Double Solitaire

  The young man uncoiled from his chair and moved to the podium. His height, the heavily muscled body, the shocking choice of color for his clothing, all combined to make him an arresting figure. Blaise lifted his arms, and the crowd, so well trained, fell silent.

  "Look at me. I'm an abomination. And I rule House Vayawand!" He paused and allowed his eyes to scan the absolutely silent crowd. "I'm going to marry this Tarhiji lady and breed an abomination. And he will rule Takis!

  "We'll do it, my people, but it will take all of us -- Tarhiji and Zal'hma at' Irg -- working together. Together we can build a Takis where there are no masters and slaves, only Takisians, and the rest of the galaxy will look on us in wonder.

  "I call you my people because I know your secret hopes, your hidden dreams. For generations you have served the psi lords, and in return they have given you peace and plenty. But it's not enough. Not anymore. It's time you shared in those powers that made them your masters, and I'm going to give them to you. From this day forward the laws regarding interbreeding are repealed. Each noble of House Vayawand shall be required to marry not only a woman of his class, but a member of the Tarhiji."

  An avalanche of sound rolled over the speaker's podium. Blaise was right, thought Durg, for a thousand generations they have been envious. The cheering lasted a full five minutes. When they at last quieted, Blaise continued.

  "You'll share more than the powers. You'll share the longevity of the Zal'hma at' Irg. They've shared with you a fraction of the medical advances that have bestowed upon them lives many times longer than yours. You have lived three, four hundred years. Now you'll live a thousand. Beginning tomorrow members of the Tarhiji need only present themselves at the gates of House Vayawand, and they will receive the injection reserved, until now, to the Most Bred."

  Durg felt a jolt through his gut. This had not been part of the prepared and rehearsed speech. The crowd began to cheer. It was certainly playing well.

  "You may wonder why House Vayawand has joined with me in this great endeavor. Aren't they part of the class structure? Aren't they part of the problem?" Blaise paused for dramatic effect. "Yes, they were, but they have listened, learned, and understood that stagnation is death. We will shake this culture to its foundations and rebuild a just society, a workers' paradise.

  "There will be those who will resist us. We will fight the oppressors and offer to their mind blind the same rights given to you. They will join us, and their Houses will become ours. One House in particular has been too proud and too evil to see and accept the right in what we do."

  It was Kelly's cue. He continued to stare blankly off into space, and Durg wondered if he'd been right to place the man in such a permanent alcoholic haze. A thumb jabbed hard into a shoulder blade brought Kelly back to the present. He scrambled from his chair and walked forward to join Blaise.

  "They too will fall," called the bogus Tisianne. "People of Takis, House Ilkazam, hear me. The old ways are dead. A new society dawns before us. I went first to my clan, my House, and offered them the chance to lead this revolution. They rejected and vilified me. Fleeing for my life, I went in search of men of greatness, men brave enough to lead us into that new society. I have broken all custom, all tradition -- I have abandoned my House and given allegiance to another. Because I found that brave man." Kelly laid a hand on Blaise's shoulder.

  Durg could see the hesitation, the minute shrinking away from contact with Blaise. The Tarhiji would miss it. With luck most Zal'hma at' Irg would as well.

  Blaise resumed. "Today I have issued an ultimatum to House Rodaleh. They have until tomorrow to merge with Vayawand. If they refuse, we will carry the revolution to them. Are you with me?" Blaise thrust a fist high into the air, and the assent was deafening. "Then go to the registration centers. Join the House army. Prepare for the fight. All of Takis is the prize. May the Ideal guide and bless us."

  Blaise spread his arms in a final embrace to the crowd, stepped back to Durg's side. His face was flushed with excitement, his dark eyes glowing. Durg dropped a cloak over the boy's shoulders.

  "Very well played, my lord, but was it wise to raise the longevity point?"

  "Hey, it worked great."

  "Yes, but there is no magic serum. The Most Bred live longer because they are bred to live longer."

  "By the time the sheep figure out we've lied to them, we'll rule Takis. That should mollify them. If not, we can kill them."

