Glory Season (49 page)

Naroin had volunteered to carry prewound game pieces for Maia, deftly passing one over each time Maia lifted her hand. Maia paused frequently to consult the plan she and Renna had worked out. A sketch she kept rolled up to prevent peeking by spectators in the rigging.

Got to be careful not to miss a row or column
, she reminded herself. This close, you risked losing that sense of overall structure which seemed to leap out of a game board when viewed whole. Just one piece, laid in the wrong place, often doomed a “living” design—as if a person’s kidneys had been attached incorrectly from the start, or your cells produced a wrong-shaped protein. Maia chewed her lip nervously as she neared the middle, where her work would meet Renna’s. On finishing, she could only wait, worrying a cuticle as he placed his final tokens on the board. At last, he straightened from his stoop, and stretched. Maia stood alongside as they checked.

The two portions meshed, and by rushing through the
first turn, they had given their opponents little time to ponder. Sure enough, the two youths frowned, obviously perplexed by the sequence she and her partner had created.

Good! I feared my idea was obvious … one they taught boys their first year at sea.

That didn’t mean it was going to
work
, only that she and Renna had surprise going for them. The cook and cabin boy seemed rattled as they commenced laying four more rows on their side. Naroin nudged Maia. With a smile, the petite bosun pointed to the quarterdeck, where last night the ship’s officers had leaned on the rail, casually watching the amateurs’ humiliation. Tonight, a similar crowd had gathered, but this time their expressions were hardly idle. A cluster of ensigns and midshipmen flipped the pages of tall, gilt-edged books, alternately pointing toward the game board and arguing. To the left, three older men seemed to need no reference volumes. The ship’s navigator and doctor exchanged a mere glance and smile, while Captain Poulandres puffed his pipe, resting his elbows on the finely carved banister, showing no expression save a glitter in his eye.

The boys finished their turn and appeared taken aback when Maia and Renna did not linger, analyzing what they’d done, but immediately proceeded to create four more rows of their own. Maia found it easier to envision the patterns, this time. Still, she kept glancing at the sailor who lounged by the port rail, holding a timer.

When she and her partner checked their work again, Maia looked across the cargo hatch and had the satisfaction of seeing the cook clench his fists nervously. The cabin boy seemed agitated. Commencing their turn, the boys quickly botched one of their figures, eliciting laughter from men watching overhead. The captain cleared his throat sharply, warning against audience interference. Blushing, the boys fixed the error and hurried on. They
had built an elaborate array of defenses, consisting of powerful, unsubtle figures intended to block or absorb any attack. Next, they would presumably start on offense.

At last, the two youths stood back and signaled that it was Maia’s and Renna’s turn. Renna motioned her forward. “No!” she whispered. “I can’t. You do it.” But Renna just smiled and winked. “It was your idea,” he said.

With a sigh, swallowing a lump in her throat, Maia took a step forward and she spoke a single word.

“Pass.”

There followed a stunned silence, punctuated by the sharp sound of a junior officer slapping his palm decisively onto an open book. His neighbor nodded, but down on deck confusion reigned. “What d’yer mean?” the cook asked, looking left and right for guidance. This broke the tension as other men abruptly laughed. For the first time, Maia felt sorry for her opponent. Even she had seen games in which one side or the other skipped a row, leaving every space blank. What she was doing here, skipping four rows at once—that was the daring part.

Patiently, Poulandres explained while Naroin and other volunteers helped spread one hundred and sixty tokens, all white face up. In moments the boys were told to proceed, which they did with much nervous fumbling, piecing together a formidable array of aggressive-looking artillery patterns. When they looked up at last, Maia stepped forward again and repeated, “Pass!”

Again, volunteers quickly spread four rows of white pieces, while the audience murmured.
Even if our pattern won’t function as planned, this was worth it.
On the other side, the boys went back to work, perspiring for lack of a break. For her part, Maia was starting to shiver from inactivity. Looking aft, she saw several common seamen drift over to ask questions of an ensign who, pointing at the board, made motions with his hands and whispered, trying to explain.

So what we’re attempting is in the books, after all. Probably part of game lore, but rarely seen, like fool’s mate in Chess. Easy to counter, providing you know what to do.

