"They thought," I said, "that the Humans would annihilate themselves."
"Really"
I nodded. "They saw the humans as a opportunity for quick profit. And they thought that the Humans, once they had acquired the advanced technology, would move too quickly for their own good. My predecessors anticipated that there would be struggles and wars within the then-primitive Earth Alliance. Centauri Prime would secretly fund both sides, benefit from all concerned and -once the humans had more or less obliterated themselves -the Great Centauri Republic would step in and pick the pieces. It was a simple way to expand our control with no risk to ourselves, and nothing but profit to be had. It seemed the perfect arrangement."
"But it did not work out that way."
"Not exactly. They didn't wind up destroying themselves. Instead they managed to hang on long enough to offend the Minbari, and wound up almost being wiped off the face of existence. We predicted a war, yes... but the wrong war. They tripped themselves up, as we thought they would, but what a foe to do it with!" I laughed softly at the thought. "They wanted our help, you know. Wanted us to help them against the Minbari. If we had, the Minbari would have turned on us just as quickly. We knew we would not have had a chance against them. What would have been gained?"
"Did you not feel you owed it to them, as a race? If not for your giving them the technology, they would not have encountered the Minbari and gotten themselves embroiled in a war."
"Nonsense," I said firmly. "Responsibility only goes so far."
"Does it?" He was watching me. I hated it when he watched me like that. "What is that supposed to mean? You do something to set events into motion, you owe something to those whom you have affected. You gave them the flame. They then burned themselves. You had a responsibility to try to tend to the wound..."
But I shook my head. "No. We gave them the match. It was they who chose to light the flame. It was purely their responsibility, wasn't it."
"Was it?"
"Bah!" I said in disgust. "We always get to this at some point or other. 'Yes, it is, no, It isn't.' No debate or discussion. Just rephrasing my question as another question. And then we go no further."
"So one who is given the match and chooses to light it... is owed no aid from anyone? No succor? Whatever the consequence or outcome, it is his responsibility his alone to deal with?" 'That is correct, yes." "And what of you, Londo?" His voice suddenly turned sharp, his manner alert. "You were given a match by the Shadows, were you not? By their agents? And you used that match to light a flame that wound up bringing a torch not only to my world, but also ultimately to your own. Yet now you want my aid to overcome that which you have thrust yourself into."
"Your aid? I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I do not know entirely myself, Londo." There was something about him, something that seemed to say that I could hide nothing from him. He exuded confidence. I almost envied him. "But there is something. Something you want of me. Something you are... saving me for. That is why I have been here for a year-that and no other reason. You could have me executed with impunity. You could find a way to allow me to depart, if you really wanted to. Instead you keep me here for your own purposes. I think you know what they are."
"Oh, really. And what do you think they are?"
And that cold confidence seeped over from him. It seemed to drain something from me as he said, "I think... you want me to help you escape. Not out that door Not off this world. I think you want me to help you escape through the only way that will allow the pain to stop. To the only place where no one can ever touch you or hurt you again. I do not think, though, that you are ready for that. Or perhaps you feel that it is not a judicious moment. And so you wait. And we chat. And we have dinner. And we play at having polite discussions about matters both consequential and inconsequential, when the only thing you really wonder about is: Is now the time? Is there more that I can do? Should do? Or should I ask my old friend G'Kar to do... what I myself cannot or will not do?"
Suddenly it was very, very cold. I felt it down to my bones, my blood... my very being. Whatever warming attributes came from the wine were gone.
"I think you should leave now," I said.
G'Kar inclined his head slightly, in deference, and rose. The guards were immediately at his side. What nonsense. As if they could have stopped him if he endeavored to attack me. He looked at one in curiosity, and said, "You are new. You are new to the guard... but I have seen you before. Where?"
The guard looked at me, seeking my permission to reply. I nodded absently, and he looked back to G'Kar. "My name is Caso. I was a member of the Prime Candidates."
"Of course. You were there that day, a year ago. You saw me stop the shooter You are no longer a Prime Candidate?" He shook his head. "Why?"
He said nothing, but it was I who answered. "Because it was felt," I told him, "that he was wrong to reveal that you had saved Durla and me. The others pressured him to state that you yourself were involved, or even masterminded it. that way there would have been no reason not to dispose of you. And Durla is not pleased with the idea of being beholden to a Narn -any Narn -much less you."
"But you stuck to your principles," G'Kar said approvingly to Caso.
"I simply held to the truth," Caso told him. "it was not a difficult decision."
"Oh," G'Kar said, glancing at me, "you would be amazed how difficult a decision it can be sometimes."