  Durg bowed his head in assent. "As you wish." They started down the steps of the platform. "There is another matter. Bat'tam brant Sandiqy sek Buad sek Jul grows too close to the false prince."

  Kelly hesitated at the top of the stairs. Analyzed the remarkable effects of alcohol. It made you both dumb and brave because here he was standing five feet from Blaise trying to read Blaise's mind.

  There were a lot of minds in the plaza of Vaya, but Kelly had gotten better at this telepathy shit. The pressure of minds no longer hurt like dagger pricks against the surface of his brain. They were just irritating, like a chorus of a thousand of cicadas in the bodark trees back home. He had to sift through them all to find Blaise even though Blaise was terrifyingly close to hand.

  Kelly had discovered that visualization helped, so he pictured his grandmother bent over the scarred wooden table in the kitchen of the Oklahoma farmhouse, squeezing the trigger of a battered old flour sifter while brains popped through the narrow screen.

  Once located, Blaise's mind was unmistakable. It had a buzz-saw quality. It was primal force with no grace or elegance. It just was. The deeper thoughts were hidden beneath opaque shields, but the surface thought was too strong to be hidden. Blaise was thinking about killing. Killing Bat'tam.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  "Touch him, bitch, and I'll cut off your nipples and feed them to your baby!"

  Tis hadn't remembered fainting. Actually she didn't remember much past the time when they reached the heavy doors of Rarrana. It was then that she panicked, fought, beating at Zabb's chest and face.

  And now she was waking to a threatening voice echoing with the yowl of a backfence cat warning off interlopers. Raising a hand, she lightly touched her forehead. Felt the residual signature of Zabb. No, not a faint, a coerced sleep. He had subdued her the way a man would tranquilize a frightened animal. Is that how the humans felt when I used my power on them? she wondered.

  The sound of receding footsteps, the slam of a door. More distant and less distinct sounds began to force their way to her consciousness. Babies crying, children laughing, squalling, calling to each other in play. The yap of excited hounds romping with the children. Sounds of adult activity -- the muted melody of water falling softly into fountain basins, a string quartet rehearsing, the drone of an announcer on the holo commenting on the action in a sporting competition.

  There was a prickling sense that let her know that she was surrounded by people -- female people by the delicate scent of their perfumes -- and then one particular fragrance struck like a belly blow, and for one flashing, painful moment Tis was five years old again. Pillowed on his mother's breast, screaming mentally because the telepathic communication that he had shared with his mother almost since the moment of his conception had been brutally and suddenly broken. In the background had been the same busy sounds of Rarrana. It had been Roxalana who had gathered him into her arms then.

  It was Roxalana who gripped Tisianne's shoulders now and pulled her into a sitting position. Disoriented by the strength of the memory, Tis murmured, "You're wearing mother's scent." Tisianne opened her eyes.

  Roxalana looked not very much different than Tis remembered. She had their father's tipped-up eyes; they gave her a wicked, calculating look that was undeserved. She was as direct as a knife blade, and often as painful.

  But it was Pandasala who jumped in with the sharp, acerbic comment. "For only the past forty years. Outstanding that you finally noticed."

  It was perfectly in character for her. It was said that life with Pandasala had prepared her hu
sband for (or driven him into) the highly dangerous sport of agma hunting.

  "Of course you have been gone," said Cillka.

  "Without sparing a thought for your poor sisters," added Tri'ava.

  "And we were supposed to make a baby together," Melant said.

  "We took a terrible drop in prestige when our nearest male relative was a mere regent."

  "Now maybe you'll understand our plight," finished Shi'tha.

  And there was that rustling, the sideways glances that women exchange when they are hiding tolerant amusement at the foibles of men. Despite Tis's forced sex change, it was apparent that in the eyes of her sisters arrayed about her that she was still a moronic male. Tis scanned the six delicate faces -- Roxalana, Melant, Tri'ava, Pandasala, Shi'tha, Cillka.

