Clearly, all rules had exceptions.
A growling sound distracted Maia, accompanied by an unpleasant churning in her stomach. Her bruised body wanted to be fed, the sooner the better. Yet, in order to have a chance of doing so, she must ignore it. Somehow, she and Brod would have to make it through what had apparently stymied countless interlopers before them. The only difference being that those others—hermits, tourists, explorers, pirates—had presumably come by boat in peace, able to leave again. For Maia and Brod, the motivation was stronger than greed or curiosity. Their only chance of surviving lay in getting beyond this wall.
"Sorry there's no sauce, or fire to cook it, but it's fresh. Eat up!"
Maia stared down at the creature that lay on the ground in front of her crossed legs, still flopping slightly. Emerging from a trance of concentration, she blinked at the unexpected sight of a fish, where none had been before. Turning to look at Brod, she saw new lacerations that bled fine lines across his chest and legs and arms. "You didn't climb back down, did you?"
The boy nodded. "Low tide. Saw some stranded critters on the bar. Anyway, we needed water. Here, tip your head back and open wide."
Maia saw that he carried in the crook of one arm a sodden ball of fabric, made of bits of canvas and his own rolled-up shirt. These he held out, dripping. With sudden eagerness arising from a thirst she hadn't recognized till now, Maia did as told. Brod wrung a stream of bitter saltwater, tanged with a faint hint of blood, into her mouth. She swallowed eagerly, overlooking the unpleasant taste. When finished drinking, she picked up the fish and bit into it ravenously, as she had seen sailors do.
"Mm . . . fank you, Broth . . . Mm del-ishush ..."
Sitting beside her, Brod chewed a fish of his own. "Pure self-interest. Keep up your strength, so you can get me outta here."
His confidence in her safecracking abilities was inspiring. Maia only wished it were well-founded. Oh, there had been progress, the last ten hours or so. She now knew which plates would move and which wouldn't. Of the stationary ones, some served as simple barriers, or bumpers against which moving tokens might bounce or reflect. A few others, by a process she was never able to discern clearly, seemed to absorb any plate that ran into them. The moving hexagon would merge with or pass behind the stable one, and stay there for perhaps half a minute, then reappear to reverse its path, returning the way it came. Each time one of these temporary absorptions occurred, Maia thought she heard a distant, low sound, like a humming gong.
Unfortunately, there weren't direct shots from movable hexagons to all the rigid ones. Nor would all combinations produce the absorbtion plus gong. Maia soon realized the solution must entail getting several plates going at the same time, arranging multiple collisions so that pieces would enter certain specific slots during the brief interval allowed.
For a while, I thought there was a clue in the fact that the puzzle is reversible . . . that everything returns to the same starting condition. The variant Life game that Renna used to send his radio message was a "reversible" version. But, as I think about it, that seems less likely. It's got to be simpler, having to do with those symbols inscribed on the plates.
There she counted on Brod. He knew many of the emblems from their use as labels in shipboard life. Box, can, and barrel, were tokens for containers, written, appropriately enough, across several of the static, "target" plates. Quite a few food items were included on movable ones. Beer was portrayed by a stein with foam pouring over the sides. There were also biscuit, hardtack, and the bread-and-jelly symbol she had seen earlier. Other insignia Brod identified as standing for compass, rudder, and cargo hook, while some still eluded interpretation. He had no idea what the fire-arrow stood for. Nor the depictions of a bee, a spiral, or a rearing horse. Still, Maia felt reinforced in her notion. This puzzle was meant to be easy for men to understand.
Or easier. I don't imagine all men were welcome, either. You'd still need to have been told some trick. Something simple enough to pass on from master to apprentice for generations.
Refreshed by food and drink, though not fully sated, they resumed experimenting for as long as the dim light lasted. That wasn't very long, unfortunately. Outside, it might remain day for several more hours. But even with their irises slitted wide, too little illumination pierced cracks in the cave wall to allow work past late afternoon, when Maia and Brod had to stop.
