Aces High

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HIS FRIENDS

By Victor Milan

CONTROVERSIAL SCIENTIST BRUTALLY SLAIN IN LAB, the headline read.

"You should see what it says in the Daily News," she said. "Young lady," Dr. Tachyon said, shoving the sheaf of New York Timeses away with fastidious fingertips and settling back perilously far in his swivel chair, "a policeman I am not. A doctor I am."

She frowned at him across the meticulous rectangle of his desk, cleared her throat, a small, fussy sound. "You have a reputation as father and protector to jokertown. If you don't act, an innocent joker is going to go down for murder."

It was his turn to frown. He ticked the high heel of one boot against the desk's metal lip. "Have you evidence? If so, the unfortunate fellow's legal counsel is the man to take it to."

"No. Nothing."

He plucked a yellow daffodil from a vase at his elbow, twirled its bell before his nose. "I wonder. You are perceptive enough to play on my sense of guilt, surely."

She smiled back, made a deprecating hand-wave, forestanimal quick and almost furtive, but slightly stiff. It was coming to him, irrelevantly, how acculturated he had become to this heavy world; his first reaction had been that she was scarcely this side of painfully thin, and only now did he appreciate how closely she approached the elfin pallid Takisian ideal of beauty. An albino almost, skin pale as paper, whiteblond hair, eyes barely blue. To his eyes she was drably dressed, a peach-colored skirt suit, cut severely, worn over a white blouse, a chain at her neck, as pale and fine as one of her hairs.

"It's my job, Doctor, as you're well aware. My paper expects me to know what goes on in Jokertown." Sara Morgenstern had been the Washington Post's expert on ace affairs since her coverage of the Jokertown riots ten years ago had gleaned her a nomination for the Pulitzer prize.

He made no response. She dropped her eyes. "Doughboy wouldn't do that, wouldn't kill anyone. He's gentle. He's retarded, you see."

"I know that."

"He lives with a joker they call the Shiner, down on Eldridge. Shiner looks after him."

"An innocent."

"Like a child. Oh, he was arrested in '76 for attacking a policeman. But that was… different. He- it was in the air." She seemed to want to say more, but her voice snagged.

"Indeed it was." He cocked his head. "You seem unusually involved."

"I can't stand to see Doughboy get hurt. He's bewildered, afraid. I just can't keep my journalist's objectivity."

"And the police? Why not go to them?"

"They have a suspect."

"But your paper? Surely the Post is not without influence."

She shook back icefall hair. "Oh, I can write a scathing expose, Doctor. Perhaps the New York papers will pick it up. Maybe even Sixty Minutes. Maybe-oh, in a year or two there'll be a public outcry, maybe justice will be done. In the meantime he's in the Tombs, Doctor. A child, lonely and afraid. Do you have any idea what it's like to be unjustly accused, to have your freedom wrongfully taken away?"

"Yes. I do."

She bit her lip. "I forgot. I'm sorry."

"It's nothing."

Tach leaned forward. "I'm a busy man, dear lady. I have a clinic to run. I keep trying to convince the authorities that the Swarm Mother won't necessarily go away simply because we defeated her first incursion, but instead may be preparing a new and even deadlier attack.." He sighed. "Well. I suppose I must look into this."

"You'll help?"

"I will."

"Thank God."

He stood up and came around to stand by her. She tipped her head back, lips curiously slack, and he had the sense that she was trying to be alluring without quite knowing how to go about it.

What is this? he wondered. He was not normally one to pass up an invitation from so attractive a woman, but there was something hidden here, and the old Takisian blood-feud instincts made him sheer away. Not that he sensed a threat; just a mystery, and that in itself was threatening to one of his caste.

On a whim, half irritated that she was making an offer and making it impossible to accept, he reached out and snagged the chain at her throat. A plain silver locket emerged, engraved with the initials A. W in copperplate. She reached for it quickly, but cat-nimble he flipped it open.

A picture of a girl, a child, no more than thirteen. Her hair was yellow, the features fuller, the grin haughtier, but she bore an unmistakable resemblance to Sara Morgenstern. "Your daughter?"

"My-my sister."