Babylon 5 11 - Psi Corps 02 - Deadly Relations - Bester Ascendant (Keyes, Gregory)

by Bester Ascendant (Keyes, Gregory)

  We always did things to them, Al said. Have you ever seen a reeducation camp? Or someone on sleepers?

  Have you ever seen one telepath dissect another? Brett countered. Have you ever seen one driven mad, when they tried to push him past P12 with drugs?

  Ive heard of such things, of course. Sometimes they may be necessary. You know as well as I do that one day there will be a war against the mundanes, Brett, a war we cannot lose. I, for one, am willing to make a few sacrifices to see that my people arent slaughtered.

  Of course. I dont question that, Al. Any of us should be happy to sacrifice anything and everything for the others. What Im trying to tell you is that this isnt being done for usfor teeps its being done to us. By mundanes.

  When Vacit was in chargeand for years afterthe Corps was controlled by telepaths. Now its not. They arent experimenting for our own benefit, but to make us better weapons. Hell, surely youve heard about dust?

  Yes. Whats wrong with trying to enhance our powers?

  Bull. Dust was developed to give mundanes psi, AI. To undercut us completely. He stopped, picked up a Martian rock, turned it at a few angles, then let it drop. Its a matter of control, Al. In the old days, Cadre Primers were placed in strategic positions. The low-level ones became instructors, but the P12s went on to high command. Now theres a black box out there that they wont let any of us into. Because were all suspect. Do you know how many of us have died?

  No.

  Most of us, Al. Millas gone. And Menno. Ekko. And I went back through the older generations. You met Natasha Alexander once?

  Yes. Here, on Mars. She was the commander of Department Sigma.

  One of the first from Cadre Prime, and her mother and her mothers mother were both in the Metasensory Regulation Authority before it became Psi Corps. She was assassinated. She used to be Vacits aide, did you know that? No Primers in Department Sigma, Al. Or in top Admin. She was in the black box and so they got her out. You should have been promoted all the way to the top, years ago. You know it, I know it.

  Oh, they let you have your Black Omega Squadron to keep you busy, but you know youre still on the outside. You have to. I should be higher up, too, though I never had the ambition you did. Theyve held us down, Al. And if they ever think they cant, theyll kill us.

  They? Who is they ? Al demanded angrily. Montoya had spoken of they .

  Johnston and his cronies, his pet telepaths, laters allAnd behind them, a select group of senators, governors, industrialists IPX especially. Mundanes, Al, mundanes. Theyre taking it away from us. From our children. He grabbed Als arm. Dont you know why Sandoval Bey was killed? You were his friend, dont you want to know?

  Enough! Al shouted. Despite his full-throated roar, his voice was surrealistically thin in the Martian air. What are you here for? Are you trying to talk me into some kind of revolution? Assuming all you say is true, you think the two of us can just

  But Brett was shaking his head. No, Al. Im just trying to save your life. Ive already given up on mine.

  What?

  I investigated. I left a trail. Theyll find me.

  Oh. Wonderful. And youve led them right to me. Its so good to have friends.

  No, I promise you, Ive fixed that. Anyway, they may have already been coming for you. Whether they were or not, something is happening here, on Mars, in Department Sigma. Something very big and very nasty.

  And what would that be?

  They found something. Lots of somethings, actually, out there on Syria Planumsome of it long, long ago. Hell, the facility has been there since 73! Some of it we now think is Vorlon organic technology, anyway. More recently, though, they found other things He stopped and took Al by both shoulders. Some very bad things have been happening to telepaths on Mars, Al.

  You have proof of any of this?

  No. But looklook very carefullyand youll find it. Youre better placed than I, smarter than I, stronger than I. You have your Black Omega Squadron and bloodhound units loyal to you. Al, whether you know it or not, youre the most powerful man on our side. Youre the Black Pope.

  What side is that, Brett?

  The only side that really matters, Al. The teep side. Dont you see, theyve played you against the rogues, kept you occupied so you dont ask questions. But soon now, very soon, they wont be able to hide all of it from you. Then theyll have to do something about you. Something permanent.

  If what you say is true, they have their excuse nowyoure talking to me.

