Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant (23 page)

At Martian dawn, they came to the location Chandler had relinquished. A thin rim of rose appeared along the too-near horizon. They woke Durst, and the three of them bundled into surface suits and breathers, then broke the seal on the ATV For the first time, Al stepped onto the true, unadorned surface of the red planet.

It was cold. The chill seeped through the body-hugging pressure skin, through the parka, and Al tightened the hood around his face. His thermometer read -50 Fahrenheit. His skin prickled. Here, in the lowlands, terra-forming had already produced an atmosphere dense enough to make a full pressure suit unnecessary, and they had lowered the cabin pressure of the ATV slowly over the night to prevent the bends. Still, the air somehow felt thinner when one was actually in it. It was, of course, poison-mostly carbon dioxide, so they still relied on the oxygen in the tanks on their backs, tanks that quickly became heavy even in the low Martian gravity.

But they didn’t have far to go. Though it was dark, the landscape Al had ripped from Chandler’s mind fit well against what he now saw. The entrance to the buried complex should be simple to find-and he had found the passwords, the keys to the front door, in a hiding place in a chair cushion.

Durst had placed her call, and even as their feet set down on what looked and felt through his booted feet like compact, wet beach sand, Al noticed fliers, coming from the sunrise. Four of them, black-hulled, unmarked, their bizarrely large airfoils making them resemble dragonflies. AI checked his PPG as the vehicles settled, and heavily armed figures began pouring out. A trio of them made their way toward Al. Close up, they all looked pretty much the same, faces almost totally obscured by breathers, physiques encrusted in heavy parkas.

Mr. Bester I take it?

Yes, sir.

My name is Natasha Alexander. Department Sigma is my command. An honor to meet you.

He remembered the name - Bey had mentioned her. One of Vacit’s old aides.

We’ll see about that. In any event, you’ve had your part in this. We’ll take it from here.

Not to argue with you, ma’am, but that’s not what my orders say. I am to find and apprehend the members of the underground on Mars. My authorization comes from EarthGov, and says nothing about twiddling my thumbs during the raid.

The faceless figure seemed to contemplate him, and he felt fear stalking him as he was reminded of a Grin. The moment passed.

Very well, Mr. Bester Indeed it might be better this way. While this needs to be done, I have no desire to officially involve Department Sigma. The raid is officially yours.

Beneath his own mask he allowed himself a small, triumphant smile. There was no need for stealth. The fliers took back to the air for surveillance purposes; they deep-radared the installation, dropped men at anything their tactical schematics suggested might be an exit, and started blowing things up. In the thin air, the first string of charges sounded like firecrackers, and the smoke blew out in a long exhalation as the first corridor, apparently slightly above outside pressure, surrendered a few millibars.

Al was one of the first inside, just behind four bloodhounds who were worked into a near frenzy, blasting everything that moved. The walls and floor were slick with sudden layers of frost, and clouds of still-condensing moisture and smoke from explosives fluoresced like nebula in the PPG bursts. In this surreal atmosphere, Al had the detached impression of invading an anthill, and the insect-like masks of the defenders heightened that impression.

He had his weapon set on low-after all, these were telepaths, and he didn’t want to kill them. The mule-kick and surface burns of the first setting were sufficient to stop most people. The installation defenders didn’t pay him the same courtesy. A bloodhound next to him went down with a fist-sized hole bored in his neck.

They fought their way through corridors booby-trapped with explosives; two of the bloodhounds went down in an ambush from ceiling vents, but the rest worked their way in, for what seemed like hours. The rogues made a last stand in some sort of control room, full of computers and uplink equipment. Barricades had been thrown against the doors.

The Department Sigma people were terribly thorough; they radared, set off charges, and then fired through the breaches. Several fell there, and Al was virtually swept into the room by those rushing from behind. He fell into a crouch behind a console as plasma and old-fashioned lead slugs hissed and hammered around him.

And that’s when he caught it, the signature. Suddenly he had the overwhelming sensation of familiarity, of warmth. A weird memory of being held, and certain smells-He stuck his arm around the corner, fired. Somewhere near, God slammed the palm of one hand into the world and flipped off the light switch with the other.