Renna and I have to hope we’re playing against fools.

It didn’t matter in one sense. Maia was pleased simply to have stirred their calm complacency. Maybe now they’d lend her some of those gilt-edged books, instead of patronizingly assuming they’d make no sense to her.

The other side of the board filled with a crowd of gaudy, extravagant figures, many of which Maia now saw were excessive and mutually contradictory, lacking the elegance of a classic Life match. On their own side, meanwhile, eight rows of enigmatic black and white dots terminated in a broad expanse of simple white.

I can’t wait to ask the name of our pattern.
Maia hungered to consult those volumes.
It’s simple enough in concept, even if it turns out flawed.

What she had realized this afternoon, in a flash of insight, was that the
boundary
was truly part of the game. By reflecting most patterns that struck it, the edge participated crucially.

So why not alter it?

Maia had first imagined simply creating a
copy
of the boundary, a little further up their side of the board, to screw up any carom shots attempted by their foes. But that wouldn’t work. Inside the board, all persistent patterns had to be self-renewing. The boundary pattern wasn’t a stable one. If re-created elsewhere, it quickly dissolved.

But what about creating a pattern that acted like a boundary
part of the time
, while turning transparent to most types of missiles and gliders much of the rest? One example of such a structure had popped into mind this afternoon. It would reflect simple gliders eight beats out of ten, and so long as the anchor points at both ends were left alone, it would keep renewing. Given what they had faced last night, their opponents clearly planned shooting
a lot of stuff at them. Overkill, nearly all of which would now come right back in their faces! With luck, their opponents would wreak more havoc on themselves than on the resilient, simple pattern Renna and Maia had created.

From the enclosed cabin behind the helm, a sailor wearing a duty armband hurried to the captain’s side and whispered in his ear. The commander frowned, knotting his caterpillar eyebrows. He gestured for the doctor to take over as referee, and crooked a finger for the navigator to follow.

Meanwhile, tired and haggard, the boys finished their terminal swath and resignedly listened to Maia declare “pass” for the final time. While the last white pieces were laid, the doctor could be seen shrugging into formal, pleated robes, topped by a peaked hood. With poised dignity, the old man sauntered downstairs amid a susurration of talk. Men followed to crowd around the board, pointing, excitedly consulting sage texts. Many, like the cook and cabin boy, just looked confused.

The referee took his traditional pose near the timing square.

Silence reigned. “Life is continuation—” he began.

A cracking sound, like a sliding door hitting its stops, interrupted the invocation. Hurried footsteps thumped across the quarterdeck. The Manitou’s captain appeared, gripping the banister while a sailor came alongside and blew a brass horn—two short peals and a long note that tapered slowly into utter quiet. No one seemed to breathe.

“For some time we’ve been picking up a radar trace,” Poulandres told his crew and passengers. “Their bearing intersects ours, and they appear fast enough to overhaul. I’ve tried raising them, but they will not answer.

“I can only assume we are targets of reavers. Therefore I must ask the paying passengers. Will you resist, and defend your cargo?”

Still blinking in surprise, Maia watched Kiel step forward. “Hell, yes. We’ll resist.”

The officer nodded. “Very well. I shall maneuver accordingly. You may consult our female crew, who will assist you under the Code of the Sea. Everyone to action stations.”

The horn blew again, this time a rapid tattoo as sailors ran to the rigging and women hurried to assemble by the forecastle. Maia looked numbly at the game board.
But … we were about to find out.
…

A hand took Maia’s arm. It was Thalla, guiding her to where someone had already unlocked the weapons cabinet and was passing out trepp bills. Maia glanced back at Renna, his mouth slightly agape, staring at the commotion.
He’s even more confused than I am
, she realized, feeling sorry for her friend from the stars.

Renna started to follow, but a sailor put a hand out. “
Men don’t fight
,” Maia saw him say, repeating the lesson she had taught him during the escape from Long Valley. The sailor led Renna off, and Maia turned to find her place along a row of vars, gathering with weapons in hand.

“Will you follow my tactical orders?” Naroin asked Kiel and Thalla, who represented the rad company. They nodded.

