Wild Cards: Aces Abroad

by George R. R. Martin

  Then her hand, surprisingly white against the midnight dark­ness of her robes, brushed against his fingers.

  You must . . .

  Gregg slid along the curving, branching tendrils of the nervous system, watching for blocks and traps, watching especially for any sign of awareness of his presence. Had he felt that, he would have fled as quickly as he’d entered. He’d always been extremely cau­tious with aces, even with those who he knew had no mental pow­ers. Kahina seemed unaware of his penetration.

  He opend her, setting up the entrances he would use later. Puppetman sighed at the swirling maelstrom of emotion he found there. Kahina was rich, complicated. The hues of her mind were saturated and strong. He could sense her attitude toward him: a brilliant gold-green hope, the ocher of suspicion, a vein of marbled pity/disgust for his world. And yet there was glimmering envy underneath as well, and a yearning that seemed tied to her feelings for her brother.

  He followed that trail backward and was surprised at the pure, bitter gall he found there. It had been carefully concealed, layered under safer, more benign emotions and sealed with respect for Allah’s favoring of Nur al-Allah, but it was there. It throbbed at his touch, alive.

  It took only a moment. Her hand had already withdrawn, but the contact was established. He stayed with her for a few more seconds to be sure, and then he came back to himself.

  Gregg smiled. It was done, and he was still safe. Kahina hadn’t noticed; Tachyon hadn’t suspected.

  “We’re all grateful for your presence,” Gregg said. “Tell Nur al-Allah that all we wish is understanding. Doesn’t the Qur’an itself begin with the exordium ‘In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful’? We’ve come out of a sense of that same compassion.”

  “Is that the gift you bring, Senator?” she asked in English, and Gregg could feel the wistfulness surging from her opened mind.

  “I think,” he told her, “it’s the same gift you would give yourself.”

  WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1987, DAMASCUS:

  The knock on her hotel door woke Sara from sleep. Groggy, she glanced first at her travel clock: 1:35 A.M. local time—it felt much later. Still jet lagged. Too early for Gregg, though.

  She put a robe on, rubbing her eyes as she went to the door. The security people had been very definite about the risks here in Dam­ascus. She didn’t stand directly in front of the door, but leaned over toward the central peephole. Glancing through, she saw the distorted face of an Arabic woman, swathed in the chador. The eyes, the fine structure of the face were familiar, as were the sea-blue beads sewn in the chador’s headpiece. “Kahina?” she queried.

  “Yes,” came the muffled voice from the hallway. “Please. I would talk.”

  “Just a minute.” Sara ran a hand through her hair. She exchanged the thin, lacy robe she’d put on for a heavier, more con­cealing one. She unchained the door, opened it a crack.

  A heavy hand threw the door entirely open, and Sara stifled a shout. A burly man scowled at her, a handgun gripped in his large fist. He ignored Sara after an initial glance and prowled through her room, opening the closet door, peering into the bathroom. He grunted, then went back to the door. He spoke something in Arabic, and then Kahina entered. Her bodyguard shut the door behind her and stationed himself near it.

  “I’m sorry,” Kahina said. Her voice struggled with the English, but her eyes seemed kind. She gestured in the direction of the guard. “In our society, a woman . . .”

  “I think I understand,” Sara said. The man was staring rudely at her; Sara tightened the robe’s sash and tugged the neckline higher. Involuntarily she yawned. Kahina seemed to smile under her veil.

  “Again I am sorry I woke you, but the dream . . .” She shrugged. “May I sit?”

  “Please.” Sara waved toward two chairs by the window.

  The guard grunted. He spoke in rapid-fire syllables. “He says not by the window,” Kahina translated. “Too unsafe.”

  Sara dragged the chairs to the center of the room; that seemed to satisfy the guard, who leaned back against the wall. Kahina took one of the chairs, the dark cloth of her robes rustling. Sara seated herself carefully on the other.

  “You were at the meeting?” Kahina asked when they were settled.

  “At the press conference afterward, you mean? Yes.”

  Kahina nodded. “I saw you there. I knew your face from Allah’s dreams. I come here now because of tonight’s dream.”

  “You say my face was in your dreams?”

