Wild Cards X: Double Solitaire

by Melinda Snodgrass

  I love you and I want you, but I don’t want to birth you. I’m frightened—of the pain, of the entire experience.… Ancestors! I don’t have time for these thoughts, I have to preserve my House, my station. I have to be warrior, not woman. No, that’s not right. Cody would be quick to jump down my throat. Women can be fighters. Mother then, my mind more on life than death.… Hush, Illyana, sleep, baby, don’t distract me now.

  Through the doors, and into an elaborate audience chamber. Tis remembered it being much larger. Had it shrunk or had she somehow grown? A knot of people were gathered about the platform holding the chair of the Raiyis of Ilkazam. It seemed to have been carved from a piece of glacial ice, filigreed with snowflakes. It was in truth constructed of an almost obscene number of diamonds supported on a platinum frame. Such conspicuous consumption on a planet so mineral poor. We’re psi lords, mentats, Most Bred, the Zal’hma at’ Irg, Tis reminded herself. It didn’t do much to assuage the guilt. Too long on Earth, she thought.

  The pretender could be recognized by his sulky, disappointed expression. He had been rushed into his festival finery, for the cloak was caught up in the waistband of his ballooning trousers. Tis noted in shock that the boy still wore a mother badge twined about his left wrist. Not yet twenty—a baby!—and someone had made him a target.

  Tis raked the rest of the assembly, searching for the Svengali. Egyon, Taj had said. Yes, that would fit. Zabb’s thought concurred with her conclusion. Tis also had to admire Taj’s intelligence sources. The personal guard of the Sennari line well outnumbered the more ceremonial escort protecting the Kou’nar conspirators.

  Tis ignored the boy with his spun caramel hair dressed to form two horns rising from above each ear. Instead she addressed his trainer.

  “Not yet, I think, vindi. There are still three lives between you and your ambition.”

  Egyon pivoted elegantly to face her. He was dressed in fencing leathers dyed in multicolored squares, and his pale brown hair was clasped with a knife-and-sheath barrette. Obviously he had been caught unawares, but Tisianne had to grudgingly admire the speed of his response.

  “Three, Tisianne brant Ts’ara sek Halima sek Ragnar? Are you counting that unplanned abortion you’re carrying?” Egyon asked sweetly.

  The need to do murder flickered once like a whipping snake’s tail. Tis buried the urge. “Your powers must be failing, Egyon. This is a girl-child. And you forget my father, who is not dead yet.”

  “As good as!” flared the pouting child.

  “Quiet!” Egyon ordered.

  “Yes, quiet, little one,” Tisianne agreed. “I’m trying to save your life.” The boy’s eyes widened slightly. “Yes, consider that. Do you really feel you have the experience to lead this House?”

  There was an instant of silence, then Zabb showed his teeth and said softly, “No, that’s not a good idea.”

  Her cousin had read the boy’s mind. Tisianne his body language, but she understood nonetheless.

  “Zabb’s my heir,” Tis said. “You could put him in command of your troops, but will he fight the Vayawand or usurp you?” She shrugged eloquently.

  “We have no proof this is Tisianne,” Egyon said. “Just the unsupported word of the regent. You’re all Sennari seed. You’d do anything to keep the Raiyis’tet from falling to the Kou’nar.”

  “Test her,” said Zabb, and Tis took a quick, sidling step away from her cousin. He reached out and caught her above the elbow, held her still. “But not you, Egyon. This poor little human mind can’t protect itself well enough, and I’m not going to have my cousin conveniently die from a brain aneurysm.”

  Relief suddenly removed the clog from her throat, and Tis quickly followed Zabb’s lead. “I’ll submit to an examination by the full Ajayiz. That should establish to anyone’s satisfaction that I am Tisianne.”

  Zabb threw back his head and shouted, “And you can’t tell me you old beldams aren’t monitoring this little drama. So get in here, and let us do it.”

  “Zabb,” said Taj warningly.

  “They’d rather be amused than defend the House. Better to sit in the ashes and stir them with the stumps of their arms than miss one moment of emotional turmoil from their descendants.” In a more moderate tone he said to Taj, “Sorry, vindi, but I’ve always thought they were manipulative old spiders.”

