Glory Season

The ship had stopped rocking, thank Stratos, or the shifting cargo would have quickly ground her to paste. Even with the coal bed lying still, nearly every square inch of her body felt crushed and scraped by jagged rocks. With nothing to do but inventory agonies, Maia found it possible to distinguish subtle differences in texture. Each chunk pressing her body had a sadistic personality so individual she might give it a name . . . this one, Needle; that one under her left breast, Pincher; and so on.

As fractions stretched into whole seconds and more, she grew aware of one, unique point of contact — a tight, throbbing constriction that felt smooth but rhythmically adamant. With shock, she realized someone was holding onto her leg! Hope coursed through Maia that she had been tossed upside down, leaving a foot exposed, and those pulsating squeezes meant help was coming!

Then she realized. It's the big sailor!

His hand must have connected with her foot at the last moment, while she swam the carbon tide. Now, whether conscious or dying, the man maintained this thin thread of human contact through their common tomb.

How ironic. Yet it seemed no more bizarre than anything else right now. It was company.

Maia felt sorry for Leie, when the news came. She'll imagine the end was more horrible than it is. It could be worse. I can't think how right now, but I'm sure it could be worse.

As she pondered that, the pulsing grip around her ankle tightened abruptly, spasmodically, clenching so hard that Maia moaned in fierce new pain. She felt the sailor's terrible convulsions, and his reflexive strength yanked her downward, stabbing her in a hundred places, making her gasp in anguish. Then the fierce grip began subsiding in a chain of diminishing tremors.

The throbbing constrictions stopped. Maia imagined she heard a distant rattle.

See? she told herself, as hot tears swept her eyes in total darkness. I told you. I told you it could be worse.

Quietly, she prepared for her own turn. The scientio-deist liturgy of her upbringing rose in her mind — catechistic lines Lamatia Hold dutifully taught its summer children in weekly chapel services, about the formless, maternal spirit of the world, at once loving, accepting, and strict.

For what hope hath a single, living "me,"

A mind, brief, yet self-important? Clinging

After life like a possession? Some thing she can keep?

She knew prayers for comfort, prayers for humility. But then, Maia wondered, if the soul field really does continue after organic life has ceased, what difference would a few words, mumbled in the dark mean to Stratos Mother? Or even the strange, all-seeing thunder god said to be worshiped privately by men? Surely neither of them would hold it against her if she saved her breath to live a few seconds longer?

Perceptory overload gradually shut down part of her agony. The claustrophobic pressure surrounding Maia, at first a horrid mass of biting claws, now had a numbing effect, as if satisfied to slowly crush all remaining sensation. The only impression increasing with time was of sound. Thumps and distant, dragging clatters.

Heartbeats passed, one by one. She counted them, at first to pass the time. Then incredulously, because they showed no imminent sign of stopping. Experimenting, Maia opened her mouth slightly, exposing her tongue and inner lips to sense what her battered, dust-covered face could not — a faint thread of cool air that seemed to stream down the shovel blade from somewhere near her hairline!

Yet, there had to be at least a meter of coal overhead. Probably much more!

There was no easy answer to this puzzle, and she tried not to think too hard. Even when Maia made out footsteps crunching overhead, and the hurried scrape of tools, she paid scant heed, clinging to the blanket of numb acceptance. Hope, if it raised her metabolism, was the last thing she needed right now.

Maybe it would be better if I slept awhile.

So Maia drifted in and out of anoxic slumber, vibrations along the shovel blade telling her how slow the progress of the rescuers remained. As if it matters.

Without warning, the tool shifted, and the blade that had succored her suddenly threatened to gouge her neck, causing Maia to squirm in terror. All at once, the black swaddling of coal became more tight, constricting, suffocating, than ever. Hysteria, so long held at bay by resigned numbness, sent tremors of resurgent fury coursing through her pinned arms and legs. Maia desperately fought a rising in her gorge.