Glory Season

was crafted out of finely carved wood! I later surmised that this doesn’t just reflect the planet’s comparative poverty in metals. It is a statement of some sort.

I sat alone in one compartment, isolated from the others by a pane of glass. Which was just as well. My intestines complained noisily from prelanding treatments and, despite having spent several megaseconds acclimatizing to a simulated Stratos atmosphere, my lungs labored audibly in the heavy air. An assault of strange odors kept me busy stifling sneezes, and the carbon dioxide partial pressure triggered recurrent yawns. I must have been a sight to behold. Yet, none of that seemed to matter in my elation to be down at last! This seems such a sophisticated, dignified world and folk, especially in comparison to what I met on Digby, or on godforsaken Heaven. I’m certain we can reach an understanding.

As our vehicle reached the edge of the landing field, escorts fell in ahead and behind… squadrons of finely-arrayed cavalry, making a splendid show in glittering cuirasses and helmets. The impression of uniformity and discipline was enhanced when I saw that the unit consisted entirely of tall women from a single family of Stratoin clones, identical down to each shiny button and lock of hair. The soldiers looked formidable. My first close view of clan specialization in action.

On leaving the landing area, we passed the other part of the spaceport, the launching facility, with its ramps and booster rails for sending cargoes skyward, which must eventually carry my own shuttle, when the time comes to depart.

I saw no sign of activity. Through an intercom, one of the scholars explained that the facility was fully functional. “Carefully preserved for occasional use,” she said with a blithe wave of one hand.

I could not imagine what the word “occasional” meant to these people. But the word left me uneasy.

14

Ocean surrounded her, threatening to engulf her. She clung to a splintered, oily timber, bobbing and jerking as contrary waves fought to possess it. Rain fell in blinding sheets, angled by gale-driven winds. In the distance, she watched a sailing vessel glide away, slicing through towering swells, ignoring her calls, her pleas to turn back.

On the deck of the departing ship, a girl stared in her direction, blindly, unseeing.

The girl had her own face. …

Dread welled up. Maia wanted to escape. But dreams had a way of trapping her by making her forget there was a “real” world to flee to. It took a whisper of true sound intruding on the dreamscape, to provide something to follow upward, outward, toward consciousness.

She wondered muzzily how she came to be lying here, wrapped in a scratchy woolen blanket, stretched upon gritty ground. Stone canyon walls felt like her jail cell, cold and enclosing, and the low clouds hung overhead like a dour ceiling. She propped up on one elbow, rubbing her eyes, looking at the leftover embers of a tiny campfire, then at the tethered horses, browsing shrubs down to bare twigs over by the stream. Two curled forms lay close enough to offer warmth on one side. From glimpses of unkempt hair poking from the blanket rolls, she recognized Thalla and Kiel and relaxed a bit, recalling she was among friends. Maia smiled, thinking once more about what they had done, rescuing her from the pit where Tizbe Beller and the Joplands and Lerners had consigned her.

Turning to her other side, Maia saw two empty blankets that had been thrown back, their occupants gone. The nearest bedroll was still slightly warm to touch. That person’s departure must have been what vexed her sleep, pulling her from disturbing dreams and memories of Leie.

Oh, yes. Renna. The Outsider had been a welcome heat source in the chill before dawn, when they had collapsed in exhaustion from their hard ride. Sight of his blue pouch and Game of Life set reassured her that he wasn’t gone for good.

The big blonde, Baltha, had been sleeping just beyond. Maia lay back, staring at the sky. Why would both of them get up at the same time? Did it matter? It wouldn’t be hard to slip back into slumber… and hopefully dream better dreams. …

A faint clatter—pebbles rolling down a slope—banished sleep and crystallized intent as she sat up. Slipping on her shoes, Maia crawled away from Thalia’s still form before standing and walking toward the source of the sound, somewhere upstream, where the surrounding bluffs had crumbled to give way to sloping ground. A flash of movement caught her eye, rounding the nearest hillock. She headed in that direction and was soon clambering over boulders, washed ice-smooth by successive summer floods.

The widening canyon offered less shelter from the cold. Maia exhaled fog and her fingertips grew numb from grabbing handholds lined with frost. A vaguely familiar scent made her nostrils flare, drawing her back to winters in Lamatia Hold, when Leie used to throw open the shutters on wintry mornings, thumping her chest, and inhaling the frigid air while Maia complained and burrowed in the covers. The unbeckoned memory brought a faint, sad smile as she climbed.

Maia stopped, listened. There was a scrape, a stone rattling downslope somewhere ahead and to her right. The way looked tricky. She paused, feeling torn between curiosity and a growing awareness of her replete bladder. Now that she was fully awake, it did seem a bit pointless, following people who were obviously out doing what she herself ought to find a place and do. Let’s just take care of business, eh? She began casting about for a convenient niche out of the wind.

The first spot she tried already had an occupant. Or occupants. A hissing squeal made Maia jump back in fright as a living rainbow flapped at her. She hurriedly retreated from the crevice where a mother zim-skimmer was tending its young—a cluster of tiny gasbags that inflated and deflated rapidly, wheezing in imitation of their belligerent dam. Smaller cousins of zoor-floaters, the skimmers had much worse temperaments, and poison quills that fended off Earth-descended birds seeking their tender flesh. The spines caused fierce allergic rashes, if a human was unlucky enough to brush one. Maia backed away, eyeing the deceptively diaphanous forms. Once safely out of sight, she turned and hurried along the half trail.

That was when, rounding a corner, she caught sight of someone just ahead.

Baltha.

The tall woman squatted, peering over a set of boulders at something downslope, out of Maia’s view. On the ground beside the var lay a small camp spade and a lidded wooden box, small enough to cover with one hand. While Baltha stared ahead intently, she idly reached out to brush a nearby rock, then brought her fingers to her face, sniffing.

Maia blinked. Of course. She scanned the ledges closest to her and saw, amid thin patches of normal white snow, streaks that shone with a diamondlike glitter. Glory frost. It’s winter, all right. The march of seasons had more effect on high, stratospheric winds than on the massive bulk of sea and land and air below. Varieties of turbulence unknown on other worlds recycled water vapor through ionic fluxes until an adenated ice formed. Occasionally, the crystals made their way to ground in soft, predawn hazes, as unique a sign of winter as Wengel Star’s flamboyant aurorae were to summer. Maia stretched toward the nearest sprinkling of glory frost. Static charge drew the shiny pseudogems to her fingertips, which tingled despite their morning numbness. Purple and golden highlights sparkled under innumerable facets as she turned them in the light. A visible vapor of sublimation rose from the points of contact.

In winters past, whenever glory had appeared on their sill, Maia and Leie used to giggle and try inhaling or tasting the fine, luminescent snow. The first time, she, not her sister, had been the bold one. “They say it’s just for grown-ups,” Leie had said nervously, parroting the mothers’ lessons. Of course that only made it more enticing.

The effects were disappointing. Other than a faint fizzing sensation that tickled the nose, the twins never felt anything abnormal or provocative.

But I’m older now, Maia reflected, watching her body heat turn fine powder into steam. There was something faintly different about the aroma, this time. At least, she could swear…

A sound sent her ducking for cover. It was a low whistling. A man—Renna, of course—could be heard tramping some distance away. Soon he came into sight, emerging from one of the countless side tributaries that