  “There’s no need to convene the Ajayiz. It was already decided that Onyze should ascend—”

  “The situation’s changed, Egyon, you’ll have to do better than that,” Tis said.

  Suddenly the House rang with a tone so high that it pained the ears and vibrated in the bones. The exterior manifestation of that call was painful enough—for the telepaths it was almost unbearable. The Takisians staggered, and Taj, who was a powerful and subtle telepath, was driven almost to his knees. Tisianne held up better than any of them because of the feeble abilities of her borrowed human body. But she felt it, drawn like a knife across her nerve endings. Only the Tarhiji guards and the humans were unaffected.

  Mark, kind to the last and always concerned, supported Taj, even checked the old man’s pulse. The final aching harmonics died away, and the Takisians recovered. Taj pulled abruptly away from Mark, leaving the ace blinking in hurt confusion. Taj noticed. Glancing back, he said gruffly, “Your kindness was appreciated if unnecessary.”

  Mark brightened perceptibly, and Tis was reminded again how much he loved this fine old man. Taj truly was a grand seignior.

  “Is that the Takisian version of a dog whistle?” asked Jay.

  Zabb gave a short bark of laughter. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  “It is the Council Call,” Taj said, irritated by their flippancy.

  Zabb’s grin became even broader. “Little cousin, you are more troublesome and get a bigger reaction than a swarm of scissor wings. They’re actually coming down.”

  Panic took a brief run around the pit of her stomach like a frightened rabbit seeking its burrow.

  “You can take some credit for this,” Taj said gruffly. “Pulling in the Network on us—”

  “Which makes him a renegade and a traitor,” Egyon said with that tight, prissy voice that lawyers use when addressing a jury. “A perfect candidate for the Raiyis’tet.”

  “Zabb is not the issue here, I am,” flared Tis.

  “You’re bickering like the blind,” Taj exploded. “We now all wait on the decision of the Ajayiz, which will be several hours in coming. I suggest we adjourn to wait in more comfortable surroundings.” He paused and eyed the two humans: Jay dressed in his brown slacks and sports jacket, Mark in jeans, tennis shoes, and a T-shirt. He shuddered slightly. “And get something decent for these stirpes to wear.”

  “Go away, Egyon,” Tis said softly. “Taj is still regent of House Ilkazam … and despite his courtesy I don’t think that was a request.”

  Out-and-out warfare is rare in a Takisian noble house. Murder, when it occurs, is accomplished in shadowed corners, cloaked in the trappings of an accident.

  This was how Blaise did it, thought Tisianne. If I possessed the jump power, I could take Egyon, manipulate the puppet body to attack, and jump back as the guards killed him.

  But Egyon obeyed, and she didn’t possess the jump power, so she regretfully watched as the Kou’nar filed obediently from the audience chamber. Well, since no new and arcane powers were available to her, she would have to rely upon those fundamental Takisian talents—conspiracy and treachery.

  Mark’s touch on her shoulder pulled her out of her reverie. “You should rest,” he said.

  “No.” She shook her head. “First I must find a toilet. Then I must see my father.” She forced a casualness into her voice which she didn’t feel.

  Zabb and Taj both looked at her sharply, and Zabb took her by the elbow and walked her forward until they stood at the base of the dais looking up at the throne. He seemed uncomfortable, like a man who was picking up and inspecting words to find the ones with the least potential for pain. At last Zabb said
, “You’ve been warned what you’ll find.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can do a scan?”

  “With Taj’s help.”

  “Then you know what to do.”

  Zabb turned and walked away, and Tis watched him go with hatred growing in her heart.

  When Zabb’s hand fell like a stroke of doom on his shoulder, Mark wanted to shrug it contemptuously away. He could tell by the Doc’s expression that her cousin had again delivered some emotional body blow, but rudeness didn’t come easily to the gawky ace, and he secretly feared that he couldn’t carry off the gesture with anything approaching aplomb. Mark had looked ridiculous too many times in his life for it to be an unfamiliar sensation, but close association with the emotion didn’t make it any more welcome.

  It took a quarter second for all these random, regretful, and scattered thoughts to shoot through Mark’s head, and then Zabb was saying, “Come, I need you with me.”

