Glory Season

And what the wind and sun and ice leave, humans break with steel plows, or bake into bricks, or turn into golden grain which they ship across the sea.

Where are my prancing lingaroos? The grazing pantotheres, or nimble coil-boks, who used to roam my plain in numbers vast? They could not compete with cattle and mice. Or, if they could, humans intervened, improving strains they chose to use. New hooves mark my trails, while the old vanish into zoos.

No matter. Let invaders displace native creatures, who displaced others before them. Let my soil turn to rock, to sand, to soil once again. What difference do changes make, sifted by the sieve of time?

I wait, I abide, with the patience of stone.

* * *

Renna, and then Kiel, urged Maia to stretch out where a half-dozen other women lay together like swaddled cord-wood, all facing the same way for lack of room to turn. Not that discomfort kept any of them awake. In Thalia’s words, these weren’t pampered clonelings, to be irked by a mattress-covered pea. Their synchronized r-r-ronn of breathing soon drowned the gentle whine of the electric motors.

“No, thanks,” Maia told her friends. “I couldn’t sleep. Not now. Not yet.”

Kiel only nodded, settling into a niche near the brake box to doze sitting up. Renna, too, reached his limit. After badgering the poor, confused engineer with questions for just half an hour, he uncharacteristically let that suffice, and collapsed onto the blankets that had been thrown for his benefit over the widest space—a deck plate covering the thrumming engine gearbox. Its lullaby soon had him snoring with the best of them.

Maia unbuckled her sextant and sighted a few familiar stars. Although fatigue and the car’s vibration made it a rough fix, she was able to verify they were heading in the right direction. That didn’t entirely preclude the possibility of treachery—Am I growing cynical with age? she pondered dryly—but it felt reassuring to know that each passing second brought them closer to the sea. Maia quashed her misgivings. Kiel and the others know more than I do, and they seem confident enough.

Maia wasn’t the only insomniac keeping the engineer silent company. Baltha stood watch by the portside window, caressing her crowbar like a short-style trepp bill, as if eager to have just one whack at an enemy before making good their escape. Once, the rugged woman exchanged a long, enigmatic look with Maia. For the most part, each kept territorially to her own pane of cool glass, Baltha peering ahead and sniffing for danger, while Maia pretended to do her part, keeping lookout on the starboard side.

Not that bare eyes would do much good in the dark. At this speed, we’d barely see a thing before we hit it.

Moon-glint reflections off the arrow-straight rails diffracted hypnotically past her heavy, drooping eyelids. Maia let them close—just for a minute or two. There was no arresting of images, however. She continued picturing the locomotive, rushing across a chimeric rendition of the steppe, at first just like the moonlit plain outside, then increasingly the landscape of a dream. The gentle, frozen, prairie undulations began to move, to roll like ocean waves lapping either side of the steel-steady rails.

Fey certainty struck Maia. Something lay ahead, just out of sight. Premonition manifested as a vivid, prescient image, of this hurtling engine bound unalterably toward collision with a towering pile of rocks, recently lain across the tracks by a grinning Tizbe Beller.

“Run if you like,” her former tormentor crooned menacingly, like a storybook witch. “Did you honestly think you could escape the power of great clans, if they really want to stop you?”

Maia moaned, unable to move or waken. The phantom barricade loomed, graphic and frightening. Then, moments before impact, the stones making up the wall transformed. In a stretched instant, they metamorphosed into glistening eggs, which cracked open, releasing giant, pale birds. The birds spread vast wings and bound free of their dissolving shards, exhaling fire, sailing unconstrained to join their brethren, the glittering stars.

In her dream, Maia felt no relief to have them go. Rather, waves of desolate loneliness hit her, like a pang.

How come? she wondered. A reproving plaint from childhood. How come they get to fly… while I must stay behind?

* * *

Morning broke while Maia slept, curled in a blanket that steamed when struck by the newly risen sun. Renna gently shook her shoulder, and put a hot cup of tcha between her hands. Squinting at his open, unguarded face, Maia smiled gratefully.

“I think we’re going to make it!” the man commented with a tense confidence Maia found endearing. She would have been hurt if he said it to humor her. But rather, it felt as if she were the adult, charmed and indulgently warmed by his naive optimism. Maia had no idea how old Renna was, but she doubted the man would ever outgrow his sunny, mad enthusiasm for new things.

Breakfast consisted of millet meal and brown sugar, mixed with hot water from the engine’s auxiliary boiler. The fugitive train did not stop, or even slow, while they ate. Grasslands dotted with grazing herds swept by. Now and then, an unknowing cowhand lifted her arm to wave at the passing locomotive.

Between checks on her instruments, the Musseli driver told Maia and the others what she had heard yesterday, before coming to the rendezvous. There had indeed been fighting at the prison-sanctuary, the same night Maia and Renna saw aircraft cross the sky. Planetary Authority agents, using surprise to redress their small numbers, landed on the stony tower, seizing the erstwhile jail. Too late to do us much good, Maia thought sardonically. Except by distracting the Perkies. That could improve our chances a bit.

The next day, local militias had been called up throughout Long Valley. Matriarchs of the senior farming clans vowed “to defend local sovereignty and our sacred rights against meddling by federal authorities…” Accusations flew in both directions while neither side mentioned anything at all about the Visitor from the stars. In practical terms, there could still be plenty of trouble for the fugitive band, and no likelihood of more help from Caria City forces until they reached the sea.

To make matters worse, the population of the valley grew denser as they neared the coastal range. The locomotive streaked past hamlets and sleepy farming towns, then larger commercial centers and clusters of light manufacturing. Several times they had to slow to gingerly maneuver by heavy-laden hopper cars filled with wheat or yellow corn.

More often, the path seemed to open up like magic before them. At towns, they were nearly always waved on by stationmistresses who, Maia realized, must be part of the conspiracy. Bit by bit, the scope of this enterprise seemed to grow.

Are all the railroad clans involved? They’re not Perkies, but I’d have thought they’d at best stay neutral. It’s got to be pretty damn serious for a hard-nosed bunch like the Musseli to risk customer relations for a cause.

Maia pondered how, once again, she was probably missing the big picture. I used to think this was all about that drug which makes men summery in winter. But that’s just one part of it … not as important as Renna, for instance.

Could it be that he’s just one piece, too? Not a pawn like me, but no king, either. I could get killed without anyone ever taking the time to explain why.

Small surprise there. One advantage of a Lamatian education was that she and her sister hadn’t been raised to expect fairness from the world. “Roll with the blow!” Savant Claire had shouted, hitting Maia over and over with a padded stick during what was supposed to have been varling “combat practice,” a torture session that stretched on and on, until Maia finally learned to fall with the impact, not against it.