De Valmy turned the full force of his compelling greeneyed gaze onto the Takisian. Tachyon, raised in a culture that put a high premium on charm and charisma, found that this man possessed both to an almost Takisian magnitude. He wondered if that was his wild card gift.
"Doctor, I am honored." He spoke in English.
Tach placed a small hand over his breast and replied in French, "The honor is entirely mine."
" I will be interested to hear your comments on our scientists' work on the wild card virus."
"Well, I have only just arrived." He fingered his lapel, raised his eyes, and pinned de Valmy with a sharp glance.
"And will I be reporting to all the candidates in the race? Will they also wish to hear my comments?"
Senator Hartmann took a small step forward, but de Valmy was laughing. "You are very astute. Yes, I am-how do you Americans say-counting my chickens."
"With reason," said Hartmann with a smile. "You've been groomed by the President as his heir apparent."
"Certainly an advantage," said Tachyon. "But your status as an ace hasn't hurt."
"No."
"I would be curious to know your power."
De Valmy covered his eyes. "Oh, Monsieur Tachyon, I'm embarrassed to speak of it. It's such a contemptible little power. Mere parlor tricks."
"You are very modest, sir."
Hartmann's aide glared, and Tach stared blandly back, though he regretted the momentary flash of sarcasm. It was ill bred of him to take out his weariness and unhappiness on others.
"I am not above using the advantage granted to me, Doctor, but I hope that it will be my policies and leadership that will give me the presidency."
Tachyon gave a small laugh and caught Gregg Hartmann's eye. "It is ironic, is it not, that in this country the wild card bestows a cachet to help a man into high office, while in our country that same information would defeat him."
The senator pulled a face. "Leo Barnett."
"I beg you pardon?" asked de Valmy in some confusion. "A fundamentalist preacher who's gathering quite a following. He'd restore all the old wild card laws."
"Oh, worse than that, Senator. I think he would place them in detention camps and force mass sterilizations."
"Well, this is an unpleasant subject. But on another unpleasant subject I'd like a chance to talk to you, Franchot, about your feelings on the phaseout of medium-range missiles in Europe. Not that I have any standing with the current administration, but my colleagues in the Senate…" He linked arms with de Valmy and they drifted away, their various aides trailing several paces behind like hopeful pilot fish.
Tach gulped down champagne. The chandeliers glittered in the long line of mirrors, multiplying them a hundredfold and throwing back bright light like shards of glass into his aching head. He took another swallow of champagne, though he knew the alcohol was partly to blame for his present discomfort. That and the drilling hum of hundreds of voices, the busy scrape of bows on strings, and outside, the watching presence of an adoring public. Sensitive telepath that he was, it beat on him like an urgent, hungry sea.
As the motorcade had driven up the long chestnut-lined boulevard, they had passed hundreds of waving people all eagerly craning for a glimpse of the les ases fantastiques. It was a welcome relief after such hatred and fear in other countries. Still, he was glad that only one country remained, and then he would be home. Not that anything waited for him there but more problems.
In Manhattan, James Spector was on the streets. Death incarnate stalking free. Another monster created by my meddling. Once home I must deal with this. Trace him. Find him. Stop him. I was so stupid to abandon him in favor of pursuing Roulette.
And what of Roulette? Where can she be? Did I do wrong to release her? I am undoubtedly a fool where women are concerned.
"Tachyon." Peregrine's gay call floated on the strains of Mozart and pulled him from his introspective fog. "You've got to see this."
He pinned a smile firmly in place and kept his eyes strictly off the mound of her belly thrust aggressively front and center. Mordecai Jones, the Harlem auto repairman, looking uncomfortable in his tuxedo, nervously eyed a tall gold-and-crystal lamp as if expecting it to attack. The long march of mirrors brought back thoughts of the Funhouse, and Des, the fingers at the end of his elephant's trunk twitching slightly, heightened the memory. The past. It seemed to be hanging like a dead weight from his shoulders.
