Wild Cards IV

by George R. R. Martin

  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, Tachyon 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, mid-fifties, 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, François. You know, Danelle.”

  “Then she is here?”

  “Oh, mais oui. She is on the third floor—”

  “Will you get her for me?” Tachyon gave the girl his best come-hither smile.

  “Monsieur, she is working,” protested the desk clerk.

  “I only require a moment of her time.”

  “Monsieur, I cannot have a cleaning woman in the lobby of the Intercontinental.” It was almost a wail.

  “Blood’s end! Then I’ll go to her.”

  Danelle was bundling sheets into a hamper. Gasped when she saw him, tried to bull past him using her cleaning cart as a battering ram. He danced aside and caught her by the wrist.

  “We must talk.” He was grinning like a fool.

  “I’m working.”

  “Take the day off.”

  “I’ll lose my job.”

  “You’re not going to need this job any longer.”

  “Oh, why not?”

  A man and his wife stepped out of their room and stared curiously at the couple.

  “This won’t do.”

  She eyed him, checked her cheap wristwatch. “It’s almost my break. I’ll meet you at the Café Morens just down from the hotel on the Rue du Juillet. Buy me some cigarettes and my usual.”

  “Which is?”

  “They’ll know. I always take my break there.”

  He took her face between his hands and kissed her. Smiled at her confused expression.

  “What has happened with you?”

  “I’ll tell you at the café.”

  As he hurried back through the lobby he saw the desk clerk just hanging up the phone in one of the public booths. The young blond woman waved and called, “Did you find her?”

  “Oh, yes. Thank you very much.”

  Tachyon fidgeted at one of the tiny tables that had been squeezed out front of the café. The street was so narrow that the parked cars had two wheels cocked up on the sidewalks.

  Dani arrived and lit a Gauloise. “So what is this all about?”

  “You lied to me.” He shook a finger coyly under her nose. “Our daughter is not dead. At Versailles … that was not a wild card, it was my blood kin. I don’t blame you for wanting to hurt me, but let me make it up to you. I’ll get you both back to America.”

  A small car was gunning down the street. As it swept past, the chatter of automatic weapon fire echoed off the gray stone buildings. Danelle jerked in the chair. Tachyon caught her, flung them both down behind one of the parked cars. A white-hot poker burned through his thigh, and his elbow hit the sidewalk with a jarring crack. He lay frozen, cheek pressed to the pavement, something warm running over his hand. His leg had gone numb.

  Danelle’s breath was rattling in her throat. Tachyon took her mind. Gisele appeared. Reflected a million times over in a million different memories. Gisele. A brilliant firefly presence.

 
Desperately he reached after her, but she was receding, a lost and elusive magic among the darkening pathways of her dying mother’s mind.

  Danelle died.

  Gisele died.

  But had left a part of herself. A son. Tach clung to her, violating every rule of advanced mentatics by holding to a dying mind. Panic seized him, and he fled back from that terrifying boundary.

  In the physical world the air was filled with the undulating wail of sirens. Oh, ancestors, what to do? Be found here with a murdered hotel maid? Ludicrous. There would be questions to be answered. They would learn of his grandchild. And if wild cards were a national treasure, how much more a treasure was a part-blood Takisian?

  The pain was beginning. Tachyon experimentally moved his leg and found that the bullet had missed the bone. The effort had popped sweat and filled the back of his throat with bile. How could he possibly reach the Ritz? He tightened his jaw. Because he was a prince of the house Ilkazam. It’s only two blocks, he thought encouragingly.

  He laid Danelle gently aside, folded her hands on her bosom, kissed her forehead. Mother of my child. Later he would mourn her properly. But first came vengeance.

  The bullet had passed cleanly through the fleshy part of his thigh. There wasn’t much blood. Yet. As he walked it began to pump. Camouflage, something to hide the wound just long enough to get past the desk and up to his room. He checked in parked cars. A folded newspaper. And the window was open. Not perfect, but good enough. Now he just had to find enough control not to limp those few steps from the front door to the elevator.

