Glory Season

Maia shrugged. It might otherwise be a topic worth further speculation. But right now it seemed petty and pointless. Good intentions or no, she preferred that Naroin leave her alone. Fortunately the bosun seemed to sense this, and conversation lapsed.

Durga rose, backlighting the clouds and casting shafts of pearly radiance through gaps in the overcast, onto patches of choppy sea. Those patches, and the star-filled openings above them, corresponded like pieces of a child’s puzzle and the holes they were meant to occupy. Maia glimpsed bits of constellations, and could tell the ship was fleeing southward before the wind. The bow’s steady rise and fall felt like a slow, steady heartbeat, carrying them not just through dark seas, but through time. Each moment drew new patterns out of old configurations of wood, water, and flesh. Each novel, fleeting rearrangement set conditions for yet more patterns to follow.

It wasn’t just an abstraction. Somewhere in the darkness, a fast, radar-equipped vessel prowled, ever closer. “Don’t think about it,” Naroin told the nervous women in her squad. “Try to get some sleep.”

The idea was ludicrous, but Maia pretended to obey. She curled underneath her blanket as the bow rose and fell, rose and fell, reminding her of the horse’s rhythmic motion while fleeing across the plains of Long Valley. Maia closed her eyes for just a minute…

…and woke to a sharp pain, jabbing her thigh. She sat up, blinking. “I… what…?”

Women were milling around the forecastle, muttering in a dim, gray light. There was a smoky quality to the air, and a faint smell of soot. Something poked her leg again, and Maia turned to follow the impertinent curve of a deck shoe, up a scar-worn leg to a face belonging to Baltha. The tall easterling var had stripped to the waist, her breasts restrained with a tightly wrapped leather halter. Baltha’s blonde hair was tied back with a pink ribbon that seemed anomalously gay, given the glitter of feral combativeness in her eye. She grinned at Maia, stroking her trepp bill. “This is it, virgie. Ready for some fun?”

“Get back to your post,” Naroin snapped at the tall blonde. Baltha shrugged and sauntered away, rejoining her friends near where the cook tended a steaming cauldron. The rough-looking mercenaries from the Southern Isles stretched and toyed with their bills, poking one another playfully, showing no outward sign of nerves.

A cabin boy handed Maia a hot cup of tcha, which seemed to course through her, opening veins and briefly intensifying the dawn chill. There had been dreams, she recalled. Their last shreds were already dissipating, leaving only vague feelings of dire jeopardy.

Unlike the night before, there was no wind save a faint, intermittent zephyr, but a chugging vibration told that auxiliary engines were running, pushing the ship in clumsy flight. Holding her cup in one hand, Maia clutched the corners of her blanket and looked out to sea.

The first thing she noticed was an archipelago of jutting islets—resembling upended splinters of stone that had been wave-washed smooth over epochs far longer than humanity had been on Stratos. Erupting from abyssal water, the precipitous spires stretched like a sinuous chain of blunt needles, ranging from northwest to southeast. Rather than meeting a distinct horizon, they faded with distance into a soft, mysterious haze. Some of the nearer isles were large enough for their moss-encrusted flanks to converge on forest-topped ridges, from which spilled slender, spring-fed waterfalls.

“Poulandres was trying to reach those,” explained the young rad, Kau, when Maia wandered near the portside rail. A scar near her ear showed where Renna had tended her wound, after the fight aboard the Musseli locomotive. “Captain hoped to slip the reavers’ radar among ’em. But the wind let us down, and sunrise came too soon, alas. Now it’s going to be stand and fight.”

The dark-haired var gave Maia an amiable nudge. “Want to see the enemy?”

Do I have any choice? Maia reluctantly turned away from the entrancing isles to look where Kau gestured, toward a misleadingly rosy dawn. When she saw their pursuer, she gasped.

It’s so close!

A grimy-looking vessel cleaved the ocean, flinging spray from its bows. Only two sails were unfurled, but oily black fumes spilled from a pair of dark smokestacks. Agitated figures could be made out, milling on deck. The Manitou’s engines, generally reserved for harbor maneuvers, were no match for that power.

Kau commented. “Reavers often hide big motors inside normal-looking clippers. No getting away from this bunch, I’m afraid.”

The two girls heard a sigh. Standing nearby, looking at the foe-ship, Naroin recited:

“How Fast they came! Holy Mother, didst thou
With lips divinely smiling, ask:
What new mischance arrives upon thee now?”

There was sincere regret in the bosun’s sigh, yet Maia watched the rippling of slim, taut muscles under Naroin’s arms. Regret was not unstained by anticipation.

“Come on,” the older woman said, nodding toward Baltha’s squad. “Those southlanders have it right. Let’s get ready.”

Naroin gathered the foremost detachment of passengers, and started by inspecting their trepps, then passed out lengths of noosed rope which each woman hung from her belt. Soon she had them running through stretching routines. Maia threw herself into the exercises. The combination of hot tcha and exertion in minutes had her blood flowing, pounding in her ears. She smelled everything with unwonted intensity, from burning coal to the separate salt tangs of sea and perspiration. Colors came to her with an almost-painful vividness.

“Yah!” Naroin cried, swinging her bill. The women imitated. “Yah!” As they practiced, Maia sensed the pervading mood of fear evaporate. What replaced it wasn’t eagerness. Only a fool could not see that pain and defeated humiliation might lay ahead. Even one or more deaths, if full battle could not be avoided. Facing professionals would be more fearsome than skirmishing with part-time clone militiawomen had been, back in Long Valley.

Still, being a var meant knowing you might spend time as a warrior. Nor were these just any vars. Those who helped Thalla and Kiel had known it would be a risky enterprise. For the first time since Grange Head, Maia felt a sense of linkage to these rads. The one to her left grinned and clapped Maia on the back when Naroin called a break. Maia returned the smile, feeling limber, though far from happy.

“Hailing Manitou!” An amplified male voice caused heads to turn. Maia hurried back to the rail and choked when she saw how close the reaver was. Its bowsprit came abeam with their own ship’s fantail. “Hailing Manitou. This, is the Reckless, calling for you to heave over!”

Manitou’s captain lifted a bullhorn and shouted back. “By what right do you accost us?”

“By the Law of Lysos, and the Code of Ships! Will you split your cargo, sir?”

Maia watched Poulandres turn to consult Kiel, standing by his side, who shook her head emphatically. He accepted her answer with a passive shrug and lifted the bullhorn once more.

“My employers will fight for what is theirs. The cargo cannot be divided!”

Maia shook her head. I should think not. She saw Renna, standing near the cockpit, swiveling back and forth, staring in amazement. Does he realize they’re talking about him? She gripped her bill tightly, glad that her alien friend would be safe on the neutral territory of the quarterdeck during the coming fray.

The Reckless drew closer. It was a smaller ship than the Manitou. That, plus its powerful engines, made defense by maneuver useless. Neither captain would risk damaging his beloved ship in a collision. Not without insurance that neither reavers nor rads could afford.

A crowd of women had gathered at the approaching ship’s starboard rail, clutching bills, truncheons, and loops of coiled cord. More clambered the masts, edging onto the swaying spars. All wore the infamous red bandanna. A chill coursed Maia’s shoulder blades.

“Understood, sir,” one of the bearded men at the tiller of the reaver answered through his own megaphone. “Will you accept trial by champion, then?”

Again, a consultation with Kiel, followed by another headshake. Most reaver bands employed special champions, professional fighters among professionals. The rads knew their odds were better in a melee, though at inevitable cost. This wasn’t about sharing a hold full of cotton, coal, or dry goods. Theirs was a cargo worth