Floating Worlds (67 page)

“Akellar—” A man ran two steps out toward them and pitched forward on his face. Six inches of a throw-stick thrust out of his back between his shoulder blades.

Bokojin gave a loud cry. Three men rushed into the yard. The man leading was Marus, and he had a blowgun in his hand.

Bokojin put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. Ketac took two steps sideways, into the open away from the chairs.

“What is this?”

“You’re under arrest,” Marus said. He looked from Ketac to Bokojin. Two more of his men came into the yard.

Ketac backed toward the door where Paula watched. “What for?”

Bokojin broke for the door he had entered through, and Ketac sprinted toward Paula. She backed in a rush to the window. In the yard someone shouted. Bokojin whistled again. She climbed over the window sill down into the narrow space between the house and the vinework.

Ketac’s slaves clogged the area around the front gate. She went close enough to see through the main door into the house. That room swarmed with armed men. In their midst half a dozen patrolmen stood with their belts strapping their arms down. Someone shouted, “The Akellar is dead!” The slaves around her wailed in chorus. Paula elbowed and wiggled a way through to the gate onto the street. It was shut, and two men stood guard over it, leaning against it. Behind her there was a splintering crash.

One of the gate guards saw her. He grabbed the other man and pointed at her. She slid back among the slaves.

“The Mendoz’! Here she is—”

“Take her,” Marus roared, from the house. “She’s under arrest too.”

Paula went back around the house. Before she reached the backyard she smelled smoke. When she ran around the corner of the building, a fire was burning up the vine screen over Ketac’s bedroom window. Men shouted in the room behind it. They were trying to push the blazing trellis away with poles. Ketac was climbing over the wall. In the street a watchman yelled. Everybody chased Ketac. Paula went over the wall and ran the other way.

She took the shortest way back toward the House, cutting through the fields of blue grass along the lake shore. The grass was full of snakes and stinging beetles and she watched her feet. She trotted past a row of little boats drawn up on the shore. A bell began to ring.

When she reached the street again, people filled it, standing in tight groups, although it was deep in the low watch. Several more bells were ringing, all over the city, out of time. A woman leaned out of a tenement window over Paula’s head.

“What’s going on?”

“The Akellar is dead!”

All around her people screamed and cried, their voices drowning the bells. Which Akellar? They thought it was Machou. Paula slowed to a walk, her hand pressed to a stitch in her ribs. The bells clanged steadily from one end of Vribulo to the other. She turned into the street that ran past Colorado’s. People flooded out of a shop. Each carried a crystal lamp. The last to emerge was the shopman, who shut his door and locked it and rolled the shutter down over it. In spite of her fatigue she began to run again. She reached the steps of the House and climbed them, panting. As she reached the plain she noticed that the light was fading. She stopped and looked out across the city. All over Vribulo dark was falling.

She shivered in the deepening cold. If she stayed here she would die, but there was no place to go. The House was deserted. On the stairs she saw no other person, no trace of other people, not even a slave. By the time she reached the Prima Suite, she could see nothing at all. Black night had come. She groped her way to the door. Her memory took her down the hall to her room.

From her window, she could see flecks of light: fires, and the pinpricks of crystal lamps. The bells rang in a clamor, hundreds of bells. Far away a siren screamed, and a mob let up its many-throated roar. The war had reached Vribulo.

Behind her the door opened. She sprang away from the window into the concealing dark. “Mendoz’,” Leno said. “You’re under arrest.”

“What for?”

A hand closed on her arm. “Don’t argue with us. We have to get out of here before the gate closes. Mehma—”

“I have her,” said the Saturn Akellar, on her other side.

“Wait,” Paula said.

Roughly Leno shook her arm. “Don’t argue with me.”

“I want my flute.” She wrenched her arm in his hold. He let her go, and she went back to her bed to find her flute.

The city gate was locked. She stood shivering with Mehma in the dark while Leno went off to find someone to open it. In the next street a building was burning, and cinders and glowing embers showered down around her. She wrapped her arms around herself.

“What am I under arrest for?” She could not see Mehma beside her. His mild voice came from over her head.

“I guess because Tanuojin wants you in Yekka.”

“Tanuojin,” she said. “I thought so.”

