Floating Worlds

by Cecelia Anastasia Holland

  Leno stood again. Again, none of the other men stood up in respect for him. The Prima said, “If nobody else has any special business—”

  Tanuojin said, “She has a question.”

  Leno put his hands on his belt. His head thrust forward. “Mendoz’, what do you want now?”

  Paula stood up. “I’m going to need money.”

  Across the pit, Bokojin shouted, “What is she doing in here, anyway? Saba is dead. She has no place here. She had no place when he was alive.”

  Paula looked down at the blood-splattered sand. Three or four men shouted back and forth at each other, and Leno made no effort to order them. She said to Tanuojin, “I thought ten dollars a watch.”

  “I don’t see why we should pay you. Why don’t you tax the Middle Planets for it? If you’ll be doing their work.”

  “Because they don’t need me,” she said. “And you do.”

  Bokojin was leaning forward over the rail. “This makes me long for the old times when a man’s widows burned with him.”

  A quarter of the round away, another voice rose, clear and mild. “It makes me long for the old times when the servants of the Empire were treated with respect.”

  “Hear,” someone muttered, behind her.

  “Are you challenging me, Saturn?” Bokojin roared. He and Melleno’s son Mehma traded jibes.

  “Every one of you gets some revenues from the Middle Planets,” she said to Tanuojin. Down the ring, Leno was playing with his mustaches, his eyes on them. “You need me to keep the arrangements going. In fact, make it twelve dollars a watch.”

  Tanuojin stood up, and all the other men rose at once to their feet. Bokojin’s voice cut off. Tanuojin said, “Give her enough to live on. Eight hundred a turn. Until someone else can take over her work with the slave-worlds.”

  Leno said, “Done.” Tanuojin sat down, and the rest went back to their seats. They talked of other business. Paula slid down the bench to the steps and climbed out of the pit.

  Ybix’s crew was carousing along the arcade in front of the Barn. She went through them, ducking a swinging arm. Someone shouted her name.

  “Mendoz’. Have a drink.” Ketac’s helmsman poked a jar into her face. While she was pretending to drink he whirled her around again, her skirts flying out. There was a burst of thunderous laughter all around her. She reached the ground, dizzy.

  “Mendoz’! Kib, pass her over here.”

  Kib snatched for her. She dodged around behind him to the door into the Matuko office.

  A washtub of beer stood on the desk, and two men had their faces in it. Dakkar slumped in the chair before the window. She thought of Pedasen. Dakkar’s face was striped with blood. He looked half-drunk and very gloomy. Probably he had forgotten the slave he had killed. That warmed the revenge, the years she had waited to pay Dakkar back. She went through the file room, where three men were pouring beer and minji sauce over two girls from Colorado’s.

  Even through the door she could hear the men shouting in the little back room where the bed was. She let herself in among them. Half a dozen of his crew surrounded Ketac in a ring. Small as she was, she stood overlooked behind them. At the end of their rhythmic bellow of a cheer they poured a bucket of beer over the new Akellar’s head.

  “Paula.” Dripping, he pulled her in among them by the arm and put a mug into her hand. “Drink to me. What did you think? It was a great fight, wasn’t it.”

  “I don’t know anything about fighting.” She was standing in a puddle of beer. She moved toward the window. His hand on her arm, Ketac followed her out of the circle of men. Beer dripped from his mustaches and his shirt.

  “Did you see that cross-block? Papa would have liked that.”

  “Yes, I saw.” She looked out the window. In the street an old man with a shawl over his head was straining to see through the next window into the party. Ketac lifted his head and shouted to his men to leave.

  “I don’t want to interrupt your good time,” she said.

  He took a towel from a bin in the wall and scrubbed vigorously at his wet hair and face. “My good time? I couldn’t have done it without your help. Why did you help me?”

  “I like you,” she said.

  “You went to some trouble to put me in your debt.”

  “I need someone to stand up for me in the Chamber,” she said.

  “You need a husband,” he said. He hung the towel over his shoulder.

  “Not formally.”

  “Do I get what husbands get?”

