Floating Worlds

LUNA Martius–Averellus 1865

“I don’t understand,” David said. “Why aren’t you living with me and Papa?”

Paula opened the rattan cabinet on the wall. Inside were two shelves of bottles. “What does Saba say?”

“He says you’re crazy.”

“I’m crazy.”

She took out a bottle of gin. Behind her, two men brought more furniture into the room. She had the whole suite to herself, three rooms, pretty as a hotel. Ketac came in, directing the workmen around. She poured gin into her glass and filled it up with limon-woda. Luna was stocked with the spoils of the Earth. It was like being in jail again.

“Paula,” Ketac called. “Come see what I found you.”

She went down the long room toward him. His attentions made her suspicious. He had spent the morning putting carpet down and now he was unpacking a large box. He set a big yellow ball on the table and held it with one hand to keep it from rolling while he fished in the carton.

“See if you can find the base.”

David had followed her. He stood with his hands behind him, his forehead grooved. Paula took a plastic foot out of the box and Ketac put the yellow ball on it.

“It’s not to scale,” he said. He took a handful of smaller balls out of the box and tossed them up into the air. They flew toward the yellow ball and swung into orbit around it. Paula murmured. It was a magnet-driven model of the Middle Planets. The Earth and Luna passed her, turning around and around each other, painted with their surface features.

Ketac said, “There’s been some kind of change in the Council. Not by force.”

“An election.”

“Whatever. Now they’re asking us for peace terms.”

Paula said, “Those bastards,” under her breath.

“The Prima will need your advice.”

She gave him a sharp glance. Then that was why he was here. His long ugly face was aimed at the model. She reached for her glass on the sideboard along the wall. “All right. Tell him I will.”

His head nodded. The men were bringing a big backless couch in the door, and he went to tell them where to put it. David came up beside her.

“I don’t understand,” he said stubbornly.

“Don’t act like a baby.”

“Don’t you love us any more?”

“David, I’m not playing this little heartbreaker game with you. If Saba is putting you to it, you’re a fool, and if not, you’re a sadist.”

His face stiffened. When he was angry he looked younger, a little boy again. “I hate you,” he said.

“At least that’s honest.”

He ran out of the room. The wrong man’s son. She looked down at the model, Mars was spinning toward her, busy in its coils of moons. She batted it across the room. Unharmed, it flew back to its orbit around the yellow Sun. Ketac had gone. The workmen banged chairs into each other. Deep in her thoughts, she watched the model turning. Suddenly she knew someone was staring at her, and raising her head she saw Tanuojin behind her.

“What are you doing here?” he said. “I thought you were planning an elegant suttee in memory of your lover.”

She turned back to the model. “Impractical.”

“Maybe you just have a short memory.”

“Oh, no, my dear. I remember everything.”

The workmen sprang to attention. Saba was coming in, trailed by a procession of men, Leno and Ymma, their aides, David, Junna, and half a dozen others. Paula moved away from Tanuojin, up to the middle of the room, where she could see them all. Leno stood before the big chair on her left, waiting for Saba to sit down. Paula leaned against the waist-high bookcase that ran the length of the wall.

“Who is Alvers Newrose?” Saba said. He sat down on the backless yellow couch, and the other men lowered themselves into their chairs.

“He’s a Martian politician,” Paula said. “He was Council First Secretary before Cam Savenia, I don’t know what he is now.”

“Can I trust him?”

“Probably not.” It was strange to be talking so civilly to him. She wished she had scratched his eyes out. She said, “Jefferson liked Newrose. She dealt with him by preference.”

“What happened to her?”

From the end of the room by the model, Tanuojin said, “Savenia had her shot.”

Saba stood up again, and all around the room the lesser men bolted to their feet. He paced around the low couch. “This Newrose is coming here to talk. If we can get the Council to surrender, we can handle the Martian Army on our own time.”

“They won’t surrender,” Ymma said. The overhead lighting made grotesque shadows on his hacked face. “Not while their fleet is still out. Will they?”

“They saw what we did to the Earth,” Saba said.

“Where is the Martian Fleet?” Ymma asked.

Leno was standing behind his big chair, his hands on its back. When he leaned his weight on it, he nearly tipped it over. “Scattered around in the first and second rings of the Asteroids. I sent eighteen ships to scout them out.” His mustaches, braided with silver, trailed down over his chest.

“We’ll have to fight them anyway,” Tanuojin said to Saba. “Why do you bother with this Newrose? Let him wait. When we’ve beaten their fleet, the Martians will go down on their knees to us, where they belong.”

“That could take forever.” Saba went back to the couch. David stood at the head of it, attending him, but now he left Saba and came across the room to Paula’s side.

“They have to go back to their base sometime,” Ymma said. He leaned against the wall, a few feet away from Leno.

“Obviously they have bases in the Asteroids,” Saba said.

Beside Paula, David murmured, “Are you still angry?”

“No,” she said. She put her hand on his arm, relieved at his friendliness. The men were arguing. She watched her son’s face. “I still love you, David, but there’s nothing between me and him any more.”

“That isn’t what he wants,” he said, stubbornly. “That doesn’t have to be so.”

“If you really want to find the Martians,” Tanuojin said, in the middle of the room, “don’t send Leno to look for them.”

Paula’s attention snapped back to the Styth Council. Leno strode up the room. “What did you have in mind, Creep?”

“Shut up,” Saba said. He palmed Tanuojin roughly on the shoulder. Leno’s blunt head was thrust forward, and he came straight up to Tanuojin.

“I’m sick of—”

“I said shut up,” Saba said. “The meeting’s over. You’re all dismissed.” He went up between Leno and Tanuojin, one hand on Tanuojin’s arm, but his face to Leno. “Just get me some approximate idea where the Martians are.”

Leno was swollen with temper. He and Tanuojin glared at each other over Saba’s shoulder. The other men were filing out. Paula turned to David again.

“It is so. You’d better accept it, because that’s how I want it.”

“Mother—”

“Vida,” Saba said, and the boy wheeled. Saba nodded at the door. Leno had gone. “Go with Merkhiz, in case he has messages for me.”

“Yes, sir,” David said. He went out of the room at a trot.

“Stay away from Leno,” Saba said to Tanuojin. He gave his lyo a shove for emphasis. “How are you doing with Dr. Savenia? Can she help us with Newrose?”

“She’s coming along.”

“Bring her here. Let me see her.” Saba nodded at Junna, behind his father. “Go get her.”

Tanuojin began, “No. I—” and his head turned, his gaze went to Paula. “All right.” He nodded to Junna. “Go fetch her here.”

Paula folded her arms over her chest. She was about to be the object of a demonstration. Junna left. Saba wandered around the room, looking at the illusion pictures on the wall. He came up beside her, so close she was uncomfortable, but she did not move away. She was not afraid of him.