  No. As I said, Ive fixed that.

  Brett was good. Al caught his intent an instant too late. The larger mans fist drove into his face, ripping the breather half off. His sharp intake of breath was already in progress, but it was almost all CO 2 , and his head swam. Brett helped out by hitting him again, and his knees buckled, but Brett took him down gently to the jagged rocks.

  Sorry, Al. Brett yanked Als PPG from its holster. Just make sure you pick this up, he said. And dont forget what I said. Youre the one, Al. The only one who can save us. The Corps is mother. The Corps is father.

  Brett shot himself in the face.

  Al fumbled his mask into place and stood shakily, staring at Bretts corpse, determined not to move again until he had worked out exactly what to do. On consideration, he unholstered Bretts weapon and fired itonce into the side of the mountain, once so that it scorched his arm. PPGs had faintly different signatures and the weapons were registeredan investigation would tell who had fired which.

  Then he took his own weapon from Bretts outstretched hand and replaced it with the other. He closed the dead fingers and squeezed them, and he remembered, so, so long ago, playing cops and blips, pretending Brett wasnt a good guy. Betraying him. His brother.

  Im sorry, Brett, he said softly. I really am.

  And for the first time in a very, very long time he felt something that might have been a tear start in the corner of his eye.

  He cracked the mask, let the desiccated Martian atmosphere have it. He had no time for that.

  He could hardly doubt that Brett believed what he saidhe had died for it. Brett might be wrong, but too much of what he said fit too well with what Al already suspected. He had known about Johnston for years. Indeed, he and Johnston would have a personal meeting one day, to discuss purely personal mattersthat was certain.

  But the larger conspiracyhe hadnt exactly seen the shape of it until now.

  If Brett was right, this amounted to much more than a political game inside the Corps. His telepaths were in danger. Alfred Besters telepaths. They were all he had, all he cared about.

  God help anyone who got in his way.

  * * *

  chapter 2

  « » Glass shattered, and though it was up ahead somewhere, Bester ducked reflexively. He signaled his bloodhounds, and they spread out around him, their excitement barely contained.

  They relayed their impressions back toward him in a chain. He loved it, hunting with his hounds. It was like being the conductor of a symphony. For the moment he conducted them like bassoons and low strings, plucked, as they crept like thieves though ruined corridors of antique white and aquamarine.

  A hundred yards ahead, they came across a normal. Like the others they had found, he was curled against the wall, his expression slack. Blood seeped through a crack in his faceplate, but he was still alive. One eye was a bloody ruin, but the normal didnt care. He was more occupied with the nightmare his remaining eye saw, wherever it tried to look.

  I dont understand , Tapia mused. Why is he doing this?

  Shh. Dont cast, Bester warned. He noted that she seemed to have recovered mostbut not allof the use of her arm. He had heard that she was proud of the injury, because it made her more like him. She was a good cop, and one of the few he was certain he could trust, especially now.

  Yes, sir. But McDwyer is smarter than this. I trained with him. If he were going Blip, he wouldnt

  No, no, Ms. Tapia. He hasnt gone Blip. Thats not whats going on here.

  His link quietly vibrated. He t
ouched it on. Bester.

  Sir, this is Donne. Sir, Ive been watching like yousaid. Another team just came in. Looks like Sigma, all right.

  Good work, Ms. Donne. You know the plan. Im sending a few back to help. Just keep them busy for a few minutes. Nothing overt, nothing we cant plausibly deny.

  On it, sir.

  He motioned to a couple of the bloodhounds, and they turned and raced the way they had come.

  Whats going on, sir? Tapia asked.

  Better you dont know right now, he told her. If everything goes as I want it to, Ill tell you. Meantime, our job is to concentrate on catching McDwyer. Alive.

  Yes, sir.

  They passed through a high-ceilinged chamber that must have once been the resorts ballroom. Modest in size by Earth standards, by Martian standards it was lavish.

  And in ruins. No one had even bothered to loot itthe shattered crystal of candelabras littered the floor, and once plush, real-leather sofas cracked in the dry Martian air. A fine coat of red dust covered everything, puffing up as they moved through it.

