Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

Bakan spat again. “Until he came to Saba.”

“What is that stuff?” she asked.

“Laksi.”

“Did he fight Saba?”

Sril said, “The Man let him know what he was going to do to him for Tanuojin’s sake.” His gaze went to Bakan, sitting on the corner of the desk. “Do you think The Creep can take Ymma?”

“That lady,” Bakan said. “My opinion, since you asked. The Creep is under-ranked. He’d be eighth or ninth if he’d fight more.”

Paula wandered around the room. The two men talked about fighting. She could not sit still; she was trying to imagine what was happening up in the House—what a pit fight was like. She wondered if she were right about Machou. Being Prima was its own defense. If Tanuojin would fight more, he would be hurt more, and they would all see that he was not just a blood-stauncher. What was he? His touch had healed her wounds in seconds.

“I’m still hungry.”

“Go get her something to eat,” Sril said to Bakan.

“Why should I go?”

“Because I’m on duty. Go on, just go to Colorado’s.”

A shout sounded in the arcade. Paula wheeled around. The door burst open, and Ketac rushed into the room, his face shining.

“Tanuojin just beat Ymma down in seventy-three seconds.”

Sril whooped, throwing his hands up over his head. Bakan spat. “I knew it. It’s just surprising it took him so long.”

“What about Saba?” Paula said.

Ketac turned on his heel in the center of the room. “It was The Creep’s fight from the beginning. Machou never even stood up.” He looked at Bakan. “The Creep worked on him a little. Once he saw that Machou wasn’t stepping in, he tore Ymma’s face off.” Ketac clapped his hands together. “I’ve never seen anybody fight like that. Smart like that.”

Paula went to the door. The arcade was filling up with men. Their voices rose, jubilant. She reached for the door, but it sprang out of her hands. Tanuojin shouldered in past her. His shirt was splattered with blood and his hair hung down over his shoulders. His face was scored with half-healed scratches. He was hot and he stank and his rare smile showed. Paula moved away from him. Marus and Kany and others of his men flooded in the door behind him. He shouted, “I wish I could afford it, I’d buy for the whole city of Vribulo.” His hands were covered with blood. The other men slapped him on the back. Saba came in behind him and draped one arm around him. Paula lowered her eyes.

Before she had her coat off, Boltiko and Illy burst in the door. “What did you think of Vribulo? Where did you go?” They closed around her. Illy took her coat and Boltiko hustled her into the kitchen of her house.

“Did you go to the Akopra? Where did you stay?”

“In the Barn.” She sat on the curved bench at her kitchen table. There were cushions on it, to lift her up to a Styth level. “We went to the Akopra and saw The Dragon .” Boltiko put a steaming cup before her on the table. Illy sat beside her.

“ Dragon . Was it good? But you wouldn’t know.”

“Tanuojin said it was terrible.”

“Tanuojin,” Boltiko said. “Was he there?”

“Where is David?”

“Where did you go to eat?” Illy said. “Did he buy you anything?”

Boltiko said, “The baby is asleep. He was so sick before, I walked him up and down all last watch, but he’s better now.”

Paula sipped the sweet tea. Boltiko worried over every cranky cry. “We ate at Colorado’s. What was wrong with him—his stomach again?”

“Colorado’s,” Illy said, blank. “What’s that?”

“A dock,” Boltiko said. “You should have made him take you somewhere nice, Paula.”

The tea was gone. Paula sat back, her hands on her warm belly. “I liked it. All the women were painted up; I felt like a mouse. I guess they’re whores, aren’t they? Saba had some trouble with the Prima—Tanuojin was in a fight in the pit.”

“I hope Saba didn’t get involved?”

“What was wrong with David?”

Boltiko sat down in a chair across the table from Paula. “His tum-tum. Poor baby.”

“Little glutton.”

“Who fought Tanuojin?” Illy said. “Did he win?”

“Oh, yes. It was Ymma, the Lopka Akellar.” Paula watched Boltiko sip from a cup, dainty as a nun. “You don’t like Tanuojin?”

“That man will ruin Saba,” the prima wife said.

“I don’t know him,” Illy said. “My brother hates him.” Her brother was the Merkhiz Akellar, the Prima Cadet, whose cadet was Saba.

“Do you like him?” Boltiko asked Paula.

“No.”

“I knew him—before Saba’s father died, sleep deep, when we lived in Vribulo, Tanuojin practically lived with us. After Melleno fired him.” Boltiko took her cup across the kitchen to fill from the jug on the counter. “He’s low-born, he’s ambitious, and he is evil. I can feel it.”

“How do you know he’s low-born? If nobody knows who his parents were.”

“With those nigger-eyes,” Illy said, “he’s slave-bred. Tiko, me too.”

Boltiko brought the hot jug and filled each of their cups. “He is no slave. He’s deviant. He should have been destroyed at birth. That’s the law.” She sank into her chair. “Instead, some soft-hearted woman protected him. She suffered. Everybody who ever helped him has suffered. Melleno gave him work and a respectable position and he seduced his daughter. Yekaka took him in and he betrayed him to Melleno.”

“Seduced his daughter,” Paula said. “Whose daughter?”

Illy gulped her tea. “Melleno’s. When he was the Prima, and Tanuojin worked for him. Here. I’ll show you how to tell your future.” She turned her empty cup over on the table.

Paula leaned toward the prima wife. “Tiko, you’ve known him longer than I have, but I can’t see Tanuojin seducing anybody.”

“He drugged her.” Illy lifted the cup. A wet ring showed on the tabletop. “See? It’s unbroken, that means my love is true. If it’s broken, that means lovers.”

“He drugged her,” Paula said to Boltiko. The story fascinated her. And Tanuojin would have been much younger, just clubbed, a creepy adolescent.

Boltiko’s round shoulders rolled in a shrug, her eyes watched Illy’s cup, her mouth was pursed. “She was very young, Diamo. Why would a girl like that, sweetly bred, defy her father for a man like Tanuojin?”

“Diamo.” It was a pretty name. I-love-you, it meant. Which seemed a possible answer.

“Drink your tea,” Illy said. “We’ll tell your future.”

In the lake shore market place, the people of Matuko were pressing thick around the open stall selling illusion helmets. Paula went through the mob, David slung on her hip. A roar of laughter went up. Like a flag a pair of white lace underpants waved above the crowd at the end of a long black arm. Paula glanced around her. Sril was waiting in a line to buy Martian cloth. In another direction, she saw three more people she knew coming out of a shop, packages in their arms. She would have to risk being spied on. Going down a lane between two shops, she went through a back door and into a room filled to the rafters with crates.

“Hello, junior.”

A window in the far wall half-lit the narrow open space between the rows of boxes. She went sideways, into the dark. “You’re taking a chance. You’re lucky you gave that message to the right slave.”

He shut the door behind her and switched on a light. “Not exactly. I understand he’s your property.” He crossed the room to pull a shade across the window. Paula sat down on a crate, putting David on the floor at her feet. Bunker looked thin. Neatly he settled himself across from her on a heap of quilted padding.