Chapter Forty-Four
It was like walking into a familiar house years after you’ve lived there. Warm with old memories and welcoming, but with strange new dents and scratches, and even some new rooms. Tis didn’t take the time to explore all of them. He ran to his daughter and swept her up, feverishly examined her. Nothing but bumps and bruises. He wrapped her close, and his eyes met Kelly’s over the head of the baby.
The girl’s face twisted in an almost comic expression of dismay. She laid a hand on her stomach, looked at Tisianne in wonder and consternation. “It’s a little boy.” Suddenly she laughed. “Doctor, I’m never trusting you with my body again.”
Tis lifted his shoulders ruefully.
Blaise’s voice broke in harshly. “I’ve kept my part of the bargain, Grand-père. Now keep yours.”
“This creature nearly destroyed our world! Our House. He did kill Zabb. And you’re going to let him go?”
Tisianne turned from the fury, scorn, and disbelief in his uncle’s voice. “I gave him my word.”
“Fuck your word!” Taj was never crude, so it carried just that much more force.
“No.” Tisianne turned back to face the older man. “Is there anything else you wish to discuss with me?”
“Yes, I want you to formally accept the elevation to the Raiyis’tet.”
“No — ”
“I won’t hear no. You’ve done enough to try to avoid your duty, and you wanted it badly enough a few months ago.”
“Circumstances have changed.”
“Rather dramatically. And for your information I have a personal reason for refusing to shoulder your burdens and responsibilities any longer. No thanks to either you or Zabb, I’ve made it to old age. I intend to sit back and enjoy it.”
Tis stared into that lined and beloved face. Reached out and rested a palm against Taj’s cheek. “You have earned it. And I’m an ungrateful brat. I suppose I must become Raiyis.”
Taj laid a hand on Tisianne’s shoulder. “Someone’s got to bind the wounds.” He started for the door. “And lead the armies.”
“I haven’t forgotten about the Network.”
“Good. I’m sure they haven’t forgotten about you either.”
Tis stared at the door for a long time after Taj had left. Slowly he crossed to the desk and sank into the chair. It still smelled of Zabb’s fragrance, and the memory set tears to pricking at the back of his eyelids. Squaring his shoulders, Tisianne keyed the holostage and requested uplink with the starship Bounty.
A few seconds later, and he had the Master Trader on the stage. “Ah, Prince Tisianne.”
“You keep up with current affairs, don’t you?”
“It’s my business,” the Trader replied with a twinkle. “Ready to turn over my real estate?”
“Not in this or any other lifetime. Face it, you’ve bought the Brooklyn Bridge, swampland in Florida. My grandson offered what he did not possess.”
“Doesn’t matter. I have a contract.”
“You seem to be developing a positive talent for making bad deals.” That reminder of Zabb’s outstanding contract brought a frown to the alien’s brow.
“We’re not giving up.”
“And I’ll reduce Takis to a burned cinder before I will cede one centimeter of my world.”
“You Takisians are all mad,” Bounty complained gently. Tis remained silent. Several minutes elapsed, and the Master Trader shifted uncomfortably. “I can’t let you get away with this. It sets an intolerable precedent.”
Tis steepled his fingers before his mouth. Considered the alien on the stage. “I’m not unreasonable. There is one contract that I believe I can fulfill without undue loss of face or diminishment of virtu.”
“I would suggest you book passage with the Network,” Tis said as Blaise locked down the lid on the time box. It was filled with gold, jewels, and exotic Takisian pharmaceuticals, a fortune by any species’ standards anywhere in the galaxy. “You can certainly afford it,” he added dryly.
They were in the office of the Raiyis.
Blaise threw himself into a chair. “I’ve really fucked your planet,” he said in a pleasant, conversational tone.
Tis just stood, looking down at Zabb’s familiar features. Pondered this creature of his loins. Said very softly, “You know, Blaise, I did love you.”
“I loathe you.” Blaise stretched, smiled, stood. “It’s nice to know you’ll never sleep a quiet night knowing I’m alive somewhere in the universe.”
Tis watched thoughtfully as Blaise left.
Tisianne had insisted that Mark, Jay, and Kelly accompany him to the Network ship. Mark had of course agreed without demur. Jay had to enact an opera for him. “Jesus, that crazy fucker chopped my fingers off. I don’t want to be on the same planet with him, much less in a spaceship.” Tis had cut the detective off by curtly remarking that Jay still worked for him, and this was the final act of his employment. Ackroyd had grumbled that he’d liked Tisianne a lot better female.
