Aces Abroad wc-4

by George R. R. Martin

  Tachyon watched her intently as he helped her into the cab. They rode in silence, her mind full of the baby, McCoy, Fortunato, motherhood, her career. Suddenly she asked, "If the baby… if the test…" She took a deep breath and began again. "If the test shows that there is some abnormality, will they be able to do the abortion today?"

  Tachyon took her cold hands in his. "Yes."

  Please, she prayed, please don't let anything be wrong with my baby. Tachyon's voice broke into her thoughts. "What?"

  "Peri, what happened with McCoy?"

  She stared out the window and withdrew her hand from Tachyon's. "He's gone," she said dully, twisting her fingers together. " I guess he went back to New York." She blinked away tears. "Everything seemed okay, I mean, about my being pregnant and Fortunato and all. But after he heard that if the baby lived, it would probably be a joker, well…" Her tears began again. Tachyon handed her his lace-trimmed silk handkerchief. Peregrine took it and wiped her eyes. "Well," she said, continuing her story, "when Josh heard that, he decided he didn't want to have anything to do with me or the baby. So he left." She rolled Tachyon's handkerchief into a small, damp ball.

  "You truly love him, don't you?" Tachyon asked gently. Peregrine nodded and pushed away more tears.

  "If you have an abortion, will he come back?"

  "I don't know and I don't care," she flared. "If he can't accept me the way I am, then I don't want him."

  Tachyon shook his head. "Poor Peri," he said softly. "McCoy is a jackass."

  It seemed like an eternity before the cab rolled up in front of the hospital. As Tachyon went to consult with the receptionist, Peregrine leaned against the cool, white wall of the waiting room and shut her eyes. She tried to make her mind go blank, but she couldn't stop thinking about McCoy. If he did come to you, you'd take him back, she accused herself. You know you would. He won't, though, not with me carrying Fortunato's child. She opened her eyes as someone touched her arm.

  "Are you sure you're all right?" Tachyon asked. "Just tired." She tried to smile.

  "Scared?" he asked.

  "Yes," she admitted. "I'd never really thought about having children, but now that I'm pregnant, I want to have a baby more than anything." Peregrine sighed and folded her arms protectively over her abdomen. "But I hope that the baby is all right."

  "They're paging the doctor who'll perform the procedure," Tachyon said. "I hope you're thirsty. You have to drink several quarts of water." He removed a pitcher and a glass from a tray held by the nurse standing beside him. "You can start now." Peregrine began drinking. She'd finished six glasses before a short man in a white coat hurried up to them.

  "Dr. Tachyon?" he asked, grasping Tachyon's hand. "I am Dr. Ali. It is a great pleasure to meet you and welcome you to my hospital." He turned to Peregrine. "Is this the patient?" Tachyon performed the introductions.

  Dr. Ali rubbed his hands together. "Let's get on with it," he said, and they followed him to the OB-GYN section of the hospital.

  "You, young lady, into that room." He pointed. "Remove all your clothing and put on the gown you'll find there. Keep drinking water. When you've changed, come back here and we'll perform the sonography."

  When Peregrine rejoined Tachyon, now wearing a white coat over his silken finery, and Dr. Ali, she was told to lie on an examining table. She followed their directions, clutching Taurt's amulet in her hand. A nurse raised the robe up and rubbed a clear gel on Peregrine's stomach.

  "Conductive jelly," Tachyon explained. "It helps carry the sound waves."

  The nurse began to move a small instrument that looked like a microphone over Peregrine's belly.

  "The transducer," said Tachyon as he and Ali studied the image on the video screen in front of them.

  "Well, what do you see?" Peregrine demanded. "A moment, Peri."

  Tachyon and Ali conferred in low tones.

  "Can you print that?" Peregrine heard Tachyon ask. Dr. Ali gave the nurse instructions in Arabic, and very shortly a computer printout of the image appeared.

  "You can climb down now," said Tachyon. "We've seen everything there is to see."

  "Well?" Peregrine asked anxiously.

  "Everything looks fine… so far," said Tachyon slowly. "The child appears to be developing normally."

