Brod shook his head. "Starkland had a hookup. We're a librarian family. I was good at it. Mother Cil said I must've been born in the wrong season. Would've done the clan proud, if I'd been a full clone."
Maia sighed in sympathy, relating to the story. She, too, had talents inappropriate for any life path open to her. There passed several long minutes in which neither spoke. They moved on to another site, tossing a leafy branch into the spuming water and counting their pulses to time its departure.
"Can you keep a secret?" Brod said a little later. Maia turned, meeting his pale eyes.
"I suppose. But—"
"There's another reason they keep me mostly ashore . . . the captain and mates, I mean."
"Yes?"
He looked left and right, then leaned toward her.
"I … get seasick. Almost half the time. Never even saw any of the big fight when you were captured, 'cause I was bent over the fantail the whole time. Not encouraging for a guy s'posed to be an officer, I guess."
She stared at the lad, guessing what it had cost him to say this. Still, she could not help herself. Maia fought to hold it in, to keep a straight face, but finally had to cover her mouth, stifling a choking sound. Brod shook his head. He pursed his lips, tightening them hard, but could not keep them from spreading. He snorted. Maia rocked back and forth, holding her sides, then burst forth with peals of laughter. In a second, the youth replied in kind, guffawing with short brays between inhalations that sounded much better than sobs.
The next day, a vast squadron of zoor passed to the north, like gaily painted parasols, or flattish balloons that had escaped a party for festive giants. Morning sunlight refracted through their bulbous, translucent gasbags and dangling tendrils, casting multicolored shadows on the pale waters The convoy stretched from horizon to horizon.
Maia watched from the precipice, along with Brod and several women, remembering the last time she had seen big floaters like these, though nowhere near this many. It had been from the narrow window of her prison cell, in Long Valley, when she had thought Leie dead, had yet to meet Renna, and seemed entirely alone in the world. By rights, she should be less desolate now. Leie was alive, and had vowed to come back for her. Maia worried over Renna constantly, but the reavers weren't likely to harm him, and rescue was still possible. She even had friends, after a fashion, in Naroin and Brod.
So why do I feel worse than ever?
Misery is relative, she knew. And present pain is always worse than its memory. This softer captivity didn't ease her bitterness thinking of Leie's actions, her angst for Renna, or her feelings of helplessness.
"Look!" Brod cried, pointing to the west, the source of the zoor migration. Women shaded their eyes and, one by one; gasped.
There, in the midst of the floating armada, emerging out of brightness, cruised three stately, cylindrical behemoths, gliding placidly like whales among jellyfish.
"Pontoos," Maia breathed. The cigar-shaped beasts stretched hundreds of meters, more closely resembling the fanciful zep'lin on her sextant cover than the surrounding zoor, or, for that matter, the small dirigibles used nowadays to carry mail. Their flanks shimmered with facets like iridescent fish scales, and they trailed long, slender appendages which, at intervals, dipped to the waves, snatching edible bits, or siphoning water to split, with sunlight, into hydrogen and oxygen.
Despite protective laws passed by council and church, the majestic creatures were slowly vanishing from the face of Stratos. It was rare to sight one anywhere near habitable regions. The things I've seen, Maia thought, noting the one, great compensation for her adventures. If I ever had grandchildren, the things I could have told them.
Then she recalled some of Renna's stories of other worlds and vistas, strange beyond imagining. It brought on a pang of loss and envy. Maia had never thought, before meeting the Earthling, of coveting the stars. Now she did, and knew she would never have them.
"I just remembered …" young Brod said contemplatively. "Something I read about zoor and such. You know, they're attracted to the smell of burning sugar? We have some we could put on the fire."
Women turned to look at him. "So?" Naroin asked. "You want to invite 'em over for supper, maybe?"
He shrugged. "Actually, I was thinking that flying out of here might be better than trying to sail that raft. Anyway, it's an idea."
There was a long stretch of silence, then women on both sides laughed aloud, or groaned, at the sheer inanity of the idea. Maia sadly agreed. Of all the boys who tried hitching rides on zoors each year, only a small number were ever seen again. Still, the notion had a vivid, fanciful charm, and she might have given it a thought if the prevailing winds blew toward safe haven … or even dry land. While terribly bright, Brod clearly did not have practical instincts.
