Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant (20 page)

Blips had gotten good at making the sorts of journeys most peoples had abandoned in their respective stone ages. Horseback. Raft. In this case, a Polynesian double canoe. A reproduction, incorporating almost no metal. A satellite would have actually had to look for it in order to find it. Three months ago, no one had thought to do that, himself included.

Jonathan Stone, rogue telepath, had gone once again on the hunt lists with the designation “whereabouts unknown.” Most had more or less forgotten about him. Alfred Bester had not. Alfred Bester hated to look foolish. Most of all, he hated to lose. It chilled him to think how close he had come, this time. Another day, and it would have been too late. It might still be, he reminded himself. He smiled pleasantly at the dark faces, often tattooed, watching him stroll up the beach. They did not smile back, made no attempt to hide their objection to his presence. Most had probably figured out why he was here. Some would act.

Even now, someone was probably realizing that his telephone wasn’t working, that the local system had been shut down. At the same time, they were also noticing that he was a lone Psi Cop, without backup. Yes, he was the gardener, turning over the rock, and soon enough things would start to squirm out. Soon enough they did, and in doing so did him a favor. All of their scuttling about, just beyond his sight, actually directed him to the right building. He knew for certain that it was the right place when six large men planted themselves on the porch, between him and the door.

“Hello,” he said, pleasantly. “How are you gentlemen today?”

They were all dark, dressed in sarongs or shorts. All but two had facial tattoos.

“Pretty well,” one of them answered, his New Zealander lilt melodic despite the subtle hint of danger built into it.

“And you?”

“I’m just great. Salt air, a beautiful beach…”

“Private property,” one of the men noted.

“Government business,” Al returned, pleasantly.

“I’m looking for a fellow named Jonathan Stone.”

“I had a cousin named Jonathan Stone,” one of the men volunteered.

“He went down at sea, some time ago. Kind of a crazy fellow, him.”

“He’s in there, isn’t he?”

“Nah. Or he’s everywhere, I guess, depending on your religion.”

“My religion says he’s alive, right in there,” Al maintained, nodding his chin up behind them.

“What’s your religion say about an afterlife?” another of the men growled.

“Tell him to come out,” Al said.

“Tell him to come out, and I won’t have to call in the choppers.”

“You don’t want to do that. All kinds of political trouble there.”

“Yes, I know. In fact, I think if choppers come in, at least one faction here will open fire. That means the EA troops will move in - something they’ve been looking for an excuse to do for a long time. That’s why I walked in here alone - I want to spare everyone that. Now, somebody here might take it into their head to do me harm. I can stop a few of you, maybe most of you, but in the end you’ll probably get me. I understand that. I’m here because I’m betting you have more sense than to do it, and because I think your cousin Jonathan has enough regard for his family and his people not to put them through it. He made a brave run. He almost beat me. But I’m the best there is, and I won. It’s time for him to acknowledge that.”

“What’s your name, Mr. Best-That-There-Is?”

“Alfred Bester!”

“Bester-That-There-Is,” the speaker said. “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

“Mr. Stone?”

“Yep.”

“Don’t do it, Johnny,” another argued.

“Nah, he’s right. If they’d never caught on, that would’ve been one thing. But he got me fair and square.” He stood up. “Do you have anything you’d like to bring?”

“Nope. Don’t insult my intelligence, okay? I know I’m going to a reeducation center. I’ve seen them. So let’s not pretend you’re taking me off to summer camp.”

Al shrugged.

“Very well.”

They started back up the shore, walking up the long spit of land. Stone kept stopping to gaze out at the sea.

“Do you mind?” he said.

“I didn’t give you a hard time. Do you mind if I look, for a moment? Might be a while before I see the ocean again.”

“Go ahead.”

Stone set his eyes on the distant horizon.

“My ancestors - some of them, anyway - sailed thousands of miles out there, without compasses, without astrolabes or computers or satellites - well, except the moon, of course. Just guts and the stars and dead reckoning.”

“You did it, too,” Al said.

“Oh-yeah, knowing it could be done. That’s not the same as sailing out into an unknown ocean, not knowing if anything at all is there, with only so much in the way of supplies…”

He smiled faintly.

