But Kenya and the surrounding nations have their own viral nightmare. If the wild card is a chimera here, AIDS is an epidemic. While the president was hosting Senator Hartmann and most of the tour, a few of us were on an exhausting visit to a half-dozen clinics in rural Kenya, hopping from one village to another by helicopter. They assigned us only one battered chopper, and that at Tachyon s insistence. The government would have much preferred that we spend our time lecturing at the university, meeting with educators and political leaders, touring game preserves and museums.
Most of my fellow delegates were only too glad to comply. The wild card is forty years old, and we have grown used to it-but AIDS, that is a new terror in the world, and one that we have only begun to understand. At home it is thought of as a homosexual affliction, and I confess that I am guilty of thinking of it that way myself, but here in Africa, that belief is given the lie. Already there are more AIDS victims on this continent alone than have ever been infected by the Takisian xenovirus since its release over Manhattan forty years ago.
And AIDS seems a crueler demon somehow. The wild card kills ninety percent of those who draw it, often in ways that are terrible and painful, but the distance between ninety percent and one hundred is not insignificant if you are among the ten who live. It is the distance between life and death, between hope and despair. Some claim that it's better to die than to live as a joker, but you will not find me among their number. If my own life has not always been happy, nonetheless I have memories I cherish and accomplishments I am proud of. I am glad to have lived, and I do not want to die. I've accepted my death, but that does not mean I welcome it. I have too much unfinished business. Like Robert Tomlin, I have not yet seen The Jolson Story. None of us have.
In Kenya we saw whole villages that are dying. Alive, smiling, talking, capable of eating and defecating and making love and even babies, alive to all practical purposes-and yet dead. Those who draw the Black Queen may die in the agony of unspeakable transformations, but there are drugs for pain, and at least they die quickly. AIDS is less merciful.
We have much in common, jokers and AIDS victims.
Before I left Jokertown, we had been planning for a JADL fund-raising benefit at the Funhouse in late May-a major event with as much big-name entertainment as we could book. After Kenya I cabled instructions back to New York to arrange for the proceeds of the benefit to be split with a suitable AIDS victims' group. We pariahs need to stick together. Perhaps I can still erect a few necessary bridges before my own Black Queen lies face up on the table.
DOWN BY THE NILE
Gail Gerstner-Miller
The torches in the temple burned slowly, steadily, occasionally flickering when someone passed by. Their light illuminated the faces of the people gathered in a small antechamber off the main hall. They were all present, those who looked like ordinary people, and the others who were extraordinary: the cat woman, the jackal-headed man, those with wings, crocodile skin, and bird heads.
Osiris the far-seer spoke. "The winged one comes."
"Is she one of us?"
"Will she help us?"
"Not directly," Osiris answered. "But within her is that which will have the power to do great things. For now we must wait."
"We have waited a very long time," said Anubis the jackal. "A little longer will not make a difference."
The others murmured in agreement. The living gods settled back to patiently wait.
The room in Luxor's Winter Palace Hotel was sweltering, and it was still only morning. The ceiling fan stirred the sluggish air tiredly and sweat ran in tickling rivulets over Peregrine's rib cage and breasts as she lay propped up in bed, watching josh McCoy slip a new film cassette into his camera. He looked at her and smiled.
"We'd better get going," he said.
She' smiled back lazily from the bed, her wings moving gently, bringing more coolness into the room than the slowmoving fan.
"If you say so." She stood, stretched lithely, and watched McCoy watch her. She walked by him, dancing out of his way as he reached for her. "Haven't you had enough yet?" she asked teasingly as she took a clean pair of jeans from her suitcase. She wiggled into them, batting her wings to keep her balance. "The hotel laundry must have washed these in boiling water." She took a deep breath and pulled on the stubborn zipper. "There."
"They look great, though," McCoy said. He put his arms around her from behind, and Peregrine shivered as he kissed the back of her neck and caressed her breasts, still sensitive from their morning lovemaking.
"I thought you said we had to get going." She settled back against him.
McCoy sighed and pulled away reluctantly. "We do. We have to meet the others in"-he checked his wristwatch"three minutes."
"Too bad," Peregrine said, smiling mischievously. " I think I could be coaxed into spending all day in bed."
"Work awaits," McCoy said, rummaging for his clothes as Peregrine put on a tank top. "And I'm anxious to see if these self-proclaimed living gods can do all they claim."
She watched him as he dressed, admiring his lean, muscular body. He was blond and fit, a documentary filmmaker and cameraman, and a wonderful lover.
"Got everything? Don't forget your hat. The sun's fierce, even if it is winter."
"I've got everything I need," Peregrine said with a sidelong glance. "Let's go."
McCoy turned the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging on the door handle to the other side, then closed and locked the door. The hotel corridor was quiet and deserted. Tachyon must have heard their muffled footsteps, because he poked his head out as they passed his room.
"Morning, Tachy," Peregrine said. "Josh, Father Squid, Hiram, and I are going to catch the afternoon ceremony at the Temple of the Living Gods. Want to come along?"
"Good morning, my dear." Tachyon, looking resplendent in a white brocade dressing gown, nodded distantly to McCoy. "No, thank you. IT see everything I need to see at the meeting tonight. Right now it's much too hot to venture out." Tachyon looked closely at her. "Are you feeling all right? You look pale."
" I think the heat's getting to me too," Peregrine replied. "That and the food and water. Or rather the microbes that live in them."
"We don't need you getting sick," Tachyon said seriously. "Come in and let me do a quick examination." He fanned his face. "We'll find out what's bothering you, and it will give me something useful to do with my day."
"We don't have the time right now. The others are waiting for us-"
"Peri," McCoy interrupted, a concerned look on his face, "it'll only take a few minutes. I'll go downstairs and tell Hiram and Father Squid you've been delayed." She hesitated. "Please," he added.
"Oh, all right." She smiled at him. "I'll see you downstairs. " McCoy nodded and continued down the hallway as Peregrine followed Tachyon into his ornately appointed suite. The sitting room was spacious, and much cooler than the room she shared with McCoy. Of course, she reflected, they had generated a lot of heat themselves that morning.
"Wow," she commented, glancing around the luxuriously decorated room. "I must have gotten the servants' quarters."
"It's really something, isn't it? I especially like the bed." Tachyon pointed to a large four-poster draped with white netting that was visible through the bedroom's open door. "You have to climb steps to get into it."