Floating Worlds (32 page)

Saba announced he would take six of his crew down to Crosby’s Planet. The crew drew lots. Then the high-ranking losers fought the low-ranking winners in the corridors and the Tank and the galley, until the four men of Saba’s watch and Marus and Kany from Tanuojin’s watch wound up with the red tickets, strictly in order of their rank.

“Why hold a lottery at all?” Paula asked, when they were on the space bus.

“Because then nobody can say I keep pets.”

Beneath the window, the cone-shaped mechanical Planet rolled its pitted surface into the sunlight. Its silver skin was a solar battery, gleaning energy for the interior. Saba moved around on the seat beside her, David on his lap. She knew the bench was too narrow for him. The gravity bound her down. She wondered how David felt.

The men behind her were arguing loudly about the conical Planet ahead of them. Sril insisted a gunshot would pierce the skin. Paula sat back, her hands in her lap. She had heard that a solid missile would dissolve in the Planet’s fields long before it reached the surface. They were the only passengers on the bus. David stared open-mouthed out the window. She glanced over her shoulder at Tanuojin, two benches back and across the aisle. He sat with his arms folded, a book tape in his ear, his eyes on the floor. She turned straight again. She was sick with anticipation; Crosby’s Planet was the first terrestrial Planet she had seen in nearly four years.

“Mama!” He stood up in Saba’s lap, pointing out the window. Saba dropped him down again.

“Sit still for once. You have the manners of a white anarchist.” Paula laughed.

The mouth of the entry port opened round and dark before them, marked with red lights like a wreath. The interior lights in the bus came on. Paula set the edge of her hand on the window to shade the glass. The entry port was a shaft running down the Planet’s axis. On the curved metallic walls, a red arrow flashed. Although she could see nothing she pressed her forehead against the sour-smelling plastic-window. The bus slowed, turned, and ran into a slip against the wall.

“Please remain seated until the spacecraft is anchored.”

Paula took David by the hand. His crew moved up around them. The driver opened the hatch. They filed out through an inflated tunnel. At the far end they came into a brilliantly lit white room.

Saba flinched from the light. David wheeled and hid his face against Paula’s body. The other men stopped around her.

“Jesus, it’s like a furnace.”

A phalanx of people approached them, small, light-skinned people. Licking their smiles. They introduced themselves to Saba: a welcoming party from the Politburo of Crosby’s Planet. Hands pumped. Tanuojin went up beside his lyo, and everybody began talking insincerely in the Common Speech. They were in a cell along the edge of a vast white terminal. Paula went up to the rope that cordoned them off from the rest of the place. A crowd was gathering to stare at the Styths.

“What are they? Are they real?”

“That one must be almost eight feet high.”

David clung to her, his arms around her thighs. She blinked. It was warm here, and she unbuttoned the front of her coat. The people pressing up against the rope were pale and dark and brown, all short, like her. None of them even noticed her, their eyes on the Styths, the freaks. Their weight on the rope knocked over one of the standards.

“Mendoz’,” Sril said.

She let him take her back in among the crew. Someone murmured, “Here, little boy,” and Kany picked David up. They started off through the terminal. A string of policemen escorted them. In the midst of the Styths, Paula went along unnoticed. They took a moving stair down one level, to the Styths’ raucous amusement.

“You must be Paula Mendoza.”

A toothy man smiled at her, walking along beside her. Sril barged in between them. Before she could speak he had forced the white man away out of sight. She frowned up at the little gunner.

“I’m just doing my job,” he said, injured. “Don’t blow your rack at me.”

Paula clenched her teeth. She could hear an important voice up at the head of the herd, telling Saba how the Planet had been built. Past the men around her she caught glimpses of the lighted display windows of shops. The air smelled like wintergreen.

They came to a moving sidewalk, and the police were shoving back the crowds for them. People already massed the fast track of the sidewalk. With the Styths Paula stepped up from the curb onto the slow belt. The traveling band carried her along above the covered street, swarming with traffic. She looked up over her head. The white ceiling was pocked with lights and air vents and the speakers of the public address system. Tanuojin was behind her. He pushed her, and she went across the middle track to the fast one, passed Saba who was still in the middle, and dropped down beside him. Tanuojin had come along behind her. David was asleep in Saba’s arms.