  “Me?”

  A flicker of a smile briefly relieved the intensity of the Takisian’s expression. “As incredible as that might seem … yes. Your grasp of our language is better than the noisy man’s, and in your case I am acquainted with your powers.”

  “My friends,” Mark corrected softly. “And don’t assume you’ve met them all.” It was a gently couched warning, and Zabb didn’t mistake it.

  “You may believe me when I tell you that at this moment my cousin has nothing to fear from me.”

  Zabb was walking toward the door, and Mark said to his back, “Because right now you need something from her.”

  The alien looked back. “Quite astute of you, groundling.”

  “Wait a minute.” Mark knelt, snapped open the case, and removed five of the vials. Slipping them into the leather pouch at his belt, he crossed to where Tis was expostulating with Jay Ackroyd.

  “Hey, man, watch this for me. Okay?” He handed the case to Jay and hurried back to join Zabb.

  On this walk, with only a pair of guards as escort, and without the accompaniment of a frenzied explanation from Tachyon—Tisianne—Mark had the leisure to inspect his surroundings. Judging from the striations in the stone walls of the audience chamber, it was located in the ancient section of the house which had been carved from the rock of the cliff. Now they had entered the newer sections of the sprawling villa. The range of decorations was bewildering to the eye, and jarring to the mind. In some areas paintings and tapestries adorned the walls; in others just the polished stone; in still others there were inlaid mosaics.

  “I take it that Takisians don’t believe in a coherent decor.”

  Zabb laughed. “To understand Takis, you must first understand how territorial we are.”

  “Yeah, I know. All the different families and Houses…”

  “Yes, but that extends in-House as well. Each breeding line stakes out a section of palace for their own, and that includes the corridors.”

  “So they get to decorate it as they please.”

  “And maintain it at their own expense. It’s a way for the Raiyis to cut costs.”

  That raised a new thought for Mark. “Money. How do you get it?”

  “Investments, taxes, theft.” The alien laughed at Mark’s expression. “No, nothing so romantic as you are thinking. When we battle, the winner doesn’t cart away the treasures of a House. Our theft is of the electronic variety.”

  “But when you absorb a smaller House—”

  “It happens very rarely. Nothing fights like a cornered Takisian, so out-and-out victories are costly. Also, if we reduced the number of Houses…” He paused, considered. “Well, it wouldn’t be as interesting or challenging.”

  “Then you like to fight.” A wealth of flower-child disapproval was ladled onto the words.

  Zabb’s quick pace slowed, and he cocked his head curiously at Mark. “Yes, we’re a warrior culture. There’s glory in warfare, very little in peace.”

  “That’s a lot of crap. A sincere and dedicated pacifist is braver than any soldier. Look, I don’t particularly like the Network—too profit oriented, and money’s never meant much to me, but, like, they’ve got the right idea. You don’t squander your energy in war, you direct it out—for exploration, scientific research. You’ve had space flight for a hell of a long time, and you’ve got only a few colonies and no alien allies. I think that’s sad, and really wasteful.”

  Zabb stopped before an elaborately carved door. He laid a hand on the cut-crystal knob and quirked a smile up at Mark. “One could argue we are even now forging a unique alliance with you humans.”

  Mark stared seriously down at him. “No … you despise us.”

  There was the briefest of pauses, then Zabb nodded abruptly. “Yes.”

  As Mark watched the alien step through the door, he had to admit to a certain grudging admiration. A human would have expostulated, temporized, weaseled. Takisian honesty was as brutal as their politics.

  Mark checked just on the threshold. “This is your room,” he said.

  “Very perceptive.”

  Mark surveyed the collection of weapons on the wall, the series of paintings featuring animals that resembled a cross between giraffes, horses, and impalas. A large stained-glass window depicted a hunt, but the riders were mounted on enormous flying creatures of a genus so alien that Mark couldn’t even think of an earthly comparison.

  “Nobody touched it in five years?”

  Again that flashing smile. “They knew better.”

  “And the Doc’s? Is his … her room still intact?”

  “No.” Zabb turned from where he was fiddling at the contents of an elaborate desk with etched crystal fronting each of the drawers. “I made sure it was assigned to others … oh, it must have been twenty or so years after my little cousin’s precipitous departure.”

