Double Solitaire

by George R. R. Martin

  Only Tisianne wasn't there. A split second before the destructive thread of light could strike her, Zabb flung the girl into Jay's arms. Her balance was lousy, front heavy as she was. Jay had one foot on the dais, the other down a step. The conclusion was foregone. They went tumbling down the steps to the parqueted floor of the dining room. It suited Jay fine. Overhead he could hear the roar and snarl of weapons fire. And Jay hated guns. Any kind of gun. So he unlimbered his. Making a gun out of his finger, he pointed it at Tisianne.

  She grabbed his forefinger and bent it painfully back. "No!" Her voice was a harsh whisper. "Don't reveal your power. Save it for a real emergency."

  "I'd say this qualifies," Jay spat as a bullet threw chips off a marble tile.

  Guards had formed a protective wedge about the detective and their princess and were blazing away. Jay spent half a second worrying about Trips, hoping the gawky ace had the good sense to keep his head down -- he couldn't stand it. Curiosity won out over his very rational fear of guns and the people who used them. Jay abandoned Tisianne in the center of her nest of guards and went crawling back up the steps to the dais. He was half-afraid she'd follow, but apparently the sex change had endowed the alien with some brains.

  Ackroyd cautiously poked his head above the level of the top step in time to see Taj snatch up a rifle from a fallen guard, blow the back of Egyon's head off, and duck back into cover beneath the table. Zabb, a few feet away, frowned in annoyance. "?***@^ ? you, I wanted to kill him."

  "I didn't have time for your posturings," grunted Taj.

  Jay wanted to cheer the old man. The detective didn't know Tachyon particularly well, but even on short acquaintance there had been so many times when he'd felt the same irritation with all the Takisian bullshit. Taj was a Takisian, but apparently his bullshit threshold was as low as Jay's.

  "Did you arrange this?" Taj asked as he bounced up and snapped off another shot.

  On the other side of the dining room a man screamed, clutched his gut, and pitched onto his face. Jay might like Taj, but he was going to be really pissed if the old guy turned out to be a crack shot. Then he comforted himself, there were so many tracers, both laser and bullet, that there was no telling who'd shot the poor dumb bastard.

  "Naturally," Zabb replied, and he fired. Zabb was a crack shot. Of course, thought Jay.

  There was no sign of Meadows.

  Then, rising on a pillar of flame like a Hebrew phoenix, came an amazing figure, short, wiry, with bright red hair and a sharp, sardonic face. The skintight orange jumpsuit bordered with flames and cut down to the navel was a shout of bad taste -- except on Takis.

  Jumpin' Jack Flash opened both hands with an unfolding lotus gesture, and gouts of flame washed from his palms, down the length of the head table. The effect of this apparition on the Takisians was profound. The gun and laser fire stuttered to a halt, there were a few seconds of silence, then whispers ran like playing children around the large room.

  "Burning Sky," breathed Taj, and Jay thought it was an appropriate exclamation.

  "Ancestors, how many are there?" Zabb said.

  J. J. Flash, twiddling his feet like a faggy ballet dancer, descended to where Tisianne lay huddled in the center of her guards. The heat of his passage was like a sunburn across Jay's back. Flame dripped off his fingertips, and sparks danced in his red hair.

  Hovering over Tisianne, he lifted one hand and bestowed a kiss on the soft skin on the inside of her wrist. "Hey, princess, heard there was a damsel in distress. What dragons would you like slain?"

  "You could start by killing the people who are shooting at us," gritted Tach as she snatched her hand back.

  "Sounds like a plan," and Flash was gone, propelled by a gout of fire that left a singe on the rose marble floor.

  The appearance of this fire elemental in their midst had taken the fight out of all but the most dedicated Kou'nars. The rest of the Takisians seemed to have decided that if Tisianne and his cadre had this kind of fire power, they would probably like to be on Tisianne's side.

  A few shots were directed at the flying ace. The bullets affected him not at all, and the lick of laser fire he positively enjoyed, giggling as if it tickled. One bright Kou'nar thought to pick up a pitcher of water and fling the liquid toward the ace. It was a good idea -- badly executed. Flash encased him in a suit of fire, reducing his attacker to a cinder.

  Taj glanced over at Zabb. "Are you responsible for him?"

