George Alec Effinger - The Exile Kiss

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The Exile Kiss

George Alec Effinger

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Books by George Alec Effinger

When Gravity Fails

A Fire in the Sun

The Exile Kiss

What Entropy Means to Me
Relatives
Mixed Feelings
Irrational Numbers
Those Gentle Voices
Felicia
Death in Florence
Dirty Tricks
Heroics
The Wolves of Memory Idle Pleasures
The Nick of Time
The Bird of Time
Shadow Money
The Zork Chronicles

BANTAM BOOKS NEW YORK - TORONTO - LONDON - SYDNEY - AUCKLAND
All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition. NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED. THE EXILE KISS
A Bantam Spectra Book I published by arrangement with Doubleday

PRINTING HISTORY
Doubleday edition published May 1991 Bantam edition / March 1992 spectra and the portrayal of a boxed "s" are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

All rights reserved.
Copyright 1991 by George Alec Effinger.
Cover art copyright 1992 by Stephen and Paul YouK.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 90-22944.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information store and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Doubleday, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10103.

To the science fiction community of the South Central region, which has given me so much support. and encouragement over the years. My thanks to Armadillo Con in Austin, Swamp Con in Baton Rouge the New Orleans Science Fiction and Fantasy Festival, 'and Coast Con m Biloxi.

And special thanks to Fred Duarte and Karen Meschke for hospitality above and beyond the call of duty, while my car was m a near-fatal coma during the writing of this

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware
that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

ISBN 0-553-29664-7 Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

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Though it rain gold and silver in a foreign land and daggers and spears at home, yet it is better to be at home.
Malay Proverb
O! a kiss Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!
William Shakespeare Coriolanus Act 5, scene 3

The Exile Kiss

It never occurred to me that I might be kidnapped. There was no reason why it should. The day had certainly begun innocently enough. I'd snapped wide awake just before dawn, thanks to an experimental add-on I wear on my anterior brain implant. That plug is the one that gives me powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. As far as I know, I'm the only person around with two implants.

One of these special daddies blasts me into full con-sciousness at any hour I choose. I've learned to use it along with another daddy that supercharges my body to remove alcohol and drugs from my system at better than the normal rate. That way I don't wake up still drunk or damaged. Others have suffered in the past because of my hangovers, and I've sworn never to let that happen again.

I took a shower, trimmed my red beard, and dressed in an expensive, sand-colored gallebeya, with the white knit skullcap of my Algerian homeland on my head. I was hungry, and my slave, Kmuzu, normally prepared my meals, but I had a breakfast appointment with Fried-lander Bey. That would be after the morning call to prayer, so I had about thirty minutes free. I crossed from the west wing of Friedlander Bey's great house to the east, and rapped on the door to my wife's apartment.

Indihar answered it wearing a white satin dressing gown I'd given her, her chestnut hair coiled tightly on the back of her head. Indihar's large, dark eyes narrowed. "I wish you good morning, husband," she said. She was not terrifically pleased to see me.

Indihar's youngest child, four-year-old Hakim, clung to her and cried. I could hear Jirji and Zahra screaming at each other from another room. Senalda, the Valencian maid I'd hired, was nowhere in responsibility of supporting the family because I felt partly to blame for the death Friedlander Beyhad decided that in order to accom-plish such a worthy goal without causing gossip, I also had to marry Indihar and formally adopt the three children. I couldn't remember another instance when Papa had cared at all about gossip.

Nevertheless, despite Indihar's outrage and my flat refusal, the two of us now found ourselves man and wife. Papa always got his way. Some time ago, Friedlander Bey had grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and shaken the dust off me and turned me from a small-time hustler into a heavy hitter in the city's underworld.

So Hakim was now legally... my son, as queasy as that concept made me. I'd never been around kids before and I didn't know how to act with them. Believe me, they could tell. I hoisted the boy up and smiled in his jelly-smeared face. "Well, why are you crying, O Clever One?"

I said. Hakim stopped just long enough to suck in a huge breath, then started wailing even louder.

Indihar gave an impatient grunt. "Please, husband," she said, "don't try being a big brother. Jirji is his big brother." She lifted Hakim out of my arms and dropped him back to the floor.
"I'm not trying to be a big brother."
"Then don't try being a pal, either. He doesn't need a pal. He needs a father."
"Right," I said. "You just tell me what a father does, and I'll do it." I'd been trying my best for weeks, but Indihar had only given me a hard time. I was getting very tired of it.
She laughed humorlessly and shooed Hakim toward the rear of the apartment. "Is there some actual point to this visit, husband?" she asked.
"Indihar, if you could just stop resenting me a litde, maybe we could make the best of this situation. I mean, how awful could it be for you here?"
"Why don't you ask Kmuzu how he feels?" she said. She still hadn't invited me into the suite. I'd had enough of standing in the hall, and I pushed by her into the parlor. I sat down on a couch. Indihar glared at me for a few seconds, tiien sighed and sat on a chair facing me. "I've explained it all before," I said. "Papa has been giving me things. Gifts I didn't want, like my implants and Chiriga's bar and Kmuzu." "And me," she said.
"Yes, and you. He's trying to strip me of all my friends. He doesn't want me to keep any of my old attach-ments."
"You could simply refuse, husband. Did you ever think of that?"
How I wished it were that easy! "When I had my skull amped," I said, "Friedlander Bey paid the doctors to wire the punishment center of my brain."
"The punishment center? Not the pleasure center?"
I grinned ruefully. "If he'd had the pleasure center wired, I'd probably already be dead. That's what happens to those wireheads. It wouldn't have taken me long, either."
Indihar frowned. "Well, then, I don't understand. Why the punishment center? Why would you want"
I raised a hand and cut her off. "Hey, I didn't want it! Papa had it done without my knowledge. He's got lots of little electronic gimmicks that can remotely stimulate my pain centers. That's how he keeps me in line." Learning recently that he was truly my mother's grandfather had not disposed me more favorably toward him. Not as long as he refused to discuss the matter of my liberty.