Stepping from the shower, the alien studied his image in the mirror as he towel dried his shoulder-length red hair. Noted the scars on his left arm and hand where the doctors had repaired the bones crushed in an eleventh-hour rescue of Angelface. The puckered scar on his thigh-legacy of a terrorist's bullet in Paris. The long scar on the right bicepmemory of a duel with his cousin. "Living takes a hell of a toll, doesn't it?"

"Just how old are you?" the Russian asked curiously. "Adjusting for Earth's rotational period; eighty-nine, ninety. Somewhere in there."

"I was young when I met you."

"Yes."

"Now I am old and fat and in the grip of a terrible fear. You can so easily establish if my fears are real or mere delusions. Probe Hartmann, read him, then act."

"Gregg Hartmann is my friend. I don't probe my friends. I don't even probe you."

"I give you permission to do so. If it will help to convince you.

"

"Ideal, you must be in terror."

"I am. Hartmann is… evil."

"Odd word from an old material dialectician like yourself."

"Nevertheless, it applies."

Tachyon shook his head, walked into the bedroom, rummaged in a drawer for fresh underwear. He could sense George behind him, a portly irritating presence. "I don't believe you."

"No, you don't want to believe me. A fundamental difference. How much do you know of Hartmann's early life? His passage through this world has left a trail of mysterious deaths and shattered lives. His high school football coach, his college roommate-"

"So he's had the misfortune to be on the periphery of violent events. That does not make him an ace. Or would you have him damned by association?"

"And what of a politician who is kidnapped twice, and escapes both times under mysterious circumstances?"

"What's so mysterious? In Syria, Kahina turned upon her brother and stabbed him. In the resulting chaos we escaped. In Germany-"