Brin, David - Glory Season

by Glory Season (mobi)

  Maia also would have preferred that, but two moons were already rising in the east, and another was due soon. Within hours, they would be high enough to illuminate the lagoon and its surrounding cliffs. "No." She shook her head. "Now's the time. Let's get on with it."

  Brod helped her arrange the harness he had made by using their salvaged scissors to slice the warning placards so graciously left by the Reigning Council. Maia wrapped her buttocks and thighs in strips of threatening phrases, and stepped into a double loop of cable meant for tethering and reeling transport zep'lins. The system was old, and might even predate the banishment, going back to days when men were said to have sailed the skies, as well as the seas, below. Maia only hoped the warrior clans who now used the equipment kept it in good condition.

  Next Brod handed her two patches of heavy cloth—the calf portions of his own trousers, which he had cut off for her to use as gauntlets. With these wrapped around her hands, Maia gripped the rough cable. "You're sure you've got the signals down?" she asked.

  He nodded. "Two yanks will mean stop. Three means reel you back. Four stands for wait. And five means I should come on down." The boy frowned unhappily. "Listen, Maia, I still think I should be the one to go first, instead."

  "We've been over this, Brod. I'm smaller and a lot less banged up than you are. Once I'm down, I might pass as one of the band in the dark. Anyway, you understand the winch machine. I'm counting on you to haul me out when I come back to the cable, after scouting around."

  Ideally, that would be with Renna in tow, rescued from right under the reavers' noses. But to count on such a miracle would be like believing in lugar savants. Still a long shot, but more conceivable, was the possibility of getting close enough to whisper to Renna through the bars of his cell, or to exchange brief taps in Morse code. Given just a few minutes of surreptitious contact, Maia felt sure she could sneak back with valuable information—the names of officials on the Council whom Renna trusted, for instance. The fivers might then use the secret comm unit with some hope they weren't just inviting another band of more aristocratic thugs.

  That is, providing the comm wasn't bugged, or set to call just one location. There were a dozen other malign possibilities, but what else could they do? The best reason of all to seek Renna was the near certainty he'd come up with a better plan.

  "Mm," Brod grunted unhappily. "And what if you're caught?"

  She grinned, shoving his shoulder playfully. "I know, you're worried about getting fed." Maia was also supposed to snatch any food she came across. But Brod looked hurt by her joke, so she spoke more gently. "Seriously, dear friend, use your own judgment. If you feel strong enough to wait, I suggest holding out till tomorrow night, before dawn. Lower yourself and try to steal the dinghy that's tethered to the Manitou's stern. Head for Halsey. At least there—"

  "Abandon you?" Brod objected. "I'll not do anything of the—"

  "Sure you will. I've been in jail before; I'll manage. Besides, if they catch me sneaking around the sanctuary tonight, their guard'll be up for more of the same. The only way you can help is by trying something different. Tell your guild how Corsh was murdered. Surrounded by witnesses, and with an unbugged comm, you can call the cops and every member of the Lyso-damned Council. It's still risky, but any conspirators may think twice about pulling dirty stunts with the Pinnipeds around as bystanders."

  "Mm. I guess it makes sense." He shook his head, scuffing gravel with his sandals. "I still wish . . . Just be careful, okay?"

  Maia threw her arms around him.

  "Yeah, I will." She squeezed, feeling him tense briefly in typical winter withdrawal, then relax and return her embrace with genuine intensity. Maia looked into his face, briefly glimpsing moistness in his eyes as Brod released and turned away without another word. She watched him cross the broad terrace and then disappear beyond the stone steps. It would take several minutes, as they had rehearsed, for her partner to reach the winch house. Meanwhile, she went to the edge of the plateau and pulled the line taut, bracing her feet and backing up until most of her weight hung over the precipice.

  I should be terrified, but I'm not.

