Double solitaire

Chapter Eighteen

Meadows kept talking. It was like listening to Carl Sagan on ludes. Relative mass, elliptical orbits, low density, probably metal poor, tossed and bumped like rudderless boats in the sea of technobabble pouring from the old hippie’s mouth. It didn’t mean jack shit to Jay. All he wanted was to look out the window (or whatever the hell it was on this low-flying ship critter) and watch the scenery flash by.

It was better than the observation cars on the old Broadway Limited of Jay’s youth. He’d loved to ride the trains, especially when his dad had taken a sleeper car. Lying in the upper bunk, swaying to the rhythm of the train as it raced down the track. The monotonous clicking of the wheels on the rails. The sudden flash of lights across the black glass of the window as they whipped through some small town. Jay always wondered who lived in those towns. How their lives differed from his. Well, that curiosity had carried him a shit load farther than the old Broadway Limited Chicago to visit Grandma.

And there weren’t going to be any ice-cream sundaes when they arrived, either. All he had was Mark Meadows aggressively proving that eggheads really were incredibly stupid, and Tachyon staring out the window with that blind, lost expression that made Jay crazy, and two male models who were twittering to each other like a pair of baritone pigeons on a phone line.

Turning back to Tachyon, Jay studied that delicate and very beautiful profile. Wondered if Tachyon had any plan past the obvious imperative to get home. Her dear old chum Baz had sure transferred his loyalty to Zabb once he saw the condition his prince was in. Maybe this Taj guy would be some help. Jay had liked the look of the older man.

“The tectonic stresses and activity must have been incredible to have pushed the plates into such vertical positions.”

Jay swiveled his head and stared at Meadows. “If you mean they’ve got really high mountains here, yeah, you’re right. They’ve got really high mountains here.”

The pale blue eyes behind their thick lenses blinked rapidly several times. Jay felt as if he’d kicked a puppy.

“I’m just trying to understand the planetary development, and how it might have affected the culture,’ Meadows said.

“And I just want to admire the view. And it’s a lot more fun when you have someone to share it with. For example, I’d say, Wow, look at that mountain. And you’d say, Yeah, it’s really high, and look at those amazing glaciers! And I’d say, The sun on the ice makes rainbows. Boy, that’s really beautiful.”

“I see your point.” Mark cleared his throat, his prominent Adam’s apple jerking like a bobbin on a fishing line. “Boy, those mountains are really lovely.”

Jay sighed, returned his attention to the view. National Geographic would love to get a chance to do the first photo layout of Takis, combining as it did the best of the Swiss Alps and the Himalayas. Snow-tipped peaks thrust through the opalescent clouds like jagged talons reaching for the belly of the tiny ship. Then the clouds would suddenly part and reveal deep valleys verdant with vegetation. In other valleys the mountains fell away to lakes of an eye-aching blue. The great peaks drowned their feet in the still, deep waters, the reflections forming double visions of mountains and sky.

There began to be signs of civilization. Houses perched dizzily on rocky outcroppings, tile-roofed farmhouses, cable cars connecting peaks and valleys. The ship flashed over a final peak, and they were flying across a bowl surrounded on all sides by mountains.

Mark leaned forward eagerly. “A caldera. Probably the site of an ancient volcanic erup -” He broke off guiltily and rolled an eye toward Jay. “Sorry.”

Jay wasn’t interested in geology. A city nestled like a starling in the circle of mountains. The predominant impression was of towers. Towers of all types and descriptions. Round towers, pointed towers, bell-like cupolas, some of them actually twisted like blown glass. And the colors. Jay couldn’t tell if they’d been painted or if the stone actually came in these bewilderingly brilliant shades. There was a clear delineation where the older section ended and modern architecture began. The styles remained the same, but there was more glass in the newer buildings.

Finally there was some reaction from Tachyon. She let out a funny little hiccuping cry, but whether of grief or joy Jay couldn’t tell. “The music center. It’s gone.” She spoke English. Jay knew it was unconscious. Knew it would drive her crazy if she knew.

