Wild Cards: Aces Abroad

by George R. R. Martin

  “Are you sure this is a medical examination?” she asked him teasingly.

  “Do you want me to call a chaperon?”

  “Don’t be silly. I trust you!”

  “You shouldn’t,” Tachyon leered. He raised an eyebrow as Pere­grine kicked off her Nikes and peeled off her jeans. “Don’t you wear underwear?”

  “Never. It gets in the way. Do you want me to take off my shirt too?”

  “If you do, you may never leave this room!” Tachyon threat­ened.

  She laughed and kissed his cheek. “What’s the big deal? You’ve examined me a million times.”

  “In the proper surroundings, with you in a medical gown and a nurse in the room,” he retorted. “Never with you naked, almost naked,” he corrected, “in my bedroom.” He tossed her a towel. “Here, cover yourself.”

  Tachyon admired her long, tanned legs and shapely buttocks as she arranged herself on his bed, draping the towel discreetly over her hips. The blast of refrigerated air coming from the laboring air conditioner raised goosebumps all over her, but Tachyon ignored them.

  “Your hands better be warm,” Peregrine warned as he knelt next to her.

  “Just like my heart,” Tachyon said, palpating her stomach. “Does this hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Here? Here?”

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered. “I need my stethoscope.” This time he warmed the metal head with his hand before placing it on her stomach. “Have you had much indigestion?”

  “Some.”

  A strange expression crossed Tachyon’s foxy face as he assisted her off the bed. “Get your jeans on. I’ll take a blood sample, and then you can go play tourist with the others.”

  He got the syringe ready while she finished tying her track shoes. Peregrine held out her arm, winced as he expertly raised the vein, swabbed the skin above it, inserted the syringe, and withdrew the blood. She watched in fascination and suddenly realized that the sight of blood was making her ill.

  “Shit.” She ran into the bedroom, leaving behind a flurry of feathers, and leaned over the toilet vomiting up her room service breakfast and what was left of last night’s dinner and champagne.

  Tachyon held her shoulders while she was sick, and as she sagged against the tub, exhausted, wiped her face with a warm, wet washcloth.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I think so.” He helped her to her feet. “It was the blood. Although the sight of blood has never bothered me before.”

  “Peregrine, I don’t think that you should go sight-seeing this morning. The place for you is bed, alone, with a cup of hot tea.”

  “No,” she protested. “I’m fine. It’s just all this traveling. If I feel sick, Josh will bring me back here.”

  “I’ll never understand women.” He shook his head sadly. “To prefer a mere human when you could have me. Come here and I’ll bandage that hole I put in your arm.” He busied himself with sterile gauze and tape.

  Peregrine smiled gently. “You’re sweet, Doctor, but your heart is buried in the past. I’m getting to the point now that I’m ready for a permanent relationship, and I don’t think you would give me that.”

  “And he can?”

  She shrugged, her wings moving with her shoulders. “I hope so. We’ll see, won’t we?”

  She picked up her bag and hat from the chair and walked to the door.

  “Peri, I wish you would reconsider.”

  “What? Sleeping with you or sight-seeing?”

  “Sight-seeing, wicked one.”

  “I’m fine now. Please stop worrying. Honestly, I’ve never had so many people worrying about me as on this trip.”

  “That’s because, my dear, under your New York glamour, you’re incredibly vulnerable. You make people want to protect you.” He opened the door for her. “Be careful with McCoy, Peri. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  She kissed him as she left the room. Her wings brushed the doorway and a flurry of fine feathers fell to the floor.

  “Damn,” she said, stooping and picking one up. “I seem to be losing a lot of these lately.”

  “Indeed?” Tachyon looked curious. “No, don’t bother with them. The maid will clean them up.”

  “Okay. Good-bye. Have fun with your tests.”

  Tachyon’s eyes were worried as they followed Peregrine’s grace­ful body down the hallway. He closed the door, one of her feathers in his hand.

  “This doesn’t look good,” he said aloud as he tickled his chin with her feather. “Not good at all.”

