Writer's Note: Possible spoilers are contained in this chapter for the second season of Battlestar Galactica. Also, parts of this chapter were written with exerpts taken from the Psi Corps trilogy of Babylon 5 novels written by J. Gregory Keyes.
Thirteen
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Temptation of Alfred Bester
Ever since he arrived on this world, Alfred Bester had the sneaking suspicion that something was up. Kevin Vacit, the former director of the Psi Corps and the man who ran things here on this world, had been slowly getting him up to speed as to what he had been up to on the planet. He told him of the Cylons coming to this world in search of a new home for themselves, finding himself and the remnants of Vorlon experiments, and reaching an agreement with them to assist one another in gaining vengeance upon those who had victimized them. The Cylons had been so impressed with what this single human had done on this world that they essentially became their mentor and guide.
Bester accepted this all in stride, but the real question he wanted to ask Vacit was why he had chosen him to be brought here to assist him. These days, Bester was an old man himself, who hadn't much longer to live. For the last decade since his arrest and trial, he had languished in prison, his talent hindered by sleepers given to him once a week, and endlessly writing and editing his memoirs. Then he was sprung from prison and brought here, for reasons he did not know.
Vacit had been clever enough to skirt around the questions he had asked about why he was here, giving him only morsels when the whole slice of bread of information would better satisfy. Bester, for the most part, was left to his own devices, usually walking around and touring the place, occasionally in the company of Talia Winters.
Then the day of revelation came, when Vacit called him into his office. It was a rather plain room, with a desk and three chairs, one of which Vacit sat in behind said desk. "Ah, Mr. Bester! Please be seated!" Vacit said, and Bester sat down in one of the chairs. "So you want to know why you are here?"
Bester replied, "It's a valid question. I doubt you brought me here for my health, or for concern for my welfare. Considering what you're doing here and what you're planning, it's a legitimate question."
Vacit smiled and said, "Then I shall do just that. However, to fully understand why I chose you, we must go back into your past. Do you ever think of who your parents were?"
Bester suddenly became uncomfortable, and his left hand clenched up tighter than it already was. "They were killed in an attack by rogues when I was just an infant. When I was a kid, I sometimes could picture their images in the stars at night."
Vacit laughed slightly, which puzzled Bester. "You do know the truth, don't you? You're just afraid to confront it."
"You know who they were?"
Vacit leaned back in his chair, "You found out when you confronted Stephen Walters on Mars years ago. My assistant, Natasha Alexander, was there with you on the raid, remember?"
How could he know about that? Bester thought as he said, "He tried to confuse me, to throw me off with images made up in his head…."
Vacit shook his head, "Self-deception is never a good thing, Mr. Bester. Is that why ever since then your left hand has been virtually paralyzed, even though no evidence of nerve damage has ever been found?"
Bester didn't like where this conversation was going, but like someone passing by the site of a brutal accident, he was unable to turn away from it. He remembered the encounter all too well. Growing up, he had blamed Walters for keeping the telepath underground alive, even after the main organizers of it, Matthew and Fiona Dexter, had been killed shortly after he was born. Bester and his partner, Erik Andersen, had tracked him to an isolated location in the middle of nowhere. It was an abandoned privateer's colony, having since been occupied by Walters and his underground allies.
His bloodhound agents wee just about to enter the final room when the explosion came. An instant before, he had felt him, and had the faint sensations of familiarity and warmth come to life inside of him. He was puzzled as the blast slammed him onto the floor, knocking him out briefly.
When he came to, he realized the seal on his air mask was broken. Instead of nourishing oxygen, his lungs were taking in the slow poison of the carbon dioxide air that made up the Martian atmosphere. He looked over and saw someone crushed against a collapsed bulkhead, and instantly recognized him as Stephen Walters.
I know you. Walters said to Bester telepathically.
I was on in New Zealand., Bester replied, I tracked you here.
No. Before that. I know you. Oh. God in heaven! It's my fault! Fiona, Matthew, forgive- Walters said as he realized who it was that had caught him.
Bester was paralyzed and confused. He asked him, What are you talking about?
I know the feel of you. I saw you born-after all I had done, after all of the blood on my hands, but they let me watch you come into the world, and you were so beautiful I cried. You were our hope, our dream-
My name is Alfred Bester.
We called you Stee, so you wouldn't be confused with me. They gave you my name, made me your godfather. Your mother, Fiona, how I loved her. Matthew, I loved him too, but God- Walters almost died as a massive wave of pain swept over him, but he managed to hang on and continue. It was me that had lost you. I thought I could save them, but they knew they wouldn't make it. All they asked for me to get you out, keep you free, and I failed them. Failed-
Bester countered, Matthew and Fiona Dexter were terrorists. They died when the bomb they were planting in a housing compound went off early. The bomb they set off killed my parents.
