"f.u.c.k this," yelled McCoy, doing just what Tachyon had prayed he wouldn"t.

Tach"s mind control dropped the cameraman in his tracks, and his seizure of the shootist sent the rounds spraying into the ceiling. Gla.s.s from broken light fixtures tinkled all about him.

"McCoy!" Peregrine struggled in Tina"s grasp.

"Lay down! He"s fine. He will live to be an idiot yet another day."

"Release my man or I"ll kill you. One of the two of us will get you, or these women," shouted the nervous young Oriental. Dr. Tachyon released the gunman.

"Now you"re coming with us."

"Gentlemen, I don"t know why you"re here, or who you are, but I will be at your disposal after I have delivered this child. I can"t slip away down the drain. I have to exit through those doors, so kindly wait for me in the scrub room."

He pulled his stool back into position between Peri"s legs and resumed his quiet external and internal monologue to mother and child.

"McCoy," panted the ace. "Asleep."

Peri"s screams and contractions were coming in waves. Tach didn"t like her pressure, but ... Suddenly baby slid free. Reaching into the v.a.g.i.n.a, he cradled the tiny head on his palm and helped slide John Fortune into his new world.

Tach tasted blood and realized he had bitten through his lower lip. He enfolded the child in waves of warmth and love and comfort. Don"t change! Don"t transform! By the Ideal, don"t transform!

The baby lay in his hands, a perfectly formed man-child with a thick head of dark hair. The mucus was suctioned from the budlike mouth. Upending him, Tachyon ma.s.saged the tiny back, and a powerful yell erupted from the boy. Tach blinked away tears, wiped blood and mucus from the baby, and laid the child on his mother"s flaccid stomach.

"He"s all right. He"s all right." Her fingers played gently across the bawling child.

"Yes, Peri, he"s perfect. You were right."

The final details were handled; cord cut, child given a more thorough wash and wrapped in lamb"s wool. Tachyon and Tina levered Peregrine onto a gurney, then heaved the snoring McCoy onto another. A face was thrust into the window of the delivery room. Tach hunched his shoulders and ignored it.

"Doctor, what"s going on?" quavered Tina.

"I don"t know, my dear, but I presume those armed gentlemen will tell me."

Brennan swept into the scrub room and stared at his men. They guiltily dropped the cigarette they had been sharing and studied the floor.

"Where"s Tachyon?"

"In there."

"Why in there?"

"He was delivering a baby."

"G.o.d, it was gross."

"Embarra.s.sing," amplified the third. "He promised to-"

"Surrender to you. Yes, gentlemen, I did, and you behold me. Now, however, could you help me? I a.s.sume you have-" His eyes met Brennan"s; he faltered, coughed, and resumed. "You have seized my orderlies, and I have a patient who needs to be taken to the nursery, and one who needs to go to her room."

You! My G.o.ds what are you doing here? Seizing your clinic.

But why? WHY?

"So if you would be kind enough to a.s.sist with a gurney." The outer conversation flowed on over the internal telepathic exchange.

The three men looked to Brennan. ""Put them with the rest in the cafeteria."

"Cafeteria! Surely you"re not moving the dangerously ill or the infants?"

"Don"t be an idiot. They"re no threat to us," said Brennan, disgusted.

"The man in isolation ... you didn"t release him?" asked Tachyon.

"No, lie"s our cover."

"Cover?"

"Why am I wasting time beating gums with you? Move it," shouted Brennan. "You can take the brat to the nursery, and we"ll have a little talk."

Brennan, his Browning gripped tightly in his hand, and Tachyon, with John Fortune cradled in his arms, paced through the unnaturally silent halls.

The nursery staff had all been removed, so Tachyon prepared a bottle and fed the child. Brennan swung a chair around and straddled it, arms folded across the back. - "Now, what is this all about?" asked Tachyon with a mildness he didn"t feel.

"Two things. You"ve upset a certain major player with your goon squad. You"ve also got an item that this player wants."

"Please stop talking like a third-rate goon in a B gangster movie. "Item"

indeed!" snorted the alien.

"Jane Lillian Dow."

"I don"t know where she is."

"My boss thinks different."

"Your boss is wrong." Tachyon wiped away a trail of milk from the baby"s chin.

"I presume you have put about some story or another to explain the closure of the clinic?"

"Yes, we"re telling people that the carrier"s loose in the hospital."

"Clever." Tachyon shifted Johnny, studying the baby"s slight epicanthic folds, and glanced significantly at Brennan"s altered eyes. I never asked why you wanted the surgery, "I know. I appreciated that."

"I could have discovered, but I did not. I respected your privacy."

"Yeah, I know."

"And this is how you repay me?"

"I had to get into this ... organization. I"ve risked everything for this."

Tachyon flung out a hand. "This? This? Invading my clinic, endangering my patients?"

"No, no, not this. Other... things. . . ." Brennan"s voice trailed away.

"I wouldn"t give you Jane even if I knew where she was."

"My orders are to start killing patients until you do." Tachyon blanched and took a harder grip on the bottle. He flipped John over his shoulder and patted until the baby let out a loud belch, dribbling milk over the peach-colored material.

