Floating Worlds

She crawled into the gusty warmth of the dryer and went out to the room. The cold roughened her skin. She took out a fresh pair of overalls.

“Put on something fancy. You can’t go like that.”

She got her suitcase out of the long compartment in the wall. “Why are you taking me, anyway?”

“I told you. I’m civilizing you.” He was stripping off his uniform.

It would be cold in Saturn-Keda. She put on overalls and the long black dress An Chu had made for her, which had a coat that went with it. The layers of skirts floated around her, glinting with silver threads.

“How do I look?” She turned around, and the many layers of the dress swirled around her. She put the coat on.

“You look fine. One more thing.” He floated in front of her, standing up the collar of the coat. “Decent women don’t go out in public in Styth with their faces uncovered.”

She slid back away from him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you go veiled.”

“No.”

“Do you want to go or not?”

She watched him, angry, while he opened a bin and got out a length of black cloth. He wrapped it around her head and draped it over her face, tucking the excess down under the collar of the coat.

“Good,” he said. “That will do fine.”

She turned away, humiliated.

They went through the tunnels to the docking chamber. He let her take the veil off while they flew to Saturn-Keda. Tanuojin was already in the chamber, pulling on a black pressure suit. Saba led her to the rack in the wall. He helped her put on a space suit. It was Sril’s, who overstood her by fourteen inches. She pulled the thick leggings up until her feet reached the bottom, and he tied the slack around her knees.

“I did some tuning on this suit, and we’ll launch soft. You ought to be comfortable most of the time.” He showed her the helmet, a smoky plastic cylinder. “You wear this until I say you can take it off.”

She took the helmet in her arms. He gave her a pair of gloves. “Tanuojin! Plug her in.”

Ybicso’s hatch was wide open. Paula poked her head through into the narrow cockpit of the ship. Three tandem seats took up most of the space. Tanuojin came around the last, took the helmet away from her, and pushed her into the middle seat. He reached past her and pulled a shoulder harness around her. Floating sideways, he uncoiled a white tube from under the seat and fixed it to a socket in the suit leg behind her knee.

“Put the gloves on.”

She put her hands into the enormous gloves. Saba came into the ship, massive in his suit. He dropped into the front seat. Its high back hid him from her. Tanuojin tugged the gloves down over her wrists and strapped them tight. She looked him in the face. His yellow eyes were notched with brown. He put the helmet over her head. The smoked plastic darkened her sight.

Saba said, “I’ll take her down the A-39 chute at a 28-degree attitude, level off at minus 100M, and underfly Saturn-Keda. All right?”

“Fine,” Tanuojin said.

She floated in the huge padded seat. When she turned her face up, the helmet struck the back. There was an ax strapped to the wall beside her, and below it a long tube that looked like a gun. The cab lights went off. She sat in the dark, in the mid-air, the harness holding her six inches above the seat.

“Bridge,” Saba said.

“Yes, Akellar.” The voices came through the helmet above her ears.

“Start a count from twenty-five.”

Her seat had no arms. She put her hands under the harness and pulled herself down to make contact with the seat. In the top of the helmet an uninflected voice was counting backward. She put one hand on the wall. Even through the glove she could feel it tremble. A green light shone in front of the cab; Saba had turned on the holograph beside his knee. Leaning forward, she could see it and the side of his head.

“Sixteen, fifteen, fourteen—”

The two men talked in a litany of orders and replies. Paula slid her hand under the harness, down to the round bulge of the baby. This might hurt him. He’s a Styth, he can do anything.

“Five, four, three, two, one, point.”

There was a roar that hurt her ears. She was slammed back into the seat. Her eyes streamed. The pressure suit had failed. Her chest felt caved in. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. She lost consciousness.

“Paula.”

“Uuh.” She opened her eyes. She was floating. Something bounced off the top of her helmet, and it lifted away. The green light of the holograph shone brilliantly in her face. Saba stooped beside her, wedged between the seat and the wall.

“How do you feel?”

She put her hand up to her head. “That’s a jolt.”

He laughed. He looked beyond her, at Tanuojin, who did not laugh. Her left hand, still thrust under the harness, smarted rhythmically. She pulled her gloves off. The harness straps had imprinted the backs of her hands in deep purple welts. He took her fingers.

“Don’t do that.” He pointed up over her head and went back to his seat.

She raised her eyes. The ceiling was clear, a wide window. The stars shone in a broad swath above her. Near the edge of the window two crescent moons shone, one the size of an orange, the other the size of a pea. Her helmet was fastened to a clamp in the ceiling, obscuring the middle of the sky.

“That was a damned dead perfect launch,” Saba said, ahead of her. “We’re plus or minus one for the chute.”

She could hear the cluck of a radio in the back with Tanuojin. She leaned around her seat to look. Twisted in his seat, he was bent over a deck of instruments, earphones over his head. A red light on the panel flashed on his cheek.

“Get me some temperature readings,” Saba said. She turned straight. Enormous, splendid, Saturn was rising into the window, spilling its light into the cab. In the holograph’s green cube Ybicsa like a pin dropped into a thickening yellow radiance.

“About this new ship,” Saba said. “Maybe if I tuck her in a little at the waist, she won’t tail up so much at launch.”

Tanuojin said, “You have that ship half-built already, and you don’t even have the money to buy the model plastic.”

Saba reached awkwardly around the back of his seat and patted Paula on the knee. “I’ve got it right here. I just haven’t converted it yet.”

The cab was filled with the Planet’s light. At the edge of the holograph the green thickened to a yellow like cheese. Ybicsa shot toward it. They were passing over the rings, now resolved into a flood of particles, sparkling in the sunlight. She could see only the innermost stream. The curve of the Planet showed through it.

“Temperature readings. Rim: 300. Thermolayer 1137. Ten M, 350. Twenty M, 152.”

The Planet glared in the window. Red and yellow plumes of gas ran past them. They thickened to a light-filled cloud. The ship plunged through a yellow fog. The holograph showed Ybicsa nosing into a pale stream that backed and curled like a river through the Planet’s substance. Ahead, a darker loop bulged into the stream, pressing it out on either side.

“Braking,” Saba said. “Paula, put your helmet on.”

She stretched her hands up over her head toward the ceiling. The helmet was beyond her reach. She wrestled with the harness. She was heavy; she weighed enough to hold herself down in the seat, and the clamps on the harness were too stiff to open. She pulled at the straps holding her down.

Tanuojin leaned across the back of her seat, took the helmet off the ceiling, and rammed it down over her head. “Put your gloves on!” he shouted.

She found her gloves and fitted her hands into them. Her mouth was dry. The ship rocked violently and she slid forward into the harness.