The building directly opposite them exploded into a roar of flame. The ground bucked under their feet. Leno rushed up through the dark red glow. “Come on. This is bad and getting worse.” He had a key and he struggled with the lock on the gate. The ground was pitching up and down. Paula lost her balance. Mehma caught her. They hurried into the terminal. Mehma left them in the lane between the launching tubes. She went after Leno to the last tube, where his sidecraft waited.

In Yekka the watch was high. Leno took her across the Koup Bridge to the Akopra House, standing in the fields of rellah vines, far from bilyobio trees and people. The city was bright and cold, the grass brilliant green like an Earthish spring. They went through the side door into the round building.

It was dark except for the lights above the stage in the middle. Tanuojin was drawing on the stage with chalk. Four dancers stood behind him. Paula went to the edge of the raised platform.

“Why am I under arrest?”

Tanuojin drew a circle on the floor. “Ketac was plotting to kill me. I think you had something to do with it.” He walked slowly around, his gaze on the stage floor, counting his steps, and sank down to make another series of marks.

“You know that isn’t true,” she said.

The dancers watched her covertly. In their black rehearsal clothes they were nearly invisible in the dark. The stage around him was scrawled with white markings. He said, “About you I never know anything for certain.” He waved to the dancers. “Try it like that.” He came down off the stage past her and went on into the back of the theater.

Leno had moved over to the door. She could hardly pick him out of the shadows. She followed Tanuojin up the aisle. He sat on the last bench, his hands between his knees, watching the stage. She sat on the end of the bench.

“Where is Ketac?”

“I haven’t caught him yet. I will.”

On the stage, one dancer lifted another, slow and smooth, their arms straight, their palms flat together. The man in the air curved bonelessly over onto the shoulders of the man who held him, who sank down in the same smooth slow dreamlike quiet onto one knee. She rubbed her eyes. She had slept on the way, in Leno’s ship, but she was still tired. Leno came down the aisle, his eyes on the dance. “They’re really good. It’s amazing, in a place like this.”

Tanuojin gave him an oblique glance. He raised his head, his voice pitched to reach the stage. “How does that feel?”

The stocky man who did all the lifting walked to the edge of the stage. “It would be easier if I started facing the other way. Then I could use my strong leg.”

“Try it,” Tanuojin said. He turned toward Leno. “Mehma went back to his ship?”

“Yes. I didn’t know whether you wanted him to go or not.”

“That suits me. Go back to Merkhiz. Let the thing burn out in Vribulo, there’s nothing we can do.”

Paula stood up. The dancers broke out of their pose and clapped each other on the shoulders, pleased. She went down to the aisle and out the door of the theater.

The path led between fields of water. Under the glassy surface of the fields, new pale rellah vines curled like worms. She had never seen the adults, strung up on stakes to be bled. She went on toward Tanuojin’s compound in the distance.

Ketac arrived unconscious, strapped into a sled. Paula unbuckled the straps and pulled the blanket back. The long rips in his stomach and chest were oozing with infection.

“Marus did that,” Tanuojin said. “He’s over-anxious.”

She laid her hand against Ketac’s cheek. His skin was harsh with fever. Tucking his arm back into the narrow sled, she covered him in the blanket. The sled lay on the floor next to her bed. Tanuojin was sitting across the little white room, in the big chair next to the desk.

“Shall I heal him?”

“No. He’ll die if he’s lucky.”

“Why are you bitter at me?” He thumbed down his mustaches. “The way Bokojin feels about you, I probably saved your life.”

She went to the window. At the far end of the yard, David and Junna were coming in the gate. She put her hand out to the warmth of the radiation, her eyes on the two young men, one short and burly, the other slim as a vine.

Tanuojin got stiffly out of the chair, stretching, and crossed the room to the sled. Looking down at Ketac, he said, “Don’t let him die. I have a use for him.” He went out to the hall and shut the door behind him.

Tanuojin spent most of his time at his Akopra. Paula considered searching his private rooms in the compound but he would have anticipated that. The rioters in Vribulo had set half the bubble on fire, and now word came from Leno that Illini had also gone dark. Bokojin’s brothers were fighting over the succession. The Uranian Patrol held most of the city. Paula stayed in Tanuojin’s library.

While she was going to her room again, after a watch reading novels, David met her in the hall. He turned to walk beside her.

