The man who had been her fellow prisoner laughed appreciatively. "When you put it that way, I guess it's the same for everybody. The only game in town."
Maia recalled the night before, the way shifting winds would bring his aroma as she slept fitfully, waking once to find that she was using his chest as a pillow, and he asleep with one arm over her shoulders. This morning, he seemed a different person. Somehow he had found a way to clean up. His stubble had been scraped away, in places, transforming it into the beginnings of a neat beard. Right now she could smell herself more than him.
Moving to place herself downwind, she asked, "Then you aren't here to invade us?"
She had meant it as a joke, to make fun of the rumors spread by fearmongers ever since his ship appeared in the sky, one long year ago. But Renna smiled thinly, answering, "In a manner of speaking, that's exactly what I'm here for … to prepare you for an invasion."
Maia swallowed. It wasn't the answer she'd expected. "But you—"
She didn't finish. Thalia called, leading a pair of horses, "Off your bottoms, you two! Daylight riding's hard and fast, so let's get at it!"
"Yes, ma'am!" Renna replied with a friendly, only-slightly-mocking salute. He left his archaeological samples where they lay and stood up, folding the game board. Maia hurried to tie her bedroll to her saddlebag, and glanced back to see Renna bending over to check the cinch buckle of his mount. I wonder what he meant by that remark. Could the Enemy be coming back? Did he come across the stars to warn us?
While Maia was looking at the man, Kiel crossed between them and smoothly, blithely, reached out to pinch him as she passed by! "Hey!" Renna shouted, straightening and rubbing his bottom, but clearly more surprised than offended. Indeed, his rueful smile betrayed a hint of enjoyment, causing Kiel to chuckle.
Lysos, what a shameless tease, Maia grumbled to herself, irritation pushing aside her earlier train of thought. Miffed without quite knowing why, she ignored the man's glances after that and rode ahead with Baltha for most of that afternoon. Her annoyance only grew as Renna took small detours several times with Kiel and Thalia, showing them ruins he spotted and explaining which structure might have been a house and which a craftworks. The two women were embarrassingly effusive in their show of interest.
Baltha snorted. "Silly rads," she muttered. "Making a fuss like that, trying to talk to a man, even when it won't get 'em anywhere. As if those two could handle a sparking if they got one now."
"You don't think they're trying to—"
"Naw. Just flirting, prob'ly. Pretty damn pointless. You know the saying —
"Niche and a House, first of all, matter,
Then sibs and allies, who speak the same patter,
Only then, last of all, a man to flatter.
"Still makes plenty sense to me," she finished.
"Mm," Maia answered noncommittally. "What's a … rad?"
Baltha glanced at her, sidelong. "Pretty innocent, ain't you, virgie? Do you know anything at all?"
Maia felt her face flush. I know what you've got hidden in your saddlebag, she thought of saying, but refrained.
"Rad stands for 'radical' — which means a bunch of overeducated young city varlings with dimwitted ideas about changing the world. Think they're all smarter than Lysos. Idiots."
Maia recalled now, listening to the tinny radio in the cottage at Lerner Hold. The clandestine station used the word to represent women calling for a rethinking of Stratoin society, from the ground up. In many ways, rads were polar opposites to Perkinites, pushing for empowerment of the var underclass through restructuring all of the rules, political and biological.
"You're talking about my friends," Maia told Baltha, in what she hoped was a severe tone.
Baltha returned a sarcastic moue. "Am I? Now there's a thought. Yer friends. Thanks for setting me straight." She laughed, making Maia feel foolish without knowing why. She turned straight ahead, ignoring the other woman, and for several minutes they rode in silence. Eventually, though, curiosity overcame her resentment. Maia turned and spoke a question in carefully neutral tones. "So, from what you say, I figure you don't want to change the world?"
"Not a whole lot. Just shake it up a little. Knock down some deadwood to make room in the forest, so t'speak. Let in enough light for a new tree or two."
"With you being a founding root, I suppose." "Why not? Don't I look like a foundin' mother to you? Can't you jus' picture this mug on a big painting, hangin' over th' fireplace of some fancy hall, someday?" She held her head high, chin outthrust.
