“Then we… leaving!” She made it sound like a threat.
Zabb stilled a laugh. “My, how… terrible. Anything I can do to speed you on your way?”
“This is not… hearing the last of this… matter.”
Zabb cut the communication and briefly wondered if he had been too quick to reject Taj’s advice that they offer some sop, make some face-saving gesture to the outraged Viand. But what did mudcrawlers understand of dignity?
Hey, you’re the one who said there was probably no limit to my power.
That was theory. This is my child we’re discussing!
It was a bizarre mode of communication. The closest analogy was mental seasickness. Jay had experienced telepathy – the voice in the head. This was more like telepathyvision. He could actually see all the parties to this confab. Some of the discomfort he attributed to the fact that several of the sisters had thrown up mock telepathic conversations to serve as screens. He couldn’t really hear them, but he was aware of them like an itch he couldn’t reach.
Meadows and Tisianne were in a garden. Snow was falling. With Mark in his Takisian comic-opera military togs, and Tisianne in a white fur cloak and fur hat, they looked like refugees from between the covers of War and Peace. Meadows looked really stupid, but to be fair, Jay had never seen the ace wear anything that actually suited that gangling form. Then there was Tisianne. It had been several days since Jay had seen the alien, and he was stunned at how big she’d gotten. He wondered if they were going to have time to pull off this little caper. There was telepathic reassurance from one of the sisters. He groped for a name, gave up. He couldn’t keep them straight.
Look, I really know the emergency room of the clinic. We send the kid, Cody will know what to do.
What? Do we pin a note on her? Dear Cody, this is my baby. Be home soon, love Tach? This discussion is closed. We are not going to experiment with Illyana. We stick with the original plan.
So Hastet gets to be in danger. Great.
She’ll have you, sent back Tisianne.
She should be honored by the trust, averred one of the sisters. Jay was glad Hastet wasn’t around to hear that.
Jay sighed and rubbed a hand across his face.
Okay, but a question – how do I pull off my end of the caper? It was like tasting a question mark. No words, just the emotion. Jay explained to the puzzled sisters. I’ve gotta see her to pop her.
You are seeing her now. That imperious soul he recognized – Roxalana. Cut to Roxalana in her sumptuous quarters. Looking out of her eyes at the image in the mirror as a Tarhiji servant brushed out the long golden hair.
Jay hung tenaciously onto his tumbling sense of place. See her in all her burgeoning, fecund, fertile flesh. The flash of irritation like a punch in the nose Jay correctly identified as Tisianne.
Cut to Tisianne. Didn’t most of your practice consist of sleazy little divorce and custody cases? Tisianne asked, oh, so sweetly. I should think skulking in bushes should be second nature by now.
Back to Roxalana. Tis, don’t squabble. This is a real problem, and we must address it.
For a long time Jay sensed brows wrinkling. For a long time they evaluated the multiplicity of means of ingress to Rarrana. Unfortunately it took even longer to count all the guards. Another long, dismal stretch of mental constipation. Finally one of the sisters slowly said, He is a little attractive.
Cut to Cillka. She was more than a little attractive. She was a testicle-warming knockout.
Bring him in, came the thought from Roxalana.
I’ve always been a girl who likes toys.
Their fading laughter held more than a little feminine revenge. None more so than Tisianne’s. Jay wondered if it was too late to back out.
He extended the epispray to her. Tisianne just looked at it. Mark’s wide eyes got wider with confusion. How to explain to him? How to say, I’m scared. I don’t want to go through this. I have to go through this. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want you with me. I want it all to be… different.
The barrel of the epispray was cold against her fingertips. Inside enough hormone to induce labor. Tisianne laid her free hand against her stomach, sought and touched the reassuring love flowing off Illyana. In the past week the baby’s movements had virtually ceased. From the changes in her borrowed body, and the clinical experience of monitoring some five hundred pregnancies at the Jokertown Clinic, Tisianne knew that the baby’s head had slipped down into the birth canal. So whether she did it now, or did it later, Illyana’s debut could not be denied. She was coming, and only Tis’s actions this day could assure her a chance at life.
I love you, baby. Don’t hurt me too badly.
She depressed the keypad. Raised her eyes to meet Mark’s. Wondered if she looked as terrified as he did. Ideal knew she felt it.
Chapter Thirty
“I feel like a total idiot,” Jay said.
Mark paused and glanced up from where he was tying the big bows that adorned Jay’s glittering boots.
“I’m sure the Doc feels a lot worse.”
“I hope it’s a long labor. I hope that little asshole…”
Jay couldn’t think of anything awful enough to equal the humiliation he was about to undergo. Grimacing, he faced the mirror again.
He felt as if he were doing a Fruit of the Loom commercial, only in this version he got to be a cherry bonbon. He had been padded to help sell the idea he was one of the Tarhiji. Though why it was necessary, he couldn’t imagine. The stupid suit alone made him look like a balloon. Layer on layer of pink and rose and cherry and orange and white. Each layer falling free with the pull of a ribbon. He trailed more streamers than a New Year’s Eve party the morning after.
Meadows removed this thing from a box and headed toward him. Jay dodged, tottered and teetered on his high-heeled boots. His first impression had been correct, it was a hat – like a cross between a poke bonnet and a propeller beanie. His awkward bobble had cost him. Meadows managed to plop the thing like a roosting gooney bird onto his head and tied the bow rakishly under one ear.
That was it. Jay went on strike. He dropped into a chair, folded his arms mulishly. “I’m not wearing the hat.”
“With that hat on do you think anybody will look at your face?”
Why did Meadows always have to be so goddamn reasonable?
“Does Cillka always tart her toys up like this?”
“She has a reputation for enjoying opening a man like a Christmas present. Pull a string, another layer falls away.”
Jay smirked. “Maybe with enough practice I could train Willy to spring through my fly like a jack-in-the-box. Bet Cillka’d like that.”
Meadows flushed a dull red. Jay savored the moment. Meadows unfortunately bounced back. Reaching into a pocket, he emerged with a silver-filigreed object too big to be a ring, too small for a bracelet. The other ace twirled it lightly around one long index finger.
“Well, whip it out.”
“What?”
“Don’t brag if you can’t produce.” Mark forced it into Jay’s hand and folded the detective’s fingers around it. “Now put it on.”
“Are you telling me that I have to thread my dick through that?”
“Yes.”
“No.” Curiosity got the better of him. “And why?”
“It means you’re sterile.”
“What? They’re going to inspect?”
“They might.”
Jay turned away, groped through the layers, pulled himself free. The ring settled snugly just behind the head of his cock. “Three hundred bucks a day is not enough.”
With total ennui the guards at the door glanced at his penis and waved him through.
“What a swell job,” Jay gritted. “Like the V.D. patrol in the army. These guys must get really sick of inspecting penises -”