Floating Worlds (49 page)

“Enter the Grand Fink, attended by constabulary.”

His hands were tied, and a yard of rope connected his ankles together. He ignored her. The policeman beside him said, “We caught him at the excursion boat terminal—he’d sabotaged all the boats.”

Bunker said to Cam, “You told me if I delivered Mendoza you’d let me go.”

“A promise to an anarchist,” Cam said, smiling. Before the ragged man she stood spotlessly white and clean. “Especially to you.” She looked at the police. “Was he alone?”

“Yes.”

Paula licked chocolate off her fingers. Then Kasuk was gone. She thought of Sril again. If he was dead Bakan was surely dead. As she would soon be dead.

Bunker was looking at the floor. He shot a murderous sideways glance at Cam. His trouser legs were wet to the knees. Cam swaggered around him toward Paula.

“He’ll talk. He’ll tell us where they all are, from Jefferson on down. Mendoza is mine. We made an agreement. I handle the civilians and you handle the military.”

“Exactly,” Hanse said, genially. He sat down again, his knees spread to accommodate his great melon of stomach. “She’s necessary for military intelligence. She probably knows half their general staff.”

Savenia’s cheeks were patched with red. “She’s a criminal. She—”

“I’m not exactly letting her loose,” Hanse said.

“Neither am I.”

A man in a brown uniform brushed through the crowd, stopped before Hanse, and stuck out one arm in salute. “General, the Styth Manta is maneuvering very close to the dome.” Hanse went at top speed out the door.

Paula sank down into the yielding chair. Now that she saw a way out of it, she began to be frightened of dying. Cam bent over her.

“Don’t get your hopes up, baby. You’re done.”

Behind her, Bunker murmured, “The Bearded Lady of the Sunlight Freak Show.”

Cam turned around and slapped his face. Paula blinked. “I thought that went out with girdles.” Bunker had not moved; the only sign he had been hit was the faint mark on his dark cheek.

“Shut up,” Cam said, and went away down the room.

“Why did you listen to her?” Paula said to him. “She’ll kill you.”

General Hanse came back down the room, trailing a little plume of cigar smoke. “They’ve made another rendezvous. If Luna would cooperate we could gun down the bastard when he stops dead in the air like that.” He huffed at Cam, whose back was to him. He pointed at Paula with the cigar between his fingers. “You speak Styth?”

“Like a Styth,” she said. She could not resist robbing Cam. She stuck her chin out at Bunker. “So does he. If you need corroboration.”

Hanse swung around, interested. “Oh?”

Cam hurried down the room. “I’m serious, General. I need these two for propaganda purposes.”

“Do you need the Army?” Hanse said. He planted the cigar between his teeth. Cam’s face settled. He nodded to Paula. “Lock them both up.”

The Martians gave her pills, weighed her, bandaged her arms, bathed her like a baby, and locked her into a small room on the sixth floor of the same building. She slept. She dreamt of Sril and woke up crying. She paced around the room, thinking of David. He was safest in Matuko. She would never see him again.

The room was equipped with a bed, a desk and chair, and a little washroom, so she expected to stay there awhile. The window was of triplex glass and did not open. Down below, many floors below, crowds moved along, ropes of people, like one animal, never stopping. When night fell the glow of fires lit the dome with brilliant rippling orange light, fading to black and shooting up again, fiery, like an aurora.

The following day and for days and days thereafter, from early morning until well after dark, men in uniforms brought her lists of questions and taped her answers. Most of the questions were military: they wanted to know where the Styth cities were, how they could be attacked, how
Ybix
was laid out inside, what her crew was. Sometimes she had no idea what they were talking about. She told them the truth, except when they asked about Saba’s assassination; then she said they had shot the wrong man. Her door was locked and a guard posted outside. The men who sat on the far side of the desk reading questions at her never spoke to her personally—never even said hello to her. The woman who brought her meals didn’t talk at all. Once the guard outside her door made some careless remark to her while an interrogator was leaving. The next hour he was gone and a stranger there who would not look at her.

At night the dome was a great display of light, flickering here and there, red to yellow. The room was sound-proof. She could see the crowd churning below the window, but she could make no sense of what they did, she couldn’t even see if they were anarchists or Martians. Whenever the interrogators left her alone, she looked out the window, trying to see what was happening.

