Floating Worlds

YEKKA

Yekka was bright as an Earthish afternoon: the pala fruit was ripening. The whole city rang with the sizzling music of insects. Kasuk, Tanuojin’s elder son, met her at the city gate, and Sril got back on the bus to go home. Kasuk took her across the green city to the Akellarit compound. Remembering he was shy, she made no effort to talk to him. He looked nothing like his father. A heavyset young man, with broad plain features, he walked slightly stooped, his eyes on the ground. In the compound yard, she looked first for the bilyobio tree that grew near Tanuojin’s window. It was sprouting again.

Tanuojin was in the public room of the main building, giving orders to a row of his men. The walls, like much of the compound, were half-paneled, glossy dark on the bottom and flat white on top. The ceiling was held up on square dark pillars. Paula stopped to look at a postboard near the door. Under a permanent heading for his Akopra, which he called the Black Company, was a list of times and dances. They were doing Capricornus in a few watches. She began to be pleased she had come, even without David; she liked Yekka.

“I’m supposed to read the book to you,” Tanuojin said, behind her. His crew had gone. He cuffed her. “Didn’t I tell you to stop doing that?”

“Frankly, I don’t remember that you did.”

“Tell him I gave you the book.” He walked away across the hall toward the far doorway. When she did not follow he threw her a hard look, and she trotted after him.

“You took Vesta,” she said, in the corridor.

“It was a damned stupid move. The Martians went back again as soon as we left.” He pushed her ahead of him into the room where Saba slept when he was here. “You stay here.”

“All the time?” She looked up at his face, arm’s length above hers.

“You can go anywhere you want, I don’t care. I don’t see how he has a right to call you loose. At least you didn’t do it with a man.”

She went over to the narrow bed and climbed up to sit on it. She was sweating under her heavy clothes; this was the warmest she had ever been in Styth. Tanuojin leaned against the side of the door, his long dished profile toward her. One mustache lay over his shoulder. He said, “While you’re here, you can do something with me.”

“Oh.” The skin quivered over her shoulders. “What?”

He came into the room and shut the door. “I’ll show you.”

“Who have you done it with? Anybody else but us?”

“Just you and him. Who else is there?”

She lay on her side on the bed, between Tanuojin and the wall. The light from the ground outside shone up through the window behind her onto the ceiling. There was a krine in the room somewhere, the Yekkit insect, sawing out its violin screech. “Is it different with him than me?”

He rolled onto his back and folded his arms behind his head. “What do you think? You’re entirely different people. Your memory is older than his. You know things in different ways than he does.” He was sleepy; his eyes half-closed.

She wondered how long they had shared the same body: an hour, perhaps two hours. The krine was coming closer. Now she could see it on the floor, a thumb-sized transparent worm with wings.

“What do you do?” she said. “What does it feel like?”

“I don’t do anything. It feels like what you feel like. That doesn’t help, does it? So why don’t you stop asking questions?”

“I don’t understand why you’re so kinked about it.”

“I’m tired of being treated like a freak.”

She propped her head on her fist. Through the neck of his shirt she could see his collarbones. The krine’s voice stopped.

“You know the treaty is ending soon,” she said.

Tanuojin’s eyes opened, shell-white. His eyes had gotten several shades paler since she had first met him. He said, “We talked about that on the way back from Vesta. You should have asked that man from the Committee what they’re going to do.”

“I’d rather talk to Jefferson. You know what he said to me—Bunker?”

“Yes.” His thin lips split into an unpleasant smile. “They think you’re double-dealing with them. Nobody trusts you, Paula. Except that slave. And you got him killed.”

Her nerves jumped. She held back the hot remark seething in her throat. His smile broadened with malice. She thought, He knows everything I think, and opened her fist.

“The Committee needs a counter to the Martians. This time, given the right conditions, we could arrange something with them that would make the Vesta raid look like crude piracy.”

He shut his eyes. The smile still curled his mouth. “What conditions? That Saba becomes the Prima?”

“Well, yes.”

“He won’t do it. We talked about it, as I said. He doesn’t think he can whip Machou, and he won’t try without a good reason.”

“This is a good reason! The two of you could—”

“The three of us could get in a lot of trouble. The last time you talked us into one of your maneuvers, I nearly died.”

“Because it worked.”

Almost under the bed the krine started to shrill. Tanuojin sat up. “That damned fly.” He held out one hand, palm flat. “We don’t want the same things, Paula. I use you, and you use me.” The krine leaped onto his hand. He threw it out the window. “But we want different things.”

“All I want is what’s possible.”

Monstrously tall, he straightened up onto his feet, stretching. “We’ll see what’s possible.” He went out. She folded her arms behind her head, satisfied. They had already talked about the treaty, even about the advantages of making Saba the Prima; it would breed in their minds. She yawned, pleasantly sleepy.

