Down And Dirty

THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"

"It's… it's our only shot… it's wild card."

"IT CAN'T BE! I KNOW THIS WOMAN! SHE'S AN ACE!" The joker recoiled from the madness in Tachyon's face. The Takisian resumed his examination. Finn pranced forward and gripped him hard. "You're wasting time! You're costing her the one chance she's got! It's wild card!"

"Impossible! The virus was designed to resist mutation. She's a stable ace. She's can't be reinfected."

"Look at her!"

Panting, Tach stared from the syringe to Roulette's oozing body and back again. "Give it to me!"

His fingers slipped on the foul-smelling mucous film, and the needle scraped across the vein. Roulette cried out. "Wipe this away."

But as fast as they wiped, it bled still faster from her pores. Finally Tachyon jammed home the needle. Ancestors. Let it work. Let this be one time when it works!

But recently it seemed his prayers had only been met with silence.

Roulette was beginning to resemble a thousand-year-old mummy as the moisture leached from her body. Suddenly her lids fluttered open; she stared blankly up into his face.

"Tachyon." A croaking whisper. " I was coming back. To you." She sucked in air-a sound like a dying accordian. "Are you still waiting?"

"Yes."

"Liar. I'm dying. You're off the hook."

"Roulette." His skin crawled to touch her, but he forced himself to lay his cheek against hers. His tears mingled with mucus.

"You destroyed my life. You and your disease. Finally it's finishing the job. I'm… so… glad."

Long minutes later Finn tugged Tach away and drew up the sheet. Pain shot through the alien as his knees cracked onto the cold tile floor. Hands balled against his mouth, he fought back sobs. Partly from grief Partly from guilt, for he hadn't been waiting.

Mostly from terror.

"I got really mad today, but I thought about it like you said, and I didn't control them."

"Good." Tachyon stared into the refrigerator as if seeking enlightenment from a carton of sour milk and a bowl full of moldy peaches. "What was that?" The boy stiffened. "Oh, Blaise, I'm so proud of you." The rigidity went out of the small body under Tachyon's tight embrace. "And you're speaking English. I noticed that, too. I'm just so tired it takes me a few beats to catch up."

Blaise reached up and laid his fist against Tachyon's mouth. Tach kissed it. In a sudden, abrupt topic change the boy asked. "Uncle Claude wasn't a very good person, was he?"

"No, but one can partially understand his reasons. It's never easy to be a joker."

"What would you do if you were a joker?"

"Kill myself." Blaise gaped up at the indescribable expression on his k'ijdad's narrow face.

"That's silly. Anything is better than dead."

"I can't agree. You'll understand when you're older."

"Everybody tells me that." Pouting, Blaise left the kitchen and flung himself on the sofa. "Jack, Durg, Mark, Baby. I suppose it must be true if ships and humans and Takisians all agree. But I didn't mean being a yucky joker like Snotman. What if you were like Jube, or Chrysalis or Ernie?"

"I still couldn't live with it." Tach joined him on the sofa. "My culture idealizes the perfect. Defective children are destroyed at birth, and otherwise normal individuals are sterilized if it's determined that they lack sufficient genetic worth."

"So to be ordinary is as bad as being de… defective," he asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.

"Well, not quite, and too random a gene pattern can also endanger a person. I was almost sterilized because of my Sennari blood, but my outstanding mental abilities were deemed to outweigh the unpredictable Sennari, and my other… failings."

"Do you have a little boy on Takis?"

"No."

Tachyon briefly wondered if the sperm he had left banked on Takis still existed, or if Zabb's supporters had seen it destroyed. Or even worse, had Taj impregnanted some female? It was ironic that in a culture as technologically advanced as the Takisian, there was a fundamental distrust of artificial insemination, and artificial wombs. The wombs made a certain degree of sense; in a telepathic culture it was best that the child be linked with its mother, but there was little justification for the sex act.

Except for the obvious ones.

Ten nwnths! Ten months without sex.

He jerked his mind from that unpleasant thought and focused again on Blaise. There was so much to teach him about his Takisian culture, and yet should he really bother?

The child could never be presented to the family. He was an abomination. Also there was much in Takisian culture that didn't bear close scrutiny. How to indicate to an eleven-yearold child that the blood feuds, the controlled breeding, the tension and almost unbearable expectations that were part and parcel of life among the psi lords, were not romantic or wonderful, but rather deadly in the extreme, and had driven his grandsire to this alien world?

"Tell me a story."

"What makes you think I know any stories?"

"You're more like a fairy tale than real. You have to know stories."

"All right. I'll tell you how H'ambizan tamed the first ship. Long ago-"

"No."

