Glory Season (39 page)

Are all the railroad clans involved? They’re not Perkies, but I’d have thought they’d at best stay neutral. It’s got to be pretty damn serious for a hard-nosed bunch like the Musseli to risk customer relations for a cause.

Maia pondered how, once again, she was probably missing the big picture.
I used to think this was all about that drug which makes men summery in winter. But that’s just one part of it … not as important as Renna, for instance.

Could it be that he’s just one piece, too? Not a pawn like me, but no king, either. I could get killed without anyone ever taking the time to explain why.

Small surprise there. One advantage of a Lamatian education was that she and her sister hadn’t been raised to expect fairness from the world. “
Roll with the blow!
” Savant Claire had shouted, hitting Maia over and over with a padded stick during what was supposed to have been varling “combat practice,” a torture session that stretched on and on, until Maia finally learned to fall with the impact, not against it.

How I still hate you, Claire
, Maia thought, remembering.
But I’m starting to see your point.

The exodus across the plains had a syncopated cadence—long intervals of boredom punctuated by anxious, heart-stopping minutes passing through each town. Nevertheless, all seemed to be going well until just before noon. Then, at a town called Golden Cob, they were met by an unpleasant sight—a lowered customs gate, barring their path. In lieu of the Musseli station master, a squad of tall redheads waited on the platform, all armed and dressed in militia leathers, comparing the engine’s markings with numbers on a clipboard. Maia and the vars ducked out of sight, but despite the engineer’s complaints, the guards-women insisted on inspecting the loco.
En masse
, they grabbed the ladder frames and proceeded to climb aboard from both sides.

There followed a stretched moment as two groups of women stared at each other in jittery silence. One guard spotted Renna, opened her mouth to shout.…

A shrill ululation pealed from above. The lead redhead looked up—too late to duck the dull end of Baltha’s crowbar, which caught her along the jaw. From the metal
roof, where the lanky southern var had lain, Baltha threw herself upon the close-pressed mass of militia.

Instantly, a free-for-all burst in the close cabin confines. Women screamed and charged. There was no room for fancy action with trepp bills, so both sides forsook polished staves for flailing fists and makeshift cudgels.

At first, Maia and Renna stood frozen at the rear. For all her adventures, Maia’s first battle rocked her back. Her stomach flipped and she heard her heart pounding over the din. Glancing up, she saw Renna’s alien eyes widen impossibly. Sweat prickled and veins stood out. It wasn’t
fear
she read, but trouble of another sort.

The melee surged toward them. One redhead slugged Thalla’s friend, Kau, knocking the petite var down. When the militiawoman raised her foot to follow through, Renna cried out, “No!” He took a step, fists clenched. Suddenly it was Maia’s turn to yell.

“Get back!” she screamed, diving between Renna and the guard, managing to fling them in opposite directions. A fist rebounded off her right temple, setting both ears ringing. Another blow struck between two ribs, and she retaliated, hitting something soft with an elbow. Ignoring lancing pain, thrashing in the tight press of struggling women, Maia succeeded at last in dragging the fallen Kau out of the fray.

“Take care of her,” she shouted to Renna. “And don’t fight! A man mustn’t!”

While he absorbed that, Maia turned and dove back into the brawl. It was a torrid, grunting struggle, devoid of ritual or courtesy or elegance. Fortunately, it was easy to tell friend from foe, even in the stifling dimness. For one thing, the enemy had bathed today, and smelled much better than her comrades. It was a resentful comparison that lent her the strength to wrestle women much larger and stronger than herself.

Terrifying while in doubt, the battle grew exhilarating
when she realized her side was winning. Maia helped pin one thrashing redhead so Thalla could truss her with loops of preknotted cord. Getting up, Maia saw Baltha holding two clonelings in necklocks, banging their heads together. No assistance needed there, so she hurried past to help a southern var who was preventing one last militiawoman from diving out the door.

With an opening clear, Kiel leapt like a dark blur from the slowly crawling train, and ran ahead to raise the customs gate just in time. Hands reached down to haul her in as the driver poured on amps.

At the outskirts of town, the victorious refugees slowed down long enough to dump the squad of bruised and bound redheads beside the tracks. Then the Musseli opened her throttle again. The engine whined, accelerating westward at high speed.

