Floating Worlds (10 page)

“Hello,” the Styth said, beside her.

“Hello.”

“I am supposed to watch you. It will make it that much easier if you help.”

She pushed the trigger button. “What’s your name?”

He leaned against the wall. At her eye-level, a chain hung around his throat, inside the wide collarless neck of his shirt: an order medal. He said, “My name is Sril. What is this engine?”

She turned back to the tiltball machine. This time she had drawn two balls. They careened off in opposite directions. She kept the cube moving. The balls reeled through the levels of colored plastic. With two it was easy: she held one in a cul-de-sac while slipping the other past the traps. When the two balls rolled through the gate, lights flashed, a bell jangled: FREE BALL.

“I will try.” Sril pushed her out of the way.

“I’m in the middle of—”

“What do I do? This?” He pushed the button. He was lucky: the machine was random-loaded, and only one ball fell into the maze. He touched the handles. The ball dropped like a stone down the center trap. The machine went dark.

“What happened?” he cried.

“You lost. Try it again. You see the holes, there, you’re supposed to avoid them.”

“No—you do. I watch.”

She fed the machine another dime and pushed the trigger. Five balls rolled into the chute at the top of the maze. She teased them to the last level, hardly moving the cube at all, and then turned one handle too far and lost the middle and the last down a side trap.

Sril groaned in disappointment. Paula said, “That’s good, for me. You play it.”

Another Styth was coming across the room toward them, a big man with a scar on his cheek. In Styth, he said, “You’re supposed to be on watch. Where is the Man?”

“I am on watch,” Sril said. “I’m on squaw-duty.” He turned back to the tiltball machine. “Saba is upstairs.” He reached for the trigger.

Paula stepped back. A ball fell with a ping into the maze. Sril fought it, cursed it, and pleaded it down to the third level, where it dropped through.

“Let me try.” The big man shoved at him. Sril thrust him off. They crowded into each other, swearing and laughing. The steady patter of the dik-dakko ball across the room stopped; a man said, “What’s that stink?” This time, getting three balls, Sril managed to take one successfully through the maze. When he lost the next ball down the central chute, he let out a yell, grabbed the tiltball machine, and tore it off the wall.

A dik-dakko player shouted. Paula dodged a flying tiltball. The machine sagged over onto its side. Steel balls cascaded out of the bin across the floor.

Sril backed off, looking apprehensively around. The other Styth grabbed his arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Too late,” Paula said.

A tall white man was moving toward them at top speed, his body at an attacking angle. She wondered nervously if she had broken any Martian law. He walked straight up to her. His gaze raked the Styths.

“Are you all right, Miss Mendoza?”

“I’m fine,” she said, relieved.

The two black men were standing on the far side of the wreckage of the machine. Tiltballs rolled around on the floor, clicking into each other. The Martian turned on the Styths, fierce.

“Which one of you did that?”

Paula stepped back to the wall. That was the wrong approach. The doorway to the lobby was packed with the curious faces of guests.

Sril said, “We do n-nothing. He just falls off.” He still smelled strong.

The manager fisted his hands. “You don’t expect me to believe that.”

“Is something wrong?” said a musical bass voice. A rangy Styth sauntered across the gameroom, his eyes on the Martian. Straw-thin, he towered four or five inches over seven feet. His eyes were light brown. Yellow eyes. The Martian rounded on him.

“Are you their superior officer?”

“That’s right.” Tanuojin slid his long hands under his belt. “What’s wrong?” He nodded to Sril and the other man. They bolted out the door, the guests jumping out of their way.

“Hey!” The hotelman wheeled.

Tanuojin stood over him. For an instant, looking up, the Martian lost his breath. He regained it in a rush. “You must take me for a fool!”

The tall Styth snorted. He walked off, away from the hotelman. The Martian puffed up. His lips curled. He headed for the door to the lobby.

“All right, everybody—” He herded people out of the doorway. “Show’s over. Move along.” He turned back toward the Styth. “You’re a bunch of stinking savages. They ought to run you right out of the Universe.” He left.

