Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

The painted girl was looking down at her. The rings of color glowed faintly in the dark, accenting her huge black eyes. “Aren’t you from someplace strange?”

The two men were talking. Paula nodded her head. “From the Earth. My name is Paula.”

“Mine is Tye. Why did you come here?”

“Dumb, I guess.”

The girl laughed. Her dress covered her from throat to feet; the supple cloth moved like water over her body. “I’ve heard a lot about you, and none of it makes you sound dumb.”

“Look,” Saba said. “Do you want to eat or not?”

There was a slave beside her with a tray, holding it by habit up at the level of his head. She pulled it down to her range and took a plate off it. The plate was divided into sections and held beans and soup and leaf. She sat down on the sand to eat it. Tanuojin went off somewhere into the gloom. Saba and the painted girl stood face to face talking. She laughed at something he said and reached out and started to unbuckle his belt. He caught her hand.

A pair of strange boots tramped up, scattering sand into Paula’s lap. She raised her head. The boots belonged to a tall young man in a shirt much decorated with chips of metal. He was staring down at her. She went back to her half-eaten dinner, now liberally salted with sand.

“Leave her alone, Ymma,” Saba said.

She put the plate down beside her. The young man swung toward Saba. “Oh, is she yours, Matuko? You’ve always had strange tastes. But now the Prima thinks it’s time you came back inside the border.”

Saba had the painted girl by the hands. “Tell him to draw me a map.” He smiled at the girl.

Tanuojin came up behind Ymma, a plate in his hand. “Running messages, Ymma?” He fed himself, his eyes on the dish. The younger man swung around to face him, his head thrust forward, belligerent.

“I have a couple for you, any time you want to take them. What your friends do could hurt you, you know.”

“Talk, talk.” Tanuojin turned away. He spoke without missing a bite.

“Are you sure you’re getting enough to eat?”

“Yes. Want some?” Tanuojin palmed the dish and pushed it into Ymma’s face.

Paula stood up. Across the room someone yelped with laughter.

Everybody turned to watch. Ymma gobbled wordlessly through a mask of thick soup and vegetables. Paula circled around to Saba’s far side, out of their way if they fought. Tanuojin leaned over him.

“If you want to fight me, Ymma, do it in the pit, where it matters.” He walked off toward the gate.

Dripping food, Ymma started after him, and Saba got in his way. “Maybe you should wash your face, Akellar.” Ymma backed up a step, pawing at the mess on his face, and Saba pushed him. The younger man retreated from him.

“Paula,” Saba said, “let’s go.” He turned to the painted girl, Tye. “Come to the Akopra with us.”

“I can’t,” Tye said. “I’m meeting someone else. I’ll get rid of him at one bell, if you want.”

“I’ll meet you here.” He gave her a piece of paper credit out of his sleeve. “Get something to drink.” He herded Paula before him toward the door.

In the street, she remembered the look on Ymma’s face. “Who is he?”

“The Lopka Akellar.” Saba was looking around them. “He sits under Machou’s arm. Something’s cooking.” He threw his hand up over his head and shouted, and went off down the street. She had to run to keep up with him. In the street ahead of them, with people passing by on either side, Tanuojin stopped to wait for them.

“Are you coming to the Akopra with us?” Saba said.

Tanuojin hunched his shoulders. “You see what’s happening, Saba. They’re setting us up over that damned treaty. Only it isn’t you they’ll start into, it’s me.”

They were walking at their regular pace. Paula fell behind them. She broke into a run to keep up.

Ahead, along the side of the street, a line of people was forming. The head of the line disappeared around the next corner to the left. Saba led her alongside it. The waiting line thickened. On the far side of the street was another, all in white: slaves. The lines led up the steps of a round building with a dome roof. Bright paper banners hung from the eaves. Saba took her around the head of the line of Styths to a side door.

“The rAkellaron get in free,” he said. They went into a lobby. “A privilege we pay for by making up the house deficit.” A fat man rushed across the lobby toward them.

“Yes, Akellar—it’s been quite some time since we had the honor of entertaining you.” He ushered them up the flight of stairs, breathless with compliments. The carpet over the steps was worn. The hallway at the top of the stairs was dark. Drapery cushioned the walls. The fat man waddled ahead of them to pull back a section of the hanging.

Saba’s hand on her back pushed her through the gap. She went into a little balcony. Tanuojin sat in one of the four chairs, his back to the curtain. Paula went by him to the rail of the balcony. One story down, the open theater was filling with people. She stood on her toes to see over the railing to the round stage. The lights above it came on. Saba lifted her up from behind like a child and put her down in a chair so deep she felt swallowed.

“Can you see?” He sat down on her left; she was between him and Tanuojin.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Are you warm enough?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you fuss over her?” Tanuojin said, in his deep musical voice.

“She’s making me rich,” Saba said.

“Did you tell her how? Look over there. Machou is here, and Ymma is with him.”

Saba’s head turned, his eyes aimed across the theater at the balcony directly opposite them. Three or four people were milling around in the little space. Saba stood up. On Paula’s right, Tanuojin swore and slouched down and put his feet up on the rail. In the far box, a big man sat, and Saba took his seat.

“You’ve got slave manners,” he said to Tanuojin.

“I stand up for him in the pit. That’s all he’s worth.”

Saba put his elbows on the arms of his chair, his hands on his belt. “Neither of you has any breeding.”

“You are all virtue. Tell her how she’s going to make you rich.” Tanuojin’s hand struck the side of her head so hard she was dazed a moment, blinking and stupid. He said, “If any of the rAkellaron want off-world markets arranged, we have to do it through you, don’t we?”

“Don’t hit me,” she said, through her teeth.

“He’s charging us each ten per cent of our advances for the use of what I suppose you call your mind.”

Unsurprised, she gave Saba an oblique look. What Ymma had said about his strange tastes came back to her. In Styth he was probably a dangerous radical. He nodded over the rail.

“Watch.”

The Akopra began. She could make no sense of it. Four men, wearing huge painted masks, moved in stylistic gymnastic poses around the bare stage. The performance was short. At the end, the audience roared and clapped, enthusiastic, the applause lasting for minutes after the four men had left the stage.

“He’s pretty good,” Saba said.

“He’s terrible. They all are.” Tanuojin propped his long legs up on the rail. “It’s supposed to be an art, not a contest.”

Another Akopra was beginning, or perhaps another scene of the same one: the same dancers came back, two in different masks. Tanuojin was not watching. She looked across the theater at Machou, dimly visible in the far balcony.

They watched a third performance, and Tanuojin said, “This is awful. Let’s go.”

Saba rose. “Are you worried about Ymma?”

“I wouldn’t mind if he broke his leg getting down to the street.”

They went back along the quiet hallway toward the stairs, going at a Styth pace. Just as they reached the door, a harsh voice said, “Saba.”