“All right, then. Inanna, Lullin, Charl, stand ready to receive squads.” Naroin assigned passengers to follow each of three experienced female sailors to positions along the ship’s gunwales. Maia was among those in the bosun’s own group, stationed toward the bow, where the rise and fall of Manitou’s cutting prow felt most pronounced. She sensed a change in the breeze as the ship altered course, presumably to try evading confrontation.

“Better relax,” Naroin told her squad. “They may be faster, but a stern chase is a long chase. Could be daybreak ’fore they catch us.” With that, she sent two vars below for blankets. “We’ll get hot soup soon,” she assured the nervous
women. “Might as well stay rested. Ever’body get down, out of th’ wind.”

They settled onto the deck with their bills at hand. Naroin reached over to tap Maia on the knee. “Lucky break for someone, the horn blowin’ when it did. Judgin’ by what I seen, those dappy rim shots were the lucky ones!”

Maia shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know.” A clattering aft told of game pieces being swept into their storage boxes, at captain’s orders.

“They prob’ly arranged all this to keep you from humiliatin’ two o’ their boys,” Naroin said, causing Maia to stare back at her. But the woman sailor grinned and Maia knew she was joking. Sea captains took honor in the games almost as seriously as the safety of their ship and crew.

Women made tentlike shrouds of their blankets, covering their heads and shoulders, settling in for a long wait. True to the bosun’s word, a crewman soon arrived, carrying a kettle. Bowls clattered at his waist. The junior cook did not look at Maia when he reached her, but the cup sloshed when she took it from his hand, scalding her fingers. Wincing within, she managed to show no outward reaction. At least the thick broth was tasty and its warmth welcome, especially as gaps appeared between the clouds and the night chilled. One woman blew a flute, unmelodiously. There were attempts at gossip. None got very far.

“Say,” Naroin offered. “I found out somethin’ you might be interested in.”

Maia looked up. She had been stroking the smooth wooden stave, wordlessly contemplating what might come in a few hours. “What’s that?” she asked blankly.

Naroin brought up a hand to shield her mouth, and lowered her voice. “I found out what he does, spendin’ that extra time behind the curtain … You know? After meals?”

It took a moment to grasp that Naroin was referring to Renna. “After …?”

“He’s cleanin’ his mouth!”

Curiosity battled anger that the woman had spied on Maia’s friend. “Cleaning … his
mouth
?”

“Yup.” Naroin nodded. “You’ve seen that little brush of his? Well, he sticks it in seawater—even though he won’t drink the stuff—then pops it in an’ carries away like a deckhand tryin’ to finish KP in time for a party! Scours those white gnashers good, with lots o’ swishin’ an’ spittin’. Beats anythin’ I’ve seen.”

“Um,” Maia replied, trying to come up with an explanation. “Some people would smell better if they did that, now and then.”

“Good point.” Naroin laughed. “But after
every
meal?”

Maia shook her head. “He
is
an alien. Maybe he’s worried about … catching diseases?”

“But he eats our food. Kind o’ hard to see what good mouth-cleanin’ does, after the fact.”

Maia shrugged. It might otherwise be a topic worth further speculation. But right now it seemed petty and pointless. Good intentions or no, she preferred that Naroin leave her alone. Fortunately the bosun seemed to sense this, and conversation lapsed.

Durga rose, backlighting the clouds and casting shafts of pearly radiance through gaps in the overcast, onto patches of choppy sea. Those patches, and the star-filled openings above them, corresponded like pieces of a child’s puzzle and the holes they were meant to occupy. Maia glimpsed bits of constellations, and could tell the ship was fleeing southward before the wind. The bow’s steady rise and fall felt like a slow, steady heartbeat, carrying them not just through dark seas, but through time. Each moment drew new patterns out of old configurations of wood, water, and flesh. Each novel, fleeting rearrangement set conditions for yet more patterns to follow.

It wasn’t just an abstraction. Somewhere in the darkness, a fast, radar-equipped vessel prowled, ever closer. “Don’t think about it,” Naroin told the nervous women in her squad. “Try to get some sleep.”

The idea was ludicrous, but Maia pretended to obey. She curled underneath her blanket as the bow rose and fell, rose and fell, reminding her of the horse’s rhythmic motion while fleeing across the plains of Long Valley. Maia closed her eyes for just a minute …