  "That's wonderful!" She hugged him as he helped her down from the table.

  "If you intend to go through with this pregnancy, I insist on an ultrasound every four to five weeks to monitor the baby's growth."

  Peregrine nodded. "These sound waves won't hurt the baby, will they?"

  "No," said Tachyon. "The only thing that can injure the child already exists within it."

  Peregrine looked at Tachyon. "I know you feel you have to keep telling me that; but the baby is going to be just fine, I know it."

  "Peregrine, this is not a fairy tale! You are not going to live happily ever after! This could ruin your life!"

  "Growing wings when I was thirteen could have ruined my life, but it didn't. This isn't going to either."

  Tachyon sighed. "There is no reasoning with you. Go put your clothes on. It's time we got back to Cairo."

  Tachyon was waiting for her outside the dressing room. "Where's Dr. Ali?" she asked, looking around. "I wanted to thank him."

  "He had other patients to attend to." Tachyon steered her down the corridor with his arm around her shoulders. "Let's get back…" his voice broke off. Coming down the hallway toward them was josh McCoy. Peregrine was pleased to see that he looked as awful as she felt. He must not have gotten much sleep eitheir. He stopped in front of them.

  "Peri," he began, "I've been thinking-"

  "Good for you," Peregrine said crisply. "Now if you will excuse us-"

  McCoy reached out and grabbed her upper arm. "No. I want to talk to you and I intend to do it now" He pulled her away from Tachyon.

  She had to talk to him, she told herself. Maybe everything could be straightened out. She hoped.

  "It's all right," she said shakily to Tachyon. "Let's get this over with."

  Tachyon's voice followed them. "McCoy. You are undoubtedly a fool. And I warn you, if you harm her-in any way-you will regret it for a very long time."

  McCoy ignored him and continued to pull Peregrine down the hall, opening doors until he found an empty room. He dragged her in and slammed the door behind them. He let go of her arm and began pacing back and forth.

  Peregrine stood against the wall, rubbing her arm where the marks of his fingers were visible.

  McCoy stopped pacing and stared at her. "I'm sorry if I hurt you."

  "I think it's going to bruise," she said, inspecting her arm.

  "We can't have that," McCoy said mockingly. "Bruises on America's sex symbol!"

  "That's pretty rotten," she said, her voice dangerously quiet.

  "True, though," he shot back. "You are a sex symbol. There's your Playboy centerfold, that nude ice sculpture of you at Aces High. And what about that naked poster, 'Fallen Angel,' that Warhol did?"

  "There's nothing wrong with posing nude! I'm not ashamed to show my body or to have other people look at it."

  "No kidding! You strip for anyone who asks you!"

  She went white with fury. "Yes, I do! Including you!" She slapped McCoy's face and turned to the door, her wings quivering. " I don't have to stand here and take any more abuse from you."

  She reached for the door handle, but McCoy shoved in front of her and held it closed. "No. I need to talk to you."

  "You're not talking, you're being abusive," Peregrine retorted, "and I don't like it one bit."

  "You don't know what abuse is," he told her, brown eyes glittering angrily. "Why don't you scream? Tachyon's probably right outside. He'd love to rush in and rescue you. You could fuck him in gratitude."

  "How dare you?" Peregrine shouted. "I don't need him to protect me! Him or you or anyone! Let me go!" she demanded angrily.

  "No." He pressed her body to the wall. She felt like a butterfly pinned on velv
et. She could feel his heavy warmth against her. "Is this what it's going to be like," he raged,

  "men always wanting to protect you? Men wanting to fuck you just because you're Peregrine? I don't want anyone else touching you. No one but me."

  "Peri, " he said more gently. "Look at me." When she refused, he forced her chin up until she looked him in the eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Peri, I'm sorry for everything I said yesterday. And for everything I said just now. I didn't intend to lose my temper, but when I saw that overdressed quiche-eater with his hands on you, I just lost it. The thought of anyone but me touching you makes me furious." The fingers on her chin tightened. "Yesterday when you said that Fortunato was the baby's father, all I could see was him in bed with you, holding you, loving you." He let her go and walked to the window of the small room, staring out unseeing, his hands clenching and unclenching. "It was then," he continued, "that I realized exactly what I was up against. You're famous and beautiful and sexy and everyone wants you. I don't want to be Mr. Peregrine. I don't want to compete with your past. I want your future."

