Free Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant by J. Gregory Keyes Page B

toilet.
    Two cars up, he relaxed a bit. Teeps could often sense each other over great distances, especially if they wanted to, but it required a mutual and cooperative effort to exchange any real information without line of sight. Well, he knew where she was, what now?
    The safest thing would be to call the Corps station in Paris and have cops waiting to pick her up. But that would defeat his whole purpose in following her. He wanted to catch her himself. He wanted the Corps to know that they had done a good job in training and raising him. He wanted Cadre Prime to know what he gained when he lost them-and thus what they had lost. He couldn’t bear the thought of Brett and the rest feeling sorry for him, which at the moment they almost certainly did.
    But how to collar her? Psi Cops carried weapons, which he didn’t have. He might be able to subdue her physically, but his encounter with Antoine had left him a little dubious of his abilities. That left psi attacks, and he knew several that ought to work - she was, after all, only a P5. He could push her, or maybe spark out her cortex and while she was out of it, tie her hands behind her back with the cord in his backpack - While a bunch of Normals screamed bloody murder.
    She would keel over and they would see him start tying her up. He didn’t have a badge or anything other than his Psi Corps ILK. Probably he would end up getting arrested himself, by railroad security. Maybe he should just have a talk with security first, explain who he was, and all of that. That seemed like a good compromise. He would still be the representative of Psi Corps, making the collar, because the train cop would be a normal, and a normal couldn’t risk going up against a Blip by himself. Even a P5 could make a mess out of a normal.
    He continued toward the front of the train. The security man wasn’t hard to spot, a middle - aged fellow whose balding head was nearly hidden by his long-billed cap. Al sucked up his confidence and approached him.
    “Sir?”
    Watery blue eyes met his gaze.
    “Yes, son?”
    Al lowered his voice.
    “Sir, my name is Alfred Bester. Is there someplace we can talk in private? I think there may be trouble on the train, and I don’t want to panic anyone.”
    Al didn’t need surface thoughts to catch the mixture of skepticism and concern on the man’s face, but after a moment, the cop nodded.
    “Up here, in my office.”
    A few moments later, they closed a narrow door behind them and stood in a cabin with a coffeemaker, a surveillance camera system, a table with an AI and a half-eaten sandwich on a plastic dish, and a narrow bunk.
    “What’s this about, son?”
    “You have a rogue telepath on the train.”
    “A rogue?”
    His eyes widened perceptibly.
    “Yessir. I’m a student at the Psi Corps academy in Geneva, and I recognized her from her picture. She’s been on the hunt lists for some time, and she’s considered dangerous.”
    “Well. Have you called ahead to the Psi Cops in Paris?”
    “No, sir. I think that two of us could take her. I’m a P12, and I can run interference with pretty much anything she might try, while you take her into custody. Do you carry a side arm?”
    “I have a shock stick. Here, you know her name? Can you pull her up on my database? We need to find a match with her ticket.”
    “Yessir.”
    Al turned to the keyboard and began shifting to the requisite screen, hoping the cop would go along with him, rather than calling the Corps station in Paris.
    Paris? This train had half a hundred stops, some before Paris, some after: How had the security man known Brazg was getting off in Paris? Al hadn’t mentioned that he even knew where Brazg was going. Without that thought, what he sensed next might have corm too late. As it was, everything clicked at once, and he buried himself to the side, crashing into the bulkhead, as a shock stick crackled through the space he had just occupied. This time, his first reaction wasn’t fear but