Glory Season

Maia half-raised her hand at mention of the First Mother’s name, but stopped short of drawing the circle sign. Somehow, she didn’t figure Kiel and Thalla were religious.

“It’s close to the edge, though,” the stocky woman went on. “Buy a few luxuries from the company store. Lose a few credits gambling… you see how it goes. Get into debt an’ there’s no escape till Amnesty Day, in late spring! And then where do you go? Me, I don’t plan stayin’ here past my seventh birthday. Got things to do, y’know.”

Maia refrained from pointing out that despite their dedication, Thalla and Kiel spent money on more than bare necessities. They had a little radio, and paid Lerner Hold for electricity to run it, sometimes late into the night. They bought flower and vegetable seedlings for the garden.

But then, maybe those were necessities. As she fell into the routine of labor at the mill, Maia came to see how such trimmings of civilization, slim as they were, made a key difference between holding your heading and losing your way, drifting into the endless half-life that seemed the fate of other var employees. Oh, the vars worked hard. Off hours, they laughed and sang and threw considerable energy into their games of chance. But they weren’t going anywhere. Proof lay in the next vale, upwind and out of sight of the factory, where the creche and playgrounds lay. Children, both winter- and summer-born, were housed and schooled there. Every single one had been born of a Lerner mother. No var’s womb had ripened here for as long as anyone recalled.

Maia, too, began counting her credits each night. Some went toward secondhand work clothes, a bar of soap, and other needs. When the weekly electricity bill came, Maia paid one-third. That left very little. Against all expectation, Maia found herself feeling homesick for the sea.

The policewoman promised me a stipend for showing up at Grange Head, she pondered wistfully. Even a modest reward for testifying would match what she cleared through hard labor here. Almost a week has passed. You could find out if it’s safe to make a break.

Her housemates quickly guessed that Maia was in flight from serious trouble. Though they did not press, and she withheld details, Maia took a chance and told the two women it was the mothers of Jopland Clan who were after her. That seemed to raise her standing with Kiel and Thalla. Kiel volunteered to check things out next Greers-day, when the supply wagon went to town. If it wasn’t too heavily laden, off-duty var employees could hitch a ride, for a small fee. Kiel had shopping to do, anyway. “I’ll look around for you, virgie, and see if the coast is clear.”

“I wish you’d tell us what you did to those biddies,” the dark woman said on her return, dropping her groceries on the rickety table and turning to Maia, wide-eyed. “You’ve sure gotten those Perkies riled. At train time I saw two Joplanders hanging around the station, about as subtle as a plow, pretending to be waiting for someone while they checked every var who came or went. Saw another pair on horseback, patrolling the road. They’re still lookin’ for you, vestal girl.”

Maia sighed. So much for a quick getaway. Make a note. Next time you take on those more powerful than you, pick a place with more than one back door. Holly Lock was about as far into the middle of nowhere as she could have found, and the railroad was the only fast way out of the valley. Even stealing a horse would do no good. The hue and cry would track her down long before she got near the coastal mountains, let alone Grange Head.

“Guess you made a smart choice after all,” Thalla suggested. “Headin’ further inland instead of trying for shore. Last place they’ll look is stinky Lerner Hold.”

Apparently. Or maybe Maia’s pursuers didn’t feel any need to check every hut and farmstead. All they had to do was watch all exits, and wait.

“Were they asking questions? Putting out my description?” she asked Kiel, who shrugged.

“Now, what var would tattle another var to a Perkinite? They know better than to ask.”

That sounded a bit facile to Maia. Antagonism between clones and summerlings was pretty intense in Long Valley. But she didn’t have much faith in var solidarity. More likely the other Lerner workers would sell her in a trice, for a big enough reward. Fortunately, only Thalla and Kiel seemed to much notice her existence. The renowned Jopland trait of stinginess was her chief hope. Plus the fact that Lerners themselves weren’t Perkinites, and had a tradition of staying at arm’s length from local politics.

We’ll see if I’m still hot in a week or so. If they lose interest, I could try walking out in stages, traveling by night and doing hobo labor for meals along the way …

Maia felt deeply the loss of her bag, left with the station-keepers in Holly Lock. The duffel contained her last mementos of Leie. Thinking about losing them made her feel even more lonely and sad.

At least she had two new friends. They were no substitute for Leie, but the sisterly warmth shown by Thalla and Kiel was the biggest reason Maia felt reluctant to go. The work was hard and the little cottage wasn’t much more than a hut, but it felt closer to “home” than anywhere she’d been since departing her attic room in Port Sanger, ages ago.

Days passed. The rhythm of the furnaces, the stench of local brown lignite, the rumbling of the metal rollers … even the heat ceased bothering her quite as much. The day set for her appointment at Grange Head came and went, but Maia didn’t figure the magistrate missed her much. She had told the officer in Caria all she knew. She had done her duty.

Besides, listening to Kiel and Thalla talk each night, Maia began to wonder. What did she owe to a power structure that offered so little to vars like her, while other women flourished simply because of a twist of birth timing? Her roommates didn’t seem to think it was heretical to ask questions about the way things worked. It was a frequent topic of conversation.

Sometimes at night they tuned their radio to a strange station, twisting dials to catch tinny voices reflected off high, magnetic layers. “No one can count on justice from corrupt officials in Caria City, who are bought an’ sold by the great hive-dam of Landing Continent. It’s up to the oppressed classes themselves to take a bold hand and change things. …”

Maia suspected the station was illegal. The words were angry, even rebellious, but more surprising to Maia was her own reaction. She wasn’t shocked at all. She turned to Kiel and asked if “oppressed classes” referred to summerlings like them.

“Sure does, virgie. Nowadays, with every niche sewn up by one clan or another, what chance do poor vars like us have to get something of our own started? Only way things will change is if we get together and change them ourselves.”

The voice on the radio echoed these sentiments. “…The tools used for suppression are many. We have seen a tradition of apathy promulgated, so that the nonclone turnout in elections on Eastern Continent hardly reached seven percent last year, despite intense efforts by the Radical Party and the Society of Scattered Seeds …”

That was how Savant Claire used to refer to the var-children Lamatia Hold cast forth each autumn. Scattered seeds. In theory, summerlings were supposed to search for and eventually find that special occupation they were born to be good at, then take root and flourish. Yet so many wound up in dead ends, either taking vows and sheltering in the church, or laboring like the Lerner employees, for room, board, and enough coinsticks to buy a few cheap pleasures.

Maia thought about all she had witnessed since leaving Port Sanger. “Some say there’ve been a lot more summer births, lately. That’s why there are so many of us.”

“Blood-spotting propaganda crap!” Thalla cursed. “They always complain there’s too many vars for open niches. But it’s just an excuse for poor pay. Even if you get a job, there’s no tenure. And usually it’s work no better than fit for a man.”

That answered Maia’s next question, whether males were also included under the classification of “oppressed classes.” Kiel had a point, though. Sure, the Lerners were good at what they did. In the furnaces and forges they always seemed to know where the next problem would arise, and watching a Lerner work metal was like seeing an artist in action. Still, did that give them the right to monopolize this kind of enterprise, wherever small-time foundries made economic sense?

“Perkinites are the worst,” Thalla muttered. “They’d rather have no summerlings at all. Would reopen the old gene labs if they could, fix things so there’d just be winter brats. Nothing but clones, all the time.”

Maia shook her head. “They may get their way without reopening the labs.”

“What do you mean?” Both young women asked. Looking up quickly, Maia realized she had almost let the