Double Solitaire by George R. R. Martin

  A man was suspended in thin air, being propelled by some unseen force from the door of the shuttle to the deck of the gondola. He hurried to the party surrounding Blaise and dropped to his knees.

  "My lord," the man said.

  Blaise smiled tightly down at him and rolled an eye to Durg. The Morakh stepped ponderously forward. "Der'et, one of our intelligence officers from the Bonded station."

  "This better be good. You've interrupted me."

  "Perhaps in private, master," Durg said softly.

  "Fuck that," Blaise said in English.

  "A Network ship docked today. Tisianne brant Ts'ara and Zabb brant Sabina were aboard. They were taken to Ilkazam, and there have been shots exchanged with the Network vacu."

  Durg watched the color drain from the boy's face. "Oh no. No. How? How did he get here?"

  Hesitantly the spy offered, "The Network, Raiyis."

  Blaise turned on Durg. "Why didn't you tell me? You said we'd be safe. He couldn't get here!"

  "Calm yourself."

  It was an inauspicious recommendation. It lit the fuse of Blaise's fury, and he went plunging like a linebacker through the diminutive Takisians clustered about him.

  Durg didn't have time to deal with Blaise's tantrums at the moment. The news of a Network encroachment into Takisian space was alarming. Glancing down at the huddled spy, Durg said, "Return at once to the station and monitor the Network. Apprise me of any movement or messages." Durg started away, then looked back briefly. "And I suggest you not take formal leave of the Raiyis."

  There was a sudden murmur of sound from the stern of the gondola, and a wavelike movement as the crowd reacted like an amoeba touched with a finger. With mounting concern Durg rolled through the crowd.

  Saw Kelly, running like a maddened jebali, screaming Durg's name. The man slammed into his chest, and the extent of the disaster came into focus in sharp, hard-edged images -- a white-and-red-coated bone splinter sticking through the skin of Kelly's forearm.

  Durg grabbed Kelly and shook him. The man screamed. Broken ribs, Durg registered.

  "Where is Blaise?"

  "He's going to kill him! He tried to save me! He'll kill me!" Kelly babbled.

  Durg kicked into a run. Through the ranks of shocked Zal'hma at' Irg. "Go," the Morakh roared at the assembled nobles. They went.

  Blaise was a frozen statue, but great beads of sweat were squeezing through the skin on his forehead, matting in the red sideburns, rolling down through the blood on his cheek. Bat'tam, armed with a broken, blood-drenched goblet, was slowly gnawing through his lower lip. Blood was beginning to run down his chin.

  Kelly crept past Durg to Bat'tam's side. The elderly noble put an arm around Kelly's waist, held him close -- but gently, so gently. A part of Durg's mind registered this development and wondered if the boykisser was going to be a problem requiring a permanent solution.

  "Release him," Durg ordered.

  An alien emotion ran like a furtive animal through his guts. Then Durg tensed, and as Bat'tam's desperate mind control relaxed, the Morakh swiftly slapped Blaise across the face. "Are you mad? You rule House Vayawand. How can you fear a pregnant female?"

  "I don't want there to be even a chance that Tachyon can recover his body. She" -- Blaise's out-thrust arm was so taut that it shivered with strain as he pointed at Kelly -- "is useless to us now. I want her dead."

  "Useless?" Bat'tam's fingers tightened briefly on Kelly's waist. The man's nervousness jumped in each syllable. "My lord, in this body reposes ten thousand years of planned breeding. The finest genetic legacy the Ilkazam could create. This is a treasure not to be wasted."

  "You don't give a shit about irreplaceable genetic material, you just want to fuck my granddaddy," Blaise spat. Bat'tam bowed his head. "Get out of here, faggot." Bat'tam hastened to obey.

  Durg allowed the silence to stretch into an agonizingly long minute. Gave the killing frenzy time to die. "Perhaps his motives are not the most pure, but if the reasonable argument does not appeal... consider how it would complicate Tisianne's life if we raided the Ilkazam gene pool," Durg said softly.

  The final flicker of insane fire faded from Blaise's dark eyes. He tugged thoughtfully at his lower lip and regarded Kelly. "What did you have in mind?"

  "Marriage is a very useful institution." After a moment's hesitation Blaise began to laugh.

