Glory Season

You can say that again, Maia thought. Aftereffects of the gale had lain strewn across still-choppy waters, the following day, when the winds finally calmed enough for searching. Planks and other floating debris fished out of the sea showed that theirs hadn't been the only drama during the night. The capping moment came as they cruised back and forth, desperately seeking, when a broken clinker board was hauled in and turned over, showing parts of the letters Z-E-U. The passengers and crew had stared in numb silence. Nor had the next few days encouraged hope. Lingering silence on the radio turned worry to despair. Assisting the crew to get their wounded ship to port had offered blessed distraction from Maia's pain and gnawing anxiety.

I've got to get ashore. Maybe the feel of solid ground will help.

"Thanks for everything you taught me, Captain," Maia said woodenly. "But now I see they've finished loading the barge. I shouldn't keep them waiting."

She bent gingerly to take the strap of her duffel, but Pegyul seized it and swung it over his shoulder. "Yer sure I can't get ye t'stay?"

She shook her head. "As you said, there's a chance my sister's still alive out there. Maybe they'll limp into port, or she might've been rescued by some other ship. Anyway, this was our destination when the storm hit. Here's where she'll come, if she can."

The man looked dubious. He, too, had taken losses when the Zeus vanished. "Yer welcome with us. Ye'd have a home till spring, an' each three-quarter year after."

In its way it was a generous offer. Other women, such as Naroin, had taken that path, living and working in the periphery of the strange world of men. But Maia shook her head. "I've got to be here, in case Leie shows."

She saw him accept her choice with a sigh, and Maia wondered how this could be the same person she had dismissed so two-dimensionally, back in Port Sanger. Flaws were still apparent, but now they comprised part of a surprisingly complex blend for so simple a creature as a man. After handing her bag down to the pilot of the waiting barge, topped off with a consignment of dark coal, Captain Pegyul drew from one of his pockets a compact brass tool.

"It's m'second-best sextant," he explained, showing her how the three sighting arms unfolded. There were two leather straps for attaching it to the owner's arm. "Portable job. Been meanin' t'fix the main reflector, ret here. See? Sort o' hair loom, it is. Even had a redout for the Old Net, see here?"

Maia marveled at the miniaturized workmanship. The old readout dials would never light again, of course. They marked it as a relic of another age, battered and no match for the finely hand-wrought devices produced in modern sanctuary workshops. Still, the sextant was an object of both reverence and utility.

"It is very beautiful," she said. When he refolded it, Maia saw that the watchcase cover bore an engraving of an airship — a flamboyant, fanciful design that obviously could never fly.

"It's yers."

Maia looked up in surprise. "I … couldn't."

He shrugged, trying to make matter-of-fact what she could tell was an emotion-laden gesture. "I heard how ye tried to save Micah with the bucket. Fast thinkin'. Mighta worked … if luck was diff'rent."

"I didn't really—"

"He was me own boy, Micah. Great, hulkin', cheerful lad. Too much Ortyn in him, though, if y'know what I mean. Never would of learned to use a sextant right, anyway."

Pegyul took Maia's smaller hand in his huge callused one and put the brass instrument firmly in her palm, closing her fingers around the cool, smooth disk. "God keep ye," he finished with a quaver in his voice.

Maia answered numbly. "And Lysos guide you. Eia." He nodded with a faint jerk, and turned away.

Fully loaded, the coal barge slowly crossed the glassy bay. Grange Head didn't look like much, Maia thought glumly. There was little industry besides transhipping produce for countless farming holds strewn across the inland plains, accessing the sea here by narrow-gauge solar railway. Sunlight wasn't enough to lift fully laden trains over the steep coastal hills, so a small generating plant offered a steady market for Port Sanger coal. The solitary pier lacked draft to let old Wotan dock, so its cargo came ashore boatload by boatload.

Naroin smoked her pipe, quietly regarding Maia.. "Been meanin' to tell you," she said at last. "That was some trick you pulled durin' the avalanche."

Maia sighed, wishing it had occurred to her to lie about the damned bucket, instead of semiconsciously babbling the whole story to her rescuers.. Her impulsive act hadn't been thought-out enough to be called generous, let alone heroic. Sheer instinct, that was all. Anyway, the futile gesture hadn't saved the poor fellow.