Zabb had that smile that Jay had learned to distrust. It meant something really unpleasant was about to emerge from between his teeth, and it was always directed at Tachyon.

In his heavily accented English he said. “I’m afraid it was one of the casualties of the Vayawand assault.”

“They attacked the city?” The concept seemed to completely shock Tachyon. Jay didn’t know why. Wasn’t that what war was all about?

“Unfortunately a number of House were attending a concert. Fortunately I wasn’t. After your father turned himself into a vegetating hulk, someone had to lead the defense. Fifteen families arrayed against us.”

Only you could have defeated those odds,” Bazzakra said in Takisian.

Ass kisser, thought Jay, and Why is asshole number two speaking English? The ace then looked at Tachyon, her eyes drowned in misery, and he understood. Zabb wanted the humans to know he was tormenting his cousin, wanted to see if they would react. Was daring them to react. As Jay watched, a spark of fury burned away grief in the girl’s gray eyes. “I will not be burdened with this guilt.”

’Bout time, thought Jay.

“I wasn’t here. Perhaps I should have been, but my presence wasn’t going to lessen the damage done to Ilkala.” She indicated the city with a wave of a hand.

“The damage was foredestined when we initiated the ill-conceived experiment.”

“If you’d allowed us to test the virus properly -”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference!”

“That’s excusatory crap!” Zabb shouted. “The meta-Takisian powers that the virus would have provided us, coupled with our psionic gifts, would have made us the undisputed rulers of Takis.”

“No, she’s right,” said Mark softly. “On Earth we’ve had the wild card for almost fifty years, and guns and bombs are a match for any ace. It’s like John Lennon said, man, we’ve just gotta give peace a chance.”

“Taj and my father should have seen this attack coming,” Tachyon argued. “Our culture is poised on a knife’s edge of malice, rivalry, and self-interest. You threaten to upset the balance of power that completely, and of course the other families are going to attack.”

Baz broke in with an agitated burst of singsong. Pissed, Jay decided, because he couldn’t understand. Tachyon and Zabb twittered back, but there were sudden odd pauses, and Jay realized it was because they had switched to House talk, which relied rather heavily on telepathy. Jay just hoped that Zabb wasn’t stealing the family farm from Tach’s weakly shielded human brain. Over the years Tachyon had kept stressing that there was a very strong code of etiquette governing telepathic eavesdropping, but Jay didn’t trust Zabb. A month with the guy had left no doubt – he was a total dickweed.

Tach turned back to her human companions, pressed a hand against the swell of her pregnancy as if holding back nausea. “Baz says there’s a claimant to the Raiyis’tet who is trying to end the regency. I really did return just in time.” The soft chin stiffened. “And now that I am home, it is time I dropped the groundling name and assumed my proper identity. I am Tisianne brant Ts’ara sek Halima sek Ragnar sek Omian. Prince of House Ilkazam.”

“Okay, man, like, I’m with you.” Mark nodded several times for emphasis, then glanced back out the window, and his breath caught with all the wonder of a four-year-old coming downstairs to find the Christmas tree up and the presents waiting. “Oh, it’s so cool!”

Jay pressed his nose to the window, eager to see. During the talk they had flashed across the basin of the caldera and were now back in the mountains. The ship raced through a winding canyon, careful to remain below the level of the cliffs, and coming far too close to the rock walls for Jay’s taste. Carved out of the stone were dwellings. At least Jay assumed they were dwellings – if not, someone had gone to a lot of trouble to cut pillars and lancet windows for an elaborate facade. They rounded a final curve, and suddenly a house lay revealed, coiling like a crystal-and-marble dragon’s tail across a high mountain meadow. Like the first structures they’d seen, part of it was carved from the rose-colored cliff face.

Below that frowning fortress the land had been terraced to form pretty gardens filled with flowers, blossoming trees, and fountains. Despite the flowers, Jay had a feeling it was late autumn in Ilkazam. The leaves of the trees flashed winter fire and lay like colorful scattered scarves on the grass.

