[Wildcards 10] - Double Solitaire by George R. R. Martin Page A

Takisian," said Jube, and it didn't sound like a compliment.
    "How much more like a Network vacu ," spat Tachyon. "I at least came openly to these people. You live in secret among them, waiting for the proper moment. How much do you stand to make on this transaction, soul seller?"
    "How did you find out?" demanded Jube. Seen this close, his tusks looked threatening. "I know damn well you didn't figure it out for yourself. I've been fooling you for twenty years. And I don't think a body shift suddenly boosted your IQ."
    Tach felt the flush rising from her neck to the point of her widow's peak. Insults stood poised to fly, but she only managed to get her mouth open before there was an urgent knocking on the door.
    "Go away!" yelled Jube.
    "Open the goddamn door," came the voice of Jay Ackroyd. "You got my client in there, and he... she... shit... hasn't paid yet."
    Jube favored Tachyon with another glare, as if involving the ace had somehow deepened her sin, and waddled ponderously to the door. Jay slouched in.
    "You blew the punch line, Jay," Jube grumbled. He then turned a sour eye on the detective. "And what a way to repay me for my great hospitality, sneaking her in here."
    "Sorry, but she's got this crazy-assed idea that you're an alien ......
    "I am," Jube said so quietly that Jay missed it.
    He sailed on. "I should have known it was just hysterics or something."
    "Are you listening to him? And by the way, I am not hysterical."
    "You're pregnant out to here." Jay demonstrated. "Of course you're hysterical. I'd be hysterical What did you say?"
    "I am," Jube repeated.
    Jamming his hands into his pockets, Jay took an abrupt turn around himself. "Great. That's just fucking great."
    Tachyon could understand the emotion, the terrible sense of betrayal. "If you'd really been a joker, it wouldn't have been so bad. But all the time you were laughing at them." Distress made her choke a little on the words.
    It seemed to distress Jube almost as much. The jowls seemed to lengthen and quiver with sadness. "That's not true. On this world, in this place, I am a joker. I understand."
    "No, you don't. You can't. However horribly they may treat you, whatever abuse -- verbal or physical -- is directed toward you, you have the ultimate comfort. You know you are normal. For all I know, you're a thing of beauty on your home world. You will never understand deformity."
    "And you can, little prince?" The sarcasm edged the words like acid. Jube tossed the steak back onto a plate; it landed with a wet splat. "Well, shall we get down to business?" Tach cringed. "There's only one reason for this little surreptitious social call. You want a message sent."
    Tach eyed the joker -- no, Network operative, she corrected herself -- from beneath lowered lashes. "You would send one?"
    "Of course."
    Tachyon almost stepped into the pause, but the words died in her mouth as Jube added, "For a price. Everything has a price, Tachyon," Jube concluded in answer to her look.
    "That, more than anything, convinces me you are Network."
    Ackroyd stepped in. "Let's pretend for a minute that I'm just a guy. A nice, human guy who doesn't know what the fuck you're both talking about."
    "What are you?" Tach asked, ignoring Jay.
    "Glabberan." The pronunciation made it sound like Jube had ripped loose a tonsil.
    "Gesundheit," Jay said. "So how the hell did you end up here?"
    "The Network brought him," said Tachyon.
    "That again."
    "Them," corrected Jube. His voice swelled with pride. "One hundred and thirty-seven member races working --"
    "For domination and oppression. Their contracts are so unconscionable, the bargains so hard, that people are crushed beneath them," Tach said.
    She spoke from knowledge. Eight thousand years ago the Takisians had staggered beneath burdensome payments. The Network had been more than happy to sell the fledgling space-farers' ships, but without the knowledge or the technology to repair them or build more. There was always a hitch in a Network