Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

They walked across to another white building. At the far end of the yard, his son was striking at something on the ground with great full strokes of a sledgehammer. Paula went after the two men into the house. They turned a corner and led her into a room stacked around with boxes. Against the wall, under a window, was a bed covered with a gray blanket, the only piece of furniture there.

“Look at this place,” Saba said to her. He flung his hand out at the piles of crates. “Do you know how long he’s been living here? It looks as if he’s still moving in. Even you unpacked your clothes. He’s lived in this room since he entered the rAkellaron.”

Tanuojin sprawled across the bed. Saba went around the small, barren room. He took a bottle of his Scotch out of the box at the foot of the bed and pulled the stopper out.

“He used to fire it up,” Tanuojin said. “Now he just drinks it.” He twisted around to shout out the window. “Kasuk!”

The hammer stopped. His son’s shaggy head appeared in the open square of the window. Tanuojin said, “Stop for a while. You’re driving me crazy.”

“I’m almost done.”

“Stop for a while.”

Kasuk slung the hammer over his shoulder and went away. Paula sat down on a box. The walls of the room were bare. He had lived here more than five years without making one personal impression on the place.

“Tell me about this court,” Saba said.

“It’s very simple. There’s one judge, drawn by lot out of a pool of three hundred, most of whom for one reason or another are anarchists.”

“Why?” Tanuojin said.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Most of the people in the pool are so anarchistic they don’t even call themselves anarchists. Sybil Jefferson is a judge of the court.”

He was staring at her, his yellow eyes unblinking. His hard look put her nerves on end. He said, “Let me touch her.”

Saba turned, on the opposite side of the little room, and Paula backed up a few feet. “Touch me?”

“Do you want to do that?” Saba said.

“She already knows enough about me to get me killed.”

“Touch me how?” she said.

“Come here.” Saba sat down on the bed’s foot, his hands out. She faced them both, wary.

“What are you going to do?”

“Do you have something to hide?” Tanuojin said. “I won’t hurt you.”

Saba got her by the skirt and drew her over against his knees. “Don’t be afraid.” He put his arm around her waist. She had no way to escape. Tanuojin sat up and took her by the wrists.

“Look over my shoulder.”

She stared into his face, her arms stiff in his grasp. Saba held her uncomfortably tight. Tanuojin said, “Look over my shoulder, damn you, you’re distracting me.” She turned her head, aiming her eyes past him, at the blank white wall. Her arms were warm. She felt a warmth and a pleasant lassitude climbing through the muscles of her arms, across her shoulders, and into her back. Her neck felt hot. He let her go; Saba let her go.

“She had the Committee send that paper to Machou,” Tanuojin said. He lay down on his elbows again. “She’s been meeting somebody from the Committee behind your back.”

She went cold down to her heels. “How did you know that?”

“I know everything you know.”

Saba gripped her shoulder. Her mind refused to work. She stared stupidly at Tanuojin, who had read her mind. He said, “I told you she was a spy.”

“How often has she met him?” Saba asked. His hand clutched her painfully hard.

“Only once. She’ll do it again.”

She said, “If you know—everything, you know I told him not to come back.”

Tanuojin’s yellow eyes gave her a flickering glance. He said, “Lock her up.”

“She’s useless if she’s locked up.” Saba’s free hand landed on her other shoulder. He stood up, holding her fast.

“Then kill her.”

“She wouldn’t be much good then, either, would she?” He held her between them, his hands so tight she bit her lower lip, resisting the pain. “She’s not like us. She doesn’t know better. You can’t expect her to change all at once.”

“You have to do something with her, she’s dangerous.”

“Is it true? Did she tell him not to come back?”

Reluctantly Tanuojin said, “Yes, she did. But just to keep out of trouble.”

Saba pushed her away toward the door. “She’ll learn.”

“She works on the worst things in you,” Tanuojin said. “All your vices.”

“We can’t all be pure and holy like you. Throw that paper away.” He steered Paula out to the hall.

“What is that—how did he do that?” She looked up at him while they walked. “Did he read my mind? What did he do?”

His hand slipped off her shoulder. They went along the corridor at his speed. She jogged beside him. “He has a gift—he healed you, that time, remember? It’s a gift he has, an influence.”

They turned a corner and he stopped and opened a door. Paula went ahead of him into a room like Tanuojin’s. This one was flooded with signs that Saba lived here. His dirty clothes lay piled on the floor and three empty whiskey bottles ranged along the window sill. At the foot of the long narrow bed was her valise.

“Whom did you meet from the Committee?”

She turned by the bed. He was taking his belt off. Her skin crept with alarm. “What are you doing?”

“You have to learn,” he said. He held her by the back of the neck and whipped her half a dozen times with the doubled belt. Through the layers of her coat and dress and overalls she hardly felt the blows. He put his belt back on. She stood with her back to him, her jaw clenched. She hated him so much she could have wept.

He sat down on the bed, watching her. “I think there’s hope for you,” he said. “When you can still get that angry.”

“Do I have to sleep here?”

“Yes.”

“There isn’t enough room.”

“Everybody here thinks you’re my wife. It would look strange.”

She knelt on the bed and pushed the liquor bottles out of the way so she could see out the window. Green and unpeopled, Yekka stretched away from her, hazy with distance. She could revenge herself on him. She knew all his weaknesses. She folded her arms on the broad sill of the window. She could not risk the indulgence. She depended on him; he was her weakness. The wafting breeze smelled of dry grass. She put her head down on her arms.

They slept together in the bed, side by side, not touching. When she woke up, she was alone. The hammer clanged and clanged in the courtyard outside the window. She put on a pair of overalls and the long green dress Boltiko had made for her. Two bells rang.

She went out through the hall. Marus, Kany, and the rest of Tanuojin’s watch were gathered beside the door to read a paper posted on the wall.

“Mendoz’.” Kany grabbed her arm and hauled her into their midst. “What’s this about another trip to the Middle Planets?”

She pried up his fingers, releasing herself. “You gentlemen have been touring the galaxy lately.”

“Now, Mendoz’.” They crowded around her, bumping into her, pulling her hair and breathing down her neck. “You can tell us.” She maneuvered through them and went out the door to the yard. In the doorway the crew moaned and hissed at her.

At the opposite end of the yard, Kasuk was swinging the hammer hard, his body twisting from the heels with each stroke. His hair flew. She went up behind him to see what he was doing. The hammer was pounding at the base of a little bilyobio tree. Every time he hit it the short stump threw off a cloud of silvery dust. She liked the bilyobio trees; she felt as if he were hurting it. Her nose began to itch and she sneezed.

Kasuk wheeled around. “Oh. I didn’t see you.”