Brin, David - Glory Season

by Glory Season (mobi)

Lysos! This was completely over Maia's head. The WIPE button beckoned . . . but curiosity stayed her hand. After all, this represented a lot of labor by the game's previous owner. If nothing else, the patterns might be pretty to watch.

  Sighing, she touched the referee symbol. The clock ticked down, eight, seven, six, five, four . . .

  The dots began to dance. Wherever an open space had the right number of neighbors, next round there was a black, or living square at that location. Others that had been black, but failed the programmed criteria, turned white the following round. With each clock throb, the patterns changed in whirling waves, some fragmenting or scattering upon touching the boundary, while others reflected back, adding to the maelstrom within. Ephemeral shapes appeared and vanished like bubbles passing through the plane of the board. Maia could only breathe a sigh as waves crashed against stable entities, transforming them. She saw gliders and noted their simple, crushed-triangular form. In one corner appeared a "glider gun," which spat out little flapping arrows at regular intervals, sending them whizzing across the board. There were spectacular collisions.

  It was enthralling to watch. Maia wondered if this would turn out to be one of those programs that became self-sustaining, with the whole board in a state of perpetual flux for as long as the machine was left on, each moment's array unlike any that had come before.

  Then, the pace began to slacken. Rapidly zipping entities started merging into complex but stationary units, arrayed in five deep columns across the board. Each of these underwent further evolution, slowing the rate of change still further as they converged on what she guessed must be a preplanned, final form.

  She could see it happening. Each step grew out of the one preceding it. Still, it took her by surprise when the patterns coalesced into individual letters.

  Words.

  HELP! PRISONER -39° F8 16'N, 67° F8 54'E

  The letters flickered, as if seen through turbid water, their component dots still blindly switching on and off, obeying set rules, unaware of anything more than two rows or columns away. Only collectively did they carry meaning, and that began dissolving as stern, mathematical laws tore fleeting cogency into swirls of returning chaos. Some driving force was spent. Blank patches spread, devouring the brief patterns.

  In seconds it was over. Maia stared at the pale game board—now empty, featureless—trying to convince herself she'd seen it: meaning, startling and unforeseen.

  Many species use environmental cues to trigger reproduction at certain times of year, leaving the rest peaceful and quiet. Humans have lost this ancient linkage with the calendar, resulting in our incessant obsession with, and subjugation to, sex.

  The time has come to restore wisdom to our rhythm of life, reestablishing serenity and predictability to the cycle of our years. Stratos seems ideal for this purpose, with its distinctive, planet-wide seasons. The birth ratio we foresee—of clones to old-style, sexually-derived offspring—need not be programmed-in. It will arise naturally out of two uneven periods of potential impregnation, separated by long stretches of relative calm.

  There are plenty of environmental effects we can utilize as cues, to trigger desire at appropriate times. Take the incredible, world-wide aurorae of high summer, during the planet's closest approach past tiny, fierce Waenglen's Star. If male chimpanzees are visually aroused by a mere flash of pink female swelling seen at long range through a forest, how difficult can it be for us to program a similar color-response in our males, triggered by these startling blue sky displays? Similarly, winter's special frost will signal changes in our women descendants, preparing them for amazonogenic cloning.

  There will be side-effects we cannot now predict, but the possibility of error should not deter us. We are only replacing one rather arbitrary set of stimuli and impulses with another. The new rules will, in fact, be more flexible and varied than the monotone lusts of old.

  One thing will remain constant. No matter what changes we make, the drama of birth and life will remain a matter of choice, of mind. We are not animals, after all. The environment may suggest. It may provoke. But in the end, our descendants will be thinking beings.

  It is by their thoughts and sentiments and strong wills that their way of life will be decided.

  11

  Around midnight, the star-filled patterns of the winter sky rose over the high mountains crowning the eastern horizon, casting glittering reflections across glaciers tucked in alpine dales. Summertime's celestial rash was over, tapering to a planetary glide as Stratos climbed its elliptic track toward the longest season. More than two Earth years would pass before the great plummet into spring. Till then, the Pelican of Euphrosyne, Epona, and the Dancing Dolphin would be regular occupants of night's high throne.

  Maia often used to wonder what it might be like to live on Florentina, or even Old Earth. Very strange, she imagined, and not just due to the primitive breeding patterns still followed there. She had read that on most habitable worlds, seasons were due to axial tilt, rather than orbital position. And winter was a time of bad weather.

  Here, under the thick atmosphere of Stratos, summer's necessary but brief disruptions passed quickly and were soon forgotten, while winter brought a long time of placid predictability. Rainclouds arrived in periodic, sweeping fronts, showering their moist loads across the continents, then replenishing over humid seas. For protracted intervals between storms, the sun nourished gently bowing, light-hungry crops, outshining its companion, Wengel Star, so overpoweringly that the white dwarf was no more than a faint glitter in the daytime sky, too dim to provoke even a sailor on leave. At night, no aurorae blared, only sprinkled constellations, twinkling like mad above the restless jet stream.

