Aces High by George R. R. Martin
Red just stared at him.
“TIAMAT,” Jhubben repeated, the newsboy gone from his voice and manner, speaking as a Network scientist might speak. “An Assyrian deity. I looked that up. Yet why call the Dark Sister by that name? Why not Baal, or Dagon, or one of the other nightmarish godlings you humans have invented? Why is the ultimate power word Assyrian when the rest of the mythology Cagliostro chose was Egyptian?”
“I don’t know,” Red said.
“I do. Because TIAMAT sounds vaguely like something the Shining Brother said. Thyat M’hruh. Darkness-for-the-race. The Ly’bahr term for the Swarm.” Jube laughed. He had been telling jokes for thirty-odd years, but no one had ever heard his real laugh before. It sounded like the bark of a seal. “The Master Trader would never have given you world dominion. We don’t give anything away for free. But we would have sold it to you. You would have been an elite of high priests, with ‘gods’ who actually listened and produced miracles on demand.”
“You are crazy, pal o’ mine,” Red said with forced jocularity. “The Shakti device was going to—”
“Shakti just means power,” Jhubben said. “It’s a tachyon transmitter, and that’s all it ever was.” He rose from the couch and thumped over to stand by the machine. “Setekh saw it and spared me. He thought I was a stray, a leftover from some offshoot branch. Probably he felt it would be wise to keep me around in case anything happened to Kafka. He’d be here now, but when TIAMAT headed back toward the stars, the Shakti device must have seemed somewhat irrelevant.”
“Sure, and isn’t it?”
“No. The transmitter has been calibrated. If I send the call, it will be heard on the nearest Network outpost in a matter of weeks. A few months later, the Opportunity will come.”
“What opportunity is that, brother?” Red asked.
“The Shining Brother will come,” Jhubben told him. “His chariot is the size of Manhattan Island, and armies of angels and demons and gods fight at his beck and call. They had better. They’ve got binding contracts, all of them.”
Red’s eyes narrowed in a squint. “You’re telling me it’s not over,” he said. “It can still happen, even without the Dark Sister.”
“It could, but it won’t,” Jube said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t intend to send the call.” He wanted to make Red understand. “I thought we were the cavalry. The Takisians used your race as experimental animals. I thought we were better than that. We’re not. Don’t you see, Red? We knew she was coming. But there would have been no profit if she never arrived, and the Network gives nothing away for free.”
“I think I’m getting it,” Red said. He picked up the bottle, but the rum was gone. “I need another drink,” he said. “How about you?”
“No,” Jube said.
Red went into the kitchen. Jube heard him opening and closing drawers. When he came out, he had a large carving knife in his hands. “Send the message,” he said.
“I went to see the Dodgers once,” Jube told him. He was tired and disappointed. “Three strikes and you’re out at the old ball game, isn’t that what they say? The Takisians, my own culture, and now humanity. Is there anyone who cares for anything beyond themselves?”
“I’m not kidding, Walrus,” Red said. “Don’t want to do this, pal o’ mine, but us Irish are a stubborn bunch of cusses. Hey, the cops are hunting us down out there. What kind of life is that for me and Kim Toy, I ask you? If it’s a choice between eating out of garbage cans and ruling the world, I’ll take the world every time.” He waved the carving knife. “Send the message. Then I’ll put this away and we can order up a pizza and swap a few jokes, okay? You can have rotten meat on your half.”
Jube reached under his shirt and produced a pistol. It was a deep translucent red-black, its lines smooth and sensual yet somehow disquieting, its barrel pencil-thin. Points of light flickered deep inside it, and it fit Jube’s hand perfectly. “Stop it, Red,” he said. “It won’t be you ruling the world. It will be the Astronomer, and Demise, or guys just like them. They’re bastards, you told me so yourself.”
“We’re all bastards,” Red told him. “And the Irish aren’t as thick as they say. That’s a toy ray-gun, pal o’ mine.”
“I gave it to the boy upstairs for Christmas,” Jube said. “His guardian gave it back. It wouldn’t break, you see, but the metal was so hard that Doughboy was breaking everything else in the house when he played with it. I put the power cell back in, and wore the harness whenever I went to the Cloisters. It made me feel a little braver.”
“I don’t want to do this,” Red said.
“Neither do I,” Jhubben replied.
Red took a step forward.
The phone rang a long time. Finally someone picked it up at the other end. “Hello?”
“Croyd,” Jube said, “sorry to bother you. It’s about this body.…”
The Wild Cards Series
Wild Cards I: Wild Cards
Wild Cards II: Aces High
Wild Cards III: Jokers Wild
Aces Abroad
Down and Dirty
Ace in the Hole
Dead Man’s Hand
One-Eyed Jacks
Jokertown Shuffle
Double Solitaire
Dealer’s Choice
Turn of the Cards
Card Sharks
Marked Cards
Black Trump
Deuces Down
Death Draws Five
Inside Straight
Busted Flush
Suicide Kings
Fort Freak
Copyright Acknowledgments
“Pennies from Hell” copyright © 1987 by Lewis Shiner.
“Unto the Sixth Generation” and “Mr. Koyama’s Comet” copyright © 1987 by Walter Jon Williams.
“Ashes to Ashes” copyright © 1987 by the Amber Corporation.
“If Looks Could Kill” copyright © 1987 by Walton Simons.
“Winter’s Chill” and “Jube” copyright © 1987 by George R. R. Martin.
“Relative Difficulties” copyright © 1987 by Melinda M. Snodgrass.
“With a Little Help from His Friends” copyright © 1987 by Victor Milán.
“By Lost Ways” copyright © 1987 by Pat Cadigan.
“Half Past Dead” copyright © 1987 by John J. Miller.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.
WILD CARDS II: ACES HIGH
Copyright © 1987 by George R. R. Martin
All rights reserved.
A Tor® eBook
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Aces high / edited by George R. R. Martin—1st Tor paperback ed.
p. cm.—(Wild cards; v. 2)
“A Tom Doherty Associates Book.”
ISBN 978-0-7653-2616-4 (pbk.)
1. Science fiction, American. I. Martin, George R. R. II. Martin, George R. R.
PS648.S3A275 2011
813'.087620806—dc23
2011024288
First Tor Edition: December 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-9499-6
George R. R. Martin, Aces High
(Series: Wild Cards # 2)