Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

“Take me, Paula.”

She bent down and sucked him out of Ketac’s mouth. Ketac lay still in the bed, asleep again. Her throat was numb. She crossed the room to the chair where Tanuojin’s body slumped and breathed him coppery back into his own flesh.

Tanuojin straightened; he touched his mouth with his hand. “You’re right. He’d have died if I’d had to force him.”

Cold, she went back to the bed and sat down, pulling the blanket around her. Tanuojin came over and touched Ketac’s face.

“He’s stronger than Saba.”

“Go away and let me sleep,” she said.

He went to the door. “Now we’ll see who wins.” He left. She lay down next to Ketac again.

Ketac would not talk about what had happened. Paula walked beside him along the stream. She expected him to be angry that she had helped Tanuojin do it, but he seemed not to care. She took his hand. In the high wild grass along the stream-bank, krines sang in reedy voices.

Finally he said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You wouldn’t have believed me.”

“Have you done it?”

She nodded, her eyes on the sleek water. Stopping, she put her hand into the stream. “Will you help me against him?”

“Against him?” He stood beside her, kicking at the grass with one foot. “What can I do against him?”

“That depends on you,” she said. “You have to know what he is, but when you do, there are possibilities.” She sat down on the grass. The water rippled and went smooth again: a passing fish.

“What is he? He isn’t just a man.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“He’s more than a man. Why do you want me to help you against him—what are you trying to do to me? It’s blasphemous to defy him.”

She let her breath out, defeated again. Certainly Tanuojin was listening. Maybe she could not resist him. On the far side of the stream, the path ran down through the waste fields toward the Koup Bridge. Someone was walking along it. It was Kapsin, the young dancer, another instrument of Tanuojin’s will. She turned her face away.

In the low watch David and Ketac and Junna flew Ybicket to Ybix , in high orbit around Uranus. David would bring the little ship back alone to take her and Tanuojin. Paula could not sleep. The pillow smelled faintly of Ketac and she got up and sat by the window. The door opened, and Tanuojin said, “ Ybicket is docking.”

She put on two pairs of overalls and a jacket. All she was taking with her was her flute. They went down through Yekka to the city gate, on a platform over a field of rakis beans. There was a freighter in the main loading pod. A small crowd had gathered along the glass doors to watch it unload. Paula and Tanuojin went to the next pod, where Ybicket lay in her harness.

David came along the catwalk toward them. “I have to replace a crystal. The captain of that freighter has a message for you.”

“How long will it take?” Tanuojin said.

“I’m half done. About an hour.”

Tanuojin bobbed his head once. He went out of the dock to find the freighter’s captain. Paula watched him go. David said, “Sit in here and talk to me while I do this.”

She climbed into Ybicket after him. The instrument panel in the front of the cockpit was tilted up on its hinges, showing the guts of the drive system packed into the nose. She sat in the drive seat, where she could watch. David lay on his back on the curved floor and slid under the raised panel.

“Give me that tube of glue.” He waggled his hand at her. She bent down and put the squeeze-tube of glue into his fingers.

“Why did you take him back?” he said.

“Who, Ketac?”

“I don’t see how you could go from Papa to that.”

She ran her hand over the diamond-seamed upholstered seat. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“Are you fighting with my uncle?”

“I don’t call it fighting. You know I’m a pacifist.”

The wrench slid out across the sloping floor of the ship. The handle was pierced with holes for his fingers, spaced to keep his claws out of the way. She heard him counting under his breath. Finally, he said, “Do you need help?”

That surprised her. Her face was cold and she turned up the collar of her coat and slid her hands into her sleeves. “What if it meant helping Ketac?”

“Oh, there’s no saving Ketac,” David said. “He belongs to my uncle, eyes, hooks, and paranoia. I’ll help you.”

She raised her gaze to the hatchway, where Tanuojin stood. “Come put your suit on,” he said. She stood on the seat and stepped across the ship to the hatch and up to the dock. The locker door was folded back against the wall and Tanuojin was taking out his black pressure suit. Her special suit hung in the rear of the locker. “Here,” he said.

He gave her an order medal. She looked down at it, frowning: the symbol cut into the surface was the triple star.

“Whose is it?”

“Bokojin’s, I guess.”

She put the medal on the locker shelf and took out her suit. “The whole patrol is in the star.”

“Pretty much.”

Stooping, she lifted the heavy shoes over the lip of the locker. In the ship, David called, “I’m finished.”

Tanuojin said, “There aren’t five ships in the chevron as fast as Ybicket , and they don’t know when we’re leaving.” He pulled his suit over his shoulders and sealed the front together. “Put your helmet on, we have to launch hard.” He took his helmet out of the locker and went over to Ybicket .

She clumped after him, lifting her feet high in the thick-soled shoes. Inside the cocoon of the ship, Tanuojin was bent over the radio deck in the kick-seat. He said, “You fly her. I can handle both guns from back here.” She licked her lips. Her stomach fluttered unpleasantly. She would probably be sick; she was always queasy, flying in the Planet. David took her hands and helped her into the middle of the three seats.

Paula stuffed her hands into the gloves. David went out of the ship. She pulled the straps tight around her wrists. In the seat behind her, a metallic click sounded and an electric whine undulated louder up and down. When she put the heavy dark cylinder of the helmet on, the whine was painfully loud through the speakers above her ears.

“Can’t you turn that off?” She held the helmet at arm’s length away from her ears.

David swung himself into the ship and pulled the hatch closed. “There’s nobody for miles on the scan,” Tanuojin said. The piercing noise stopped. She lowered her helmet onto her head.

The launch nearly knocked her cold. She rested her forehead against the helmet, groggy. The green glare of the holograph shone over the front of the cab. Her suit was rigid as a shell around her. Above her ears, Tanuojin’s voice came out of the helmet.

“Take her down an M.”

“There’s a reef—”

“Stoop under it. Somebody’s coming.”

The ship rolled down into a dive. Paula swallowed the sour taste in her throat. Her eyes watered. Smoothly Ybicket swung into a wide rising curve.

“Where are they?” David said, in the top of the helmet.

“I think we lost them. Take her up again to—”

A sheet of white light flashed in her face. She could not breathe. She lost consciousness.

She woke up with a start, her ears ringing, alive. The ship was streaking through the magma. Her pressure suit was flexible again. She said, “David?”

Nobody answered. Her hands slipped on the helmet, and she pulled off the gloves. The helmet was jammed. She wrenched it back and forth until the seal popped. The air of the cockpit was icy cold. In the dark, she could hardly see; opposite her seat the wall seemed to be crumpled inward. She said, loudly, “David,” and unsnapped her harness and unhooked her suit from the lifeline.