So now they were all sitting silently in Baby’s control room, watching the Network vessel draw closer. Blaise stood alone in the center of the room, his strongbox clutched tightly beneath one arm. Tis and Kelly were curled up in the massive canopied bed that was an extrusion of the ship herself. Jay and Mark were pressed against the ship’s walls.
As if he’s diseased, and he can somehow infect us all, Tis thought, then realized Blaise already had. There was not an individual in the room who would emerge unscathed from their contact with the young man.
Gazing at that lean and elegant figure, Tisianne had to remind himself that this was Blaise. Zabb died trying to keep his word to me. Oh, ideal, how I shall miss him.
The Network ship extruded a walkway from its lock to Baby’s.
“Very phallic,” Blaise remarked. He grinned at Tisianne and ran his tongue slowly across his lips.
Like a small animal, the terror uncoiled. Tis sucked in a deep breath and indicated the lock. Blaise walked through, then noticed they were all following.
“A send-off. How touching.”
“I just want to be sure you’re really gone,” Mark said.
The Network had never really achieved the artificial gravity of the Takisian living ships. Walking the length of the walkway was a little like pulling loose from taffy.
The Ly’bahr were waiting. Blaise tossed the strongbox to the nearest warrior. Its arm moved in a blur of motion to snatch the box from midair.
“Let’s not say goodbye, Grandfather. Let’s say au revoir because I have a feeling we will meet again. Kiss for old times’ sake?”
Kelly was trembling at his side. Tis just stared at Blaise impassively.
“Zabb brant —” the Lybahr began.
“No. Blaise Andrieux —”
“You have breached contract with the Network. Penalty clause one hundred and thirty-two, subsection C, is now in effect.”
“What are you ranting about, tin man?” Two Ly’bahr moved up on each side. Gripped Blaise by an arm and lifted him off the ground. “What the fuck is going on!” Blaise demanded shrilly.
They carried him effortlessly down a corridor, Blaise screaming curses, questions, demands. Bounty hesitated, then asked, “You insist upon witnessing this?”
“Absolutely,” Tis replied.
The Network master indicated a door. The humans were preternaturally silent as they trailed after Tisianne. Inside, a monitor filled one entire wall, giving a view of a sterile laboratory. Blaise was immobilized on a table. Fear clouded the gray eyes. He strained to lift his head.
“What are you doing to me?” he cried in terror.
“You will serve the remainder of your contract monitoring irrigation functions on Zanac,” said one of the Ly’bahr. “But a humanoid body is inefficient and costly to maintain. Your brain is all that is necessary.”
With a soft humming a caplike device was extruded from the end of the table and affixed to Blaise’s head.
“Grandfather, help me!” Tisianne could feel the fascinated and horrified gaze of the humans between his shoulder blades. To the Ly’bahr, Blaise screamed, “I’m not Zabb! I’m not. I jumped him. I stole his body. He’s dead. I’m Blaise! Tell them!” he shrieked hysterically at the ceiling. It was as if with Zabb’s stolen telepathy he could sense his grandfather watching.
“Jesus, he’ll jump!” Jay said suddenly.
“To an alien mind encased in a metal body? Impossible,” Tis said quietly. “And he has to see us to reach us.
A high-pitched whine filled the air. Blaise screamed, a sound so raw that it seemed impossible for a human throat to produce it. Mark let out a small cry like a frightened kitten, and Jay retched. Kelly’s arm slipped around Tis’s waist, but he read the exaltation in her mind.
“I think we’ve seen enough,” Tis said as the top of Blaise’s stolen skull was carefully twisted off.
Bounty nodded and returned the strongbox. “Good doing business with you, Raiyis. And you’ll want this.” He handed over the contract signed by Blaise which had ceded Ilkazam to the Network.
Tisianne spun on his heel and led Jay, Mark, and Kelly back through the umbilical.
“Jesus Christ.” Jay gulped air. “Vengeance as an art form.”
“Your fee,” Tis said, and handed the detective the strongbox.
They were almost back to Takis before Mark spoke. “Today, for the first time in all the years I’ve known you, you really felt like a Takisian to me.”
“Don’t be an idiot! Set her aside? On what grounds?”
Taj clutched distractedly at his hair, raging across the room and back again. Tis stared at his image in the mirror and made a face at the abject terror of the tailor fitting the coat. The paunch Kelly had grown for him made him feel heavy and ungainly, and the need for a drink ached in every muscle and fiber.
“How about that I don’t love her, and she’s a conniving and dangerous bitch?”