  She had to smile at him. She said, “Go lock the door.”

  When she got back to the Prima Suite, in the low watch, David was in her sitting room. She was glad to see him, but she was used to hiding her feelings from him. She took her coat off and hung it over the arm of her chair.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Thinking.” He came up the room toward her. His hair hung in a wild shag around his shoulders. “Getting drunk. Getting loaded. I—” He made a little gesture with one hand. His long eyes made him look belligerent. He said, “I’m sorry, Mother. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry. What for?” He smelled awful. He had not been out of his clothes since the funeral.

  “I’ve spent my whole life fighting over things I can’t change. Maybe I shouldn’t even have wanted them changed.” He made that same motion with his hand, palm up. Asking for something. “So I’m sorry.”

  She grunted, her eyes following his gesture. To keep from touching him she slid her hands behind her back. “Did you come on this enlightenment in a junk-gun? I wish you’d told me where you were—you could have helped me.”

  “Helped you. What—” He straightened up to respect, his arms at his sides, looking beyond her. Leno tramped into the room.

  The new Prima strode up to her, his face knotted in a scowl. “You and Tanuojin set me up, didn’t you?” He glanced at David. “Stand off, little boy, the war is over.”

  Paula said, “Did anything else happen in the session?”

  “Nothing important to you. Yekka wants to see you.”

  She went to her chair, before the window, watching her son. He was scraping the edge of his boot against the floor. His mustaches were beginning to droop over. She wondered what had happened to him to make him like her. Leno said sharply, “He wants to see you now.”

  “I’m busy now,” she said. She leaned on the carved arm of the chair. “Jesus, Leno, aren’t you high-born for a messenger boy?”

  He bristled up, his neck swelling. “To hell with you.” He marched out, and the door slammed behind him hard.

  David was frowning at her. “Mother, he’s the Prima.”

  “He isn’t my Prima. I’m my Prima. Come have dinner with me.”

  He was already moving toward the door. “No. I have something else to do. Can I use your room to clean up?”

  “You can live here. Nobody is using your room.” She smiled at him. “I’m glad you’re back, David.”

  “So am I, Mother.”

  While she was walking up the street toward Colorado’s, she heard her name called behind her. She stopped and looked back. Marus was jogging down the curved street after her. He veered around a pushcart and reached her, breathing hard.

  “The Akellar wants you.”

  “Later. I’m hungry.” She walked off up the street.

  “He says it’s about David Mendoza.”

  She went back to him. “What about David?”

  “I don’t know. The Akellar said I should tell you that.”

  She hurried back toward the end of the city. On either side of the street were buildings marked to be torn down; she heard children playing in them. They reached the Barn and she went into Tanuojin’s office.

  David was not there. Tanuojin was sitting at the desk in the front office recording a book tape, a set of earphones over his head. He gestured to Marus to leave. She leaned on the desk, impatient. He turned a switch on the recorder and another on the left earcup.

  “What is
this about David?” she said.

  “Nothing. That was the best way to get you here. I have to talk to you.”

  Her shoulders sank an inch. For a moment, speechless, she could only stare at him. He took off the headset and put it on the desk. She went out of the office.

  He came after her. “I have a tax I want you to arrange in the Middle Planets. Newrose will accept it if it comes from you.”

  “Get away from me.” She was walking as fast as she could, even though there was no way to outrun him. She left the arcade and turned into the street past Colorado’s, and he steered her toward the drinking dock. She gave up trying to go anywhere else and went into the vast dark room.

  It was all but empty. The blue lights were lit along the pipe-wall and a slave on a ladder was swabbing out a barrel with a mop. Two more slaves raked off the sand. She went into the brightest corner and sat down.

  “No,” she said to Tanuojin. A slave hovered nearby; she sent him for her meal.

  “It’s very simple,” he said. “Listen to me before you refuse.”

  The slave brought her a split dish of beans and leaf, Colorado’s staple lunch. She broke the piece of bread in half. “No. I don’t like taxes, and I don’t work in the Middle Planets for your benefit.” She used a piece of bread to shovel up the beans.

  He dropped on one knee beside her. “I need that money.”