“How is Ketac?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen him for eight hours,” she said.

He lagged behind her to let a man coming the other way pass by. “Tajin should have killed him.”

“Don’t encourage it. Do you like Tanuojin?” They crossed the main hall to her room. At the door she stopped and looked up at him.

“He’s taught me a lot,” David said. “Once I started listening.”

“What, for example?”

He shrugged. He was filling out through his chest and shoulders, and his upper arms packed his sleeves. He said, “I’m not going to work for him for the rest of my life, you know.”

His solemn look made her smile. “Oh, really?”

“Someday I’ll get my own ship. Junna and I. We’ve talked about it. Actually, we’ve been talking about going to Neptune. Maybe even beyond.”

She thought, He’s like me. She unlocked her door and went into the white room beyond.

The sled was empty. She looked around, startled, and saw Ketac sitting on the window sill. “Oh,” she said. “Do you feel better?”

He wore no shirt. The purpling half-healed wounds ran like a flag across his chest. David was behind her on the threshold, and he and his brother paid each other a long fierce look. She bent over the empty sled.

“Help me get this out of here.” She picked up one end of the sled.

David took the other end and they carried it out to the hall. He propped it up against the wall, out of the way, for a slave to take. He said, “Now he’s going to sleep with you, is that it?”

“That’s right.”

At the end of the hall, the outside door opened, and Junna came in. He was tall and thin, and for an instant she thought he was Tanuojin. David called to him. She went into her room again.

Ketac was still sitting on the window sill, looking out at Yekka. Paula shut the door and latched it. He said, “Why am I here?”

“Because you’re a stupid ignorant idiot.” She took the chair from her desk to sit beside him.

“You were there, weren’t you? At my house. I found your dress. How much did you hear?”

“Enough.”

He was avoiding looking at her. On his chest the puckered wounds ran from his right shoulder to his navel. She said, “You thought that was your plot, didn’t you? That was Tanuojin’s plot, Ketac, he has been waiting for this chance since before Saba died.” She leaned toward him and said into his face, “You did this.”

He shed a rising heat. His hands pressed against the window sill. Turned away from her, he said out toward Yekka, “Why didn’t he kill me?”

“He needs
Ybix
.”

He made a sound in his throat. She looked around the little room. The white walls made it bright. Tanuojin could hear her; he knew everything she did and thought, so there was no use trying to surprise him.

“Are you done tongue-whipping me?” Ketac said.

“Bah.”

“Will you help me escape?”

“No.”

“Come on, Paula, we’ve been friends for a long time.” He swiveled to face her and took hold of her hand. “Tell me what to do.”

With her free hand she took his fingers from her wrist and held them. “Not escape. You have to make him do what you want.” She laced her fingers with his. “I’ll help you do that.”

The Akopra was dark. She stood still a moment, blinking her eyes clear. On the round lit stage, four dancers climbed on each other. She looked around the back benches until she found Tanuojin and went along the curved wall toward him.

“Shut up,” he said. “I’m watching this.”

Obediently she watched while they moved through the third design from
Capricornus
: where Capricornus met his lyo. The bench was hard and she sat restlessly. A young man she had never seen before stood off to one side of the stage. When the figure was over, she said, “What are you going to do about Ketac?”

Tanuojin thumbed his mustaches down, his eyes on the stage. “Leave him to me.”

“What are you going to do?”

He raised his hand and made a gesture, and the young man at the edge of the stage went into the middle and took the place of another dancer. Tanuojin settled down again. He said, “The same thing I did with Dr. Savenia.”

“He’s not like Cam,” she said. “And you haven’t got the time to do it right. You’ll kill him.”

He made a sound in his chest. Slowly the four men on the stage began the same design over, this time with the new dancer as Capricornus. Paula watched, her attention caught by the young man’s fiery gestures.

“He’s going to be good,” Tanuojin muttered.

“He’s going too fast.”

“I’ll teach him better.”

The young man stood on his hands on the hands of the stocky dancer. She watched the muscles flex under his tight black sleeves. Tanuojin said, “What’s your idea about Ketac?”

“Do it through me,” she said. “He’ll accept it from me.”