Maia and the others were too keyed up to relax, talking loudly and pacing until their hearts began to settle. The sole exception was Renna, whose demeanor remained icy-deliberate while performing first aid on various cuts, bruises, and one broken wrist. He was a soothing presence, so long as there was work to do. When that was done, however, he began shivering and broke into a sweat. Maia watched his fists clench as he walked stiffly to the open door by the engineer and rinsed his head in the rushing breeze.

“What’s wrong?” Maia asked, coming alongside, watching his tendons tauten like bowstrings.

“I …” He shook his head. “I’d rather not say.”

But Maia thought she understood. On other worlds, men used to do most of the fighting. Bloody, terrible fighting, by accounts. For all she knew, it was still like that, out there. During the battle, Maia had briefly read his eyes. Something had been evoked that he did not much like.

“I guess Lysos knew what she was talking about, sometimes,” Maia said in a low voice.

Renna shot her a look under furrowed brows. Then, slowly, there spread across his face a smile. An ironic smile that this time conveyed respect, along with affection.

“Yeah,” he answered. “I guess maybe now and then she did.”

Fortunately, that was the last substantial town before the coastal range. Their engine had to decelerate to climb the steepening grade. But then, so would any pursuit sent after the commotion at Golden Cob. Watching Kiel and Baltha pore over a map, Maia saw they were more worried about what lay ahead. Looking over their shoulders, Maia guessed the Perkinites had one more chance to stop them, near a village named Overlook, where a narrow defile seemed perfect for a hastily organized roadblock.

Too perfect, she later discovered. An ambush had, indeed, been ordered. Nearby clans dispatched squads in response to warnings from Golden Cob, and began throwing up barricades. Yet, by the time the locomotive reached Overlook, the danger was passed. Local vars had surprised the gathering militia with mob force, driving them away before the train arrived.

The counterstroke turned out not to be as spontaneous as it looked, Maia learned. Several of the mob leaders crammed in among the escapees, joining the final leg of the exodus as soon as the last barriers were cleared away. Maia soon realized they were friends of Thalla and Kiel.

I get it. Kiel and her pals can read a map as well as Perkies can. If one place is perfect for an ambush, it can also be just right for ambushing the ambushers.
Maia learned that the newcomers had recently taken jobs in the village, just in case of an eventuality like this.

How could a bunch of vars be so well organized? Such long-range thinking was supposedly limited to clone
families, with generations of experience and a view of life that stretched beyond the individual’s.

Never mind
, she told herself.
What matters is, it worked!

With shouted cheers, the refugees at last waved goodbye to Long Valley. The locomotive was more crowded than ever during the final stretch over the pass, but no one minded. First sight of the blue ocean triggered an outbreak of singing that lasted all the way down to Grange Head.

Two more of Kiel’s friends were waiting in town, so that a fair contingent bid thankful farewell to the engineer, then trooped together from the railyard to the Founders’ Gospel Inn, a hostel overlooking the harbor. The new women wore garb of sailing hands—small surprise in a trading port. No doubt most of Kiel’s bunch, and Baltha’s, had worked their way over on freighters like those moored in the bay.

Maybe someone’ll put in a word … get me a job on one of the ships.

Thinking seriously about the future wasn’t something she had done in a long time. One compensation of helplessness, of living like a leaf, blown by winds far stronger than yourself. Soon, the downside of freedom would present itself—the curse of decision-making.

Kiel installed the elated adventurers on the hotel veranda, arranged for rooms, and set off with Baltha “to do business.” Presumably that meant dickering with the local magistrate, and probably making comm calls to officials halfway round the world. The rest of the party was to stick together, watching out for any last-minute move by the Long Valley clans. They weren’t out of Perkinite reach, yet. Safety still lay in numbers.

Which suited Maia fine. For the first time, it really seemed likely she wasn’t going back to prison. Her worries had started evaporating on first sight of the beautiful sea.
Even the drab stucco and brick warehouses of the trading port seemed more gay than the last time she had been here, an innocent fiver, immersed in mourning and despair.