Lies. Walters rebutted, as his mental voice grew weak. They fed you lies. You are Stephen Kevin Dexter.
No! Bester cried out in his mind, desperately trying to disbelieve what he was being told.
Walters pulled off his mask and their eyes met. In Bester's mind, he could see a woman with dark red hair and changeable eyes. A black-tressed man. Both of them all smiles. He had known them all along. They looked down onto him in a crib, talking baby talk. He felt their love-a love so strong that it easily overpowered anything he had ever felt before.
They loved you. I loved you. I love you still. Psi Corps killed them and they took you away. I tried to find you.
Bester's PPG pistol was in his left hand, for reasons he never knew. He fired, and Walters was shot.
Shut up! Bester cried in his mental voice as he fired again. Shut up!
Fiona…Matthew… Walters still lay there, dying. You can't destroy the truth. Walters's last words sent into Bester's mind as he died, the mental image of going through a doorway and never coming back fresh in his mind.
No! Bester cried out, and he squeezed his left hand hard until the images went away.
In Vacit's office, Bester realized that, for the first time in decades, his left hand lay open. He clenched it again, then let it open up again.
"So it was true after all!" Bester said.
"Of course it was true, Al. You knew it all along, but were afraid of what would happen to you if anyone would find out!"
Bester turned to Vacit and said, "But that's not all. Want to know why you have the middle name of Kevin?"
"How did I get that?" Bester said, and then he knew.
Vacit got surprisingly emotional as he said, "Fiona Dexter was my daughter. Before I became director of Psi Corps, back when I worked for Lee Crawford, I met a woman. Her name was Ninon Davion, and she was a woman I fell in love with. Technically, she would be married to someone else, a compatible telepath, but we carried on the affair until she died in an accident shortly before Crawford died. I sent our child into the underground through a contact I knew by the name of Monkey.
"They found her in Indonesia. At the time, I kept the underground alive because I felt it was necessary for the fight ahead against the Shadows. She met Matthew Dexter in a camp there, and Stephen Walters sprang both out on my orders.
"Years later, she had a child: you. At the time, I had come to realize that my experiment with the underground wasn't working, so I decided to shut it down. I wanted to bring them back alive, along with you, but they didn't want to come back, and gave their lives to help the rest of the rogues escape."
"So you're my grandfather?" Bester asked.
"Yes." Vacit replied.
Before they could go on, Talia Winters knocked on the door. Vacit told her to enter, and she came in. She nodded to Bester, then told Walters, "Our guests are arriving. They'll be landing shortly."
"Good! Come, Mr. Bester! I want you to see this!" Vacit said. Bester, still shocked with all these revelations, followed automatically.
It was when he looked up and saw the Drakh ships landing that he snapped back into reality. "What the hell are they doing here?" Bester asked his grandfather.
Vacit smiled back and said, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The Drakh enemies are the humans, as they are our enemies. The Drakh have been desperately looking for allies to help them turn the tide in their war with the Interstellar Alliance, and we've been looking for a way to strike at the normals on Earth. So we sent them an invitation to talk, and so…"
"But the Shadows hated telepaths!" Bester countered.
"No, they didn't hate them. Why do you think they got to Clark and used him to manipulate Psi Corps to assist them instead of the Vorlons?
"Alfred, you have a decision to make. If you wish, I can send you back to Earth with Talia and see if they can hide you out somewhere. Or, if you desire, you can join me and help liberate our people from the mundanes and the traitors like Garrison Hollifield! The Drakh will help us take down the Interstellar Alliance and destroy the last vestiges of the Colonials which enslaved the Cylons! You know which side I want you to join, but it must be your choice."
Bester remembered all the slights he had had at those who ran the Alliance. He smiled at the thought of finally defeating Sheridan, Hollifield, Delenn, Garibaldi, and the others. It took only a moment for him to decide.
He extended his hand to his grandfather and Vacit shook it. "You've got a deal…grandfather!" Vacit smiled and embraced his grandson. Then the two watched as more Drakh ships landed at the spaceport, with the transport landing closest to the terminal.
"We'd better go. It's time to meet our new allies!" Vacit said, and Bester followed along with Talia Winters. Their Centurion guards accompanied them as they left the deck above his office.
Watching them go were copies of Leoben Conoy and Aaron Doral, and they were not happy with the proceedings. Copies of D'anna Biers and Shelly Godfrey came up to them and D'anna said, "Did you see those aliens land on our homeworld?"
"Yes, I did! Why would the Imperious Leader need these lesser beings as allies in our fight against the Colonials?" Conoy said.
Godfrey replied, "Maybe we've been fighting for the wrong side." She shut up as some Cylon Centurions passed by. They decided to shelve the discussion until later, as the area began to get busy with the arrival of the guests. Vacit thought he had all the bases covered, but he had no idea that insurrection was beginning to brew right underneath his nose.