The dark man who had met them made a dapper bow at her with his head. “Welcome to Crosby’s Planet, Mrs. Mendoza.” He had a robotic perfection of voice and mannerism.

“What did you call me?” she said.

“My wife is an anarchist,” Saba said. He took her by the shoulder, his favorite handle. “All thorns and no bloom.”

The robot released a peal of genuine-sounding laughter, as if Saba had made some witticism. Ahead, the moving sidewalk passed through a narrow gateway. On either side, in glass booths, men in uniforms stood facing them. The robot took a billfold from his neat black tunic and flipped it open to show a badge. They went through the gate without even stopping.

“What is that?” Tanuojin said. He looked back.

“A checkpoint,” she said.

“You mean they even tell these people where they can travel?”

“It isn’t that bad. It’s all done by statistics.”

Tanuojin laughed in a flash of shark-teeth. She wondered what he thought was funny. He said, “You know, I’m beginning to think we lead a very quiet life in Styth.”

They crossed a large open plaza, studded with trees in planters. The leaves were pale yellow. On the far side was the building where the Universal Court was held. The dapper man said, “We’ve arranged for you to stay at the Palestine Hotel, just around the corner—you’ll probably never have to leave this sector.” His voice was edged with warning. The moving sidewalk carried them past the plaza and they got off.

Inside the glass doors of the Palestine, a swarm of little men in red and gold jackets surrounded them. Saba passed out liberal amounts of money and signed many papers. Paula walked around the hotel lobby. The tile floor was inlaid with a stylized map of the Levantine Coast, the ancient cities marked in stars. A gold dromon sailed in the rippled sea.

They crowded into one car of the vertical train. Paula heard someone’s head strike the ceiling, and Marus swore, behind her. The car took them down six levels, very fast.

Tanuojin said, “I hope there’s some other way out of this place.”

“Stairs,” Saba said. “At either end of the hall.”

The robot had come with them. In the Common Speech, he said, “While you’re here, Akellar, consider our office at your disposal.” He gave Saba a plastic card. “We have copiers, a deaf-room, workrooms, taping rooms, guaranteed phones—” He led them out of the vertical and across a short corridor. “There are two other suites on this floor, but they open on the other side of the stack.” He opened the door before them with a little flourish. “I’m sure your privacy will be undisturbed.”

Paula went into the room beyond. The air smelled of freshener. The Styths poured noisily after her. David gave a sleepy wail. The big room was shaped like a half-moon, decorated all in black and white and clear acrylic. The mirror over the couch was curved to fit the wall. The men around her were reflected all along the wall, made taller and denser by the concave mirror. She went across to a door and opened it.

In the room beyond the lights came up very bright. There were two twin beds against the far wall of the room. She went back to the half-moon sitting room and opened the next door. This was a narrow kitchen. The tap leaked. She tried the third door off the sitting room and found the master bedroom.

Three hanging lamps like lanterns shone on when she crossed the threshold. The wide bed was covered in a tufted spread. She kicked her shoes off. The mirrors on two of the walls made the room seem even bigger than it was. A buzz sounded behind her. She pulled out a drawer in the wall and found a videone.

A pale face mouthed at her from the screen. She turned the volume up.

“—Messages here for you, if you’d like me to send them down.”

“Messages. From who?”

Tanuojin crowded her out of the way. “What’s this?”

She wandered off across the room. The light drenched her, the warmth, the richness of the carpet under her feet, the softness, as if the dark cold of Styth had dried her to a husk. David came in, yawning.

“Mama, I’m hungry.”

She looked through a side door into a dark bathroom. There were already footprints on the thick pale carpet. Her son pulled on her skirt.

“Mama!”

Tanuojin crossed the room toward her. “Who is Sybil Jefferson?” His face was bland.

Paula grunted at him. “You know damned well. Did she call? I wonder what she’s doing here.”

Saba walked in the doorway from the sitting room. His shirt was stained dark with sweat. “I’m hungry. Get us something to eat. And make them turn the heat down.”

Paula went over to the videone. When she pushed the top button, the screen lit up, off-white. She said into the phone, “Room service.”