“Any word from Vribulo?”

Tanuojin shook his head. “They are being very, very unconcerned. You know Machou.”

The door slid open and Marus came into the room. “Akellar.”

Cam Savenia walked past him. Paula wheeled. It had been ten days since Tanuojin had found her. She still wore white: loose trousers and a tunic. Paula had never seen her without makeup before. Her face looked peeled.

Tanuojin stood with his hand on Saba’s shoulder. Cam went into the middle of the room, beside the couch, her arms at her sides.

“Dr. Savenia.”

She raised her head. “Yes, Akellar.”

“Look at that woman there.” Tanuojin pointed at Paula. “Do you know her?”

Paula met Cam’s blue eyes. Cam said, “Yes, she’s Paula Mendoza.”

“Who is she?”

“She’s an anarchist.” Cam’s voice was perfectly even. “She betrayed us. She’s corrupt. Perverse. I hate her. I wish I could kill her.”

“No,” Tanuojin said. “You’re wrong. She is a Styth. She’s black. She’s the Prima’s wife. Sometimes she’s bad but she follows the law.”

“I follow the law,” Cam said.

“Then tell me who she is.”

Cam’s wide eyes stared at Paula. “She is Styth. She is good. She’s black. She’s the Prima’s wife.”

Paula went around the couch. Taller by half a head, Cam turned to face her. Paula said, “You remember Dick Bunker, Cam. Don’t you? Who is he?”

Cam’s lips parted. She looked uncertainly at Tanuojin.

“He’s dead,” the Styth told her.

Cam said, monotone, “Richard Bunker is dead.”

Paula jabbed her chin at Tanoujin and Saba. “Who are they?”

Cam’s hands clasped together. “Do I have to talk to her?”

“Answer her, Dr. Savenia.”

“He is the Prima. You’re my friend. You know everything.”

“That’s right.”

“Who is he?” Paula said.

“My friend.”

“What’s his name?”

“He’s my friend.”

“Do you know his name?”

“He’s my friend.”

Paula stared at the pale womanly face above her. Cam would not look at her. Her hands hung at her sides.

“Would you like to go to Mars?” Tanuojin said.

“Yes.” Eagerly.

“You’ll have to do just as I say.”

“I will.”

“Good. You’re a good girl. Marus. Take her back.”

Marus took Cam Savenia out the door. Paula let out her breath in a sigh. Her hands were trembling.

Saba said, “She’ll have to do better than that.”

“Don’t worry.” Tanuojin paced away. “She’ll be right, before Newrose sees her. She’s come a long way. You didn’t see her at first.”

“It’s vicious,” Paula said. She sat down on the end of the couch.

“Why? She’s happy now. She doesn’t have to think, she doesn’t worry. She isn’t afraid. She’s on the right side, that’s all she cares about.”

“How long would she stay like that?” Saba said. “If you weren’t there?”

“I’ll always be there. In her mind.”

Paula scrubbed her palm over her face. “What mind does she have left?” She was glad David had gone.

“She never used it that much. She’s always done as she was told. That’s why it was so easy to—” Tanuojin’s eyes closed. “Re-educate.”

Saba paced around the room. “I don’t see that she’ll be much use.” He went down to the model. Her gaze followed him. Tanuojin didn’t frighten him. His hair was gray as iron; he looked tired.

“Besides,” Tanuojin said, to Paula. “She’s a woman. Her prime function is centered somewhere much lower than her mind.”

“She wasn’t much of a woman.”

“Because she’s not like you with that guillotine between your legs?”

Saba wheeled around. “Damn you, I’ve had enough of your filthy mouth. You’re dismissed.”

“Saba, I—”

“Get out of this room!”

Tanuojin’s long legs carried him fast out of the room. Paula let out her breath. Saba came slowly up the room from the model of the solar system.

“I’ve had the feeling you’ve been avoiding me,” she said.

He reached the couch and sat on it, his legs straight out before him. “Did you want my company?”

“No. Why did you tell David I’m crazy? Tell him you raped me. Maybe you can fit it into the lecture on honor.”

“You started that.”

She could not remember where she had bitten his face. The wound was gone without a scar, Tanuojin’s work, keeping him perfect. His sleeve half-hid the cuff on his wrist.

“Look, Paula,” he said, “you have to help me.”

“Help you,” she said, surprised. “To do what?”

“With this Newrose.”

“Oh? Shall I hold him while you hit him a few times?”

“Damn you, I’m asking you for help. Why do you have to fight me all the time?”

“Bah.”

“You don’t give a damn about me any more, but you could do this for Vida’s sake. You don’t want him to be killed, do you?”

“Why did you bring him, anyway? He’s too young to be here.”

“He wanted to come. When we found out you were still alive, he wanted to come rescue you.”

She was clenching her fists. She had to keep calm, to stay uninvolved, but talking to him made her angry. She loosened her hands on the edge of the shelf where she was perched. “How did you know I was alive?”

“Tanuojin had a dream about you.”

“And you trusted that. From so far away?”

Saba made a gesture with his hand. “What does time and distance mean to him? It was the watch before we fought Machou. He was ready for anything.”

She imagined the Chamber, boiling with voices, the scent of rage and blood, the excitement: not just a pit fight, but a fight for the Primit cuff. Saba watched her from the couch. He was too large for the furniture, too tall for the room. He belonged in his cold city, not here. But he was stuck here, in Tanuojin’s war that could go on forever. His shoulders looked as broad as the door. She had been crazy to fight him; he could have killed her with one hand.

“Do you like being Prima?” she said.

“I’m getting used to it.”

“I don’t understand what you want me to do.”

“Talk to Newrose for me. You’re the only person I trust who knows the Martians. I’ll support any reasonable settlement of the war.”

“Give me an earnest.”

“What?”

“How many anarchists are there up in those slave cars?” The pens of prisoners were in a high orbit over Luna.

“I don’t know. It should be easy to find out.”

“Let them go back to the Earth. Give them a dome.”

He straightened his mustaches. “I can’t.”

“One dome!”

“I can’t do that. Tanuojin is right, the Planet breeds revolutions.”

She slid off the shelf to her feet. “You don’t want my help very much.”

“I’ll separate them out. We’ll let them go to Mars and Venus.” Smoothly he said, “When you settle the war for me.”

Finally she said, “All right.”

“Come down to my trap for the high meal—we can talk over the small things.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll send Vida for you.” He went out.

Alvers Newrose was a short man with an egg-shaped, hairless head. He smelled of lavender. A small group of his aides followed him into the room where Saba was to meet him. From the far end of the room Paula watched the Martians arrange themselves around Newrose, and the Styth escort draw back to the walls. She went toward the man from the Council.