He came to moments later, in the dark, struggling for breath. The explosion had broken the seal on his mask, and though his lungs gulped, the air they sucked wasn’t nourishing them. He pressed the seal back into place. His ears rang as if the tympana had been replaced with brass gongs, but that didn’t stop the groans of the dead and dying from reaching his brain.

He pushed himself up, roughly. Something was wrong with one of his legs, but he couldn’t tell what. It hurt, that much was certain, and it didn’t work well. His nose was bleeding, too, the blood beginning to pool in his breather. The cavern was lit by a few dim emergency lights and a few console indicators that miraculously still worked.

He could still feel the signature nearby, attached to a great deal of anguish. He stumbled toward it. He found Stephen Walters crushed against a bulkhead, one leg bent under him in a very strange way, one arm missing at the elbow. He still had his mask on, but Al had the distinct impression the eyes behind it were open.

I know you.

The hairs on the back of Al’s neck stood up.

I was on New Zealand, Al replied.

I tracked you here.

No. Before that. I know you. Oh, God in heaven. It’s my fault. Fiona, Matthew, forgive…

It paralyzed Al. The sense of familiarity was like a drug. It wasn’t pleasant, it was horrible, but he needed it somehow. Somehow - somehow it was a piece of him that was missing.

What are you talking about?

I know the feel of you. I saw you born - after a11I had done, after all the blood on my hands, but they let me watch you come into the world, and you were so beautiful I cried. You were our hope, our dream-My name is Alfred Bester.

We called you Stee, so you wouldn’t be confused with me. They gave you my name, made me your godfather. Your mother, Fiona, how I loved her. Matthew, I loved him, too, but God…

A terrible spasm of pain stopped him and almost stopped his heart. Al felt it tremble.

It was me that lost you. I thought I could save them, but they knew they wouldn’t make it. All they asked was for me to get you out, keep you free, and I failed them. Failed…

Matthew and Fiona Dexter were terrorists. They died when the bomb they were planting in a housing compound went off early. The bomb they set off killed my parents.

Lies. His voice was getting weak. They fed you lies. You are Stephen Kevin Dexter.

No.

Walters cocked his head wearily, and then he reached up to his face. With a trembling hand he pulled his breather up and off. In the gloom, his eyes were colorless, but Al knew they were blue. Bright blue, like the sky. A woman with dark red hair and changeable eyes, a black-tressed man, both all smiles. He knew them. Had always known them, but he hadn’t seen their faces since the Grins had banished them. They were looking down at a baby in a crib, talking baby talk. And he could feel a love so strong - was it love?

He had never felt anything just like it, because there was no hint of physical desire, no desperate need, just deep, abiding affection, and hope… He was seeing through Walters’ eyes, through the filter of Walters’ heart. But then, horribly, another image superimposed itself. The same two people, but looking down at him, and he was the baby in the crib, and behind Mother and Father stood another man, a man with bright blue eyes, as bright as the sun…

They loved you. I loved you. I love you still. Psi Corps killed them and they took you away. I tried to find you…

Al wasn’t aware of finding the PPG. Suddenly it was there, in his left hand and in front of him. His hand clenched on it, and Walters’ face turned bright green, uncomprehending.

Shut up.

His hand clenched again, another viridian flare.

Shut up.

The mind images were dropping away, but not fast enough. He tried to shoot again, but the charge was gone. He tried and tried, squeezing the contact, throttling the lying glyphs in his brain.

Fiona… Matthew…

Walters was still there, pulling the images about him in a blazing cloak. His eyes were still there, too, resigned, full of gentle reprimand. He stood near a gate, the doors of which were just beginning to crack open.

You can’t destroy the truth.

And he was gone, and finally the images shredded, a thousand visions of his parents, dancing, fighting, embracing, holding him…

No!

He took it all in his fist and he squeezed until it went away. The next thing he knew, Erik was kneeling by him.

“Al? Al? C’mon, let go, he’s dead.”

Erik was trying to pry the PPG from his hand. He didn’t seem to understand that Al couldn’t let go. He couldn’t.

Chapter 4

As Natasha Alexander was both older and more striking than Al had imagined. Her hair-the sort of grey that suggested it had once been red or blond-was clipped to just below her ears, framing a powerful, handsome face. Her black uniform-unmarked save for the usual Psi Corps badgo-sheathed a lean, trim body.

