Soli win the race."
"He's a fat fool. Haven't I told you that for twelve years? He thinks he's clever. Clever he's not. I could have taught him cleverness. When I was four years old."
From a delicate blue pot, she poured coffee into a marble cup and slid it across the table. I sipped the hot, black coffee, totally unprepared for what she said next. "We can leave the Order," she whispered, tilting her head as she quickly glanced at the two master mechanics sitting at the table next to us. "The new academy, the one on Tria, you know what I'm saying don't you? They need pilots, good ones like you. Why should our Order tyrannize the fallaways?"
I was so shocked that I spilled coffee on my lap, burning my leg. The Merchant Pilots of Tria - those wily, unethical thingists and tubists - for a long time had tried to break the power of our Order. "What are you saying, Mother? That we should be traitors?"
"Traitors to the Order, yes. Better for you to betray a few hastily given vows, than to betray the life I gave you."
"You always hoped I'd be Lord Pilot someday."
"You could be a merchant prince. Of Tria."
"No, Mother, never that."
"It would surprise you. That certain pilots have been offered middle estates on Tria. Certain programmers and cantors, too."
"But no one has accepted, have they?"
"Not yet," she said, and she began drumming her fingers against the table top. "But there is more dissension among the professionals than you know. Some of the historians like Burgos Harsha think the Order is stagnating. And the pilots. The rule against marriage is almost as hated as marriage is hateful." Here she paused to laugh at her little joke, then continued, "There is more disorder in the Order than you'd dream." She laughed again as if she knew something I didn't, and she sat back in her chair, waiting.
"I'd rather die than go to Tria."
"Then we'll flee to Lechoix. Your grandmother will welcome us, even if you are a bull."
"I don't think she will."
My grandmother whom I had never met, Dama Oriana Ringess, had brought up Justine and my mother - and Katharine - properly. "Properly" in the Lechoix Matriarchy meant an early introduction into the feminine mysteries and severe language rules. Thus men are despised and are referred to as "bulls," or "gamecocks," or sometimes "mules." Desire between man and woman is called "the sick heat," and marriage, heterosexual marriage, that is, is "the living hell." The High Damen, of which my grandmother is one of the highest, abhorring the belief that men make better pilots than women, support the largest and best of the Order's elite schools. So it was that when my mother and Justine arrived at Borja long ago having never seen a man, they were shocked - and in my mother's case, hateful - that such young beasts as Lionel and Soli could be better mathematicians than they were.
"Dama Oriana," I said, "would do nothing that would shame the Matriarchy, would she?"
"Listen to me. Listen! I won't let Soli kill my
son
!" She said the word "son" with such a wrenching desperation that I felt compelled to look at her, even as she burst into tears and sobbed. She nervously pulled her hair from the chignon's binding leather and used the shiny strands to dry her face. "Listen, listen," she said. "Brilliant Soli returns from the manifold. Brilliant as always, but not so brilliant. I used to beat him. At chess. Three games out of four before he quit playing me."
"What do you mean?"
"I've ordered you bread," she said as she held up her hand and motioned to the domestic. It rolled to the table where it placed before me a basket of hot, crusty black bread. "Eat your bread and drink your coffee."
"You're not eating?"
Usually she had bread at breakfast; like her sisters on Lechoix she would eat no foods of animal origin, not even the cultured meats favored by almost everyone in our
"He's a fat fool. Haven't I told you that for twelve years? He thinks he's clever. Clever he's not. I could have taught him cleverness. When I was four years old."
From a delicate blue pot, she poured coffee into a marble cup and slid it across the table. I sipped the hot, black coffee, totally unprepared for what she said next. "We can leave the Order," she whispered, tilting her head as she quickly glanced at the two master mechanics sitting at the table next to us. "The new academy, the one on Tria, you know what I'm saying don't you? They need pilots, good ones like you. Why should our Order tyrannize the fallaways?"
I was so shocked that I spilled coffee on my lap, burning my leg. The Merchant Pilots of Tria - those wily, unethical thingists and tubists - for a long time had tried to break the power of our Order. "What are you saying, Mother? That we should be traitors?"
"Traitors to the Order, yes. Better for you to betray a few hastily given vows, than to betray the life I gave you."
"You always hoped I'd be Lord Pilot someday."
"You could be a merchant prince. Of Tria."
"No, Mother, never that."
"It would surprise you. That certain pilots have been offered middle estates on Tria. Certain programmers and cantors, too."
"But no one has accepted, have they?"
"Not yet," she said, and she began drumming her fingers against the table top. "But there is more dissension among the professionals than you know. Some of the historians like Burgos Harsha think the Order is stagnating. And the pilots. The rule against marriage is almost as hated as marriage is hateful." Here she paused to laugh at her little joke, then continued, "There is more disorder in the Order than you'd dream." She laughed again as if she knew something I didn't, and she sat back in her chair, waiting.
"I'd rather die than go to Tria."
"Then we'll flee to Lechoix. Your grandmother will welcome us, even if you are a bull."
"I don't think she will."
My grandmother whom I had never met, Dama Oriana Ringess, had brought up Justine and my mother - and Katharine - properly. "Properly" in the Lechoix Matriarchy meant an early introduction into the feminine mysteries and severe language rules. Thus men are despised and are referred to as "bulls," or "gamecocks," or sometimes "mules." Desire between man and woman is called "the sick heat," and marriage, heterosexual marriage, that is, is "the living hell." The High Damen, of which my grandmother is one of the highest, abhorring the belief that men make better pilots than women, support the largest and best of the Order's elite schools. So it was that when my mother and Justine arrived at Borja long ago having never seen a man, they were shocked - and in my mother's case, hateful - that such young beasts as Lionel and Soli could be better mathematicians than they were.
"Dama Oriana," I said, "would do nothing that would shame the Matriarchy, would she?"
"Listen to me. Listen! I won't let Soli kill my
son
!" She said the word "son" with such a wrenching desperation that I felt compelled to look at her, even as she burst into tears and sobbed. She nervously pulled her hair from the chignon's binding leather and used the shiny strands to dry her face. "Listen, listen," she said. "Brilliant Soli returns from the manifold. Brilliant as always, but not so brilliant. I used to beat him. At chess. Three games out of four before he quit playing me."
"What do you mean?"
"I've ordered you bread," she said as she held up her hand and motioned to the domestic. It rolled to the table where it placed before me a basket of hot, crusty black bread. "Eat your bread and drink your coffee."
"You're not eating?"
Usually she had bread at breakfast; like her sisters on Lechoix she would eat no foods of animal origin, not even the cultured meats favored by almost everyone in our
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