Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant (5 page)

“I let you push yourself too hard.”

Al swallowed shakily. He noticed that he was on a gurney, that not far away a nurse was fussing about.

“Where am I? That was…”

Words failed him.

“This is the infirmary. You’re okay, they just wanted to watch you for a little while. You’ve been out for about two hours.”

He hesitated, then gripped Al’s hand.

“I want you to understand that I wasn’t trying to hurt you, Al. But in your contest with Simon, I noticed a certain self-congratulatory smugness. You’re good for your age, and you push yourself harder than anyone I’ve ever seen-too hard, in fact, as this incident demonstrates-but there are mind-rippers out there who can make what just happened to you seem like a thump on the nose. It would be a disservice for me not to help you understand that, now, before you make a habit of overconfidence.”

“I think I understand, sir.”

“I don’t think you do. But it’s a start.” He paused.

“You grasped part of my lessons, Al. You tried to control the imago, the metaphorical construct I attacked you with, and did a good job. It’s one approach, but it has its dangers. It’s a sort of a shaman game…”

“Sir?”

“Shamans. Tribal doctors and magicians. Worldwide, they were said to go into trances and fight battles of imago, transforming as their opponents transformed. One would be a wolf, the other would become a lion. Then the first would become a bear, his opponent a… T-rex or something. Often it was even more subtle than that; one becomes fire, the other becomes rain, the drowned fire rises as a mist-and so on.

“The winner is the one whose form plays most cleverly and convincingly against his opponent’s form. It only works because both combatants allow their minds to accept the rules, to be bound by what they know of the normal world. And that brings me to one last point. Have you ever played paper, scissors, rock?”

“Yes, sir.”

Al was mystified by the sudden change of direction.

“Let’s play. On three.”

They shook their closed fists three times. Al kept his clenched - rock. Teacher Roberts’ came out two fingers-scissors.

“Well?” the teacher said.

“I win. Rock smashes scissors.”

Teacher Roberts reached out, very quickly, and grabbed Al’s hand at thumb and little finger, twisting it around. Al yelped, involuntarily, in surprise and pain.

“I win,” Roberts said.

“I win because I don’t acknowledge that there was a rock or scissors. Only our hands. And my hand is bigger, faster, stronger, more skillful than yours. You see?”

He released Al’s hand as quickly as he had taken it.

“Yes. I see,” Al said.

You cheated. You broke the rules.

Teacher Roberts caught that, and his eyes glittered.

Exactly, Al. Exactly. You have a decision coming. This is the end of this session, and you’ll be going to the Minor Academy next, if you pass. If you aren’t comfortable with breaking rules, I suggest you take business prep courses. If you want to be a Psi Cop, though…

He smiled and stood up.

“I’ll see you tomorrow for your written final. It’s a take-home. Discuss - let’s see - I want you to compare Yakut shamanic battles, the Flight of Loki, and the exploits of the lively Lemminkainen. And be ready to transpose them in action, should I ask. Yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

Though he had not the faintest idea what a Yakut was-or who “Loki” or “Lemminkainen” were. That kind of assignment was typical of Teacher Roberts.

“How’d you do?”

Brett asked, as Al came into the room with an armload of books.

“I stunk. And he gave me a take-home.”

Al closed his eyes for an instant: his psi contest with Teacher Roberts had left him feeling as if he hadn’t slept in days.

“Hmm. Well, don’t wear out-we have the inter-cadre tournament day after tomorrow. I think we’ve got a good chance.”

“Sure we do.”

Brett turned back to whatever it was he was doing. Al opened his books and began trying to sort out what to skim through first. Brett was only sucking up to him because he did want the cadre to win. That was Brett, always thinking about his position as leader. Not that anyone had ever elected him, or anything. They just accepted it, which was all wrong. Brett was neither the smartest nor psionically the strongest. Why should he be the one everyone paid attention to? But that was the way it was, wasn’t it?

For now, anyway. When they got to the academy. where positions were officially awarded by merit and ability, he would come into his own. He had just a week to wait.

