Floating Worlds

Tanuojin pulled her around to the cage. She turned over, her feet toward the wall. He thrust her at a screen in front of the cage. “There she is, General.”

Paula took hold of one rib of the cage. On the screen was General Gordon. She said, “Hello, General. Doing the lord’s work?” She could smell a strange bitter scent, maybe Tanuojin.

Gordon said, “Miss Mendoza, are you there of your own free will?”

“Are you?”

“Don’t duel with me, young woman. Tell them I want to talk to the Akellar Saba.”

Tanuojin pushed her out of the way. “He’s asleep.”

“Then wake him up.”

The wall beside her was covered with dials. All the needles were swinging, twitching, at random. Besides Sril, two other men sat on stools along the curved wall. The scarred man, Bakan, headphones over his ears, was directly above her.

Tanuojin said, “Why am I to wake up the third-ranking Akellar of the Styth Empire just because you tell me?” He spoke much slower in the Common Speech than in Styth.

“Akellar,” Bakan said, “Ybicsa is launching.”

On the far side of the cage from her was a holograph. She let go of the cage and scrambled through the air toward the green cube of light. Someone above her laughed at her. In the hologram, an image of Ybix sailed along through clear green space. Two smaller ships flanked her and a third flew after her, an inch from her long whip-tail. Paula recognized the T-shapes of the Lunar Army’s patrol craft. A small green image streaked out of Ybix’s side and flew off the map.

“I want to see your captain,” Gordon was saying.

“Ybicsa is launched, Akellar,” Bakan said.

Paula lifted her head. Gordon’s pinched face looked tired. Tanuojin leaned over the screen. “You don’t talk to Saba. You take your ships away, or I start to shoot.”

An arm moved over the screen before Gordon. He glanced down and up again. “Ybix, you have launched another ship. We have regulations—”

Tanuojin turned his head. “Where is Saba?”

“Halfway back to the Earth,” Bakan said, “and going like hell.”

Paula looked up. She was drifting. Now Sril was above her on the curved wall, and Bakan was off to her right. The hatch opened and two men came in.

“What’s going on?”

Gordon was saying, “I want to talk to your captain. If you don’t produce him in five minutes, I’ll assume he’s on the ship you just launched and proceed accordingly.”

Paula looked down at the holograph. Ybix, manta-flat, was the size of her hand, the Lunar hammerheads the size of her thumb. Other ships sailed along in orbits below and ahead of her. The patrol ship behind Ybix seemed to draw up on her. Tanuojin and Gordon were arguing. Suddenly an alarm shrieked in her ears.

She started all over, her skin cold. The warning horn whooped again. Tanuojin jumped out of the cage. “Sril!”

“I have him on one, Akellar.”

The hammerhead slid back, away from them, and the alarm rang silent. Paula was shivering. She glanced up at the men massed in the bridge above her. Sril had his hands on a lever in the wall beside his stool. He was watching Tanuojin.

He wheeled back to General Gordon. “God damn you, if you break my perimeter again, I’ll shoot.”

Gordon never blinked. “Even the devil knows the name of the lord. I’ll give you ten minutes to leave before I blow you to hadrons.” The screen went dark.

Paula rubbed her finger over her cheek. They were just playing with each other, and they both knew it. The hatch was directly above her. She rose toward it.

“Where are you going?” Tanuojin said. “You stay here.”

“You don’t need me here.”

“Akellar, that hammerhead is drifting up again,” Bakan said.

He flew down to the cage. “Bring her along thirty leagues.”

“Mendoz’,” Sril said. He leaned down, his hand stretched toward her. “Catch on.” She took hold of his hand. The ship was gaining speed. Paula was falling toward the wall. She held on to Sril with both hands. In the holograph, Ybix moved out ahead of the three hammerheads. Her arms ached. Slowly she grew lighter again.

“Making one hundred twenty-six leagues, Akellar.”

“The patrol ship is speeding up, Akellar,” Bakan said. In the hologram another vessel showed, ahead of Ybix: the next ship in orbit.

“Good. Brake her down thirty leagues.”

Sril said, in her ear, “Hold on.” She put her arm around his waist. The ship slowed. She was dragged in the other direction, stretched out like a flag in the wind.

“Meet her, Marus,” Tanuojin said. “You’re dropping her.”

The siren whooped. The hammerhead behind them was running up on them.

“Sril!”

“Ready to fire, Akellar.”

“Fire.”

“Fire one.”

The scream of the alarm made her ears hurt. Her weight lessened. She was floating again. Ybix flew backward through the green map into the following wedge of the hammerheads. A light flashed just behind the tailend ship, and the Styths groaned. A miss. The hammerhead bent its course, rising up over Ybix’s broad back. The siren stopped. Paula’s ears rang like brass.

“Take us back to station,” Tanuojin said. “Keep Gordon happy.”

The helmsman said, “Braking ten leagues.”

Paula slid gently against Sril’s side. Ybix drifted backward through the map cube. The hammerheads were scattered across the space, out of order.

“Akellar, Luna is signaling.”

“Didn’t I say the little man was bluffing? What’s our course?”

“We’re on station, Akellar.”

She let go of Sril and floated free in the air. The hatch was below her now, and Tanuojin inside the cage was above her again. The videone lit up: General Gordon.

“You can count yourselves lucky that maneuver failed. Your ten minutes is almost up. I’m warning you, I’m not a generous man.”

Tanuojin put one arm through the cage bars. Paula glanced at the holograph. The hammerheads were again flying on either of Ybix’s wings and just behind her. The Styths around her were utterly still.

“I’m not taking this ship anywhere until my commanding officer gives me an order,” Tanuojin said, “and he’s asleep.” He was waggling the hand outside the bars. Beside Paula, Sril bent over a deck of wires.

“Yes, Akellar.” He pushed the deck like a drawer back into the wall.

Tanuojin waved at him. His arm withdrew into the cage. He and Gordon debated waking up Saba. She looked up at the hatch. There was no reason to stay here. Sril was turning slowly away from her, his hand on the lever on the wall, and his eyes on Tanuojin.

“You don’t have to shake your superstitions in my face,” Tanuojin was saying to Gordon. He thrust his arm out of the cage and waved at Sril. “I’ve already noticed that you’re ignorant.”

General Gordon’s face thinned. Paula could not see his hands, only his shoulders and head. Was he signaling too? She drifted down toward the hologram. Bright green, Ybix sailed on her even course. The three smaller ships skirted her. The hammerhead on Ybix’s tail was flying higher than the Styth ship. She supposed they were creeping in to try to catch the transmission of the sensor wire. Tanuojin