“Rating stripes. Subtenant, lieutenant, commander, master commander, master.” He put his hand on her stomach. “Then there’s general and master general, which nobody ever gets.”
Directly below her Tanuojin’s voice said, “Saba, call the bridge.”
She rolled out of the way. He reached for the speaker tab in the wall. “Bridge.”
“Akellar, Ketac is tearing up Uhama in the Tank.”
“Damn him.” He left. Paula shut the hatch to keep out the light. She lay in the air staring out at the black fields of space. The stars eased her mood, scattered thick past counting over the window, unimaginably distant. After a while she found the switch that hooded the window again. She went out to the ship’s glossy tunnels.
There was another place Ketac had not shown her: the brig, off in a corridor of its own above the number six engine, in the tip of one wing. Saba threw his son into this jail for fighting with Uhama. Two bells rang: the beginning of the middle watch. She wrapped herself in a blanket and Saba rolled them both in the thick rug of his bed, and they slept, attached to the wall by a ring near their feet. The shag fur made her nose feel dusty. The big Styth slept with his arms around her. She wondered what Matuko would be like and shut off her curiosity. If she went with expectations she would only confuse herself. She put her face against the sleeping man’s bare shoulder.
At three bells he went to the bridge. The Tank was crowded and she did not go in. She went to the library, but Tanuojin was there. She wandered around the halls, bored. At the end of the black and white corridor, under a storage hatch, she found three little fish swimming behind a round window in the hall.
She searched around the ship and found five more fish bowls. The little fish were dull gray, with spines on their backs. She went into the blue corridor and down the short wing tunnel to the brig.
The pounding of the engine below vibrated the air. The heat was terrific. At the blind end of the tunnel, Ketac hung upside down, his eyes closed. His skin was oily with sweat. She went back out to the arrow tunnel and down to the galley.
Two men crowded it. One was Marus, Tanuojin’s helmsman. She watched outside for them to leave.
“One thing about Sril,” Marus said. “He does all his fighting in the ship, where it doesn’t matter he isn’t big enough to see over his old woman’s ass.” He came out past her, ignoring her, as all Tanuojin’s men did. She got a tube of water from the galley wall and went back to the brig.
Ketac was staring at the wall. The side of his face was deeply scratched. There were rings set into the wall, but he did not seem to be tied.
“Here,” she said.
He jumped, his hands flying up. “Paula.” His voice croaked. He tore open the tube and sucked out the water. Soaked dark with sweat, his overalls were open down to his crotch. The racket jangled her; she felt gritty.
“Thanks, Paula.” He squeezed the last of the water into his mouth.
“I’ll bring you another.”
He followed her around the bend to the hatch. “Stay here—don’t leave me alone here.”
“The hatch isn’t locked. You can leave.”
He scrubbed his face with his hands. “I promised my father I’d stay here.” His voice was raw. “He’d tie me if I left.”
“I’ll bring you something to eat.” She went out to the cool, quiet tunnel beyond.
When she came back, he was floating in the blind end again. He beamed at her, relieved to see her, and grabbed the tube of water.
“Thanks. Nobody else has even come in here.”
The vibration set her teeth on edge. The boy hung sidewise in the air. The tip of his forefinger was bloody and scabbed over, the claw broken off deep in the quick.
“What are those fish for?”
His teeth mashed through a mouthful of food tablets. “They’re scouts. If the hatches leak they die.” He drank the rest of the water. Bits of plastic wrapping floated around him.
“How long will you be here?”
“Until he lets me out.” He kicked, knocking himself back into the wall. “Nobody cares about me—I’m going crazy—” He banged around the end of the tunnel. She moved away from him, wary.
“Paula, don’t go—”
“I can’t even hear you.” The heat made her face itch. “I’ll come back later.”
“Paula! Stay here—please—”
“Ketac—” A bell sounded, muffled. “I’ll come later.” She left him alone.
She went to the bridge, to meet Saba coming off watch. He had already gone. Kobboz was sitting down in the cage. She looked in the Tank and in the library, and turned on the monitors in her room and hunted through them. He was nowhere. Neither was Tanuojin; they were together. She stopped looking.
She went to bed. The rug folded around her like a great loose skin. Drowsily she wondered why they fastened up the foot instead of the head. It was pleasant to float free in the air. She yawned.
The hatch opening woke her. Saba swung himself in through the oval doorway. She started to call to him but she heard Tanuojin’s voice.
“Come down to the library. I’ll show you.”
“I’m tired.” Saba was stripping off his overalls. “Next watch.”
“Jesus.” The deep voice rasped. “All your off-time now you spend with her.”
“What’s the matter with you?”
The hatch slammed. Tanuojin went away. She heard Saba give a low laugh.
Halfway through the middle watch, she thought of Ketac again and took him a dozen food tablets and two tubes of water. When he saw her his face split in a broad smile. “Paula.”
She wiped her face on her sleeve. He ripped open a water tube.
“Talk to me. Stay here and talk to me.”
“Ketac, it’s hot in here.”
“Nobody else has even come to see me—all my so-called friends—” He ran himself into the wall. “Nobody but a nigger squaw. Oh, Jesus, I have to get out of here.”
“Do you know who Jesus was?”
He stroked his hair back. His sprouting mustaches were pointed, like feathers. “I don’t know. It’s just a curse. It sounds like a curse. It feels good to say it.” His eyes glinted. “Like fuck.”
The corridor was littered with bits of white wrapping. She gathered them up. Around the bend, the hatch banged open. She spun. Saba came feet-first toward them. “Paula. What are you doing in here?” He took her by the arm. “Hot, isn’t it?” he said to Ketac.
“Pop, let me out—please—”
“You sound pretty lively yet to me.” He pulled her off along the tunnel. “One more watch, Ketac.”
“I’ll die!”
“I’ll miss your company.”
In the corridor, the cool air bathed her face; her shirt was stuck to her arms and she pulled her sleeves free. Saba pushed her along ahead of him.
“Stay away from him.”
“He was hungry.”
“He’s supposed to suffer. He isn’t your crumb.”
The computer in the supply room made her several sets of overalls, like the uniforms of the men, with the black three-pointed star on the back but no rating stripes. She wore two sets at a time to keep warm. In the dim light she learned to use her other senses more than before. Quickly she lost track of time. The high watch, the low watch, the middle watch ran after each other like clock gears. The time didn’t seem to change at all, any more than the ship seemed to move, suspended in the dark, the stars unchanging before the window. In the Asteroids near Pallas three Martian ships ambushed them, but
Sril played a ulugong, a sheet of metallic plastic that he held on his lap and struck with his knuckles, like a drum with bell tones. She brought her flute to the Tank and they played together. The other men threw darts and made models and argued the various merits of the posters on the wall. Occasionally they got into a fight over the