Paula stood still. Tanuojin had not noticed her. He strolled across the room to the outside door, where he had come in, and went away. Loose tiltballs rolled around the floor at her feet. The copper smell was fading in the air. Thoughtfully she went out of the gameroom.

Wherever she went, Sril followed her. She walked around the hotel garden, bought photo-cards in the card shop and wrote them out in the lounge and posted them. The Nineveh had its own photo-relay projector, so they would reach the Earth in a few hours. The trade paper arrived from Jefferson in Barsoom and she took it out to the garden to read. The Styth followed her everywhere, looking bored.

Paula read half the paper and skimmed the second half. She went back into the hotel, her Styth shadow close behind. As she passed the restaurant off the lobby, she caught sight of the Akellar, sitting at the bar.

The bar stools on either side of him were conspicuously vacant. She went to the one on his left. In the antiqued mirror behind the bar she saw everybody else in the room watching them. The Akellar put his glass down. He beckoned and the barman hurried toward them. The Styth with the nose wire, Sril, stayed about ten feet away.

Paula said, “Why is he following me around?”

The man behind the bar poured whiskey into his glass. The Akellar gestured to Sril, who left. “You’re here alone, I wouldn’t want something happening to you. Somebody might blame it on me.” His gaze caught on something in the mirror. She looked; he was watching a girl come into the bar. While the girl crossed the room, met other people, took off her coat and sat down, the Styth looked her over inch by inch. The barman turned to Paula.

“Can I get you something, dear?”

If she had been a Martian he would have called her miss. She said, “Do you have ice cream?”

“Sure.”

“A brandy float.”

He sauntered off behind the bar. The Akellar, with nothing else to look at, was watching her. He said, “I haven’t seen that other—that white woman around. Your friend.”

“My friend. You mean Cam Savenia? She left.”

He liked that; he made an approving sound in his chest. “You know her, don’t you?” he said, and stopped, his eyes on the mirror again. Another pretty woman was coming into the bar.

Paula sat back. The barman put a bell-glass of brandy and ice cream in front of her, and she paid him. The Styth ignored her; he was staring at women. She smothered her irritation. She saw a way to use what he was giving away about himself. She took the spoon out of the glass and sipped the creamy brandy. The object of his stare had disappeared out of the room and he turned back to her.

“What’s that you’re drinking?”

She spooned up ice cream and brandy and held it out to him. He put his head back to look at it, suspicious, and finally opened his mouth and let her feed him. She said, “I worked for Cam once. We don’t know each other very well.”

He savored the ice cream. “That’s good. What is it?”

“Ice cream.” She took another sip of the brandy, cooled and sweetened with the melting milky dessert. He turned sideways on the stool, facing her, his elbow on the bar. She said, “I—,” and broke off. She had lost his attention again to a woman leaving the bar.

“I can’t get used to all these women going around with their faces uncovered,” he said. He reached for his glass. Paula spooned up another bite of the ice cream. She started to eat it, but his eyes followed it, and she offered it to him. He ate it eagerly.

“Mars is a strange place,” she said. She swirled the brandy in the glass. “I have these fish in my wall, swimming around. Of course, this being Mars, they’re probably plastic.” She drank the last of the liquor and pushed the glass away across the bar. “Come up and look at them and tell me if they’re plastic.”

Now his eyes were fixed on her, and he smiled. The smile made him look much younger. He said, “Do you have any of that whiskey left?”

“I have another bottle.”

He got up off the bar stool. They went out the door.

The sun was going down. Long hazy light struck across the garden and penetrated in shafts into the room. She pulled the curtains closed and poured them each a glass of whiskey. They sat on the couch opposite the aquarium.

“What is the Earth like?” he asked. “Like this?”

She shook her head. She was sitting in the curved limb of the couch. “The Earth is the original of which Mars is the copy.”

“Then it is like this.”

She put her glass down on the table, untouched. Toeing off her shoes, she folded her legs under her. “No. You’d have to go to the Earth to see the difference. Do Styths kiss?”

“I don’t know. I don’t recognize the word.”

