CHAPTER II

 

"Son of a bitch," Goten snarled under his breath as the Maiyosh concierge vanished from sight through the maze of the lush green corridors that wound outward from the flowery courtyard at the center of the wing of the Maiyosh Corporate Palace had belatedly bestowed on them.

"Well hell," said the big man who loomed at his right. He was large and muscular, with dark, angular eyes and brows set in a face that would have looked more at home on a smoking battlefield. "At least it's pretty here." He grinned lopsidedly. "You're too thin-skinned about this kind of thing because you grew up incognito on your homeworld."

'"It's like this everywhere you go," said a small, slenderly built man fidgeting and pacing anxiously. His hair flared out in a perfect copy of the wild, triangular spikes of Goten's, though the perpetual set of his face was mild and bookish. "I'm sure Maiyosh wasn't lying when he said there are a lot of Reps who are scared to be quartered anywhere near us. If they put us in a wing all by ourselves, it's not necessarily a deliberate insult so much as trying to make both sides happy."

Goten grunted. "I guess we should just blow it off and enjoy the extra elbow room they gave us, huh?" He was still angry, but the almost overwhelming rage he'd felt in Maiyosh's offices was draining away at last.

Trunks spoke softly. "Every House and sovereign world with any intelligence network at all will know that all our people will be gathered here together in one place."

The scholarly looking little man who might have been Goten's twin had he stood several inches taller and broader stared at Trunks in horror. "You think someone might….Mother of Peace, I would never have brought Enga and the kids if I'd thought they'd be in any kind of danger…"

"It's all or nothing, Skoy," the big man said, putting a comforting hand on

his shoulder. "If we stand down now, Maiyosh and her allies will smash us up and Madran with us."

"You're right, Nissan," Skoy nodded, frowning worriedly. "I have tech sniffers in my luggage. I'll set up a scan network for bombs and poisons all through the parameter of our rooms. Nothing anyone outside of Madran could come up with would be any more advanced than the mechies I built when I first made Journeymantech." He sniffed with an unconscious arrogance that made his brother grin. "Oh damn, Radu!" His eyes widened suddenly. "What are we going to eat? What if they---"

"Skoy," his brother said calmly. "You can't poison someone of Saiyan blood. We can't even smell tainted meat without getting nauseous."

"Oh yeah," He looked slightly embarrassed. "I think I knew that."

"Just because they really are all out to get us," Trunks said with a ghost of a grin. "Doesn't mean we should be paranoid. Goten," his eyes hardened. "We need to keep an eye on Jeiyce."

"Bastard," Goten growled softly.

"Yes, but he was telling the truth when he said he was never our enemy on Tsiru-sei. But we both know the kind of things he's capable of, so we should watch him."

"How dangerous is this man?" Skoy asked nervously.

"He's reasonably powerful," Goten said darkly. "And he's got some very unappetizing tastes where women are concerned." He eyed Trunks speculatively. "If he were to mysteriously drop out of sight, the entire female population if this world would probably be a lot safer."

"Not yet. We can't risk even the rumor of violent behavior on our part until this matter with the "Saiyan Question" is settled." Trunks frowned thoughtfully. "I wouldn’t mind hearing how he survived the Red Dragon. The end of the whole thing is a blur. I was dead, then I was alive. Then we were going to Tsiru-sei to kill Frieza…"

Goten nodded. "Your mother and Nissan had been taken prisoners by Pan with shunkan idou…Your father took the ship to try and rescue them if he could…Toussan was…filled up with the power of the gods, then we were on Tsiru-sei fighting Red Soraku. We found your toussan wounded, but we never saw Bulma-san. Frieza may have killed her."

"No," Trunks shook his head. "Gokou-san said she did something at the end that saved us all. She somehow destroyed the Red Dragon Balls and with them, the wishes…I remember the dragon falling and the planet beginning to come apart under him like it had been hit by a giant meteor…"

Goten shuddered. "Then I was asleep in my room at home and Toussan was shaking me awake. And I was twelve years old again."

"Goddess," Radu swore mildly. "We've had pretty boring lives in comparison."

"I don't remember seeing Jeiyce during any of that," Trunks said. "It doesn't matter anyway. We can't do anything to him right now. We can't even use his years on the Ginyu Force against Maiyosh's credibility, because they'll just point to my father and say 'What about him?' " He eyed Radu pensively. "Are you sure you want me to speak in out defense in Council tomorrow?"

Radu nodded. "Everybody voted. You get the duty…Ouji-Sama."

Trunks stifled a laugh. "A parliamentary monarchy of 39 citizens."

"Only 23 of whom are adults, and that's counting your lot on Chikyuu.

And only your fathers, of us all, full-blooded Saiyans." Radu regarded him seriously. "Madran elected me as their Protector because I'm a rich son of a bitch who pulled the planet out of global depression when Tsiru-sei collapsed, because I have the kind of fighting power that could stave off a fleet invasion, and because I mean to see Madran free of Maiyosh rule. Rutab, Coram, Zoukin, and the others are all in the same place as Skoy and I. Half-breed Saiyans who've all become, in some way, the champion of the birthworlds against Burka and men like him. You can speak for all of us as Prince. As titular head of a dozen systems or more, you have the right to have your voice heard in Council."

"Okay," Trunks sighed.

"Looks awful glum for a man getting married today, doesn't he?" Skoy smirked.

"Oh damn!" Trunks said, looking panicked. "That damn welcoming Ball tonight! We have to be there and be seen there or it'll look bad, and Pan---"

"Trunks," Goten cut in. Trunks blinked at him. "First we have to get everybody settled into their rooms. Then my mother, your mother, and Videl have to fuss over Pan for several hours while Nissan has a minor breakdown somewhere over losing his baby girl. Then we'll do whatever ceremony the women have in mind---and if you know what's good for you, you'll go along with it no matter how sappy things get. Then we have the reception at the Maiyosh Gala and you dance with Pan like she's Cinderella at the Ball. It'll all go perfect. Relax."