  There was nervous shifting from the nobles all huddled in the bow of the gondola. Blaise's face darkened. "Are any of them spying on me?"

  Durg shrugged. "It's possible. I'm the wrong person to ask."

  "I can't trust any of them."

  "You have the sworn personal loyalty of every Morakh in House Vayawand. The Zal'hma at' Irg need not concern you."

  Blaise was shaking his head, sending sweat and blood droplets flying. "I think we ought to get the hell out of here. I've got to have support ......

  Durg held himself in close control. Watched the careful facade of nerve and competence he had constructed and coached into this boy crumbling like an avalanche. Sought a solution. Then softly he said, "My lord, the psi lords are not the only people on Takis."

  Chapter Twenty

  "How the hell does a sixteen-year-old kid become a king in six weeks? A month? Whatever it's been in Takisian time?" Jay blurted.

  "I was hoping you would enlighten me," Taj said.

  "What does it matter?" Tis said bitterly. "Now it will require a war to dislodge him. I'll have to use Zabb, I can't trust him, and he may kill both Blaise and my body."

  "Hey, man, like don't forget about us," Mark said with a significant lift of the eyebrows, and an obvious head jerk to Jay.

  Sadness washed across the old man's face. "Over the weeks I've watched the well-bred of House Vayawand kill each other like maddened sinde. It culminated with L'gura's suicide. Ancestors know I hated that bloodless bastard, but he deserved to be ruined by a gentleman, preferably me." Taj smiled, but the momentary flash of humor died fast. "Not manipulated by a piece of unplanned afterbirth." Taj sighed. "Well, his death shall be avenged. Now that I know this is a mentatic phenomenon, it can be countered."

  "With difficulty," Mark warned.

  In painfully slow, excruciatingly bad English, Taj said, "Adversity is a state I understand. Achieving the impossible commonplace. What is merely difficult should be easily achieved."

  There was a soft chime, and Tis keyed the desk. A holo of the door guard sprang to life on the desk. The man's face registered shock, and he couldn't seem to say a word.

  "Yes? What is it?" Tis asked. Nothing. Irritated, Tis pushed. "You interrupt me, it must be something."

  Taj stepped to her, laid a hand on her shoulder. "They don't know you, and he's never seen a woman in that chair."

  Relieved at seeing Taj, the man reported that Zabb was requesting an audience.

  Taj glanced at Tis. She nodded wearily. "Let him in.

  Zabb entered in his usual sweeping style. "We've got trouble. Remember that claimant Baz mentioned? Well, they're attempting to ram through an elevation before any of us can react. I think we had best react."

  "Curse that motherless Egyon," Taj said. "I wonder what spooked him."

  "Probably me wandering about the halls," Zabb said. "And you know a palace, rumors pump like bile through the halls. The word must be out that Tisianne has returned. Either one of us has a superior claim to the Kou'nar line."

  Taj summoned the guard, who wrapped themselves like a protective cloak about the Takisians and the humans and hustled them through the corridors of the sprawling House.

  While they walked, Tisianne explained how her entire plan rested on her ability to command the troops of the House Ilkazam. "If I lose the Raiyis'tet, it's a sure bet that the new Raiyis won't help me recover my lost body. If he does, he costs himself the throne."

  They kept nodding sagely, but Tis wondered how much they had really grasped. Ideal! She wondered how much she had grasped. It was all happening too quickly. There was no time for her to ea
se back into the life of a world she had left half a lifetime before.

  She didn't know how to conspire anymore, she didn't want to. Resentment and weariness chewed at her. She wanted to react to the familiar faces she saw throughout the ranked bodies of her armed guards. She wanted to savor childhood memories brought back with painful vividness by the scent of baking pastries, or a particular tapestry. She didn't want to be thrust willy-nilly into the battle. She wanted someone to bring her her stolen body and put her back where she belonged. She wanted to be at peace for the first time in forty-four years.

  Illyana sent a wave of warmth and love from the womb to her mother's mind. Tisianne's breath caught at the overwhelming sweetness of it. At three months the baby had been little more than a sensory sponge. Now at seven and a half months she was becoming an individual. And the problem, you little demon, Tis sent to her daughter, though she knew the ideas were too complex for the baby's developing mind to comprehend.

