Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant (35 page)

“It’s a military base, then?” Byron asked.

“You really don’t want to know what they do here, Byron,” Bester said “They would have to kill you.”

“I thought all the hush-hush stuff went on at Syria Planum.”

Drew smiled nervously.

“Well, there’s hush-hush and then there’s hush-hush, if you know what I mean.”

“If we keep this up, we’ll sound like an ancient locomotive,” Bester noted. “Hush-hush-hush-hush hush-hush-hush-hush…”

Drew laughed. It sounded almost genuine.

“Indeed,” he said “Would you gentlemen join me for some refreshment?”

“Wonderful,” Bester said “Some hot tea would be very nice.”

They traveled up one of the corridors to a small kitchenette, where Drew busied himself making tea. As Bester and Byron seated themselves, another man entered the room from an opposite passage. He was a handsome fellow, dapper in a crisply pressed suit. He had black hair and dark, haunted eyes.

“Well - here’s what all the fuss was about,” he said, taking in Bester and Byron.

“Not expecting someone else, I hope?” Bester said “I’m Al Bester This is my associate, Byron Gordon.”

“Actually,” the fellow said, “I was told we were expecting visitors…”

“Mr. Bester and Mr. Gordon are making an emergency stop here,” Drew hastily cut in. “They were quite unexpected Mr. Bester, Mr. Gordon - may I introduce Dr. Morden?”

“Doctor?”

Bester said curiously. He shook his head

“My, my the people you meet at small outposts. M.D. or Ph. D.”

“Ph.D. In archaeolinguistics.”

“Realty? Fascinating.”

“You know the subject?”

“No, but I am nonetheless fascinated.”

He let that hang for a moment, as Drew set out the tea service.

“This is really very good,” Bester said, after a sip. “Thank you,” Drew replied

“We do try to maintain what amenities we can.”

“Dr. Morden,” Bester said, “dare I ask what brings an archaeolinguist all the way out to Ganymede?”

Morden exchanged glances with Drew, but Bester wasn’t entirely certain what was communicated. Morden was a mundane, but Drew, a P10, would notice a scan. Morden took a seat.

“My position is actually with EarthForce, and not with Psi Corps, so I’m unsure of who I can and can’t talk to in these situations. On the other hand, I’m happy to say I don’t actually know what I’m doing on Ganymede, so I don’t actually have to evade your question.” Bester raised his teacup.

“Dr. Morden - you will consider it a compliment, I hope, when I tell you that I feel sure that if you wanted to evade one of my questions, you could do so.”

“Oh, in all humility, I doubt that,” Morden replied.

There followed a silence that Bester sensed was uncomfortable to everyone but him. He hoped it was, anyway.

“If I may,” Drew asked, politely, a few moments later, “I should like to ask how many of your crew will be coming onto the station.”

“Well, there are twelve of us,” Bester said. “Will that press you for room? Dr. Morden mentioned some other guests arriving?”

“Within the hour, actually, and I’ll have to excuse myself to go greet them momentarily. I can only accommodate three of your party tonight, I’m afraid.”

“Can the others come in just to stretch their legs, a few at a time? I understand you have an exercise room.”

He set his teacup down.

“Anyone I know?”

“Pardon?”

“Your visitors. Anyone I know?”

Drew appeared to dither for a few moments.

“It’s classified,” he said, after a moment. “Well, how about this - Whoever it is, you mention to them that I’m here. I don’t know why, but I have a hunch that they might want to see me.”

“Of course. And yes, your people are welcome to come on for a bit of a stretch.”

“Something’s up, right?” Byron asked, once they had been shown to their room.

The quarters were very simple, bunk beds and a desk that folded from the wall.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean - this is a Psi Corps base, right? So why are all of the guards mundanes? And who is that Morden character? And why are they hiding things from you, of all people?”

“Well, Byron, don’t exaggerate my importance. As for the rest, it’s all perfectly natural. Psi Corps and FarthForce are allies. They work on real black-hole stuff here, things critical to Earth Alliance security, so you shouldn’t be surprised by their precautions.”

He followed with a quick p-cast: Don’t ask too many questions, Byron. And don’t imagine they can’t hear us.

Byron’s chagrined expression made it clear he understood, but to his credit he managed to cover it by nodding.

