Glory Season

The commodore went on. "Should a winter come when your house seeks diligent men, prepared to do their duty with pride and pleasure, any of these" — he gestured at his younger comrades, who nodded earnestly—"will cheerfully come, without thought of summer reward." He paused. "I, alone, must decline, by the Rule of Lysos."

While Maia watched in stunned silence, he bowed once more. With a tone of flustered, confounded decorum, he added, "I hope we meet again, Maia. My name is Clevin."

There was glory frost that night, floating slowly downward from the stratosphere in a haze of soft, threadlike drifts that touched the wooden railings, the flagstones, the lilies in the pond, with glittering, luminous dust. Most of it evaporated on contact, filling the air with a faint, enticing perfume. Maia watched the gossamer tendrils waft past, and felt as if she were rising through a mist of microscopic stars. For a long time after, she would not go to sleep, afraid of what might happen. Lying in bed, her skin tingled with strange sensations and she wondered what would happen if she dreamed. Whose face would come to her? Brod's? Bennett's? The men of Pinniped Guild?

Would womanly hormones set off renewed, painful longing for Renna, her first, though chaste, male love?

The shock of meeting her natural father had not ebbed. Her thoughts roiled and she tossed in confusion. When Maia finally did dream, it was a strangely intangible fantasy — of falling, floating, amid the startling, abstract, ever-changing figures of the Jellicoe wonder wall.

Soon after dawn, the doctor arrived and announced in satisfaction that it would be her next-to-last visit. When she removed the agone leech, it was a chance for Maia to look closely at the box that had suppressed full vividness from both her body's ache and her heart's grief. It seemed a modest item, mass-produced and plentiful enough to furnish even the humblest medic, anywhere on Stratos. Now Maia also knew it as another product of a lesser Former, one of those automatic factories still operated under close watch by the Reigning Council. Clearly, some manufactured items were too important to be left to pastoral puritanism. If Perkinism prevailed, however, even these merciful boxes might go away.

"You'll still be needin' a bit more rest an' recoop here in Ursulaborg," Naroin explained later that morning, on returning from her urgent errand. "Then it's off to Caria for a command performance before as posh a gaggle o' savants as you've ever seen. What, d'you think o' that?"

Maia unfolded the arms of her replacement sextant and sighted on a grimlip flower. "I think you're a cop, and I shouldn't say anything more till I see a legalist."

"A legalist?" The small woman's brow knotted. "Why would you be needin' one?"

Why, indeed? Naroin might be her friend, but a clone was never entirely her own person. Once Maia was brought to Caria, Maia could think of a dozen excuses the powers that ruled Church and Council might use to lock her away. In a real prison, this time. One without secret byways, patrolled by clone guardians tested over centuries, genetically primed for vigilance.

Maia had decided not to let it come to that. This time, she would act first. Before she was taken from Ursulaborg, there should come a chance to slip away. Perhaps during her daily ride. Once away through the city crowds, she would seek shelter in an out-of-the-way place where important people might never trace her. Some quiet, dead-end seaside town. I'll find a way to get word to Leie, Brod. We'll open a chandler's shop. Repair sextants damaged by lazy sailors.

Perhaps Naroin could be persuaded to look the other way at the right moment. Best not to count on it, though.

"Never mind," she told the short brunette. "Had a nightmare. Can't shake the feeling I'm still living in it." .

"Who could blame you, after all you've been through." Naroin grinned. When Maia failed to respond, she leaned forward. "You think you're under arrest or somethin'? Is that it?"

"Could I walk out the front gate, if I so chose?"

The wiry ex-bosun frowned. "Wouldn't be wise, right now."

"I thought not."

"It's not what you think. There's folk who don't hold your health as dear as we do."

"Sure." Maia nodded. "I know you're lots nicer than some would be. Forget I asked."

Naroin chewed her lower lip unhappily. "You want to know what's goin' on. It's all changing so fast, though. . . . Look, I'm not supposed to say anythin' till she arrives, but there's someone comin' tomorrow to talk to you, and then escort you to the capital. I know it's fishy sounding, but it's needful. Can you trust me till then? I promise it'll all make sense."

A petulant part of Maia wanted to cling to resentment. But it was hard to stay wary of Naroin. They had been through so much together. I'd rather be dead than so suspicious I can't trust anybody.

"All right," she said. "Till tomorrow."