“Where is the Prima?” she said. She buttoned the tight-fitting forearms of the sleeves.
“Talking to that nigger.”
“Newrose.”
“Why does he bother? We beat them, now they have to obey him, don’t they?”
She faced him, reaching for the long black coat thrown across the chair. “Are your mustaches starting to grow?”
“Can you see them?” He rotated toward the mirror. With one forefinger he stroked his lip. She put the coat on, its silky fur collar against her cheek, and buttoned it up the front. When her son turned away from the mirror he was frowning. She straightened his shirt, to be touching him.
“Don’t.” He pushed her hand away. “Come on—you’ll be late.”
Her neck and face heated. She went after him into the hall. He was ashamed of her. Her gaze on the floor, she walked fast through the guards around the meeting room. Somebody announced her.
David left her as soon as they entered the long room. The air was freezing. Along the illusion wall the ocean streamed midnight blue up to the thin white curl of surf. Against that background the Styths moved in silhouette. She crossed the room toward the tall stocky shape standing against the ocean.
“Where did you get that dress?” Ketac said. He ran his hand over the sleeve. “Oh. I like that.”
She held her arm up so that he could stroke his cheek against the fur. “I looted it. On the sixth level. There were a lot of shops up there that didn’t get burned.” She glanced down the room after David, shorter than the other men.
Several more men came into the room. They pushed the furniture off into the corners to make space. Their voices rose. Ketac was holding a cup out to her and she took it. The surface was chased with a scrolled ribbon. She held it out to look and decided it was a vase for cut flowers. The cool potent drink tasted of mint.
A loud voice said names, over by the door. Leno and Tanuojin were coming in. Paula lowered the cup. Tanuojin walked first into the room, ahead of the Prima Cadet.
“Well, well,” she said. She sipped the icy, minty liquor.
Tanuojin was coming toward her, and Ketac backed off, giving way to him. The tall man said, bad-tempered, “Isn’t there anything to drink in here except swill?” He put his back against the ocean, his hands behind him. Ketac went quickly away down the wall.
“Hello, Prima,” Paula said to Tanuojin.
“Hello, Paula.”
The men around the room were standing stiffly at respect. Saba came in. Behind him was Alvers Newrose, almost unnoticed in the dark. Ketac went to attend his father. The Martian stayed by the door, his head moving from side to side. Saba circled around the middle of the room.
“Listen to me. I have some things to get said. The fleet has voted thirty-six promotions, which I will have posted next watch.” He was in a very good temper. Paula had told Newrose what to say to him, and apparently he had obeyed her. She watched Newrose peer blindly around the room, looking for her. Saba recited names and ranks in an ascending order. David was not one of them. Of course he was too young even to be a subtenant.
Saba said, “The last three are the best. Ketac, in Ybix, goes to a master commander and third watch officer of the ship. Leno, in Ebelos, to a general commander.” He turned, one hand out, and Ketac brought him a strip of black cloth. “Tanuojin.”
Beside her, the tall man shifted his feet. Slowly he went across the room to Saba. The Prima hung the flag across his lyo’s chest. “The fleet has only voted two flags since I’ve been Prima, and both of them to you.” He started to shake the other man’s hand but instead they put their arms around each other, hugged each other chest to chest. The other men beat their hands together in applause.
Newrose was watching, so his eyes had sharpened in the dusk. Tanuojin came back to the wall next to Paula. Around the room, the aides of the other ranking officers brought them drink and chairs and took their private messages from man to man.
Leno said, “Prima, what word from Vribulo?”
“None,” Saba said.
“Nothing at all?”
“Who’s dominant in the Chamber?” Saba took a big glass from Ketac. “Bokojin and Machou. The vice commander and the commander of the Uranian Patrol. The only cheers we’d hear from them is if we crashed the whole fleet on an Asteroid.”
Paula looked up at Tanuojin on her left. The black sash hung across his chest. His hands were jammed under his belt. She took hold of his wrist. His skin was cold; he did not push her off.