  Maia seemed to have progressively lost her fear of heights, until all that remained was a pulse-augmenting exhilaration. Funny, since Lamais are all acrophobes. Maybe it was growing up in that attic. Or perhaps I take after my father . . . whoever the vrilly bastard was. Despite Brod's revelations, a name was still all she had of him. "Clevin." No image formed in her mind, though someone midway in appearance between Renna and old Bennett might do.

  Always alert for possible niches, Maia wondered if this calmness at the edge of a cliff might hint a useful talent. I must talk it over with Leie when I get a chance, she vowed. Maybe I'll put her in a cage, suspended from a great height, to see if it's genetic, or simply the result of environmental influences I've been through, since we parted.

  Of course, Maia would do no such thing. But the fantasy discharged some tension over the possibility of encountering her twin again. At Maia's waistband she felt the pressure of a wooden cudgel she had made from the leg of a broken placard easel. If necessary, she would use it even on her sister. The tiny scissors, bound in cloth, finished Maia's short inventory of weapons.

  It had better not come to a fight, she reminded herself. Stealth was her only real chance.

  A sudden vibration transmitted down the cable, starting her teeth chattering. Maia set her jaw and braced. At a count of five, cable started unreeling at a slow, steady pace. Maia overcame a momentary instinctual pang, allowing her weight to sink with the makeshift saddle. Her feet began walking backward, first over the edge, then in jouncing steps along the sheer face of the cliff. The plateau rose past her eyes, cutting off the faint, distant glimmer of the elevator shed.

  All that remained of the sky was what Jellicoe chose to let within its ragged circle—a cookie-cutter outline that narrowed with each passing moment. Only a wedge of reflected moonlight colored silver the tips of the highest western monoliths. Maia dropped into starlit gloom.

  Despite the darkness, she listened for any sign she'd been spotted. Her wrapped hands were ready to jerk hard at the cable, signaling Brod to throw the mechanism into reverse. Neither of them felt certain the crude signals would work, once a great length of cord had played out. Not that it made that much difference. Forward lay all their hopes. Behind lay only starvation.

  As her eyes adapted during the descent, Maia surveyed her surroundings. The lagoon was larger than it first appeared, since several small bays extended past partial gaps in the first circle of soaring spires. The wharf and ships lay some distance south and east, near the harbor entrance she and Brod had glimpsed while desperately evading the pirates' shelling. The pier led to a shelf of rock that rimmed part of the island's inner circumference at sea level. Bobbing lanterns could still be seen hurrying to and fro, mostly destined for the large stone portal lit on both sides by bright sconces. Interior illumination glowed through other openings, flanking the main entrance.

  That's the old residence sanctuary. The portion of Jellicoe the Council didn't seal off, she realized. As far as history is concerned, it's the only part anyone knows about. Long-abandoned ruins of a lost era, free to he used by any band of derelicts that happens along.

  Neither the ships, nor the ledge, nor any windows lay conveniently beneath her. She was headed for a swim. Not my best sport, as I've well learned. Maia didn't look forward to it, but her confidence was bolstered by experience. I may not swim well, or fast, but I'm hard to drown.

  Distance was difficult to gauge, since only a few warbled lamplight reflections distinguished the inky lagoon surface. As she descended, Maia fought a crawly sensation of vulnerability. If she was spotted now, she would be easy meat for reaver sharpshooters before ever climbing out of range, even if Brod read her signal at once and reversed traction. Maia consoled herself that any lookouts would be posted to watch for ships approaching from sea. Besides, reliance on lanterns only ruined a woman's
dark-adaptation. Old Bennett had taught her that long ago, when she first learned to read sky charts by starlight.

  I'm no more visible than a spider dropping at the end of a web. True or not, the mental image cheered Maia. To protect her eyes' sensitivity, she resisted the temptation to look at the lanterns, even as shouting voices could be distinguished, floating past like smoke up a chimney. Maia looked away, allowing her gaze to stroke the outlines of two score mighty peaks, looming like the outstretched fingers of Stratos-Mother, pointing at the sky.

