Floating Worlds (27 page)

Paula laughed. He loathed the Styths. She watched him take the baby back toward her house, and went herself into the Manhus.

Saba was in the maproom, staring at a green hologram of the Planet, his hands on his hips. She went into the oval room and shut the door. He turned his head; the light whitened the side of his face.

“How is Vida?”

“He’s fine. He cries a lot.”

“That’s good, that means he’s strong-minded.” He turned off the map and she could no longer see his face. “I’m going to Vribulo. Do you want to go with me?”

“Yes, of course.” She sat down in the pedestal chair, her gaze on his solid featureless shape among the maps. He sauntered around the room and came up behind her.

“I got a record slip from a bank in Luna. They’re holding a million dollars in iron at my order.” His hand rumpled through her hair.

“What about my commission?”

“That isn’t how we do things here.” His fingers worked in her hair. His voice was smooth. “I’ll take care of you and Vida. I give you everything you want, don’t I?”

“I suppose so.” She could not help but smile.

“Then what do you need money for?”

“Nothing, I guess.”

“You’re a very reasonable woman,” he said.

Vribulo was darker than Matuko, almost like full night, and bitterly cold. The air smelled rancid. The streets swarmed with people. They walked faster here than in Matuko, hurrying along in a continuous crowd. She stayed close by Saba. If she got lost here she would have to find her own way back. Ketac had come with them, together with Sril and Bakan. The young man walked along beside her, looking around him, his bed slung over his shoulder.

The buildings of the ancient city, the oldest city of the Empire, were blackened with time. The upper stories overhung the streets and in places closed above the street into arches. A siren started up behind her. She glanced back. The street threaded away through the dark, picked out with the blue-white of crystal lamps. There seemed to be a million people walking after her. At a run she went back among her own Styths.

The slaves here wore white, like in Matuko, which made them show up in the dark among their dark masters. She heard another siren. High above them, she could just make out the far side of the city: the square shapes of buildings, the dim sheen of water. They came into a street with a lane of thick blue grass down the center.

Sril touched her shoulder. “Look up there, Mendoz’.”

They were coming to the end of the bubble. Something covered it that she thought at first was a natural formation, some kind of Stythite rock laid down in ledges that ringed the blunt end of the bubble. Sril said, “That’s the rAkellaron House.”

Now she could see the windows, the jutting balconies, and a torrent of steps running down from the high open porch. People walked there, so small she overlooked them, her eyes taken by the building. Sril laughed at her as she stood gaping at it. He took her by the arms and lifted her up a step onto the floor of a covered arcade. Saba and the other men had gone on ahead of her along the front of the building.

“This is the Barn,” Sril said. “All the rAkellaron have offices here.” He waved in passing at a door. The arcade stretched along the long front of the building, cut with a door every fifty feet. Over some of them shone blue lights. She went to the edge of the arcade and looked up at the rAkellaron House.

“That must be heavy.”

“Heavy as the Empire,” he said: some proverb. He opened a door for her. They were nearly to the end of the Barn, only two more doorways between them and a black wall. Sril said, “The Creep isn’t here yet. That’s his office, the last.” She went past him into a room full of men.

Saba stood in the middle of everything, talking to a little ring of faces. She circled them to the window on the far wall. Ketac was there, one hip braced on the sill, his rolled bed tipped against the wall beside him. She glanced into the street outside the window, now much below them.

“Nervous?” she asked Ketac. He was staying here, on Saba’s staff.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.”

“I said I’m fine!”

She laughed. The young man grew hot. His fingers plucked fiercely at his short mustaches. Like his face, his hands were all knobbed bones. In the street below a pack of men was passing by, wearing dark blue shirts with red chevrons on the upper sleeves. Seeing Ketac in the window, one called, “Hey, socks.”

Ketac’s head snapped around. He leaned across the window sill. “Watch what you’re saying, sitdown-sailor.” Sril elbowed him out of the way.

“What are you looking for, pouchy,” he shouted at the chevrons. “Flying lessons?”

The men in the red chevrons were crowding toward the window. Their voices rose in a chorus of insults. Inside the room, Saba called, “Sril, front up.” The little gunner went out from between Paula and Ketac. The men in the street were drifting away.

“Uranian Patrol,” Ketac said. “The first thing they learn is deep breathing. That’s so if their ship’s wrecked they can hold their breath until they get home.” He scratched his nose, not looking at her.