“Yes, that all makes sense, I suppose. I’m just not used to the world of high intrigue. Well. Good night, sir.”

“Good night, Byron.”

Bester was almost asleep when the door to their quarters opened and the lights came up. Four men in EA uniforms quickly entered the room. All bore PPG rifles. One - a burly fellow with a broken nose and two chipped front teeth-nudged Bester with his weapon.

“Get up,” he snapped. “You’re coming with us.”

Chapter 8

He was little Alfie Bester, being escorted by the Grins to an unknown fate. He was Al Bester, going exactly where he wanted to go, keeping an appointment that was decades late. Could he disconnect memory and perception? It didn’t seem so. The only context for understanding the present was the past.

And so, for the second time in his life albeit with almost six decades intervening - he was hauled from his bed in the middle of the night and brought before the director of Psi Corps.

The-years had been kind to Director Johnston only in that they had let him live. Some would argue it was no kindness at all. Whereas Vacit had been wrinkled like antique paper, Johnston had shriveled. His bones seemed to have crumpled inward with the collapse of the skin, like a plastic figure that had gotten too hot. His hair was sparse, wet-looking. He sat behind a desk, but that didn’t hide the rest of what Bester knew was there; the chair kept his body functioning and gave him mobility. Yet his eyes were still alive. They poked from beneath the brows of his time-wrecked face like the points of steel knives. And his hatred was still there, as fresh and pure as the day Bester had first felt it when he was six.

The director considered him. At each hand stood a black-clad Psi Cop. The EA men went back outside, doubtless to stand guard. They had already searched him, of course.

“Good evening, Director,” Bester said “Or is it good morning?”

The director didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he showed his teeth-still perfect, regular, white. It might have been a grin or a snarl.

“Mr. Bester, what are you doing here?”

“Sir, with all due respect, what are you doing here? A man your age - you’re in no condition to travel.”

Johnston’s eyes widened fractionally.

“I asked you a question.”

Bester scrunched his eyebrows thoughtfully.

“The question has a number of answers, Director. It depends upon what you mean, doesn’t it? Do you mean in the philosophical sense - why am I here? Why are any of us here? Are we really here at all? I don’t know the answer to that. Do you mean, why am I here before you at this instant? That would be because your men took me from my room, strip-searched me, and hauled me in front of you. If you mean, what am I doing in the vicinity, then you certainly have access to the records I’ve left of my movements over the last month or so. I’m going to guess, Director, that you don’t mean any of these things.”

“Mr. Bester…”

The tone carried both weariness and venom.

“No, I’m going to guess you meant, Mr. Bester, what are you doing here when you ought to be dead?”

Johnston had scowled throughout, sometimes looking as though he was about to interrupt. But now he closed his cracked lips. He looked at Bester for a moment, then bobbed his head

“You are a very stupid man, if you figured that out, and still came here. But I don’t suppose you knew I was coming here, too, did you? Well. I had hoped to be subtler about all of this, but you may as well disappear on Ganymede as anywhere. We have the facilities for it.”

“Good thinking, sir,” Bester told him. “You seem to think I won’t do it.”

“Oh, it’s not that,” Bester said, hastily. “But I wonder-would you care to explain why?”

“Why? No, I don’t care to explain. You don’t fit into the modem Corps, that’s all. You’re an impediment.”

“I see. Director, we’ve never really talked, you and I. I think we should, just for the record.”

“I’m tired, Bester. I don’t have any more time to waste with you. I’m going to have you broken, and everyone in your crew. Once we have everything you know, we’ll find something convenient to do with you. You have a lot of enemies. No one will wonder about you - or mourn you, for that matter.”

He signed to the two cops.

“Hugin,” Bester said, quietly. “Munin.”

And at the same time he released a string of key glyphs. The cops stopped in their tracks - in fact, took a step backward.

“What?” The director scowled. “Hugin and Munin. Thought and memory. The two ravens who perched on the shoulders of the Norse god Odin.”

The director noticed that his bodyguards weren’t moving. He looked from one to the other.

“Hey!” he said.

