Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester (19 page)

But now, they’re digging deeper. Now, Louise is in love with you-yes, everyone knows that. I don’t want to see her hurt, and I don’t want her implicated. I’m certain she can’t be tied up in this, because I know her, have known her for years. But this detective from downtown, he doesn’t know her. And when he finds out all of the facts, he’s going to be suspicious of you, just as I am. And he’s going to Louise because she benefited from it. If you go down for this, Mr. Kaufman, it will hurt Louise…”

“But you’ll be right there to pick up the pieces, won’t you?”

“It will hurt her,” Lucien continued, stubbornly, “and she has already been hurt enough. But worse, she might also end up paying for your crime.”

“What crime?” Bester snapped.

“This is all in your head.”

“Then why won’t you answer my questions?”

“Because they’re personal.”

Lucien said nothing, but looked skeptical.

“Look,” Bester said.

“You may not understand this, but I’m eighty-two years old. That’s a bad age to realize you’ve been on the wrong track all of your life. How much longer will I live? Ten years? Twenty? Thirty or forty, if I’m lucky. I want to live the life I missed, Officer D’Alambert. I want to laugh, and do work I enjoy, and sit in the sun. I’ve seen a hundred planets, and I want to forget them all.

I first came to Paris when I was fifteen. Fifteen. Do you remember how much potential you had when you were fifteen? How many things you had in you, how many buds just waiting to bloom if the right kind of rain came along? I fell in love with this city then. What did I do about it? Nothing. I went on to waste everything important that was in me, squander it, sacrifice it to the gods of success, while everyone I loved and cared for died.

That happens to everyone, I suppose, but most people fill those gaps in their lives, make new friends, take new lovers. I didn’t. If I had made a deliberate plan to become a heartsick, lonely old man I couldn’t have done it better. Then one day, I saw it. I faced the truth, and I came back here, and I walked until I saw something interesting. Here. I didn’t know it, but I fell in love with Louise the instant she spoke to me. How could I know? I had forgotten what love was. I couldn’t even conceive of it. Now…”

He broke off, folding his face into what he was sure was a convincing simulacrum of on-the- verge-of-tears. He looked back up at the officer, who stood silently. Bester knew why. When Bester met people, he mentally profiled them, sorting clues from surface thoughts, from actions, from the congruence and incongruence of word, thought, and expression. He had chosen his words carefully, almost scientifically He knew d’Alambert shared many of these feelings, knew the man couldn’t help but sympathize. Just then, the officer was seeing himself in forty years or so, lonely, in search of elusive truth, of love.

“Look, I won’t say I didn’t wish Jem harm,” Bester said, softly.

“I won’t say I’m sorry about what happened to him. But if you don’t want Louise hurt, imagine how I feel. She’s the first human being I’ve loved since before you were born. That’s a special kind of love, Officer d’Alambert, one I sincerely hope you never have the opportunity to appreciate. But if you do, I can only hope it is with someone as precious as Louise.”

The two men stood there on the street, facing each other. Then the cop nodded slowly.

“I’ve a suspicious mind,” d’Alambert finally said.

“I can’t help it. And you’re right, I did-do-have feelings for Louise. I’m also smart enough to know she won’t ever return them.”

He met Bester’s gaze, squarely.

“I won’t help them, won’t point them here, but they’ll come. Maybe I believe you-about not having anything to do with Jem. But they’ll still come, turning over rocks. When you turn over rocks, you usually find something unpleasant underneath. I hope you’re ready for that, and I hope Louise is.”

“I’ve got a clear conscience,” Bester replied.

“They can ask anything they want.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. Well, good day, Mr. Kaufman.”

He held out his hand. Bester shook it and smiled.

“I hope one day you’ll trust me, and be happy for me.”

“So do I,” the policeman replied.

“It would make me a better man.”

Bester’s breath quickened as he started up the stairs to his room. It had nothing to do with the stairs. For once, he was glad Louise wasn’t around. She and her sister had taken a day trip into the country and wouldn’t return until late that night. Why were they investigating again? Could they link him to Jem somehow? What if someone had seen him coming and going from the thug’s apartment?