Trunks glowered at him. "You never had to go through this."

Goten snorted. "Just watch Kassan, Bulma-san and Bra begin to conspire the instant the ship hits Shikaji dirt. Bra was going off about it last night. How her mother never got a wedding because Vegita-san considered them married in the Saiyan way from the first time, uh…got together. Only he neglected to tell Bulma-san that for nearly 15 years. Bra told me she'll be damned if she's putting up with that from me, and as soon as we've got some sort of stability hammered out with the Trade Houses, she's going to have the biggest, most ostentatious wedding Chikyuu's ever seen. Kami help me."

"Is Bra at the Space Port?" Skoy asked.

"In case they arrive early," Trunks said. A warm feeling of anticipation and excitement was beginning to hum inside him, driving out the cares and worries of the morning. Pan-chan…

He was going to see his family---faces he knew as well as his own, but had only seen in the rare good dreams he'd had over the last three years. The nightmares were as real and vivid as they had been from the first instant the Tsiru-jin boy had touched him, but they were fewer these days. And on each occasion when they rose out of the dark waters of his first life to wake him screaming, Pan's face was the talisman that would lull him back into peaceful slumber. Pan-chan. His heart nearly leapt out of his chest as he felt the light brush of her thoughts, growing ever stronger as Kassan's ship wended its way through the heavy traffic of Shikaji's upper atmosphere.

Trunks-kun…

Her voice was suddenly as clear in his head as though she was standing right beside him. He threw off the weight and the worry the next few days would bring like a heavy coat in warm sunshine, and smiled.

"She's here!" He said.

 

"Momma!" Bra squealed and nearly bowled her mother over with the force of her hug.

In the happy babble of hugs and kisses and round robin greetings, Pan edged a little back and away. She noticed Vegita-san had done the same thing, probably waiting to greet his children properly in private, though he was eyeing the group of oddly familiar-looking strangers who had accompanied Trunks, Goten and Bra with open curiosity.

"I'm Radu," said the biggest man, gripping her grandfather's hand almost shyly.

"Son Gokou," Jjiisan said, smiling hesitantly.

"I'm probably a little old to start calling you Uncle right off the bat," the big man said. "The only thing I really remember about my father is that he was sort of a jerk. But I'm glad to know you. A man can't have too many good kinsman, and I believe Goten when he tells me you are a good man."

"I try to be," Jjiisan said. "And you can call me Gokou if you want. I wouldn't mind being called Jisan though, if anyone else wanted to call me that." He was eyeing the two boys, both in their early teens, who stood a little behind his nephew, regarding him with an awe probably born of many evenings of Goten and Trunks' stories shining in their eyes.

"These are my sons, Gera and Torc," said Radu.

And so it went. Trunks eyes met hers from where he was clasped in his mother's tearful embrace, and she smiled slowly. There'll be time for just you and me soon, Pan-chan. Just a few more hours…She blushed to the roots of her hair as a vivid memory of their one moolit night in the forest flitted through his mind.

She barely noticed the trip through the crowded press of the spaceport, or the way the other travelers around them seemed to make way for their party every way they turned, edging away nervously. Although at one point, Vegita-san spoke to Radu's mousy brother Skoy in a low, tense voice only she and her father were close enough to hear.

"Do not call me by name in public, boy," he hissed at the younger man. "There are eyes and ears everywhere here, and none of them wish us well."

 

Shikaji was the location of Maiyosh House's Corporate Headquarters, Goten was saying. The Maiyosh-jin had bought or swindled the original inhabitants out of this world centuries ago, but left the beauty of the indigenous architecture untouched. The Maiyosh Corporate Palace, the whole city in fact, had been grown, not built. Each structure in the sprawling megalopolis around them was a living tree. Every house, office building, school, and palatial estate had been carved out of the great, almost imaginably huge forest around them, the largest by far being the Palace where they would be staying, built within the trunk and flowering bows of a tree so enormous it stretched up miles into the sky. The wing of their palatial guest quarters was one of the highest in the city, couched in the uppermost bows of the Maiyosh Palace, and…Pan couldn't find the right words at first. It was a perfect aesthetic blend of homey décor and high technology, of manmade structure and greenwood. The fussy red-skinned concierge who conducted them through the green and brown maze of halls and lifts that led to their rooms, had told Bassan that the entire structure must be continually adjusted as the integral framework grew around it.

In her rooms, she had taken the longest hottest bubblebath of her life immediately after unpacking, in a tub the size of a small swimming pool, wondering dreamily if this time tomorrow Trunks might join her in another.

As she emerged finally, she heard the whispering voices of the three women in the other room rise irately.

"No, we will not just 'get this over with', Vegita!" Bulma-san was saying stridently. Pan could hear Gita babbling fretfully at the sound of her raised voice. Kami help such a sensitive little boy growing up in that household.

"Trunks and Pan have waiting a long time for this day," put in Kassan indignantly. "And we're going to make it one to remember!"

"There's more to this than just throwing the two of them in a room alone together!" Bassan nearly screeched.

"I'm taking the boy out of this hen house before you all infect him with your female madness!" Vegita-san snorted angrily. There was the sound of a door slamming and a moment of silence, followed by a burst of laughter from the women outside. Pan sighed. The next few hours stretched out before her like an eternity.

"We would not want to offer you any kind of disrespect, Vegita-sama---" Radu began.