“Mr. Newrose?”

“I’m Alvers Newrose.”

“My name is Paula Mendoza.”

They had not known she was here. One of his aides made an undiplomatic gasp. Newrose’s watery pale eyes blinked. He held his hand out. “I’m pleased to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you from some of your colleagues on the Committee.”

She let him pump her limp hand. Ketac announced the Prima, and Saba came in, alone. He took the big chair at the head of the room. Paula led Newrose up to him. Even sitting, Saba was taller than the Martian. She said, “Prima, this is Alvers Newrose, First Secretary of the Interplanetary Council.”

Saba looked him over at leisure. Proper and composed, Newrose did not speak. He would say nothing until Saba was formally introduced to him and he was certain he was talking to the right man. The Styth said to Paula, “Tell him as long as he’s in Luna he is under my protection.”

She translated it, watching Newrose for any sign that he spoke Styth. She said, “This is the Prima Akellar, the Matuko Akellar, Saba, Kritona, the Guardion, the prima General of the Styth Imperial Fleet.”

Newrose started to offer his hand but stopped, without embarrassment, when he saw Saba would not take it. The Martian inclined his head in a shadow of a bow.

“I hope our mission here will be fruitful and of advantage for everybody concerned.”

“You tell him,” Saba said, “that the only advantage he can hope for now is ours.”

“Give me a chance to translate.”

“He knows all about me, he knows I understand him, look at him.”

Newrose was watching them, his face bland. She said, “I don’t think he speaks Styth.”

“I don’t think he speaks anything that I speak.”

Ketac was standing in the doorway. Saba got out of his chair and Newrose backed away a stride to give him room; his eyes followed the big man up. Saba waved to his son. “Mind him.” Without another word to Newrose, the Prima left the room.

Paula grunted. “He isn’t a diplomat.” Ketac advanced toward her, and she took his arm and brought him face to face with Newrose. “Mr. Newrose, the Prima’s son will attend you.” Leaving them together, she went out after Saba.

“They’re stalling,” Saba said. “Newrose is just here to gain time for the Martian Army.”

Paula sat down on the edge of the bed. There were eight rooms in his suite, but this was the only place they could talk in private. Everyplace else was given over to his aides and officers. She said, “I wish Tanuojin had been there.”

“I’m trying to keep him away from Leno.”

He went restlessly around the overcrowded room. She fingered the shaved nap of the bedcover, thinking of Newrose. All the furniture in the room, the bed, the three padded chairs, and the sideboard, had been picked for size, not design. Nothing matched, not even the colors. He opened the sideboard and took out a bottle.

“I’d offer you a drink if you’d take it..”

“Never mind. I’m going back to my room.” She went to the door. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

A dogleg corridor led through his suite to the trunk corridor. It was jammed with Styths. She went in among them. In their midst was a tall redheaded girl, saying, “But I have to see him. Please—”

The girl was at least twenty years younger than Paula. An aide of Newrose’s: she recognized the fiery hair. Her one-piece suit, of some metallic cloth, was cut out over the stomach and most of the back and the holes filled with net. Paula said, “What is she looking for? Or am I silly to ask.”

The Styths’ faces were broad with their smiles. Ketac sat on the table at the mouth of the small corridor. He said, “She says she wants my father.” The other men laughed.

The girl clutched Paula’s arm. “Please—I have to see the Prima.”

“Did Newrose send you? Let go of my arm.”

The girl’s fingers opened but her hand rested on Paula’s forearm. “I just have to meet him. I know I can change his mind about us.” She was six inches taller than Paula and had to bend to talk to her. Paula looked around. There were no other Martians; she had come alone. Paula looked past the fluffy red head at Ketac.

“Go ask him if he wants to see her.”

“Thank you.” The girl gripped Paula’s hand. “I can—we may save the Middle Planets.” Her hand was slick. The Styths were all trying to see through her clothes. Paula freed herself from the moist grip. Ketac came back.

“He says to send her in.”

Paula nodded to her. “Go on. It’s the last door on the right.”

The girl reached for her again, and Paula avoided her grasp. “Please,” the redhead said. “Come with me.”

“I’d be an inhibiting factor.”

“But I don’t speak their language.”

Paula let herself be drawn up the narrow corridor, away from the Styths. “I think you might. Anyway he’s bilingual.” At the door, her hand on the latch, she turned, admiring the smooth skin of the girl’s net-covered belly. It would be fun to tease him. She opened the door and let the girl in ahead of her.

“Prima, now they’re sending you virgins.”

He was standing near the foot of the bed. The girl went toward him, her hand out. “My name is Lore Smythe. I’d like to talk to you.”

“Talk.” He took her hand, not to shake it, and smiled at her. “Why would a pretty girl like you want to do something that boring?”

Paula leaned over the back of one of his stuffed chairs. “You are so subtle.”

He nudged Lore Smythe toward the sideboard. “The liquor is in that cabinet.” His head swiveled toward Paula. “I thought you were leaving.”

“She thinks she’ll need an interpreter.” Paula smirked at him.

“Good-bye, Paula.”

“Not even a stirrup cup?”

“Miss Mendoza,” Lore Smythe said, in a new sharp voice. “Stay where you are.” Paula and Saba turned in unison toward her. In her hand she held a gun.

Saba lunged toward her and the gun snapped. Paula heard the thunk of the missile hitting him. He fell on his face and rolled over. A short clear dart stuck up out of his left chest. He clawed at it once and his hand slid limp to the floor.

“That was stupid,” Paula said. Lore Smythe pointed the gun at her.

“The rest of the shots are all killers,” the redhead said. Her voice was different than when she had been pleading to see him. “And I don’t have any orders to bring you back alive.”

“Is Newrose behind this?”

Lore’s full mouth curled with contempt. “Newrose.” She stuck two fingers down into the front of her metallic suit and took out a small blue piece of plastic. “Here. This is a thumblock, you see? Put it on him.” She threw the plastic at Paula. Too light to carry far, it landed on the brown tile floor midway between them. Paula stooped to pick it up, and Lore Smythe circled behind her to the door. She heard the lock click.

“That’s narcolepta in the dart,” the redhead said, in her hard, crisp voice. “It will drip into his system for the next twenty hours. By then I’ll have him halfway to Mars.”

The thumblock was shaped like a figure-of-eight. Paula went over to Saba’s body. The girl called, “Don’t get between me and him. And don’t try to pull the nail out—it’s long, and it’s barbed. Hurry up.”

The dart’s clear three-inch barrel stuck up straight out of his chest. Blood tinged it pink at the needle end. Paula circled behind him and knelt. She touched his cheek and his throat. His skin was cool, but not cold. He was only asleep, then, not knocked out.

“This will never work,” she said. “They’ll kill all three of us before they let you take him to Mars.”

