Chapter 72

 

Jared

 

 

When Jared and Cara cut into the wedding cake – three tiers, topped with a cluster of flowers in many colors – the lights went out and the candles exploded into sparkling showers of flowers and stars and hearts, bringing assorted cries from the guests and a curse from the bridegroom's attendant, attacked by a blazing daisy.

Other than that well-coordinated remote control work, the evening had a minimum of spectacular exhibitions. Ann's flower garlands, twinkling with blue lights, worked their way around the edge of the ceiling looking, Jared thought, rather like leafy snakes. They only occasionally played music. The line of giant blue forget-me-nots against the far wall did not dance steadily; they did take breaks. And the dancing nut cups actually provided some harmless amusement.

The blue wine was a little startling, and perhaps because the color convinced the guests it couldn't possibly be alcoholic, they tended to imbibe freely, with few exceptions. The bride and the bridegroom took only a sip apiece for the obligatory toast, immortalized by the professional holographer who had placed his multilenses that afternoon under Ann's supervision. The bride's attendant declined the wine on the grounds of her pregnancy, and the bridegroom's attendant declined on the grounds of his wife's pregnancy and the likelihood that she would kill him if he drank wine when she could not. Beer, he said, when Jared laughed, did not count. The junior attendant drank three sips from her aunt's glass and two more from her uncle's glass and became somewhat giggly, with an inclination to sway on her new high heels.

Shortly after ten-thirty, the bridal party sat at the head table, poking at cake crumbs and watching their guests. The tables had been arranged in a U-shape; inside the U, Willis and Chazaerte, an unlikely pair, were racing their nut cups against each other, apparently feeling that the winner scored important points in their personal dispute. Dr. Ned, Sandy Ott, and Phyllis also had entries in the race. Ott's husband Lewis and Al and Lillian and Lalia were sitting at the table to the right, disassembling nut cups and putting them back together in new and creative ways, trying for the ultimate racing cup.

At the end of the other table was Dr. Louise, who had, upon finishing by no means her first glass of wine, announced that one good thing was that she no longer had to pretend to like that vicious harridan bitch Margo Lindstrom. She plopped down into the chair beside Maud, and the two of them and Ann and Ollie engaged in a profound and very enjoyable conversation on this theme, passing a bottle back and forth. Dr. Frank, feet up on the table, was sipping directly from another bottle and talking with Carter and Wundra about something that required gestures and occasional sketches on Ann's abandoned noter. At the end of the room, Mutai and Evvie and Clena were demonstrating a traditional Bahtan mating dance for the edification of Clyde and Patterson, with Weston and Zarei trying out the steps for themselves.

Drug resistance usually included resistance to the effects of alcohol, but alcohol taken in sufficient quantities could overcome resistance.

Terry and the D'ubians played tirelessly, with only brief breaks for food, cake, retuning of instruments. Jared had suggested that they might want to take an hour off and enjoy the party; Dural and Duroh had looked at him in bewilderment. They were, they said, enjoying the party. It was a great party, the best party imaginable! They were accompanying the Bahtan dancers with great spirit as the latest heat in the nut cup races started, and under cover of the noise Cara beckoned to the rest of the party at the head table. "They're all busy," she said, "and they would never notice if we sneaked out now."

"What would we do?" asked Gina; once the giggles subsided she had gotten rather sleepy, and had been leaning against Sofi's shoulder looking dreamy-eyed.

"Put dance music in the vid player and turn it up. If you think you could teach us to dance," said Cara, turning a sparkling look upon her husband, and Jared grinned.

"We could handle that," he said.

"Positively," said Issio, beside him.

"A brilliant idea," said Sofi, on the other side of Cara.

Dr. Ned's nut cup crossed the finish line just ahead of Sandy's cup; Chazaerte's cup collided with Willis' cup and they both tipped over on their sides and blocked Phyllis' cup. Voices rose, discussing issues of responsibility and premeditation. "Let's go," said Jared, taking Cara's hand, and the five of them, abandoning nut cups, exploding candles, and blue wine, slid through the back door into the warm air and bright stars of a summer night.

