Double Solitaire

  "You have no conception of life within Rarrana. It is not a prison."

  "Can Tachyon leave?"

  Zabb's silence provided all the answer they needed. A chime indicated an incoming call. Zabb keyed the stage. The image of his secretary appeared.

  "Yes?"

  "Sir, Captain Nesfa," the man said.

  "Abyss take the woman!" Zabb said. "What part of no doesn't she understand?"

  "Will you speak with her, my lord?"

  "No. Thank her for her continued interest in my well-being, but tell her I must decline her invitation due to responsibilities at home." With a vicious jab Zabb killed the holo. "Now, where were we?"

  "I was going to ask you if I can blow this Popsicle stand, go into town, check out the fleshpots of Takis," Jay said.

  "No."

  "Shit."

  Jay expected Mark to react with that little wince with which the other ace met all of Jay's more outrageous remarks. But the hippie seemed to have withdrawn into some kind of fugue state, maybe an LSD flashback.

  "If that is all..." Zabb began.

  "Women are permitted in Rarrana without restriction?" Mark said.

  Jay wondered if a space voyage had dropped Meadows's IQ.

  "Obviously."

  "Cool." Meadows knelt and snapped open his briefcase. Pulled out the black-and-silver powder. A few seconds later, and Moonchild stood before them.

  "Now, I would wish to see the Doctor."

  Jay was expecting Zabb to refuse, but there was a faint smile at the corners of that thin-lipped mouth. He didn't seem to mind being trumped. "By all means. Just be out before the change. I would hate to have to kill you.,'

  "Yeah, we feel that way about you too," Jay said.

  "He changes into a woman," Roxalana mused. "What a useful man. We might have some hope of understanding between the sexes if more of them could do that."

  "Wish someone would give me the power to move in the other direction," Pandasala said.

  And Tisianne made a mental note that if she ever did escape from her current predicament, she would find some way to free Pandasala from hers.

  "How beautiful she is," Cillka breathed, and gently touched a strand of Moonchild's jet black hair.

  Moonchild bowed. "Thank you, gracious lady, but my time is limited, and we must reach a decision concerning the Doctor's safety before I must leave."

  "Why can't you stay to guard Tisianne?" Shi'tha asked.

  "I exist for only an hour in human time."

  "Unfortunate," Melant said.

  "Yes, very. I have sought some way to free all of the individuals who make up Mark Meadows so that we might each pursue our own karma, our own futures, but so far I have been unsuccessful."

  "Your offer is generous, groundling," Roxalana said. "But I can select guards for my brother."

  "Without offense, lady, I must say I would feel better if one of the guards was Mark."

  "Mark is a man," Melant said with that careful patience one reserves for stupid children and animals.

  "So are most of our guards," Tisianne said suddenly. "The key is that they are neutered." She gathered Moonchild's hands in hers. "A vasectomy is easily performed. Easily reversed for my people. If you'll do it, you can stay with me."

  "Zabb will not permit it. He has already refused to allow Mr. Ackroyd to leave the House. I think he fears that Mr. Ackroyd might find a way to kidnap Blaise. He will use every means to neutralize our powers."

  "Go to Taj. He has sworn allegiance to Zabb, but this in no way compromises that oath. He cares for me. He will help," Tis said.

  "My brother is correct," Roxalana said. "And use my son Rowan to send us word when you are coming. We'll see that your arrival causes as little comment as possible."

  "Moonchild, thank you."

  "We will be back soon." The ace slipped through the door, into the shadows, and vanished.

  Mark had set the telepathic damper on the table in Tisianne's old quarters. Ackroyd's hand shot out and caught his wrist before he could turn it on.

  "Hey, doesn't that thing, like, cause headaches, and give hemorrhoids, and cause telepaths to pick up mariachi stations on their fillings for a hundred-mile radius? In short, isn't this really going to piss off the Takisians if we fire it up, and aren't they going to come and pound us into the ground like tent pegs?"

  Mark folded his lips in a tight line. Parted them just enough to say, "I'm in the mood to piss off Takisians. One Takisian in particular."

