17

There was glory on deck the next morning. Freshly fallen from high, stratospheric clouds, the delicate frost coated every surface, from spars and rails to rigging, making the Manitou into a fairy ship of crystal dust, glowing in a profusion of pink sunrise refractions.

Maia stood atop a narrow flight of stairs leading up to the small cabin she shared with nine other women.

She rubbed her eyes and stared at the sweetly painful dawnlight glitter outside. How pretty, she thought, watching countless pinpoints of rose-colored brilliance change, moment by moment.

She recalled occasions when Port Sanger received such a coating, causing shops and businesses to close while women hurried outside to sweep puffballs from their windowsills into vacuum jars, for preservation. A sprinkle of glory disrupted daily life far more than thicker falls of normal snow, which simply entailed boots and shovels and some seasonal grumbling.

Certainly men preferred dense drifts of the regular wind. Even slippery ice, making the streets slick and treacherous, seemed to perturb the rough sailors nowhere near as much as a thin scattering of lacy glory. Most males fled to their ships, or beyond the city gates, until sunlight cleansed the town, and its women citizens were in a less festive mood.

That was on shore, Maia remembered. Here, there's no place for the poor fellows to run.

From the narrow doorway at the head of the stairs, Maia inhaled a cool, faintly cinnamon odor. This was no minor dusting, like in Long Valley. The air felt bracing, and provoked a tingling in her spine. Sensations vaguely familiar from prior winters, yet enhanced this time.

Of course, she hadn't been a grown woman before. Maia felt combined eagerness and reluctance, waiting to see if the aroma would have a deeper effect, now that she was five.

There was movement on deck, male sailors shuffling with the desultory slowness of dawn-shift workers. They were physically unaffected by the icy encrustation, yet the captain's expression seemed unhappy, irritated. He snapped at his officers and frowned, contemplating the fine, crystal dusting.

The unhappiest person in sight was the only female — the youngest of Kiel's company of Rads, a girl about Maia's age. She was using a broom to sweep glory frost into a square-mouthed bucket, which she proceeded to empty over the side before going back for another load.

Maia sensed a stirring behind her — another woman rising with the sun. She glanced back and nodded a silent good-morning as Naroin climbed the short, steep steps to squeeze alongside. "Well, look at that," the older var commented, sniffing the soft, chill breeze. "Quite a sight, eh? Too bad it's all got to go."

The petite sailor redescended, plunging momentarily into the dimness of the narrow cabin. She reached onto the bunk Maia had just vacated, and returned bearing Maia's coat. "There you go," Naroin said with a kindly tone, and pointed at the girl outside, sweeping the deck rejectedly. "Your job, too. Law of th' sea. Women stay below till the frost goes. Except virgies."

Maia blushed. "How do you know I'm a—"

Naroin held up a hand placatingly. "Just an expression. Half o' these vars" — she jerked her thumb at those still sleeping below—"never had a man, an' never will. Eia, it's a matter of age. Youngsters sweep up. Go on, child. Eia."

"Eia," Maia responded automatically, slipping on the coat. She trusted Naroin not to lie about something like this. Still, it seemed unfair. Her feet shuffled reluctantly as the bosun gently pushed her outside and shut the door behind her. Chill air condensed her breath in steamy plumes. Rubbing already-numb hands, Maia sighed and went to the utility locker to fetch a broom.

The other girl gave her a look that seemed to say, Where have you been? Maia lifted her shoulders in the same silent language.

I didn't know anything about it. Do I ever?

It was logical, when she thought about it. Glory didn't affect women as strongly as summer's aurorae did men, thank Lysos. Still, it drew those of fertile age toward ideas of sex at exactly the time of year when most men preferred a good book. What males found irksome but avoidable on land could not be escaped so easily at sea. Fivers and sixers, who were less affected by the seasons, and unattractive to males anyway, naturally got the job of sweeping up, so other women might be permitted to emerge before noon.

The chore soon lost whatever attraction lay in novelty, and Maia found the faintly pleasant tingling in her nose less fixating than advertised. Carrying bucketsful to the rail, she could not escape the sensation of being watched. Maia felt certain some of the sailors were pointing at her, sniggering.

The reason had nothing to do with the glory fall, and everything to do with last night's fiasco of a "competition." It was bad enough being a lowly young var, on a voyage not of her choosing. But the Life match had left her a laughingstock.

Sure enough, one of her opponents, the cook's assistant, was firing up his stove under the eaves of the poop deck. The boy grinned when Maia's sweeping brought her nearby. He lisped through a gap left by two missing teeth, "Ready for another game? Whenever you an' the Starman want, me an' Kari are ready."

Maia made as if she hadn't heard. The youth was clearly no intellect, yet he and the cabin boy had made quick hash of Renna's carefully-thought-out Game of Life plan. The rout became obvious within a few rounds.

With each pulse, ripples of change had swept the board. Black pieces, representing "living" locations, turned white and died, unless conditions were right to go on living. White pieces flipped over, coming alive when the number of black neighbors allowed it. Patterns took shape, wriggling and writhing like organisms of many cells.

The forty-by-forty grid was by no means the largest Maia had seen. There were rumors of boards vastly larger in some of the towns and ancient sanctuaries of the Mediant Coast. Yet, she and Renna had worked hard to fill their side with a starting pattern that might thrive, all to no avail. Their labors began unraveling from almost the very start.

One of their opponents' designs began firing self-contained gliders across the board, configurations that banked and flapped at an oblique angle toward the edge, where they caromed toward the oasis Renna and Maia had to preserve. Maia watched with a lump in her throat as the other glider gun on this side — her own contribution to Renna's plan — launched interceptors that skimmed past their short fence barrier just in time to…

Yes! She had felt elation as their antimissiles collided with the enemy's projectiles right on schedule, creating explosions of simulated debris.

"Eia!" she had cried in excitement.

Intent as she had been on that threat, Maia was rudely yanked back by an abrupt roar of laughter. She turned to Renna. "What is it?"

Ruefully, her partner pointed toward the synthetic figure they had counted on to hold the center of the board. Their "guardian," with its flailing arms and legs, had seemed guaranteed to ward off anything that dared approach. But now Maia saw that a bar-shaped entity had emerged from the other side of the board, approaching inexorably. At that instant, she experienced a queer sense of recognition, perhaps dredged out of childhood memory, from watching countless games at dockside in Port Sanger. In a strange instant, the new shape suddenly struck her as … obvious.

Of course. That shape will absorb … .

The flickering intruder made contact with the branching patterns that were the guardian's arms, and proceeded to suck them in! To the eye, it seemed as if their opponents' creature was devouring game pieces, one by one, incorporating organs from the guardian into its growing self.