Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester (15 page)

And dangerous. How could he risk it? He had taken too many risks already.

He was about to push the envelope back toward de Grun when an equally unexpected flash of anger hit him. Why shouldn’t he do this? Had he become so timid that all he could think of was hiding, making himself smaller and smaller, until he just vanished? That was what his enemies wanted, wasn’t it?

“Three thousand,” he said.

De Grun didn’t blink.

“Twenty-five.”

“You have a deal,” Bester told him.

“But only on my terms. I review what I want, the way I want to.”

“I can live with that.”

“Well, then. Good day, Monsieur de Grun.”

“Wait. How can I contact you?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll contact you. I still value my privacy, all the more if my audience is going to increase.”

“We’d like to run a picture of you with your column.”

“Out of the question. I’m very shy.”

De Grun burbled a laugh.

“You don’t seem shy to me.”

Bester looked him dead level in the eyes.

“I’m shy,” he repeated.

“If you run a picture of me, or even take one, I’ll sue YOU.”

“What, are you some sort of war criminal?”

“Yes, of course,” Bester said, sarcastically.

“I’m the secret leader of the Drakh…”

De Grun shrugged jovially.

“You could be, for all I care. Fine. No picture. Anything else?”

“Nothing else. You’ll have your next review tomorrow.”

But he didn’t start on the review right away. Instead he went back to his room, and he savored a small glass of Pernod. And for the first time, he started to see a coherent road before him.

From the day he was born, the path stretching in front of him had been as straight and sure as the arrow of entropy. He had never doubted where he was going, though the trail had often been narrow, no more than a tightrope.

Then came the war, the aftermath, and flight. Suddenly there were no roads before him at all - or rather, all rocky paths leading nowhere good. Then Paris, where he discovered that he might do almost anything, be almost anything.

Where he first understood the concept of freedom. But even freedom needed direction, a path, a plan. And here it was forming, from chaos and joy. It was so wonderful, so delightful, that he was afraid of thinking about it, of making plans, of stepping out of the moment.

But if he just kept depending on fortune, he was bound to get into trouble. Life had taught him that God did play dice with the universe. And any game of dice went, not to the man with the lucky rabbit’s foot, but to the man who knew how to toss the dice just so. Or to switch them for the weighted ones in his cuff.

He stared at the blank sheet in front of him, and thought about the book Louise wanted him to write. He thought about the cosmic crap game, and began fooling with titles. Loading the Dice: A Telepaths Story.

No, that wouldn’t do.

He sipped his drink. The dice were already loaded in favor of telepaths, if they knew how to throw. Normals knew that. That’s why normals had always tried to keep them out of the game, kill them, lock them away, or tame them as pets. Telepaths were the next step in evolution, as pivotal as that first primate ancestor who had been born with one finger that curled differently, that opposed the others.

That was it. He cleared the screen.

The Third Thumb, he wrote.

It wasn’t his story he wanted to tell, but the story of his people. Of all of his people, even those who had betrayed him, and worse, betrayed their own kind. He would do it. But first, he had something else to do. Justin Ackerman looked at him without comprehension for a few seconds, then recognition dawned.

“Mr. Bester?” he asked.

Bester scanned him lightly, nodding in satisfaction.

“Well, I did do a good job on you after all. You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Yes, sir - of course I do. We worked together in the Brazilian camp.”

“Yes, yes, I meant-oh, never mind.”

Ackerman glanced around nervously.

“Would you, ah, like to come in, sir?”

He turned slightly, gesturing into the room, his gaze retreating from Bester.

“No, Justin. But I do need you to come with me.”

“Why?”

“You’ve known me for a long time, Justin. Did you ever question me before? It’s important.”

“But sir, I was just going to bed. It’s late, and I…”

“Please. I’m asking as an old friend, not as an old commander.”

Ackerman hesitated for another second. Bester could taste his fear and curiosity.

“Let me get my coat.”

