Aces Abroad

A man. Uniform. One of the security captains. Attache case.

BOMB!

He reached out with his mind and seized the officer. For a moment the man writhed and danced like a moth in a flame as his controller and Tach fought for supremacy. The strain was too much for his human mind, and consciousness left him like a candle being snuffed. The major went down spraddlelegged on the polished wood floor. Tach found his fingers closing about the edges of the black leather case, though he couldn't remember moving.

Controller knows he's lost focus. Time detonated or command detonated? No time to ponder on it.

The solution, when it came, almost wasn't conscious. He reached out, gripped the mind. Jack Braun stiffened, dropped his drink, and went ru

Jack, like a hero in a forties football film, leapt, plucked the spi

People rushed to the window to check on Braun. Tachyon turned his back on the windows and knelt beside the stentoriously breathing major. One should have priorities.

"Let's go over it again."

Tach eased his aching buttocks on the hard plastic chair, shifted until he could take a surreptitious glance at his watch. 12:10 A.M. Police were definitely the same the world over. Instead of being grateful for his having averted a tragedy, they were treating him as if he were the criminal. And Jack Braun had been spared all this because the authorities had insisted on carting him off to the hospital. Of course he wasn't hurt, that was why Tachyon had selected him. No doubt by morning the papers would be filled with praise for the brave American ace, thought Tach sourly. Never noticing my contributions.

"Monsieur?" prodded Jean Baptiste Rochambeau of the French Surete.

"To what purpose? I've told you. I sensed a powerful, natural mind control at work. Because of the user's lack of training and control, I was unable to pinpoint the source. I could, however, pinpoint its victim. When I fought for control, I read through to the controller's mind, read the presence of the bomb, mind-controlled Braun, tossed him the bomb, he went out the window, the bomb exploded, with him no worse for the wear except perhaps wearing some of the topiary"

"There is no topiary beyond the windows of the Hall of Mirrors," sniffed Rochambeau's assistant in his nasal, highpitched voice.

Tach swung around in the chair. "It was a little joke," he explained gently.

"Dr. Tachyon. We are not doubting your story. It's just that it's impossible. No such powerful… mentat?"-he looked to Tachyon far confirmation-"exists in France. As Dr. Corvisart has explained, we have every carrier, both latent and expressed, on file."

"Then one has slipped past you."

Corvisart, an arrogant gray-haired man with fat cheeks like a chipmunk's and a tiny pursed bud of a mouth, gave a stubborn headshake.

"Every infant is tested and registered at birth. Every immigrant is tested at the border. Every tourist must have the test before they can receive a visa. The only explanation is the one I have suspected for several years. The virus has mutated."

"That is patent and utter nonsense! With all due respect, Doctor, I am the foremost authority on the wild card virus on this or any other world."

Perhaps something of an exaggeration that, but surely it could be forgiven. He had been enduring fools with such patience for so many hours.

Corvisart was quivering with outrage. "Our research has been acknowledged as the best in the world."

"Ah, but I don't publish." Tachyon was on his feet. "I don't have to." A single-step advance. " I have a certain advantage." Another. "I helped develop the withering thing!" he bellowed down into the Frenchman's face.

Corvisart held stubbornly firm. "You are wrong. The mentat exists, he is not on file, ergo the virus has mutated."

"I want to see your notes, duplicate the research, look over these vaunted files." This he addressed to Rochambeau. He might have the soul of a policeman, but at least he wasn't an idiot.

The Surete officer cocked an eyebrow. "You have any objections, Dr. Corvisart?"

"I suppose not."

"You want to start now?"

"Why not? The night's ruined anyway."

They set him up in Corvisart's office with an impressive computer at his disposal, bulging hard-copy files of research, a foot-high stack of disks, and a cup of strong coffee that Tach liberally laced with brandy from his hip flask.

The research was good, but it was geared toward proving Corvisart's pet premise. The hope of fame in the form of a mutated form-Wild Cardus Corvisartus?-was subtly coloring the Frenchman's interpretations of the data he was collecting. The virus was not mutating.

Thank the gods and ancestors, Tach sent up as a heartfelt prayer.

He was scrolling idly through the wild card registry when an anomaly, something not quite right, caught his attention. It was five in the morning, hardly the time to scroll back several years to check if he'd seen what he'd thought he'd seen, but upbringing and his own curious nature could not be denied. After several minutes of fervid key tapping he had the screen divided and both documents called up side by side. He fell back in the chair, rumpling his already tumbled curls with nervous fingers.

"Well, I'll be damned," he said aloud to the silent room. The door opened, and the adenoidal sergeant thrust in his head. "Monsieur? You require something?"

"No, nothing."

His hand shot out, and he erased the damning documents. What he discovered was for him alone. For it was political dynamite. It would create havoc with an election, cost a man the presidency, and shake the foundations of trust of the electorate should it get out.

Tach pressed his hands into the small of his back, stretched until vertebrae popped, and shook his head like a weary pony. "Sergeant, I am very much afraid that I have found nothing that is of any help. And I'm too tired to go on. May I please be returned to the hotel?"

But his bed at the Ritz had held no comfort or rest, so here he was leaning over the bridge railing on the Pont de la Concorde watching coal barges slip by, and snuffling eagerly at the smell of baking bread, which seemed to have permeated the city. Every part of his small body seemed to be suffering from some discomfort. His eyes felt like two burned holes in a blanket, his back still ached from that impossible chair, and his stomach was demanding to be fed. But worst of all was what he had dubbed his mental indigestion. He had seen or heard something of significance. And until he hit upon it, his brain was going to continue to seethe like jelly boiling on a stove.

"Sometimes," he told his mind severely, "I feel as if you have a mind of your own."

He began walking through the Place de la Concorde, where Marie Antoinette had lost her head, the spot now marked by a venerable Egyptian obelisk. There were plenty of restaurants to choose from: the Hotel de Crillon, the Hotel Intercontinental, just two blocks from the square, where Dani was no doubt hard at work, and beyond it the Ritz. He hadn't seen any of his companions since the dramatic events of the previous night. His entrance would be met with exclamations, congratulations… He decided to miss the whole mess.