  Piece of cake, as Mark would say. Training was everything. And blood. Blood would always tell.

  He had taken a stab at sleeping, but it had been useless. Finally at six Jack Braun kicked aside the entangling bedclothes, stripped off sweat-soaked pajamas, dressed, and went in search of food.

  Five months of hunched shoulders and nervous backward glances. Five months in which he had never spoken. Refused to grant him even eye contact. Had the hope of rehabilitation really been worth this amount of hell?

  The Swarm invasion was to blame. It had pulled him back, out of the womb of real estate and California evenings and poolside sex. Here was a real crisis. No ace, no matter how tainted, would be unwelcome. And he’d done good, stomping all over monsters in Kentucky and Texas. And he’d discovered something interesting. Most of the new young aces didn’t know who the hell he was. A few, Hiram Worchester, the Turtle, had known and it had mattered. But it was bearable. So maybe there was a way to come back. To be a hero again.

  Hartmann had announced the world tour.

  Jack had always admired Hartmann. Admired the way he’d led the fight to repeal certain parts of the Exotic Powers Control Act. He’d called the senator and offered to foot part of the bill. Money was always welcome to a politician, even if it wasn’t being used to finance a campaign. Jack found himself on the plane.

  And most of it hadn’t been bad. There’d been plenty of action with women—most notably with Fantasy. They had lain in bed one night in Italy, and she’d told him with vicious wit about Tachyon’s impotency. And he’d laughed, too loud and too long. Trying to diminish Tachyon. Trying to make him less of a threat.

  Over the years he’d absorbed a bit about Takisian culture from the interviews he’d read. Vengeance was definitely part of the code. So he’d watched his back and waited for Tachyon to act. And nothing had happened.

  The strain was killing him.

  And then had come last night.

  He smeared butter on the last roll in the bread basket, washed down the hard crusted bite with a sip of the unbelievably strong French coffee. He sure wished these Frenchies had a concept of a real breakfast. He could order an American breakfast of course, but the cost was as unbelievable as the coffee. This basket of dry bread and coffee was costing him ten dollars. Add in some eggs and bacon, and the cost soared to near thirty dollars. For breakfast!

  Suddenly the absurdity of the thought struck him. He was a rich man, not a Depression farm boy from North Dakota. His contribution to this tour had been big enough to buy him a piece of the big 747, or at least the jet fuel to fly it—

  Tachyon was entering the hotel, and the hair on the nape of Jack’s neck prickled. The door of the small restaurant gave him only a limited view, and soon the alien was out of sight. Jack felt the muscles in his neck and shoulders relax, and with a sigh he lifted a finger and ordered a full American breakfast.

  Tachyon had looked funny. Fork moved mechanically from plate to mouth. Holding himself real stiff. Folded newspaper along his thigh like a soldier on dress parade. None of his business what the bastard was getting up to.

  But last night was his business.

  Anger ate through his belly like a physical pain. Sure the bomb couldn’t have hurt him, but he took my mind. Casually, like a man tasting a mint. Reducing him in an instant from man to object.

  Jack mopped up the last of the yolk while anger and outrage grew. God damn it! It was stupid to be scared of a pint-size fairy in fancy dress.

  Not scared, Jack’s mind quickly amended. He’d stayed away from the alien out of politeness, an acknowledgment of how much Tachyon hated him. But now Tachyon had changed the rules. He’d taken his mind. That he wasn’t going to allow to pass.

  They looked like two little red mouths. Bullet in, bullet out. Tach, seated in his undershorts, jabbed in a hypodermic, depressed the plunger, waited for the painkiller to take effect. Just for good measure he’d given himself a tetanus shot and an injection of penicillin. Spent hypos littered the table, a gauze pad lay ready, a roll of cotton. But for the moment he would let it seep. And do some hard thinking.