Bra glanced around the courtyard at the faces of her people, her friends and family, both old and new. In the three dozen survivors of her father's race, she, Pan and Go-chan were the only females except for Zoukin's little red-haired daughter, Wassti. She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully, and decided, gazing at the faces of the Zabra-jin physician and his only child, that Radu and Skoy were not the only men here who could claim Gokou-san as uncle. Zoukin had responded curtly to her subtle probes when they'd first become aquainted, saying he had no clue who his Saiyan father had been. Zabra-sei had been an occupied slave world in the Tsiru-jin Empire. Bra shivered, not wanting to imagine what the man's childhood had been like--bastard son of a conquering race on a conquered planet.

With the exception of Skoy, Bra noted clinically, no one had brought their spouses along. Radu was a widower, she knew. Zoukin's marriage had dissolved apparently with the birth of a be-tailed daughter---a little fact of his ancestry the man had hidden from his wife until then. The others…those with spouses had all left them at home, perhaps to mind the family affairs, perhaps because there was an element of danger in the political climate here.

And perhaps, Bra thought wryly, her father's behavior was more than just culturally instilled gender mores---perhaps it was the ingrained actions and reactions of a race that lived and breathed inside its unforgotten primal nature. Goten surely had not been raised that way and she was still on occasion taken aback by the fierce, sometimes chauvinistic protectivness of his love. She snickered. Goten had been raised quite the opposite, in fact. She had always had the impression that Chi-Chi-san ruled her house with a fist of iron…though things seemed very different now. The older woman seemed to glow with delight, in fact, whenever Gokou-san spoke decisively about this or that, though he always asked her opinion. Huh. Even Momma seemed to secretly like it when Poppa went into one of his "me man---you woman" huffs, for all that she cursed him to high heaven and fought him to the wall on every point disagreement.

And Goten…well, Goten was not the boy or the man she had known her entire life. He had been a stranger to her in those first few months after they'd bonded. She had known, seen, felt all that he was and had been through the threads or their link, learning too late that he was…he was not himself anymore. She loved him, with all her mind and body and soul. The tie between them, what they had shared on those two nights of moonstruck, sweet madness, would not allow it otherwise. But in those first days and weeks after leaving Chikyuu, as they each mapped and memorized every inch of the other's body through the fevered, sweat-soaked nights, she'd had to learn to know this new man who was now Son Goten. His moods, the frantic, troubled rhythms of his sleep, his loves, hopes and fears. She stood beside him now, gazing at him from the corner of her eye, standing grim and expressionless, arms folded across over his chest, strong and purposeful and steady as a rock. She brushed her bare arm against his, a seemingly accidental touch, her skin to his. It was a gesture she had seem her mother make countless times, conveying comfort and affection where Toussan would never allow such contact before other eyes. Do we all become our mothers sooner or later, to greater and lesser degrees? His eyes cut to the side and down to her, and he nudged her gently with his elbow, the barest hint of an upward turn to one corner of his mouth. She smiled.

Four Saiyan women in all the galaxy… This meant further dissolution of the inbred traits of violence and aggression in the next generation. Which was probably a good thing, she reflected, looking at her father's thunderous face.

There was a long, long moment of smoldering silence, in which no one in the breezy, florid octagon of the courtyard moved or spoke. Then slowly, very slowly, her father relaxed and nodded his head in agreement. Bra felt an odd quaver of wonder, both at his comparatively easy concession of royal privilege, and even more at the sight of her little brother. Their father was cradling him in one arm, bouncing the baby almost unconsciously, the boy's sleepy head buried against his broad chest, little tail curled around his wrist.

He has changed more in the last five years than he has in the last twenty, she thought. Bra caught Trunks eyes from across the room, saw something flit across his face for a bare instant, a little sad, with just a hint of jealousy toward their tiny brother, and realized he was thinking the same thing.

I came too soon... The thought was guiltily pushed from her older brother's mind almost instantly, shoved away as an unkind and childish notion.

"It was Trunks, not I, who brought you all together," her father said slowly. "It is he who should stand as your sovereign."

"Toussan---" Trunks began.

"No," their father cut him off. "Even if you had not carved out this little kingdom of resistance to the Trade Houses, I would raise too many…bad memories from my days as a mercenary, and it would cloud the issue. Your reputation is spotless, and you have no blood on your hands."

Oh Poppa, but I do…But Trunks said nothing aloud, only bowed his head, accepting the weight they had all placed on his shoulders, this time irrevocably. Bra smiled inwardly. She had once read a work of political theory that said, among other things, that the only sort of man worthy to rule is one who does not really want the job.

"Thank you, Vegita-sama," Radu said quietly.

"It will be easier than you think, Trunks," Vegita said with a ghost of a smirk. "Every delegate of every House and unincorporated world will have their own elaborate scouting equipment ."

Goten snickered. "They'll be lucky if they don't lose bladder control over the reading six Super Saiyans will set off."

"Seven," Gohan said with quiet pride. "Pan went Super Saiyan two years ago."

The tension had bled out of the room as though it had never been, and everyone began milling around in this conversation or that. Goten swept up all of the boys and young men in a tight circle, rehearsing something repetitively that sounded like a harmonic growl. Gohan left to check on Pan's progress, looking thoughtful and a little sad. Trunks disappeared to change for the wedding.

"…some point we need to learn how he survived Tsiru-sei," Gokou-san was saying softly. Something in the tone of his voice sent a chill through her. She had not had three years to become accustomed to the man as he now was, and though he was still the same sweet-natured Jisan Gokou she had known in her childhood, the bright spark of burning intelligence that now lit his eyes still unnerved her. Her father had noticed the odd, cold note in the other Saiyan's voice as well, and was frowning curiously. "We should keep an eye on Jeiyce, if nothing else." Gokou-san said.

"Who is Jeiyce?" She asked.

"He is nothing," Toussan said. "Kakarott, why should we care how or why he survived the Red Dragon? He was a strong but mediocre fighter, a rich mother's boy, if I remember right---placed on the Ginyu squad because of his family's financial ties Tsiru-sei---and because he liked to hurt things. His fighting power is nothing to ours now. Leave him to his own House. Children of Maiyosh-sei are subject to their parents' will no matter what their age. And his mother could have set the Tsiru-jin to school in terms of viciousness." Her father chuckled. "If he is under her hand, I imagine there are days when he wishes himself back in Hell."

