Floating Worlds (38 page)

She nodded. Her hands and face were cold.

“I’ve thought of that. But he won’t be well. It’s too dangerous. It’s dangerous enough for him when he’s sound.”

“Could he help you?”

Saba propped himself up on one elbow and reached for the crystal lamp on the window sill. He switched it on. The light sprang into the room; she blinked, dazzled. He put the lamp on the floor midway between them.

“He knows half again as many tricks as Leno. But it could kill him. If he leaves his body it will start to bleed again.”

Paula held her legs out to put her feet into the warmth of the lamp. Leno was the Prima Cadet, second only to Machou. If Saba defeated him, Saba took his place. He had to win, whatever it cost him. She wiggled her toes in the glow of the lamp.

The broad porch of the House teemed with people. Paula went through the short entry, with its glittering wall of gold names, and down the hall on the first floor. The hall like a tunnel caught the voices of the men standing thick around the double doors at the far end. She followed a short white figure through the smaller slave door to the left.

She came into a large room full of slaves. Most of the floor was taken by a great open pit with a railing around it. She squeezed through the packed white shoulders to it. The pit was easily a hundred feet across, circular, its sloping walls ringed with three ledges. The rAkellaron sat there with their aides, scratching and drinking and talking, picking their noses, chewing laksi: the masters of the Empire. She leaned on the rail, her chin barely clearing it, stiff with excitement. She wondered if she were the first free Sun-worlder ever to see this.

Machou sat on the second ledge, a little to her right, deep in talk with the handsome man: Bokojin. Leno was across the pit from her on the first ledge. She could not find Ymma. While she looked around, the double doors banged wide, and Saba came into the Chamber.

The other men all craned their necks to see him, and many stood up. Ketac and Sril trailed him. He went straight down the steps of the pit, past her without noticing her, into the round sandy space at the bottom. Now he saw her; he gave her an intense look. Paula held on to the railing with both hands. The slaves around her were avoiding her. Somehow they always knew who she was. Now Ymma came into the Chamber.

Saba saw him. He went to the rail around the little arena. “Ymma, you know why I’m here!”

Machou waved his hand, and the sentries at the double doors swung them shut. The rAkellaron hushed. Ymma was chewing his tongue. He went along the uppermost ledge to a stretch of bare bench. Machou stood up, and all around the pit, every other man stood.

“This session is open. Matuko, you have some special business?”

“You know about it, Prima,” Saba called. “You know about it all.”

The Prima sat down. “Are you challenging me, Akellar?” Ht did not sound worried.

Saba went around the pit toward Ymma. His voice rose in a harsh whine. No one but Paula seemed to notice how much he sounded like Tanuojin. He called, “Come down here, Ymma—I want you, and you know why.”

Ymma was still on his feet, although everyone else had sat when Machou sat. In a low voice, the Lopka Akellar said, “I have my rights. He shamed me—”

“So you beat him up in the street?”

Here and there on the ledges someone murmured. Directly below her a man leaned toward another and whispered, “I take it Ymma paid his little debt to Tanuojin?” Ymma was sidling along the ledge to the nearest stairs. Paula sucked in a deep breath, her eyes on Saba.

He glanced over his shoulder at Leno and sideways at Bokojin. Backing across the sand, he gave Ymma the room to come into the arena, and turned so that when Ymma came in through the bottom rail Saba was facing all of them, Ymma, Leno, and Bokojin. Ymma stepped out onto the sand. Saba jumped on him.

The onlookers howled. The slaves around her rushed forward to see and nearly crushed her against the railing. All around the ledges the rAkellaron bounded to their feet. Saba hit Ymma so hard the other man landed on his back on the far side of the sand circle. Leno vaulted down across the bottom ledge to the sand. Ymma curled up, his arms around his head. Saba took two steps and fell to his knees on Ymma’s chest. He sprang around to meet Leno.

Leno feinted, and Saba shifted to meet him. They grappled. Paula could hardly breathe. The slaves were pushing her hard against the rail. The cheers and screams packed her ears. Leno tripped Saba down. They rolled over on the sand, their claws hooked in each other’s face. Ymma was trying to get up. On his knees, Leno straddled Saba’s chest, reared back, and slashed at him with his spread hand. Saba caught his wrist. They strained against each other a moment, motionless, their faces twisted with effort. Abruptly Saba gave way and Leno fell, off-balance. Saba pulled him forward and butted him.