Bordering each garden were more buildings with no interlinking architectural style. Most of them were colorful with plenty of windows. Most extended no higher than two stories.

With one awesome exception. A single tower, which looked as if it had been built from smoky crystal, pointed warningly toward the sky, and as he stared down the length of that narrow valley, Jay decided he never wanted to experience a windstorm in the needle. The cliffs had to create a hellacious wind-tunnel effect, and that building would be swaying like a ten-dollar hooker on six-inch heels.

A wall surrounded this improbable edifice, and it seemed like a pretty archaic and wimpy way to hold back enemies in a spacefaring culture. Jay said as much, and Mark nudged him with an elbow, indicating guard posts on the cliffs. Jay looked closer and saw the blunt muzzles of weapons thrusting like alligator snouts from the cracks and fissures in the cliff wall.

“Lasers,” whispered Mark. “Big ones by the look of it. Missile silos, and there’s a flickering in the air over that wall – maybe a forcefield?”

“Fairy-tale palace with great big horror-movie teeth,” grunted Ackroyd. “Clad we’re invited. I’d hate to crash this party.”

“Burning Sky, you are Tisianne,” Taj said, and there was no joy in the words.

The regent of the House Ilkazam dropped his head into his hands and tugged nervously at the hair over his temples. Tisianne had known his uncle a long time. For this terribly refined, terribly controlled man, this was the equivalent of hysterics.

What was it Jay had said about invited guests? thought Tisianne. But the invitation was most grudgingly offered. The kind of invitation you issue to unexpected drop-ins and shirttail relatives. Somehow my arrival here has made a bad situation worse.

There had been no honor guard, just a single equerry with a couple of Tarhiji soldiers to whisk them through back doors and forgotten hallways to the office of the Raiyis. The pair of guards flanking the elaborate double doors had insisted the travelers be scanned even though Tis told them repeatedly it wouldn’t do any good. The three human bodies were outside the genetic mapping of Takis. Jay had taken it with ill grace, yelping loudly at the pinprick as blood was withdrawn from his wrist, and had spent the next few minutes muttering about alien poisons and precious bodily fluids. Finally the infrared trip wires, which flashed across the door at random and ever-changing heights and angles, were disconnected, and they entered.

Though opulent, the office was clearly a space designed for a busy man to work, and work efficiently. For an instant Tis wondered if her human companions were disappointed. Then she forgot all about them and their reactions. It struck hard and deep as a blow that nothing in the room had changed since Tis had stood here before his father forty-four Earth years ago and shouted bitter defiance into that beloved face. They were the last words they had ever spoken to each other.

On one wall hung a portrait of Tis and his mother done just before her death. On the desk a shifting holograph filled with pictures of Tisianne – riding, dancing, skating, reading. There was also a starkly simple flower arrangement. The petals and leaves reflected back the lights and stung Tisianne’s eyes. As a youth Tis had excelled at the art of flower arrangement. That had been his last creation for his father. Shaklan had had the flowers freeze-dried and lacquered to preserve this final gift from a rebellious child.

And now Taj had unwittingly brought home her sin and her loss by playing patient caretaker to a mausoleum in memory of a half-dead man.

What kind of a Takisian are you, Taj brant Halima sek Ragnar sek Omian, thought Tisianne, that you have no ego?

And that was the thought which had apparently elicited the outburst from Taj. It was very embarrassing for Tisianne. She knew the mentatics training she had force-fed this borrowed body was marginal at best, but she hadn’t even known she was being scanned.

Taj raised his head and waved them toward chairs. Zabb sprawled with elegant, mocking ease. He wore his Network uniform like a defiant shout. Trips sidled crabwise toward a heavily carved high-back chair. Once seated, he perched stiffly and uncomfortably upright as if caged. Jay was as cool and insouciant as ever. He sat down, relaxed, and waited – it was the detective’s gift. Tis selected a comfortable settee. None of these aggressively masculine chairs seemed designed to accommodate a pregnant woman’s unique physique, and she saw no reason to suffer.