Near the door, Ymma said, “It looks as if the war isn’t quite over after all.”
“Maybe,” Saba said. He held the glass out to David, who held it for him, and gestured to Ketac. “But that’s between me and Bokojin.”
“And the rest of us,” Leno said. The other men murmured loudly in agreement.
“I think I can take Bokojin,” Saba said. He pointed toward Newrose, next to the door. In the Common Speech, he said, “This man is the spokesman for the Council of the Middle Planets. The Mendoz’ has arranged a peace with him. I told him we only want the honor of the Empire, not revenge. As an earnest of that I’m giving him the Martian general we took prisoner.”
Leno said, “What is he giving us?”
Saba made a careless shrug. Ketac came in, with General Hanse just behind him.
Paula straightened. She let go of Tanuojin. Hanse had shrunk by fifty pounds. He walked awkwardly, slowly, not like a man in the dark: as if he were drugged. Tanuojin got her sleeve and pulled her arm behind her and held her. Hanse stopped between Saba and the door. Newrose went to him and spoke to him, touched him, and walked around him. Hanse stood speechless, moveless, unseeing.
“What happened?” Paula said to Tanuojin.
“It didn’t work.”
Leno had come deep into the room. His jaw stuck out. “What assurances are they giving you?”
“They’ll keep the agreement,” Paula said. “As long as it’s in their best interests.”
The Merkhiz Akellar stamped toward her. His gaze swiveled from Saba to Tanuojin. “Why do you trust her? Didn’t she double over on us in the Earth, that time? If you ask me, she’s one of them.”
Saba had gone off to the side of the room. David was with him. She tugged on Tanuojin’s grip and he freed her.
She said, “Leno, I won’t say who betrayed who on the Earth. Newrose is a Martian. You know what the Martians did to my Planet.” She went toward him three or four steps. Everybody was watching her.
Merkhiz said, “This smells rotten. Why would you help us?”
“Because you’re the only people I have left.” She stared up at his broad face. “I didn’t choose this, Akellar. All my friends are dead, because of you and the Martians.”
He said nothing for a moment. His round eyes gleamed. Finally he said, “From what I’ve heard of this arrangement, they’re giving us nothing but promises.”
She went past him, making him turn to keep up with her. Now she was facing Tanuojin, past Leno’s shoulder, and she spoke to him. “If you want to do it your way, do it your way. They’ll fight, you’ll have to go from dome to dome beating them down, you’ll be stuck here until the Planet comes around again. Let Bokojin be the Prima. I don’t care.” She turned her back on him and Leno and went over to Newrose.
“What’s going on?” Newrose said, low.
“Jabber-jabber.” Hanse’s slack face hung before her, his skin draped in folds over his cheeks. She waved her fingers under his eyes. “Hanse.” She patted his cheek. “Hanse!”
“He’s catatonic,” Newrose said. His lips tightened, grim.
“Take him out.”
Newrose like a nurse led the general away. She stood watching them maneuver through the door. She could guess what had happened. David touched her arm.
“Papa wants to see you.” His hand lay on her forearm. “Not all your friends are dead, Mother.” His voice trembled.
Tanuojin was leaving, Junna behind him. David tugged on her sleeve and she
went to Saba.
“I don’t know what happened,” Newrose said. His face was rosy from the chilly air. Paula walked faster. Like a little terrier the Martian hurried along beside her. “Hanse can’t talk or think, the man can scarcely move.”
She led him into the corridor to Saba’s suite, lined with Styths. Leno had an office here, too, somewhere. She stopped at the table that blocked the way, and the aide sitting behind it got up and went to tell Saba that she was there.
“What do you want me to do?” she said to Newrose.
“Protest. Whatever they did to him was definitely contrary to all the rules regarding prisoners of war.”
“Tsk.” The book open on the table was the watch roster. She skewed around to read who Saba was meeting. Tanuojin had taken Ybix to the Earth. The aide came back.
“The Prima will see you, Mendoz’.”