  Mark seated himself on the corner of a table and swung a leg. “Are you so shitty to the Doc because you’re trying to bury the fact you really do like her?”

  The Takisian had a funny expression. “Very … very perceptive. Is that why you agreed to accompany me and leave my cousin with only a single protector?”

  “Yeah. And she would have stopped me if she’d thought it was wrong.”

  “Tis and I each have a mission to accomplish.”

  “And you need me if you’re going to succeed.”

  “I could probably achieve it alone, but remembering how difficult you … er, your friends can be, I thought your involvement might simplify matters.”

  “What is it you want me to do?”

  “Help me kill a man.”

  Hands up, palms out as if the words alone had the power to damage him, Mark backed off. “No, oh no, no way.”

  Zabb pressed in, driving Mark around the opulent room like a drover with a skittish horse. “Then she’s dead.”

  “That can’t be true. She’s got guards, she’s got us. Besides, there’s no reason to kill this kid. The Doc is the Doc, and once her bona fides have been established, the kid will just get shunted aside.” Zabb didn’t answer. He just began filling a pipe from a twisted blown-glass humidor, never taking his sardonic, cold eyes off the sweating ace. “Killing that boy won’t accomplish anything,” Mark continued. “There’ll always be a replacement waiting to…” Mark’s voice trailed away.

  The images parading past his mind’s eye were those from human mythology. Of dragons’ teeth being sown into the plowed earth, and soldiers springing up like foul weeds.

  “Precisely, which is why I want to remove Onyze in a way that will implicate Egyon and sow the seeds of distrust among the remaining members of that line. It’s a very effective way to discourage pretension and treachery. And it will work. Oh, not for all time, but for a score of years, perhaps there will be peace.”

  “The peace of fear,” Mark said defiantly.

  “The best kind I know,” was the imperturbable reply.

  “Then I’m sorry for you.” And he found that it was true.

  Zabb hunched one shoulder. He picked up
a lighter and drew on his pipe until he had it burning to his satisfaction. “Tisianne understands the harsh necessity that presently drives us. Even now she is taking an action that tears her soul. But she will act. Will you?”

  “Not this way.”

  Zabb tried another tack, still in that same sweetly sane tone. “Have you never in your life acted to defend the helpless?”

  Indignation edged the words. Mark sounded as harsh as an old crow next to Zabb’s mellifluous arguments. “This is not a case of self-defense, and all the sophistry in the world isn’t going to make it self-defense!”

  “Perhaps I failed to express myself clearly. It is not incumbent upon either you or your ‘friend’ to kill Onyze. I will handle that, but I need full intelligence to succeed. I need a—in your culture I believe it is called a ‘bug’—planted.”

  “It makes me an accessory to murder, and I won’t do it!”

  “Does your friend also share in your charming if totally unrealistic belief?”

  Suddenly wary, Trips asked, “Which friend?”

  “That blue fellow who can walk through walls.” In a burst of regretful reminiscence he added, “By the Ideal, he nearly drove my poor Hellcat mad.”

  “Traveler.” Mark turned away, wrapped his bony arms around himself as if the act could somehow comfort. The scent of the alien tobacco was sweet in his nostrils.

  Zabb was continuing. His voice was low, calming, eminently reasonable. “You have chosen a philosophy for yourself. A foolish one by my lights, and one I cannot understand, but you are the one who must face the shame of your descendants, and the rage of your ancestors. But how can you make the decision for this other individual? He might be willing to help me. To help Tisianne.”

  With a tongue suddenly too thick for his mouth, Trips managed to mutter, “I do care … and he won’t help. He’ll be too afraid.” He paused, considered. “Maybe he’ll even believe it’s wrong.”

  “How nice for you if he does. How fatal for Tisianne.” Zabb dropped the pipe into an ashtray with a clatter. “And then there’s the infant.…”

  Trips found words beyond him. He let out a sound that was half curse, half sob, and pulled out the small vial of blue powder. Downed it. As the transformation began to take hold, he faintly heard Zabb saying, “Don’t take it so to heart. You can always ease the conscience with the comforting argument that it wasn’t you. You were right, sophistry is the other great Takisian art.”