Spinning, the young dancer flipped up onto his feet on the floor-man’s shoulders. He lost his balance for an instant and wobbled and the floor-man caught his ankles. Paula leaned back against the wall behind her. Tanuojin was watching her, his fingers entwined in his mustaches.

“In the low watch,” she said. “He’s still a little weak. He’ll be easier to handle. I’ll take him to bed with me, and when he’s asleep, you take him through me.”

He nodded. On the stage, the dancers had finished. He waved to them, and they left the stage and came toward him.

Paula said, “I’ll be there to get you out if anything goes wrong.”

Tanuojin nodded again, watching her. The dancers stood in the aisle on his far side. He turned his head. “What’s your name?”

“Kapsin,” the new dancer said.

“You can stay for fifty-one watches on trial. Don’t try that flip again until you know what you’re doing. You could have killed him.” He faced Paula again. “Do you know, Paula, I think you have a good idea.”

Paula settled back against the wall. He had jumped at it. She had expected him to. She listened to him lecture the dancers on the art of Akopra.

Ketac went to bed with her. The ruts in his chest and belly were like seams under her hands. When he was asleep, she rose from the bed and opened the door. Tanuojin came in. He left his body in the chair by the desk, and she took him to Ketac.

In his sleep, Ketac knew her kiss; he stirred, his mouth soft under hers, willing. She took his hands. He did not waken, even when she drew back, sitting beside him, her eyes on his face.

Tanuojin said, in Ketac’s voice, “Be careful. I’ll wake him up.”

She held Ketac’s hands. He stiffened, and his eyes opened, shining with terror. His mouth moved but said nothing. His chest heaved.

“Ketac,” she said. “I’m here. It’s all right, you’ll be all right.”

His hands closed painfully over her fingers. She bit her lip. “Just relax. It won’t be for long.”

Ketac’s lips moved again. His long body flexed under the blanket, and his eyes shut. She pulled her throbbing hand free of his grip and worked her fingers and gasped at the pain in her knuckle.

“Take me, Paula.”

She bent down and sucked him out of Ketac’s mouth. Ketac lay still in the bed, asleep again. Her throat was numb. She crossed the room to the chair where Tanuojin’s body slumped and breathed him coppery back into his own flesh.

Tanuojin straightened; he touched his mouth with his hand. “You’re right. He’d have died if I’d had to force him.”

Cold, she went back to the bed and sat down, pulling the blanket around her. Tanuojin came over and touched Ketac’s face.

“He’s stronger than Saba.”

“Go away and let me sleep,” she said.

He went to the door. “Now we’ll see who wins.” He left. She lay down next to Ketac again.

Ketac would not talk about what had happened. Paula walked beside him along the stream. She expected him to be angry that she had helped Tanuojin do it, but he seemed not to care. She took his hand. In the high wild grass along the stream-bank, krines sang in reedy voices.

Finally he said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You wouldn’t have believed me.”

“Have you done it?”

She nodded, her eyes on the sleek water. Stopping, she put her hand into the stream. “Will you help me against him?”

“Against him?” He stood beside her, kicking at the grass with one foot. “What can I do against him?”

“That depends on you,” she said. “You have to know what he is, but when you do, there are possibilities.” She sat down on the grass. The water rippled and went smooth again: a passing fish.

“What is he? He isn’t just a man.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“He’s more than a man. Why do you want me to help you against him—what are you trying to do to me? It’s blasphemous to defy him.”

She let her breath out, defeated again. Certainly Tanuojin was listening. Maybe she could not resist him. On the far side of the stream, the path ran down through the waste fields toward the Koup Bridge. Someone was walking along it. It was Kapsin, the young dancer, another instrument of Tanuojin’s will. She turned her face away.

In the low watch David and Ketac and Junna flew
Ybicket
to
Ybix
, in high orbit around Uranus. David would bring the little ship back alone to take her and Tanuojin. Paula could not sleep. The pillow smelled faintly of Ketac and she got up and sat by the window. The door opened, and Tanuojin said, “
Ybicket
is docking.”

She put on two pairs of overalls and a jacket. All she was taking with her was her flute. They went down through Yekka to the city gate, on a platform over a field of rakis beans. There was a freighter in the main loading pod. A small crowd had gathered along the glass doors to watch it unload. Paula and Tanuojin went to the next pod, where
Ybicket
lay in her harness.