  So Danelle had not lied. She had just not told all. Gisele was dead. The question was, how? Or did that matter? Probably not. What mattered was that she had married and borne a son. My grandson. And he had to be found.

  And the father? Well, what of him? Assuming he was still alive, he was no fit guardian for the boy. The father—or unknown others—were manipulating this Takisian gift to spread terror.

  So where to start? Undoubtedly at Danelle’s apartment. Then to the hall of records to search for the marriage license and birth certificate.

  But that attack on Danelle and himself had been no accident. They, whoever they were, were watching. So, however distasteful, he was going to have to make an effort to blend in.

  Braun spent a few moments dithering in the hall. But outrage won over prudence. He tested the door, found it locked, gave a hard twist, and broke the knob. Stepped over the threshold and froze in astonishment at the sight of Tachyon, scissors at the ready, seated in the midst of a circle of snipped red locks.

  The Takisian gaped back, a final hank of that improbable hair clutched in a hand.

  “How dare you!”

  “What in the hell are you doing?”

  As their first exchange in almost forty years, it seemed to lack something.

  In quick flicks like the shuttering of a camera, the rest of the scene came into focus. Jack’s forefinger shot out.

  “That’s a bullet wound.”

  “Nonsense.” The gauze was laid quickly over the white thigh with its peppering of red-gold hairs. “Now get out of my room.”

  “Not until I have some answers out of you. Who the hell has been shooting at you?” He snapped his fingers. “The bomb at Versailles. You’ve got a line into the people—”

  “NO!” Far too quick and far too strong.

  “Have you told the authorities?”

  “There is no need. This is not a bullet wound. I know nothing of the terrorists.” The scissors sawed viciously through the last piece of hair. It fluttered to the floor, ironically forming a shape very reminiscent of a question mark.

  “Why are you cutting your hair?”

  “Because I feel like it! Now get out before I take your mind and make you go.”

  “You do, and I’ll come back and break your damn neck. You’ve never forgiven me—”


  “You have that right!”

  “You threw a goddamm bomb at me!”

  “Unfortunately I knew it wouldn’t hurt you.”

  The long slender fingers played about his cropped head, fluttering among the curls until they clustered about his face. It had the effect of making him appear suddenly very young.

  Braun stepped in on him, rested his hands on either arm of the chair, effectively trapping Tachyon. “This tour is important. If you get up to some crazy stunt, it could damage everybody’s reputation. You I don’t give a damn about, but Gregg Hartmann is important.”

  The alien looked away and gazed woodenly out the window. Despite being clad only in shirt and shorts he managed to make it seem regal.

  “I’ll go to Hartmann.”

  There was a flicker of alarm deep in the lilac eyes, quickly suppressed. “Fine, go. Anything to be rid of you.”

  Silence stretched between them. Suddenly Braun asked, “Are you in trouble?” No reply. “If you are, tell me. Maybe I can help.”

  The long lashes lifted, and Tachyon looked him fully in the eyes. There was nothing young about the narrow face now. It looked as cold and old and as implacable as death.

  “I’ve had enough of your help for one lifetime, thank you.”

  Jack almost ran from the room.

  Tachyon pulled off the soft brown fedora and crumpled it agitatedly in his hands. The tiny two-room flat looked as if it had been struck by a cyclone. Drawers stood open, a cheap picture frame stood forlornly empty on a scarred table. What had it held that was so significant it had to be removed?

  The police? he wondered. No, they would have been more careful. So Dani’s killers had been here, and the police were yet to come, which meant Tach had to hurry. The newly purchased jeans felt stiff against his skin, and he tugged fretfully at the crotch while he riffled through the paperbacks that littered the front room.

  A faint rasp sounded from the bedroom. Tachyon froze, crept cat-footed to the hot plate, and lifted the knife lying next to it. In a quick rush he crossed the room and pressed himself against the wall, ready to stab whatever came through the connecting door.