Down And Dirty

He was a physician. Sworn to the task of saving lives. Jack Robicheaux lay under sentence of death. The presence of the wild card twined into the code of his cells currently held the AIDS virus at bay. But it merely delayed the inevitable. Eventually Jack would die.

Unless.

Unless Tachyon changed him forever. What was not human could not die from a human disease.

But was life worth any price? And did he have the right?

What should I do, Jack? Do I make this choice for you since you can't make it yourself,,

Was it any different than unplugging a respirator? Oh, yes.

Later, as he leaned back against the elevator wall as it whined slowly to the ground floor, he considered again Queen's advice that he bring in help. But so much of this only I can do. And there's only one of me. And everyone wants a piece. Shaking his head like a tired pony, he stepped out into the emergency room.

And was nearly run down by a nurse hurrying past with a vial of the trump. Thirty-two, he thought, upping the count, and followed her through the screen. Fi

Gagging, he pushed aside the smelling salts. Fought free of the restraining hands.

"Are you all right?"

"Doctor?"

"Drink this."

"Forget me!" Clinging like a drunk to a nurse's arm, he struggled to his feet. Catching Fi

THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"

"It's… it's our only shot… it's wild card."

"IT CAN'T BE! I KNOW THIS WOMAN! SHE'S AN ACE!" The joker recoiled from the madness in Tachyon's face. The Takisian resumed his examination. Fi

"Impossible! The virus was designed to resist mutation. She's a stable ace. She's can't be reinfected."

"Look at her!"

Panting, Tach stared from the syringe to Roulette's oozing body and back again. "Give it to me!"

His fingers slipped on the foul-smelling mucous film, and the needle scraped across the vein. Roulette cried out. "Wipe this away."

But as fast as they wiped, it bled still faster from her pores. Finally Tachyon jammed home the needle. Ancestors. Let it work. Let this be one time when it works!

But recently it seemed his prayers had only been met with silence.

Roulette was begi

"Tachyon." A croaking whisper. " I was coming back. To you." She sucked in air-a sound like a dying accordian. "Are you still waiting?"

"Yes."

"Liar. I'm dying. You're off the hook."

"Roulette." His skin crawled to touch her, but he forced himself to lay his cheek against hers. His tears mingled with mucus.

"You destroyed my life. You and your disease. Finally it's finishing the job. I'm… so… glad."

Long minutes later Fi

Mostly from terror.

"I got really mad today, but I thought about it like you said, and I didn't control them."

"Good." Tachyon stared into the refrigerator as if seeking enlightenment from a carton of sour milk and a bowl full of moldy peaches. "What was that?" The boy stiffened. "Oh, Blaise, I'm so proud of you." The rigidity went out of the small body under Tachyon's tight embrace. "And you're speaking English. I noticed that, too. I'm just so tired it takes me a few beats to catch up."

Blaise reached up and laid his fist against Tachyon's mouth. Tach kissed it. In a sudden, abrupt topic change the boy asked. "Uncle Claude wasn't a very good person, was he?"

"No, but one can partially understand his reasons. It's never easy to be a joker."

"What would you do if you were a joker?"

"Kill myself." Blaise gaped up at the indescribable expression on his k'ijdad's narrow face.

"That's silly. Anything is better than dead."

"I can't agree. You'll understand when you're older."

"Everybody tells me that." Pouting, Blaise left the kitchen and flung himself on the sofa. "Jack, Durg, Mark, Baby. I suppose it must be true if ships and humans and Takisians all agree. But I didn't mean being a yucky joker like Snotman. What if you were like Jube, or Chrysalis or Ernie?"

"I still couldn't live with it." Tach joined him on the sofa. "My culture idealizes the perfect. Defective children are destroyed at birth, and otherwise normal individuals are sterilized if it's determined that they lack sufficient genetic worth."

"So to be ordinary is as bad as being de… defective," he asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.

"Well, not quite, and too random a gene pattern can also endanger a person. I was almost sterilized because of my Se

"Do you have a little boy on Takis?"

"No."

Tachyon briefly wondered if the sperm he had left banked on Takis still existed, or if Zabb's supporters had seen it destroyed. Or even worse, had Taj impregnanted some female? It was ironic that in a culture as technologically advanced as the Takisian, there was a fundamental distrust of artificial insemination, and artificial wombs. The wombs made a certain degree of sense; in a telepathic culture it was best that the child be linked with its mother, but there was little justification for the sex act.

Except for the obvious ones.

Ten nwnths! Ten months without sex.

He jerked his mind from that unpleasant thought and focused again on Blaise. There was so much to teach him about his Takisian culture, and yet should he really bother?

The child could never be presented to the family. He was an abomination. Also there was much in Takisian culture that didn't bear close scrutiny. How to indicate to an eleven-yearold child that the blood feuds, the controlled breeding, the tension and almost unbearable expectations that were part and parcel of life among the psi lords, were not romantic or wonderful, but rather deadly in the extreme, and had driven his grandsire to this alien world?

"Tell me a story."

"What makes you think I know any stories?"

"You're more like a fairy tale than real. You have to know stories."

"All right. I'll tell you how H'ambizan tamed the first ship. Long ago-"

"No."

"No?" Blaise's expression suggested that his grandfather was an idiot. "Ahhh, of course. Once upon a time." He cocked an inquiring eyebrow. Blaise nodded, satisfied, and snuggled in closer under Tachyon's arm. "And so long ago that even the oldest Kibrzen would lie if they told you they remembered, the people were forced to journey through the stars aboard ships of steel. What was worse, they weren't allowed to build these ships, for the Alaa-may their line wither-had signed a contract with Master Traders, and the people were forbidden to build space-going vessels. So the wealth of Takis bled into space, and into the pockets of the rapacious Network."

"What's the Network?"

"A vast trading empire with one hundred and thirty member races. One day H'ambizan, who was a notable astronomer, was drifting among the clouds in the birthplace of stars, and he came upon an amazing sight. Playing among the clouds of cosmic dust like porpoises in the waves, or butterflies through flowers, were vast incredible shapes. And H'ambizan fell to the deck, clasping his ringing skull, for his head was filled with a great singing. His assistants died of joy and shock for their minds could not absorb the thoughts of the creatures. But H'ambizan-being of the Ilkazam-was made of sterner stuff. He controlled his fear and pain and lanced out with a single thought. A single command. And so great was his power that the honor of ships fell silent and gathered like nursing whales about the tiny metal ship."