Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

The door rattled under a rapid knock. “Who is it?” Bunker said, and Jefferson came in, squeezing sideways through the door.

“Well, Richard, you look fit.”

Paula held up photographs of a spherical room. “What’s this?”

“The bridge.”

“They let you go all over the ship? Hello, Jefferson.”

Jefferson slid between the medic and Bunker and sat down on the bed beside Paula. The medic’s fingers pressed gently under Paula’s jaw. He felt along her shoulder.

“You’re tense, relax.”

Jefferson unbuttoned the front of her suit. The frilly blouse underneath made her breast look a yard wide. “Mendoza was run out of the Nineveh Club,” she told Bunker. “After only five days.”

“The food was awful,” Paula said.

Bunker said, “Mendoza, for six days I’ve had nothing to eat but chalk buttons and water.”

She looked at film of a winding tubular corridor. Jefferson said, “I gained five pounds sitting in a hotel room waiting for Mendoza’s infrequent calls. I think we all suffered appropriately.”

Paula gave her the film and the draft of the treaty. The medic was writing in his notebook. She turned to Bunker.

“You went all over Ybix ? What’s it like?”

“A Mylar wormhole. And all over isn’t very far.”

The old woman covered her right eye with her hand. She held the single typed page of the agreement out to read it. “My. What’s this scrawl here?”

“That’s his signature.”

Jefferson’s head wagged. “Fair, for a first draft. In five days.”

The medic stabbed Paula’s finger with a metal clip. He picked up the blood in a long glass straw. She said, “It doesn’t mean much. He talks for his own city, and that’s all. There was another man down there, Tanuojin—”

Bunker lay down on his back along the narrow bed. His shirt was unbuttoned. His bony chest looked hard as a carapace. “I heard all about him. Ybix ’s second officer. They call him The Creep. Not exactly the most popular man with the crew. Is he the Akellar’s brother?”

“His lyo. It’s a sworn friendship. Remember, Kary said something about it.”

“And is he an Akellar himself?”

“I think so.”

The medic straightened. “That’s all, Mendoza.” He sealed up his computer. “He’s anemic.” He turned to the door. “And she’s pregnant.” He went out. Paula stared stupidly at the dark panel shutting in the wall.

Bunker and Jefferson burst out laughing. Paula said, “No,” and they roared.

Jefferson said, “Paula, you’ll have to apply for a bonus for hazardous duty.” Bunker howled. He gasped for breath; tears ran down his face.

Paula put her hands up to her cheeks. Jefferson said, chuckling, “I’m sorry, Mendoza, but it’s terribly funny. Here, have a mint.”

Bunker wiped his eyes. “So that’s how you did it.”

She bared her teeth at him. “You take over. I’d like to see you handle him, rat.”

“I wouldn’t get pregnant.” He smirked at her, and Jefferson burbled again with laughter. He propped himself up on his elbows. “I’ve always wished I could, actually. Give it to me, Mendoza, if you don’t want it.”

Paula leaned against the wall. She put her hand on her stomach. “What would you do with a baby?”

“I’d be very loving. The perfect parent.”

She grunted.

“Then when he got to a nice size, I’d cook him and eat him.”

Jefferson said, “You did get pregnant at the Nineveh.”

Paula’s stomach fluttered. She counted days on her fingers. It was only ninety-six hours. The medic couldn’t be sure. “That bastard. He didn’t even warn me.”

Jefferson patted her shoulder. “I’m glad I’m not young. You can have the bottom bunk.” She climbed onto the deck above Bunker’s head.

“You should have warned him,” Bunker said. He folded his arms behind his head. “But you were so busy taking advantage of the poor dumb chump—”

“Shut up,” Paula said, between her teeth.

All Luna was built below the surface, thirty decks of halls and rooms cut from the rock. Its only important industry was cryogenics. The natural gravity was weaker even than on Mars and the floors were treated with plastograv. The officer who met the three anarchists at the space port took them through customs, where they changed out of their own clothes into blue and white striped coveralls with their names and photographs on the left breast. With the officer they rode the fast track of the moving sidewalk past blocks of living rooms. Here and there, the walls were painted with flowers and bushes and grass. Most of the people they saw on the sidewalk wore uniforms: the black and white of the Lunar Army, the tan of the Martian Army, now and then the dark blue tunics and white pants of the Interplanetary Police. The ceiling and walls shed an even light. There were no shadows.

Paula rubbed her face. She was tired. The trip from Mars had taken 135 hours. She was space-sick and she could not eat. Bunker tapped her arm. She went after him and Jefferson down a step to the middle track and onto the slow track and to the motionless floor. The officer took them down ten levels in a vertical car.

“We’re coming to a security area,” he said, smiling. “We’ll try to keep the inconvenience to a minimum.” The vertical settled to a stop and the doors whirred open. They went out to a small room; the lights came on automatically. Paula looked up at the ceiling. She walked beneath a round lens like an eye that moved to keep her in its field. Jefferson sat down on the sofa. She crossed her legs.

A tall redheaded girl came in, carrying a box. She said, “My name is Karene, I’m your technician.” Her voice was meaninglessly intimate, like a nurse’s. She took a small box off the bigger box and showed it to them. “A simple radiation detector.” One at a time, she ran the device over them, an inch from their bodies. Cleared, they all went down a corridor, single-file, and through a narrow door. When Bunker stepped across the threshold the door buzzed.

“You must be carrying something metal,” Karene told him.

“I have two gold fillings,” he said.

“That would not register. Oh. It must be your ring.”

He took the ring off his little finger and gave it to her. Without it the door passed him. Karene put the ring in her bag. “I’ll just hold this for you. Now, if you’ll come this way—”

They were in a corridor painted glossy white. Jefferson was already standing on a red dot in the floor. “Oh,” Karene said. “You’ve been here before. Look straight ahead, please.”

Paula turned to the slight man beside her. “Gold fillings?”

“I meant it in a lighter spirit than it was taken.” The corners of his mouth were stressed in deep lines. She knew that meant he was trying not to smile.

“Next,” Karene said, and he took Jefferson’s place on the dot. The redheaded girl stood by the wall, pressing buttons.

“Next.”

“If that’s an X-ray,” Paula said, “I’ll pass.”

“I’m sorry. We can’t change our procedures.”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Oh.” Karene’s face fell. She stood still a moment, staring at Paula. Nobody said anything. Finally the girl said, “I’ll have to ask. Please wait here.” She went to the end of the corridor. A door clanged open and shut. Almost at once, a young man in a black uniform came in. He smiled at the three diplomats and stood with his hands clasped behind him. They waited a long while, in silence, until Karene returned.

Her cheerful smile was back. She sent the soldier away. “If you’ll come this way, please.”

They went down the corridor. Every few steps they passed through a sensor ring built into the walls. Cameras watched them from the ceiling. Paula walked along behind Jefferson.