  Zabb hesitated, grinned. But whatever he said, it was too fast and too complicated for Jay's rudimentary Takisian. He became aware of Tisianne yelling.

  "Jay, tell them to stop congratulating each other about how brilliantly the experiment succeeded and get control!"

  Jay yelled back. "Come up here and tell 'em yourself."

  "I can't. They won't let me."

  That got his attention. Sure enough Tis was being forcibly but gently restrained by a pair of guards. She looked mad enough to bite nails, and Jay thought that if she really were a woman, he'd hate to be the man who married her.

  Nobody seemed to be shooting anymore, so Jay risked a brief sortie into the erect position. "Hey!" he shouted in English. Zabb's head whipped around. "Her princess-ship wants you to shut the fuck up and take the fuck control of the bad guys."

  The council had reconvened. There was a much larger crowd this time, partly because the rulership of their House was to be decided, but mostly because Takisians were actually a lot like humans. The ones who'd missed the momentous dinner party were pissed and wanted to get at least a taste of the excitement. And who could tell... maybe the fire creature would appear again. Maybe there would be more bloodshed.

  Jay circulated through the room while they waited for the seven old broads to show. From the snippets of conversations he could hear and understand, the citizens of the House Ilkazam were positively misty-eyed over the success of their pet virus and regretted that the experiment had not been carried to fruition. Jay had seen the same expression in the eyes of retired Vietnam generals -- if only we'd been allowed to really fight. For the Takisians the argument was -- if only we'd known how successful the field test had been. We'd have used the virus. We'd rule Takis now.

  With a ninety percent fatality rate, Jay wished they had used the damn wild card. He wasn't feeling too terribly generous toward Takisians in general, and Ilkazam in particular right now.

  His perambulations brought him back to where Tisianne and Meadows sat in hunched misery. Their hands were tightly clasped as if the support would somehow help, but they were both drowning, and they knew it. Jay didn't feel a lot of sympathy.

  "He played it so well. The cadets and swords may suspect that he was behind Onyze's death, but they can't prove it. Mark" -- she reached up and pushed back a straggling tendril of dirty blond-gray hair -- "you should never have let him manipulate you so."

  "They were going to kill you, Doc. You and the baby. What was I supposed to do?"

  "Let Zabb do his own dirty work --"

  "Or you," interrupted Jay. "You're pretty good at doing the expedient thing too."

  He hadn't meant to say it, but the memory of that pitiful, shrunken creature being callously put to sleep rose up and gagged him. Folding his arms across his chest, he started to sit down.

  With a sweep of a foot Mark kicked the chair out from under him. Jay landed painfully on his tailbone and found himself staring up and up at the immensely tall ace. There was a light in Meadows's mild blue eyes which Ackroyd had never seen.

  "Don't be so fucking self-righteous. So you haven't killed... yet. Maybe you just haven't faced the time when... like, someone special is in terrible danger, and you've gotta... well, you've just gotta do... things." Meadows' voice trailed away into silence, and Jay was acutely aware that his eyes behind their distorting lenses were awash with tears.

  Tisianne's voice was dead level, but anger hummed along the edges of each word. "If it will make you any happier, Mr. Ackroyd, I can assure you that I am suffering." She conte
mplated some internal vision, and it was not a happy one. After several moments she gave herself a shake and resumed. "You can despise me, Mr. Ackroyd, I'm not paying you for your friendship or your approval. I'm paying you -- both of you -- to protect me, and for you to succeed in that task, you must work together. So at least call truce."

  "Let's see if I can boil down the flowery Takisian bullshit into plain English. So I can be bitched off at you, but I have to be nice to Meadows?"

  "Yes."

  "That I can handle," Jay concluded as the crowd settled, and the council resumed their chairs.

  Responding to a telepathic call, Tisianne left her place in the audience and walked front and center. After a few minutes twenty-three stern-faced men joined her, Taj among them. Despite the portentous expressions it was tough to take any of it seriously. They were all so tiny, and so improbably dressed. Jay kept expecting them to burst into song like the Mayor of Munchkin Land welcoming Dorothy. It actually wasn't a half-bad analogy, the detective mused, Tachyon as Dorothy.

  "Meadows is definitely the scarecrow," Jay muttered. "I'll be the tin woodsman. Too bad the cowardly lion didn't have the stones to board the ship."

