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waiting, and gave him a tail-wagging welcome, then padded beside him with
eager devotion.
Sam smiled down at his faithful companion, and his pleasure was not due just
to the wine, the company, or the greeting. This was going to work, this
strange alliance of magic and technology, of the ancient Sidhe and modern
engineering. It was as real, and as heady a mixture, as the odd gourmet dinner
he'd just eaten. And like the meal, it all meshed, so well that the various
parts might have been made for each other.
For all his skeptical, cynical words to young Tannim, he'd seen a reflection
of the elves' purported concern for the welfare of children in the way Tannim
had treated the young prostitute. That hadn't been an act of any kind; Tannim
had been worried about the girl, and had expressed that worry in tangible ways
that could help her immediately and directly. Money was one thing, but giving
her a way to eat regularly for a while was a damned good idea.
He could have bought her groceries-but that would have entailed getting her
into his car, and that could be trouble if the police took an interest in the
proceedings. And even if he'd bought food for her, chances are she'd not have
known how to cook anything. Assuming she lives somewhere that she can cook
anything.
It must be a hard, lonely way to live, now that he thought about it. Under the
makeup, the child had been thin and pale, wearing a brittle mask of
indifference that was likely to crack at any time. He'd always assumed hookers
were too lazy to do any real work-but what place would hire a thirteen-year-
old child? And what runaway would risk the chance of being caught by giving
her real name to get a real job? Under the age of sixteen, you had to have a
letter of parental consent to work, and if she was, indeed, a runaway, how
would she ever get one?
Of course, she could have lied about her age, and forged a parental consent
letter, but such fragile deceits wouldn't hold up to any kind of examination.
Perhaps she had tried just that, and been found out. Perhaps she had
discovered she had no other choice. Sex seemed less important these days than
it was in his day; perhaps selling herself to strangers didn't seem that
terrible.
Then again, perhaps it did, but there were no options for her, no way to go
home.
He had never quite realized how relatively idyllic his own childhood had been.
Why, he'd even had a pony-of course, most Irish children living in the country
had ponies, but still . . .
Her life now must be hellish-but as Tannim had asked, if she was willing to
continue with it, how bad must her home life have been that she chose this
over it?
Sam resolved to start carrying books of fast-food gift certificates. That way,
if they did run into the child again, or one like her, he'd have a material
way to help as well.
And 'tisn't likely she'd find a dope dealer willing to trade drugs for
coupons.
But there wasn't much he could do now, not without knowing all the
circumstances, without even knowing the child's name and address. He had work
to do; Tania's plight would have to wait.
He'd learned long ago how to put problems that seemed critical-but over which
he had no control-in the back of his mind while he carried on with lesser
concerns. He'd gotten several possibilities for the solution to Keighvin's
needs last night, and he needed to track down the latest research, to see if
anything new could eliminate his bogus "process" right off.
At least there's one problem I won't be having. The engine blocks will be
there, and be every thing I claim, pass every test. This won't be a cold-
fusion fiasco-I've got real results, solid product that I can hand out to
anyone who doubts. If the boys in Salt Lake City had waited until they had
working test reactors producing clean power before they went pubic, they'd
have saved themselves a world of trouble. And if the process had worked the
way they said it did, well, nobody would be arguing with their theory or their
results, they'd just be going crazy trying to reproduce what they'd done.
That's what's going to happen here.
He was looking forward to watching the other firms going crazy, in fact. This
was almost like his college-prank days, on a massive scale.
Sam walked slowly down the hall, turning on lights as he passed. He intended
to re-arm the security system as soon as he got to the office so that he
couldn't be disturbed. His mind was buzzing with all of his plans, and he was
so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he didn't even notice the stranger
standing in his office until Thoreau stopped dead in the doorway and growled.
Perhaps the man hadn't been there until that very moment-for as soon as he saw
the creature, Sam's own hackles went up. There was a curious double-vision
quality about the intruder; one moment he was black-haired and dark-eyed, and
as human as Tannim. The next moment-
The next moment he was as unhuman as Keighvin, and clearly of the same genetic
background. But there the resemblance ended, for where there was a palpable
air of power tempered with reason and compassion about Keighvin, this man wore
the mantle of power without control and shaped by greed. Now Sam understood
what his granny had meant when she had said that even with the Sight it was
difficult for humans, child or adult, to tell the dark Sidhe from the kindly.
If the creature had not been so obvious in his menace, he might have convinced
Sam that he was Keighvin's very cousin.
Thoreau growled again, a note of hysterical fear in the sound; he backed up,
putting Sam between himself and the Sidhe. Not very brave, certainly not the
television picture of Lassie-but very intelligent. Sam was just as glad. He
didn't want this creature to strike out and hurt his little companion. Sam had
defenses; Thoreau had none.
"Samuel Kelly, do you see me?" the Sidhe asked flatly. It had the sound of a
ritual challenge.
"I see you," Sam replied. "I see you as you are, so you might as well drop the
seeming." Then he added, in a hasty afterthought, "You were not invited." Just
in case recognition implied acceptance of the man's presence. Granny's stories
had warned about the Sidhe and the propensity for semantics-games.
"I don't require an invitation," the Sidhe responded arrogantly, folding his
arms over his chest as he dropped the human disguise.
One for me, Sam thought. The Sidhe played coup-games of prestige as well.
Every time he surprised the creature, or caused it to do something, he won a
"point." That intangible scoring might count for something in the next few
moments. The higher Sam's prestige, the less inclined the thing might be to
bother him.
"So what do you want?" Sam asked, tempering the fact that he'd been forced by
the stranger's silence into asking with, "I'm busy, and I haven't time for [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]