  I love you and I want you, but I don't want to birth you. I'm frightened -- of the pain, of the entire experience ... Ancestors! I don't have time for these thoughts, I have to preserve my House, my station. I have to be warrior, not woman. No, that's not right. Cody would be quick to jump down my throat. Women can be fighters. Mother then, my mind more on life than death ... Hush, Illyana, sleep, baby, don't distract me now.

  Through the doors, and into an elaborate audience chamber. Tis remembered it being much larger. Had it shrunk or had she somehow grown? A knot of people were gathered about the platform holding the chair of the Raiyis of Ilkazam. It seemed to have been carved from a piece of glacial ice, filigreed with snowflakes. It was in truth constructed of an almost obscene number of diamonds supported on a platinum frame. Such conspicuous consumption on a planet so mineral poor. We're psi lords, mentats, Most Bred, the Zal'hma at' Irg, Tis reminded herself. It didn't do much to assuage the guilt. Too long on Earth, she thought.

  The pretender could be recognized by his sulky, disappointed expression. He had been rushed into his festival finery, for the cloak was caught up in the waistband of his ballooning trousers. Tis noted in shock that the boy still wore a mother badge twined about his left wrist. Not yet twenty -- a baby! -- and someone had made him a target.

  Tis raked the rest of the assembly, searching for the Svengali. Egyon, Taj had said. Yes, that would fit. Zabb's thought concurred with her conclusion. Tis also had to admire Taj's intelligence sources. The personal guard of the Sennari line well outnumbered the more ceremonial escort protecting the Kou'nar conspirators.

  Tis ignored the boy with his spun caramel hair dressed to form two horns rising from above each ear. Instead she addressed his trainer.

  "Not yet, I think, vindi. There are still three lives between you and your ambition."

  Egyon pivoted elegantly to face her. He was dressed in fencing leathers dyed in multicolored squares, and his pale brown hair was clasped with a knife-and-sheath barrette. Obviously he had been caught unawares, but Tisianne had to grudgingly admire the speed of his response.

  "Three, Tisianne brant Ts'ara sek Halima sek Ragnar? Are you counting that unplanned abortion you're carrying?" Egyon asked sweetly.

  The need to do murder flickered once like a whipping snake's tail. Tis buried the urge. "Your powers must be failing, Egyon. This is a girlchild. And you forget my father, who is not dead yet."

  "As good as!" flared the pouting child.

  "Quiet!" Egyon ordered.

  "Yes, quiet, little one," Tisianne agreed. "I'm trying to save your life." The boy's eyes widened slightly. "Yes, consider that. Do you really feel you have the experience to lead this House?"

  There was an instant of silence, then Zabb showed his teeth and said softly, "No, that's not a good idea."

  Her cousin had read the boy's mind. Tisianne his body language, but she understood nonetheless.

  "Zabb's my heir," Tis said. "You could put him in command of your troops, but will he fight the Vayawand or usurp you?" She shrugged eloquently.

  "We have no proof this is Tisianne," Egyon said. "Just the unsupported word of the regent. You're all Sennari seed. You'd do anything to keep the Raiyis'tet from falling to the Kou'nar."

  "Test her," said Zabb, and Tis took a quick, sidling step away from her cousin. He reached out and caught her above the elbow, held her still. "But not you, Egyon. This poor little human mind can't protect itself well enough, and I'm not going to have my cousin conveniently die from a brain aneurysm."

  Relief suddenly removed the clog from her throat, and Tis quickly followed Zabb's lead. "I'll submit to an examination by the full Ajayiz. That should establish to anyone's satisfaction that I am Tisianne."

  Zabb threw back his head and shouted, "And you can't tell me you old beldams aren't monitoring this little drama. So get in here, and let us do it."

  "Zabb," said Taj warningly.

  "They'd rather be amused than defend the House. Better to sit in the ashes and stir them with the stumps of their arms than miss one moment of emotional turmoil from their descendants." In a more moderate tone he said to Taj, "Sorry, vindi, but I've always thought they were manipulative old spiders."

  "There's no need to convene the Ajayiz. It was already decided that Onyze should ascend --"

  "The situation's changed, Egyon, you'll have to do better than that," Tis said.

