Floating Worlds (36 page)

Tanuojin threw him a look white with temper. He put his feet under him and stood. A mutter ran through the audience, swelling to a roar of comment, and a few people clapped. Wu-wei sat down behind his table. Parine went forward, bristling.

“Your Excellency, this is rank theatrics—”

Paula sat. She glanced at Saba, who was smiling. Wu-wei said mildly, “First you complain when they don’t stand, now you complain when they do. Bailiff, read the case.”

The bailiff read the case. Paula could hear the nervous click of Tanuojin’s claws on the arm of his chair. Saba murmured, “It’s damned hot in here.”

“I know,” Tanuojin said. “They’ve turned the heat up.”

Among Parine’s staff, a young man stood, a paper in his hand. “Bench, in view of some recent developments, we’d like a twenty-four-hour extension.”

The crowd groaned. Tanuojin leaned forward. His shirt clung to his back. “So you can change your lie?”

The Martian gave him a harried glance and turned back to the Bench. “Your Excellency—” Parine brushed by him, headed for Tanuojin.

“We have three twenty-four-hour extensions on demand, by right.” He glared at the Styth, still in his chair. “Learn the law, black boy.”

“Don’t push me,” Tanuojin said. He got up, his head turning toward Wu-wei. “They waived their right to extensions when they set a limit to the time.”

“Maybe by your backwater laws,” Parine said. His face was red as a kettle. “But here—”

Tanuojin jerked around to face him. Parine’s voice clogged up. They stared at each other an instant. Saba barged in between them. He got Parine by the arm and swung him around. Paula took her fingers out of her mouth. Parine in a flashy show of strength flung off Saba’s grip.

“Your Excellency—”

Saba put his broad back between the lawyer and the judge. “Are you going to let him drain our time?”

“I’ll keep the time, Akellar,” Wu-wei said. “I’ll grant Parine’s extension and extend the case. Akellar?” He looked past Saba at Tanuojin.

The tall Styth got up out of his chair. He was hot; his face shone with sweat. “Do whatever you want. Keep us here until we cook.” He strode toward the rail.

“Tanuojin,” Wu-wei said. “If you walk out I’ll find you in contempt.”

At the railing, Tanuojin wheeled around to face him, but his furious gaze went to Saba. He spun and marched out of the courtroom. His men trailed him. The crowd booed him thunderously. The bailiff rang her bell, trying to quiet them.

Wu-wei said, “We’ll stand in recess until ten tomorrow.”

Parine was watching him expectantly. The little judge closed his workbook, and the Martian leaped forward.

“Your Excellency, may I remind Your Excellency of the contempt charge—”

Wu-wei’s round yellow face turned up. “I’m not finding him in contempt, Parine, I see no reason to do something that won’t work.” He stood, gathering his notes, and left.

Parine glared at the judge’s back. He and Paula exchanged a barbed look. Saba took her arm. They went down the aisle, through the crowd. A small woman hovered before them, her gray hair decorated with blue plastic birds. “Thank you,” she said to Saba.

He smiled at her. Paula looked at the packed rapt faces of the crowd. Unnoticed, she followed him out to the corridor. In the tail of her eye, something moved toward him, a hand, a gun—when she turned, her nerves shivering, it was only a camera.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said. Crosby’s Planet seemed to be fraying Tanuojin’s nerves even worse than hers.

“Watch me,” Saba said. He went off across the plaza.

Hedges shielded the broad meadow of the park from the streets all around it. The plastic grass was flushed with artificial sunlight. She walked across the lawn, past the fountain. Two boys were throwing a ball back and forth. A brown and white dog ran between them, barking. David was climbing around in the fountain, fully clothed. She watched him scramble up the water spout. His shirt bellied out, full of water. His black skin shone.

“Mendoz’!”

Sril was sitting under a tree. She plopped down next to him on her stomach. Crumpled papers surrounded him, smeared with mustard and minji sauce. She gathered them up.

“I see you’re keeping fed.” She found an ice-cream stick and skewered the wrappers to the ground. The spongy plastic turf tore reluctantly.

“I have to eat. Every time I go off watch, Tanuojin comes out with something else for me to do.”

“Go on. I’ll take care of David.”

He rolled up to his feet, still crouched, his eyes on her face. “Thanks, Mendoz’. Can you loan me some money?”

She gave him the money in her pocket. “Thanks.” He went off at a trot.

She sat on the ground, pulling at the grass. As long as she did not look up, she could pretend she was alone. The park was insulated and the sound of the nearby streets and traffic did not reach her. She put her chin on her hands, thinking with longing of Matuko’s cold twilight and the lake shore.

