Double solitaire

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Touch him, bitch, and I’ll cut off your nipples and feed them to your baby!”

Tis hadn’t remembered fainting. Actually she didn’t remember much past the time when they reached the heavy doors of Rarrana. It was then that she panicked, fought, beating at Zabb’s chest and face.

And now she was waking to a threatening voice echoing with the yowl of a back-fence cat warning off interlopers. Raising a hand, she lightly touched her forehead. Felt the residual signature of Zabb. No, not a faint, a coerced sleep. He had subdued her the way a man would tranquilize a frightened animal. Is that how the humans felt when I used my power on them? she wondered.

The sound of receding footsteps, the slam of a door. More distant and less distinct sounds began to force their way to her consciousness. Babies crying, children laughing, squalling, calling to each other in play. The yap of excited hounds romping with the children. Sounds of adult activity – the muted melody of water falling softly into fountain basins, a string quartet rehearsing, the drone of an announcer on the holo commenting on the action in a sporting competition.

There was a prickling sense that let her know that she was surrounded by people – female people by the delicate scent of their perfumes – and then one particular fragrance struck like a belly blow, and for one flashing, painful moment Tis was five years old again. Pillowed on his mother’s breast, screaming mentally because the telepathic communication that he had shared with his mother almost since the moment of his conception had been brutally and suddenly broken. In the background had been the same busy sounds of Rarrana. It had been Roxalana who had gathered him into her arms then.

It was Roxalana who gripped Tisianne’s shoulders now and pulled her into a sitting position. Disoriented by the strength of the memory, Tis murmured, “You’re wearing mother’s scent.” Tisianne opened her eyes.

Roxalana looked not very much different than Tis remembered. She had their father’s tipped-up eyes; they gave her a wicked, calculating look that was undeserved. She was as direct as a knife blade, and often as painful.

But it was Pandasala who jumped in with the sharp, acerbic comment. “For only the past forty years. Outstanding that you finally noticed.”

It was perfectly in character for her. It was said that life with Pandasala had prepared her husband for (or driven him into) the highly dangerous sport of agma hunting.

“Of course you have been gone,” said Cillka.

“Without sparing a thought for your poor sisters,” added Tri’ava.

“And we were supposed to make a baby together,” Melant said.

“We took a terrible drop in prestige when our nearest male relative was a mere regent.”

“Now maybe you’ll understand our plight,” finished Shi’tha.

And there was that rustling, the sideways glances that women exchange when they are hiding tolerant amusement at the foibles of men. Despite Tis’s forced sex change, it was apparent that in the eyes of her sisters arrayed about her that she was still a moronic male. Tis scanned the six delicate faces – Roxalana, Melant, Tri’ava, Pandasala, Shi’tha, Cillka.

They were all varying shades of blond, from the deep burnished bronze of the eldest, Roxalana, to the new minted gold of Cillka, the baby until Tach had come along ninety years later. Tis realized that since her body switch she finally looked like one of the family, an offspring of Shaklan and Ts’ara. She was even the right sex. After seven daughters the House Ilkazam had begun to despair of the Raiyis ever siring a boy child. They had even suggested that Shaklan break his unnatural fascination with his primary wife and try fathering a child on some other appropriately pedigreed woman. Shaklan refused and eventually Tisianne had arrived – male and redheaded, an oddity. Now Tis fit… On the whole she would just as soon have remained a changeling.

Other details were coming into focus. They were in the great star-shaped central courtyard of Rarrana. Directly in the center, beneath a domed skylight, was a bathing pool. Naked women dandled their children in the water or played silly water games. Like all pools on Takis, it was shallow. Takisians were notoriously bad swimmers. For a distance of four feet from the pool the ground was inlaid with beautiful mosaic pictures, most of which were hidden beneath bodies where more women lounged, enjoying the warmth of the heated tiles. Tarhiji servants slipped through carrying food, drink, towels. La’bs both male and female were very much in evidence, massaging the bodies of their mistresses, kissing them, feeding them, reading to them from holos floating comfortably at eye level. Nearby a couple was copulating, and Tis felt her cheeks go red. She quickly looked away and cursed Earth for turning her into a prude.

