Brin, David - Glory Season

by Glory Season (mobi)

  "But if a World-Mother doesn't reply, Her excuse is simple. She never claimed conceited omnipotence. She has countless others clinging to Her apron strings, including myriad species unable to speak for themselves. To Her elder offspring She says—go raid the fridge. Go play outside. Go get a job.

  "Or better yet, lend me a hand! I have no time for idle whining."

  Maia closed the slim volume with a sigh. She had spent a good part of the afternoon pondering this excerpt, purported to have been written by the Great Founder herself. The passage was not part of formal scripture. Yet, even while working in the temple garden, Maia kept thinking about it. Priestess-Mother Kalor had lent her the book when more traditional readings failed to help ease her heart-pain. Against all expectation it had helped. The tone, more open and casual than liturgy, was poignantly humorous in parts. For the first time, Maia found she could picture Lysos as a person she might have liked to know. After weeks of depression, Maia managed her first, tentative smile.

  Her injuries had been worse than anyone thought, on steppmg from the Wotaris barge some weeks ago. Or perhaps the will to heal was lacking. When the manager of the small, dingy hotel found her in bed one morning, sweating and feverish, the clone had sent for sisters from the local temple, to come fetch Maia for tending.

  "So sorry, younger sister," the acolytes replied each morning. "There is no sign of the Zeus. No woman resembling Leie has made landfall." The temple mother even paid out of her own pocket to make Net calls to Lanargh and other ports. The ship Leie had been aboard was listed missing. The guild had filed for insurance and was in official mourning.

  Maia had thanked Mother Kalor for her kindness, then went to her cell and threw herself, sobbing, onto the narrow cot. She had wailed and clenched her fists, pounding the mattress till all sense left her fingers. She slept most of each day, tossed and turned each night, and lost interest in food.

  I wanted to die, she recalled.

  Mother Kalor had seemed unconcerned. "This is normal pass. We vars tend to cleave more closely, when we vi to someone. It makes mourning harder than any clone ..'I understand.

  "Unless the clone has lost all of her family at once, that is. Then such devastation you or I could not imagine."

  But Maia could imagine. In a sense she had lost a family, a clan. All her life, Leie had been there. Sometimes infuriating or stifling, that presence had also been her companionship, her ally, her mirrored reflection. The separation on departure morn had been Maia's idea, a way to develop independent skills, but the ultimate goal had always been a common one. The dream shared.

  She had cursed herself. It's my fault. If they had stayed together, they would be united now, living or dead.

  The priestess said all the expected things, about how survivors should not blame themselves. That Leie would have wanted Maia to prosper. That life must persevere. Maia appreciated the effort. At the same time, she felt resentment toward this woman for interfering in her misery. This var who had chosen to become a "mother" the safe and convenient way.

  At last, partly in exhaustion, Maia started to let go. Youth and good food sped physical healing. Theological contemplations played a small part, as well. I used to wonder how it is that men still have a thunder god. An all-seeing deity who watches every action, cares about all thoughts.

  Old Coot Bennett had spoken of his faith, which he thought fully consistent with devotion to Stratos Mother. Apparently it's passed down within the male sanctuaries, and couldn't be eradicated now, even if the savants and councillors and priestesses tried.

  But how did it get started? There were no men among the Founders, when the first dome habitats bloomed on Landing Continent. Multiple lab-designed generations came and went before the Great Changes were complete. Our ancestors knew nothing but what the Founders chose to tell them.

  So how did those first Stratoin men learn about God?

  It was more than an intellectual exercise. If Leie's gone, perhaps her soul field has joined with the planet's, and is part of the rainbow I see out there. The image was poetic and beautiful. Yet there was also something tempting about Old Bennett's notion of afterlife in a place called heaven, where a more personal continuation, including memories and a sense of self, was assured. According to Bennett, the dead could also hear you when you prayed.

  Leie? She projected slowly, solemnly. Can you hear me? If you do, could you give a sign? What's it like on the other side?

  There might have been a reply in the play of light upon the water, or in the distant cries of gulls. If so, it was too subtle for Maia to grasp. So, she took wry comfort imagining how her twin might respond to such an impertinent request.

  "Hey, I just got here, dummy. Besides, telling you would spoil the fun."

  With a sigh, Maia turned around and took a pair of pruning shears from the pocket of her borrowed smock. While healing, she had paid for room and board by helping tend the orchard of native Stratoin trees each temple was obliged to keep as part of a duty toward the planet. It was gentle work, and seemed to carry its own lesson.

  "You and me, we're both endangered, aren't we?" she told one short, spindly shrub she had been caring for, before abstraction took her away. Eons of evolution had equipped the jacar tree's umbrella leaves with chemical defenses to keep native herbivores at bay. Those toxins had proved useless at deterring creatures of Earthly stock, from rabbits to deer to birds. All found the jacar delicious, and only rarely did it take to cultivation. This garden's five specimens were listed in a catalog maintained in faraway Caria.

  "Maybe we both belong in a place like this," Maia added, taking a final snip and stepping back to regard a finished job. Then she turned to regard the orchard, the flower beds, the stucco-walled temple of refuge. Having second thoughts? she asked herself. A little late for that, now that you've said you're leaving.