  Peregrine spotted McCoy in the lobby talking to a stocky, dark man in a white uniform. Her two other companions were lounging nearby. Hiram Worchester, she reflected, was looking a little hag­gard. Hiram, one of Peregrine’s oldest and dearest friends, was dressed in one of his custom-made tropical-weight suits, but it hung loosely on him, almost as if he had lost some of his three hundred plus pounds. Perhaps he was feeling the strain of constant traveling as much as she was. Father Squid, the kindly pastor of the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker, made Hiram look almost svelte. He was as tall as a normal man and twice as broad. His face was round and gray, his eyes were covered by nictitating membranes, and a cluster of tentacles hung down over his mouth like a con­stantly twitching mustache. He always reminded her of one of Lovecraft’s fictional Deep Ones, but he was actually much nicer.

  “Peri,” said McCoy. “This is Mr. Ahmed. He’s with the Tourist Police. Mr. Ahmed, this is Peregrine.”

  “This is a pleasure,” said the guide, bending to kiss her hand.

  Peregrine responded with a smile and then greeted Hiram and the priest. She turned to Josh, who was watching her closely. “You okay?” Josh asked. “You look awful. What did Tachyon do, take a quart of blood?”

  “Of course not. I’m fine,” she said, following Ahmed and the others to the waiting limo. And if I keep saying that, she said to herself, maybe I’ll even believe it.

  “What on earth?” exclaimed Peregrine as they stopped in front of a metal-and-glass guard station. There were two heavily armed men inside the box, which stood next to a high wall that sur­rounded several acres of desert that was the Temple of the Living Gods. The whitewashed wall was topped with strands of barbed wire and patrolled by men dressed in blue and armed with machine guns. Video cameras tirelessly surveyed the perimeter. The effect of the pure white wall against the shining sand and bright blue Egyptian sky was dazzling.

  “Because of the Nur,” explained Ahmed, pointing to the line of tourists waiting to enter the temple grounds, “everyone has to pass through two detectors, one for metal and the other for nitrates. These fanatics are determined to destroy the temple and the gods. They have already made several attacks against the temple, but so far they’ve been stopped before doing much damage.”

  “Who are the Nur?” Father Squid asked.

  “They are the followers of Nur al-Allah, a false prophet determined to unite all Islamic sects under himself,” Ahmed said. “He has decided that Allah desires the destruction of all those deformed by the wild card virus, and so the Temple of the Living Gods has become one of his sect’s targets.”

  “Do we have to wait in line with the tourists?” Hiram broke in peevishly. “After all, we are here by special invitation.”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Worchester,” Ahmed hurriedly answered. “The VIP gate is this way. You will go right through. If you please . . .”

  As they lined up behind Ahmed, McCoy whispered to Peregrine, “I’ve never been through a VIP gate, only press gates.”

  “Stick with me,” she promised. “I’ll take you lots of places you’ve never been before.”

  “You already have.”

  The VIP gate had its own metal and nitrate detectors. They passed through, watched closely by security guards dressed in the blue robes worn by adherents of the living gods, who thoroughly examined Peregrine’s bag and McCoy’s camera. An elderly man approached as McCoy’s equipment was being retur
ned. He was short, deeply tanned and healthy looking, with gray eyes, white hair, and a magnificant white beard that contrasted nicely with his flowing blue robes.

  “I am Opet Kemel,” he announced. His voice was deep, mellifluous, and he knew how to use it to demand attention and respect. “I am the head priest of the Temple of the Living Gods. We are gratifed that you could grace us with your presence.” He looked from Father Squid to Peregrine, Hiram, and McCoy, and then back to Peregrine. “Yes, my children will be glad that you have come.”

  “Do you mind if we film the ceremony?” asked Peregrine.

  “Not at all.” He gestured expansively. “Come this way and I’ll show you the best seats in the house.”

  “Can you give us some background on the temple?”

  Peregrine asked.

  “Certainly,” Kemel replied as they followed him. “The Port Said wild card epidemic of 1948 caused many ‘mutations,’ I believe they’re called, among them of course, the celebrated Nasr—Al Haziz, Khôf and other great heroes of past years. Many men of Luxor were working on the Said docks at the time and were also affected by the virus. Some passed it on to their children and grandchildren.

