Chapter Twenty-Four

There was a quality reminiscent of the little boy as Jay Ackroyd stood with his nose pressed against a floor-to-ceiling port and watched the Takisian ships go about their mysterious and shiply business. Tisianne seemed inclined to ignore the detective, but Mark gave her a nudge and jerked his head at Jay.

“You should, like, introduce Jay to your sisters.”

Tisianne turned wide gray eyes on him. “Why?”

Despite the solemnity of the occasion Mark couldn’t fully suppress the little smile that tugged at his mouth. “’Cause when he gets a load of your sisters, it’ll, like, bum him out big time that he rejected Rarrana.”

“I like that,” said Tis, and led the little band of Sennari women over to the human.

Lurching along behind them, Mark felt like a particularly ungainly basset hound mothering a clutch of baby chicks. At first he’d been surprised that the women were allowed out of Rarrana, but Roxalana had pointed out it was only the children of the late lamented Shaklan. Even for the funeral of the Raiyis, Ilkazam wasn’t going to risk most of its breeding females.

It took a light touch to the shoulder to draw the detective’s attention away from the vista of stars and ships.

“Jay, I wish you to meet my sisters. Sisters, Jay Ackroyd.” The six Sennari women acknowledged the detective with regal little inclinations of their golden heads.

“We had despaired of ever meeting you,” said Roxalana, as always the spokeswoman for the sisters.

Jay regained control of his jaw and forced out, “Yeah, well, when Tachy’s out in the wide world, I’m there to guard her.”

“How very noble of you.”

“I also wanted to see a Takisian funeral.”

“Somewhat less noble of you.”

In this time of danger it wasn’t prudent to empty the House for Shaklan’s funeral, but there still seemed to be a lot of people milling about Ship Home, both Zal’hma at’ Irg and Tarhiji.

The Ilkazam orbital platform was not only a military installation, it was the breeding facility for the living ships. Hence the name, hence the hundreds of ships of all sizes, shapes, and ages drifting about, grazing on the stellar dust, and huddling close to the platform as if seeking to say farewell to their former Raiyis.

Tis and her sisters went off to prepare the body of heir father. Mark joined Jay at the port. Ships were still arriving. Through a secondary port set in the lock, He could watch the ships actually enter the docking bay. There was already a ship at rest there, a ship without lights or ornamentation. Mark could see the white wounds where the decorations had been removed. As each ship flew back out of the bay, it made a point to brush sides with the funeral ship – for so Mark assumed it had to be. Mark suddenly flashed on a memory of Egyptian pharaohs, and he hoped the faithful steed didn’t have to share the fate of its master. It seemed kind of barbaric for the Takisians, but they were such an odd mix of violence and elegance that you never knew.

The last mourners arrived, and the outer lock cycled closed. In answer to some telepathic message the crowd entered the bay and formed double ranks with those closest in relationship to Shaklan nearest to the ship. Taj then came walking down the center carrying the body of his brother-in-law. At various points he would pause, and family members would place tokens – mostly folded bits of foil, but occasionally very valuable pieces of jewelry – in the folds of the corpse’s clothing and whisper into its ear.

Each of the sisters had some small object. Tisianne only leaned in and kissed the cold lips. Taj stared hard at her. Tis waved him on. The old man vanished into the ship.

Pandasala leaned in. “No gift, no proof of virtu for our father?”

Tis’s faced seemed shuttered. “Nothing I could give him would forestall the curse – if he decides to curse me.”

Taj emerged moments later, his arms empty. The corpse had been left in the ship. The mourners retreated behind the lock, and the outer door cycled open. Silently the dark ship lifted off and flew out into the blackness of space.

“Where are they going?” Jay asked.

Tis remained silent, staring out at the stars.

Roxalana’s brow twitched briefly in a small frown as she regarded her brother, then she answered. “No one living knows. The ship that carried them in life carries them in death and takes them… somewhere.”

“They don’t, like, commit suicide by diving into a sun or something, do they?” Mark asked, eager to have that concern assuaged.

“No, no,” Roxalana said. “The body is preserved by the cold and vacuum of space. We want our dead to know where their bodies rest.”

“Why?” Jay asked.

Pandasala replied, “A ghost without a body to return to will take up residence in a living descendant – or so the superstition holds.”

Cillka spoke up. “A crash, fire, any accident that destroys the body is almost a worse tragedy than the death itself.”

“And the little gifts?”

“All our actions are designed to either appease or find favor with the ancestors. As one of those ancestors heads out, we like to remind them of how wonderful we are. So compositions, poetry, a novel, a scientific achievement, artwork, we send something along.”

“Christ, if you could find the cosmic cemetery, a grave robber would have a field day,” Jay said.

“I think the ships would prevent that,” was Melant’s rather dry reply.

“Ships.” Jay snapped his fingers. “Hey, I better not miss my bus. Catch you later.”

“What an extraordinary man,” Roxalana murmured.

“Is that a compliment?” Mark asked.

“Hardly.” She laid the tips of her fingers on his wrist. “Vindi, you may escort me to my ship.” As they moved away, she added very quietly, “I am very pleased that you are guarding my brother.”

Jay had picked a crowded shuttle with more than the normal complement of Tarhiji aboard. It had the virtue of being away from Zabb, and none of the watchdogs the Takisian had placed on Jay wanted to ride with the hired help, so for the moment Jay was free from surveillance. It was the first step in his plan to escape Ilkazam and head for Vayawand. Somebody had to stop farting around and snatch Blaise. Otherwise he and Meadows had become permanent residents.

The ship landed in the great courtyard in front of House Ilkazam, and most of the Tarhiji headed for the gates ready to return home after a long day of pampering the shitheads. So far luck was favoring him. Jay’s fruitbar clothes were a little fancy for a servant, and he was a little tall to pass easily, but his coloring was pure Tarhiji, and nobody really looks at servants. Right? Or so he hoped as he ducked his head and scuttled sideways into the shelter of a number of other bodies.

Several more shuttles had landed, and Jay spotted a couple of his bird dogs looking frantically about for him. They didn’t look at the gaggle of servants heading for the tram.

Slick as snot off a hog’s back, he thought as they passed through the gates and the great panels slid shut behind them.

“The calnite, please,” Tisianne said, and indicated a syringelike device. Cap’n Trips gingerly plucked the instrument from among its fellows and placed it in Tisianne’s hand.

“Is this going to hurt?” asked the grubby, tear-stained six-year-old whose broken arm was the object of Tisianne’s attention.

“No.”

“That’s what Manka said when she told me to jump… but it did.”

The lower lip thrust pugnaciously forward, but the effect was somewhat marred by an unhappy wobble.

“Maybe now you won’t do silly things just because people tell you to.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t do this.”

“Maybe you would like a swat?” Tis asked severely.

There was a screen up which prevented the child from seeing how his arm had been peeled open, skin and muscle laid back to reveal the broken bone. Tisianne had already fitted the ragged ends back together. Now, bending in close, she delicately placed the tip of the syringe at the juncture and sent the genetically altered bacteria into and onto the bone. There it would follow its genetic mandate and grow bone.