The knot of friends and fellow travelers parted, and a hunched, twisted figure was revealed. The joker lurched around and smiled up at Tach. The face was a handsome one. Noble, a little tired, lines about the eyes and mouth denoting past suffering, a kindly face his, in fact. There was a shout of laughter from the group as Tach gaped down into his own features.
There was a shifting like clay being mashed or a sponge being squeezed, and the joker faced him with his own features in place. A big square head, humorous brown eyes, a mop of gray hair, set atop that tiny, twisted body.
"Forgive me, the opportunity was too enticing to pass up," chuckled the joker.
"And your expression the best of all, Tachy," put in Chrysalis.
"You can laugh, you're safe. He can't do you," harrumphed Des.
"Tack, this is Claude Bonnell, Le Miroir. He's got this great act at the Lido."
"Poking fun at the politicos," rumbled Mordecai.
"He does this hysterical skit with Ronald and Nancy Reagan," giggled Peregrine.
Jack Braun, drawn by the laughing group, hovered at its outskirts. His eyes met Tachyon's, and the alien looked through him. Jack shifted until they were at opposite sides of the circle.
"Claude's been trying to explain to us this alphabet soup that's French politics," said Digger. "All about how de Valmy has welded an impressive coalition of the RPR, the CDS, the JJSS, the PCF-"
"No, no, Mr. Downs, you must not include my party among the ranks of those who support Franchot de Valmy. We communists have better taste, and our own candidate."
"Who won't win," ejected Braun, frowning down at the tiny joker.
The features blurred, and Earl Sanderson Jr. said softly, "There were some who supported the goals of world revolution." Jack, face gone sickly white, staggered back. There was a sharp crack as his glass shattered in his hands, and a flare of gold as his biological force field came to life to protect him. There was an uncomfortable silence after the big ace had left, then Tachyon said coolly, "Thank you."
"My pleasure."
"You are here as a wild card representative?"
"Partly, but I also have an official capacity. I am a member of the party congress."
"You are a big wheel with the commies," whistled Digger with his usual lack of tact.
"Yes."
"How did you pick up Earl? Or have you just made it a point to study those of us on the tour?" asked Chrysalis.
"I have a very low-level telepathy. I can pick up the faces of those who have deeply affected a person."
Hartmann's aide was once again at his side. "Doctor, Dr. Corvisart has arrived and wants to meet you."
Tachyon made a face. "Duty calls, so pleasure must be forgone. Gentlemen, ladies." He bowed and walked away. An hour later Tach was standing by the small chamber orchestra, allowing the soothing strains of Mendelssohn's Trout quintet to work its magic. His feet were beginning to hurt, and he realized that forty years on Earth had robbed him of his ability to stand for hours. Recalling long-past deportment lessons, he tucked in his hips, pulled back his shoulders, and lifted his chin. The relief was immediate, but he decided that another glass would also help.
Flagging down a waiter, he reached for the champagne. Then staggered, and fell heavily against the man as a blinding, directionless mind assault struck his shields.
Mind control! The source? Outside… somewhere. The focus?
He was dimly aware of crashing glasses as he slumped against his startled support. Forced up lids that seemed infinitely heavy. So distorting was the effect of his own psi-search, and the
screaming power of the mind control, that reality took on a strange shifting quality. The reception guests in their bright finery faded to gray. He could "see" the mind probe like a brilliant line of light. Becoming diffuse at its source, impossible to pinpoint. But haloing:
A man. Uniform. One of the security captains. Attache case.
BOMB!
He reached out with his mind and seized the officer. For a moment the man writhed and danced like a moth in a flame as his controller and Tach fought for supremacy. The strain was too much for his human mind, and consciousness left him like a candle being snuffed. The major went down spraddlelegged on the polished wood floor. Tach found his fingers closing about the edges of the black leather case, though he couldn't remember moving.
Controller knows he's lost focus. Time detonated or command detonated? No time to ponder on it.
The solution, when it came, almost wasn't conscious. He reached out, gripped the mind. Jack Braun stiffened, dropped his drink, and went running for the long windows overlooking the front garden and fountains. People flew like ninepins as the big ace came barreling through them. Tachyon cocked back his arm, prayed to the ancestors for aim and strength,' and threw.