“I always wanted to do that, out where that kind of thing is still done, in the stars. But they wouldn’t let me, you know, when they found out what I was. They wouldn’t let me be.”

“That’s life,” Al told him.

“We can’t have everything we want. I’d like to be taller. I’m not.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway, you could’ve joined the Corps. That can take you out there, to the stars.”

“Oh, yeah. As a cop, or a hunter, or the pet magician of some general. That’s not what I wanted.” He looked at Al.

“Why do you do it, Bester-That-There-Is? What did the underground ever do to you?”

“Killed my parents. Ruined everyone I ever loved. Not a lot, I guess, but I can be as petty as the next man about having my life ruined. The underground is a lie, and a destructive lie. The Corps is the truth. It may not be perfect, but it is the truth.” Stone shrugged.

“Guess I’ll see how truthful it is in the camps. Are you gonna check on me a year from now and see if I’m still alive? See if they beat me to death or drove me crazy with punishment scans? Or are you just going to turn me in and forget I ever existed?”

“I’m just doing my job.” Stone laughed.

“Yeah. Okay, I’m ready to go.”

Al caught something then, a bitter sardonic humor. He looked sharply at Stone. Stone saw that he knew and smiled.

“Got you, Mr. Bester-That-There-Is. You stopped to catch a minnow and the whale got away. Too late now.”

Al blinked at him, then hit him with a scan. He should have done it to start with, even though it was illegal. Sure, they could never use it in court, but Stone fought him, tooth and nail.

He was strong, maybe a P10. They stood on that headland by the sea, a storm whipping up. The sea and sky bled together, the earth thinned to nothing. Shark-headed beasts and bird-headed men stormed his defenses. Shaman battles, Al remembered. It lasted a long time. Stone was clever and determined, but in the end Al was stronger and more skilled. The big man slumped to the earth, unconscious, and Al had three things from him that were important. A name, a signature, a destination.

He turned and ran back up the beach as fast as he could, PPG drawn.

“Get the hell out of my way!” he snarled, as he came back up to the house.

They didn’t try to stop him; they stepped aside and let him go in. He didn’t find much - a blanket, the faint residue of a telepathic signature, the same one Stone had been carrying in his mind. He should have known Stone had given up too easily, that he was sacrificing himself for someone else. He should have known there was someone else in that damned canoe. The biggest fish of all.

The leader of the underground since 2190, for more than thirty years. Stephen Walters. Al had missed him. But he had his signature, and he knew where he was going. This hunt was just beginning.

Chapter 2

“Tell me why I should give you this assignment, Mr. Bester,” station chief Niles Ramanashah said mildly. Bester lifted his chin a tad.

“Sir. Because I’m the one who found the lead, sir.”

“We are all one in the Corps, Mr. Bester. Didn’t you know that? If it’s a matter of pride - if you just want to prove you can catch this guy, that’s not reason enough…”

“No, sir, that’s not it. I’m the one who so I’m the one who has his scent. This isn’t just any Blip - this is Stephen Walters, and I think we’ll need every edge we can get. If you check my records…”

“Oh, I’ve checked your records, Mr. Bester, no need to worry on that account. And of course your reputation precedes you. You’ve made quite the name for yourself for such a young man. You’re-what? Thirty?”

“Thirty-three, sir.” Ramanashah glanced at the display on his desk.

“Interned with Olivia Vong, where you showed outstanding courage under fire. First assigned to the Saint Petersburg office - you made lieutenant in just under four years. I won’t even bother to read your list of arrests.” He paused. “There are some notes. A number of civilian-related incidents.”

“Only two official complaints, sir, and in both cases the individuals were eventually convicted of aiding and abetting, so of course they kicked and screamed.”

“I can see that, Mr. Bester. Most of the worrisome comments are from your superiors, in particular Geoffrey de Vries, who had you transferred from his command. You seem to have made him nervous.”

“Commander de Vries is a good man, sir.”

“Indeed. But perhaps a little timid?”

“I can’t speak to that.”

“Huh. Mr. Bester, if I send you to Mars, it will be me who takes the heat for any incidents there. I am not timid, and to be perfectly candid, I have little sympathy for mundanes who get in the way of a Psi Corps investigation. On the other hand, the Corps itself has taken some political heat in the last few years, so for the good of us all, there is some need for a certain - decorum. Do you follow me?”

