Glory Season

“They?” Bleariness kept intruding, causing the pale man and dark-haired woman to split into four overlapping figures. “You mean Kiel? And Thalla and Baltha?”

Naroin shook her head. “Baltha’s just a hired stick, like me. We aren’t part of the Big Scheme. Those other two are the paymasters. Seems a secret league of Rads has got plans for your starman, here.”

“No end to excitement on wonderful Stratos,” Renna added sardonically.

“Maybe … you could write a travel guide book,” Maia suggested, concentrating to control her dizziness. Renna laughed, especially when Naroin looked at them both quizzically and asked what in Lysos’s name a “travel guide” was.

“What are you doing here?” Maia asked the woman sailor. “This can’t be Wotan.”

That much was obvious. Every surface wasn’t coated with a film of black, anthracite dust. Naroin grimaced. “Nah. Wotan banged into a lighter in Artemesia Bay. Captain Pegyul an’ I had words over it, so I took my wages an’ papers an’ got another berth. Just my luck to land one haulin’ the weirdest atyp contraband I ever saw—no offense, Starman.”

“None taken.” Renna appeared unbothered. “Think we’ll have any chance to jump ship along the way?”

“Wouldn’t bet on it, Shoulders. That’s one crowd o’ dogged vars escortin’ you. B’sides, I’m not sure I wouldn’t let things ride, if I was you. There’s a lot worse lookin’ for your handsy alien tors than’s got you right now, if you follow. Even worse than crazy Perkie farmers.”

Renna wore a guarded expression. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t you know?” Naroin shrugged and changed the subject. “I’ll go tell the customers our drowned wharf mouse has come around. Just you two remember the first rule o’ summerling survival.” She tapped the side of her head. “Small mouth. Big ears.”

Naroin gave Maia a parting wink and left, sliding the cabin door shut along its rails. Renna watched her go, shaking his head slowly, then turned back to Maia. “Want some water?”

She nodded. “Please.”

He cradled her head while holding a brown earthenware cup to her mouth. Renna’s hands felt so much larger than Naroin’s, if not noticeably stronger. He laid Maia’s head back on the folded blanket she had been given for a pillow.

Or rather, lent. I don’t own a thing in the world, Maia thought, recalling the betrayal of Thalla and Kiel, that naked sprint through the streets of Grange Head, and her plummet into the icy bay. And my best, maybe only, friend on Stratos is a stranger who knows even less than I do.

The thought would have made her laugh bitterly, if she had energy to spare. Maia fought a losing battle just to keep her eyes open.

“That’s all right,” Renna commented. “Sleep. I’ll stay right here.”

She shook her head. “How long …”

“You were out most of three days. Had to drain half a liter of water out of you, when they dragged you aboard.”

So much for those swimming lessons the mothers paid for, she thought. Laps in the Port Sanger municipal pool had prepared her for real-life trials about as well as the rest of Lamatia’s much- vaunted summerling education.

“You’ve been here all the time?” Maia questioned Renna through an enveloping languor. He dismissed it with an offhand wave. “Had to go to the can once or twice, and… oh! I held onto something for you. Thought you might want it when you woke.”

Maia could barely focus on the glitter of brass as he slipped a small object, cool and rounded, between her hand and the coverlet. My sextant! she realized happily. It was just a silly, half-broken tool, of little utility. Yet it meant so much to have something familiar. Something allied to memories. Something that was hers. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Hey, hey,” Renna soothed. “Just rest now. I’ll be here.”

Maia wanted to protest that no one had to keep watch over her, but she lacked the will to speak. Part of her felt it was untrue.

Renna gently placed his hand over the one holding the sextant. His touch was warm, his calluses more evenly spread than Naroin’s coarse ridges. They must have come from more subtle labors, or perhaps even deliberate exercise; though, as she drifted off, Maia found herself wondering why anyone would ever lift a finger she or he didn’t have to. Better, it seemed, simply to lie in bed forever.

* * *

“What are you going to do, make me lie in bed forever?” Maia pounded the covers with both fists, causing the doctor to pull away the stethoscope. “Now, don’t get all worked up. I just said you should take it easy awhile. You’re young an’ strong, though. Get up whenever you like.”

“Eia!” Maia shouted, throwing the covers aside and bounding onto the wooden deck. Too quickly. She felt a rush of dizziness, but refused to let it show. “Anybody have some clothes to lend me? I’ll work off the debt first thing.”

“You don’t owe anybody,” Kiel said from the foot of the bed. “We’ll make up what was in the package we left for you, at the hotel. Clothes and some money. It’s yours, free and clear.”

“I don’t want your charity,” Maia snapped.

Standing across the small cabin, by the door, Thalla frowned unhappily. “Now don’t be mad, Maia. We only—”

“Who’s mad?” Maia interrupted, clenching a fist. “I understand why you did it. You’ve got big-time, political uses for Renna, and figured I’d just get in the way. Even though I’m a var like you.”

Thalla and Kiel looked pained, and relieved that Renna had stepped outside during the examination. “We’re engaged in dangerous business,” Kiel tried to explain.

“Too dangerous for me, but okay for Renna?”

“It’s probably a lot safer for the alien to come with us, than simply handing him over to the PES in Grange Head. There are … factions in Caria City. Factions that don’t have sweet plans for our Outsider.”

Maia found that believable. “And you rads don’t have plans, I take it?”

“Of course we do. We want to make a better world. But the peripatetic’s goals aren’t incompatible with our—”

The physician closed his bag with, a loud snap. His authoritative glare must have been learned at Health Scholarium. “S’cuse me for interruptin’, ladies, but did you say something about gettin’ this poor girl some clothes?”

Medicine was one rare track of higher education in which gender hardly mattered. Some excellent practitioners were men, who seldom let the innate mood swings of their sex interfere with professionalism. Thalla nodded quickly, at once the attentive and compliant var. “Yes, Doctor. I’ll get ’em now.”

At the door she turned back. “Meanwhile, don’t you run around naked on deck, Maia! Not a good habit in the big cities we’re headed to!” She giggled at her own wit and departed. Maia briefly glimpsed Renna pacing outside. He looked relieved when Thalla gave thumbs-up while closing the door.

“The youngster is undernourished,” the physician went on telling Kiel, while regarding Maia over the rims of his glasses. Maia crossed her arms and lifted her chin while he clucked disapprovingly over her thinness. “I’ll tell Cook double rations for a week. You make sure she eats every bite.”

“Yes, Doctor.” Kiel nodded obediently, waiting till he left before mimicking his stern look with knitted eyebrows and pursed, smacking lips. Under other circumstances, Maia might have found the lampoon hilarious. Now she succeeded in remaining grim, sending the dark var what she hoped was a fierce glower.

Kiel answered with a shrug. “All right. Crawl back under the covers. I’ll answer your questions.”

Maia chose to take the maternalistic tone as patronizing. She remained standing and held up one finger. “First, what are you planning to do with him?”

“Who, Renna? Why, nothing much. There are some areas of technology we want to ask about. He may not