Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant (14 page)

The image in the glass was no longer his own. It was Fatima Cristoban’s. The Corps is not my mother or my father, she said, defiantly. I have a mother and father. I won’t go see them, because that’s the first place they will lookforme. I’m choking here, I’m hemmed in. I want a bigger sky. I want things to be as they were before I got my psi. They will be.

He blinked his eyes, slowly, resting them for a few heartbeats in the dark before returning them to use. He was looking at himself again. But inside, in his head, he felt a sort of compass now, a lodestone swinging always north. And north was Fatima Cristoban. Taking a deep breath, he left Bey’s office and found him outside of the building, smoking a long cigar.

“I’m ready,” he said. Bey studied him through oily curls of smoke.

“So you are,” he said, approvingly.

AI watched the Earth below with fascination. He had never flown before. The helicopter made almost no sound, and it seemed as if they were gliding along, fifty meters or so above the trees. Like flying in a dream.

“We have her as far as Amsterdam,” Bey explained.

“She used a forged ident not a bad job, but not so good that we didn’t catch it, after a few hours.”

“I don’t think…”

Al broke off, not wanting to speak out of turn.

“Mr. Bester?”

“I don’t think she could have forged an identicard.”

“On what do you base that, Mr. Bester?”

“I could be wrong. That just wasn’t my impression of her.”

Bey stroked his goatee.

“I tend to agree with you. You think she had an underground railroad connection?”

Al shrugged.

“Sir, I don’t know that much about the underground.”

“Well, we’ll be met by other cops and some bloodhounds in Amsterdam, in case things get hairy. My guess is they won’t - the resistance is weak these days, and laying low. I think she got the ident from a forger in Geneva and is hoping to find the underground railroad in Amsterdam. It’s a city with that sort of reputation.”

Al nodded. They were over countryside now, and it occurred to Al that it was probably some of the same territory he had covered by train not long ago. Then it had seemed somehow overwhelming; now he saw it as a hawk might, a big place full of small things at his mercy. It was a feeling he liked a great deal.

“Mr. Bester, I want to be clear about your position here. You are a student, and an observer. This sort of thing is not usual - I usually select advanced students from my class to accompany me, if anyone.”

“I’m honored, sir, but may I ask - why me?”

“Think of it as a reward. You’ve pleased me, these past few months. I think you’ve come a long way. The Corps needs Psi Cops who know what they are doing, not…”

He broke off and twiddled with his mustache, frowning, before continuing.

“Anyway. I had to pull considerable strings for this. No one thought it was very wise, not after your last little excursion. There are some who will be watching this whole enterprise very closely. I want them to know you are now the levelheaded lad I say you are. Do you think we can convince them of that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. I chose this hunt because I don’t think there will be much danger, but that is never a given, so pay attention to me. If I say go, you go. If I say sit, you sit.”

“Understood, sir.”

“I also thought you might like to see Amsterdam. You enjoyed Paris, didn’t you?”

“Well, sir, I was shot and nearly killed, so I’m not sure `enjoyed’ would be the best word…”

“Hah. I scanned you. You were fascinated by Paris, and well you should have been. You will be fascinated by Amsterdam, too. With any luck, we can make time for a brief tour. Educational, of course.”

“She was here,” Bey said, surveying the dingy little room.

“Not long ago.”

Al felt it, too, the vague imprint of Cristoban’s psyche. It didn’t belong here, in this narrow space, on that wretched tiny bed. It belonged-out somewhere, with a wide sky. He thought back to her file, which he had reviewed on the helicopter ride.

She was from Argentina. Was it a spacious place? He shook the feeling off. Ever since he had “prepared” himself with the photograph, it was as if a ghost hung near his shoulders, entering his eyes now and then and rendering them alien. Was it possible that he was actually in touch with the Blip somehow? Sharing her actual thoughts?

He asked Bey. Bey was still walking slowly around the room, as if surveying each molecule in it. He didn’t look at Al.

“I don’t know,” he replied simply.

“Telepathy and distance are very strange things. Once, in the Belt, a construction worker went missing. We didn’t find him for hours, and when we did it was first with radar and then with a telescope. He was in an EVA suit, twenty miles away, drifting. No response from his comlink, nothing. All of the shuttles were out, but we knew we could rig up a sled in pretty short order - if it was worth it.

