Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

“Just the same,” she said, “don’t come here. I can get in touch with you if there’s anything I need.”

“How are you getting along?” He folded his arms over his chest. His gaze went to the little boy on the floor. David passed a bit of rope from his right to his left hand. His head was covered with a thin fuzz of hair; in a few days he would be shaved again. He raised his head, looking for Paula, and beamed at her.

“I just can’t connect that with you, junior,” Bunker said.

She laughed. “Look at his eyes.” The crate under her was hard, and she shifted to a pile of packing foam. “What do you want?”

“There’s a difficulty with the Council over the treaty.”

“Why? Saba is keeping the truce.”

“We have trouble convincing people that what isn’t happening is good for them.”

She looked around the crowded storeroom. The sides of the boxes were stenciled with the word BARSOOM and a long number. She flicked at a bit of packing foam on the skirt over her knee. “In one hundred fifty watches they are taking Ybix down past Jupiter. I’m sure if they know he’s coming they can protect themselves.”

“He confides that much in you? Poor chump.”

“He doesn’t confide anything. Is that all you want to know?”

Bunker scratched his chin. His black eyes glinted. “There’s the incident at Luna.”

“Pah. That was your fault.”

“Let me finish. That little exercise ushered General Gordon into the permanent rose garden. Luna is now suffering under General Marak, whose itch is money, not god. The Council says if the treaty works, we should be able to bring Matuko to answer for two ships and eight crewmen and a government.”

“Two ships,” she said.

“ Ybix destroyed two patrol ships at Luna, didn’t she?”

David had taken hold of her skirt and was dragging himself up onto his feet. She watched him, remembering what had happened at Luna. “What did you have in mind?”

“The Council says if the Styths are dedicated to peace and law, they’ll be willing to put the case before the Universal Court.”

She put her hand down, and David took it, wobbling on his widespread legs. “Well, maybe they will.”

Bunker’s folded arms unlocked. He put his hands in the pockets of his heavy jacket. “Are you serious? Can you get them there?”

“Can Crosby’s Planet handle a visitation? Send them a subpoena.” She watched her son lower himself down to the floor again. “Not to Saba. He wasn’t even inboard during the shooting. Send it to Tanuojin.” She smiled at David, delighted by a new thought. “Send it by way of Machou.” David let go of her hand and landed with a thump on the floor.

“Will it work?”

“Maybe.” She stood up, stooped, and lifted the little boy up into her arms. “If it doesn’t I’ll try something else. How is Jefferson?”

“Fat Roland is getting old.” He shook his head. “We’ll be in trouble when she leaves the Committee.”

“You’re always in trouble. Send the subpoena.” She went out to the lane between the shops.

She sat on the hard shore of the lake playing her flute. Behind her were the tenements where the fishermen lived. Their ten-foot oars were propped up against the walls and their nets hung off the eaves in loops of mesh. The lake spread out before her like a sheet of carbon. The edge rippled against the flinty shore. She wondered what stirred the water: maybe the motion of the Planet.

Saba was coming along the shore toward her. She stopped playing to warm her hands in the sleeves of her tunic. Although she saw him often enough in the street, he had never seemed to notice her before. He came up beside her.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m just sitting here.” She picked up her flute again. “I like it here.”

“I want to talk to you.”

“Talk.” She blew six quick rising notes on the long black flute.

He sat down on the ground beside her and stared across the lake. She played the dream sequence from Alfide’s Spanish Anarchist . In the lake shallows, fish schooled, no longer than her fingers. They fed on waterbugs, invisibly small. Where the water was deeper, a flat shape stirred off the bottom—a Ybix, which fed on the fish.

“Look,” he said. “I want you to do something for me.”

“What?” She lowered the flute.

“If you do I’ll take you to Vribulo.”

“I can go to Vribulo by myself whenever I want.”

“I’m in love with this girl who lives in there.” His head jerked back toward the tenements behind them.

“Oh.”

“I’ve never felt like this about a girl in my whole life.” His hands rose off his knees. “But I can’t even talk to her. Her husband keeps her locked up. I’ve only seen her face three times. I’m going crazy.”

“Oh.” She turned to look back at the tenements, draped in nets. “Is he a fisherman—her husband?”

“Yes.”

“What is she like?”

“She’s beautiful. And she’s so young, and soft, and—” He rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Ive never felt like this before. Take a message to her for me. You can talk to her without anybody noticing.”

“What message?”

He sat back straight, smiling. “I knew you’d do it. I’ll buy you anything you want.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she said.

In the middle watch she went to Illy’s house, where Boltiko was fitting a dress to the young wife. Paula sat in the fur chair drinking kakine while Illy turned slowly around, her arms out, and the prima wife tacked up the hem. The dress had three sets of sleeves, one snug to the wrist, one slit to the elbow, one open to the shoulder, in three different kinds of cloth. The rest of the dress was black.

“How does it look?” Illy asked Paula, high-spirited.

“It’s beautiful. Tiko, it’s stunning.”

Boltiko said, “Neither of you thinks I can do anything.” Kneeling, she sat back on her calves to look, her moon-face placid with a smile.

“Wait until he sees it,” Illy said.

The prima wife held out one hand, and Paula got out of her chair and helped her stand, her fat hanging in layers off her bones. “He won’t be seeing too much at home, unless I miss the signs.”

Illy’s hands paused, unfastening the clips down the front of the dress. “What?”

Paula curled up in the soft white chair again, her head on the arm. Boltiko said, “He won’t be sleeping with any of us for a while, that’s what. Here, let me have it.” She removed the dress from Illy.

Surprised, Paula watched the young wife’s face drop open with alarm. “He has another woman.”

Boltiko was folding the new dress. Smoothing the cloth under her hand, she laid her gaze a moment on Illy. “Put your clothes on.” She turned to Paula. “Am I right?”

Paula nodded. Illy turned away, one hand out for her yellow robe. Boltiko stood watching her back, her vast face soft with sympathy.

“Child, you will never learn.” Her hand stroked and stroked the dress hanging over her arm. “Well. I have work to do.” She went heavily out the front door.

Illy sat down in the other sling chair. There were tear slicks down her cheeks. “Who is she?”

“A girl in the Lake District.”

“How can he do this to me?”

Paula sat up and filled her little cup again from the jug of kakine. Illy said, “Is she young? Have you seen her? Is she younger than me?”

“Yes. She’s very young.”

The Styth woman’s eyes overflowed with tears. The bright robe hung open. Under it she wore white underclothes like harness. Her body was beautiful, like her face, even crying.

“How can he do this to me?”

“Come on,” Paula said. “I’ll rub your back.”