Floating Worlds Read Online Free PDF Page A

believe you.”
    Overwood muttered something.
    “How do you get it?” she said.
    “Oh, now—”
    She put the holographs down. “We have a message for someone in the Styth Empire. Can you arrange to deliver it?”
    His wide eyebrows rose. “I see. That will cost you, too.”
    “Can you guarantee?”
    “Who do you want to reach?”
    “Melleno. The Saturn Akellar.”
    Overwood leaned his forearm on the counter. “Maybe.”
    “For a maybe, you’d better not ask much.”
    He gathered up the photographs and put them away under the counter. Even here on the Earth, where there were no laws and no police, he was cautious. She wondered who his enemies were. Maybe other smugglers. He said, “My connection can get into Saturn-Keda.”
    The doorbell jangled. She turned to watch a woman with a white dog cross the dark shop. Overwood went from behind the counter.
    “Help you?”
    “I’m looking at your splendid glassware.”
    Paula strolled around the display cases along the wall. They showed rows of incense jars, plates, figures of animals. Amulets and books on Zen. She admired an old ivory and ebony chess set. On the wall above it was a corkboard, with bits of paper pinned to it.
     
    Commune share 25/mo. Drugs check, one kid check.
     
    Overwood sprayed foam around a dish of Venusian glass. While the casing dried, he took the woman’s money and gave her change. She tucked her white dog under one arm and the foam case under the other. The bell rang her out.
    “Cost you fifteen hundred dollars to send a message to Saturn-Keda,” Overwood said. “In advance.”
    Paula glanced at him over her shoulder. “For a maybe?”
    “For certain. He’ll deliver.”
    “One thousand. When we know it’s delivered.”
    “No chance. My connection is a busy man.”
    “I don’t doubt it. Where does he go? Does he go to Uranus?”
    “Vribulo. Matuko. Flying around in a Gas Planet isn’t something I’d do, for instance. These spacemen are crazy.” Overwood took a tray out of the counter. “Direct from Saturn.” With a little flourish he turned back the lid. “Genuine reproductions.”
    There were five big medals inside the box. Paula lifted one out by the chain. “What are they?”
    “When a Styth warrior goes into military orders, you see, he wears a medal with his sign, here.” He pointed at the design cut into the medal’s face. “That’s the Fish. They’re very superstitious people.”
    She reached for another. “What’s this one mean?”
    “Unh—”
    “Twelve hundred. Seven in advance, five when we know it’s delivered.”
    “Now, my connection is a busy man.”
    “So are we.”
    He pursed his lips. “For the Committee.” He offered his wide hand, and Paula shook it.
     
    The SoCal dome reached out to the deep water. The surf was too dirty to swim in. She walked along the beach, watching the waves break sluggishly over, brown with dirt. Garbage encrusted the sand. The filth lowered her mood, or maybe she had come here because her mood was already low and needed celebration.
    The poet Fuldah had thought that all societies contained a finite number of persona, and the people left over from this cast could only wander around outside making trouble. She felt herself being forced into a role. Her life was closing in on her. She hated the Committee job, even the Styth case bored her, but it paid well and she kept putting off quitting because she liked the money. Tony would make her pregnant which would determine the next eighteen or twenty years while she raised her child. She felt as if her life were over.
    The beach was studded with black rocks. Ahead, the brown cliffs rose, cut with gulleys. The edge of the water was strewn with purple and white jellyfish. A sea carrot, alive with flies, lay rotting along the high-tide line. She swerved away from its stink toward the cliffs, took her clothes off, and sat on a warm rock.
    In spite of her restlessness she could not think of anything to do. Free as a bird , her