At last she flung the cloths aside with a curse. Her hands tingled painfully as full circulation returned. Rubbing them, Maia stretched, waving her arms and walking to get the kinks out.

Near the door, she found a small table she hadn't noticed before, on which stood a pitcher of water and a dented cup. Forcing her trembling hands to master the movements, she poured and drank ravenously. When the pitcher was half-empty, she put the cup down and wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist.

I don't suppose there's anything to eat?

There was no food, but underneath the table she found a large ceramic pot with a lid. Glazed depictions of sailing ships battled high seas along its side. She removed the cover and squatted on the cold porcelain to relieve yet another of her body's cataloged complaints.

As immediate concerns were satisfied, more afflictions came to the fore, awaiting attention. Despair, her old nemesis, seemed to rise up and politely ask, "Now?"

Maia shook her head firmly. I've got to keep busy. Not think for a while.

She set to work struggling to push heavy boxes together and then levering one on top of another. Strenuous labor set off renewed waves of dizziness, which she waited out before recommencing. Finally, a makeshift pyramid lay beneath the high window. Clambering onto the ultimate pile of folded carpets, she was at last able to bring her eyes level with the narrow slit, to peer out upon a vast expanse of prairie that began right below her at the foot of a steep, vertical drop. The hole looked pretty narrow to worm through, but even if she managed, it would take a warehouse full of rugs and curtains, tied together, to make a rope long enough to reach the valley floor. This room might not have been designed as a prison, but it would do.

To think I used to dream of seeing the inside of a man sanctuary, Maia thought sardonically, and climbed down.

She tried prying at a couple of crates, but nothing persuaded them to open. Maia did manage to get some of the rugs unrolled to make a bed of sorts — more like a nest — over in one corner. Her stomach growled. She drank and used the chamber pot again. Beyond that, there seemed nothing left to do. . .

"Now," the voice of despair said with assertion, unwilling to brook further delay, and Maia buried her face in her hands.

Why me? she wondered. Loneliness, her arch enemy, never seemed content. Its return visits were each more brutal than the last, ever since that awful storm tore the ships Wotan and Zeus apart from one another, and she from her twin. Maia had thought that tragedy her nadir. What more could the world possibly do to her?

Apparently, a whole lot more.

Maia lay down with a length of soft blue curtain material wrapped around her shoulders, and waited for her keepers to come with food … or word of her fate. Thalia and Kiel will worry about me, she thought, trying to raise an image of friendship for whatever tenuous comfort it offered. She had sunk too low to fantasize that anyone might actually search for her. The solace she sought was simply to imagine somebody on Stratos cared enough to notice she was gone.

The dour-faced guardians returned soon after Maia fell into an exhausted, fitful slumber. Their noise roused her, and she rubbed her eyes as one of them dropped a clattering tray onto the rickety table. Maia could not tell if it was the same pair that had freighted her from Lerner Hold, or if those two had rotated duties with others exactly like them. Stepping back to the door, the sisters watched her with eyes as round and brown and innocent as a doe's.

They had brought food, but little news. When she asked between ravenous spoonings of nondescript stew what was to become of her, their monosyllable answers conveyed that they neither knew nor cared. About the only information Maia was able to pry loose was their family name — Guel — after which they fell into taciturn silence.

What talent or ability had enabled the original ancestress of such broody, beetle-browed women to establish a parthenogenetic clan? What niche did they fill? Surely none requiring affability or great intelligence. Yet, for all Maia knew, the trio she had seen were part of a specialized hive with thousands of individual members, all descended from an original Guel mother who had proved herself excellent at …

She wondered. At driving prisoners crazy with sheer sullenness? Perhaps Guel Clan operated jails for local towns and counties across three continents! Maia could hardly disprove it from past experience, this being her first time in prison.

Watching them carry off the dishes, shuffling awkwardly and muttering to each other as they fumbled with the key, Maia contemplated an alternate theory — that these were the sole clone offspring of one farm laborer whose strength and curt obtuseness were qualities some local clan of employers had found useful. Useful enough to subsidize producing more of the same.

Now that hunger was abated, Maia recalled other discomforts. "Hey!" she cried, hurrying to the door and pounding until a querulous voice answered from the opposite side. Maia shouted through the jamb, asking her keepers for soap and a washcloth. And oh yes! Some of the dried takawq leaves all but the rich in this valley used as toilet paper. There came a low grunt in response, followed by the sound of heavy, receding footsteps.

Come to think of it, unless the idea was to torture her with minor annoyances, this lack of amenities indicated her jailers were indeed amateurs. Just a trio of bullies hired locally for a special assignment. Recalling some of the radical declarations she'd heard over Thalia's radio, Maia made herself a promise. She would not show her keepers any of the habitual respect a unique was supposed to offer those fortunate enough to be born even low-caste clones.

They can't keep me here forever, can they? she wondered plaintively.

Try as she might, Maia could not think of a single reason why they couldn't.

There were other, hurtful questions, such as why Calma Lerner had turned her in to the Joplands. How much did they pay? Not very much, I bet. Her heart felt heavy thinking about the betrayal. Although there had been no fealty between them, she had been so sure Calma liked her.

Like has nothing to do with it, when rich clans are involved.

Clearly this was about the drug that made males rut out of season. The clan mothers of this valley had an agenda for its use, and weren't about to brook interference. Perkinites dream of a nice, predictable world, where everyone grows up knowing who and what she is. Every girl a cherished member of her clan, knowing her future. No muss or fuss from gene mixing. No vars and as few men, as seldom, as possible.

According to Savant Judeth, the aristocracies of ancient Earth used to justify suppressing those below them on the basis of "innate differences," an assumption that almost never survived scrutiny, once opportunity came to children of rich and poor alike. But there would be no need for oppression or false assumptions in a Perkinite world. Each family and type would find its own level and niche based on talents well-proven by time. Each clan would do what it did best, what it liked doing best, in a changeless atmosphere of reliable and mutual respect. Perkinite preachers spoke of a utopic end to all violence, uncertainty, chaos. A stratified world, but a fair one.

Men and vars, even as minorities, irritated this serene equation.

Back in Port Sanger, Perkinism was a mere fringe heresy. Each summer, the clans would invite chosen sailors to come up from the Lighthouse Sanctuary, partly in order to have some var and boy children, but mostly for good, neighborly relations. It kept the shipping guilds happy, and helped make men feel duty-bound to try their best, half a year later. Besides, even in summer, it was sometimes nice to have men around, so long as they behaved.