A HIGHER POWER
Strands of gray swept through his thick auburn hair and the light picked up their occasional silvery threads. Lines had begun to furrow their way out from his eyes. The skin on his neck had also begun to unavoidable loosen in a most unflattering way, but his small form remained trim and extraordinarily fit.
He knew that was how they saw him: knew it because the telepath saw the image in their minds. It didn't bother Alfred Bester that they had begun to notice the signs of aging take hold of his flesh. The gray, after all, was not beginning to creep subtly through his tresses: it had taken firm hold in a salt and pepper pattern that only he apparently saw. He took firm pleasure in the fact that he'd had the wisdom to be born with the only hair color available to humans that hid what was so obviously in plain sight.
The child balanced on his right hip had the burnished copper hair of Alfred's youth. He assumed it would darken with age, as was usual with most humans with hair in the red hues. The child also had the elder man's dark eyes, his wide cheekbones and round face. Well, actually, the child bore a striking resemblance to the man entirely. What Dr. Stephen Franklin also noticed was the pallor in the young face, the clammy skin and the thready breathing.
Of course, Bester acknowledged with gratification: he was supposed to notice.
"Hello, young man, I hear you're not feeling too well. My name is Stephen and I'm going to see just what I can do about that, okay? What's your name?" Franklin's eyes and voice portrayed the genuine professional concern that never seemed to falter, even in Bester's presence. It spoke a great deal for his integrity as a healer: a quality the PSI Cop considered with great disdain. It was that unfaltering integrity Bester had known he could count on when he contacted them in the first place. He sometimes wondered if Normals had any idea how painfully predictable they were. He was embarrassed for them more oftentimes than not.
Michael Garibaldi, perhaps, had more cause to be embarrassed than most. Bester suspected even non-telepaths could hear his thoughts, they were so strong. At the moment, Babylon 5's former Security Chief was obsessing over the care and gentleness with which Alfred cradled his grandson.
"You think I'm a monster," the PSI Cop observed, shifting his gaze to Garibaldi.
"I know you are." The man smiled thinly. No emotion ever reached his cold eyes. He purposefully filled his mind with the memories of the torture and brainwashing that the PSI Cop had put him through.
Yes, Bester thought with self-satisfaction. It had been right to leave him those memories.
"I wouldn't be letting you in my home if it wasn't for the kid. Can't blame him for being a relative of yours. Wasn't his choice," Garibaldi emphasized and his thoughts were clear that anyone would choose anything else, given the option.
Amusement danced in Bester's eyes. Garibaldi could always be counted on for brief distractions. His shaved head and civilian clothes did not hide that the former Alliance member was aging as well. Perhaps a bit slower than he had been in the past, Bester mused objectively. Retirement had had a mildly positive effect on him.
"Why, Mr. Garibaldi, I do believe the corporate world has mellowed you." He smiled as the expected outrage flashed into the man's brown eyes.
The Doctor stepped back a full step from the telepaths suddenly, jerking his back straight as his eyes flew wide. Garibaldi glanced sharply at the boy in Bester's arms. The thought had been audible to both the men.
My name is Jonathan. Don't touch me you Normal. The snarled distaste in the word was evident. Evident as clearly that neither man should have heard the statement from the boy who had never uttered a sound.
Franklin glanced briefly at his long-time friend to confirm this fact before focusing an intense gaze on the child. "Even T-12's can't broadcast their thoughts out to a roomful of people. What's his PSI rating?"
What's your blood type? The child's petulant question crawled through their minds.
Lines furrowed the grandfather's forehead, the tolerant amusement at these members of the sub-species deepening. "That's a personal question," he observed casually. "I don't see how it's relevant at the moment, Doctor." He smiled his tolerance at them before continuing. "Jonathan prefers not to speak."
He saw them startle as this information registered. He didn't even bother to get from their minds what was so clearly written in their face and eyes. Normals, he thought with disdain. It was not only reasonable, but also quite understandable to him that the child should detest verbalizing. Alfred had found an instantaneous bond with the boy when, even as an infant, his cries went unvocal zed.
Hearing thoughts his grandfather had not yet put form to, the child reacted with a ragged gasp for air. The glassiness of his dark eyes hardened as his fight for oxygen became more desperate.
Bester's functional hand pulled the boy tighter against him, as if that were possible. The child's face was buried against the elder man's shoulder, his small black-gloved hands wrapped around his neck.
