Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

Saba stood back, taking his hand off the door pull. Paula was between him and Tanuojin. A file of men was walking toward them. Ymma was third in the line. The man in front walked up to Saba. His face was rutted with scars around the eyes. His hair was streaked with white and his ropy gray mustaches hung down over his chest. Paula glanced at his hands, fisted on his hips. On his left wrist was an iron manacle. He said, “Open the door for me, Saba.”

Tanuojin hissed. Machou drew his gaze slowly from Saba to stare over Paula’s head. His chest looked wide as a wall. He radiated confidence. Saba pulled the door open, and they stood there while Machou and his whole crew filed out. Tanuojin swore. He charged through the door behind them.

Paula followed in the hot wake of his temper. Saba came after her. She stopped. Machou and his men were just going out the door to the street.

“That’s what having a father accomplishes.” Tanuojin came up to Saba. “Every time you see a gray hair you back off.”

They went out to the street. The men walked along arguing. Paula looked up over her head. The streets were thick with traffic. The air smelled bad, like grease. Rancid. Nearby a siren began to whine. A man tore past her. Two steps behind him, another man ran after him, the siren screeching on his belt.

They went back to the Barn, the long building at the foot of the rAkellaron House. In the arcade Ketac came to meet them. He had a long knife in a sheath on his belt.

“What happened? We heard you were in a fight at Colorado’s.” He turned to walk beside them, down the arcade.

Tanuojin said, “What’s the watch?”

“About thirty minutes to one bell.”

They went through Saba’s office, across the narrow filing room, and into the little sleeping room. There was a crystal lamp burning and the place was relatively warm. She took off her coat.

“Ymma and Machou just backed us off over at the Akopra,” Tanuojin said.

“Backed you off?” Ketac wheeled toward his father.

Saba sat down on the bed and reached under it for the bottle of liquor. “He’s the Prima Akellar. I don’t see how I can pick a fight with him over precedence. What are you so hot over?” He was talking to his lyo; his voice was genial. “If Ymma challenges you and you start to lose, I’ll step in. And Machou will step into me, and we’ll get the teeth kicked out of us. But I won’t close that market.”

There was a cup on the table by the bed. Paula took the bottle from him and poured a slight two fingers of whiskey into the cup and took it over to the window. Outside, the noisy, filthy city stretched away like a vast tunnel. Sirens roamed in the gloomy streets.

Ketac was saying, “You’re going to fight in the pit.” His voice was thin with excitement. Tanuojin came up to the window, ignoring her beside him.

“Well, maybe,” Saba said.

Tanuojin looked the same as he always did, flute-thin, his gray shirt undecorated, his black slot-buckled belt and leggings like anybody else’s. Paula cast a glance back into the room at Saba. She put the cup on the window sill. “Machou is afraid of him,” she said to Tanuojin.

He stared out the window, his long dished profile toward her. “You’ve blown your tubes. Machou hasn’t even had to fight in sixty or seventy sessions.”

“I take it if Ymma is losing, Machou can jump in and help him?”

“Step in. Yes.”

“That’s why he played that farce at the Akopra. Now he can stay out and nobody will say he’s afraid of Saba. Therefore he’s afraid of Saba.”

The corners of his mouth rolled down; he still refused to look at her. He pulled his mustaches between his thumb and his forefinger. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What is Ymma to you?”

“My cadet. One rank below me. If he beats me he takes rny place.”

Saba came up behind him and put his arm around the other man’s waist. He was half-drunk. “Why are you heating up? You can handle Ymma.”

“I can’t handle Machou.”

“I’ll take Machou.” He glanced behind him at Ketac, who was going out of the room. The door shut, and Saba turned to Tanuojin again. Saba’s voice fell to a murmur. “Just don’t show off. If you get hurt, stay hurt.”

“I can’t make myself bleed.”

“They know you’re a blood-stauncher. That doesn’t matter. Just don’t let them find out about the rest of it.” He slapped Tanuojin’s ribs. “Go get some sleep.”

“I’ll call you at two bells.” Tanuojin went to the door. Saba had the whiskey bottle with him, which he raised to his mouth. Paula reached for her cup. Machou was old, and Saba was young, strong and young. She thought over the display at the Akopra. Machou had known that Saba would not defy him over a courtesy. Another ritual.

“Can he beat Ymma?” she said.

“Oh, sure,” Saba said. “He’s just panicked. He ran into a hammer the last time he fought in the pit. Bokojin tore him up.” He dribbled liquor into her cup. “I wouldn’t like to be Ymma. Tajin has a lot to prove. Drink that, don’t waste it.”

One bell rang, in the next room, and in the city other bells rang, tuneful and cracked and clanking, all over Vribulo. She said, “You’ll be late to meet Tye.”

“Oh. I forgot.” He put the bottle down empty and strode out. Paula dragged a chair over to the window and climbed onto it to reach the window shade. A siren started up in Machou’s smoky crowded city. She leaned against the frame, her hand above her head, looking out there. Saba was third in the rAkellaron order. With work and some luck, he would be Prima. Work, luck, and money. She pulled the shade down over the window, undressed in the dark, and went to bed.

At two bells Saba and Tanuojin went into the rAkellaron House for the session of the central council of the Empire. Paula wanted to go out to the city, but Sril refused to let her leave the office.

“I’m hungry,” she said.

“I’ve got orders,” he said. He was sitting behind the desk in the front office, one leg crooked over the arm of the chair. “One thing I never do is disobey orders.”

Bakan came in, bear-sized. “Any word yet?”

“No,” Sril said. “They have to wait until Machou finishes his own business—it won’t be until the mid-third of the watch. She’s hungry.”

“Take her to Colorado’s,” Bakan said.

Paula started back through the filing room; she would go out the window of the bedroom. Sril reached ahead of her and shut the door before she could leave the main office. He said, “The Man told me not to let her out.”

“Did he tell you to let me starve? You can come with me, I won’t run away.”

Sril’s hand stayed on the latch of the door. To Bakan, he said, “Bokojin offered him fifty thousand dollars for her. You can see what he’s afraid of.”

The hulking man crossed the room to the other side of the desk. “Here, Mendoz’. If you’re hungry, try this.”

“Who is Bokojin?” she said. She took a flat orange strip from his hand. It did not look like food. She bit into the end. The stuff was of the texture of strip protein and as hard to chew. The bitter taste screwed her face up. She spat it out.

“Ugh!”

The two men were laughing; Bakan slapped his thigh with amusement. He chewed a mouthful of the stuff like a cud. “Mendoz’, you aren’t as tough as you think you are.” He turned his head and fired a gob of spit into the wastebin in the corner.

She worked her lips to get rid of the horrid taste. Her tongue was numb. Sril’s face danced with amusement, but he left the chair and went into the next room and came back with a cup of water for her. Gratefully she drank it.

Sril sat down again, his hands behind his head. “Bokojin is Saba’s cadet. Vice captain of the Uranian Patrol. Machou’s favorite. He’s a comet, he’s been in the rAkellaron about the same time as Tanuojin, but he whipped up the rank—”