David Brin - Glory Season

Is it just Lanargh, or is this happening all over Stratos? Maia felt more determined than ever to try catching the tele-news tonight.

She reacted with a startled jump to a nudge in the ribs, and quickly saw that they had wandered onto the chief city square. Strollers, who had spent midday under shaded loggias, were emerging to enjoy the late sun’s slanting rays. Leie pointed across the broad piazza toward a row of elegant, multistoried houses. “Over there, leaning against that column. Ain’t that your Bosun, trying to look invisible?”

Maia picked out the trim figure of Naroin, resting one shoulder on a pillar, acting as if she had only to watch the world go by. What’s she up to? That var never relaxed a day in her life.

As if reading her thoughts—which she still did all too often—Leie nudged Maia a second time. “I bet your bosun’s spying on that lot over there.”

“Hm… Maybe.” Naroin appeared well-positioned to discreetly observe a mixed gathering of lavishly dressed males and females sitting at an open-air cafe. The men didn’t look like sailors, while the women had a massaged, billowy appearance Maia associated with pleasure clans, specializing in relieving the tensions of others in houses of ease. Several such houses lined the square, positioned to serve clients coming from the harbor in summer, and uptown in winter. Above each entrance, gaily painted signs depicted a leaping rabbit, a snowflake, a grinning bull clutching a bell between its jaws. Servants labored on the house overlooking the cafe, changing the decorations from warm, aurora shades to those of frost.

In autumn, the two clienteles of such places overlapped like incoming and ebbing waves, which explained the mixed group at the veranda cafe. Maia wondered what the men and women found to talk about.

Was Naroin’s surveillance also out of curiosity?

Unlikely. Especially when Maia noticed among the loungers a man in a floppy hat. “So that’s the guy?” Leie asked. “I don’t know what he did to Lem and Eth, but those boys sure got in trouble. Think your bosun’s gonna pick a fight? The fop’s got twice her mass.”

Whatever the reason or season, Maia wouldn’t bet against the petite sailor. “Don’t ask me,” the Naroin had said. Or, Keep your nose out of this.

Despite the power of her own inquisitiveness, almost hormonally intense, Maia decided to quash it. At her station in life, wisdom dictated keeping a low profile.

And yet…

An abrupt clattering broke out to their left. The bell tower overlooking the piazza emitted a loud thunk , and beaten copper doors, green with verdigris, rattled open. Soon the famous clock figures of Lanargh would emerge to start their stately dance—five minutes of choreographed automation, finishing with the tolling of Three-Quarters Day. Crowds began moving up to watch the sublime, hundred-year-old gift from Gollancz Sanctuary perform its evening ritual, timed to satellite pulses from Caria University, halfway around the world.

Maia hadn’t realized it was so late. The program she wanted to watch would be on soon. “Come on,” she urged. “Or we’ll miss the news.”

Leie shook her head. “There’s lots of time. I want to see the first part again. We’ll go after that, I promise.”

Maia sighed, knowing by instinct when Leie’s tenacity could be fought, and when it was futile. Fortunately, they had a good view as the clock-tower doors finished opening with a reverberating clang. Then, first out its portal, emerged the bronze figure of the He-Ape, knuckle-walking above the onlookers, carrying a twitching four-legged animal under one arm and a sharpened stone in its mouth. The ape turned three times to a ratcheting beat, appearing to scrutinize those below. Then the figure rose up on its hind legs, miraculously unfolding into the erect figure of a man, now carrying loops of chain. The stone in his mouth had transformed into the stylized phallic protuberance of The Bomb.

Leie’s eyes gleamed with appreciation, the intricate play of bronze plates seemed so smooth and natural. It was a renowned rendition of one of the most famous allegorical tales on Stratos—a metaphor for one side of evolution.

Another door parted. The figure of a She-Ape emerged, carrying her traditional bundle of fruit. Same as last time, and the time before, Maia thought. It’s cute, but monotonous.

She took a moment to glance back toward the cafe… and started in surprise. Only moments had passed, but now empty bottles lay where the lounging customers had sat. Naroin; too, had vanished.

Oh, well. She shook her head. None of my business. Besides, it’s time to head uptown.

Maia tugged her sister’s arm. Leie tried to shrug her off, entranced by the swiveling dance of metal figures. But now Maia insisted. “We’ve seen this part twice already! I don’t want to miss the broadcast again.”

Leie sighed dramatically, and Maia thought, I wish for once she wouldn’t milk it, every time I want something, making it a “favor” to be repaid.

“All right,” Leie agreed with an exaggerated shrug. “Let’s go watch the news.”

Behind them, across the cobbled plaza, the giant figure of Mother Lysos emerged through her own door above the other automatons, holding a bioscope in the crook of one arm. Looking down benignly, she took the scroll of law in her other hand, and used it to strike a mighty blow, severing forever the chains binding Woman to the will of Man.

Sure enough, a long queue had formed four streets uphill, outside the wooden amphitheater. Maia groaned in frustration.

“Guess we’ll have to wait our turn,” Leie said. “Oh well.”

That was her twin, all right. Hot-tempered toward the faults of others. Fatalistically philosophical about her own. Maia fumed quietly, craning to see any sign of movement ahead. A guardia marshal stood by the ticket booth, both to keep order and to make sure no under-five summerlings from town creches sneaked in without notes from their clan mothers. Women by the door could be seen leaning inside, listening to snatches of amplified speech, then popping out to report to their friends. Murmurs of progressively degraded news riffled back to the sisters. As during the night of the reavers, Leie listened avidly and joined in this bucket brigade, even when the snippets were so obviously debased as to be worthless.

“You were right,” Leie reported. “There was a piece about the Outsiders.” She gestured vaguely skyward. “No pictures yet of the one that landed.”

Maia exhaled disappointment. She had never before thought much about the Grand Council’s stinginess with news. Power and wisdom went together, the clan mothers taught. Now though, Maia wondered if the heretic was right. The savants, councillors, and high priestesses seemed unwilling to say much, as if fearing the reaction of the masses.

From a clone’s point of view, I guess every person who’s not one of your full sisters is an unpredictable dilemma. It’s just the same for us vars, only we’re used to it. Maia found it a curiously comforting insight—that there was one way in which the winter-born went through life more afraid than summerlings. Uncertainty must be their biggest dread.

The middle moon, Athena, hung above the western horizon, a slender crescent with the plain of Mare Virgin-itatis brightening rapidly as the sun quenched behind a bank of sea clouds. It was a clear evening above Lanargh, with a chill in the air. The first stars were coming out.

There were separate lines for first-class and second-class viewing. The latter queue moved in stuttered fits toward the ticket booth, staffed by several pug-nosed women wearing spectacles and expressions of bemused skepticism. You’d think with demand this high, they’d build more theaters, no matter how much sets cost out here. Could all this public interest have taken them by surprise?