"Doctor," Bester recalled him to the matter before them with an urgency in his voice. "I brought my grandson here to avoid the delay which taking him to a telepath Doctor on Earth would entail. You have enough experience from your work with Rouge telepaths..."
To deny what they all knew would be futile at this point. He heard the Doctor's silent curiosity as to why Bester had never become more pro-active about the matter. Pitiful Normals, the PSI Cop thought.
"Why not just take him to the PSI Corps installation here on Mars?" Garibaldi asked.
Bester widened his expressive eyes in naive interest. "What installation?"
"Take him to the guest room so I can examine him," the Doctor quickly way-laid any retort Garibaldi may have. He could not way-lay Bester's maddening, gleeful smile at the former Security Officer's impotent rage.
They are still entertaining after all these years.
They didn't bother telling him where the room was: he'd gotten the information instantly from both their minds when it was mentioned. He laid the obviously distressed child carefully on the bed. The boy's distress became more intense as the Doctor sat beside him.
Don't touch me! The panic was clearly shouted in all their minds.
"I have to examine you, Jonathan," Franklin said patiently. The close-cropped, graying hair warmed the tone of the Doctor's dark skin. It suited the gentleness of his bedside manner more than his youthful, gaunt appearance had--as though his aging body had finally captured and portrayed his personality.
Let him, Bester instructed the boy silently. He's not strong; you can easily shield his mind away. Normals did not understand the need for their gloves: how abhorrently distasteful unsolicited contact was to telepaths.
The child submitted, but there was resentment emanating palpably from him at the compliance. It's for the good of the Corps.
Yes, Bester returned the thought with satisfaction in the boy's understanding of priorities. For the good of the Corps.
"Well," the Doctor drawled, straightening. "This young man is very symptomatic: elevated temperature, thready respiration and pulse, elevated blood pressure. The only problem is, I can't seem to see a cause for it."
Of course you don't, you blind Normal. The child's thoughts were so full of outright animosity, his grandfather wondered if he had mistakenly broadcast them to everyone in the room. A triumphant, demonic smile came into the boy's eyes. Bester saw the Doctor's reaction and the readout on the medical monitor before he actually felt the action.
"His heart's stopped!" Franklin declared in alarm.
--two, three, four...
Jonathan, Bester chastised the child gently. You mustn't play so with the Normals. They simply haven't the fortitude.
The beat resumed its erratic rhythm as the child obeyed his grandfather.
"Something's very wrong here," the Doctor growled needlessly, as he began a more intense exam.
The PSI Cop watched the Doctor's concerned movements. Now would be the time to reach out with the illusion that he considered these beings to be a worthwhile race: to acknowledge the Doctor's humanity by simply calling him by his given name. It would add to the useful foundation he had started with these people. Goose bumps crawled on his flesh at the thought. If only the man's name hadn't been Stephen... The name had always created a retching distaste in his mouth for some unexplained reason. He had, so far, managed to make it through his life without having to utter those particular syllables. The compulsion to do so now was nowhere near strong enough for his actual consideration.
The child sought out and met Bester's gaze with a continued demonic amusement in them. She's coming.
The PSI Cop sent his mind searching but it was a full minute before he could confirm what the child had already known: known before the most powerful Cop in the Corps, no less.
Yes, she's coming. She was quite possessed by a triumphant rage, he noted. It was, of course, as he expected.
My, Bester mulled with subtle humor. She's quite determined to meet you.
To KILL me.
The boy giggled aloud: the first audible sound he had made since entering Garibaldi's home. Bester made no notice of it however, as he turned to watch her explode through the door. He smiled brilliantly.
"Why, Miss Alexander: what a pleasant surprise."
"BESTER." The fiery redhead, hair nearly the same color as the boy's, had a delightful way of always making his name sound like a vulgarity. He rather liked the pronunciation.
It was not Alfred Bester consuming the woman's thoughts as she strode toward them, but Jonathan Bester. Her bare hands clenched and unclenched in primordial fists of rage as she moved. Quite an amusing display for a telepath--even for a Rouge, the PSI Cop postulated.
"Away from your precious Corps, without your trusty Bloodhounds..." she grinned wildly as the blackness of eternal nothingness filled her eyes. "Such a brave little PSI Cop. I don't know where to begin." She jerked her head toward him violently.
Bester instinctively stepped back from the attack and threw up an armored wall. The rage was skewing her thoughts too much for her to realize the attack had been blocked far before it reached his own defenses.
There were undesirable traits in the otherwise fascinating and independent red-head that would have to be considered, Bester reminded himself silently. She had turned her attention to the child now.
