Paula was taking her clothes off. David’s voice rose. “What are you doing in here? You aren’t supposed to listen.”
She took her sleepdress out of the bin on the wall. “Then don’t say it in my bedroom.”
“She isn’t supposed to hear it,” David said to his father.
Saba said to him, “Go feed yourself. We’re on watch pretty soon.”
David flew out of the room. Paula doubled over in the air and pulled the robe down over her feet. It unsettled her that he was going through this education—that in a few months he would be a grown man. She opened out the folds of the bed.
“I guess he gets his temper from me.”
“It’s his age,” Saba said. “Boys get hot when their claws come in.” He went to the hatch. “You taught him to say what he thinks, Paula.”
“I didn’t teach him to think like a Styth.” She yanked the bed out straight and wrapped the wings around her.
Saba laughed. “No, you certainly didn’t.” Three bells rang, and he left.
In the three hundred and sixty-third watch of the voyage Ybix crossed the orbit of Uranus. She slowed, falling into a course around the white Planet, the rest of the fleet behind her. Paula stayed in the wetroom. When she came out there was a note from Saba stuck in the hatch commanding her to the library. Her stomach and the muscles of her arms and legs were cramped so that moving was painful. She dressed and went down to the galley.
Junna was eating protein strips just outside the hatch. He said, “You’re supposed to be putting your head together with Gemini.”
She punched out blue tablets. “Are you glad to be home?”
“We’re a long way from home. There are fifty ships of the Uranian Patrol stacked up around us.”
“What?”
The speaker hummed in the wall. “Paula,” Saba said, “get down here now.” Her sleeves stuffed with food, she went along the corridor to the blue tunnel, where the library was, next to Tanuojin’s cabin.
He and Saba were crowded against the lower wall of the library. A little projector threw an eight-inch cube of green light into the other end of the room. She had to go through it to reach the only open space. Yellow shovel-nosed ships floated around her like darts. In the middle of the cube was Ybix, huge among the fog of little ships.
“What is this?”
Tanuojin’s eyes were shut. Saba said, “They were waiting for us when we fell into orbit.”
“Bokojin?”
Under his breath Tanuojin muttered an oath against Bokojin. She looked from him to Saba, whose arms were stretched out relaxed along the curved wall behind him. “What about the rest of the fleet?” she said.
“The patrol has let them dock. This is our war, not theirs.” The grainy red beam of the holograph projector ran diagonally across his face.
“We can make it their war,” Tanuojin said, without opening his eyes.
“No.”
“Damn it, Saba—”
“I told them I wouldn’t ask them to fight Styths.”
Paula watched the coils of ships around Ybix. She tore open a water tube. Uranus lay below them, the crystal heart of the Empire. “What does Bokojin want?”
“It’s more than Bokojin,” Tanuojin said. “He must have a couple of the others with him.” He put his hand up to his face.
“What’s wrong with you?” Paula asked.
“I’m just tired.”
Saba was watching her, his mustaches floating back over his shoulders. He said, “Do you have any ideas?”
“That depends on what Bokojin wants,” she said.
Tanuojin reached out and turned the projector off. Ybix disappeared. Saba said, “Start talking.”
VRIBULO
Huge in the pressure suit, David’s arm stretched up above the seat in front of her to a switch in Ybicket’s ceiling. She tipped her head back inside the helmet. Behind her Junna was talking in a string of numbers, reading off the navigation signals. Ybicket flew down the D corridor toward Vribulo; Paula would meet Bokojin in Vribulo.
The radio crackled. “SIF-16 Ybicket, this is Vribulo mid-city gate. We will dock you.”
She turned her head. On the curved wall beside her an ax hung in brackets. Behind her, Junna said, “Vribulo, we have orders from our commander not to surrender control of the ship.”
“Stand by, Ybicket.”
“Overflying Vribulo,” David muttered.
Junna’s voice fell to a ringing whisper. “Are you sure you can fly this jog?”
“I could take Ybicket through the Sun.”
