Jay felt the anger rising again. “Zabb knows he can’t touch you physically. He can’t even hurt you emotionally or mentally except that you’re letting him. We haven’t got time for you to indulge in an orgy of self-pity and self-doubt. You’ve hauled Meadows and me across half a galaxy. You owe us. You’ve got to look out for us the same way we’re looking out for you. And that means teaching us all these stupid languages, and not making us crazy worrying about the state of your head. We’ve got enough problems trying to preserve your attractive little ass and recover your original skinny little ass,” Jay concluded.
“Zabb was there when my father was injured. He thrust the memory into my mind,” Tach flared back at Jay. “I smelled the coppery sweet scent of his blood, the stench of flesh burned away by high-energy weapons, screams, the crack of lasers cutting the air, explosions, falling masonry.” As she spoke, she assumed the thousand-mile stare that gave Jay the creeps. “Shaklan is rappelling down a tower, leading a counterassault of Ilkazam warriors against the Vayawand troops huddled behind parapets. A Morakh warrior whirls, fires from the hip. The laser peels back the side of my father’s skull, revealing brain – boiled and charred from the heat of the laser. The long fall to the roof. The screams,” Tach concluded in a remote voice.
“You’ve got a shit load to worry about, I know that,” Jay said. “But we’ve got to pick our worries in order of descending magnitude, and you flippin’ out about something that happened years and years ago isn’t going to help.”
“We are strangers and wanderers,” Moonchild said. “We do not understand your culture. Therefore, diplomacy must be your arena, and for that you need your wits. You must find your center. Our task is one of steel and strength. We can handle your enemies, Doctor. We cannot handle you.”
Jay had a feeling it was Moonchild’s calm good sense, and the comfort of her arms, that relaxed the shivering Takisian. Tough love clearly wasn’t a winning technique for dealing with Tachyon right now.
“Don’t leave me,” Tach whispered to the ace.
Moonchild nodded and lowered Tach gently back onto her pillow. Arms entwined, Tach’s head rested on Moonchild’s shoulder, and the ace’s hair formed a dark blanket for them both. Feeling very much the outsider, Jay retreated to the table and let the females bond. Eventually Tachyon drifted into another of her nightmare-wracked sleeps, and Moonchild slipped away from the girl.
A few minutes later Moonchild vanished and Mark returned. He gazed down at Tachyon and shook his head. “I heard about cases like this back from the last days of the Summer of Love. Too much dope, too much tear gas, too many riots – overload. I have a feeling that for the Doc it’s just all too much. Forty-four years of too much.” He sighed. “I wish she could cry. I think the release would really help.”
Jay shuffled cards. “I don’t know, it’s kind of a relief. Tachy was always blubbering about something.”
“You don’t think this is worth a few tears?” Mark gestured at the sleeping girl. The thrust of the pregnancy weighing down that delicate girlchild body. Tach let out a whimper, and Jay felt like a real schmuck.
Meadows crossed to the table and sat down. Cupped his chin in his long bony hands and seriously regarded Jay. “This is only going to get harder,” Meadows said softly.
“You think I don’t know that,” grunted Jay.
Again the head shake. “This isn’t about palace intrigues or alien warriors. The Tachyon mind wants to concentrate on the problems at hand. The Kelly body knows it’s got one big problem to face. The Doc’s gonna be at war with himself… er, herself.”
Jay looked at him in annoyance. “Meadows, just when I think I’ve reached my nadir, you find something else to really kick the shit out of my mood.”
“I thought you might enjoy witnessing our arrival, Princess Tisianne,” said Zabb without turning around.
“Cram it up your ass, Zabb,” replied Tachyon.
It almost toppled Jay, so slangy, uncouth, so human. He’d never imagined such words in Tachyon’s mouth. It was almost as startling out of this little girl. It obviously flustered the shit out of the Takisian. Zabb swung around, and it was evident he hadn’t intended to. Tachyon smirked, Zabb frowned. It was such a tiny victory in the mind war they were waging, yet Jay could see Tach savoring the moment.
It was the first time Jay had seen the bridge, and he looked about curiously. Nesfa and five of her people were manning the consoles, readouts, and panels. Jay gave the woman a sickly smile, and a little finger wave.
“This isn’t an Aevrй bridge,” Tach said.
“No, the ship was built… exactly for the… apexs… no, hands of Captain Zabb and our leased body partners,” Nesfa said.
“Leased?” Jay yelped. “You mean you don’t normally look…”
“No, no. On our home world our body partners are four-legged… um, grass eaters. Only, very…” Nesfa pinched her fingers together several times. “Clumsy hands.”
“The deal they struck with the Master Trader provided them with a ship, a ship handler, and bodies more suitable for exploration,” Zabb said.
“And what are they exploring for?” Meadows asked.
“A planet with more useful body partners, so the Viand can build a true interstellar culture. They possess the brains. What they require is brawn.” Zabb suddenly cocked his head to the side in a parody of a man having an idea. “I should have thought of it; Earth would be perfect.”
Jay tensed, took one stiff-legged step forward. Tachyon laid a hand briefly on his shoulder. His brains reasserted control over his testosterone levels.
“Oh, man, then the Network are slave traders.” Meadows’s voice throbbed with grief.
It was sort of depressing, Jay reflected, to discover that all the aliens in the universe seemed to be assholes.
Zabb shrugged. “They’re business beings. Profit is the driving force in their culture.”
The Takisian touched a panel, and the cameras on the exterior hull of the ship threw the image of Takis up on the screen. If Earth was sea green and white, a beryl, this world was an opal. Large polar ice caps, seas of shimmering aquamarine, and those clouds. A riot of color.
“That’s it? Really it?” Meadows breathed.
“That’s it, groundling. Magnification factor three. We’re about a million kilometers out,” Zabb said.
Knowing this was the real McCoy brought Jay’s attention back to the screen. The clarity of the picture made it look like an astronomical rendition at a planetarium – flat, lifeless fantasy. But there were people living beneath those iridescent clouds that banded the equator.
“How far?” Meadows asked.
“From what? Relative to what?” There was a little sneer lurking in the words. Jay wanted to clout Zabb.
“Sol,” said Trips.
“Twenty-three light-years, and change.” Zabb flashed a quick smile at Jay, and for the first time the human realized just how grotesquely handsome he was. Son of a bitch, thought Jay. “As Mr. Ackroyd would say. Interesting human phrase… I like it.”
“I know a lot of others. Like, ‘kiss my ass,’ and ‘up yours.’ Too bad you won’t be staying around to let me coach you in the subtleties.”
Zabb seated himself at one of the computer stations and entered a numerical code. There was a soft pressure through the soles of their feet as the ship’s engines fired, braking and adjusting their course. Takis seemed to be swimming away from them like an iridescent crystal globe in the ink sea of space.
A large moon crept coyly into view like a child peeping around a doorjamb. As they passed low over its crater-pocked surface, Jay saw low domes hugging the feet of craggy mountains. It looked as if a school of soap bubbles had broken free from a child’s bath and deposited themselves on this harsh and unwelcoming surface.