Gokou-san did not respond or meet her father's eyes, but Bra realized he was holding down a tidal surge of cold rage, just below the surface---more than that, he was shielding the threads of his own thoughts, so well and so deeply, even she could not skim them. What could this inconsequential man have done to make a man like Gokou-san hate him so much?

"I know you don't remember the time of the Red Dragon, Vegita," he said in that same soft voice, "But I do. The boys told you the story of how the Kais gave me enough power to fight Frieza…When we got to Tsiru-sei, I saw everything the way the gods see…everything that had happened there."

He fixed Vegita with a flat, implacable stare that was totally alien on his features. "When everything is settled and all this attention is off of us, I'm going to find Jeiyce and fight him and make him pay for everything he did to----" He broke off and chose his next words carefully. "For everything he did to all of us during that time." He spoke the next words in the guttural growl of the language of Vegita-sei. "It is Shai--chogul, Vegita. Don’t ask me anymore about it, because I won't tell you." Her father's frown deepened, but he nodded silently.

Shai-chogul….Debt of blood and honor. Bra shivered.

Videl-san stuck her head out the door of the suit of rooms where Chi-Chi-san and she had imprisoned poor little Pan-chan and were doing gods knew what to her. "One more hour, everybody!" The gathered men had the good grace, or at least the good sense, not to groan. Bra smiled. Let Gokou-san keep his dark secrets. They had the feel of something she didn't really want to know anyway. After all, she thought, fingering the ornate choker of seven pearl-sized blue spheres she wore around her neck, she had one or two secrets of her own.

 

"Surita?"

"Holy Lord?" The aged Tsiru-jin scholar was kneeling respectfully,

face bowed down to touch the cold stone of the floor.

"The Lord of Hell is a respected councilor in my court," Gurasia said,

annoyed. "And a deity in his own right. As such, he may treat on equal terms

me."

Surita set jaw against what he no doubt saw as the unwholesome impropriety of the situation, but did not speak his thoughts. "Your word is my law, Holy Lord." He back-pedaled out of the sitting room, still on hands and knees. Gurasia sighed.

"I thought he might prove an asset on this journey," the boy said. "He speaks every language of every space-faring race in the known galaxy…but he would be an embarrassment if he stood at my side in Council tomorrow. Threatening the lives of everyone who did not genuflect in my presence, and such." He tilted his head at an odd angle, eyeing the big Namek who stood at his side. The Demon King was silent, taking in the changes, and Gurasia, in spite of himself, began to feel uncomfortable under the older man's scrutiny.

He was uncomfortable in general---the new weight and balance at each turn or motion of his head from his first adolescent rack or horns was apparently going to take a bit of getting used to. He stood up a little straighter under the Devil's burning gaze, and saw the Namek no longer dwarfed him into obscurity as he had at their last meeting.

"Growth spurt?" Piccalo murmured.

"My first im-sakto, not a molt or a chrysalis, but with similarities of both.

It apparently came upon me several years earlier than is normal. I am only eighteen standard years."

The Namek nodded. "You look about eighteen now."

Gurasia sniffed. "And so I shall remain for two, perhaps three centuries.

I will not see full adulthood for many a long year." He narrowed his eyes.

"Keep my father's soul housed well until that day, Namek."

"He's paddling around in the baby pond with all the other freshly laundered souls who wait to be reborn," Piccalo rumbled. "He knows no pain, no thought, no passage of time."

"A state of bliss," Gurasia said softly. "Why are you here, Namek?" He asked coldly after a moment.

Piccalo Daimo bared fanged teeth at the young Lord of Tsiru-sei. "You have the mark of the Kais on your soul, kid. Eventually, you'll be a god in fact, instead of just in the eyes of your people. I'm here to help keep your webby little feet steered down the path of righteousness."

"Pah!" Said the boy. "You could at least try to lie convincingly. What kind of a Devil are you?"

"A vacationing one. This is also an excuse to see Son Gohan's kid get married. Gohan's whole world hangs on that girl. He's going to be pretty broken up over it, if I know him."

"And you fostered him as a cub, did you not?" Gurasia nodded. "That is a much more plausible lie. Do not tell me your true purpose then. Friend or foe, I will keep you close. I will take the wealth of your experience and enjoy the puzzle of your true motives for a while."

They stood together in companionable silence for a moment, poised on the edge of the promontory of one of the higher perches among the spreading, green bows of Maiysoh's grand Corporate Palace. Maiyosh had granted Tsiru-sei the courtesy of these lofty, isolate quarters, knowing his kind's love of high, cold places. The city below them was sweltering to his tastes. Gurasia cast his mind idly over the throng of beings gathered together in this one place. It occurred to him that, if one wished to throw the entire civilized galaxy into turmoil, the destruction of this one world during tomorrow's debates would be more than adequate to the task. Then, with the princes and prime ministers and corporate heads dead, it would be childsplay to take over in the confusion. If one had the fighting power. If one had the structurizing compliment of fleets and warriors to keep things in check after conquest. If one had the desire. It was, of course, Tsiru-sei's destiny to rule over these lesser beings. But did he really want such a weight on his shoulders? Not yet, at any rate.

He would be his own man, when he came to manhood, and he would walk his own road. Not Surita's, not Son Gokou's, not the Demon King's. Not even his father's, he thought with a heavy sigh of aching loneliness. One day, he would have love again….but not today.

"Enjoy being alive while you can, kid," Piccalo said, apropos of nothing.

"Do and see and experience everything you can. It's the best way to find out who and what you really are. And what you really want."