The jagged walls of the room were pierced with doors like tiny mouths. These were the least desirable quarters in Rarrana – noisy, no private garden, the least defensible if an enemy should penetrate the women’s quarters. Tis glanced up at the catwalk circling the bathing pool and counted seven guards.

She then looked back to her sisters. Four of them were pregnant. Five if you counted Tisianne. She chuckled humorlessly. “Well, we Sennari are a fertile lot, aren’t we?”

“Burning Sky, Tis, how did you end up in such an absurd situation?” Roxalana exploded.

It wasn’t really a question. It was an irritable exclamation of how troublesome their little brother was – and Lani ought to know. It had been her task to raise him after their mother’s murder.

Tis’s heart seemed to be expanding, filling her chest with an emotion so strong, the small body didn’t seem able to contain it. There is a closeness among telepathic people even when their shields are up. A constant leak of low-level, unimportant thoughts like the chuckling of a brook. It’s very comforting, and to be without it is like placing a normal human in an isolation tank. To find herself now in the midst of telepaths who loved her and had lowered all barriers so that affection could flow through was indescribable. Tisianne held out her hands to her sisters. Murmured their names as they each came forward and gave her the kiss between close relatives.

The love fest lasted about three minutes, then Roxalana called them to order. “Shi’tha, Cillka, circulate and see who’s talking to whom. Who’s suddenly decided to visit their wives. Which fathers have suddenly been seized with an overwhelming desire to contact their daughters.” The two women nodded and left.

“Come.” Lani helped Tis to her feet.

“Where?”

“Zabb left strict instructions. You’re getting the best suite in Rarrana.”

“How… condescending of him. Should I be grateful?”

“Probably,” said Pandasala. “It may save your life.”

“You think they’ll try to kill me?”

“You have been away a long time,” Melant called back over her shoulder as they hurried down switch-backed halls. “The Kou’nar have several deaths and a blighted hope to avenge.”

They reached a doorway, and Roxalana keyed the telepathic lock. It was an impressive set of rooms. Deep spider-silk carpets covered the marble floor, insulation to keep out the biting cold of Takis. In one corner there was a ten-foot-tall tiled stove-fireplace. Sofas, chairs, several tables. A card table near the stove, and a ka’et. Set atop the polished surface of the instrument was a re’ba’bi.

Tis crossed to the instruments, stroked the keys of the ka’et, and experimentally plucked the strings of the re’ba’bi. She set it carefully back down atop the ka’et, then slammed her hands down on the keyboard. The discord made Melant jump.

“This is my fucking instrument! He had this planned all along!” Nobody asked for a translation of the English word. A curse in any language seems to communicate.

Tri’ava turned back from her contemplation of the moonlit gardens and twitched shut the draperies over the double glass doors. “Interesting you should mention Zabb. I think he’s as much of a threat as the Kou’nar.”

Roxalana shook her head. “He could have had Egyon do the job for him. Why wait?”

“Lani’s right. I think he’s just enjoying the sight of me helpless and imprisoned,” Tis said.

The bitterness couldn’t be masked, the Tis realized it was not just for herself, but for her sisters as well. Had Earth affected her so much that she now questioned the basic tenets of her culture?

“This is for your protection, remember?” Pandasala said. “We women are so precious.” A sneer trembled at the edges of the word.

So even Takis breeds malcontents, Tis thought.

Melant flung herself into a chair. “I think Panda regrets not being bitshuf’di.”

There was a touch of spite in the words. Roxalana made a slashing gesture before Pandasala could respond to the goading. “Both of you go. Tis doesn’t need to be agitated by your sniping.”

Melant pouted. “But I wanted to discuss our baby. The genetic work-ups were so encouraging, Tis. When you do recover your body, please loan it to me for a night.”

Tis tried to mask the hurt but knew she didn’t succeed very well. She was a very poor telepath, and she threw off emotions like sparks off a spinning firework. “My track record with children hasn’t been very good so far. Perhaps you should stick with Baiyin.”

Melant paused at the door. “He’s not going to be Raiyis.”

“Right now neither am I.”

