“I can end this thing in about two seconds -”
“No.”
“You’ll have your body back -”
“No!”
“Meadows and I can go home -”
“No!”
“And you’re not going to let me do it because it’s Christmas?”
It cost her. Her teeth gently sketched at her lower lip, then her expression hardened. “That is correct.”
Jay checked just inside the kitchen door. Both big ovens were fired up, and all the burners on the stove. Steam formed worm tracks on the window in the back door. Hastet was alternating between making sugar flowers on a multitiered cake, and giving an occasional stir to a bubbling sauce.
A young man, his plump face red with exertion and heat, was creaming butter in a giant ceramic bowl. Haupi went hissing and rollicking across the floor. Her wings were up, but she seemed to have about as much lift as a dodo.
“Jesus, are we entertaining the army tonight?”
Hastet pushed back a hanging strand of hair and left a pink smudge on her damp forehead. “I suppose I have you to thank for this.” She didn’t sound real happy.
“What? What did I do?”
“The House called yesterday. I’m to prepare desserts for Festival.”
“It is a great honor, genefemme,” the young man said.
There were a mountain of flaky cookies with pink icing. Jay snitched one. The sweetness of the frosting contrasted with the almost tart flavor of the dough. He snitched two more.
“Shut up and stir,” Hastet ordered. “No, better yet, go to Wan’se and buy me some more sithi beans. I’m almost out.” The boy grabbed his coat and vanished, along with a cloud of steam, into the alley out back.
Hastet caught Jay with his hand on the cookies, smacked him with her pastry gun, and decorated his shirt with green icing.
“Thanks,” Jay said. Scraping it off with a forefinger, he daubed it on her nose like war paint.
“I won’t be able to have a booth at Festival now. I’ll be too damn tired,” Hastet complained.
“Nice of the lord and lady poobahs to let you guys party along with them. Even if you’re not good enough to go to the big polar hop.”
“I wouldn’t want to be there. We have more fun here.” She had these incredibly serious eyes, and when she turned them on him, Jay felt as if it were X-ray vision to the soul.
“Is that meant to be an invitation?” Jay asked.
She turned away and stirred sauce. “I would like it.”
He took the whisk away from her and put his arms around her. She let him, and he felt as if someone had opened a bottle of champagne in the center of his chest. “I’d like it too.” She glanced over at her cooking and gently freed herself from his arms. Jay perched on the marble pastry table. “So what’s this party like?”
“It’s outdoors with lots of food and drink and music and dancing.”
“And cops and fights?” Jay suggested.
Hastet looked at him oddly. “When we Takisians fight, we fight for real. People die.”
Jay remembered Hiram remarking, after a return from overseas, that the most violent cultures tended to have the most elaborate system of manners, the greatest degree of politeness; it was a way to keep the violence in check. Takisians seemed to be no exception.
“And besides, this is Festival,” Hastet added.
“Yeah, I’ve heard too much about how peaceful everybody is at Festival.”
Hastet resumed her cooking. She had an ability, rare in many women, to be perfectly comfortable with silence. Jay ate cookies and watched as the elaborate confection took shape. And slowly a plan also began to take shape.
“How’s all this stuff getting to the pole?” Jay asked.
“Servants from the House will pick it up tomorrow.”
“So it goes in a day ahead of time?”
“Yes.”
“Waiters, bus boys, too?”
“No, Tarhiji are not permitted. The Zal’hma at’ Irg serve themselves at Festival.”
“Do they use living ships?”
“Only to tow the freight barges.”
“And who unloads once they reach the pole?”
“Tarhiji who have ridden with the foodstuffs. Why?” she asked suddenly suspicious.
“I just figured out how to crash that party.”
“Not in my desserts you’re not.”
“Let’s talk about it.” And he drew her arm gently through his.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Twelve thousand years ago (or so legend had it) all the families had banded together to build Festival Hall on the edge of the polar continent. The Crossing Festival was always held on the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, to symbolize the blackness of space as the Takisians made their crossing and emerged into the sunlight of the Crystal World. It was the only time when for a brief count of hours the ruling families of Takis set aside rivalry, plots, and murder and celebrated together.
Everyone attended Festival. The old (not too many of those in a psi lord family), the infirm, the very young (there seemed to be about twenty million crying babies in this shuttle), and everyone in between. But no guards. The Tarhiji were not permitted at Festival.
“Perfect time to drop a tactical nuke,” Jay had remarked to Trips as he watched the tailor fit the lanky ace for the Festival. Mark couldn’t remember what he’d said. Maybe nothing. There really wasn’t anything to say when Jay was on the prod.
Mark sighed and wished the detective were here now, but Jay was a mere guard, not adopted, not one of the family like Mark. Maybe that was what had made him so crabby, and why he’d vanished for a day. Probably pissed. If Jay was regretting missing the party, Mark would cheerfully have changed places with him. The ace didn’t want to see Blaise – too many bad memories. And speaking of memories, how the hell is the Doc going to handle this? wondered Mark.
She was in her usual position – head averted from the women and children, gazing out the portal. Or was the port only an illusion projected by the living ship? Trips had never quite worked that out.
This late in the pregnancy Tisianne’s face had grown puffy, but overall she looked pretty good. Her maid had dressed her hair in an elaborate upswept style that made her seem older and far more regal. The dress wasn’t so good. Its bizarre color combinations were shocking to human sensibilities, and the cut was designed to accentuate rather than minimize the belly. Then there was the bare neckline screaming for jewelry, but Tis had remained adamant and refused to wear her mother’s jewels. Mark foresaw an unpleasant scene with Zabb.
Mark sidled over to her. Peered out the port. It was a tight fit, and their cheeks brushed. Heat rolled off her skin. Worried, he laid a hand on her forehead.
She brushed it aside. “Nerves. I’ve always had the power to make myself sick. Maybe someday I’ll do it up really right and end up dead.”
There was nothing to say to that. They returned to their contemplation of dark water, icebergs, and ice floes. What had seemed a puzzling white line on the horizon resolved itself into a wall of ice several hundred feet high. The sea battered against those crystal ramparts – white spume and white ice. Occasionally the patient chew of the water broke free a chunk of ice the size of a train car. The roar of falling ice seemed like a cry of despair while the ocean boomed in triumph. And then the patient millennium-long dance began again.
Tis jerked her chin, and Trips saw it. Building seemed too mundane. Palace was incorrect since this structure stood empty all year long except for this one night. Victorian absurdity, was the best he could do. And enormous! It appeared to be constructed entirely of glass. Probably some sort of high tensile plastic to be able to resist the polar storms, Mark amended, and he was damned if he knew what held it up. There were no struts in evidence, no obvious bearing walls.
The arrival time seemed to be inviolable. As the Ilkazam ships, flying in tight and elegant formation, dived toward the hail, Mark saw other brilliantly lit ships also sweeping in. There was a sense of show-off in the formations the ships assumed as they landed, and then it struck him – this wasn’t at the bidding of their masters, this was pure ship vanity.