Floating Worlds (61 page)

She raised her head. “Why?”

“Well, because the Earth—because Mars is the strongest and richest.”

“Because the Earth wasn’t a member.”

“The Committee always kept in close touch with us.” His clasped hands spread again, the fingers splayed. “Depending on the personalities involved, the Committee could be very powerful.”

She put her pen down. “The Committee ran the Middle Planets.”

“Oh, that’s a little extreme.”

“No. You know what the rAkellaron is. The Council of the Styth Empire? The rAkellaron will take the place of the Council.”

Newrose tapped his fingertips together. “Can they handle it? The Middle Planets is a very complex—”

“The rAkellaron as a body is incapable of rising to its feet.” She turned. Feet boomed on the rungs of the ladder, and Ymma’s head rose up through the round hatchway in the floor.

“They tore them up,” he said, in Styth. His face crinkled into a wide grin. “The fleet. Tanuojin just called. They captured three Condors and blew away four more.”

Paula let out her breath in a sigh. She closed the notebook. Newrose was watching them, his eyes sharp. She said, “Congratulations, Secretary. Our side won.”

He gave her a lick of a glance. Ymma slouched against the clear wall of the room. His shadow fell outside across the dust. “The Creep baited them right down his throat. He kept them winning until they all gathered, and then he wiped them out.”

Newrose said, dull, “I should tell my staff.”

“Go.” Paula nodded to him.

Ymma moved out of his way, still beaming; he radiated a faint bright scent of pleasure. She put the notebook into her papercase. Newrose’s pink head sank below the surface into the Planet.

“
Ybix
was in every single fight,” Ymma said. “She was the bait. He’s all iron, Saba. I wish I’d been there.”

“I’m glad you were here,” she said. Newrose had signed the surrender with half an hour to spare. She went down into the Planet, to send the message to Saba that his war was over.

The new dress fastened up the back. Between her shoulder blades the slide jammed. She crooked one arm over her shoulder and the other around her side and tried to tease the fastener loose. It was stuck tight. She wrenched at it, her teeth clenched. Abruptly she realized there was someone behind her.

She let out a high, choked yell and wheeled. It was David, laughing at her.

“You didn’t hear me,” he said proudly.

“No.” She turned her back on him. “Fix that, will you?”

He pulled on the slide fastener. Paula watched him in the mirror on the wall beside her. He was already her height, growing burly, like Saba. In this light she could not be sure, but she thought she saw hair on his smooth upper lip. He muttered, triumphant, and ran the slide up behind her neck.

“Where is the Prima?” she said. She buttoned the tight-fitting forearms of the sleeves.

“Talking to that nigger.”

“Newrose.”

“Why does he bother? We beat them, now they have to obey him, don’t they?”

She faced him, reaching for the long black coat thrown across the chair. “Are your mustaches starting to grow?”

“Can you see them?” He rotated toward the mirror. With one forefinger he stroked his lip. She put the coat on, its silky fur collar against her cheek, and buttoned it up the front. When her son turned away from the mirror he was frowning. She straightened his shirt, to be touching him.

“Don’t.” He pushed her hand away. “Come on—you’ll be late.”

Her neck and face heated. She went after him into the hall. He was ashamed of her. Her gaze on the floor, she walked fast through the guards around the meeting room. Somebody announced her.

David left her as soon as they entered the long room. The air was freezing. Along the illusion wall the ocean streamed midnight blue up to the thin white curl of surf. Against that background the Styths moved in silhouette. She crossed the room toward the tall stocky shape standing against the ocean.

“Where did you get that dress?” Ketac said. He ran his hand over the sleeve. “Oh. I like that.”

She held her arm up so that he could stroke his cheek against the fur. “I looted it. On the sixth level. There were a lot of shops up there that didn’t get burned.” She glanced down the room after David, shorter than the other men.

Several more men came into the room. They pushed the furniture off into the corners to make space. Their voices rose. Ketac was holding a cup out to her and she took it. The surface was chased with a scrolled ribbon. She held it out to look and decided it was a vase for cut flowers. The cool potent drink tasted of mint.

A loud voice said names, over by the door. Leno and Tanuojin were coming in. Paula lowered the cup. Tanuojin walked first into the room, ahead of the Prima Cadet.

“Well, well,” she said. She sipped the icy, minty liquor.

