Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

“Take me there.”

Pedasen found her slave’s clothes: baggy white trousers and a white quilted tunic. They walked down to the lake and along the street that followed the shore. The watch was high. Lines of boats rowed across the black water, drawing their nets after them. Three oars to a side they crawled on the still lake surface. The street was busy with slaves going to and from the market on the city wall to her right. Pedasen led her down a steep lane between rows of tall old houses, smelling of fish.

“You’re asking for worse than a whipping,” he said once.

They cut through a part of the Varyhus, along a stretch of the factory fence, and came to the Tulan. Here it was quiet. Banks of white grass grew on either side of the path and in the lanes between the walled houses. She saw no one else, not even children, until they turned a corner and came to a broad stretch of rubble.

For two or three acres, broken concrete and plastic covered the ground. A cart stood in the street, half-full of debris. Two slaves were shoveling in the mess that littered the street. Other white slaves stooped and picked through the ruins. A bilyobio tree grew up at the edge of the street. Paula went over to it, watching a single file of Styths on the far side of the blown-up place. The rubble crackled when she stepped on it, gave way, and nearly dropped her. Pedasen grabbed her elbow.

“Paula.” He nodded at the Styths two hundred feet away. “That’s him.”

She stepped carefully over a broken wall, high as her knees. There was a puddle of melted plastic on the far side, still warm. The sharp edges of the trash cut her shoes. She saw something bright in the blackened crumbled concrete and picked up a metal buckle.

“Paula!” Pedasen hissed, behind her.

She showed him the buckle. The etched design was laid in with soot. “I’ll bet you this I can walk right up to him and he won’t even see me.”

“You’ll get your back peeled off.” His lips were pressed together, like Boltiko’s when somebody swore. She rolled the buckle into the cuff of her sleeve. Watching for things she could salvage from the junk, she crossed the ruin. A sweetish stench of acetone came from the burned ground. Pedasen followed her. At a big two-headed bilyobio tree in the middle of the place, three slaves had gathered to pass a jug of water around. She stopped near them.

“Give that over here,” Pedasen said, and the strange slaves handed him the jug. They were all watching the Styths.

“Find anything?” one said, low.

Pedasen shook his head. He jabbed his chin at Saba and his men, who were cutting across the rubble toward the next street. “How long has he been here?”

“Since the half-watch,” another slave said. They were all talking in murmurs. Paula looked up at the bilyobio. One stubby upper branch was split, but otherwise it seemed untouched by the explosion. The jug came around to her and she sipped the cool water. Saba was scanning the ground, his hands on his hips, and his face gripped with bad temper.

“Have they found anything?” she said.

“Two bomb casings,” a strange slave told her.

Another man took the jug from her. “They’d have found plenty, but Tssa’s men were here last watch cleaning up.” He grinned; he had no teeth in his upper jaw.

“Who is Tssa?” she asked.

Pedasen’s elbow slammed into her ribs. “Don’t ask questions.” To the others, he said, “She’s fresh, she still talks too much.”

Saba was coming closer, his men strung out behind him. His son Dakkar was among them. The slaves moved away from the bilyobio tree, hurrying in their quick stride, bending to search in the trash. Paula drifted over toward the Styths. She circled them once, coming within five feet of Saba. He kicked at the ground and black char flew in a spray. He looked straight at her without seeing her. She went slowly back toward the street, casting around on the ground for salvage, met Pedasen, and they started home.

She reached the compound, left her slave clothes with Pedasen in the slaves’ room of the Manhus, and retrieved David from Boltiko. When she went in the kitchen door of her house she could hear the sawing of the swing chains in the front room. She went down the hall to the archway. Saba was sprawled on the couch, her flute in his hands. He was trying to play it, but as hard as he blew over the mouthpiece he could not draw a note from it. Seeing her, he put the flute down.

“You’re lucky I don’t lose my temper easily.”

She laid the baby on the floor by the Capricornus cabinet and tucked his blanket around him. “This seems to be the only way I can get your attention.”

“I’ve been busy.” He took a strip of green recording tape out of his sleeve, and she went to the foot of the swing. “This came from the Earth while you were out running around like a whore.”

She took the tape and sat down on the swing with it in her hand. “Have you had it transcribed?”

“I’ve listened to it. There are about fifty questions on details and they’re complaining about something in the bond clause.”

She wound the tape into a coil. That was why he was keeping his belt on. She said, “You never come near me any more.”

He stirred. His eyes shifted away from her. “I don’t want to get you pregnant again.” He fussed with his mustaches. In her imagination she heard something stop, like a song stopping. She made herself admit that she had lost him. She looked quickly away before he saw it in her face.

“What are you going to do about that?” he said.

She put the tape on the couch. “I can’t tell until I read it. There’s no sense in worrying about it anyway before you stifle this street action against the treaty.”

“That’s not your business.”

“It is my business. If you can’t put this treaty over here, I might as well go back to the Earth. Do you know who’s doing it?”

He scowled at her. She faced him, expressionless. “Is it Tssa?”

On the floor by the cabinet the baby squealed. She went to look. He had wakened; he seemed happy enough staring at the shining cabinet door.

“What do you know about Tssa?” his father said.

“Not me. The slaves. The slaves see everything that happens. None of you ever notices them, but they’re everywhere.”

“What do they say about Tssa?”

“His men were there in the Tulan, before you saw the ruin. Is this attack on you or just the treaty?”

“Me. Do you know how I received my call?”

She shook her head. He stood. Relieved of his weight the couch swayed off in a parabola. She went to catch her flute before it fell.

“I had two older brothers. They murdered my father. I and Tanuojin came after them and killed them.” His back was to her. Soot powdered his sleeves. “It was the hardest time in my life. We were outlaws here, nobody could help us. For forty watches, whenever one of us slept, the other had to be standing guard. That was when I knew I was called to follow my father. To be the Akellar.”

“Why did they kill him?”

“With Yekaka there was always some reason.”

She looked down at the flute in her hands.

“Anyway, my oldest brother left two sons, both young, very young, and like a fool I let them stay in Matuko. Tssa is the elder. I’m almost sure he’s engineering the trouble, but if I take him on suspicion and I’m wrong, it will only make the thing worse, and I can’t get a grip on him. He’s too cautious.” He made an impatient gesture. “Or he’s innocent.”

She took the flute apart. The box was on the table under the window. “I look like a slave. I could go right into Tssa’s house. Find out whatever you have to know.”

“Don’t be a fool. I need you for this other work, and he’d catch you. He’s not stupid.”