Glory Season

Maia recalled the var-trash romance novel she had read back in prison, about a world spun topsy-turvy, in which stodgy clans collapsed along with the stable conditions that had made them thrive, opening fresh niches to be filled by upstart variants. She also remembered. Re

Baltha and the reavers wanted enough chaos to knock loose some ancient clans, but solely in order that they might take those heights. It was a scheme more classically Lysian than either of the Perkinite or Radical dogmas. The Founders included vars like me because you can never be sure stability will last. They must have known it would mean some vars plotting to help nature along.

In fact, it must happen more often than she had imagined. Whenever such a scheme succeeded, it would be toned down in the histories. No sense encouraging other vars, downstream, to try the same thing! If Baltha managed to whelp a great house, she would not be depicted as a pirate by her heirs. It made Maia wonder about those embroidered tales told about the original Lamai. Had she, in fact, been a robber? A co

How does Re

She worried. What is Re

Seasons mixed in Maia's fantasy. Still asleep, her nostrils flared in sudden, unprovoked recollection — a distant scent of frost.

She awakened, blinking rapidly, knowing too little time had passed for it to be dawn. Yet she could see a little. Moonlight shone through cracks in the cave entrance. The whites of Brod's eyes were visible.

"You were quivering. Is something wrong?"

She sat up, embarrassed, though she knew not why.

Within, Maia felt an odd stirring, an emptiness that had nothing to do with hunger for food.

"I . . . was dreaming about home."

He nodded. "Me too. All this talk about heretics and rads and Kings, it got me thinking about a family I knew, back in Joa

"Yeown?" Maia frowned in puzzlement. "Oh, I've heard of them. Isn't that where . . . it's the clone daughters who go out to find niches, and the vars who stay behind?"

"That's right. Used to be some of the cities along the Mediant had whole quarters devoted to Yeown enclaves, surrounded by Getta walls. I've seen pictures. Most boys didn't go to sea, but stayed and studied crafts along with their summer sisters, then married into other Yeown clans. Kind of weird to imagine, but nice in a way."

Maia saw Brod's point of view. Such a way of life offered more options for a boy — and for summer girls who stayed where they were born, living with their mothers. …

And mothers, she supposed, finding it hard to conceive.

Without her recent studies, Maia might not have perceived how, unfortunately, the Yeown way ran counter to the drives of Stratoin biology. There were basic genetic reasons why time reinforced the tendency to need a winter birth first, or for mothers to feel more intense devotion to clone-daughters than their var-offspring. Humans were flexible creatures, and ideological fervor might overcome such drives for a generation, or several, but it wasn't surprising that Yeown heresies remained rare.

Brod continued. "I got to thinking about them because, well, you mentioned that book about the way people lived on Florentina World. You know, where they still had marriage? But I can tell you it wasn't like that in the Yeown home I knew. The husbands . . ." He spoke the word with evident embarrassment. "The husbands didn't make much noise or fuss. There was no talk among the neighbors of violence, even in summer. Of course, the men were still outnumbered by their wives and daughters, so it wasn't exactly like a Phylum world. With everyone watching, they kept real discreet, so as not to give Perkie agitators any excuse …"

Brod was rambling, and Maia found it hard to see what he was driving at. Did the lad have his own heretical sympathies? Did he dream of a way to live in one home year-round, in lasting contact with mates and offspring, experiencing less continuity than a mother, but far more than men normally knew on Stratos? It might sound fine in abstract, but how did the two sexes keep from getting on each other's nerves? Clearly, poor Brod was an idealist of the first water.

Maia recalled the one man she had lived near while growing up. An orthodox clan like Lamatia would never condone the sort of situation Brod described in a Yeown commune, but it did offer occasional, traditional refuge to retirees, like Old Coot Be

Maia felt a shiver, recalling the last time she had looked in Be

This was getting much too intense. She tried returning things to an abstract plane.

"I imagine Yeownists would get along with Kiel and her Radicals."

Brod shrugged. "I don't think the few remaining Yeowns would risk trouble, making political statements. They have enough problems nowadays. With the rate of summer births going up all over Stratos, making everybody so nervous, Perkinites are always looking for var-loving scapegoats.

"But y'know, I was thinking about the people who once dwelled here in the Dragons' Teeth. Maybe they started out as Yeowh followers, back at the time of the Defense.

"Think about it, Maia. I'll bet these sanctuaries weren't originally just for men. Imagine the technology they must've had! Men couldn't keep that up all by themselves. Nor could they have ever managed to beat the Enemy alone. I'm sure there were women living here, year-round, alongside the men. Somehow, they must've known a secret for managing that."

Maia was unconvinced. "If so, it didn't last. After the Defense, there came the Kings."

"Yeah," he admitted. "Later it corrupted into a fit of patriarchism. But everything was in chaos after the war. One brief aberration, no matter how scary, can't excuse the Council for burying the history of this place! For centuries or more, men and women must've worked together here, back when it was one of the most important sites on Stratos."