The park was insulated and the sound of the nearby streets and traffic did not reach her. She put her chin on her hands, thinking with longing of Matuko’s cold twilight and the lake shore.
“Mama.”
David was shaking her. She had fallen asleep. She sat up. He was soaking wet; his shoes squelched. She kissed him.
“Are you having a good time? You know, you can take your clothes off by yourself any time you take the notion.”
“I like being wet.” He held his sodden shirt out from his stomach with both hands. “I climbed all the way up. And look.” He pointed down at the ground and turned in a circle, demonstrating his shadow. “Watch.” He jumped, watching the shadow. He smiled at her. “It’s black, like me.”
She took hold of his chin. His eyes were not round or black: dark brown, they tipped at the corners. But he looked like Saba, with Saba’s flared jaw and wide indulgent mouth. She stood up.
“Let’s go get an ice cream.”
They started across the sunlit grass of the park. In the middle, near the fountain, stood a little ice-cream cart. David ran ahead of her toward it. A dog loped past Paula after him. The child stopped, and the dog veered toward him. The little boy screamed.
“Mama!”
Paula burst into a run. The dog reached him one step ahead of her and knocked him flying onto the grass. Wheeling, the big dog snapped at him. She grabbed David in both hands and hoisted him up.
The dog snarled at her; its broad head narrowed like a wedge. It jumped for the child in her arms. She flung out her hand to ward it off and its teeth sliced her forearm. David was screaming. The dog began to bark at her, crouching over its flattened forelegs, and jumped at her again. She dodged it while it wheeled, and ran toward the nearest tree. The dog caught her skirt in its teeth and held on.
David’s arms around her neck were throttling her. She pulled at his hand, trying to catch her breath. The park people stood watching, as if at a show. The dog dragged her one step forward, and she yielded an instant. It let go, ready to spring at the little boy screaming in her arms, and she ran to the tree three steps away.
“David—climb into the branches—”
He clung to her, his breath catching in sobs. The dog prowled around her. She boosted her son up to her shoulder, and he climbed into the tree above her. She put her back to the trunk and faced the dog. Her arm hurt to the shoulder. She could not gather her strength. The dog circled under the trees, its gaze fixed on the little boy above it; the light caught glowing in its eyes, pale as amber. She moved to stay between it and David. From the far side of the park there was a long shrill whistle. The dog ran away over the grass.
“David. Come down.”
“No—”
“Come down. It’s gone.” She could not lift her arm. She had to take him somewhere safe before she collapsed. On the path nearby the mass of watching people loosened and began to flow away along the walks, losing interest. David was lowering himself out of the tree. He dropped to meet his shadow on the phony grass. His face was smeared with tears; his nose was running.
“Mama—”
She took his hand. “Hurry.” As fast as she could move she led him up the green slope to the gate.
In the crowded street beyond, she stopped, confused, her lungs working for breath. David pulled her on and she followed him. Her head began to pound. The streetlights hurt her eyes. When they reached the moving stair she stumbled.
“Mama, are you sick?”
The moving stair carried them down into the pit of the Planet. Someone behind her jostled her and her knees gave in and she caught herself against the rail sliding by. She was going to fall. Her feet were a mile below her.
“David—”
The street flew upward toward her, the steps sliding away into the floor, and she held her breath and walked forward onto the solid ground. “David.” She sat down on the floor in the street, her back to a wall. “Where is the hotel? Do you know?”
Promptly he reached his arm out and pointed. He tugged on her hand. “Come on—it’s not far.”
“Go find Papa.” She shut her eyes. She felt herself tumbling over headlong although she had not moved. “Go find Daddy. Find Daddy.” Her eyes opened, swimming. David was gone. A passage of hundreds of legs scissored past her along the street. The floor was warm. She could not get up. The warmth was blood. Someone passing kicked her. She doubled her legs up to her chest. Another hard blow struck her.
“Paula.”
She was lifted up into the safety of his arms.
“So help me, if I’d reached her five minutes later they’d have trampled her. These people stop for nothing.”
She took the warm cup in both hands and sipped tea. On her forearm the scab of the healed wound was peeling away. David scrambled onto the couch beside her and leaned on her. Saba came out of the kitchen with a bottle of champagne in one hand.
Over his shoulder, he said, “If I were any smarter I’d take
Tanuojin filled the kitchen doorway. He was eating a sugar-nut. The rest of the crew was out hunting the dog. Paula gave her cup to David. When he had gone into the next room, she said, “That was no accident. Somebody waited until Sril was gone and set that dog on us and called it off after David was safe. It must have been trained. It didn’t attack me at all, just David.”
Saba drank deeply from the bottle. “You wanted to see which way Parine would jump.” He turned toward his lyo, in the kitchen doorway. “I suppose you’re against going after him, now?”
“Saba, that’s what they want, to force the judge to jettison the case.”
“At least then we could get out of this place,” Saba said. He tramped into the bedroom.
That night the police came to the hotel saying they had gotten an anonymous warning the Styths’ rooms were bombed, and made them clear the suite for nearly an hour while a squad of bomb experts went through the place. Paula sat in a booth in the back of the hotel bar, David asleep on her lap, while Saba drank whiskey and Tanuojin drank water.
“I haven’t gotten a full sleep since I’ve been here,” Tanuojin said, on her right.
Saba yawned. He lifted his glass, half-full of Scotch. “This place is strange. Besides all the people and the cameras and all that. It’s haunted or something, the whole Planet.” Paula leaned on him, her head on his shoulder, and shut her eyes.
“Parine thinks it is,” Tanuojin said. “That’s what they’re hunting for now, downstairs, General Gordon’s ghost.”
Paula opened her eyes again. She had not thought before that the bomb threat was anything other than a nuisance. Saba said, “I guess he believes we have that tape.”
The waiter came up silently and took their empty glasses and put down new ones, filled. David whimpered in his sleep. Paula closed her eyes.
“Do these things ever start on time?”
“I think it’s against the law,” Saba said.
Paula sat down in the straight chair. On the far side of the courtroom, Chi Parine and his assistants were talking in a knot. Today the little Martian lawyer wore a black suit, a brilliant red jacquard vest, red and black high- heeled boots.
“Please rise for the Bench.”
The spectators massed behind the railing stopped their roar of conversation. Everybody got up. Wu-wei came out of the little door in the back and sat, and they all sat. The case was read.
“Your Excellency,” Parine said. He strode forward, puffed up. He reminded her again of Machou. “Due to considerations of interplanetary security, the government of Luna is withdrawing the charges—”