Pandasala placed her hands in the middle of Melant’s back and shoved. Tri’ava gave a little wave and closed the door carefully behind her. For a long moment Roxalana and Tis regarded that closed door, then cautiously returned their scrutiny to each other.

“They’re angry. You’re all angry with me,” Tis said softly.

“You abandoned us, and now you’re back, but not as an asset, an ally to help us further our goals, promote our projects, advance our children. Instead you’re a burden. It isn’t enough that we have to protect ourselves, our children still in tails. We have to protect you as well.”

“Then don’t! I have my humans, and Taj, and though my mentatic skill is all but gone, I still have my wits.”

“Oh, no, Tis. We’ll protect you. Even finding you in this ridiculous scrape is better than believing you were a traitor – but you still leave us in a most untenable position. If you die, we suffer. The new Raiyis may decide that a living Sennari is a threat – more than a conspiracy. I don’t want to see my children die. I don’t want to see my sisters die.” She paused, and the severe lines around her mouth relaxed. It wasn’t quite a smile. “I don’t even want to see my little brother die.”

“The two humans -”

“May have formidable powers, but for the moment they’re useless to us. You’ll need guards, but leave the selection to me. You haven’t enough telepathy to weed out even the most obvious assassin.”

Tis hung her head. She had been so proud of the telepathy she had force-fed the borrowed human body. Once home, she realized just how rudimentary and useless it was.

“So you’re keeping me alive in the faint hope I might recover my body and leadership of the House. Other than that I’m useless.”

“You are inhabiting the body of an inferior groundling. Carrying a half-breed abomination. You’re not precisely an asset. But you are Tisianne, and…”

She whirled and left the room. But the thought lingered like the scent of her perfume. I do care for you.

“I want to see her.”

Mark was leaning over the desk, hands braced on the polished surface. They were in the office of the Raiyis, and Zabb looked very much at home as he lolled in the padded chair and swung lightly from side to side.

“Lilistizkar is the traditional visiting day. You’ll just have to wait.”

“And when is this lillyshit?” asked Jay. “Sometime in the next century?”

“Only three days.”

“I want to see her now.” Mark tried to sound threatening. Ended up sounding pleading.

“Quite impossible. Only husbands have unlimited visiting rights.”

“Then I’ll marry her.”

“Jesus,” muttered Jay.

Zabb’s smile deepened. Then, arranging his features into one of somber consideration, he said gravely, “I’m afraid as Raiyis I must refuse your offer for my cousin’s hand.”

“Come on, Meadows.” Jay took Mark by the arm and tugged. “He’s just fucking with us and enjoying the hell out of it. Don’t be a toy for him. We’ll just have to wait until visiting hours at the zoo. Maybe they’ll even let us feed the girls, bring them some grapes, chocolate…

“You have no conception of life within Rarrana. It is not a prison.”

“Can Tachyon leave?”

Zabb’s silence provided all the answer they needed. A chime indicated an incoming call. Zabb keyed the stage. The image of his secretary appeared.

“Yes?”

“Sir, Captain Nesfa,” the man said.

“Abyss take the woman!” Zabb said. “What part of no doesn’t she understand?”

“Will you speak with her, my lord?”

“No. Thank her for her continued interest in my well-being, but tell her I must decline her invitation due to responsibilities at home.” With a vicious jab Zabb killed the holo. “Now, where were we?”

“I was going to ask you if I can blow this Popsicle stand, go into town, check out the fleshpots of Takis,” Jay said.

“No.”

“Shit.”

Jay expected Mark to react with that little wince with which the other ace met all of Jay’s more outrageous remarks. But the hippie seemed to have withdrawn into some kind of fugue state, maybe an LSD flashback.

“If that is all…” Zabb began.

“Women are permitted in Rarrana without restriction?” Mark said.

Jay wondered if a space voyage had dropped Meadows’s IQ.

“Obviously.”

“Cool.” Meadows knelt and snapped open his briefcase. Pulled out the black-and-silver powder. A few seconds later, and Moonchild stood before them.

“Now, I would wish to see the Doctor.”