“Rasputin was a false prophet,” Tanuojin said. They had come to the gate out of his compound.

“He was a genuine blood-stauncher,” she said. “And he was very hard to kill.”

“I’m not a mystic. He tried to predict the future.”

“When was that? That isn’t so.”

“He did predict that he wouldn’t be able to save the Tsarevich the next time he was in danger. Didn’t he?” The Styth turned the key absently in his hand; he was going to the powerhouse at the end of the city. Paula frowned up at him. She wondered if he had taken his knowledge of Rasputin out of her head.

“He wasn’t necessarily referring to the Ekaterinberg massacre. Maybe it was practical—the Tsarevich was sickening and the next time Rasputin wouldn’t be able to stop the bleeding.”

“Where are you going? I don’t like not knowing where you are.”

“To the White Market. For a present for David.”

Without a farewell he turned and walked off along the narrow pathway. His follower Marus went after him. Paula started across the city toward the White Market.

The ringing tuneless insect yell of the krines rose from every patch of grass. The warmth and the brilliant light made her high-spirited. She reached the stream and followed it down through an orchard. The pala trees were pruned into symmetrical fans, like Jewish candlesticks. Babies hung in sling-cradles from the lower branches while their mothers went up and down the rows picking fruit.

The stream branched into a dozen narrow fingers trickling through the dense grass. She crossed a marshy meadow toward the place where the ground broke off in a long ledge and the many branches of the stream roared off in waterfalls and ran on toward the distant lake. Taking off her shoes she waded across two fingers of the stream. A green fish bit her heel. She sat down on the far bank and put her shoes on.

In spite of the harvest, the White Market was busy as usual. Ten or a dozen Styths were crowded around the window of the illusion shop, looking in—they thought it impolite to go into a store if they were not buying anything. Their eagerness for Martian things put her off. She wanted to protect them from the Martians who would steal whatever they could, stencil images of Capricornus on an undershirt if it would sell. She was trying to work out a treaty in her mind to ally the Empire with the anarchy, since the anarchists would accept the Styths without trying to change them. Sometimes she felt the same urge to protect Tanuojin and his dangerous gifts; she used that to remind herself that many of her impulses were stupid.

She went into the toy shop. In among the board games and dart sets she found a long black rocket, put it down on the floor, and pushed the trigger in the base. With an explosive crack the rocket shot up into the air and disappeared behind the next rack of toys. A Martian shopkeeper hurried up to her.

“I’m just seeing if it works,” she said.

“It works. Everything works.” He smiled at her, his hands together. “Aren’t you the wife of the Matuko Akellar?”

“No. I’m not. I’m Paula Mendoza.” She went down the aisle to get the rocket.

“That’s what I meant,” the Martian said, coming after her.

“Then say what you mean.”

The rocket was sticking nose-first into the floor. She pulled it out and straightened its needle-snout. The Martian hovered behind her as she crossed the shop to the counter.

“Mrs. Mendoza, I wonder if you’d consent to talk to—to listen to—That’s fifty-five dollars.”

She paid him. His soft fingertips tapped over the keys of the computer terminal. “If you’d listen—”

“I’m listening with both ears. You haven’t said anything yet.”

He pulled the lid down over the terminal keyboard. “We have a complaint. About the Akellar.”

“Tanuojin?”

“Yes. Maybe, if you’d hear us out, you could help us.”

She snorted, disbelieving. “Well, I’ll listen. What is it?”

“Come with me.”

He took her three doors away to a little Martian lunchroom, covered with an awning against an imaginary sun. The shopkeeper made her sit at a round table and rushed off.

He came back with a small platoon of other men—all the traders were men; they clustered around the table, all eyes fixed on her. She was drinking a hot mixture of milk and pala fruit. She moved the glass away.

“They are selling slaves in the native bazaar,” said the toyman.

“How long have you been here? Half the people in Styth are slaves. Complain about something I can change.”

“These people are Martians.”

“Oh.” She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. Sril had said they had taken over four hundred prisoners from Vesta, which was a Martian colony. “Oh. I see.”

“Naturally we abhor any kind of slavery.”

The white Martian faces made a circle around her. She said, “Yes, I’m sure. Now, it was almost nine years ago I wrote your contract, but it seems to me there was a clause in it about your staying out of the native market.”

“These people are suffering horribly!”

“Well, I’ll do what I can, which will certainly cost you a lot of money. Are you ready for that?”

The pale faces changed. The toyman, sitting opposite her, glanced at the men on his right and left. He leaned toward her. “This isn’t a money issue. This is a question of common human decency.”

“To Tanuojin it will be strictly a money issue.”