A big desk took up one side of the office; a square paper flag hanging on the wall behind it was marked with Saba’s kite-shaped emblem. Behind the desk was a door. She went through it, through a narrow room lined with analog decks that chuckled and flashed lights, and through another door into a smaller room. Her satchel lay on the low bed along the wall. She sat down in a chair by the window and kicked her shoes off. Through the window came the mechanical roar of the great dark city. She began to shiver. There was a blanket folded on the bed; she wrapped it around herself, over her head and under her feet, and sat in the chair with her knees drawn up and her arms around them, watching the people going by in the street.

After a while Saba came in, looked all around, and started out. He saw her and stopped. “There you are.” He sat down on the bed, opened her satchel, and took out a bottle of whiskey. “You don’t like it, do you?”

“It isn’t very pretty.”

“We’ll go eat in a few minutes, you can see a little more.” He drank deeply of the dark red liquor. At the rate he was drinking it two cases would not last him an Earthish year. She would have to arrange for more. He said, “We’re going to the Akopra, too.”

“Oh.” The Akopra was the Styth theater. “You never go to the one in Matuko.”

“Matuko is a third-rate Akopra. The Vribulo company is the best in Uranus.”

“Where do I sleep?”

“Here. With me.” He lay back on his elbow across the bed, smiling. “You can seduce me, like the first time. I liked that.”

She pushed back the hood of her blanket. “I’ll sleep in the chair.”

He frowned at her. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. I just like things the way they are.”

The whiskey sloshed in the bottle. In a crabbed voice, he said, “I don’t care, you know. I’m—I was just trying to do you a favor, that’s all.”

“I appreciate it.” She leaned forward, reaching for the bottle, and he gave it to her.

He said, “I mean, it’s been a long time for you.”

She drank a small warming mouthful out of the bottle and stretched to give it back to him. “When are we going to eat?”

“You’d better not be taking on someone else behind my back.”

“I’m hungry. Let’s go eat.”

He stoppered the bottle and put it on the floor under the bed. She could tell by the way he moved that he was angry. There was a narrow rack in the wall opposite the window, and he took out a clean shirt and stripped himself, all in the same hard, short gestures, his back to her.

“Come on,” he said, and yanked the door open.

They went a short way down the street to a drinking dock called Colorado’s, after a Vribulit Akellar who had been Prima some long while past. Paula’s coat had a veil attached to the hood, which she kept fastened across her face under the eyes. The place was huge, the floor deep in sand, and gloomy as an old church. There was nowhere to sit except on the floor. The Styths stood in clumps drinking and talking. The face-cloth narrowed her vision and as soon as Saba had gone off somewhere she lowered it.

There were plenty of other women, and none of them was veiled. Their faces were painted in figures of red and white, yellow, green, as concealing as veils. Their clothes were spectacular. A woman passed her in a dress of ribbons that fluttered around her while she walked. Paula watched them all, fascinated.

“He did bring you,” Tanuojin said.

Paula looked up; she had not seen him come in. “I think he’s still trying to civilize me.” He stood with his hands flat under his belt, his gaze moving slowly over the room. She had forgotten how tall he was. She said, “He’s over there someplace.”

“I know where he is,” he said, as if she had insulted him. He crossed his arms over his thin chest. She moved away from him. She was hungry; she cast around for something to eat. Saba was coming toward her, a woman beside him. Her eyes and mouth were traced in three colors. He and Tanuojin met like lovers, their arms around each other. Paula went in among them.

“I told you to wear that veil,” Saba said.

“I can’t see. And I’m hungry.”

The painted girl was looking down at her. The rings of color glowed faintly in the dark, accenting her huge black eyes. “Aren’t you from someplace strange?”

The two men were talking. Paula nodded her head. “From the Earth. My name is Paula.”

“Mine is Tye. Why did you come here?”

“Dumb, I guess.”

The girl laughed. Her dress covered her from throat to feet; the supple cloth moved like water over her body. “I’ve heard a lot about you, and none of it makes you sound dumb.”

“Look,” Saba said. “Do you want to eat or not?”

There was a slave beside her with a tray, holding it by habit up at the level of his head. She pulled it down to her range and took a plate off it. The plate was divided into sections and held beans and soup and leaf. She sat down on the sand to eat it. Tanuojin went off somewhere into the gloom. Saba and the painted girl stood face to face talking. She laughed at something he said and reached out and started to unbuckle his belt. He caught her hand.

A pair of strange boots tramped up, scattering sand into Paula’s lap. She raised her head. The boots belonged to a tall young man in a shirt much decorated with chips of metal. He was staring down at her. She went back to her half-eaten dinner, now liberally salted with sand.

