Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

Her numbed arms pulsed, swelling up fat, and she sat down a moment to get her breath. A man laughed in the hall outside her door. She stood up again, holding her arms out carefully to balance the yoke. Below the window, Leno slammed the bonnet down on the car. Grease covered his hands. The cook’s white cat was trotting across the meadow toward the trees. A daw flew at it, shrieking, and the cat broke into a gallop. The bird harassed it into the trees.

The door opened behind her. Tanuojin circled the foot of the bed toward her. He kicked the broken chair aside.

“You could get out of anything.”

She stood with her back to the window. The late sun hit his chest. He said, “Saba has Jefferson half-convinced you misunderstood us. I want you to tell her you did.”

She shook her head. “It’s a mistake.”

“It isn’t a mistake. Listen to me. You call yourself an anarchist.” His hand shot toward her into the sunlight, palm up, his claws like hooks. “Then when you come to the crunch you get stuck on some damn rule about being peaceful. This is where we take it all. Are you going to let some idiot weakness about a little bloodshed keep you out of it?”

“What do you know?”

He shouted at her, “I know I need you and you’re letting me down.”

“For my own reasons.” Her fists were clenched. Her wrists hurt. Her whole body shivered with anger. “I’m doing what I want, not what you want, not anybody else—”

“Because you’re a coward.”

“Who is a coward? Why do you do everything you do, your whole life, everything—because you’re afraid—Hit me.” She watched his hand cock back. “Go on, big man, show it off. You’re down on your knees to that Empire, and I’m not, so you have to beat me down to your level.”

She was watching his hand, expecting him to hit her, and to her surprise he lowered it. He said, “One last time, Paula. Join us.”

She turned back to the window and looked out. Her arms hurt. She felt his presence like a pressure against her. Finally he went off around the bed toward the door. Halfway there he stopped.

“You’ll beg me to take you back, Paula. When this is over.”

She ignored him, and he left. She went once more around the little room. Everything was over, her whole life for nothing. He might revenge himself on David. Saba would protect his son. Dark was coming. The colors faded out of the room. Her eyes strained in an ashen darkness. The Styths’ world. She had to get away, she could not live with them any more. The floor rippled under her feet. A wave of heat struck her and carried her into the wall.

A sheet of light blasted her eyes. She dragged herself back to consciousness. She was lying face down on a burning floor. Flames crept toward her along the seams of the floor. Her lip was burned when it had touched the wood.

She pushed herself up on her hands and knees. The walls were burning, and the bed. No use trying the door. She staggered up and went to the window. The curtains burst into flames. The heat made her eyes itch. When she touched the window frame her hands shrank from the heat. The bedtable was beside her, with its lamp and clock. She swept them off the tabletop and picked it up and threw it into the window. The glass burst outward. The curtains had burned to nothing in an instant. She put her head out the opening in the window.

It was Saba’s voice. “Paula! Jump! Hurry!”

Her dazzled eyes could not find him in the dark below her. She put her feet up on the window sill, flinching from the heat, and launched herself into the outside air. He caught her.

The cool air bathed her face. She turned her head away from the fire, still uncomfortably close. Saba took the yoke off her wrists. Somebody was screaming.

“What happened?” Kasuk said, behind her. “Where’s my father?”

“Somebody just bombed the house,” Saba said. “I haven’t made up my mind if it was the Committee or the Sunlight League.”

“Where is Tanuojin?”

“In the barn. There’s seventy bricks of fuel in there. Go help him.”

The young man raced off. Paula raised her arms, scored and welted from the yoke. The fire crackled in her ears. Saba knelt beside her.

“Was it the Committee?”

She shook her head. The whole house roared with the fire; its rippling orange light brightened the meadow back to the trees. She stood. Leno ran up, his arms pumping.

“We have all the ships safe. And the fuel. The shed is burning now, that’s a hot fire.”

“We have to call Ybix and Ebelos . My scout’s parked in the desert. We can meet the big ships halfway here. You and I and Tanuojin.”

Leno stuck his hands on his hips. “I’m not leaving my crew here.”

“We can pick them up in a watch and a half. Leno, we have to get off the Planet. If they catch any of the three of us, no one has a chance.”

Paula stood watching the house burn. Her face was tender. In a stream four or five men raced around the edge of the heat ball. Sril led them.

“Mendoz’. Somebody said you were in there when it blew up.” He turned toward Saba. “Akellar, Ybix is all here and sound.”

“They got the cook and the cat.” Saba swung around. “Kasuk!” His hand closed on her wrist. She gritted her teeth. Her torn skin stung at his touch. Kasuk came up, smelling of smoke.

“You take care of her,” Saba told him.

“Yes, Saba.”

Saba went off through his men. He was gone in a moment. She backed away from the heat of the fire. The Styths’ faces glistened in its light.

“Come on,” Kasuk said softly. “This is dangerous, standing around here. Junna!” He touched her shoulder, and she went obediently out of the crowd, into the dark, the two young men flanking her.

“Do you know where to meet Ybix? ” she asked.

Kasuk glanced behind them. They reached the wood. The flickering light from the fire poked its long fingers ahead of them among the trees.

“I know one thing, which is not to stay around here.”

Junna said, “Where did Gemini go?”

“To Ybix . Tanuojin brought Ybicsa down on the Sun Day.”

A web broke against her face. She scrambled down a short rocky slope through a screen of brush. The roar of the fire dimmed away. Now she heard the soft, particular voices of the crickets and birds around her. Her eyes ached.

“It’s so open,” Junna said. “I feel so left open here.”

Behind them another thud of an explosion bumped in the air. There was a clatter of sharper noise. Kasuk caught her arm.

“Guns. We need someplace to hide.”

A hot Styth cheer went up, bloodthirsty. Junna cried, “They’re fighting!” He started back through the trees.

Kasuk pulled her into the curve of his left arm and got his brother by his right. “They’re asking to be killed. We have to hide. Paula, where can we hide?”

She wiped her scalded face. Cold and dark: a cave. “Halstead’s. The Underground.” She had no idea how to find the roadhouse on the ground.

“Kak,” Junna said. “They’re fighting back there. I’m going back.”

“Listen to me,” Kasuk said. His voice was intense. “Papa told me to watch you. He’s gone now, he’s a thousand miles away. If you’re hurt, he can’t heal you, you might die.” He pushed his brother ahead of them into the wood.

They went on through the trees. She could not keep up with them at a walk. When they reached the edge of the wood and came out to a cornfield, the two Styths broke into a trot. They ran through the stubble of the corn. When she fell behind, Kasuk came back for her.

“Run.” He took her arm and half-carried her along. They jumped a narrow stream at the edge of the field and ran down a steep open slope.