  Suddenly the House rang with a tone so high that it pained the ears and vibrated in the bones. The exterior manifestation of that call was painful enough -- for the telepaths it was almost unbearable. The Takisians staggered, and Taj, who was a powerful and subtle telepath, was driven almost to his knees. Tisianne held up better than any of them because of the feeble abilities of her borrowed human body. But she felt it, drawn like a knife across her nerve endings. Only the Tarhiji guards and the humans were unaffected.

  Mark, kind to the last and always concerned, supported Taj, even checked the old man's pulse. The final aching harmonics died away, and the Takisians recovered. Taj pulled abruptly away from Mark, leaving the ace blinking in hurt confusion. Taj noticed. Glancing back, he said gruffly, "Your kindness was appreciated if unnecessary."

  Mark brightened perceptibly, and Tis was reminded again how much he loved this fine old man. Taj truly was a grand seigneur.

  "Is that the Takisian version of a dog whistle?" asked Jay.

  Zabb gave a short bark of laughter. In a manner of speaking, yes."

  "It is the Council Call," Taj said, irritated by their flippancy.

  Zabb's grin became even broader. "Little cousin, you are more troublesome and get a bigger reaction than a swarm of scissor wings. They're actually coming down."

  Panic took a brief run around the pit of her stomach like a frightened rabbit seeking its burrow.

  "You can take some credit for this," Taj said gruffly. "Pulling in the Network on us --"

  "Which makes him a renegade and a traitor," Egyon said with that tight, prissy voice that lawyers use when addressing a jury. "A perfect candidate for the Raiyis'tet."

  "Zabb is not the issue here, I am," flared Tis.

  "You're bickering like the blind," Taj exploded. "We now all wait on the decision of the Ajayiz, which will be several hours in coming. I suggest we adjourn to wait in more comfortable surroundings." He paused and eyed the two humans: Jay dressed in his brown slacks and sports jacket, Mark in jeans, tennis shoes, and a T-shirt. He shuddered slightly. "And get something decent for these stirpes to wear."

  "Go away, Egyon," Tis said softly. "Taj is still regent of House Ilkazam... and despite his courtesy I don't think that was a request."

  Out-and-out warfare is rare in a Takisian noble house. Murder, when it occurs, is accomplished in shadowed corners, cloaked in the trappings of an accident.

  This was how Blaise did it, thought Tisianne. If I possessed the jump power, I could take Egyon, manipulate the puppet body to attack, and jump back as the guards killed him.

  But Egyon obeyed, and she didn't possess the jump power, so she regretfu
lly watched as the Kou'nar filed obediently from the audience chamber. Well, since no new and arcane powers were available to her, she would have to rely upon those fundamental Takisian talents -- conspiracy and treachery.

  Mark's touch on her shoulder pulled her out of her reverie. "You should rest," he said.

  "No." She shook her head. "First I must find a toilet. Then I must see my father." She forced a casualness into her voice which she didn't feel.

  Zabb and Taj both looked at her sharply, and Zabb took her by the elbow and walked her forward until they stood at the base of the dais looking up at the throne. He seemed uncomfortable, like a man who was picking up and inspecting words to find the ones with the least potential for pain. At last Zabb said, "You've been warned what you'll find."

  "Yes."

  "You can do a scan?"

  "With Taj's help."

  "Then you know what to do."

  Zabb turned and walked away, and Tis watched him go with hatred growing in her heart.

  When Zabb's hand fell like a stroke of doom on his shoulder, Mark wanted to shrug it contemptuously away. He could tell by the Doc's expression that her cousin had again delivered some emotional body blow, but rudeness didn't come easily to the gawky ace, and he secretly feared that he couldn't carry off the gesture with anything approaching aplomb. Mark had looked ridiculous too many times in his life for it to be an unfamiliar sensation, but close association with the emotion didn't make it any more welcome.

  It took a quarter second for all these random, regretful, and scattered thoughts to shoot through Mark's head, and then Zabb was saying, "Come, I need you with me."

  "Me?"

  A flicker of a smile briefly relieved the intensity of the Takisian's expression. "As incredible as that might seem... yes. Your grasp of our language is better than the noisy man's, and in your case I am acquainted with your powers."

  "My friends," Mark corrected softly. "And don't assume you've met them all." It was a gently couched warning, and Zabb didn't mistake it.