Floating Worlds

by Cecelia Anastasia Holland

  “I want one of these.” He put it back over his head and played with the knobs. She looked up at him, dismayed.

  He bought the illusion helmet and six cartridges, drew on his hand with red lip-slicker and blue eye color and bought several boxes of that. He bit a cheap necklace and lost interest when he realized it was plastic. He flicked his claws at a headless mannequin wearing a bra and a girdle. “That’s disgusting—putting that up for people to look at.”

  She laughed. “We ought to go. I think we’re late already.” Her arms ached from carrying the box. She shifted it elaborately, to draw his attention, but he ignored it. They went toward the door. A mechanical female voice was talking out of the ceiling; she said, “Have you bought your Optima card yet? Remember, every month, card-holders receive special low prices on a wide range of needed items.” The door opened itself for them.

  The mall was cool and dark. Paula boosted up the big package in her arms. They went up the wide steps to the surface. He slung the bag with the illusion helmet over his shoulder.

  “I went all through there looking for something I could give you but there wasn’t anything I thought you’d want.”

  They walked along a wide graded path. On either side of it were dogwood trees. She could not make out his expression. “You’re very smooth.”

  “You suspect everything I do.”

  “Everything you do is suspect.”

  “No—you’re just a suspicious bitch.” They went across the dark grass to the Committee office.

  Jefferson and Bunker were in the meeting room. The woman sat at the table, eating candy, while the man sat in a chair by the wall and argued with her. Paula went into the room, taking her jacket off. She turned to Michalski, who had followed them in.

  “Can you dim the lights down?”

  “Sure.”

  Jefferson said, “You’re improving, Mendoza, you’re only an hour and ten minutes late. Good evening, Akellar.”

  He turned a chair around, its back to the table, and put one knee on it.

  The ceiling lights dimmed to half-strength. The Akellar looked up. Paula went off to the end of the room, past Bunker, who was watching the big Styth. They had only met once before, at the entry port. Jefferson was explaining how the transcribing equipment in the table worked.

  “Is it on now?” the Akellar asked.

  “No,” Jefferson said.

  “Then turn it on, because I have an offer to make you.”

  Paula swung around, and Bunker took his hands out of his pockets. The big man faced the three anarchists. He rocked his weight forward; he looked cramped in the room, his head and shoulders confined under the low ceiling. He said, “I don’t pretend I understand you people, but I know what you want. I’m willing to sign a truce with the Interplanetary Council, and I’ll sell licenses to trade in Matuko and sell Matuko crystal to the rock-worlds. I want that money, in metal, iron if you can get it, and I want my rights with her and her baby.”

  Paula went up to the table. Her mouth was dry.

  Jefferson said, “How much money?”

  “It comes to twenty-six million dollars over five years,” Paula said.

  Bunker kicked at the floor. “What rights with her?”

  “She goes with me,” the Styth said. “Now.”

  “To Uranus?”

  Paula sat down. Jefferson’s mouth was pursed, her thin gray eyebrows arced like bows. The Akellar rocked back and forth on his knee on the chair, staring at Bunker.

  “It’s my baby.”

  Jefferson said, “How long a truce?”

  “One hundred thousand watches.”

  “Ten years,” Paula said.

  “Good,” Jefferson said. “That’s a good length.”

  “You aren’t serious?” Bunker shot a furious glance at Paula and went the length of the table to Jefferson. “What the hell are you doing? She set this up with him. She’s trading us off.”

  “Do you agree to go?” Jefferson asked Paula. She put a mint into her mouth. Paula nodded. The old woman sucked on her candy, her hard blue eyes going to Bunker. “I like it. It’s practical, it might work, and I can sell it to the Council.”

  The anarchist circled the table. “You Fascist,” he said to Paula. He went past the Styth and out the door. It slammed behind him.

  Paula sat down. Jefferson said, “He’s getting narrow, Richard, in his dotage.” She tipped up the lid of the recorder in the table and pushed buttons. Above her head, Paula met the round black eyes of the Styth, triumphant.