Jay was expecting Zabb to refuse, but there was a faint smile at the corners of that thin-lipped mouth. He didn’t seem to mind being trumped. “By all means. Just be out before the change. I would hate to have to kill you.,’

“Yeah, we feel that way about you too,” Jay said.

“He changes into a woman,” Roxalana mused. “What a useful man. We might have some hope of understanding between the sexes if more of them could do that.”

“Wish someone would give me the power to move in the other direction,” Pandasala said.

And Tisianne made a mental note that if she ever did escape from her current predicament, she would find some way to free Pandasala from hers.

“How beautiful she is,” Cillka breathed, and gently touched a strand of Moonchild’s jet black hair.

Moonchild bowed. “Thank you, gracious lady, but my time is limited, and we must reach a decision concerning the Doctor’s safety before I must leave.”

“Why can’t you stay to guard Tisianne?” Shi’tha asked.

“I exist for only an hour in human time.”

“Unfortunate,” Melant said.

“Yes, very. I have sought some way to free all of the individuals who make up Mark Meadows so that we might each pursue our own karma, our own futures, but so far I have been unsuccessful.”

“Your offer is generous, groundling,” Roxalana said. “But I can select guards for my brother.”

“Without offense, lady, I must say I would feel better if one of the guards was Mark.”

“Mark is a man,” Melant said with that careful patience one reserves for stupid children and animals.

“So are most of our guards,” Tisianne said suddenly. “The key is that they are neutered.” She gathered Moonchild’s hands in hers. “A vasectomy is easily performed. Easily reversed for my people. If you’ll do it, you can stay with me.”

“Zabb will not permit it. He has already refused to allow Mr. Ackroyd to leave the House. I think he fears that Mr. Ackroyd might find a way to kidnap Blaise. He will use every means to neutralize our powers.”

“Go to Taj. He has sworn allegiance to Zabb, but this in no way compromises that oath. He cares for me. He will help,” Tis said.

“My brother is correct,” Roxalana said. “And use my son Rowan to send us word when you are coming. We’ll see that your arrival causes as little comment as possible.”

“Moonchild, thank you.”

“We will be back soon.” The ace slipped through the door, into the shadows, and vanished.

Mark had set the telepathic damper on the table in Tisianne’s old quarters. Ackroyd’s hand shot out and caught his wrist before he could turn it on.

“Hey, doesn’t that thing, like, cause headaches, and give hemorrhoids, and cause telepaths to pick up mariachi stations on their fillings for a hundred-mile radius? In short, isn’t this really going to piss off the Takisians if we fire it up, and aren’t they going to come and pound us into the ground like tent pegs?”

Mark folded his lips in a tight line. Parted them just enough to say, “I’m in the mood to piss off Takisians. One Takisian in particular.”

Mark then outlined Tisianne’s plan. He should have predicted Ackroyd’s reaction. “You are crazy! Fucking crazy!” Jay ran agitated hands through his hair and took a sharp turn around himself.

“The issue is that you can’t be a fertile male -” Mark argued.

“I thought you were crazy when you offered to marry the bitch. Now you’re offering to have your dick chopped off?”

“These aren’t, like, primitives, man. This is a really medically sophisticated society. Hell, vasectomies are reversible on Earth. The Doc says it’s a cinch to fix here.”

“They have harems so you won’t fuck their women.”

“No. They have harems to prevent assassination and unplanned pregnancies. Sex is fine. The Doc told me they have toys – both the men and the women – beautiful neutered sex partners. A snip, and we’ll be no threat, we can stay with the Doc.”

“What’s this we, white man? I am not going to become a eunuch for Tachyon. That was not part of the deal!”

He was arrested at the door by Mark saying, If we don’t keep the Doc alive, there’s no return ticket.”

That almost got him. Almost. “Uh-uh. No. No way. This is a nice little planet. Maybe I’ll put down roots, open an office, get back into divorce work – if Takisians get divorces. Take a wife. Raise some kids.”

All the while he was talking, he was edging for the door. Hand on the knob, out the door, into the hall. Unfortunately sound carries. And you can’t not listen. Can’t not understand.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset.” Mark’s voice pursued him like a restless spirit. “You’re dickless already, Jay.”

ican’t/iwon’t/i’lldie/i’llkill!/novirus!