  Kahina nodded. Sara found that the chador made it nearly impossible to read the hidden face. There were only Kahina’s piercing eyes above the veils. Yet there seemed to be a deep kindness in them, an empathy. Sara felt herself warming to the woman. “At the . . . conference”—Kahina stumbled over the word—“I said that Nur al-Allah waited to hear of my dreams before he would decide to meet with your people. I’ve just had his dream.”

  “Then why come to me instead of your brother?”

  “Because in the dream I was told to come to you.”

  Sara shook her head. “I don’t understand. We don’t know each other; I was just one of a dozen or more reporters there.”

  “You’re in love with him.”

  She knew who Kahina meant. She knew, but the protest was automatic. “Him?”

  “The one with a double face. The one with strings. Hartmann.” When Sara didn’t answer, Kahina reached out and touched her hand gently. The gesture was sisterly and strangely knowing. “You love the one you once hated,” Kahina said. Her hand had not left Sara’s.

  Sara found that she could not lie, not to Kahina’s open, vulnerable eyes. “I suppose so. You’re the Seer; can you tell me how it turns out?” Sara said it jokingly, but Kahina either missed the inflection or chose to ignore it.

  “You are happy for the moment, even though you are not his wife, even though you sin. I understand that.” Kahina’s fingers pressed against Sara’s. “I understand how hate can be a blunted sword, how it can be beat upon until you begin to think it something else.”

  “You’re confusing me, Kahina.” Sara sat back, wishing she were completely awake, wishing that Gregg were there. Kahina withdrew her hand.

  “Let me tell the dream.” Kahina closed her eyes. She folded her hands in her lap. “I . . . I saw Hartmann, with his two faces, one pleasant to see, the other twisted like an abomination of Allah. You were beside him, not his wife, and the face that was pleasant smiled. I could see your feelings for him, how your hatred had been turned. My brother and I were there also, and my brother pointed to the abomination within Hartmann. The abomination spat, and the spittle fell upon me. I saw myself, and my face was yours. And I saw that I too had another face within my veils, an abomination-face ugly with spite. Hartmann reached out and twisted my head until only the abomination could be seen.

  “For a time the images of the dream were confused. I thought I saw a knife, and I saw Sayyid, my husband, struggling with me. Then the images cleared, and I saw a dwarf, and the dwarf spoke. He said: ‘Tell her that underneath the hate still lives. Tell her to remember that. The hate will protect you.’ The dwarf laughed, and his laugh was evil. I did not like him.”

  Her eyes opened, and there was a distant terror in them.

  Sara started to speak, stopped, began again. “I . . . Kahina, I don’t know what any of that means. It’s just random images, no better than the dreams I have myself. Does it mean something to you?”

  “It’s Allah’s dream,” Kahina insisted, her voice harsh with inten­sity. “I could feel His power in it. I understand this: My brother will meet with your people.”

  “Gregg—Senator Hartmann—and the others will be glad to know that. Believe me, we mean only to help your people.”

  “Then why is the dream so fearful?”

  “Maybe because there’s always fear in change.”

  Kahina blinked. Suddenly the openness was gone. She was isolated, as hidden as her face behind the veils. “I said somethi
ng very like that to Nur al-Allah once. He did not like the thought any more than I do now.” She rose swiftly to her feet. The guard came to attention by the door. “I am glad we met,” she said. “I will see you again in the desert.” She went to the door.

  “Kahina—”

  She turned, waiting.

  “Was that all you wanted to tell me?”

  The shadow of her veils hid her eyes. “I wanted to tell you one thing only,” she said. “I wore your face in the dream. I think we are very alike; I feel we are . . . like kin. What this man you love would do to me, he might also do to you.”

  She nodded to the guard. They stepped quickly into the hallway and were gone.

  WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1987,

  IN THE SYRIAN DESERT:

  It was the most barren landscape Gregg had ever seen.

  The windows were thick with grime kicked up by the ’copter’s blades. Below them, the land was desolate. The vegetation was sparse and dry, clinging to life in the volcanic rock of the desert plateau. The land around the coast had been relatively lush, but the date palms and arable farmland had given way to pines as the trio of helicopters left the mountains of Jabal Duriz. Then there were only hawthorns and bristly scrub. The only life they saw was in the occasional settlement, where robed and turbaned men looked up from goat herds with suspicious eyes.