Jack, like a hero in a forties football film, leapt, plucked the spinning case from the air, tucked it tight into his chest, and launched himself out the window. Glass haloed his gold-glowing body. A second later, and a tremendous explosion blew out the rest of the windows lining the Hall of Mirrors. Women screamed as razor-edged glass shards bit deep into unprotected skin. Glass and gravel from the yard pattered like hysterical raindrops onto the wood floor.
People rushed to the window to check on Braun. Tachyon turned his back on the windows and knelt beside the stentoriously breathing major. One should have priorities.
"Let's go over it again."
Tach eased his aching buttocks on the hard plastic chair, shifted until he could take a surreptitious glance at his watch. 12:10 A.M. Police were definitely the same the world over. Instead of being grateful for his having averted a tragedy, they were treating him as if he were the criminal. And Jack Braun had been spared all this because the authorities had insisted on carting him off to the hospital. Of course he wasn't hurt, that was why Tachyon had selected him. No doubt by morning the papers would be filled with praise for the brave American ace, thought Tach sourly. Never noticing my contributions.
"Monsieur?" prodded Jean Baptiste Rochambeau of the French Surete.
"To what purpose? I've told you. I sensed a powerful, natural mind control at work. Because of the user's lack of training and control, I was unable to pinpoint the source. I could, however, pinpoint its victim. When I fought for control, I read through to the controller's mind, read the presence of the bomb, mind-controlled Braun, tossed him the bomb, he went out the window, the bomb exploded, with him no worse for the wear except perhaps wearing some of the topiary"
"There is no topiary beyond the windows of the Hall of Mirrors," sniffed Rochambeau's assistant in his nasal, highpitched voice.
Tach swung around in the chair. "It was a little joke," he explained gently.
"Dr. Tachyon. We are not doubting your story. It's just that it's impossible. No such powerful… mentat?"-he looked to Tachyon far confirmation-"exists in France. As Dr. Corvisart has explained, we have every carrier, both latent and expressed, on file."
"Then one has slipped past you."
Corvisart, an arrogant gray-haired man with fat cheeks like a chipmunk's and a tiny pursed bud of a mouth, gave a stubborn headshake.
"Every infant is tested and registered at birth. Every immigrant is tested at the border. Every tourist must have the test before they can receive a visa. The only explanation is the one I have suspected for several years. The virus has mutated."
"That is patent and utter nonsense! With all due respect, Doctor, I am the foremost authority on the wild card virus on this or any other world."
Perhaps something of an exaggeration that, but surely it could be forgiven. He had been enduring fools with such patience for so many hours.
Corvisart was quivering with outrage. "Our research has been acknowledged as the best in the world."
"Ah, but I don't publish." Tachyon was on his feet. "I don't have to." A single-step advance. " I have a certain advantage." Another. "I helped develop the withering thing!" he bellowed down into the Frenchman's face.
Corvisart held stubbornly firm. "You are wrong. The mentat exists, he is not on file, ergo the virus has mutated."
"I want to see your notes, duplicate the research, look over these vaunted files." This he addressed to Rochambeau. He might have the soul of a policeman, but at least he wasn't an idiot.
The Surete officer cocked an eyebrow. "You have any objections, Dr. Corvisart?"
"I suppose not."
"You want to start now?"
"Why not? The night's ruined anyway."
They set him up in Corvisart's office with an impressive computer at his disposal, bulging hard-copy files of research, a foot-high stack of disks, and a cup of strong coffee that Tach liberally laced with brandy from his hip flask.
The research was good, but it was geared toward proving Corvisart's pet premise. The hope of fame in the form of a mutated form-Wild Cardus Corvisartus?-was subtly coloring the Frenchman's interpretations of the data he was collecting. The virus was not mutating.
Thank the gods and ancestors, Tach sent up as a heartfelt prayer.
He was scrolling idly through the wild card registry when an anomaly, something not quite right, caught his attention. It was five in the morning, hardly the time to scroll back several years to check if he'd seen what he'd thought he'd seen, but upbringing and his own curious nature could not be denied. After several minutes of fervid key tapping he had the screen divided and both documents called up side by side. He fell back in the chair, rumpling his already tumbled curls with nervous fingers.
