Better that I tell them first.
Before that, another matter must be dealt with . . . my worsening mental and physical health.
It is not the gravity or heavy atmosphere. Periodically, I suffer spells when my symbionts struggle, and I must rest in my quarters for a day or two, unable to venture outside. These episodes are few, fortunately. For the most part, I feel hale and strong. The worst problem facing me is psychoglandular, having nothing to do with air or earth.
As a summertime male visitor, unsponsored by any clan, my position in Caria has been ambiguous. Even those clans who approve of my mission have been wary in late. It would be too much to fancy they might treat me like those favored males they welcome each aurora time.
No one wants to be the first risking accidental pregnancy with an alien whose genes might perturb the Founders' dream.
That near-paranoiac caution had advantages. The chill had helped restrain my dormant drives. Even after long voyages, I have never sought the attentions of women, save those who cared for me.
With autumn's arrival, however, attitudes are softening. Social encounters grow warmer. Women look, converse, even smile my way. Some acquaintances I now tentatively call friends—Mellina of Cady Clan, for instance, or that stunning pair of savants from Pozzo Hold, Horla and Poulain, who no longer bristle, but actually seem glad of my presence. They draw near, touch my arm, and share lighthearted, even provocative, jests.
How ironic. As my isolation lessens, the discomfort grows. By the day. By the hour.
Iolanthe, Groves, and most of the others seem oblivious. While consciously aware that I function differently than their males, they seem unconsciously to assume the autumnal diminishment of Wengel Star also damps my fires. Only Councillor Odo understands. She drew me out during a walk through the university gardens. Odo thinks it a problem easily solved by visiting a house of ease, operated by one of those specialist clans who are expert at taking all precautions, even with a randy alien.
I'm afraid I turned red. But, embarrassment aside, I face quandaries. Despite the female-to-male ratio, Stratos is no adolescent's moist fantasy come true, but a complex society, filled with contradictions, dangers, subtleties I've not begun to plumb. The situation is perilous enough without adding risk factors.
I am a diplomat. Other men—envoys, priests, and emissaries through all eras—have done as I should do.
Risen above instinct. Exercised professionalism, self-control.
Yet, what celibate of olden times had to endure such stimulation as I do, day in, day out? I can feel it from my raw optic nerve all the way down to my replete roots.
Come on, Renna. Isn't it just a matter of sexual cues? Some species are turned on by pheromones, or strutting displays. Male hominoids are visually activated—chimpanzees, by rosy, estrous colors; Stratoin men, by festival lights in the sky. Old-fashioned human react to the most inconvenient incitement cues of all—incessant, perennial, omnipresent. Cues women cannot help displaying, whatever their condition, or season, or intent.
No one is to blame. Nature had her reasons, long ago. Still, I am increasingly able to understand why Lysos and her allies chose to change such troublesome rules.
For the thousandth time ... if only a woman peripatetic had drawn this mission!
Dammit, I know I'm rambling. But I feel inflamed, engulfed by so much untouchable fecundity, flowing past me in all directions. Insomnia plagues me, nor can I concentrate at the very time I must keep my wits about me. And when I shall need all of my skills.
Am I rationalizing? Perhaps. But for the good of the mission, I see no other choice.
Tomorrow, I will ask Odo ... to arrange things.
20
The bitchies are gettin' impatient," Naroin commented, peering at the tiny screen. "I caught sight o' their prow a second time, an' a glint o' binocs. They're just holdin' back till the right moment."
Maia acknowledged with a grunt. It was all she had breath for, while pulling at her oars. Powerful, intermittent currents kept trying to seize their little boat and smash it against the nearby cliff face. Along with Brod and the sailors, Charl and Tress, she frequently had to row hard just to keep the skiff in place. Occasionally, they had to lean out and use poles to stave off jagged, deadly rocks. Meanwhile, with one hand on the tiller, Naroin used Inanna's spy device to keep track of events taking place beyond the island's far side.
