Floating Worlds

hotel waiters in white coats rolled another serving cart in the door past him, and the two lieutenants went to take it from them.

Tanuojin said to Savenia, “Have you worked it out?”

Savenia looked significantly at Paula. He said, “She’s not involved any more.” Junna brought him a dewy glass of water.

“I have everything,” Cam said. “Names and addresses, meeting places, even their hideouts and escape routes. I can jail fifty thousand dissidents in two days.”

“Good.”

The two lieutenants were setting out the food in the serving cart. Paula stretched her neck to see. A roast chicken lay in a dish in the middle of the top tray surrounded by vegetable flowers and cranberry sauce. Her tongue ran with water. Savenia said, “What about Newrose, Akellar?”

“I’ll handle him. He may still cooperate. You can go.”

Cam bent from the waist, a marionette bow, and backed away. Paula rubbed her hand over her eyes. She felt sorry for Newrose; she hated Cam. Lowering her hand, she looked around the room. The furniture was upholstered in gold brocade. The walls and floor were shades of brown. In the hearth, behind a pile of plastic logs, a cylinder of crinkled foil turned under an orange light to simulate fire.

Tanuojin said, “Ketac, where is the Earth?”

“About thirty-five light seconds behind Mars.”

The aides brought the cart of food around beside the couch. Junna served his father. Ketac came around the knot of people by Tanuojin and sank down on his heels beside Paula.

“You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Just don’t wake me up when you come in.”

He kissed her hand and her cheek and stood up. The fancy red shirt hissed when he moved. “Akellar—”

Tanuojin nodded, put his head back, and said, “Marus, you can go.” The big man followed Ketac out. Paula was still barefoot, and her toes were cold. She went into the bedroom and found a pair of Ketac’s socks. When she came back into the sitting room, everybody was gone but Junna and Tanuojin.

“He never makes himself that pretty for me.” She went to the cart. The chicken was neatly sliced. She put a piece of the brown skin into her mouth.

“Newrose is still your thing,” Tanuojin said to her.

She tried eating cranberry sauce with her fingers and switched to a spoon. Tanuojin came up to the cart to feed. Junna followed him. They stood around the roast chicken and the pots of gaily colored vegetables, eating.

“He’ll believe anything you tell him,” Tanuojin said.

“Don’t you ever get tired of thinking, Papa?” Junna said. “There must be something more important than thinking.”

“Why don’t you tie up your hair like a man?”

Junna flicked back the loose lock of his hair. He was Tanuojin’s height and build, supple, bonelessly graceful. His father had been that way once. Now Tanuojin was stiffening, slackening, as he used his body more and more only to carry his head around. Paula ate meat. The Emperor walked away through the room, his back to her. She imagined him in his final phase, a great soft brain resting in a chair.

“Why do you want to go to the Earth?” Junna asked her.

“It’s my home.”

“You mean you want to stay there?”

“She’s crazy.” Tanuojin sat down in a corner of the couch.

Paula wiped her hands on a white napkin. Junna frowned at his father, one hand on his hip, his body curved like a bow. He turned to her.

“I’ll take you.”

“You stay out of this,” Tanuojin said.

“Why? She’s your oldest friend. She saved your life. Vida died for you. Why shouldn’t I help her?”

The Emperor settled into the couch, one arm across the back, his head down. “Is that your substitute for thinking?”

Paula hung the white napkin over the handle of the cart. “He’ll take me himself,” she said to Junna. She went back for her glass, on the floor beside the couch. “Sooner or later.”

Junna was scowling at Tanuojin. Paula held out her empty glass, and he took it and went to the cart full of drink.

“Sooner or later,” Tanuojin said to her, “you’ll do as I say.”

She went to sleep alone in the wide cool bed. Presently she woke, or seemed to wake. The back of her neck crawled with nerves. Tanuojin stood beside the bed. His eyes were like mirrors. She felt unable to move, as if in a dream. He lay down on the bed next to her.

“Paula—” He took her face between the cold blades of his hands. “Pauliko, now you submit.” She thought, It is a dream. His narcotic touch lulled her. She closed her eyes. His mouth touched her. A dream. He disappeared. Silence and darkness closed around her. Restless, she tried to waken. Her mind was scattered. She struggled to think. It was no dream; Tanuojin had her.

She collected her mind, floating in a black emptiness like deep space. Without her senses she was confused and could not decide what was actually happening, or what she should do. Perhaps nothing. Other people panicked and fought uselessly until they died or were too tired to resist. If only she could see, she would have something to hold on to. She strained to see.

A green world spread out around her, trees and meadow grass yellowed with sunlight. That was her imagination. She could go in there and rest. With an effort she wiped it away. The black blindness fell around her again. She had to keep away from that trap of telling herself what to see. She organized her mind to use her eyes.

A light flashed so bright it dazed her. Her mind stopped, stupid, in the grip of a gray after-image. It faded. She mastered herself again, encouraged; she must have almost broken out, to be driven back like that. She pitched herself against the dark.

This time the brilliance shattered her. Five or six of her circled aimlessly around each other, like voices talking at once, all numb. What happened? Give up, one voice said, loudest. Give up. Give up. She was lost in the midst of herselves, helpless. Two brushed together, saying the same thing, and she made them lap and fit together. Several after-images of the light flash hung around her. As she formed her mind together again all the images blended into one, and she focused on that. The cogent loud voice telling her to give up faded away. That was Tanuojin. She fastened her attention on the after-image, dying in the black.

The image was not featureless, like the first time. In it she saw white on white a doorway, another room. A roll of light showed in the background, the bright false fire in the hearth of the sitting room of her suite.

The dark closed over her. She rested, hoarding her strength. All her selves had melded again, and she could not find the seams between them. This time she had to keep trying, she could not let him drive her back. She gathered herself up and went forward into the dark.

Suddenly, without the blast of light, the corridor of the hotel lay before her. A Styth coming toward her stopped and saluted her. She relaxed, triumphant. The corridor was darker than before, and the colors strange, muted to halftones, the shading between dark and light more distinct than she was used to. It was a Styth image. Styths saw that way; he was tricking her. She refused to see what he was feeding into her mind, she forced it to dissolve.

The light struck her, dazzling, destroying her. In the sheet of light figures moved. She strained toward them. The light pierced her, merciless, she was glass, she was sheer to the brilliance, and she passed through into a dim room, where a white Martian face hung before her, concerned, mouthing words she could not hear.

She was in some other part of the hotel. The Martian, looking reassured, went out a side door. She had no physical control over the single eye she occupied, and it blinked and she was blind. Not the same dark as before: blood tinged the eyelid. When the eye opened, Newrose was there in front of her.

He talked, smiling all over his pink face, and she apparently answered him. They passed into another room.