With its view overlooking the harbor, but some distance from dockside fish smells, the hotel was far superior to the cheap transients’ lodge where she had lain wracked with fever, months ago. When Maia learned she would have her own small room, with a real mattress, she hurried to look it over, finding herself barely able to conceive of such luxury. You could even walk alongside the bed and spread your arms without touching a wall!

The impression of spaciousness was enhanced by her lack of worldly possessions.
I’d hang something on the clothes-hooks, if I owned anything but what I’m wearing.

Back on the veranda, her compatriots had settled in with bottles of beer, watching the shadows lengthen. A few had chipped in for a newspaper, a luxury since in most towns the press was run by subscription only, for the richest clans. The rads sourly disparaged the
Grange Head Clipper
, which featured mostly commodities prices, along with bickering among candidates in upcoming elections, to be held in a month, on Farsun Day.

“Perkies runnin’ against Ortho-doxies,” sniffed Kau. “Some choice! An’ look, barely any mention of planetwide issues. Nothin’ to tempt a var or man to think about votin’. And not a hint about any missin’ Visitor from space!” She and Thalla spoke longingly of the two-page weekly put out by their own organization, back in Ursulaborg. “Now
there
’s a newspaper!” Kau commented.

Maia paid scant attention. Freedom was too fresh and pristine to complicate with politics. Everyone knew such matters were worked out long in advance, by ancient mothers living in golden castles, in Caria City. Instead, she scanned the hills rimming the bay. Perched above all other
structures, the Orthodox temple of Stratos Mother was a white sanctuary, shimmering in the afternoon sunshine. Maia recalled the refuge with gratitude, and made a note to visit the reverend mother. Partly to pay respects, and partly … to ask if any messages had come for her.

There wouldn’t be any, of course. Despite all that had taken place, all she had done to insulate her grief, Maia knew what would happen when the priestess shook her head and compassionately spread her hands. Maia would experience all over again her sister’s loss, the sense of hopelessness, that yawning pit, threatening to swallow her whole.

That visit could wait another day or two. For now it would do to lean back with the others on the hotel’s long porch, have a glass of tepid beer, share a tall tale or two, and keep her mind diverted with simple things.

All I really want from life right now is a hot shower and a soft place to sleep for days.

By consensus and natural gallantry, everyone agreed that Renna should take his turn with the bath first. The man started to protest, then chuckled, and said something mysterious about what one does when in a place called “Rome.” Two women accompanied him to stand watch outside the bathroom door, guarding his privacy.

After Renna left, several vars began pounding the table in earnest, shouting gaily for more ale. Except for Thalla, Maia hardly knew any of them. Kiel’s friend, Kau, passed the time polishing a wooden truncheon with a barely legal edge and point, wincing on occasion when she gingerly touched Renna’s bandage over her right ear. One of Baltha’s companions, a woman with a strong South Isles accent, kept pacing, looking toward the mountains and then out to sea again, muttering impatiently.

Maia found herself unable to stop scratching. The mere idea of a bath had infected her mind, causing her to
notice itches that, till now, she had pushed to the background.

Fortunately Renna didn’t take long, for a man. He emerged wearing a smallish hotel robe, transformed with a trimmed beard, combed hair that curled as it dried in the breeze, and a rosy tone to his fresh-scrubbed skin. He bowed to the approving whistles of the southlanders, and accepted from Kau a stein of the local, watery brew. “It’s a wonder what a scrub can do for a boy,” he commented. Toweling his hair one-handed, he took a long swallow. “So, who’s next? Maia?”

She started to protest. She was lowest in status. But the others agreed by acclamation. “After all, it’s been as long for you as it was for him!” Thalla said kindly. “That Perkie jail must’ve been awful.”

“You’re sure …?”

“Of course we’re sure. Don’t worry about th’ hot water, sweets. Soon, we’ll be able to afford a lakeful. Shower good an’ sit in the tub long as you like.”

“Yeah, we’ll be busy, anyway,” Kau added, sitting next to Renna.

“Busy getting drunk as dic-pigs, you mean,” Maia jested, and felt warmed when they all laughed in a comradely way. Renna winked. “Go on, Maia. I’ll make sure everyone behaves.”