  Mark then outlined Tisianne's plan. He should have predicted Ackroyd's reaction. "You are crazy! Fucking crazy!" Jay ran agitated hands through his hair and took a sharp turn around himself.

  "The issue is that you can't be a fertile male --" Mark argued.

  "I thought you were crazy when you offered to marry the bitch. Now you're offering to have your dick chopped off?"

  "These aren't, like, primitives, man. This is a really medically sophisticated society. Hell, vasectomies are reversible on Earth. The Doc says it's a cinch to fix here."

  "They have harems so you won't fuck their women."

  "No. They have harems to prevent assassination and unplanned pregnancies. Sex is fine. The Doc told me they have toys -- both the men and the women -- beautiful neutered sex partners. A snip, and we'll be no threat, we can stay with the Doc."

  "What's this we, white man? I am not going to become a eunuch for Tachyon. That was not part of the deal!"

  He was arrested at the door by Mark saying, If we don't keep the Doc alive, there's no return ticket."

  That almost got him. Almost. "Uh-uh. No. No way. This is a nice little planet. Maybe I'll put down roots, open an office, get back into divorce work -- if Takisians get divorces. Take a wife. Raise some kids."

  All the while he was talking, he was edging for the door. Hand on the knob, out the door, into the hall. Unfortunately sound carries. And you can't not listen. Can't not understand.

  "I don't know why you're so upset." Mark's voice pursued him like a restless spirit. "You're dickless already, Jay."

  ican't/iwon't/i'lldie/i'llkill!/novirus!

  The slap took both of them by surprise. Roxalana for administering it, Tisianne for receiving it. They stood staring at each other, then Tis slowly lifted a hand to her cheek.

  "All the years of my childhood you never hit me."

  "I left that to Melant. She was my designated hitter." Roxalana turned away and straightened a vase that didn't need straightening. Tis couldn't help it. Outraged dignity, hurt feelings were forgotten. She laughed. "What?" demanded her sister with some truculence.

  "It has a very different meaning on Earth."

  Roxalana lifted the meaning and the ludicrous image from Tisianne's mind. Melant in a Yankees uniform, arranging her bat with that butt wiggle that is unique to baseball players.

  "Seems like a silly game."

  "It's a lovely game. If I ever get out of here, I'm going to introduce it on Takis." Tis walked to the window and looked out. "But as hopeless as things seem now, I may have to settle for a ladies' softball league."

  "Is that necessarily so inferior?"

  "It's not the future I envisioned for myself." Standing was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Tis retired to a lounging sedan and arranged her bulky body. "I don't think I can survive in here. The boredom and paranoia are going to kill me."

  "I seem to recall the beginning of this little squabble was an offer of employment from Segath. You have more firsthand experience with the virus than any member of the research team living or dead. Get back in the laboratory and share that experience."

  "I will not work on the virus -- nonnegotiable, don't raise it again." Tis eyed the ceiling where guards patrolled on the hidden catwalk, watched the two women through monitors. Softly Tis continued. "For half my life I've been free from this scrutiny. I came as I pleased and went as I pleased. I asked permission of no one. Do you know how wonderful aloneness can be? We think we ignore them." She jerked her head toward the unseen guards
. "But we don't. We're always aware of them. The worst for me was when I was sick. I didn't mind fucking, snoring, crapping, eating, farting, belching in front of them, but puking... you're at your most vulnerable and unattractive in that moment."

  "Try birthing," was the unsympathetic reply.

  It was a topic Tisianne wished to avoid. She turned onto her side, away from that disapproving presence.

  "I can't tolerate self-pity and tantrums, Tis. You got to go on a decades-long lark while the rest of us did our duty -- and almighty irksome were those duties, let me assure you. So don't expect me to regret your lack of freedom. It was purchased at great cost by the rest of us.

  Their father's death lay between them.

  "And finally I'm sick of you denigrating the accomplishments of this segment of the House. Why is an action by a woman less valued in your eyes? You're bored because you don't feel the work we are doing here is worthy of your attention, much less your participation. Shi'tha's research in ghost-gate theory may enable us to fold space and so cross the galaxy in the time it currently takes us to reach Ship Home. I have a class of very promising youngsters about to exit Rarrana and begin their higher education. I taught them... and I taught them well. The girls I send out today will return in thirty years ready to be mothers, and teachers, and researchers, and painters, and composers.

