"He can't be dead," Hiram said furiously. "I just saved his damnable life last night!" The television set floated off the carpet. Scraped against the ceiling. "He cannot be dead!"

Hiram insisted, and all of a sudden the TV was falling. It hit the floor, and the picture tube exploded.

"He will not have died in vain," Tachyon said. Did it mean anything? He didn't think so. He just spoke to assure himself that he was still alive. Tach touched Hiram on the arm. "Come," he said.

The pain was greater than anything Jack had ever imagined. It burned through him from head to toe, searing every nerve, every muscle, every square millimeter of skin. His brain had gone nova. His heart was an exploding turbopump. His eyes felt as if they were melting. Every cell in his body was on fire, every strand of DNA in revolt against its inherited code.

The black queen, Jack realized. Somehow he'd just drawn the black queen.

He could feel his body shutting down in protest against the agony. Bit by bit, organ by organ, like someone throwing all the circuit breakers in a big building.

The pain ended.

He saw himself crumpled on the landing, his face set in an expression of dumb shock. The assassin, barely able to move, managed to get his jacket off and wrap it around his head, stopping the flow of blood from his mangled jaw. "Hey," Jack said. He tried to grab the guy. "Stop!" Somehow the assassin crawled away.

"Yo. Farm boy."

Jack looked up in surprise at the sound of Earl Sanderson's voice. Earl looked younger than when Jack had seen him last, the young athlete just graduated from Rutgers, and was dressed in his old Army Air Corps fatigues with the insignia taken off, his leather flying jacket with the patch of the 332nd Fighter Group, the black beret, and long silk scarf. The Black Eagle scholar, athlete, civil rights attorney, ace… and maybe Jack's best friend.

"Hi, Earl," Jack said.

"Man, you're slow," Earl said. "We're supposed to be flying out of here by now."

"I can't fly, Earl. I'm not like you."

"Slow, farm boy." Earl was grinning. "Slow."

Jack was mildly surprised when they both began to fly. The Marriott Marquis was gone and they were in the sky, heading toward the sun. The sun began to get brighter and brighter.

"Hey, Earl," Jack said. "What's going on here?"

"You'll work it out sooner or later, farm boy."

The sun was almost blinding, the yellow light turning whiter and whiter, all color leached away. Jack saw other people there, guys from the 5th Division and Korea, his parents, his older brother. The were all flying, rising into the sky. Blythe van Renssaeler neared him and gave him a shy smile.

"Damn. He's asystolic," she said. "Flat line."

"Huh?" Jack looked at her.

Archibald Holmes strode confidently toward him, dressed in a white linen suit. He lit a cigarette and put it in its holder.

"Hi, Mr. Holmes."

"Okay," Holmes said. "I got the ET down his throat. Where's the bag?"

"Why does he keep glowing on and off like that?" Blythe asked.

"Can't help it, really," Jack shrugged.

"Start 02," said Holmes. "I'm going to shoot some epinephrine down the endotrachial tube. I'll want a milligram of atropine in a minute."

Jack looked around and saw that Earl was holding hands with a long-legged woman with blonde hair tousled over one eye and broad, padded shoulders.

"You must be Lena Goldoni," he said. "I've seen your pictures."

"We've got fibrillation," said Lena.

"Slow," Earl said, shaking his head. "Farm boys are so slow." His scarf was rippling in an invisible wind.

Jack realized he was here with almost all the old Four Aces crowd, everyone except David Harstein, and he began to wonder if he should apologize for what he'd done to them, how he'd destroyed them all. But they all seemed so happy to see him he decided not to mention it.

More people were clustering around him. Some of them he'd forgotten he'd known. Even Chester the Chimp, who'd played opposite Jack in Tarzan of the Apes, was there, riding on someone's shoulders.

"Give him three-hundred joules," said the ape. "Stop CPR. Clear! Clear, Goddamn it! Get your hand off that metal rail, will you, Lois?"

The light was getting brighter and brighter. Circling around them, the rays seemed almost palpable, like the walls of a tunnel. Jack felt his speed increase as he shot toward the source of the light. He began to hear people singing, a million voices raised in joy.

The light grew nearer, not just white light but the White Light. Jack's heart lifted. He began to understand what it was that Earl wanted him to know.

"Three-hundred-sixty!" shrieked the ape. "Clear! Clear!" Jack stretched out his arms and prepared to dive into the heart of the White Light. Suddenly he seemed to hesitate in his progress. He was slowing down. Desperately he tried to speed up. He longed to fly farther.

He realized the White Light was looking at him.

"What a weenie," the White Light said. "Get that weenie outta here."

Jack coughed and opened his eyes and saw people crouched over him, men and women he recognized from Gregg Hartmann's Secret Service detail, working with emergency medical equipment that was part of their standard issue. He felt an ache in his solar plexus and he couldn't stop coughing. Jack looked up over their heads, saw blood-flecked concrete walls and steep stair risers.

"Normal sinus rhythm," one said. "We got pulse. We got pressure." He spoke in Archibald Holmes's voice. A couple of the others cheered.

A tall brown-haired woman was speaking into a walkietalkie. "Ambulance on its way." The voice was Blythe's.

"I blew it," Jack tried to say. He couldn't talk over the endotrachial tube they'd slid down his throat. "I blew it again." He was too weak too feel much emotion over it.

The ambulance crew arrived and carried him away.

8:00 P.M.

He had himself well in hand. The emotional devastation of an hour ago was passed. Jack was dead. The friendship, the man he had known as Gregg Hartmann was dead. Chrysalis was dead. Very well. So be it. He was in control now. He would do what had to be done.

But these officious twits were arguing with him. Mouths moving, gums and tongues red against black and whitefaces. "I'm telling you the reverend is busy. You don't have an appointment," said the black aide patiently, as if explaining addition to a retarded child.

"He will see me. I am Tachyon," explained the alien in the same patient, condescending tone.

"Go and phone. Use appropriate channels," said Straight Arrow calmly.

"I don't have time for appropriate channels," snapped Tachyon. His control was unraveling like line reeling from a fly fishing rod.

"It's late," put in the aide.

The door to the suite was partially ajar. Tachyon measured the gap between the two far bigger men. It would accommodate him. Wriggling like a fish he darted between them, and through the door.