The Merkhiz Akellar collapsed, dazed. Saba heaved himself off the sand and drove his elbow like a hammer into Leno’s side, all his weight behind it, and when Leno dropped to the sand struck him again in the same way between the shoulder blades. Merkhiz sagged down slack on his face. Saba sprang up to his feet and backed away, his head turning from Leno to Ymma. Blood streamed along his face. The cheering rolled out deafening from the men watching.

Paula elbowed and shoved a way through the slaves to the stair. Machou was on his feet. Everybody was watching him. The Prima turned on his heel and walked up the ledges, through the rail past Paula, and went out of the Chamber. Ketac and Sril went into the pit with Saba. His son gave him a towel.

Paula went down the ledges, stretching her legs from step to step. Saba had seen her. He came up to meet her, took her by the hands, and bent and kissed her.

The uproar died abruptly. Behind her a man swore. Her tongue tasted of copper.

“Take her back,” Saba said. Ketac stood one step below him. Paula’s head whirled in a sudden giddy rush, and she staggered. Ketac took her by the arm.

“Are you hurt?”

She leaned on him. She had lost her voice. Her throat was numb and her sight darkened. At the top of the steps Ketac lifted her up in his arms.

“Open this door.”

He carried her along the hall, through the glitter of the Gold Wall, and out onto the plain. Someone shouted. She rested her head on Ketac’s shoulder, exhausted.

“Saba just took Leno and Ymma both in thirty-two seconds!”

A raw-throated cheer grated in her ears. Ketac stopped in a circle of other men. He was talking but she was too tired to make out the words. She felt him walking down the stairs. A cold dark fell over her; he had brought her into the arcade.

She said, hoarse, “Tanuojin.” She opened her eyes.

“He’s asleep, Paula.”

“Let me in there.”

When he set her on her feet she nearly fell.

She went through Tanuojin’s empty office to the back room. Her strength was seeping away. A cold weakness crept like death along her backbone, freezing her mind numb. She sat down on the edge of the bed. Fresh blood was pooled on the floor under it.

In her mind, his voice murmured, “Make sure it’s still alive.”

She put one hand over the body’s mouth. His faint breath cooled her palm. She bent over him and kissed him. Her tongue and lower lip tingled. His mouth was cold. The life woke in her muscles. She ran her tongue over his lips and down his mouth and into his throat.

He pushed at her with one hand, feeble. She held him, her weight on him, kissing him deep against his will until he rolled weakly over onto his stomach. She straightened. He lay face down on the bed.

“You bitch, Paula.”

“You do talk. What if your body had been dead? You were set to take mine. You’d have killed me.”

He turned his face to the wall. She opened the door and left him alone.

“Why did you wear that coat?” Illy said. “That color makes you look like a little old woman.”

Paula glared at her across the covered chair. “If you claw at me, I’ll get out and walk.”

Illy smirked. She wore pink and orange paint on her cheeks and forehead. Her eyes were like black moons. “You can’t. You don’t have the right clothes on.”

“I can do anything I damn well please.”

The chair swayed and tipped to one side. Paula grabbed the frame. Jingling with little silver bells, Boltiko threw back the curtain and squeezed into the front bench of the chair, next to Paula. When she sat, the whole box sagged.

“I wouldn’t go out looking like that,” Illy said. “Not for help if I were dying.”

Boltiko squirmed herself comfortable on the seat. She looked down at Paula and patted her knee. The bells on her sleeve rang.

“Where shall we go first?” Illy said. “To the kundra to have our fortunes read?”

The chair swung up into the air. Wedged between Boltiko and the side of the box, Paula rocked with it, surrounded by the clamor of bells. Everybody in Matuko wore bells during the Krita Festival. The chair-slaves bore them along. The curtains were drawn closed and she could not see where they were going. She reached out to draw the curtain back, and Boltiko slapped her hand down.

“Don’t you do that when we aren’t covered.”

Paula sat back.

