paper women spreading their legs on the curved wall. She read, and she worked on the first draft of the trade contract, but the music kept her mood light. The low mellow voice of the ulugong went well with the flute. They made up songs, she and Sril, by the hour.
They clubbed Ketac. All the crew but two men left to mind the bridge packed into the Tank. Ketac knelt down in the air before Saba, who took his hands and stretched his arms out before him. Behind him Tanuojin pulled the young man’s hair back.
“Who is the man?” Saba asked.
“Styth,” Ketac answered. His voice trembled, passionate.
“Which is the way?”
“To the Sun.”
“Keep faith.” Saba slapped him hard across the cheek.
The other men cheered. His face glowing, his hair fastened neatly down, Ketac whooped in their midst. Behind them all, Paula tucked her hands into her sleeve. It was such a simple ritual. She wondered uneasily why they could not do without it altogether. Saba brought out a bottle of Scotch. Ketac tried to drink out of it, while the other men laughed and pounded him on the back. She picked up her flute and withdrew into the music.
Saba steered her down the arrow corridor, past the mouth of the blue tunnel. After 121 watches she moved as easily as he did, faster sometimes, but he still maneuvered her around whenever he could. They went into the Beak, the room in the nose of the ship. The window was shut. While she felt around the rim for the switch, Saba came in beside her and closed the hatch. She pressed the switch, and the window cracked and light spilled through the widening gap into the little room. In half-phase, banded in cream and gold, wrapped in the curved blades of its rings, Saturn filled the window.
Paula lay back in the air. The brilliant golden light dazzled her. The rings were tilted down away from her, like thin dust veils.
“The first time I ever came here,” he said, “it was my third voyage into space. Tanuojin’s first. My father brought the ship down on the trade lane and we stopped everything that came by. Melleno was the Prima then. After we’d held up about a dozen freight ships going to Saturn, he sent his Saturn Fleet out and chased us off. My father howled so hard, you could hear him all over the ship.”
“Why?”
“The Prima wasn’t supposed to have any rights in deep space. My father didn’t approve of other people breaking the law. Just him. Jesus, that was an awful voyage. My father took such a hate to Tanuojin—Tajin had worked for Melleno. Then when we got back to Uranus, Tajin went to Melleno and they mended their quarrel and he wrote a law for Melleno putting a 100 per cent tax on goods stolen from Styth hulls and sold in Styth markets. They took all the profit out of piracy. It almost ruined the fleet.”
She looked out the window at the ringed Planet. The shadow of one of its moons lay on the golden surface of the clouds. “What was your father’s name?”
“Yekaka. It fitted him, too.” The name meant loudmouth. “Do you want to go down to Saturn-Keda?”
“Oh. Yes. Can I? Will you take me?”
“If you promise to keep quiet.”
She looked out at the Planet. The surface was patterned in whorls and streamers of clouds, changing shape while she watched, changing hue. “I promise.”
“Good. It’ll give you an idea what Matuko is like.”
The yellow light shone over the side of his face. She put her hand on his legs, lying beside her. “I want to name the baby David.”
“David. What kind of a name is that? It sounds like a girl’s name. Call him Vida. It’s the same thing. Vida— David.”
“Then you call him Vida, and I’ll call him David.”
He played with her fingers. His claws tapped her palm. “What else?”
“Does there have to be more?”
“Most shirt-names are a little more elaborate. Nobody ever uses it.” He manipulated her fingers.
“What’s a shirt-name? Ouch.”
He pulled her hand up and kissed her palm and rubbed his cheek over the flat of her hand. Her palm stung where the claw had pricked her.
“When the baby is born I wrap him up in my shirt and take him outdoors, so that people can see I accept him as mine, and I give him his name.”
“What’s your shirt-name?”
“Takoret-aSaba. ‘He knows the right way.’ My father liked righteous names. He was always telling me to live up to my name.” He laughed, his hand up to his chin, his face painted in Saturn’s yellow light. “I knew all the wrong ways.”
“Does the name have to mean something?”
“No.”
“Good. Then David Mendoza.” She put her hand on her rounding body. “What’s Tanuojin’s shirt-name?”
“He hasn’t got one. He’s an orphan. The people who brought him up found him in the street when he was barely old enough to walk. They already had eight boys, so they named him ‘the ninth boy.’” His voice broadened with pride. “He started from point. He had nothing.”
“He still has very little.”
Someone banged on the hatch below her. She moved out of the way. He opened the hatch, and Tanuojin’s head and shoulders rose through the round entry. He gave Saturn a glance and ignored Paula.
“Here.” He thrust a watchboard and a stylus at Saba. “Did you call Melleno?”
“I will now.” Saba wrote on the board. He took a slide calculator out of his sleeve. “She is going with us.”
Paula moved back against the wall, out of their way. Tanuojin took the board again. “Why?”
“Make sure you clear that orbit with Titan. You’re in my way.”
Tanuojin backed out of the hatch. Saba went out. Paula started after him and the other man blocked the hatch.
“No, Saba, let me talk to her.”
Paula withdrew into the darkness, her back to the giant Planet. Through the hatch came a short laugh. “Talk all you want.”
Tanuojin came into the cramped space after her. She stayed as far away from him as she could. Her fingers went to her breast. “What do you want?”
“I’ll ask the questions. Look over there.” He gestured to one side and put out his other hand. She recoiled.
“Don’t touch me.”
The Planet glared over his long face, his catfish jaw. The hatch was below him. She could not escape. He said, “Do as I say. Look over there. I’m just going to touch you.”
“No.”
He lowered his hand. “What are you afraid of?” His voice was unsettlingly deep. “Are you afraid of me?”
“Yes.”
He spun over the hatch wheel and pushed the cover away into the corridor. “Get out. You stink like pig.”
She went out the hatch and down the corridor; she did not stop until she was in the red tunnel, two hatches from her room.
She spent ten minutes in the wetroom, scrubbing herself on the walls. Washing her face was fun, although the soap stung her eyes. Thinking about Tanuojin made her uncomfortable. When he had healed her she had been so groggy she could hardly remember what had happened. She rubbed soap into her hair and rinsed it in the water streaming along the wall.
“Are you in there?” A fist banged on the watch below her feet.
“Yes.”
“Come out and get dressed, if you want to go to Saturn-Keda.”