Ace in the Hole - By George R. R. Martin Page 0,148
feet, whirled away into darkness, carried off somewhere without light, without security, without hope.
"Gregg, right?" he said. "Gregg's the secret ace." Tachyon just looked away.
"Talk to me, damn it!"
"I cannot."
Jack's knees felt as if they wouldn't support him. He lurched backward, groping for a chair, and sat down. His cigarette was smoldering on the floor and he picked it up, took a long drag. A tentative, fragile calm descended on him.
"Tell me, Tach," be said. "I need to know. I need to know if I fucked up again."
Tachyon closed his eyes. "It no longer matters, Jack."
"The one thing I do right. The one thing I do right in years, and-" Jack looked in surprise at the cigarette he had just crushed in his hand. He looked for some place to put it, found none, shrugged, dusted it off onto the floor.
"Tach," Jack said. "I need to know this. I got Gregg nominated, never mind how I did it. I need to know whether I did good or not."
Tachyon's eyes were still closed. Jack looked at him in rising anger.
"Are we going to have to play twenty questions here, Tach?"
Tachyon said nothing. "Is Gregg a secret ace?" No answer.
"Sara Morgenstern accused Gregg of being a killer. Is that true?"
Nothing.
"The little freak who tried to kill Sara. Does he work for Gregg?"
The last words were a shout. Tachyon just lay there, his eyes closed. Finally he spoke.
"Go away. It's over. There's nothing we can do."
Rage blazed in Jack's mind. He rose from his chair, lunged over the bed to shout in the alien's face. "You're so arrogant," he said. "You're such a goddamn prince. You say it's over, so it's over. You say that people should stop supporting Hartmann, and you give no reason, but they're supposed to go along with you because you're a Takisian prince and you know better than anyone else. Has it ever occurred to you that if you'd just fucking condescended to tell some of us lowly Earth scum about Gregg, we might have managed to put the brakes to his campaign without getting Barnett elected? Instead you just ordered me to deliver California to Jackson, and expected me to say, Yeah, your lordship, whatever you say." Jack shook his fist in front of Tachyon's closed eyes. "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you can trust a human being now and again? Has it?"
No answer.
"Damn you anyway!"
Tachyon said nothing. Jack turned and bolted the room like a runaway locomotive. His rage fueled his long stride out of the hospital, down the corridor, out into a blazing, humid afternoon that seemed to suck the anger right out of his body. He headed vaguely toward the Omni. He really didn't have anywhere to go. He didn't know what to do about Hartmann, and Blaise could be on this particular street as well as anywhere.
If only the goddamn alien had trusted us, Jack thought. Then it occurred to him that maybe it was he, Jack, years ago, who had taught Tachyon not to trust anyone, not with anything that mattered.
That thought depressed him all the way home.
The speech was set, protocol for the evening's speeches had been set with Devaughn and Jackson's staff, Gregg had called the other candidates personally and asked each of them to join him on the campaign road in their home states. Dukakis and Gore had been politely enthusiastic, congratulating him on the victory and promising their help to unify the party. Only Barnett had been cool, as Gregg had expected.
To hell with him. We'll take him as a puppet and play with him the next time we meet.
Ellen was sleeping. Calderone's latest version of the acceptance speech was in the Compaq waiting for him. He could hear Colin, the joker Secret Service who had replaced Alex James, scuffing his feet outside the room.
Gregg kissed Ellen, saw her eyes flutter open. "I'm going back to the hotel and meet with Logan and a few others," he whispered. Ellen nodded sleepily.
Gregg packed the Compaq into its bag and collected Colin at the door. "Heading back to the Marriott," Colin said into his walkie-talkie. "Bring the car around to the side entrance. Get some people on the elevators."
On the first floor, Gregg heard a familiar voice at the desk. "Please, mister. Listen, they're for the senator's wife ..." Peanut. Puppetman stirred.
"Just a minute, Colin ..." Gregg headed for the lobby, Colin relaying the change of plans to the others.