David Brin - Glory Season

Still, humans are flexible beings. The warrior essence wasn’t excised, only suppressed, patterned, controlled. It would take strong motivation to persuade a decent man like Poulandres to kill, but Maia had no doubt it could be done.

Nearby, the rest of the male crew rubbed their ankles, where chains had bound them to rank after rank of stone benches, arrayed in a bowl-shaped, enclosed arena. Three groggy, half-conscious women now languished in their place, mouths gagged. A few of the men were picking distastefully at one of the spilled buckets. Someone ought to get to work conserving the stuff, Maia thought. They might be in for a long seige.

Other matters came first. “I haven’t time for this,” she told Leie. “You explain it to him. And don’t forget to look for other stairs leading to this level! We don’t want to be flanked.”

“All right, Maia,” Leie answered, acquiescent. There hadn’t been time for more than a moment of reunion, while recovering from the fight. Nor was Maia ready for complete reconciliation. Too much had happened since that long-ago storm separated a pair of dreamy-eyed summer kids. In time, she might consider trusting Leie again, providing her sister earned it.

Gingerly toting the horrible firearm, Leie escorted Poulandres and several crewmen down the hall. Maia, too, had an errand. But as she started to go, she was halted by a curt tug at her leg.

“Just a minim!” the ship’s physician commanded as he finished tying strips of torn cloth around her gashed knee. “There, that’s the worst of it. As for the rest o’ your dings …”

“They’ll have to wait,” Maia peremptorily finished the sentence, shaking her head in a way that cut short protest. “Thanks, Doc,” she finished, and hurried, limping, out of the arena-prison. At the doorway, she turned left toward the second large room, where she had earlier glimpsed Baltha and the other reaver commanders, arguing. One male accompanied her—the cabin boy who had been part of the opposing Game of Life team, back on the Manitou. It was his self-chosen job to bring Maia up to date on what had happened since she was marooned with Naroin and the women crew, on Grimké Island.

“At first the starman was kept with us,” the boy explained. “We was all put together in a different part o’ the sanctuary, nearer the gate. But he kept makin’ a fuss about needin’ the game . Always the game! S’prised the scutum outta us, ’specially as he still had that ’lectric game board o’ his! Claimed it wasn’t good enough, tho. He needed more. Wouldn’t eat nor talk to the reavers less’n they moved us all down here, where the old tournament courts were.”

Maia stopped at the entrance to the second room. She had expected another chamber like the first—a large oval amphitheater surrounding an expanse of crisscrossing lines. But this volume was different. There were benches all right, descending in ever-smaller, semicircular arcs from where she stood. Only this time their ranks faced one huge bare wall with a platform and dais in front of it. The chamber reminded her of a lecture or concert hall, like in the Civic Building, in Port Sanger.

“We all thought he was crazy,” the cabin boy continued with his story about Renna. “But we played along, on account of his act vexed the guards. So the cap’n told ’em we also needed the game, for religious reasons.” The boy giggled. “So they fetched our books an’ game pieces off the ship, an’ brought us all down to the arena where you found us.”

“But then Renna was taken over here,” Maia prompted.

“Yeah. After a couple days, he started complainin’ again—about our snorin’, about our company. Actin’ like a real wissy-boy whiner. So he got put next door. Heard no trouble after that, so we figured he must be happy.”

“I see.”

Inwardly, Maia cursed. Upon hearing that Renna had vanished in a fashion none of the reavers could fathom or duplicate, her first thought was that he must have found another of the red-metal sculptures, covered with arcane, hexagon symbols. Such a puzzle door would fit the bill—just the sort of thing to stump pirates, yet allow Renna to escape. And, naturally, her own experience would give her an edge, as well.

But there was no red-metal. No riddle of movable symbols. Just row after row of benches. The only other noticeable feature was more of the carved phrases, covering every wall save the one behind the dais, carrying mysterious epigrams in the liturgical dialect of the Fourth Book of Lysos. Otherwise, it was just a damn, deserted lecture hall. Maia looked around as she descended the aisle between the benches, wondering why Renna went to so much effort to get himself transferred here.

“What is this place?” the cabin boy asked, somewhat awestruck. “Ain’t no Life arena. No playin’ field. Did they pray here?”

Maia shook her head, puzzled. “Maybe, with all this scripture on the walls… though not all of these lines are holy text, I’m sure.”

“Then what—?”

“Hush now, please. Let me think.”

The boy lapsed into silence, while Maia’s brow knotted in concentration.

Renna escaped from here. That’s the key piece of data. We can assume the reavers searched high and low for hidden doors and secret passages, so don’t bother duplicating that effort. Instead, try to follow Renna’s reasoning.

First, how did he know to get himself moved here? He went to great lengths to manage it.

Although Renna, like Maia, had been imprisoned in a sanctuary before, nothing in that earlier experience could have led him to anticipate a place like this. Maia herself would have found it hard to credit, had she not already seen the nearby, separate defense catacomb.

I’ve got to figure this out, and quicker than it took him. The reavers will be crazed when they find out what we’ve done.

Another pang increased her anxiety.

With every hand on war alert, they’re sure to spot Brod when he tries coming down. They’ll drop him like a helpless wing-hare.

Concentrating, Maia tried to view this room with unbiased eyes, to see what Renna must have seen. She spent a few minutes poking through the blankets and piled straw where he must have made his bed, long since torn apart by others searching for clues. Maia moved on, finding nothing else of interest until her gaze once more stroked the chiseled epigrams, running the length and breadth of each side and rear wall. Some she knew well, having learned them by heart during long, tedious hours spent in Lamatia Chapel, singing heavy paeans to Stratos Mother.

… τ☼ fι∩∂ ωHατ ι≥ Hι))ε∩ …

U∩∂εr ≤τrα∩≠ε <���☼≤τ ≤ταr≤

Which, transforming into normal letters, translated to

… to find what is hidden… under strange, lost stars

Maia grimaced at the thought. It was an appropriate-enough image, as she might not live to ever again see stars. I wonder what time of day it is, she pondered idly while turning, scanning the walls. Then she stopped, resting her gaze on one anomalous patch. Despite her throbbing wounds, Maia hurried downstairs, then edged past the raised semicircular center stage. Where lines of incised symbols neared the unadorned forward wall, she had spotted what looked like orderly arrangements of brown smudges. They weren’t writing. To Maia’s eye they connoted something much more interesting.

“What does that look like to you?” she asked the cabin boy, pointing at a cluster of stains, just below one of the arcane symbols in the liturgical alphabet. The youth squinted, and Maia wished fervently that Brod were here, instead.

“Dunno, ma’am. Looks like a feller tossed his food. Same guk we been gettin’, I reckon.”