Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant (12 page)

Her companions hooted and cheered, and she did a little curtsy. His body hummed like a tuning fork, he was so angry. It was a flavor of anger he had never tasted before, savage, visionary. He saw himself punching the girl in the face, again, and again, until that smug smile went away, until she admitted that she was wrong, until she understood that - he was bener than her. That she should be praising him. Another group was coming. He could already tell they were excited about what she had done, were planning their own loud speeches under his name. Screw it. She would pay. Let them prove it. He formed a telegraph of intense pain, addressed it to the girl’s now-distant back, and prepared to send.

Don’t.

His anger congealed at the touch, but did not cool.

Do. Not.

It was Bey, probably behind him. Sandoval Bey. Dr. Sandoval Bey, who had scanned him, who-despite his claims-knew nothing of justice but everything about torturing Alfred Bester. But he let the attack sigh away. He let the anger form cysts under his flesh. He could dig it out easily enough later. He would show everyone, Bey included. They would all regret treating him this way. So he stood there, and endured.

At eight o’clock, his day as a statue was over, but his punishment was not. He returned, not to his room, but to a special detention cell, all white. He was allowed no books, no vid, nothing. He couldn’t study and he couldn’t entertain himself. Not studying was bad. Exams weren’t that far away, and it didn’t take long to get behind. He couldn’t afford failure now, not with the Major Academy within reach. One thing he knew: normally those who were punished as statues were allowed to at least study when their day was done. This stipulation of Bey’s was more than unusual. Did he want Al to fail? Probably.

For the first time, he considered the unthinkable-that he might wind up as a business telepath or in the courts. In the courts, where he would have to lick the boots of the Psi Cops who brought the criminals in… The thought was intolerable. He got up, angry, restless, and cramped. He ran through a series of punches, kicks, blocks, and kata. He ran in place to work the knots out of his legs. He went back to punches and kicks, and suddenly found himself battering against the wall, flecking it with red from his knuckles.

He backed up, breathing hard. He threw himself on the bed and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself by listening to Geneva.

Geneva had been his project since the punishment began. Intrigued by what he had noticed in Paris, he used much of his time as a statue-and here, alone, in this room-to further study the background noise he had always taken for granted, to listen for the nuances.

It was a vague, impressionistic swirl. At times it almost seemed orderly, but the instant he thought he had a pattern, it vanished. Not unlike watching clouds, always changing, passing briefly and coincidentally through forms that seemed familiar. The real difference was night and day, for at night most people slept, and the white noise became vivid, less connected. It was-he struggled for an analogy to explain it to himself. With a quiet suddenness, one appeared. He saw a painting, a street scene, a woman in big skirts. His viewpoint approached the painting, zooming in, magnifying. What had been clear images lost sharpness, dissolved… then, as he got nearer and nearer, the canvas resolved once more into a multitude of tiny dots of different colors.

Yes. It’s like that, he returned. At night the picture becomes dots. Except that each dot is a picture, too… The image - and the mind - touch that had brought it vanished. He knew it had been Bey, though. Another overture of kindness, another trick.

You aren’t supposed to scan me. It is against the regulations and against the law.

No answer.

He might as well have imagined it.

The next day, they took to putting peanut butter in his hair, to attract the pigeons. He tried to stand still with them perched all over him, shitting on him. He discovered that pigeon brains were too small and stupid to credibly frighten with Psi powers. They would flap off, but always return. People would remember this forever.

When he was a Psi Cop… if they ever let such a laughingstock become a Psi Cop-with twenty years behind him, people would still point at his back and snicker, remembering him with birds, bird-shit, and peanut butter all over him.

How could he ever be effective like that? Bey had ruined his future. At eight o’clock, he didn’t go to his cell. Instead he broke into a run, fell down because his legs were clumsy and stiff from standing all day, but got back up.

It was just beginning to rain, a cold October drizzle dripping over the mountains that soon became a downpour. He felt as if it were becoming steam as it hit his skin, so feverish his anger seemed. He knew where Bey’s office was. He found it and pounded on the door. His fury made him a giant, but he was beginning to lose height when the door finally swung open. Sandoval Bey looked at him mildly.

