Glory Season

Leie's eyes gleamed with appreciation, the intricate play of bronze plates seemed so smooth and natural. It was a renowned rendition of one of the most famous allegorical tales on Stratos — a metaphor for one side of evolution.

Another door parted. The figure of a She-Ape emerged, carrying her traditional bundle of fruit. Same as last time, and the time before, Maia thought. It's cute, but monotonous.

She took a moment to glance back toward the cafe . . . and started in surprise. Only moments had passed, but now empty bottles lay where the lounging customers had sat. Naroin; too, had vanished.

Oh, well. She shook her head. None of my business. Besides, it's time to head uptown.

Maia tugged her sister's arm. Leie tried to shrug her off, entranced by the swiveling dance of metal figures. But now Maia insisted. "We've seen this part twice already! I don't want to miss the broadcast again."

Leie sighed dramatically, and Maia thought, I wish for once she wouldn't milk it, every time I want something, making it a "favor" to be repaid.

"All right," Leie agreed with an exaggerated shrug. "Let's go watch the news."

Behind them, across the cobbled plaza, the giant figure of Mother Lysos emerged through her own door above the other automatons, holding a bioscope in the crook of one arm. Looking down benignly, she took the scroll of law in her other hand, and used it to strike a mighty blow, severing forever the chains binding Woman to the will of Man.

Sure enough, a long queue had formed four streets uphill, outside the wooden amphitheater. Maia groaned in frustration.

"Guess we'll have to wait our turn," Leie said. "Oh well."

That was her twin, all right. Hot-tempered toward the faults of others. Fatalistically philosophical about her own. Maia fumed quietly, craning to see any sign of movement ahead. A guardia marshal stood by the ticket booth, both to keep order and to make sure no under-five summerlings from town creches sneaked in without notes from their clan mothers. Women by the door could be seen leaning inside, listening to snatches of amplified speech, then popping out to report to their friends. Murmurs of progressively degraded news riffled back to the sisters. As during the night of the reavers, Leie listened avidly and joined in this bucket brigade, even when the snippets were so obviously debased as to be worthless.

"You were right," Leie reported. "There was a piece about the Outsiders." She gestured vaguely skyward. "No pictures yet of the one that landed."

Maia exhaled disappointment. She had never before thought much about the Grand Council's stinginess with news. Power and wisdom went together, the clan mothers taught. Now though, Maia wondered if the heretic was right. The savants, councillors, and high priestesses seemed unwilling to say much, as if fearing the reaction of the masses.

From a clone's point of view, I guess every person who's not one of your full sisters is an unpredictable dilemma. It's just the same for us vars, only we're used to it. Maia found it a curiously comforting insight — that there was one way in which the winter-born went through life more afraid than summerlings. Uncertainty must be their biggest dread.

The middle moon, Athena, hung above the western horizon, a slender crescent with the plain of Mare Virgin-itatis brightening rapidly as the sun quenched behind a bank of sea clouds. It was a clear evening above Lanargh, with a chill in the air. The first stars were coming out.

There were separate lines for first-class and second-class viewing. The latter queue moved in stuttered fits toward the ticket booth, staffed by several pug-nosed women wearing spectacles and expressions of bemused skepticism. You'd think with demand this high, they'd build more theaters, no matter how much sets cost out here. Could all this public interest have taken them by surprise?

By the time standing room was available, and the twins squeezed into the back of the sweaty room, the program had finished with the headlines and main features, and was into a nightly segment called "Commentary." The young interviewer on the big wall screen looked familiar, naturally, since the same show appeared back home in Port Sanger. Her guest was an older woman, from attire clearly a savant from the university.

". . . despite all assurances we have received, what guarantee do we have that our Outsider friends are harmless, as they claim? We Stratoins recall with horror the last time danger arrived from space—"

The interviewer cut in. "But, Savant Sydonia, when the Enemy came, it was in a giant vessel, big as an asteroid! We can all see — those of us living in towns with astronomy clubs — that the Visitor Ship is far too small to carry armies."

Maia felt, a thrill of luck. They were discussing the aliens, after all. On the screen, the wise-looking savant nodded her head of noble gray hair. Camera beams highlighted wisdom lines around her eyes, though Maia suspected some of them might be makeup.