  Trips speared him with an elbow, and Jay realized Taj had begun speaking.

  "Shaklan is dead. A direct-line heir has returned. I have served as caretaker to the honor and power of this House, but a grave crisis faces us. The time for caretakers is past. I relinquish my office to Tisianne brant Ts'ara."

  "How say the swords?"

  It was like high-stakes bidders at a Las Vegas blackjack tournament. A single finger would be lifted, an eyebrow raised, but no words spoken. Jay didn't know if they were just an uncommonly surly lot, or if they didn't want to be formally on record.

  The old lady gave a wintry smile. "Twenty ayes and three ??*&##*." It was a word Jay didn't understand, but since it didn't sound like the various forms of negatives he knew, he assumed it meant abstentions. "An unprecedented display of unanimity for the Ilkazam," she said. "We must be in very grave trouble."

  Nobody responded to her gallows humor. In fact the swords all stood staring down at their toes like unruly little boys faced with an indignant mother. The seven old ladies leaned in toward one another. With their gray-and-white heads and the silver-and-gray dresses, the effect was like watching Stonehenge monoliths gathering for a conference. The confab didn't last long. The spokeswoman swept the crowd with imperious eyes, then bent that quelling gaze back on Tisianne.

  "Tisianne brant Ts'ara, the regency being at an end, and the council having previously established your identity, we place in your hands --"

  Meadows slewed around to face Jay. A huge smile split his face, and he gave the detective a thumbs-up signal. Jay forgot how pissed he was. He felt the smile coming and raised his hand --

  "Excuse me." Zabb was sauntering up the central aisle.

  "Oh, fuck," moaned Mark.

  "This is no longer Tisianne the son of Ts'ara. This is Tisianne the daughter of Ts'ara." There was a sharp murmur throughout the watchers. "The position of Raiyis is barred to women. Theirs is a higher purpose. One that my cousin is manifestly fulfilling." And Zabb laid a hand tenderly on Tisianne's swollen belly.

  The slap rang loud in the silent room.

  Tisianne, her hand still upraised, stood quivering with unleashed fury. Zabb kept smiling. Kept his hand on her stomach.

  Taj jerked forward, anger and shock making him clumsy. "You miserable abortion. Tisianne is a man."

  "Have you ever seen a pregnant man?" To the council he said, "I agree, the mind is male, but the body... You've all borne children. You know where her focus is." He slapped her belly. "Do you want her leading this House when we are on a war footing?"

  "She'll recover her rightful body," Taj objected.

  "And when she does, I'll be happy to allow her... er, him, to resume his station."

  "You monster." Tis's voice was husky, shaking with emotion. "Without the power of this House I can never recover myself. Congratulations, Zabb, you have what you've always wanted, and you didn't even have to kill me for it."

  Softly Zabb said, "Which is precisely why I arranged it this way." The nobleman faced the council. There was a manic light in the pale gray eyes. "Rule, Kib'r, is it a man or a woman?"

  Jay could see the answer even before the old woman spoke. "Woman."

  "And who is now direct heir?"

  "Wait!" yelled Taj. "I am the regent --"

  "You abdicated that position," snapped back Zabb.

  "Rule, Intayes! Who now has the right to rule House Ilkazam?"

  "You." No emotion crossed that lined face. It could have been a death mask.

  Zabb swung Tisianne up into his arms. Jay expected the alien to start spitting and fighting. Instead she seemed stunned. Zabb started walking for the door. Mark, dragging his briefcase, went blundering in pursuit, barking his shins on chairs, tripping with agitation. Jay followed. They caught Zabb at the door. Pissed as he was at the little shit, the blank look in Tisianne's eyes frightened Jay. He wondered if this latest blow had snapped her mind.

  Zabb held up a restraining hand, palm out. "No, gentlemen. I am taking my sweet cousin to quarters more appropriate for her sex and condition. And unneutered males are not permitted."

  There must have been a telepathic summons, for suddenly the two humans were caged by a ring of guards.

  Trips remembered late-night and drunken conversations with Tachyon when the alien had talked of the murder of his mother. Of the plots and counterplots that swirled about the harem, and he called out desperately to Zabb's retreating back, "She'll be killed there."

  Zabb paused, glanced back. "Oh, I think not. After all, she has family there too."