“Yes, sir. Does that mean…”

“I have another piece of information, Mr. Bester, one not written in your record. Director Johnston - he doesn’t like you. Do you know why? Not exactly, sir. Something about his predecessor taking an interest in me. Well, you are something of a loose cannon, Mr. Bester, but I haven’t seen a more gifted young officer in a long time. And, as you say, you are the logical man for the job. I’m having you transferred to my station immediately. The director won’t like it, but then that isn’t your concern. I’ll detach you to Mars as soon as that’s done. Pack warm, Mr. Bester I hear Mars can get a bit chilly.”

“Holy mother of God,” Erik Andersen choked out, closing his eyes.

The hull of the Lander had begun to hum in a tone that couldn’t possibly be good, and the distant rusty curve of the planet was flattening with uncomfortable speed.

“Doesn’t this bother you at all, AI?”

“It’s not the fall that worries me,” Al replied.

“It’s that quick stop at the bottom.”

But Al had to admit he wasn’t exactly thrilled. He had never been afraid of flying, but then he had never dropped like a stone for hundreds of miles. Over the last few days he had watched Mars go from marble to baseball to basketball, but it had always been out. Now it was down, with a vengeance.

He remembered Teacher Roberts’ long-ago lesson about the primate origins of human sensibilities. He could appreciate that ancient tree-dweller in him right now-it was bad, bad, bad to be up this high without a single branch to hold on to. Nope, this wasn’t flying, it was falling. It got worse, of course, as they hit the unpredictable lower atmosphere, which was thickened, wetted, and-it seemed-angered by terra-forming.

Just as you were telling yourself that you were safe in the belly of superior technology-that such landings were routine-your gut would drop, inertia would yank you in some unnatural direction, and it would seem thoroughly implausible that survival was even remotely possible. He kept his breathing steady and let Erik do the moaning for both of them. Being frightened sometimes had utility, sometimes not. He was in someone else’s hands and would either survive or not. Nothing his back-brain screamed at him would change that.

Still, when the ship was finally motionless, his body felt like a wet towel, snapped too many times by some kid in a locker room. He deboarded on wobbling legs and queued up for the security check. There was a woman in line in front of him with a little boy in tow. The boy, fidgety-and seemingly unperturbed by the landing - looked around restlessly before noticing Al and Erik behind him. When he did, he started tugging on the woman’s sleeve.

“Mommy,” he said, “there’s one a them mind-frickers behind us.”

The woman turned, her face darkening from copper to dark brown.

“Jeremy!” she snapped.

“I never want to hear you use that kind of language again.”

She looked apologetically at Al.

“I don’t know where kids hear these things, I honestly don’t. I’m very sorry.”

She was lying, and Al knew it. He smiled.

“Well, you can only control what they get at home,” he replied.

“I try to teach him the right things,” she said, her voice a bit defensive. She knelt down. “Look, Jeremy, I want you to apologize to the nice man. He’s Psi Cop - one of the good kind of telepaths. He helps protect us from the bad ones.”

The boy peeked around her leg.

“Hello, Jeremy,” Al said. “My name is Mr. Bester. As your mother said, I’m the good kind of telepath.”

“Oh.”

The boy reached uncertainly for his hand.

“How come you wear gloves?”

“Because if I didn’t, I might accidentally burn your brain all up,” Al said, still smiling. “We wouldn’t want that to happen to such a nice little boy.”

He looked back at the mother, whose face had done an odd about - face and was now rather pale.

“I believe,” he said, pointing beyond her, “that the customs man is waving you over.” He cast a knowing look at her bag. “May I help you with your luggage?”

He hadn’t scanned her, so her bright flicker of panic was all the more amusing. Everyone had something to hide, some dirty little exception they imagined themselves entitled to.

“No, thank you,” she said quickly.

Al shrugged. But as she left, he whispered a subtle, subliminal suggestion to the customs agent that he search her bags with more than usual thoroughness.

“You ever get used to that crap?” Erik asked.

“What crap?”

“The bigotry. The hatred.” Al shrugged.