One morning while she was drinking her coffee, General Hanse came in. She turned her back to the window and put her cup on the sill. The fat man settled himself in the chair by the desk.

“Well, you look a lot better than you did.”

She went around her chair and sat down, the desk between them. His wide cheeks rolled down to his chin. When he leaned back the chair creaked. He said, “You’ve been very forthcoming. I guess it hasn’t been easy on you, the last week, but you’ve passed the test. Bunker corroborates practically everything you say.” He took a flat leather case from his jacket. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Yes.”

With the cigar halfway out of the case, he paused, his moist eyes unblinking. Finally, he took out the cigar and got a clipper from his pocket. “That’s too bad,” he said, with genuine regret in his voice.

“What do you want?”

He said, “I want to know what the enemy is going to do. That’s simple enough.” He lit the cigar, puffing his cheeks full.

Paula rocked her chair back on its hindlegs. She knew who her enemy was.

“Are you married to him?”

“To who?” she said, startled. “To Saba? God, no.”

“But you did bear him a child.”

She stared at his pear-shaped face. “He gave me my son. That was ten years ago.”

“Dr. Savenia says he’s the motive force behind the Styths, but you and Bunker both seem to think it’s this—Tan-you-gin—”

“Tanuojin,” she said. “Four syllables. Accent on the antepenultimate. They’re a matched pair. Tanuojin does the long-range thinking.”

“That isn’t what Dr. Savenia thinks.”

Paula lifted one shoulder in a shrug. She didn’t care if he believed her. His questions baffled her. They had nothing to do with what she knew would be happening in Styth. Maybe he did not know what to ask.

“Well,” he said, “we have the psychological advantage, at any rate—they have to come to us.”

Sharp in her memory, Tanuojin’s voice sounded, denouncing psychological tactics. She moved her chair back and forth. “Can I get out of this room? Walk somewhere—in the park?”

“No.”

“I’m—I hate being cooped in.”

“We’re afraid someone might try to do you some damage.”

“Damage,” she said. “Who?”

His round body bulged his uniform out in tires of fat. “Another anarchist, perhaps. There’s been a certain bitterness. Although you people are submitting pretty tamely.” He took out his cigar case and removed a thick brown finger from it. “You know—” He wagged the cigar at her. “You screwed yourselves. You made such a fetish out of peace, and then when the bite came, you couldn’t even defend yourselves.” He peeled the plastic wrapper off the cigar and licked it all over. With almost no effort she saw it as a thin brown penis. He stuck it in his mouth. “I can see being shy of irrational force, but rational force is what holds a community together.” He lit the end of the cock in his mouth.

She covered her mouth with one hand to hide her smile. He put the light-stick down beside the ashtray.

“You know, I don’t understand you.” He set the cigar down on the dish. “You’re an intelligent, pretty woman, you know your way around—what’s the attraction in a tribe of primitives who paint their faces and pound their chests?”

The cigar was smoking in her face. She thrust the dish aside. “Have you ever met a Styth?”

“I’ve seen them.”

“Talked to one?”

“I don’t speak the language.” He put his round shoulders back against the chair. “I’m told they smell bad. Their bodies certainly do.”

She circled her hand over the desktop. “They have scent glands in their necks that open when they get angry. Or sexy. It has an aphrodisiac effect after a while. Do you belong to the Sunlight League?”

“I’m not interested in politics. You didn’t answer my question. How did a woman like you ever get involved with the Styths?”

She rocked the chair back and forth, her eyes on him. “Oh, I’m noted for cultivating the lower orders. I even know some Martians.”

His mouth closed up tight. She said, “Don’t rub me up, General.”

He reached for the cigar and tapped off another round of ash. “I’m trying to make this more pleasant for both of us.”

She made a nasty sound with her tongue. He fooled elaborately with the big cigar, watching his hands. “You know, Dr. Savenia has some interesting ideas about what to do to you and Bunker. When—” He smiled at her, cherubic, putting the cigar in its dish. “If I ever release you to her.”

“Fine.” She leaped up out of her chair. “Torture me. Kill me. The Earth is dead anyway, and you killed it.” She knocked the ash and the cigar flying. “You and the Sunlight League.”