 

They left the wedding presents. There was supposed to be someone keeping track of the gifts; Sofi said that Ann had designated some unlucky soul for this task, and this person could bring the presents later. Gina rode with Issio and Sofi in their car behind Jared's car. It was Saturday night, the last month of summer; soon school sessions would begin again for students and teachers. There was a good deal of traffic, people determined to enjoy the last of their free time. "We never really got a vacation," Jared remarked, shrugging himself out of his suit jacket; Cara caught hold of a sleeve to provide leverage. "We actually didn't have a honeymoon."

"We had a lovely romantic weekend in Wark's Ferry before the wedding," she reminded him. "And Permidia was wonderful."

"But we weren't there long. Just enough time to get married."

"We had a whole day beside the ocean," she said. He tossed his jacket into the back seat and sat back, and Cara settled in against him, in a pale silk cloud with a touch of perfume and tendrils of hair uncurling from the flower-trimmed up-sweep. He put an arm about her, admiring, secretly, the way the lights from the street caught his new wedding ring, which Cara had given him as they drank their toasts. It matched her ring, a heavier version of the twisted D'ubian gold band she wore. Cara had put on the earrings he had given her; the light caught the tiny diamonds in them, too. The sight gave him great pleasure.

"I am greedy," he admitted. "I want more. And I don't know when we're going to get it. I promised Dr. Louise I'd be available for the committee whenever they want me. And by the way," he added, "she asked me about Maud."

"What did you tell her?"

"The truth," he said, "and I told her to talk to you. She seemed surprised that you knew."

"So she doesn't know you as well as she thinks she does," said Cara, smiling. "I thought she and Dr. Ned handled it pretty well, though, when we told them who Maud is to me. And Carter; imagine that, I have an uncle too!"

"Family all over the place," said Jared.

"And all yours too, by marriage."

Jared contemplated his brother-in-law for not the first time. "Well," he said, "thanks, I guess. At least I like being an uncle."

Their car sailed past the unlighted D'ubian house and turned up their street. There was a night light on in Clyde's back bedroom and a light somewhere deep in the interior of the Bahtan house for the benefit of any involuntary house guests they might have. All the other houses were dark and empty; the neighborhood had never been so quiet, Jared thought. Cara sat up and opened the passenger side and got out as Jared opened his own door.

A shrill scream split the night; a streak of light left the Bahtan back yard and hit the top of one of Al's trees and vaporized at least half of it.

"Take your fucking hands off me, you damned overgrown piece of bullshit!" screamed Mimi in the dark somewhere across the street, and someone gave a pained yelp, and Cara darted across the street, kicking off her high heels as she ran. She had already reached the Bahtan gate before Jared crossed the street, Issio right behind him; he had a hasty glimpse of Gina pulling Sofi across the lawn to Clyde's house, where the practical nurses were supposed to be.

Cara was tearing around the west side of the house; Issio vaulted the fence on the east side and scrambled through the garden. Jared swung over the gate and went after Cara, with horrible visions of that streak of light vaporizing her. They didn't have to be especially quiet. There was no chance that their approach could be heard over the uproar in the back yard, shrieks interspersed with hair-raising Bahtan curses, all in Mimi's voice.

Jared caught up with Cara at the back corner of the house, beside the trellis covered with heavily scented flowering vines and baby squash. She reached back for his hand and they paused to look into the back yard. There among the tomatoes, the roses, and the tangled berry bushes stood a male Bahtan, clad in orange flowered shorts, his back to them; under one arm he held Mimi in her white nightgown, kicking and twisting and screaming, and with his free hand he clamped both of her wrists, holding them and the laser pistol they clutched at full stretch, keeping the pistol pointed toward the ground despite her very serious efforts to turn it around toward him.

The starlight and the back porch light glinted on his highly-polished horns.

