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

by Bester Ascendant (Keyes, Gregory)

  It chilled him to the marrow.

  The ship was huge, even only half excavated. Its skin was black, but all shades of blacknot the absence of color, but the maiming of it. It moved, it shifted. And he could feel it.

  Is it alive?

  Yes. It is. Or we think it is, anyway.

  Sentient?

  Thats what we were trying to find out when McDwyer touched it. You saw the answer we got.

  Yes, I suppose I did. How long has it been here?

  We dont know. It was buried, not covered by natural deposition. We think maybe two thousand years, maybe more.

  Its beautiful, in a way.

  It gives me the shakes, Pierre-Louis confessed.

  Beauty should shake you up, Aubrey. It should shake you to the core.

  Very nice philosophy, but if thats the case, Ill stick to the plain and ugly, thank you. I can do without the nightmares.

  What are you going to do with it?

  Study it. See what makes it tick. Its clearly more advanced than anything any of the races we know possesses, with the possible exception of the Vorlonsand there, of course, we only go on rumor.

  And the Corps has it. Wonderful. Does EarthGov know?

  Alyou really dont want to know who knows about this thing. You really, really dont.

  Ill take your word for it. Butcan we work a little more closely from now on? Youre the administrator. Its your job to provide the Corps with a future. Its my job to catch rogues, solve crimes, keep the peace. When those things overlap, as they did today, we should talk. Otherwise, Ill try to stay out of your hair. Agreed?

  Agreed.

  Bester looked back at the ship. I think Im starting to agree with you about this thing. Why dont I buy you a drink?

  Not a bad suggestion.

  Bester left with the feeling that he had approached the edge of a very deep canyon, teetered on the rim, and then withdrawn safely.

  It was time to lay low. Brett had voiced suspicions, about a mundane-backed hegemony in the upper ranks of the Corps. Even if they were unfoundedand Bester didnt think they wereit still wasnt wise to attract undue attention. Especially now. Because it was clear that Brett was right about at least one thing: big happenings were afoot, very big. Bester was determined to be a part of them, but he would have to be patient.

  A few days will tell if Ive gone too far , he thought. Mentally, he crossed his fingers.

  * * *

  chapter 3

  « » Three days later, he got a call from assistant director Menendez. There were four assistant directorsBester usually dealt with Kaufman, in the Mars office. Menendez he had never spoken to. On the vid he looked awfully young, almost baby-faced.

  Beta Colony? Bester repeated, politely.

  Yes. Its priority one.

  Bester considered Menendez for a moment. I can have my Black Omega Squadron ready in four hours.

  Negative on that. Black Omega Squadron is needed on Mars.

  Bester blinked. Shes my squadron. I fought for years to form her.

  Mr. Bester, whatever role you had in the formation of the Black Omegas, theylike youbelong to the Corps.

  Of course. But I command them. Are you relieving me of that command?

  No, Mr. Bester, I am not. These are delicate times. We need you at Beta Colony and we need your squadron near Mars, on standby.

  Youre expecting trouble.

  Maybe.

  Very well, then. How do I get to Beta Colony?

  The way anyone else would, Mr. Bester. We bought you tickets on a commercial transport.

  And how many of my bloodhounds may I take?

  Whats needed on Beta is an investigator, not a whole unit. Beta is not particularlyfriendlyto the Corps, so we have to do this without much intrusion. The local office will supply you all the people you need.

  With all respect, I work better with my own people.

  Im sure you do. But its not going to happen.

  Bester shrugged. If thats the way the ball bounces When do I leave?

  You have two hours.

  All the way to his quarters, and even while packing, he fought through his outrage, looking for perspective. They wanted him alone, far from his troops. If they had just sent him to Beta Colony, he would have considered it a distraction, something to get him away from Marsand the black shipfor a time. But thiswell, he must have miscalculated. He must have gone too far, after all.

  He regretted, for a moment, putting off the appointment he had been planning. True, he had wanted to find precisely the right time, but

  No matter. He would survive this. The time would come, soon enough. It was inevitable; it was destiny.