  They were all varying shades of blond, from the deep burnished bronze of the eldest, Roxalana, to the new minted gold of Cillka, the baby until Tach had come along ninety years later. Tis realized that since her body switch she finally looked like one of the family, an offspring of Shaklan and Ts'ara. She was even the right sex. After seven daughters the House Ilkazam had begun to despair of the Raiyis ever siring a boy child. They had even suggested that Shaklan break his unnatural fascination with his primary wife and try fathering a child on some other appropriately pedigreed woman. Shaklan refused and eventually Tisianne had arrived -- male and redheaded, an oddity. Now Tis fit... On the whole she would just as soon have remained a changeling.

  Other details were coming into focus. They were in the great star-shaped central courtyard of Rarrana. Directly in the center, beneath a domed skylight, was a bathing pool. Naked women dandled their children in the water or played silly water games. Like all pools on Takis, it was shallow. Takisians were notoriously bad swimmers. For a distance of four feet from the pool the ground was inlaid with beautiful mosaic pictures, most of which were hidden beneath bodies where more women lounged, enjoying the warmth of the heated tiles. Tarhiji servants slipped through carrying food, drink, towels. La'bs both male and female were very much in evidence, massaging the bodies of their mistresses, kissing them, feeding them, reading to them from holos floating comfortably at eye level. Nearby a couple was copulating, and Tis felt her cheeks go red. She quickly looked away and cursed Earth for turning her into a prude.

  The jagged walls of the room were pierced with doors like tiny mouths. These were the least desirable quarters in Rarrana -- noisy, no private garden, the least defensible if an enemy should penetrate the women's quarters. Tis glanced up at the catwalk circling the bathing pool and counted seven guards.

  She then looked back to her sisters. Four of them were pregnant. Five if you counted Tisianne. She chuckled humorlessly. "Well, we Sennari are a fertile lot, aren't we?"

  "Burning Sky, Tis, how did you end up in such an absurd situation?" Roxalana exploded.

  It wasn't really a question. It was an irritable exclamation of how troublesome their little brother was -- and Lani ought to know. It had been her task to raise him after their mother's murder.

  Tis's heart seemed to be expanding, filling her chest with an emotion so strong, the small body didn't seem able to contain it. There is a closeness among telepathic people even when their shields are up. A constant leak of low-level, unimportant thoughts like the chuckling of a brook. It's very comforting, and to be without it is like placing a normal human in an isolation tank. To find herself now in the midst of telepaths who loved her and had lowered all barriers so that affection could flow through was indescribable. Tisianne held out her hands to her sisters. Murmured their names as they each came forward and gave her the kiss between close relatives.

  The love fest lasted about three minutes, then Roxalana called them to order. "Shi'tha, Cillka, circulate and see who's talking to whom. Who's suddenly decided to visit their wives. Which fathers have suddenly been seized with an overwhelming desire to contact their daughters." The two women nodded and left.

  "Come." Lani helped Tis to her feet.

  "Where?"

  "Zabb left strict instructions. You're getting the best suite in Rarrana."

  "How... condescending of him. Should I be grateful?"

  "Probably," said Pandasala. "It may save your life."

  "You think they'll try to kill me?"

  "You have been away a long time," Melant called back over her shoulder as they hurried down switch-backed halls. "The Kou'nar have several deaths and a blighted hope to avenge."

  They reached a doorway, and Roxalana keyed the telepathic lock. It was an impressive set of rooms. Deep spider-silk carpets covered the marble floor, insulation to keep out the biting cold of Takis. In one corner there was a ten-foot-tall tiled stove-fireplace. Sofas, chairs, several tables. A card table near the stove, and a ka'et. Set atop the polished surface of the instrument was a re'ba'bi.

  Tis crossed to the instruments, stroked the keys of the ka'et, and experimentally plucked the strings of the re'ba'bi. She set it carefully back down atop the ka'et, then slammed her hands down on the keyboard. The discord made Melant jump.

  "This is my fucking instrument! He had this planned all along!" Nobody asked for a translation of the English word. A curse in any language seems to communicate.

  Tri'ava turned back from her contemplation of the moonlit gardens and twitched shut the draperies over the double glass doors. "Interesting you should mention Zabb. I think he's as much of a threat as the Kou'nar."

