Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

He pushed her out of the way. She fell onto one knee. The dog sprang at him and he swiped at it, one-handed. In mid-air the snarl broke into a ki-yi-yi-yi, and the dog bounced into the grass. It scrambled onto three legs, one forefoot curled up near its body. Down its fawn side welled four long stripes of blood.

Paula got up, cold, and shaking all over. The dog hobbled in a circle around the big man. Its throaty snarling raised the hair on her neck. She had never seen a dog act like this before. The Styth’s teeth showed white, like a smile. Under his breath, he said, “Want some more, little thing?” He moved back, stooping, and the dog lunged after him. The man wheeled around with an animal’s fluent grace and slashed out. The dog gave a single cry. When it hit the ground it lay still. Paula took a step toward it. Its forepaws were twitching, trying to run. Blood ran from its belly. Its eyes were like blue glass in the domelight.

“Are you all right?” the Akellar said, amiably.

“Oh. I’m fine,” she said. “Just lovely.” She started on toward the trees, her legs unsteady.

“Do you have a rag—something I can wipe my hand on?”

There was a scarf wadded up in the pocket of her jacket. Under the trees, she stood watching him clean the blood off his fingers and claws. He said, “It jumped on me. I have a right to protect myself.”

“Yes,” she said.

They went on, now going downhill, skirting thickets of thorny vines and steep rocks. An old dirt road cut over the flank of the hill. Dry puddles of cow dung spotted it. They followed the road down to the creek, curving off between two pastures, lined with willow. Frogs and night insects made a racket its whole length. Paula led him down the bank a hundred feet from the road and sat down and took her shoes off.

“You said he’ll have claws. Our son.” He dropped on his stomach and put his face down to the water to drink.

“That’s what the doctor says.”

“He’ll go out of his head here when they start to grow in.”

She stuck her feet into the icy water. In the open pasture beyond the stream, six or eight black and white cows lay sleeping, all facing the same way. “When he gets old enough maybe I can send him to visit you.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

He sat on the bank digging stones out of the ground. “Because somebody from this world would have the shit torn out of him in Styth.”

“Oh, really? It’s that bad.”

“No. That’s just the way we live.” He piled white river stones before him on the flattened grass.

“An anarchist can live anywhere.”

“Not in Styth.”

Almost in front of her a frog plopped into the water. A moment later its eyes bumped above the surface. “You don’t expect much of a future for this baby, do you? He’ll go crazy here and be killed there.”

“That’s right.”

She frowned across the river at the cows. His certainty sawed on her temper. Around her the capes of willow branches rustled in the light breeze.

“About this treaty.”

“Un-hunh,” he said.

“We need a truce.”

“A truce!” His head flew up. “You mean I have to stop fighting?”

“That’s the accepted definition.”

“No. Impossible. That’s my only money. I have to support my crew. I have fourteen children, and the way my wives expect to live—and Ybix costs me more than a wife.” He took one of his stones and threw it down the creek. It splashed into the water a hundred feet on, and several other splashes echoed it: frogs.

“You’ll have all that money from the trade agreements, remember?”

“I’m going to use that for something else.”

“Oh? What?”

“That’s none of your concern. No truce. Get me the rest of it without a truce.”

“I can’t. No truce, no money.”

He bounded onto his feet. “I should have known there was a hook in it somewhere.” He walked off into the pasture behind her. She waggled her feet in the water. He came back and squatted beside her. “No truce.”

“What about just with the Council?”

“The Council only has a couple of ships.”

“I know.”

“Then it’s a sham. Forget it. I don’t traffic in lies.”

“No truce, no money.”

He took another white stone from the pile and threw it with a scythe motion of his arm. This splash sounded much farther away than the first. She reached for his hand. Down the backs of his fingers the tendons ran like wire. She remembered the dog; she had not realized how strong his hands were. She remembered how he had tricked the dog into attacking him. He closed his hand over hers and held her.

“All right,” he said. “With the Council, for a definite length of time. Not too long.”

She let her breath out. “Ten years, I thought.” Jefferson would settle for seven.

“Ten years. But that had better be everything—the trade agreements, the truce. Nothing more.”

“One more thing.”

“What?”

“I want to go with you. Back to Uranus. To Matuko.”

He released her hand. Bending over his collection of stones, he fingered one after another, choosy. “Why? To be with me?”

Her feet were dry. She put her shoes on again. He said, “Not for me. You aren’t very flattering, you know.”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“You could rub me up a little, you know, I mean, cater to me a little.” He cocked his arm back and fired a stone across the stream. On the grass opposite them a black and white cow jerked up her head out of a drowse, turned suspiciously toward her flank, heaved herself first to her hindfeet and then to all fours and trotted away. The Akellar swore.

“I thought that was a rock. What is it?”

“A cow. They make the milk.”

They walked back up the stream to the road. The Akellar said, “It’s a different kind of life, in Styth. It won’t be easy, even with me there to take care of you.”

She ducked her head and shoulders through two rails of the fence along the road. “I don’t want to do things that are easy. I want something hard.”

“It’ll be that.”

Down in the pasture, the cows were moving in their leisurely pace up toward the gate. The big man vaulted the fence and took her hand.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll take you. Do you want me to marry you?”

“No.”

“That way the baby would be legitimate.”

“No.”

The road led steadily upward. Dawn was coming. The wood looked strange, clogged with shadow, while the road grew lighter. They crossed a cattle guard and went down the brick path toward the Committee House.

“You’ll have to insist on it,” she said. “On me going. Or Jefferson and Bunker will get suspicious. Maybe even null the treaty.”

“You don’t trust them.”

“Well, I trust them.” She scratched her nose. “They don’t exactly trust me.” She glanced at the Akellar, curious. She had expected him to balk at taking her. She should call him by his name now, stop thinking of him by his title, and as an instrument. In the yard, he let go of her hand and veered over toward the air cars. She went inside.

All the spice cake was gone; the sweet potato pie was gone. She poured a glass of milk. The Akellar did not come in. She opened the back door. He was sitting on the steps, his legs out before him. She said, “Come inside, it’s about to rain.”

“Rain?”

“Every morning after the sun comes up it rains here. It has something to do with the shape of the dome. Look.” She pointed. The oncoming rain was shaking the trees on the far side of the meadow. The downpour swept in across the grass. He went out to meet it. He held his face up to the rain and opened his mouth. The rain streamed over him. It drummed on the air cars and beat on the roof and went on busily off across the dome. The Akellar came up to her, his mustaches plastered to his jaw and neck, laughing, his arms spread.