Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

While she was walking up the street toward Colorado’s, she heard her name called behind her. She stopped and looked back. Marus was jogging down the curved street after her. He veered around a pushcart and reached her, breathing hard.

“The Akellar wants you.”

“Later. I’m hungry.” She walked off up the street.

“He says it’s about David Mendoza.”

She went back to him. “What about David?”

“I don’t know. The Akellar said I should tell you that.”

She hurried back toward the end of the city. On either side of the street were buildings marked to be torn down; she heard children playing in them. They reached the Barn and she went into Tanuojin’s office.

David was not there. Tanuojin was sitting at the desk in the front office recording a book tape, a set of earphones over his head. He gestured to Marus to leave. She leaned on the desk, impatient. He turned a switch on the recorder and another on the left earcup.

“What is this about David?” she said.

“Nothing. That was the best way to get you here. I have to talk to you.”

Her shoulders sank an inch. For a moment, speechless, she could only stare at him. He took off the headset and put it on the desk. She went out of the office.

He came after her. “I have a tax I want you to arrange in the Middle Planets. Newrose will accept it if it comes from you.”

“Get away from me.” She was walking as fast as she could, even though there was no way to outrun him. She left the arcade and turned into the street past Colorado’s, and he steered her toward the drinking dock. She gave up trying to go anywhere else and went into the vast dark room.

It was all but empty. The blue lights were lit along the pipe-wall and a slave on a ladder was swabbing out a barrel with a mop. Two more slaves raked off the sand. She went into the brightest corner and sat down.

“No,” she said to Tanuojin. A slave hovered nearby; she sent him for her meal.

“It’s very simple,” he said. “Listen to me before you refuse.”

The slave brought her a split dish of beans and leaf, Colorado’s staple lunch. She broke the piece of bread in half. “No. I don’t like taxes, and I don’t work in the Middle Planets for your benefit.” She used a piece of bread to shovel up the beans.

He dropped on one knee beside her. “I need that money.”

The slave who had served her was back. “Mendoz’, Kuuba wants to know if this goes on Matuko’s bill.”

“Matuko.” She swallowed a mouthful. “Why should Ketac pay my bills?”

“Uuh—” The slave touched his upper lip with his tongue. His gaze slid toward Tanuojin.

“You put it on my bill,” she said. “You put everything I buy on my bill.” The beans were syrupy with red sauce. She ate the soaked bread. Tanuojin leaned over her.

“Don’t make me angry, Paula.”

“Tsk.”

“You don’t really think Ketac can take me.”

The salad was oily. She ate the crunchy leaf. “Are you going into the pit again? Show off your peculiar talents in front of everybody?” She looked into his face. “Saba is dead now, you’re all alone.”

His white eyes dilated, round as targets. She saw he was still afraid of the mob. When he stood up, his kneejoint cracked.

“You remember I said once I’d break you?”

“Yes,” she said. “Not in those words.” She put the dish down. Her fingers were greasy and she wiped them on the sand. Tanuojin started to speak and turned.

David was coming into the great empty drinking dock. He crossed the deep sand toward them. He had washed and changed his clothes, and his long thick hair hung untied down past his shoulders. He reached Tanuojin.

“Uncle, I apologize for what I said. I—”

“I don’t care about your diseased half-breed raving,” Tanuojin said. Fish-lean, he stood over David by sixteen inches. He said, “You’re as bad as your slut-mother. You’re white-hearted.”

The slaves leaned on their rakes watching them. The kitchen master put his head out the doorway. Tanuojin pointed at Paula. “Do you know what she’s been doing? Saba wasn’t cool ash before she was turning up her heels for Ketac at a drunken party.”

“Ketac.”

David’s jaw set tight. He flung her a nasty look. “You Creep,” he said to Tanuojin, “I’m surprised your tongue hasn’t rotted away.”

The tall man gave off a spurt of rage. Both hands hooked in David’s hair. “Club it up!” David clawed at him, and Tanuojin swung him around by the hair and dragged him to the door. “It’s not just for looks, you see, no matter what you anarchists think.” He slung David out the door.

The slaves were motionless, rapt. The man on the ladder had dropped his mop. Tanuojin walked back toward Paula, picking clumps of David’s hair off his hands. “You slut. You won’t even fight for your own cub.”

“He does well enough by himself, doesn’t he?” She circled past him toward the door. “Not so much rotted, I think, as pickled.” She laughed and went off to the door.

In the next watch, Ketac, Dakkar, and Junna ambushed David on the plain of the House and clubbed him. A crowd gathered to watch. Paula came out on the second-story balcony. David fought them. They wrestled him down on his knees and Ketac wrenched his hands in front of him to give him the oath.

Paula glanced behind her. Tanuojin had come out onto the balcony.

“Did you put them up to this?” she said.

“That’s right.”

David burst up, his hair flying, and Junna sprawled across the concrete. The crowd cheered, boisterous. Ketac and Dakkar trapped David between them. Ketac was laughing. They forced David down on the pavement.

Tanuojin said, “He’s too stupid to know when he’s beaten.”

Ketac had David’s hands stretched out before him. Junna pinned him down by the shoulders, and Dakkar leaned past him to knot David’s hair into the club. Ketac shouted the oath.

“Who is the man?”

“Styth,” the crowd roared. David made no sound.

“Which is the way?”

“The Sun!”

“Keep faith!” Ketac milled his brother across the cheek with his open hand. Paula twitched.

David bounced onto his feet. His brothers danced away from him, teasing him; Ketac clapped his hands under David’s nose. Paula went indoors.

She was sitting on her bed in her room writing to Newrose, and Tanuojin came into the room. She closed her notebook. There was a high-backed chair against the wall by the chest, which he took and turned toward her and sat on. His long legs bent like a spider’s.

“Paula,” he said. “You are letting yourself in for this. I—”

“Wait. Let me. You are about to tell me how fond you are of me, and you don’t want to hurt me or David, but for the good of the Empire…” She stood up on her bed and swung the shutter closed over the window, cutting off the noise of the city. “Not with me, Tanuojin.”

“Get me that money.”

She sat down cross-legged on the bed again. She had the feeling if she took her eyes off him he would change to another form: a poison mist.

“You’re in debt already,” he said, reasonable. “Leno wants you to leave. You’ll have to come to me sometime. Why get me angry?”

“It’s good exercise.” Ketac had just bought a house in Upper Vribulo. She could live there. She leaned against the wall behind her and folded her arms over her chest.

“You’ll regret it.” His deep voice rasped; he was beginning to lose his temper. “And you can’t live with Ketac. It’s already the ripest scandal in Vribulo. You’re twice his age.”

She laughed. “Well, I’m remarkably preserved.” There was a tap on the door, and she lifted her voice. “Yes?”

David came in behind Tanuojin. His knotted hair was already falling loose. He said, “Mother, I need money.” His slanted brown eyes flicked at Tanuojin, sitting with his back to him. “Hello, Uncle Tajin.”