Leie dragged Maia outside by the wrist.

"Did you hear?" she asked excitedly, once they were, some distance away, beside one of Lanargh's countless canals. "A Class Three stipend . . . just for tattling!"

"I heard, Leie. And yes, it's enough to start a hold, in some inexpensive town. But did you notice how vague they were? You don't find that strange? Almost like they're desperate to learn something, but julping at the thought of anybody finding out what they're looking for!"

"Mm," Leie grunted. "You have a point. But hey, you know what?" Her eyes gleamed. "That must mean they're underplaying what they're actually willing to pay. A stipend for information . . . and how much more for keeping quiet afterward? A whole lot, I'll bet!"

Yeah, lots more. Like a garrote in the dark. There were legends of ancient parthenogenetic clans whose daughters brought status and wealth to the hive by hiring out as stealthy assassins. Not all scary stories told to little summerlings were baseless.

But Maia didn't mention this. After all, Leie lived for possibilities, and her enthusiasm tugged at something similar within Maia — a zest for living that she might otherwise have been too reserved, too withdrawn to tap. She differed so from her sibling, even though they were as alike genetically as any pair of clones. It had made Maia more willing than most vars to accept the notion of individuality among winter folk.

"We've got to keep our eyes open!" Leie said, turning a great circle with her arms, and finally staring up at the starry vault overhead.

Constellations had emerged while they were inside, painting the heavens with sweeping, diamond brilliance.

The radiance of the galactic wheel. At expected intervals, Maia caught sight of rhythmically pulsing pinpoints that weren't stars or planets, but rotating satellites vital to navigators at sea. She saw no sign of the Visitor Ship, but there was the black obscurity of the Claw, which bad little girls were told was the open, grabbing hand of the Boogey Man, reaching for children who failed their duty. Now Maia knew it as a dusty nebula, nearby in stellar terms, obscuring direct line of sight to Earth and the rest of the Human Phylum. That must have been comforting to the Founders, providing added shelter against interference by the old ways.

All that was over, now. Something had emerged from the Claw, and Maia doubted even great savants knew yet whether it meant menace or promise. The dark shape made her shiver, childhood superstitions clashing with her proud, if limited, scientific knowledge.

"If only we knew what the savants are looking for," said Leie wistfully. "I'd shave my head to find out!"

Practically speaking, if the grand matrons of Caria sought something, it was doubtful two poor virgins on a frontier coast would stumble across it. "It's a big world," Maia sighed in reply.

Naturally, Leie took a different spin on her sister's words.

"It sure is. Big, wide open, and just waiting for us to take it by the throat!"

Why does sex exist? For three billion years, life on Earth did well enough without it. A reproducing organism simply divided, thus arranging for its posterity to be carried on by two almost-perfect copies.

That "almost" was crucial. In nature, true perfection is a blind alley, leading to extinction. Slight variations, acted on by selection, let even single-cell species adapt to a changing world. Still, despite eons of biochemical innovation, progress was slow. Life remained meek and simple till just half a billion years ago, when it made a breakthrough.

Bacteria were already swapping genetic information, in a crude fashion. Now the system of exchange got organized, increasing patterned variability ten thousand-fold. Sex was born, and soon came many-celled organisms — fish, trees, dinosaurs, humans. Sex did all that.

Yet, because nature accomplished something in a certain way, must we follow suit when we design our new humanity? Modern gene-craft can outpace sex another thousand-fold. Within overall mammalian limitations, we can paint with colors never known to poor, blind biology.

We can learn from Mother Nature's mistakes, and do a better job.

 — from Methods and Means, by Lysos

4

There was little rain. Nevertheless, the squall swiftly turned into a vicious gale.

The freighter Wotan wallowed through deep, rolling seas, sliding half-sideways down serrated slopes, abeam to a wind that seized its masts like lever arms, so that the poorly balanced ship heeled dangerously with each stiffening gust, its helm not responding.

Screaming, the mate berated his captain for taking on too little ballast in Lanargh. Earlier, he had cursed because they were too laden to flee the surprise tempest. Ignoring the first officer's shrill imprecations, the master sent sailors aloft to break the wind's grip on the masts. Shivering in icy spray, barefoot crewmen took to the swaying sheets, clenching hatchets in their teeth, edging crablike along slippery spars to hack at rigging, torn canvas — anything the vicious storm might clutch and use to heel them over to their doom.

Dimly, through waves of churning nausea, Maia peered after the brave seamen, unable to credit such skill or fortitude. Needles of saltwater stung her eyes as she squeezed the gunnels, watching sailors take horrific risks high above, wielding axes one-handed, shouting as they struggled in common to save the lives of everyone aboard. Nor were there only men up there. Higher-pitched cries told of female crew who had also climbed into the gale, riding masts that whipped like tortured snakes.

Vars like her. How could human beings do such things? Maia felt queasy at the thought. Plus shame at being too landlubber-inept to lend a hand.

" 'Ware below!" a voice bellowed. Something fell out of the chaos overhead, a ropy tangle that clanged off the gunnels, then slithered toward the dark, hungry waters. Blearily, Maia stared after the mass of blocks and rigging, which might have taken her along had it struck just a bit farther aft. But try as she might, she could not spy a safer place on deck than right here between the masts, gripping the railing for dear life.

One thing for sure, she wasn't about to join other passengers cowering below. Out here one must face the storm unsheltered, staring at soaring mounds and abyssal gullies of heaving ocean. But across that terrifying vista, that maelstrom, she had last sighted the Zeus. Her twin rode that other frail matchbox of wood and cloth and flesh, and if Maia was too ill and clumsy to help Wotan's struggling crew, at least she could keep watch, and call if she saw anything.

Mostly what she saw was watery nature, a conspiracy of foamy sea and sodden air, trying its best to kill them. The green hillocks, taller and steeper than the clanholds of Port Sanger, arrived in a rhythm well-timed to deepen the ship's pendulous roll. On passing the next crest, Wotan heeled far to starboard, hanging precipitously, about to spill over a terrifying slant. The entire vessel shivered.

Just then, a fresh gust struck the other side, yanking mightily at the groaning masts, levering the freighter's great bulk over its keel. Loudly protesting, the infirm ship listed and plummeted downslope. Gravity rotated, becoming a sideways force, pressing Maia against the rails. One leg slipped between, dangling into space. In horror, she saw the gray-green sea reach with foam-flecked gauntlets . . .

Time slowed. For a suspended moment, Maia thought she heard the waters call her name.

Then, as if bemused by her helplessness, the ocean-beast slowed . . . paused . . . halted just meters away. Eyeless, it looked at her. Like an unhurried predator staring straight through her soul.

Next time … Or the time after . . .