Wild Cards X: Double Solitaire

by Melinda Snodgrass

  Then he realized: Blaise. Blaise was in this room. Someone had been jumped.

  One of the guards hesitated, frowned, and looked back toward the soldier at the rear of the phalanx. But the reaction, the premonition of danger, came too late. The heavy pistol was out of its holster, the barrel jammed into the back of Ke’elaa’s head. Cooked brains and congealing blood were suddenly flying from the hole in what had been Ke’elaa’s face.

  Reflexes Kelly hadn’t even known he possessed kicked in, and he took a low, long dive that carried him through the shuttering lens of the kitchen door. He came to rest against the lower legs of a waiter, who tottered, skittered, danced, to no avail. Food pattered down, a vegetable rain, followed by the mind-numbing sound of shattering china. It almost drowned out the screams, curses, and the snarl of weapons fire from the dining room. Self-preservation was still the paramount drive for Kelly. Crawling from beneath the half-stunned servant, Kelly surrendered to the urge that was pure Kelly Ann Jenkins. He howled like the teenage girl he really was. That need satisfied, he clutched the stump of his right arm against his chest and bolted.

  The house was seething like a disturbed anthill. To Kelly’s fevered imagination, hours seemed to pass until he at last stumbled past Blaise and Durg serenely playing cards, and into the haven of his bedroom.

  Pillow clutched desperately against his aching stomach, Kelly rocked backward and forward in an agony of fear and shock. Blaise sauntered in. There was a sated, well-fed feeling surrounding him. He sat on the edge of the bed and asked in a soft voice, “What’s wrong?”

  “You know damn well what’s wrong. You killed Ke’elaa, and now everybody’s killing everybody out there.” His voice caught on a sob.

  “It wasn’t me. These Takisians kill each other all the time.”

  Kelly wanted to smash the hypocritical smile off his face. “I felt you.”

  Blaise pushed back the sweat-matted bangs from Kelly’s forehead. “But you’re not going to tell anybody, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Then we haven’t got a problem. We’re no threat to anyone, simple little groundlings that we are.”

  The bed shifted as Blaise removed his weight. He smiled down at Kelly. Walked out. And Kelly remembered how once, briefly, he had loved him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  JAY FELT LIKE A curmudgeon, but after only a few days he decided just one thing could be said for space travel—it was achingly, stultifyingly boring. At least on an airplane there was the occasional burst of turbulence, but the Milky Way was behaving with perfect gentility—not a single asteroid field to dodge, unknown space anomaly to elude, space pirate to defeat.

  Tachyon’s face had been a study in disgust, amazement, and condescension when Jay had offered this opinion. “Asteroid fields? We’re light-years from the nearest system. And do you have any comprehension of how big space really is? As for pirates … we’re traveling with the closest thing to them.”

  “Then I guess I’ll go looking for some captive princesses. Maybe they’ll be more appreciative than the humorless bitch I’m stuck guarding.”

  “I should hope Nesfa would have better taste!” Tach shot back.

  Another problem with spaceships—you can’t slam the doors when you’re pissed. Jay grumbled to himself, Dumb-ass Takisian. Couldn’t she recognize sarcasm when she heard it? and went wandering again.

  Tachyon had been sticking tight to the stateroom. Scared of Zabb, wary of Nesfa and her people. As for Zabb, he’d been notable only by his absence. Trips insisted that someone be with Tachyon all the time, and since Jay wanted to spend time with the amazing Nesfa, that put most of the burden on the hippie. Jay knew he was shirking, and that only added to his lousy mood.

  As planned, he ran across Nesfa. She was hurrying down a corridor carrying a potted plant. It looked like attenuated bamboo, but of a startling purple hue. “I’m prettying the lounge. Come and help.”

  “Sure.”

  This was a new room for Jay. A few low sofas, a clear table. Multicolored lights crawled randomly through the piece. Jay couldn’t decide if it was the Network version of a lava lamp, or a video game. Nesfa crossed to a corner and deposited the purple bamboo. Then Jay spotted the most exciting feature yet—a port.

  “Hot damn, the observation car.” Jay laughed for the sheer relief of it. A weight of claustrophobia he hadn’t known he was carrying suddenly blew off his shoulders. “So how do we get a view?”