  "Then she really hasn't got a prayer, you miserable fuck!" Jay said.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Takisians, or at least the Vayawand, don't throw flowers. Instead they throw birds, clutching flowers in their little beaks. Out of windows, and off the bridges that spanned the hundreds of canals crisscrossing the capital city Vaya, the birds dived on the Vayawand nobility and dropped their flowers like floriated bombs.

  They were a flotilla -- seven sleek pleasure craft complete with banquets, awnings where one could seek refuge from either the sun or the rain, dance floors, and orchestras. Each boat was playing a different tune, so the cacophony of sound intermingled and rolled across the water. But this was a Takisian celebration, so guards were very much in evidence. Guard ships floated overhead, and more guards walked the footpaths at the sides of the canals.

  Kelly hung over the gunnel and stared down at the little flowers rocking in the chop from the passing ships. He couldn't bear to look at the covered dais where Blaise was enthroned with his bride-to-be. The little Tarhiji girl had the stunned and joyful expression of a person witnessing a miracle, and all Kelly could think was you poor little thing.

  "Come away, child." Bat'tam's voice pulled him from his contemplation of drowning flowers. "You're driving me to fidgets hanging about like that. What if you pitch overboard?"

  Kelly turned to face Bat'tam, shrugged. "Doesn't matter, I can swim."

  The elderly nobleman shuddered. He had shuddering down to a real art. There was the shudder to indicate the wine wasn't up to par. The shudder for dismay at a person's style sense -- that one Kelly still hadn't figured out. All the clothes looked ugly and garish to him. The shudder at a note misplayed. But Bat'tam never shuddered when faced with Blaise. He never shuddered with fear. Kelly admired that. Thought the old man was crazy, but admired it.

  "Come, sit. Drink some wine. Eat some food. Be happy." Kelly obeyed. "How are the ribs? The arm?"

  Kelly gave an experimental twist. "Fine. You guys got bitchin' medicine."

  "Bitchin'" Bat'tam seemed to be tasting the word. "Another strange groundling word."

  Kelly poured himself a glass of wine. "Nobody on this boat seems very happy."

  Kelly scanned the glum faces of the Zal'hma at' Irg. Only Blaise w
as upbeat, and he was positively giddy -- stealing kisses from his shy little bride, waving to the crowds that lined the streets and bridges and hung from windows. After his elevation to the Raiyis'tet, he'd had the skin around his eyes and under his brows inlaid with diamonds and jet. With his black leather jumpsuit and high black boots, he was a striking figure.

  "Indeed, they are not. For if our manic young Raiyis succeeds in galvanizing the Tarhiji, there will be a new social order."

  The remark fell into the center of the conversations occurring around them with all the elegance of a dropped turd. The voices of the nobles stuttered to a halt. Kelly noticed Durg listening.

  "Shhhh!" he hissed urgently.

  Bat'tam looked around, quite unperturbed. Nodded to the Morakh. Durg moved to them, and the Vayawand nobles thought of other activities in which they could involve themselves. Soon they were isolated in the bow of the boat.

  "I thought you weren't political?" Durg asked.

  "I'm not."

  "Confine your interest to the hostage Tisianne body. It would be much safer for you, boykisser."

  "You and your handler have been at great pains to disguise from House Vayawand the actual effect of all these radical suggestions." Bat'tam paused and sipped wine. "But this recent act has violated our most basic and immutable law. What makes you think the family will allow this?"

  "Fear. And greed. They want to rule Takis."

  Durg lifted his head like a coon hound testing the wind. The boat was sliding into a dock. He held out a hand to Kelly. "Come, it is almost time for you to play your part."

  The central star-shaped plaza of Vaya was awash with Tarhiji. It had taken a tremendous investment of time and men, but every building overlooking the speaker's platform had been searched and sealed by Blaise's Morakh guard. If trouble began, the populace were trapped and could be shot like... Durg paused. A human phrase seemed most applicable. "Fish in a barrel."

  Blaise, the bride, and Kelly, together with a phalanx of Morakh, were on the platform. Knowing the hair-trigger nature of his charge, Durg elected to wait until after Blaise made his speech before informing the young man of the growing danger from Bat'tam. This had to be the speech of his life. Nothing should be allowed to distract him. A final glance about the plaza. Holocams were in place. The Tarhiji were excited and attentive. All seemed ready. Durg returned to the dais and nodded to Blaise.