“Mr. Bester, I believe you should be in your room now. The watch will be wondering where you are.”

“Why are you doing this to me? Why? This is worse than anything the director would have done.”

Bey’s eyes crinkled, and he suddenly bellowed a laugh.

“Mr. Bester,” he said, “in some ways you are pitifully naive.”

“Sir, how can I ever - I mean, if I don’t have any respect, how can I…”

“Come in, Mr. Bester. I don’t want anyone to see you standing in the hall.”

Al stepped in, and Bey shut the door behind him. In an instant, everything seemed to change. He suddenly saw himself, wet, covered in bird-shit, standing in the office of one of the most powerful men in Psi Corps.

“Now, Mr. Bester. You broke the trust of the Corps. You have been given a lenient punishment, considering. What is your complaint?”

“My complaint is that… that… Why does my punishment have to be so… so…”

“Public?”

Al just stood there trembling for a moment.

“Sir. I thought you were my friend.”

A peculiar expression passed over Bey’s face then.

“Al,” he said softly.

“I am your friend. I’m trying to save your life.”

“Sir?”

“Mr. Bester, I have done many scans of the dead and -dying. I have likewise, in my time, come upon the scene of a death, many times so close on the heels of the reaper that I could still feel the trace of the dead person, their last thoughts, echoing away. When I come upon the body of someone who has slit their own wrists, swallowed handfuls of pills, hung themselves when I come upon a suicide, Mr. Bester, do you know what thought I find most often, hanging in the air, glowing for me to see?”

“No, sir.”

“This will show them. This will show them.”

He paused and rested his lambent gaze on Al.

“Does that sound familiar, Mr. Bester? It should.”

“Sir, I have never considered…”

“Suicide is a frame of mind, Mr. Bester, not an act. It is a deluded, contemptible state.”

Al was beginning to feel cold. He was starting to shiver. He saw how his pursuit of Brazg and Nielsson might look like an attempt at “Sir, I realize I made a mistake, but…”

“It isn’t about one mistake, Mr. Bester. It’s about your life. I’ve been watching you.”

“Sir?”

“You are an outstanding student. Too outstanding, really. In seven out of the last ten training exercises, you exceeded safe tolerances.”

“I strive for excellence, sir.”

“Why?”

“Because the Corps deserves only the best.”

“The Corps deserves cadets who live to pay it back for their training, who don’t end up dead or as mewling idiots in a hospital ward. That is where you are headed, Mr. Bester. You have no friends. You run, you practice martial arts, you drill unsupervised in your `spare’ time. All solitary activities. And this is how you’ve lived, as far as I can tell, for your entire short life.”

“I don’t really get along with others very well, sir.”

“No, you don’t. That’s exactly the problem. Mr. Bester, a Psi Cop has the hardest job in the world. He has to hunt down his own people. For their own good, yes, but hunt them he must, and sometimes kill them. His own people, and they hate him for it because they do not understand. The Normals who benefit from his work do not understand him either, of course - at the best they tolerate him, see him as one sort of smelly animal useful only for ridding them of even smellier ones. At worst, they fear and loathe him.

Mr. Bester, no one is strong enough to handle that on their own, and especially not someone with the mind of a suicide. “I’ll show them“. Who will you show, Mr. Bester? The only people you have who might love you, support you through all of that, keep you sane, make you feel as if you have accomplished something - the only ones’ -are your brothers and sisters in the Corps. You need them, Mr. Bester, as badly as you need the ability to block a scan. How did it feel at the inquiry, when I was suddenly behind you, supporting you? When the adults on the board secretly encouraged you?”

“It felt good, sir.”

But not as good as defeating the railroad cop, all by myself, he added, in silent defiance.

“Did it strengthen your resolve, make you feel as if you could face anything?”

“I suppose, sir.”

“You suppose. Sit, Mr. Bester.”

He motioned toward a padded leather chair.

“Sit. The damp won’t hurt it. You love the Corps, but that isn’t enough. You must love those in the Corps, and they must love you. You must love the Blips you hunt. You must love the world you live in, Mr. Bester. You must broaden your passions. You must find art, and music, and poetry that stirs your soul as much as duty. Duty in and of itself is weaker than you think, Mr. Bester. It can betray you. It almost betrayed you in front of the review board.”