The boy hummed thoughtfully beside him.

"You never really understand how much of the joy of simply being alive you missed out on, until your life's over," the Namek said softly.

The boy turned, mocking words poised at his lips, for this downward plunge into the bad poetic prose of melancholy. But he found he was alone. A speck of…something dark cut through his frowning contemplation of the benefits and drawbacks of Infernal Namekian mentors, slicing along the edge of his thoughts likes a serrated blade. He hissed. What the hell was that? It was so faint. He reached out again, scanning, trolling through the teeming hoards of sentient minds, searching for that painful, almost corrosive…thing he had just sensed. It was wondrously well shielded, whatever it was. No one without his uncommon psychic training and strength would have even picked it up. It was not ki. It was…absence. A tiny pocket of NOT in the morass of life-forces ebbing and flowing around it.

Curious. And possibly dangerous. It had an organic feel to it. Hmm.

Gurasia craned his head around, peering at the gauzy veil that separated this sitting room from the prayer chamber where Surita and two warrior priests sat in blissful contemplation, and unfortunately observation, of his every move.

"Do not follow me," he told them coldly. "I command it." He dove downward from the window before they could voice their whining, coddling protests, following the invisible trail of the thing, one of his father's axioms winging distantly through the back of his mind. "Anything utterly new and unknown, my sweetest child, is probably very dangerous…"

 

Bulma closed the door behind her, Videl's half-hysterical protests as she and Chi-Chi finally squared off over traditional versus modern wedding gowns, ringing in her ears. She didn't think to wonder why the two women had not worked out some kind of compromise in the three years they'd had to plan this day before now. Pan's panicked look, that said, "Please don't leave me alone with them, Bulma-san!" tore at her heart, but she knew where the better part of valor lay in this situation. And besides, she had a mission of her own. She had excused herself with an offer to take the squealing Go-chan off Chi-Chi's hands while the other woman concentrated on Pan. Now, she wound her way through the corridors and green smelling walkways that led away from the Saiyan wing, the girl tucked in one arm like a sack of rice, retracing her steps in the rat maze of vertical and horizontal elevators that led to the central lobby of this monolithic "tree house." Lobby was a poor description----"merchant's fair" or "mall" was better. There were shops and stalls catering to every imaginable want, need or desire, practical or impractical. There were times when an eidetic memory was an annoying thing to have, but this wasn't one of them. She steered through the crowds of exotic shoppers in a direct route to the shop that had caught her eye as the prissy little Maiyosh-jin concierge had guided them to their rooms. Now, she stood staring up at the marquis of the giant store like a little girl on Christmas morning.

"Look, Go-chan!" She said. "Isn't it beautiful!"

The logo on the storefront read Maiyosh Technical Supplies. It was not a software, electronics, or space ship parts store---it was all of these things and more. It was an engineer's waking dream. And nearly half of the machines she saw lining the shop front window were based on alien technologies she had never seen before. Twenty minutes, she told herself. Then she would go back to see if the mother and grandmother of the bride had worked out a compromise or come to blows. She didn't see the familiar looking little man in front of her until she ran into him.

"Bulma-sama?" He said with a pleased smile.

"Skoy," she smiled. "Just Bulma-san or even Bulma will do. What are you doing here?"

He grinned sheepishly. "This store---I know it's a Maiyosh business, but I can't stay away from it. It's a mastertech's addiction."

She laughed out loud. "Yes, I can see that."

"Everyone was talking politics back there," he said. "Radu's the politician and the businessman and the fighter. I'm just the gearhead."

"I think I know what that's like," she chuckled. "Can you show me around?"

"Once you go in," he said warningly. "You don't come out for hours. It's just not physically possible. I can give you the cheap tour, but we still might miss the wedding. And first you have to answer one question for me."

"Ask away."

"Gohan showed me the blueprints of your Crane model space ship. He says that Chikyuu is less than fifty years into its silicon age of technology, and yet you designed a state of the art ship by cannibalizing one ancient, moldy Namekian craft and a guidance system from a smashed Saiyan space pod. With no frame of reference. First of all, I bow to you." She laughed again. "Next, I have to know, how did you----?"

A shrill alarm from a device he wore on his belt that looked like nothing so much as a giant pager, wiped the eager, boyish smile off his face. He frowned, dark brows drawn together, accenting the strong resemblance he bore to Son-kun and Goten. He studied the reading a moment and his frown deepened, this time in perplexity. "Weird…This is a security tracer for the network of sniffers I planted throughout our wing in case…."

"Someone planted a bomb to try and rid the galaxy of the "Saiyan Scourge in one fell swoop?"

"Something like that. It's not registering any adverse activity within the parameters of our quarters, but…

She edged beside him. looking down at the readouts. "You've configured it to do immediate vicinity scanning sweeps…it sort of…hiccuped, didn't it?"

He adjusted the scanner again to concentrate on one particular area. "It's coming from the floor directly over the Saiyan wing. It's not a bomb…it doesn't read as dangerous at all. It's a machine….I think. But I've never seen a construct like this before. Ever."

They exchanged glances, then answering grins of scientist's mutual insatiable curiosity.

"Let's go see what it is," she said.

 

Gokou blinked. His eyes strayed away from the look of unadulterated joy on his son's face as the big Namek stalked into the courtyard.

"Piccalo-san!"

Beside him, Goten was trying to explain to a blank-faced Radu how this was a great surprise, as his brother's old sensei had been dead for nearly four years. Goten's narrative did not seem to be putting his cousin at ease. Maybe, he thought, as he moved away from the scene reluctantly, this would shake Gohan out of the mood he'd been in. Gokou had never had to give up a daughter in marriage, but something told him it was different in some deep and subtle way, than the marriage of a son. He would find out one day himself, he imagined. Though not for many years. Many, many years.

