trepp bills. A gunshot bellowed, and one of the men clutched his abdomen, falling.

"Come on, Maia!" Leie screamed, shoving her into the bright aperture. Howls of angry pursuit rose as three reavers broke free to leap down rows of benches after them. One tripped and fell, then Maia was too busy negotiating the steep steps to look back. At bottom, a waiting man took her arm, preventing her from turning.

It's okay, Leie was just behind me, Maia told herself as she fled with other fugitives along a narrow hallway, under a low luminous ceiling, between cables and conduits. The constrained passage filled with sound as everyone seemed to be shouting at once. Alternate steps sent waves of pain swarming from her knee. At last, they reached a set of double doors made of sheet metal. An ad hoc squad of wounded men were using whatever they could find to wedge one of the doors shut. As soon as Maia was through, they started on the other. "Wait!" she cried. "My sister!"

She kept screaming while they finished, ignoring her pummeling assaults. It was the doctor who took Maia's face in his hands and repeated, over and over, "There was reavers behind ya, honey. Just reavers, a little ways behind ya!"

In confirmation, the doors shook resoundingly as they were struck from the other side, again and again. "Go on!" one dark, bloodstained man urged, leaning against the portal. "Get outta here!" Blinking, Maia recognized her recent fellow investigator — the navigator.