Holding hands, Cara and Jared stepped around the corner of the house and the Bahtan turned his head long enough to identify them, and then turned back as Issio came around the far corner. If Mimi saw him, she gave no sign of it, but when Issio got her wrists and squeezed hard, she dropped the pistol with a Zamuaon curse that caused his tail to bush. Cara grabbed the pistol with her free hand and stepped back out of Mimi's reach.

"She planned an ambush," shouted the Bahtan, raising his voice over Mimi's yells. "She hid here, to shoot you as you got out of your cars. She aimed at you first," he added, nodding at Cara.

"Thank you for stopping her," Jared shouted back, and the Bahtan inclined his horned head politely.

"I will take her wrists," said Issio to Jared. "You will take her ankles. We will get her home."

"The nurses," said Cara.

Sofi had reached Issio's Ears, and Gina had told Jared. "They're asleep," said Jared. "Drugged." Cara nodded matter-of-factly. He really needed to talk with her about his Ears one day, he thought.

"I have a good hold," said the Bahtan, and carrying Mimi, paying no attention to her struggles, he walked past Issio and around the east side of the house. Issio and Jared and Cara shared a glance and followed him, around the house, over the small lawn space the Bahtan garden permitted, through their gate, and across the street on the diagonal to reach Clyde's place. Sofi or Gina had turned on the porch light for them, and Gina was waiting by the door, holding it open.

Sofi, inside the bedroom, was holding the infuser; one of the nurses was sprawled on the open couch bed in the living room, snoring loudly, and the other, Jared saw, was slumped in the armchair in the bedroom, head at an angle on the chair back. "The infuser is empty," Sofi greeted them.

"She used it on the nurses," said Jared. "How is she doing this?"

"What are we going to do now?" Gina asked, watching the frantic kicking feet under the Bahtan's arm. "How do we keep her here?"

"I had my – Dr. Lindstrom – to look after for five years," said Cara. "I can handle an infuser. Only I don't know how much to give her to knock her out. I don't know what dosage they've been using."

"Whatever it is, it isn't enough," said Jared.

"It must be written down," said Sofi, handing Cara the empty infuser, and she went to look on the dresser, where there were bottles of Bahtan potions and spoons and valved cups and other invalid clutter. "Yes, here," she said, picking up a noter that had been pushed to the back. Cara came to look, holding the infuser, and Mimi, under the Bahtan's arm, let out a stream of Bahtan invective that would not have been out of place at the space port. "See, here, it says what they gave her," said Sofi. "We will try a larger dose."

The Bahtan dropped Mimi face-down on the bed; she immediately pushed herself to all fours and scuttled off across the mattress, away from him, and he grabbed her ankles in one large hand and pulled. She flopped down on the sheets with another enraged yell, and Issio seized her left arm and Jared got her right and held her there. Cara moved up beside Jared and he pulled down the neckline of her nightgown to bare her shoulder, and Cara triggered the infuser. Mimi screamed and plunged and cursed and slumped boneless to the mattress, eyes falling shut.

Cara put the infuser down on the dresser. "We can't trust the medicine," she said. "We have to think about restraining her somehow. I know how Clyde feels, but we don't have a choice."

"Can we tie her to the bed here?" asked Jared, investigating the bed frame. It was a big bed, designed for Mimi and Clyde with room to spare. It was going to be hard to tie down one small woman.

"The invalid bed," said the Bahtan, "donated from your former house, I believe." He nodded to Cara. "It is stored in the back porch across the street, for use in the clinic they plan. I have seen it. It has been disassembled."

"It doesn't have restraints," said Cara, "but it has places where we can fasten restraints. Belts or something."

"Let's get it over here," said Jared and then hesitated, realizing that one of them should stay, in case Mimi woke again and attacked Gina and Cara and Sofi. And moving the invalid bed would take at least two of them, and he had no idea what the Bahtan was planning to do. Since he was outside the Bahtan house, he was probably in the process of escaping; it was unusually kind of him to stop and help them with their problem, and no more could be expected of him.

