Floating Worlds Read Online Free PDF

father would have said. Free to do what every other bird did. She picked at the white scale on the rock. Out past the surf, the dome wall shone in the sunlight. It was not solid: ionized gas, held by a magnetic field, because of the earthquakes. Two boys came down the beach looking for rocks. She waved; they waved. After a while she put her clothes on and went back to the rooming house to eat.
    Bunker was coming in on the underground train; at ten in the evening she went to meet him. He came across the platform toward her, putting on his sweater. “I thought it never got cold here.” Paula turned to walk beside him. They climbed the stairs to the ground level. She handed him an envelope.
    “That’s the message to Melleno.”
    They went out of the tube station and the cold wind struck her in the face. The paper flapped in Bunker’s hands. He turned to shelter it. Although the night had fallen long since, the domelight was bright enough to read by. Paula looked up at the hills. The wind was roaring out of the canyon behind them. The SoCal dome was huge; they were proud of their winds.
    Bunker nodded. “I hope he can read it.” He gave her back the paper and they walked along the flat desert, their backs to the wind. The tall palm trees that marked the path milled their broad leaves like arms. “Do you suppose anybody there speaks the Common Speech?”
    Paula shrugged. “Overwood does business with them. Overwood thinks crystal is some kind of super-battery.”
    “I take it from your tone of voice that that shows his ignorance.”
    “It’s not a battery. A transformer, sort of. Maybe.”
    The path took them in toward the flank of the steep hills, where the houses clustered like a colony of barnacles above the bare dusty desert floor. A bike was wheeling toward her and she moved out of the way. They went up a steep path into the Old Town. The wind had blown weeds and leaves up against Overwood’s door. It was locked and the shop was dark. Paula stood looking in the window. Bunker turned.
    “He must live around here somewhere.”
    “I called him,” Paula said. “He said if he wasn’t at the shop, he’d be in the bar.” She pointed down the street. Two men were just going in a bright doorway. “I’ll bet that’s it.”
    As they went through the doorway a bell clanged. There were three tiltball machines against the far wall, half-hidden behind a crowd of players. The room smelled of beer. Overwood was sitting in a booth in the back, behind a potted jacaranda tree, his hands laced over his little round stomach. Paula went up to him.
    “Hello, there,” he said. “Have a seat. I’ll sit you a drink.”
    Bunker shook his hand. “My name’s Richard Butler.”
    “Whatever you say. Thomas Overwood here.”
    Another chorus of bells rang out behind her. She slid between the jacaranda and the wall into the booth across from Overwood and held out the envelope to him. “For the Saturn Akellar.”
    “Seven hundred dollars,” Overwood said.
    Bunker pulled a chair around to the end of the table between them. He took a wallet out of his hip pocket and sat down. A waiter brought them a pitcher of beer and glasses. Bunker counted out money into a stack before him: fourteen fifty-dollar bills. The fifteenth he gave to her. “Sign that.”
    It was an expense chit. She signed it.
    “How long will this take?” Bunker said.
    “Maybe four months.” Overwood put the money in one pocket and the message in another. “Maybe less. That’s a long way away, that.” The waiter poured the bright beer. “What’s the Committee’s interest in Styth?”
    Paula reached for a glass. “Who supplies you with crystal?”
    Overwood smiled at her. “Now, now.”
    Bunker pushed the money over to him. “We want information. The Committee’s favorite food. We need good sources of information, first-generation, on the politics of the rAkellaron.”
    “That’s funny.” Overwood laughed; his bushy eyebrows went up and down. The