He focused his attention on the book, and to his surprise, he found himself enjoying it. He was entirely absorbed in the weird duel of two Yakut shamans when the door suddenly burst open. He hadn’t heard or felt them coming. You never did.

Grins. Angry Grins. What have I done this time? He was afraid he’d let it slip out. Fear mingled freely with his anger, and he certainly wanted to keep that in. In the last year or so, the Grins had become more and more arbitrary with their punishments and scans. It should be obvious to everyone how unfair it was, but the adults never seemed to notice the change, even when it went on right in front of them. He tried to remember what he had maintained that very morning, that they had no business questioning the Grins, but it was hard, very hard.

“Take off your clothes. All of them,” the Grins commanded, in their flat, less-than-Human voices.

He and Brett complied. AI might resent them, but there was never any question of obeying them. They were a fact of life. It got worse. The Grins herded the two of them, naked, from their room into the common room, and there was the rest of the cadre, all naked as slugs, girls and boys alike.

Al had always supposed he might like to see some of the girls without their clothes on - especially Milla, who had taken on an intriguing shape in the last year or so - but he found that faced with it, like this, he was horrified.

They didn’t seem pretty, or sexy, or whatever-they seemed like sea creatures, yanked from their shells, left to shiver and die naked on the beach. In other words, they looked exactly as he felt. Sick. From the common room, they were all forced outside. The expressions on the masks of their tormentors became less pleasant by the second.

Chapter 4

The Grins led them down what seemed miles of sidewalk, surrounded on every side by older kids, academy students, adults. Al felt himself being measured, weighed, scrutinized.

Though the watching crowd uttered not a single sound, telepathic gibes and insults made it clear they found him wanting.

Little guy, isn’t he? A little rat. Hey, kid, what’s a six-year-old doing, doing the walk? Are those your arms, or soda straws?

And now the Grins were grinning, and Al suddenly realized that all along their smiles had been ironic-even when they were bringing presents or awards, they had always been smiling at him, not for him. Laughing at him, behind their masks. At last the “walk” was over, and they were led into a darkened room, spacious, a little musty.

It wasn’t so dark that he couldn’t see the others, who, like him, were starting to shiver with the cold, wanting to huddle together. But they were kept apart by nakedness and terror. A lot of them were crying, and many were blooping like crazy, all their lessons drowned by shame and humiliation. But they couldn’t do that to him. Not to Alfred Bester.

He didn’t know what was going on here-whether the Grins had gone insane, or whether this was some horrible plot somehow perpetrated by mundanes - but when the Psi Cops found out about this, somebody would pay. They would pay, and he would be there to see it. He jerked, suddenly, like the fish he had once seen a man pull out of Lake Geneva. A scan blasted through his defenses as if they weren’t there. He rallied a defense-and let it drop. No one was allowed to challenge the Grins. But if the Grins had gone insane…

It was too late, anyway. They were dragging glyphs from his mind, scattering them to the other kids: Him looking longingly at Julia. Wetting his pants when he was six. Stealing a candy when no one was looking. The things he kept locked away-black spiders in secret jars, bright hopes he hoarded like jewels. All were torn from him and thrown into the air like confetti shredded from his soul. And the air was suffocating with such confetti.

There was Brett, peeking through a cracked door at Ms. Chastain as she bathed. There was Milla, bleeding between her legs and crying, so humiliated she couldn’t think straight. Azmun, sitting in class, suddenly losing control of his bowels, afraid to let anyone know, unable to admit what he had done, as the smell got stronger and stronger… It went on and on, the wailing and bawling worse and worse, until finally, something cracked in Al.

He stood up, and it was like his mind was on fire, like he was shooting comets out of his brain instead of thoughts.

STOP IT.! STOP IT! STOP IT! YOU STINKING GRINS, STOP IT!

The other kids took it up, first one, then another, then all of them, screaming at the Grins to stop. Al felt suddenly as if he were an atom of water in a huge wave, a tsunami of anger and justice. And the Grins-stopped. But the kids didn’t-the wave grew and grew, crushing down on the Grins, as they psionically gorged on each other’s anguish, fear, and hatred.

Then a terrible white light filled the room, blinding, and everything broke off into confusion again. When the light came back down, when they could see again, they were so stunned that no one said or psied anything. Because the Grins had taken off their masks. Al knew them. Teacher Roberts. Teacher Hua. Ms. Chastain. Ms. Kitsuru. Teacher Alverado. Mr. King. Nurse Childress, who had held him and talked softly to him, sung him bedtime stories. They were all Grins. All of the adults. All of the people who had raised him. The Corps.

Teacher Hua, the oldest, stepped forward into the stunned silence.

“Now you see,” he said, gently.

“And now, hopefully, you understand. The Corps is mother and father - and we are all mother and father to one another. We are the ones who raised you, taught you right from wrong, pleased you - and yes, frightened you. This is all to the good, and in the future you shall understand, even if you don’t now.

“You are Cadre Prime. All telepaths are special, but you are the most special. The powers of most children do not bloom until they are eleven, twelve, older. Most of you manifested almost as you were born. Only five percent manifest before puberty. You are all rare.

“Cadre Prime. Telepaths born, and you have raised each other as much as we have raised you. When you move from here, from cadre dorms and into the academies - it will be different. You will live and work beside those who were raised as Normals who realized their abilities later in life, who do not understand the Corps as you do. They say the words but do not understand in their hearts what it is to be Corps. It is your special gift to be able to teach them that, to show them by the example of how you live, how you learn, how you work together and apart.

“All of us - all of us who stand before you-we were once members of Cadre Prime. We are your mothers and fathers, we are your sisters and brothers. We stood before our elders as you now stand before us. We were frightened, humiliated, angry - as you are. And together, as you did, we took up the cry, threw off the yoke, became mothers and fathers ourselves. Then they revealed themselves to us, as we have to you. “Now it comes full circle. You were children. Now I say, you are not. You are us, and we are you.”

Teacher Hua began taking off his clothes. The others did, too. Without the grey robes, teacher Hua was a scrawny old man with a potbelly. He did not look scary at all. He knelt before them, and the other adults followed suit.

“A moment ago, your minds were violated. That was to show you one reason the Corps was formed, why one must never invade the mind of another without their permission. That law must be inviolate. It will not be done to you again, and you must not do it to others, except in very special circumstances.

“One of those is now. Our minds are open. Our barriers are down. Do what you will.”

For a long moment, it was impossible to believe. No one moved They just stared at the kneeling adults, their teachers and friends, who were also their tormentors. Then some began reaching out, understanding that it was true, that the barriers were indeed down. That the adults would do nothing to stop them. First one, then another of the kids nibbled at the unprotected minds, dating in to find some secret, and then out again, as if they feared some trap might be sprung.

Then, with the suddenness of critical mass, the room exploded, once again, with pain and shame. But this time. It came from the adults. Al found he couldn’t participate. He stood there, blinking at the world turned upside down, his heart clattering weirdly in his chest.

Why were the adults allowing this? They were the ones in control - who would give that up? But then he caught something, a presence-watching. Approving. The director?

It didn’t matter, because he suddenly understood. The teachers weren’t in charge, any more than he was. The Corps was mother and father, not any of the individuals in it. Teacher Hua’s words began to make more sense. When it was over, they were given black robes to wear, and more important - gloves.

Al pulled his on, felt them close about his fingers. Gloves, at long last. He was no longer a child. Teacher Hua had said a lot, some of which Al understood, some of which he did not. But the thing he understood most clearly of all was something Teacher Hua had not said. It was a very simple thing, really, something he should have known all along.

Adults were no different from kids. They were not to be trusted, not as individuals. Teacher Hua could not be trusted. Ms. Chastain, despite all of her kindness, could not be trusted. Only the Corps itself could be trusted, and only the Corps itself-its laws, its institutions, its entirety-deserved his loyalty. He trusted the Corps. He would never trust another human being again. That night, when he looked at the stars - when he dreamed - he looked for the face of his mother, with her dark red hair; he looked for his black-haired father. The ones he had always pictured when he said, “The Corps is mother, the Corps is father.”