  It will be Autumn-End Day soon, Maia thought, watching the constellation Thalia climb slowly toward zenith. They'll be putting up decorations in Port Sanger. All the pleasure houses will close till midwinter, and men from the sanctuaries will stroll through wide-open gates, making paper airplanes of their old visitor passes. They'll get sweets and cider, and children will ride their shoulders, pulling their beards, making them laugh.

  Although rutting time had been effectively over before she and Leie departed on their ill-starred voyage, Autumn-End Day would mark the true start of winter's extended time of peace, lasting for nearly half of the long, uneven track of seasons, during which males were as harmless as lugars and the biggest problem was getting them to look up from their books, or whittling, or game boards. Half of the City Watch would disband till springtime. What need for patrols, with the streets as safe as houses?

  Maia had known she would probably never again celebrate Autumn-End in Port Sanger. But she hadn't figured on spending a festival day in prison. Would she still be here at Farsun Time, as well? Somehow, she doubted her jailers would throw a gala then, either—offering hot punch and luck tokens to passersby. (What passersby?) Nor were any of the Guel guards likely to dress up as the Frost Lady, carrying her magic ladder, waving a wand of plenty, and giving treats and noisemakers to good little girls.

  No, dammit! By Farsun Day, I'm going to be far away from here! She quashed a wave of homesickness.

  Maia shook away distracting thoughts and lifted her miniature sextant, concentrating on the immediate problem. She could not be sure of the exact time, let alone the date. Without an accurate clock, it was impossible to fix her east-west position accurately, even if the instrument was in perfect working order. Longitude was going to be fuzzy.

  But you don't need the exact time to figure latitude. You just have to know the sky.

  I wish I had my book of ephemerides, she thought, wondering if the stationmistress at Holly Lock had thrown out her duffel yet, along with her meager possessions. The slim volume carried the positions of major sighting stars to all the accuracy she'd ever need. Without it, memory would have to do.

  Maia rested her elbows on the sill of the narrow opening in the wall, and took another reference on Taranis, a compact stellar cluster where it was said the Enemy long ago la
id waste to two planets before coming here to meet defeat on Stratos. Twisting a dial moved the image in her cross-hairs till it kissed the south horizon's prairie-sharp edge in the sextant's tiny mirror. She lowered the device in order to peer at the dial, and jotted another figure in her notebook.

  At least there had been a ready solution to the problem of writing implements. Near the base of her makeshift observing pyramid, awkwardly covered by piled-up rags, lay the broken rain of a storage box. Maia had struggled for over an hour, soon after sunset, to heave the crate all the way up here by the window. Then, just half a second after she pushed it off, the box lost all that altitude, hitting the stone floor edge-on.The crash made a horrible racket, bringing guards to the door with muttered inquiries. But she had managed to appease the Guels, shouting that she'd only fallen while exercising. "I'm all right, though. Thank you for being concerned!"

  After a long pause, the Guels finally went away, grumbling. Maia dared not count on their incuriosity surviving a repetition. Fortunately, the crash had loosened several slats, spilling paper and writing utensils onto the floor. By then, the stars were out. For the next hour, she applied her rusty navigation skills to fixing the location of this high-plains prison.

  Maia lifted the notebook into Durga's wan light and added up the final result. Longitude is close to the one in the message, she thought. And latitude's nearly identical!

  At first, contemplating the communique that had appeared so astonishingly on the Game of Life board, she concluded it must be a bad joke. Someone at the factory must have inserted the plea—the way, as kids, she and Leie used to carefully pry open petu nuts and replace the meat with slips of paper saying, "Help! Squirrels are holding us in a petu tree!"

  Now she knew better. The message had not been coded before shipment. Whoever logged the memorandum had done so in a location very close to here. Within tens of kilometers. Yet she had seen no sign of any towns or habitations near this stone monolith. It was doubtful the countryside could support any.

  In effect, that could only mean the writer dwelt in this same tower, perhaps just meters away. Maia felt a bit guilty that another person's predicament could bring such joy. I'm not happy you're in jail, she thought of her fellow prisoner. But Lysos! It's good not to be alone anymore!

  They must be in similar situations—locked in storage chambers not designed as jail cells, but effective nonetheless. Yet, the other prisoner had proved resourceful. Finding herself in a storeroom filled with male-oriented recreation devices, she had managed to see in them a way to send the equivalent of messages in bottles.

  Maia pondered the other inmate's ingenious plan. These electronic game sets were costly, and the matriarchs of Long Valley weren't spendthrifts. Sooner or later, they would order the games and other amenities shipped off for resale .... perhaps to some sanctuary on the coast, or a seafarers' guild . . . eventually falling into the hands of someone able to read the programmed message. Any sailor would then know at once where a person was being held against her will.

  There were assumptions, of course. The Perkinite clan mothers might not act to cut their losses in the unfinished sanctuaries until absolutely sure the new drugs were working. That might take some time. Nor was that all, Maia thought cynically. Even if the games do get shipped, and assuming the messages aren't erased or read by wrong parties along the way. . . . Even if someone believes the plea, and reports it, then what?