  Pointing specifically at a dark nebula known as the Claw, which lay overhead as Maia looked up. It was a fitting symbol, of both obscurity and mystery. Beyond that great, starless sprawl lay the Hominid Phylum. All the worlds Renna knew. All that Lysos, and Maia's own fore-mothers, by choice left behind.

  It was their right, she thought. But where does that leave your descendants? How far do we owe loyalty to our creators' dream? When have we earned the right to dream for ourselves?

  Time once more to check her progress toward the water's chill surface. As she lowered her eyes, however, she caught a flicker. Faint as a single star, it gleamed where no star should—amid the sable blackness of Jellicoe's inner flank, where an expanse of dark stone should block light as adamantly as the Claw. Maia blinked as the dim, reddish spark shone briefly, then went out.

  Did I imagine it? she wondered afterward. It had been across the lagoon, far from either her own towering peak, which concealed the Council's defense base, or the adjacent one containing the old public sanctuary. Peering at a now-unrelieved wall of blankness, it was easy to convince herself she had seen nothing but a mote in her own eye.

  Much closer nearby, the sheer cliff was a blank enigma that occasionally reached out to brush Maia's feet or knees. Her arms were starting to hurt from holding on to the cable for so long. Diminished circulation set her legs tingling, despite Brod's improvised padding, but she could only shift gingerly, lest the makeshift, knotted harness loosen and drop her toward the inky surface below.

  Seawater smells rose to greet her. Shouts that had been garbled resolved into spoken words, surging in and out of decipherability as echoes fluttered against the cliff, meeting Maia's ears at the whim of random rock reflections.

  ". . . callin' for ever'body ..."

  ". . . quit that an'come help! I tol'y a-there's no ..."

  ". . . wasn't my dam' fault! ..."

  It didn't sound all that festive to Maia—certainly not like the normal, whooping frenzy of Farsun Eve. Maybe her calculations were wrong. Or, since there was no frost, and the only males present were presumably hostile, the reavers might be in no mood to celebrate.

  In that case, all this nighttime activity worried Maia. Perhaps the pirates were packing up, getting ready to leave. A sensible move, from their point of view, but a damned nuisance—and possibly fatal—from Maia's.

  Other sounds reached her. A soft rippling, the lapping of gentle waves against rock. I must be getting dose. She peered straight down, trying to gauge the remaining distance to a vague boundary between shades of black.

  Her waving feet abruptly touched frigid liquid, breaking surface tension with ripples that sounded oily and loud. Maia drew in her knees and yanked hard, perpendicular to the taut cord, repeating the motion to let Brod know to stop. There was no response; cable kept rolling off the drums, high overhead. Once more, Maia's legs met water and sank into a chill embrace, sending tremors of shock up her spine. Thighs, buttocks, and torso followed, slipping into an icy cold that sucked both heat and breath out of her with gasping speed. Frantically, Maia overcame muscle spasms to worm out of the constraining harness, awkwardly kicking free with a relieved sense of release. Only when she felt sure of not being reentangled did she flounder back, searching for the cable in order to try again signaling Brod.

  She was surprised, on snagging it at last, to find it motionless. Brod must have noticed a change once my weight was gone. We should've expected that. Anyway, it worked.

  She grabbed the cable in both hands, and yanked four times to confirm that she was all right. Her friend must have picked up the vibrations, for power flowed into the winch again in two rapid, upward jerks. Then it was still.

  Maia held on for a while longer; shaking sleep out of her legs. The initial shock of contact faded. With her free hand, she pulled on the slack until her former seat reappeared. Pieces of placard came loose and she retied them to float near the surface. If all went well in the period ahead—or very poorly—she would need this marker to find the hanging cord again. Maia felt sure no casual onlookers would notice it till morning, and Brod was to retract well before that, whether or not she had returned.

