“If you’re lying to me, so help me, I’ll break everything in your body.”
Behind the satchel was the illusion helmet in its protective coat of foam. She pushed the bag out of the way and took out the helmet. She looked around for a knife or clipper to cut the foam. He took the white ball from her. His claws sank into the foam and he tore it in half. Something sealed into the casing broke with a ping.
Saba growled in his chest. He ripped at the shard of foam, pulling out yards of thin plastic wire. The crumbs of foam sailed off thick as snow. The hatch burst open. Tanuojin came in, sinuous as rope in the free fall. On the sleeves of his overalls he wore one less stripe than Saba.
“Look at this,” Saba said. He thrust a handful of looped wire at her. “What is it?” Tanuojin snatched it away from him.
“It’s a sensor.” His yellow eyes aimed at her. “I told you she’s a spy.”
She scrambled back away from them. The slick soft walls glinted in the low light. Her heart banged in the pit of her throat. She looked at Saba.
“Where did you have that wrapped up?”
“At the Committee office.”
Tanuojin’s head snapped around. “You said she didn’t speak Styth.”
“I don’t think she had anything to do with this.”
Paula slid along the wall. Tanuojin’s lips pulled back from his teeth. “I do.” He struck at her, backhanded. When she tried awkwardly to avoid him she ran herself into his stroke.
She gasped. Saba thrust in between them. Her jacket was in ribbons from sleeve to sleeve. She saw a cloud of fine red bubbles floating out before her. Her chest began to burn. She clenched her teeth at the swelling hot pain. Saba pulled her into the curve of his arm.
“Look what you did to her.”
“I didn’t hit her that hard.”
“She’s not Styth. She’ll die. Heal her.”
“Saba, she’s just a nigger.”
“Heal her!”
She panted. The long gashes down her breast hurt when she breathed. Tanuojin came toward her. She backed away from him. Numb, she fought to stay conscious.
“Hold her hands, or she’ll scratch my eyes out.”
Saba caught her wrists. He said, “Be good, Paula.” The pain made her sob.
“This won’t hurt,” Tanuojin said. He put his hands flat to her torn skin.
At his touch she felt nothing, not even the cold. She gulped a deep breath. Saba held her tight against him. Tanuojin moved away from them. His hands left her. Her breast began to throb. Saba let go of her. She curled forward. Four long scabbed wounds ran like seams across her left breast and her stomach. They looked days old. She touched the scabs and they peeled off, the wounds healed in pale new flesh.
“Let me see.” Saba’s fingers slid through the shredded jacket. Tanuojin went out. She flinched from the touch on her skin. “He did it,” he said to himself.
She pulled his hand out of her clothes. “What did he do?”
“Don’t tell anybody.” He took her by the arms and looked her in the face. “Don’t talk about it to anybody, do you hear me?”
She nodded. Her numbed mind refused to work. What had he done? She was cold; her teeth began to chatter.
“I have to go to the bridge.” He took her by the chin. “Don’t ever lie to me again.” Taking the sensor wire with him, he went out the hatch.
She hung suspended in the air. The blood and scraps of foam drifted around her in clouds. Slowly they were sucked into the filters in the wall and the air cleared. As the evidence disappeared her belief in what had happened disappeared. The Creep. She had paid no attention to that. The cold drove her to the effort of moving. She wrestled her suitcase out of the compartment and pulled out a shirt and a heavy sweater.
In the back of the compartment was the square box of toys for Saba’s children. She took it out and used a nail file from her bag to hack open the foam wrapper. There were two more wires strung through the white plastic. One had a cube on the end the size of her thumb. She floundered around the room to the little wire mesh speaker and pushed the lever beside it and ran herself head-first into the wall.
She recoiled. Tears of frustration filled her eyes. She felt as if she were stuck in a pocket, in a prison. Her mind was jammed. She forced herself to relax. This place was strange because she did not know it; when she knew it she would understand. She put one hand on the wall and the other hand on the speaker lever and pushed it up.
“Bridge,” she said.
A startled Styth voice said, “Who’s this?”
“Tell Saba I found another one and a transmitter.” She pulled the lever down again.
She did not know how to change her clothes without gravity. Her arms were too short. While she stuffed her legs into trousers she floated around the room. Every motion pushed her in a new direction. She put the shirt on over her head and fought with the sleeves. The hatch wheel clicked over.
She turned her head, and her whole body turned. Saba came feet-first into the hatch, coiled around in mid-air, and came down beside her. She pointed to the compartment door. She had tied the wires to the handle. He untangled them. She put another pair of trousers on, struggling with the legs.
Tanuojin came through the hatch. She stopped what she was doing. He pretended not to see her and went to his lyo. Floating over their heads, she straightened the legs of her trousers.
“Look at this,” Saba said. “Have you ever seen anything like this? This wire in here must be some kind of recorder.”
“We have to get it off the ship.”
“We have to get the ship away from here.”
Tanuojin wrapped the wire around his hands and tried to break it. “Do you think it’s talking to those hammerheads?” He yanked the wire so hard the plastic hummed.
“She said—” Saba looked up over his head at her. “You said there was a transmitter.”
She scrambled down toward him and took hold of the cube on the end of the wire. “This.”
He turned the cube over in his claws. His head rose, and his body drifted up past her, following. “What about our supplies?” he said to Tanuojin.
“The package is ready, it’s on the lighter, the lighter is on the far side of the Planet.”
“Shit.”
“We need the package. We’re red-lined on oxygen and water.” Tanuojin glanced at her. His mustaches curved back over his shoulders. “The lighter isn’t due in this sector for six hours.”
Saba rubbed his jaw. He was studying the little transmitter. “Call them and see it we can pick it up.”
“I did. They’ll put the package on a towsled, we can pick it up any time.”
“Good. I’ll take Ybicsa. You stay here and keep Gordon busy and those ships away from us.” Saba took the other man by the arm. They turned together in a circle, orbiting each other. “Convert him.”
Tanuojin produced a nasty thin fish-smile. “If you say so. What about her?”
Saba went to the hatch. “Leave her alone.” He cranked the wheel over. Paula struggled after him. She banged into the wall and rolled helplessly over. When she dragged herself out the hatch to the corridor, he was disappearing around the bend.
“Saba, wait.”
He turned back toward her, his arms spread out, sculling. She pushed herself along the wall to him.
“Where are you going?”
He towed her by the arm around the curve. “I’m taking the sidecraft to pick up our supplies. What’s the matter—are you afraid of him? Think you’re a little out of your range?” They went out to the corridor of the black and white arrows and down it a few yards to another tunnel. This was banded in blue stripes. He pushed her ahead of him down to a closed hatchway and banged on it with his fist, holding himself still against the wall with his free hand. “Ketac!”