Newrose stepped between her and the door. “Miss Mendoza, I’m serious about this.”
“Newrose,” she said, “you are a funny man. I was Hanse’s prisoner for six months. I have no sympathy for him.” She went past him down the corridor.
Saba was in his bedroom. Ketac let her in. He mumbled at her; his breath smelled foul. She said, “You don’t look so daisy-fresh,” and went past him into the room.
“I feel awful.”
The overstuffed chairs had been dragged back. At the foot of the bed was a table, up on blocks to fit a Styth, where Saba sat eating. David was waiting beside him to serve him. The Prima wiped his mouth on a white cloth. “You see,” he told Ketac, “she stops drinking before she makes herself sick. Vida, bring her a chair.”
“You were as drunk as I was,” Ketac said.
“I am never drunk.”
Paula snorted. She climbed up into the chair David brought her. Saba picked over the remnants of his meal, nudged the plate away, and twisted around in the chair. “You have those orders,” he said to Ketac.
“Yes, Prima.” Ketac went down the room to the door.
When he was gone, she said, “Ketac has done very well.”
“I can depend on him. Vida, sometimes, but Vida talks back to me.” David was bending past him to pour water into his cup, and Saba swatted him on the backside. “He even talks back to Tanuojin.”
“Sometimes he’s wrong,” David said.
“He’s your son,” Saba told her. “Down to his bootsoles.”
“What happened to General Hanse?” she said. David put a cup down before her. He held the fat-bellied jug in his other hand.
“It’s just water,” he said.
“I’ll suffer.”
The boy poured her cup full. Saba was toying with the white cloth on the table. “Hanse. Tanuojin tried to take him, the way he took Dr. Savenia, but Hanse fought, and his heart stopped with Tajin in him.”
David put the jug on the table. He seemed uninterested in what his father was saying. She guessed he had been there: Saba took him everywhere.
“It was hell,” Saba said to her. “I thought he was gone.”
She drew the Earth-sign in the frost of her cup. That was safe. Even if Hanse got well enough to talk, the Martians would think he was crazy.
“This deal you made with Newrose,” he said. “You want the rAkellaron to take the place of the Council. That won’t work. You know that, don’t you?”
“It isn’t meant to work,” she said. “It’s meant to look good, that’s all.”
“Then who does the real job?”
“I will.”
He slapped the table. His cup jumped. “What about Tanuojin? He doesn’t like this arrangement at all.”
“He’s going back to Uranus, isn’t he?” She crossed her legs on the seat of her chair. “Then he’ll use Dr. Savenia. You and I can handle him. Newrose can handle her.”
He got up and walked toward the door. Paula reached across the table for his dish. He had eaten all the meat. Cubes of vegetables stood in the pool of red sauce.
“You’ll have to go up front for me in the Chamber,” she said.
“That’s who I am, isn’t it? I’m pretty, I smile, I’m everybody’s best face.”
She used a scrap of potato to soak up the sauce. “What’s wrong with you? I thought you liked being the front.”
“Sometimes Tanuojin treats me as if that’s all I am.” He came back to his chair. “You’re the only one of us who knows enough about the Middle Planets to make this work.”
“It will work,” she said. She ate the potato.
“This settlement won’t be popular on Mars,” Newrose said. He had a scarf wrapped around his head, like an egg-cozy.
“How is General Hanse?” Paula said.
“He’s terribly ill.”
“He had a heart attack while they were questioning him. The Styths don’t know much about medicine.”
She was facing the clear wall of the space port waiting room. Out on the flat crater floor a hundred feet away two ships stood in the first two wells of the launching dock. While she watched, the accordion cover of the third well folded back, and another ship rose through it to the surface. That was Ybicket, Ybix’s new sidecraft. A man in a pressure suit jogged across the gray dust to the ship and disappeared inside the hatch. Paula turned toward Newrose again. Her pressure suit held her arms out away from her sides, like a gingerbread man.
“Just keep watch on Dr. Savenia,” she said.
“I thought you said that was settled?”
