[Wildcards 10] - Double Solitaire Read Free Page B

strong streak of practicality in all Takisians. We are the ultimate pragmatists. You will be bringing a great gift to the Vayawand." He turned and pointed at the prone Tachyon body. "The heir to the House of their greatest enemy. You also possess an extraordinary power. I have been bred to resist mind control. You can control me. We shall use that. Believe me, however disgusting your pedigree, they will not waste your talent. The first hours will be critical, but if we can survive, I think you have the potential to become a great ruler."
    Blaise flung his arms around the Morakh's thick waist and buried his head against Durg's massive chest. "You won't leave me alone, will you?"
    "I am your blooded man. Only your rejection or my death will end my service." Durg allowed a slight smile to cross that elfin, beautiful face. "And we Morakh are not only killers of kings, we are also their advisers."
    Lifting his head, Blaise said, "Uncle Claude taught me how to be a revolutionary." He sounded very young.
    Durg laid a hand on the top of the boy's brush-cut red hair. "And I shall teach you to be a prince."
     
    It still didn't seem like a spaceship. First, it had a name... Baby -- whoever heard of a spaceship named Baby ? Second, it didn't look like a spaceship. The walls were curved and fluted, and glowed with a pearlescent light that made Kelly feel as if he were living inside a seashell. And the central feature of the control room was a great canopied bed. No captain's chair, no helm, no banks of blinking computers -- just a bed. Third, there was the fact that the ship talked and sang... and wept. And only Kelly could hear her. And this was the final thing he had learned from the sorrowful voice that filled his days and tormented his dreams. Baby was a female.
    Blaise had turned back to the screen that Baby had obligingly telescoped open on the floor and wall.
    "So that's it," said Blaise, and despite his best effort his voice was filled with wonder.
    Kelly wanted to go and look, but his head was pounding. There were millions of minds ahead, and the pressure of their thoughts closed about Kelly's brain like a vise.
    It had been a journey from hell. Once Kelly had regained consciousness, the ship had realized this wasn't her master. Rejecting this impostor in Tachyon's skin, she had bolted for Earth. Blaise had mind-controlled the poor, terrified creature and then begun a deadly stalk. As he hunted Kelly about the confines of the living quarters, the young man, a mad light dancing in those black eyes, had carefully explained aloud to the ship about the kidnapping and the jump and the rapes.
    Then Blaise sprang upon Kelly, and he couldn't help himself -- Kelly screamed. Only to have the sound die in a desperate gurgle as Blaise had closed his hands about Kelly's throat.
    "So you see, Baby, if you don't do what I want, I'll kill this body, and Grand-pere will never be able to recover it. He'll be trapped forever, and it will be your fault."
    Baby was very docile after that, but she wept most of the time, and the sound of that psychic weeping was slowly driving Kelly mad.
    Durg stirred, an act as startling as if an Easter Island effigy had stood. The squat, heavily muscled body had a monolithic quality, and the delicately beautiful head set atop the broad shoulders only made it worse.
    "Better take control of her," grunted the Takisian. "Her instinct will be to bolt for the Ilkazam platform. Let it happen and we're all dead."
    Incredulous, Blaise demanded, "It's been almost fifty years. How the fuck can she still remember?"
    "She is an Ishab'kaukab . They do not forget."
    Blaise nodded, and his eyes took on that flat, unfocused stare that meant his power was being utilized. Baby's mournful mutterings cut off abruptly. Kelly felt Blaise's mind control, wrapping about the soul of the ship like poisonous tentacles. Trapped and no way out.
    Kelly understood the emotion. It had filled every waking hour as she grew up in the small Oklahoma