"Go, go," said Sofi, flapping a hand at them. "She is asleep; if she wakes, I will tell you, Gina will tell you, you are only just across the street. Go, go."

"I will assist. It will be faster," said the Bahtan, and led the way out the door; Jared and Issio, glancing at each other, followed.

The Bahtan took them as far as the sisters' back porch and used his thumb print to open the lock. Both Jared and Issio stared; how had a male, a prisoner, gotten his print registered? Once the door was open, he led them to a pile of boxes and disassembled invalid furnishings, amongst which Jared saw the blood-stained mattress from the Seven Tree Circle house. He and Issio hauled the mattress out to the back yard and came back onto the porch to find that their companion had gathered up at least half of the bed frame as easily as he had held Mimi. "I will take this," he said. "If you take the rest of the frame, we will return for the mattress."

"We're very grateful for your help," said Jared. "She could easily have killed us if you hadn't stopped her. And we don't want to interfere with your plans; you are, I suppose, escaping? So –"

The Bahtan looked slightly embarrassed. "Maybe later," he said, and headed out the porch door. Jared and Issio looked at each other and Issio shrugged and they gathered up, between them, what was left of the bed frame.

Everything was quiet at Clyde's house; Sofi and Cara and Gina were standing by the dresser going through the noter and keeping an eye on Mimi, who was lying still under a sheet in the middle of the bed. The Bahtan put down his load in the center of the bedroom floor and headed back for the mattress; Jared and Issio followed, silently.

The six of them pushed the big bed as close to the west wall as they could get it, Mimi lying undisturbed, and, borrowing tools from Clyde's workshop down in the basement, they assembled the invalid bed in the middle of the room. It seemed like a good place for it. She couldn't reach anything without getting out of the bed, and if she were tied to it, she couldn't get out. That would take care of the infuser, or any blunt instruments she could find. Jared had no idea where she had got the laser pistol. Both beam pistols and the laser rifle had gone with Al to be locked up in the Hardesty house, out of Mimi's reach, and Clyde said that was all they had in the house.

Once the bed was up and supplied with sheets and blankets, all a bit too big, Jared lifted Mimi into the bed, and Sofi and Cara used Mimi's long stockings to tie her wrists and ankles to the bed frame, and then Gina lowered the lights and they moved on into the living room, where the open couch bed was occupied by the snoring nurse. She paid no attention to their presence. The nurse in the bedroom armchair had not even twitched an eyelid.

"Oh, your new shirt!" said Cara. She reached out to Jared and pulled at the side of his shirt; twisting to see, he found a long rent down the back and a smaller tear up the bottom of the sleeve, not to mention a number of oily smears down the front.

"It served its purpose," he said, and reached in turn to the ripped skirt of his bride's new dress. "And it was a pretty dress," he said. "Where did you leave your shoes?"

"Out in the street," she said. "I couldn't run in them." She glanced at Gina, who was also barefoot; her dress had oily stains like Jared's shirt. And Sofi's dress was creased, with a splash of something red and medicinal down the front, and Issio had ripped the elbow out of his shirt, and popped half the buttons, too.

The Bahtan male with the orange flowered shorts was probably the best clad member of the party, Jared thought, gazing on this unexpected helper, standing with folded arms and gleaming horns in the middle of the living room.

"Thank you," he said to the Bahtan. "I don't know how we could have managed without you."

"I am glad to help," he said, smiling quite nicely.

Issio eyed him. "May I inquire what your plans are at this time?" he said. "If you mean to escape, we shall not attempt to stop you. It is the least we can do. The girls," he added, to the rest of them, "will understand how we feel, I am sure."

The Bahtan shuffled his feet. "Thank you. Perhaps another time," he said, sounding a little uncomfortable.

"You have been in their house for some time now," said Sofi, and he shrugged and looked elsewhere.

"Could we," said Cara carefully, "ask your name?"

