Double Solitaire

by George R. R. Martin

  A few moments later, and the bed o' babes crawled off him. It was Pandasala he'd been kissing. He grinned at her. She slapped him. Stormed out. Jay shrugged. Roxalana held out his pants to him. Raised her eyebrows.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  There was a crane dismantling Jetboy's tomb. The Great and Powerful Turtle and the Harlem Hammer were taking exception to this activity and were hammering on the crane -- one from the top, one at the bottom. The racket was terrible Jay approved of the sentiment, but then the crane collapsed, and it was heading right for him!

  Ackroyd woke with a snort and a cough. Sat up on the couch. Pale light was creeping in the window. Haupi was seated on the sill preening her wings. The racket was still continuing from the direction of the kitchen. It ceased, and Hastet came hurrying through. She checked when she saw that Jay was awake.

  "Ice chips," she said, and tipped the glass so Jay could see. "The poor little thing is so thirsty, and she can't keep anything down."

  "Still no baby?" Jay asked. He was surprised the words could force their way past the fuzz on his tongue. She shook her head. Jay checked his watch. Seven A.M. "Don't you love it when a plan turns to shit in your hands?"

  Hastet continued for the bedroom. The concern was a big change from the cold courtesy with which she'd treated Tisianne for the first few hours. It had all been your highness this, and your highness that. But somewhere in this endless night, distrust and resentment had turned to sympathy. Maybe it was something all women shared. That this suffering was unique to women drew them together. Except Tisianne wasn't a woman -- not really.

  Jay didn't want to go back into that bedroom. It was all too earthy, too primitive. Why wasn't there some high-tech way to have babies? A culture as advanced as the Takisians ought to have artificial wombs. Unfortunately Tisianne got knocked up on Earth ...

  He was stalling. Maybe it was because he just couldn't stop thinking of Tisianne as Tachyon, and there was something so creepy about a man giving birth. Maybe he just couldn't stand to see any creature in so much pain. Sucking in a quick breath, he pushed open the door and entered.

  Not much had changed in the hour and a half he'd napped. Meadows was still hunched in a chair at the side of the bed, Tisianne's hand clasped tightly in his. His other hand rested on the mound of her stomach. Her gown had been thrown up, and Jay quickly averted his eyes from that expanse of white flesh, and the wide-open legs. Hastet had lifted the girl's head from the banked pillows and was slipping ice chips between Tis's chapped white lips. There was something so gentle, so womanly in Hastet's pose, in those strong, unmanicured hands. Jay felt an unaccustomed tightness in his chest. Thrusting aside the odd feeling, he moved a few more hesitant steps into the room.

  Both Meadows and Hastet were murmuring encouragement. The ace's voice had gone hoarse from all the hours of talking. The other sounds in the room seemed too loud when matched against Tisianne's unnatural silence. Jay had been told to expect screams. He was prepared for screams. This harsh animallike panting was killing him.

  Awkwardly he said, "I'm told it helps if you scream."

  For the first time Tisianne focused on him. There was a flicker in those gray eyes that was pure Tachyon.

  "And what... in the hell... would you know... about it?" She groaned, arched violently upward as a particularly hard contraction rocked her.

  "That was good," Mark said. "Can you do it again?"

  She turned shadowed eyes on him. "No... I'm so... tired."

  Mark released her hand and jerked his head toward the door. Hastet hesitated, not wanting to leave the suffering girl. Mark nodded again, more imperatively this time.

  Once in the living room, the hippie said softly, "We're in real trouble here. She's getting awfully weak. We don't have the facilities to perform a cesarean. And forceps... don't know how --"

  "Could Tisianne talk us through it?"

  "I don't think the baby's far enough into the birth canal for that anyway." Mark pushed his glasses up onto his head and scrubbed his hands across his face. They left wet streaks. "Jay, I was wondering if you could, like, pop the baby out...

  His voice trailed away under Jay's incredulous look. "I've got to see something. Baby's head, anything." He realized his arms were waving wildly, and he dropped them to his sides.

  Hastet was looking from one silent man to the other. "Well, we must do something. We have come too far for either of them to die!"