The doorman wasn’t on duty. Bester had suggested that he take a nap, something he’d been close to doing anyway. The air was warm as they walked through the midnight city, until finally they came to the quay along the Seine. Far to the left, the Eiffel Tower thrust its ancient silhouette against the city - lit underbellies of the clouds. They looked, Bester thought, like the sulfurous clouds of Herig 3, heavy and poisonous.

“Sit with me here,” Bester said, letting himself down onto the quay.

It was quiet, far from the heart of the city.

Ackerman did, tentatively.

“I can’t believe you’re on Earth, sir,” he ventured.

“It’s dangerous for you here.”

He paused, looking at Bester’s hands.

“Especially if you keep wearing those gloves. We don’t wear them anymore.”

Bester smiled thinly.

“It’s dangerous for me everywhere,” he said watching a small boat move almost soundlessly up the black glass surface of the Seine.

“I tried almost everywhere. Little colony worlds. Non-Human worlds. I spent almost a year in one of my old asteroid bases, going stir-crazy. They always found me. Maybe they’ll find me here, maybe they won’t.

“When I decided to come here, I thought Earth was my best chance. I still do. But I’m going to ask you, Justin, do you know of a place? Somewhere I can go where they will never think to look, where I can live out my life in peace?”

Justin shook his head.

“Think carefully, Justin. This is very important to me.”

“No, sir. They want you bad. l can’t think of any place.”

“Well. I had to try. There was a small chance that you had thought of something hadn’t. And I owed you that chance.”

“Mr. Bester, please-” Ackerman started to raise his eyes toward Bester, but his gaze never reached him. Bester had already placed the muzzle of the pistol against Ackerman’s head and squeezed off the first round. The weapon sighed, sighed again. Ackerman did, too, as the small-caliber bullets ricocheted around inside his skull, shredding his brain but leaving no exit wounds, no ugly spatters of blood. Ackerman swayed, then began to slump. Bester caught him and held him upright, then took a plastic bag and a rubber band from his coat pocket, and fastened the bag around Ackerman’s head. That would keep what little blood there was from getting on anything.

The plastic sucked up to Ackerman’s nostrils, and his chest heaved uselessly for another minute or so. Bester kept himself tightly blocked-he didn’t want to feel Ackerman’s death. He had done that too often in his life-once he had thought it had cost him his soul. He had his soul back, and he wasn’t about to risk it again, not now.

When he was sure Ackerman was dead, he removed the bag. Then, almost gently, he pushed him into the river. The body sank as the current took him away. He would surface again, of course, but as in any large city on Earth, people were murdered in Paris every day, every night. He would become another statistic, nothing more. There was nothing to connect him to Alfred Bester, much less to Claude Kaufman.

On the way back to his room, he began outlining the first chapter of his book in his head. It helped. By the time he got there, his sadness had faded to melancholy.

Chapter 3

Bester paused typing in mid sentence, a smile creasing his face.

Louise was home. He could feel her blowing through the front door, a zephyr, a breeze with scents of honeysuckle and paint. He closed what he was working on and hurried down the stairs. When he reached the cafe, Louise was indeed there, just setting down her luggage.

“Claude!”

Her smile seemed to explode across her face, and an instant later he had her in his arms. Tensions melted away as he felt the solid warmth of her, doubts eased back into his subconscious. This was worth anything. She kissed him briefly but warmly on the lips.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Ready for what?”

“Just hold my hand and tell me you love me.”

“I love you. What…”

“So you must be Claude.”

He turned toward the source of the slightly disapproving female voice.

“Yes, this is him,” Louise said, brightly.

“Claude, meet Major Genevieve Bouet, my sister.”

Bester smiled at the tall brunette with all of the false charm he could muster. Louise needn’t have bothered giving her rank-it was plain enough on her EarthForce uniform. He saw a bit of Louise in her serious, no-nonsense face, but he would have never guessed they were sisters.

“Enchante,” he murmured, taking her hand.

Her grip was firm, and the thoughts that flooded his mind as they touched were ordered and clear. The disapproval was real, but came mostly from concern for Louise -the major didn’t want to see her sister hurt again. To his vast relief, he sensed no hint of recognition.

“Likewise,” the major said.