  "You're a doctor -- well, stop pouting in this room and get out and doctor. Or if that's not to your taste, volunteer for cradle duty. You value freedom so much -- free up some busy mother for her work. Ideal knows you could use the experience. A little primer before you birth your daughter. That's where your focus should be -- on your child. Not on politics, not on the breakdown of Takisian society. We build society here -- one child at a time. You're part of the process now."

  Tisianne laid a hand on her belly. Felt the joyous leap of Illyana's mind as she greeted her parent. That parent realized with some guilt that she had been virtually ignoring the baby by blocking Illyana's questing thought tendrils.

  Swinging her legs off the lounge, Tis moved to her sister, hugged Roxalana close. "I'm sorry. I'm afraid your little brother, despite his skin change, hasn't learned very much. He's still an idiotic male." Roxalana's hand was soft on her hair, stroking, pulling apart the slight tangles with her fingers. "All right, let me doctor. I have two good hands. I should be grateful for that."

  All briskness again, Roxalana held her at arm's length. "Let me make amends for hitting you." Moving swiftly to the door, she called back over her shoulder. "Here is the bodyguard you've been missing."

  The door opened, and Mark Meadows grinned sheepishly down at her.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  There was a quality reminiscent of the little boy as Jay Ackroyd stood with his nose pressed against a floor-to-ceiling port and watched the Takisian ships go about their mysterious and shiply business. Tisianne seemed inclined to ignore the detective, but Mark gave her a nudge and jerked his head at Jay.

  "You should, like, introduce Jay to your sisters."

  Tisianne turned wide gray eyes on him. "Why?"

  Despite the solemnity of the occasion Mark couldn't fully suppress the little smile that tugged at his mouth. "'Cause when he gets a load of your sisters, it'll, like, bum him out big time that he rejected Rarrana."

  "I like that," said Tis, and led the little band of Sennari women over to the human.

  Lurching along behind them, Mark felt like a particularly ungainly basset hound mothering a clutch of baby chicks. At first he'd been surprised that the women were allowed out of Rarrana, but Roxalana had pointed out it was only the children of the late lamented Shaklan. Even for the funeral of the Raiyis, Ilkazam wasn't going to risk most of its breeding females.

  It took a light touch to the shoulder to draw the detective's attention away from the vista of stars and ships.

  "Jay, I wish you to meet my sisters. Sisters, Jay Ackroyd." The six Sennari women acknowledged the detective with regal little inclinations of their golden heads.

  "We had despaired of ever meeting you," said Roxalana, as always the spokeswoman for the sisters.

  Jay regained control of his jaw and forced out, "Yeah, well, when Tachy's out in the wide world, I'm there to guard her."

  "How very noble of you."

  "I also wanted to see a Takisian funeral."

  "Somewhat less noble of you."

  In this time of danger it wasn't prudent to empty the House for Shaklan's funeral, but there still seemed to be a lot of people milling about Ship Home, both Zal'hma at' Irg and Tarhiji.

  The Ilkazam orbital platform was not only a military installation, it was the breeding facility for the living ships. Hence the name, hence the hundreds of ships of all sizes, shapes, and ages drifting about, grazing on the stellar dust, and huddling close to the platform as if seeking to say farewell to their former Raiyis.

  Tis and her sisters went off to prepare the body of heir father. Mark joined Jay at the port. Ships were still arriving. Through a secondary port set in the lock, He could watch the ships actually enter the docking bay. There was already a ship at rest there, a ship without lights or ornamentation. Mark could see the white wounds where the decorations had been removed. As each ship flew back out of the bay, it made a point to brush sides with the funeral ship -- for so Mark assumed it had to be. Mark suddenly flashed on a memory of Egyptian pharaohs, and he hoped the faithful steed didn't have to share the fate of its master. It seemed kind of barbaric for the Takisians, but they were such an odd mix of violence and elegance that you never knew.