A tug a his consciousness, a warning sense he had learned long ago to heed without question, pulled him past where Bra stood deep in conversation with the somber-faced Zoukin and his little daughter. Past where Vegita stood, looking bemused and a little thoughtful as he watched his youngest son assembling an interlocking toy engine that would have given a grad student migraines. He won't ever be a fighter. I think Vegita's just starting to realize that. But he will be brilliant…the kind of genius that only comes along once in an age, surpassing even his mother. And one day, very soon, we will need his brilliance desperately…. The pall of foresight fell away from his mind's eye and he shuddered with relief. Please, please, don't let me see too much of the future if I don't have to…

But a part of him knew that the future had come calling already. Too soon… He continued moving without knowing where he was going or why, following the witch-light flicker of the nameless thing he had only caught a glimpse of in the shifting bows of the Tree of Eternity.

Gurasia had trailed the mental scent of the…whatever it was…through the twisted wooden hollows of the Maiyosh palatial guest housing to the place he stood now---in danger of his life in several very specific ways. The swirling mass of monstrously high power levels in the rooms directly beneath his feet could only be the Saiyans' nest. He gave Maiyosh a silent round of applause for deviousness. Placing the Tsiru-jin and Saiyan parties in such close proximity to one another without telling either was a wonderfully left-handed way of inciting a brawl while retaining the guileless appearance of the gracious host. The empty silent space of the freight warehouse around him, which seemed to be a housing for misrouted luggage, was oppressive. Bags and trunks were strewn carelessly all around---only one section was in any order at all. In the center of the open room was a neatly stacked cube, some twenty meters high and as wide, of plan, unassuming black metallic boxes.

Another eerie wave of the NOT blipped past his senses, and this time, the spidery tendrils brushed his mind, and he felt…a pulling, gentle but insistent.

He walked toward the black cube, his legs seemingly independent of his will.

A cold, sweet wave of contentment flooded him, of draining away of will and want and anxiety, like the last moments of thought before sinking down into good dreams.

"Good Goddess, boy!" A man's voice cried suddenly. "Look out!"

A hand snatched him up and away, at the same instant a tiny burst of ki knocked the tower of black boxes into a crashing tumble. He was set on his feet thirty meters away, tried to turn, tried to speak, but he fell on his back instead, gazing up at the vague, indistinct outlines of the faces of his rescuers. He couldn't see. The room was too hot and bright.

"Boy!" A high, delighted voice shrilled, and something small and squirming latched onto his midsection.

"…little monkey?"

"I can't feel his energy level at all," the man's voice said. "Whatever the hell that thing was, it was drinking him up like a glass of water. His power level's completely bottomed out."

"Go-chan, come here." A woman's voice spoke, and the thing squeezing his middle was pulled away. That voice, he knew. Damn…

"Can you hear me?" Bulma asked coldly.

Nod. "…least make it quick?" He managed to croak.

There was a long icy silence. Then…"I'm not going to kill you, Gurasia. You're not getting off the hook that easily. Skoy, can you give him enough energy so he can shield himself from the temperature of this atmosphere?

I think the heat is asphyxiating him."

A warm trickle of life streamed into him for several seconds, and his vision cleared. He sat up, tried to stand, and fell on his backside again. He hissed furiously at the woman regarding him steadily. "Don't think this makes us friends, murderess!" He spat.

"Oh, that's right," she raised one eyebrow, and he trembled with enraged shame at being helpless and in the debt of such an enemy. "I killed your dear old dad in that other timeline---the one where he stole my children. I'm really guilt-ridden about that one, Gurasia, even if I don't remember it happening."

His eyes narrowed to slits. "I could make you remember, if you really want. You'd find the details of your adventures on Tsiru-sei most interesting."

"Boy?" Go-chan had used her already greater strength to push out of Bulma's grasp again and fasten herself to one of his arms. He didn't have the energy to swat her away. "You hurt?"

"I'm…" He craned his neck around to stare at the scattered black boxes. "I was following the trail of the presence of whatever is in those cases. It is alive."

"Curiosity killed the lizard, ay?" the man said, grinning.

He hummed angrily. "Very nearly." He turned to fix the woman with a dark look. "Tell Son Gokou of this. I think it is no accident that this little bit of freight was placed in such close proximity to my folk and yours."

"Or maybe they just didn't like you," she suggested.

"Stupid woman," he hissed. "My power is as great as a first level Super Saiyan and it bled me dry in seconds! How do you think it would serve the rest of your---?"

"What the bloody hell is going on in here?!" No one had noticed the swish of the warehouse doors opening behind them. The team of armored Maiyosh-jin warriors was on top of them before anyone could move. Their leader looked vaguely familiar. Gurasia searched through the fog around his brain for a name.

"Captain Jeiyce?" Skoy said helpfully. Ah, now that was a name he knew.

"Skoy," the Maiyosh security captain said contemptuously. "You set off the alarms when you broke in, you little rodent. Sloppy work for a mastertech."

"Whatever is in those boxes just attacked the boy here," Skoy began.

"Whatever is in those boxes is the Arrak-jin ambassador and his entire entourage, you idiot!" The ex-Ginyu motioned angrily to one of his men to check out the mess Skoy's blast had made of the black cubes. "Shit! We put them in here so no one would mess with them! There's alien and then there's alien, and these guys are really alien. They can't live in our atmosphere or air pressure, and they're scared to death of somehow being yanked out of those black enviro-pods they're in and imploding. What the hell did you come up here for in the first place? Snooping out more Maiyosh technology for your cheap knock-off factories on Madran? The Arrak-jin are sensitive telepaths. If they took a swing at Little Lord Tsiru-sei here, it's because he scared them! If you so much as dent those enviro-pods, they'll snuff it!"

"Everybody seems to be all right," called the guard from where he was running a sensor scan over the black pods.