  There were a lot of things Al Bester might not havetrue love, deep friendships, a beatific relationship with a happy cosmosbut if there was one thing he did have, it was a destiny.

  Well, place-names go through fashions, Bester was explaining to his fellow passenger. He was a man in early middle age, who identified himself as an insurance broker. You have to consider the historical context.

  What historical context could there be for there to be fourteen Beta colonies in Human space?

  Well, youre from North America, right?

  The United States, he said, a trace of pride in his voice.

  Ah. A romantic, potentially even a national separatist , Bester thought, and filed it away for future reference. You never knew, with mundanes.

  Well, think. Almost every state in the United States has at least one Columbus or Columbia, one Franklin, one Madisonusually more than one. These names crop up everywhere because they were a part of the collective unconscious of the European-American settlers.

  Yeah, but those places are named after people.

  Well, consider the Springdales, the Oaklands, the Lake Cities.

  Still, Beta?

  I think its two things. First, we keep coming back to Greek. It symbolizes certain things to usdemocracy, learning, literature, education. Never mind that Greeks were, for the most part, very undemocratic and not particularly literary or advanced compared to, say, China at the timethe symbolism remains. Oh, Greek went out of fashionSanskrit and Mandarin were all the rage in the last century. At the beginning of this century, Centauri had a brief heyday. Then, yet another Greek revivalI think in response to the fear of having our culture swamped by alien influences. Greek, Latin, Sumerianall became very popular again. Ill bet you had at least one grandfather named Achilles and one named Gilgamesh.

  The fellow nodded.

  The funny thing is, Bester continued, the Centauri picked up on that, too. If youll remember, at the time they were trying to convince us we were a lost Centauri colony. They started using Greek and Roman names and their derivatives to translate the names of their planets and star systems. Oddly enough, a bunch of their colony worlds ended up being Beta this and that, because in their settlement system there could be only one Alpha Centauri Prime.

  Thats the second thing, of course. By the time we started setting up colonies, Beta had almost become a slang word for less important colony. Its not systematiclook at any star system with more than one colony. Odds are you wont see an Alpha, Gamma, or Delta colonybut its even odds that at least a city somewhere will be named Beta.

  That makes sense, I guess. Do you teach geography or something in the Psi Corps? His eye was drawn, as it had been several times, to Besters badge.

  Oh, no. But the last guy I sat next to on a ship was a geography professor.

  And he told you all of this?

  Bester forced his face into a puzzled frown. No. Why would you ask that?

  He loved the expression on their faces when he said things like that. Some men liked fine cigars, some liked French brandy. He preferred the man next to him, trying to laugh it off as a jokeand in the end, failing. In point of fact, he had read everything he just said in a standard tourist guide, but he wasnt going to tell his seat-mate that.

  An hour later he set foot for the first time on Beta Colony. This particular Beta was o
ne in a system of only two coloniesunless you counted the minor settlements in the metal-rich asteroids. In that case, there were four.

  The systems largest colony was on the fourth planet from the star, a world called simply Sheffer 4 on the star charts, and Aztlan by its inhabitants.

  Beta was the third planet. Smaller than Aztlan, it still boasted almost half as many settlers as Marsone million, two-thirds of them located in the polar industrial city, also called Beta. Only the poles were cool enough to be habitable, but that was greatly outweighed by the fact that the atmosphere had free oxygen in quantities sufficient to sustain Human life, and plenty of nitrogen, necessary for food crops.

  Bester found Beta City to be quite impressive. The buildings had a massive, muscular feelafter all, they had to cope with the same gravity that was nagging Bester at the moment, nearly one and a quarter times that of Earth. A hot, blustery wind combed through themwhich after his years in the thin, frigid air of Mars, proved more than welcome. The wind smelled something like ginger.

  Around the city, what looked like tall-grass prairie flowed off to mountainsdistant except to the north, where a long row of them scraped at the sky. The sun looked almost exactly like the sun of Earth, and the sky was a velvety blue.

