George Martin - Aces High

"It vanished when we landed in Harlem," Tachyon said. "Perhaps an Egret was in the crowd that gathered around us?"

"And took it, realizing what it was? Not likely," Brennan said softly, his gaze turned inward. "Not likely at all. Besides, Harlem isn't Egret turf. They have agents there, but not many of them."

"Well, however it turned up, I'm glad it did," Tachyon said. "It provides the possibility of a splendid alternative to Lankesters foolish plan of attacking the Swarm in space."

"The Swarm?" Brennan had been aware of the semisentient alien invaders that had been trying to get a toehold on the Earth for the past several months, but the fight against them had so far bypassed him. "What use could this, this shifting thing be against the Swarm?"

"It's a long story." Tachyon sighed and ran a hand across his face. "A man from the State Department named Lankester is in charge of the Anti-Swarm Task Force. He's been pestering me for weeks now to use my influence with the aces to convince them to attack the Swarm Mother-the source of the Swarm attacks-that's in an eccentric orbit around the sun. Its a nonsensical idea, of course. It would be suicide for even the most powerful aces to go up against that thing. It would be like gnats flinging themselves against an elephant. The singularity shifter, however, presents some interesting possibilities."

"It can teleport a man that far?" Brennan asked, seeing some of them himself.

"Someone totally unfamiliar with it, as, say, yourself," Tachyon said, "could use the shifter to teleport short distances. It would take a powerful telepath to reach the Swarm Mother. But it could be done. A man could shift himself into the interior of the thing. A man armed with, say, a tactical nuclear device."

Brennan nodded. "I see."

" I was sure you would. I'm explaining all this to you because, pragmatically speaking, the singularity shifter is yours."

Brennan looked from Tachyon, to Mai standing silently at the side of his bed, back to Tachyon again. He had the feeling that Mai had told Tachyon something about him, but he knew Mai would tell the doctor only what she had to. And only because she trusted him.

"I'm in your debt," Brennan said. "It's yours." Tachyon gripped Brennan's forearm in a warm, friendly manner.

"Thank you," he said. He glanced at Mai, looked at Brennan again. "I know that you're involved in some sort of vendetta with people here in the city. Mai told me something of it in explaining her own background and abilities. No details. None were necessary." He paused. " I know all too well about debts of honor."

Brennan nodded. He believed Tachyon, and, up to a point, trusted him. Tachyon probably wasn't connected with Kien, but one of the aces who had been with him-Turtle, Fantasy, or Trips-was. One of them must have stolen the shifter and given it to Kien. And Brennan, someday, somehow, would discover which ace it was.

Brennan left the clinic a little before midnight and went home to the one-room apartment on the fringes of Jokertown that was his base of operations. There was a sense of organized clutter about the apartment, which consisted of a bathroom, kitchen area, and living area with a sofa-bed, ancient rocking chair, and an obviously handmade workbench overflowing with equipment any bowyer would recognize. And some that a bowyer wouldn't.

He pulled the bed out of the sofa, stripped, and flopped down with a bone-weary sigh. He slept for twenty-four hours, completing the healing process that Mai had begun. He was ravenously hungry when he awoke and was fixing himself a meal when there came a light knock on the door. He peered out of the peephole. It was, as he had expected, Mai, the only person who knew where he lived.

"Trouble?" Brennan asked, seeing the worry on her usually-placid features. He stepped aside to let her into the room.

"I don't know. I think so."

"Tell me about it." He went behind the counter that divided the kitchen area from the rest of the apartment and poured water from the pot whistling on the stove into two small, handleless teacups. They were porcelain, hand-painted with the colors of a dream. They were older than the United States and the most precious things Brennan owned. He handed one to Mai in the rocking chair, and sat down on the rumpled bed opposite her.

"It's Dr. Tachyon." She sipped the hot, aromatic tea, gathering her thoughts. "He's been acting… strange."

"In what way?"

"He's been brusque, demanding. And he's neglecting his patients."

"Since when?"

"Yesterday, since coming back from his meeting with the man from the State Department. There's something else." She balanced the precious teacup on her lap and took a folded newspaper from the purse that she had set beside the rocker.

"Have you seen this?" Brennan shook his head.

The headlines screamed TACHYON TO LEAD ACE ASSAULT AGAINST SPACE MENACE. A picture below the bold letters showed Tachyon standing with a man identified as Alexander Lankester, head of the Anti-Swarm Task Force. The accompanying article stated that Tachyon was recruiting aces to follow him in an assault against the Swarm Mother orbiting the Earth beyond ballistic missile range. Captain Trips and Modular Man had already agreed to go along.

Something was wrong, Brennan thought. Tachyon had hoped the singularity shifter would end the request for such a useless assault. Instead, it seemed as if the opposite were happening.

"Do you think the government is blackmailing him into doing this?" Brennan asked. "Or is controlling his mind somehow?"

"It is possible," Mai shrugged. "I only know that he may need help."

He looked at her for a long moment and she calmly returned his gaze.

"He has no friends?"

"Many of his friends are poor, helpless jokers. Others are hard to reach. Or may not be inclined to act swiftly if the government is somehow involved."

Brennan stood up and turned his back to her while carrying his teacup back to the counter. The network of human relationships was reaching out, ensnaring him in its sticky grip once again. He dumped the dregs of his tea into the sink and gazed into the bottom of the teacup. It was the blue of a perfect, depthless pool, the blue of an empty, endless sky. Looking into it was like contemplating the void. It was pleasurable in its utter peacefulness, but not, Brennan realized, his particular pathway to enlightenment.

He turned around to face Mai again, his mind made up. "All right. I'll check it out. But I don't know anything about things like mind control. I71 need some help."

He reached for the phone and dialed a number.

Brennan had rarely been in the public rooms of the Crystal Palace, though he had spent more than one night in the rooms on the third floor. Elmo nodded as he came in, without commenting on the case he carried. The dwarf gestured to the corner table where Chrysalis sat with a man wearing black jeans and a brown leather jacket. He had handsome, regular features, except for his bulging forehead.

"You," Fortunato said as Brennan came up to their table. He looked from Brennan to Chrysalis. She regarded him with a level gaze, the blood pulsing steadily through the arteries of her glass-clear throat. She looked at Brennan and nodded coolly, showing no sign of the passion that Brennan knew from the time he spent on the Palace's third floor.

"This is Yeoman," she said as Brennan took the third seat at the table. "I believe that he has some information you might find interesting."

Fortunato frowned. Their last meeting hadn't exactly been cordial, though there was no actual animosity between the two.

"Word has it that you're looking for a way to get at the Swarm. I know something that could help."

"I'll listen. "

Brennan told him about the singularity shifter. He told no lies, but he shaded things skillfully, having been coached by Chrysalis as to the approach that would most likely sway Fortunato to help him investigate Tachyon's strange behavior. "What can you do beside making your mind go away?" Fortunato asked when Brennan was done with his story.