  "Let me think," Mark said, and walked away to stare out the window. Jay sat back down on the sofa. He frankly didn't have a single idea.

  It was almost a relief to have them gone. Less of a distraction from the growing anger, frustration, and fear she was reading from her child's mind. She was trying to block her agony from Illyana, and not doing a very good job of it. She was trying to remind herself that she loved this child, and not doing a very good job of that either.

  "Oh, Ideal," she whimpered. "I can't believe this is happening to me."

  Another contraction, and she felt as if her pelvis were splitting apart. She tried to put herself between her legs, to monitor the progress as she had on so many deliveries. The prognosis was not good. The pain washed in and swept away all her training, all hope of clinical detachment.

  Hands closed around her shoulders. Tisianne's eyes snapped open. Mark was almost nose to nose with her.

  "Listen to me." His voice was husky with exhaustion and unshed tears. "You know, better than any of us, what you have to do. But you're, like, in your own way, man. You're thinking, shit, I'm Tachyon, I'm a man, I'm embarrassed in front of Jay and Mark, and Hastet's my subject. Well, this is a woman thing now. This is female power, and you gotta get in touch with it and stop resisting it, or you and this baby are gonna die. Do you, like, understand me, man?"

  He was right. Once spoken, it made such sense. And was no help. "I can't." Tisianne turned her head away.

  He snatched it back. "Yes, you can! We've all, like, got the male and the female in us. Yin and yang. You've just gotta find it, and love it and hold it, and use it." He gripped her hands between both of his. "This isn't gross, this isn't ugly. This is magic, man. This is life. Don't blow it on pride!"

  The next contraction was gathering, rippling through her body. Tis stared at Mark for a long moment, then threw herself into it as if the pain itself could batter down the walls around her soul. Illyana fired a blast of terror as she moved out of safety and into darkness.

  Tis was dimly aware of Hastet and Jay on either side of her, arms linked behind her back, supporting, encouraging. There seemed to be no break between the contractions now. Never in a long and dangerous life had she felt such pain.

  "That's it! That's it! I can see her head!" Mark was crying. "One more, one more, come on!"

  "Push, you bitch!" Jay yelled in her ear.

  Their hands were on her belly. For one intense moment they were not four individuals, they were a single organism bonded in a telepathic union with this tiny struggling life. Tis threw back her head and screamed.

  Silence.

  Then a tiny outraged cry like a hiccuping kitten.

  "Oh, Doc, she's beautiful."

  Hastet helped her up. Tis looked between her knees. Mark held Illyana aloft, wet and bloody, the umbilical still attached.

  "Oh... delightful," Ackroyd said. "My, what a lot of blood."

  Mark tied off the cord and cut it. The touch of the antiseptic brought a scream of protest from her daughter. Tisianne held out her arms, and Mark laid the infant in them.

  And suddenly Tis was crying. The emotional winter was over. The final vestige of Blaise's power over her had ended.

  Sometime later, though not near enough later, Mark woke her. Illyana was a brilliant sea green bundle in the human's arms. There was a smell of fresh sheets, and someone -- probably Hastet -- had brushed out Tisianne's hair and dabbed perfume on her wrists. Her body seemed to be one big ache, with localized pains in her torn privates and her swollen breasts.

  The reminder seeme
d to set off a telepathic alarm in Illyana. Tis read the hunger in her child's mind and reached for her. Pushing back the blanket, she said, "I really didn't get much of a look at her." She flashed a nervous smile at Mark. "She was just so wet."

  The tiny little fists were waving now that the baby was free from confinement. The pink bud mouth was pursed and working. Tis lightly stroked a forefinger across the strawberry blond curls.

  "She's got a lot of hair," Mark said. "Sprout had a lot of hair, but it was real dark, and it all fell out a few days after she was born. Weird."

  Tis pulled aside the neck of her gown, then looked guiltily at Mark. "Should I do this?"

  "Go for the whole experience, man. I would."

  She laid Illyana against her breast, and the baby took hold. It hurt like the very devil for the first few sucks. Then the pain was replaced with a warm wonderment.

  "What's it like?" Mark asked.