“Leave her alone, Ymma,” Saba said.

She put the plate down beside her. The young man swung toward Saba. “Oh, is she yours, Matuko? You’ve always had strange tastes. But now the Prima thinks it’s time you came back inside the border.”

Saba had the painted girl by the hands. “Tell him to draw me a map.” He smiled at the girl.

Tanuojin came up behind Ymma, a plate in his hand. “Running messages, Ymma?” He fed himself, his eyes on the dish. The younger man swung around to face him, his head thrust forward, belligerent.

“I have a couple for you, any time you want to take them. What your friends do could hurt you, you know.”

“Talk, talk.” Tanuojin turned away. He spoke without missing a bite.

“Are you sure you’re getting enough to eat?”

“Yes. Want some?” Tanuojin palmed the dish and pushed it into Ymma’s face.

Paula stood up. Across the room someone yelped with laughter.

Everybody turned to watch. Ymma gobbled wordlessly through a mask of thick soup and vegetables. Paula circled around to Saba’s far side, out of their way if they fought. Tanuojin leaned over him.

“If you want to fight me, Ymma, do it in the pit, where it matters.” He walked off toward the gate.

Dripping food, Ymma started after him, and Saba got in his way. “Maybe you should wash your face, Akellar.” Ymma backed up a step, pawing at the mess on his face, and Saba pushed him. The younger man retreated from him.

“Paula,” Saba said, “let’s go.” He turned to the painted girl, Tye. “Come to the Akopra with us.”

“I can’t,” Tye said. “I’m meeting someone else. I’ll get rid of him at one bell, if you want.”

“I’ll meet you here.” He gave her a piece of paper credit out of his sleeve. “Get something to drink.” He herded Paula before him toward the door.

In the street, she remembered the look on Ymma’s face. “Who is he?”

“The Lopka Akellar.” Saba was looking around them. “He sits under Machou’s arm. Something’s cooking.” He threw his hand up over his head and shouted, and went off down the street. She had to run to keep up with him. In the street ahead of them, with people passing by on either side, Tanuojin stopped to wait for them.

“Are you coming to the Akopra with us?” Saba said.

Tanuojin hunched his shoulders. “You see what’s happening, Saba. They’re setting us up over that damned treaty. Only it isn’t you they’ll start into, it’s me.”

They were walking at their regular pace. Paula fell behind them. She broke into a run to keep up.

Ahead, along the side of the street, a line of people was forming. The head of the line disappeared around the next corner to the left. Saba led her alongside it. The waiting line thickened. On the far side of the street was another, all in white: slaves. The lines led up the steps of a round building with a dome roof. Bright paper banners hung from the eaves. Saba took her around the head of the line of Styths to a side door.

“The rAkellaron get in free,” he said. They went into a lobby. “A privilege we pay for by making up the house deficit.” A fat man rushed across the lobby toward them.

“Yes, Akellar—it’s been quite some time since we had the honor of entertaining you.” He ushered them up the flight of stairs, breathless with compliments. The carpet over the steps was worn. The hallway at the top of the stairs was dark. Drapery cushioned the walls. The fat man waddled ahead of them to pull back a section of the hanging.

Saba’s hand on her back pushed her through the gap. She went into a little balcony. Tanuojin sat in one of the four chairs, his back to the curtain. Paula went by him to the rail of the balcony. One story down, the open theater was filling with people. She stood on her toes to see over the railing to the round stage. The lights above it came on. Saba lifted her up from behind like a child and put her down in a chair so deep she felt swallowed.

“Can you see?” He sat down on her left; she was between him and Tanuojin.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Are you warm enough?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you fuss over her?” Tanuojin said, in his deep musical voice.

“She’s making me rich,” Saba said.

“Did you tell her how? Look over there. Machou is here, and Ymma is with him.”

Saba’s head turned, his eyes aimed across the theater at the balcony directly opposite them. Three or four people were milling around in the little space. Saba stood up. On Paula’s right, Tanuojin swore and slouched down and put his feet up on the rail. In the far box, a big man sat, and Saba took his seat.

“You’ve got slave manners,” he said to Tanuojin.

“I stand up for him in the pit. That’s all he’s worth.”

Saba put his elbows on the arms of his chair, his hands on his belt. “Neither of you has any breeding.”

“You are all virtue. Tell her how she’s going to make you rich.” Tanuojin’s hand struck the side of her head so hard she was dazed a moment, blinking and stupid. He said, “If any of the rAkellaron want off-world markets arranged, we have to do it through you, don’t we?”