"Take me to your room."

He looked up, fingers frozen on a button. She lifted his hand, bit down hard on a forefinger.

Help me.

A cry from his soul? Or a random thought from Fleur? He ignored the plaintive voice.

"We can't be seen leaving together," whispered Fleur. He handed her his room key. "I'll follow… soon."

Jack's phone bleeped again. It had been ringing all through his lunch at the Bello Mondo and the other patrons were beginning to get annoyed. The Speaker of the U. S.

House of Representatives, in fact, was scowling at him from the next table. Jack offered Jim Wright of Texas an apologetic look, opened his case, and took out the handset.

"This is Tachyon. I am calling from the press room. I must leave, and I require someone here with your kind of charisma."

"What for, exactly?"

"I will inform you when you arrive. Please hurry."

"Hey. Don't give me this Takisian-royalty-in-a-hurry crap." But Tachyon had hung up.

Jack contemplated grinding the telephone to dust. Instead he finished his last bite of dessert, overpaid, and fed the maitre d' his C-note.

The distance from the Marriott to the Convention Center was precisely one unfiltered Camel in length. Jack's neck prickled. He and Fleur van Renssaeler jostled in a door leading to the Convention Center. Psychos-his third wife had been a real nut case made him nervous. Despite the way Fleur spooked him, Jack gave her a jaunty wave and grin, received a close-lipped smile in return. He saw a Marriott room key in her hand and figured she was heading to the hotel to give some reporter a blow job straight from God, maybe convert him to Barnett's cause.

Tachyon was waiting just beneath the ABC skybox, wearing his cavalier coat with the slashes and turnbacks, the riding breeches and boots. The alien's face was strained. When he saw Jack, the violet eyes flashed.

"What took you so long?"

"Hi, to you, too."

"It's imperative that you speak to the press immediately." Waving his plumed hat under Jack's nose.

"Fine." Jack tipped another cigarette out of the pack. "What am I supposed to be talking to them about?"

"This 'Anyone-but-Hartmann business. If the media keeps harping on this, it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. "

"Okay." Jack grinned as he lit the Camel. "Is Connie Chung in there? And if she's married, is her husband here?"

"This is no time for-" Tachyon began waving the hat again, then abruptly swallowed his words. Color blossomed on his cheeks. At the sight, a cold, despairing certainty settled into Jack's mind.

"It's Fleur, right? That was your hotel key she waved at me."

"She did not wave-" The alien swallowed his words again. Tachyon drew himself up to his full princely heightwith the heels, about eight inches below Jack's-and glared with furious violet eyes. "I will not have my personal life questioned. This is no affair of yours."

"Darn right it's no affair of mine. I turned her down a few days ago."

Tachyon showed his teeth. "How dare you! Do you know who you're speaking to?"

Jack took a measured breath of smoke. "I'm talking to someone who's being led around by his dick, which is pretty funny, considering how long it's been since you last got it up."

Tachyon flushed red with anger. Cold fear touched Jack's spine at the thought that he'd gone too far, that this was someone who had been raised to kill at the slightest insult, who had in fact once sworn to murder Jack and might decide that he'd ignored the vow for too long. .

But instead Tachyon just brushed past him, heading out of the Convention Center. Jack followed, his long legs keeping pace easily with the aliens quick step.

"Tach, okay, that wasn't fair," he said. "The point is, Fleur did make a pass at me the other day."

"I don't believe you." Tachyon spoke through clenched teeth, his boot heels tapping rapidly on the concrete.

"She's trying to embarrass the campaign. You know how much the whole Sara Morgenstern business cost us. There might be half-a-dozen network cameramen behind a two-way mirror watching you when you screw."

"In… mg… bedroom?" Tachyon's measured answer came out as a half shriek.

"It's still a setup. Will you listen?" He grabbed Tachyon's arm. "It's a fucking-"

"Leave me alone!" Wrenching his arm free.

"She's a psycho. She's not her mother. Understand? She's not Blythe."

Tachyon stopped walking and spun to face Jack. His face was drained of color. "Do not," he said, "let that name past your lips ever again. You have not earned that right."

Jack stared at him, his annoyance turning to boiling anger. "This is for your own good," he said. He stuck his cigarette in his mouth and picked Tachyon up and put him under his arm.

He started walking for the Omni Hotel while the alien kicked and struggled.

"Blood and bone! Let me down!"

"I'm going to find a cold shower and put you in it," Jack said. "Consider it your penance for throwing that bomb at me in Paris. If you want to get laid after that, I know a Miss Peachtree who will be glad-"

Jack stopped moving. He put Tachyon down. He marched up the ramp to the stair leading to the skybox. He dropped the cigarette to the concrete floor, ground it under his heel, and stepped in.

Then he blinked, took a long breath, and tried not to collapse. Tachyon had just shredded his mind like a newspaper torn by a high wind.

Reporters waited, scattered around tables and looking bored. Some were staring at him. Summoning nerve from someplace he didn't know he had, Jack gave them a smile and wave, and stepped forward to say his piece.

"Would you like a drink?"

"No." Her arms were folded protectively across her breasts.

He hefted the bottle. Alcohol was sometimes an inhibitor. He quickly replaced the bottle. Hugged his elbows. Stared at the floor. They were separated by feet. It might have been light years. Never had he felt so gauche.

The hiss of silk brought his head up. Fleur's skirt puddled on the floor about her feet. She studied the far wall with frowning abstraction as she swiftly unbuttoned her blouse, unsnapped her bra. The heavy breasts swung free. She was larger bosomed than her mother had been. Tachyon couldn't decide if he liked it. His mouth was dry from nerves. He watched her buttocks dimple as she climbed into the bed. "Wait," he forced out.

"Let's do this." As a come-on line it lacked something. He jammed his hands into his pockets. Took a quick turn about the room. He noted his erection was back.

"I'm scared."

Propping her elbows on her knees, hands hanging loosely between her legs in front of her dark snatch, Fleur said dryly, "That's my line."

"Help me a little."

"How?"

"Undress me. Be loving with me."

She swung off the bed, and took hold of the lace cravat at his throat. Unbuttoned his shirt, and pushed it off his shoulders. Tach, standing with closed eyes, could feel her hair brushing at his skin. The scent of vanilla and spice washed across him-Shalimar. Blythe's scent. It brought it all back so strongly. That hot summer day in '48, the crackle of petticoats as he embraced Blythe, the smell and taste of Shalimar as his lips explored her neck.

Fleur slithered down the length of him like a worshiper at some ancient altar. Her lips were pressed to his belly as she opened his pants, and pulled them down over his hips. His erection throbbed in time to his beating heart. In a frenzy he kicked off his shoes, and struggled to free himself from the confining material of his pants. Fleur laughed, husky and low, as he lost his balance and sprawled on the floor. Kissing, clutching, panting, punctuating the desperate flow of endearments with deep groans, they lurched toward the bed. A single bead of sperm squeezed from the head of his cock. Terrified that he would lose it Tachyon spread her legs, murmuring Takisian obscenities like a pagan litany. The lips of her labia closed about him.