  The slave who had served her was back. “Mendoz’, Kuuba wants to know if this goes on Matuko’s bill.”

  “Matuko.” She swallowed a mouthful. “Why should Ketac pay my bills?”

  “Uuh—” The slave touched his upper lip with his tongue. His gaze slid toward Tanuojin.

  “You put it on my bill,” she said. “You put everything I buy on my bill.” The beans were syrupy with red sauce. She ate the soaked bread. Tanuojin leaned over her.

  “Don’t make me angry, Paula.”

  “Tsk.”

  “You don’t really think Ketac can take me.”

  The salad was oily. She ate the crunchy leaf. “Are you going into the pit again? Show off your peculiar talents in front of everybody?” She looked into his face. “Saba is dead now, you’re all alone.”

  His white eyes dilated, round as targets. She saw he was still afraid of the mob. When he stood up, his kneejoint cracked.

  “You remember I said once I’d break you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Not in those words.” She put the dish down. Her fingers were greasy and she wiped them on the sand. Tanuojin started to speak and turned.

  David was coming into the great empty drinking dock. He crossed the deep sand toward them. He had washed and changed his clothes, and his long thick hair hung untied down past his shoulders. He reached Tanuojin.

  “Uncle, I apologize for what I said. I—”

  “I don’t care about your diseased half-breed raving,” Tanuojin said. Fish-lean, he stood over David by sixteen inches. He said, “You’re as bad as your slut-mother. You’re white-hearted.”

  The slaves leaned on their rakes watching them. The kitchen master put his head out the doorway. Tanuojin pointed at Paula. “Do you know what she’s been doing? Saba wasn’t cool ash before she was turning up her heels for Ketac at a drunken party.”

  “Ketac.”

  David’s jaw set tight. He flung her a nasty look. “You Creep,” he said to Tanuojin, “I’m surprised your tongue hasn’t rotted away.”

  The tall man gave off a spurt of rage. Both hands hooked in David’s hair. “Club it up!” David clawed at him, and Tanuojin swung him around by the hair and dragged him to the door. “It’s not just for looks, you see, no matter what you anarchists think.” He slung David out the door.

  The slaves were motionless, rapt. The man on the ladder had dropped his mop. Tanuojin walked back toward Paula, picking clumps of David’s hair off his hands. “You slut. You won’t even fight for your own cub.”

  “He does well enough by himself, doesn’t he?” She circled past him toward the door. “Not so much rotted, I think, as pickled.” She laughed and went off to the door.

  In the next watch, Ketac, Dakkar, and Junna ambushed David on the plain of the House and clubbed him. A crowd gathered to watch. Paula came out on the second-story balcony. David fought them. They wrestled him down on his knees and Ketac wrenched his hands in front of him to give him the oath.

  Paula glanced behind her. Tanuojin had come out onto the balcony.

  “Did you put them up to this?” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  David burst up, his hair flying, and Junna sprawled across the concrete. The crowd cheered, boisterous. Ketac and Dakkar trapped David between them. Ketac was laughing. They forced David down on the pavement.

  Tanuojin said, “He’s too stupid to know when he’s beaten.”

  Ketac had David’s hands stretched out before him. Junna pinned him down by the shoulders, and Dakkar leaned past him to knot David’s hair into the club. Ketac shouted the oath.

  “Who is the man?”

  “Styth,” the crowd roared. David made no sound.

  “Which is the way?”

  “The Sun!”

  “Keep faith!” Ketac milled his brother across the cheek with his open hand. Paula twitched.

  David bounced onto his feet. His brothers danced away from him, teasing him; Ketac clapped his hands under David’s nose. Paula went indoors.

  She was sitting on her bed in her room writing to Newrose, and Tanuojin came into the room. She closed her notebook. There was a high-backed chair against the wall by the chest, which he took and turned toward her and sat on. His long legs bent like a spider’s.

  “Paula,” he said. “You are letting yourself in for this. I—”

  “Wait. Let me. You are about to tell me how fond you are of me, and you don’t want to hurt me or David, but for the good of the Empire…” She stood up on her bed and swung the shutter closed over the window, cutting off the noise of the city. “Not with me, Tanuojin.”