  On her way back to the gardener's shed, she walked past the tumbled walls of an older building. An earlier temple, one of the sisters had explained, suggesting Maia ask Mother Kalor if she wanted to know more. First Maia had explored the ruins by herself, and been struck to find an eroded bas-relief, still faintly visible under clinging fingers of ivy. The easiest figure to recognize was a fierce, protecting dragon, a favorite symbol for the planetary spirit-deity, its wings outstretched above a scene of tumult. Jets of flame seemed to spear from its open jaws toward a hovering wheel-shape, defaced almost to nothing. Looking nearer, Maia had found that the "fire" consisted of thin lines originating from the dragon's teeth.

  Digging underneath the metaphorical beast, she had discovered, half-buried in the loam, a fierce battle of demons—one group bearing horns on their heads and the other beards—locked in hand-to-hand struggle so savage that, even muted by age, the sculpture made Maia shiver.

  Later on, she had learned that it was an ancient work, from a time soon after the Enemy came and nearly smashed hominid culture on Stratos. And no, Mother Kalor explained when asked, those demon horns were allegorical. The real foe had none.

  On closely inspecting the crumbly, sandstone faces, they had found that only half of the defending figures were bearded. Nevertheless, Maia asked, "Were they heretics?"

  "Those who built this temple? I hardly think so. There are Perkinites and others inland, of course. But to my knowledge, Grange Head has always been orthodox."

  Mother Kalor offered free use of the temple archives, and Maia was tempted. Had she been here for any other reason, she might have let curiosity lead her. But there seemed little point, nor energy to spare amid the tedium of grief and recovery. Anyway, Maia had made herself a vow—to be practical from now on, and live from day to day.

  Upon reaching the shed, she removed her smock and handed the pruning shears back to the chief gardener, who sat at a table tending seedlings. The elderly nun's beneficent smile showed what peace could be attained down this life path. The gentle path called the Refuge of Lysos.

  The priestess-mother hadn't seemed hurt by Maia's refusal of novice's robes. She took it
as a tribute to the temple's ministrations that Maia was ready to set forth once more. "Your place is in the thick of things," Kalor had said. "I'm sure fate and the world have a role for you."

  The kindness and gentleness she had received here lifted Maia's heart. I'll always remember this place. It was like folding a memento, to put away in an attic. She might take the memory out to look at, from time to time, but never to wear again.

  In other days she had felt one special reaction, on encountering some new idea, or person, or thing. She had always savored telling her twin about it. That fine anticipation had been far richer than simply remembering for its own sake. But from now on, whatever good things Maia found in the world, she must learn to esteem them all by herself. That naked fact continued to form a void deep within, despite a gradual deadening of her pain. Though lessening with time, the faint sense of loss would remain with her for as long as she lived, and she would call it childhood.

  Consider the nightmares of children. Or your own fears, walking down some darkened lane. Do you invent ghosts? Beasts of prey? Or do most dire phantoms take the form of men, lurking in shadows with vile intent? For adults and infants, women and men, fear usually comes in male raiment.

  Oh, often so does rescue. Our faction never claimed all men were brutes. To the contrary, history tells of marvelous human beings who happened to be male. But consider how much time and energy those good men spent just countering the bad ones. Cancel out both sides and what is left? More trouble than the good is worth.

  That was the rationale behind early parthenogenesis experiments on Herlandia—attempting to cull masculinity from the human process entirely. Attempts that failed. The need for a male component seems deeply woven through the chemistry of mammalian reproduction. Even our most advanced techniques cannot safely overcome it.

  Herlandia was a disappointment, but we learn from setbacks. If we must include men in our new world, let us design things so they will get in the way as little as possible.

  —from Forging Destiny, by Lysos

  5

  The voice, reading aloud, was among the most soothing Maia had ever heard.

  " '. . . And so, now that you've left the coastal mountains far behind, the grassy plains of Long Valley roll by your window like purple-crested crinolines, starched for show. A vast sea of low, unmoving waves. From your hurtling chariot, your gaze reaches across the prairie ocean, seeking anything to break the undulating monotony, making what it can of any post or protuberance that might imaginatively be called topography.

  "And you seek not in vain! For, far beyond this glorious expanse of blandness, you glimpse sequestered columns of wind-sculpted stone, green-crested rock monoliths, giving the eye something faraway to cling to. These are the distant Needle Towers, testaments to the power and persistence of natural erosion which carved them long before the arrival of humans on Stratos. . . .'" Already half-stupefied by the thrumming magnetic rails and the dusty sameness of the prairie, Maia listened to the other occupant of the baggage car orate from a volume with finely chased leather bindings. Though the air was parched, her companion never seemed to run dry.

  " 'According to recent reports, the elders who rule Long Valley have ordained that male sanctuaries be built on several far-off Needles, breaking a tradition of seasonal banishment which started with the first Perkinite settlements. . . .'"

