"Yes. His momentum is broken. He can never regain it." Her lashes fluttered wearily down onto her cheeks. "Then I'm safe."

"Yes."

He kissed her, tasting the salt from her tears. Her white-gold hair lay across his shoulder as she rested her head against him. So tiny. She was one of the few women on this hot-and-heavy planet who made him feel tall. Elfin pale, approaching Takisian standards of beauty. And he remembered that he had wanted her. Three years ago when she had entered his life, begging him to save the pathetic joker Doughboy who had been wrongfully accused of murder. Now he was whole-or at least his body was. And he was lonely and lost and afraid, and so was she… He transferred his kisses to her mouth.

He knew she could not be a virgin, but there was something so delightfully shy and awkward about her responses. He swung her up into his arms, and groaned again.

Her head snapped back, tendons etched in the thin neck. "You're hurt."

"It's nothing." He tottered to the bed, ignoring the pain. Laid her down.

He wondered at this sudden surge of libido when all about him his life lay in shattered ruins. Then he realized it was appropriate. The Takisian spirit was a dauntless one, and it would always seek to lure victory out of defeat, creation from despair. Tach paused, asked, "Do you want me?"

"Yes, oh, yes. I'm so grateful… so very grateful." She choked, and the tears matted in the hair at her temples. Sliding his hands up her haunches Tach snagged the top of her panty hose, and pulled them down. And noticed that runs and holes had left them like a tattered cobweb beaten in a killing wind.

"Oh, my poor little one. My little, little one."

Suddenly he was sobbing. Agony shot through him as the paroxysms shook his sore ribs. Sara, looking terrified, pressed her palms to his cheeks.

"Oh, don't. Please don't. What's wrong?"

"I trusted him, and he betrayed me. Now," his arm flailed in the general direction of Piedmont Park

"they think I've betrayed them. I'm so tired. So tired."

Sara with gentle hands undressed him. Got him beneath the covers. Her naked flesh was as clammy as his. For a long time they merely hugged, shivering as their minds and bodies tried to relax. Tachyon had a hand cupped over one tiny breast. Sara lay in the curve of his arm lightly tracing the line of his lips with a forefinger.

"It's probably a good thing I'm not on Takis."

"Why?"

"I'd have been dead long ago. If a mere human, a groundling, can outmaneuver me at the Takisian game." He shook his head.

"Which is?"

"Intrigue. I've known Hartmann for twenty years. And I never suspected."

"He was very cunning. I've spent-" Her voice deepened and thickened with bitterness. "And ruined-my life pursuing him."

"And now you've succeeded. Was it worth it?"

"I don't know." She sighed, and he kissed her.

Tachyon barked out a short laugh, then muffled a groan. " I have no idea where my thirteen-year-old grandson is, isn't that incredible? I'm so damned busy strutting about the grand stage of life that I have no time to live. I wonder what it would be like to be just a person?"

"Boring. You'd hate it."

Easing up on an elbow, Tach stared down at her. "Do you think so?"

"Yes."

He laid back down. "I don't know. To have a wife, children, friends."

"You have friends."

"I think I lost most of them tonight."

Sara began to cry again. "I'm sorry. It's all my fault-" Tachyon laid a hand over her mouth. "No, that's my line."

"Ricky loved me, and he had him cut to pieces. I never even slept with him."

The alien slid his hand down her stomach, matted his fingers in her coons. "Then let us honor the dead by celebrating living."

"Isn't that a little callous?"

"Hush, Sara, you think too much."

2:00 A.M.

Jack was sweating as he sat up in bed, his back propped against thick hotel pillows. A half-empty bottle of whiskey stood in his hand. He'd run through two packs of Camels.

The television was on, an old Boris Karloff suspense film. Karloff kept looking at Jack with James Spector's eyes. Jack turned the set off with remote control. The television kept staring at him, so he got out of the bed and turned the TV set to the wall.

He knew what he had to do. He didn't know if he had the nerve to do it.

He'd never done this kind of thing by himself before. There'd always been Mr. Holmes or Earl or someone to give him advice and make sure everything worked out all right.

The secret ace had already come close to killing him twice.

Third time, he wondered, the charm?

Tachyon was seated in front of the room service tray buttering a slice of toast when Jay emerged from the bedroom. He wore one of Tachyon's suits, and though it was too short in the arms and legs, the man looked decidedly more elegant and well kept.

Blaise, stretched out across an armchair, looked up and sniggered. Tachyon gave his grandson a stern look. "Blaise, did you enjoy your little ride on the luggage carousel?"

The boy looked sullen. "No. I felt stupid."

"Then by the Ideal you will mind your manners," Tachyon told him, "or I will have Mr. Ackroyd teleport you back to the Atlanta airport."

"I can't help it if he's funny," Blaise complained. "He looks like a fruit."

"Those are my clothes," Tachyon pointed out stiffly. "Myself, I think it's a dramatic improvement."

"I'm with the kid," Jay said. Blaise looked surprised. Then he grinned. Jay whipped up his finger in a quick-draw move. Blaise flinched. "Gotcha," Jay said. He smiled. So did Blaise.

Tachyon watched this in confusion. Apparently teleporting his wayward heir halfway across Atlanta had established a rapport. He remembered George once telling him that Blaise needed to fear someone before he could care for them. Tach felt depressed.

"He's enough of a rapscallion without your encouraging him," Tachyon muttered.

"Ah, he's okay," Jay said, pulling a chair over to the room service cart. "For a Takisian." He lifted the silver dome off his plate, and attacked the Eggs Benedict wolfishly.

Tachyon was patting his lips with a napkin and Jay was mopping up the last of the yoke with a piece of toast when the knock came at the door. Tachyon stood. "Who's there?"

"Carnifex. Open up, I don't have all day."

Tachyon glanced back at Jay. "Let him in," the detective said. "Rays tough, but there's nothing he can do against you, me, and the Cisco Kid over there." He gestured toward Blaise.

The alien nodded and opened the door. Carnifex glanced around and stepped into the suite, wearing his skin-tight white uniform that outlined every muscle and tendon in his body.

"Regs say we're supposed to stay out of the political bullshit," Ray told Tachyon with disdain. "Good for you. Otherwise I'd have to whip your ass. You been hanging around Braun too much, I guess. Some of it must have rubbed off."

Tachyon's mouth tightened. "Say what you came to say, Ray," he told the government ace. "Your opinions on political and moral issues interest me not in the slightest."

"Gregg wants to see you."

"The sentiment is not reciprocated."

"You'll see him," Ray said, with a crooked smile. "Gregg said to tell you he has a proposition he wants to discuss."

"I have nothing to discuss with the senator."

"Scared?" Ray wanted to know. "Don't worry, I'll hold your hand if you want." He shrugged. "Come or don't come, either way it's no skin off my nose. But if you don't, you're going to regret it." The ace in the white suit looked around the suite: at the windows Turtle had shattered, the television Hiram had dropped, the urine stain on the sofa. "Must have been a hell of a party," he said to Tachyon. "Somebody ought to teach you to clean up after yourself, Doc. This place is a mess."