Chapter 3

Vaysh wasn't normally known for his emotional outbursts. Far from it. This afternoon was proving to be quite a switch for him.

"Thiede's son!?" he erupted. "That's impossible!"

The red head nodded evenly. "I assure you it's true. My hostling can certainly vouch for it."

Vaysh shifted his eyes. Looking on this luminous albino beauty, he got a prickly, uncomfortable feeling inside.

"Your... hostling," he pronounced slowly.

The concept of anyone having managed to carry Thiede's seed and escaping death boggled Vaysh's mind, although he was trying to keep this reaction from his face. He looked back to the son. "He carried your pearl?"

"Are you really asking?" Apollo half-laughed.

Vaysh crossed his arms. "Yes."

"Do you want me to ask him for you? With your mind closed, he can't properly understand you."

"Fine, yes. Ask him."

Apollo paused, apparently relaying the message and receiving an answer. "He says absolutely, he carried my pearl, which was conceived with Thiede."

Again, that absurd concept -- and another outburst. "That's impossible!"

Apollo cocked his head. "You keep saying that. Why?"

It seemed to Vaysh that he was really having trouble getting through to these two hara. Neither of them seemed to grasp just how extraordinary the situation was or why he might be upset by it.

"Why, you ask? Where do I start with that?"

"Well, to start," Apollo replied, "you might tell us who you are."

Up until that point Vaysh had somehow failed to introduce himself. For a master of protocol, this was quite a breach. "Oh, pardon me. I'm Vaysh, advisor to the Tigrons. It was I who first brought the Tigron Pellaz to Phaonica, on Thiede's orders."

"Ah, then we've heard of you," Apollo bubbled lightly. Moon, meanwhile, straightened up considerably, having presumedly received Vaysh's words via his son's mind.

Vaysh was not amused. "How flattering. I wish I could say I'd heard of you. The thing is, I knew Thiede for years -- decades -- and he never said anything about either of you. Never even a hint.

Apollo glanced down at the bed and chuckled softly to himself. "I'm not at all surprised." Looking over to his hostling, he abruptly said, "Moon would like to speak now."

"What are you, his interpreter?" Vaysh asked.

The har nodded. "Yes, when he meets hara who won't open their minds to him. I told you, he's deaf. He was born that way. He can't speak."

"And he speaks solely telepathically?" Vaysh questioned further. The concept of a har being so adept he had overcome deafness, especially congenital, amazed him, even after a life of meeting many highly gifted hara.

Apollo answered in the affirmative. "Occasionally he writes in a notebook. But Thiede taught him to speak with his mind, with an actual voice."

"Thiede taught him?"

"Yes, absolutely. My father rescued Moon."

"Surely we can't be talking about the same person. I can't imagine Thiede being so kind."

"Well, he was!" Apollo replied defensively. "Now will you please let my hostling speak to you -- directly? I assure you, he won't pry into your mind. He's very gentle."

"Oh, I'm sure!" Vaysh sneered. "He wasn't gentle before -- he was assaulting me!"

"Perhaps it only felt that way because of the walls you normally keep around yourself."

Vaysh flinched. The way this har spoke to him was unsettling. His manner was completely unvarnished. In a way, he reminded him of Cal.

"So will you let him in?"

Vaysh considered for a moment. He really did want to talk to this creature, this Moon. Anyone who claimed to have been with Thiede, at least once, would have quite a story to tell, at the very least.

He made his decision: "Only if he swears he will only scan my surface thoughts. I can concede that much, if he is deaf as you say."

Apollo nodded. "He swears."

"Well, tell him to go on then. I'll open up -- just enough."

A moment later, the albino's voice sounded in Vaysh's mind. It was the clearest voice he had ever picked up in his head: "Apollo is my son. He is also Thiede's."

Vaysh replied both aloud and in his mind. "I can't imagine Thiede having a son."

"He did, Vaysh, you must believe me. He kept it a secret, but he did. We did."