“Oh, what a miserable watch I had, last watch,” Boltiko said. “I didn’t sleep above thirty minutes.” She knocked on the side of the chair with her knuckles, and their speed increased to a brisk trot.

Illy giggled. “I could tell you a couple of remedies for that.” She smiled at Paula.

“Sometimes I think if it weren’t for the children,” Boltiko said, “I’d go somewhere and die. And then see who would miss me.”

The chair sped down a slope. Outside the muffling curtains, bells rang, and music sounded, among laughter and voices. Illy was staring at Paula.

“Tell her how awful she looks in that coat, Tiko.”

Paula leaned forward, reaching for the curtain. “Put this thing down.” Boltiko struck at her fingers, but the slaves heard her and the chair stopped.

“Oh, Paula,” Illy called. “Just come to the kundra’s—”

Paula jumped down out of the chair to the street. The slaves lifted it again. She heard, above the two arguing voices of the wives, the sharp bang of Boltiko’s fist on the box. The chair swept off, swaying, its curved roof streaming ribbons in its wake.

She was in the street near the lake market. The passing crowd pressed by her on either side. Ahead, in the market, gaudy tents replaced the merchants’ stalls. She wandered through the little carnival, going from tent to tent. Some sold pala-cakes or liquor, and others offered entertainments. She stopped behind a wall of Styth backs to watch a girl in a demure long dress dance on a platform to the music of a ulugong. Inside, Paula supposed, she took it off. In the open front of the next tent, surrounded by the upturned faces of children, a red bird climbed up a rope and rang the bell at the top.

A huge paper-and-paste mask swayed toward her, held up on a long stick above the heads of the crowd, the face painted white and the leering open mouth blood-red. There were other masks up and down the street, and prizes later for the best. The false faces symbolized the Moon-people, the first colonists of Uranus, who according to the legends had been driven out or massacred by the hero Krita. The bells were part of that myth, too: Krita’s bell had brought the colonists to their deaths. She walked along among the crowd, enjoying the circus feeling. The colonists had abandoned Uranus when the Three Planets Empire broke up, not because of Krita’s bell and knife, but the Styths would never believe that. It was part of their lives, their faith. Although Saba was of another house entirely from the ancient hero, one of his titles was Kritona. She stopped at a stall to buy a pala-cake and went on, looking for David.

“Hold these.” David took the white grass garlands off over his head and stuffed them into her arms. Ducking under the rope, he trotted down the street to the starting line of the race. The people around her were eating pala-cakes and making bets. Paula stuck her frozen hands in her sleeves. David grinned at her from the starting line. He was missing three front teeth and his smile was like a tunnel through his face. Something brushed down her back.

“Paula. What are you doing here?”

It was Ketac. She looked up at him behind her. A broad braided ribbon hung around his neck.

“What’s that?”

“I won it throwing knives.”

The crowd roared and surged forward against the rope. A dozen boys raced down the street toward her. David was leading; David had won. The people around her raised their arms and shook their bells, rattle-rattle like little tin leaves, and cheered.

“Aren’t you glad he won?” Ketac said.

“It seems to me you’re all winning everything.”

“That’s because we’re the best family in Matuko.”

David jogged up to her, hardly out of breath. Another garland hung around his neck. The people around him leaned out to touch him. They thought it good luck to touch a winner. Paula held out the wreaths, and solemnly he decorated himself in his awards.

Ketac pulled on the peak of her hood. “You should stay in the chair. You’ll get lost.”

“How can I get lost? Somebody always finds me.”

They went off toward the crowd. David strutted around, collared in grass, calling to his friends in a new deep voice. Paula ran her hand over his smooth head. They went down toward the lake. A little parade of the paper masks passed them, held up on poles.

Ketac left them. David wandered off into the crowd. Paula went slowly down the hillside street. She looked up at the lake, in the roof of the bubble. They were racing boats there; most of the race involved fighting from one boat to the next to knock the oarsmen into the water. She watched one boat roll over, presenting its long white belly to the air. Heads bobbed around it.

Pedasen was part of a small crowd watching a stick-puppet show near the White Market. She went up beside him and took his hand, and he startled. She smiled at him. The puppets declaimed in falsetto voices from the cut-out stage. The eunuch stroked her palm with his fingertips. When the play ended they walked away toward the lake.

