Prized Read Free Page B

middle-aged man with a full beard and glasses?” the Matrarc asked.
    â€œDressed in gray,” Gaia said. It had both frightened her and given her hope that she was nearing civilization.
    â€œThere’s your crim, Chardo,” the Matrarc said. She turned to Gaia. “He escaped from prison here four days ago. It happens to anyone who leaves. We’ve had nomads pass through, but if they stay with us even two days, the same thing happens.”
    Gaia had never heard of anything like it. “What could cause that? Is there a disease here?”
    â€œWe think it’s something in the environment,” the Matrarc explained. “There’s an acclimation period while your body
adjusts to being here, but after that, there’s no harm to those of us who stay. Beyond the obvious.”
    Frowning, Gaia gazed at the gathered crowd, trying to see what was so obvious. Aside from the man in the stocks and the Matrarc’s own blindness, the people looked healthy and fit. There were tall people and short, a few chubby ones, and none very skinny. Old men and young lounged nearby, with a fairly even distribution of skin tones, from pure black to birch white. There were plenty of children, and attire suggested a mix of affluent and poor.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Gaia asked.
    Laughter came from the women on the porch. Gaia turned to Chardo, puzzled.
    â€œWe don’t have many women here,” Chardo said. “Only one in ten babies is a girl.”
    Gaia looked around again in amazement, seeing how few women there were, mostly congregated on the veranda around the Matrarc. Out in the commons, nearly every face was masculine, and many had beards. Even the children were nearly all boys. How had she not noticed?
    â€œIt’s more than that,” the Matrarc added. “The last girl was born here two years ago. And since then, only boys.”
    â€œHow can that be?” Gaia asked.
    The Matrarc shrugged. “You don’t have to understand it to realize you need to make your choice. Leave today, or stay forever.”
    â€œBut that’s no choice at all. Where would I go? How would I survive?”
    â€œThere was a small community west of here a few years ago,” the Matrarc said. “And there are nomads who cycle through from the north. You could take your chances in either direction, or you could head back to your own home in the south.”

    Gaia couldn’t possibly go back, not in her weak condition. She could hardly stand. “I can’t go,” she said. “Besides, I’d never leave my sister behind.”
    â€œI thought you’d say so,” the Matrarc agreed. “Here’s the other side of your decision. If you stay, you must agree to follow the rules of our community. You might find them strict at first, but I assure you, they’re fair.”
    â€œI can put up with anything as long as I’m with my sister,” Gaia said.
    A faint breeze moved along the porch, and a tendril of white hair shifted across the Matrarc’s face. She smoothed it back, blinking. “Tell me,” the Matrarc said in her soft, lyrical voice. “What would have happened to the baby if Chardo Peter hadn’t found you?”
    Gaia swallowed back the thickness in her throat. “She was dying,” she admitted.
    The Matrarc nodded. She drummed her slender fingers around the top of her cane again. “She still might die. If we didn’t have a mother here to nurse her, she’d have no chance at all. Correct?”
    Gaia nodded.
    â€œIs that a yes?” the Matrarc pressed.
    Gaia didn’t like where this was going. The Matrarc’s gentle manners belied a quiet, unyielding brutality.
    â€œMlass Gaia?” the Matrarc said, waiting. “Say it.”
    â€œYes,” Gaia said. “My sister would be dead.”
    The Matrarc eased back slightly. “Then from now on, we will consider your sister to be a gift to Sylum. A