Floating Worlds

MATUKO

When she left the bus in Matuko three strange men closed in around her. They hustled her off across the city to Dakkar’s compound, in the Tulan, the rich district. Dakkar was sitting in a chair under the biggest bilyobio tree in his yard. When she went up before him, he stood, swelling his chest with breath. She knew him little. He had his own family, and he and Saba disliked each other, so he seldom visited his father’s compound. He gave her a cold imperious stare.

“I can’t place you,” he said. “You don’t fit in. You aren’t a wife, you aren’t a slave, you live with him but you aren’t kindred. I don’t like things that don’t fit in, it makes me nervous. Why did you go to Vribulo?”

“It’s a nice ride,” she said.

“My father told me specifically to know where you are, all the time.”

She set her teeth together. “Well, that’s where I was. Vribulo.”

“You show me respect, woman.”

She raised her head. In the two-story house behind him, a window screen moved: someone watched them. Dakkar sat down in his chair. All around the curl of his ear little red stones glittered.

“Ask your brother,” she said. “I was with him the whole time.”

“My brother,” he said, contemptuous. “The next time you leave Matuko I’ll have you arrested.”

“May I go now?” she said. “Akellar.”

“Go.”

She went back through the Varyhus toward Saba’s compound. One of the men who had taken her to Dakkar followed her, making no attempt to stay hidden. In the little market between the Varyhus and the Lake District she stopped to buy a drink of water. The slave vendor recognized her.

“Out spying, nigger?” he said. “Sneaking around for the blacks?” She dropped the money and the cup into the street and walked away.

Several watches went by. Illy and David took up her energy. Illy’s constant demands had rubbed Paula’s feelings to callous. For the fifteenth time she made up her mind to break off the affair. As usual she decided to wait until Saba came back, which would muffle the explosion. David fought in the street, in the yard, with his brothers, with strangers. He was always battered. She wondered if he knew about her and Illy. With no warning, Dakkar had her dragged off across the city again.

He was sitting in the same chair where she had last seen him, as if he had not moved in twenty watches. Now there were three other men standing around him. When she was before him, he said, “Two watches ago a pack of slaves murdered an old man, down in the Varyhus. What do you know about it?”

“Nothing,” she said, impatiently.

“Do you recognize this dirt?” He flicked out his hand, and the man on his right gave her a holograph: a pale slab-jawed face.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him.”

“It won’t do you any good to lie.”

She held the holograph out to his aide. Saba’s son scowled at her. Her temper was burning short. “I’m not lying,” she said.

“These street-dirt kicked and beat an old man to death.” His right hand on the arm of the chair flexed, unsheathing his claws. “You were seen talking to that slave in the Varyhus market.”

“Oh,” she said. “The water vendor. I don’t know anything about him.”

“There are half a million slaves in Matuko, and you talked to that one just by coincidence?”

“If you ask the slaves, Dakkar,” she said angrily, “you’ll find they don’t like me any more than you. Why don’t you leave me alone?”

“I can make you talk,” he said. He made a gesture, and his soldiers took her off behind the bilyobio tree. She stood uneasily watching Saba’s son while he signed a document and read a tape. He would not dare hurt her, or even threaten to hurt her. After a while two more of his men brought Pedasen into the yard.

Her stomach knotted. She sank her teeth into her lower lip. Dakkar straightened.

“Take them inside.”

She reached her house again in the low watch, lay down across her bed, and cried. When she ran out of tears and sobs, she rolled onto her back. David was standing at the foot of the bed. She sat up.

“Did I wake you up?” She wiped her eyes on her hand. Her throat was sore.

“Where were you?” He climbed over the foot of the bed toward her. The old white bedshirt he wore had been Saba’s: it was filthy. “What happened? Where you hurt? Why were you crying?”

She shook her head. “I’m all right.” His hands were scraped and swollen from fighting. She took his wrist, cold to her touch.

“Why were you crying?”

She shook her head again. Taking his hand in both hers she kissed his palm. “They killed Pedasen.” She began to weep again. He tugged on his hand and she freed him.

“Who killed him? Who?”

“Dakkar.” She rubbed her eyes dry.

“Why are you crying? He was just a slave.”

Her eyes felt bathed with salt. She wiped her face on her sleeve. In the end, Dakkar had believed her, but by then the eunuch was dying.

“He was a slave,” David said. “He didn’t mean anything.”

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” she said. “Go back to bed.”

He sat on the foot of the bed, watching her soberly with his strange long eyes. His hair was sprouting like bristles over his head. She said, “Don’t you care? He lived here. He loved you since you were a baby.”

His gaze flinched away from her. Suddenly busy, he picked at the cover with his fingers. He had no claws yet; he still used the flats of his fingers. He muttered, “My father wouldn’t care,” watching his hands.

“Go back to bed, David.”