Paula swallowed. A burst of static rattled out of the radio. “Ybicket, this is Vribulo. You may dock your own ship.”
The voices of the two young men sounded softly in the helmet above her ears. They guided the ship through the maze of the entry chute. She kept her eyes straight ahead, careful not to look at the hologram. Junna gave directions in a level singsong. She realized she was hanging onto the harness of her seat. The ship banged into the side of the tunnel and she shut her eyes an instant. Junna said, “Steady, little boy.”
“Sorry,” David said.
Ybicket flew out across Vribulo. Paula sighed, relieved. She wrenched her helmet back and forth until the seal broke. The ship rolled over and descended in a long swoop toward the surface. She looked up. The roofs of houses flew past over her head. People walked upside down in the street above her. Ybicket’s secondary engines thundered; she slid forward into the harness. David settled the ship down into the dark gate of the dock. A roof clanged shut over the window. She felt the slap of the anchor hitting the hull under her feet.
David let out a whoosh of breath. He and Junna unbuckled their harnesses. Paula fought with the spring clips that held her into her seat. David came around to help her.
“I’m sorry I hit. In the tunnel.”
“I love surprises.” She climbed out of the deep broad seat toward the hatch. Junna threw an arm around him, buoyant.
“You did it. I’d never even try it. You’re like the Prima, little boy, you can fly anything.”
She stood on the dock ledge beside the ship, watching David’s face shine at Junna’s words. She should have praised him like that. Won that look from him. They came up to the ledge beside her.
When they had shed their pressure suits they went out the front of the dock into the city street. The cold and greasy air struck her; she raised her head, her heart racing. A man brushed by her without breaking stride. His hair hung down his back in the Vribulit club. A siren wailed nearby. The blackened, ancient buildings tilted out over the street. A fat woman came down the alley across from Paula, arguing. Paula looked up at the lake of Lower Vribulo, six miles across the twilit air, bounded in blue grass like surf.
“Mother—”
She went down the street, flanked by the two young men.
“Bokojin could have sent a chair to meet us,” Junna said.
“He could have.” Bokojin had refused to let either Saba or Tanuojin into Uranus. When Saba suggested sending her to negotiate with him, Tanuojin had shown enough distaste for that to make Bokojin insist. She trotted along beside David, one hand on his arm, looking around. They went through a fish market, gleaming with scales, and a chicken market, white with feathers. The street narrowed to a steep lane cut into steps.
At the top was Bokojin’s house. He kept her waiting long minutes at the door, and David fumed.
“I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“The Prima gave you orders.”
“They didn’t know what this was like. You’ll need help.”
She remembered Tanuojin’s closed eyes: he knew what was happening here. She glanced at Junna. Tanuojin’s son went down the steps that led from Bokojin’s door to the street. David lingered. His inch-long mustaches bristled. “Vida,” Junna called, and the boy said a very colorful oath and followed him.
A few moments later Bokojin’s slaves let her into his house. Bokojin, Machou, and two other rAkellaron were waiting fo
r her in a room of blue and green lights, rippling in slow sweeps through the room. The walls were decorated with a network of knotted ropes. When she came in, the four men stared at her, moveless in their chairs, each with an aide behind him like a standard. She went inside the arc of chairs.
“Mendoz’,” Bokojin said. He sat with his feet together before him, his knees apart. “The talk was that you were dead.”
“I was visiting another life.” She looked at Machou on her left and the two men on her right. Even sitting they were taller than she was. Machou looked drunk. To Bokojin, she said, “The Prima is tired. He wants to come home and rest. Why are you putting yourself in his way?”
“We all know Saba,” Bokojin said. “He’s always had exotic ideas. We want assurances he isn’t coming back with any strange notions of walking all over us just because he’s taken the Middle Planets.”
There had to be more to it than that. She looked at the other men. “How well do you know Saba?” From the fold of her coat she took the Primit cuff and dropped it ringing on the floor.