Gurasia stood shakily with the little primate still firmly attached to his chest. He put one arm under her and that seemed to encourage her to loosen the vise she's placed on his ribs. "There is some truth in what the Captain says," he said to no one in particular, running a light skim along the outer edge of the dark film of scum that seem to line he man's thoughts…a mark, his Inlu-jin tutors had told him, of severe mental illness. The man was very adept at hiding his madness. "But he is mixing in an equal portion of lies. I think he is---"

"Are you calling me a liar, lizard boy?" The Captain asked dangerously with deceptive cheerfulness.

"Yes, and a boor as well. It's very impolite to interrupt your betters when they are speaking, Captain. Your mother would be most displeased with you if she----" A black-gloved fist connected with his jaw and he flew several meters into the air with the force of the blow.

"Stay the hell out of my head, you little bastard!"

The woman shrieked in terror as the baby went flying as well, but Jeiyce leapt upward in a blur of motion and caught the child neatly under one arm. Somewhere nearby, Skoy was lying under a dog pile of guards, cursing the last dozen generations of their families as they held him pinned. Gurasia rolled onto his side painfully and slammed his tail down on the floor with a murderous thrash. The Ginyu had actually laid hands on him! Struck him! Oh gods of my fathers, what will I not do to him when my strength comes back!

If your strength comes back, a cold voice of dread whispered in his ear. What if he had been somehow permanently crippled by the…the Arrak-jin, Jeiyce had called them.

"Give her to me!" The Chikyuu woman was screaming. Like a fool, she hurled herself at the red Ginyu, who caught her easily. Jeiyce handed the baby disinterestedly to the guard with the scan tracer, holding Bulma against him with one arm. Gurasia squinted. An odd change had come over the woman's face and posture. Her high, angry color had suddenly washed away, and she seemed to be trying to shrink into herself----or anywhere that was away from the Maiyosh Captain.

"Easy now, lovey," Jeiyce said softly. "I just saved the poppet from hitting the floor with a thud." He grinned down at her, pulling her a little closer, and the Chikyuu woman went dead pale and still, and ceased to even struggle. "You've all just broken half a dozen trespass and property laws, not to mention scaring the living daylights out of the Arrak delegation. I really should take all of you in for questioning…" His voice trailed off into a harsh whisper. He brushed the tip of one black-gloved finger lightly down her cheek. "Gods, you're even more beautiful than I remem---"

A circular section of wall surrounding the entryway burned away to ash and exploded inward. Something radiant, golden and murderously enraged bulleted inward and slammed the Maiyosh-jin down on the floor, one hand locked around his throat. The other guards flew to their Captain's aid only to be batted down like insects by the glowing man's one free arm. Gurasia watched the scene with woozy interest, wondering which would win out---the Saiyan's obvious burning desire to kill the other man, or the needs and obligations of tomorrow's Council. Reason won over instinct, and the boy smiled. You will have to kill him very quickly after this is all over to beat me to the deathblow, Son Gokou. He heaved himself up from his undignified sprawl on the floor, flexed and extended his senses and ki with an inward sigh of relief. His strength was slowly returning. He strode unsteadily to where the the Maiyosh guardsman had dropped the screaming baby, before making an ever-so-brief attempt to free his captain from the Saiyan's grip. She was making a truly horrible noise and the sound hurt his already throbbing head.

He scooped her up in one arm. "Stop that!" He hissed. Her piercing caterwauls ceased immediately as though he's thrown a switch to shut them off. "Ugly monkey," he muttered. She smiled at him as though he had praised her for some marvelous deed.

Son was still kneeling over the prone Ginyu with a look of such unadulterated hatred on his face that Gurasia felt himself flinch involuntarily.

The woman was shaking her head as though to clear it. She took the child from him wordlessly. She looked dazed, like someone waking from a forgotten nightmare. He brushed her thoughts lightly. Interesting. When Jeiyce had put his hands on her for those brief moments, it had dislodged her memories of Tsiru-sei for a few seconds. But now the recollection was receding, though vague impressions still lingered around her thoughts. Memory was such an elusive and ultimately incomprehensible thing.

"Jeiyce," Gokou said with deadly gentleness. "If you come anywhere near her again, I will grab both of your legs and tear you in half like a wishbone."

"…right," the other man gasped.

"And get someone to move those…things away from my family and friends. Now!"

The Maiyosh-jin did not quite run from the room, but he certainly moved faster than dignity would dictate.

"Oh no!" The Chikyuu woman screeched. "Son-kun, we're about to be late for the wedding!"

"Maybe we shouldn't mention this until after," Skoy suggested tentatively.

"Maybe we shouldn't mention it at all," Bulma said quietly, her gaze turning inward again.

"Bulma," Son began solicitously. "Are you---?"

"I'm fine!" She said sharply. She turned to Gurasia, her eyes hard. "You owe me your life, young man," she said shortly. "Don't forget that."

"Such unkind words," he sneered. "Son Gokou owes me the very existence of his daughter. Not to mention whatever little troll you whelped off the Saiyan no Ouji on that night three years ago. But for me, they never would have been." Gurasia smiled smugly at their open-mouthed outrage. It was grand and satisfying to be in the company of people who did not revere him as deity and still have the last word. "Do you not have a wedding to attend?" He turned on his heel and left, trilling merrily to himself.

 

"I love you, Poppa." Pan kissed her father's cheek, feeling her throat constrict at the sight of the tears standing unshed in his eyes.

He smiled. "I love you, Pan-chan." His voice caught. "You're not coming back with us, are you? I think I knew that. I just didn't let myself realize it until now."

"I'm sorry, Poppa."

"Don't be," he said. "Don't ever be sorry for growing up. I think what Trunks is doing out here is a good thing. And you're going to be part of that.

I'm very, very proud of you. I don't know if I've ever actually told you that.

