Floating Worlds (4 page)

Bunker was coming in on the underground train; at ten in the evening she went to meet him. He came across the platform toward her, putting on his sweater. “I thought it never got cold here.” Paula turned to walk beside him. They climbed the stairs to the ground level. She handed him an envelope.

“That’s the message to Melleno.”

They went out of the tube station and the cold wind struck her in the face. The paper flapped in Bunker’s hands. He turned to shelter it. Although the night had fallen long since, the domelight was bright enough to read by. Paula looked up at the hills. The wind was roaring out of the canyon behind them. The SoCal dome was huge; they were proud of their winds.

Bunker nodded. “I hope he can read it.” He gave her back the paper and they walked along the flat desert, their backs to the wind. The tall palm trees that marked the path milled their broad leaves like arms. “Do you suppose anybody there speaks the Common Speech?”

Paula shrugged. “Overwood does business with them. Overwood thinks crystal is some kind of super-battery.”

“I take it from your tone of voice that that shows his ignorance.”

“It’s not a battery. A transformer, sort of. Maybe.”

The path took them in toward the flank of the steep hills, where the houses clustered like a colony of barnacles above the bare dusty desert floor. A bike was wheeling toward her and she moved out of the way. They went up a steep path into the Old Town. The wind had blown weeds and leaves up against Overwood’s door. It was locked and the shop was dark. Paula stood looking in the window. Bunker turned.

“He must live around here somewhere.”

“I called him,” Paula said. “He said if he wasn’t at the shop, he’d be in the bar.” She pointed down the street. Two men were just going in a bright doorway. “I’ll bet that’s it.”

As they went through the doorway a bell clanged. There were three tiltball machines against the far wall, half-hidden behind a crowd of players. The room smelled of beer. Overwood was sitting in a booth in the back, behind a potted jacaranda tree, his hands laced over his little round stomach. Paula went up to him.

“Hello, there,” he said. “Have a seat. I’ll sit you a drink.”

Bunker shook his hand. “My name’s Richard Butler.”

“Whatever you say. Thomas Overwood here.”

Another chorus of bells rang out behind her. She slid between the jacaranda and the wall into the booth across from Overwood and held out the envelope to him. “For the Saturn Akellar.”

“Seven hundred dollars,” Overwood said.

Bunker pulled a chair around to the end of the table between them. He took a wallet out of his hip pocket and sat down. A waiter brought them a pitcher of beer and glasses. Bunker counted out money into a stack before him: fourteen fifty-dollar bills. The fifteenth he gave to her. “Sign that.”

It was an expense chit. She signed it.

“How long will this take?” Bunker said.

“Maybe four months.” Overwood put the money in one pocket and the message in another. “Maybe less. That’s a long way away, that.” The waiter poured the bright beer. “What’s the Committee’s interest in Styth?”

Paula reached for a glass. “Who supplies you with crystal?”

Overwood smiled at her. “Now, now.”

Bunker pushed the money over to him. “We want information. The Committee’s favorite food. We need good sources of information, first-generation, on the politics of the rAkellaron.”

“That’s funny.” Overwood laughed; his bushy eyebrows went up and down. The laughter rumbled on steadily, like a motor. “That’s very funny. I’ve been told they’ll buy information about the Earth.”

Paula put her elbows on the table. “I’ll send you a price list.”

“What have you told them?” Bunker asked.

“All they’re interested in is military stuff.”

“They don’t know much about the Earth,” Paula said.

“Our interests are a little broader,” Bunker said.

“I can’t help you.” Overwood nodded at her. “I don’t know anything about Styths. Ask her, she stepped on me twice today, trying to fake it. Venusian glass, maybe, or chess, or smuggling, but Styths—” He spread his hands.

“Do you buy the crystal directly from them?” Bunker said.

Overwood shrugged elaborately, smiling, his eyebrows arched. “I can’t talk about that.”

“We’ll pay.”

“Sorry.”

Paula watched Bunker’s face. There were deep creases marking the corners of his mouth, but otherwise he looked bored. She lifted her glass. The tiltballs bells rang like a carousel. Lights flashed.

“If I hear anything,” Overwood said, “I’ll let you know.”

“Call me.” Paula wrote down her name and extension number for him. With Bunker she left the bar.