“Just thumb him.”

His left arm lay half under him. She pulled it free. “Do you want me to tie his hands behind him or in front?” Surreptitiously she took a fistful of his shirt under his armpit and tugged, which tilted the dart toward her.

“Unh—”

“Have you tried this on any real Styths? You know they’re much stronger than we are. Him especially.”

Lore’s eyes narrowed. Her cheeks were flushed. “Just do as I tell you.” She waved the little gun. Its narrow barrel was longer than its body. “All I have to do is pull this trigger, lady, and in thirty seconds you’ll be dead.”

There was a knock on the door, and the redhead wheeled, the gun aimed at it. The latch moved up and down. While Lore was watching the door, Paula tugged once on the dart. It was fast in his chest. The pink color was spreading in the drug. He traded a drop of blood for a drop of narcolepta. The knock sounded again.

“Papa.”

“David,” she called, alarmed. She was afraid to speak Styth to him; Lore might think she was calling him in. “Come back later. We’re busy.”

The Martian turned toward her, her blue eyes direct above the gun. “That’s right. Put that lock on him. Take his arms behind his back.”

Paula reached across him for his right arm and hauled him up onto his side, his back to Lore Smythe. His wrist seemed cooler, his pulse slower. She had to hurry.

“Be careful when you roll him over,” the Martian girl said. “Do it slow and you won’t run that nail through his lung.”

Paula stepped around him, between him and Lore, to turn him onto his stomach. She brought his hands behind him and took a tight grip on his shirt. When she rolled him slowly onto his stomach, just as his chest turned onto the floor, she wrenched on his shirt to tilt the dart. For an instant the dart braced him up. She leaned on him and heard a tiny splintering crack, and he lay flat. She crossed his thumbs behind him and bound them with the plastic bridge.

“Back off,” Lore said, and she moved away across the room. The redhead went cautiously to him and pushed him with her foot.

“He doesn’t look so big now, does he? Not so big at all.” She kicked him. Bending, she pulled on the bond on his thumbs. “Good, you did it right.”

“That’s my motto,” Paula said. “If I can’t do it right, I don’t do it at all.” She folded her arms over her chest.

“You think you’re funny, don’t you? You think you’re tough.” Lore kicked him again.

“I admit I’m not that brave, to kick him when he’s tied up and unconscious.” A thin trickle of fluid seeped out from under him, running across the floor. She tore her eyes away from it. “You think you’re brave enough to kick me, Lore?”

Lore turned toward her, the gun aimed at her face. “I don’t have any orders about you at all. You’re supposed to be dead. I can do anything I want with you.” She strode up to Paula, waggling the gun, and took another thumblock out of her silvery clothes. “Turn around.”

Paula turned her back. “You won’t make it out of this room, Lore. You might as well give up.”

The girl’s sweating hands fastened on Paula’s wrists. She wrenched her arms behind her. Paula said, “By now they know everything that’s happening here.”

Lore was hooking Paula’s thumbs together. By the quality of her grunt Paula knew she had the gun in her teeth. She said, “The place is wired, Lore.”

“I don’t believe you,” Lore said. She stepped back. “These barbarians aren’t that sophisticated.”

“This is Luna, remember?” Paula faced her, her arms fastened painfully behind her back. “Everything is wired.”

“You’re supposed to be dead,” Lore told her. “You made a lot of trouble for us.”

“The Sunlight League.”

“That’s right.”

“You know Dr. Savenia is here.” It took effort to keep from looking beyond the redheaded girl at Saba. Frantically she kept talking. “Only I doubt you’d know her now.”

“She goes with me too,” Lore said. She tipped the gun up at Paula’s face. “Maybe I’ll take you, if you cooperate.”

“I’d sooner eat dirt.”

The cold barrel of the gun pressed under Paula’s chin. “Oh, you think you’re so tough.” The gun pushed her head up.

“You won’t know Cam.” Paula’s tense muscles throbbed. Her arms began to hurt from her thumbs to her shoulders. “She’s had a Styth education. She isn’t—”

Behind Lore Saba heaved himself up onto his knees. The redhead saw him. She wheeled, the gun swinging toward him, and Paula lunged into her. With a flat crack the gun fired into the floor. Saba blundered up onto his feet. Lore thrust Paula off and raised the gun again and Paula dove into her. She heard the nasty snap of the gun firing again. Lore struck her in the neck and she fell, but before Lore could turn Saba crashed into her.

The gun sailed off and Paula on her knees scrambled after it. Saba was still only half-conscious. He tripped, and Lore got away from him. She raced for the gun. Paula dropped stomach-first across it. Lore was panting. She wrenched at Paula, grabbing for the gun pressing into her stomach. Saba stumbled toward them. Lore dodged. She came up against the bed and tried to duck past him, and the Styth knocked her down and fell on her.

Paula rocked onto her side. She brought her knees up to her chest and dragged her cramped arms around under her feet. Lore Smythe lay still on her back. Beside her, Saba was trying to sit, his head wobbling. Paula went over to him and helped him get up.

“What’s going on?” he said, muzzy.

“You are a champion.” The dart was gone. On the front of his shirt was a damp stain. “I forgive you every rotten thing you’ve ever done. How do you feel?” Sliding her joined hands under his shirt, she found the wound in the heavy muscle of his chest. Part of the barbed needle was still stuck in his body.

“I feel…” He shook his head. His eyes were not focusing well. “She shot me.”

“She was about to shoot me, and with me it would have been permanent. Do you have any scissors?”

He blinked at her. She held up her hands and he blinked at the thumblock. He wagged his head down the room. She went past the bed to the washroom. On the glass shelf below the mirror was a pair of clippers. When she came out, the bedroom door was shaking under a heavy pounding knock.

“Prima!” It was Ketac.

“It’s all right,” she called. “Wait a minute.” She knelt behind Saba. The clipper blades were shorter than the thumb-bridge. She hacked at the tough plastic.

“She shot me,” he said.

“She shot you with a drug. She’s from the Sunlight League.”

“Paula,” Ketac roared. “Let me in.”

Saba’s head swung toward the door. “Stay the hell out!”

Paula bore down hard with both hands on the clippers, her teeth clenched, and the tool bit through half the thumblock. “Unh. She was taking you to Mars. I guess to ransom the Middle Planets. Cowboy stuff. All Fascists are romantics.” She struggled with the clippers.

Lore Smythe groaned. He flexed his arms, and the half-severed lock broke. On his hands and knees he went over to the Martian girl.

“Don’t—save her to question,” Paula said.

He put his hand on Lore’s throat and choked her. When she was dead, he came back to Paula and unfastened the lock on her thumbs.

“Damn Newrose.” He pulled her hands apart. “I told you he was fake.”