Tanuojin was coming toward her, and Ketac backed off, giving way to him. The tall man said, bad-tempered, “Isn’t there anything to drink in here except swill?” He put his back against the ocean, his hands behind him. Ketac went quickly away down the wall.

“Hello, Prima,” Paula said to Tanuojin.

“Hello, Paula.”

The men around the room were standing stiffly at respect. Saba came in. Behind him was Alvers Newrose, almost unnoticed in the dark. Ketac went to attend his father. The Martian stayed by the door, his head moving from side to side. Saba circled around the middle of the room.

“Listen to me. I have some things to get said. The fleet has voted thirty-six promotions, which I will have posted next watch.” He was in a very good temper. Paula had told Newrose what to say to him, and apparently he had obeyed her. She watched Newrose peer blindly around the room, looking for her. Saba recited names and ranks in an ascending order. David was not one of them. Of course he was too young even to be a subtenant.

Saba said, “The last three are the best. Ketac, in
Ybix
, goes to a master commander and third watch officer of the ship. Leno, in
Ebelos
, to a general commander.” He turned, one hand out, and Ketac brought him a strip of black cloth. “Tanuojin.”

Beside her, the tall man shifted his feet. Slowly he went across the room to Saba. The Prima hung the flag across his lyo’s chest. “The fleet has only voted two flags since I’ve been Prima, and both of them to you.” He started to shake the other man’s hand but instead they put their arms around each other, hugged each other chest to chest. The other men beat their hands together in applause.

Newrose was watching, so his eyes had sharpened in the dusk. Tanuojin came back to the wall next to Paula. Around the room, the aides of the other ranking officers brought them drink and chairs and took their private messages from man to man.

Leno said, “Prima, what word from Vribulo?”

“None,” Saba said.

“Nothing at all?”

“Who’s dominant in the Chamber?” Saba took a big glass from Ketac. “Bokojin and Machou. The vice commander and the commander of the Uranian Patrol. The only cheers we’d hear from them is if we crashed the whole fleet on an Asteroid.”

Paula looked up at Tanuojin on her left. The black sash hung across his chest. His hands were jammed under his belt. She took hold of his wrist. His skin was cold; he did not push her off.

Near the door, Ymma said, “It looks as if the war isn’t quite over after all.”

“Maybe,” Saba said. He held the glass out to David, who held it for him, and gestured to Ketac. “But that’s between me and Bokojin.”

“And the rest of us,” Leno said. The other men murmured loudly in agreement.

“I think I can take Bokojin,” Saba said. He pointed toward Newrose, next to the door. In the Common Speech, he said, “This man is the spokesman for the Council of the Middle Planets. The Mendoz’ has arranged a peace with him. I told him we only want the honor of the Empire, not revenge. As an earnest of that I’m giving him the Martian general we took prisoner.”

Leno said, “What is he giving us?”

Saba made a careless shrug. Ketac came in, with General Hanse just behind him.

Paula straightened. She let go of Tanuojin. Hanse had shrunk by fifty pounds. He walked awkwardly, slowly, not like a man in the dark: as if he were drugged. Tanuojin got her sleeve and pulled her arm behind her and held her. Hanse stopped between Saba and the door. Newrose went to him and spoke to him, touched him, and walked around him. Hanse stood speechless, moveless, unseeing.

“What happened?” Paula said to Tanuojin.

“It didn’t work.”

Leno had come deep into the room. His jaw stuck out. “What assurances are they giving you?”

“They’ll keep the agreement,” Paula said. “As long as it’s in their best interests.”

The Merkhiz Akellar stamped toward her. His gaze swiveled from Saba to Tanuojin. “Why do you trust her? Didn’t she double over on us in the Earth, that time? If you ask me, she’s one of them.”

Saba had gone off to the side of the room. David was with him. She tugged on Tanuojin’s grip and he freed her.

She said, “Leno, I won’t say who betrayed who on the Earth. Newrose is a Martian. You know what the Martians did to my Planet.” She went toward him three or four steps. Everybody was watching her.

Merkhiz said, “This smells rotten. Why would you help us?”

“Because you’re the only people I have left.” She stared up at his broad face. “I didn’t choose this, Akellar. All my friends are dead, because of you and the Martians.”