  “Get me that money.”

  She sat down cross-legged on the bed again. She had the feeling if she took her eyes off him he would change to another form: a poison mist.

  “You’re in debt already,” he said, reasonable. “Leno wants you to leave. You’ll have to come to me sometime. Why get me angry?”

  “It’s good exercise.” Ketac had just bought a house in Upper Vribulo. She could live there. She leaned against the wall behind her and folded her arms over her chest.

  “You’ll regret it.” His deep voice rasped; he was beginning to lose his temper. “And you can’t live with Ketac. It’s already the ripest scandal in Vribulo. You’re twice his age.”

  She laughed. “Well, I’m remarkably preserved.” There was a tap on the door, and she lifted her voice. “Yes?”

  David came in behind Tanuojin. His knotted hair was already falling loose. He said, “Mother, I need money.” His slanted brown eyes flicked at Tanuojin, sitting with his back to him. “Hello, Uncle Tajin.”

  “Do you want work?” Tanuojin said. But he was watching Paula.

  “What?”

  She said, “You can work for me.”

  “What would you pay him with?” Tanuojin said. His hands slid under his belt. He never looked at David. “Vida, I need a pilot. I’m buying Ybicket.”

  “Ybicket,” David said. He came two steps into the middle of the room, circling Tanuojin’s chair to face him, and she knew she had lost. “Where is she now? How much are you paying for her?”

  “I still owe Ketac four million dollars of it, which I won’t have until your mother starts to cooperate. The ship’s in Matuko. Can you go get her?”

  David stuck his open hand out. “I need bus money.”

  “Take Junna to navigate for you.” Tanuojin gave him credit. Paula sat, watching them, silent. His hair was too fine to stay clubbed. The side of his face was bruised. Tanuojin said, “Dock her in the number 4-A slip in the mid-city gate. Report to Marus when you’re done.”


  “I’ll bring you something from Matuko,” David said to her. He left.

  “That’s the anarchist in him,” Tanuojin said. “No loyalty.”

  “He’s Saba’s son too.” Her voice sounded rough. She coughed to disguise it. Useless.

  “I warned you,” he said.

  Tanuojin went to Yekka. Ketac took her to the Akopra. During the interval between the first two dances, Bokojin came into the box. Ketac had obviously expected him; they stood talking. Paula sat with her back to them, sipping kakine. They agreed to meet sometime indefinitely later and the Illini Akellar went out.

  The Vribulo company performed three more short dances, two old, and one experimental. New rAkopran were rare and she watched this one with attention. It bored Ketac, who played with her hand, talked to her, and tried to get her to caress him.

  “Come to my house,” he said, when they were leaving the theater.

  “Not if Bokojin is going to be there.”

  They went across the lobby, through little knots of people dressed splendidly in long brocaded shirts, in dresses trimmed with metal lace. Ketac took a firm grip on her arm. “How do you know Bokojin is going to be there?”

  “You agreed to meet him, don’t you remember? Just two hours ago.” She went ahead of him out the door. The long blue paper banners hanging on the eave of the porch advertised the next cycle. The street was thick with the people just out of the theater.

  “He won’t stay long,” Ketac said.

  “I hate him. Ask him what he thinks of me. I’ll see you in the middle watch.” She pulled her arm out of his grip, and he let her go. She went down the street toward the corner.

  There, in the midst of the crowd, she turned and looked back. Ketac was going off in the opposite direction, toward his house. She trotted after him through the swarming traffic and followed him across the city, staying about forty feet behind him. He was easy to keep in sight, taller than the crowd, his black hair tied sleek among the shaggier Vribulit heads of the other men. Whenever his long stride took him to the limit of her vision, she broke into a run to catch up. He led her through the edge of the slums by the lake and down the Steep Street, cut into broad steps. At the foot of the hill he went through a gate in the wall of his new house. Paula circled around the corner into the next block, ran down the alley, and climbed onto the recycling bin and dropped over the fence into the yard.