In darkness, huddled together for warmth, they listened to the tide return. Lying with her head on Brod's chest, Maia worried about Renna. What were the reaver folk doing to him? What purpose did they have in mind for the man from the stars?
Baltha and her crowd definitely had reason to make common cause with Kiel's Radicals, back when Renna languished in Perkinite hands. Perkinism preached taking Stratoin life much farther along the track designed by Lysos, toward a world almost void of variation, completely dedicated to self-cloning and stability. It suited the interests of both groups of vars to fight that.
Rads wanted the opposite, a moderation of the Plan, in which clones no longer utterly dominated political and economic life, and where men and vars were stronger, though never as dominant as in the bad old Phylum. Their idea was to sacrifice some stability for the sake of diversity and opportunity. That made the Radical program as heretical as Perkinism, if not more so.
Ironically, Baltha's cutthroat gang of reavers had a goal far less broad in scope, more aimed at self-interest. As Baltha hinted back on the Manitou, she and her group wanted no change in the way of life Lysos had ordained, only to shake things up a little.
Maia recalled the var-trash romance novel she had read back in prison, about a world spun topsy-turvy, in which stodgy clans collapsed along with the stable conditions that had made them thrive, opening fresh niches to be filled by upstart variants. She also remembered. Renna's comments on Lysian biology—how it had been inspired by certain lizards and insects, back on Old Earth. "Cloning lets you keep perfection. But perfection for what? Take aphids. In a fixed environment, they reproduce by self-copying. But come a dry spell, or frost, or disease, and suddenly they use sex like mad, mixing genes for new combinations, to meet new challenges." .
Baltha and the reavers wanted enough chaos to knock loose some ancient clans, but solely in order that they might take those heights. It was a scheme more classically Lysian than either of the Perkinite or Radical dogmas. The Founders included vars like me because you can never be sure stability will last. They must have known it would mean some vars plotting to help nature along.
In fact, it must happen more often than she had imagined. Whenever such a scheme succeeded, it would be toned down in the histories. No sense encouraging other vars, downstream, to try the same thing! If Baltha managed to whelp a great house, she would not be depicted as a pirate by her heirs. It made Maia wonder about those embroidered tales told about the original Lamai. Had she, in fact, been a robber? A conniver? Perhaps Leie had it right, choosing such company. If Maia's twin had tapped a ruthless side to their joint nature, should she be cheered, rather than reproved?
How does Renna fit into all this? Maia wondered. Do the reavers plan to provoke some sort of war among factions on the Reigning Council? Or retribution from the stars? That would shake things up, all right. Perhaps more than they realize.
She worried. What is Renna doing, right now? Earlier, while twilight settled, Maia had spoken to Brod about these quandries. He was a good listener, for a man, and seemed genuinely understanding. Maia felt grateful for his company and friendship. Nevertheless, after a while she had run out of energy. In darkness, she eventually lay quietly, letting Brod's body warmth help stave off the night chill. Breathing his male musk, Maia dozed while an odd sensation of well-being pervaded within the circle of his arm. Half-dreaming, she let images glide through her mind—of aurorae, streaming emerald and blue-gold sky curtains above the glaciers of home. And Wengel Star, brighter than the beacon of Lighthouse Sanctuary, at the harbor mouth. Those summertime themes blended with a favorite mem
ory of autumn, when men returned from exile, singing joyously amid swirls of multicolored, freshly fallen leaves.
Seasons mixed in Maia's fantasy. Still asleep, her nostrils flared in sudden, unprovoked recollection—a distant scent of frost.
She awakened, blinking rapidly, knowing too little time had passed for it to be dawn. Yet she could see a little. Moonlight shone through cracks in the cave entrance. The whites of Brod's eyes were visible.
"You were quivering. Is something wrong?"
She sat up, embarrassed, though she knew not why.
