Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant (19 page)

AI was careful; he had learned that drunkenness was not for him, even with Liz. Alcohol took his control. He felt out of control enough when he was with Liz, but in a giddy, wonderful way. Add too much strong drink, and it was like he was flying off into space.

Liz was right-one of them had to keep one foot on the ground, and it was natural for it to be him. But it was hard, so hard with her. He wanted to lose himself in her, enter the bright blaze that lived in her breast, even if it should consume them both.

They found themselves in a park, on a hill overlooking the lights of the city. Teeptown wasn’t even visible, though the topaz immensity of EarthDome was. They sat on the hill and watched starships land at Port Thiessen. They talked about the universe.

“Mars, that’s where I’d like to go,” Liz said.

“And after that, Kalevala. They say the wind there smells like a thunderstorm all the time, that there is always lightning in the upper atmosphere, like burning spider-webs. I want to see it all. Narn. Centauri Prime.”

“We will. Once we’re Psi Cops we can put in for transfers. If we’re married, they might even assign us together. Even if they don’t, we’ll be able to take our vacations together, with the jump-gate time we earn. We can go anywhere. Anywhere, as long as we’re together.”

She wrapped her arms tighter about him, and their languid comfort suddenly grew more electric. She began kissing him, insistent.

“Not here,” he managed.

“This is a park…”

“We don’t have enough time as it is. Neither of us has any leave for three more months.”

“I can sneak in to your dorm, when your roommate is out…”

“I hate doing it there, in Teeptown. People can hear…”

“They wouldn’t if you weren’t so loud…”

You like me loud.

Ha.

It hurts my ears and what-what are you…

She was on top of him, her long, pleated skirt settled around them like a collapsed parachute. She was working at his pants. Better cover your ears, she told him. They stayed there until dawn, and he watched her sleep again, loving each angle of her face with his gaze, tracing her jaw-line with his finger.

I love you, he p-cast, and in her sleep she smiled.

A week later, they found time again. His roommate had leave, and they lay together twisted in his sheets. He knew how she felt, but he liked having her in his room. When they were away, in Geneva or farther a field, it was like a strange dream. Here, she seemed part, of his life. It was comfortable, real. It helped him imagine their future together and make that real, too.

Tonight she was restless, more restless than she had been a week before. Her unease felt like a rotten spot in his own chest.

“Alfie… have you ever considered… have you ever considered not joining the Corps?”

“Not joining? I’m already in the Corps.”

“Only until you finish the academy. Then you can choose.”

“Choose what? The sleepers?”

“I know. It’s just that you can’t see it, Alfie. You remember that movie you showed me? Rashomon?”

“Sure.”

“You grew up in the Corps. I know you love it. But you know, you must know-that they only showed you one side of the story, don’t you? You know that there’s a whole world out there that has nothing to do with the Corps.”

“What happened, Liz? Did one of the instructors…”

“Nothing in particular happened, Alfie. It’s just that I don’t like being controlled, and the Corps is all about control. It’s about…”

“It’s about being telepaths,” Al said.

“Liz, that’s what we are. There isn’t any place out there for us. Nothing. The Corps is all there is, and I know there are some things about it you don’t like, but…”

“How do you know that there’s nothing else? How would you know? All of your life you’ve been taught one thing - that the Corps is the only way. Don’t you see how that serves them?”

“What “them“? There is no them. The Corps is us, Liz…”

“Oh yeah?” She sat up in bed. “When did “we“ ever get a vote about the breeding regulations? When did “we“ get any say whatsoever? When did we get to decide that we can never be lawyers, or stockbrokers, or politicians…”

“That’s EA law, Liz.”

“It’s all the same, Alfie. It’s all control, and we just do what they say.”

“Are you saying that I don’t have the brains to know I’m being controlled?” Al asked, suddenly feeling a little angry. “That I believe the Corps is best only because I’ve been told it is? Liz, I’ve been out there. I’ve seen what happens to our kind without the Corps. I saw…”

“You still saw only what they wanted you to see.”