  “The true meaning of these mutations struck me over a decade ago when I saw a young boy make clouds drop much-needed rain over his father’s fields. I realized that he was an incarnation of Min, the ancient god of crops, and that his presence was a harbin­ger of the old religion.

  “I was an archaeologist then and had just discovered an intact temple complex”—he pointed at their feet—“beneath the ground right where we stand. I convinced Min of his destiny and found others to join us: Osiris, a man pronounced dead who returned to life with visions of the future; Anubis, Taurt, Thoth . . . Through the years they have all come to the Temple of the Living Gods to listen to the prayers of their petitioners and perform miracles.”

  “Exactly what kind of miracles?” Peregrine asked.

  “Many kinds. For example, if a woman with child is having a difficult time, she will pray to Taurt, goddess of pregnancy and childbirth. Taurt will assure that all will be fine. And it will be. Thoth settles disputes, knowing who tells the truth and who lies. Min, as I have said, can make it rain. Osiris sees bits of the future. It’s all quite simple.”

  “I see.” Kemel’s claims seemed reasonable, given the abilities that Peregrine knew the virus could waken in people. “How many gods are there?”

  “Perhaps twenty-five. Some cannot really do anything,” Kemel said in confiding tones. “They are what you call jokers. However, they look like the old gods—Bast, for example, is covered with fur and has claws—and they give great comfort to the people who come to pray to them. But see for yourselves. The ceremony is almost ready to begin.”

  He led them past groups of tourists posing next to statues of the gods, booths that sold everything from Kodak film, key rings, and Coca-Cola to replicas of antique jewelry and little statuettes of the gods themselves. They went past the booths, through a narrow doorway into a sandstone block wall set flush against a cliff face, and then down worn stone steps. Goosebumps rose on Peregrine’s skin. It was cool inside the structure, which was lit by electric lights that resembled flickering torches. The stairwell was beauti­fully decorated with bas-relief carvings of everyday life in ancient Egypt, intricately detailed hieroglyphic inscriptions, and represen­tations of animals, birds, gods, and goddesses.

  “What a wonderful job of restoration!” Peregrine exclaimed, enchanted by the beautiful freshness of the reliefs they passed.

  “Actually,” Kemel explained, “everything here is just as it was when I discovered it twenty years ago. We added some modern conveniences, like the electricity, of course.” He smiled.

  They entered a large chamber, an amphitheater with a stage faced by banked stone benches. The walls of the chamber were lined with glass cases displaying artifacts that, Kemel said, had been discovered in the temple.

  McCoy meticulously recorded them, shooting several minutes of footage of painted wooden statues that looked as fresh as if they had been painted the day before, necklaces, collars, and pectorals of lapis lazuli, emerald, and gold, chalices carved of translucent alabaster, unguent jars of jade intricately carved in the shapes of animals, elaborately inlaid tiny chests, and gaming boards, and chairs. . . . The exquisite treasures of a dead civilization were dis­played before them, a civilization that, Peregrine reflected, Opet Kemel seemed, with his Temple of the Living Gods, to restore.

  “Here we are.” Kemel indicated a group of benches at the front of the amphitheater close to the stage, bowed slightly, and departed.

  It didn’t take long for the amphitheater to fill. The lights dimmed and the theater became silent. A spotlight shone on the stage, strange music that sounded as old and eerie as the temple itself softly played, and the procession of the living gods began. There was Osiris, the god of death and resurrection, and his consort Isis. Behind him came Hapi, carrying a golden standard. Thoth, the ibis-headed judge, followed with his pet baboon. Shu and Tefnut, brother and sister, god and goddess of the air, floated above the floor. Sobek followed them with his dark, cracked crocodile skin and snoutlike mouth. Hathor, the great mother, had the horns of a cow. Bast, the cat-goddess, moved delicately, her face and body covered with tawny fur, claws protruding from her fingers. Min looked like an ordinary man, but a small cloud hovered above him, following him like an obedient puppy wherever he went. Bes, the handsome dwarf, did cartwheels and walked on his hands. Anubis, the god of the underworld, had the head of a jackal. Horus had falconlike wings. . . .