When he got upstairs, he poured half a glass of port to calm his nerves, but he kept hearing Garibaldi’s voice, on the phone.

I’m coming for you.

He threw the glass against the wall, suppressing the urge to scream. It shattered, and wine ran down the wall like thin blood.

Oh, wonderful. Louise will notice that.

He went to the bathroom, soaked a rag in cold water, and tried to wipe the wall clean. But of course it wouldn’t come clean. The color faded to pink, but anyone walking into the room would still see it, still…

…and now the wallpaper was starting to tear.

What had he done wrong? But that was a stupid question. He had done everything wrong. Coming to Earth, falling in love - yes, falling in love. If he had just kept walking, let Jem go on with what he was doing, he wouldn’t be in this mess. If he hadn’t been playing tourist like some silly boy, he would never have gone to the Eiffel Tower and seen Justin again. Or even if he had, he would just have mindwiped him and left town, left the damned planet, headed back out where it was safe…

His heart was hammering, too hard for an old man. He sat on the bed, put his face into his good hand, ground the balled, white-knuckled hand into his knee.

“Did you do this to me, Byron? Are you still in there? Did you do this to me?”

It made a certain amount of sense. It was as if a part of him had been planning this all along, planning to back himself into a corner, painting big bright arrows on the universe with notes screaming Look here for Alfred Bester l Look here!

“Byron?”

But Byron wasn’t there, hadn’t been there since the night he had let him go. So the problem was with him, Alfred Bester. No, the problem was with the world. How could a world - a race he had served so well, despite their hatred for him - think of this as just? Part of him must have refused to believe it.

Part of him had somehow imagined that it would all go away, if he pretended hard enough. But they wouldn’t go away. They hadn’t gone away, leaving his first mentor, Sandoval Bey, in peace. They had killed him, the best man Bester had ever known. And they had killed Brett. Oh, yes, Brett pulled the trigger himself, but there was never any doubt in Bester’s mind as to who had really killed him. Or Carolyn-they had gotten her, too. And how many times had they tried to get Alfred Bester?

Well, they wouldn’t. If he accomplished nothing else in what remained of his life, it would be denying them all the satisfaction. Garibaldi and his cronies, Metasensory - all of the faces that they now wore. He was old, but he was smarter than them, better than them.

He always had been. Maybe he had done all of this just to prove that to himself. Subconsciously he had needed a real challenge. He remembered reading about certain head - hunting tribes who considered it more prestigious to return from war with the head of a woman or a child than with that of another warrior, because that meant that they must have gone into the heart of the enemy’s territory, entered the village itself, killed, and escaped carrying the unwieldy trophy.

Was that what he was doing, in essence? Letting them get near enough almost to taste him, then dancing forever out of their reach? Why was he having to second-guess himself? Was he finally losing his mind?

He realized he was weeping.

Stupid old man. You think you love her, but it’s all been a part of your game…

Liar.

For an instant he thought that was Byron again, but it wasn’t. He sat there, taking deep breaths, growing calmer. His mind stopped darting about like a trapped rat, and began to work rationally again.

I’m Alfred Bester Bester Alfred Bester Remember who you are!

They didn’t have him yet. This all might still slide right past him. The reinvestigation of Jem might have nothing to do with him after all. Panicking. Yes, that was what he was doing, panicking like some green Blip with a bloodhound squad after him. He could afford to wait a bit. Be careful, but wait. Stay the course, not let on that anything was wrong. He could do that, and watch, and wait.

But he might as well be prepared. When the time came, he might have to go on a minute’s notice. So he thumbed on his pocket tel-phone, dialed a number he had hoped never to dial, and spoke to someone he hoped never to speak to again. He was smooth again, composed. He cajoled, he threatened, and within five minutes, a new identity began taking shape. A new him, somewhere safe.

Then he called his contact in EABI Metasensory. She still hadn’t heard anything. He still trusted her, too. She couldn’t deceive him, in that most precious meaning of the word couldn’t-the literal one. He told her to take extra care, watch extra hard.

Then he lay on the bed, doing relaxation exercises. When he felt Louise come home, hours later, he put on his best smile and went down to see her, to ask how her day had been, to make small talk.