“Mama.”

David was shaking her. She had fallen asleep. She sat up. He was soaking wet; his shoes squelched. She kissed him.

“Are you having a good time? You know, you can take your clothes off by yourself any time you take the notion.”

“I like being wet.” He held his sodden shirt out from his stomach with both hands. “I climbed all the way up. And look.” He pointed down at the ground and turned in a circle, demonstrating his shadow. “Watch.” He jumped, watching the shadow. He smiled at her. “It’s black, like me.”

She took hold of his chin. His eyes were not round or black: dark brown, they tipped at the corners. But he looked like Saba, with Saba’s flared jaw and wide indulgent mouth. She stood up.

“Let’s go get an ice cream.”

They started across the sunlit grass of the park. In the middle, near the fountain, stood a little ice-cream cart. David ran ahead of her toward it. A dog loped past Paula after him. The child stopped, and the dog veered toward him. The little boy screamed.

“Mama!”

Paula burst into a run. The dog reached him one step ahead of her and knocked him flying onto the grass. Wheeling, the big dog snapped at him. She grabbed David in both hands and hoisted him up.

The dog snarled at her; its broad head narrowed like a wedge. It jumped for the child in her arms. She flung out her hand to ward it off and its teeth sliced her forearm. David was screaming. The dog began to bark at her, crouching over its flattened forelegs, and jumped at her again. She dodged it while it wheeled, and ran toward the nearest tree. The dog caught her skirt in its teeth and held on.

David’s arms around her neck were throttling her. She pulled at his hand, trying to catch her breath. The park people stood watching, as if at a show. The dog dragged her one step forward, and she yielded an instant. It let go, ready to spring at the little boy screaming in her arms, and she ran to the tree three steps away.

“David—climb into the branches—”

He clung to her, his breath catching in sobs. The dog prowled around her. She boosted her son up to her shoulder, and he climbed into the tree above her. She put her back to the trunk and faced the dog. Her arm hurt to the shoulder. She could not gather her strength. The dog circled under the trees, its gaze fixed on the little boy above it; the light caught glowing in its eyes, pale as amber. She moved to stay between it and David. From the far side of the park there was a long shrill whistle. The dog ran away over the grass.

“David. Come down.”

“No—”

“Come down. It’s gone.” She could not lift her arm. She had to take him somewhere safe before she collapsed. On the path nearby the mass of watching people loosened and began to flow away along the walks, losing interest. David was lowering himself out of the tree. He dropped to meet his shadow on the phony grass. His face was smeared with tears; his nose was running.

“Mama—”

She took his hand. “Hurry.” As fast as she could move she led him up the green slope to the gate.

In the crowded street beyond, she stopped, confused, her lungs working for breath. David pulled her on and she followed him. Her head began to pound. The streetlights hurt her eyes. When they reached the moving stair she stumbled.

“Mama, are you sick?”

The moving stair carried them down into the pit of the Planet. Someone behind her jostled her and her knees gave in and she caught herself against the rail sliding by. She was going to fall. Her feet were a mile below her.

“David—”

The street flew upward toward her, the steps sliding away into the floor, and she held her breath and walked forward onto the solid ground. “David.” She sat down on the floor in the street, her back to a wall. “Where is the hotel? Do you know?”

Promptly he reached his arm out and pointed. He tugged on her hand. “Come on—it’s not far.”

“Go find Papa.” She shut her eyes. She felt herself tumbling over headlong although she had not moved. “Go find Daddy. Find Daddy.” Her eyes opened, swimming. David was gone. A passage of hundreds of legs scissored past her along the street. The floor was warm. She could not get up. The warmth was blood. Someone passing kicked her. She doubled her legs up to her chest. Another hard blow struck her.

“Paula.”

She was lifted up into the safety of his arms.

“So help me, if I’d reached her five minutes later they’d have trampled her. These people stop for nothing.”

She took the warm cup in both hands and sipped tea. On her forearm the scab of the healed wound was peeling away. David scrambled onto the couch beside her and leaned on her. Saba came out of the kitchen with a bottle of champagne in one hand.

Over his shoulder, he said, “If I were any smarter I’d take
Ybix
and go home.”

Tanuojin filled the kitchen doorway. He was eating a sugar-nut. The rest of the crew was out hunting the dog. Paula gave her cup to David. When he had gone into the next room, she said, “That was no accident. Somebody waited until Sril was gone and set that dog on us and called it off after David was safe. It must have been trained. It didn’t attack me at all, just David.”

Saba drank deeply from the bottle. “You wanted to see which way Parine would jump.” He turned toward his lyo, in the kitchen doorway. “I suppose you’re against going after him, now?”

