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 forcefed 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 patro
ls 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."
Chapter Nineteen
Ballooning was definitely a rad experience. Slipping along, just another colorful cloud among all the other colorful clouds. Unlike a human outing there wasn't a lot of noise of conversation, but that was because most of the people were using Vayet, and fully half the conversation was telepathic. There was a Tarhiji orchestra performing at the stern of the amazing carved-and-painted gondola, but they kept it soft so a person could appreciate the magical silence of this mode of travel.
There was one constant noise that Kelly found very disturbing -- the clap of wings followed by a piteous shriek as another small bird or animal was caught and killed by the plunging birds of prey being flown by the nobles in the bow. Blaise was up there where he could really hear their cries and smell the blood. Kelly liked it just fine in the stern, thank you. And he knew the cure for discomfort -- more wine.
He signaled, and the wine washed like liquid amber into the goblet. The scent of the servant's per fume filled Kelly's nostrils. He snatched up the glass so quickly that the servant spilled a few drops on the e
mbroidered tablecloth. Kelly grinned apology at the pretty girl and gulped down half the glass. Cold sweet fire. Whatever else could be said about the Takisians, they made bitching wine. The girl smiled back. There was a startling reaction from Kelly's borrowed body, and he half rose from his chair. The horizon wobbled, and Kelly realized he was more than a little drunk.
"The body leads, the mind must follow," said Bat'tam.
The elderly noble had drawn a chair close -- too close -- to Kelly's. The lost human blinked owlishly at him. The embedded jewels had begun to sag like collapsing houses into the wrinkles networking Bat'tam's face, and his long silver hair reminded Kelly of cobwebs. The older man's gaze dropped, and Kelly slid a hand to his crotch to hide his rampant erection. Bat'tam stood, waved off the girl, placed a hand on Kelly's shoulder, and urged him back into his chair.
"There, there, Ilkazam, don't distress yourself."
"I'm a little confused about my role right now," Kelly slurred, and hiccuped his way into a little sob.
"What does it matter? Man or woman, you are dear to me."
"I thought you were only nice to me so you could get close to Blaise."
Bat'tam laid a hand across Kelly's mouth, stopping the angry, bitter words. "I avoid charismatic young men with fire in their eyes, and a hunger in their heart. That's how I've lived to be so old. No, Ilkazam. You are --" Bat'tam broke off abruptly, and frowned at the small, fast shuttle that was falling like one of the hunting birds on the bloated mass of the balloon.
The ship braked, and hovered beside the gondola. Everyone's attention shifted to the new arrival.
"It must be serious if they interrupt the Raiyis at his play," Bat'tam said.
Kelly's focus was on the flock of pretty little gray-and-lavender birds that had just been released. "Run," he said under his breath. "Fly fast." The little birds went fluttering in all directions. Several of the large raptors spread their brilliantly colored wings and shook them urgently as they sensed their prey escaping.