This wouldn't be so difficult, if only we could stand off where the water's calm, Maia thought, while fighting the merciless tide. Unfortunately, the fibers leading to Inanna's farflung microcameras were of finite length. The skiff must stay near the mouth of the underground cave, battling contrary swells, or risk losing this slim advantage. Their plan was unlikely enough—a desperate and dangerous scheme to ambush professional ambushers.
I only wish someone else had come up with a better idea.
Naroin switched channels. "Trot an' her crew are almost done. The last raft parts have been lowered to the sea. They're lashin' the provisions boxes now. Should be any minute."
Maia glanced back at the display again, catching a blurred picture of women laboring across platforms of cut logs, straggling to tie sections together and erect a makeshift mast. As predicted by Maia's research, the tides were gentle on that side, at this hour. Unfortunately, that was far from true right now at the mouth of the spy tunnel.
At last, the sea calmed down for a spell. No wall of rock seemed about to swat them. With sighs, Maia and the others rested their oars. They had passed a busy, sleepless night since the fatal encounter with Inanna, the reaver provocateur.
First had come the unpleasant duty of rousing all the other marooned sailors, and telling them that one of their comrades had been a spy. Any initial suspicions toward Maia and Naroin quieted during a torchlit tour into the island's hidden grottoes, and were finished off by showing recorded messages on Inanna's comm unit. But that was not the end to arguing. There followed interminable wrangling over Maia's plan, for which, unfortunately, no one came up with any useful alternative.
Finally, hours of frantic preparations led to this early-morning flurry of activity. The more Maia thought, the more absurd it all seemed.
Should we have waited, instead? Simply avoided springing Inanna's trap? Let the reavers go away disappointed, and then try to slip away in the skiff at night?
Except, all eighteen could not fit in the little boat. And by nightfall the pirates would be querying their spy. When Inanna failed to answer with correct codes, they would assume the worst and try other measures. Not even the little skiff would be able to slip through a determined blockade by ships equipped with radar. As for those left behind, starvation would solve the reavers' prisoner problem, more slowly, but just as fully as an armed assault.
No, it has to be now, before they expect to hear from Inanna again.
"Eia!" Naroin shouted. "Here they come! Sails spread and breaking lather." She peered closer. "Patarkal jorts!"
"What is it?" young Brod asked.
"Nothin'." Naroin shrugged. "I thought for a minute it was a big bugger, a two-master. But it's a ketch. That's bad enough. Fast as blazes, with a crew of twelve or more. This ain't gonna be easy as mixin' beer an' frost."
Charl spat over the side. "Tell me somethin' I don't know," the tall Medianter growled. Tress, a younger sailor from Ursulaborg, asked nervously, "Shall we turn back?"
Naroin pursed her lips. "Wait an' see. They've turned the headland and gone out o' view of the first camera. Gonna be a while till the next one picks 'em up." She switched channels. "Lullin's crew has spotted 'em, though."
The tiny screen showed the gang of raft-builders, hurrying futilely to finish before the reaver boat could cross the strait between neighboring isles. It was patently useless, for the most recent image of the sleek pirate craft had shown it slashing the choppy water, sending wild jets of spray to port and starboard as it sprinted to attack.
"Will they board?" Tress asked.
"Wish they would.
But my guess is takin' prisoners ain't today's goal."
The current kicked up again. Maia and the others resumed rowing, while Naroin turned switches until she shouted. "Got 'em! About three kilometers out. Gettin' closer fast."
Keep coming . . . Maia thought each time she glanced at the display, until a looming expanse of white sailcloth filled the tiny screen. Keep coming closer.
At last, the raft crew cast loose their moorings of twisted vines. Some of them began poling with long branches, while two attempted to raise a crude mast covered with stitched blankets. For all the world, it looked as if they really were trying to get away. Either Lullin, Trot and the others were good actors, or fear lent verisimilitude to their ploy.