Again the concept of this har actually having lain with Thiede made Vaysh uncomfortable. How had he managed to survive?

"So you and Thiede...?" he began awkwardly. "He made you carry his child?"

Moon tossed up his shoulders, which Vaysh took as a laugh. "He didn't 'make' me, Vaysh. Not at all. We decided on it together."

The concept was not making sense. If Thiede had fathered a child, there must have been a reason. "But why?" he asked.

Moon smiled gently, reaching to take his son's hand. "For the same reason many hara have decided to have children."

"And that is?"

"Oh, because we knew we could. It was an experiment."

Vaysh balked. "Oh, of course. I know all about Thiede and his 'experiments' and his--"

"I'm sorry, 'experiment' wasn't quite the word I wanted to put across," Moon's mindvoice cut in. "I meant that we decided to try to create something different -- a life happier than our own."

"I don't believe you," Vaysh grumbled. "Thiede would never have such an unselfish motive."

"Maybe not in your mind, but I knew him well."

"You may think so but--"

"No," Moon interrupted, clearly comfortable taking the upper hand. "I know so. Now tell me, you have more questions?"

At that moment, Vaysh felt like he nothing but questions, but he managed to single out one of them in his mind. "Yes, actually I do. But I think the first one is for your son." He looked over to the spitting image of Thiede. "How old are you?"

"35."

"No. That's--"

"Don't say impossible," Apollo warned.

"But it is!" Vaysh argued. "That would mean you were born the year..." He couldn't even say it.

Moon was not so squeamish. "The year Tigron Pellaz was killed and raised from the dead. Yes, that was the year, Vaysh."

"Ah, now it makes sense. So I was right! Thiede wasn't unselfish. He wanted a back-up!"

Moon and Apollo looked him blank-faced. "I don't know what you mean," Moon admitted.

"Probably because you're just as twisted as Thiede! Or you're just a fool."

"Hey, now don't you dare call my hostling a fool!" Apollo defended. "Do you think Thiede would have been interested in him if he were?"

"Fine. Moon's a devil then. Better?"

Moon attempted to diffuse the situation. "Vaysh, I know you were mistreated, injured, but--"

"You know?!" Vaysh hissed.

This was all getting to be too much again.

"I suppose that shouldn't surprise me," he reflected aloud. "You were probably part of it, part of Thiede's whole scheme, his partner in crime."

"Oh, Vaysh, believe me, I wasn't. I had nothing to do with what happened to Pellaz either. The day he was killed -- and reborn -- I was alone, living in the far north, hosting Apollo's pearl. I didn't see Thiede again for two years."

Vaysh simply couldn't fathom it: The power-hungry Thiede of those days fathering a secret child even as he created a perfect Tigron from scratch. It just didn't make sense. He had so many questions -- all of which would have to wait until this har was done talking.

"Let me explain," Moon continued. "I raised Apollo almost entirely on my own. But Thiede and I created him together. It wasn't part of any scheme or plan. We intended to raise him together. Thiede even stayed with me during the first week I hosted. Then he had to go tend to Pellaz -- as you well know."

Vaysh was beginning to wonder just what he did know. "You would appear to be very familiar with Thiede's activities," he noted.

"Oh, not really," Moon replied, dismissive. "I always gave him freedom -- he could do what he wanted, no questions really."

"You 'gave' Thiede freedom?" Vaysh scoffed. "You must be kidding!

"No, not at all."

It was at this point that Apollo got up off the bed. "Would you like some refreshment, Vaysh? I think you could use some wine."

"Thank you," he agreed, absent-mindedly. He wasn't very interested in drinking, only in dealing with a reality which seemed far from being reality.

"Forgive me," he said to Moon, "but I find this all rather difficult to accept. You seem so casual about all this, as if nothing about this is unusual or surprising. You're talking about Thiede almost as if he were some normal har."

"Am I?" Moon asked. "I'm just talking about the har I knew -- very well. I agree, though, he wasn't normal, Vaysh. Not the day I met him, not ever."