They straightened in their chairs. Their eyes followed the cuff. Machou leaned forward, his hands sliding off the arms of his chair. Paula backed one step away from the cuff on the floor.
“The Prima says if any of you thinks he can hold that metal, let him take it.”
They all stood. Machou took a step toward the cuff. Paula tasted their scents, personal as faces. Bokojin said sharply, “Stand back, Akellar.” Machou’s head rose, his teeth showing behind his gray mustaches, and his thick shoulders set. Bokojin thrust his chest out.
“Back off!”
Machou shot a fierce look at Paula. “Don’t be a fool—you’re doing what she wants.” He bent to pick up the cuff.
“Leave it,” Bokojin said. “Leave it where it lies!”
Machou’s thick throat worked. The cuff lay at his feet. He looked from Bokojin to Paula and back to Bokojin, and when Bokojin advanced a step toward him Machou backed away. He turned and marched out of the room, his soldier behind him.
“Go,” Bokojin said to the other men. “I’ll tell you later what she says.”
Paula tucked her hands into her sleeves. The other two men began to protest, both at once, and Bokojin drove them out. The door shut behind them. Bokojin sat down again. The cuff lay on the floor between him and Paula. His handsome face was taut; his nostrils flared. Paula went up beside his chair.
“Put it on, Bokojin.” She leaned on the arm of the chair.
“What is he trying to do?” Bokojin said to himself. She watched his face. He had a thin scar down his cheek. His jaw was finely shaped, almost delicate. It was not a sensual face: sexlessly beautiful.
“Why don’t you take it?” She nodded at the cuff on the floor. That was Saba’s idea: Make him put it on. Like Nessus’s shirt. Her fingers grazed Bokojin’s knee. “Do you need help? I’ll help you.”
Bokojin left the chair like a man bolting a trap. His lip curled at her. “I don’t take other men’s wives.”
“I’m not Saba’s wife,” she said.
“Then you’re just a dirty woman, and not worth my time.”
She felt the heat flush rise through her throat and cheeks. She told herself she hadn’t really wanted him anyway. She sat down in the chair he had just left.
“What do you want, Bokojin?”
“You don’t sit down in my presence.”
“Tsk. I sit down in the presence of a Prima whose name reaches from here to the Sun.”
“My grandfather was the Prima,” he said. He stalked toward her. He wore a heavy collar of rectangles linked together: a family emblem, Gemini was sacred to his house. “Saba has been making a loud noise among people who are natural slaves. Let him come back here, where his equals are.”
“He is back. You won’t let him home.”
“Get out of my chair.”
She stretched her arms along the arms of the chair. “I like it here. I’ll stay.”
He was standing with the cuff at his feet. She watched his expression settle. The cuff defended her as if Saba still wore it. He said, “I don’t dirty my hands on niggers. Get up or I’ll call my slaves.”
“Oh, you won’t do that.” She drew her hand over the smooth arm of the chair, admiring the inlaid decoration. “Not while I’m your only line to Saba.”
“Then maybe I should open another—” He wheeled. A man in the chevron badge walked fast through the door.
“Akellar. The Prima is in Vribulo.”
Bokojin spat out the same oath David had used earlier, and Paula laughed. He said, “Then arrest him.”
The patrolman said, “I’m sorry, Akellar, we can’t—there’s such a mob around him, you can hear them cheering him all the way up to the House.”
“Get Machou—”
“Machou says to do it yourself.”
Bokojin’s face shone with heat. He wheeled toward Paula. She sat in his chair, the cuff on the floor between them. “Illini,” she said, “we are giving you half an hour to get out of Vribulo. That gives you no time to do anything to me.”
He took a step toward her. She stayed in her place, watching him. He kicked the cuff across the room and strode out. Alone in the room, she let herself relax. The cuff lay against the wall. She went over to it and picked it up, shining in the blue and green light streaming through the room. She put it on her wrist. Even over her coat sleeve it was too big. She wondered how he could wear it all the time; it weighed so much it hurt her arm. She sat down again in Bokojin’s chair, to wait for Tanuojin.