  It wasn't as though the planetary authorities had swarms of mighty aircraft, or armies to send round the world at a moment's notice, just to correct far-off injustices. What forces Caria City had, it hoarded for emergencies. More likely, some lone investigator or magistrate would be sent the long way—by sea, then by train and horseback, taking the best part of a year to arrive, if ever.

  Assuming we're still here by then.

  Maia wasn't sure she could hold out that long. The other prisoner had a lot more patience.

  Still, it's a better plan than anything I came up with. Imagine figuring out how to do all this with a Game of Life set! Lacking a lifetime of practice, who could have created a message like that from scratch?

  A man? Maia snorted disdainfully. Someone with a savant's skills, surely.

  I wish I could meet her. Talk to her. Maybe there's a way.

  Maia guessed it must be close to midnight. She was about to poke her head out the window again, to check the progress of the stars, when suddenly she heard it start. The nightly clicking.

  Hastily, she angled her notebook into the moonlight and started making marks. A slash for every click, a dash for each beat that a pause lasted. After about twenty seconds, she stopped and read over the initial portion.

  "Click, click, pause, click," she recited slowly. "Click, click, pause, pause . . . yes. I'm sure it's the same as the other night!"

  Maia crammed the notebook in her belt and scrambled down the pyramid of boxes so quickly the unsteady construct teetered. Near bottom, her toe caught a fold of carpet, and she sprawled onto her hands and knees. Ignoring her scrapes, Maia came to her feet running.

  "Where is it?" she whispered, concentrating. Peering through the darkness, she followed her ears to the east wall. Crouching, tracing her hand along the cool stone, she had to creep to her right, pushing bundles and boxes aside. Reaching past a pile of stiff cushions, her fingers met what felt like a small metal plate, set low near the floor. The clicking sounded very close now!

  Feeling the outlines of the plate, Maia's hand brushed a tiny button in its center, which abruptly lit the area with stabbing blue electricity. With a reflexive yelp, she flew backward, landing hard. For six or eight heartbeats, Maia sat numb on the cold floor, sucking tingling fingertips before finally recovering enough to scramble up again, throwing cushions in all directions, clearing space until she saw that smaller sparks accompanied each audible click, momentarily illuminating the plate in the wall.

  Funny how I never noticed that before. Probably because I was looking for secret passages and trapdoors! Just goes to show, you never learn anything useful from fantasy novels.

  Until today, she hadn't imagined there might be ways to receive messages in this cell, or that those irritating clicks might really contain a code. But what else could they be? Would anything purely random, like a short circuit, repeat similar patterns two nights in succession?

  Still trembling, she pulled out her notebook and pencil and returned to copying down intermittent flashes in front of her. Even with dark-adapted eyes, Maia could hardly see the marks she made. We'll worry about that by daylight, she told herself when the clicking stopped, about five minutes later. Luck is definitely taking a tack my way.

  She knew there was little evidence to support such a broad conclusion. But hope was a heady brew, now that she had tasted some. Slipping the notebook under a pile of bedding, Maia wrapped herself in her makeshift blankets and tried to settle her mind for sleep.

  It wasn't easy. Her thoughts collided with fantasies and improbable scenarios of rescue, such as the policewoman from Caria, arriving in a grand zep'lin, waving seal-encrusted writs. Other images were less cheering. Memories of Leie beckoned Maia back toward despondency. Drifting sporadically toward full consciousness, she wondered if the clickings were really a message. If so, was it aimed at her, specifically?

  Idiot, she thought while passing through layers of half-slumber. How could anybody know you were here?

  Eventually, Maia dreamed of Lysos.

  The Founder was dressed in a flowing gown, and sat with piles of molecules to one side, adding one at a time to a string, like pearls on a necklace, or wooden balls on an abacus. The molecular chains clacked each time another joined the queue. Laying DNA codons in an endless chain, Lysos hummed sweetly as she worked.

  It took two more nights to copy the entire message and confirm she had it right, an exercise in patience unlike any Maia had known since she and Leie worked to solve the secret gate in Lamatia's wine cellar. Taking the time was necessary, though. Only on the third da
y did Maia feel ready to load the entire code string onto the Game of Life board.

  She began by making sure the board was set up with the same special rules as before, when it had played that "message in a bottle." The little window said RVRSBL CA 897W. Maia hoped the program would make sense of the clicks in the night. As before, the game area contracted to a square just fifty-nine units on a side, surrounded by a complex border.

  Okay, let's get started. Maia commenced laboriously turning each transcribed click into a black square, and leaving a space blank where there had been a second's worth of pause. On finishing one row of fifty-nine, she continued marking the next level, wrapping the presumed message back and forth like a snake climbing a brick wall. After what felt like hours, she finished fitting the entire sequence into the assigned space. The match couldn't be a coincidence! The resulting jumble of dots offered no meaning perceptible to the eye.

  Exhausted, she was relieved to hear the rattle of keys at the door. Maia covered the game board, though it probably made no difference if the Guels saw. Her muscles and joints hurt from spending so much time bent over the machine. This had better be worth it, she thought while silently eating under her keepers' dull gaze.