“He didn’t have anything to do with it.”

He touched his chest, and she caught his hand and held it away from the wound. “Be careful. There’s a piece of the needle broken off in there.”

He ground the heel of his hand into his eye and shook his head. “It’s still no good. Newrose.”

“Think about it, Saba. We have a hook in him now—we can pressure him now.”

“I don’t see the use.”

“You will when you wake up.”

Lore Smythe lay on the table, covered with a red blanket. Paula sat down in one of the three chairs before it, her back to the body. The only lights in the room were the two ceiling lamps near the door, and this end of the room was plunged in shadow. The Styths moved past her like shadows. Tanuojin went behind her to the table and pulled back the blanket.

“I wish you hadn’t killed her.”

“Don’t blame me. He did it.”

Ketac and David came single-file through the door. Ketac said, formal, “The Prima.” Saba walked into the room, and David ran up to arrange a chair for him.

“I’m telling you, this Martian is hoaxing us.” He sat down. “This won’t do any good.” Ketac and David hurried around bringing him a cup, putting a little round table beside him, turning out one lamp that shone in his eyes and turning on another. Junna came in to serve Tanuojin.

The tall man walked around the room, his hands on his hips. “If he really didn’t know about this Leaguer woman, maybe we can use it to get something out of him.”

Even if Newrose had known, Lore Smythe could be a tool. Paula hoped he had not known. She began to devise ways of talking the Styths into treating with him even if he had engineered the whole plot. Tanuojin was prowling along the wall. Saba said, “Sit down, will you. You make me nervous.”

Tanuojin had found the wall switch, and he clicked it on. The whole wall lit up, one great illusion picture: a moonlit cliff, at its foot the night-blue ocean rolling in to boil its white surf among the rocks.

“There should be sound,” Paula said.

He touched another switch, and the sound came on, soft, the growl of the surf. Saba said, “What is that?”

“These people live in a fantasy,” Tanuojin said. He walked up the room toward his chair.

“Where is Newrose?” Paula asked Ketac.

“In the next room.”

“Let him wait,” Saba said.

Tanuojin slouched in his chair. “Everything here is an imitation. In Mars, too. They left the Earth, but they took it with them in their heads. They couldn’t make anything new or real where they went. But they forgot the Earth, too—when they came back, they had forgotten how to live there. They destroyed your city out of sheer ignorance of how it worked.”

Paula was chewing on her fingernails. The Styths had destroyed the city. Everything depended on Newrose. “Your way is just as much an illusion as theirs.”

Saba made a loud, contemptuous noise. Tanuojin said, “My way works.”

“It’s all in your mind,” Paula said.

Saba raised his hand to Ketac. “Go get Newrose.”

“You need a shovel,” Tanuojin said to her. “There’s only one law.”

“There is no law.” She stood and went behind her chair, her eyes on the door where Newrose would appear. “You glorify your superstitions into laws, just like the Martians.” Newrose came into the room, Ketac behind him. She raised her voice and spoke to him in the Common Speech.

“The Prima has called you here on a very serious matter, Newrose.”

He approached them, squinting in the dim light, his face bland. “Then I wonder why I was kept waiting for nearly thirty minutes.”

“I warn you,” she said. “Anything you say may strike back at you. David, turn on that light.” She pointed at the lamp over the table. “Come here, Newrose.”

He circled Saba’s chair to the table, his smooth egg-face sucked thin with uncertainty. The light came on. He put one hand up, dazzled. She pulled him by the arm another step closer to Tanucjin and threw back the red blanket.

His jaw dropped. He leaned toward Lore Smythe, her white throat mottled with bruises. “But—what—” Paula flung the blanket over the dead woman.

“She tried to murder the Prima.”

“Oh my God,” Newrose said. “Oh my God.”

Tanuojin left his chair and walked to the other end of the room. Paula nodded to David, who shut the light off. In the dark Newrose obeyed her touch like a child, moved into the center of the room, and stood. He said, “I assume you have proof of these charges.” His voice was higher than before.

“We have the gun she brought, the dart she shot at him—several darts, in fact—and the wound.” The wound was gone. They would not need it. Saba was watching him, his chin on his fist. Tanuojin came back toward them.

“He didn’t know,” he said, in Styth.

“I can see that.” Saba tapped her arm. “Tell him about the Sunlight League.”

The League’s name was almost the same in the two languages; Newrose recognized it and said, “Was she from the League?”

Paula nodded. He made a little gesture with one hand, palm up. “I didn’t know. Her credentials were quite in order. She had the highest recommendation—”

“Fortunately as usual the League misjudged the Prima.”

Newrose turned toward the big Styth in his chair behind her. Low, he said, “You have my wholehearted congratulations on your escape. I trust the wound isn’t serious?” His voice sounded stronger. To Paula, he said, “If you’ll allow me, I’d like to go collect my—”

“Oh, no,” Paula said. “Not yet. You’ll talk to your party, and who knows how many of them are Leaguers?”

“I can assure you—”

“You can’t assure us of anything, Newrose. You didn’t know about her, you say. Even if that’s true, which we doubt, you’re nothing better than a Trojan Horse for the League.”

Tanuojin said, “Shall we introduce him to Dr. Savenia?” He crooked his finger at Junna. “Send Marus for my poppet.”

Newrose frowned at Paula. “Now, Miss Mendoza—”

She cut him off with an abrupt shake of her head and turned to Saba. “Do you want to talk to him yourself?”

“Yes. You translate it.”

“I—”

“Just do as I say.” He rose, looming over Newrose, and gave the Martian his finest autocratic look. “We aren’t afraid of the Sunlight League. Even if she had killed me, I’m unimportant, only Styth is important, and Styth is immortal.”

Newrose was collecting himself; he squared his shoulders. The hiss of the surf ran under Saba’s voice and Paula’s voice translating. The Prima said, “We have our honor to consider. If we deal with you for the sake of expediency and lose our honor, we fail even if we succeed.”

Newrose inclined his head. “I’m sure we can make some agreement that serves everybody’s interests.”

Paula glanced at David, who stood beside the wall, watching his father. His smile showed in the faint light from the illusion wall. She straightened her gaze. “I don’t think they have much respect for your honor.”

Marus appeared in the doorway. “Akellar, I have Dr. Savenia.”

Tanuojin thumbed his mustaches back. “Send her in. Paula, tell this nigger who I am.”

“Newrose,” she said, “this is the Yekka Akellar, Tanuojin, the Prima’s lyo, the cadet general of the fleet.” She nodded toward the door. “You know Dr. Savenia.”

“Of course,” Newrose said.

Cam walked down the room toward them. She wore a gray tunic over a long black skirt: probably Tanuojin’s choice; he took a gruesome interest in every detail of her life. Her face was perfectly drawn. Before Saba she dropped to one knee, bowing her head.

