Floating Worlds

by Cecelia Anastasia Holland

  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, an
d 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.”

  “Maybe.” Hanse was coming toward them, his face oiled with sweat. Clearly he had lost his argument with Cam. Paula moved away.

  “Are you getting along all right?” Hanse said. His little eyes gleamed. “Rodgers is treating you well?”

  “Very well,” she said. “A perfect gentleman, Captain Rodgers. The flower of Martian manhood.”

  “I’m going to Luna for a few days. We’ve had a tempting offer from some friends of yours.” He was watching her intently, unblinking. The creases of his face were marked in talcum powder. “The Styths have two flag officers of mine they’re willing to exchange for you.”

  “You’re going to do it?”

  “I need those officers. You’re outstaying your usefulness. As much as I enjoy our conversations.”

  She turned her face away from him. That was what the medal had meant. Her hand rested on the desk and she beat her fingers on it. She would go back to Styth with nothing, at their mercy, like a slave. Sold like a slave. Hanse stood, his uniform jacket bulging over the pad of his stomach.

  “If everything on Luna goes as I expect it will, I won’t be seeing you again—we’ll exchange off Ceres in an Earthish month. I’d like to feel we parted friends.” He put his hand out to her.

  Paula bounded out of her chair. She felt too large for her body, a scream coming up from the gut, a bursting rage. “Get out.” She looked around for something to throw. Hanse, scrambling, was already at the door, calling for Rodgers. She threw the ashtray at him. He went out fast and the door slammed.

  She was not ready for Rodgers; she barricaded her door with the desk. They spent two hours taking the door off the hinges. She went three or four times around the room, which she knew now inch by inch. When Rodgers came in she was sitting on the bed, resigned. He hauled her down to the little room and tied her up to the wall so she could neither sit nor stand straight and left her. The worst was waiting for him to come back.

  Slumped against the wall on her throbbing legs, she thought with alarm of the exchange Hanse was planning. The Styths wanted her back because of what she knew about the Middle Planets. Hanse certainly realized that. He would never send her to them in any condition to serve them. Her half-bent knees gave way and she fell, hit the rope that fastened her arms to the wall, and jerked them almost out of her shoulders. Grimly she pushed herself back up to a crouch. This was all Hanse’s idea, so she would complain and he could rescue her from Rodgers and make her trust him. She closed her eyes.

  The first thing she saw in Cam’s office was the large painting by Jacques-Louis David of Marat, dead in his bath. The oil hung directly over Cam’s desk. Paula stopped near a chair to the side of the room, looking around, while other people filed into the room. On the paneled wall beside her a dragon-robe was spread out like a pair of scarlet wings, feathered in gold thread. The room was cluttered. Pictures hung thick as scale from the walls. Here and there among the living people statues stood. Paula sat down in the chair behind her. Surrounded by soldiers, she rubbed her fingers nervously together, her eyes on the painting of the dead revolutionary above the desk.

  The wall below it split open. Cam came out of her private lift. Two trim young men followed her. The soldiers in the room straightened rigidly to attention. Cam was neat as a mannequin. Her hair gleamed. An aide held her chair for her. She spoke to him, sitting down, and he laughed at what she said.

  “At ease, gentlemen.”

  In unison they relaxed. Paula looked curiously around at their scrubbed, shaven faces. In their midst Bunker stood with his jacket unbuttoned, his cheek blurred with beard. Cam folded her hands together.

  “He defiled the uniform, putting you into it.”

  Behind Paula, Rodgers muttered, “In she goes.”

  “Are you drunk?” Cam said to Bunker.

  He shuffled his feet. “Slightly.” He glanced up at the clay-colored corpse on the wall above her. “Not enough.”

  “You’re a disgusting little man.”

  “Thank you. I was hoping you’d appreciate my modest efforts.”

  “Cut his balls off,” Paula said. “Make him walk the plank.”

  Cam swung back and forth in her chair. “It makes me sick to see him in a Martian uniform.”

  “Shall I take it off?” He pulled one arm out of the sleeve.

  “You’re out of uniform,” Cam said, “for which you’ll spend the next five days in solitary.”

  Paula cheered. She clapped her hands together three or four times, the only sound in the crowded room. Cam threw her a hard look. “Do you want to join him?”

  “Then we wouldn’t be in solitary,” Bunker said. He shrugged into his jacket.

  “Complete solitary,” Cam said. “In the closet. No food, no water, no lights. No liquor.” She sat back, smiling. Bunker said nothing. Alert, Paula settled deep into her chair, watching him, thinking about what he had just done. Cam’s gaze swung toward her. “Why aren’t you cheering, baby?”

  “I hope you got me down here for some purpose,” Paula said. “Other than making an ass of yourself, which is less entertaining than it used to be.”

  “Rodgers, the same for her. Five days.”

  Rodgers was standing behind Paula. He said sharply, “Doctor, you’re going to put them together?”

  “That’s what I said. Put them both in the closet. Maybe they’ll tear each other to pieces.”

  “That’s immoral. General Hanse—”

  “Joe isn’t here,” Cam said. She took a sheet of clear paper from her desk and held it out to one of her aides, who brought it up the room to Paula. Cam was lighting a cigarette. She said, “Read that, Paula.”

  “You’re crazy,” Paula said.

  Cam smiled at her. Her lip-paint was the color of venous blood. “Six days in the closet.” The aide was holding the paper out to Paula, who ignored it. Bunker was paying no attention to any of this.

  “Seven days,” Cam said.

  Rodgers said, “You can’t put them in together, for Christ’s sake, it’s immoral.”

  Cam gave hi
m an instant’s angry look. She stared at Paula. “Eight days.”

  Paula took the page. Around the room, the men stirred, commenting to each other, impressed by Cam’s techniques. Paula turned the plastic around. The message was in Styth. When she read it, her heart quickened.

  “It’s a declaration of war,” she said. “How formal.”

  “Read it,” Cam said.

  “To Mars, by the rAkellaron. We have warned you in many ways to submit to us before justice brought you into its course. Now you have violated the Earth, our mother, and wakened her children dead even in dreams. If you resist us, we cannot say how you will suffer, only that you will suffer.” She handed the page to a soldier, who took it to Bunker.

  “What tripe,” Cam said.

  Bunker was reading through the paper. “I don’t follow this dead even in dreams.”

  Paula was chewing the skin around her thumbnail. “The old heroes. You know they’re all descended from heroes.” Krita was ringing his bell again. It was a stronger declaration than she had expected: very strong.

  “It sounds as if they’re committing the whole Empire.”

  “Yes.”

  “They double-crossed you,” Cam said to her. She tapped a cigarette on the desk, her holder in the other hand. “They’re using you as an excuse. I told you that bastard would do this. Why the hell didn’t you listen to me?”

  Paula got up. “Come on, Rodgers. The dark is more edifying.” She started toward the door.

  “Paula! Get back here until I dismiss you.” Cam bounced up onto her feet, poised behind her desk. At the door, Paula wheeled.