  Mr. Bester, I presume?

  He turned his attention from the view to a really quite attractive young womanearly twentieswith coppery hair cut in a Dutch bob.

  Yes?

  Im Lyta Alexander. Ill be your assistant while youre here.

  Well, a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Alexander. How long have your worked here?

  She blushed. Actually, only a few weeks. I came here to intern with MetaPolnot as a cop, because Im only a P5but as a profiler. Unfortunately, the department is shorthanded, so they couldnt spare a real copor someone with more experience on the planetto assist you.

  Why are they so shorthanded?

  Weve lost two men in the last two weeks, and their replacements havent arrived.

  Lost?

  Killed. By the Blinder.

  Blinder?

  Its what we call the serial killer.

  Ah. My quarry.

  Yes, sir.

  Well. Lets get started, then.

  Let me get your bag.

  No. Ive got it. Though it seems like it weighs twice what it did when I left home. I must learn to resist those duty-free shops.

  Well, Lyta began, tentatively. Youre aware the gravity is a little higher here

  It was a joke, Lyta. May I call you Lyta?

  Oh. IIm sorry, yes, please do.

  For some reason, no one ever expects me to have a sense of humor, he mused. He noticed her smile hesitantly. Alexander, he mused. Any relation to Natasha Alexander?

  My grandmother, she said, a bit surprised.

  I met her once.

  Lyta smiled. When I was a little girl, she used to bring me presentswell, they came through the Grins, of course, but I always knew they really came from Grandma.

  You were in Cadre Prime?

  She nodded affirmatively. My mother was the only woman in our line in the last four generations who wasnt. She was only a P2, so she was in the Basement at first, but when she was still pretty young, Grandma arranged for some relatives to raise her outside Teeptown. She was monitored, of course, but never actively attached to the Corps.

  Four generations?

  Six, reallyall the way back to Desa Alexander, back before it was even Psi Corps.

  Yes, I guessed you were from one of the old families, since you kept your mitochondrial name. I was a Cadre Primer myself, you know.

  She nodded again, and they went a few steps in silence.

  Lyta, Im a little slight on the details of this case. The killer isnt a telepath?

  No, sirwe dont think so.

  So I was brought in because he killed Psi Cops?

  Oh, no, sir. Thats only happened in the past two days. Hes killed four other telepaths. He only kills telepaths.

  I see. Well, I suppose I should get briefed on the forensics data, then have a look at the crime scenes

  Actually, sir, I have some bad news. We found another body just a few hours before you arrived. Looks like the same killer. Our station chief is out of town, and local law enforcement has been wanting to go in, but weve been trying to hold it for you. I dont know how much longer we can.

  Oh. By all means, thenlets go.

  They took a surface car, something Bester hadnt done in quite some time. They kept the top down, driving through the hot wind past rows of single-story buildings made of cut and dressed volcanic stone, with pitched metal roofs. Most of the houses had gardens. This was a roomy city, lots of space. Wide streets. Not like Marsor many places on Earth, for that matter.

  They stopped at a house thatin most cities on Earthwould have been a mansion. On Mars it would have been quite simply unthinkable. Here it seemed to be better than modest.

  The street out front was swarming with police cars, reporters, gawkers.

  Oh, no, Lyta said. It looks like theyve gone in. She opened her door, jumped out, and came around to let him out, but he was already out, staring at the house.

  They pushed quickly through the crowd and up to the police line. A young fellow was manning ithis uniform was unfamiliar in detail, but obvious in type. He was a deputy or the equivalent. He looked at Bester and Lyta and clearly didnt like what he saw, but he let them in, if reluctantly.

  Its time to clear up a few things, Bester confided to Lyta.

  There was bloodand a bodybut for the moment he ignored them, and instead picked the man who looked to be in charge and walked up to him.

  Youre the detective in charge? he asked.

  The fellow looked away from his notepad and down at Bester. Physically, he gave Bester the impression of a snowman made of ground beef, with two olives for eyes. Bester had once seen such an atrocity at the Museum of Modern Art on Mars. Yer a regular mind reader, the detective said, eyeing Besters badge and grinning broadly at his own joke.

