Glory Season

Then, unexpected and unbidden, light struck her eyes with abrupt, painful brilliance, outbalancing even clawing panic, driving out all thoughts with its sheer, blinding beauty. Uncovered, her ears filled with noise — rattles, rasps, and hoarse shouts. Maia took long, shuddering gasps as blurry shapes congealed into silhouettes and finally soot-streaked faces, starkly outlined by swaying bulbs. On their knees, sailors and passengers used bare hands to clear more coal away from her head. Someone with a rag and bucket cleaned her eyes, nose, and mouth, then gave her water.

Finally, Maia was able to choke out words. "Don't . . . b-bother . . . w-w-me." She shook her head, cutting fresh scrapes along her neck. "Ma . . . man . . . down . . . right."

It came out barely a gargle, but they acted as if they understood, commencing to dig furiously where Maia indicated with her chin. Meanwhile, others more gradually liberated the rest of her. When she was almost free, an overturned yellow bucket came into view below, and the work went even faster.

At that point, Maia could have saved them effort. The hand still clutching her ankle was growing cold. Yet she could not bring herself to say it. There was always a chance. …

She had never known his name. He was not even a member of her race. Still, tears flowed when she saw his purple face and bulging eyes. Hands pried his fingers off her leg, and with that break of contact she knew with tragic certainty and unwonted loss that they would never again share communication, this side of death.

Seabirds cried possessive calls of territoriality, warning others of their kind to keep away from private nesting niches, chiseled in the steep bluffs overlooking Grange Head harbor. Jealous of their neighbors, the birds virtually ignored a small group of bipeds who swung along the cliffs, hanging from slender ropes, taking turns harvesting molted feathers in great bags and alternately chipping still more roosts for this year's crop of mating pairs. From a distance, or even from the birds' close vantage point, no one could distinguish among the sunburned, narrow-boned, black-haired women performing these strange tasks. They all looked identical.

Idly, without much interest, Maia watched the harvester family labor along those vertiginous heights, working their feather farm. It was a niche, all right. Not one she'd ever be tempted to fill. Yet, something equally at the fringe was probably her destiny now. All the fond hopes and ambitious schemes of childhood lay broken, and her heart was numb.

With a heavy sigh she looked at the figures she had scratched on her slate. The calculations needed no further massaging. Gingerly, because each movement still caused her pain, she flipped the tablet over and slid it across the chart table.

"I'm done, Captain Pegyul."

The tall sallow-faced sailor looked up from his own figures and stared at her a moment. He scratched behind his battered green cap. "Well, give me another minute, then, will yer?"

Sitting on a railing nearby, Naroin the bosun puffed her pipe and gave Maia a headshake. Don't show up officers. That would be her advice.

What do I care? Maia responded with a shrug. With the navigator and second mate lost in the storm, and the first mate in bed with a concussion, there had been only one person aboard able to help Wotan's master pilot this tub. Struggling to turn a hobby into a useful skill, Maia had quickly learned why tradition demanded more than one eye at a sextant, to cross-check each measurement. The custom proved valid during the last two dreadful weeks, retracing their way back on course. Each of them had made mistakes often enough to cause disaster, if the other hadn't been there to notice.

But here we are. That's what matters, I guess.

She was willing to humor the captain's wish for this final exercise, comparing notes on technique here in a safe harbor, one whose official position was known down to the centimeter. It helped pass the time while her wounds healed, and while going through the motions of looking out to sea, hoping to spot a sail she knew would never come.

The captain threw down his stylus and uncovered a chart, peering at the coordinates of Grange Head harbor. "Gak. Yer right. M'dawn sighting was off 'cause of the red satellite in th' Plough. It's the five-pulser, not the three. Thet's why m'longitude was wrong."

Maia tried to be gallant, for Naroin's sake. "It's an easy mistake in twilight, Captain. The Outsiders put up the new strobe this summer, as a favor to the Caria Navigation Authority, after the old five-second light burned out."

"Mmph. So you said. A new strobe-sat. Fancy thet. Musta been published. Our sanctuary tele's been fritzin', but thet's no excuse. Oughta stay up t' date, dammit.

"We'd hed it easy for so long, though," he sighed. "Queer for a summer storm t'come so late, this yer."