“Mr. Bester. You are feeling well, I hope.”

“I won’t lie, Ms. Alexander - I’ve certainly felt better.”

“If it’s any consolation, I’m sure a day will come when you’ll feel worse,” she said wryly.

“I’m afraid I don’t find that reassuring,” he admitted.

He tried to sit up, failed, and settled for raising the back of the bed a few inches.

“What’s even less reassuring is that they won’t tell me when I will get out of here. I don’t suppose they told you anything?”

“Only that your physical injuries will take a few weeks to heal. But they’re likely to keep you longer than that, I think.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You were in a bad state when we found you. Fugueing, as a matter of fact.”

“So I’m told.”

“And I gather you’ve been unwilling to tell the doctors exactly what occurred during your encounter with Walters.”

“Ms. Alexander, that’s because I don’t remember,” he lied.

She nodded, slightly.

“How’s the hand?” He held up the knotted fingers.

“It doesn’t hurt, but I can’t…”

He stared at the useless digits, then shrugged. That he was crippled was self-evident.

“Did you know,” Alexander asked conversationally, “that they can’t find a physical reason for your disability?”

“That’s not all that unusual, is it?” Al asked.

“Nerve damage can be subtle, they tell me. Undetectable, even.”

Alexander sighed.

“Mr. Bester, you are, without doubt, one of the finest young officers in the Corps. Your record documents it, and I’ve seen you in action. Your performance was exemplary, and I’m putting you in for a commendation. But Walters did something to you, and you won’t tell us what. That’s… not good for you.”

“Ma’am, I told you…”

“Yes, Mr. Bester, I know what you told the doctors, and I know what you told me. That’s unfortunate.

Imagine our position - a highly trained, upper-end P12 suffers some sort of mind attack by one of the most notorious rogues of all time, is left with certain debilitating injuries, and can’t remember anything at all about it. Mr. Bester, we want to help you, but you have to help us.”

“You think I’m lying?”

“Not necessarily. Partial amnesia is common after a severe mind-blast. What I would like is for you to allow some diagnostic scanning. We might be able to reconstruct what really happened.”

Al tried to keep his face expressionless.

“Is that an order?”

She gazed at him for a moment, then sighed.

No. It should be. But the old director took a great interest in you and I… honor him.

Her eyes shifted away, then back.

I know you’ve suffered from being his favorite you might as well benefit this once. Even though I’m not certain this is a benefit - I think you should have the scans. But it’s your decision. I’m probably the only person who will give you such consideration.

Ma’am - can you tell me why Director Vacit was interested in me?

He never told me. I never knew.

“No, I’m not ordering it,” she said aloud.

“But you should consider it.”

“I will.”

She nodded briskly and started to go. Then she turned back, regarding him oddly for a moment.

“Ma’am?”

“It’s nothing. You just remind me of someone.”

“Perhaps you knew my parents.”

That drew a peculiar reaction from her, a sort of mental hiccup that she quickly covered up.

“You are certain,” she asked very softly, “that you don’t remember anything Walters said or did?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s probably for the best. Good day, Mr. Bester. And good luck to you.”

He watched her go.

The fact was, he knew exactly what Walters had done. The sick old man had reached down into Al’s deepest memories-to the parents he barely remembered-and he had twisted them. Expertly, cruelly, precisely. He had probably even known them, before he had turned traitor to the Corps. In a desperate effort to save his own life, Walters had tainted those memories of Matthew and Fiona Dexter with his own, trying to confuse him. It had worked.

Now Al doubted his own mind. It made him sick. If letting them scan him would help matters… but no. Walters had been skillful. Anyone examining him might actually think it was the truth-that he really was the son of the Dexters. If anyone in the Corps suspected that, for even a second, his career would be over. Of course, they should be able to check, right? There must be genetic records in the data files that would prove conclusively that he was unrelated to the Dexters. But if he checked himself, it might be noticed, and as Alexander had pointed out, there were people who did not care for him. And what if Walters-or someone else, someone on the inside-had tampered with the records? He couldn’t rule out the possibility.