  The ride was long, noisy, and distinctly uncomfortable. The air was turbulent, and the faces around Gregg were sour. He glanced back at Sara; she gave him a halfhearted smile and shrug. The choppers began to descend toward a small town that seemed under siege by brightly colored tents, set in the folds of a prehistoric river valley. The sun was setting behind the barren, purpled hills; the lights of campfires dotted the area.

  Billy Ray came back as the helicopter threw swirling gales of dust through the canvas. “Joanne said it’s okay to land, Senator,” Billy half-shouted through the clamor of the engines, cupping his mouth. “I want you to know that I still don’t like it.”

  “We’re safe enough, Billy,” Gregg shouted back. “The man would have to be crazy to do anything to us.”

  Billy gave him a sidelong look. “Uh-huh. He’s a fanatic. The Nur sect has been linked to terrorism everywhere in the Middle East. Going to his headquarters, at his beck and call, and with the lim­ited resources I have is cutting Security’s throat.”

  He sounded more excited than worried—Carnifex enjoyed fighting—but Gregg could feel a faint, cold undercurrent of fear under Ray’s swelling anticipation. He reached into Billy’s mind and tweaked that fear, enjoying the sensation as the feeling height­ened. Gregg told himself that it wasn’t simply for enjoyment, but because paranoia would make Ray even more effective if there was trouble. “I appreciate your concerns, Billy,” he said. “But we’re here. Let’s see what we can do.”

  The ’copters landed in a central square near the mosque. They filed out, all but Tachyon shivering in the evening chill. Only a portion of the delegation had taken the flight from Damascus. Nur al-Allah had forbidden any “loathsome abominations” to come to this place; the list had excluded all obvious jokers such as Father Squid or Chrysalis; Radha and Fantasy had decided on their own to remain in Damascus. Most of the spouses and much of the scientific team had remained behind as well. The haughtiness of Nur al-Allah’s “invitation” had angered many of the contingent; there had been a bitter debate over whether they should go at all. Gregg’s insistence had finally won out.

  “Look, I find his demands as distasteful as anyone. But the man’s a legitimate force here. He rules Syria and a good portion of Jordan and Saudi as well. It doesn’t matter who the elected leaders are—Nur al-Allah has united the sects. I don’t like his teachings or his methods, but I can’t deny his power. If we turn our backs on him, we change nothing. His prejudice, his violence, his hatred will continue to spread. If we do meet him, well, at least there’s a chance we can get him to temper his harshness.”

  He’d laughed self-deprecatingly, shaking his head at his own argument. “I don’t think we have a prayer, really. Still . . . it’s something we’re going to face, if not with Nur al-Allah, then back home with fundamentalists such as Leo Barnett. Prejudice isn’t going to go away because we ignore it.”

  Puppetman, reaching out, had made certain that Hiram, Peregrine, and the others open to him murmured agreement. The rest had reluctantly withdrawn their objections, even if most decided to remain behind in protest.

  In the end the aces willing to meet with Nur al-Allah had been Hiram, Peregrine, Braun, and Jones. Senator Lyons had decided to go at the last minute. Tachyon, to Gregg’s dismay, insisted on being included. Reporters and security people swelled the ranks further.

  Kahina stepped out from the mosque as the chuff of the blades slowed and the steps were let down from the doors of the helicopters. She bowed to them as they disembarked. “Nur al-Allah bids you welcome,” she said. “Please, follow me.”

  Gregg heard Peregrine’s sudden intake of breath as Kahina motioned to them. In the same moment he felt a surge of indignation and panic. He glanced over his shoulder to see Peregrine’s wings folded protectively around herself, her gaze fixed on the ground near the mosque. He followed her stare.

  A fire had flared up between the buildings. In its flickering light they could all see three flyblown bodies crumpled against the wall, rocks scattered around them. The nearest body was unmistakably a joker, the face elongated into a furry snout and the hands hornlike claws. The smell hit them then, ripe and foul; Gregg could feel the swelling of shock and disgust. Lyons was being desperately and loudly sick; Jack Braun muttered a curse. Inside, Puppetman grinned gleefully while Gregg frowned.

