Floating Worlds (33 page)

“Pineapple.” He speared cubes of the yellow fruit on his claws.

Bakan put his head out the bedroom door. “Akellar, Kobboz has to talk to you.”

Saba went into the bedroom. Paula stuffed a leaf of crisp lettuce into her mouth, ate a radish, and looked in the small bins for dressing. Tanuojin stood next to her.

“I wish he’d take the cork out of his ass.”

Paula swallowed a dripping artichoke heart, slippery as a raw egg. “That was a sharp remark you made, before.”

“Yes. But true.” He chucked her under the chin and went off to his room.

When she had stuffed herself full, Saba was in the shower. She took off David’s chocolate-covered clothes and sent him in with his father. There was a directory in the videone panel; she called the Interplanetary Hotel.

A young man with an intense bushy mustache answered Jefferson’s extension. “Look, it’s two o’clock.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not on your time yet. Is Roland there? I’m Paula Mendoza.”

“Oh. Hold on.”

She stood listening to the rattle of the shower. The suite was quiet. Saba’s clothes hung over the edge of the bed.

“Mendoza.”

She turned back to the screen. Jefferson was putting herself into a garden-print kimono. Her face was barded with fat. “Sybil,” Paula said. “What are you doing here? You look awful.”

“I’m here on Council business, which is probably why. How are you?” Jefferson did up the hooks over her shelf of breast.

“I get along. Who’s our judge in the court?”

“Wu-wei. Do you know him?”

Paula pursed her lips. “Yes. This will be interesting.” She looked around the room, wondering if the place were tapped.

“Are you arguing the Styths’ case?” Jefferson asked.

“No. Tanuojin is. Saba’s lyo.”

“And the adversary is Chi Parine.”

Paula shook her head. “Blank.”

“I guess he’s too recent for you. He’s a Martian. In the past few years he’s been quite a little firebrand. He’s a member of the Sunlight League.”

“My my. What’s their case?”

“I don’t know.” Jefferson took a lace-edged hanky from her pocket and dabbed at her bad eye. “There’s been more show than law in it, so far. Frankly, nobody expected you to answer the subpoena. They were taken rather aback when you did.”

“I think we’ll take them all the way back to the ape,” Paula said. She glanced behind her at the shower. David was laughing. “I’m sorry I woke you up. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Fine, Mendoza.”

Paula turned off the videone. The hiss of the shower half-drowned David’s giggles. She had met Wu-wei once, on the Earth; they had talked about music and ritual circumcision. She took off her clothes and went into the shower with Saba and David.

“We’re late.”

“They won’t start without us.” Tanuojin turned over the single long sheet of the hourly. “Where did they get these pictures of us?”

Saba led them down the corridor. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be late.”

Paula broke into a trot to keep up. The rest of the crew was strung out along the corridor behind them. Painted apple-green, the inside of the court building reminded her of a school where her mother had sent her before she grew big enough to run away. They went through a set of double doors into the courtroom.

Spectators filled the back two-thirds of the room, which was also apple-green. All the heads turned. The racket of conversation hushed. Paula moved in between Saba and Tanuojin, where she would not be noticed. A railing separated the gallery from the Bench. To the right front of the judge’s table was a small crowd of seated people: the adversary. They were all Martians.

The Bench was vacant. Wu-wei wasn’t a man to wait in public. Saba bent to swing open the gate in the railing, and they went in to the left side of the court.

Paula took her coat off. The courtroom was warm even for her. She glanced at the adversary side and met five sets of unfriendly eyes. She recognized Chi Parine from his picture in the hourlies. He was a small man, in early middle age, his hair thinning back from his forehead. His clothes were flamboyant, a green tunic, yellow shoes.

“Why are all these people staring at us?” Bakan asked, behind her.

Saba pointed at the wall, and the five Styths lined up along it. Tanuojin sat down carefully in a straight chair. It was much too small for him. Saba half-sat on the railing.

A woman in a short dress came out the door behind the judge’s table. She knocked with her knuckles on the tabletop.

“Please rise for the Bench.”

Paula was still on her feet. Behind her, the gallery got noisily up, and the Martians stood, but Saba and Tanuojin stayed as they were. Wu-wei came in. He took his seat behind the table. Folding his hands in front of him, he aimed his yellow epicene face at Tanuojin. The audience slapped down into their chairs, and the Martians all sat but one.