  Thats terribly funny, Bester said. And I do mean terribly. My name is Alfred Bester. You are aware that this investigation has come under Psi Corps jurisdiction?

  I know that the Blinder killings are under Psi Corps jurisdiction, yeah. I had no way of knowing this was one of his without investigating, though. Do I need to draw you a picture, or can you just suck it right out of me?

  Bester frowned slightly and turned to survey the crime scene. She was a registered telepath?

  Yep. Business esper, pretty well-to-do. They all are.

  What?

  Your business telepaths. All pretty well-to-do.

  Ah. You dont care for telepaths, Mr

  Stesco. Captain Stesco. No, I cant say that I do. Most of us immigrated here to get away from em, and

  Really? You came all this way just to get away from telepaths? And everyone else on the planet did, too?

  He kept talking because he was looking at the body. He kept talking to stay detached.

  The most obvious thing about the dead woman was that her eyes were gone.

  Not just telepaths, Stesco modified. There were lots of things we didnt like about Earth. Hey, dont get me wrongIm no bigot. Ive got nothing against any of you personally. Its just I just think if a fellow wants to live someplace with no fear his mind is gonna be picked over by somebody, he ought to have the right.

  Separate but equal, Mr. Stesco?

  Sounds good to me.

  Why dont you have local laws against the use of business telepaths?

  We did, until a few years ago.

  So who let the snake into your little garden?

  A coalition of businesses. Recent immigrants. Betas changed a lot in the past few years, not for the better. Theres your proof. He waved at the corpse.

  I dont see what your complaint is, Bester said. Up until now, you people could only daydream about killing telepaths. Now you have real, live ones to play out your fantasies with.

  Hey, like I said

  You are
nt a bigot. Yes, I heard you the first time. How many legs does a dog have, if you count the tail as a leg?

  Huh?

  How many legs does a dog have if you count the tail as a leg?

  Ifive, I guess.

  Wrong. Four. Because a tail is not a leg, even if you say it is.

  Hilarious. Stesco looked as if he thought it was anything but.

  Thank you. What are these marks on her arms?

  When we found her she was tied up and hanging from the ceiling. We cut her down.

  You what ?

  Wasnt decent, a naked woman hanging up like that. The reporters might have taken her picture.

  What a charming little world this is, Bester remarked acidly. You didnt sew her mouth up for some reason, did you?

  No, she was like that when we found her.

  Like thisbut hanging from the ceiling.

  I told you.

  Could you clear the rest of your men out? I need to talk to you alone.

  Why alone?

  Detective, Im in charge here now, whether you like it or not. You know it. And I assure you, its best that this next conversation take place without your men around.

  Stesco frowned, but went over to talk to his men. Bester continued his inspection of the body.

  Were the rest like this? he asked Lyta, who stood to one side, looking very pale.

  Yes. Eyes gouged out, mouth sewn shut. He poured something in their ears, a kind of fast-hardening epoxy.

  What was the actual cause of death?

  Suffocation. We think that aftersealing upeverything, he pinched their noses shut.

  Yes. Maybe he did it many times? Tortured them? Brought them nearly to death and then let them breathe, repeated the process? Deprived them of their senses so they could see only through his eyes, hear only through his ears as he was killing them?

  Maybe. The MO was a little different on the two cops.

  Well get to that in a moment, Bester said. The door was closing, Stesco returning.

  Now what? Stesco said. You gonna chew me out for stepping on your investigation? You couldve done that in front of my men.

  Yes, I could have, Bester replied, flashing Stesco a little smile. But I couldnt have done this.

  He hit Stesco with a fugue to hold him and then a midrange scan. The big mans knees went rubbery and he swayed there, mouth twitching, drool running down his chin. When Bester was finished, he murmured, And now, lets make sure you dont remember our little moment together and he made a few more adjustments. A moment later, Stescos glazed eyes suddenly began seeing again.