Chapter 7

Rain made Michael Garibaldi nervous, more nervous than the hard, invisible sleet of radiation from a solar flare or the remorseless, terrible arrival of a Martian sandstorm - though intellectually he knew it shouldn’t.

But there were just certain things water ought not to do. It ought not to collect in pools miles deep and thousands of miles wide. It ought not to form grinding, juggernaut mountains. And damn it, it ought not to fall out of the sky.

He was explaining this to Derrick Thompson as they made their way down a Parisian street, shoved by crowds of rude people with umbrellas.

“I mean, water is dangerous stuff. It corrodes metals. It’s a conductor. It carries all sorts of diseases and parasites…”

“Rain doesn’t carry disease,” Thompson disagreed, reasonably.

“Yeah? I’m not so sure. Every time I get caught in this stuff I come down with a cold.”

“I enjoy the rain,” Thompson said.

“Not so much like this; I enjoy the sound and the smell of a good thunderstorm.”

“Oh, yeah, perfect. Uncontrolled gigavolts of electricity jumping down from the sky. Wonderful.”

“I’ve had other Marsies tell me rain was a real revelation when they first felt it-brought them back into contact with their ancient Human roots.”

“I don’t believe it. They’re making it up. The only roots I’ve ever discovered in the rain are the ones that try to grow out of my toes. And the only thing I want to get in touch with is a healthy…”

He stopped short, appalled.

He had almost said “shot of scotch.” Damn, he could almost taste it.

“…cup of coffee,” he finished.

“Coffee is a tropical plant. Doesn’t grow so well without rain,” Thompson pointed out.

“Coffee grows in little bags labeled ”coffee”, as far as I’m concerned,” Garibaldi said.

“Here, this looks like as good a place as any.”

They ducked into a cafe-looking place. It was crowded-some Parisians, at least, shared his feelings about the unnatural thing the sky was doing - but they managed to find a table. He took his duster off and slung it over the back of a rickety wooden chair, brushed droplets from his stubbly scalp, and looked around for service.

“Don’t hold your breath,” Thompson told him.

“Oh, right. Paris.”

His face showed what he thought of Parisian service.

“So, what do you have to report?”

“Two possible sightings at the airport. One witness gave me permission to scan, and yes, I think it was him.”

“Happy birthday to me,” Garibaldi said.

“What name was he going under?”

“That we couldn’t recover, but he’s probably changed it already anyway. That’s his pattern - travel under one name, then trade it once he lands someplace.”

“Right. But sometimes people break patterns. He’s broken his here, I’m pretty sure. The question is, why?”

“Could he have family here?”

“Family? You know better than that. Bester wasn’t just raised by the Corps, they gave birth to him. There are absolutely no records linking him to any other human being.”

“I noticed that. That’s weird, even for the old Psi Corps. Keeping track of genealogies, notably for breeding purposes, was everything, especially back then.”

“Especially back then?” Garibaldi echoed, suspiciously.

Thompson colored.

“Well, uh, of course teep marriages aren’t arranged, like they used to be.”

“But you guys still like to marry each other.”

“Sure. It’s hard enough making a marriage work between any two people, but if one’s a teep and the other is a mun-uh, not a teep, it’s even harder.”

“Uh-huh. People used to say that about mixed - race marriages.”

“They still do, on Earth, some places. You don’t think racism is a thing of the past, do you?”

“I don’t think we’ve lost any of our old baggage,” Garibaldi said, “just put it in prettier bags.”

“No offense, but I find it odd to hear you say that, considering your attitude toward teeps.”

“What do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t marry one, would you?”

“Nope. I wouldn’t want a wife who knew my every thought.”

“That’s not how we operate. One of the first things we learn is to respect the privacy of others.”

“Sure. Just like one of the first things I learned was that it’s not polite to eavesdrop, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t catch my parents fighting, sometimes, hear them saying things they never meant me to hear. And I sure as hell knew I shouldn’t peep on my buddy Devin’s older sister when she was in the shower, but I did that, too.”

He hunched forward, lacing his fingers together.