The fat man’s jaw was clamped shut. His jowls hung loose over his jawbone. She went away to the window. The crowd below carried signs and waved flags. Hanse shouted, “Rodgers!”

A young man came in, cracking to his salute like a spring straightening. Hanse pointed to the dish and the smoking cigar. “Pick that up.”

The impeccable soldier gathered the cigar and the ashtray and reassembled them on the desk. Hanse said, “Captain Rodgers, this is Paula Mendoza.”

Paula turned her head. Rodgers glanced at her. “I’m pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

Hanse said, “Captain, I want this place kept clean. Go arrange it.” Rodgers left. The fat man’s chair wheezed. His eyes were fixed on her.

“Yes, General. You were just threatening me.”

He scratched his rolled chins. “I wasn’t threatening you, honey. You’re being very useful.” He pried himself up out of the chair. “Keep it up, and we’ll get along.” He went out.

When Hanse had been gone about half an hour, Captain Rodgers came into her room again. “I can see you need some behavior training.” He took her down the hall to an empty room and tied her up, her knees crooked around a length of pipe, and her wrists fastened to her ankles. She lay alone in the dark room for a full day. When he came back and untied her she could not stand. He dragged her back to her own room and left her. She rubbed and worked her legs for hours until she could walk again.

Rodgers seemed to be in charge of her. He brought papers and supervised the rare appearances of the maid. He hardly ever spoke to her. Periodically he took her down to the little room and tied her up and left her. Once he hung her head-down from the ceiling. Her meals came at irregular intervals, with now and then a day when she went unfed. Although he pulled her hair he never beat her. She thought he was afraid of leaving marks.

One night a knocking on her door woke her. She rolled over in her bed.

“Yes?”

“Please dress, Miss Mendoza. You’re wanted downstairs.”

“Forget it. I’m tired.” She buried her head in her arms.

“Miss Mendoza.” Rodgers banged on the door. She put the pillow over her head, but he went on hammering. Finally she got up and put on clothes: a long dress. All the Martians would give her was dresses.

“All right, I’m coming.” She picked at her hair with her fingers.

They went down to Cam’s vast office. Sleek as an otter, Cam herself sat behind her desk, smoking a cigarette in a plastic holder. General Hanse was talking to a group of his own people. Paula walked down the room. There was a tall statue opposite her, a young man made of stone; a six-foot acrylic poster hung on the wall beside it. She looked slowly around the room, startled. On the wall on her side of the room was an illuminated initial from Kells. Rodgers touched her arm, and she sat down in the chair he indicated.

Dick Bunker was coming in the door. She yipped, delighted: he was wearing a uniform. Three of Hanse’s khaki soldiers followed him down the far side of the room.

“Paula,” Cam said. Rodgers tapped her shoulder again. She went up to the desk. There was a little gold cherub beside the ashtray; it looked old. Probably it had been converted into a cigarette lighter. Cam leaned back in her swivel chair. She was smiling, her mouth red with paint. General Hanse beside her looked rumpled. She held out a medal on a chain.

“What does this mean?”

Paula lifted it by the chain. It was the medal of the order of the Supernova; on the back in Styth characters was Sril’s name and the word Matuko and a saying: “
I flower where I bleed, rose without thorns
.”

“Did it come in the mail?” she asked. She put it down on Cam’s desk.

“What does it mean?”

“Somebody considers you responsible for the death of a Styth. It means they’ll take vengeance.” She looked from Cam to the fat general. “Which of you got it?”

Hanse wheeled toward Cam, leading with his jutting chin. “Satisfied, Dr. Savenia? You brought us all here just for an audience for this.”

Cam smirked at him. They started to argue, and Paula backed away from the desk. Bunker was standing in front of the marble statue. She went across the room to him.

“Look at this,” he said. “She’s looting the Earth.”

The statue was almost six and a half feet tall. Its smile and magnificent body reminded her of Kasuk. She turned back to the other anarchist.

“Why are you wearing that cowboy outfit?”

He moved one shoulder to indicate Hanse and Savenia. “She tried to detach me, so he drafted me into the Army. I’m a major, which is one higher than that plastic captain you came in with. What did that medal mean?”

“I’m not sure.”

“A message to you, maybe.”