Wild Cards V: Down and Dirty

by George R. R. Martin

  There was nothing to say. He sat, her hand resting lightly in his, listening. Brought her a glass of cranberry juice from the nurses’ station, and had a few rather sharp words with the floor staff. Moved on.

  The coffee he’d been drinking all day was jumping in the back of his throat, sour with stomach acid. Well, if he was going to feel bilious he might as well get it over all at once. He pushed open the door to a private room and entered. He could ill afford the space, but no patient deserved to be placed with the horror that lay comatose behind his door. After forty years of viewing wild card victims he had thought he was inured to anything, but the man who lay twisted on the bed made a mockery of that assumption.

  Caught partway between human and alligator, Jack’s body was warped by the unnatural pressures of the wild interacting with the AIDS virus. The bones of the skull had elongated, producing the snout of an alligator. Unfortunately the lower jaw had not transformed. Small and vulnerable, it hung below the razor-sharp teeth of the upper jaw. Stubble darkened the chin. In the torso area, skin melded to scales. The line between the intersecting areas had split into angry red lines, and serum oozed from the cracks.

  Tachyon shuddered and hoped that deep within his coma Jack was beyond pain. For this had to be agony. For years Jack had faithfully, patiently visited C.C. Ryder. Now, ironically, she had been cured and released into a new life while the faithful, patient Jack had taken her place.

  “Oh, Jack, what lover grieves for you, or did he die before you entered this living death?” he whispered.

  Lifting the chart, Tachyon read again his notes, which indicated that the AIDS virus did not advance when Jack was in his alligator form.

  Memories lay like scattered leaves, black and sere. Tachyon walked among them, flushing with guilt for this was an intrusion. Deep within Jack’s dying mind lay a spark of light, a fitful glitter. The human soul. Deeper yet the trigger that would throw Robicheaux completely into his alligator form. A touch from Tachyon, and the transformation would be permanent.

  He was a physician. Sworn to the task of saving lives. Jack Robicheaux lay under sentence of death. The presence of the wild card twined into the code of his cells currently held the AIDS virus at bay. But it merely delayed the inevitable. Eventually Jack would die.

  Unless.

  Unless Tachyon changed him forever. What was not human could not die from a human disease.

  But was life worth any price?

  And did he have the right?

  What should I do, Jack? Do I make this choice for you since you can’t make it yourself?

  Was it any different than unplugging a respirator?

  Oh, yes.

  Later, as he leaned back against the elevator wall as it whined slowly to the ground floor, he considered again Queen’s advice that he bring in help. But so much of this only I can do. And there’s only one of me. And everyone wants a piece. Shaking his head like a tired pony, he stepped out into the emergency room.

  And was nearly run down by a nurse hurrying past with a vial of the trump. Thirty-two, he thought, upping the count, and followed her through the screen. Finn was preparing the injection. Stepping to the gurney, Tachyon began a fast exam. The woman’s blouse was open, revealing the rich café au lait of her skin. Monitors were taped to her chest; a nurse held a mask over mouth and nose. A noxious slime covered the patient’s body, wetting her clothing, pouring from every pore. It was a measure of his physician’s detachment that he didn’t recognize her until he peeled back an eyelid. The nurse removed the mask to give him room to work, and …

  Gagging, he pushed aside the smelling salts. Fought free of the restraining hands.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Doctor?”

  “Drink this.”

  “Forget me!” Clinging like a drunk to a nurse’s arm, he struggled to his feet. Catching Finn’s wrist, he forced away the syringe. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”

  “It’s … it’s our only shot … it’s wild card.”

  “IT CAN’T BE! I KNOW THIS WOMAN! SHE’S AN ACE!” The joker recoiled from the madness in Tachyon’s face.

  The Takisian resumed his examination. Finn pranced forward and gripped him hard. “You’re wasting time! You’re costing her the one chance she’s got! It’s wild card!”

