the desk in the crisis center in City Hall, shook out a cigarette, and put it between his lips. "What on earth were you thinking of, permitting that to go over the air without consulting me!" He made no move to light the cigarette. He had a young man's face with an old man's wrinkles, and lynx yellow eyes. His ears stuck out.
"Herr Neumann," the mayor's representative said, trapping the phone receiver between his shoulder and a couple of chins and getting it quite sweaty, "here in Berlin our reflex is to shy away from censorship. We had enough of that in the bad old days, na ja?"
" I don't mean that. How are we to control this situation if we're not even informed when steps like this are taken?" He leaned back and stroked a finger down one of the furrows that bracketed his mouth. "This could turn into Munich all' over again."
Tachyon studied the digital clock built into the high heel of one of the pair of boots he'd bought on the Ku'damn the day before. Aside from the clocks he was in full seventeenthcentury regalia. This tour was a political stunt, he thought. But still, we might have accomplished some good. Is this how it's going to end?
"Who is this al-Muezzin?" he asked.
"Daoud Hassani is his name. He's an ace who can destroy things with his voice, rather like your own late ace Howler," Neumann said. If he noticed Tachyon's wince he gave no sign. "He's from Palestine. He's one of Nur al-Allah's people, works out of Syria. He claimed responsibility for the downing of that El Al jetliner at Orly last June."
"I'm afraid we've heard far from the last of the Light of Allah," Tachyon said. Neumann nodded grimly. Since the tour had left Syria, there had been three dozen bombings worldwide in retribution for its "treacherous attack" on the ace prophet.
If only that wretched woman had finished the job, Tach thought. He was careful not to speak it aloud, These Earthers could be sensitive about such things.
Sweat ran down the side of his neck and into the lace collar of his blouse. The radiator hummed and groaned with heat. I wish they were less sensitive to cold. Why do these Germans insist on making their hot planet so much hotter? The door opened. Clamor spilled in from the international press corps crammed into the corridor outside. A political aide slipped inside and whispered to the mayor's man. The mayor's man petulantly slammed down his phone.
"Ms. Morgenstern has come from the Kempinski," he announced.
"Bring her in at once," Tachyon said.
The mayor's man jutted his underlip, which gleamed wet in the fluorescents. "Impossible. She's a member of the press, and we have excluded the press from this room for the duration."
Tachyon looked at the man down the length of his fine, straight nose. "I demand that Ms. Morgenstern be admitted at once," he said in that tone of voice reserved on Takis for grooms who tread on freshly polished boots and serving maids who spill soup on heads of allied Psi Lord houses who are guesting in the manor.
"Let her in," Neumann said. "She's brought Herr Jones's tape for us."
Sara was wearing a white trench coat with a hand-wide belt red as a bloody bandage. Tach shook his head. Like all fashion statements she made, this one jarred.
She came to him. They shared a brief, dry embrace. She turned away, unslinging her heavy handbag.
Tachyon wondered. Had that been a touch of metal in her watercolor eyes, or only tears?
"Did. you hear that?" the redhead called Anneke warbled. "One of the pigs we got today was a Jew."
Early afternoon. The radio simmered with reports and conjectures about the kidnapping. The terrorists were exalted, strutting and puffing for each other's benefit.
"One more drop of blood to avenge our brothers in Palestine," said Wolf sonorously.
"What about the nigger ace?" demanded the one who looked like a lifeguard and answered to Ulrich. "Has he died yet?"
"He's not going to anytime soon," Anneke said. "According to the news, he walked out of the hospital within an hour of being admitted."
"That's bullshit! I hit him with half a magazine. I saw that van fall on him."
Anneke sidled over from the radio and ran her fingers along the line of Ulrich's jaw. "Don't you think if he can lift a van all by himself, he might be a little hard to hurt, sweetheart?" She stood up on the toes of her sneakers and kissed