Glory Season

While Renna laid down that first row, the boys nudged each other, pointing and laughing. Whether they actually saw naivete in the design, or were just trying to rib the neophytes, it was unnerving. Worse, from Maia’s perspective, were the jibes of women spectators. Especially the and the southlanders, who clearly thought this exercise profoundly male-silly. A female crew member named Inanna whispered in a comrade’s ear, and they both laughed. Maia felt sure the joke was about her. She was doing herself no good, nor was it clear what Renna was going to learn.

Then why are we doing it?

The first row was finished. At once, the cook and cabin boy began laying down forty pieces of their own.

They used no notes, although Maia saw them confer once. A few seamen observed idly from the quarterdeck stairs, whittling sticks of soft wood into lacy, finely curled sculptures of sea animals.

When the boys signaled their turn finished, Renna took a long look and then shrugged. “Looks just like our first row. Maybe it’s coincidence. Might as well continue with our plan.”

So they laid another forty, mostly white side up, seeding enough strategically located black pieces so that when the game commenced and all the wound-up springs were released, a set of pulsing geometric patterns would embark on self-sustaining lifespans, setting forth to take part in the game’s brief ecology.

At least, we hope so.

It went on that way for some time as the sun set beyond the billowing, straining jib. Each side took turns laying forty disks, then watching and trying to guess what the other team was up to. There came one interruption when the wind shifted and the chief bosun called all hands to the rigging. Dashing to their tasks, sailors hauled lanyards and turned cranks in a whirl of straining muscles. The tack maneuver was accomplished with brisk efficiency, and all was calm again before Maia finished forty breaths. Naroin leaped down from the sheets, landing in a crouch. She grinned at Maia and gave thumbs-up before sauntering back to a spot along the port rail favored by the female crew members, who smoked pipes and gossiped quietly as game preparations resumed.

“Those devils,” Renna said after eight rows had been laid. Maia looked where he pointed, and momentarily saw what he meant. Apparently, their opponents had copied the same static “oasis” formation to sit in their most protected corner. In fact, she realized. They’re mimicking us right along! Only slight variations could be seen along the left-hand side. What’s the purpose of that? Are they making fun of us?

Differences began to creep in after the tenth row. Suddenly, the cook and cabin boy began laying down a completely different pattern. Maia recognized a glider gun, which was designed to fire gliders across the board. She also saw what could only be a cyclone—a configuration with the attribute of sucking to its doom any moving life pattern that came nearby. She pointed out the incipient design to Renna, who concentrated, and finally nodded.

“You’re right. That’d put our guardian in danger, wouldn’t it? Maybe we should move him to one side. To the right, do you think?”

“That would interfere with our short fence,” she pointed out. “We’ve already laid two rows for that pattern.”

“Mm. Okay, we’ll shift the guardian leftward, then.”

Maia tried to visualize what the game board would look like when completed. Already she could see how entities now in place would evolve during the first two, three, even five or six rounds. This particular area of hatch cover would be crossed by a newly launched mother ship. That area over there would writhe in alternating black and white swirls as a mustard seed turned round and round… a pretty but deceptively potent form. When she tried to follow the path of projectiles from the other side, Maia came to a horrified realization—one set of gliders would carom off the mirror-edge and come back spearing obliquely toward the very corner they had worked and planned so hard to protect!

Renna scratched his head when she pointed out the incipient disaster. “Looks like we’re cooked,” he said with a frown. Then he winced as Maia’s fingernails bit his arm.

“No, look!” she said, urgently. “What if we build our own glider gun… over there! We could set it to fire back into our own territory, intercepting their—”

“What?” Renna cut in, and Maia was briefly afraid she’d overstepped, injecting her own ideas into what was essentially his design. But he nodded in growing excitement. “Ye-e-s, I think it might… work.” He reached out and squeezed her shoulders, leaving them tingling. “That’d do it if we got the timing right. Of course, there’s the problem of debris, after the gliders collide…”

There was hardly enough room in the last few rows to lay down the improvised modifications. Fortunately, their opponents didn’t place another cyclone near the boundary. Maia’s new glider gun lay right along the border, with no room to spare. She was exhausted by the time the last piece had been set. And I thought this was a lazy man’s game. I guess spectators never know until they try a sport for themselves.

It was long past sunset. Lanterns were lit. Thalla arrived with a pair of coats. Slipping hers on, Maia realized everyone else had already dressed for the chill of evening. She must have been putting out too much nervous energy to notice.

Captain Poulandres approached, dressed in a cowled robe and carrying a crooked staff in his role as master and referee. Behind him, all the ship’s company save the helmsman, lookout, and sailmaster found perches from which to watch. They lounged casually, many wearing amused expressions. Maia saw none of the usual laying of bets.

Probably no takers for our side, whatever the odds.

Silence fell as the captain stepped forward to the edge of the game board, where the timing square was ready to send synchronized pulses to all pieces. At a set time, each of the sixteen hundred tiny units would either flip its louvers or rest quiet, depending on what its sensors told it about the state of its neighbors. The same decision would be made a few seconds later, when the next pulse arrived. And so on.

“Life is the continuation of existence,” the captain intoned. Perhaps it was the cowl that lent his voice a deep, vatic tone. Or maybe it was part of being captain.

“Life is the continuation of existence,” the ship’s company responded, echoing his words, accompanied by a background of creaking masts and flapping sails.

“Life is the continuation of existence, yet no thing endures. We are all patterns, seeking to propagate. Patterns which bring other patterns into being, then vanish, as if we’ve never been.”

Maia had heard the invocation so many times, recited in countless accents at dockside arenas in Port Sanger and elsewhere. She knew it by heart. Yet this was her first time standing as a contestant. Maia wondered how many other women had. No more than thousands, she felt sure. Maybe only hundreds.

Renna listened to the ancient words, clearly entranced.

“…We cannot control our progeny. Nor rule our inventions. Nor govern far consequences, save by the foresight to act well, then let go.

“All is in the preparation, and the moment of the act.

“What follows is posterity.”

The captain held out his staff, hovering above the winking timing square.

“Two teams have prepared. Let the act be done. Now… observe posterity.”

The staff struck down. The timing square began chiming its familiar eight-count. Even though she was prepared, Maia jumped when the flat array of sixteen hundred black and white pieces seemed all at once to explode.

Not all at once: In fact, fewer than half flipped their louvers, changing state because of what they sensed around them. But the impression of sudden, frantic clattering set Maia’s heart racing before a second wave of sound and motion suddenly crossed the board. And another.

Fortunately, she did not have to think. Any Game of Life match was already over the moment it began. From now on, they could only stand and watch the consequences unfold.

Peripatetic’s Log:

Stratos Mission: