Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant (24 page)

This whole thing felt like a time bomb, waiting to blow up in his face. He had to be careful not to trip it himself, not until he had the resources to defuse it. After about a week they let him get out of bed but continued to stall as to when he could leave the hospital.

Alexander had been right-they wanted to keep him under observation. They ran him through a battery of mental and psionic tests and exercises and seemed satisfied with the results. There were a lot of tests on his hand and arm, too, but nothing conclusive ever seemed to come of them.

Before long he was going stir crazy. He had never spent more than a week in his life doing absolutely nothing, and he didn’t like it. What’s more, the constant implicit questioning of his abilities made him nervous-they would never find anything, of course, but the longer he stayed in the hospital, the more suspicious it was going to look on his record. There had to be something he could do, something that would convince them he was not only well but capable.

His third day up and around, he discovered that three of the rogues were in the hospital, too, in high-security wards. To occupy himself, he visited them, called up their files, learned what he could. He discovered that two of them were nobodies, but the third was Anthony Selto, one of Walter’s lieutenants. Selto wasn’t in a good way; he had been in cardiac arrest twice. They hadn’t questioned him yet because he wasn’t strong enough. Probably he never would be. Al immediately put in his formal request to do the deathbed scan. They came to get him the next day.

“I don’t like this,” Dr. Mandle told him, “but we don’t have a choice. There isn’t another P12 who can get here fast enough, and you did volunteer. I hope you know what you’re in for.”

“Tell me what to do.”

Al remembered the brief taste of death with Walters, the door opening and slamming. It had made him wonder, Did the universe remember people? Was there anything on the other side? Probably not, but it was worth exploring.

“Just make contact with him. Talk to him. A violent scan will push him over the edge and you may get nothing. Be his friend, play along with whatever illusion his mind has constructed to help him die. At some point you will see a liminality - it may appear as a door or the mouth of a cavern. You’ll know it when you see it. That’s when you break off. Don’t follow him beyond the liminality.”

“Why?”

“Because we might lose you, too. It’s happened before.”

“Oh.”

Al removed his gloves and reached out to touch Selto’s face. Then he was on a plain made of black clouds, beneath a sky teeming with ravens. The sun hung eclipsed in the sky. He sat on a black horse; Selto was beside him on another. Selto was a short, fierce-looking fellow dressed like a Napoleonic hussar.

“Well,” the fellow said, leaning on the pommel of his saddle.

“Are you death?”

“No,” Al replied cautiously. He was inside of Selto’s dying dream, and Selto didn’t know him. Perhaps he could play off his confusion.

“No,” he said, “I’m Stephen Dexter.”

The lie clung, weird and bitter in his throat, and he was sorry he had said it. Saying it made it feel real. It had the desired effect, however.

“Holy smokes! Walters found you! He’s been looking for you for years. At times he thought you were dead.”

He cocked his head.

“You look like your mother-the pictures anyway.”

Al ignored the chill that sent up his spine.

“He sent me to talk to you. He escaped, but he was mind-blasted. He’s forgotten a lot about the locations and ID codes of some of the cells. He’s hoping you’ll remember.”

Selto shrugged.

“I only know the one, the Baltimore cell through the Retrograde Hotel, room 661. Does that help?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

They were approaching the gate, a sort of trilithon made of gigantic stone slabs. The horses kept the same pace but somehow seemed to approach the gate with exponentially greater speed. Selto drew a saber.

“This is it,” he said. “Into the valley of death rode the six hundred, and all of that. Are you going with me?”

“No, I have to go back and talk to Walters.”

“Tell him I went down swinging, will you?”

There was no time to answer. He was rushing at the portal at breakneck speed. Selto was actually charging through, saber held high, the wind from his ride sucking Al along like a leaf behind a tornado. He fought to disengage, but a blinding light suddenly burst forth from the liminality. Selto stretched toward it, his saber becoming a line infinitely long, a shadow falling in the wrong direction… and he was gone. Al had caught a glimpse of something beyond-there was something there-and then the portal had slammed shut. The world dissolved, and he was back in the hospital, his trembling fingers still on the dead man’s face.

