Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

“Paula.”

“Uuh.” She opened her eyes. She was floating. Something bounced off the top of her helmet, and it lifted away. The green light of the holograph shone brilliantly in her face. Saba stooped beside her, wedged between the seat and the wall.

“How do you feel?”

She put her hand up to her head. “That’s a jolt.”

He laughed. He looked beyond her, at Tanuojin, who did not laugh. Her left hand, still thrust under the harness, smarted rhythmically. She pulled her gloves off. The harness straps had imprinted the backs of her hands in deep purple welts. He took her fingers.

“Don’t do that.” He pointed up over her head and went back to his seat.

She raised her eyes. The ceiling was clear, a wide window. The stars shone in a broad swath above her. Near the edge of the window two crescent moons shone, one the size of an orange, the other the size of a pea. Her helmet was fastened to a clamp in the ceiling, obscuring the middle of the sky.

“That was a damned dead perfect launch,” Saba said, ahead of her. “We’re plus or minus one for the chute.”

She could hear the cluck of a radio in the back with Tanuojin. She leaned around her seat to look. Twisted in his seat, he was bent over a deck of instruments, earphones over his head. A red light on the panel flashed on his cheek.

“Get me some temperature readings,” Saba said. She turned straight. Enormous, splendid, Saturn was rising into the window, spilling its light into the cab. In the holograph’s green cube Ybicsa like a pin dropped into a thickening yellow radiance.

“About this new ship,” Saba said. “Maybe if I tuck her in a little at the waist, she won’t tail up so much at launch.”

Tanuojin said, “You have that ship half-built already, and you don’t even have the money to buy the model plastic.”

Saba reached awkwardly around the back of his seat and patted Paula on the knee. “I’ve got it right here. I just haven’t converted it yet.”

The cab was filled with the Planet’s light. At the edge of the holograph the green thickened to a yellow like cheese. Ybicsa shot toward it. They were passing over the rings, now resolved into a flood of particles, sparkling in the sunlight. She could see only the innermost stream. The curve of the Planet showed through it.

“Temperature readings. Rim: 300. Thermolayer 1137. Ten M, 350. Twenty M, 152.”

The Planet glared in the window. Red and yellow plumes of gas ran past them. They thickened to a light-filled cloud. The ship plunged through a yellow fog. The holograph showed Ybicsa nosing into a pale stream that backed and curled like a river through the Planet’s substance. Ahead, a darker loop bulged into the stream, pressing it out on either side.

“Braking,” Saba said. “Paula, put your helmet on.”

She stretched her hands up over her head toward the ceiling. The helmet was beyond her reach. She wrestled with the harness. She was heavy; she weighed enough to hold herself down in the seat, and the clamps on the harness were too stiff to open. She pulled at the straps holding her down.

Tanuojin leaned across the back of her seat, took the helmet off the ceiling, and rammed it down over her head. “Put your gloves on!” he shouted.

She found her gloves and fitted her hands into them. Her mouth was dry. The ship rocked violently and she slid forward into the harness.

“Reef,” Tanuojin said. “Coming fast.”

“I see it.”

A thick dark stream wound along the holograph. The ship bucked down, lurched to the left as if she were sliding down a wave, and heaved herself straight again. The suit was rigid. Paula could move her fingers inside the fat gloves but the gloves were immovable. The light was fading. They passed into a deep dusk, into a midnight darkness. The pressure suit had hardened like a shell around her. She looked up overhead. The darkness was complete. Suddenly a fragment of coherent light appeared, a long streak that melted away while she watched.

“What’s that?”

“False image,” Saba said. “Döppelganger.”

There was a scream of noise like an alarm going off. A mechanical voice said loudly, “A-39, A-39. This is Saturn-Keda, identify.”

Ybicsa bucked upward again and fell off sheer to the left. Paula gulped down the nausea in her throat. Dizzy, she fixed her eyes on the seat before her. Tanuojin was saying, “SIF 16 Ybicsa , armed scout from SIF 6 Ybix . Barkus-rating H. Check white records. Automatic clearance rAkellaron confirmed.”

Paula moved her fingers. The suit was beginning to soften. Ybicsa sailed into a long curve, and she fell against the harness. She braced herself on her arms. The ship swung around again, faster than Paula’s stomach.

“ Ybicsa , this is Saturn-Keda, we read an unregistered person in your craft.”

“No registry. Female mixed blood.”

“Status.”

“No status. Saba’s property.”

“Paula,” Saba said, under his breath in her ear, “Look up.”

She raised her head. Over them, in the dark, was a vast slimy roof, festooned with scum and feathery crystalline growth. The underside of Saturn-Keda. She straightened to see the holograph. The scale had changed; Ybicsa was four times as large as before. She was flying along below a glob like an Idaho potato, trailing long strings like roots down into the magma. The bubble was too large for the map, and only a patch of it showed.

“ Ybicsa , this is Saturn-Keda, we will dock you from here. At point you will lock your control system into—”

“Stop,” Saba said. “I dock my own ship.”

“We do not allow—”

“Stop. Call Melleno. This damned dumb computer.”

She looked up again at the encrusted skin above her. They were passing a root trailing down into the dark. Spidery outgrowths sprouted like hairs from it, barely visible.

“There’s a lot of radiation, Saba,” Tanuojin said. “All the dials are white.”

“It’s always hot around here this part of the spin.” Saba wheeled out of his chair. He pulled off his helmet and turned to help Paula. He stood with one foot braced on the sloping side of the ship.

“I thought you said she’s smart,” Tanuojin said. “She couldn’t reach the helmet, back at the brake. She’s too stupid to ask for help.”

The helmet lifted off her shoulders. Stiffly she said, “Thank you.”

“You stupid pig.”

She started up. Saba pushed her down into the seat again. He said, “The suits are all on one line, if one isn’t sealed, none of them seals.”

“Oh.” She glanced at Tanuojin. “Then I take it back.” She sat straight in the curved seat.

“ Ybicsa ,” a live voice said, in the radio speaker, “this is Saturn-Keda. You may dock under manual power. Use XM-7. Please do not race. If you stall in the tunnel, remain where you are and we will guide you in.”

Tanuojin got up. He stood in the narrow aisle beside Saba’s seat, one long arm braced on its back. She leaned to one side to see the hologram. Ybicsa floated in a green soup. The ship’s wake showed clearly in the shifting light of the map. She nosed forward into the mass of the bubble. Its skin, overgrown with rough crystalline, seemed to thicken out of the magma around it. Ybicsa ’s needle-snout disappeared into it, and a new hologram wiped diagonally onto the map. Ybicsa flew into a narrow tunnel. Light flashed blinding through the window. Tanuojin raised one arm to shield his eyes.

“What was that?” she asked.

“The dock is leaking,” Saba said. “Read off the speed, will you?” His voice deepened; he was talking to his lyo.

“One-two,” Tanuojin said. “One-two. You’re going too fast. Three-four. Three-four.”