  The hitchhiker called her book a "travel guide." Its apparent aim? To describe what the reader was seeing, while she was seeing it. But Tizbe Beller spent more time with her nose between the pages, making excited pronouncements, than actually looking through the grimy window at a succession of dreary farms and ranches. Does someone actually make a living writing such things? Maia wondered. Her companion proclaimed this one a masterpiece of its genre. Clearly, Tizbe came from a different background than Lamatia Clan, which gave its summer kids little exposure to the fine arts.

  " '. . . Currently, all men of virile years are banished from the valley each hot quarter, and kept away until the end of rut season. . ."

  Maia's fellow traveler lay atop a pile of coarse gunny-sacks, her blonde hair tied in a simple bun. Tizbe's clothing, ragged-looking from a distance, proved on closer inspection to be soft and well-made, clashing with the girl's claim of utter poverty. As Maia's assistant, she was supposed to pay for her passage by helping sling freight all the way to Holly Lock. So far, Maia was unimpressed.

  Don't be hasty to judge, she thought. Mother Kalor wouldn't approve.

  Before departing Grange Head, Maia had given the orthodox priestess a letter to deliver to any young woman passing through who resembled her. After all, Church doctrine held that miracles were possible, even in a world guided by chance and molecular affinities.

  "Must you go inland, child?" Mother Kalor had asked. "Long Valley is Perkinite country. They're a lock-kneed, fanatical bunch of smugs, and don't much care for men or vars."

  "Maybe so," Maia had replied. "But they hire vars for all sorts of jobs."

  "Jobs they won't do themselves."

  "I can't turn down steady work," Maia had answered, ending all argument. One thing for certain, if Leie ever did show up, she'd dish out hell if Maia hadn't been busy during their separation, using the time profitably.

  What luck that a railroad clan was just then looking for someone with a knack for figures. The work didn't involve differential calculus, only simple accounting, but Maia had been pleased to find some part of her education useful. Leie, too, would have been a cinch, with her love of machines. If only . . .

  Fortunately, Tizbe broke Maia's gloomy thought-spiral.

  "Listen to this!" The young hitchhiker lifted a finger and changed to a deep, somewhat pompous tone. " 'Of special interest to travelers is the system of freight and passenger carriage used in Long Valley, ideally suited to a pioneering subculture. The solar railway, operated jointly by the Musseli, Fontana, and Braket clans, should get you to your destination without excessive delays.'" Tizbe laughed. "That Fontana train was four hours late yesterday! And this Musseli clunker isn't doing much better!"

  Maia felt compelled to return a wry smile. Yet, Tizbe's contempt seemed unfair. Musseli Clan ran their trains on time during the cool seasons, when men of Rail Runner Guild helped drive the engines. Most males were banished each summer, though, and the long-limbed, flattish-faced Musseli were left short-staffed. They might have hired female engineers just as good as men—itinerant vars, or even a hive-clan of specialists. That would put the enterprise solely in the hands of women year-round, like everything else in Long Valley. But the region's leaders were caught between their ideology of radical separationism on the one hand and biological needs on the other. In order to produce clone-daughters, they must have men around from autumn to spring, to perform the vital "sparking" function. Keeping ample numbers of men occupied between brief sparkings meant giving them work. Here on the high plains, locomotives served the same secondary function as ships along the coast: to keep a small supply of men available, in compact, mobile, easy-to-manage groups.

  Hence the dilemma. If the notoriously touchy male engineers took offense over the hiring of summer replacements, they might not return at all next year. Which would be catastrophic, like leaving the orchards unpollinated. So, each summer, the rail clans just made do.

  Now, with its young men home from coastal sanctuaries, Rail Runner Guild was coming back to strength. Soon schedules would be met again. But Maia didn't bother trying to explain any of this. Tizbe seemed smugly certain she and her book had all the answers.

  "'The three rail-clans operate competing freight lines, each in partnership with a male guild, with shared ownership of capital approved by an act of the Planetary Council in the year. . . .'"

  A surprisingly close working relationship between the sexes, Maia pondered. Yet, hadn't Lamatia Hold once welcomed the same ships and sailors, year after year? Those flying the Pinniped banner? Preserving for them rights of all kinds, ranging from commerce to procreation? Who was she to say wha
t was normal, and what aberration?

  Perhaps the heretic in Lanargh is right. These may all be signs of changing times.

  The solar-electric locomotive sped along, faster than the swiftest horse or sailing ship. At each stop, out swarmed Rail Runner maintenance boys, toting tools and lubricants, and Musseli girls armed with clipboards and crate hooks, hurrying to service the machines and expedite cargo under the scrutiny of older supervisors. Maia had noticed that many of the orange-clad males bore faces strikingly similar to the female clones in maroon overalls.

  Imagine, sisters continuing to know their own brothers, and mothers their sons, long after life has turned them into men. Maia could think of several drawbacks and advantages to such a close relationship. She recalled sweet little Albert, whom she had tutored for a life at sea, and thought how nice it might have been to see how he grew up. The stray thought reminded her of those childish dreams of someday finding her own father. As if happenstance of sperm and egg meant anything in a big, hard world.

  A world capable of snapping stronger bonds than those.