They asked me if I could tell whether he was alive or dead. He was a little dot in the sky, but once I established line of sight, I had him. I scanned him, and he was alive, though unconscious. Turns out it was attempted murder, but that’s a longer story. Twenty miles and clear as a bell. I even got who the would - be killer was from him, then and there. We had him detained before the sled even rescued the castaway.

“On the other hand, I’ve been unable to pull surface thoughts from someone hiding in a closet ten feet away.”

He paused.

“I know they teach line of sight, but I could tell you some stories-“

He looked at Al, finally.

“It comes down to this: We still don’t know exactly how telepathy works. I sometimes wonder if its limitations aren’t more psychosomatic or perceptual than anything else. Why else should I be able to scan someone twenty miles away, simply because I can see a tiny silver dot?”

“So it’s possible I might have established some link with her?”

“I wouldn’t count on it. It’s more likely closure - your mind putting things together from a number of facts and sensations. Your memory of her signature, the traces of her left in this room, the details you know about her - the Human mind is a strange machine, even without telepathy. The main thing, Mr. Bester, is that it works. “Why“ is usually a fine question to ask, but in this case.”

He stopped, smiling.

“Have you ever seen the animated vids?”

“Yes. I used to like Roadrunner.”

“Hmm… the roadrunner was the Blip, right? And the coyote, the Psi Cop?”

“Yes, sir. The roadrunner was clever, but he always got caught in the end.”

“Did he ever run off of a cliff, and not know it? Just hang there in the air until he realized that he wasn’t standing on anything?”

“Yes, sir. That’s when he would fall.”

“Sometimes our abilities are like that. Convince yourself that something shouldn’t work, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“In that case, sir, I’d like to tell you something I really shouldn’t know.”

“What’s that, Mr. Bester?”

“She’s out in a park, somewhere, or a field. Someplace open.”

Bey nodded thoughtfully.

“Well. An intuition. And you may be right - that may be where she wants to be. That’s very different from knowing where she is.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let us suppose she is trying to reach such a place. I assure you, it is not in Amsterdam. What will she need to get there?”

“Credits. Her own chit is no good now, and she must know that.”

“Exactly. Let’s interview the manager.”

Cloe Lyster was a stringy woman in her late forties, with hair like a white tumbleweed. Her beaklike mouth clacked out brief, acerbic answers to their questions.

No, of course she didn’t know where the girl was. She had checked in the day before, gone out, and hadn’t returned. Yes, of course she’d run an ident check, but there were problems with the system just now. No, she hadn’t required a retina scan - she didn’t even have the equipment. Young? Yes, but a million young people came through Amsterdam on holiday. Why should that be suspicious?

“If she was on holiday, why did she ask you about jobs?” Bey asked, not looking up from his notebook.

“Lots of kids get part-time…”

She froze, realizing that this was the first mention of jobs thus far. Bey looked at her, a bit archly.

“I know the law,” she said, sullenly.

“You aren’t allowed to do that.”

“Do what? Ask you a question? Madame, of course I am.”

“You aren’t allowed to read my mind.” “I didn’t,” he said mildly.

“I guessed, and you obliged by being stupid. That’s at least twice you’ve been stupid with us, Madame. Once when you lied to us, again when you let me trick you. Please, do not be stupid again. I now have probable cause to do a scan, if I wish. I can have the authority in less than an hour. Have you ever been scanned, Ms. Lyster? I assure you, you won’t like it. Personally, I’d prefer not to do one-I don’t imagine I would like the inside of your mind.”

He leaned on the antique, polished wood of the counter.

“Why not just tell me what I want to know? I will find out, one way or the other.”

Lyster’s eyes seemed to dull, and she reached for a slip of paper and a pen. She wrote down a name and an address.

“It’s nothing to do with me,” she said, softly.

“I warn them.”

Bey looked at the scrap for an instant, then back at Lyster.

“Nothing to do with you?” he said, softly.

He pulled out his telephone and flipped it open.

“This is Bey,” he said.