Caso escorted him out then, leaving me with a bottle of wine that was not sufficiently full, and a soul that was not sufficiently empty, for what I needed to do.
- chapter 10 -
Reality and fantasy were blurring for Durla. He was standing on a high cliff on Mipas, overlooking the ships that prepared to plunge into battle, and he could not recall for sure whether what he was seeing was really happening, or merely another of his visions.
"Magnificent," he said, and the wind carried his words away so that no one heard, save himself. Even so, the fact that he himself had heard it was enough.
Mipas was only one of the worlds where Centauri war vessels were being gathered, but it was a pivotal one, since it was within close proximity to the Drazi Homeworld. Fortunately, Minister Castig Lione had done a more-than-admirable job of greasing the right palms and making certain that the right people in the Drazi government asked all the wrong questions, thereby making sure that none of the Drazi would look too closely at what was going on. They knew Mipas was a hub of industry, but the Centauri insisted-with most convincing vigor-that the facility was simply being used as a construction project for the Centauri government to keep its populace gainfully employed.
And it was true that, at this site and at others like it, the Centauri had labored long and hard. And now the fruits of those years and years of labor were coming close to paying off. The ships looked so ready for battle-so powerful, that even sitting on the ground as they were, relatively helpless, they still appeared formidable.
It was, without question, the largest fleet that any one race had in its possession. Its creation had not come without cost, and it had required long years of experimentation and dedication.
"Magnificent," he said again. He wondered abstractly whether he had forgotten every other word in his vocabulary.
But it was magnificent, there was no denying. The ships were stretched all the way to the horizon, ready to leap into the air at his command. Not only that, but many already were up and dying. The sky was alive with activity, hundreds of ships, passing in perfect formation.
He stood there, arms stretched wide, and he could practically feel power from the ships themselves flooding into him. He felt as if he could, with a mere wave of his hand, send other worlds spiraling into oblivion. With his mighty fleet backing him up, he could shatter planets at his merest whim. "Soon . . . very soon, sir," General Rhys said at his side. "Another two, three weeks ... and we will be ready. At your hand, and your hand alone, will we strike."
It sounded good. Indeed, it sounded superb
. "My hand," Durla said, sounding enchanted with the notion. "My hand will reach out. My hand will crush the Alliance worlds. They will not be able to stop us. Nothing can stop us."
And suddenly Mariel was at his side. She was smiling and perfect and glowing with that glorious inner light which, for some reason, he never saw when she was with him under other circumstances. "Sheridan can," Mariel said firmly. "He can stop you."
"Never!" Durla shouted.
"He stopped the Shadows. He stopped the Vorlons. He can stop you."
"I will eliminate him! Obliterate him! I-"
"I love you, Durla, you above all others," Mariel said. "And Sheridan shall be delivered into your hands. Sheridan and alsoDelenn." "How?" Durla's eyes were wide in wonder. "How will you do this?"
"The son. The son is the key. Once you have the son, the father and mother will fall into line. He was born for one reason and one reason only: to become Sheridan and Delenn's greatest weakness. They will sacrifice themselves in order to save him. They will think, in so doing, that it is only themselves who are to be sacrificed, but in fact they will be sacrificing Sheridan's Alliance, as well. He has tried to create something greater than himself. He has not quite yet succeeded. He does not realize that once he is gone, his Alliance falls apart. When the Alliance worlds are assaulted by this mighty fleet you have created, they will turn to Sheridan for guidance, and they will find him gone They will turn to each other and find only races that have let each other down. It will be glorious. It will be chaos. And it will be the end of the Interstellar Alliance."
"And I need do nothing?"
"Nothing." Mariel smiled. "Durla... do you know what you are?"
"Tell me."
"You are the greatest leader, the greatest thinker, the greatest Centauri who has ever lived. In the future, all will sing songs and say prayers to you. The actions you take in the coming weeks will grant you immortality. None will ever forget the name of Durla. You will be like unto a god."
"A god," he whispered.
"Even the Great Maker himself will pale in envy at the praise that will be sung to you. For the Great Maker possesses the abilities of a deity, which aid him in all that he would create. You Durla, are a mere mortal. . . yet look at what you have managed managed to bring into being, through the sheer power of your will."
The sky was now so thick with ships that the stars were not even visible. Every so often they managed to peek through, ever so slightly, but for the most part it was a solid blanket of fighter vessels.
"All this, you have done. And for all this, you will be rewarded."
She reached for him then, her lips against his ...
. . . and he awoke with a start.
In the darkness of the room, Durla felt flushed, breathing hard. It was that disconcerting sort of sensation that one always experienced when waking up in an unusual place.