“I trust Tanuojin about three inches to the mile.” She trusted him least when he appeared to give in. He had accepted the Martian Treaty more readily than Leno. It was impossible to surprise him. Maybe he had learned not to waste his time on things he could not control.
“Do you trust the Prima?” Newrose said.
“Under the circumstances I’d rather be hung for a lamb than a sheep.”
“Clear the launch area,” said the speaker in the corner of the ceiling. In the naked waiting room it boomed. A moment later the same voice repeated the words in the Common Speech. Newrose’s eyebrows drew close over his nose.
“I do wish you’d stay here,” he said to her.
“What do you mean?” Ybicket’s hatch opened and the man in the black pressure suit dropped lightly to the ground. He came at a lope across the launch area toward the waiting room.
“You seem to think I can just pull down a few levers and push the right buttons and make what you want happen,” Newrose said. “I can’t do that. I can’t explain it as well as you can.” He looked at her bitterly. “I’m not a diplomat, Mendoza, I’m a garden variety—”
She laughed at him. “Don’t worry. You’ll do very well.” She watched the man in the pressure suit enter the airlock to the waiting room. “Better than Dr. Savenia. Do you know my son?” Pulling off his helmet, David came into the room with them.
“We have to go,” he said to her.
He was flying her to Ybix. She introduced him to Newrose and went to take her helmet from the shelf along the back wall. Newrose and her son stood silently side by side, not looking at each other; neither spoke the other’s language. She shook Newrose’s hand and David took her out to Ybicket.
YBIX
Watch logs H21, 969–H22, 336
She opened the hatch to the Beak and rose up into the pyramidal room in Ybix’s nose. Tanuojin was there. The shutter was open. Paula turned around in mid-air, so that the spread of the stars was above her. The Milky Way cut the corner of the window; she could barely pick Uranus out of the thickness of stars below it. The Planet was just entering the constellation Capricorn, sacred to Matuko and Saba’s family, the House of Exile. Tanuojin was too long for the Beak room, and his body curved to fit and left almost no space for her. She turned to the stars again. Near the top of the window were two familiar patches of light, like pieces of the Milky Way that had drifted: the Magellanic Clouds. Between them a brilliant star shone. She could not remember seeing it before. But it must have been there; stars did not change.
“That one did,
” Tanuojin said. “It went supernova during the War.”
The star flashed white and green and orange. Out there something was happening greater than ten thousand systemic wars, but she had no way of knowing what it was. Like the events of atoms, the lives of mesons lasting trillionths of trillionths of seconds, the nova happened beyond her range. She was hung between them, her clocks too slow or fast, her rulers too long or short, so that these things that must all be part of one thing seemed to be unrelated.
Tanuojin said, “Saba always tells me how direct your mind is.”
“Who asked you to listen?” She faced him, the nova of his race. “What do you think about?”
“I don’t think any more. I just watch.” The while he talked to her he was writing on a tablet.
“It must be boring,” she said. “Always knowing what people will do next.”
“I don’t. And it’s never boring.”
He was making notes on the supernova. The hot star sparkled like a jewel, now orange, now white again. Below it was Uranus. A memory of the dark cities of the Styths crossed her mind, and she thought with longing of the sunlit Earth. She thought painfully of Richard Bunker. Tanuojin was watching her.
“I keep going in circles,” she said. She pulled the hatch open and swam out to the corridor.
David’s claws were growing in. Saba had stopped shaving his head, and when his hair grew long enough to tie, David would be clubbed. When Paula went to her cabin, her son and his father were there. She went past them to the end of the room where the bed hung on the wall.
“The order of the command is the father’s order,” David said. “Law lives in the father, generation on generation.” His voice was singsong; he was reciting from memory.
“Give me the formula for the oath,” Saba said.
There were three hundred formulas, which David had to memorize before he was clubbed. He gave Paula a cutting look and began, “When you tell—”
Saba said, “Not when I do it. Say it right.”
“But—”
“Don’t change the formula.”
Floating Worlds Page 54