  Nesfa’s white brow furrowed. Her hair swept forward, scanning the wall. She then crossed and pressed a section. The black rolled away, and Jay frowned as roiling gray, like dirty cotton wool being torn by hurricane winds, showed beyond the port.

  “What the hell is this? No stars!” Jay yelped, feeling cheated.

  “Of course there are no stars,” Tach snapped from the doorway. “We’re not in reality as you know it.” She was in one of those moods, her mouth drawn down, gray eyes dark with a secret pain.

  Jay had never liked being lectured by Tachyon when the little shit was a man. Now the soft girl’s voice made it doubly hard to take—memories of a finger-wagging mother or sister.

  “Gee, so sorry you finally decided to crawl out of your cave.”

  “You … fight?” Nesfa asked hesitantly. Damn, the girl was quick, picking up human emotional nuances that well.

  Mark stepped hurriedly in. “But, Doc, I could see stars when we were aboard Baby.”

  “We weren’t traveling at light-speed, Mark.”

  Why did Tachyon have that sharp tone only when she addressed him? Jay wondered. Talking with Mark she fairly cooed.

  Tachyon continued, “That was just a little high-speed chase around the solar system.”

  “Which you would never have won if my ’Cat hadn’t been damaged from our earlier encounter with the Swarm,” said Zabb conversationally from another doorway.

  Mark’s hand was in his pocket. Jay was willing his to stay there. But the Takisian made no move even to enter the room, and Jay felt the hair on the back of his neck start to lie down again. There was something predatory in the way Zabb was eyeing Tachyon, and Jay began to think that maybe Meadows wasn’t totally paranoid. Maybe this smiling man really did intend to kill Tachyon.

  “Forgive my laxity as a host. I’ve had a ship to run.”

  Zabb said something to Nesfa in an unknown language. She responded in the same clicks and pops. He crossed to her and ran a hand softly across her belt and gently cupped the hip pouch. The familiarity made Jay want to hit him.

  “I didn’t want your society, Zabb, just your efforts as a carter,” replied Tachyon with a fine hauteur that set oddly on her very youthful features.

  Zabb laughed. “Oh, cousin, you do that very well, but you chastise me for becoming a laborer while you have spent the past forty years ministering to filth?” He propped his shoulders against a wall and included Mark and Jay in the conversation. “On my world saints are suspect. Only the mad act without a hefty dose of self-interest. So I think my cousin is mad. Or hopelessly tainted. After all, he has become an Earthwoman.” Again that laugh.

  “I think we ought to get back to our room,” said Mark.

  Jay agreed, but another, less wise, part of himself hated to be routed by this supercilious, smiling bastard.

  “An excellent idea, but leave my kinswoman. We have need of private conversation,” Zabb said.

  “Now, you didn’t strike me as stupid,” said Jay conversationally. “Arrogant, and maybe a little too inclined to lead with your chin—most of you military types have that problem—but not stupid. Why do you think we’re along on this little party? It sure ain’t for the great view or the superb accommodations.”

  “You’re not seeing the Doc alone.” It lacked the wit and panache of Jay’s remarks, but it got the point across.

  Zabb sighed, a heavy, studied sound of noblesse oblige oppressed by gaucherie. “How very tiresome you humans are.” He turned to Tachyon. “Cousin, are you afraid?”

 
; Jay squeezed his eyes shut. Praying, but doubting that Tach had the self-control to ignore that red flag.

  “Afraid of you?”

  Here it comes, Jay almost moaned aloud.

  “Of course I am.” The ace’s eyes snapped open, and he stared in amazement at that queenly little figure with its rampantly outthrust belly. “But I repose my faith in my friends and the strength of your word. My friends I’m sure about, your word…” Her voice trailed off significantly, and she gave a little shrug of the shoulders that said a bookful.

  Zabb may have tossed a flag, but Tach had jabbed in a poniard. A dark flush rose in his cheeks. The Takisian spun on his heel and exited. Tach slumped suddenly.

  “I shouldn’t have come out. I shouldn’t give him a chance at me.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’ve said all along. Come on, baby, I’ll take you back,” Mark said softly. “Jay?”