Naroin kept counting estimates of the reaver ship's approach. The ketch was under a thousand meters from the raft. Then eight hundred, and closing.
The situation on the raft grew more desperate. One agitated figure began pushing boxes of provisions off the deck, as if to lighten the load. They bobbed along behind the raft, very little distance growing between them.
"Six hundred meters," Naroin told them.
"Shouldn't we get closer now?" Brod asked. He seemed oddly relaxed. Not exactly eager, but remarkably cool, considering his earlier confessions to Maia. In fact, Brod had insisted on coming along.
"Lysos never said males can't ever fight," he had argued passionately, last night. "We're taught that all men are reserve militia members, liable for call-up in case of really big trouble. I'd say that describes these bandits!"
Maia had never heard reasoning like that before. Was it true? Naroin, a policewoman, ought to know. The former bosun had blinked twice at Brod's assertion, and finally nodded. "There are . . . precedents. Also, they won't be expecting a male. There's an element of surprise."
In the end, despite gallant protests by some of the others, he was allowed to come along. Anyway, Brod would be safer here than on the raft.
"Be patient an' clam up," Naroin told the boy, as they fought choppy currents. "Four hundred meters. I want to see how the bitchies plan on doin' it. ... Three hundred meters."
Brod took the rebuke mildly. Looking at him a second time, Maia saw another reason for his relative quiet. Brod's complexion seemed greenish. He was clamping down on nausea. If the youth was trying to show his guts, Maia hoped he wouldn't do so literally.
It was getting near decision time. Plan A called for battle. But if that looked hopeless, those on the skiff were to try fleeing downwind, keeping the bulk of the island between them and the raiders. Only in that way might those sacrificing themselves on the raft get revenge. But, given the enemy's possession of radar, Maia knew the unlikeliness of a clean getaway. For all its flaws, the ambush scheme still seemed the best chance they had.
"Three hundred meters," Naroin said. "Two hundred an'eight. . . . Bleedin' jorts!"
Her fist set the rail vibrating. This sound was followed almost instantly by a roll of pealing thunder, anomalous beneath clear skies.
"What is it?" Maia asked, turning in time to glimpse, on the viewer screen, a sudden spout of rising water that just missed the little raft, splashing its frantic crew.
"Cannon. They're usin' a cannon!" Naroin shouted. "The Lyso-dammed, lugar-faced, man-headed jorts. We never figured on this."
Guilt-panged because the plan had been her idea, Maia craned to watch, fascinated as Naroin switched camera views of the approaching reaver boat. At its prow, a flash erupted through smoke lingering from the first shot. Another tower of seawater almost swamped the wallowing raft. "They've got 'em straddled," Naroin snarled, then snapped at Maia. "What're you lookin' at? Mind yer oars! I'll tell what's happenin'."
Maia swiveled just as a tidal surge washed their tiny craft toward a jutting rock. "Pull!" Brod cried, rowing hard. Heaving with all their might, they managed to stop short of the jagged, menacing spire. Then, as quickly as it came, the bulging sea-crest ran back out again, dragging them along. "Naroin! Turn!" Maia cried. But the preoccupied bosun was cursing at what she saw in the screen, taking notice only when a mesh of fiber cables suddenly stitched across the water, stretched to their utter limit, and abruptly snatched the electronic display out of her hands. The spy device flew some distance, then met the waves and sank from sight.
The policewoman stood up and shouted colorfully, setting the boat rocking, then quickly and forcibly calmed herself as more echoes of discrete thunder rounded the cliffs. Naroin sat down, resting hand and arm on the tiller once more. "No matter, it won't be long now," she said.
"We can't just sit here!" Tress cried. "Lullin and the others will be blown to bits!"
"They knew it'd be rough. Showin' up now would just get us killed, too."
"Should we try running away, then?" Charl asked.