  The last mourners arrived, and the outer lock cycled closed. In answer to some telepathic message the crowd entered the bay and formed double ranks with those closest in relationship to Shaklan nearest to the ship. Taj then came walking down the center carrying the body of his brother-in-law. At various points he would pause, and family members would place tokens -- mostly folded bits of foil, but occasionally very valuable pieces of jewelry -- in the folds of the corpse's clothing and whisper into its ear.

  Each of the sisters had some small object. Tisianne only leaned in and kissed the cold lips. Taj stared hard at her. Tis waved him on. The old man vanished into the ship.

  Pandasala leaned in. "No gift, no proof of virtu for our father?"

  Tis's faced seemed shuttered. "Nothing I could give him would forestall the curse -- if he decides to curse me."

  Taj emerged moments later, his arms empty. The corpse had been left in the ship. The mourners retreated behind the lock, and the outer door cycled open. Silently the dark ship lifted off and flew out into the blackness of space.

  "Where are they going?" Jay asked.

  Tis remained silent, staring out at the stars.

  Roxalana's brow twitched briefly in a small frown as she regarded her brother, then she answered. "No one living knows. The ship that carried them in life carries them in death and takes them... somewhere."

  "They don't, like, commit suicide by diving into a sun or something, do they?" Mark asked, eager to have that concern assuaged.

  "No, no," Roxalana said. "The body is preserved by the cold and vacuum of space. We want our dead to know where their bodies rest."

  "Why?" Jay asked.

  Pandasala replied, "A ghost without a body to return to will take up residence in a living descendant -- or so the superstition holds."

  Cillka spoke up. "A crash, fire, any accident that destroys the body is almost a worse tragedy than the death itself."

  "And the little gifts?"

  "All our actions are designed to either appease or find favor with the ancestors. As one of those ancestors heads out, we like to remind them of how wonderful we are. So compositions, poetry, a novel, a scientific achievement, artwork, we send something along."

  "Christ, if you could find the cosmic cemetery, a grave robber would have a field day," Jay said.

  "I think the ships would prevent that," was Melant's rather dry reply.

  "Ships." Jay snapped his fingers. "Hey, I
better not miss my bus. Catch you later."

  "What an extraordinary man," Roxalana murmured.

  "Is that a compliment?" Mark asked.

  "Hardly." She laid the tips of her fingers on his wrist. "Vindi, you may escort me to my ship." As they moved away, she added very quietly, "I am very pleased that you are guarding my brother."

  Jay had picked a crowded shuttle with more than the normal complement of Tarhiji aboard. It had the virtue of being away from Zabb, and none of the watchdogs the Takisian had placed on Jay wanted to ride with the hired help, so for the moment Jay was free from surveillance. It was the first step in his plan to escape Ilkazam and head for Vayawand. Somebody had to stop farting around and snatch Blaise. Otherwise he and Meadows had become permanent residents.

  The ship landed in the great courtyard in front of House Ilkazam, and most of the Tarhiji headed for the gates ready to return home after a long day of pampering the shitheads. So far luck was favoring him. Jay's fruitbar clothes were a little fancy for a servant, and he was a little tall to pass easily, but his coloring was pure Tarhiji, and nobody really looks at servants. Right? Or so he hoped as he ducked his head and scuttled sideways into the shelter of a number of other bodies.

  Several more shuttles had landed, and Jay spotted a couple of his bird dogs looking frantically about for him. They didn't look at the gaggle of servants heading for the tram.

  Slick as snot off a hog's back, he thought as they passed through the gates and the great panels slid shut behind them.

  "The calnite, please," Tisianne said, and indicated a syringelike device. Cap'n Trips gingerly plucked the instrument from among its fellows and placed it in Tisianne's hand.

  "Is this going to hurt?" asked the grubby, tear-stained six-year-old whose broken arm was the object of Tisianne's attention.

  "No."

  "That's what Manka said when she told me to jump... but it did."

  The lower lip thrust pugnaciously forward, but the effect was somewhat marred by an unhappy wobble.

  "Maybe now you won't do silly things just because people tell you to."