now to Dan Rather and Bob Scheiffer."
The red light on the camera went o$: The crowd was roaring, cheering, on their feet.
Jack wished with all his heart that he could cheer with them.
For a long moment Tachyon was disoriented. Then he spotted the California banner, and he knew where he was. The speakers podium thrust like the prow of a ship into the crowded hall. On its various tiers and levels stood the great and powerful. Claw-like his hand closed on a man's shoulder, and he forced the reporter aside.
"Hey, asshole! Watch out."
"Move," Tach snarled, and pushed past him. Deeper into the crowd. Searching for a clear view.
"... THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES ..." The words finally penetrated Tachyon's haze. "... GREGG HARTMANN!"
The fifteen-thousand people in the Omni erupted. The band blared out "Stars and Stripes Forever." Cheers, screams, whistles. Balloons floated down to be batted aside by wildly swinging Hartmann signs. Tachyon shuddered under the assault of sound and the proximity of so many people.
His aching eyes focused on the podium. Gregg grinning, waving, linking hands with Jackson. Ellen, wan and drawn in a wheelchair at his side, smiling. Suddenly what had been only a peripheral bit of information penetrated. Eighty percent of the people in the Omni wore masks. What had been a merely hopeless task had now become impossible. There was no way by ships or stars that he could locate James Spector in time to prevent the killing.
He wept while all around him the crowd screamed.
"... the next president of the United States, Gregg Hartmann!"
The crowd went wild out in the Omni. Green-and-gold Hartmann signs waved back and forth as the band played. The nets on the ceiling rained balloons down on the cheering delegates.
Puppetman was nearly in orgasm. The pent-up emotions of the long week were being released in one huge celebration, and the sheer tidal force of it was staggering. Gregg took off his clown's mask and stepped forward onto the speaker's platform, raising his arms in victory; they shouted back to him fiercely, the noise almost deafening. He had to shout to Jesse to come forward with him. They clasped hands, raised them waving to the people, and the cheering redoubled, drowning out the band, making the Omni shake with the thunderous acclamation.
It was glorious. It was ecstasy.
The ovation went on for long minutes. Gregg waved, raised his hands, nodded. He saw Jack Braun up in the CBS booth with Cronkite, pointed and smiled, giving him a thumbs-up salute. He kissed Ellen, in a wheelchair at the rear of the podium. He grinned at Devaughn, at Logan, at everyone. Behind their masks, he knew they were all smiling back at him.
We did it! The power in him was drunk with the adulation. It's all ours, everything.
Gregg could only grin helplessly in agreement. All ours.
When they finally quieted slightly, he stepped to the podium. He looked up at the packed stands, at the shoulderto-shoulder mob on the floor. Many of them were in masks, joining with those on the platform.
"Thank you, every last one of you," he said huskily, and they roared again. He raised his hands; the cheering softened. It felt good, being able to do that.
"This has been the hardest struggle of my life," he continued. "But Ellen and I never gave up hope. We trusted in the judgment of all of you out there, and you haven't let us down."
The chant was sweeping across the convention floor:
"Hartmann! Hartmann!" A wave, a torrent, it swept them all up. "Hartmann! Hartmann!" Gregg shook his head in feigned modesty, letting it all wash over him and grinning down at them.
"Hartmann! Hartmann!"
And the grin suddenly went frozen on his face. Somehow, Mackie was down there in the front ranks of the crowd, grinning like all the rest, a hunchbacked boy-man dressed all in black and leather. A chill rattled down Gregg's spine.
It's okay, Puppetman murmured inside his head. It's okay. I can control him. But Gregg shivered, and when he leaned toward the microphones again, his voice had lost some of its enthusiasm.
Forging across the floor between delirious delegates in white plastic straw-like hats with HARTMANN emblazoned on them, Mackie felt as if he were made of air. He never felt any different when he went insubstantial-phased out-but if he did this was how he might feel. As if he was just going to diffuse like a cloud at any moment.
He hadn't slept last night, wedged in between a pair of stinking winos