  An Chu spread out the skirts of the black dress and folded them carefully in layers of tissue. “Can I write you?”

  “I don’t see how you’d post it.”

  “Maybe it would be easier for you to write me.”

  Paula was packing her books into the pockets of a flannel cloth. She rolled it up and tied the tape. The room was stripped to the walls and floor. She had sold her bed and given away everything else she was leaving behind. She put her flute into the satchel bag with the books.

  “Help me,” An Chu said, sitting on the suitcase. While they were buckling the straps there was a knock on the door.

  It was Dick Bunker. Paula bent over the suitcase again. “What do you want?”

  “Junior, why are you doing this?”

  “It’s my treaty.” She closed the satchel. “I can manage it better in Styth than here.” She stood up. The naked room looked smaller, like a cage. An Chu glanced from her to Bunker and lugged the suitcase out. He tipped himself up against the wall.

  “You won’t be much use dead, or locked up in a harem, or in a slave market, which is where you’ll be.”

  “You certainly know a lot, for somebody who spends all his time talking.”

  They faced each other. His eyes were black as a Styth’s. After a moment, he said, “I apologize for losing my temper yesterday.”

  “It doesn’t bother me if you get emotional. Do you have something you want to say?”

  “The Lunar Army blotted the scan of Ybix.”

  “Oh. That’s typical.”

  “Will you take a sensor inboard with you?”

  She snatched her jacket off the doorknob and thrust her arms into the sleeves. “He’d kill me. I’m not that stupid. Get out of my way.” She grabbed the satchel. He backed up, and she went out the door after An Chu.

  YBIX

  Watch logs H11, 523—L11, 674

  The hatch clanged open over her head. Paula reached up and drew herself through into a long silver tunnel. She bumped into the soft wall. The light was dim as twilight. She floated in the cold air, helpless. The Akellar shot up through the hatch. In mid-air he twisted around head-first like a fish and went the other way along the corridor.

  “Come on.”

  She followed him, pushing herself along the yielding wall. On one wall was a double-barreled black arrow pointing the way she had come, and on the other a white arrow pointing the way she was going. In the free fall, without gravity to help her, she could hardly move. They passed a round hatchway marked with a black symbol. The corridor veered upward. They came to another tube, twisting away like a soft metallic hose, marked with double red stripes. The Akellar stopped and she bumped into him and knocked him down the corridor.

  He came back toward her; he moved so fast she could not see how he did it. “You’ll learn. There’s a kind of a knack, it’s nothing like walking.” He went into the red corridor.

  She struggled after him, banging into the walls. The surface was slippery. She began to shiver in the cold. Ahead, Saba had stopped to open a hatch. She flung her arms out, trying to stop, and ran into him again.

  “You’ll learn.” He pushed her head-first through the hatch. “Just keep trying.”

  The room beyond was oval. Two lines of bulbous monitor screens dimpled the wall below her. She drifted to the side of the room. A handle stuck out of the wall. When she pulled on it she pulled herself into the wall. The Akellar turned over in mid-air. He flicked up a switch below
a round screen near the monitors. She saw that he braced himself with the other hand.

  “Bridge,” he said.

  “Yes, Akellar,” a voice said through the screen. She thought it was Sril’s.

  “I’m inboard. What’s our course?”

  “Orbiting Luna at thirteen hundred miles, belt plus 2 ellipse, making ninety-three leagues. Our attitude is 0-0-2. Perimeter clear. The whole crew is inboard.” It was Sril. She put her feet against the soft wall and pulled on the handle.

  “Turn it,” Saba said.

  She turned herself slowly around by the handle. He said, “What’s the watch?”

  “High watch, Akellar,” Sril said.

  With one hand she held her body still against the wall. The handle was stiff and took all her strength to open. It clicked.