  “I … uh, think I’ll stay here and help Nesfa with the planting.”

  Mark’s blue eyes were very knowing behind the thick lenses of his glasses. Jay flushed and wondered if his growing sexual need was apparent to everyone.

  “So, here we are. Just the two of us.”

  Nesfa looked up from the bamboo. “Yes.”

  “So, are you married?”

  “Excuse?”

  “Married. Got a husband? Mate?” The concept didn’t seem to be penetrating.

  “I don’t … understand.”

  Jay decided words were getting in the way. He bent and kissed Nesfa lightly on the lips. Her face brightened. “Ah, you wish to exchange.”

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s it.” God, what an ambassador he’d make.

  Nesfa stood and led Jay to a sofa. This was becoming more promising by the minute. She ran her hands around his waist and frowned in perplexity.

  “Where is your #@$**&#**?”

  Jay leered. “A little lower.” He unzipped, and, by damn, she was a fast learner. Her hand had him out in a second, caressing and exploring his penis.

  Jay began kissing her. Nesfa seemed to like that. So did he, once he got used to the strangeness of her taste, sort of pepper and lemon. Her hair was twining and coiling around his head, tickling his face. There was a new, moist weight on his arm. Jay opened his eyes and looked down. A wormlike thing was oozing out of the jewel-encrusted pouch, wrapping itself about his arm, climbing. Its torpedolike head was dripping gore.

  Jay screamed hoarsely and threw himself backward off the couch. Nesfa was sitting like a sack of abandoned laundry. The lovely face had gone slack and empty. The worm was quivering, casting its head in small circles, searching for Jay.

  It began to undulate its way back into the pouch. Jay jumped to his feet, gripped the top of the shift in both hands, and ripped. It fell away to hang like tattered seaweed over the heavy belt. There was a hole in the pouch. A hole in the shift. A hole in Nesfa. The worm thrust its head back into the woman’s body. The light and animation came back into her face.

  “Jay, what is wrong? You do not wish to exchange?”

  Jay stared down at his now-limp penis hanging through his fly. He shuddered as he remembered another crawling parasite: Ti Malice. With shaking hands Jay stuffed himself back in his pants and ran.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “AM I THE ONLY person who’s not bothered by this? These people are full of bloodsucking worms!”

  Cap’n Trips ran one long, bony forefinger through a pile of Scrabble tiles. “And I suppose we could be described as people full of shit. Aliens are different, Jay, that’s why they’re aliens.”

  “That’s sorta what Tachyon said, only she was a lot snottier.”

  Jay returned to a glum contemplation of his tiles. A sharp cry of terror from the Doc drew the detective away to investigate. Jay crossed back from the bunk. The tiny whimpering sounds had ceased. Settling back into his chair, Jay jerked a head toward the sleeping Tachyon. “She seems all right now.”

  “I think the nightmares are getting better,” said Mark.

  “I think you’re dreaming.”

  “I was hoping.” Mark looked back at the tiles. The selection hadn’t improved. Nothing suggested itself.

  “Did Tachyon bring anything in that bag of tricks to help?” Jay indicated the medical bag.

  “Can’t … the baby.”

  “Oh yeah…” A pause while Jay frowned at his tiles. “How do you spell titillate?” Mark spelled it. “Shit. I need another l.”

  Jay spelled out tit. Mark carefully recorded the detective’s three points.

  TRY hung alluringly off on the left side of the board. Mark gathered up his tiles and spelled out tryptophan.

  “What the fuck is that?” Jay yelped.

  “It’s an amino acid.” Mark had hit a triple-word score, and double points on the y. He now led Jay by a hundred and eighty points.

  Jay collected two new tiles, leaned back, folded his arms across his chest, and eyed Mark. “What did happen out on the Rox?”

  Mark shrugged. “He got jumped.”

  “By who? With who?”

  “She hasn’t told you?” Jay shook his head. “It’s, like, really private to her, you know? So I probably shouldn’t…”

  “I’m trying to do a job here, Meadows. A little information would help.” Mark remained stubbornly silent. “Look, from the performances she puts on every time she goes to sleep, I gotta figure her current condition isn’t due to her catlike Takisian curiosity to experience sex from the other side.”