  The Earth-Minbari War, the embargo that had followed, and the provisional Mars government hadnt done much to help the old tourist industry. New Vegas had survived, as had the upper-crust entertainments of Olympus Mons, but none of the more exclusiveand isolatedimitators. This one, the hotel Tharsis, would likely never open again. It was home to fifty or so squatters, some fugitives from the EPG, some just half-crazed outbackers.

  McDwyer had made a sizable dent in their active population the trail of bodies was even clearer than his footprints in the Martian dust.

  Something else, breaking ahead, and three of his bloodhounds bolted forward. As per orders, they didnt draw their PPGs. Bester hurried his own pace, through the ballroom and into a wing of suites.

  The hounds were already down when he entered, clutching their heads in stunned agony.

  McDwyer sat across the room, balanced on the high back of a chair, feet in the seat. He was leaning forward, posed like a cross between a gargoyle and Rodins Thinker . Behind him there was a large picture window, threaded with cracks. A dune of rusty sand piled against the outside, obscuring more than half the view. The plain beyond was lit by a rare, amber sky. The light from the window tinged everything in the room with a faintly sulfurous hue.

  Hello, McDwyer said, not looking up.

  Hello, Mr. McDwyer, Bester said. Ive come to help you.

  He couldnt see the mans face behind the respirator, but a shim of glee drifted up from him, though it had an odd quality to it. Like honey with an aftertaste of anise. McDwyers mind imago resembled a blob of caviar, a thousand little black bubbles, shifting this way and that.

  McDwyer slowly shook a finger at him. You know that pi doesnt resolve. But neither does two plus two. Its just an approximation, you know?

  No, I dont. Help me understand.

  A muffled laugh. You just want me to go back. But Im already back, thats what you dont know. Theyre everywhere. Scratch the fabric of space, and you find their eyes, looking at you. You know? So why should I go back? I just wait, I wait, sometimes I forget, but then they return, because they never left He shook his head. You want to see? You wanted me to see, and now you dont want to see? You still think pi resolves? You

  All right, Bester said. Show me.

  McDwyer clutched at his head. Oh, sure

  The caviar-mass of his mind suddenly jiggled, and each tiny egg split openno, slitted open, like an eye. The whole thing had changed, become like the compound eye of an insect. Glyphs swarmed out. Madness swarmed out. Things like spiders, like black sea urchins, stinging things, poison ampoules. But that was only the beginningit was the tide of feeling that hurt so, brought emotions like the scent of formaldehyde, the taste of rotted meat, the sound of a drill in a tooth. Passions that felt like skin tearing between fingers, a paper cut on an eyeball, the almost-pleasurable rupturing of a pus-filled wound. Desires that meant nothing, could mean nothing, to a warm-blooded mammal.

  All of that hit Bester in under a second, and he snapped his guards up. Nonetheless, he was stunned by the intensity of the wave.

  No! McDwyer screamed. His head jerked up. You said you wanted to see! He slammed the glyphs back at Bester, who countered, though he was still weakened by the experience of McDwyers insanity.

  Things from McDwyers nightmare attacked him; chitinous stings bristling with hairs, and each hair an eye. The clacking mandibles of a spider, or a mantis. Ropes of maggoty sinews. Bester fell back before the onslaught. Drawing McDwyer out, a bullfighter waving his cloak.

  When the attack thinned, when it seemed overextended, Bester struck back, a hard spark to the backbrain, meant to disable.

  But the madmans defenses were too powerful, too alien . It was as if McDwyers brain had been imprinted with something not Human at allit didnt react like a Human brain, or even like the Minbari prisoners Bester had scanned during the war.

  McDwyer renewed his assault, and it was all snapping in like a bear trap. For the first time it occurred to Bester that he might lose this battle. After all, he was strong, but not the strongest by far

  He couldnt get out the way he had come init was a sort of Chinese finger-puzzleso he plunged forward and burrowed out. Blood vessels exploded like water balloons, and he had no idea whose they were.

  Then he was outside, looking through his own eyes. McDwyer sighed and fell off of the chair. Thank you , he said, very faintly. Then massive hemorrhaging took him away.