  "Like... dope," Tis laughed. "Oh Ideal, Mark, I can't..." She blinked back tears. "It was worth it. It was all worth it."

  Hastet entered. She was dressed for travel in a hooded thermal cloak. Jay slunk in after her. He had the air of a hound dog in doll clothes, though Tisianne thought the detective actually looked quite good in the Takisian clothing. Hastet had chosen well. She had attired both of them in the sturdy leather and wool of a rural couple. Jay stamped one booted foot, grimaced. "I feel like I ought to be in a yodeling contest."

  "Hey, I think you look great, man. That embroidery is really far out."

  "Madam." Tisianne extended her hand, palm up. Hastet moved to her side, knelt, and pressed a quick kiss onto Tisianne's wrist.

  "Highness."

  "If my manner seemed churlish last night, I apologize. I can never fully express my gratitude, both on my behalf and my daughter's. You shall be amply rewarded for your efforts."

  Eyes downcast she said, "The honor is to serve."

  From the flash of irritation which crossed Jay's face, it was clear that the human resented seeing his lady friend on her knees to Tisianne. Abruptly he said, "Well, as the last of hippies here would say, we gotta blow this scene."

  "A few moments surely. She's still eating," Tis objected. Jay realized precisely what was taking place, and his eyes bugged in alarm. He quickly turned his back.

  Tis stared down at that little head, the soft curve of Illyana's cheek, listened to the complacent sucking noises, and an almost frighteningly powerful emotion shook her. There was nothing she had loved as she loved this child.

  Shaking back her hair, she looked desperately up at Trips. "Mark, I don't think I can do it. I can't give her up. I have to be with her now."

  "Hey, that's cool, Doc. We can just split with Jay and Hastet."

  "Oh, that's great," Jay exploded. "All of us squatting on that space station trying to thumb a ride home. I don't think your cousin Zabb's going to offer one after we fucked him over."

  "Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!"

  The attack from Mark was so unexpected that it had the desired result. Ackroyd subsided.

  But the cock fight had given Tisianne time to think. If she chucked it all, fled with Illyana, she could forget about ever recovering her body.

  Maybe my love for you is tainted, selfish. But I must be myself again. Can you understand and forgive me?

  Illyana, replete, sighed and opened her aquamarine eyes. And sent a burst of love and acceptance to her mother. Setting her jaw, Tis thrust the baby into Hastet's arms. Dashed away tears with the backs of her hands, and throwing back her hair ordered, "Do it! Just do it before my resolve fails!"

  And she was back in her bed in the women's quarters. Roxalana shot out of a chair. A soft pop and Mark appeared.

  "Tis, are you..." Roxalana began. Then she saw her brother/sister's face. Gathering Tisianne in her arms, Roxalana rocked and soothed the distraught girl. "My dearest, dearest one. It will be all right."

  "I may never see her again!"

  Roxalana held Tis at arm's length. "At least she's alive."

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  It was a hell of a place to hold a wedding, with generations of dead Vayawand peering down from their glass condo tombs at the proceedings. They were all arranged as if for Victorian portraits -- seated in chairs against attractive backdrops, but with one outstanding difference. They were all buck naked. Kelly would almost have preferred skeletons in rotting finery. It would have been preferable to this macabre audience of the stuffed and mounted dead.

  At least the living attendees got to stay dressed. Kelly really couldn't have gotten through the ceremony if he'd had to strip down. What kind of people hold a wedding in a catacomb? Kelly wondered. And what kind of people have the bride and groom spend the night together before the ceremony? He guessed it was designed to be a last chance for the prospective bridegroom to sample the wares and make sure he wasn't buying a pig in a poke. Well, he'd viewed, he hadn't sampled, and if he had his way, he was never going to sample.

  Mon'aella sek Vanbrian sek Ana caught his thought and gave him her Lady Dracula smile. She'd already warned him that Takisians had drugs for everything. They could put starch in a wilting penis, and neither she nor Blaise would hesitate to mind-control Kelly and force him to perform. Kelly couldn't figure it. Mon'aella was L'gura's daughter, but she didn't seem to give a shit that Blaise had killed her father. When Kelly had alluded to this, Mon'aella had merely shrugged and opined as how her father had lasted longer than most Raiyises.