“Prima.”

Saba said nothing. He despised her. She rose and crossed to Tanuojin and bowed from the waist. Newrose watched her, his damp lips parted.

“Hello, Cam,” Paula said.

“Paula,” Cam said, coolly. “You look very well.” She turned to Newrose, whose gaze had been fastened on her since she had come in. “Hello, Alvers. I understand you’re here to negotiate a surrender.”

Newrose coughed. “I’m not…I don’t think we’ve settled what we’re negotiating.”

“Of course it’s a surrender,” Cam said, in an irritated tone. “What else can you do? The Styths are our genetic superiors—our natural masters. It’s the will of history. What else can we do?”

Paula leaned on the back of her chair. Newrose scratched his nose. “You seem to have changed your opinions, doctor.”

“I recognize my mistakes.”

Tanuojin said, in the Common Speech, “Dr. Savenia, you can take Mr. Newrose around while he’s in Luna.”

“Thank you, Akellar. I’d like that.”

Saba said, “Paula, tell him we’ll send for him again later. And get her out of here.” He leaned past her toward Tanuojin. “Can you reach him? What is he thinking?”

“No—just at the beginning, when he saw the dead one, he shed it like a scent.”

Ketac and Marus were ushering out the two Martians. Paula went around her chair and sat down. She put her elbows on the chair’s arms.

She went up to the surface of the Planet. In an ancient room there, outside the artificial gravity, she sat looking up at the Earth. Blue and brown, it shed its soft reflected light toward her. A blinking red beacon passed by in the high distance. She guessed it was a slavepen. The room was built in a crater. Around it the toothed walls rose, jagged and airless. She sat watching the Earth, until Newrose came to meet her.

Cam Savenia was with him. While Newrose was settling himself across the table from her, Paula said, “You can go, Cam.”

“The Akellar—”

“This isn’t the Akellar’s meeting.”

“As you wish,” Cam said, sulky. Her feet rang down the treads of the ladder into the dark below. Paula sat down.

“She tells him everything. Even what she forgets.”

“You seem fond of riddles.” Newrose opened his papercase and laid out a pad of notepaper, styli, his pencase on the table before him. She picked up the pencase and snapped it open.

Inside the case a clear button with a tiny coil of wire in its heart was fastened to the lining beside one hinge. She broke it out of the case with her fingernails and slid the case back over the table to him. Newrose looked troubled. His small hands pattered on the tabletop.

“What’s happened to Dr. Savenia?” he said.

“Nothing she didn’t do to herself.” She laid her forearms on the table. “You know, Newrose, you need a settlement of the war now. If the war continues, the League will destroy everybody,”

“The League,” he said. “What about the Styths? They seem to do an ace job of destruction.”

“That’s up to you, isn’t it?” She reached for his styli. “Actually, you’ve caught them at a good moment. They might be willing to end the war now, before they take so many prisoners they glut the slave trade.”

“Slaves,” he said, rigid.

She made dots on the table with a stylus and connected them with straight and curved lines. “Surely you aren’t going to protest on principle, Newrose? After all, there were work camps on the Earth all through the war.” The stylus scratched on the tabletop.

“I can’t believe you support the Styths,” he said. “After what they did to your Planet.”

“Therefore I must support you?”

“I’m your own kind, Mendoza,” he said, earnestly.

“My kind.” She watched her hand making scribbles.

“Whose side are you on?”

She raised her head. “Did you know Richard Bunker?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And Sybil Jefferson?”

“Naturally.”

“I’m on their side.”

“They’re dead.”

“That’s why I am on their side.”

“Another riddle.”

“I’m their witness,” she said. “I’m the last witness to what happened down there, what you want to forget, and the Styths want to forget.” Her hands were shaking. She spread them out flat on the table, over her scribbles. A bump pressed against the palm of her hand. She sat back, her anger broken, and picked Newrose’s spy device up in her fingers.

“But you’re working for them,” Newrose said.

“Oh,” she said. “I have learned to forgive my enemies.” She dropped the plastic button onto the table again. Where there was one cheat there would be two. “I am a practical woman, Newrose.”

“Will they let you go back?”

That struck her; she gave him a single swift glance and reached for the stylus again. He leaned across the table toward her.

“No,” he said. “Of course not. But we would. If the Earth were under our control.”

“Are you trying to bribe me, Newrose?”

He tilted back in his chair, and his white hands folded themselves into his lap. “These people are savages, you know. When you’re of no further use to them, they’ll turn on you. You’re just as inferior as we are to them.”

She had to laugh at that. Putting the stylus down, she pushed it and the spy button across the table at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Newrose.” She climbed down the ladder into the Planet.

The floor around the swimming pool stood an inch deep in water. The hard walls of the room reflected back the racket. Paula leaned against the doorjamb, watching. Naked, glistening, David rushed along the side of the pool and jumped in among the other men. The water slopped up over the rim of the pool. Ketac and another man were wrestling, their bodies coiled together; while they fought to drive each other under the water they laughed.

Saba came in the door beside her. “What are they doing?”

“Killing each other.”

One hand on the top of the door, his weight slouched onto one leg, he watched his crew in the pool. “You’ll have to finish with Newrose by yourself. The Martian Fleet is regrouping. We have to go meet them.”

She gathered her breath, her eyes turning toward the pool, looking for David. The boy shot up out of the water, caught the edge of the bottom diving board, and swung himself onto it.

“It’s too bad he’s so small,” Saba said. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. All around the leaping surface of the pool the Styths’ heads turned. He called, “Report to the ship in two hours. My watch on watch.” He went off through the dressing room, splashing through the puddles. Paula moved away, to let the naked men out of the water.

Newrose said, “Then we’re all alone here.”

“Kundra is still here. Ymma’s ship. The man with the scarred face.” She leaned back in her chair, her eyes on the clear ceiling above the crater. The sun was setting. In the mid-heaven the Earth shone in half-phase. “Twelve Styths, eighteen of your people, and me.” She leveled her gaze at him. “What did Tanuojin tell you?”

The Martian’s pink cheeks sucked hollow. “We talked for two hours. I should say he talked for two hours. The conversation ranged from the superiority of Styths to the superiority of the Styth Fleet to the superiority of the Styth legal system. I was unimpressed. Frankly, I think he suffers from some kind of mental disorder.”

Paula hooted with laughter. The tabletop was still covered with the marks she had made during their first meeting. She rubbed her hands over it. “If you can diagnose it, Newrose, do let me know.”

“Probably he came away with no good impression of me,” Newrose said.

She turned sideways in her chair. Up overhead, through the clear roof, she could see the blue Earth. Above it were the stars of Scorpio’s tail. Paula said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said, the other day.”

