“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 their 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, tearstained 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.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t do this.”
“Maybe you would like a swat?” Tis asked severely.
There was a screen up which prevented the child from seeing how his arm had been peeled open, skin and muscle laid back to reveal the broken bone. Tisianne had already fitted the ragged ends back together. Now, bending in close, she delicately placed the tip of the syringe at the juncture and sent the genetically altered bacteria into and onto the bone. There it would follow its genetic mandate and grow bone.
“Do you guys clone? You gotta know how. Your technology’s advanced enough,” Mark suddenly asked.
“We can, but we don’t.”
“Why not?”
“When a culture is more concerned with fitting old minds in young bodies, and loses interest in young minds in young bodies, that culture is dying.” She flashed Mark a quick smile. “We grow children the old-fashioned way. Also, you clone enough, and genetic read errors creep in.”
“A copy of a copy of a copy.”
“That’s right.” Tis finished sealing the soft tissue with a sterile fixative that left only a pale pink line.
Tach touched a panel, and the screen flashed once and vanished. Grunting a bit with effort, she lifted her little patient off the table and set him on his feet. The cradle mother was waiting outside the cubicle.
“As good as new,” Tach said as she handed over the boy.
“I was afraid you’d say that,” sighed the other woman.
The child was staring down at his arm with excitement and wonder. “Look, it isn’t pink no more. My line is white. Maybe Momma won’t ever know.”
“There’s a wonderful human phrase that applies in this situation. Say ‘fat chance,’” Tis said.
Mark and Tis went strolling. Rarrana was huge, and Mark sensed he’d only seen a fraction of it.
“Zabb’s put a big negatory on giving me a lab,” Mark said.
“He’s hoping you’ll run out of drugs. Then you and I will both be without friends, and he can kill me with impunity.”
“I’m tellin’ you, man, Zabb doesn’t want you dead.”
“Mark, you are gullible, naive, and sweet. You think everybody has a touch of goodness in them.”
“I know Blaise doesn’t,” Mark defended. “And I know Zabb doesn’t want you dead.”
They had reached an intersection of several corridors. One wall looked out of place, breaking the symmetry of the architecture. Tis suddenly stopped and stared at that wall for a long, long time. Mark reached hesitantly out and touched her hair.
“Doc?”
“This is where my mother died.”
The ace’s head swung back and forth like a puzzled crane’s. “I thought she, like, fell down stairs or something?”
“There used to be a stairway here. Father had it destroyed … the entire wing walled off. Her suite was down there.”
So much of Takisian life, particularly a Takisian woman’s life, seemed centered indoors. It heightened Mark’s sense of claustrophobia. And this place was really giving the ace the creeps.
“Hey,” he blurted. “Let’s go outside while there’s still some light left.”
Tis shook herself free of her reverie. “While there’s still some autumn left. It will be winter soon.”
They went to the private garden off Tisianne’s suite, an odd diamond-shaped plot of ground that seemed to have been created more by architectural oversight than any plan. High walls in four different styles and three different colors peeped coyly through the leaves and trumpet-shaped flowers of a climbing vine. It was like a fat woman hiding her physical shortcomings behind gauzy veils and hoping the covering would distract the eye.
As usual there was a fountain making water music, but a sharp wind was warping the shape. Dark clouds were scudding across the sun like a nightmare’s mane dulling the crystal fire of the crushed-quartz path that wove through the parterre flower gardens and trees.
Since their last walk it had been raked back into its curving pattern, and now here they went raping the perfect symmetry with crude footprints. It made Mark a little crazy. Every day he wrecked some person’s life work, and yet he never saw the phantom raker.
They came to roost on a bench beneath what Mark had dubbed the grape arbor for lack of a better phrase. It was an arbor, there was fruit growing on it, and the smell was very alluring, but a sampling produced effects like a shot of bad Mexican water. Mark knew, he had succumbed to temptation.
Tis sighed heavily, leaned back on one hand, and rested the other high on the bulge point of her belly. Sunflower, Mark’s wife lo these many years ago, had assumed just such a position when she’d been pregnant with Sprout. Maybe all pregnant women did. A universal in any culture. In any species. On any planet.
“I haven’t asked before, but, like, are you handling this?”
“No, I never thought it would get this far. I was sure Kelly would have to handle, well … the messy bits.”
“It’s about a month away, right?”
“Yes.”
“You want to talk about, like, uh, how you’re feeling?”
Tis laughed, a hollow sound devoid of humor. “I’d almost rather talk about my father, and that walloping load of guilt.” Mark opened his mouth, but she forestalled him with an upraised hand. “Just kidding. Fear is easier to face than guilt. And that’s what I’m feeling. I’m absolutely, totally terrified. I don’t want to have this baby. Somebody else has got to have this baby for me.” She levered herself to her feet and paced nervously up and down in front of him. “I have been shot, beaten, poisoned, slashed, and raped. Pain is an old companion to me. But this pain terrifies me. I’ve seen women in hard labor.…” Her voice trailed off, and she stared out at the eastern sky where the first evening stars were just beginning to show. “Maybe Jay will come ambling back with Blaise and my body in tow.” She turned back to Mark. “I have that fantasy a lot. Stupid, isn’t it?”
Very slowly, for the words cost him, Mark said, “I used to go to sleep at night and think that if I just hoped long enough or prayed hard enough, when I woke up in the morning, Sunflower, Sprout, and me would all be together as a happy family. We all have crazy fantasies.”
Wild Cards X: Double Solitaire Page 21