Within, Maia felt an odd stirring, an emptiness that had nothing to do with hunger for food.
"I . . . was dreaming about home."
He nodded. "Me too. All this talk about heretics and rads and Kings, it got me thinking about a family I knew, back in Joannaborg, who followed the Yeown Path."
"Yeown?" Maia frowned in puzzlement. "Oh, I've heard of them. Isn't that where . . . it's the clone daughters who go out to find niches, and the vars who stay behind?"
"That's right. Used to be some of the cities along the Mediant had whole quarters devoted to Yeown enclaves, surrounded by Getta walls. I've seen pictures. Most boys didn't go to sea, but stayed and studied crafts along with their summer sisters, then married into other Yeown clans. Kind of weird to imagine, but nice in a way."
Maia saw Brod's point of view. Such a way of life offered more options for a boy—and for summer girls who stayed where they were born, living with their mothers. ...
And mothers, she supposed, finding it hard to conceive.
Without her recent studies, Maia might not have perceived how, unfortunately, the Yeown way ran counter to the drives of Stratoin biology. There were basic genetic reasons why time reinforced the tendency to need a winter birth first, or for mothers to feel more intense devotion to clone-daughters than their var-offspring. Humans were flexible creatures, and ideological fervor might overcome such drives for a generation, or several, but it wasn't surprising that Yeown heresies remained rare.
Brod continued. "I got to thinking about them because, well, you mentioned that book about the way people lived on Florentina World. You know, where they still had marriage? But I can tell you it wasn't like that in the Yeown home I knew. The husbands . . ." He spoke the word with evident embarrassment. "The husbands didn't make much noise or fuss. There was no talk among the neighbors of violence, even in summer. Of course, the men were still outnumbered by their wives and daughters, so it wasn't exactly like a Phylum world. With everyone watching, they kept real discreet, so as not to give Perkie agitators any excuse ..."
Brod was rambling, and Maia found it hard to see what he was driving at. Did the lad have his own heretical sympathies? Did he dream of a way to live in one home year-round, in lasting contact with mates and offspring, experiencing less continuity than a mother, but far more than men normally knew on Stratos? It might sound fine in abstract, but how did the two sexes keep from getting on each other's nerves? Clearly, poor Brod was an idealist of the first water.
Maia recalled the one man she had lived near while growing up. An orthodox clan like Lamatia would never condone the sort of situation Brod described in a Yeown commune, but it did offer occasional, traditional refuge to retirees, like Old Coot Bennett.
Maia felt a shiver, recalling the last time she had looked in Bennett's rheumy eyes. Demi-leaves had swirled in autumnal cyclones, just like the image in her recent dream—as if subconsciously she had already been thinking about the coot. I used to wonder if he was the only man I'd ever know more than in passing. But Renna, and now Brod, have got me thinking peculiar thoughts. Keep it up, and I'll be a raving heretic, too.
This was getting much too intense. She tried returning things to an abstract plane.
"I imagine Yeownists would get along with Kiel and her Radicals."
Brod shrugged. "I don't think the few remaining Yeowns would risk trouble, making political statements. They have enough problems nowadays. With the rate of summer births going up all over Stratos, making everybody so nervous, Perkinites are always looking for var-loving scapegoats.
"But y'know, I was thinking about the people who once dwelled here in the Dragons' Teeth. Maybe they started out as Yeowh followers, back at the time of the Defense.
"Think about it, Maia. I'll bet these sanctuaries weren't originally just for men. Imagine the technology they must've had! Men couldn't keep that up all by themselves. Nor could they have ever managed to beat the Enemy alone. I'm sure there were women living here, year-round, alongside the men. Somehow, they must've known a secret for managing that."
Maia was unconvinced. "If so, it didn't last. After the Defense, there came the Kings."