“Have you? I’m glad to hear that.”

“What if I did help you? Where would that take me?”

Newrose pulled his chair closer to the table. “Isn’t this interesting? Now you seem to have changed your heart.”

“Tanuojin is gone,” she said.

“Ah.”

“I can see why you don’t trust me.” She glanced up at the Earth again and back to Newrose.

“I want to trust you,” he said.

“Suppose I were to give you a proof? Could you get me out of Luna?”

“When?”

“As soon as possible.”

Newrose’s pale eyes gleamed. He said, in a taut voice, “Well, that depends.”

“Suppose you were to get me to Mars,” she said, “and suppose I were to take the Styth codebooks with me?”

The Martian’s throat worked in a swallow. His gaze never left hers. “Yes. I can see why you’d have to get out of Luna. Under those circumstances.” His hand rose toward his face. “You can do this?”

Feet crashed on the metal treads of the ladder just below them. She stood and lost her balance and nearly fell. Ymma came up through the hatch in the floor. He shot a fiery look at Newrose, still sitting.

“Get him out of here.”

She nodded at the Martian. “You’d better go.” He looked sharply from her up to the hatched face of the Styth and climbed away down the ladder. Ymma scowled, all the creases dented in his cheeks.

“I just got a message from Tanuojin. The Martians ambushed them—we lost twelve ships in thirty-two seconds.”

She thought unwillingly of David, floating in the metal bubble of the ship. “I don’t know anything about fighting,” she said, and went away down the ladder.

At six in the evening by the clock, most of the lighting in Luna dimmed out, signaling the beginning of the artificial night. Newrose and his staff were quartered on the fourteenth floor, where Paula also lived. She took a current book of codes and went down the empty corridor to Newrose’s suite. She knocked on the door, and Newrose himself opened it.

“Miss Mendoza,” he said. He sounded surprised. Backing up, he held the door wide. “Come in.”

Paula went into the room. It was too warm and too bright for her, and she felt closed in. One of Newrose’s aides sat on a candy-striped settee under the illusion window. He stood up when he saw her. Down a dark hallway opening off the room, she heard Cam Savenia’s voice.

“This is an unexpected pleasure,” Newrose said, smiling.

Paula gave him the codebook. “Here. To prove I’m honest.”

Newrose said, “I never doubted it.”

Paula laughed. She glanced at the entrance into the hallway. Cam Savenia came out of it and stopped.

“Hello, Paula.”

“What are you doing here?” Paula asked.

Newrose came up between them, still smiling, and patted Paula’s arm. “Stay and have a drink with us.”

“I’d better not.” She turned toward the way out, her eyes on Cam. “You shouldn’t let her in here, Newrose.”

Cam flushed. Newrose said, “Oh, well.” Paula went out of the room.

In the corridor, she walked down about fifteen feet from the door into the shadows and waited. After a few moments Cam came after her. Paula fell into step beside her.

“You heard what the Akellar told me,” Cam said. She stopped to light a cigarette. “I’m on your side now, remember?” The matchlight made a mask out of her face. She flicked the match off down the corridor like a firefly into the night.

“What have you found out?” Paula asked.

Cam started off again, long-legged. “Newrose came back from your meeting looking happy as a clam. You must be working on him. Not that I ever doubted you would.”

They went around a corner and into the trunk hall. The night lamps on the walls were replicas of old-fashioned street lamps, hanging on curved brackets over their heads. Paula said, “Is Newrose in touch with anybody off the Planet? Like Hanse, for example?”

Cam’s eyebrows rose. “Not that I know of. Do you think he is? What are you trying to do?”

“I have an intuition.” They had come to Paula’s door. She stopped and reached into her sleeve for her key. “There’s been a battle. General Hanse has won. Not decisively, but well.” She pressed the face of the key into the patch above the doorknob.

Cam’s expression stayed calm, almost placid. “When will the Akellar be back?”

Paula shrugged. She let her door slide open. Cam sucked on her cigarette. The red coal followed her hand through the dimness down to her hip. “I don’t feel exactly right when he isn’t here. I don’t know what I’ll do when he goes back to Uranus.”

“Maybe he’ll take you.”

“He says he has work for me in Mars.”

Paula studied her a moment, wondering what the work might be. Cam’s cigarette made its arc upward toward her mouth. She breathed out smoke and said, “You might be right about Newrose and Hanse. I think the Martians know about this battle.”

“Oh?”

“It accounts for something one of them said. Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“Not in a million years.”

“What’s the matter, baby?” Cam said. “Can’t stand the competition?” Paula went into her suite and shut the door.

Midway through the artificial night Newrose woke her, pounding on her door. “Hurry,” the Martian said. “We haven’t much time.” He hustled her off along the trunk corridor. She glanced behind them down the empty hallway into the darkness. Their steps sounded hollow here. Newrose took her arm and led her into a vertical car.

The car was supposed to be dead. The panel beside the door was missing and the instrument plate showed bare, its surface etched with circuits. Newrose took a key from his pocket and pressed it to the plate. The car climbed toward the surface, past the thirteenth floor where the Styths lived, up through layers of uninhabited space where the environment was supposed to be turned off. She wondered how many miles of tunnels there were under Luna’s surface. Hundreds. She looked at Newrose, smiling all over his face.

“Good news,” he said. “There’s been another battle. Hanse has won again. We’re beating the hell out of the Styths.”

“We. Do you like Hanse?”

“I can reason with him,” Newrose said. “Unlike the Sunlight League. Or the Styths.”

The car stopped at the sixth floor. They went out onto the vertical apron. Several corridors fanned away from them. One was lit by spots of light running off into the distance and Newrose took her off along it. Every few yards a power torch was stapled to the wall at shoulder-level. They passed a pile of rubble that smelled of char.

“The Styths never took all of Luna,” Newrose said, hurrying along. “Just the surface and the nerve center on the thirteenth floor. The life support systems. Then they turned off the oxygen everywhere else.”

“Tanuojin,” she said. “He’s an economical man. Then what are we breathing?”

“Local emergency supply.”

Ahead a box torch glowed on a crossbeam. She knew about the battle for Luna. Kasuk had died here. The broken wall bulged into the corridor and Newrose went ahead of her through the narrow gap. Paula glanced behind her. She thought she saw something moving in the dark.

The air turned cold. Under her feet the floor was buckled and she had to watch to keep from tripping on the plastic waves. They went through a door, down a hall, through another door. She had lost her way. They crossed a stretch of darkness where her ears told her the walls left off and vast space stretched away around her. Newrose took her up a short flight of stairs and into a small room.

“We can’t promise to get you off the Planet right away, but the Styths will never find you here.”

She looked around the tiny L-shaped room. Another Martian sat at a table under the ceiling lamp, playing cards scattered before him. In the foot of the L was a box with a screen like a videone: a photo-relay. On the panel above the screen a green light was burning.