The slap took both of them by surprise. Roxalana for administering it, Tisianne for receiving it. They stood staring at each other, then Tis slowly lifted a hand to her cheek.

“All the years of my childhood you never hit me.”

“I left that to Melant. She was my designated hitter.” Roxalana turned away and straightened a vase that didn’t need straightening. Tis couldn’t help it. Outraged dignity, hurt feelings were forgotten. She laughed. “What?” demanded her sister with some truculence.

“It has a very different meaning on Earth.”

Roxalana lifted the meaning and the ludicrous image from Tisianne’s mind. Melant in a Yankees uniform, arranging her bat with that butt wiggle that is unique to baseball players.

“Seems like a silly game.”

“It’s a lovely game. If I ever get out of here, I’m going to introduce it on Takis.” Tis walked to the window and looked out. “But as hopeless as things seem now, I may have to settle for a ladies’ softball league.”

“Is that necessarily so inferior?”

“It’s not the future I envisioned for myself.” Standing was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Tis retired to a lounging sedan and arranged her bulky body. “I don’t think I can survive in here. The boredom and paranoia are going to kill me.”

“I seem to recall the beginning of this little squabble was an offer of employment from Segath. You have more firsthand experience with the virus than any member of the research team living or dead. Get back in the laboratory and share that experience.”

“I will not work on the virus – nonnegotiable, don’t raise it again.” Tis eyed the ceiling where guards patrolled on the hidden catwalk, watched the two women through monitors. Softly Tis continued. “For half my life I’ve been free from this scrutiny. I came as I pleased and went as I pleased. I asked permission of no one. Do you know how wonderful aloneness can be? We think we ignore them.” She jerked her head toward the unseen guards. “But we don’t. We’re always aware of them. The worst for me was when I was sick. I didn’t mind fucking, snoring, crapping, eating, farting, belching in front of them, but puking… you’re at your most vulnerable and unattractive in that moment.”

“Try birthing,” was the unsympathetic reply.

It was a topic Tisianne wished to avoid. She turned onto her side, away from that disapproving presence.

“I can’t tolerate self-pity and tantrums, Tis. You got to go on a decades-long lark while the rest of us did our duty – and almighty irksome were those duties, let me assure you. So don’t expect me to regret your lack of freedom. It was purchased at great cost by the rest of us.

Their father’s death lay between them.

“And finally I’m sick of you denigrating the accomplishments of this segment of the House. Why is an action by a woman less valued in your eyes? You’re bored because you don’t feel the work we are doing here is worthy of your attention, much less your participation. Shi’tha’s research in ghost-gate theory may enable us to fold space and so cross the galaxy in the time it currently takes us to reach Ship Home. I have a class of very promising youngsters about to exit Rarrana and begin their higher education. I taught them… and I taught them well. The girls I send out today will return in thirty years ready to be mothers, and teachers, and researchers, and painters, and composers.

“You’re a doctor – well, stop pouting in this room and get out and doctor. Or if that’s not to your taste, volunteer for cradle duty. You value freedom so much – free up some busy mother for her work. Ideal knows you could use the experience. A little primer before you birth your daughter. That’s where your focus should be – on your child. Not on politics, not on the breakdown of Takisian society. We build society here – one child at a time. You’re part of the process now.”

Tisianne laid a hand on her belly. Felt the joyous leap of Illyana’s mind as she greeted her parent. That parent realized with some guilt that she had been virtually ignoring the baby by blocking Illyana’s questing thought tendrils.

Swinging her legs off the lounge, Tis moved to her sister, hugged Roxalana close. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid your little brother, despite his skin change, hasn’t learned very much. He’s still an idiotic male.” Roxalana’s hand was soft on her hair, stroking, pulling apart the slight tangles with her fingers. “All right, let me doctor. I have two good hands. I should be grateful for that.”

All briskness again, Roxalana held her at arm’s length. “Let me make amends for hitting you.” Moving swiftly to the door, she called back over her shoulder. “Here is the bodyguard you’ve been missing.”

The door opened, and Mark Meadows grinned sheepishly down at her.