"Your orders are to kill me no matter what."

"STAY OUT OF MY HEAD!" Brennan swung away from Tachyon, clenched his fists between his thighs. "I won"t do it."

"No, you will have someone else do it for you. What a very flexible mind you have, Captain. You would have made a good Takisian. Perhaps that is why I like you." He rose and laid Johnny in a crib.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n YOU!".

""Why?"

"You"re all closing in on me, wrapping me in these bonds, holding me, smothering me."

"I wonder what your Jennifer would think of what you"re doing?"

"d.a.m.n IT! STAY OUT! JUST STAY THE f.u.c.k OUT! I didn"t want to care," he concluded quietly.

"It is the price you pay for being human, Brennan. Sometime you have to care."

"I do," he said, agonized.

"For death. Someday it might make an interesting change to choose the living."

"That"s not fair," he cried after Tachyon"s back. "What about Mai?"

"Mai is gone. This is here and now, and you are going to have to make a choice."

The hours crawled by. Tachyon"s admiration for Bradly Latour Finn increased with each pa.s.sing moment. The little joker comforted the old, jollied the young, and played games with the children. His insouciant grin never budged. Not when their increasingly nervous guards rained curses or blows onto his curly head. Not when Victoria Queen cried out hysterically: "We"re all going to die, and how can you be so f.u.c.king calm?"

"Too dumb to know different."

He trotted to Tachyon, gun muzzles following his progress through the crowded cafeteria. He paused briefly by a table where Deadhead was maintaining a constant babble. Nodded seriously for several seconds.

"I couldn"t agree more."

"Sit down!" yelled one of their guards.

Finn backed delicately toward a chair. Wriggled his hindquarters. Sadly shook his head and trotted to Tach. The alien gasped in surprise as he noticed for the first time the joker"s tail. It had been cut off just below the dock.

"Your tail!"

"It will adorn some Werewolf"s jacket."

Idiotically, this upset Tachyon almost more than anything that had thus far happened. "Your tail," he mourned again. "It"ll grow. Besides, I was too proud of it anyway." He leaned in. "Doc, some of these people need medication."

"I know."

Tachyon slid off the table, and with his hand resting lightly on Finn"s withers, he walked to Brennan. It was an absurd picture. The tiny alien dressed in knee breeches, the lace cravat of his shirt untied and falling like a foaming waterfall, copper curls fluttering as he walked. The tiny palomino centaur prancing like a Lippizaner at his side.

"A number of these people are on medication. May I take some of my staff and obtain the drugs?"

"Drugs. Sounds good," laughed a Werewolf. "Give us what we want," said Brennan.

"No."

"s.h.i.t!" Danny Mao mashed out a cigarette on a cellophanewrapped chef"s salad.

The hot tip burnt through the plastic and left a black smear on the cheese and the meat. "How long are we gonna sit here?"

"As long as it takes," replied Brennan shortly.

"Cowboy, let"s kill a few of these ugly f.u.c.kers." Danny Mao eyed the huddled jokers with disgust. "We"d be doing most of them a favor."

Brennan rounded on Tachyon. "The girl."

"No."

Why are you doing this! Why are you?

Twenty more minutes crawled agonizingly past. Tachyon, eyes half-closed, fingered a violin sonata on his knee, head beating time to the silent music.

"Cowboy, he"s got a mind power. What"s to say he"s not calling the joker hit squad right now?"

Lee ranged himself with the only other Oriental in the group. "Danny"s right."

"He won"t call for help. He knows the risks of an a.s.sault from outside. How many of them,"-Brennan"s arm swept out to encompa.s.s the frightened patients and staff--"will be killed in the shooting?" He rounded on Tachyon, his gray eyes hard. "How many of them shall we kill as payment for treachery?"

""Treachery."" Tachyon savored the word. Lilac eyes met gray. The gray fell first.

"Okay, so you don"t want to start offing sick old ladies," said Danny, eyeing one with disfavor. "Even if they are as ugly as an unwiped a.s.shole. Why don"t we use him?" A jerk of a thumb toward Deadhead, who was guiltily gobbling down a piece of pie, and keeping up the running monologue with himself. "That"s what he"s here for."

Brennan wiped sweat. "We don"t know what Tachyon might do to him. It"s an alien metabolism."

Danny stepped to an old man, gripped him by his stringy white hair, and thrust the barrel of his Colt Python into the toothless mouth. Victoria Queen whimpered. A rustle went through the hostages. Tachyon came half out of his chair, then subsided when he realized the Chinese man"s focus was on Brennan.

"I don"t think you"ve got what it takes, Cowboy," Danny said in a dangerously low tone. "I think it was a mistake putting you in charge. Now either you gather your stones and act, or I will."

"All right," shouted Brennan. "We"ll use Deadhead." Danny pulled his pistol from the joker"s mouth and placed the tip of the barrel against Tachyon"s throat. A gasp and a rustle ran through the prisoners.

"But not here. In his office. And Deadhead." The ace looked up and paused in his energetic chewing. "Bring a spoon."