"Sleep well?" Tachyon asked from a chair against the wall, stretching with a small groan to ease the stiffness in his back.
She answered with a smile and marveled a little at how relaxed it felt. Didn't think she had that in her anymore, shocking in retrospect to discover how deeply the tension of the past few months had left its mark. How delicious she felt to be free of it.
She started to form a question, but he answered before the thoughts had even coalesced.
"Yes, I've been here all night."
She wondered if she should be angry-obviously the mind link had left its own mark, a duality of being that might well make both their lives miserable-decided it was a pointless exercise. What was, was; what mattered was dealing with it and moving on.
"Admirable philosophy," Tachyon agreed, laughing at her sharp sigh of asperity. "Actually, though, things aren't as bad as all that. I've been monitoring you while you slept."
She couldn't help a giggle at the thought of him walking sentry, marching back and forth across the gateway to her consciousness. The image was strong enough to bring a chuckle to his lips as well.
"Making sure," he finished, "there was no residue from your encounter with Sludge."
"How'd you learn his name?"
"Any psychic contact involves entering into a degree of rapport. I can't help learning some things. In Sludge's case"-he shrugged, mixing dismissal and disgust "the thoughts were relatively simple, desire-oriented. He was not an intellect, by any stretch of the imagination. Cunning more than intelligence. `Sludge' was the name he chose for himself."
"He was an ace?"
"Autopsy confirmed that analysis of his blood just as it revealed the body in our morgue to be a nat. As near as we've been able to determine, he's been roaming the subways and other tunnels beneath the city for quite some time, preying mostly on runaways and the homeless, the underclass who'd never be missed. And none of us realized-"
"How many?"
"Victims?" He sniffed, gazing out the window-but she knew he was looking back through the ace's memories. "Impossible to know. Sludge had very little cognitive capacity. Quite a few, I suspect."
"He killed them all."
"He ate them."
They were silent a long while. Faintly, Cody heard a page over the hospital's PA system. Gritting her teeth against the possibility of pain or weakness, she levered herself to her feet. There was an IV running in her left arm; she pinched off the junction and popped the tube, then hobbled the half-dozen small and gingerly steps to Tachyon. He seemed so small before her, yet the image she remembered from her mind was as strong and resilient as she imagined herself to be. She pressed her body against his back, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, resisting the temptation to set her chin atop his head. He reached up to take her wrists in his good hand and rest his chin on them. She didn't need to see his eyes to recognize the sober, haunted expression in them. She'd seen the same in hers, too often, when she'd lost a patient that she believed could have been saved.
"A new twist," he said, allowing a faint edge of bitterness to the words, "on the old expression `you always kill the one you love.'"
"Not to mention," Cody couldn't help responding, " 'you are what you eat.'"
He laughed, a spontaneously explosive snort that caught them both by surprise, then turned somber again: "Why did you go haring off like that?"
"Impetuous broad, that's me. I gather you got my message."
"Brad Finn came over to the precinct in person. I just missed you, evidently. Captain Ellis had squad cars cruising Jokertown looking for you. We heard the report of a shot fired at Carroll Street…"
"… and then I heard your outcry."
"Thanks for listening."
He turned to face her. "You don't understand. In a city this size, a telepath has to maintain. fairly strong shields simply to keep from being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of psychic `noise.' I have to be attuned to a person to `hear' them; that almost never happens after a single, casual encounter."
"Perhaps it wasn't so casual, then."
"Apparently not."
"Tachyon, whatever the reason, I'm grateful for it."
"In time-fairly short order, actually-we won't resonate on quite so common a frequency. I'll still be unusually sensitive to you, but it will take a conscious effort to scan your thoughts."
"Over what range?"
"To be honest, I've no idea. This has never happened with anyone, in quite the same way. I'm sorry."
"For what, saving my life?"
"I created that monster. Those poor women Sludge slaughtered, their deaths are on my conscience."
"Welcome to the club."
"You don't understand."
"I'm a surgeon. I spent three years as a combat cutter. I do understand. So what?"
"It's my responsibility."
"Fine." She deliberately took him by his maimed right arm. "Be responsible. You can't change the past, any more than I can resurrect the patients I've lost-or the people I've actually killed. Yeah"-she nodded-"there's blood on my hands, too, it was a war, it came with the territory. And if there's a hereafter, maybe I'll get to deal with it then. Who cares? It's done. But at least I've come to terms with it. Taken my terror out of the closet, where I've been denying it even existed, and hung it out in the open with the other nightmares, where I can get a good look at it, see it for what it is-and me for what I am. Doesn't mean that doesn't hurt, and won't for a long time yet to come. But it's there. I can deal with it. Try that yourself, might be in for a surprise."
"You're needed, Cody," he said simply. "I'm a doctor, Tachyon, not a crutch."
He half raised his stump in its sling, then let it fall, his shoulders slump. "So you'll be going, then," he said. "Gotta find someone to look after the ranch--couple o' guys I know in Colorado, vets, could do a fair job, give 'em a call before I fly out spring the news on Chris, pack up the place, find a decent rack here in town." He looked at her in amazement, not altogether sure he was hearing right. "Assuming, of course"-the deliberate seriousness in her voice belied by the lop-sided smile at the edge of her mouth-"we can agree on a salary"
Tachyon had the decency to cough. "I'm, ah, sure we can work something out," he hazarded.
"Let's not presume too much, shall we?" Cody said, giving the smile full rein.
She held out her hand.
And Tachyon, his own smile a match for hers, took it.
Nobody Knows Me Like My Baby by Walton Simons
The left side of Tachyon's desk was littered with charts and paper. The right was almost bare. Jerry was trying hard not to look at the prosthetic hand, but his perverse side demanded a glance or two. Tachyon hadn't caught him at it. There was a visible hardness to the plastic that was out of place on the alien, and the color was a flesh tone or two off.
"How is your adjustment coming, Jeremiah?" Tachyon looked at Jerry and then glanced out his office window into Jokertown.
"Fine. I mean, there's rough spots here and there." Jerry smiled. Tachyon looked even more tired than usual. His already pale skin had less color and his red hair was dull and poorly kept, at least for Tachyon.
"You're sure. You seem a bit… withdrawn."
Jerry always felt as transparent as Chrysalis' skin when talking to Tachyon. But Chrysalis was dead. So was Jerry's pretense that life was wonderful. "Well, I just, you know, sometimes I think I don't relate well to women. They make me feel inadequate. Worse than that, they make me feel needy. I'd give my-" Jerry caught himself in time. "I just want somebody to see me the way I am and love me for it."
Tachyon nodded slowly. "Only what we all want, Jeremiah. I suspect you are, in fact, very well loved. Perhaps you're simply unaware of it. Try to temper your patience with the knowledge that love often comes when you've tired of looking for it. As for alienation from the opposite sex, we all deal with that, too. I seem to have specialized in it myself. Of course, being from Takis, I have my own built-in excuse."