She knelt beside him, facing him, and leaned forward and put her mouth against his. His mouth was unresponsive. She touched his lips with her tongue, her hand on his shoulder, and his arm went around her waist. A rush of his heavy metallic scent surrounded her. He twisted, pushing her down under him on the couch.

“You’re hurting me.” She could not breathe. Her face was smothered against his shoulder. “You’re too heavy.”

He straightened up on his arms. She could scarcely breathe in the dense fragrance he was giving off. When she kissed him again, his skin was warm, almost feverish. They got up and undressed. His body was perfect. Dressed, he simply looked massive. His broad chest swelled into his back, the muscle and bone smoothly shaped down to his long waist. He had an erection. They lay down side by side on the couch. His skin warmed her. While she explored him with her hands and her mouth she tried to get used to his scent. All in silence they joined together. His eyes closed, as if he were doing it alone. She rubbed herself down on his thick stalk, her hand on his hip, intent on the swelling tension in her groin.

The couch was too narrow. They went down to the floor and handled each other, moving around each other almost without speaking. He was so tall she could not kiss his face when he was inside her. The watery light from the aquarium rippled over his chest. She touched him all over, to see what he liked. Her body swelled closed around him. He took her hips in his hands and drove himself into her, gasping.

“Oh, Jesus.”

She sat back, pleased, her legs across him, and gave him the full tumbler of whiskey. His arms stretched out over his head. For a long while they stayed as they were, the man lying on his back on the floor, and Paula beside him, without saying anything. She felt revenged on him for his condescension. The videone buzzed. She ignored it and it buzzed again.

“Aren’t you going to take that?” he said.

“It’s just my boss.”

“What would he do if he knew we were here like this?” His hand slipped over her thigh.

“Not he, she. Sybil Jefferson.”

“How many men have you had?”

“You aren’t a personal friend.”

His fingers pressed and stroked over the inside of her thigh. His claws grazed her. “Which means what?”

“That I won’t answer a personal question.”

“A lot.” Patterns of light from the aquarium lay across his face like a mask. “How did I do?”

“You didn’t talk,” she said, “which I liked.”

He turned his face toward the aquarium. He was cooling off, and she swung her legs across his body and sat beside him. His cock had drawn back inside the sheath of his foreskin. With her fingers she traced the heavy muscles of his chest. He had no hair on his chest. He wasn’t perfect after all. He put his hand on her hand and pressed her palm against him.

“So it’s not personal, this—” He caressed himself with her hand. “Then it’s business? Are you trying to sell me something?”

“Sell you something?”

“I’ve heard an anarchist can sell anything to anybody.”

“What do you want?”

“The only thing you have that interests me is that whiskey.” He folded his arms behind his head. His scent had disappeared.

“Good,” she said. “I’ll send you a case every aphelion for the rest of your life. Courtesy of the Committee.”

His teeth flashed in a white smile. “Are you serious?”

“I’ll make it two cases.”

“Do it.”

She touched his stomach. His skin was velvet black. “Do you believe in god?”

“I believe in Planck’s Constant and the speed of light. Truth at 186,000 miles per second. What else are you going to sell me? A little philosophy?”

“The Council wants to establish permanent embassies with the Empire.”

“We don’t treat with other governments. The only law in the system is Styth, the rest of you are all outlaws. There’s nothing you can offer us except to submit to us.”

“You didn’t listen to me.”

He pushed her hand away from him. “I don’t have to listen to you—you listen to me.”

“I said that was what the Council wants, not what I want.”

Between his round black eyes two short vertical lines appeared. He rolled smoothly onto his feet. “You think you can talk around me.” His clothes were scattered about the room, and he collected them. Paula sat watching the fish. He sat on the couch and pulled his leggings on. Instead of underwear he wore a kind of cup to protect his organs. He hung a medal on a chain around his neck. The marking in the heavy disk was the sign of the fish.

She said, “Actually, what I want is to make you rich.”

He was putting his shirt on. His head emerged through the neck, and he stood up and tugged the shirt down over his body. He sat back down on the couch. She turned her gaze away from him, back to the red stream of fish in the wall.

“How are you going to do that?” he said.

“There’s no trade now between the Middle Planets and your city, is there?”