  “No.” Mark mournfully admitted.

  “Judging by the way she reacts every time one of us touches her, I’m figuring she got raped.” Mark just kept staring, giving away nothing. Jay’s next words sent the comforting little delusion of his poker face fleeing. “By Blaise, right?” Mark tried to control the reaction, but his head snapped up. Jay smiled humorlessly. “You may be kicking butt in Scrabble, but don’t ever gamble with me.”

  “Okay, so now you know.”

  Jay shook his head. “It’s really disgusting.”

  “It wasn’t the Doc’s fault!”

  “Really? She’d probably disagree with you. So would I.”

  Anger has a taste, almost a physical presence. Mark could feel it battering against the back of his teeth. “Oh, why?” He wanted it to sound casual, instead it emerged in sharp razorlike exhalations.

  “Tachyon had me searching for Blaise a year ago because she was scared to death of the little shit. And after my investigations I could see why.” The detective glanced back toward the bunk. “All and all I don’t know if Tachy is such a great candidate for motherhood … shit, fatherhood … fuck it—parenthood. He sure screwed up with Blaise.”

  Mark hadn’t noticed when he’d picked up the Scrabble tile, but suddenly it was there, and he was twisting it through his fingers. “Blaise is crazy! Certifiably, clinically crazy. For years Doc tried to provide a stable and normal home environment. He tried with love to undo twelve years of sickness. And yeah, it’s a bummer he failed, but at least he tried.”

  “He should have gotten some qualified help, but he’s so damn arrogant.… I guess he thought he could be a kid shrink too.”

  “That’s not fair!” Mark cried. “It’s real easy for you to sit there and throw stones, but you were partly to blame.” The flush appeared in Jay’s cheeks so fast he might have been slapped. The tile between Mark’s fingers snapped, and both men jumped. Suddenly horribly self-conscious, Mark tossed away the shards of the tile.

  “How do you know about Atlanta?” Jay demanded. He was breathing hard.

  Mark ducked his head. “The Doc told me. Not too bright, taking a thirteen-year-old off to play detective. Course you couldn’t predict that Ti Malice creature would possess him, and then use Blaise’s mind control to kill that poor joker, or that Blaise would enjoy it so much. Any more than Doc could predict how his spoiling would fuck with the kid. You guys were trying to care. It just all went funky and triggered the craziness.”

  Jay didn’t say anything,
just sat for a long moment with his head bowed. “Meadows,” he said finally. “I apologize. I was royally out of line.”

  Mark cleared his throat self-consciously. “Hey, I didn’t mean to rant at you. He’s just my closest friend … and personally, I think the Doc will make an awesome parent. She adores kids.”

  “He must, otherwise she wouldn’t have let this one get her stretched out to here.” Jay demonstrated, then shook his head. “How do you suppose she’s handling it? If I suddenly got switched … had something growing inside me…”

  “I don’t think Takisians are as hung up about gender as we are. Kids are also, like, the wealth of the family. And there’s the telepathy. If you had bonded mind to mind with your baby, could you kill her?”

  “Probably not.”

  Mark swallowed hard, past the question that lay like a lump in the center of his throat. “Hey, man, I don’t mean to be nosy, but I gotta ask it.” Jay nodded assent, but warily. “Why are you along on this trip?”

  “I need to have my head examined.”

  “No … seriously.”

  The detective sat silent, his face an unmoving, uncommunicative mask. It went on for so long that Mark was beginning to writhe with embarrassment. Finally Jay sighed, and Mark also exhaled in relief.

  “I don’t know,” Jay said in so serious a tone that it hung oddly on his lips. “Not out of friendship, like you. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I like Tachy well enough, but…” The shrug said it all. “Maybe it’s a funny kind of chauvinism. For years they’ve been sneaking in on us, manipulating us, watching us. Now we’re coming. Taking it home to them.”

  Jay stared down at the backs of his hands. Turned them palms up, either startled to find they moved, or searching for meaning in the creases and lines. Mark tried and failed to resolve the very ordinary man he saw with the individual living inside that skin.