Don't cry, honey," he said softly. "You'll ruin your makeup." She laughed and he hugged her. One last time as his little girl. "Ready?"

"Yes."

Gohan pushed open the door to the flower swept courtyard, and Pan took his arm. Someone, she thought his name was Rutab, was beating a drum, a slow 1-2 rhythmic beat, like an islander drum song. They fell into step with the beat almost unconsciously. Everyone was standing, lined in a human corridor of well-known, well-loved faces, and new ones. And at the end stood Trunks. He was wearing a gleaming, polished armor she'd never seen before, and her breath nearly caught in her throat. He looked like something out of a fairytale. But real. Real and hers, at long last. As they walked, Goten began singing in a language she somehow knew must be Saiyago, and all the other young men joined in the guttural, harmonic chorus that was almost, but not quite, a growl. Gohan stared at Trunks a long moment, then smiled.

"You've always been like a second brother to me, Trunks," he said. "And you've grown into a good man. There's no one in the universe more deserving of my only child." And he laid Pan's hand in Trunks'.

The song crested around them, and Pan stared up into Trunks face, letting her thoughts flow out and into his.

"I love you, Pan," he whispered. "You are mine and I am yours."

I love you, Trunks, her mind and heart sang together inside his. You are mine and I am yours.

The song ended, and there was silence. And that was it. No elaborate speeches or painfully drawn out oaths or ritual. Exactly as she had wanted it---the one concession she had stood firm on against the dictates of her mother and grandmother. Simple and sweet and straight to the heart. Pan stood staring up into the eyes of her new husband. A slow, almost shy smile was playing across his lips.

"Is he gonna kiss her now?" One of her new cousins, Radu's youngest son

Gera, stage whispered loudly. There was a ripple of laughter. Trunks leaned down and planted a feather light kiss on her lips. Tonight, Pan-chan…

She smiled.

 

Bulma laid Gita's sleeping body down in the capsule baby bed she had brought with her from home. The Maiyosh-jin concierge Laki had shown her a half dozen cribs of all descriptions that she could have chosen from, but the boy always slept better in his own bed. She stared down at him, her thoughts turned inward. She had frozen like a deer in headlights the instant the former Ginyu, Jeiyce Maiyosh, had grabbed her. The memory, just the thought of his crawling touch, sent a wave of nausea rushing up from the pit of her stomach.

Why?

She was, and had been, since emerging from the skinny, awkward obscurity of early adolescence, a beautiful woman. She knew this, though it meant immeasurably less now than it had when she was young girl. All her life, men had reacted to her, with lingering glances, doey eyes, and sometimes grabbing hands. Not once, in all her life had she felt anything like this sick horror. And the man hadn't really done a thing to her---merely restrained her, holding her pressed against his body, probably enjoying it, but it wasn't as though he'd done anything overt. Except when he'd touched her face. Gods, You're even more beautiful than I remembered…

She moved to the hanging closet in the bedroom and pulled out of gown, shimmering silk, low-necked and cut in a low-wasted flowering bell. It's color was the perfect match to her aqua hair. She undressed slowly, remembering how, for several minutes after he had released her, she had been completely numb, unable to feel her own skin, unable to feel anything but the wrenching illness of his hands.

Why?

Trunks and Goten had explained who this man was, though they didn't know how he had managed to survive the route of the Red Dragon. They had given her a sketchy account of the last desperate days of their lives in that time. She remembered Goten saying that Gohan and herself had been held prisoners for a brief time on Tsiru-sei. That must be how he knew her, remembered her, though they had never met…

Scream for me, Lovey…

She doubled over and rushed to the bathroom, vomiting out the contents of her last meal, shaking and sick, pushing down that brief flash of…something terrible, that had loomed up before her eyes for a brief second.

She knew. Frieza had used one very effective, brutal method to break his enemies' will, to tear down their pride and leave some small part of them quivering in fear for all time. She had no memory of being held captive on Tsiru-sei, but her reaction…there could be no other explanation. Frieza must have given her to Jeiyce. And Son-Kun knew it! Kami, that explained his murderous hatred of the man, why he had come inches from killing the Ginyu, even with all they stood to lose if he had. She knelt in the bathroom floor for a long moment, motionless, not thinking about anything.

Then she stood up straight and wiped her mouth. Nothing broken, nothing bruised. She was fine, dammit! It was not as though she remembered the event---if indeed, that was what had actually happened. Everything needed to go smoothly tomorrow if they were to be able to head off the trouble Maiyosh and others like them had planned. She slipped into the sky-colored gown, and pinned up her hair, leaving a few curled blue tendrils hanging free. She dotted on a light coat of make-up and turned to her jewelry, pulling out two small boxes, earrings and rings. Vegita could not know about the encounter in the freighthouse, she thought as she put on the turquoise earrings. He would lose his mind at the thought of someone man-handling her. And he could not know about her suspicions of what had happened on Tsiru-sei. Ever. It would tear him to pieces from the inside out, no matter that it was all undone and unremembered. She looked down with a start at the second box she had selected from her jewelry case, a tiny glass case marked Cap Corp Securities.

She stared at it for a moment blankly, then lifted the pair of ornate sapphire colored rings out of the box and placed one on each hand. She stood motionless, surveying the finished ensemble in the mirror. She would have to be very careful with her hands tonight. If she broke either of the fragile glass setting in the rings, someone would get a nasty surprise.

Today was her son's wedding day, and she was going to have enjoy it and have fun and not dwell on forgotten maybe-horrors of a past that never happened. Maybe…maybe when this was all over, and the insanity of a government declaring a whole race of people outlawed was put to rest, when Chikyuu and Madran were free of any threat from hoards of misguided crusaders and such…maybe then she would corner Son-Kun and make him tell her what he knew. But for the moment, she didn't want to deal with it.

And besides, she was fine. Just fine.

* * * * *


Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 3