  “Impossible! The virus was designed to resist mutation. She’s a stable ace. She’s can’t be reinfected.”

  “Look at her!”

  Panting, Tach stared from the syringe to Roulette’s oozing body and back again. “Give it to me!”

  His fingers slipped on the foul-smelling mucous film, and the needle scraped across the vein. Roulette cried out.

  “Wipe this away.”

  But as fast as they wiped, it bled still faster from her pores. Finally Tachyon jammed home the needle.

  Ancestors. Let it work. Let this be one time when it works!

  But recently it seemed his prayers had only been met with silence.

  Roulette was beginning to resemble a thousand-year-old mummy as the moisture leached from her body. Suddenly her lids fluttered open; she stared blankly up into his face.

  “Tachyon.” A croaking whisper. “I was coming back. To you.” She sucked in air—a sound like a dying accordion. “Are you still waiting?”

  “Yes.”

  “Liar. I’m dying. You’re off the hook.”

  “Roulette.” His skin crawled to touch her, but he forced himself to lay his cheek against hers. His tears mingled with mucus.

  “You destroyed my life. You and your disease. Finally it’s finishing the job. I’m … so … glad.”

  Long minutes later Finn tugged Tach away and drew up the sheet. Pain shot through the alien as his knees cracked onto the cold tile floor. Hands balled against his mouth, he fought back sobs. Partly from grief. Partly from guilt, for he hadn’t been waiting.

  Mostly from terror.

  “I got really mad today, but I thought about it like you said, and I didn’t control them.”

  “Good.” Tachyon stared into the refrigerator as if seeking enlightenment from a carton of sour milk and a bowl full of moldy peaches. “What was that?” The boy stiffened. “Oh, Blaise, I’m so proud of you.” The rigidity went out of the small body under Tachyon’s tight embrace. “And you’re speaking English. I noticed that, too. I’m just so tired it takes me a few beats to catch up.”

  Blaise reached up and laid his fist against Tachyon’s mouth. Tach kissed it. In a sudden, abrupt topic change the boy asked, “Uncle Claude wasn’t a very good person, was he?”

  “No, but one can partially understand his reasons. It’s never easy to be a joker.”

  “What would you do if you were a joker?”

  “Kill myself.”

  Blaise gaped up at the indescribable expression on his k’ijdad’s narrow face. “That’s silly. Anything is better than dead.”

  “I can’t agree. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

  “Everybody tells me that.” Pouting, Blaise left the kitchen and flung himself on the sofa. “Jack, Durg, Mark, Baby. I suppose it must be true if ships and humans and Takisians all agree. But I didn’t mean being a yucky joker like Snotman. What if you were like Jube, or Chrysalis or Ernie?”

  “I still couldn’t live with it.” Tach joined him on the sofa. “My culture idealizes the perfect. Defective children are destroyed at birth, and otherwise normal individuals are sterilized if it’s determined that they lack sufficient genetic worth.”

  “So to be ordinary is as bad as being de … defective,” he asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.

  “Well, not quite, and too random a gene pattern can also endanger a person. I was almost sterilized because of my Sennari blood, but my outstanding mental abilities were deemed to outweigh the unpredictable Sennari, and my other … failings.”

  “Do you have a little boy on Takis?”

  “No.”

  Tachyon briefly wondered if the sperm he had left banked on Takis still ex
isted, or if Zabb’s supporters had seen it destroyed. Or even worse, had Taj impregnanted some female? It was ironic that in a culture as technologically advanced as the Takisian, there was a fundamental distrust of artificial insemination, and artificial wombs. The wombs made a certain degree of sense; in a telepathic culture it was best that the child be linked with its mother, but there was little justification for the sex act.

  Except for the obvious ones.

  Ten months! Ten months without sex.

