Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

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.