"Thank you," he said. "If the lady should call again, tell her the answer is yes."

He reached for his desserts.

New experiences were everywhere.

Blood Ties

VI.

If the situation hadn't been so deadly, it could have been funny. Modular Man vanishing over the rooftops with Croyd in his arms, and the joker squad and Tachyon gaping stupidly after him. Troll had cleared his throat, an explosion of sound like a road grader moving gravel. He offered the Takisian the limp figure of Bill Lockwood like a man presenting his prize catch.

"Well, at least we've got this one," he said timidly. "b.l.o.o.d.y lot of good it does us! Well, I suppose I must treat him," Tach had muttered pettishly, and they had all returned to the clinic.

A few hours later and the mystery man's body temperature was returned to near normal. He lay blinking groggily in the hospital bed confined by restraints.

Tachyon drew up a chair and stared into the handsome, insipid face.

"You've given us a devil of a time, you know that. Why on earth did you protect Croyd so desperately? You're directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent people!"

To Tachyon's chagrin the young man's face screwed up, and he began to cry. "I was just lookin' out for Croyd," he blubbered while Tach mopped at the tears with his handkerchief. "He's the only person who's ever been good to me. He gave me his doughnuts. He made me an ace."

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?"

"Aren't you gonna read my mind?"

"I'm too tired and cranky to read your mind." Tachyon sensed that in some inexplicable way he had let the man down.

"I'm ... was Snotman-but don't use that name-I'm an ace now."

"Snot..." Tachyon's voice trailed away, and he helplessly shook his head.

Memories like a stuttering slide show racheted through his mind. The horrible mucus-covered figure fleeing from the baseball-bat-wielding bouncer at Freakers ... the Demon Princes tormenting the miserable joker until blood had mingled with the green mucus ... the disgusting adenoidal sounds emerging from dumpsters where Snotman slept.

"Oh, ships and ancestors, he made you an ace and you were so grateful..." Words again failed him.

"What's going to happen to me?" asked Bill Lockwood. "I don't know."

There was a growing tumult in the hall: Troll bellowing like an outraged bull, and Tina's voice high and shrill. A name emerged from the cacophony...

Tachyon's.

Modular Man was circling overhead with Croyd wrapped in a sheet like an outraged mummy. Tachyon and Troll tumbled into their suits, and the android thrust Croyd into the isolation chamber. Tachyon had prepared it weeks ago; prison security gla.s.s, a heavily reinforced steel door. They were ready.

Croyd punched his way through the gla.s.s in just under two minutes. And vanished beneath a pile of tackling bodies. Hours later the gla.s.s was replaced, and electrified mesh bolted to the wall.

Croyd punched through that in under a minute. Electricity seemed to act as a stimulant.

Troll looked up from where Croyd, bound hand and foot with steel shackles, lay beneath his nine-foot bulk. "Doc, I can't sit on him for the rest of my life."

They replaced the gla.s.s again. Tachyon discussed steel shutters with the security experts from Attica. They shrugged and pointed out that the walls would never bear the stress.

Then Finn had produced a wild and harebrained notion. "Consider cows," he had remarked, pawing gently at the floor with a dainty forefoot. Victoria Queen had almost headed off for a sedative. "They're so stupid they won't walk over painted lines on the highway because they think it's a cattle guard."

"Yes, but Croyd is a man, not a cow," Tachyon explained patiently.

"But he's very suggestible."

"How would you know?"

"I put him to sleep with brain wave entrainment and suggestion, remember?"

They hooked him up and tried the same trick again. This time it didn't work. So they painted bars on the window. And on the door.

Croyd was very docile after that.

As long as no one came in the room.

Please go to sleep. Please, Croyd, go to sleep.

Tachyon had made this prayer every day for the past four days, but there was no response from the nervously pacing albino beyond the painted gla.s.s of the isolation chamber.

Tachyon had tried to give nature a little push. After the failure of brain wave entrainment he had pumped sleep gas into the room, drugged Croyd's food. And Croyd remained stubbornly and infectiously awake. And each hour he was awake the virus continued to mutate.

Croyd was a walking holocaust. And a decision had to be made. Tachyon stared down at his hands. Remembered the buck of the gun as he killed Claude Bonnell.

Remembered the Burning Woman. Remembered Rabdan.

Ideal. I'm tired of dealing in death. Spare me, fathers, I don't want to do it again.

Peregrine smiled up at him from the hospital bed, then grimaced and bit down hard on her lip as another pain washed through her. Her blue eyes were overly bright, and her cheerful manner seemed more manic than natural. Tachyon sympathized. He had to struggle to keep his smile in place. In the next few hours she would give birth, and they both knew what that experience could do to the fetus now struggling to free itself from her swollen body.

He laid a gentle hand on the mound of her belly and felt the contraction shuddering through the muscles. "Cesarean might be easier on our boy."

"No. McCoy and I feel very strongly about this."

