There followed another period of quick trotting and more brisk walking. Soon a lesser moon — Aglaia — rose to join Durga in the sky, and someone started humming a sailor's chantey in greeting. Another woman pitched in with words, singing a rich, mellow contralto. Maia eagerly joined the chorus.

"Oh How, ye winds of the western sea, And blow ye winds, heigh-ho! Give poor shipmen clemency, And blow, ye winds, heigh ho!"

After listening a few rounds, Renna added his deeper tenor to the refrain, which sounded appropriate for a sailing ballad. He caught Maia's eye at one point, winking, and she found herself smiling back shyly, not terribly displeased.

More songs followed. It soon grew clear to Maia that there was a division among the women. Kiel and Thalia and one other — a short brunette named Kau — were city-bred, sophisticated, with Kiel clearly the intellectual leader. At one point, all three of them joined in a rousing anthem whose verses were decidedly political.

"Oh, daughters of the storm assemble, What seems set in stone can still be changed! Who will care whom you resemble, When the order of life is rearranged?"

Maia recalled the melody from those nights sharing a cottage at Lerner Hold, listening to the clandestine radio station. The lyrics conveyed an angry, forceful resolve to upset the present order, making a determined break with the past. The other four women knew this song, and lent support to the chorus. But there was a sense of restraint, as if they disagreed in some parts, while thinking the verses too soft in others. When their turn came again, the others once more chose songs Maia knew from school and creche. Traditional ballads of adventure. Songs of magic lamps and secret treasures. Of warm hearths left behind. Of revealed talents, and wishes coming true. The melodies were more comforting, even if the singers weren't. From their accents and features, she guessed the two shorter, stockier ones must be from the Southern Isles, legendary home of reavers and sharp traders, while the other two, including the rangy blonde, spoke with the sharp twang typical of this part of Eastern Continent. Maia learned the blonde was named Baltha, and seemed to be the leader of the four.

All told, it seemed a tough, confident bunch of vars. They had no apparent fear, even if by some chance Tizbe Beller and her guards caught up with them.

The singing died down before their next break to adjust tack and trade mounts. After resuming, for a while everyone was quiet, allowing the metronome rhythm of the horses' hooves to make low, percussive music of an earthier nature. No longer distracted, Maia took greater note of the cold. Her fingers were especially sensitive, and she wound up keeping her hands in the pockets of the thick coat, holding the reins through layers of cloth.

Renna trotted ahead to ride next to Kiel, causing some muttering among the other women. Baltha was openly disapproving.

"No business a man ridin' like that," she said, watching from behind as Renna jounced along, legs straddling his mount. "It's kinda obscene."

"Seems he knows what he's doing," Thalia said. "Gives me chills watchin', though. Even now that he's got a normal saddle. Can't figure how he doesn't cripple himself."

Baltha spat on the ground. "Some things men just oughtn't be let to do."

"Right," one of the stocky southerners added. "Horses were made for women. Obvious from how we're built an' men aren't. Lysos meant it that way."

Maia shook her head, unsure what to think. Later, when happenstance appeared to bring her alongside Renna's mount, the man turned to her and said in a low voice, "Actually, these animals aren't much different than ones I knew on Earth. A bit stockier, and this weird striping. I think the skull's bigger, but it's hard to recall."

Maia blinked in surprise. "You're . . . from Earth? The real . . . ?"

He nodded, a wistful expression on his face. "Long ago and far away. I know, you thought maybe Florentina, or some other nearby system. No such luck, I'm afraid.

"What I meant, though, is that your friends back there are wrong. Half the worlds in the Human Phylum have horse variants, some much stranger than these. Women ride more often than men, it's true. But this is the first time I've heard it said males aren't built for it!" He laughed. "Now that you mention it, I guess it does seem strange we don't hurt ourselves."

"You heard all that?" Maia asked. At the time, she'd thought he was too far ahead.

He tapped one of his ears. "Thicker atmosphere than my birthworld, by far. Carries sound better. I can hear whispers quite some distance, though it also means I get splitting headaches when people shout. You won't tell, will you?"

He winked for the second time that night, and Maia's sense of alienation evaporated. In an instant he was just another harmless, friendly sailor, on winter leave after a long voyage. His confidential disclosure was natural, an expression of trust based on the fact that they had known each other and shared secrets before.

Maia looked up at the starry vault. "Point to Earth," she asked.

Rising in his stirrups, Renna searched the sky. At last he settled back down. "Sorry. If we're still awake near morning, I should be able to find the Triffid. Sol is near its left eye-stalk. Of course, most of the nearer stars of the Phylum are hidden behind the God's Brow nebula — what you call the Claw — just east of the Triffid."

"You know a lot about our sky, for someone who's been here less than a year."

Renna let out a sigh. His expression grew heavier. "You have long years, on Stratos."

Maia sensed it might be better for the moment to refrain from further questions. Renna's face, which had appeared youthful on first sight, now seemed troubled and weary. He's older than he looks, she realized. How old would you have to be, to travel as far as he has? Even if they have freezers on starships, and move close to the speed of light.

She couldn't put all the blame for her ignorance on Lamatia's selective education. Such subjects had always seemed far removed from matters she had expected to concern her. Not for the first time, Maia wondered, Why did we virtually abandon space? Did Lysos plan it that way? Maybe to help make sure no one found us again?

If so, it must have only made for a worse shock to the savants and councillors and priestesses in Caria, when the Visitor Ship entered orbit, last winter. They must have been thrown into utter chaos.

This has to be what that old bird was talking about, on the tele in Lanargh! Maia realized. Renna must have already been kidnapped then. They were putting out feelers, trying to find him without disturbing the public.

Maia knew what Leie's thought would be, at this point. The reward!

It must be what Thalia and Kiel and the others are after. Of course Thalia had been lying, back in the sanctuary corridors. They hadn't come for her, after all. Or at least not her alone. Their main objective must have been Renna all along, which explained the sidesaddle. Why else bring such a thing all this way, unless to fetch a man?

Not that she blamed them. Maia was accustomed to being unimportant. That they had bothered to spring her, as well, was enough to win her gratitude. And Thalia's attempt to lie about it had been sweet.

The open plain ended abruptly when they arrived at broken ravine country similar to the type Maia remembered, where Lerner Clan dug their ores and spilled slag from their foundry. She guessed this was much farther north and east, but the contours were similar — tortured eroded canyons crossing the prairie like scars of some ancient fight. Carefully, the party dropped into the first set of narrow washes, descending past nesting sites where burrower colonies made vain, threatening noises to drive the humans and horses away. The chirruping sounds grew triumphant as their efforts seemed to work, and the threat passed.