Wu-wei said, “I assume you gentlemen are registering a protest of some kind. Would you care to express it now?” His velvet tenor voice reminded her of Pedasen.

Tanuojin sprawled long as a whip across the chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m an Akellar of the Styth Empire. I only stand up for an Akellar who outranks me.”

“No,” Wu-wei said. He opened his paper file. “You’re just bad-mannered.” He turned to the bailiff. “Read the case.”

The woman who had announced him stood and read off the charges and the names of the people involved. She managed to mispronounce both the Styth names and the name of the ship. Paula went over beside Tanuojin’s chair and sat on her heels. She glanced at Chi Parine, who was watching her narrowly. To Tanuojin, she said, “Ask them for bigger chairs.” Surprised, she sniffed at the metal taint in the air. “Tanuojin. You’re afraid.”

He twisted to look back at Saba. Slumping forward again, he whacked her in the side with his elbow. “Get away from me.”

Parine was up on his feet, his chest thrown out. He reminded her of Machou, displaying in the hall of the Akopra. “Your Excellency, I want to protest the defenser’s churlish behavior. This is a civilized proceeding. If these—” he waved at the Styths—“people don’t intend to abide by our laws, they shouldn’t have come here.”

Several spectators clapped. Wu-wei banged his knuckles on the table.

“I think I’ve already noted that the defenser is being defiant and hostile. Perhaps as he comes to know us, he’ll take to us a little more. I understand you have some bills, Parine.”

“Indeed we do, Your Excellency.” Parine strutted up to the Bench. “We are bringing a bill to disqualify Paula Mendoza from the defense.”

Paula went back to the railing and sat on it, beside Saba. The spectators murmured. They sounded eager. Saba looked around at them.

“That’s an unusual bill,” Wu-wei said.

“Your Excellency, this is an unusual case. The charges have been brought against these two men.” Parine gestured toward the Styths. “They have chosen, wisely or not as time will tell, to argue in their own defense. Miss Mendoza works for the Committee for the Revolution. The laws of the court require that third parties to a case declare their interest before the case opens. The Committee has declared no interest in this case—”

Tanuojin was unfolding himself out of the chair. He rose up to his full height, and Parine faltered, distracted. He wheeled back toward the Bench.

“The Committee hasn’t declared any interest. Therefore Miss Mendoza has no right in the case.”

Wu-wei was writing on his worksheet. Paula stared at Tanuojin’s back. His shirt was sticking to him. She expected him to come over to the rail, to talk it over, but he watched Parine. The little lawyer put his hands on his hips, his arms sticking out, and swaggered back toward his chair.

“Defenser, do you have an argument?” Wu-wei said.

“I don’t need an argument.” Tanuojin walked along the midline between their side of the room and Parine’s. “He needs the arguments. He hasn’t proved she still works for the Committee.”

Parine bellied up to him. “She’s never resigned. The first person she called in Crosby’s Planet was Sybil Jefferson.”

Paula muttered, under her breath. So their suite was tapped.

“Ask her if she works for the Committee.”

“The Committee is accustomed to operate sub rosa—”

Wu-wei tapped his knuckles on the table. “Parine, I’ll ask her myself.”

Sulky, Parine said, “Request permission to withdraw the bill.”

Wu-wei nodded and bent to mark his worksheet. Tanuojin sauntered across his side of the court. He slid his hands under his belt. He was warming to it. Parine turned to the Bench again.

“Your Excellency, we have another bill—”

Tanuojin went to his chair and put one foot up on it. Parine was arguing to set a time limit on the trial. With many fine gestures he laid out a dozen reasons for his bill. At the height of his discourse, Tanuojin leaned on his chair and broke it.

The people sitting in the gallery behind Paula gasped. Wu-wei threw his head back, and Parine wheeled. Tanuojin said, in the silence, “Bring me something I can sit on.”

Parine’s face flushed bright red. “Your Excellency—”

Wu-wei said, “Parine, this is my courtroom. The bailiff will supply the defenser with a suitable chair. Two suitable chairs.” He looked at Tanuojin. His soft, ageless face was expressionless. “I’ll call a recess until fourteen while we arrange the furniture.” He rapped on the table. “Akellar, come here, please.”

