George Martin - Down And Dirty

"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 passing 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 fucking 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."

"SHIT!" 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 fuckers." 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 assault from outside. How many of them,"-Brennan's arm swept out to encompass 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 asshole. 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."

Brennan left five men on guard in the cafeteria. He watched Tachyon studying the fifteen men who towered over him in the elevator. It was a look he knew-a man weighing the odds. And not liking the answer.

Isida, my roshi, what takes precedence? The quest of a man's soul, or the transitory friendships of this world? There was no answer. Somehow Brennan had a feeling that even if the old man had been present, there still wouldn't have been an answer.

Tachyon's narrow face was composed. He was clearly resigned to death. Brennan doubted the alien would meet it quietly. He would try something before the end.

Deadhead belched and patted his stomach. "Wish I hadn't had that piece of pie. Hope I got room for this. Hey, how we gonna open his head?" Tachyon's eyes widened. Suddenly he doubled over and vomited onto Danny's shoes.

"Oh, shit!" yelled the Oriental.

"Mind reading's not such a great power, huh?" gritted Brennan. "You find out what's in store for you. Lee, go down to the operating room and bring a saw."

"Why don't we just take him down there?" whined the boy, holding his nose against the stink.

"Because I don't want to." Tension and fury crackled in the words.

They filed into Tachyon's office, Brennan carefully closing the door behind him. Danny pulled back the hammer on his gun and grinned back over his shoulder at Brennan.

"I'll handle this, Cowboy. You don't seem to have the stomach for it."

It wasn't a conscious decision. Brennan just reached out and snapped off the lights. New York's bright glow formed a square of silver around the tightly closed blinds, but the rest of the room was plunged into stygian darkness.

Tachyon hit the floor as two simultaneous muzzle flashes almost blinded him. A body fell across him.

"Shit! He's got a gun," he heard Brennan sing out. He wished to god he had.

Thrusting with elbows and knees, Tachyon belly-crawled across the thick carpet. A foot took him hard in the ribs, and he bit back a gasp. The man took a header, discharging his Uzi in a long burst as he fell. Someone screamed.

Feeling for the knob, Tachyon seized it in a sweat-slick hand, threw open the door, and darted through. He slammed it quickly behind him, and bullets blasted through the thin wood, peppering his cheek with splinters. He ran.

Steadying himself with a hand, he swung around the corner just as the door burst open, and the pursuit began. Again Brennan's voice. "Half of you come with me. We'll head him off."

Fifteen, becomes fourteen, becomes thirteen, becomes maybe twelve, if that first Uzi blast hit one of them. So call it six to one. Still terrible odds, and too many for mind control unless he could separate them, and he didn't like that idea at all.

So where to go?

"This is the Place of Death."

Tachyon jerked open the door to the stairs and leaped like a hunted deer, taking two steps at a time. They were one landing behind.

"But the buck lived… Because he came first, running for his life."

It was a desperate gamble. It had to be taken. Two floors below huddled his people. If his pursuers remembered, returned to threaten them…

He fished out his keys, put on a final burst of speed. His breath was sobbing in his raw throat. He couldn't see Croyd through the wide observation window of the isolation room. The lock turned, and he waited, hand on the knob. The hunting pack burst out of the stairwell, baying with excitement. "There he is!"