Ace In The Hole

CHAPTER SIX

Saturday July 23, 1988

They stood before a door at a Motel 6 on the outskirts of Atlanta. Tachyon tried to think what he would say to the woman he had so wronged, but all he could think about was how tired he felt. He tried to figure out when he had last slept. He had a bad feeling it had been Tuesday night.

Polyakov rapped once sharply on the door. "Sara, it's George."

Tachyon tensed for the moment, and then Sara was there, staring strained and white-faced up at him. She wore a crumpled blue-and-white dress. The petticoats crackled as she backed away, arms folded protectively across her breasts. Polyakov was a stolid dark shadow behind him. Tachyon felt his throat work several times as he tried to force out words. Suddenly he advanced on her in a rush. Dropped to one knee, and lifting the hem of her skirt, pressed it to his lips.

"Sara, forgive me."

She was making faint inarticulate mewing sounds. Her fingertips brushed wraith-like across his hair as he knelt with bowed head before her.

"What's he doing?" she finally asked pathetically. "Making an overly dramatic Takisian gesture. In times of stress, he reverts to this sort of extraordinary behavior," grunted the Russian. "I'll leave you two alone." The door closed softly behind him, and they listened to his footsteps retreating down the hall.

She tugged at his shoulder. "Oh, get up, please."

The pain from his cracked ribs drew a grunt from him as Tach pushed to his feet. "Forgive me if I embarrassed you, but words were inadequate. I have wronged you horribly."

"Then… then…"

"Yes, you are not mad," he said answering her greatest fear. "I have confronted the monster." She began to cry. Gently he reached out with a fingertip, and wiped her cheeks. "Oh, Ricky."

Her shoulders were jutting blades as he pulled her into an embrace. "Hush, it is over now."

Throwing back her head she looked up at him. "Really? Truly?"

"Yes. His momentum is broken. He can never regain it." Her lashes fluttered wearily down onto her cheeks. "Then I'm safe."

"Yes."

He kissed her, tasting the salt from her tears. Her white-gold hair lay across his shoulder as she rested her head against him. So tiny. She was one of the few women on this hot-and-heavy planet who made him feel tall. Elfin pale, approaching Takisian standards of beauty. And he remembered that he had wanted her. Three years ago when she had entered his life, begging him to save the pathetic joker Doughboy who had been wrongfully accused of murder. Now he was whole-or at least his body was. And he was lonely and lost and afraid, and so was she… He transferred his kisses to her mouth.

He knew she could not be a virgin, but there was something so delightfully shy and awkward about her responses. He swung her up into his arms, and groaned again.

Her head snapped back, tendons etched in the thin neck. "You're hurt."

"It's nothing." He tottered to the bed, ignoring the pain. Laid her down.

He wondered at this sudden surge of libido when all about him his life lay in shattered ruins. Then he realized it was appropriate. The Takisian spirit was a dauntless one, and it would always seek to lure victory out of defeat, creation from despair. Tach paused, asked, "Do you want me?"

"Yes, oh, yes. I'm so grateful… so very grateful." She choked, and the tears matted in the hair at her temples. Sliding his hands up her haunches Tach snagged the top of her panty hose, and pulled them down. And noticed that runs and holes had left them like a tattered cobweb beaten in a killing wind.

"Oh, my poor little one. My little, little one."

Suddenly he was sobbing. Agony shot through him as the paroxysms shook his sore ribs. Sara, looking terrified, pressed her palms to his cheeks.

"Oh, don't. Please don't. What's wrong?"

"I trusted him, and he betrayed me. Now," his arm flailed in the general direction of Piedmont Park

"they think I've betrayed them. I'm so tired. So tired."

Sara with gentle hands undressed him. Got him beneath the covers. Her naked flesh was as clammy as his. For a long time they merely hugged, shivering as their minds and bodies tried to relax. Tachyon had a hand cupped over one tiny breast. Sara lay in the curve of his arm lightly tracing the line of his lips with a forefinger.

"It's probably a good thing I'm not on Takis."

"Why?"

"I'd have been dead long ago. If a mere human, a groundling, can outmaneuver me at the Takisian game." He shook his head.

"Which is?"

"Intrigue. I've known Hartmann for twenty years. And I never suspected."

"He was very cunning. I've spent-" Her voice deepened and thickened with bitterness. "And ruined-my life pursuing him."

"And now you've succeeded. Was it worth it?"

"I don't know." She sighed, and he kissed her.

Tachyon barked out a short laugh, then muffled a groan. " I have no idea where my thirteen-year-old grandson is, isn't that incredible? I'm so damned busy strutting about the grand stage of life that I have no time to live. I wonder what it would be like to be just a person?"

"Boring. You'd hate it."

Easing up on an elbow, Tach stared down at her. "Do you think so?"

"Yes."

He laid back down. "I don't know. To have a wife, children, friends."

"You have friends."

"I think I lost most of them tonight."

Sara began to cry again. "I'm sorry. It's all my fault-" Tachyon laid a hand over her mouth. "No, that's my line."

"Ricky loved me, and he had him cut to pieces. I never even slept with him."

The alien slid his hand down her stomach, matted his fingers in her coons. "Then let us honor the dead by celebrating living."

"Isn't that a little callous?"

"Hush, Sara, you think too much."