The howling of sirens presaged the arrival of the police and an ambulance. Tach was loaded in, and Tom started to climb in with him. "Hey, where's the gizmo?"'

Asta opened her mouth, blinked several times, and closed it. "Gee, I don't know." She peered about as if expecting it to materialize from the Harlem landscape. "Maybe somebody in the crowd took it."

"Hey, buddy, you want to get your friend to the hospital or not?" growled one of the ambulance attendants.

"Well… look for it," Tom ordered, and climbed in. Asta gave an ironic wave to the departing ambulance. "Oh, I will."

And Kien is going to be so pleased with this.

She sauntered away, searching for a subway station to carry her to the waiting arms of her lover and commander.

The padlock opened with a grating snap, and Tach pushed open the small side door to the warehouse. Trips and Turtle followed him into the echoing gloom, and Trips muttered something unintelligible at the sight of the ship resting in the center of the vast, empty building. The amber and lavender lights on the points of her spines glimmered faintly in the gloom, and dust spiraled in from all sides as she quietly collected and synthesized the tiny particles into fuel. She was singing one of the many heroic ballads that made up such a large part of ship culture, but cut off when she perceived Tach's entrance. The music was, of course, inaudible to the two humans.

Baby, he telepathed to her.

Lordly one. Are we going out? she asked with pathetic eagerness.

No, not tonight. Open please.

There are humans with you. Do they also enter?

Yes. This is Captain Trips, and Turtle. They are as brothers to me. Honor them.

Yes, Tisianne. I am pleased to have your names.

They cannot hear you. Like most of their kind, they are mind-blind.

Sorrow.

There was the ache of another kind of sorrow in his chest as he led the way to his private salon. Memory-it could be so clear-the day his father had taken him to select this ship. All gone now.

He settled back among the cushions on the bed, and ordered, Search and contact.

There are lordly ones present? Yes.

And one of my kin? Baby asked, again with that pathetic eagerness.

Yes.

Seconds stretched into minutes, Tach lounging at his ease on the bed, Trips perched like a nervous roosting bird on a settee, and Tom bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet. The wall before Tachyon shimmered, and Benaf'saj's face appeared. The ship boosted his powerful telepathy, and the link was made.

Tisianne.

Kibr. You were expecting the call? Of course. I've known you since I was in diapers.

Yes, I know.

You have surprised me, Tisianne. I think Earth has had a beneficial effect upon you.

It has taught me many things, he corrected in a dry tone. Some more pleasant than others. He paused, and fiddled with the foaming lace beneath his chin. So, does it continue to be dagger points between us?

No, child. You may stay with your rustic humans. After the defeat you dealt him, Zabb has no hope of the scepter. You should have killed him, you know. Tach just shook his head. Benaf'saj frowned down at her hands, and straightened her rings. So we part. It is disappointing that we have no specimens, but the success of the experiment cannot be denied, and it will delight Bakonur to have our data. This effort will be the salvation of the family yet.

Yes, Tach replied hollowly.

I will send a ship every ten years or so to check on you. When you are ready to return to us we will welcome you. Farewell, Tis.

Farewell, he whispered. "Well?" asked Tom. "They'll leave us in peace."

"Like, I'm really glad you're not gonna leave."

"So am I," he said, but his tone lacked certainty, and he stared mournfully at the glowing wall as if trying to pull back the image of his granddam.

A warm, capable hand with its short, stubby fingers closed firmly over his shoulder. A moment later Trips had gripped his other arm, and he sat silent, basking in the wash of love and affection coming off both the men, driving back his homesickness.

He laid a hand over Tom's. "My dearest friends. What an adventure we have had."

"Yeah, life is, like, pretty neat, man."

"Why didn't you kill him?" Tom asked.

Tach shifted, and stared up into Tom's brown eyes. "Because I would like to believe in the possibility of redemption."

Tom's grip tightened. "Believe it."

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HIS FRIENDS

By Victor Milan

CONTROVERSIAL SCIENTIST BRUTALLY SLAIN IN LAB, the headline read.

"You should see what it says in the Daily News," she said. "Young lady," Dr. Tachyon said, shoving the sheaf of New York Timeses away with fastidious fingertips and settling back perilously far in his swivel chair, "a policeman I am not. A doctor I am."

She frowned at him across the meticulous rectangle of his desk, cleared her throat, a small, fussy sound. "You have a reputation as father and protector to jokertown. If you don't act, an innocent joker is going to go down for murder."

It was his turn to frown. He ticked the high heel of one boot against the desk's metal lip. "Have you evidence? If so, the unfortunate fellow's legal counsel is the man to take it to."

"No. Nothing."

He plucked a yellow daffodil from a vase at his elbow, twirled its bell before his nose. "I wonder. You are perceptive enough to play on my sense of guilt, surely."

She smiled back, made a deprecating hand-wave, forestanimal quick and almost furtive, but slightly stiff. It was coming to him, irrelevantly, how acculturated he had become to this heavy world; his first reaction had been that she was scarcely this side of painfully thin, and only now did he appreciate how closely she approached the elfin pallid Takisian ideal of beauty. An albino almost, skin pale as paper, whiteblond hair, eyes barely blue. To his eyes she was drably dressed, a peach-colored skirt suit, cut severely, worn over a white blouse, a chain at her neck, as pale and fine as one of her hairs.

"It's my job, Doctor, as you're well aware. My paper expects me to know what goes on in Jokertown." Sara Morgenstern had been the Washington Post's expert on ace affairs since her coverage of the Jokertown riots ten years ago had gleaned her a nomination for the Pulitzer prize.

He made no response. She dropped her eyes. "Doughboy wouldn't do that, wouldn't kill anyone. He's gentle. He's retarded, you see."

"I know that."

"He lives with a joker they call the Shiner, down on Eldridge. Shiner looks after him."

"An innocent."

"Like a child. Oh, he was arrested in '76 for attacking a policeman. But that was… different. He- it was in the air." She seemed to want to say more, but her voice snagged.

"Indeed it was." He cocked his head. "You seem unusually involved."

"I can't stand to see Doughboy get hurt. He's bewildered, afraid. I just can't keep my journalist's objectivity."

"And the police? Why not go to them?"

"They have a suspect."

"But your paper? Surely the Post is not without influence."

She shook back icefall hair. "Oh, I can write a scathing expose, Doctor. Perhaps the New York papers will pick it up. Maybe even Sixty Minutes. Maybe-oh, in a year or two there'll be a public outcry, maybe justice will be done. In the meantime he's in the Tombs, Doctor. A child, lonely and afraid. Do you have any idea what it's like to be unjustly accused, to have your freedom wrongfully taken away?"

"Yes. I do."

She bit her lip. "I forgot. I'm sorry."

"It's nothing."

Tach leaned forward. "I'm a busy man, dear lady. I have a clinic to run. I keep trying to convince the authorities that the Swarm Mother won't necessarily go away simply because we defeated her first incursion, but instead may be preparing a new and even deadlier attack.." He sighed. "Well. I suppose I must look into this."