“Gross,” Jay said, but Tis wasn’t certain whether he was reacting to the bubble or the horrendous wounds that raked the man’s flesh, laying bare the various levels and colors of a Takisian body.
At the far end of the ward lay a pair of heavy plasteel doors like the entrance into a security vault. And it was a safe of sorts; it was designed to protect the most precious and powerful of the House Ilkazam as they healed. The guards took up positions at the door to the infirmary, and about the vault doors. Taj stood before the access panel, an abstract piece of appliquй art with multicolored silicon crystals, each of them flashing with white lights. Taj sent the telepathic code, and order became chaos. Crystals flashed with clashing and discordant colors, and then the doors slid slowly open with a soft whine.
“Do you want me to wait outside with the hired help?” Jay asked.
Tis couldn’t force words past the lump in her throat. She shook her head and entered. Jay followed.
Shaklan was also floating in a biogerm bubble, also curled into a fetal position, but there was no sense of the healing infant. This was a breathing, excreting husk. Rollers had been placed in the palms of each clawlike hand to prevent them from closing into permanent fists. The hip bones thrust like knife blades against the gray skin of the pelvis, and the bones of the rib cage fell away to a shrunken belly. Long, long hair floated like seaweed about the shriveled body.
Tisianne evaluated the vital signs being constantly monitored from the control panel. The monitors certainly supported the general consensus that the mind and soul of Shaklan brant Fleva sek Agem had fled.
“You still want the scan?” Taj asked.
“Yes.”
She keyed the panel, and the nutrient bath began to drain away. An examination table rose out of the floor and gently received the desiccated body. Pulling aside the gelatinous bubble, Tis stared into the face of this half-dead thing and tried to reconcile it with the face of her father. It had the proper shape. That was all.
Taj gathered her hand in his, physical contact helping him to capture and augment her own feeble mental powers. They went searching and found nothing. The flesh breathed, the mind was gone.
She paced, felt as if something were battering at the top of her skull. Found her hand thrust deep into her pocket clenching the epispray. She marched all the arguments through her head. The conclusion was inescapable.
She forced herself back to her father’s side. Laid a hand against a hollow, stubbled cheek.
“Daddy…” She was a little embarrassed using the human word, but she had always liked it. It spoke of warmth and affection, and the Takisian High House equivalent didn’t suggest intimacy, much less love. “I’ve come home. I’m sorry for the things I said. I… love you…” sound died as if strangled, and she walked away.
Taj followed and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Do you want me to…?”
“No!”
Tis held out her hand, and Taj laid a pair of tiny golden scissors on the palm. The hair was lank and wet as she separated out a strand and snipped it off. Carefully she wrapped this token of her father around one wrist.
Shaklan’s lips held a hint of warmth, and it almost shattered her resolve. Then courage, pragmatism, love, and selfish need spurred her, and Tis pulled out the epispray. Laid it against her father’s arm.
Jay’s fingers closed on her wrist, and the pain forced her to drop the epispray.
“What are you doing?” The enunciation was ice careful.
Tisianne’s eyes fluttered up to meet his. What she read there made it impossible for her to speak.
“Freeing him,” Taj said softly as he gently freed Jay’s fingers from around Tis’s wrist. “From a death in life.”
“You’re going to put your own father to sleep?”
“I have to,” Tis said so quietly that she wasn’t even sure the words were audible. “He’s been kept alive as a pawn. Now his presence is no longer necessary. In fact it’s a hindrance.”
“That’s what Zabb was laying on you. Remove that last life standing between you and your goddamn throne. Jesus, I can’t believe you.”
His scorn hurt. It struck her skin like a lash, and she almost quailed. She went searching for anger and found a thimbleful. It would suffice in lieu of courage. “I expect neither your understanding nor your approval. I expect you to do the job I hired you for,” Tis spat out.
Jay’s face shut down like shutters slamming closed. Jammed his hands into his pockets and turned away. Tisianne sucked in a deep breath, held it, and depressed the key. Twenty seconds later Shaklan’s chest seemed to collapse with the exhalation of his final breath.
Sweeping up her hip-length hair, Tis flung it across the body to form a golden shroud. From deep within her a shriek formed, drove upward, punching through her throat like a geyser of acid. The sound that emerged was like nothing human or Takisian. It was the cry of a wounded and dying animal.
For Shaklan, Raiyis of the House Ilkazam, was dead.
Chapter Twenty-One
If God is a woman, She looks like that grand old dowager seated in the center.
It was an irreverent thought, and it sent Mark back to an embarrassed contemplation of his thumbnails. Jay Ackroyd was sleeping, supported only by his tailbone and the back of his head in the uncomfortable little chair. Mark figured he’d let the detective sleep unless he started snoring.
While this might be the most critical hurdle Tisianne had yet scaled, for the humans it was stone-cold boring. The entire affair was being conducted in Ilkazal in the private mode, so that an audible word exploded into the tense silence maybe only once or twice a minute.
The hall felt like a rococo courtroom. A mosaic tile floor showed some glorious scene from Ilkazam history, and a skylight faceted like a giant diamond formed most of the roof. The moonlight streaming through those facets broke into its component colors, and rainbows danced and clashed with the assembly’s gaudy clothes.
The seven old crones stared down from their curving dais at Tisianne. They should be passing an eye back and forth, Mark thought, for their gray hair and cold expressions reminded Mark of the Greek legend of the Graeae. Mark wondered why the Doc didn’t collapse beneath the weight of that hostile scrutiny, but she remained a proudly erect little figure with a rainbow snagged in her pale blond hair and dyeing the fabric of the elaborate clothing that had somehow been produced in only a few hours. Mark had a feeling there was some heavy nanotechnology at work here.
There had been a couple of uncomfortable moments dealing with the House tailor. Jay had been loud and crude in his rejection of any suggestion that he forgo the pleasure of wearing a sports coat and slacks. The tailor had retorted that it was beneath his dignity to design for a Tarhiji. Jay had retorted that the guy was a Tarhiji, so what was his fucking problem. And besides which he was better than any damn mincing fairy. Tachyon – no Tisianne, damn it, he had to remember that – had yelled at both of them. Then Taj had entered and gotten results.
Mark glanced over at Ackroyd. His outfit was nice but in no way matched the magnificence of Mark’s suit. The tailor had been overwhelmed by Mark’s size and designed to accentuate the length of the ace’s lanky body. The colors were great, but the little hat kept dropping tassels into Mark’s eyes, and the fluttering ribbons made Mark feel like a cornstalk bedecked to ward off birds.
Zabb came sliding down the row to join them. Mark flinched, and his hand shot down next to his chair to reassure himself of the presence of the blessed briefcase. Mark did another quick count. It hadn’t changed since the last frenzied count an hour before – Four Starshine, four J. J. Flash; three Moonchild, four Aquarius, three Cosmic Traveler.