  In the course of turning around, memorizing landmarks, she looked up at the narrow patch of sky directly overhead, toward where Brod must be standing, peering down. Although there was no chance he could see, Maia waved. Then she cast off and started swimming as quietly as possible toward the dark shadow of the unlucky ship, Manitou.

  High tide had come close to being fatal, back in the collapsed cave. Now it proved convenient, as Maia sought a way to reach dry land.

  She breaststroked amid the pier's thick pilings, coated with pointy-shelled creatures up to the water's lapping edge. Plank boards formed a ceiling not far over Maia's head as she made for the dark bulk of the larger sailing vessel. There were no more excited shouts. Apparently, most of the reaver crew had entered the mountain sanctuary on some urgent errand. All was not silent, however. She could hear a low murmur of conversation—muffled voices coming from an indistinct location nearby.

  Maia swam past the dinghy she had spotted from high above. It bobbed gently, tethered to the Manitou's stern, and seemed to beckon, offering an easy way out of this calamitous adventure. First a silent drift to the lagoon's exit, then step the little mast and set sail ... All she'd have to deal with after that would be pursuit, possible starvation, and the wild sea.

  The thought was alluring, and Maia dismissed it. The dinghy was Brod's, should it come to that. Anyway, she had other destinations, other plans.

  Manitou's scarred flank drifted past as she swam quietly, searching for a way up. The pier was equipped with a ladder, over near the ship's gangplank. Unfortunately, one of the bright lanterns hung directly above that spot, casting a circle of dangerous illumination. So Maia tried another location. One of the lines tethering the freighter to the wharf stretched overhead amidships, far enough from the lantern to lie in darkness.

  Maia trod in place underneath the hawser, where it drooped closest to the water. She let her body sink, and then kicked upward, stretching as far as possible. Despite high tide, however, she came up short by half an arm's length and fell back with an unnerving splash. Maia stroked back under the pier and waited to be sure no one had heard. A minute passed. All appeared quiet. The low voices continued undisturbed in the distance.

  She undid the remaining buttons of her ragged shirt and struggled free of the sopping cloth. When in need, use what's at hand. It seemed she was getting more use of her clothes as tools than as coverings. Maia wrapped one sleeve around her right wrist and balled the rest into her palm, then she stretched her arm behind and, with all the force she could muster, threw the loose mass so that it draped over the rope. By flicking the end she held, Maia was able to cause the other sleeve to flop down. This time, when she surged upward, she had something to grab onto. Yanking on both sleeves, she lifted herself out of the water. The Manitou seemed to cooperate, the rope bowing a little farther under her weight while Maia tensed her stomach muscles and threw her legs around the cable.

  She hung there, breathing heavily for half a minute, then began inching along the hawser toward the ship. The struggle soon became as much vertical as horizontal. Maia was working so hard, she barely noticed the fierce chill as water evaporated from her skin. She gripped the rough, scratchy rope with her feet, knees, and hands, fighting bit by bit toward the railing overhead.

  The hull bumped her head. Maia turned an
d saw a dark vista of wood stretching in both directions. She also spied a row of portholes, each no wider than two outspread hands, running along the length of the ship, below the level of her knees. They were too small to enter, but the nearest lay open and within reach. Tightly clutching the rope with both hands, Maia let go with her legs so they swung toward the tiny opening. Second try, she hooked one foot inside and swung her center of gravity after it. Now she could rest nearly all her weight on the ledge, offering respite to the hands still clinging the rope. Waves of fatigue washed out of her arms and legs and back, until her pulse and breathing settled to a dull roar.

  So far so good. You've only got another couple more meters to climb.

  Something touched her foot. It settled around her ankle and squeezed. Maia very nearly screamed. Biting her lip fiercely, she forced herself to unwrap the knot of panic in her breast and open her tightly shut eyes. Fortunately, surprise was the only demon to overcome, since the presence below wasn't hurting her, yet. For now, it seemed content to rhythmically stroke the top of her foot.