  “Ah.” She pushed herself back from the wall, and a long hatchway opened up before her. The space was covered in heavy white rubber, like a membrane. The Akellar was talking to Sril. She stuck her arm into the pleated rubber. It gave way and fit around her arm. Suddenly it gushed cold water over her hand and wrist. She lunged away, startled.

  “That’s a wetroom,” he said. “That’s where you wash.”

  Her sleeve was sodden. She turned around, drifting, and he came up to her. They were face to face; she was eye-level with him. She pulled his floating mustaches down.

  “Are you cold?”

  He went smoothly away past the hatch. In the double row of monitors on the wall, the other Styths floated in other silvery rooms, like fish in tanks. She watched him pull open a door in the wall. He used his foot to brace himself; when he put his hand on the wall to hold the door open, he dug his claws into the fabric. In the compartment in the wall her satchel floated above her suitcase. Straps held them fast. She took the satchel out.

  She struggled with the buckles, and he started to help her. “No. I’ll do it.” She held the satchel between her knees. He went off. The half-light bothered her eyes. She opened the satchel and took out her jacket.

  “I’ll teach you to speak Styth,” he said. He peeled off his clothes and stuffed them into a hole in the wall.

  “I speak it better than you think. I understand everything you say.” To prove it she spoke Styth. He was pulling on a suit of heavy gray overalls; he turned toward her, surprise on his face. She closed the satchel again and tried to take it back to the compartment. It was easier to move herself around by holding on to the satchel than to move the satchel. The speaker in the wall clicked.

  “Yes,” Saba said.

  “Akellar, there are three Lunar Army hammerheads coming up on our perimeter.”

  “I’ll be right there. Call Tanuojin. Saba.”

  She maneuvered the satchel into the compartment and strapped it down. Below her suitcase was the box of toys and the foam shell of the illusion helmet. If the trip turned boring she could always take that out. Saba came up behind her.

  “Why did you lie to me?”

  “I didn’t lie to you.”

  “You told me you couldn’t speak Styth.” He was getting angry. She moved away from him, one hand on the wall.

  “I didn’t tell you that, you decided that.”

  He fastened up the front of his overalls. On the forearms of his sleeves were five diagonal stripes. He turned away from her; there was a black three-pointed star on his back. It was a uniform. Her hackles rose.

  He said, “Did you hear what he just said? About the Lunar Army?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you know about that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “If you’re lying to me again—”

  “I’m not. I don’t know what’s—” She sucked in her breath, thinking of Dick Bunker’s scan. “Or maybe I do.”

  “What?” He lunged at her, his arms spread. She floundered in the air. The cold half-light confused her. He shouted at her, “What are you trying to do to me?”

  “Not me, Dick Bunker. He tried to get me to bring a sensor in with me.” She put her hand out to him. “Why else would the Lunar ships show up now? We must have brought something in with us.”

  His face clenched tight. “What? Where is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You lie.”

  “I don’t know.” She fought to keep her voice steady. He wheeled away to the wall speaker; now it was over their heads.

  “Bridge.”

  “Yes, Akellar.”

  “Send Tanuojin to my trap. Where are the hammerheads?”

  “One on either wing and one behind us, Akellar. They’re matching our course and speed.”

  She rubbed her hands together. Bunker could have hidden something in her bag during that uncharacteristic apology. If she had brought it on, the Styths would probably kill her. She went back to the compartment and took the satchel out again.

  “If you’re lying to me, so help me, I’ll break everything in your body.”

  Behind the satchel was the illusion helmet in its protective coat of foam. She pushed the bag out of the way and took out the helmet. She looked around for a knife or clipper to cut the foam. He took the white ball from her. His claws sank into the foam and he tore it in half. Something sealed into the casing broke with a ping.

  Saba growled in his chest. He ripped at the shard of foam, pulling out yards of thin plastic wire. The crumbs of foam sailed off thick as snow. The hatch burst open. Tanuojin came in, sinuous as rope in the free fall. On the sleeves of his overalls he wore one less stripe than Saba.

  “Look at this,” Saba said. He thrust a handful of looped wire at her. “What is it?” Tanuojin snatched it away from him.

