Glory Season

I know what Leie would do now, Maia thought. She'd wait for others to wear Naroin down, pick out some weakness, then go at it with all panels charged.

But Maia wasn't her sister. Back in school she might watch a dozen bouts without recalling who had won, let alone who parried when for points. While her churning guts wanted to find some dim shadow, her rational mind said, Just get it over with. Anyway, if Naroin was trying to encourage proper womanly combat virtues, Maia could offer a good contrast to the Chuchyin, and surprise those who called her "virgie."

Fighting a queasy tremor, she stepped forward, silently drew the other padded training bill from the rack and faced the arena. She ignored the staring clones and vars, ritually scuffed the dust thrice, and bowed. Bearing her own cushioned weapon, Naroin beamed beneficence toward Maia's courtesy. Both of them extended their bills, hook end forward, for that first, formal tap …

Someone splashed water in her face. Maia coughed and sputtered. It stung not only of salt but of coal. A blur slowly resolved into a face … an old man's … the one who earlier had tousled her hair, she dimly recalled. "Here, now. Y'all hokay? Nothin' broke, i'zer?" He spoke a thick ma

"Mm. Ah see yet. S'not so bid. Here's sum salve that'll seer a beet."

Maia felt a whimper rise in her gorge and stifled it as he applied medicine from an earthenware jar. The agony departed in waves like an outgoing tide. Her throbbing pulse settled. When she next looked, the bleeding had stopped.

"That's . . . good stuff," she sighed.

"Our guild maybe small 'n' poorly, bit we got smart tube-boys beck in sanctuary."

"Mm, I'll bet." Between shipping seasons, some men dealt with extra time on their hands by fiddling in laboratories, either as guests in clanholds or at their own craggy hermitages. Few of the bearded tinkerers had much formal education, and most of their inventions were at best one-season marvels. A fraction reached the attention of the savants of Caria, to eventually be published or ba

She rose up on her elbows and looked around. Two pairs of second-class passengers were out on the hatch cover, sparring under shouted direction from the master-at-arms. Several others lay sprawled like she was, nursing bruises. Meanwhile, two female crew members sat by the forward cowling, one blowing a flute while the other sang in a low, sad alto voice.

The old man tsked. "Really pushin' this yar. Fool'sh, ru

"I s'pose," Maia murmured noncommittally. She rose to sitting position and then, grabbing a nearby rail, managed to hobble onto one leg. She was still woozy, and yet felt vaguely relieved. Real pain was seldom as bad as the expectation.

Fu

One of the practicing vars shouted and landed on the hatch with a loud thump. The women playing music switched to an ancient, plaintive melody that Maia recognized — about a wanderer, yearning for a home, a beloved, all of the hearth-joys that came so easily to some, but not others.

Resting against the gu

I do hope Leie's finding her trip just as interesting, came Maia's biting thought.

Two weeks later, on hitting their first landing in Queg Town, the twins finally set eyes on each other after their longest separation, and their reactions were identical. Each looked the other up and down . . . and simultaneously broke up laughing.

On the lower part of Leie's right leg, in a spot perfectly mirroring her own left, Maia saw a strip of new, pink scar tissue, healing neatly under the benign influence of sun, air, hard work, and saltwater.

Problem number one; lacking natural controls, our human descendants will tend to overbreed until Stratos can no longer support their numbers. Shall we then have come all this way to repeat the catastrophe of Earth?

One lesson we've learned — any effort to limit population ca

We could do it genetically, limiting each woman to just two births. But variants who break the programming will outbreed all others, soon putting us back where we started. Anyway, our descendants may at times need rapid reproduction. We mustn't limit them to a narrow way of life.

Our chief hope lies in finding ways of permanently tying self-interest to the common good.

The same holds for our other problem, which provoked this coalition to drop half-measures, leaving the Phylum's bland compromisers behind. The problem which drove us to this faraway world, seeking a lasting solution.

The problem of sex.

 — from The Apologia, by Lysos

3

Lanargh, their second port of call, was not counted among the chief cities of the world. Not in a league with those rimming the coast of Landing Continent. Still, the metropolis was big enough to give the twins pause after weeks evading icebergs on the high seas.

In Queg Town, the owners had found few buyers for Port Sanger coal. So the Zeus and Wotan wallowed with waves lapping high along their dented flanks. Whenever lookouts spotted floating isles of ice, auxiliary motors strained to alter course and miss the terrible white growlers. The wind was a fickle ally. Bosuns shouted and all hands heaved at balky sails. One jagged berg passed chillingly near Wotan's starboard withers — leaving Maia dry-mouthed and grateful they were convoying. In case of a mischance, only the Zeus was close enough to save them.

When they next neared shore, the former monotony of tundra had been replaced by stands of fog-shrouded conifers, giant redwoods whose ancestors had come to Stratos along with Maia's, tortuously, from Old Earth. The terran trees liked the misty coast, encouraged by forestry clans in their slow, silent struggle with native scrub. Sinuous trails showed where harvesters had recently dragged cut logs, to be herded in great rafts to market.

Maia's breath came short and quick as the Wotan finally rounded Point Defiance, where a famed stone dragon lay shadows of its broad wings over the harbor strait, symbolizing the protective love of Stratos Mother. Carved long ago, it honored the repulse, at great cost, of a landing force sent down by the Enemy foe ship, during dark, ancient days when women and men together fought to save the colony, their lives, and posterity. Maia knew little about that bygone era — history wasn't deemed a practical curriculum — but the statue was a stirring sight nonetheless.

Lanargh's famous five hills then appeared, one after another, lined with pale stone tiers, clanholds, and gardens, stretching for kilometers along the bay and into green-flanked mountainsides. The twins had always pictured Port Sanger as large and cosmopolitan, since its trade dominated much of the Parthenia Sea. But here, at the pivot of a vast ocean, Maia saw why Lanargh was properly called "Gateway to the East."

After tying at the quay assigned them by the harbor mistress, the crew watched the captain set off with the Bizmai cargo-owners to meet potential clients. Then liberty was called and the hands themselves spilled ashore, shouting with pleasure. Maia found Leie waiting at the foot of the wharf. "Beat ya again!" Maia's twin laughed, eking out another minor victory, knowing Maia didn't give a damn.