Floating Worlds

His lips went on moving, but the crowd buried his voice in a bellow. Tanuojin leaped up onto his feet. The bailiff’s bell clanged steadily through the thunder of voices. Paula glanced at Saba.

“All this for nothing,” she said.

“Not quite.”

Wu-wei’s smooth face was smiling. He patted at the air with his hands, and the crowd began to quiet down. The bell stopped ringing.

“Yes, Parine,” the judge said. “You’re withdrawing which charges?”

Parine said, “All of them, Your Excellency. I want to point out that we’re doing this only because the case was leading into very sensitive security matters.”

Tanuojin put his hands on his belt. “You mean you can’t deal with Styths in this court.”

Wu-wei laid his forearms flat on the table. His eyes shifted from Parine to the Styth.

Parine said shortly, “What we’re saying is that due to considerations of—”

“There’s no universal law in your Universal Court if you can’t handle Styths.” Tanuojin swung around to face Wu-wei. “We are part of the same Universe.”

“Indeed we are,” Wu-wei said. “What has happened here, in and outside my courtroom, has helped me understand the incident at Luna very well.”

“We’re talking from different premises,” Tanuojin said.

“Maybe. But at the moment you are standing in my premises.” The judge smiled at his antique pun. “I have a verdict, which I will give in a moment.”

Tanuojin whirled around toward Paula. “How can he give a verdict if they’ve withdrawn the charges?”

“Your Excellency—” Parine bounded toward the Bench, tipped forward on his high-heeled boots. “Your Excellency, I protest this rash decision to render a verdict without any evidence.”

“I have evidence,” Wu-wei said. “I’m not blind, and I’m not incapable of reasoning, or I wouldn’t be here in the first place. The Ybix incident was part of a whole field. This trial has been another aspect of the same field. This isn’t the place to comment on people who aggravate the natural tensions between races and individuals for their personal ends, however grandiose, and I won’t do that. The Ybix incident was a practical exercise. General Gordon made a misjudgment, to which he was helped by a variety of people not even on trial here and for which he has suffered. Certainly neither of the two ships destroyed at Luna would have been shot down if not for Ybix’s presence, but Ybix had been there for nearly 240 hours without a problem, and therefore I conclude that without General Gordon’s miscalculation, the incident would not have occurred. I am holding Ybix responsible for one ship and General Gordon for the other. The eight men who died in the ships cannot be brought to life again by any piety or wit in this courtroom. They were soldiers and carried guns, and men who use force must accept it will be used against them. As for the rest of the charges, Mr. Parine of Mars ought to remember when he makes up cases that simple is best. Since Luna brought the case here and then withdrew it, Luna will pay the court charges.” He tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “As for Ybix, the trial ought to be punishment enough. Are there comments?”

Paula was watching Tanuojin’s face. His mouth shut tight, the corners hidden under his mustaches. Wu-wei nodded to him.

“There’s a difference between law and justice, you know, which it might profit you to discover. This court is ended.” He got up and left the room.

Saba put his hands on the arms of his chair and pushed himself up onto his feet. “He’s an anarchist. What did you expect?”

Tanuojin was staring at the judge’s door, his hands on his hips, and his elbows cocked out. He said several coarse words in Styth and made for the rail. The Martians were putting away their papers. Chi Parine had his back to Paula. She followed the Styths out. Behind their backs, she finally allowed herself to smile.

The Interplanetary Hotel, where Sybil Jefferson was staying, was plainer and smaller than the Palestine. People sat reading in the chairs scattered around the lobby, in among the banana plants and the racks of hourlies and candy. The Styths sauntering into the hotel cut short all talk and turned every head in the room. Paula kept a tight grip on David’s hand. Whenever he saw a dog, he wanted to kill it, provided Saba was there. They went through an air door into a curving hallway.

“I don’t understand why we’re coming here,” Tanuojin said.

“She did us a favor,” Saba said. The walls of the hallway were painted with stylized jungle plants and flowers. David lagged, and Paula stopped to let him look. The two men went on around the curve.

David cried, “What’s that?” He rushed to the wall, reaching for a monkey coyly painted among the leaves.

“It’s a monkey. Something like a kusin.”

Saba came back around the curve, picked David up, and hauled her off by one arm down the hallway. “I told you not to bring him.” She turned her arm out of his grasp. They went into a bright room opening off the inside curve.

Tanuojin stood on the far side of a pair of bright yellow couches, squinting in the glaring light. Saba put David on his feet. Jefferson crossed to meet Paula. She wore a tomato-red tunic and red pants; she looked like a fireplug. “Mendoza,” she said, “don’t scold, I’m having the lights turned down. Hello, Akellar.” She folded over at the waist, eye to eye with David, and her voice rose to a falsetto. “Well, hello! I know who you are.”

David blinked at her, his mouth open. Saba said, “He doesn’t speak the Common Speech.” The child edged toward him, reaching for his father’s hand. Paula looked beyond Jefferson at the three people sitting on the couches. Abruptly the lights dimmed to a half-glow.

David had Saba firmly by the hand. The big man told him Sybil’s name. “This is the woman your mother worked for, before she came to me.”

“Here,” Sybil said. “I’ll bet I can do something you can’t do.”

Paula, behind her, could not see what Sybil did, but David shrieked with laughter. “Mama, look!” Jefferson straightened, turning her head. Her right eye was white and blind as an egg. David let go of his father and gripped Jefferson’s arm.

“Do it again!”

Jefferson chuckled. Paula said, “Sybil, you are gross.”

“Come meet my guests.” Sybil crooked her arm through Paula’s. She smelled like milk. “We were just talking about the Akellar’s extraordinary grasp of law.”

“For a Styth,” Tanuojin said.

All three strangers were members of the Council, a man and a woman from Luna and a man from Venus. Paula began to see Jefferson’s purpose in bringing the Styths here. She shook a series of hands and introduced the Council members to Saba, using all of his titles she could remember. Jefferson brought them each a tall fizzing glass.

“Where did you study law, Miss Mendoza?” asked the Council-woman from Luna.

Paula shook her head. “Nowhere. I did a flash reading on the way here.” She watched David, who was following Jefferson around. “Yekka is the lawyer.”

“It was quite a display, too,” said the man from Venus, hearty. “Chi Parine is no amateur.”

Tanuojin never even looked in his direction. “I have a good memory,” he said to the empty air.

Saba held his glass out to Paula. “It was a piece of theater. Bring me another of these.”

“Yes, too bad you were playing to the wrong audience.” She gave him her glass and went around the couch to the table against the wall where Jefferson had gotten the drinks. On a table covered with a white cloth were several rows of plastic bottles. She fished ice-balls out of a bucket. Jefferson came up to her side and took a package of biscuits from the back of the table.

“Thank you for coming, Mendoza.”

“Thank Saba.”

“Your son is his image.” Jefferson poured salted biscuits into a hotel dish and went off across the room. Tanuojin was still refusing the attentions of the Venusian and the Lunar woman. Jefferson stood talking to Saba and eating biscuits. The half-light buried the edges of the room in shadows. Paula filled two glasses with ice and whiskey and took them across the room and gave one to Saba.