George Martin - Aces High

Oh shit!

Sorry, didn't mean to startle you.

There was no sense of danger in Turtle's mind, and Tach sighed. I take it you are not in the process of rescuing us. I can't, Turtle sullenly replied. I told you that.

Tom, he said gently, and remembered only when he heard Turtle's gasp that he wasn't supposed to have revealed his knowledge of the man's secret identity. He plunged on. Couldn't you just try. I'm sure if you tried you could…

I CAN'T! How many times do I have to tell you, I can't. And I seem to remember a booze-soaked derelict who kept whining about not being able to do it, and then felt hurt when I wasn't very understanding. Well, the shoe's on the other foot, Tachy. You be understanding.

The slap hurt. He was fully aware of the debt he owed to Turtle, but he didn't like to have his nose rubbed in his past sins. They were just that… past. The virus is encoded in your very cells…

I know that. How can I ever forget it? It's ruined my fucking life! You and Jetboy, and your goddamn fucking Takisians. Just leave me the fuck alone.

Turtle lacked the mental skills to actually block Tachyon, but he could layer every meaningful thought beneath a thick blanket of anger, making it very difficult to read or send. Tach sucked in several sharp breaths through his nose, and reminded himself that this was his oldest friend on Earth. He wondered if he could mind-control Turtle, and force him to override his emotional block. But no, the trauma was too deeply buried to reach by such a sledgehammer technique. His father with his skills could… Tach hugged himself, rocking back and forth as grief crashed down and bore him under yet again.

The sound of screams, crashes, and curses pulled him back. He frowned at the door, then began backing slowly toward the bed as he realized that the sounds were getting closer. A lot closer. Very close. A large gray fist slammed through the door. The spatulate fingers closing on the rough edges of the hole tensed and a large section of door came ripping loose. Hellcat screeched, and the clear, viscous fluid that served as blood in the sentient ship flowed from the wound. It had soon set into clear, frozen rivulets. Tach stared with dread fascination as section by section the door came down. And lumbering through the uneven hole came a huge, stocky man with glabrous grayish skin and a bald head with a bulging forehead. Takisians were hanging off him like ornaments on a Christmas tree.

"Mind-blast him!" screamed Zabb, slamming a fist into the creature's face. He danced back as the monster plucked a soldier from his back and pitched him toward Zabb.

One Takisian was not being dislodged even by the creature's great strength. A delicately drawn face set upon a mountainous body, and an expression of dogged ferocity. Durg at'Morakh bo Zabb. Zabb's pet monster. Revulsion and disgust clawed at the back of Tach's throat. He darted for the ruined doorway, thoughts tumbling wildly.

Not by those hands. Wash in my blood if you must, Zabb, but not

And came up against three feet of tempered steel. Slowly he raised his eyes to his cousin's.

No, by my hand.

A regretful but predatory smile touched Zabb's lips, and he lunged. Tach, skittering backward, lost his footing on the slick floor and went down. It saved his life, for the blade passed only inches above his head. There were more thumpings and crashings as the grotesque gray apparition staggered about the room dislodging Takisians and clawing futilely at Durg. Benaf'saj strode into the room, and Zabb lowered his blade; apparently he was not yet prepared to do out-and-out murder in the presence of an Ajayiz'et. Tachyon had never been so glad to see anyone.

The old lady let loose with a blast of mental energy that rattled the synapses of everyone in the room, and the creature collapsed like a felled tree. Bruised and battered crew members swarmed over the prone form, binding him with tangler ropes.

She pinned her commander with a cold gray-eyed gaze. "Would you be so good as to explain this tumult?"

"We found the creature."

"Really?" The accents were freezing.

Zabb sucked at his cheeks, his eyes avoiding his granddam's. "Well, he does seem to have changed form again." Benaf'saj pinned Rabdan with a look. "And may we assume that these vials have something to do with the changes?"

A nervous clearing of the throat. "That would seem logical. "

"So, where are these vials?"

"I don't know, Kibr. Perhaps he has hidden them somewhere about the ship."

"Or perhaps they are only present when he is in his human form." She eyed the ruined door. "It will take Che Chu-erh of Al Matraubi," she said., referring to the ship by its full pedigree name, "some time to repair this door. Post guards. They can watch both Tisianne and this creature, and if the human returns, search him for the vials. Then, I trust, we will have no more of these ill-bred commotions." She left with a rustle of brocaded skirts.

Tach pulled a handerchief from his pocket, and knelt beside the strange captive. "You are?" he asked as he gently wiped at the blood flowing sluggishly from a sword wound.

The man glared up at him then reluctantly growled, "Aquarius."

"How do you do. I am Tisianne brant Ts'ara sek Halima sek Ragnar sek Omian, otherwise known as Dr. Tachyon."

"I know." He stared coldly past Tachyon's left shoulder. He bent in low and whispered. "Do you have any other tricks up your sleeve? Something that might help us take out-" he jerked his chin toward the door, and the two rigid guards, "them?"

Aquarius stared rancorously up at him. "I turn into a dolphin, and I swim real fast."

The expression, together with his harsh, angry tone, snapped the thin thread of patience to which Tachyon was still managing to cling.

"You will forgive my bluntness, but that does us very little good in our present predicament."

"I did not ask to be here, land-dweller." And closing his eyes Aquarius proceeded to ignore both his fellow prisoner and his captors.

Tach unlimbered his hip flask, and while he paced made. substantial inroads on the brandy. Twenty minutes later he noticed that Aquarius's skin was starting to crack and peel. "Are you all right?"

"No. I must remain moist, or I am damaged."

"Well, why didn't you say so fifteen minutes ago?" Aquarius did not answer, and with a snort of aggravation Tach went trotting into the lavatory, and emerged with a glass of water. It didn't make much of an impression on the large form on the floor.

"Andami, could you bring me a pitcher or a bucket?" The younger man worried his lower lip between his teeth. "My orders are to stay here."

"There are two of you."

"You'll try something."

"Am I your prince?"

"Yes. But you'll still try something, and I'm not about to get another reprimand from Zabb."

"May your line wither," he gritted, and resumed his harried trotting.

The next thirty minutes passed slowly as Tach tried to keep ahead of the rapid drying of the merman's skin. He was pouring a glass of water onto Aquarius's face when suddenly the form wavered and shifted, and there was Captain Trips, coughing and sputtering as the water ran up his nose. Startled by the abrupt transformation, Tach yelled, dropped the glass, and backed off.

Trips stared fuzzily about the cabin, then down at his long, lanky form still festooned with loosely wrapped tangler ropes. He had lost a lot of bulk with Aquarius's departure, and as he rose the ropes sloughed off him, landing in a tangled heap on the floor around his feet.

He removed his glasses, and furiously polished them, all the while blinking myopically at Tachyon. The glasses were replaced, and he muttered.

"Oh, bummer, man."

Andami hurried over, and quickly riffled through Trips's pockets. He located the leather pouch with three unused vials. Tachyon craned to see, but the brightly colored powders looked singularly innocuous. He itched to get his hands on the substances, and do a full analysis. Something that could transmute a human form… and then it hit him. Captain Trips was not a nut-he was an ace.