"LYTA!" The outraged protest came in unison from both Garibaldi and Franklin. They both knew what she was capable of.
Touching, mused the PSI Corps representative.
"He's a child, he's done nothing."
"He was BORN," the woman growled with a voice that came from out of the depths of hell. "I am going to hurt Bester just a fraction of the way he's hurt so many others. He deserves to feel our pain."
The mantra was a familiar one on her part, one of the constants in his life that gave him the satisfaction of everything being as it should in the universe. It was her familiar mantra he'd been counting on.
"You should never have saved that woman, Stephen," she snarled at the Doctor. Lyta had never forgiven Franklin for freeing Bester's pregnant lover when he had at last determined how to end the mechanical prisons the Shadow's had built for the telepaths. Bester knew, though she'd be mortified to admit it, that at least part of it was jealousy that the enemies of the people who had enhanced Lyta's own abilities had enhanced his wife and daughter. She was no longer a lone quirk in this existence. Though still a valuable one, he considered.
This boy was the child of that daughter she so despised, and Lyta lashed out at him now. Her thoughts hurtled at the boy with blinding, boundless rage.
If she had not known it when she first attacked the PSI Cop, she knew it now. Jonathan narrowed his eyes and stared at the lithe woman in mild curiosity. Her body flew backward and slammed against the wall.
The blackness dropped from her eyes, the color from her cheeks, as she gasped and clutched at her chest with both hands. Her heart had not only stopped beating, it was being squeezed to the point of bursting within her chest. She fought to bring the blackness back into her eyes, to release the grip of icy metal from her heart...
"Now, Jonathan," Bester said aloud tolerantly, as if to soothe the woman's concerns. "We don't want to hurt Miss Alexander. That beautiful specimen of a body belongs to me and I wouldn't want to lose it because she died from foul play." Not that he would anyway, he mused behind a blind shield. No contract like that would pass his scrutiny without the required loopholes. He could wait, however...
"You'll never get my body," she snarled at him in response. Lyta remained leaning against the wall, chest heaving as she fought to regain control of the corporal systems the child had released.
Bester saw in her mind the conviction that her enhanced abilities would bring him to a gruesome end long before her contract could be fulfilled. She had wanted desperately to play with him first.
It was registering now, however, what the union of the Corps most gifted telepath and the most powerful enhanced telepath had meant. Their equally enhanced daughter had been able to produce this child who was already clearly more powerful than Lyta herself. More powerful, she considered despondently, and utterly devoted to both Alfred Bester and the PSI Corps.
This lesson was one of the reasons Bester had brought the child here, in quite unprotected surroundings he knew Lyta Alexander would be unable to pass up. Her contact with the Normals had corrupted her and made her quite predictable.
"You used your own grandson as bait! What kind of monster are you?"
The black nothingness was creeping back into her eyes, but it didn't concern Bester. He found it odd how she was unable to see how much of the Corps remained in her. No one really escaped.
"You were ready to kill an innocent child," he observed mildly.
"What IS his PSI rating," the Doctor demanded with an undisguised harshness in his voice as he stood and moved over to the PSI Corps representative. His research with telepaths made the information a burning need, Bester saw. "He can control his body functions."
The elder telepath blinked his dark eyes. "All humans can control their body functions with proper training, Doctor." Not nearly to the same extent, of course.
"And that of others?" the Doctor spat, outraged, pointing to the Rouge telepath among them. "He wasn't enhanced: this is the first case in a natural telepath. What is his PSI rating?"
"P-12," Bester answered with simple honesty. They had been demanding a change in the ratings, something that had been under consideration since he, himself had soared past the ceilings in the P-12 tests. He preferred it this way and fought to delay any compliance the Corps made toward the request. The ratings were imposition of bigotry by the Normals, really, and it was none of their business. The Normals didn't need to know anything more than that they had a scattering of telepaths that passed the P-12 rating somehow. A scattering, he thought wryly, eyeing Lyta. The Rogues certainly didn't need the information either.
"You purposely put him in danger."
She seemed fixated on the child. It was a shame she hadn't a child of her own to demonstrate the results of genetically pairing her with Byron. He had been such a promising young man.
"You didn't know he'd be stronger than me."
Yes, I did. She'd touched him in attacks before and as a PSI Cop he'd been trained long ago to judge such things. His life depended on it. The good of the Corps depended on it.
"It was his choice," was what he said aloud.
"Yes, that's right," Lyta snarled, stalking back toward them with an exaggerated swagger.