“Saba, that’s what they want, to force the judge to jettison the case.”

“At least then we could get out of this place,” Saba said. He tramped into the bedroom.

That night the police came to the hotel saying they had gotten an anonymous warning the Styths’ rooms were bombed, and made them clear the suite for nearly an hour while a squad of bomb experts went through the place. Paula sat in a booth in the back of the hotel bar, David asleep on her lap, while Saba drank whiskey and Tanuojin drank water.

“I haven’t gotten a full sleep since I’ve been here,” Tanuojin said, on her right.

Saba yawned. He lifted his glass, half-full of Scotch. “This place is strange. Besides all the people and the cameras and all that. It’s haunted or something, the whole Planet.” Paula leaned on him, her head on his shoulder, and shut her eyes.

“Parine thinks it is,” Tanuojin said. “That’s what they’re hunting for now, downstairs, General Gordon’s ghost.”

Paula opened her eyes again. She had not thought before that the bomb threat was anything other than a nuisance. Saba said, “I guess he believes we have that tape.”

The waiter came up silently and took their empty glasses and put down new ones, filled. David whimpered in his sleep. Paula closed her eyes.

“Do these things ever start on time?”

“I think it’s against the law,” Saba said.

Paula sat down in the straight chair. On the far side of the courtroom, Chi Parine and his assistants were talking in a knot. Today the little Martian lawyer wore a black suit, a brilliant red jacquard vest, red and black high-heeled boots.

“Please rise for the Bench.”

The spectators massed behind the railing stopped their roar of conversation. Everybody got up. Wu-wei came out of the little door in the back and sat, and they all sat. The case was read.

“Your Excellency,” Parine said. He strode forward, puffed up. He reminded her again of Machou. “Due to considerations of interplanetary security, the government of Luna is withdrawing the charges—”

His lips went on moving, but the crowd buried his voice in a bellow. Tanuojin leaped up onto his feet. The bailiff’s bell clanged steadily through the thunder of voices. Paula glanced at Saba.

“All this for nothing,” she said.

“Not quite.”

Wu-wei’s smooth face was smiling. He patted at the air with his hands, and the crowd began to quiet down. The bell stopped ringing.

“Yes, Parine,” the judge said. “You’re withdrawing which charges?”

Parine said, “All of them, Your Excellency. I want to point out that we’re doing this only because the case was leading into very sensitive security matters.”

Tanuojin put his hands on his belt. “You mean you can’t deal with Styths in this court.”

Wu-wei laid his forearms flat on the table. His eyes shifted from Parine to the Styth.

Parine said shortly, “What we’re saying is that due to considerations of—”

“There’s no universal law in your Universal Court if you can’t handle Styths.” Tanuojin swung around to face Wu-wei. “We are part of the same Universe.”

“Indeed we are,” Wu-wei said. “What has happened here, in and outside my courtroom, has helped me understand the incident at Luna very well.”

“We’re talking from different premises,” Tanuojin said.

“Maybe. But at the moment you are standing in my premises.” The judge smiled at his antique pun. “I have a verdict, which I will give in a moment.”

Tanuojin whirled around toward Paula. “How can he give a verdict if they’ve withdrawn the charges?”

“Your Excellency—” Parine bounded toward the Bench, tipped forward on his high-heeled boots. “Your Excellency, I protest this rash decision to render a verdict without any evidence.”

“I have evidence,” Wu-wei said. “I’m not blind, and I’m not incapable of reasoning, or I wouldn’t be here in the first place. The
Ybix
incident was part of a whole field. This trial has been another aspect of the same field. This isn’t the place to comment on people who aggravate the natural tensions between races and individuals for their personal ends, however grandiose, and I won’t do that. The
Ybix
incident was a practical exercise. General Gordon made a misjudgment, to which he was helped by a variety of people not even on trial here and for which he has suffered. Certainly neither of the two ships destroyed at Luna would have been shot down if not for
Ybix
’s presence, but
Ybix
had been there for nearly 240 hours without a problem, and therefore I conclude that without General Gordon’s miscalculation, the incident would not have occurred. I am holding
Ybix
responsible for one ship and General Gordon for the other. The eight men who died in the ships cannot be brought to life again by any piety or wit in this courtroom. They were soldiers and carried guns, and men who use force must accept it will be used against them. As for the rest of the charges, Mr. Parine of Mars ought to remember when he makes up cases that simple is best. Since Luna brought the case here and then withdrew it, Luna will pay the court charges.” He tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “As for
Ybix
, the trial ought to be punishment enough. Are there comments?”