Wildcards - Down and Dirty Part 17

"It's easier to speak French with you," Blaise said, lapsing into that tongue.

Tach ran a hand through his grandchild's straight red hair. "I think I shall have to develop selective deafness." He suddenly chuckled.

"What?" Blaise tugged at his shoulder.

"I was remembering an incident from my childhood. I wasn't much older than you.

Fifteen or so. I had decided that physical workout was dull. Only the sparring really seemed to matter. So I had taken to ordering my bodyguards to do the workouts for me." Tupuola laughed, and Tach shook his head sadly. "I was an unbearable little prince."

"So what happened?"

"My father caught me."

"And?" asked Blaise eagerly. "And he beat the c.r.a.p out of me."

"I'll bet your bodyguards enjoyed it," chuckled Tupuola. "Oh, they were far too well trained to ever show emotion, but I do seem to recall a few telltale lip twitches. It was very humiliating." He sighed.

"I would have stopped him," said Blaise, his eyes kindling. "Ah, but I respected my father and knew he was right to chastise me. And it would have violated the tenets of psi to engage in a long, drawn out mind battle with my sire in front of servants. Also, I might have lost." He flicked a forefinger across the tip of the boy's nose. "Always a consideration when you're a Takisian."

"The tenets of psi. Sounds like a mystic book out of the sixties," mused Tupuola.

Tach rose. "Perhaps I'll write it." He turned to his grandchild. "And speaking of the sixties, there is someone I want you to meet."

"Someone fun?"

"Yes, and kind, and a good friend."

The corners of Blaise's mouth drooped. "Not someone I can play with."

"No, but he does have a daughter."

"Behold me! Mark, I am home!" Tach announced with a swirl of his plumed hat from the front door of the Cosmic Pumpkin ('Food for Body, Mind, & Spirit') Head Shop and Delicatessen.

Dr. Mark Meadows, aka Captain Trips, hung storklike over the counter, a freshly opened package of tofu balanced delicately on his fingertips.

"Oh, wow, Doc. Good to see ya."

"Mark, my grandson, Blaise." He pulled him from where the child had been hiding behind him and pushed him gently forward. "Blaise, je vous presente, Monsieur Mark Meadows."

"Enchante, monsieur."

Mark flashed Blaise a peace sign, and Tach a sharp glance. "I can see you've got a lot to tell."

"Indeed, yes, and a favor to ask."

"Anything, man, name it."

Tachyon glanced significantly down at Blaise. "In a moment. First I want Blaise to makes Sprout's acquaintance."

"Uh ... sure."

They climbed the steep stairs to Mark's apartment, left Blaise playing with Mark's lovely, but sadly r.e.t.a.r.ded, tenyear-old daughter, and settled in the hippie's tiny, cluttered lab.

"So, like, tell all."

"Overall it was a nightmare. Death, starvation, disease but at the end ...

Blaise, and suddenly it all becomes worthwhile." Tachyon halted his nervous pacings. "He's the focus of my life, and I want him to have everything, Mark."

"Kids don't need everything, man. They just need love." Tach laid a hand fondly on the human's skinny shoulder. "How good you are, my dear, dear friend."

"But you haven't told me anything. How you found him, and what's the real p.o.o.p on that s.h.i.+t that came down in Syria?"

"That's why I say it was a nightmare."

They talked, Tachyon touching on his fears for Peregrine, all of the events leading up to his discovery of Blaise. He omitted his final confrontation with Le Miroir, the French' terrorist who had been controlling the quarter-Takisian child. He sensed that gentle, sensitive Mark might be shocked at Tachyon's cold-blooded execution of the man. It was something that, in retrospect, Tachyon wasn't very comfortable with himself. He reflected, a little sadly, that after an almost equal number of years on Takis and on Earth he was still more of Takis than of Earth.

He checked the watch set in his bootheel and exclaimed, "Burning Sky, look at the time."

"Hey, great boots."

"Yes, I found them in Germany."

"Hey, about Germany-"

"Another time, Mark, I must be going. Oh, what a fool I am! I came not only for the pleasure of seeing you, but to ask if I might occasionally borrow Durg? He's virtually immune to the effects of mind control, and I can't keep Blaise with me constantly, nor can I continue to lock him away in Baby everytime I have other responsibilities."

"burg as a babysitter. It sorta boggles the mind."

"Yes, I know, and believe me it goes very much against the grain to have Zabb's monster guarding my heir, but Blaise is like a Swarm mother among planets if I leave him unattended with normal humans. You see, he has no self-discipline, and I'm d.a.m.ned if I can see how to instill it in him."

Trips dropped an arm over Tachyon's shoulders, and they walked to the door of the lab. "rime, give it time. And relax with it, man. n.o.body's born a father."

"Or even a grandfather."

Mark looked down into the delicate, youthful face and chuckled. "I think he's going to have a hard time relating to you as Gramps. You're going to have to settle for-"

The sight in the living room knocked wind and words from Mark's throat. Sprout was down to her teddy bear panties, daintily dancing while she sang a little song. Giggling, Blaise bounced on the sofa and manipulated her like a puppet.

