"We are aliens, Blaise. You may have been born on Earth, but my blood runs in your veins. You bear my power, and it will set you forever apart from the groundlings. For a time that natural tendency of all species to cling to the us and shun the them has lain quiet in the human spirit, but that could change-"

Blaise was yawning. Tachyon closed his teeth on the endless flow of words. He was becoming a bore. Blaise was young. The young were always callous and optimistic. But Tach had little room for optimism in his life. Ever since that desperate night in June 1987, Tachyon had carried in his DNA the twisting, mutating pattern of the wild card virus. For the moment it lay dormant, but Tachyon knew that an instant of stress, extreme pain, terror, even joy could trigger the virus, and if he were not fortunate enough to draw the black queen and die, he too might become a joker. It was too much to hope that he would fall into that lucky minority who became aces. There was a tap on the door of the suite. Brows arching in surprise, the alien sent Blaise to answer while he reeased the violin.

"George!"

Tachyon stood tensely in the door to the sitting room, gripping the jamb so he didn't release the furious anger and fear that held him. "What are you doing here?" he asked in a low, controlled tone.

George Steele, a.k.a. Victor Demyenov, a.k.a. Georgy Vladimirovich Polyakov, met the alien's thinly veiled hostility with a bland raise of the eyebrows. "Where else would I be?"

The boy released his tight embrace on the portly older man, and George kissed him loudly on each cheek. "I work for the Brighton Beach Observer. 'I have a story to cover."

"Oh, ideal, you're a goddamn Russian spy in a hotel that's crawling with Secret Service agents. And you're in my suite!" Tachyon suddenly pressed a hand to his heart, quieted his breathing, became aware of Blaise listening interestedly. "Go downstairs, and… and

…" He dug out his wallet. "And buy a magazine."

"I don't want to."

"For once in your life don't argue with me!"

"Why can't I stay?" The whine was in place.

"You're only a boy. You shouldn't be involved in this."

"A minute ago I was old enough to take an adult interest in adult matters."

"Ancestors!" Tachyon dropped onto the sofa, held his head in his hands.

Polyakov allowed himself a small smile. "Perhaps your grandpapa is right… and this will be boring, Blaise, my child." He dropped a companionable arm over the boy's shoulders and urged him to the door. "Go and amuse yourself while your grandpapa and I discuss darker matters."

"And stay out of trouble." Tach yelled as the door closed on Blaise's heels.

The alien smeared jam on a croissant. Stared at it. Dropped it back onto the plate. "Why can you handle him better than I can?"

"You try to love him. I don't think Blaise responds well to love."

"I don't want to believe that. But what are these dark matters we must discuss?"

Polyakov dropped into a chair, worried his lower lip between thumb and forefinger. "This convention is critical-"

"No joke? No pun intended."

"Shut up and listen!" And suddenly the voice held all the old steel and command it had possessed those long years ago when Victor Demyenov had picked a drunken and shattered Takisian out of the gutters of Hamburg and trained him in the delicate tradecraft of the modern spy. "I need you to do a job for me."

Tachyon backed away, palms out. "No. No more jobs. I've already given you more than I should. Let you back into my life, close to my grandson. What more do you want?"

"Plenty, and I deserve it. You owe me, Dancer. Your omission in London cost me my life, my country. You made me an exile -"

"Just another something we have in common," said Tachyon bitterly.

"Yes. And that boy." Polyakov gestured toward the door. "And a past that cannot be erased."

There was again that nervous worrying of lips between fingers. Tachyon cocked his head curiously, and firmly suppressed a desire to slip beneath the layers of that secretive mind. Takisian protocol dictated that one did not invade the privacy of a friend's mind. And there was enough friendship left from those years in East and West Berlin to dictate that courtesy. But Tach had never in all the years seen Polyakov so rattled, so jumpy. The alien found himself remembering incidents from the past year: late nights of drinking after Blaise had gone to bed; Polyakov providing an exuberant and uncritical audience as Tach and Blaise had charged through a Brahms Hungarian dance for piano and violin; the times that the Russian had kept Blaise from exercising his terrible power on the helpless humans who surrounded him.

Tachyon crossed the room, squatted before the old man, rested his arm on Polyakov's knee for balance. "For once in your life don't play the enigmatic Russian. Tell me plainly what you want. What you fear."

Polyakov suddenly gripped Tachyon's right hand. PAIN! The bite of fire from within, rushing up his arm, through his body, boiling the blood. Sweat burst from his pores, tears from his eyes. Tach sprawled on his elbows on the floor.

"BURNING SKY!"

"An appropriate exclamation," said Polyakov with a humorless smile. "You Takisians, always so apt."

Tachyon scrubbed a handkerchief across his streaming face, but the tears continued to flow. He gulped down a sob. The Russian frowned down at him. "What the devil is wrong with you?"

"You couldn't just tell me you are an ace?" cried Tach bitterly.

Polyakov shrugged. Rose and pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket. Tachyon's fingers were closed frenziedly about the sodden mass of his own.

"What the hell is the matter? I gave you only the merest lick of my fire."

"And I am carrying the wild card so your little lick could have triggered the virus."

Tachyon found himself crushed into a burly embrace. He fought free, gave his nose a hard blow. "So today is a day for secrets, is it not?"

"How long?"

"A year."

"If I had known-"

"I know. I know, you would never have scared me out of a thousand years of life with that little demonstration." His clothes smelled rankly of sweat and fear. Tachyon began to strip. "So now I know why you are so interested in this convention."

"It goes beyond the fact that I am a wild card," grunted Polyakov. "I am a Russian."

"Yes," Tach threw over his shoulder as he walked into the bathroom. "I know." The thunder of the water drowned out Polyakov's words. "WHAT?"

Grumbling, Polyakov followed him into the bathroom, lowered the toilet cover, and sat. From behind the shrouding curtain Tach heard the clink of metal on glass.

"What are you drinking?"

"What do you think?"

"I'll take one, too."

"It's eight in the morning."

"So we'll go to hell drunk and together." Tach accepted the glass, allowed the water to beat on his shoulders while he sipped at the vodka. "You drink too much."

"We both drink too much."

"True."

"There's an ace at this convention."

"There are a shitload of aces at this convention."

"A secret ace."

"Yes, he's sitting on my toilet." Tachyon stuck his head around the curtain. "How long is this going to take? Can't you be a little less cautious and trust me just a little?"

Polyakov sighed heavily, stared down at his hands as if counting the hairs on the back of fingers. "Hartmann is an ace." Tach stuck his head back through the shower curtain. "Nonsense."

"I tell you it is true."

"Proof?"

"Suspicions."

"Not good enough." Tach shut off the water, and thrust a hand through the curtain. "Towel." Polyakov dropped one over his arm.

Stepping from the shower, the alien studied his image in the mirror as he towel dried his shoulder-length red hair. Noted the scars on his left arm and hand where the doctors had repaired the bones crushed in an eleventh-hour rescue of Angelface. The puckered scar on his thigh-legacy of a terrorist's bullet in Paris. The long scar on the right bicepmemory of a duel with his cousin. "Living takes a hell of a toll, doesn't it?"