They went to the end of the street, where the ground pitched off sheer to the desert below, and stood in the shadows of the trees. From this height she could see the even furrows of the cropfields on the desert below. Two circles of lights burned on the dark flat land. Bunker was looking back down the street toward Overwood’s shop.

“Come on.” He went at a swinging walk across the street. Paula followed.

“Where are you going?”

He led her down the alley between Overwood’s shop and the astrologer’s. When she came up beside him he was trying to open the back window.

“Do you have a knife?”

“No. I’ll go keep Overwood busy.” She went down the alley to the street again.

Even from here she heard the jangle of the tiltball bells in the bar. Two women walked unsteadily out of the bar and went off down the hill, their arms around each other. Paula strolled back to the doorway of the bar. The domelight drove her shadow to a puddle around her feet.

Overwood was standing up beside his booth, paying the waiter. She crossed the crowded room toward him. “Overwood.”

He looked up, his hands full of money. She went around beside him. “I want to talk to you.”

“Oh? Where’s the other fellow?”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about. Let me buy you a beer.”

Overwood let her buy him a beer, two beers, and a third. She impressed him with the necessity of dealing with her and not Bunker, even though Bunker had the money, asked him if anybody in Saturn-Keda could read the Common Speech, and finally talked him into going out with her to show her the fastest way down the hillside. He took her to the end of the street, right past his shop, and pointed out three different trails, white as thread down the slope, among the aloes and manzanita.

“You’d better be careful. If you fall and hurt yourself, you could lie there all night.” He beamed at her. “To say nothing of the coyotes.”

“I like dogs.” Over his shoulder she saw Bunker coming down the alley by his shop.

He let out a rumbling laugh. “You wouldn’t like a coyote.”

She was looking out across the vast dome. The bracelets of lights on the desert floor held her gaze. “What are they doing down there?” She pointed. Each of the circles seemed to be made of a dozen little fires.

“Trance circles,” he said. “They sit around and chant and watch the fires and throw themselves into trances. Kids, bums, people like that.”

“Why don’t they just take drugs?”

“That’s too easy.”

“Well,” she said, “maybe I’ll try it. Thanks.” She started down the nearest of the paths he had shown her.

The hill was steep. She was inching across a narrows, her clothes snagged on the brush, when Bunker caught up with her.

“What did you find?”

“Nothing,” he said.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. He was watching his feet on the thin trail. The hillside was studded with spiky plants. Ahead the trail widened, tame.

“Nothing at all? I don’t believe you.”

“He’s smart. Nothing’s written down.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Frankly, junior, I don’t give a damn.”

“Why do you call me that?”

Beside her, his hands in his pockets, he smiled at her. “You don’t like it, do you?”

“No.”

“Junior,” he said, “you have a lot to learn.” He went off ahead of her down the trail. Burning, she stood still and let him walk up a good lead before she started off again.

Paula took the midnight train to New York. Walking up the aisle of the car, she saw Bunker sitting next to the window on a forward bench. After a moment she put her bag on the rack over his head and sat down opposite him. He had a book plug in his ear; he ignored her. She stretched her legs out before her. The train was almost empty. The lights flashed on and off, and the bench under her jerked forward. She braced herself. The train bounded forward, stopped cold, and started up again. They rolled off into the dark.

The windowless walls of the car were covered with graffiti. Gaining speed, the train swayed from side to side. She rocked with it, sleepy. Los Angeles was two and a half hours from New York; it would be nearly dawn when she reached her home. On the bench across from her, Bunker sat with the tape purring in his ear. He was spare and lean, even his kinky hair close to his head. He could have been forty, or fifty, or her age. She knew he was older than she was.

“The Styths don’t know much about us, either,” she said.

“Not if they want to know about our military.”

The train sailed wide around a curve. She flung her arm across the back of the seat. He was staring at the wall. Obviously he would say no more than he had to. She aimed her eyes at the figure-covered wall.

Her flute was gone. She kept it under her bed. Nothing else in her disordered room had been touched, so she knew as if he had signed his name who had taken it. She went next door to An Chu’s room.

“Shaky John has crooked my flute again.”

An Chu looked up. “Are you sure it was him?”