  Bester wasnt remotely interested in following. Whatever hell McDwyer was off to couldnt compare to the one he had just been in.

  Whoof, he muttered, sitting down in another chaira hardwood that creaked dangerously. Someone came into the room behind him.

  Are you all right, sir?

  Quite all right. I

  Then what the hell is going on here?

  Bester turned to regard a tall, almost gigantic frame filling the doorway. Behind him there were at least ten men in black uniforms and hoods, not unlike Besters own bloodhound units.

  We apprehended a rogue, Bester said, indicating the dead McDwyer. Im Alfred Bester, attached to the MarsDome precinct. And you are?

  Who I am is of no concern. You , Mr. Bester, are a long way from home, and this is Department Sigma business.

  Well, it wasnt specified as such on the distress signal we received from the hotel.

  Hotel? There is no hotelthis is a ruin! Who notified you that McDwyer was here?

  One of the residentsone of the dead ones, I believe. He called MarsDome and they patched it to me. Whats the problem?

  One problem is that this man was carrying classified information. The other is that I have a deep suspicion that some of your bloodhounds laid false trails, to slow me and my people up.

  Bester shrugged dispassionately. Well. As you may or may not knowIm sorry, I still havent caught your nameI am cleared up to level A.

  Yes? Well

  Surely this matter couldnt require clearance above that? Whats your clearance? And, again, your name?

  AhIm Joseph Talmedge. My clearance is B.

  So you see? There is no problem. I have higher clearance than you do.

  SirIm afraid youll still have to be debriefed.

  No doubt. I was prepared for that. Ill follow you to Syria Planumdont worry, I know the way.

  As I told your man, I have the clearance. Now I want to exercise it.

  Yes, in theory you have the clearance, Mr. Bester, Aubrey Pierre-Louis replied, bushy grey eyebrows sinking lower and lower on his forehead. But this is a singular situation, and in fact , you may not be cleared for this.

  Bester crossed his left hand across his belly and fingered his chin with the right. I dont see how that can be, Mr. Pierre-Louis. Maybe you can explain it to me. Perhaps this is a need-to-know situation? Well, then, I have a need to know.

  In case you were asleep when it happened, one of our better P12s just went completely berserk. He was driven berserk by something right here. A new
drug? A new technique to push past P12? Was he a volunteer? I dont care . But to do my job, and to keep things like this from leaking outto the provisional government, for instance I. Need. To. Know . Keeping me in the dark is simply stupid, and is a greater threat to Corps security than telling me.

  Al

  Dont Al me, Aubrey, unless you plan to do something here.

  Al, you have every right to be upset

  Wrong. I have every right to know what the hell is going on. I have the obligation to be upset. Now are you going to tell me, or do I keep going over your head?

  Here was where his bluff rested on a fine line. Bester had worked for almost two months, keeping careful watch on Sigmas movements, waiting for something like the McDwyer breakout, an event that would allow him to claim privilege. He had even cultivated Pierre-Louis as best he could, hanging out in the chiefs favorite bar, swapping war stories.

  If Brett was right, and this went much higher, he was likely to hit a stone wall. His security clearance might even be in jeopardy. He had called in half a dozen favors just to get where he was at this moment.

  If Pierre-Louis didnt cave, it was over.

  Very well, the older man sighed. I suppose you should see. But thisthis is top secret, you have to understand that. This goes way beyond clearance.

  I understand, Bester said. I will be the soul of discretion.

  My God, Bester said. What is it?

  We arent sure. We think its a ship.

  It was more than he had ever imagined. Ship? No. It was a fallen angel. Just the sight of it ate at his backbrain, at the part of him that remembered the days before life crawled out of the oceans, when things like this ate his wormlike, notochord ancestors. This is what had bred spiders in Endra, who had never seen a spider. It was what had driven McDwyer as mad as the hatter in Alice .

  A scene flashed behind his retinas, so vivid and disorienting that he nearly stumbled. Suddenly he was six years old, facing Director Vacit. Every detail was as clear as a photograph. Watch for the Shadows , Vacit had said. Watch and beware .