“You ought to be in the covered chair,” he said.

“Illy teases me. I don’t know how Saba bears her, she’s that nagging.”

He swung their linked hands back and forth. “You’re more like her child. Or her little sister.” Through the tail of his eye he glanced at her. “You could always give her up.”

David ran up to her, streaming his white grass garlands. Pedasen moved away from her. His fingers slid out of her grasp. Her son bounced around her.

“Mama, buy me a poppet. Buy me a pala-cake.” He towed her along by the hand through the White Market. The Martian merchants had joined with whole hearts in the spirit of Krita, raising all their prices 10 per cent.

“When is the Kritaloi?” Paula asked. The ceremony was the climax of the festival.

Pedasen came after her, his hands in his tunic sleeves. “At three bells.” David scowled at him and moved between her and him.

“What’s he doing here?”

“He lives here,” Paula said.

David shot an angry look over his shoulder at the slave. “Come on. I’ll show you the poppet I want.” He ran off down the street ahead of her.

“I knew he’d get like that about me,” Pedasen said. “He’s a black, no matter what you do.”

A parade of Krita masks bobbed toward them. They passed the shop that sold illusion helmets. The street was sprinkled with bits of paper, mushed pala-cakes, ribbons, and grass. David turned and jogged back toward her, the grass like an Elizabeth ruff over his shoulders. Ten feet from her, a mob of little boys leaped on him.

They screeched. Their arms milling, they fought in the street. David kicked and struck at them; he was smaller than the smallest of them. Paula rushed in among them. They were tearing off his prizes. Her fingers in David’s belt, she pulled him out from under three other boys, and they turned on her. David struggled in her arms. She held him tight against her while the other boys slugged her and kicked her shins. In a moment they raced off.

Ketac said, “What’s going on?”

She let David go. His cheeks were slippery with tears, and he thrust her violently away from him with both hands. Bleeding scratches striped his forehead. His flags were gone. He shouted, “I don’t need you—I can do it—” Crying with rage, he wheeled on Pedasen. “You didn’t even stop her—” He ran off into the crowd. Paula bent and rubbed her sore ankle.

“Are you hurt?” Ketac asked her. Pedasen was going away.

Paula shook her head. “He’s too little to fight.” Her throat felt tight, and her eyes burned.

“So are you,” Ketac said.

Along the shore the men stood in rows, shoulder to shoulder, clapping their hands. The beating rhythm and the bells made Paula’s head throb. She put her hand on the covered chair beside her. Below her, beyond the mass of people, Saba walked into the water. Dakkar and Ketac followed him. The water purled around them. Saba went in to his waist and turned to face the shore. He took off his belt and his shirt and gave them to Ketac. The pale medal of his order swung across his chest. Dakkar held out a sheath, and Saba drew the curved knife out of it. He slashed an X in the black water before him and carved an X deep in his forearm. Paula jerked. Blood streamed down his arm. He plunged it into the lake. The people let out a great breath of a cheer, shaking their sleeves of bells, waving their belled hats. Ketac gave his father a piece of cloth, which Saba wrapped around his arm, and he put his clothes on.

“He bled quite a lot,” Illy said, inside the chair. “A good omen.”

Paula swallowed the bad taste in her mouth. Saba walked out of the water. His people cheered in voices half-drowned in bells: “Krita! Krita! Krita!” David came around the chair toward her.

“When I grow up, I’ll be brave as Papa.”

Paula turned away.

Saba told Illy that he was taking
Ybix
out on another long mission. All Paula’s usual means of spying on him failed to discover where he was going. To keep her from working out their target from the kind and amount of supplies they laid in, he had Tanuojin outfit the ship from Yekka. She went to Yekka herself, on the bus, but before she could learn anything Tanuojin caught her and sent her back to Matuko.

Ybix
took the men away. Ketac stayed in Vribulo, as Saba’s pitman, and Dakkar, the prima son, ruled Matuko. Paula knew that Dick Bunker would arrive in Styth as soon as the Committee found out
Ybix
had left. She told Ketac to watch for him.