Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

“Any of you come near me,” the man with the gun cried, “I’ll kill you.” He was very young, no more than twenty, and his face glistened with sweat.

The crowd shifted around Paula. More people were coming down into the lobby to watch. Crowded, she went down the two steps to the level of the restaurant. Plaintive, a woman behind her said, “I can’t see.”

The Styths were moving. Sril went across the restaurant, through the scattered tables, and the others spread out between him and the Akellar like a cordon. The young man on the chair followed them with his gun, pointing it now at one and now at another. He was too frightened to shoot.

“This I have to see,” a man in the crowd murmured. “They’ll hash the poor kid.” Paula licked her lips. She went down the steps into a miasma of coppery Styth temper. The big Styth with the scar on his cheek stood in front of her, his back to her. She passed him, and he jumped.

“Akellar.”

The man with the gun had seen her. He jerked around. His foot slipped on the chair seat and he caught at the back to hold himself still. The gun was shaking, aimed at her. She walked slowly toward him, her eyes fixed on his face. The art was to keep moving. If she stopped to talk it would be hard to start toward him again. “Paula,” the Akellar said, and she waved at him to be quiet.

“Stop right there,” the young man cried.

“I’m from the Committee,” she said. She was only five feet from him. His mouth opened, red and wet, and his eyes shifted past her toward his audience. In the silence she heard someone behind her smother a cough.

“Don’t come any closer—”

“You’ll be a real hero, won’t you, if you shoot an unarmed woman?”

He shifted the gun to one side, to aim past her at the Styths, and she moved to stay in front of it. She reached out her hand for it, her eyes on his face. “Give me the gun,” she said, almost whispering, so that no one else could hear her. “You are interfering in a Committee negotiation, and you’re making me angry.” She took hold of the gun behind the wide bell-shaped muzzle. He pulled back, and she let go.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh, yes, you are. If you stay here, the police will be here, with gas and spray and probably dogs.”

She took hold of the weapon again. He was shaking so hard she was afraid the gun would go off by accident. He swallowed, his gaze fixed on hers, and let go of the gun.

With it in her hand, she sighed, relaxing, and felt the quiver in her knees. She looked around them. In the back of the dark restaurant, past Sril, a red sign shone marking the exit. She said, “Come on,” and took him by the arm and led him on a crooked course through the tables.

“Where do you live?” she said. They passed tables left in the middle of the meal and reached the door under the red light.

“Barsoom. I only came for the—” His face was deeply lined, like a wax mask. “You’re really from the Committee?”

“I’ll send you a bill.” She pulled open the door and let him go out ahead of her. The crowd was streaming back into the restaurant. The Akellar watched her over their heads. She went after the young man along the concrete walk toward the front of the hotel. His gun was in her hand. She held it carefully, afraid of setting it off. They went up a flight of steps. At the top was the curved parking apron at the main entrance.

“There. I’ll get you a cab.”

They went along the walk past the lobby. He said, “I could have taken them.”

“Are you crazy? They have inch-long claws. A couple of them weigh over three hundred pounds.”

“That’s why I brought the gun.” He reached for it in her hand. “Let me have it back.”

“No.” She went ahead of him toward the line of cabs parked along the edge of the apron. He followed her, talking.

“I have to have it. It’s my father’s. He’ll kill me if he finds out I took it.”

She stopped beside the cab at the head of the line, and the driver came around to open the door. She said to the boy, “Get in there and I’ll give it to you. Go on. And don’t come back, or you’ll get hurt.”

“I can—”

“Get in there.”

He climbed into the back seat of the cab. She shut the door on him and gave the gun to the driver. “He lives in Barsoom. Make his father pay you.”

The driver held the gun by the barrel. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Give it to his father.” She went into the lobby.

In the dark by the stairs, in the warm dry air, she stood wondering what to do. He had come just to fight a Styth. Bringing a gun he was afraid to shoot. She climbed the stairs. If she were the Akellar she would break off the talks for violations of the safe-conduct, fly away in a righteous huff, and demand all kinds of apologies and sureties before she came back. The door was still jammed halfway open. She went into the dark room. Something moved behind her. Before she could turn, a blow struck her in the head, and she fell.

She woke in the dark, her head ringing, and sat up. After a moment she dragged herself up to her feet. She could have been lying there for hours. Her head boomed like a drum, and she sat down heavily on the arm of the couch and tried to pull her mind together.

“Go get yourself a drink,” the Akellar said, behind her.

She jerked around. He was sitting on the end of the couch; she could just make out his shape.

“Did you hit me?”

“No. You were out when I came.”

It had been Tanuojin, then. She went to the bar and felt out a glass and ice and the bottle of whiskey, without turning on the light. While she was pouring the whiskey, he settled himself on the stool opposite her.

“Whoever it was gave you grace,” he said. “Because I had a chance to cool down. If you’d been awake when I got here, I’d have killed you.”

“Me. Why?”

“Because you made me look bad.”

She gulped down a steadying jolt of the whiskey. Her head pounded, spinning, in an alcoholic rush. She put the glass down. “Well, maybe you are.”

He moved, and she tried to elude him, but he was too fast. His grip fastened in her hair. She whined through her teeth. He pressed her face down toward the counter of the bar. She shut her eyes. With her nose against the counter, he said, “You talk too much. You think you’re so damned smart, but you don’t know about me.” With a wrench that burned her whole scalp, he let her go.

She sagged against the bar, tears streaming down her face; her head was stitched with pain. She wiped her eyes. “I learn fast.”

“Here.” He pushed her glass toward her.

“That makes you feel better?”

“Shall I do it again?”

“No. No.” She drank from the glass; it nearly fell out of her fingers. Her eyes were still watering. Her elbows on the bar, she wiped her hands over her face.

He went to the videone and called his suite. She turned the ceiling lights on half-bright. Sitting down on the couch, she stared at the red fish schooling across the wall.

He said, “I want to go to the Earth.”

“Maybe you’d better leave me alone for a while.”

“I’ll decide what I do.” He sat down on the other end of the couch and put his feet up on the magazine table. “I’ve been thinking about this contract you want for me. The only way you could guarantee that much money is if you’re talking about trading in crystal. Is that what you mean?”

“Get out.”

“Come on. You’re such a tough little bitch, are you sulking about getting your hair pulled?”

The fish performed a mathematical turn. She refused to look at the Styth. “All right. Yes, crystal.”

“You don’t understand what you’re getting me into. There’s an imperial law in Styth against selling crystal off the Planet. I can’t stand against the whole rest of the rAkellaron.”