George Martin - Ace In The Hole

"I want to discuss this with Gregg."

"Call him if you like, but he's busy. Just get ready to cut your delegate count in half."

"Would you mind explaining to me what's going on?"

"We're canceling the showdown. If Barnett wins by too large a margin, it's not going to prove anything. All it'll mean is that we didn't fight. In the pictures, you can't have a gunfight with just one man in the street. The audience'll walk out." There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then: "Let me talk to Logan."

"He's on another line."

"Why do you expect me to trust you?" The fat man's furious anger beat at Jack's ear.

"I don't have time to argue this. Do it or not, I don't care. Just be ready to answer for your decision later."

"If you cost Gregg the election…"

Jack gave a laugh. "Have you seen ABC? They've already got our man conceding."

Jack cut the connection, then phoned his own assistant Emil Rodriguez. He told Rodriguez that he wouldn't be on the floor tonight, that the delegation was his to command; but cut his vote in half on 9(c), and then stand like a rock against the California challenge.

He began to call every other delegation head, in order of number of votes. By the time he made his last call, to the man who controlled Hartmann's two votes from the Virgin Islands, the convention had reconvened.

Danny Logan, unconscious on the bed, began to snore. Jack turned on the television and sat in the corner with Logan's whiskey bottle. The atmosphere on the convention floor was intense. Delegates were scurrying into place around their floor leaders. The orchestra was playing-good lord-"Don't Cry for Me, Argentina."

A knot of fear began to tighten in Jack's stomach.

Jim Wright, speaker of the House and the chairman the convention had elected that afternoon, gaveled the convention to order. A senator from Wyoming stood up to move the repeal of 9(c). All the troops were already in line and there was no debate.

Jack took a long, long drink; and the roll call began. For the next ten minutes, Peter Jennings, seconded by his people on the floor, spoke in serious tones about Gregg Hartmann's stunning defeat. Jack could hear people outside the room marching up and down. Twice someone knocked, and twice he ignored them.

Then David Brinkley, his sardonic grin firmly in place, began to wonder aloud if he smelled a rat. He and Koppel and Jennings tossed this notion around while the lopsided numbers added up, then unanimously concluded that the whole showdown had been a sucker play, and that Barnett, Gore, et al had fallen for it.

There was more pounding on the hotel door. "Logan?" Devaughn's voice. "Are you in there?"

Jack said nothing.

After the reporters' analysis leaked back to the convention, bedlam broke out on the floor. Mobs of delegates lurched back and forth like wood chips caught in a flood. Jack reached for his phone and called Emil Rodriguez. "Move the California question. Now."

Hartmann's opponents were in total disarray. Their entire strategy had come unhinged.

Hartmann won the California challenge in a walk. A roar of celebration began to come through the hotel room door. Jack opened Logan's door, put a Do Not Disturb sign on the outside, and stepped out into the hallway.

"Jack!" Amy Sorenson, her chestnut hair flying, ran toward him through a crowd dizzy with celebration. "Were you in there? Did you and Logan come up with this?"

Jack kissed her, not caring in the least if her husband was present. "Got any pizza left?" he asked. "I'm getting hungry."

A knot of people at the main entrance to the Marriott reared back in alarm as the Turtle settled onto the sidewalk. Blaise drummed on the side of the shell with his heels as he slid off: Tachyon gave the shell a fond pat before he climbed down. "Thank you, Turtle, for a lovely afternoon. It's an elegant city when seen from above."

"Any time, Tachy." The shell floated away. "Dr. Tachyon."

The alien turned at that smooth, well-modulated voice with its strong Southern accent. "Reverend Barnett."

They had never met, yet recognition was instantaneous. They stood on the steps of the Marriott, devouring one another's faces, searching for the key to the character of the other man. Leo Barnett was a young man of medium height, blond hair, blue eyes, a dimpled chin. It was a nice face, and for an instant the Takisian struggled to reconcile the hated image of his dreams with this soft-spoken man. Then he recalled the exquisite faces of his kith and kin-all of them murdering thugs-and the moment of dislocation passed.

"Doctor, didn't anyone ever tell you that there are some things we don't do in the streets because it alarms the children and frightens the horses?"

Humor laced the words and Tachyon, who had tensed for an attack, relaxed. "Reverend, I've been on Earth longer than you've been alive, and I don't believe I've ever heard that expression."

A woman stepped out of the crowd surrounding Barnett. "It generally refers to sex, and you know all about that." Shoulder-length sable hair, cascading onto her breast, long sooty lashes fluttering on alabaster cheeks, lashes lifting to reveal eyes of a profound midnight blue…

No, brown!

Reality shifted like a cable car being wrenched off its track. Tach's breath seemed to be clogged somewhere between diaphragm and throat. He tottered, groping for Blaise's shoulder, and Leo Barnett leaped forward to support him on the other side.

"Doctor, are you all right?"

"I've seen a ghost," Tach murmured thickly. The faintness was passing, and he lifted his eyes to hers.

"My campaign manager, Fleur van Renssaeler," said Barnett with a nervous glance to the woman.

"I know," said Tachyon.

"You're very quick, Doctor." Her opening words had been aggressive, now bitter sarcasm laced each syllable.

"You bear your mother's face…" He quailed slightly under blazing anger in those brown eyes. "But her eyes were blue."

"What an extraordinary memory you have."

"There is not a detail of your mother's face that I have forgotten."

"Am I supposed to be pleased by that?"

"I hope so. I am inordinately pleased to see you. Every week for almost two years we played." He laughed gently. "I recall you were dreadfully fond of that horrid sticky candy corn. My pockets would be gummy for days afterward."

`You never came to our house. My father wouldn't permit it.

Tach felt his jaw sag. "But I mind-controlled the servants. Your mother wanted to see you so desperately-"

"My mother was a damn slut. She abandoned my father and her children for you."

"No, that's not true. Your father threw her out of the house."

"Because she was whoring with you!" Fleur's hand lashed out, snapping his head around with the force of the blow. Tentatively he touched his burning cheek, started to advance on her. "No-"

Barnett laid a hand on Tachyon's shoulder. "Doctor, this conversation is obviously upsetting both you and Miss van Renssaeler. I think we should move along."

The minister held out his hand to Fleur. Her lips seemed slack, and somehow heavier. An aura of sex surrounded her. Barnett handed her into the taxi as if he were eager to release her.

"Perhaps sometime we can talk again, Doctor. I confess I'm very curious about the religious beliefs of your world. " Leo paused with a hand on the taxi door. "Are you a Christian, Doctor?"

"No."

"We should talk."

The entourage was whisked away, Tach staring blankly after the taxi containing Fleur.

"What, by the Ideal, was that all about?" The Takisian phrase spoken in Blaise's heavily accented English added to Tachyon's sense of disorientation.

Tach pressed steepled fingers to his lips. "Oh, ancestors." He wrapped his arm tightly about Blaise's shoulders. "1947."