"Where is he?"

"Out getting coffee."

"You still insist on all this togetherness?"

"Yes.,."

"Husbands are a d.a.m.ned nuisance."

"I'd expect you to feel that way, Tachy darling." She managed to look almost s.e.xy despite her condition. "And by the way, we're not married." Another spasm, and she panted, "How much longer?"

"You're just warming up."

"Terrific."

"Middle-aged mothers. It's harder on you."

"No encouragement, and now an insult."

"Sorry."

She reached out to him. "Tach, I was teasing."

"Try to rest. I'll see you in a few hours."

"It's a date."

Troll stuck his head around the office door. "You don't need me, do you?"

"Why?"

"Trouble at the Chaos Club. The call just came in."

"No, go ahead."

"Strange, there hasn't been a peep out of these goons for days. You'd think they'd have learned."

"Well, go and drive home the lesson again, Troll."

"You want to come?"

"Peregrine's in labor."

"Oh. See you later, Doc."

Tachyon checked with Tina and discovered they had moved Peregrine to the delivery room. In the locker room he stripped out of his peach and silver finery, shrugged into the green surgical gown, and scrubbed.

The intercom buzzed. He flipped it on with an elbow. "Boss," came Finn's voice.

"It's raining jokers down here."

"I've got a baby to deliver."

"Oh, right." Finn hung up the phone. The emergency room was filling up with young jokers sporting a variety of cuts and bruises. More were streaming in.

Finn trotted to the nearest teen, then reared back when he noticed that the gash across the boy's forehead was a clever makeup job.

A six-inch length of a switchblade glittered beneath Finn's nose.

An ambulance roared into the bay and disgorged a party of heavily armed men.

Finn raised his hands. His mommy didn't raise no dummy.

When the idea of seizing Tachyon's clinic had first been proposed, Brennan had argued strenuously against the plan.

But the word filtered down from on high: Tachyon can lead us to a woman who can sleep with a joker and cure him. Find her. And Tachyon needs to be taught a lesson. Get him.

Brennan wasn't surprised by the order. A year ago Kien had been using the lovely Vietnamese girl Mai to cure jokers. All it took was money-a lot of it-and you were cured. Then Brennan had killed Scar and rescued Mai, and now a new girl had arisen to take her place. A girl who cured with s.e.x. What joker male wouldn't pay a fortune to be cured by f.u.c.king a beautiful woman?

The real irony was that Brennan had been given command of the a.s.sault. After robbing Kien of his curing machine he was about to provide the crime boss with a new one. It was too bad about Tachyon and his clinic, but Brennan had his own agenda to pursue.

The only problem was that he'd been jumped over Danny Mao, and the Oriental didn't appreciate it. On the other hand it was an indication of how well regarded Brennan had become within Kien's byzantine network. The next step would probably be into the inner circle that surrounded Kien himself, and then Brennan's revenge would be within reach. So he couldn't refuse the a.s.signment.

He had worked too hard for too many years to pull down the facade that was Kien Phuc and reveal the rottenness that lay behind.

Brennan rammed a clip into his Browning High Power and touched the pockets of his vest, making sure his reloads were handy. It had been agreed that deaths would be kept to a minimum. Only one person was earmarked for deathTachyon.

Eleven twenty-seven.

Brennan, riding with the driver, peered ahead at the clinic. They'd be pulling in soon. Too bad about Tachyon. If you wish to find the unclouded truth, do not concern yourself with right and wrong.

He had his own agenda. Right or wrong.

McCoy was holding up pretty well. At least he hadn't pa.s.sed out and been carried out of the delivery room. He was even occasionally remembering to instruct Peri to pant, bear down, breathe. Her responses to these helpful reminders were direct and uncomplimentary Another brittle scream tore from her throat, and she arched in the stirrups. Tachyon, eyes flicking between monitors and her dilated cervix, said softly, "You're doing fine, Peri. Just a little more now."

He reached out and touched the unformed mind of the child fighting its way down the birth ca.n.a.l. Fear, fury at having its comfortable world so abruptly upset.

(Definitely Fortunato's child.) Tachyon stroked and soothed, watched the heartbeat slow from its frenzied pounding.

You're going to be all right, little man. Don't give me the satisfaction of being right.

How many times had he hunched between a mother's knees, received a child, and had it turn to sludge in his hands? Too many.

There was a crash that swung him around on the stool, and the alien gaped in amazement at the three armed men who had plunged through the doors of the delivery room. Peregrine reared up on her elbows and eyed them with loathing.

"OH, CHRIST!".

"What the devil do you mean by this?"

Tach retreated slightly at the aggressive thrust of an Uzi barrel in his direction. The two other intruders merely gulped and stared with reddened faces at Peregrine's private parts.

"You've broken the sterile integrity of this room. Get out!"

"We're here for you."

"I'm a little busy right now. I'm delivering a baby. OUT!" Tach made shooing motions with his gloved hands.