Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester Read Online Free PDF Page B

telepaths, righting all of the wrongs that had plagued his kind. He’d had a mission, and certainty, and had never considered retiring.
    For the past several years, running had taken the place of his mission, but he could only run so long. If this worked-if he managed to hide here on Earth, indefinitely-he had to find something to do, or he’d go crazy. But what?
    His papers said he was a businessman, a midlevel sales manager for an engine coolant manufacturer that had gone belly-up during the Drakh crisis. Pretty obscure, and he had been briefed about his fictional job, but seeking a similar position was out of the question. First, because he didn’t want to be a salesman; second because any check of his references was unacceptably risky.
    So what to do? He picked at the chicken.
    There was no hurry.
     

     
    Sometimes Garibaldi thought his desk was too big. Any desk you could play regulation Ping-Pong on had to be too big, right? Especially on Mars, where every inch of space had to be paid for in oxygen, in power to heat it, in the cost of the dome that kept both of those in and the UV rays out. Hell, his desk was bigger than the bedrooms in some low-rent housing.
    Like many things, the desk had come with the office, a legacy of the late William Edgars. When Edgars had sat behind the desk, there had been almost nothing on it. It had been a stark reminder that he was a man with so much wealth, he could afford to pay for as much unutilized space as he cared to have.
    Garibaldi could afford it, too, but he had grown up on Mars, taking one-minute showers and sleeping almost standing up. It irked him, that desk, but some perversity made him keep it, maybe as a reminder of where his power and wealth had come from, of what it could do to him if he wasn’t careful. A bottle wasn’t the only thing that could trap a soul. Of course, he had Lise to remind him of those things.
    Lise, who had also come with the office. Nope, he wasn’t going there. That way lay, if not madness, at least stupidity. He’d behaved stupidly enough with Lise to lose five wives, and by some miracle she still loved him. Let that rover lie.
    The desk. He had spent years filling it up with odds and ends. A bigger workstation, models of starships and motorcycles, a Duck Dodgers helmet, a hologlobe of Mars. So now it was a big desk covered with junk, and whenever anyone he really wanted to talk to came in, he dragged himself out from behind it and sat on the front edge. He didn’t like that distance between him and his friends, and he liked it even less between him and his opponents.
    He wasn’t sure which he was seeing today, but it didn’t matter. He sat on the edge of the desk and watched him enter. The fellow walked in just a boy in EarthForce uniform, like so many Garibaldi had seen die. Except for the psi patch. That put everything out of kilter. A lot of things didn’t work for him: mousse made out of fish, cats on a space station, zero-g synchronized tumbling, pink T-shirts… telepaths in EarthForce.
    “Lieutenant Derrick Thompson, sir,” the boy said.
    “Don’t call me sir,” Garibaldi said.
    “This isn’t the military, and I’m not in the chain of command.”
    “What should I call you then?” Thompson asked.
    “Oh, Lord Zeus or Mr. Garibaldi will do. Have a seat.”
    Thompson did, looking distinctly uncomfortable.
    “You’re wondering why you suddenly find yourself in my office, aren’t you?”
    “The thought had crossed my mind. If you’ll pardon me, Mr. Garibaldi, you say you aren’t in the chain of command, but I sort of wonder about that.”
    Garibaldi smiled tightly.
    “Let’s just say I have a lot of friends-or people who like to think they’re my friends-and leave it at that, okay?”
    Thompson nodded.
    “Let’s get something right out in the open, Thompson. I don’t trust you. Not that I don’t want to-from your record you seem like a good kid, hardworking, disciplined, dedicated. No one you’ve served under