“No. I went after Brazg and Nielsson on my own. Nielsson was sick. He would have killed me. The whole underground is like that.”

“So much from a single example! You were trying to take his freedom. Of course he…”

“Nielsson was a criminal. What freedom do you think a criminal should have?”

She looked down at him, her eyes ablaze, and he was suddenly, terribly frightened. Not of her, but for her. But then she bent and kissed his forehead.

“I’m sorry, Alfie. I upset you, and I didn’t mean to do that. It’s just that sometimes I want you to see more than you do, just for a moment.”

“And I want you to understand,” Al said.

“I know it’s hard. They always told us in Cadre Prime that it was our job to make laters understand…”

“Is that all you’re doing with me?” she said, flaring again.

“Making me understand? Doing your duty to integrate laters into good Corps members?”

“You know better than that, Elizabeth Montoya. You know how I feel about you.”

Her face had hardened, but now it relaxed again.

“I do know.” She sighed. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, though. I love you.”

And she came back to him, and they spooned together perfectly.

Soon she was asleep. It took Al longer. He felt a sort of breathlessness he never had before, a little like he had been punched in the solar plexus. Light-headed. And he didn’t know what it meant.

Weeks passed, and Liz seemed to calm down. The final examinations were approaching, which meant that they saw less of each other, but when they did sneak an hour or most of a night, it was good. She still seemed a bit distracted, but then, so was he. In less than a month, the long ordeal of the academy would be over, and they would finally be Psi Cops-interns, anyway.

A week before finals, he met with her for lunch, and she asked him to meet her in her room that night. He went, a little after nine. Liaisons like this were ambiguous territory-essentially everyone knew that students went to each other’s rooms, and ostensibly it was forbidden. As long as you were careful, as long as appearances were maintained, no one really cared. Like a good parent, the Corps knew that sometimes it was best to be a little blind in one eye. - So sneaking in was a just ritual, though there were penalties for being caught.

He might be forbidden to associate with Liz for a time; leave, always difficult to get, might be entirely restricted. Al liked the window. It was traditional, and gave him a chance to hone his climbing skills. He rapped on the pane. After an instant the curtain drew back, and there was Liz.

She flashed him a halfhearted smile and let him in. He saw immediately that something odd was going on. Clothes were folded neatly on the bed, and her backpack was out and already half full.

“What’s up? Did you get leave?”

She paused and bit her lip, and he suddenly knew what she was going to tell him. That she had met someone else. That they were taking leave together.

No, she p-cast. I don’t have leave.

Why are you packing?

I don’t have leave. I am leaving.

That’s not a good idea. I went AWOL once, remember…

She rushed suddenly into his arms, wrapped him up so tight it actually restricted his breathing.

Not AWOL, Al. I’m leaving. Leaving the Corps.

She pushed back a bit, so he could see her eyes, see that she was serious.

No you aren’t. You’re just upset about something. You aren’t thinking straight. You’re afraid of the exams…

Yes. I’m afraid I’ll pass them. I checked, Al. No one who passed the exams ever left the Corps.

Of course not. Why would they?

Some tried.

They were sent to the rehab centers. I’m going now, before someone picks up on how I feel, before they send me there.

He could feel her heart ticking against him. He couldn’t feel his own at all. It was very strange.

Liz, I love you.

And I love you, Al.

That’s why I’m asking you I’m begging you - come with me. We can be together. Not when we get leave, but all the time. We can do everything we said we were going to do, and more. We can be free.

We would be criminals, Liz. The same criminals we’ve been trained to hunt.

Right.

We know all of the tricks. They’d never catch us. And we could go to the outer worlds, where they don’t care, where the Corps doesn’t reach.

“My God,” he whispered.

He couldn’t stand. He sat on the bed next to her.

“I’m doing it, Al. I have to, and I want you to understand. I want you with me. But if I stay here I’ll wither. I’ll suffocate. You are the only reason I have to stay, and if I do it, I’ll end up hating you. I don’t want to hate you.”

He put his head in his hands. He couldn’t think.

“Just wait a few more days. Give me time to think.”