The computer screen inset in the polished desktop sprang to life. Taj bent and read, and the light flowing up from below accentuated the lines of strain and turned the eye sockets into dark hollows. With a sigh he pushed back from the desk and swiveled in his chair to face Tisianne.

“Your mind is Tisianne’s, the body contains not a platelet of Takisian blood. But the child you carry is not only part Takisian, but carries the genetic markers of House Ilkazam.”

“It’s a rather long and complicated story.”

“I’m in no hurry.”

Tis was. Her teeth sketched at her lower lip. “Please, I must know, is Blaise here?” Taj gave her a look. She subsided.

The older man turned to Zabb. “If I didn’t have larger problems to deal with, I’d chastise you with a laser whip. Your little stunt sent that Network ship careening into our space, violating the boundaries established by treaty.” Zabb started, surprised. “This behavior was easily discouraged, but the precedent set is unfortunate.”

“But they were discouraged?”

“They’ve withdrawn to the Bonded platform.” Taj smiled humorously at Zabb’s expression. “Did you think they’d go meekly home? You’ve breached a Network contract, and we’ve fired shots – the first shots fired against a Network vessel in over eight thousand years. For all I know, we may be at war again. All because of you.’,

“I have always had a remarkable effect on people,” Zabb drawled, and Baz choked.

Taj quelled the lesser noble with one slitted glance. “Get back to Ship Home. I want extra patrols flown. Keep a watch on that Network vacu.”

Baz nodded quickly and exited.

Taj drummed fingers on the desk, the overlong nail on his left thumb hitting with a sharp click as he studied the humans. “And what do I do with you?”

Tis moved to stand between Jay and Trips. “They don’t know House Talk very well. Try Sham’al. And you needn’t do anything with them. They are my bodyguards, and one is of my line. I adopted him.”

“How… like you.” Taj pushed back his hair, folded his hands as if to keep them still. “They carry the Enhancer in the pattern of their genes.”

Enhancer threw them. Tis explained that it meant the virus. Trips had nothing to say to that. As usual Jay did.

“We call it the wild card,” said Jay. The English term sounded strange coming at the end of a burst of Takisian.

“Wild card?” Taj looked to his nephew for amplification.

“It’s a term from an Earth card game called poker. It’s meant to imply randomness, something that strikes without warning.”

Taj nodded, absorbed this, then, cocking an eyebrow at Tis, said, “I’m still waiting to hear how your soul came to reside in this pretty pregnant vessel, and I’m most intrigued to discover how you managed to impregnate yourself.”

“The father of the child is Blaise, my grandson.”

“So you’re carrying your great-granddaughter?”

“Yes.”

“Fascinating. An incest for which there is no name.”

“It was a subtle revenge.”

“This grandson of yours sounds very Takisian.”

“If that’s synonymous with crazy, you’d be right,” Jay said. Tis and Trips winced. For the first time Taj really seemed to focus on the detective.

“For a mudcrawler you are very fearless… or foolish.”

“A little of both actually. Can I ask a question?” Taj nodded assent. “You’re the first old geez – uh, older person I’ve seen here. How old are you?”

“Nine hundred and twenty-three.”

“Jesus Christ! Does everybody live to be nine hundred?”

“Barring unforeseen… er, accidents, which is rather difficult to do,” Zabb drawled. “We can live much longer.”

Taj looked significantly at Tisianne. “Well, I’m waiting.” Tisianne opened her mouth, closed it. Her uncle sighed. “Yes, Tis, your situation is ludicrous, but I don’t see how talking about it will make it any worse. And I cannot help – you or the House – unless I know precisely with what I’m dealing.”

Slowly at first, then with growing animation, she told the tale. The last great fight with Shaklan when Tisianne had begged his father to halt testing of the Enhancer on a small, insignificant planet filled with genetic doubles of the Takisians. His pursuit of the test ship, its destruction, and the release of the virus.

