"They're all around us, those things," he said. "At least twenty. Maybe more. They're not human, not even of this Earth. Their minds, if you could call them that, are alien, utterly beyond my experience."
"Are they Swarm creatures?"
Fortunato rose with easy, fluid grace, shrugged. "Could be. I thought the best they could do was hulks that looked like the Pillsbury doughboy. I thought bellboys and shit like that was beyond them."
"Maybe they've refined their technique." Brennan held up a hand, pressed his ear to the door. The footsteps in the corridor beyond passed by their room as he and Fortunato waited quietly. "What about Tachyon?"
Fortunato frowned. "I contacted one human mind. A maid. She didn't realize anything unusual was going on. A little pissed off that the guests on this floor weren't tipping too well. Weren't tipping at all, in fact. There was also something I touched by the elevators. Could've been Tachyon's mind, but there was a blanket on it, a fence around it. I could catch only vague, filtered notions. They were full of weariness. And pain."
"It could be Tachyon?"
"It could."
Brennan took a deep breath. "Any plans?"
"All out of 'em."
The two looked at each other. Brennan touched the quiver at his side.
"I wish you had a weapon," he said.
"I do. Several." He tapped his forehead. "And they're all in here."
They waited until it was quiet in the corridor outside, then opened the door and moved fast. They ran as quietly as they could down the hotel corridor, hung a right as it turned to a T, and found themselves by the bank of elevators. In a niche, of to one side, was something that looked like a linen closet. Brennan notched an arrow and drew it back while Fortunato gestured the door open.
Brennan lowered the bow.
"Sweet Christ in heaven," he murmured. Fortunato glanced from him to the closet, and froze. '
Tachyon was inside. His hair, drenched with sweat, fell over his face in limp curls. His eyes stared through the tangle of hair. They were puffy and bloodshot, and glazed with pain and weariness. The shelves and linens had been removed from the closet, making room for Tachyon and the thing that embraced him. Tachyon was pressed against a vast, purplish couch of biomass that bound him with a score of ropy tendrils across his neck, chest, arms, and legs. The thing pulsed rhythmically, rippling like a fat lady bouncing on a water bed.
Tachyon was set into a hollow in its surface that cupped him securely, perfectly following his contours and dimensions. His eyes focused upon Fortunato, flicked to Brennan. "Help," he croaked, his lips working for several moments before any sound came out.
Brennan reached down, drew the knife he carried in an ankle sheath, and slashed at the tendrils binding Tachyon to the thing. It was like cutting through hard, stretchy rubber, but he sawed away grimly,- ignoring the increasing pulsations of the thing and the greenish ichor that splattered himself and Tachyon.
It took a minute to saw through all the tendrils, but even then it still clung to Tachyon. It was then that Brennan noticed the suckers fastened to the sides and back of Tachyon's neck. "How do we get you out?" he asked.
"Just pull," Tachyon whispered.
Brennan did, and Tachyon began to scream.
The doctor finally came free. He collapsed into Brennan's arms, stinking of sweat and fear and alien secretions. He was deathly pale and bleeding profusely from the points where the suckers had fastened. The wounds didn't look serious, but there was, Brennan realized, no telling how damaging they actually might be.
"Look out," Fortunato said, "we've got company." Brennan looked up the corridor. A dozen of the human simulacra were approaching, dressed as bellhops, maids, and ordinary men and women in dresses and three-piece suits. In the middle of them was Lankester of the State Department. Brennan dragged Tachyon over to the elevator as the creatures advanced at a steady pace, their faces composed and utterly unemotional. Fortunato joined him, a worried look on his face.
"What do we do now?"
"Punch for an elevator."
The things were twenty feet away when they heard the chime of an arriving elevator.
"Take him," Brennan said, thrusting the limp, barely conscious form of Tachyon into Fortunato's arms. He drew an arrow from his quiver as the elevator door swished open. Inside were three middle-aged men dressed in conservative business suits with Shriner's hats on their heads. They stared wide-eyed as Fortunato dragged Tachyon inside. Fortunato looked at them.
"Basement, please," he said. The one standing by the panel of buttons punched it automatically as Fortunato stopped the door from closing with his foot. Brennan placed three explosive arrows in the midst of the advancing creatures. The first one hit Lankester in the chest. The second and third exploded to the left and right of him, blowing gore and protoplasm all over the hotel corridor. He fell back into the elevator and Fortunato let the door close.
Brennan leaned on his bow, took a deep, relieved breath. The Shriners huddled together fearfully in the corner of the elevator.
Fortunato looked at them. "First time in town?"
"So Lankester had been replaced by one of these newgeneration swarmlings some time ago?" Brennan asked. Tachyon nodded and took a long pull from the mug Mai handed him. It was full of thick black coffee, laced generously with brandy.
"Before I ever met him-it. That's why it was pushing for that insane attack plan. It knew we wouldn't be able to really harm the Swarm Mother, yet such an attack would make everyone think something concrete was being done to fight the menace." He paused, took another long pull from the mug. "And there's another thing. The Swarm Mother might want specimens of aces."
Brennan looked at him quizzically. "Specimens?"
"To take apart and replicate from her own biomass."
"Shit," Fortunato murmured. "It wants to grow its own aces. "
They were in Tachyon's office at the clinic. Tachyon had cleaned up, but was still pale and shaky from the ordeal he had undergone. There was a bandage around his neck where the Swarm creature had attached its suckers.
"What happens now?" Brennan asked. Tachyon sighed, set the mug aside.
"We attack the Swarm Mother."
"What?" Fortunato said. "That Swarm thing scramble your brains? You just said it was insane to attack the Mother."
"It was. It is. But it's the best option open to us." He looked from Fortunato, who was openly incredulous, to Brennan, who looked blankly noncommittal. "Look, the Swarm has started a new wave of attack which is much more ' sophisticated than its previous ones. There's no telling how far they've managed to penetrate into the government."
"If they could replace Lankester," Brennan murmured, "who else might they have gotten?"
"Exactly. Whom does it have?" Tachyon shuddered. "The possibilities are mind-boggling. If it could replace enough key personnel to carry it off, it'd think nothing of starting a worldwide nuclear exchange and simply waiting the necessary millenia until the surface of the planet is inhabitable once again."
"It's obvious that we can't trust anyone from the government to help us attack the Swarm Mother. We have to do it ourselves."
"How do we do that?" Fortunato asked in a tone that indicated he wasn't won over by Tachyon's arguments. "We have the singularity shifter," Tachyon said, his voice rising eagerly. "We need a weapon, though. Takisians have successfully used biological weapons against Swarm Mothers in the past, but your biological sciences aren't sophisticated enough to produce a suitable weapon. Perhaps I can come up with something…"
"There is a weapon," a quiet voice said. The three men turned and looked at Mai, who had been silently listening to their conversation.