  “What is this outrage?” Tachyon demanded of Kahina.

  Gregg let himself drift into her mind and found shifting hues of confusion. She’d looked back at the bodies herself, and Gregg felt the quick stab of betrayal within her. Yet when Kahina looked back, she’d covered it with the placid emerald of faith, and her voice was a careful monotone, her gaze flat. “They were . . . abom­inations. Allah placed the mark of their unworthiness on them, and their death is nothing. That is what Nur al-Allah has decreed.”

  “Senator, we are leaving,” Tachyon declared. “This is an intolerable insult. Kahina, tell Nur al-Allah that we will protest most strongly to your government.” His aristocratic face was tight with controlled fury, his hands clenched at his sides. But before any of them could move, Nur al-Allah stepped from the arched entrance to the mosque.

  Gregg had no doubt that Nur al-Allah had chosen the time to best display himself. In the darkening night he appeared like a medieval painting of Christ, a holy radiance speading out from him. He wore a thin djellaba through which his skin gleamed, his beard and hair dark against the glow. “Nur al-Allah is Allah’s prophet,” he said in accented English. “If Allah would let you go, you may go. If He would bid you stay, you will stay.”

  Nur al-Allah’s voice was a cello—a glorious, rich instrument. Gregg knew that he should answer, but couldn’t. Everyone in the party was silent; Tachyon froze halfway in his turn back to the helicopters. Gregg had to fight to make his mouth work. His mind was filled with cobwebs, and it was only Puppetman’s strength that allowed him to break those bonds. When he did reply, his own voice sounded thin and harsh. “Nur al-Allah allows the murder of innocents.”

  “Nur al-Allah allows the murder of innocents. That’s not the power of Allah. That’s only the failing of a man,” Gregg rasped.

  Sara wanted to shout agreement, but her voice wouldn’t obey. Everyone stood as if stunned. Alongside Sara, Digger Downs had been scribbling frantically in his notebook; he’d stopped, the pencil forgotten in his hand.

  Sarah felt quick fright—for herself, for Gregg, for everyone. We shouldn’t have come. That voice . . . They’d known Nur al-Allah was an accomplished orator; they’d even suspected that some ace power rode in it, but no reports had said that it was this powerful.

  “Man fails when he fails All
ah,” Nur al-Allah answered placidly. His voice wove a soft spell, a blanketing numbness. When he spoke, his words seemed filled with truth. “You think me deranged; I’m not. You think me a threat; I threaten only Allah’s enemies. You think me harsh and cruel; if that’s so, then it’s only because Allah is harsh with sinners. Follow me.”

  He turned, walking quickly back into the mosque. Peregrine and Hiram were already moving to follow; Jack Braun looked dazed as he strode after the prophet; Downs brushed past Sara. Sara fought the compulsion, but her legs were possessed. She shambled forward with the rest. Of the party, only Tachyon was immune to Nur al-Allah’s power. His features strained, he stood stiffly immobile in the middle of the court. As Sara passed him, he looked back at the helicopters; then, with a glare, let himself be drawn with her into the interior of the mosque.

  Oil lamps lit shadowed recesses among the pillars. In the front, Nur al-Allah stood on the dais of the minbar, the pulpit. Kahina stood at his right hand, and Sara recognized the gargantuan figure of Sayyid at his left. Guards with automatic weapons moved to stations around the room as Sara and the others milled around the minbar in confusion.

  “Hear the words of Allah,” Nur al-Allah intoned. It was as if some deity were speaking, for his voice thundered and roared. Its fury and scorn made them tremble, wondering that the very stones of the mosque didn’t fall as the power throbbed. “‘As for the unbe­lievers, because of their misdeeds, ill fortune shall not cease to afflict them or crouch at their very doorstep.’ And He also says: ‘Woe to the lying sinner! He heard the revelations of Allah recited to Him and then, as though he never heard them, persists in scorn. Those that deride Our revelations when they have scarcely heard them shall be put to a shameful punishment. Those that deny the revelations of their Lord shall suffer the torment of a hideous scourge.’”