"Whatever is necessary for the good of the Corps." Her eyes caught the PSI Corps badge on the child's chest. "You are clearly the best to judge that, Mr. Bester. I'm sure your grandson is well aware of that."
Lyta was mocking him of course, but her jealousy was entertaining.
"The Corps is my father, my father is the Corps."
All eyes darted to the child, whose thought had been so strong it had practically been audible. It was Garibaldi who smiled at him.
"I don't think you have that down quite right, yet."
The child repeated the thought in a more assured tone. "My father is the Corps."
Lyta recoiled physically, her face curling inward in revulsion as she shot a horrified glare at the PSI Cop. "You are one sick bastard."
Garibaldi chuckled, folding his arms across his chest. "And now for other breaking news..." he drawled.
The elder telepath blinked, eyeing Lyta with tolerant amusement. He had decided in the course of passing years that telepaths who went Rouge did so because of an inherent genetic fault. True, there were the few who were simply lured away by others playing on their vulnerabilities and it was his mission to find them and put them right with their place in the universe. There were other telepaths though, who could not grasp their role in this life and Alfred Bester saw to it that they, too, found their place in the scheme of things. There were traits in these Rouges that the Corps simply could not allow to be passed onto future generations of telepaths. He had what was sometimes a difficult job, and he was undeniably good at it.
"Don't you understand," Lyta spat out to Franklin and Garibaldi with a vengeance. "Jonathan's not talking about the Corps, he's talking about Bester. He's saying Bester is the Corps, Bester is his father."
Really, the PSI Cop insisted silently to the child who had grown up in the loving protection of the Corps. You must learn not all telepaths can be trusted. You should have known: she's not even wearing gloves.
"Grandfather," Garibaldi corrected patiently.
Lyta's eyes went wild, clenching her teeth as she let out a sub-human growl. "Don't you get it: Alfred Bester fathered his own grandchild!"
Bester expected Garibaldi and Franklin's startled response, but was mildly disturbed by Lyta's vehemence. She had grown up in the Corps, after all, and even if she resisted its confines, she certainly should have understood what it actually meant to be a telepath.
Before the advent of Vorlon and Shadow enhancements, the strength of his unique gifts had made Bester's the most desirable of genetic codes in the Corps. To partner him with a wife at a young age would have been a crime against nature. It was a fact of his existence that he accepted without question, without the slightest whim to ponder its implications in lazy afternoon mental ramblings.
Although, he admitted the shortcoming reluctantly, he had found himself noting with interest those instances when he found himself gazing into his own eyes on the PSI Corps grounds.
It was only her hatred of her own race that blinded Lyta to the clear course for the good of all. Not for the first time, Bester felt genuine grief for what the woman had lost. It was a loss too complete for the mercy of her warped mind to acknowledge.
The good of the Corps was so firmly rooted in Alfred Bester; it had been a surprise that the child's parentage had not been his own idea. He was, after all, the only naturally occurring P-12 in the Corps. His wife was an enhanced P-12, as was the child they produced together. When the time had come to choose the most beneficial pairing for the Corps and their race, it had been his daughter that had come to him. The clinical, scientific facts were undeniable. Any other match would have diluted a wildly promising set of genetic codes the Corps needed. They needed to be strengthened.
He had been pleased before in his daughter's grasp of the values and morals that were expected of any decent telepath. It was her vehement insistence about the matter that had brought the first swell of fatherly pride in him, however. He had created another member of the proud Corps. His dark eyes glanced at Jonathan: and yet another.
"They've created another BESTER," Lyta snarled, and again she managed to make the name a tidy vulgarity.
The PSI Cop allowed himself an audible, amused chuckle.
Garibaldi was shaking his head, his eyes intense with the triumph Bester felt from within him. "It doesn't matter, now does it?" he insisted. "After all, where are you going to go from here? There's still no one suitable from the Corps gene pool for the kid to 'match up' with, now is there?" There was a mocking derision at the entire concept evident in the man's voice and body language.
"He has a sister."
Franklin's grim statement registered with Garibaldi and brought the natural conclusion the Doctor had already reached. The Mars businessman turned away to hide the physical signs of retching that swept over his face.
"The PSI Corps must know that you can't continually in-breed any set of genes without eventual, dire consequences," Franklin stated with a clinical evenness Bester could easily read he did not feel. He had always attempted to act like he understood them.
"Doctor, you are far too sophisticated to believe the myths about the results of pairing two blood relatives. Two carriers of genetic disorders should never be paired, related or not. If there are no defects, one can only strengthen the positive traits."