“Recall that Vayawand has agreed to cadet status. Marriages are a good way to cement such conquests,” Taj countered.
Tis briefly closed his eyes. “Why do you always have to be right?”
“A virtue of old age.”
“There is another matter,” Tis said. “I made a bargain with Yimkin to send him a bride. I’ll abide by that promise, but this is the last time we do it. We’re not going to barter and sell our women like chattel any longer.”
“As my lord commands.”
“I understand that since the wounded soldiers have returned to their own Houses, there is a move to reestablish Rarrana.”
“Yes, of course.”
“No, I’m abolishing it. End of discussion.”
The old man moved to Tisianne and laid an arm across his shoulders. “Tis, this is your experience talking.”
“Absolutely.”
“Rarrana is one of our cherished —”
“It doesn’t make any damn sense. From age fourteen to forty our girls are free to join in the life of the House. Then at forty they are married, start producing babies, and lose their freedoms. Why are they more precious at forty than they were at twenty-three?”
“Because they’re pregnant.”
“It stays abolished.”
“You are condemning our women to death!”
“Who is going to kill them? We’ve got bigger problems then preying on one another. The cities of Alaak, Ban, and Lira were totally destroyed. There’s going to be hunger in the southern hemisphere after Blaise’s scorched-earth policies. The Most Bred of House Rodaleh and Jeban have almost all been killed.”
Tisianne’s voice was spiraling upward. Taj suddenly gave his nephew’s arm a shake. “Tis, take a woman. If not Mon’aella, someone. It will help you remember who and what you are.”
“That’s a person I don’t want to remember.” He smiled at the puzzled expression on his uncle’s face and gently laid a hand on Taj’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Uncle. I am only a little mad.”
Jay paused at the top of the biogerm bubble and looked down at Hastet. “Hey, when I get out of the pickling vat, we’ve got to talk.”
“About what, please?”
“Well… us.”
“What about us?”
Takisians were discreet, that much could he said for them. The doctors assigned to oversee Jay’s regrow moved politely away.
“You know.”
“I know nothing. If you want me, you are going to have to ask for me.” She whirled and was gone. Jay thought about running after, then decided he’d look stupid in his little breechclout and nose plugs.
Mark found Roxalana packing. She waved to her maids to continue and led him onto the glass porch off her suite. It was rich with the scent of flowers.
“Busy?”
“It’s a useful substitute for worry.”
“What have you to worry about?” Mark asked.
“There’s a wonderful sense of safety in tradition and custom. Tisianne dismantles Rarrana. I am moving in with my husband. The poor man is quite terrified. Frankly, so am I.
“After the initial fear wears off, you’ll like being free.”
“I enjoyed being safe.” She bowed her head, and Mark found himself on one knee by her chair, his arms around her.
“I’ll never forget what you did for me.”
She stroked his hair, smiled. “I’m afraid you aren’t handsome enough to carry off life as a toy or an ornament. You needed your voice.”
“I’ll never forget you,” Mark said, and his voice had a little squeak and quaver to it.
Roxalana leaned in and kissed him long and slow on the mouth.
The three humans had taken up residence together. One afternoon, as Jay was idly popping objects from one side of the room to the other — just to assure himself that the new fingers worked — Mark suddenly said, “We gotta get home. It’s, like, time, man.”
An expression of almost comical dismay crossed Ackroyd’s face. “What about your plumbing?” he asked quickly. “Don’t you have to get hooked up again?”
Kelly hid a smile. Mark smiled placidly at the detective. “I already did it, while you were doing your regrow.”
“Oh.”
“Going to have to make a decision, Jay,” Kelly said. “This is the big C — commitment.”
“And don’t forget the L word,” Mark said to Kelly. “Love. Not to be confused with another four-letter word beginning with L.”
“I hope you both bloat up and die from horrible diseases.”
“You’ve only got two choices, Jay. You go home with her. Or you go home without her,” Mark said.
Jay took a seat at a table near the door. That way if it went bad, he wouldn’t have far to get booted. It was very early, and he was the only customer in the restaurant. Hastet hurried out from the kitchen and checked as she saw him.
Jay looked up from the menu. “You don’t have any crow today, do you?”
“What’s crow?”
“It’s a dish you eat when you’ve been stupid.”
“You must be a connoisseur of it.”
“There, now you’ve done it again. I just don’t know how I can go back to Earth and never get another love pat from the rough side of your tongue.” She didn’t respond. Just folded her arms across her chest and waited. “Think you could stand to leave this paradise of a planet?”
“I can stand quite a lot.”