Saba slid off the railing. He took Paula’s hand. “Let’s go—I’m hungry.”

Tanuojin got her by the other arm. “No, leave her with me, I need her.”

Saba’s jaw clenched. Without a word he vaulted the rail and went down the aisle toward the door, brushing aside the people in his way. Sril, Bakan, and Trega followed him. Paula watched him go.

“I think the Man is jealous,” Tanuojin said, under his breath.

Paula glanced up at him. She went toward the Bench, passing Chi Parine, who was putting away notebooks in a papercase. When her back was to him, Parine said, soft, “Where do you hide the puppet strings?”

She pretended not to hear him. Wu-wei was smoothing his worksheet down with the flat of his hand. Tanuojin came over beside her, facing the judge.

“You wanted me?”

“No,” Wu-wei said. “But I have you, by the jug-luck.” He looked at Paula. “I’m an easy man, as long as I’m amused. I don’t mind slack manners but I won’t stand violence. If that happens again, I will pack and leave, and none of us will get what we came here for.” He got up and went out the side door.

Paula snorted. She turned to go. Tanuojin said, “The she-man thinks you’re the master mind.”

“They don’t seem to respect your intelligence.”

The last of the spectators were leaving out the door. Marus and Kany came up on Paula’s free side. They walked along the green corridor. She skipped a stride to keep up with them. The long hall streamed with people.

“What do you think of Parine?” Tanuojin asked.

“He’ll probably sharpen up.”

They went out the doors and across the plaza. Her heels clacked on the pavement. She was still unused to the gravity and walking was a chore. She looked around the broad plaza for Saba. A man loped along a few feet away, a camera up to his face. She jerked her head straight.

When they returned to the courtroom, there were two oversized padded armchairs on their side of the rail. Saba and Tanuojin did not stand for Wu-wei’s entrance, and the audience booed them. Parine argued an obscure point of evidence supporting his bill for a time limit to the trial. His four assistants sat in a line along the rail, two young men, two young women, their legs crossed right over left. Halfway through the lecture, the redheaded woman on the end of the line rearranged her legs left over right, and the others copied her, one after the other.

Parine said, “Because whatever euphemisms the radical fringe might employ, the friction between Mars and the Styth Empire amounts to a war. To stretch out this trial as long as the defense cares to would make this courtroom another battlefield of that war, which is surely not the court’s or our intention.” When he sat down several people scattered through the gallery clapped with vigor.

“Defenser?” Wu-wei said.

“Just a moment.” Tanuojin swung around toward Paula, who was leaning against the railing behind the two Styths. “What is he talking about?”

He spoke the Common Speech, and he did not lower his voice. Paula folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t know. I think he’s just shoveling dirt.”

Tanuojin straightened around in his chair. “I don’t care,” he said to Wu-wei. “Make it as short as you like. You’d make it even shorter if that little niggerman wouldn’t use six times the words he needs.”

Parine’s pale Martian cheeks went ruddy. The crowd erupted into boos and catcalls and stamped their feet on the floor. Saba turned to look them over, his face pensive. Paula gave a little shake of her head. Tanuojin was determined to make everybody hate him. Wu-wei nodded at the bailiff, who rang a handbell until the people in the gallery quieted and sat down.

Wu-wei raised his silky voice. “The trial will also run a good deal shorter if the gallery will not take the defenser’s baits. I accept the bill.”

Parine locked his hands behind his back. He fixed Tanuojin with an icy look. “We will now introduce a bill for a declaration of evidence.”

Paula straightened, unfolding her arms. The Martian lawyer paraded around his side of the court, his eyes on Tanuojin. “In the interests of the time limit, we are offering to submit an outline of our case, provided defenser is as forthcoming, and reduce the points of controversy.”

Tanuojin got out of his chair. He put his back to Parine and bent, his hands on the arms of Paula’s chair, to talk into her ear. “What is this?” Now he was speaking Styth.

“It’s usually done the other way,” she said. “The defenser offers to limit the case to one or two points of controversy.” She tapped her fingers on her knees. “Don’t accept it. Make them talk about it, maybe we can find something out.”

He glanced at Parine. Straightening, he flexed his long hands at his sides, unsheathing his claws. He sauntered around their side of the courtroom. Everybody was watching him, even Wu-wei, his hands folded neatly before him.