  On and on they came, crossing the stage slowly and then seat­ing themselves on gilded thrones as they were presented to the audience in English, French, and Arabic.

  After the introductions the gods began to demonstrate their abilities. Shu and Tefnut were gliding in the air, playing tag with Min’s cloud, when the unexpected, deafening sound of gunfire shattered the peaceful scene, evoking screams of terror from the spectators trapped in the amphitheater. Hundreds of tourists leapt up and milled about like terrified cattle. Some bolted for the doors at the back, and the stairways soon became clogged by panicked, shrieking people. McCoy, who had pushed Peregrine to the ground and covered her with his body at the first sound of gunfire, dragged her behind one of the large, elaborately carved stone pillars flanking the stage.

  “You okay?” he gasped, peering around the column at the sounds of madness and destruction, his camera whirring.

  “Uh-huh. What is it?”

  “Three guys with machine guns.” His hands were steady and there was an edge of excitement in his voice. “They don’t seem to be shooting at the people, just the walls.”

  A bullet whined off the pillar. The sound of shattering glass filled the air as the terrorists destroyed the cases filled with the priceless artifacts and raked the beautifully carved walls with machine-gun fire.

  The living gods had fled when the first shot sounded. Only one remained behind, the man who had been introduced as Min. As Peregrine peeked around the pillar, a cloud appeared from nowhere to hang over the terrorists’ heads. It started to rain torrents upon them, and slipping and sliding on the wet stone floor, they scat­tered, trying to find cover from the blinding cloudburst. Peregrine, digging in her bag for her metal talons, noticed Hiram Worchester standing alone, a look of fierce concentration on his face. One of the attackers gave a distressed shout as his gun slipped from his hands and landed on his foot. He collapsed, screaming, blood spat­tering from his shattered limb. Hiram turned his gaze to the second terrorist as Peregrine pulled on her guantlets.

  “I’m going to try to get above them,” she told McCoy.

  “Be careful,” he said, intent on filming the action.

  She flexed her fingers, now encased in leather gauntlets tipped with razor-edged titanium claws. Her wings quivered in anticipa­tion as she took a half-dozen running steps, then beat thunderously as she hurled herself forward and launched herself into the air—<
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  —and fell jarringly to the floor.

  She caught herself on her hands and knees, skinning her palms on the rough stones and banging her left knee so hard that it went numb after an initial stab of excruciatingly sharp pain.

  For a long second Peregrine refused to believe what had hap­pened. She crouched on the floor, bullets whining around her, then sood and beat her wings again, hard. But nothing happened. She couldn’t fly. She stood in the middle of the floor, ignoring the gun-fire around her, trying to figure out what was happening, what she was doing wrong.

  “Peregrine,” McCoy shouted, “get down!” The third terrorist aimed at her, screaming incoherently. A look of horror suddenly contorted his face and he swooped toward the ceiling. His gun slipped out of his hand and smashed to the floor. Hiram casually let the man drop thirty feet as the other terrorists were clubbed to the floor by temple security guards. Kemel bustled up, a look of incredulous horror on his face.

  “Thank the Merciful Ones you weren’t injured!” he cried, rushing to Peregrine, who was still dazed and confused at what had hapened to her.

  “Yeah,” she said distantly, then her eyes focused on the walls of the chamber. “But look at all the damage!”

  A small wooden statue, gilded and inlaid with faience and pre­cious stones, lay in fragments at Peregrine’s feet. She stopped and picked it up gently, but the fragile wood turned to dust at her touch, leaving behind a twisted shell of gold and jewels. “It sur­vived for so long, only to be destroyed by this madness. . . .” she murmured softly.

  “Ah, yes.” Kemel shrugged. “Well, the walls can be restored, and we have more artifacts to put into display cases.”

  “Who were those people?” Father Squid asked, imperturbably brushing dust off of his cassock.

  “The Nur,” Kemel said. He spat on the floor. “Fanatics!”