“No. Al, if I give you time to think, you’ll never go. Right now, deep down, you know this is right. I can feel it. You know this is the best thing for us. For you. What has the Corps ever given you but pain? You think you belong, but when have you ever belonged?”

“Only to you,” he murmured. “Only you and Bey ever made me feel that way.”

“You see? For once in your life, Al, act from your heart. From the passion I know you have in you.”

“You can’t ask this of me. It’s too much.”

“I know. But I have to. If I didn’t love you so much, I would have just gone. But I do, so I had to see you.” She took his chin in her fingers. “I want you to go, now. I want you to meet me where we made love, in the park, at midnight. If you don’t, I’ll never see you again. It’s the way it has to be.”

He wandered, trying to think. Past the statue of William Karges, into the cadre quad, where he hadn’t been in years. Without ever consciously deciding to, he found himself at the base of the oak, the one he had spent so much time trying to climb. He could reach the lowest branch now. He didn’t have to jump for it. He leaned against the bark, feeling its familiar roughness, like an old friend.

In a way, when he had lived here, the tree had been his only friend. The kids and the cadre had never been, and the adults he had imagined as caring for him had been the same Grins who punished him so terribly. Only the tree had been the same, day in and day out, always challenging him to climb higher, never changing the rules. Like the Corps itself.

He swung himself up onto the branch and began to climb. The rules had changed. He was bigger. The stretches and gaps in the branches that had once been such a problem weren’t impediments at all anymore. He kept going, effortlessly, past the high-water mark of his youth. Up and up, to where he had never been, to where the branches were narrow, to where he could feel the tree actually swaying with his weight, and the limbs themselves trembled with the effort of supporting him. And he could see the stars above, those same stars in which he had seen the faces of his parents, the stars he and Liz had dreamed of seeing much closer, together.

Yes, the rules had changed, hadn’t they? Bey, and now Liz. And he had changed. He sat in those new and dangerous branches for a long while, thinking, playing futures in his mind, like vids. Dangerous, uncertain futures. Futures with rules yet to be defined.

She rushed into his arms with a gasp, crushed his lips with her own, and they swayed together on the hilltop like saplings twining together for strength.

“I knew you would come,” she said, breathlessly.

Her face was shining, the fire in her burning brighter than he had ever seen it. In that instant, he loved her more than he ever had, more than he even knew he could. And in that instant, too, she knew. He felt her body stiffen, and now he had to grip her harder, because if she ran it would only be worse.

He expected her to fight. He wanted her to. But she didn’t. She just went dead in his arms. Her mind went away from him, shuttered behind bars and doors he hadn’t felt since they had been together.

When the cops came out of the trees and took her away, she never even looked at him. She just stared at the ground. He stayed where he was, rooted by the ghost of their last embrace, savoring it.

“Are you okay?”

He looked up to see one of the cops. It was Van Ark, the old fellow from the West End precinct. His dark face was gathered with concern.

“You did the right thing, Mr. Bester. I know it must have been hard for you.”

Al nodded wordlessly.

“Give you a lift back to the dorms?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t worry about her. She’ll be okay. They do a good job at the reeducation camps. Some day she’ll even thank you.”

“I know.”

“You did the right thing.”

“I know. “The Corps is mother, the Corps is father“.”

Al looked into the Psi Cop’s eyes.

“It’s the only thing we really have, isn’t it? The only permanent thing. The only thing that won’t die or abandon us.”

He didn’t know why he should explain this to Van Ark. Because the other would understand, he supposed. Van Ark nodded and patted him on the shoulder.

“Let’s go home,” he said. Al nodded. He did have exams to study for.

PART 3. Synthesis

Chapter 1

Thoughts slipped about him like eels through dark waters, mostly tail and fin, but here and there the occasional glimmer of an eye, the flash of moray teeth. He wasn’t among friends, which meant he was surely in the right place, after all. That was good, because coming here had been a big risk, and justifying it to the travel authority had been no easy matter, especially to follow a trail that had reached an official dead end there months ago.