"Well, I'll be damned," he said aloud to the silent room. The door opened, and the adenoidal sergeant thrust in his head. "Monsieur? You require something?"
"No, nothing."
His hand shot out, and he erased the damning documents. What he discovered was for him alone. For it was political dynamite. It would create havoc with an election, cost a man the presidency, and shake the foundations of trust of the electorate should it get out.
Tach pressed his hands into the small of his back, stretched until vertebrae popped, and shook his head like a weary pony. "Sergeant, I am very much afraid that I have found nothing that is of any help. And I'm too tired to go on. May I please be returned to the hotel?"
But his bed at the Ritz had held no comfort or rest, so here he was leaning over the bridge railing on the Pont de la Concorde watching coal barges slip by, and snuffling eagerly at the smell of baking bread, which seemed to have permeated the city. Every part of his small body seemed to be suffering from some discomfort. His eyes felt like two burned holes in a blanket, his back still ached from that impossible chair, and his stomach was demanding to be fed. But worst of all was what he had dubbed his mental indigestion. He had seen or heard something of significance. And until he hit upon it, his brain was going to continue to seethe like jelly boiling on a stove.
"Sometimes," he told his mind severely, "I feel as if you have a mind of your own."
He began walking through the Place de la Concorde, where Marie Antoinette had lost her head, the spot now marked by a venerable Egyptian obelisk. There were plenty of restaurants to choose from: the Hotel de Crillon, the Hotel Intercontinental, just two blocks from the square, where Dani was no doubt hard at work, and beyond it the Ritz. He hadn't seen any of his companions since the dramatic events of the previous night. His entrance would be met with exclamations, congratulations… He decided to miss the whole mess.
He was still wearing his reception finery. Pale lavender and rose, and a foam of lace. He frowned when a taxi driver gaped and drove over a curb and almost into one of the central fountains. Embarrassed, T
achyon darted through the richly decorated iron railing and into the -Tuileries Gardens. On either side loomed the Jeu de Paume and the Orangerie, ahead the neat rows of chestnut trees, fountains, and a riot of statues.
Tach dropped wearily onto the edge of a basin. The fountain squirted into life and sent a fine spray of mist across his face. For a moment he sat with eyes closed, savoring the cool touch of the water. Retreating to a nearby bench, he pulled out the picture of Gisele and again studied those delicate features. Why was it that whenever he came to Paris, he found only death?
And suddenly the piece fell into place. The puzzle lay complete before him. With a cry of joy he leapt to his feet and broke into a frantic run. The high heels of his formal pumps slipped on the gravel path. Cursing, he hopped along, pulling them off. Then with a shoe in each hand he flew up the stairs and onto the Rue de Rivoli. Horns blared, tires squealed, drivers shrieked. He ran on heedless of it all. Pulled up gasping before the glass and marble entrance to the Hotel Intercontinental. Met the bemused eyes of the doorman, slipped his feet into his shoes, straightened his coat, patted at his tumbled hair, trod casually into the quiet lobby.
"Bonjour."
The desk clerk's eyes widened in dawning wonder as he recognized the extravagant figure before him. He was a handsome man in his mid-thirties with sleek seal-brown hair and deep blue eyes.
"You have a woman working here. Danelle Moncey. It is vital that I speak with her."
"Moncey? No, Monsieur Tachyon. There is no one by-"
"Damn! She married. I forgot that. She's a maid, midfifties, black eyes, gray hair." His heart was thundering, setting up an answering pounding in his temples. The young man looked nervously down at Tachyon's hands, which had closed urgently about his lapels, pulling him half over the counter. Releasing the clerk, Tachyon rubbed his fingertips. "Forgive me. As you can see, this is very important… very important to me."
"I'm sorry, but there is no Danelle working here."
"She's a Communist," Tach added in desperation.
The man shook his head, but the pert blond behind the exchange counter suddenly said, "Ah, no, Francois. You know, Danelle."
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