“Try birthing,” was the unsympathetic reply.
It was a topic Tisianne wished to avoid. She turned onto her side, away from that disapproving presence.
“I can’t tolerate self-pity and tantrums, Tis. You got to go on a decades-long lark while the rest of us did our duty – and almighty irksome were those duties, let me assure you. So don’t expect me to regret your lack of freedom. It was purchased at great cost by the rest of us.
Their father’s death lay between them.
“And finally I’m sick of you denigrating the accomplishments of this segment of the House. Why is an action by a woman less valued in your eyes? You’re bored because you don’t feel the work we are doing here is worthy of your attention, much less your participation. Shi’tha’s research in ghost-gate theory may enable us to fold space and so cross the galaxy in the time it currently takes us to reach Ship Home. I have a class of very promising youngsters about to exit Rarrana and begin their higher education. I taught them… and I taught them well. The girls I send out today will return in thirty years ready to be mothers, and teachers, and researchers, and painters, and composers.
“You’re a doctor – well, stop pouting in this room and get out and doctor. Or if that’s not to your taste, volunteer for cradle duty. You value freedom so much – free up some busy mother for her work. Ideal knows you could use the experience. A little primer before you birth your daughter. That’s where your focus should be – on your child. Not on politics, not on the breakdown of Takisian society. We build society here – one child at a time. You’re part of the process now.”
Tisianne laid a hand on her belly. Felt the joyous leap of Illyana’s mind as she greeted her parent. That parent realized with some guilt that she had been virtually ignoring the baby by blocking Illyana’s questing thought tendrils.
Swinging her legs off the lounge, Tis moved to her sister, hugged Roxalana close. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid your little brother, despite his skin change, hasn’t learned very much. He’s still an idiotic male.” Roxalana’s hand was soft on her hair, stroking, pulling apart the slight tangles with her fingers. “All right, let me doctor. I have two good hands. I should be grateful for that.”
All briskness again, Roxalana held her at arm’s length. “Let me make amends for hitting you.” Moving swiftly to the door, she called back over her shoulder. “Here is the bodyguard you’ve been missing.”
The door opened, and Mark Meadows grinned sheepishly down at her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
There was a quality reminiscent of the little boy as Jay Ackroyd stood with his nose pressed against a floor-to-ceiling port and watched the Takisian ships go about their mysterious and shiply business. Tisianne seemed inclined to ignore the detective, but Mark gave her a nudge and jerked his head at Jay.
“You should, like, introduce Jay to your sisters.”
Tisianne turned wide gray eyes on him. “Why?”
Despite the solemnity of the occasion Mark couldn’t fully suppress the little smile that tugged at his mouth. “’Cause when he gets a load of your sisters, it’ll, like, bum him out big time that he rejected Rarrana.”
“I like that,” said Tis, and led the little band of Sennari women over to the human.
Lurching along behind them, Mark felt like a particularly ungainly basset hound mothering a clutch of baby chicks. At first he’d been surprised that the women were allowed out of Rarrana, but Roxalana had pointed out it was only the children of the late lamented Shaklan. Even for the funeral of the Raiyis, Ilkazam wasn’t going to risk most of its breeding females.
It took a light touch to the shoulder to draw the detective’s attention away from the vista of stars and ships.
“Jay, I wish you to meet my sisters. Sisters, Jay Ackroyd.” The six Sennari women acknowledged the detective with regal little inclinations of their golden heads.
“We had despaired of ever meeting you,” said Roxalana, as always the spokeswoman for the sisters.
Jay regained control of his jaw and forced out, “Yeah, well, when Tachy’s out in the wide world, I’m there to guard her.”
“How very noble of you.”
“I also wanted to see a Takisian funeral.”
“Somewhat less noble of you.”
In this time of danger it wasn’t prudent to empty the House for Shaklan’s funeral, but there still seemed to be a lot of people milling about Ship Home, both Zal’hma at’ Irg and Tarhiji.
The Ilkazam orbital platform was not only a military installation, it was the breeding facility for the living ships. Hence the name, hence the hundreds of ships of all sizes, shapes, and ages drifting about, grazing on the stellar dust, and huddling close to the platform as if seeking to say farewell to their former Raiyis.
Tis and her sisters went off to prepare the body of heir father. Mark joined Jay at the port. Ships were still arriving. Through a secondary port set in the lock, He could watch the ships actually enter the docking bay. There was already a ship at rest there, a ship without lights or ornamentation. Mark could see the white wounds where the decorations had been removed. As each ship flew back out of the bay, it made a point to brush sides with the funeral ship – for so Mark assumed it had to be. Mark suddenly flashed on a memory of Egyptian pharaohs, and he hoped the faithful steed didn’t have to share the fate of its master. It seemed kind of barbaric for the Takisians, but they were such an odd mix of violence and elegance that you never knew.
The last mourners arrived, and the outer lock cycled closed. In answer to some telepathic message the crowd entered the bay and formed double ranks with those closest in relationship to Shaklan nearest to the ship. Taj then came walking down the center carrying the body of his brother-in-law. At various points he would pause, and family members would place tokens – mostly folded bits of foil, but occasionally very valuable pieces of jewelry – in the folds of the corpse’s clothing and whisper into its ear.
Each of the sisters had some small object. Tisianne only leaned in and kissed the cold lips. Taj stared hard at her. Tis waved him on. The old man vanished into the ship.
Pandasala leaned in. “No gift, no proof of virtu for our father?”
Tis’s faced seemed shuttered. “Nothing I could give him would forestall the curse – if he decides to curse me.”
Taj emerged moments later, his arms empty. The corpse had been left in the ship. The mourners retreated behind the lock, and the outer door cycled open. Silently the dark ship lifted off and flew out into the blackness of space.
“Where are they going?” Jay asked.
Tis remained silent, staring out at the stars.
Roxalana’s brow twitched briefly in a small frown as she regarded her brother, then she answered. “No one living knows. The ship that carried them in life carries them in death and takes them… somewhere.”
“They don’t, like, commit suicide by diving into a sun or something, do they?” Mark asked, eager to have that concern assuaged.
“No, no,” Roxalana said. “The body is preserved by the cold and vacuum of space. We want our dead to know where their bodies rest.”
“Why?” Jay asked.