"No?" Blaise's expression suggested that his grandfather was an idiot. "Ahhh, of course. Once upon a time." He cocked an inquiring eyebrow. Blaise nodded, satisfied, and snuggled in closer under Tachyon's arm. "And so long ago that even the oldest Kibrzen would lie if they told you they remembered, the people were forced to journey through the stars aboard ships of steel. What was worse, they weren't allowed to build these ships, for the Alaa-may their line wither-had signed a contract with Master Traders, and the people were forbidden to build space-going vessels. So the wealth of Takis bled into space, and into the pockets of the rapacious Network."

"What's the Network?"

"A vast trading empire with one hundred and thirty member races. One day H'ambizan, who was a notable astronomer, was drifting among the clouds in the birthplace of stars, and he came upon an amazing sight. Playing among the clouds of cosmic dust like porpoises in the waves, or butterflies through flowers, were vast incredible shapes. And H'ambizan fell to the deck, clasping his ringing skull, for his head was filled with a great singing. His assistants died of joy and shock for their minds could not absorb the thoughts of the creatures. But H'ambizan-being of the Ilkazam-was made of sterner stuff. He controlled his fear and pain and lanced out with a single thought. A single command. And so great was his power that the honor of ships fell silent and gathered like nursing whales about the tiny metal ship."

"And H'ambizan choose the leader of the honor, and suited against the vacuum, he stepped upon the rough surface of the ship. And curious, Za'Zam, father of ships, made a cavity to receive the man."

"And then H'ambizan mind-controlled the ship and made him carry him home!" cried Blaise.

"No. H'ambizan sang, and Za'Zam listened, and they both realized that after a thousand thousand years of loneliness they had found the separate halves of their souls. Za'Zam realized that guided by these strange small creatures the 'Ishb'kaukab would leave their nomadic pastoral lives and achieve greatness. And H'ambizan realized he had found a friend."

Tach leaned in and kissed the top of the boy's head. Blaise, chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip, glanced up. "Why didn't H'ambizan realize that now he could fight the Network? Why did he realize something silly?"

"Because this is a story of longing and regret."

"Is this supposed to be subtle?"

"Yes."

"But did H'ambizan and Za'Zam fight the Network?"

"Yes."

"And did they win?"

"Sort of."

"Is this true?"

"Sort of."

"Isn't that like being a little bit pregnant?"

"What would you know about that?" Blaise lifted his nose and looked superior. "Someday when I'm not so tired, I'll tell you about the genetic manipulation and eon-long breeding program that took place before we had ships like Baby."

"So there weren't wild ships?"

"Oh, yes, there were, but they weren't as bright as this tale indicates."

"But… But…"

Tach laid a finger on the child's lips. "Later. Your stomach's been growling so loud I was afraid it would jump out and take a bite out of my arm."

"A new wild card power! Killer stomachs!"

Tach threw back his head and laughed. "Come, little kukut, I'll buy you dinner."

"At McDonald's."

"Oh, joy."

The tutor hasn't quit.

The thought was so breathtaking that it brought him up short.

"The tutor hasn't quit!" Tachyon repeated with dawning wonder.

He ran to the office door, flung it open. Dita slewed around to stare nervously at him.

"The tutor hasn't quit!" he shouted. "Dita, you're wonderful!" Blood washed into her cheeks as he kissed her and pulled her around the office in a lurching polka. He dropped her back into her chair and collapsed on the sofa, panting and fanning himself. The weeks of unremitting work and strain were taking their toll. " I must see this paragon for myself. I'll be back in one hour."

He could hear Blaise's voice piping like a young bird, or a silver flute, and the deeper rumbling tones of the man's voice. A cello or a bassoon. There was warmth in that voice, and comfort, and something tantalizingly familiar. Tachyon stepped out of the tiny foyer and into the living room. Blaise was seated at the dining room table, a stack of books before him. A heavyset older man with graying hair and a faintly melancholy expression kept the boy's place with a blunt forefinger. His accent was musical, rather like Tachyon's.

"Oh, ideal… no!"

Victor Demyenov raised his dark eyes to meet Tachyon's lilac ones. His expression was both ironical and slightly malicious.

"K'ijdad, this is George Goncherenko." His grandsire's alarming rigidity seemed to penetrate, and the boy faltered and added,

"Is something wrong?"

"No, child," said George/Victor. "He is merely surprised to see us getting along so well. You have terrified so many of my predecessors."

"But not you," said Blaise. Then he added to Tachyon, "He's not scared of anything."

You had better be afraid of me! Tachyon shot at the KGB agent telepathically.

No, we hold one another in the palms of our hands. "Blaise, go to your room. This gentleman and I need to talk."

"No."