True, such pairings did nothing to fade the weaknesses. It was never scientifically sound to pair the same exact combination of genetic material.
She's not my sister. She's going to be my wife.
Lyta gasped, complete revulsion washing over her body as the statement and its accompanying information flowed freely into her mind.
That the boy's sister had been created to give him a sound genetic match when he matured was no longer so vile to Lyta. It was the convoluted way in which had been done which made the woman a sea of conflicting levels of disgust. A full sister would have maintained the genetic base, not strengthened it. If one stepped back a level, however, to undiluted codes in the same line... So Alfred's daughter had borne and nurtured her own full sister. Jonathan's half-sister, pre-ordained to be his wife, was in reality his aunt.
Even now the genetic possibilities were so mind-boggling that Alfred Bester could barely stand the wait.
While the reality of the situation was being assimilated by the verbal beings in the room, Bester once again chastised the child for letting so much information slip into their hands. It was a tender reminder, however, as Bester was finding this encounter far more interesting than he had anticipated. Far more amusing than he could have dreamt.
"You're disgusting!" Lyta spat vehemently, shrugging the revulsion off her body like it was a cloak.
"You sold your genetic codes to the Narn." It had somehow been overlooked in her version of morality that the sale of genetic material was considered by Normals to be the most heinous of galactic crimes. The Narns were using her genes material to manipulate telepathy back into their race. The research was at too primitive a stage for it to be of interest to him or the Corps, but still, its progress was being monitored.
"That was different."
The PSI Cop made no reply, just eyed her with his wide, dark gaze. She was just far too intriguing to arrest, although by all rights he should have. Patience was one of his strong points.
"My genetic material won't end up in YOUR progeny," she snarled then, as if that would have explained her infraction to the Normals.
He strengthened his shields beyond even her penetration before he allowed the thought to form. Oh, yes it will: eventually. The idea wandered lazily through his mind then that if she died young enough, at the right time, they could harvest more than the base genetic material from her body. Actual, formed ova would change the situation entirely.
"You know, we had a man in Earth's history who reminds me of you and your Corps." Garibaldi's brown eyes were glassy with their intensity, his words laced with derision. "His name was Adolf Hitler."
Bester blinked, straightening and turning to genuinely smile at his host. "Really? I'm flattered, Mr. Garibaldi. I've studied the man: he was far ahead of his time. A man of solid conviction.
The fury gripped Garibaldi with an intensity that was too much for a telepath of any strength to bear comfortably. Bester turned away so the amusement that deepened in his eyes did not torture the man. He was not without feeling for their species, after all.
Why do they talk so much? the child whined plaintively in his mind, the thoughts edged with pain.
"These are human beings, Mr. Bester." Dr. Franklin's voice blotted out any response the man would have made to the child. "Not cattle in some farm breeding program. You can't just go around genetically manipulating people without a single thought for their humanity!"
Oh, but I can, thought Bester as a glint echoed in his dark eyes. Besides, who said anything about humans?
"These are telepaths, Doctor," he stated with mind-boggling simplicity.
It should have clarified everything, but he knew it wouldn't. These poor Normals were never destined to understand the realities of the way the universe worked. They could not see the plan that had been so clearly laid out before them.
It was a plan Bester had always given himself to follow with all the devotion the universe deserved. He reached down and gathered the child back into his arms. Lyta's lesson had been delivered, and the boy had performed well on his first encounter with Normals: not one scan detected. In all, it had been a good trip.
"Get out of my house!"
The PSI Cop smiled in return. "I must thank you, Mr. Garibaldi for your warm and effuse hospitality. It is so important to those of us who travel to know there are always places where we can count on the welcome we'll receive."
"Stay away from my home and my family."
The image of his daughter filtered through Garibaldi's mind and Bester wondered vaguely if she had been tested yet. The father, after all, did have a knack for broadcasting his emotions. The Corps would have to see to it.
"Good day, gentlemen: Miss Alexander."
He turned to stride out of the room, but Garibaldi's words followed after him.
"There will be an accounting, Bester: that will be the revenge the universe exacts. Or has it never occurred to you that some day you'll have to answer to a higher power for what you've done?"
Alfred Bester paused in his stride, hesitating a moment before turning ever-so-slightly back to eye the self-righteous man.
The sparkle sank maniacally into the depths of his dark eyes and he smiled slowly. "Mr. Garibaldi," Bester said patiently, eyes narrowing patronizingly. "I AM a higher power."
They would never understand.