Whenever she slept with Illy, she dreamt that Saba walked in on them. One watch she woke with a start and smelled a hot metal reek and saw him standing at the foot of the bed.

“Get up and put your clothes on,” he said.

Illy was still asleep, her arm around Paula’s waist. Paula shook her hard, to wake her. Saba grabbed the bedcover in both hands and yanked it flying away.

“I said get up!”

Paula scurried off the bed and gathered her clothes. Illy raised her head. “Saba!” She sat upright, thrusting out her hand toward him. “Saba, wait.”

He unbuckled his belt. Paula was pulling on her dress. Her clumsy fingers jammed the slide closing. Illy cried, “No—Saba, listen to me. It isn’t what you think.”

“Go over to your house and wait,” he said to Paula. He doubled the belt up in his hand.

She went out through the sitting room to the door. Behind her the belt cracked and Illy screamed in pain. She burst into a run out the door and across the yard. A man waved to her from the Manhus steps: Sril. She went into her house through the kitchen. The kusin was drinking from the hose. At her sudden entrance it darted under the table.

David was asleep. She stood on the threshold of his room watching him. She could not bear to lose him. The boy slept on his stomach, the cover bunched in his right fist. The back door slammed.

She went down to the kitchen again. Saba was half-sitting on the table, his arms crossed over his chest. The kusin had gone.

“That’s a low point, even for you. How could you do that to me? I thought you cared about me.”

She shut the door into the hall, so that David would not waken. Saba had his temper back. He watched her cross the kitchen and draw a cup of water to loosen her throat. The kusin had left the window over the hose slightly open. She shut it hard.

“What did you do to Illy?”

He came up behind her. “She did it to pay me back, didn’t she? For chasing around.”

She put the cup down on the counter. Pedasen’s frightened face appeared in her memory. Illy’s frightened voice. He slouched against the counter beside her, his elbow bracing him up.

“Why are you so white, Paula? You think I’m going to whip you too, don’t you?”

“No,” she said, evenly.

“How long have you been debauching my wife?”

She turned on him, ready to blast him, and the hall door sighed. She and Saba in unison turned toward David, coming into the kitchen. The long shirt hung rumpled to his knees.

“Papa!” He leaped up into Saba’s arms. “When did you get back? Will you take me to Ybix? Will you take me for a ride in Ybicsa? Pedasen died. I whipped Itak and made him eat mud.” Saba boosted him up in the crook of his arm.

“Say good-bye to your mother.”

She gripped the edge of the counter in both hands. Her heart began to thud. David twisted around in Saba’s arms. “Good-bye. Where is she going?”

“To Yekka. She’ll be back before you miss her.”

She looked away, relieved. David said, “Can I go too?”

“I thought you wanted to ride in Ybicsa?”

“Yes!”

With David riding on his arm, the big Styth went to the door. Paula said, “What if I refuse?”

“Don’t make it harder for me, Paula.” He shouted out to the yard for Sril. She stared at his back. She could refuse. But she did not want to be around him. David squirmed out of his arms and came down the room to Paula.

“Will you call me on the screen? Just to me and nobody else?”

She nodded. Sril stood in the doorway. Saba gestured at her. “Take her to Yekka.”

The trip was stormy. She was sick all the way from Matuko to Vribulo, the midway stop. Drenched with sweat, she sat in the compartment drinking tea. Sril gave her a towel and she mopped her face. The bus swayed and lurched along in its course.

“Thank you,” she said. “I feel awful.”

“You’ll never make a Styth, Mendoz’.”

She emptied her cup of the sweet tea. The bench was slippery. She had to hold the grip in the wall to keep from landing on the floor. But she felt better, her stomach steadier than before. Sril stretched his feet across the aisle to the opposite bench, his arms spread out across the back of their seat.

“How did your mission go?” she said. She put the cup into the clamp on the wall.

“Perfect. We took about four hundred slaves. Everybody on the Asteroid who didn’t die.”

“Terrific,” she said, glum. The only Asteroid he could mean was Vesta; Ceres, the only other of the minor Planets so densely populated, was on the far side of the Sun.

“The Man took Ybicsa down over the base and pulled off every attack-craft they had, and Ybix went in and blew up the satellites. I hit three out of three shots. Of course The Creep put me in the green window, I couldn’t miss.”

She leaned against the wall of the compartment. Illy’s scream sounded in her memory. But it was Pedasen she longed for. The bus lurched and she jumped. Sril put his arm around her, holding her fast, and she moved over against his side.

“Did you and the Old Man fight?” he said. His hand grazed her side. She shut her eyes. Gently he stroked her side and her shoulder. “It looks odd, he comes back and an hour later you’re going.” His palm curved over her breast.

“Sril,” she said. “Switch off.”

His hand left her. The bus lurched along toward Yekka.