Chapter 5

He awoke screaming, as he often did. The phantasms of night came with him to the waking world, and for long moments he remained surrounded by them, frantically trying to understand where he was, to banish the faces he had never known, the memories that weren’t his. In time, he succeeded, as well as he could.

He rose, went to the sink, filled a glass with water and drank it. He stretched his arms, legs, and back until blood warmed his sleep-stiffened muscles and was silently thankful that he now rated quarters of his own. That no one but he himself was witness to these shameful awakenings. He closed his eyes, trying to feel the motions of the city outside, but behind his lids the nightmare still lurked, so at last he bundled into a coat and went outside to watch the sun kiss the snow-cloaked Alps awake. The doctor-a long-faced man with a mustache that might have been penciled in by a mischievous child-looked him over with clinical suspicion.

“Have you slept, Mr. Bester?”

“Some. I’ve had a little trouble with sleep, lately.”

“Do you want me to prescribe something?”

“No, thank you. I prefer to make do without drugs. I’m sure in time my body will sort things out. I’m probably still readjusting to the day length on Earth.”

“Unlikely. How’s the hand?”

Al held up the useless club his left hand had become. The knuckles were white.

“No change. Nerves don’t heal, I guess.”

“The nerves are not damaged, Mr. Bester, so far as I can tell. We’ve been through this before.”

“Maybe you should go through it with my hand, then.” Al replied, lightly.

“There are a few more tests we can do,” the doctor said. “But as it stands, you seem to be in perfect health. Your leg has healed up nicely, and the minor burn on your arm shows no sign of having caused your paralysis.” He consulted his chart.

“I see you’ve been doing deathbed scans.”

“Yes. I started them on Mars, when I was confined to the hospital. It seemed a useful thing to do.”

“Yes, but you’re still doing them.”

“I am. Someone has to.”

The doctor set the chart down on the examination table.

“Deathbed scans - sire something we don’t understand very well, Mr. Bester. The one thing we do understand, from experience… and observation, is that it isn’t healthy to do very many. You’ve done four already, which is three more than most will do willingly and as many as most can stand without suffering permanent disability. I suggest it’s time for you to retire from this particular activity.”

“Is that an order?”

“No, Mr. Bester, it is a heartfelt suggestion. You don’t show the usual signs of stress associated with multiple scans, unless - tell me - is your insomnia due to nightmares?”

“No,” Al lied.

“Hmm. Well, until you show clear signs of debility, I can’t write you off, because willing scanners are hard to come by. But they can’t make you do them.”

“No one is trying to. I just feel it’s my duty to the Corps.”

“There are safer ways to suck up to command, Mr. Bester.”

“I resent that implication,” Al replied tersely. “Is my examination over? May I go?”

The doctor rolled his eyes.

“Yes, Mr. Bester. But I’m making a note of my objections.”

“What is it, Al?”

“I’m just tired. I did another deathbed scan this morning. Poor girl-but I got a clear image of her killer. I hope they catch the bastard.”

“That’s number five, isn’t it?”

Erik picked at his food and kept his eyes down, but Al felt the concern behind his words-and maybe something else.

“You aren’t going to start, too?”

“Al, nobody does five necroscans.”

Al shrugged and poked his fork into his pierogi.

“What are they like? The scans?”

“It’s always a little different,” he replied. “Mere’s always a threshold of some sort-a door, the edge of a cliff-a sort of event horizon. The dying person hangs there for a time, and then-they go. They recede infinitely.”

“Recede infinitely?”

“An illusion, I guess, since it only takes a short time. But that’s the only way I can describe it.”

“But it’s like they pass through a doorway.”

“Something like that.”

“Can you… can you ever see what’s beyond? Where they go?”

“No. Some fear it, some welcome it, but they don’t know either, because they’re still on this side when I’m with them. When they leave the liminality, I lose them.”

“Don’t you wonder what’s there? I mean, if there is a door, it implies something on the other side.”

“I wonder, I suppose. But as to the symbolism of the doorway, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It’s a mental construction, a way of conceiving of what’s happening. It could well be wishful thinking-none of us can conceive of just ending, of not being anymore. What’s more natural for a dying person than to pretend they’re going somewhere else, even if they don’t know what they will find there?”

