Bat’tam laid a hand across Kelly’s mouth, stopping the angry, bitter words. “I avoid charismatic young men with fire in their eyes, and a hunger in their heart. That’s how I’ve lived to be so old. No, Ilkazam. You are -” Bat’tam broke off abruptly, and frowned at the small, fast shuttle that was falling like one of the hunting birds on the bloated mass of the balloon.
The ship braked, and hovered beside the gondola. Everyone’s attention shifted to the new arrival.
“It must be serious if they interrupt the Raiyis at his play,” Bat’tam said.
Kelly’s focus was on the flock of pretty little gray-and-lavender birds that had just been released. “Run,” he said under his breath. “Fly fast.” The little birds went fluttering in all directions. Several of the large raptors spread their brilliantly colored wings and shook them urgently as they sensed their prey escaping.
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.”