One of the other men muttered, “That black bastard.”

“How much?” the toyman said.

“I can’t say. Depending on the condition of the slaves. Yekka is a bad market for slaves, they’re a luxury here.” She took the rocket she had bought and went out of the lunchroom.

The local market was on the far side of the bubble. She went there in the next middle watch. The Martians from Vesta were caged on either side of the central lane of the market. There were thirteen old people and five children, all under two years. None of the Styths in the market was showing much interest except an old woman who was trying to coax the terrified children up to the bars to give them sweets. Paula went back toward the far end of the bubble.

A high fence surrounded the city powerhouse, near the tail of the city. Tanuojin’s man Marus was at the gate, and he let her in. The block-shaped windowless powerhouse hummed. When she went in through the door, the hum increased to a steady roar. From the outside the building was only one story, but she came in to a ledge around a pit eighty feet deep. The two engines in it were round and smooth, like silos, and gave off the even thunderous roar. Far below her, a man walked around the nearer barrel into sight, saw her, and went back. She found the ladder down into the pit.

Behind the engines, Tanuojin was standing over a little desk, and another man was sitting behind it writing on the treated surface with a stylus that had a long cord coming out of the butt end. The noise was so intense it was like hearing nothing. Paula looked up at the engines towering above them.

The men did not try to talk over the noise. They wrote messages to each other on a little workboard. Tanuojin scribbled something and gave it to the man at the desk, who nodded. He took a slotted computer key out of the top of the desk and gave it to Tanuojin, who put it into his sleeve. Paula followed him up the ladder and out of the powerhouse.

In the yard, he pulled two rubber plugs out of his ears. Paula’s head buzzed. He turned toward her, his mouth open, and she said, “What were you doing?”

“Turning down the radiation. Stay out of there, you’ll go deaf.”

They went out the gate. Marus came along after them, staying ten feet behind them, like a wife. Paula looked down the city. It seemed as bright as before; she supposed it would slowly fall dark.

“Then the pala harvest is over?”

“Yes. Did you go to the Martians?”

“They don’t like you down there.”

He bent and took her wrist. They walked on toward his compound; after ten or twelve strides he let go of her, throwing her wrist back at her.

“You meddle, piglet.”

“You have eighteen slaves you can’t sell. The Martians will buy them. What’s in the way?”

“You stay out of my business. If you want to work you can scrub floors.”

She veered off away from him. All thorns and no rose. Kasuk was coming toward them along the path at a lope. Tanuojin stopped, and the young man ran up to them.

“Pop, there’s a call for you from the Fleet Office. They’re holding.”

Tanuojin went off at a fast walk along the path. After he had gone a hundred feet he broke into a run, his son behind him. Paula looked over her shoulder at Marus.

“What do you think that’s about?”

Stoop-shouldered, the big man came up beside her in his slouching walk. “I don’t think, Mendoz’. I just do as I’m told.” They went down the path toward the compound.

The window of her room in the compound opened on the yard. She sat on the ledge playing her flute and watching the vast green city fade into its bright twilight. About midway through the watch the toyman from the White Market came in through the gate, crossed the yard to the main door, and there met Marus who took him into the house. She played a jig. After half an hour the toyman left again. His face was fretted. She was tempted to call to him, to find out how much Tanuojin wanted for his slaves, but there was a knock on her door.

“Mendoz’, the Akellar will see you.”

Tanuojin was in the hall, eating his high meal. His sons waited behind him to serve him. Paula stood on the far side of the table from him, waiting for him to decide to recognize her presence. He ate fast, hardly chewing or savoring anything, as if someone might steal the food out of his mouth. He had grown up an outsider in a flock of children. Kasuk took his empty plate away to the side. He drained his cup and Junna, the younger son, filled it again from a pitcher.

“We’re going to Vribulo in eight watches,” Tanuojin said. He sat back, his hands on his stomach.

“To Vribulo,” she said. “Why? Have you talked to Saba?”

“Not yet. He’ll call this watch. The fleet is awarding us each a flag. For taking Vesta.” Kasuk brought a pala fruit and a knife.

“What’s a flag?” she said.

“The highest award in the fleet. An automatic promotion, among other things. Like money.” He split the fruit in two. She made a face; she was tired of the sweet, damp, greenish meat. He picked the seed out with the tip of the knife. “We’re trading you, too.”

“You mean I’m going home?”

“That’s right.”

“You told me the Vesta mission was a failure.”

“Propaganda. It’s the first time any Styth has mastered an Asteroid. But the Martians took it back again. Psychological warfare, it’s all worthless. Usually the result’s just the opposite of what you expect.”

She laced her fingers together behind her back. “How much are the Martians paying you for those slaves?”

“I told you to stay out of that,” he said. “Get out.”