  The three members of the Ajayiz of House Vayawand approached the happy couple. Perhaps by virtue of the Vayawands' long stint on the top of the Takisian political heap, they weren't all old biddies. There were two old coots and a biddy. The old woman took Mon'aella's hand and led her off to the left. The two ancient men each took an arm and propelled Kelly off to the right.

  He was grateful for the support. He'd drunk most of the night, and he was now enduring the purgatory of a hellacious hangover. It took a long time to circle the room because they stopped before each glass cage and presented the couple to the ancestors.

  Kelly hoped they liked what they saw. Blaise had decided to dude Kelly up in the Vayawand style, and the skin of his cheeks was still raw and puffy where green and amber jewels had been inset. Personally he thought he looked like a chipmunk on the morning after.

  There was a moment of silence while everyone observed the form of waiting to see if any ancestor had any strenuous objections to the marriage. Kelly wondered if it would be really bad form for him to object. A glance over to Blaise, an arm around each of his wives, made Kelly release that lovely fantasy. His shattered arm and ribs had just healed. He didn't need another "chastisement" from Blaise.

  Kelly and Mon'aella were led to Blaise. They knelt, and he laid Kelly's left hand on the top of her bowed head. Mon'aella touched her forehead to the stone floor, signifying her submission to her husband. Kelly knew that was a laugh. Eight hours in Mon'aella's company had given him a pretty good idea of her disposition.

  Blaise raised them both to their feet and kissed them. There was applause from the several hundred witnesses, and even the holocam crew. Blaise dug Kelly in the ribs with an elbow.

  "Fill her belly quick, Kelly, my little man." Several bottles of wine tried to climb back up Kelly's throat. "Don't worry Kel. You need any pointers, I'll provide them. I'm told I'm very good." He winked at his wives.

  Now Kelly really wanted to puke. Yeah, you're a real champion at rape. Several people in the crowd swiveled nervously to look at him. So strong had been the emotion, it had punched right through their shields. Yeah, be uncomfortable, you fucking hypocrites. You're supposed to be so fucking shocked by sexual violence, but Blaise is conquering the planet for you, so you can wink at an inconvenient little rape along the way. Psychopathic rapist. Sociopathic rapist. Crazy motherfucker!

  The wedding party wove its way through the geometric maze of the catacombs. They had just reached the wide stone staircase when Kelly became aware of a nobleman easing forward like a ra
cehorse nosing through the pack at the finish line.

  The surface thoughts bubbling off the man were those of hunger, stiff legs from standing in the cold so long, a need to pee. But... Kelly kept his eyes on that elegant figure closing behind Blaise.

  With a shout Kelly threw himself on the man's back. The sudden assault knocked him off his feet, and he went down. The tip of a knife scraped across the floor. Kelly wanted to vomit. It had been extruded from the man's wrist. Wriggling like a snake, the assassin shifted positions. Kelly was now beneath him. The whole scene was ratcheting past like a broken movie film. The knife sliding another inch out of the arm, the point descending. Kelly snatched desperately for the hand and caught it, then immediately felt his fingers slipping in the blood that coated the man's wrist.

  He closed his eyes, and then the weight was suddenly plucked off his chest. Kelly risked a look. Durg was holding the now-limp body of the assassin. The other members of the wedding party were all bristling with drawn weapons. Sekal holstered his pistol and snapped his fingers. Durg dropped the man and kicked him toward Sekal.

  "Diverous, help me examine him."

  Diverous joined Sekal, and they knelt by the unconscious man. Kelly rolled over and vomited up stale wine. Mon'aella grabbed him beneath the armpits and hauled him to his feet. For the first time Kelly risked a glance at Blaise.

  The young man had that look. Tendons in the neck stretched tight, face gone white, the pupils of the dark eyes gone wide. Entire body shaking with suppressed fury. It had sent jumpers scuttling for cover out on the Rox, for when the storm did break, people got hurt. Kelly knew, he remembered that day on the balloon. This time it wasn't turned on Kelly.