She recalled the early days when ten thousand people had died in Manhattan, when hideous and twisted jokers had wandered like living scars on the face of the city. She spoke of the few, the lucky few who were blessed with metahuman powers – the aces. Taj glanced with interest at the two humans. It didn’t take a genius to conclude that they possessed these metahuman powers. If there was a Takisian racial flaw, it was unbridled curiosity. It was already beginning to eat at the regent.

Tis glossed over the terrible days of the McCarthy witch hunts, her deportation, the years of drunken wandering. It was then he had sired a daughter. Taj’s expression grew thunderous, and she blanched a bit. Hurried on to the founding of the Jokertown Clinic to care for the victims of the wild card. The discovery that he had a grandson: a quarter-Takisian boy who had been raised by vicious revolutionaries and possessed not an ounce of pity or morality. The outcrossing of genes had somehow produced a mind-control power of terrifying dimensions. She touched on the enemies and crises she had faced – the Swarm invasion, the Astronomer, the jumpers, Bloat – and her great nemesis, Blaise.

“There was an ace, his wild card was to bestow this jumper power on adolescents. Blaise became a member of this gang, and to revenge himself upon me, he switched me into the body of this girlchild. He held me prisoner, and he… he… he would…”

Her voice had started to jump, and strength drained from her body. She felt her knees buckling. Zabb reached her first. Swung her up in his arms and carried her to the settee. Her vision cleared. Taj stared down at her, white-faced with shock. Obviously her emotions, the memories, had been too strong. They had forced themselves past the shields that the old man was maintaining for politeness’ sake. Even Zabb, who would cavil at nothing, was shaken.

“This piece of rotting afterbirth raped you?” Zabb shouted. Tis shrank from his anger.

“Hey, guys, yeah, it’s a lousy thing, but we’re all adults here,” Jay said. “It’s not like it never happens -”

“Not on Takis!” Taj interrupted.

Zabb whirled on the humans. “It is an act of total depravity, a sign of insanity. It is abomination.” Zabb turned back to the regent. If this creature is on Takis -”

“He is with the Vayawand,” Taj said.

“Then let me lead a raid -”

“No.” Tisianne sat up, and rising, she moved with what grace she could muster to the desk to seat herself in her father’s chair.

The humans were oblivious to the symbolism. The lines at the corners of Taj’s mouth deepened, whether a smile hidden or anger suppressed, Tisianne couldn’t tell. Taj had ruled this House for over thirty years. Did he resent her usurpation? But it wasn’t usurpation; it was hers by right.

Only one man could challenge that right. Implacably she met his gaze. Zabb smiled. Unconsciously he brushed at his mustache with the tip of a forefinger, his manner that of a man surveying an hors d’oeuvre tray. Taj inclined his head. Zabb did not.

“You are dismissed,” Tis said to her cousin.

“He is the commandant of the House,” Taj said.

“I have not made him so. And you must have been using someone else in his absence.”

“Not as effectively,” was the dry reply.

Zabb rested his palms on the desk and leaned in on her. “I am the best man for the job, cousin.”

“For whatever job I decide to give you. Not one of your own choosing, cousin. And certainly not for the job you are eyeing.” Anger made her breath short, and Illyana jerked in her womb. Tis pressed a hand against her stomach and longed for a handful of Rolaids. “Now, go.” Zabb bowed, so respectfully, so politely, so reverently that it made a mockery of the obeisance, and withdrew.

“We’re going to have to use him,” Taj said.

“Maybe, but Ancestors be damned if I’m going to let him assume anything.”

“What are your orders, Raiyis?”

“Contact the Raiyis of House Vayawand. Inform him of my return, my situation, of the… crime committed against me. Demand extradition, but lead the troops yourself – I don’t trust Zabb -”

It finally penetrated that Taj had been gesturing at her, trying to stop the urgent flow of words. “What?”

“This is all very lovely, nephew, but for one tiny flaw – Blaise is the Raiyis of House Vayawand.”