confronted the doctor, Jay Ackroyd, the EL, and Hiram Worchester, Chrysalis's murderer.
Ackroyd had been incensed with Brennan. For a man neck-deep in a sordid and violent business, he had a more than somewhat unrealistic view about violence. But Brennan didn't hold that against him. He never held a man's ideals against him.
But Tachyon. Tachyon had missed an important point with his speech about slavish obedience to the letter of the law. Laws are only words written on paper, words that change on society's whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool.
The only thing a man can do is decide for himself what is right or wrong and what must be done to combat the wrong. And then he must face the consequences of his decision, no matter what they are.
Brennan pulled up before the Jokertown Clinic, killed the engine, and got out of the van. He walked through the sliding glass doors that led into the receiving area and entered chaos.
A half-hysterical woman was shouting to a harried-looking nurse that no, dammit, her baby was always that sort of suffocated purplish color, but still, her gills just weren't working right, while another white-uniformed nurse was explaining to an excessively furry man that Blue Cross usually didn't consider electrolysis a necessary medical procedure, no matter how badly he wanted a career in the food-service industry. Another joker-female and quite attractive if you discounted the mottled, flaking condition of her skin was sitting reading an eight-month-old copy of National Geographic while her toddlers slithered after each other in and out of the chairs, circling around a gaunt, hollow-eyed old joker who was coughing continually and spitting up unhealthy-looking gobs of something into a styrofoam cup clutched firmly in his chelate forepaws.
Someone behind Brennan muttered, "Excuse me," in a harried voice, and swept by. It was Tachyon. He was accompanied by a woman who was attractive in a gaunt, hard-edged sort of way, despite the eye patch and the jagged scar that ran down her right cheek. She moved in a graceful economical manner that suggested she knew how to handle herself in almost any situation. That was rather a necessity for anyone who spent a lot of time around the doctor.
"Tachyon."
He turned with a put-upon sigh that caught in his throat as he recognized Brennan and he frowned at the expression on Brennan's face. "What is it? Is Jennifer-"
"We have to talk," Brennan said, glancing at the woman. "Somewhere in private."
She looked curiously from Tachyon to Brennan and back again to the alien. Tachyon gestured at her vaguely with his small delicate-looking hands. "Daniel, this is Cody Havero, Dr. Cody Havero. Cody, this is, uh, a friend of mine..."
As usual, Tachyon's mouth had worked faster than his brain, mentioning Brennan's real first name. Brennan, exlast year as the mysterious bow-and-arrow vigilante known as Yeoman, preferred to keep such information private. "Daniel Archer," Brennan supplied.
Tachyon nodded, and Havero offered her hand. "What is it? Is Jennifer all right?" Tachyon repeated. Brennan shook his head as he released Havero's hand. "I haven't had a chance to check on her yet. There's something else we have to discuss. Immediately."
Havero glanced again from Tachyon to Brennan. "I can take a hint," she said. "I have to go over some patient histories with Nurse Follet at the front desk. We can finish our discussion after you two are done."
"Right," Tachyon said. "Thank you, Cody." He glanced around the reception area. "Come," he said to Brennan, taking his arm. "The coffee machine seems to be deserted. We can talk while I get some caffeine into my system. It looks like it's going to be one of those days."
Mother and gilled baby rushed past them with a sympathetic nurse, and the squealing joker children played tag around them as they walked by, but the area around the vending machine was deserted. Tachyon put eighty cents into the coffee machine and got a small paper cup full of a black, strong-smelling liquid.
"Can I get one for you?" Tachyon asked Brennan, but Brennan shook his head. "That's right," Tachyon said. "You take tea. I can have some brought from my office--"
Brennan shook his head again. "Let's get down to it, Doctor."
Tachyon looked at him, hurt in his lilac eyes. "We used to