“I will be.” She tipped up the lid to the other woman’s sewing box. An Chu kept her sequins and sparkles in little plastine bags. Paula shook one empty.

“You shouldn’t accuse people when you aren’t sure.”

“Hunh.” She took the little bag and went across the common room to the kitchen.

Three people stood at the sink, singing an obscene round and washing dishes. Water puddled the floor. She opened the cupboard over the stove and filled up the plastine bag with baking soda. The boisterous singing followed her out again. She went down the other hall to the third door on the left and knocked.

“Go away.”

She tried the latch. The door was locked. John’s plaintive voice called, “Go away.” She felt in her pockets, found her pay envelope, slid the edge through the seam in the door and lifted the hook on the inside.

“Hey!”

She went into a dark, stinking room. The floor was caked with rotting food. The mattress against the far wall smelled of piss and mildew. John sat huddled on it, his arms crooked up to his chest.

“Why you coming in here?”

“Why you stealing my flute? Where is it?”

He was trembling. He curled up on the mattress. “Let me alone.”

Paula crouched before him. At her feet was an apple core fuzzy with mold. She kicked it away. She took the plastine bag out of her jacket pocket and waved it at him. He straightened slowly out of his curl. His face was broken out and his nose dripped. He scratched around in his crotch, his eyes on the bag.

“Where is it?” she said.

“Don’t have it. You can look. Let me—” He reached for the bag. She drew back, holding it in the air above her head.

“Where is it?”

“Don’t have it. Pi-please, Paula. I’m sick. Look how sick I am.” He held his shaking hands out. “You can’t be mad at me, Paula.”

“Where’s my flute?”

“Sold it. I sold it. Don’t have it any more.”

She clenched her teeth. “Who bought it?”

“I’m sick.” His fingers dug into his armpits, his hair. His clothes stuck to him. “I’m real sick.”

“John! Who bought my flute?”

“B-Barrian. Barrian.”

“How much?”

“Please—”

She shook her head. He was playing sick, mostly; if he whined enough, people gave him money to score just to be rid of him. There were several running bets in the commune on how long it would take him to die. She said, “John, how much?”

“Forty dollars.”

She muttered, “Forty dollars.” Of course he had none left. She threw the plastine bag down on the stinking mattress. He lunged for it.

“John, if you do this to me once more, I’ll make your life miserable. Even more miserable. You hear me?”

He was scrambling around, looking for his works. “Sure, Paula. You’re a good girl.” With his shaking hands he lit a candle to cook the soda he thought was morphion. She went out.

Barrian’s was a music store in the underground mall south of the campus. She stood looking at a violin in a glass case while the shopman talked to another customer. The violin’s body was burnished to a chestnut glow. A small sign identified it by a Latin name and the date A.D. 1778. It was nearly four thousand years old. She went up to the counter.

“A loadie came in here over the weekend and sold you an ebony flute.”

The shopman had white hairs growing out of his ears and nose. “That’s right,” he said. “And a beauty it is, too.”

“It’s mine.”

“Not any more.” He tapped the glass counter. She looked down. On the velvet-covered shelf, her flute lay in its open box. A small sign on it gave it a Latin name, an age of fifty years, and a price of six hundred dollars.

She said, “If you look under the lip with a magnifying glass, you’ll find my name. Paula Mendoza.”

“We bought it in good faith.”

“For forty dollars.”

The shopman smiled at her. “Of course, if you pay our price—”

“I’ll give you back the forty dollars.”

“Sorry.”

She drew in a deep breath. Paying out forty dollars would reduce her to eating rice for the next week, until she was paid again. Six hundred was impossible. She tapped her fingers on the counter.

“I want my flute.”

“I can see that. The price is six hundred dollars.”

“I work for the Committee.”

“I’m very happy for you.”

“Give it back, or I’ll go through our files and find something on you.”

“You’ll be looking a long time, we’re honest.”

She went off around the shop. On the wall, in plastic clips, hung swatches of paper music. She could try to steal the flute, but the shop, being underground, was tight against thieves, and the glass case was probably locked. She could borrow the money. Save it over weeks. Maybe Tony would loan it to her. A fat boy with frizzy blond hair down to his waist came into the shop, a guitar over his shoulder.