Jack shrugged.
"Start 02," said Holmes. "I'm going to shoot some epinephrine down the endotrachial tube. I'll want a milligram of atropine in a minute."
Jack looked around and saw that Earl was holding hands with a long-legged woman with blonde hair tousled over one eye and broad, padded shoulders.
"You must be Lena Goldoni," he said. "I've seen your pictures."
"We've got fibrillation," said Lena.
"Slow," Earl said, shaking his head. "Farm boys are so slow." His scarf was rippling in an invisible wind.
Jack realized he was here with almost all the old Four Aces crowd, everyone except David Harstein, and he began to wonder if he should apologize for what he'd done to them, how he'd destroyed them all. But they all seemed so happy to see him he decided not to mention it.
More people were clustering around him. Some of them he'd forgotten he'd known. Even Chester the Chimp, who'd played opposite Jack in Tarzan of the Apes, was there, riding on someone's shoulders.
"Give him three-hundred joules," said the ape. "Stop CPR. Clear! Clear, Goddamn it! Get your hand off that metal rail, will you, Lois?"
The light was getting brighter and brighter. Circling around them, the rays seemed almost palpable, like the walls of a tunnel. Jack felt his speed increase as he shot toward the source of the light. He began to hear people singing, a million voices raised in joy.
The light grew nearer, not just white light but the White Light. Jack's heart lifted. He began to understand what it was that Earl wanted him to know.
"Three-hundred-sixty!" shrieked the ape. "Clear! Clear!" Jack stretched out his arms and prepared to dive into the heart of the White Light. Suddenly he seemed to hesitate in his progress. He was slowing down. Desperately he tried to speed up. He longed to fly farther.
He realized the White Light was looking at him.
"What a weenie," the White Light said. "Get that weenie outta here."
Jack coughed and opened his eyes and saw people crouched over him, men and women he recognized from Gregg Hartmann's Secret Service detail, working with emergency medical equipment that was part of their standard issue. He felt an ache in his solar plexus and he couldn't stop coughing. Jack looked up over their heads, saw blood-flecked concrete walls and steep stair risers.
"Normal sinus rhythm," one said. "We got pulse. We got pressure." He spoke in Archibald Holmes's voice. A couple of the others cheered.
A tall brown-haired woman was speaking into a walkietalkie. "Ambulance on its way." The voice was Blythe's.
"I blew it," Jack tried to say. He couldn't talk over the endotrachial tube they'd slid down his throat. "I blew it again." He was too weak too feel much emotion over it.
The ambulance crew arrived and carried him away.
8:00 P.M.
He had himself well in hand. The emotional devastation of an hour ago was passed. Jack was dead. The friendship, the man he had known as Gregg Hartmann was dead. Chrysalis was dead. Very well. So be it. He was in control now. He would do what had to be done.
But these officious twits were arguing with him. Mouths moving, gums and tongues red against black and whitefaces. "I'm telling you the reverend is busy. You don't have an appointment," said the black aide patiently, as if explaining addition to a retarded child.
"He will see me. I am Tachyon," explained the alien in the same patient, condescending tone.
"Go and phone. Use appropriate channels," said Straight Arrow calmly.
"I don't have time for appropriate channels," snapped Tachyon. His control was unraveling like line reeling from a fly fishing rod.
"It's late," put in the aide.
The door to the suite was partially ajar. Tachyon measured the gap between the two far bigger men. It would accommodate him. Wriggling like a fish he darted between them, and through the door.
"HEY!"
Shouts. A wall of people advancing upon him. Phones shrilling. A television pouring its electronic inanities into the crowded suite.
"Get out of my way! GET OUT OF MY WAY! WHERE IS HE? I MUST SEE HIM!" His voice ringing shrilly in his own ears.
"You can't just waltz in here-" bawled Straight Arrow. People had gripped him by arms and legs, lifting him completely off the ground. Tach screamed with fury, and writhed in their grasps. Mind-controlling people frantically, he felt the holds on him loosen, then jerk tight again as new people stepped forward to replace those he had dropped slumbering to the floor.
The connecting door to the bedroom flew open, banging violently into the far wall. Jesse