Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

Paula bounded out of her chair. She felt too large for her body, a scream coming up from the gut, a bursting rage. “Get out.” She looked around for something to throw. Hanse, scrambling, was already at the door, calling for Rodgers. She threw the ashtray at him. He went out fast and the door slammed.

She was not ready for Rodgers; she barricaded her door with the desk. They spent two hours taking the door off the hinges. She went three or four times around the room, which she knew now inch by inch. When Rodgers came in she was sitting on the bed, resigned. He hauled her down to the little room and tied her up to the wall so she could neither sit nor stand straight and left her. The worst was waiting for him to come back.

Slumped against the wall on her throbbing legs, she thought with alarm of the exchange Hanse was planning. The Styths wanted her back because of what she knew about the Middle Planets. Hanse certainly realized that. He would never send her to them in any condition to serve them. Her half-bent knees gave way and she fell, hit the rope that fastened her arms to the wall, and jerked them almost out of her shoulders. Grimly she pushed herself back up to a crouch. This was all Hanse’s idea, so she would complain and he could rescue her from Rodgers and make her trust him. She closed her eyes.

The first thing she saw in Cam’s office was the large painting by Jacques-Louis David of Marat, dead in his bath. The oil hung directly over Cam’s desk. Paula stopped near a chair to the side of the room, looking around, while other people filed into the room. On the paneled wall beside her a dragon-robe was spread out like a pair of scarlet wings, feathered in gold thread. The room was cluttered. Pictures hung thick as scale from the walls. Here and there among the living people statues stood. Paula sat down in the chair behind her. Surrounded by soldiers, she rubbed her fingers nervously together, her eyes on the painting of the dead revolutionary above the desk.

The wall below it split open. Cam came out of her private lift. Two trim young men followed her. The soldiers in the room straightened rigidly to attention. Cam was neat as a mannequin. Her hair gleamed. An aide held her chair for her. She spoke to him, sitting down, and he laughed at what she said.

“At ease, gentlemen.”

In unison they relaxed. Paula looked curiously around at their scrubbed, shaven faces. In their midst Bunker stood with his jacket unbuttoned, his cheek blurred with beard. Cam folded her hands together.

“He defiled the uniform, putting you into it.”

Behind Paula, Rodgers muttered, “In she goes.”

“Are you drunk?” Cam said to Bunker.

He shuffled his feet. “Slightly.” He glanced up at the clay-colored corpse on the wall above her. “Not enough.”

“You’re a disgusting little man.”

“Thank you. I was hoping you’d appreciate my modest efforts.”

“Cut his balls off,” Paula said. “Make him walk the plank.”

Cam swung back and forth in her chair. “It makes me sick to see him in a Martian uniform.”

“Shall I take it off?” He pulled one arm out of the sleeve.

“You’re out of uniform,” Cam said, “for which you’ll spend the next five days in solitary.”

Paula cheered. She clapped her hands together three or four times, the only sound in the crowded room. Cam threw her a hard look. “Do you want to join him?”

“Then we wouldn’t be in solitary,” Bunker said. He shrugged into his jacket.

“Complete solitary,” Cam said. “In the closet. No food, no water, no lights. No liquor.” She sat back, smiling. Bunker said nothing. Alert, Paula settled deep into her chair, watching him, thinking about what he had just done. Cam’s gaze swung toward her. “Why aren’t you cheering, baby?”

“I hope you got me down here for some purpose,” Paula said. “Other than making an ass of yourself, which is less entertaining than it used to be.”

“Rodgers, the same for her. Five days.”

Rodgers was standing behind Paula. He said sharply, “Doctor, you’re going to put them together?”

“That’s what I said. Put them both in the closet. Maybe they’ll tear each other to pieces.”

“That’s immoral. General Hanse—”

“Joe isn’t here,” Cam said. She took a sheet of clear paper from her desk and held it out to one of her aides, who brought it up the room to Paula. Cam was lighting a cigarette. She said, “Read that, Paula.”

“You’re crazy,” Paula said.

Cam smiled at her. Her lip-paint was the color of venous blood. “Six days in the closet.” The aide was holding the paper out to Paula, who ignored it. Bunker was paying no attention to any of this.

“Seven days,” Cam said.

Rodgers said, “You can’t put them in together, for Christ’s sake, it’s immoral.”

Cam gave him an instant’s angry look. She stared at Paula. “Eight days.”

Paula took the page. Around the room, the men stirred, commenting to each other, impressed by Cam’s techniques. Paula turned the plastic around. The message was in Styth. When she read it, her heart quickened.

“It’s a declaration of war,” she said. “How formal.”

“Read it,” Cam said.

“To Mars, by the rAkellaron. We have warned you in many ways to submit to us before justice brought you into its course. Now you have violated the Earth, our mother, and wakened her children dead even in dreams. If you resist us, we cannot say how you will suffer, only that you will suffer.” She handed the page to a soldier, who took it to Bunker.

“What tripe,” Cam said.

Bunker was reading through the paper. “I don’t follow this dead even in dreams .”

Paula was chewing the skin around her thumbnail. “The old heroes. You know they’re all descended from heroes.” Krita was ringing his bell again. It was a stronger declaration than she had expected: very strong.

“It sounds as if they’re committing the whole Empire.”

“Yes.”

“They double-crossed you,” Cam said to her. She tapped a cigarette on the desk, her holder in the other hand. “They’re using you as an excuse. I told you that bastard would do this. Why the hell didn’t you listen to me?”

Paula got up. “Come on, Rodgers. The dark is more edifying.” She started toward the door.

“Paula! Get back here until I dismiss you.” Cam bounced up onto her feet, poised behind her desk. At the door, Paula wheeled.

“I dismiss you.” She snapped her fingers at Cam and went out the door. Someone caught her by the arm: a soldier.

“Let her go,” Rodgers said. He pushed her on across the hall.

“Dr. Savenia—”

“Dr. Savenia is a civilian.” Rodgers hurried her into the vertical.

They went up three flights in silence. Beside her Rodgers stood with his hands clasped behind him, his feet exactly eighteen inches apart. He took her down the hall to the little room.

“I’ll call General Hanse,” he said. He shut the door on her. The lock turned over.

She had never been here before without being tied up. There was little to explore. Three strides across by four strides down. The room was without windows. While she was walking around it, the door opened and Bunker was put in with her. The door shut and the light in the ceiling went out.

“Is this place wired?” she said, in the dark. She sat down with her back to the wall.

“I don’t think so.” His voice passed her, going down the room. “Why couldn’t you keep out of this?” He sat down against the opposite wall.

“You gave me to Hanse, you can help me get away.”

“It won’t be easy. Probably impossible, in fact. You’d be better off staying here.”

“Have they been working you over?” she asked.