  Roxalana shook her head. "He could have had Egyon do the job for him. Why wait?"

  "Lani's right. I think he's just enjoying the sight of me helpless and imprisoned," Tis said.

  The bitterness couldn't be masked, the Tis realized it was not just for herself, but for her sisters as well. Had Earth affected her so much that she now questioned the basic tenets of her culture?

  "This is for your protection, remember?" Pandasala said. "We women are so precious." A sneer trembled at the edges of the word.

  So even Takis breeds malcontents, Tis thought.

  Melant flung herself into a chair. "I think Panda regrets not being bitshuf'di."

  There was a touch of spite in the words. Roxalana made a slashing gesture before Pandasala could respond to the goading. "Both of you go. Tis doesn't need to be agitated by your sniping."

  Melant pouted. "But I wanted to discuss our baby. The genetic work-ups were so encouraging, Tis. When you do recover your body, please loan it to me for a night."

  Tis tried to mask the hurt but knew she didn't succeed very well. She was a very poor telepath, and she threw off emotions like sparks off a spinning firework. "My track record with children hasn't been very good so far. Perhaps you should stick with Baiyin."

  Melant paused at the door. "He's not going to be Raiyis."

  "Right now neither am I."

  Pandasala placed her hands in the middle of Melant's back and shoved. Tri'ava gave a little wave and closed the door carefully behind her. For a long moment Roxalana and Tis regarded that closed door, then cautiously returned their scrutiny to each other.

  "They're angry. You're all angry with me," Tis said softly.

  "You abandoned us, and now you're back, but not as an asset, an ally to help us further our goals, promote our projects, advance our children. Instead you're a burden. It isn't enough that we have to protect ourselves, our children still in tails. We have to protect you as well."

  "Then don't! I have my humans, and Taj, and though my mentatic skill is all but gone, I still have my wits."

  "Oh, no, Tis. We'll protect you. Even finding you in this ridiculous scrape is better than believing you were a traitor -- but you still leave us in a most untenable position. If you die, we suffer. The new Raiyis may decide that a living Sennari is a threat -- more than a conspiracy. I don't want to see my children die. I don't want to see my sisters die." She paused, and the severe lines around her mouth relaxed. It wasn't quite a smile. "I don't even want to see my little brother die."

  "The two humans --"

  "May have form
idable powers, but for the moment they're useless to us. You'll need guards, but leave the selection to me. You haven't enough telepathy to weed out even the most obvious assassin."

  Tis hung her head. She had been so proud of the telepathy she had forcefed the borrowed human body. Once home, she realized just how rudimentary and useless it was.

  "So you're keeping me alive in the faint hope I might recover my body and leadership of the House. Other than that I'm useless."

  "You are inhabiting the body of an inferior groundling. Carrying a half-breed abomination. You're not precisely an asset. But you are Tisianne, and..."

  She whirled and left the room. But the thought lingered like the scent of her perfume. I do care for you.

  "I want to see her."

  Mark was leaning over the desk, hands braced on the polished surface. They were in the office of the Raiyis, and Zabb looked very much at home as he lolled in the padded chair and swung lightly from side to side.

  "Lilistizkar is the traditional visiting day. You'll just have to wait."

  "And when is this lillyshit?" asked Jay. "Sometime in the next century?"

  "Only three days."

  "I want to see her now." Mark tried to sound threatening. Ended up sounding pleading.

  "Quite impossible. Only husbands have unlimited visiting rights."

  "Then I'll marry her."

  "Jesus," muttered Jay.

  Zabb's smile deepened. Then, arranging his features into one of somber consideration, he said gravely, "I'm afraid as Raiyis I must refuse your offer for my cousin's hand."

  "Come on, Meadows." Jay took Mark by the arm and tugged. "He's just fucking with us and enjoying the hell out of it. Don't be a toy for him. We'll just have to wait until visiting hours at the zoo. Maybe they'll even let us feed the girls, bring them some grapes, chocolate . ......