Renna looked perplexed, so she explained. "See, some people think flames overhead can simulate the effects of aurorae, get it? The glory-doped women ignited the ship. . . ."
"Hoping to get the men excited, too?" He looked apalled. "But . . . would it work?"
Maia stifled a giggle. "It's a joke, silly!"
She watched him picture the ludicrous scene, and then laughed aloud. At that moment Maia felt more relaxed than she had in—who knew how long? There was even a hint of what she had experienced back in her prison cell ... of something more than acquaintanceship. It was good having a friend.
But Renna's next question took her aback.
"So," he said. "Do you want to help me get ready for another Life match? Captain Poulandres has agreed to let us try again. This time the other side has to wind the pieces, so we can concentrate on coming up with a new strategy."
Maia blinked at him. "You're kidding, right?"
"Y'know, I never imagined the competition version involved so many tricky permutations. It's more complicated than painting pretty pictures with a reversible Life variant, as I did with my set in jail. It'll be a challenge holding our own against even junior players."
Maia could not believe his penchant for understatement. Just when she thought she was starting to understand Renna, he surprised her again. "All they want to do is laugh at us. I won't be embarrassed like that again."
Renna seemed puzzled. "It's only a game, Maia," he chided lightly.
"If you think that, then you don't know much about men on Stratos!"
Her hot response gave Renna pause. He pondered for a moment. "Well ... all the more reason to explore the matter further, then. Are you sure you won't . . . ?" When Maia shook her head firmly, he sighed. "In that case, I'd better get to work if I'm to have a game plan ready by this evening." He stood up. "We'll talk later?"
"Mm," she replied noncommittally, finding a way to occupy her hands and eyes, folding the sighting rods of her sextant with meticulous care as he departed with a cheery goodbye. Maia felt irked and confused as his footsteps receded—as much by his obstinacy in continuing to play the stupid game as by the way he took her refusal so well.
I guess I should be grateful to have a friend at all. She sighed. Nobody's ever going to find me indispensable, that's for sure.
It turned out he needed her even less than she had thought. When lunch was called, Maia took Renna his plate as usual, only to find him sitting near the fantail with the electronic Life Set on his lap, surrounded by a cluster of extremely attentive young rads.
"So you see," he explained, gesturing from one corner the board to the other. "If you want to create a simulated ecology that'll do both things—resist invasion from outside while persisting in a self-sustaining manner—you have to make sure all elements interact in such a way that—Ah, Maia!" Renna looked up with unmistakable pleasure. "Glad you've changed your mind. I had an idea. You can tell me if I'm being an idiot."
Don't tempt me, she thought in a flash of jealous temper. Which was silly, of course. Renna appeared oblivious, so caught up in his enthusiasm for concepts to notice that these vars weren't swarming over him out of any love of abstractions.
"Brought you the chef's special," she said, trying to maintain a light tone. "Of course, if anyone else is hungry . . ."
The other women shot her daggers. By unspoken agreement, two of them got up to fetch, so the rest could keep Renna attended.
They're the idiots, Maia thought, noting that other clusters of women could be seen following any ship's officer who stepped off the sacrosanct quarterdeck. All this had been provoked by the morning's glory fall. She doubted any of the vars actually wanted to get pregnant here and now. Not without a niche and bankroll to raise a child securely. Maia had seen women putting pinches of ovop leaf in their cheeks, as a safeguard against conception.
Even if pleasure was the sole objective, however, their hopes were ill-fated. Great clans spent fortunes entertaining men in winter, getting them in the mood. Without incentives, most of Manitou's sailors would choose whittling and games over providing exertive services free of charge. Well . . . I've seen exceptions, Maia admitted. But Tizbe Beller's drug was doubtless far too dear for rads to afford, even if they had the right contacts.
"Go on," one of the young women urged Renna. It was the slim blonde Maia had overheard earlier, now leaning against Renna's shoulder to look at the game board, hoping to distract his attention back from Maia. "You were talking about ecology," the rad said in a low voice. "Explain again what that has to do with the patterns of dots."
She's acting stupid on purpose. Maia watched Renna shift uncomfortably. And it's going to backfire on her.
Sure enough, Renna lifted his eyes in a silent sigh, and gave Maia an apologetic glance before answering. "What I meant was that each individual organism in an ecosystem interacts primarily with its neighbors, just like in the game, though, of course, the rules are vastly more complex ..."
Maia felt a moment of triumph. His look meant he preferred her conversation to the others' close-pressed attentions, no matter that they were older, physically more mature. Naturally, his reaction would have been different in summer, when rut turned all men into—
Wait a minute. Maia stopped short suddenly. We talked about seasonal sexuality on Stratos. Deep-down, though, I kept assuming that it applied to him.
Does it, though? Would summer and winter have anything to do with what Renna feels?
Maia backed away, watching as the Earthman patiently described how the array of black or white cells crudely simulated a kind of "life." Despite the simple level of his explanation, he seemed intent to look only at the game board, avoiding direct contact with his audience. For the first time, Maia noticed a sheen of perspiration on his brow.
"They got plans for him, you know."
