Wild Cards: Aces Abroad

by George R. R. Martin

  “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.

  Attaché 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 spraddle-legged 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 Sûreté.

  “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, high-pitched 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 for 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 Sûreté 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 hardcopy 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 pr
essed 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 the 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 bega
n 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 bed clothes, 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.