“Yes. That is number 833. I’ll connect you.” The screen switched to an advertisement for hairsuds.

Sril was standing just behind her. “Mendoz’. Do they have women here?”

“You mean like the Nineveh? No.”

He made a face. The advertisement cut away to a rolling menu: roast beef, red pork, pilaf and mikambu and salmon mousse. She ordered it all.

“And a couple of gallons of chocolate ice cream.” The kitchen clerk was typing the whole order onto a computer terminal. “And a case of champagne.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the clerk said. “Real ice cream?”

“Yes. Where can he get laid?”

The clerk’s fingers never broke rhythm. “MH-111-1-15-77-3. Ask for Elsie.” He rolled the bill out of the machine. “Six roast beef, six ham, six—”

“Don’t read it, send it. Room 1017. Thank you.” She called the front desk and had them turn the air conditioning down to 50 degrees.

Saba and Tanuojin stood at the foot of the bed talking. David was asleep again on the floor. She dragged him out of the way of the men. Sril went out, repeating rapid-fire the address the kitchen clerk had given him. She hoped Elsie was cosmopolitan. She went up beside Saba.

“What about Sybil Jefferson?”

Saba glanced at her. He turned to Tanuojin, his chin thrust out. “See if you can raise the ship.”

“Tell her,” Tanuojin said. “What are you trying to do, Saba—you know if she takes to it she can escape. Do you want her to fly out when we’re in this up to the hairline?”

“Go raise
Ybix
, stud—leave her to me.” Saba poked him in the chest.

“You know so much about women, big man, I know more about her than you ever will.” Tanuojin headed for the door. In passing he knocked a hanging lamp swinging.

Saba turned on her. “What did he mean by that?”

“How would I know? He’s your friend.”

He charged out toward the sitting room. She followed, shutting the door so they would not wake David if they fought. In the black and white room, the rest of the crew was scattered around. Tanuojin tramped through them to the bedroom on the end and disappeared. Saba kicked at the baggage piled in the middle of the floor.

“Stow this. Bakan. Call the ship.”

Bakan passed Paula into the bedroom. Sril said, “Akellar, we were hoping we could get a leave.” The other men watched him hopefully. There was a knock on the door.

“Room service.”

In the next room, David cried, tearful, “Mama?” She went to answer him. His face was bleary with sleep. He held out his hands to her.

“Mama, I want to go home.”

“I know, David. I have a surprise for you.”

“I’m hungry.” Holding her hand, he went into the front room.

Three shining white hot-carts stood just inside the door. Styths ringed them. A lid clanged to the floor. She smelled the meat and her mouth sprang with water. Saba was in the doorway paying the waiters. Tanuojin came out of the far room and cursed his way through the thick of the other men. Paula crowded in between Sril and Marus. Someone stepped on her foot. She got a spoon, stooped, and reached between legs for a drum of ice cream.

David stood by the couch, rubbing his eyes. Grouchy, he looked around him. “I want to go
home
.”

“I know.” She sat him down on the couch and fed him a spoonful of chocolate ice cream.

He mouthed it, his face still caught in its fret, and swallowed. His eyes widened. He opened his mouth, and she gave him another bite. At the expression on his face she burst out laughing.

“Here.” She put the spoon into his hand. “Don’t make yourself sick.”

He hacked at the ice cream with the spoon. She stood up. The Styths were scattered around the room eating. She found a plate on the bottom shelf of a cart and forked up the last slice of beef. Saba came over beside her, flipped back another lid, and reached into a fruit salad.

They stood side by side, eating. One bin was half-full of succotash. He ate the beans and she ate the corn. After a while, he said, “Sybil Jefferson is at the Interplanetary Hotel.”

“Akellar.” Sril came around the carts, facing him, and stood at respect. “We’d really like a leave.”

“Just a second.” Saba raised his head, looking around at his crew. “You stay out of trouble. You remember that gate we came through, on the trudgeway? They have those all over this place. They can tell where you are within a five-hundred-yard radius, anywhere.” He ate fruit. “Go on.”

“Thank you, Akellar.” The room emptied of them. The door shut.

Saba was chewing something. “Pine—” he frowned, trying to remember. “Pinefruit?”

“Pineapple.”