“I need an elite squad to meet me at the following address,” he said, then read the street and building number from the manager’s note.

“At least ten bloodhounds. Keep it quiet, but come armed for bear.”

He paused.

“Send an ambulance to 21 Lagendijk Street, too. A Ms. Lyster has had some sort of attack.”

He closed the phone. Lyster was backing away, blinking rapidly. She turned and tried to run.

“Sir?” Al asked, as their car sped through the city. “Why did you…”

“You’ll see why I did it soon enough,” Bey said, grimly. “Don’t worry about her. She’ll wake up with a headache and have bad dreams for the next six months. Better than she deserves.”

“She works with the underground?”

Bey shook his head.

“Most runaways like Ms. Cristoban don’t find the underground. They find people like Saskia Grijs.”

“Grijs?”

“Yes. That’s who our sweet little old landlady referred Ms. Cristoban to.”

Bey parked on the street, near an ancient-looking three-story building. Lights were flashing in the upper story, and a crowd was gathered on the street, staring upward.

“No!” Bey shouted “I told them to wait!”

He bolted from the car and sped toward the house, PPG in hand, black coat flapping behind him. Al sat stunned for a moment, staring up at the flashing lights, before noticing two men in MetaPol uniforms lying facedown in the street.

Bey hadn’t told him to stay in the car. Hadn’t told him anything. In a few heartbeats he was with one of the downed men. He knew in an instant the fellow was dead. It wasn’t the gallon or so of blood pooled beneath him, or even the film forming on his wide eyes - it was the nothing that was in his mind. The other man was dead, too. For a moment Al felt disoriented, as if the whole world had come apart at the atomic level, and then come back together slightly different.

Dead. This was real. They had been people, and now they weren’t. Above, he could hear weapons conversing. That’s where Bey had gone. Bey, who could be dead, too. The dead man was still clutching a PPG. Gingerly, Al took it from his still-warm fingers and slowly, quite slowly, followed Bey up the stairs. He continued to pass bodies. One on the stairs, one on the first landing. Outside, sirens were approaching-regular police, he imagined.

He thumbed the PPG on, found that it was already charged. The man outside must have died shooting, at least. The corpse trail led to an open door. Al noticed that the gunfire seemed to have stopped.

He glanced through, and found himself face-to-face with the muzzle of a PPG.

“Don’t!” Bey said, from somewhere. “He’s with me!”

Al’s heart was well toward the front of his mouth. The face staring into his was intense, almost mad-looking-but beneath it was the familiar Psi Corps badge. You should be more careful, kid. Al nodded vigorously, still not capable of saying anything. Bey was across the room. Five other cops had taken up positions. Bodies littered the floor, perhaps fifteen, and only one wore a badge.

“Search the whole thing,” Bey snapped. “Rip up what you have to. Where is the girl?”

As his eyes adjusted to the darkened room, Al realized that Bey was speaking to a woman, thirtieth. Her platinum hair shone against her dark brown business suit.

“I want my lawyer,” she said.

Bey’s expression didn’t change, but hers did. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her back arched, hands spasming. She made a sort of clucking sound and fell wetly to the hardwood floor. He nodded.

“Three of you come with me. Al, I thought I told you.”

He paused for an instant.

“No, I guess I didn’t, did I? My mistake. Come along then.”

He broke into a trot. They wound up another tight corridor, old wood. Oddly enough, the air had a strange, antiseptic smell. Bey approached a door and motioned. Two of the hounds kicked it in.

“Hey!”

The man inside was large, broad-shouldered, with aquiline features. He was just putting on a white shirt. The rest of his clothes lay in a heap on the floor.

“Listen, I paid good…” then he saw who they were. PPGs whined.

“No,” Bey commanded. “I want this one to go to trial. Take photographs.”

One of the hounds walked over to the man and kicked him in the crotch. When he doubled, he slammed the butt of his PPG into the base of his skull. The fellow went down, groaning. Bey ignored all of that and went to the bed. That was where Cristoban was.

Al followed, almost unaware that he was doing so. There was blood everywhere. He noted, dully. That it had beaded on the sheets rather than soaking in, as if the sheets had been made with-this-in mind.