  "What I said yesterday about jokers wasn't true. It was the first excuse that I could think of. I wanted to hurt you as bad as I was hurting." He ran a hand through his blond hair.

  "It really hurt me when you told me about the baby, because it's not mine. I don't hate jokers. I like kids and I'll love yours and try to be a good father. If Fortunato shows up, well, I'll deal with it the best I can. Hell, Peri, I love you. Last night without you was terrible. It showed me what the future would be like if I let you go. I love you," he repeated, "and I want you to be my life."

  Peregrine put her arms around him and leaned against his back. "I love you too. Last night was about the worst night of my life. I realized what you meant to me, and also what this baby means. If I can only have one of you, I want my baby. I'm sorry to say that, but I had to tell you. But I want you too."

  McCoy turned and took her hands. He kissed them. "You sound awfully determined."

  "I am."

  McCoy laughed. "No matter what happens when the baby is born, we'll do the best we can." He smiled down at her. "I have a bunch of nieces and nephews, so I even know how to change diapers."

  "Good. You can teach me."

  "I will," he promised, his lips touching hers as he pulled her closer.

  The door opened. A white-clad figure looked at them disapprovingly. After a moment Doctor Tachyon peered in. "Are you quite finished?" he asked icily. "They need this room."

  "We're done with the room, but we're not finished. We're just starting," Peregrine said, smiling radiantly.

  "Well, as long as you're happy," Tachyon said slowly. " I am," she assured him.

  They left the hospital with Tachyon. He got into a cab by himself, while McCoy and Peregrine settled into the horsedrawn carriage waiting at the curb behind the taxi.

  "We have to get back to the hotel," Peregrine said. "Are you propositioning me?"

  "Of course not. I have to pack so we can rejoin the tour in Cairo."

  "Today?"

  "Yes."

  "Then we'd better hurry"

  "Why?"

  "Why?" McCoy trailed kisses over her face and neck. "We have to make up for last night, of course."

  "Oh." Peregrine spoke to the driver and the carriage picked up speed. "We don't want to waste any more time."

  "Enough has already been wasted," McCoy agreed. "Are you happy?" he asked softly as she settled in his arms, her head on his chest.

  "Happier than I've ever been!" But a little voice in the back of her mind kept reminding her of Fortunato.

  His arms tightened around her. "I love you."

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF XAVIER DESMOND

  JANUARY 30/JERUSALEM:

  The open city of Jerusalem, they call it. An international metropolis, jointly governed by commissioners from Israel, Jordan, Palestine, and Great Britain under a United Nations mandate, sacred to three of the world's great religions.

  Alas, the apt phrase is not "open city" but "open sore." Jerusalem bleeds as it has for almost four decades. If this city is sacred, I should hate to visit one that was profane.

  Senators Hartmann and Lyons and the other political delegates lunched with the city commissioners today, but the rest of us spent the afternoon touring this free international city in closed limousines with bulletproof windshields and special underbody armor to withstand bomb blasts. Jerusalem, it seems, likes to welcome distinguished international visitors by blowing them up. It does not seem to matter who the visitors are, where they come from, what religion they practice, how their politics lean-there are enough factions in this city so that everyone can count on being hated by someone.

  Two days ago we were in Beirut. From Beirut to Jerusalem, that is a voyage from day to night. Lebanon is a beautiful country, and Beirut is so lovely and peaceful it seems almost serene. Its various religions appear to have solved the problem of living in comparative harmony, although there are of course incidents-nowhere in the Middle East (or the world, for that matter) is completely safe.

  But Jerusalem-the outbreaks of violence have been endemic for thirty years, each worse than the one before. Entire blocks resemble nothing so much as London during the Blitz, and the population that remains has grown so used to the distant sound of machine-gun fire that they scarcely seem to pay it any mind.