He paused.

“Do you understand this? Do you understand any of it?”

“I’m not sure, sir.”

“You have appetites, Mr. Bester. You want to show that you are the best, in the vague hope that someone will like you - or be sorry they didn’t pay more attention to you earlier. It is a logic that defeats itself, that assures that the thing you want most will always elude you. Do you know what you really want, Mr. Bester?”

“I want to be a good Psi Cop.”

The blow came so fast it seemed like Bey’s hand merely materialized on his face. It stung, all the way to his soul.

“That’s for lying,” Bey snapped.

His face was very dark.

“You presume to know what makes a good Psi Cop? Do you? You know nothing. The Psi Cop who died because of you was a good Psi Cop. I trained him. He had friends, people that loved him. He is mourned. Will anyone mourn you, Mr. Bester?”

“I don’t think so, sir,” he said, face flushing hot.

“I don’t really…”

He broke off.

“You were going to say you don’t care, weren’t you? But that isn’t true, is it?”

“Sir, don’t…”

His throat was constricting. The last few days suddenly seemed piled upon him like so many rocks, but above those a whole mountain was crumbling.

“How was the trip with Cadre Prime, Al?”

“I thought - they only took me with them because…”

What was happening to him?

“Because I told them to, as a matter of fact. But you hoped, didn’t you? Hoped that you would belong?”

“I’ve never belonged, sir. I’ve only ever belonged to the Corps. I don’t understand why you’re so mad at me. I don’t understand why the director said those things, called me a traitor, because I love the Corps. I don’t understand ANY OF IT!”

He was shouting now, and hot, salty tears etched streams down his face. It seemed as if the bones in his chest were melting and squirting up through his eyes.

Bey stared at him for a moment, then sighed. He laid a hand on Al’s shoulder and squeezed. Al didn’t want to. It felt stupid and stiff and weak, but that simple Human gesture burst the dams behind his eyes, and though he still did not understand why, he wept uncontrollably, gritting his teeth.

He couldn’t remember another person touching him with kindness, with care, in so very, very long. It hurt terribly. He couldn’t trust it, didn’t Bey see that? It was stupid to trust, stupider to need. Bey was just another kind of Grin, subtler. His face was his mask. But his tears didn’t know that, and he wept for what seemed a long time. The older man made no move, just kept his hand on his shoulder, neither drawing him nearer nor pushing him away.

“Don’t worry,” Bey told him. “Don’t worry. It will be all right. Now go back to your room. I’ll make it seem as if I sent for you, to reprimand you. Go.”

Once back in his room, Al no longer knew what he felt. He felt as if a gulf had been tom through him, and it was filling with waters he did not recognize in the slightest. He lay on his back and tried to contemplate Geneva again. And a touch came, feather-light. He knew that one of the walls must have a disguised window. Before that had made him feel like a fish in a tank, but now it was suddenly, oddly comforting.

You were wondering about perspective the other day, the voice said.

Dr. Bey?

Yes.

Sir, what…

When the children came by, you were wondering if you would one day see the same situation from all perspectives.

Yes, sir.

Was there some point to that speculation?

Yes, sir.

What was it?

I’m not sure, sir. I’m still thinking about it.

Actually, he wasn’t. The thought had come and gone. Bey probably knew that, and he was suddenly sorry he had lied.

Good. There is something I want you to see.

Suddenly, a section of wall came to life. It flickered in stark shades of grey and black, sputtering white sparks streaking like comets. Then images appeared, as colorless as the beginning pyrotechnics. A half-destroyed building, ancient Japanese, maybe, and some men, talking. A title came up, in English and in Japanese. RASHOMON.

Blinking wearily, Al sat on his narrow bunk and began to watch.

He thought about the film all the next day. The premise was actually quite simple: a rape and a murder, seen from four points of view - a bandit, a woman, her husband, a woodcutter. They all agreed on a few facts - but in the end, the stories were all very different, each altered to put the teller in the best light. As it turned out, even the murder victim - the husband - wasn’t a reliable witness when his spirit was called up from the dead.