Wild Cards [06] Ace in the Hole Read Free Page A

dance for piano and violin; the times that the Russian had kept Blaise from exercising his terrible power on the helpless humans who surrounded him.
    Tachyon crossed the room, squatted before the old man, rested his arm on Polyakov's knee for balance. "For once in your life don't play the enigmatic Russian. Tell me plainly what you want. What you fear."
    Polyakov suddenly gripped Tachyon's right hand. PAIN! The bite of fire from within, rushing up his arm, through his body, boiling the blood. Sweat burst from his pores, tears from his eyes. Tach sprawled on his elbows on the floor.
    "BURNING SKY!"
    "An appropriate exclamation," said Polyakov with a humorless smile. "You Takisians, always so apt."
    Tachyon scrubbed a handkerchief across his streaming face, but the tears continued to flow. He gulped down a sob. The Russian frowned down at him. "What the devil is wrong with you?"
    "You couldn't just tell me you are an ace?" cried Tach bitterly.
    Polyakov shrugged. Rose and pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket. Tachyon's fingers were closed frenziedly about the sodden mass of his own.
    "What the hell is the matter? I gave you only the merest lick of my fire."
    "And I am carrying the wild card so your little lick could have triggered the virus."
    Tachyon found himself crushed into a burly embrace. He fought free, gave his nose a hard blow. "So today is a day for secrets, is it not?"
    "How long?"
    "A year."
    "If I had known-"
    "I know. I know, you would never have scared me out of a thousand years of life with that little demonstration." His clothes smelled rankly of sweat and fear. Tachyon began to strip. "So now I know why you are so interested in this convention."
    "It goes beyond the fact that I am a wild card," grunted Polyakov. "I am a Russian."
    "Yes," Tach threw over his shoulder as he walked into the bathroom. "I know." The thunder of the water drowned out Polyakov's words. "WHAT?"
    Grumbling, Polyakov followed him into the bathroom, lowered the toilet cover, and sat. From behind the shrouding curtain Tach heard the clink of metal on glass.
    "What are you drinking?"
    "What do you think?"
    "I'll take one, too."
    "It's eight in the morning."
    "So we'll go to hell drunk and together." Tach accepted the glass, allowed the water to beat on his shoulders while he sipped at the vodka. "You drink too much."
    "We both drink too much."
    "True."
    "There's an ace at this convention."
    "There are a shitload of aces at this convention."
    "A secret ace."
    "Yes, he's sitting on my toilet." Tachyon stuck his head around the curtain. "How long is this going to take? Can't you be a little less cautious and trust me just a little?"
    Polyakov sighed heavily, stared down at his hands as if counting the hairs on the back of fingers. "Hartmann is an ace." Tach stuck his head back through the shower curtain. "Nonsense."
    "I tell you it is true."
    "Proof?"
    "Suspicions."
    "Not good enough." Tach shut off the water, and thrust a hand through the curtain. "Towel." Polyakov dropped one over his arm.
    Stepping from the shower, the alien studied his image in the mirror as he towel dried his shoulder-length red hair. Noted the scars on his left arm and hand where the doctors had repaired the bones crushed in an eleventh-hour rescue of Angelface. The puckered scar on his thigh-legacy of a terrorist's bullet in Paris. The long scar on the right bicepmemory of a duel with his cousin. "Living takes a hell of a toll, doesn't it?"
    "Just how old are you?" the Russian asked curiously. "Adjusting for Earth's rotational period; eighty-nine, ninety. Somewhere in there."
    "I was young when I met you."
    "Yes."
    "Now I am old and fat and in the grip of a terrible fear. You can so easily establish if my fears are real or mere delusions. Probe Hartmann, read him, then act."
    "Gregg Hartmann is my friend. I don't probe my friends. I don't even probe you."
    "I give you permission to do so. If it will help to convince you. "
    "Ideal, you must be in terror."
    "I am.