"Numum," he muttered. "My name is Numum. I work at the docks. My uncle," he added, as if somehow explaining the situation, "escaped last week."

The six of them stood there for a few minutes, no one, apparently, at all sure how to proceed in this unusual situation, and then Sofi took a deep breath and went to the kitchen and opened the food keeper. "Clyde has iced tea," she announced, and Gina came to help find glasses, and Cara offered the rocking chair to Numum, who, with a grave bow, sat down.

"They are all very late," remarked Numum, and Jared realized that it was nearly one in the morning. He gave brief thought to phoning Dr. Frank, and decided the situation was sufficiently under control that they didn't need to bother him. Besides, a doctor last seen tipping the contents of a bottle of blue wine down his throat was probably not the most useful medical attendant to call.

"The party was still going on when we left," he told Numum, who nodded and sipped his tea. "Would it," he asked, feeling his way, "be a problem if the girls come home and find you here with us?"

Numum considered it, shrugged, shook his head. "I do not think so," he said.

"You caught Mimi," said Gina, sitting on the corner of the couch bed by the front window. She shifted, making the mattress bounce, and the nurse snored.

Numum studied his glass of tea. "It is very awkward," he said finally. "This was not my business. But you are friends of the sisters. You should not be harmed."

Sofi and Gina, Jared realized, were trying to read Numum; he reached out himself and saw a startling vision of five Bahtan sisters, flowers and music and a lot of laughter and hands and arms and – he found Gina and firmly pulled her out with him, Sofi closely following. Issio, perched on a stool, curled his tail quizzically and studied the Bahtan.

About ten minutes later Jared heard brakes and a small crash to the east, the D'ubian fence again, he thought, and he went out to check. Durakal and Duroh and Duran were carrying a sleeping Terry down the steps to their front door; Durata followed, with her drum under one arm and Terry's guitar slung over her shoulder. "It is an excellent party. We enjoy it greatly," said Dural.

Fifteen minutes later a car whooshed into Clyde's carport, and Wundra and Mutai, steps wobbling, dragged Clyde between them through the front door. "Hi!" said Wundra, lifting an arm in a wide salute, and swayed back against the door frame. Numum got up, looking undecided, and Mutai blinked at him and staggered sideways against Clyde, who lifted his head, said, "Umph," and dropped his head again.

"Mimi escaped," said Jared. "Your, uh, Numum helped us."

"Misborn," said Mutai, and Wundra nodded profoundly. "Us all," explained Mutai, and the girls got into the living room, where Numum caught Mutai's arm and steadied her; Wundra tripped over her feet and sat down hard on the edge of the bed beside the snoring nurse.

"Person inna bed," said Clyde intelligently, and folded onto the bed across the nurse's feet. She muttered, turned, and snored.

Down the street there were brakes squealing, collision shields whining. "Touch her and I'll see you in hell!" shouted Willis, and car doors slammed. Chazaerte said something, lost under a blast from a car horn. Mutai gripped Numum's shoulder and stayed upright; Wundra swung over the side of the bed and Numum caught her with his other hand.

Sofi eyed them and stalked onto the front porch, tail switching. "Dr. Maarchesin!" she shouted. "Are you there?"

"She's there; she's laughing," Gina reported; she left the bed to Clyde and the nurse. "She's not very drunk, and she's bringing Zarei with her. They can handle things here."

"Good," said Issio. "I believe we have handled enough things for one evening." Sofi came in, tail still switching, and Issio took Gina's hand and led her toward the door. "We wish you all a good night," he announced, and looked at Numum with the two sisters draped over him. "Do you need assistance?"

"No. I will take Mutai and Wundra," said Numum and, with minimal assistance from them, headed out into the summer night.

"Goddamned alien loser!" shrieked Ann, somewhere up by the Hardesty house, and more car doors slammed. Lalia and Zarei appeared on the front porch, looking with awe at Numum and the sisters heading across the street.

"Let's go home," Jared said to his bride.