Maia whirled. A tall, fair-haired woman had come up from behind. The rugged easterner, Baltha, picked her teeth with a wood sliver and leaned against the aft capstan. She grinned at Maia. "Your Earthman is worth a lot more to these rads than they're lettin' on, y'know."
Maia felt torn between curiosity and her dislike of the woman. "I know they need information, and advice from his ship's library. They want to know if something in it can help make Stratos more like other worlds."
Baltha raised an eyebrow. Perhaps the acknowledgment was mocking. "Information's nice. But I bet they seek help of a quicker sort."
"What do you mean?"
Baltha tossed the toothpick in an arc that carried it overboard. "Think about it, virgie. You see how they're already workin' on him. He'll be asked to earn his keep, in Ursulaborg. An' I just bet he's able."
Maia's face felt warm. "So? So he sparks a few—"
Baltha interrupted. "Sparks, hell! You just can't see, can you? Think, girlie. He's an alien! Now that may mean he's too different even to spark Strato-fems like us. Can't tell unless they try. But what about th' other extreme? What if his seed works, all right? What if it works the old-fashioned way, even in winter?"
Maia blinked as she worked out what Baltha meant. "You mean, his sperm might not spark clones ... but instead go all the way and make vars?" She looked up. "No matter what time of year it is?"
Baltha nodded. "Then, what if his var-sons inherited that knack? An' their sons? An' so on? Now wouldn't that throw a spanner in Lysos's plan?" She spat over the side.
Maia shook her head. "Something sounds wrong about that—"
"You bet it's wrong!" the big var cut in again. "Meddlin' with the design set down by our foremothers an' betters. Arrogant rad bitches."
Actually, Maia hadn't meant "wrong" in that sense. Although she couldn't spot the flaw at that moment, she felt certain there was something cockeyed with Baltha's reasoning. It struck Maia intuitively that the design of human life on Stratos wouldn't be so easily diverted, not even by seed taken from a man from the stars.
"I thought you hated the way things are, as much as the rads do," she asked, curious about
the venom in Baltha's voice. "You helped them get Renna away from the Perkinites."
"Alliance of convenience, virgie. Sure, my mates an' me hate Perkies. Stuck-up clans that want a lock on everything without keepin' on earnin' it. Lysos never meant that to happen. But from there on, we an' the rads part. Bleedin' heretics. We just want to shake things up, not change the laws o' nature!"
Why is she telling me this? Maia wondered, seeing a gleam in Baltha's eyes as she regarded Renna. "You have ideas about using him, too," Maia surmised.
The blonde var turned to look at her. "Don't know what you mean."
"I saw what you collected in your little box," Maia blurted, eager to see how Baltha would react when confronted. "Back in the canyon, while we were escaping."
"Why, you little sneak . . ." the woman growled. Then she stopped and a slow grin spread across her rugged features. "Well, good for you. Spyin's one of th' true arts. Might even be your niche, sweetums, if you ever learn to tell enemies from friends."
"I know the difference, thanks."
"Do you?"
"Like I can tell you'd use Renna for your own ends, at least as much as the rads want to."
Baltha sighed. "Everybody uses everybody else. Take your friends, Kiel an' Thalia. They used you, kiddo. Sold you to th' Bellers, in hopes of trackin' you to jail, an' maybe findin' their Starman wherever you were stashed."
Maia stared. "But ... I thought Calma Lerner . . ."
"Think what you like, citizen," Baltha answered sarcastically. "I know better than tryin' to tell nothin' to a upstart fiver, who's so sure she knows who's her good pals, who ain't."
The eastlander turned and sauntered away, wandering the railing that overlooked the cargo deck, where she began a low conversation with a large blonde woman, one of the female deckhands serving aboard the Manitou. Below, on the main deck, Naroin's voice could be heard, pulling a small band of women away from bothering sailors to take their turn at obligatory combat practice. Baltha grinned back at Maia, then picked up her own polished short-trepp, and slid down the gangway to join the session. Soon there came a staccato clicking of sticks, and a thump as somebody hit the ground.
Maia's thoughts rolled. She saw Thalia, about to take her turn in the practice ring, pluck a bill from the weapons rack. Glancing up, Thalia smiled at her, and in a rush, Maia was filled with an outraged sense of confirmation. Baltha's right, damn her! Kiel and Thalia must have used me.
A tidal surge of hurt and betrayal caused each breath to catch painfully in her throat. She had been angry with her former cottage-mates for trying to leave her behind in Grange Head, but this was worse. Far worse. I ... can't trust anybody.
The sense of perfidy hurt terribly. Yet, what strangely came to mind most strongly right then was the memory of cursing Calma Lerner and her doomed clan. I'm sorry, she thought. Even if Baltha turned out to be wrong, or lying, Maia felt ashamed of what she'd said in wrath, invoking maledictions on the hapless smithy family, whose members had never done her any real harm.
In the background, contrasting to her dark brooding, Renna's voice continued blithely, describing his strategy for the evening's match. ". . . so I was thinking, I could put a pinwheel at each end of the board, near the boundary . . ."
