“You’re an excellent argument for the wisdom of a controlled breeding program,” said L’gura conversationally.

A flush blossomed in the boy’s cheeks, and Durg held his breath. The internal struggle was obvious. Reason conquered anger, and Blaise shrugged. “My dear old granddaddy used to say that one healthy outcross was worth a thousand line-bred fools. For once he was right about something.”

L’gura scanned the nobles arrayed around his desk. “You are all quite determined on this?”

Elidan nodded. “The Raiyis sighed and leaned back. “It can be painless,” Elidan said.

“No, I’d rather have it messy.” The sharp gray eyes were turned to Blaise. “You should have to clean up the chair.”

Durg moved, but he was too late to stop the flick of the forefinger across a seam on the arm of the chair. The wingback detonated, exploding L’gura’s head. Fragments, both organic and inorganic, pattered across their faces like a disgusting warm rain. The body collapsed forward, the ruined head continuing to bleed onto the surface of the desk.

With a jerk of his head Blaise indicated to Durg. The Morakh crossed to the chair and threw aside the body. Blaise followed and, swinging out the chair, seated himself. The Vayawand nobles watched in horrified fascination as blood and brains smeared into the boy’s dark red hair.

“Impressive, half-breed. But your mistake was assuming I would allow a mongrel like you to rule the House Vayawand,” Elidan said.

“I never assume anything, Elidan,” Blaise replied.

Several things happened very quickly. Blaise slumped, almost losing consciousness. Elidan grabbed the crystal wine goblet on the desk and shattered it. Durg signaled the guards, whose loyalty had been carefully purchased days before, and they, together with Durg, held the other nobles at gunpoint while Elidan proceeded to cut his throat with a jagged piece of glass.

Blaise was screaming. “No, no! He’s killing me! Ancestors, save me!”

When the windpipe was severed, Blaise again slumped, gripped the arms of the chair to still the shaking of his hands, and watched as Elidan choked and bubbled on the floor before him. A few more seconds and it was over. The shaken nobility of the House Vayawand eyed their creation, and Sekal slowly bowed to Blaise.

“Raiyis.”

Blaise accepted their homage with appropriate grace. Durg was relieved – it would have been so like the young monster to gloat. The men filed silently out of the office, and Blaise held out a hand to Durg. The Morakh assisted him to his feet.

“The hardest thing is enduring the pain… concentrating through it to time the return jump,” said Blaise as he shoved a toe under Elidan’s body and rolled him over. The neck wound yawned up at Durg like a ragged, toothless grin.

Blaise suddenly lifted hooded lids and gave Durg the full force of those strange dark eyes. “My dear pet,” he said using the Vayawand diminishing word for a Morakh. “You haven’t given me proper obeisance yet.”

It startled Durg. His entire focus had been directed toward making Blaise Raiyis of House Vayawand. Having succeeded, it hadn’t occurred to him the boy would take it seriously. A lack of imagination was a terrible impediment to a Svengali, Durg thought as he felt, like the briefest lick of a whip, the touch of Blaise’s coercive mind control.

Durg hurried to his knees and noted that the pleasure in his victory had gone sour.

Chapter Sixteen

“What did he do to you?”

Tachyon turned her head to the wall. Jay repeated the question – louder. Moonchild was suddenly between them, sliding like a cloud between sky and sun. Using just her fingertips, she removed Jay’s hand from Tachyon’s arm. “That is not the way, Mr. Ackroyd. Step back please. You threaten by the mere fact of your presence.”

Stung, Jay retreated. Watched as Moonchild shook back her long hair, seated herself on the bunk, and drew Tachyon into her arms. Jay waited for the usual reaction. It didn’t come. Instead Tach sighed and relaxed against the slim Korean woman. Jay figured it out – while intellectually Tachyon knew this was “Mark,” the smell was of jasmine and sandalwood, the fingertips were soft, the body a place of rest and peace, not an instrument for pain. Jay suddenly regretted Tachyon’s decision not to bring Cody.

“Doctor, you must speak with me,” Moonchild said. “I was present at your collapse, and our captain took no physical action against you. Am I to infer from this that his assault was mental in nature?”

Tach pushed her hair back. The black and white and blond strands intermingled, and Jay thought he’d never seen a more beautiful pair of contrasting broads. One silver, one ebony. They could have been the queens on a living chess set. The romanticism of the thought embarrassed him, and he jammed his hands into the pockets of his brown slacks.

Tach shuddered. “He held up a mirror,” she said so softly that Moonchild had to bend down to hear her.

“I do not understand. What does that mean?”

“There’s a fairy tale among my people about a man so evil and honorless that his ancestors gathered and resolved to curse him so that each mirror he gazed into would show him his soul. Eventually it drove him mad, and his servants found his bloody body in the midst of shattered mirrors. Zabb took me on a time journey – the past and future all woven into one, and I nearly strangled in the threads of my selfishness. And then I realized I am the man of that story.”

Jay felt the anger rising again. “Zabb knows he can’t touch you physically. He can’t even hurt you emotionally or mentally except that you’re letting him. We haven’t got time for you to indulge in an orgy of self-pity and self-doubt. You’ve hauled Meadows and me across half a galaxy. You owe us. You’ve got to look out for us the same way we’re looking out for you. And that means teaching us all these stupid languages, and not making us crazy worrying about the state of your head. We’ve got enough problems trying to preserve your attractive little ass and recover your original skinny little ass,” Jay concluded.

“Zabb was there when my father was injured. He thrust the memory into my mind,” Tach flared back at Jay. “I smelled the coppery sweet scent of his blood, the stench of flesh burned away by high-energy weapons, screams, the crack of lasers cutting the air, explosions, falling masonry.” As she spoke, she assumed the thousand-mile stare that gave Jay the creeps. “Shaklan is rappelling down a tower, leading a counterassault of Ilkazam warriors against the Vayawand troops huddled behind parapets. A Morakh warrior whirls, fires from the hip. The laser peels back the side of my father’s skull, revealing brain – boiled and charred from the heat of the laser. The long fall to the roof. The screams,” Tach concluded in a remote voice.

“You’ve got a shit load to worry about, I know that,” Jay said. “But we’ve got to pick our worries in order of descending magnitude, and you flippin’ out about something that happened years and years ago isn’t going to help.”

“We are strangers and wanderers,” Moonchild said. “We do not understand your culture. Therefore, diplomacy must be your arena, and for that you need your wits. You must find your center. Our task is one of steel and strength. We can handle your enemies, Doctor. We cannot handle you.”

Jay had a feeling it was Moonchild’s calm good sense, and the comfort of her arms, that relaxed the shivering Takisian. Tough love clearly wasn’t a winning technique for dealing with Tachyon right now.

“Don’t leave me,” Tach whispered to the ace.

Moonchild nodded and lowered Tach gently back onto her pillow. Arms entwined, Tach’s head rested on Moonchild’s shoulder, and the ace’s hair formed a dark blanket for them both. Feeling very much the outsider, Jay retreated to the table and let the females bond. Eventually Tachyon drifted into another of her nightmare-wracked sleeps, and Moonchild slipped away from the girl.