"Yeah," he admitted. "Later it corrupted into a fit of patriarchism. But everything was in chaos after the war. One brief aberration, no matter how scary, can't excuse the Council for burying the history of this place! For centuries or more, men and women must've worked together here, back when it was one of the most important sites on Stratos."
The temptation to argue was strong, but Maia refrained from pouring water on her friend's enthusiastic theory. Renna had taught her to look back through a thick glass, one or two thousand years, and she knew how tricky that lens could be. Perhaps, with access to the Great Library in Caria, Brod's speculation might lead to something. Right now, though, the poor fellow seemed obsessed with scenarios, based more on hope than on data, in which females and males somehow stayed together. Did he picture some ancient paradise amid these jagged isles, in that heady time before the Kings' conceit toppled before the Great Clans? It seemed a waste of mental energy.
Maia felt overwhelming drowsiness climb her weary arms and legs. When Brod started to speak again, she patted his hand. "That's 'nuff for now, okay? Let's talk later. See you in the mornin', friend."
The young man paused, then put his arm around her as she lowered her head once more. "Yeah. Good rest, Maia."
"Mm."
This time it proved easy to doze off, and she did sleep well, for a while.
Then more dreams encroached. A mental image of the nearby, blood-bronze metal wall shimmered in ghostly overlay, superimposing upon the much-smaller, stony puzzle under Lamatia Hold. Totally different emblems and mechanisms, yet a voice within her suggested, True elegance is simplicity.
Still more vivid illusions followed. From those Port Sanger catacombs, her spirit seemed to rise through rocky layers, past the Lamai kitchens, through great halls and bedrooms, all the way up to lofty battlements where, within one corner tower, the clan kept its fine old telescope. Like the wall of hexagons, it was an implement of burnished metal, whose oiled bearings seemed nearly as smooth in action as the flowing plates. Overhead in Maia's dream lay a vast universe of stars. A realm of clean physics and honest geometries. A hopeful terrain, to be learned by heart.
Bennett's large hand lay upon her little one. A warm, comforting presence, guiding her, helping Maia dial in the main guide stars, iridescent nebulae, the winking navigation satellites.
Suddenly it was a year later . . . and there it was. In the logic of dreams, it had to show. Crossing the sky like a bright planet, but no planet, it moved of volition all its own, settling into orbit after coming from afar. A new star. A ship, erected for traveling to stars.
Thrilled at this new sight, wishing for someone to share it with, this older Maia went to fetch her aged friend, guiding his frail steps upstairs, toward the gleaming brass instrument. Now dim and slow, the coot took some time to comprehend this anomaly in the heavens. Then, to her dismay, his grizzled head rocked back, crying into the nigh—
Maia sat bolt upright, her heart racing from hormonal alarm. Brod snored nearby, on the cold stone floor. Dawn light crept through crevices in the rubble wall. Yet she stared straight ahead for many heartbeats, unseeing, willing herself to calm without forgetting.
Finally, Maia closed her eyes.
Knowing at last why they had sounded so familiar, she breathed aloud two
words.
"Jellicoe Beacon . . ."
A shared context. She had been so sure it would turn out to be simple. Something passed on from master to apprentice over generations, even given the notoriously poor continuity within the world of men. What she had never imagined was that luck would play a role in it!
Oh, surely there was a chance she and Brod would have figured it out by themselves, before they starved. But Coot Bennett had spoken those words, babbling out of some emotion-fraught store of ragged memory, the last time she heard him speak at all. And the phrases had lain in her subconscious ever since.
Had the old man been a member of some ancient conspiracy? One that was still active, so many centuries after the passing of the Kings? More likely, it had started out that way, but was by now a tattered remnant. A ritualized cult or lodge, one of countless many, with talisman phrases its members taught one another, no longer meaningful save in some vague sense of portent.
"I'm ready, Maia," Brod announced, crouching near one blank-featured hexagon. She placed her hand on another. "Good," Maia replied. "One more try, then, at the count of three. One, two, three!"
Brin, David - Glory Season Page 51