“The signal is through,” said the man playing cards. “That book she gave us is authentic.”

Newrose smiled at her. Paula shook her head at him, exasperated. “You should have checked that before you brought me here.”

“I trust you,” he said.

“Then you’re naive.” She opened the door to the corridor again. From the darkness Ymma came past her into the room.

Newrose’s man gave a muffled cry and stood up. The Styth loomed over them all. In the taut silence, another Styth walked in from the corridor and went straight to the photo-relay.

His hands on his hips, Ymma said to Paula, “Are they signaling Hanse?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Mars.” She was watching Newrose’s face harden into an expression of outrage. The other Martian sat down with a thump. She said to Newrose, “Who are you calling?”

On his domed forehead a film of sweat appeared. He said, “I should have listened to the people who told me you were treacherous.”

She turned to Ymma again. “He didn’t even check the book. He isn’t very good at this. And he says there’s been another battle.”

“The word came just before I left. We lost another eight ships.”

The Styth by the photo-relay said, “Akellar, the transmission beam focuses in Mars.”

“You were right about that, too,” Ymma said to her.

She faced Newrose again. “You call me treacherous, Newrose. We let you come here in good faith. Even after Lore Smythe, we acted in good faith. When are you coming up to my level?”

Newrose took a white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his tunic, opened it out, and patted his forehead dry. He folded the handkerchief again. “It’s your move, Mendoza.” With two fingers he stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket.

“Show me how to get back to the verticals.”

They went back through the ruins of Luna. Newrose clasped his hands behind his back. Until they had crossed the stretch of darkness they walked in silence. In the lighted hallway, she said, “You can’t cheat, Newrose. You have to do this the hard way.”

The lights shone on his face. She smelled char. They were going along between walls swollen and cracked from fires. She was ready to remind him of Tanuojin, who had done all this, but Newrose took out his handkerchief again, mopped his face again, and said, “I’ll try to do my job.”

“I want an unconditional surrender.”

“The Martian Army is winning the war.”

“The Styths will win.” She slowed to keep her footing on the uneven floor. “Tanuojin will want something impossible, and Saba will do it. If you and I haven’t arranged something by then, they’ll go straight for Mars, and you and I will have missed our chance.”

“What did you have in mind?”

Ahead the corridor led off, banded around with alternate yellow light and dark from the torches. At the end she saw the double doors of the verticals and quickened her steps. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. But it’s very simple. You and I are going to rule the Middle Planets.”

When she came up the ladder to the surface, Newrose was already in the ancient room. She opened her notebook and put it down on the table. “Sign that.”

“I want to know a little more about—”

She slid onto the chair facing him and folded her arms on the tabletop. “Sign it.”

“I warn you that if necessary I shall repudiate this agreement.”

“Sign it.”

He signed the surrender. She turned the notebook around and folded that leaf over. “Good. Now, we have a lot of work to do.”

“What exactly are you planning?”

She looked out through the clear window, across the barren floor of the crater to its steepled wall. The sun was still setting; the slow rocking of the Planet on its axis had kicked it up higher than the day before above the rough horizon. “I don’t know. Whatever is possible. How much work does the Council do?”

He shrugged. “All the relations between the member governments.” His hands were clasped together before him on the table. They opened enough to gesture at her and folded together again in their two-handed fist. “Actually, in practice, the Committee’s liaison with us—Miss Jefferson—went between the parties involved and settled everything outside the official meetings. Otherwise there’d be just too much detail.”

“How many members?”

“Mars, Luna, the Politburo of Crosby’s Planet, the twenty-three governments of Venus. Naturally Mars is the most important member.”

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.”

“He’s going back to Uranus, isn’t he?” She crossed her legs on the seat of her chair. “Then he’ll use Dr. Savenia. You and I can handle him. Newrose can handle her.”

He got up and walked toward the door. Paula reached across the table for his dish. He had eaten all the meat. Cubes of vegetables stood in the pool of red sauce.

“You’ll have to go up front for me in the Chamber,” she said.

“That’s who I am, isn’t it? I’m pretty, I smile, I’m everybody’s best face.”

She used a scrap of potato to soak up the sauce. “What’s wrong with you? I thought you liked being the front.”

“Sometimes Tanuojin treats me as if that’s all I am.” He came back to his chair. “You’re the only one of us who knows enough about the Middle Planets to make this work.”

“It will work,” she said. She ate the potato.

“This settlement won’t be popular on Mars,” Newrose said. He had a scarf wrapped around his head, like an egg-cozy.

“How is General Hanse?” Paula said.

“He’s terribly ill.”

“He had a heart attack while they were questioning him. The Styths don’t know much about medicine.”

She was facing the clear wall of the space port waiting room. Out on the flat crater floor a hundred feet away two ships stood in the first two wells of the launching dock. While she watched, the accordion cover of the third well folded back, and another ship rose through it to the surface. That was Ybicket, Ybix’s new sidecraft. A man in a pressure suit jogged across the gray dust to the ship and disappeared inside the hatch. Paula turned toward Newrose again. Her pressure suit held her arms out away from her sides, like a gingerbread man.

“Just keep watch on Dr. Savenia,” she said.

“I thought you said that was settled?”

“I trust Tanuojin about three inches to the mile.” She trusted him least when he appeared to give in. He had accepted the Martian Treaty more readily than Leno. It was impossible to surprise him. Maybe he had learned not to waste his time on things he could not control.

“Do you trust the Prima?” Newrose said.

“Under the circumstances I’d rather be hung for a lamb than a sheep.”

“Clear the launch area,” said the speaker in the corner of the ceiling. In the naked waiting room it boomed. A moment later the same voice repeated the words in the Common Speech. Newrose’s eyebrows drew close over his nose.

“I do wish you’d stay here,” he said to her.

“What do you mean?” Ybicket’s hatch opened and the man in the black pressure suit dropped lightly to the ground. He came at a lope across the launch area toward the waiting room.

“You seem to think I can just pull down a few levers and push the right buttons and make what you want happen,” Newrose said. “I can’t do that. I can’t explain it as well as you can.” He looked at her bitterly. “I’m not a diplomat, Mendoza, I’m a garden variety—”

She laughed at him. “Don’t worry. You’ll do very well.” She watched the man in the pressure suit enter the airlock to the waiting room. “Better than Dr. Savenia. Do you know my son?” Pulling off his helmet, David came into the room with them.

“We have to go,” he said to her.

He was flying her to Ybix. She introduced him to Newrose and went to take her helmet from the shelf along the back wall. Newrose and her son stood silently side by side, not looking at each other; neither spoke the other’s language. She shook Newrose’s hand and David took her out to Ybicket.