"K'ijdad, isn't she funny? Her mind is so simple-" Tachyon's power lashed out, and Sprout-suddenly freed from this terrifying outside control-burst into frightened and disoriented tears. Mark gathered her in a tight embrace. "SIMPLE!

I WILL SHOW YOU A SIMPLE MIND!" The boy jerked about the room like rusty automaton under the brutal imperative of his grandfather's mind. "IS THIS PLEASANT! DO YOU ENJOY-".

"NO, MAN, NO! STOP IT!" Tachyon rocked under the hard shaking. "It's okay,"

Trips added in a more moderate tone as the devil's mask that had slipped over Tachyon's normally pleasant features faded.

"I'm sorry, Mark," Tach whispered. "So very sorry."

"It's okay, man. Let's ... let's just all calm down." Tachyon dropped into telepathy. Can you ever forgive me?

Nothing to forgive, man.

Meadows dropped to one knee before the sobbing boy, took him gently by the shoulders. "You see, you're as scared as Sprout was. It's no fun to be in somebody else's power."

"And yeah, Sprout's mind is weak, but that's all the more reason for someone strong like you to be kind, and to look out for people like her. You understand?"

Blaise slowly nodded, but Tachyon didn't trust the shuttered expression in those purple/black eyes. And sure enough, as soon as they were out on the street in front of the Cosmic Pumpkin, the boy said, "What a wimp!"

"GET IN THAT TAXI.".

"Ancestors!" Gla.s.s crunched under bootheels, and for a brief, breath-catching moment time rolled back, and the past clung like a gnawing animal at his throat.

Gla.s.s shattering and falling, mirrors breaking on all sides, silvered knives flying through the air ... blood spattering against the cracked mirrors.

Tachyon shook himself free of the waking nightmare and stared at the carnage that filled the Funhouse. A janitor with enough arms to handle three brooms was busily sweeping up the broken gla.s.s that littered the floor. Des, grey-faced and frowning, was talking with a man in a business suit. Tachyon joined them., "I'm not entirely certain your policy-"

"Of course not! Why should I think that twenty-four years of premiums paid on time, and no claims made, should ent.i.tle me to any coverage now," spat Des.

"I'll check, Mr. Desmond, and get back to you."

"What by the purity of the Ideal is going on here?"

"Do you want a drink?"

"Please." Tachyon pulled out his wallet, and Des stared down at the bills, a funny little smile twisting his lips, the fingers at the end of his incongruous trunk twitching slightly. The alien flushed and said defensively. "I pay for my drinks."

"Now."

"That was a long time ago, Des."

"True."

Tachyon kicked at a sliver of mirror. "Though G.o.d knows this brings it all back.", "Christmas Eve, 1963. Mal's been dead a long time." And soon you will be too.

No, impossible to speak such words. But would Des ever speak? While Tachyon, of course, respected the old joker's desire for privacy as he prepared to die, it nonetheless hurt that he maintained his silence.

How am I to say farewell to you, old friend? And soon it will be too late.

The cognac exploded like a white-hot cloud on the back of his throat, banis.h.i.+ng the lump that had settled there. Tachyon set aside the gla.s.s and said, "You never answered my question."

"What's to answer?"

"Des, I'm your friend. I've drunk in this bar for over twenty years. When I enter and find it busted all to h.e.l.l, I want to know why."

"Why?"

"Maybe I can do something!" Tachyon tossed down the rest of his drink and frowned up into Des's faded eyes.

Des swept away the gla.s.s and refilled it. "For twenty years I've been paying protection to the Gambiones. Now this new gang is muscling in, and I'm having to pay off two of them. It's making it a little tough to meet overhead."

"New gang? What new gang?"

"They call themselves the Shadow Fists. Toughs out of Chinatown."

"When did this start?"

"Last week. I guess they waited until they knew I was back in town."

"Which means they made quite a study of Jokertown." A shrug. "Why not? They're businessmen."

"They're hoodlums." Another shrug. "That too."

"What are you going to do?"

"Keep paying both sides and hope they let me live in peace."

"However long that's going to be," Tachyon muttered, and drained the fresh cognac.

"What?"

"Oh, h.e.l.l, Des, I'm not a blind man. I'm also a doctor. What is it? Cancer?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

The old man sighed. "For a lot of complicated reasons. None of which I want to go into right now."

"Or ever?"

"That too is possible."

"I count you a friend."

"Do you, Tachy? Do you?"

"Yes. Can you doubt it? No! Don't answer that. I've already seen it; in your eyes and your heart."

"Why not my mind, Tachyon? Why not read it there?"

"Because I honor your privacy, and-" His face crumpled, and he sucked in a sharp breath. "Because I can't bear to face what I might read there," he concluded quietly. He tossed more bills on the bar and started for the door. "I'll see what I can do to make your hope a reality."

"What?"

"That you end your days in peace."

It had been the same story at Ernie's and Gobbler's Delicatessen and Spot's Laundry and so many others that he dreaded to even recall them all. Frowning, Tachyon tore the skin from an orange, the juice stinging briefly as it hit a hitherto unnoticed paper cut. Goons out of Chinatown. Goons from the mob, and him with his big mouth promising to do something about it. Like what?