The voice was an irritation, scraping away at Maia's guilt-wallow. Even if Baltha lied, I'll never be able to trust Thalia and Kiel again. I'm as alone now as ever I was in my prison cell.
She closed her eyes. The rhythmic clicking of battle sticks was punctuated by Naroin's shouted instructions. Renna droned on. ". . . Naturally, they'll be struck by simulated objects coming from my opponents' side of the board. Most of those will be deflected by the pinwheel's arms. But there are certain basic shapes that worry me . . ."
Vagaries of wind caused the steersman to order a slight turn, bringing the sun around from behind a sail to shine on Maia's closed eyelids. She had to tighten them to sever innumerable stabbing, diffracted rays. In her sadness, Maia felt a return of that odd, displaced feeling she had experienced that morning. Sunlight enhanced those omnipresent speckles in their ceaseless dance before covered retinas ... a dance without end, the dance that accompanied all her dreams. Void of will, her awareness drew toward their flicker and swirl, seeming to laugh at her troubles, as if all worries were ephemera.
The speckled pavane was the only lasting thing that mattered.
"... You see how even a simple glider, striking at an angle, will cause my pinwheel to break up. . . ."
Unasked-for memories of those long days and nights in prison swarmed over her. Maia recalled how she had been entranced by the Life game, the patterns wonderfully mysterious as Renna's artistry unfolded in front of her. That had been a far more subtle exercise than playing a simple set match, throwing simulated figures against those devised by an opponent. But it was a cheat, since he had been able to use a form of the game that was reversible. The machine did all the work. No wonder he was having so much trouble dealing with the most trivial concepts of the competitive version.
She did not have to be looking at the board to envision the shapes he was describing. In her current state of consciousness, she could not prevent envisioning them.
The rads sitting around him must be bored out of their mind one part of her contemplated with some satisfaction. Yet it was a small part. The rest of her had fled from unbearable unhappiness into abstraction, only to be brought in a swirl of cavorting forms.
"... So I was thinking of placing an array of simple beacon patterns around the pinwheel, like this . . . you see? That ought to protect it from at least the first onslaught—"
'"Wrong!" Maia cried out loud, opening her eyes and turning around. Renna and the women stared in surprise. She strode toward them, brusquely shooing aside one of surprised vars to get at the game board. She took the stylus out of Renna's hand and quickly erased the array he has been building at one end of the boundary zone.
'Can't you see? Even I can. If you want to protect against gliders, you don't let your shapes just sit there, waiting to be hit. Your barrier's got to go out to meet them.
"Here, try—" She bit her lip, hesitating a moment, then drew a hurried swirl of dots on the display. Maia reached over to flick on the timing clock, and the configuration began throbbing, sending out concentric ovals of black dots that dissipated upon reaching a distance of eight squares from the center. It was reminiscent of the persistent, cyclic pattern of waves emanating from where drips from a faucet strike a pool of water. Left alone, the little array would keep sending out waves forever.
Renna looked up in surprise. "I've never seen that one before. What's it called?"
"I . . ." Maia shook her head. "I don't know. Must've seen it when I was a kid. It's obvious enough, though. Isn't it?"
"Mm. Indeed." Shaking his head, Renna took back the stylus and drew a glider gun on the other side of the board, aimed at the figure she had just drawn. He restarted the game clock, causing a series of flapping missiles to be fired straight toward with the pattern of concentric waves. They collided . . .
. . . and each one was swallowed with scarcely a ripple!
"I'll be damned." He shook his head admiringly. "But how would you defend this pattern against something larger, like was thrown against us last night?"
Maia snapped. "How should I know? Do you think I'm a boy?"
Several of the rads chuckled, uncertainly, and Maia didn't care if they were laughing with, or at her. One of the young women got up with a sniff and walked away. Maia rubbed her chin, looking at the game board. "Now that you mention it, though, I can suggest one way to fend off that bulldozer contraption the cook and cabin boy used against us."
"Yes?" Renna made room on the bench and another var reluctantly gave way as Maia sat down. "Look, I don't know the terminology," she said, with some of her accustomed uncertainty returning. "But it's obvious the thing's crossbar doohickey reflects certain patterns which . . ."
She drew as she spoke, with Renna occasionally interjecting a com
ment, or more often a question. Maia hardly noticed as the other vars drifted away, one by one. Their opinions didn't matter anymore, nor was she any longer embarrassed being seen interested in the male-silly game. Renna took her seriously, which none of her fellow womenfolk ever had. He paid close attention, contributing insights, sharing a growing pleasure in an abstract exercise.
By suppertime, they thought they had a plan.
Peripatetic's Log:
Stratos Mission:
Arrival + 45.290 Ms
What is sentience to the universe? Brief moments of insight? The self-contemplation of mayflies? What is the point of human life, if so much of it must be spent climbing through awkward childhood and adolescence, slowly gathering the skills needed to comprehend and create . . . only to begin that long decline to extinction? Lucky the woman or man who achieves excellence for even a brief span. The light shines brightly for mere moments, then is gone.
Brin, David - Glory Season Page 37