“Funny god, Odin. One of his attributes was madness. The warriors he loved best, he would drive berserk, make them gnaw their shields. They were virtually invincible in battle. Unless, of course, Odin wanted them in his own private war party you see, he knew one day that the gods were going to have a great battle, a battle to the death, and then he would need the best warriors at his side. So if he looked down and saw a truly great warrior, he would-arrange-for them to stumble in battle, or for the sun to shine in their eyes at exactly the wrong moment. A god of madness and betrayal. Not, all in all, a nice guy.”

“Stein? Dorset?”

“They can’t hear you. Or, rather, they do hear you, but they won’t respond. They will respond to me, and only me. May I sit down? Thank you.”

Bester lowered himself into a chair.

“Guards!”

“No, they can’t hear you either. Different cause, same effect they’re dead. See, I’ve been planning this for a very long time. That little attempt to blow me up yesterday really worried me - not because you tried to kill me, you’ve done that often enough but because I thought you were onto me. Years and years of planning, shot to hell. But no, fortunately it turned out to be just a coincidence.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Director, I’ve been planning this moment since I was fifteen. Oh, I didn’t know it then - I blamed Bey’s death on him, on the underground. Well, Bey was weak, in a way-he did have sympathy for the rogues. It’s the same sympathy that allowed him to catch them, and maybe it got a little out of hand. But he was no traitor. And then there was Montoya, and Brett - well, I’m not going to go through it all. I understood that you were a danger to the Corps that first day I met you, when I was six. I knew even then that you hated us.”

“I’m the director of Psi Corps, you idiot.”

“And a fine one you’ve been. Slowly selling us out to the mundanes, bit by bit. And to someone else, yes? Aren’t you curious as to how I knew you would be here, when almost no one else in the universe did?”

“I think you’re going to tell me, regardless.”

“When the alien ship on Mars woke up and flew off, it had some effect here as well. I’m not sure what, I’ll admit, but a flurry of messages concerning Ganymede was an impossible correlation to miss. So I kept my ear to the ground, and here we are. I knew they would send you here.”

“Just who exactly do you suppose they are, Mr. Bester?”

“I don’t know all of the details, of course. I know some of the players. Vice President Clark, for instance, and the upper management of IPX. Certain senators and industrialists. And - I think - whoever built those ships. I freely admit, I have no idea who they are. I don’t really care - you’ve betrayed the Corps. Beyond that, you could have betrayed all of humanity and it would be secondary as far as I’m concerned. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

The director straightened, an operation that seemed painful and almost non-Euclidean in its geometry.

“Do you plan to scan me? Is that what this is all about?”

“Scan you? Maybe. First and foremost, I plan to execute you.”

“Of course. But why? That’s what I still don’t understand. Bester, I’m an old man. I don’t have long to live anyway. Surely you don’t think that killing me will change anything? There are ten people groomed for my position, and you won’t like any of them any more than you like me. We have too much momentum to be deterred in the slightest by the death of a single man. Kill me if you will, but “they“ will still run over you like an insect.”

Bester smiled.

“God grant me the strength to change the things I can change, the serenity to accept the things I can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

“What an amazingly sickening platitude.”

“Isn’t it? It was hanging, in needlepoint, in the home of some rogue sympathizers I found hiding a Blip. They weren’t very serene about what I did to them.”

“Your point?”

“You and I are very much alike, on one level. Both of us know the truth of our situation. Oh, we talk the talk in public. “Psi Corps is your friend“. But you and I, we know the truth. Sooner or later - and probably sooner, in the great, grand scheme of things - it’s going to come down to your kind or my kind. Humanity simply won’t tolerate Homo superior in its midst. Mundanes and telepaths are going to stand face-to-face, but only one is going to walk away.”

He leaned forward.

“I’m here to tell you, Director, it’s going to be us. Just as, at the end of this day, it’s going to be me and not you walking out of this room. Yes, yes - I know it won’t change anything. I know you will die soon whether I act or not. But what matters to me, you see - Director - what matters to me is that I kill you, that you know I killed you. Do you understand? All my life I’ve lived for the Corps. I’ve done everything for the Corps. This… this is just for me. I’ve been working on it for a long time. Hugin and Munin there, for instance. I studied the criteria you use to pick your personal teeps and started conditioning possible candidates twenty years ago. My greatest worry, Director, was that you would drop dead before I was ready.”