“You agreed to it in the Middle Planets,” Paula said, angry.
“That was a long way away. And a long time ago.” Leno lifted his hands off the desk. “I’ve changed my mind.” His broad hands dropped solidly to the desk.
Paula glared at him. She went off around his large, empty office, turned on the far side of the room, and glared at him again.
“Don’t you give me that look,” he said.
She marched back up to his desk, chest high to her. “Or you’ll do what?”
There was a long silence while they stared at each other. Paula laid her forearms down flat on the desk. Like everything else in Styth it was too large for her.
“Be realistic,” Leno said. Carefully he straightened his braided mustaches. “You aren’t one of us. You can’t do an Akellar’s work. There are plenty of other niggers who will be happy to go between us and the rock-worlds.”
“So you don’t need me any more.”
“You’ve done your work,” he said. “And I honor you for it.”
“Merkhiz—”
“You have a lot of enemies.”
She left.
The message from Newrose filled eight pages. She read it in the coderoom on the second floor of the rAkellaron House and read it again in her bedroom of the Prima Suite on the third floor. Rereading it made it no sweeter. Newrose was full of gloom. After months of almost Talmudic debate, even his own party had rejected the Luna Agreements, and the Council had voted to stay in session past the date when they were supposed to shut off the lights and go home. Paula balled the thick papers up and flung the wad across the room.
Boltiko had come from Matuko for three watches exactly, to get Saba settled into the Prima Suite. Paula had made her color this bedroom white. There were six ruby-laser paintings on the walls, streams of color constantly changing. She sat cross-legged on the end of the bed and watched a red line curl and curl across the wall. Just when she had felt in control, her life was breaking apart again. The flying colors on the walls made her nervous. Putting on her coat, she went out into the city, to the new White Market in the Steep Street.
She had arranged this market, the first in Vribulo, worked by free people, not Styths. Morosely she walked around the rings of stalls. This was the only practical thing she had ever done. Gradually it was doing more business. People wandered from booth to booth, and a crowd kept her away from the jewelry, the metalware.
Under a sign
advertising fabric a vendor in a long apron was stacking bolts of cloth on a table. Nobody seemed to be interested. Paula stopped and put her hand out toward a shining red silk.
“Not that.” Saba pushed her hand away. “That would look terrible on you. I don’t think you have any sense of what you really look like.” He waved to the vendor, who stooped and brought up more cloth. Paula smiled up at the big Styth, pleased to have company.
“Where is Tanuojin?”
“I just saw him get on a bus to Yekka.”
“To Yekka.” She straightened, turning away from the cloth. “But aren’t you taking the Luna Agreement into the Chamber next watch?”
“I don’t need Tanuojin for that. Look at this.”
She looked down at the table again. The textured surface of a panel of black fabric drew her fingers. Woven into the material was an abstract design of gammadions, the good luck sign.
“Give her this,” Saba said. “And that.” He stretched across to reach a bolt of black cloth glinting with silver threads. He faced her again.
“This stuff is Martian fiber, dyed in Venus, shipped in Styth hulls. The Luna Agreements only say the obvious. How can they reject the obvious? There’s one system, that’s the way the system works.”
She paid the vendor and told him to send the cloth to the man who made all her clothes. Everything was twice as expensive as before the war. She clinked the coins in her fist.
“I need a demonstration for the Council. What if three or four ships turned up near Crosby’s Planet?”
“When?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Are you on some kind of schedule?”
“Some kind. I’m getting married.”
“Married. Again?” She had to laugh at him. They started on along the ring of stalls. She looked up at his profile. “Somebody told me once how handsome you were. I suppose you still are. Who is the blessed fifth wife?”
“Ymma’s daughter.”
“Oooh.”
“She’s prettier than he is.”
“I should hope so. When is this to happen?”
“In twenty-two watches.”
“In Lopka? Can I go?”
Floating Worlds Page 55