  He jerked his mind from that unpleasant thought and focused again on Blaise. There was so much to teach him about his Takisian culture, and yet should he really bother? The child could never be presented to the family. He was an abomination. Also there was much in Takisian culture that didn’t bear close scrutiny. How to indicate to an eleven-year-old child that the blood feuds, the controlled breeding, the tension and almost unbearable expectations that were part and parcel of life among the psi lords, were not romantic or wonderful, but rather deadly in the extreme, and had driven his grandsire to this alien world?

  “Tell me a story.”

  “What makes you think I know any stories?”

  “You’re more like a fairy tale than real. You have to know stories.”

  “All right. I’ll tell you how H’ambizan tamed the first ship. Long ago—”

  “No.”

  “No?” Blaise’s expression suggested that his grandfather was an idiot. “Ahhh, of course. Once upon a time.” He cocked an inquiring eyebrow. Blaise nodded, satisfied, and snuggled in closer under Tachyon’s arm. “And so long ago that even the oldest Kibrzen would lie if they told you they remembered, the people were forced to journey through the stars aboard ships of steel. What was worse, they weren’t allowed to build these ships, for the Alaa—may their line wither—had signed a contract with Master Traders, and the people were forbidden to build space-going vessels. So the wealth of Takis bled into space, and into the pockets of the rapacious Network.”

  “What’s the Network?”

  “A vast trading empire with one hundred and thirty member races. One day H’ambizan, who was a notable astronomer, was drifting among the clouds in the birthplace of stars, and he came upon an amazing sight. Playing among the clouds of cosmic dust like porpoises in the waves, or butterflies through flowers, were vast incredible shapes. And H’ambizan fell to the deck, clasping his ringing skull, for his head was filled with a great singing. His assistants died of joy and shock for their minds could not absorb the thoughts of the creatures. But H’ambizan—being of the Ilkazam—was made of sterner stuff. He controlled his fear and pain and lanced out with a single thought. A single command. And so great was his power that the honor of ships fell silent and gathered like nursing whales about the tiny metal ship.

  “And H’ambizan chose the leader of the honor, and suited against the vacuum, he stepped upon the rough surface of the ship. And curious, Za’Zam, father of ships, made a cavity to receive the man.”

  “And then H’ambizan mind-controlled the ship and made him carry him home!” cried Blaise.

  “No. H’ambizan sang, and Za’Zam listened, and they both realized that after a thousand thousand years of loneliness they had found the separate halves of their souls. Za’Zam realized that guided by these strange small creatures the ’Ishb’kaukab would leave their nomadic pastoral lives and achieve greatness. And H’ambizan realized he had found a friend.”

  Tach leaned in and kissed the top of the boy’s head. Blaise, chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip, glanced up.

  “Why didn’t H’ambizan realize that now he could fight the Network? Why did he realize something silly?”

  “Because this is a story of longing and regret.”

  “Is this supposed to be subtle?”

  “Yes.”

  “But did H’ambizan and Za’Zam fight the Network?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did they win?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Is this true?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Isn’t that like being a little bit pregnant?”

  “What would you know about that?” Blaise lifted his nose and looked superior. “Someday when I’m not so tired, I’ll tell you about the genetic manipulation and eon-long breeding program that took place before we had ships like Baby.”

  “So there weren’t wild ships?”

  “Oh, yes, there were, but they weren’t as bright as this tale indicates.”

  “But—”

  Tach laid a finger on the child’s lips. “Later. Your stomach’s been growling so loud I was afraid it would jump out and take a bite out of my arm.”

  “A new wild card power! Killer stomachs!”

  Tach threw back his head and laughed. “Come, little kukut, I’ll buy you dinner.”

  “At McDonald’s.”

  “Oh, joy.”

  The tutor hasn’t quit.

  The thought was so breathtaking that it brought him up short.

  “The tutor hasn’t quit!” Tachyon repeated with dawning wonder.

  He ran to the office door, flung it open. Dita slewed around to stare nervously at him.