“How about me?”
“I could get used to that too.”
“Doctor?”
“Yes, Kelly love.”
Her gray eyes widened at the sight of the enameled and inlaid sleigh, the two fidgeting l’lails. “What are you doing?”
“Taking Illyana and myself out for a breath of air. The taste of politics is coating my tongue.”
“In a sleigh?” the girl breathed.
“It’s a logical way to cross snow, and far more pleasant than a snowmobile. Would you like to come?”
“Oh, God, yes.”
They settled into a nest of furs. Tis handed the baby back to Kelly. “Here, you may as well get in practice.” He hesitated, arranged the reins between his gloved fingers. “Unless you choose to terminate.”
“He is all that’s left of Zabb,” Kelly said slowly.
“Which should place you under no obligation. You didn’t know my cousin.”
,’I know you loved him enough to be tempted to stay female.”
Tis arched an eyebrow at her. “I obviously taught you too well.”
She looked down at the little girl sleeping in her arms. “Doctor, do I have to go back to Earth?”
“I thought you would wish to.”
“Where would I fit? What would I be? How do I go back to Atoka and tell them I spent a year being a man, and I’ve lived on another planet, and I married and bedded a woman —”
“And now you’re an unwed teenage mother who can read minds,” Tis concluded softly.
She sighed. “Make a great sitcom. It’d be lousy in real life.”
“I totally agree.” Tis shook the reins, clucked to the l’lails, and the sleigh shot forward with a hiss of blades. “Of course you may stay. Taj will act as your protector —”
“Bat’tam’s already offered.” She hit him on the shoulder. “Stop chortling. He says he still hasn’t given up on you.”
“Oh, Ideal!”
“What is all this shit?” Jay looked over the cases and trunks that littered the docking bay at the Ilkazam ship farm.
“I had your clothes packed,” Tis said.
“Oh, goody, now I’ve got the next seventy-five Halloweens covered.”
Mark came wandering out from behind the gigantic ship. In places the rough surface blossomed into fantastic many-faceted crystals extruding like jeweled flowers from the body of the ship. Mark reached up and gently touched one long finger of crystal. It broke off with a high chiming sound, and Mark’s cheeks burned red with embarrassment. Tis shifted Illyana onto a hip, hurried to his friend’s side, and embraced him.
“It’s a gift. Don’t worry, Sundiver read your admiration and wanted to give you a memento.”
Smiling with delight, Mark bowed awkwardly to the ship. “Thanks… uh, well, thanks.”
“And while we’re on the subject of mementos.” Tis gestured to a servant, who offered a strongbox identical to the one that had paid off Jay.
The ace shook his head. “I don’t need pay, man. Some things you do for love.”
“Nonetheless, take it. For Sprout if nothing else.”
Tis crossed to Jay and Hastet. He gestured again, and the servant appeared with a carrying case. Tisianne offered it to Hastet. “I had troops search for several days, but they never located Haupi. Here’s a substitute, if you’re willing to accept her.”
Hastet opened the case, and a wanei stuck its head up, hissed at Jay, and retreated.
“You’re not taking that assortment of feathers and teeth masquerading as a pet, are you?” Jay yelped.
“Oh course,” Hastet said, and accepting the case, she crooned softly to the angry wanei.
“It’s illegal to import animals.”
“It’s illegal to import aliens too,” Tis said with a smile. “It is time, dear ones.”
Jay and Hastet walked up the ramp and into the ship. The bickering never stopped; they also never stopped holding hands. Tis shook his head and smiled up at Mark. The humans’ eyes were filling with tears.
“You always understand.”
Mark blinked rapidly, coughed, looked away. “I know you’re not coming. I don’t understand why.”
Tis had steeled himself for pain. It hadn’t been enough. Mark’s expression tore at his heart. “I’m tired, Mark, and confused, and I want to have my hand regrown, and I can’t run out on them again —”
“But you are coming back sometime. Aren’t you, man?”
“I don’t know.”
Mark looked down into Tis’s face for a long, long time. Finally he said softly. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”
Tisianne walked to the viewport, looked out at the cold and distant stars. Looked back and held out his good hand to Mark. The ace gripped it hard.
“I don’t know either.”
Mark crossed the bay and entered the ship and never looked back. Tis loved him for it. He and Illyana retreated beyond the bay doors, watched as the great ship slid from its berth. Watched long after the final ghost signature had faded.
He looked down and met the very serious aquamarine eyes of his only child. She stretched out an arm and laid a fist against his mouth.
“Come, daughter, let’s go home.”