The harrowing of her mind ended, and Zabb flung himself back into his chair behind the Raiyis’s desk and glared at her. His cheeks flew two angry spots of color.
“I should kill you,” he said finally. “I should have killed you seventy years ago.” He sighed.
“Mark is right,” Tis said. “You’re not going to kill me, so why don’t you stop bleating out this pointless and meaningless threat?”
Zabb didn’t answer. Instead he sent out a telepathic summons for Taj. The former regent responded quickly. Entering the office, he bowed.
“My lord.”
“Mobilize M.I.S. I want agents in every city with an orbital elevator. We may still be in time to catch them -”
“Burning Sky, Zabb! I can’t believe you are being this stupid!” Tis said. “Blaise is mobilizing an army against us. Not a normal strike force, an army. There is combat in the streets and homes of our cities. Families that have refused to acknowledge Blaise and his new order have been eradicated. And now Blaise has introduced us to the wonders of modern human warfare – he has used atomics against a civilian target. Let’s hope he doesn’t become bored with baiting us. Otherwise we will find ourselves forming the slag at the bottom of a radioactive crater.”
“Not as long as you’re alive,” Taj said. “Much of this is being staged for your benefit, and it’s you Blaise wants.”
Tis glanced at Zabb. “There, you see? An excellent reason for not killing me. The point is, nothing like this disaster has ever occurred in our history, and you’re wasting spies trying to locate one tiny baby? I hope you enjoy being the last Raiyis of the House Ilkazam. Your deeds may be worth a ship song. Ideal knows the Zal’hma at’ Irg won’t remember you.”
“She’s right,” Taj said.
Zabb slumped, and for one brief instant Tis saw the fear and irresolution of a man who has grasped his dream and watched it metamorphose into catastrophe. Then the mask was back in place, and Zabb studied Tisianne as if he’d never seen her before. The silence went on and on.
“So what do we do?” Zabb finally asked. It wasn’t what Tis had expected, and from Zabb’s expression it probably wasn’t what he’d intended to say either. Tisianne wondered how much this admission of helplessness had cost him.
She answered, “The first thing I’m doing is leaving Rarrana and returning to my suite -”
“You can’t, you’re -”
“I’m not, and I won’t be. I’ve had the baby, so I’m no longer a breeding female, and since no one in their right mind would breed with this body, there’s nothing here to protect. I cannot be kept confined.”
Taj quirked an eyebrow at Zabb. “She’s right again.”
To her uncle Tis said, “From you I need an arms master. I must get this body back in shape.”
“Going to fight with us, Tis?” Zabb asked with bitter sarcasm.
“Probably not. As you have so rightly pointed out, I have little aptitude for it. But there are things I can do. The reports from Alaak indicate a great many civilian casualties -”
“And how do you know that?”
“Taj.” Zabb’s expression promised strong words to his elder relative and statesman in the not too distant future. “At any rate, I am a doctor. I can organize emergency field hospitals in Ilkala and the other cities. I think we should evacuate the children to the rural areas – foster them with farm families. Run air-raid drills, designate shelters, appoint bomb wardens, and institute universal conscription.”
“And hope they don’t defect to Blaise at the first opportunity,” Zabb grunted.
“Tarhiji died on Fel’k,” Tis said. “A lot of them. They may be more reticent about wanting to fight for my grandson.”
“An active aristocracy is not something the Tarhiji are accustomed to,” Taj said.
“There are a good many things none of us are accustomed to, but they are happening. I would suggest it is time to adapt or die.”
Taj glanced to Zabb. “Again… she’s right.”
Zabb made a note with a light stylus. “I’ll assign a squad of my personal guard to assist you.”
Tis’s lip twisted. “Don’t worry, Zabb, I won’t foment revolution against you.”
He looked up. “I never thought you would. I do it for your protection.” Tis just smiled. Zabb wrote again. “And I’ll give you that Vayawand traitor. As long as we’re feeding him, he may as well be useful.”
She rose, shook out her skirts, and started for the door. “Tis,” Zabb called. She paused and glanced back. “If you’re going to have an arms master, you had better be armed.” He tossed her a blaster pistol. Tis caught it out of the air. “If Blaise ever does enter this House, there are some conditions over which death might be a decided improvement.”
Hastet and Jay and a lot of other people stood on the platform and watched the back end of the train vanishing out of the main station of Fanja. Jay was getting a fucking tour of fucking Takis, and not getting to see a thing except the inside of railway stations. He wished he had a map. Where the hell was House Fannija?”
“So where’s another elevator from here… wherever here is?” Jay asked.
“Jeban would be closest,” Hastet answered.
“They’re not, like, close buddies with Blaise, are they?”
“The House is rather small, and they tend to remain neutral.”
“I don’t think neutral is a luxury anyone can afford right now. A fucking world war’s breaking out here.”
“You take care of the baby. I’ll exchange our tickets.”
An old fear intruded once again. “You’re sure we won’t be met at the border with guards and dogs?”
“No.”
“No passports, no visas?”
She was staring at him in perplexity. “If I want to move to Ban or Maz or Ss’anga, I move to Ban or Maz or Ss’anga.”
“But you’re Ilkazam.”
“Yes. Why should they care? As long as I have a skill and some money.”
“I don’t understand you people at all. The whole damn planet’s balkanized, but you’ve got no borders.”
“Not for people like us. I have a letter of introduction from my banker to a banker at CreditNet in Alaak. That’s all the identification I need. I’ll pay my taxes wherever I live, and basically life won’t change very much.”
“So aren’t they going to wonder at our sudden change of plans?”
Hastet looked frustrated. “Maybe, but why don’t we worry about that when we’re faced with the problem?”
“I love it when you’re sensible,” Jay said. Hastet placed Illyana in his arms, stood on tiptoe, and gave him a quick kiss. Suddenly wars and rumors of wars became a lot less worrisome.
The scene on the platform was controlled and very noisy chaos. Babies were bawling, toddlers were screaming, children were sobbing, parents were crying. Husbands and wives took tender leave of each other as one or the other went off to the country to care for Ilkazam’s most precious commodity.
Tis could see Mark moving through the crowd like a wading stork in a stand of reeds. He had a little girl riding on his bony shoulders, and he was bawling out her mother’s name.
Bat’tam lightly touched her elbow and indicated the manager of Ilkala’s largest grocery warehouse standing in evident confusion at the top of the station’s stairs. With the hem of her dress and long coat sweeping the platform, she hurried to the manager’s side.
He seemed dazed by the hubbub, and by finding himself in the presence of the heir to Ilkazam. To cover his discomfort, he made notes on his book computer. Tisianne extended her hand, rings flashing against the dark green leather of her glove. The entire outfit, from the heavily embroidered dress to the fur hat, coat, and muff, was so overblown, but Bat’tam had insisted, and Tisianne had discovered he was right. Her subjects didn’t want their princess to show the common touch. They wanted her to dress and act like a princess. Elegant condescension and noblesse oblige definitely greased the wheels of the civil-defense juggernaut she was riding.