  “The tutor hasn’t quit!” he shouted. “Dita, you’re wonderful!” Blood washed into her cheeks as he kissed her and pulled her around the office in a lurching polka. He dropped her back into her chair and collapsed on the sofa, panting and fanning himself. The weeks of unremitting work and strain were taking their toll. “I must see this paragon for myself. I’ll be back in one hour.”

  He could hear Blaise’s voice piping like a young bird, or a silver flute, and the deeper rumbling tones of the man’s voice. A cello or a bassoon. There was warmth in that voice, and comfort, and something tantalizingly familiar. Tachyon stepped out of the tiny foyer and into the living room. Blaise was seated at the dining room table, a stack of books before him. A heavyset older man with graying hair and a faintly melancholy expression kept the boy’s place with a blunt forefinger. His accent was musical, rather like Tachyon’s.

  “Oh, Ideal … no!”

  Victor Demyenov raised his dark eyes to meet Tachyon’s lilac ones. His expression was both ironical and slightly malicious.

  “K’ijdad, this is George Goncherenko.” His grandsire’s alarming rigidity seemed to penetrate, and the boy faltered and added, “Is something wrong?”

  “No, child,” said George/Victor. “He is merely surprised to see us getting along so well. You have terrified so many of my predecessors.”

  “But not you,” said Blaise. Then he added to Tachyon, “He’s not scared of anything.”

  You had better be afraid of me! Tachyon shot at the KGB agent telepathically.

  No, we hold one another in the palms of our hands.

  “Blaise, go to your room. This gentleman and I need to talk.”

  “No.”

  “DO AS YOU’RE TOLD!”

  “Go, child.” George/Victor coaxed him with a gentle hand. “It will all be all right.” Blaise gripped the older man in a fierce hug, then ran from the room.

  Tachyon flung himself across the room and poured a brandy with hands that shook with fear and shock.

  “You! I thought you were out of my life! You told me you were retiring. It was finished. You lied—”

  “Lied! Let’s talk about lying! You withheld something I needed. Something which cost me everything!”

  “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, come now, Dancer, I trained you better than that. You deliberately withheld the information about Blaise. You have enough tradecraft to have known the value of that little piece of information.”

  Hamburg, 1956. A shabby but clean boarding house, and Victor doling out booze and women in limited doses while he trained and questioned the shattered Takisian. A few years, and they had kicked him loose to continue his descent into the gutter. He had given them all that he had, and it hadn’t been enough. The secret had gnawed at him for years, but thirty years was a long time, and he
had begun to think himself safe. And then had come the phone call during the final leg of the World Health Organization tour, and his KGB control was back in his life.

  “My superiors learned of Blaise, his potential and power, but I who trained you and ran you was left ignorant. They did not assume it was stupidity, but rather duplicity. They drew the only conclusion.” His raised eyebrows drew the answer from his former pupil:

  “They assumed you had rolled over, become a double agent.”

  Victor grimaced a bit at the theatrical phrase. The brandy exploded in the back of his throat as Tachyon tossed it down. Some explanation, some justification seemed necessary.

  “I wanted him safe from you.”

  “I would say I am the least of his problems.”

  “What do you mean? What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “Is that a comment on me?”

  “Good god, no. I merely point out that we live in dangerous times.”

  “Victor, are they looking for you?” Tachyon asked, not certain if he referred to the Russian’s KGB masters or to the CIA.

  “No, they all think I’m dead. All that remains is a charred car and a pair of corpses burned past recognition.”

  “You killed them.”

  “Don’t look so shocked, Dancer. You too are a killer. In fact we have more in common than you might think. Like that child.”

  “I want you out of my life!”

  “I’m in your life for good. You better get used to it.”

  “I’ll fire you!”

  Demyenov’s voice froze him before he had taken three steps. “Ask Blaise.”

  Tachyon remembered the hug. Never in the weeks since he had smuggled Blaise out of France had the child given him so affectionate a gesture. The boy obviously loved the grizzled Russian. What would it do to Tach and the boy’s relationship if he now abruptly removed this man? He sank onto the sofa and dropped his head into his hands.