He said nothing for a moment. His round eyes gleamed. Finally he said, “From what I’ve heard of this arrangement, they’re giving us nothing but promises.”

She went past him, making him turn to keep up with her. Now she was facing Tanuojin, past Leno’s shoulder, and she spoke to him. “If you want to do it your way, do it your way. They’ll fight, you’ll have to go from dome to dome beating them down, you’ll be stuck here until the Planet comes around again. Let Bokojin be the Prima. I don’t care.” She turned her back on him and Leno and went over to Newrose.

“What’s going on?” Newrose said, low.

“Jabber-jabber.” Hanse’s slack face hung before her, his skin draped in folds over his cheeks. She waved her fingers under his eyes. “Hanse.” She patted his cheek. “Hanse!”

“He’s catatonic,” Newrose said. His lips tightened, grim.

“Take him out.”

Newrose like a nurse led the general away. She stood watching them maneuver through the door. She could guess what had happened. David touched her arm.

“Papa wants to see you.” His hand lay on her forearm. “Not all your friends are dead, Mother.” His voice trembled.

Tanuojin was leaving, Junna behind him. David tugged on her sleeve and she went to Saba.

“I don’t know what happened,” Newrose said. His face was rosy from the chilly air. Paula walked faster. Like a little terrier the Martian hurried along beside her. “Hanse can’t talk or think, the man can scarcely move.”

She led him into the corridor to Saba’s suite, lined with Styths. Leno had an office here, too, somewhere. She stopped at the table that blocked the way, and the aide sitting behind it got up and went to tell Saba that she was there.

“What do you want me to do?” she said to Newrose.

“Protest. Whatever they did to him was definitely contrary to all the rules regarding prisoners of war.”

“Tsk.” The book open on the table was the watch roster. She skewed around to read who Saba was meeting. Tanuojin had taken
Ybix
to the Earth. The aide came back.

“The Prima will see you, Mendoz’.”

Newrose stepped between her and the door. “Miss Mendoza, I’m serious about this.”

“Newrose,” she said, “you are a funny man. I was Hanse’s prisoner for six months. I have no sympathy for him.” She went past him down the corridor.

Saba was in his bedroom. Ketac let her in. He mumbled at her; his breath smelled foul. She said, “You don’t look so daisy-fresh,” and went past him into the room.

“I feel awful.”

The overstuffed chairs had been dragged back. At the foot of the bed was a table, up on blocks to fit a Styth, where Saba sat eating. David was waiting beside him to serve him. The Prima wiped his mouth on a white cloth. “You see,” he told Ketac, “she stops drinking before she makes herself sick. Vida, bring her a chair.”

“You were as drunk as I was,” Ketac said.

“I am never drunk.”

Paula snorted. She climbed up into the chair David brought her. Saba picked over the remnants of his meal, nudged the plate away, and twisted around in the chair. “You have those orders,” he said to Ketac.

“Yes, Prima.” Ketac went down the room to the door.

When he was gone, she said, “Ketac has done very well.”

“I can depend on him. Vida, sometimes, but Vida talks back to me.” David was bending past him to pour water into his cup, and Saba swatted him on the backside. “He even talks back to Tanuojin.”

“Sometimes he’s wrong,” David said.

“He’s your son,” Saba told her. “Down to his bootsoles.”

“What happened to General Hanse?” she said. David put a cup down before her. He held the fat-bellied jug in his other hand.

“It’s just water,” he said.

“I’ll suffer.”

The boy poured her cup full. Saba was toying with the white cloth on the table. “Hanse. Tanuojin tried to take him, the way he took Dr. Savenia, but Hanse fought, and his heart stopped with Tajin in him.”

David put the jug on the table. He seemed uninterested in what his father was saying. She guessed he had been there: Saba took him everywhere.

“It was hell,” Saba said to her. “I thought he was gone.”

She drew the Earth-sign in the frost of her cup. That was safe. Even if Hanse got well enough to talk, the Martians would think he was crazy.

“This deal you made with Newrose,” he said. “You want the rAkellaron to take the place of the Council. That won’t work. You know that, don’t you?”

“It isn’t meant to work,” she said. “It’s meant to look good, that’s all.”

“Then who does the real job?”

“I will.”

He slapped the table. His cup jumped. “What about Tanuojin? He doesn’t like this arrangement at all.”