"They'd spot us soon as they circuit the island. That boat's faster, an' a cannon makes any head start useless." Naroin shook her head. "Besides, I want to get even. We'll get closer, but wait till the last shot before settin' sail."
Now that they were away from the rock face, the swells were smoother. Maia and the others let the current carry them northward. More booms shook the thick air, louder and louder. Maia felt concussions in her ears and across her face. As they approached, an accompanying sound chilled her heart, the faint, shrill screaming of desperate women.
"We've got to—"
"Shut up!" Naroin snapped at Tress.
Then came a noise like no other. The closest thing Maia remembered was the breaking of bulkheads aboard the collier Wotan. It was an explosion not of water, but wood and bone. Of savagely cloven air and flesh. Echoes dissipated into a long, stunned silence, moderated by the nearby crash of surf on rock. Maia needed to swallow, but her mouth and throat were so dry, it was agony to even try.
Naroin spoke through powerfully controlled anger. "They'll stand off an' look for a while, before movin' in. Charl, get ready. The rest o' you, set sail and then duck outta sight!"
Maia and Brod stood up, together releasing the clamps holding the furled sail, and drew it to the clew outhaul. The fabric flapped like a liberated bird, suddenly catching the wind and throwing the boom hard to port, catching Brod and knocking him into Maia. Together, they fell toward the bow coaming, atop one another.
"Uh, sorry," the youth said, rolling off and blushing. "Uh, it's all right," she answered, gently mimicking his abashed tone. It might have been funny, Maia thought, if things weren't so damn serious.
Tress joined them in the bilge, below the level of the gunwales. As the skiff rounded the northern verge of their prison isle, Charl took over the tiller, letting Naroin crouch down as well. Only Charl remained in view, now attired in a white smock that was stained around the neckline. She had put on a ragged, handmade wig that made her look vaguely blonde.
"Steady," Naroin said, peering over the rail. "I see the raft, or what's left of it ... Keep yer heads down!"
Maia and Brod ducked again, having caught sight of an expanse of floating bits and flinders, logs and loosely tethered boxes, along with one drifting, grotesquely ruined body. It had been a nauseating sight. Maia was content to let Naroin describe the rest.
"No sign o' the reaver, yet. I see one, two survivors, hidin' behind logs. Hoped there'd be more, since they knew it was comin'. . . . Eia! There's her prow. Get 'eady, Maia!"
They had argued long and hard over this part of the plan. Naroin had thought she should be the one taking on the most dangerous job. Maia had responded that the policewoman was just too small to make it believable. Besides, Naroin had more important tasks to perform.
You asked for this, Maia told herself. Brod squeezed her hand for luck, and she returned a quick smile before crawling aft.
From the moment the reaver vessel entered view, Charl began waving, shouting and grinning. We're counting on certain assumptions, Maia thought. Foremost, the reavers mustn't instantly see through the ruse. It makes sense, though. Inanna wouldn't stay on the island after the raft was destroyed. She'd come to ferry a cleanup sq
uad of killers through the secret passage, to finish off any survivors remaining above.
It was brutal logic, borne out by recent events. But was it true? Were the pirates expecting to see a blonde woman in a little sailboat? Maia ached to peer over the side.
Charl described events through gritted teeth. "They're maybe a hundred fifty meters out . . . sails luffed . . . still too damn far. Now someone's pointin' at me ... waving. There's somebody else lifting binoculars. Let's do it, quick!"
With a heavy intake of breath, Maia stood up suddenly, and pretended to launch an attack on Charl; throwing an exaggerated punch the older woman evaded at the last moment. Charl shoved her back, and the boat rocked. Then they closed and began grappling, hands clasping for each other's throats. In the process, they managed so that Charl's back was to the reaver. All the enemy would be able to make out now, even through binoculars, would be a big blonde woman wrestling an adversary who must have climbed out from the wreckage of the raft.
Brin, David - Glory Season Page 45
