Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

He released her. His arms crossed over his face, he staggered back from her. It was Ketac. She ran around the foot of the bed and turned the torch off. She heard nothing and saw only a flicker of movement in the dark but when she reached the bedside lamp and lit it, he was gone.

The window in the washroom was open. She slammed it shut. There was no way to lock it. She closed the washroom door, moved the bed table over against it, and went to bed.

The following morning, when she took the receiver down from the closet shelf, about two inches of the wire had been run off. She wound it back to play. The device bleeped, to show it was working. The transmitter in the dagger was designed to pick up only voices. She listened to their talk about the Sun, the law and the Empire. Her own voice always sounded strange to her, deeper than she expected.

“Pop,” Ketac said, “Tanuojin is back.”

The Akellar uttered a low, indefinite sound. Keyed to his voice, the device would pick up every vocal noise he made. She plunged her face into a steaming hot towel.

“What’s the matter with you?” a deep, musical voice said.

“I drank too much. There’s some liquor here, like fluid explosive, the Earthish woman told me about it.”

“Naturally. What is she like?”

The Akellar laughed. “She’s this big. She’s mouse-brown, her eyes slant like a snake’s, her hair is like gold wire all on end. She looks as if she has one toe stuck in a charge socket.”

She put on a pair of overalls and took the recorder into the front room. A breakfast cart was standing alone by the couch. The page had abandoned her. She poured hot water into a china teapot with a decal of the hotel on its belly. While the tea was steeping, she buttered toast.

“Did you get to Barsoom?” the Akellar said, and she dropped the butter knife on the floor.

“Yes,” the deep voice said. “It’s impossible to see it on foot. It goes on and on, and even when it’s turned away from the Sun, it’s all lit up, every little corner.”

She ate the toast. Had he walked to Barsoom? She imagined the uproar if he had been caught. But he had not been caught: amazing.

“What about this anarchist? What have you found out?”

“Oh, she comes down with the same story, no government, no army, nothing. I offered her money and she laughed. She’s a liar, like every other nigger in the Universe.”

Paula took the teacup across the room to the windows and pulled the drapes half-open. It was another splendidly sunny day, manufactured in Barsoom. Two men with a cart were pulling up the blue delphinium below her window and installing daffodils, yellow and white.

“Tanuojin,” the Akellar said, “I don’t think this was one of your better ideas.”

“We’re in the wrong place, that’s all.”

Before she could find out the right place, the wire ran out. She reloaded the receiver and put it up on the top shelf of the closet, behind her shoes. The name Tanuojin, like all Styth names, was made up of word particles; it meant “the ninth boy” or “the new boy,” she was unsure. She went down to the lobby.

The headline on the current hourly read: BARSOOM SUPERS REACH CUP PLAY-OFFS. She went across the lobby. In a side room, the small Styth with the nose wire was shooting pool. Two Martian men played dik-dakko at the opposite end of the room, three other game tables between them and the Styth. There was a tiltball machine against the wall. She put her paper down, got out ten cents, and started the machine. The lights came on in the multicolored cube. She pushed the trigger and a ball fell into the top. She used the handles to shake the ball down through the maze.

“Hello,” the Styth said, beside her.

“Hello.”

“I am supposed to watch you. It will make it that much easier if you help.”

She pushed the trigger button. “What’s your name?”

He leaned against the wall. At her eye-level, a chain hung around his throat, inside the wide collarless neck of his shirt: an order medal. He said, “My name is Sril. What is this engine?”

She turned back to the tiltball machine. This time she had drawn two balls. They careened off in opposite directions. She kept the cube moving. The balls reeled through the levels of colored plastic. With two it was easy: she held one in a cul-de-sac while slipping the other past the traps. When the two balls rolled through the gate, lights flashed, a bell jangled: FREE BALL.

“I will try.” Sril pushed her out of the way.

“I’m in the middle of—”

“What do I do? This?” He pushed the button. He was lucky: the machine was random-loaded, and only one ball fell into the maze. He touched the handles. The ball dropped like a stone down the center trap. The machine went dark.

“What happened?” he cried.

“You lost. Try it again. You see the holes, there, you’re supposed to avoid them.”

“No—you do. I watch.”

She fed the machine another dime and pushed the trigger. Five balls rolled into the chute at the top of the maze. She teased them to the last level, hardly moving the cube at all, and then turned one handle too far and lost the middle and the last down a side trap.

Sril groaned in disappointment. Paula said, “That’s good, for me. You play it.”

Another Styth was coming across the room toward them, a big man with a scar on his cheek. In Styth, he said, “You’re supposed to be on watch. Where is the Man?”

“I am on watch,” Sril said. “I’m on squaw-duty.” He turned back to the tiltball machine. “Saba is upstairs.” He reached for the trigger.

Paula stepped back. A ball fell with a ping into the maze. Sril fought it, cursed it, and pleaded it down to the third level, where it dropped through.

“Let me try.” The big man shoved at him. Sril thrust him off. They crowded into each other, swearing and laughing. The steady patter of the dik-dakko ball across the room stopped; a man said, “What’s that stink?” This time, getting three balls, Sril managed to take one successfully through the maze. When he lost the next ball down the central chute, he let out a yell, grabbed the tiltball machine, and tore it off the wall.

A dik-dakko player shouted. Paula dodged a flying tiltball. The machine sagged over onto its side. Steel balls cascaded out of the bin across the floor.

Sril backed off, looking apprehensively around. The other Styth grabbed his arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Too late,” Paula said.

A tall white man was moving toward them at top speed, his body at an attacking angle. She wondered nervously if she had broken any Martian law. He walked straight up to her. His gaze raked the Styths.

“Are you all right, Miss Mendoza?”

“I’m fine,” she said, relieved.

The two black men were standing on the far side of the wreckage of the machine. Tiltballs rolled around on the floor, clicking into each other. The Martian turned on the Styths, fierce.

“Which one of you did that?”

Paula stepped back to the wall. That was the wrong approach. The doorway to the lobby was packed with the curious faces of guests.

Sril said, “We do n-nothing. He just falls off.” He still smelled strong.

The manager fisted his hands. “You don’t expect me to believe that.”

“Is something wrong?” said a musical bass voice. A rangy Styth sauntered across the gameroom, his eyes on the Martian. Straw-thin, he towered four or five inches over seven feet. His eyes were light brown. Yellow eyes. The Martian rounded on him.

“Are you their superior officer?”

“That’s right.” Tanuojin slid his long hands under his belt. “What’s wrong?” He nodded to Sril and the other man. They bolted out the door, the guests jumping out of their way.