“I must say, Mr. Kaufman, you have a lot to live up to. Louise has been rattling on about you like a schoolgirl, something she never does.”

“Well, I’ll do my best,” he replied.

“If ever I had expectations worth living up to, Louise would provide them. She didn’t tell me your rank. I’m quite impressed.”

“You needn’t be. The last ten years have taken their toll on officers, and promotions have come cheap.”

“From what Louise has told me, I think you’re being modest. You were in Clark’s personal guard, weren’t you?”

She nodded at that, and there was an uncomfortable moment of silence. Bester filled it.

“So when did you two hook up?” he asked Louise.

“I thought you were going to see your other sister-the one in Melbourne.”

“I did,” Louise replied.

“That didn’t go so well as I hoped-but by good luck Genny was there on leave, and I managed to talk her into a visit. I wanted to show off my new boyfriend.”

“Well, I’m hardly a boy, as your sister has noticed.”

He was rewarded by a slight feeling of shame from the major.

“I wouldn’t care if you were two hundred,” she said, “so long as you make my sister happy.”

That was half a lie, but Bester accepted it in the spirit with which she meant it, nodding graciously.

“We’re starving,” Louise said.

“Why don’t you two chat while 1 fix us something?”

“Nonsense,” Bester replied.

“I’ll cook, you two sit and have a glass of wine. I’m sure the flight must have taken a lot out of YOU.”

“Claude doesn’t think much of my cooking,” Louise said, playfully.

“He doesn’t realize it’s all a ploy to get him to wait on me hand and foot.”

“Well, I do now,” Bester said.

“But really, I just bought a bottle of Chateau-Neuf. Let me get it. Give you two a chance to compare notes on the boyfriend.”

“I won’t refuse that.”

The major smiled. Bester grinned back, not at her words, but at the grudging feeling behind them. This was going well.

“Well, no man who can cook like that can be all bad,” the major said, laying down her fork next to the remnants of souffle.

“Some of these older models run pretty well, it seems.”

“No need to tell me,” Louise beamed.

Bester raised his glass.

“To family reunions,” he said.

“To some family reunions,” Louise corrected, but she toasted anyway.

“Oh, yes. So things didn’t go so well with Helen?”

“She’ll come around,” Genevieve said.

“Helen is good at holding grudges. She puts a lot of energy into it. But it was a good start. At least she spoke.”

“At least,” Louise allowed.

“Of course, she comes by that trait honestly.”

A cynical smile flitted across the major’s face.

“Let’s not bore Mr. Kaufman with our family squabbles. At least the two of us are friendly again. Like I said, a good start.”

“I’m not in the least bored,” Bester said.

“I could never be so complacent about something that concerns Louise so much.”

The major sighed.

“Be careful what you wish,” she said.

“You might get it. Another glass of wine or two, and we might get into it, and we’ll be here all night.”

Her steely gaze settled on her sister.

“For the record, Louise, I think you’re right. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Anne. After all, it’s been almost ten years. If EarthForce can be reconciled, the two of us can, too.”

She turned back to Bester.

“The problem, you see, is that our family tends to be a passionate one, often at the expense of common sense.”

She swirled her wine around.

“No, enough. Mr. Kaufman, I understand you were in the military?”

“I was, sort of. Hush-hush stuff. Fortunately, I was a private citizen when Clark took office, so I wasn’t involved in the civil conflict. The choice you had to make wasn’t one I would have wanted but I respect it.”

The major shrugged.

“For me, at the time, there was no choice. It’s the job of the senate and the courts - and ultimately the voters - to determine the legitimacy of a president and his decisions. It is emphatically not the task of officers in the military to do so. If that precedent held where would we be? Privately, I question the worthiness of every single instance that puts my soldiers in danger. But publicly, no military can function without an unquestioning chain of command.”

She shrugged.

“My sister didn’t see it that way. I imagine she still doesn’t. Looking back on it, in some absolute scheme of things, I believe she was right. But put in the same situation, I would make the same choice. But you know what? One gets older, and as certain parts get stiffer, others loosen up, nest-ce pas? I’m tired of having this between me and Anne.”