Cecelia Holland - Floating Worlds

“One of them is honest.”

A dull explosion sounded outside the building and something fell off the wall. The floor heaved under her. She flung one hand out, startled. She had to get out of here.

“Do you think a strike will work?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Nothing will ever be the same again, that’s sure. You have your revolution, junior.”

“Help me get Tanuojin’s sons off the Planet.”

“Why should I? They’re no better than the Martians. Why help a pack of Fascists?”

“The debt owed to common humanity.”

He squinted at her in the darkness. “What?”

“Insurance.”

“You are baroque.”

Another bomb rumbled in a long explosion, farther away than the first, and the window behind her rattled. She said, “Put Tanuojin in your debt. You may need that someday.”

“For what?”

“Don’t be obtuse. You know what he can do. The more he does, the more he’s capable of. Who knows what his limits are? I need an air car.”

“The Committee cars are all in the entry port. The League holds that, and the locks.”

“The Manhattan boat.”

“What?”

“Why not? The tourist boat to the underwater dome.” She shivered. The broken window breathed cold air down her back. “They love water.”

“Maybe. I can…I have a key to the lower lock.” He opened the door. “Come on, junior.”

She followed him out to the corridor. He walked with a limp. The hall reeked of char. “They’re down at the southern end of the dome, in the park, near the wall.” Carefully she picked a way over the rubble blocking the hall. “Can you whistle?”

“Yes.”

She taught him Ybix’s recognition code. “Remember, everything you tell them, Tanuojin will find out.” She stumbled on the pile of papers and nearly fell. Bunker let her go first down the hallway past the overturned desk. She put one hand on the wall for balance.

“Go right,” he said.

Innocent, she went in through a door, and he slammed it shut on her. She whirled. Her shin collided with a chunk of plastic, and she fell. The lock clicked in the door. She slammed against it.

“Dick!”

Silence. She shook the latch. The room was totally dark. She stepped on trash. Stooping, she ran her hands over the littered floor. Books, and a bookcase, and a jumble of wires half-melted into a clump. The meeting room. She brought an image of it into her mind. There were no windows and only the one door. In the table, somewhere, was a switch to unlock the door. On her hands and knees she crawled into the depths of the room and found the tabletop, lying on the floor, its broken legs under it.

Another bomb exploded, so close the building trembled. She felt carefully along the underside of the table’s edge. Maybe Kasuk would develop a vicious streak and take Bunker along with them to Ybix . Hunting for the switch, she occupied her mind with the various things the Styths would do to him for doing this to her. She found a switch and pressed it. A light flashed on in the ceiling and exploded. The wrong switch. While she was searching for the right one the door burst open. A blinding torchlight glared in her face.

“Stay where you are! We are government police. Put your hands up.”

She turned her back to the light. Her eyes hurt. Grim, she raised her hands, surrendering.

“Out.” The gun jabbed her in the back.

She climbed out of the air car. She had paid no attention to where they were taking her. They were somewhere in the north of the dome. She stepped down into a plaza in the middle of three tall buildings. Banks of light shone down from the roofs, flooding the place with a blue-white glare. The soldiers pushed her forward. Other people swarmed around her. She was so tired she staggered.

She was coming to a scaffold. A crowd gawked around it, shading their eyes from the blazing lights. She slowed, her eyes on the carcasses that hung upside down from the frame. There were four of them. One was Sril. She stood staring at him, ignoring the men around her and their orders. The gold wire had been ripped out of his nose. Her eyes swam and overflowed with tears.

They took her into the nearest building. She wiped her eyes but they filled again instantly. She wondered how long it would be before she was hung up beside him. The soldiers hustled her along a wide carpeted lobby and through a door.

“Yes,” Cam Savenia said. “That’s Mendoza.”

The Martian woman came down the long office toward them. Her fair hair was smooth as metal over her head, her mouth was painted on. “You said Bunker wasn’t there.”

“No, Dr. Savenia. We posted a guard.”

“Go look for him. I don’t want that particular specimen out loose.” Cam waved impatiently. She wore white gloves, buttoned at the wrist. “And find out how she got into this dome. It must have been the air bus. Check into it.”

Paula stood in the center of the room. At the far end was a desk, and heavy matching wooden chairs were ranged along the walls: an office. The doors behind the desk probably went to a private vertical car. The soldiers left, and Cam sauntered back toward Paula. Her trousers and tunic were white, like a uniform.

“There must be something we can say to each other,” she said.

Paula gave her a hard look. She was too tired to argue. Cam circled her. “Your big hero won’t rescue you. In two hours half the Martian Army will be here to blast Ybix and Ebelos into another Universe.” Cam struck her hard in the chest with the flat of her hand. “Do you understand? You are through.”

A stream of soldiers came into the room, their feet loud on the floor. Cam turned, crisp, to meet the little fat man in their midst. “General Hanse. You’re right on time. Have you heard from the Army?”

The fat man stared curiously at Paula. “Still two hours out, doctor, we can only go so fast.” Paula looked into his glittering little eyes. He was only a few inches taller than she was. He said, “Who’s that?”

“General Joseph Hanse,” Savenia said. “Meet Paula Mendoza. Late toady of the Styth Empire.”

Paula sat down in the big soft chair behind her. Her stomach was gripped with hunger. She felt wrung up to the breaking point, ready to scream. Their voices sawed back and forth over her head.

“What are you going to do with her?”

“Put her on trial,” Cam said. “Get a full public confession, and execute her.”

Paula lifted her head. The front of Cam’s white coat was buttoned in gold. “I’m hungry.”

“You’ll live,” Cam said.

The fat man waved, and a soldier hurried up with another chair. The general sat. He took a stick of candy from one pocket and a long brown cigar from another. He gave the candy to Paula and licked off the cigar.

“How well do you know the Matuko Akellar?”

“I worked for him for ten years.”

“General,” Cam said, “she’s my prisoner.”

“Worked for him. How?”

“She was his whore,” Cam said.

Paula stripped off the candy wrapper and bit into the flat chocolate. “Kind of a lawyer, I guess.”

“Kind of a traitor.” Cam planted her fists on her hips. “What do you think you’re doing?” she said to the little fat man.

Hanse stuck the tail of his cigar into his mouth. A soldier sprang forward to light it. The general and Savenia measured each other. If they had been Styths they would have been starting to smell. Savenia said evenly, “We have an agreement, remember?”

More people were crowding into the room. Cam sidled away from Hanse, her head rising. “Good. You got him.”

Three of her gray-jacketed police were leading Richard Bunker down the room. Paula crowed.

“Enter the Grand Fink, attended by constabulary.”