Then humans came. Born critics, we wiped out the carnivores who preyed on us, and battled disease. With rising moral fervor, societies pledged to suppress cutthroat competition, guaranteeing to all a "right to live and prosper."

In retrospect, we know awful mistakes were made with the best intentions on poor Mother Terra. Without natural checks, our ancestors' population boom overwhelmed her. But is the only alternative to bring back rule by tooth and claw? Could we, even if we tried?

Intelligence is loose in the galaxy. Power is in our hands, for better or worse. We can modify Nature's rules, if we dare, but we cannot ignore her lessons.

 — from The Apologia, by Lysos

An acrid scent of smoke. A fuming, cinder mist rising from smoldering planks. Distress flags flapping from the singed mizzen of a crippled ship, staggering toward asylum. The impressions were more vivid for occurring at night, with the larger moon, Durga, laying wan glimmers across the scummy waters of Port Sanger's bayside harbor.

Under glaring searchlights from the high-walled fortress, a dry-goods freighter, Prosper, wallowed arduously toward safe haven, assisted by its attacker. Half the town was there to watch, including militia from all of the great clanholds, their daughters of fighting age decked in leather armor and carrying polished trepp bills. Matronly officers wore cuirasses of shiny metal, shouting to squads of identical offspring and nieces. The Lamatia contingent arrived, quick-marching downhill in helmets crowned with gaeo bird feathers. Maia recognized most of the full-clone winterlings, her half sisters, despite their being alike in nearly every way. The Lamai companies briskly spread along the roof of the family warehouse before dispatching a detachment to help defend the town itself.

It was quite a show. Maia and her sister watched in fascination from a perch on the jetty wall. Not since they had been three years old had there been an alert like this. Nor were the commanders of the clan companies pleased to learn that a jumpy watchwoman had set off this commotion by pressing the wrong alert button, unleashing rockets into the placid autumn night where a few hoots from the siren would have been proper. An embarrassed Captain Jounine spent half an hour apologizing to disgruntled matrons, some of whom seemed all the more irascible for being squeezed into armor meant for younger, lither versions of themselves.

Meanwhile, rowboats threw lines to help draw the limping, smoldering Prosper toward refuge. Maia saw buckets of seawater still being drawn to extinguish embers from the fire that had nearly sent the ship down. Its sails were torn and singed. Dozens of scorched ropes festooned the rigging, dangling from unwelcome grappling hooks.

It must have been some fight, she figured, while it lasted.

Leie peered at the smaller vessel that had the Prosper in tow, its tiny auxiliary engine chuffing at the strain. "The reaver's called Misfortune," she told Maia, reading blocky letters on the bow. "Probably picked the name to strike terror into their victims' hearts." She laughed. "Bet they change it after this."

Maia had never been as quick as her sister to switch from adrenaline to pure spectator state. Only a short time ago, the city had been girding for attack. It would take time to adjust to the fact that all this panic was over a simple, bungled case of quasilegal piracy.

"The reavers don't look too happy," Maia observed, pointing to a crowd of tough-looking women wearing red bandannas, gathered on Misfortune's foredeck. Their chief argued with a guardia officer in a rocking motor launch. A similar scene took place near the prow of the Prosper, where affluent-looking women in smoke-fouled finery pointed and complained in loud voices. Farther aft on both vessels, male officers and crew tended the tricky business of guiding their ships to port. Not a man spoke until the vessels tied at neighboring jetties, at which time Prosper's master toured the maimed vessel. From his knotted jaw and taut neck muscles, the glowering man seemed capable of biting nails in two. Soon he was joined by Misfortune's skipper, who, after a moment's tense hesitation, offered his hand in silent commiseration.

A rumor network circulated among dockside bystanders, passing on what others, closer in, had learned. Leie dropped off the jetty in order to listen, while Maia stayed put, preferring what she could decipher with her own eyes. There must have been an accident during the fight, she surmised, tracing how fire had spread from a charred area amidships. Perhaps a lantern got smashed while the reavers battled the owners for their cargo. At that point, the male crews would have called a truce and put both sides to work saving the ship. It looked like a near thing, even so.

Reavers were uncommon in the Parthenia Sea, so near the stronghold of Port Sanger's powerful clans. But that wasn't the only curious thing about this episode.

Seems a stupid idea, hiring a schooner to go reaving this early in autumn, Maia thought. With storm season just ending, there were plenty of tempting cargoes around. But it was also a time when males still flowed with summer rut hormones, which might kick in under tense circumstances. Watching the edgy sailors, their fists clenched in rage, Maia wondered what might drive, the young vars in a reaver gang to take such a risk.

One of the men kicked a bulkhead in anger, splintering the wood with a resounding crack.

Once, on a visit to a Sheldon ranch, Maia had witnessed two stallions fight over a sash-horse herd. That struggle without quarter had been unnerving, the lesson obvious. Perkinite scandal sheets spread scare-stories about "incidents," when masculine tempers flared and instincts left over from animal times on Old Earth came to fore. "Wary be you women," went a stanza of the rhyme oft quoted by Perkinites. "For a man who fights may kill …"

To which Maia added privately, Especially, when their precious ships are in danger. This misadventure might easily have tipped over into something far worse.

Militia officers led the band of reavers, and Prosper's passengers, toward the fort where a lengthy adjudication process would begin. Maia caught one shrill cry from the pirate leader: "… they set the fire on purpose 'cause we were winning!"

The owners' spokeswoman, a clone from the rich Vunern trading clan, vehemently denied the charge. If proven, she risked losing more than the cargo and fines to repair Prosper. There might even be a boycott of her family's goods by all the sailing guilds. At such times, the normal hierarchy on Stratos was known to reverse, and mighty matrons from great holds went pleading leniency from lowly men.

But never from a var. It would take a true revolution to reverse the social ladder that far. For summer-born women ever to sit in judgment over clones.

Maia watched the procession march past her vantage point, some of the figures limping, holding bloody gashes from the fight that led to this debacle. Medical orderlies carried stretchers at the rear. One of the burdens lay completely covered.

Perkies may be right about women having less murderous tempers, Maia contemplated. We seldom try to kill. It was one reason Lysos and the Founders had come here — to create a gentler world. But I guess that makes small difference to the poor wretch under that blanket.

Leie returned, breathless to relate all she had learned from the throng. Maia listened and made all the right astonished sounds. Some names and details she hadn't pieced together by observing . . . and some she felt sure were garbled by the rumor chain.

Did details matter, though? What stuck in her mind, as they left with the dispersing crowd, had been the expression on Captain Jounine's face as the guardia commander escorted her bickering charges over a drawbridge into the fortress.