took on a strange shifting quality. The reception guests in their bright finery faded to gray. He could "see" the mind probe like a brilliant line of light. Becoming diffuse at its source, impossible to pinpoint. But haloing:
A man. Uniform. One of the security captains. Attache case.
BOMB!
He reached out with his mind and seized the officer. For a moment the man writhed and danced like a moth in a flame as his controller and Tach fought for supremacy. The strain was too much for his human mind, and consciousness left him like a candle being snuffed. The major went down spraddlelegged on the polished wood floor. Tach found his fingers closing about the edges of the black leather case, though he couldn't remember moving.
Controller knows he's lost focus. Time detonated or command detonated? No time to ponder on it.
The solution, when it came, almost wasn't conscious. He reached out, gripped the mind. Jack Braun stiffened, dropped his drink, and went running for the long windows overlooking the front garden and fountains. People flew like ninepins as the big ace came barreling through them. Tachyon cocked back his arm, prayed to the ancestors for aim and strength,' and threw.
Jack, like a hero in a forties football film, leapt, plucked the spinning case from the air, tucked it tight into his chest, and launched himself out the window. Glass haloed his gold-glowing body. A second later, and a tremendous explosion blew out the rest of the windows lining the Hall of Mirrors. Women screamed as razor-edged glass shards bit deep into unprotected skin. Glass and gravel from the yard pattered like hysterical raindrops onto the wood floor.
People rushed to the window to check on Braun. Tachyon turned his back on the windows and knelt beside the stentoriously breathing major. One should have priorities.
"Let's go over it again."
Tach eased his aching buttocks on the hard plastic chair, shifted until he could take a surreptitious glance at his watch. 12:10 A.M. Police were definitely the same the world over. Instead of being grateful for his having averted a tragedy, they were treating him as if he were the criminal. And Jack Braun had been spared all this because the authorities had insisted on carting him off to the hospital. Of course he wasn't hurt, that was why Tachyon had selected him. No doubt by morning the papers would be filled with praise for the brave American ace, thought Tach sourly. Never noticing my contributions.
"Monsieur?" prodded Jean Baptiste Rochambeau of the French Surete.
"To what purpose? I've told you. I sensed a powerful, natural mind control at work. Because of the user's lack of training and control, I was unable to pinpoint the source. I could, however, pinpoint its victim. When I fought for control, I read through to the controller's mind, read the presence of the bomb, mind-controlled Braun, tossed him the bomb, he went out the window, the bomb exploded, with him no worse for the wear except perhaps wearing some of the topiary"
"There is no topiary beyond the windows of the Hall of Mirrors," sniffed Rochambeau's assistant in his nasal, highpitched voice.
Tach swung around in the chair. "It was a little joke," he explained gently.
"Dr. Tachyon. We are not doubting your story. It's just that it's impossible. No such powerful ... mentat?"-he looked to Tachyon far confirmation-"exists in France. As Dr. Corvisart has explained, we have every carrier, both latent and expressed, on file."
"Then one has slipped past you."
Corvisart, an arrogant gray-haired man with fat cheeks like a chipmunk's and a tiny pursed bud of a mouth, gave a stubborn headshake.
"Every infant is tested and registered at birth. Every immigrant is tested at the border. Every tourist must have the test before they can receive a visa. The only explanation is the one I have suspected for several years. The virus has mutated."
"That is patent and utter nonsense! With all due respect, Doctor, I am the foremost authority on the wild card virus on this or any other world."
Perhaps something of an exaggeration that, but surely it could be forgiven. He had been enduring fools with such patience for so many hours.
Corvisart was quivering with outrage. "Our research has been acknowledged as the best in the world."
"Ah, but I don't publish." Tachyon was on his feet. "I don't have to." A single-step advance. " I have a certain advantage." Another. "I helped develop the withering thing!" he bellowed down into the Frenchman's face.
Corvisart held stubbornly firm. "You are wrong. The mentat exists, he