  “It’s a sensor.” His yellow eyes aimed at her. “I told you she’s a spy.”

  She scrambled back away from them. The slick soft walls glinted in the low light. Her heart banged in the pit of her throat. She looked at Saba.

  “Where did you have that wrapped up?”

  “At the Committee office.”

  Tanuojin’s head snapped around. “You said she didn’t speak Styth.”

  “I don’t think she had anything to do with this.”

  Paula slid along the wall. Tanuojin’s lips pulled back from his teeth. “I do.” He struck at her, backhanded. When she tried awkwardly to avoid him she ran herself into his stroke.

  She gasped. Saba thrust in between them. Her jacket was in ribbons from sleeve to sleeve. She saw a cloud of fine red bubbles floating out before her. Her chest began to burn. She clenched her teeth at the swelling hot pain. Saba pulled her into the curve of his arm.

  “Look what you did to her.”

  “I didn’t hit her that hard.”

  “She’s not Styth. She’ll die. Heal her.”

  “Saba, she’s just a nigger.”

  “Heal her!”

  She panted. The long gashes down her breast hurt when she breathed. Tanuojin came toward her. She backed away from him. Numb, she fought to stay conscious.

  “Hold her hands, or she’ll scratch my eyes out.”

  Saba caught her wrists. He said, “Be good, Paula.” The pain made her sob.

  “This won’t hurt,” Tanuojin said. He put his hands flat to her torn skin.

  At his touch she felt nothing, not even the cold. She gulped a deep breath. Saba held her tight against him. Tanuojin moved away from them. His hands left her. Her breast began to throb. Saba let go of her. She curled forward. Four long scabbed wounds ran like seams across her left breast and her stomach. They looked days old. She touched the scabs and they peeled off, the wounds healed in pale new flesh.

  “Let me see.” Saba’s fingers slid through the shredded jacket. Tanuojin went out. She flinched from the touch on her skin. “He did it,” he said to himself.

  She pulled his hand out of her clothes. “What did he do?”

  “Don’t tell anybody.” He took her by the arms and looked her in the face. “Don’t talk about it to anybody, do you hear me?”

  She nodded. Her numbed mind refused to work. W
hat had he done? She was cold; her teeth began to chatter.

  “I have to go to the bridge.” He took her by the chin. “Don’t ever lie to me again.” Taking the sensor wire with him, he went out the hatch.

  She hung suspended in the air. The blood and scraps of foam drifted around her in clouds. Slowly they were sucked into the filters in the wall and the air cleared. As the evidence disappeared her belief in what had happened disappeared. The Creep. She had paid no attention to that. The cold drove her to the effort of moving. She wrestled her suitcase out of the compartment and pulled out a shirt and a heavy sweater.

  In the back of the compartment was the square box of toys for Saba’s children. She took it out and used a nail file from her bag to hack open the foam wrapper. There were two more wires strung through the white plastic. One had a cube on the end the size of her thumb. She floundered around the room to the little wire mesh speaker and pushed the lever beside it and ran herself head-first into the wall.

  She recoiled. Tears of frustration filled her eyes. She felt as if she were stuck in a pocket, in a prison. Her mind was jammed. She forced herself to relax. This place was strange because she did not know it; when she knew it she would understand. She put one hand on the wall and the other hand on the speaker lever and pushed it up.

  “Bridge,” she said.

  A startled Styth voice said, “Who’s this?”

  “Tell Saba I found another one and a transmitter.” She pulled the lever down again.

  She did not know how to change her clothes without gravity. Her arms were too short. While she stuffed her legs into trousers she floated around the room. Every motion pushed her in a new direction. She put the shirt on over her head and fought with the sleeves. The hatch wheel clicked over.

  She turned her head, and her whole body turned. Saba came feet-first into the hatch, coiled around in mid-air, and came down beside her. She pointed to the compartment door. She had tied the wires to the handle. He untangled them. She put another pair of trousers on, struggling with the legs.