Her eyes flicked (sadly?… it was difficult to gauge the emotion, so quickly had it passed) over him, and she made obeisance.
"Sire, if you will accompany me."
He swept Benaf'saj a final bow, and fell into step with Talli, debating how to break the silence. He decided small talk would be inappropriate-of course she'd grown, it'd been decades!
"No word of greeting, UP" The corridor curved before them, gleaming like polished mother-of-pearl as they spiraled deeper into the heart of the ship.
"You gave none in farewell."
"It was something I had to do."
"Others also live by that imperative." She glanced nervously about and switched to the tight, intimate telepathic mode. Zabb means to have you dead. Eat or drink nothing that I have not brought, and watch your back. She pressed a small sharp dagger into his hand, and he ran it quickly up his sleeve.
I suspected as much. But thank you for the warning and the weapon.
He'll kill me if he. suspects.
He won't learn it from me. He was never my equal in mentatics. But she looked doubtful, and he realized with embarrassment how lax were his shields. He strengthened them, and she nodded with relief.
Better.
No, terrible. This is a dreadful situation. He looked at her seriously. I have no intention of returning to Takis.
They had reached the door to the cabin, and the ship obligingly shuttered open for him.
She placed her hands on his shoulders, and urged him in. You must. We need you.
And as the door lensed shut he decided that maybe she wasn't much of an ally after all.
Tom Tudbury was having one of the worst days of his life. The very worst day had been March 8, when Barbara had married Steve Bruder, but this one was running a real close second. He had been on his way to Tachyon's clinic with the strange device he'd taken off the street punk when a strange ship, looking rather like a wentletrap seashell, had looped out of the clouds, pulled up beside him, and invited him aboard. Maybe invited wasn't the right word; compelled was closer to the mark. Icy talons seemed to settle about his mind, and he had calmly flown the shell through the yawning doors of a cargo bay. He didn't remember anything more until he had found himself standing in a gigantic room, his shell squatting behind him.
Several slender men in comic-opera gold and white uniforms stepped forward and searched him, while another darted into the shell, and emerged with the strange black ball and a half-drunk six-pack of beer. He gestured with the cans causing them to clunk dully together, and there was a burst of laughter. Next the device was examined amid a ripple of musical words filled with random and inexplicable pauses. With a shrug, the device was placed on a shelf which ran along one side of the curving room. One of his captors gestured politely toward a doorway. The courtesy of the gesture removed his worst fear-he clearly wasn't in the hands of the Swarm. Somehow politeness seemed out of place with monsters.
They exited into a long snaking corridor whose walls, floor, and ceiling shone like polished abalone. As they proceeded, the arching ceiling would light before them and darken after they had passed. One wall held a tracery of rose colored lines like the petals of a flower. This section suddenly shuttered open, and Tom was urged into a luxurious cabin. A burst of brittle, feminine laughter met his arrival, and he goggled at the beautiful woman curled up in the center of a large round bed.
"Well, you don't look like much," she said, her eyes raking over him. He sucked in his belly, and wished his tee shirt was cleaner. "I'm Asta Lenser, Who the hell are you?" He was scared, but the fear made him cautious. He shook his head. "Oh, fuck you! We're in this together."
"I'm an ace. I've gotta be careful."
"Well, big fuckin' deal! So am I."
"You are?"
"Yeah, I do the dance of the seven veils." Her long, graceful arms wove a pattern about her. "I out-Salome Salome." He looked puzzled. "Don't you ever go to the ballet?"
"No."
"Moron." She scrabbled in a large shapeless bag, and emerged with a packet of white powder, a mirror, and a straw. Her hands were trembling so much that it took her five tries to get the lines set. She sucked in the cocaine, and leaned back with a long sigh of relief. "Where were we? Oh yeah, my power. I can mesmerize people with my dancing. Particularly men. But it's a real dinky power when you've been kidnapped by aliens. Still, Himself sure appreciated it. I got him a lot of good information with my dinky power, and kept him… up." She made an obscene gesture between her legs.
Tom wondered who and what the hell she was talking about, but he frankly didn't care to puzzle it out. He staggered across the room, and collapsed on a low bench that seemed to be an extrusion of the ship itself. As he seated himself on the thick, embroidered cushion there was a crackle as of leaves or dried petals, and a rich spicy aroma filled the air.
He wasn't sure how long he huddled on the bench, agonizing over his situation-Takisians! Jesus Christ! What was going to happen to them? Tach? Could he help? Did he even know? Oh shit!
"Hey," called Asta. "I'm sorry. Look, we're both aces, we ought to be able to do something to get out of this mess." Tom just shook his head. How could he tell her that he had left his powers behind with his shell?
The rasp of the match was loud in the silent room. Tach watched with unnecessary attention as the candle flared to life. The light struck color from the ship wall, and shed the gentle scent of flowers. Pulling a quarter from his pocket he laid it on the altar. It looked incongruous among the gold Takisian coins. He hefted the tiny pearl-handled knife, murmured a quick prayer for the release of his father's spirit, and made a tiny cut on the pad of his forefinger. The blood welled slowly out, and he touched the gleaming drop to the coin. He sank down to sit cross-legged before the family altar, sucking at his cut finger, and flipping the tiny two-inch knife over and over in his hand. "It won't make much of a weapon."
Zabb was leaning against the door, arms folded across his chest. He was close to six feet tall with a whip-lean body and the heavy chest and shoulders of the long-distance swimmer or martial artist. Wavy, silver gilt hair swept back from a high white forehead, and just brushed the collar of his white and gold tunic. Cold gray eyes added to the impression of metal and crystal. There was no warmth to the man. But there was power and command, and an overwhelming charisma.
"That wasn't what I was thinking about."
"You should be."
There was something in the moment, the set of Zabb's shoulders, or perhaps the indulgent cock to his head, that made Tach remember an earlier time… before family politics had intruded, before he understood the whispers linking Zabb's mother to the death of his mother, before… A time when a five-year-old Tach had adored his glamorous older cousin.
" I was remembering that you gave me my first puppy. From that litter old Th'shula had."
"Don't, Tis. That's dead and past."
"Like I'm going to be?"
Their eyes met, gray to lilac. Tach's fell first.
"Yes." One fine, manicured hand was brushing nervously at his full mustache and sideburns. "I intend to kill you before we reach Takis." Zabb's tone was conversational.
"I don't want the family. I want to stay on Earth."
"That doesn't matter. As long as you live I can't have it."
"And the humans?"
"They're laboratory animals. Useful if we're to move to the second stage." He turned to leave.
"Zabb, what happened?"
His cousin's shoulders hunched, then relaxed back into their military erectness. "You lived to maturity." The door whispered closed behind him.
Tom and Asta started as the two men entered, dragging between them a sprawling, gangling form in a purple Uncle Sam suit. The younger man dropped to one knee, riffled quickly through the hippie's voluminous coat pockets, and pulled out a small vial filled with a silver-shot blue powder. The elder accepted the bottle, uncapped it, and sniffed curiously at the contents. One eyebrow quirked up.