  We stopped briefly at what remains of the Wailing Wall (largely destroyed in 1967 by Palestinian terrorists in reprisal for the assassination of al-Haziz by Israeli terrorists the year before) and actually dared to get out of our vehicles. Hiram looked around fiercely and made a fist, as if daring anyone to start trouble. He has been in a strange state of late; irritable, quick to anger, moody. The things we witnessed in Africa have affected us all, however. One shard of the wall is still fairly imposing. I touched it and tried to feel the history. Instead I felt the pocks left in the stone by bullets.

  Most of our party returned to the hotel afterward, but Father Squid and I took a detour to visit the Jokers' Quarter. I'm told that it is the second-largest joker community in the world, after Jokertown itself… a distant second, but second nonetheless. It does not surprise me. Islam does not view my people kindly, and so jokers come here from all over the Middle East for whatever meager protection is offered by UN sovereignty and a small, outmanned, outgunned, and demoralized international peacekeeping force.

  The Quarter is unspeakably squalid, and the weight of human misery within its walls is almost palpable. Yet ironically the streets of the Quarter are reputed safer than any other place in Jerusalem. The Quarter has its own walls, built in living memory, originally to spare the feelings of decent people by hiding we living obscenities from their sight, but those same walls have given a measure of security to those who dwell within. Once inside I saw no nats at all, only jokers jokers of all races and religions, all living in relative peace. Once they might have been Muslims or Jews or Christians, zealots or Zionists or followers of the Nur, but after their hand had been dealt, they were only jokers. The joker is the great equalizer, cutting through all other hatreds and prejudices, uniting all mankind in a new brotherhood of pain. A joker is a joker is a joker, and anything else he is, is unimportant.

  Would that it worked the same way with aces.

  The sect of Jesus Christ, joker has a church in Jerusalem, and Father Squid took me there. The building looked more like a mosque than a Christian church, at least on the outside, but inside it was not so terribly different from the church I'd visited in Jokertown, though much older and in greater disrepair. Father Squid lit a candle and said a prayer, and then we went back to the cramped, tumbledown rectory where Father Squid conversed with the pastor in halting Latin while we shared a bottle of sour red wine. As they were talking, I heard the sound of automatic weaponry chattering off in the night somewhere a few blocks away. A typical Jerusalem evening, I suppose.

  No one will read this book until after my death, by which time I will be safely immune f
rom prosecution. I've thought long and hard about whether or not I should record what happened tonight, and finally decided that I should. The world needs to remember the lessons of 1976 and be reminded from time to time that the JADL does not speak for all jokers.

  An old joker woman pressed a note into my hand as Father Squid and I were leaving the church. I suppose someone recognized me.

  When I read the note, I begged off the official reception, pleading illness once again, but this time it was a ruse. I dined in my room with a wanted criminal, a man I can only describe as a notorious international joker terrorist, although he is a hero inside the Jokers' Quarter. I will not give his real name, even in these pages, since I understand that he still visits his family in Tel Aviv from time to time. He wears a black canine mask on his "missions" and to the press, Interpol, and the sundry factions that police Jerusalem, he is variously known as the Black Dog and the Hound of Hell. Tonight he wore a completely different mask, a butterfly-shaped hood covered with silver glitter, and had no problem crossing the city.

  "What you've got to remember," he told me, "is that nats are fundamentally stupid. You wear the same mask twice and let your picture get taken with it, and they start thinking it's your face."

  The Hound, as I'll call him, was born in Brooklyn but emigrated to Israel with his family at age nine and became an Israeli citizen. He was twenty when he became a joker. " I traveled halfway around the world to draw the wild card," he told me. "I could have stayed in Brooklyn."

  We spent several hours discussing Jerusalem, the Middle East, and the politics of the wild card. The Hound heads what honesty forces me to call a joker terrorist organization, the Twisted Fists. They are illegal in both Israel and Palestine, no mean trick. He was evasive about how many members they had, but not at all shy about confessing that virtually all of their financial support comes from New York's Jokertown.