“Or maybe they are-mooing somewhere else.”

“Sure. Maybe.”

“I know you, Al. You’re looking for something, beyond that doorway. You think something’s there, or you wouldn’t keep doing it. What are you looking for?”

Al uttered a harsh chuckle.

“I’m not looking for anything. What’s got you so interested in this? Why all the questions?”

They’ve been asking about you. The evaluators.

Asking what?

Leading questions. They’re worried about you.

Al swirled a chunk of the potato and cheese dumpling in sour cream and brought it to his mouth. He remembered his first taste of pierogi, his delight at its simplicity, its unexpected mixture of textures and taste. This one didn’t seem to taste like anything at all.

“You get the impression people fear I’m unstable?”

“Yes. And that’s not good, Al. I’m telling you this as a friend.”

“A friend who perhaps hasn’t been promoted as much as he would like?” Al asked, mildly. “Who thinks maybe I’ve been promoted too often? What did you tell them about my stability, Erik?”

Erik could turn an amazing shade of red at times. This was one of those times.

“Look here, Al, I’m trying to save your career, not ruin it. You know the Corps won’t risk an unstable cop. Why do you think all of your assignments since Mars have been domestic? Why do you think they’ve been keeping you away from the underground, or any shooting assignment?

And lest you forget, it was me who covered your ass in the IA investigation of that mess on Mars. If it had been anyone else who’d found you, raving, shooting a drained PPG over and over at an unarmed dead man - hell, a one - armed, unarmed dead man-you’d be in area 5 even as we speak. So don’t you dare…”

He broke off. Al had never seen him so furious.

“Screw you, Al, I don’t need this.”

He pushed his chair back violently and stalked off. Al frowned and, after a bit of consideration, took another bite of his pierogi. It tasted no better than the last.

Al wasn’t particularly surprised when Assistant Director Babineau called him into his office a few weeks later. If he had been both observant and honest with himself, he would never have doubted Erik’s word. But over the years, Al had gained the knack of ignoring-no, not ignoring, but disregarding-the opinions of those around him when they concerned him. When he worried about what people thought of him, it invariably led to grief.

He sought excellence, and that rubbed people the wrong way-people didn’t want you to be excellent, they wanted you to be mediocre, to keep expectations low, and make life easier for them. This time, though, he should have been paying attention.

The Corps could tolerate a lot in an officer if he was efficient-but it could not tolerate instability. He half expected that Babineau was going to announce a hearing to determine his fitness to serve. In his mind, he was already preparing his defense. But, for today, at least, it was just Babineau, his diminutive form doll-like behind an overlarge desk.

“Ah. Mr. Bester. If you would?”

He gestured to a chair, which Al stiffly accommodated to.

“Mr. Bester, I am a plainspoken man, and a busy one, so I’ll come to the point, if you don’t mind. Do you know Alisha Ross?”

“Sir? Yes, sir, we’ve met.”

“What do you think of her?”

“Think of her, sir?”

“Did you find her attractive? Ugly? Interesting? Boring? Flaky?”

“She is not unattractive, sir. I can’t say whether I find her interesting or not we’ve never really spoken, and I know very little about her.”

“Well, I’ll tell you a bit. She’s a P12, like yourself. Doesn’t have the temperament for fieldwork, so she mostly does forensics, building psychological profiles, that sort of thing. She’s a decent soccer player, twenty-four years old, single. Do I have to draw you a picture, Mr. Bester?”

“I see,” Al said, feeling more than a little disoriented. “She and I - we have a good genetic match?”

“Very good. Mr. Bester, we’ve already spoken to Ms. Ross. She’s agreed, in principle, to consider a match.”

“And you want me to…”

“First you should meet, I should think. Talk about it. But quite honestly, Mr. Bester, there are many who think marriage would be good for you at this time. If it isn’t hate at first sight, the Corps is much in favor of a union between you and Ms. Ross. Such thorough genetic compatibility is actually quite rare.”

“Yes, sir. I would be happy to meet Ms. Ross.”