The facility in which he was housed wasn't especially plush or fancy, but it was the best Mipas had to offer. It was only one night, though; the next day he would journey to another of the worlds that the great Centauri Republic had taken, and witness the final stages of the construction there.
It was a glorious tour, a validation of all his work.
His work.
The more he pondered, the more his suspicious mind began to work. And then he heard a soft moan. He glanced over and saw Mariel lying next to him, tossing and looking less than comfortable. Perhaps she had likewise been dreaming. But her vision wasn't remotely as broad as his, which caused him no little aggravation. After all, she had always been present in his dreams-an avatar of greatness. Certainly it wasn't her fault that the Mariel of the real world could never match up to that of the imaginary.
Nevertheless, it was a keen source of disappointment. He shook her awake, and she sat up with a start, blinking furiously. The blanket fell away, revealing the sheerest of nightgowns. Once upon a time, that sight alone would have been enough to inflame his blood. Now he barely gave it a glance. "Mariel... tell me what you think of me," he said.
She looked at him in confusion. "What?"
"Your opinion. Of me. 1 desire to know what it is."
"You are ..." She licked her lips, still clearly befuddled, but game enough to try to reply. "You are my sun and moons, my stars, my everything. You are-"
"Stop it," and he grasped her firmly by the arms. "I need to know, because we stand on the brink of something great. On the brink of recapturing the lost glory of Centauri Prime. But it is important to me that you tell me what you think of this venture, and of me."
"Why ... is it important?"
He took a deep breath. "It simply is. Now tell me. Am I a great leader? Will songs be sung about me?"
When she didn't reply immediately, he shook her roughly and repeated, "Tell me!"
And suddenly her face twisted in fury, anger so palpable that he felt as if daggers were being driven into him through the ferocity of her gaze alone. "You desire to know what I think? Very well. 1 think you are mad. Insane. I think you are drunk with power. I think you tell yourself that all that you do, you do for Centauri Prime, when in fact you do it for yourself. 1 think you will bring death and destruction to our people. I think these 'great visions' you profess to have are nothing more than the delusions of a rotting soul making lengthy preparations for its own damnation. I think that if you have a shred of decency, you will halt this insane project before it goes any further. That you will refrain from bringing the wrath of the Interstellar Alliance down around our ears and instead work to create something good and prosperous and decent. Something that can stand as a symbol for a thousand years and say, See here! We of the Great Centauri Republic accomplished this, and it benefited every sentient being everywhere. And, Durla, if you persist in this course, then you will only lead others to destruction, and the only songs that you will inspire will be dirges. You wanted to know what I think? That is what I think."
It had all come bursting out of her in a rush, words spilling over themselves. She wasn't thinking rationally, or wisely. As had been the case with abused and downtrodden wives through-out the ages, she had been thinking at that moment about one thing and one thing only: to wound him. To get back at him in any way she could.
But always a woman of craft, intelligence, and deviousness, Mariel had suffered his wrath long enough. Before he could swing at her, she whipped the covers off her body and leapt from the bed with the force of a recovered predator. Something had at last awakened inside her, a sense of dignity, of self-worth, a growing ember of the respect she once held as a devastating lady of Centauri Prime.
Tonight she would get it all back. Before Durla could untangle himself from the bedsheets Mariel ripped open the bedroom door so hard that it slammed into the wall. She fled down the hallway, feeling him coming up fast behind her. Only a few more steps to go; she could just reach the other room in time. She grasped the handle of the door at the end of the hallway, pushed, whirled, and closed it, throwing herself against the door and locking Durla out. Forever.
As Durla pounded furiously against the door, Mariel leaned against it and felt the blessed wood at her back, taking the brunt of his anger for once. Across the room, there was a dark terminal. She stared at it, realizing that she was trapped here only as long as she allowed herself to be.
Mariel crossed the room, touched her fingers to the side of the terminal, and activated a call to Emperor Londo Mollari of Centauri Prime. She was taking him up on his offer of help. She was going home. And in a few moments, there would be nothing Durla could do to harm her.
- chapter 11 -
"Happy birthday, David!"
David Sheridan squirmed as his mother planted a kiss on his cheek. He wiped it off as quickly as possible, then howled in anguished laughter as Michael Garibaldi kissed him just as aggressively on the other cheek. "Uncle Mikey!" he managed to get out as he quickly wiped the drool from his face. "Oh, yuck!"
" 'Oh, yuck'? Is that all you have to say?" Garibaldi asked him in mock offense.
"And after the terrific present I've gotten you?
They were gathered in Sheridan's den, a more private room for study and contemplation. It boasted an assortment of mementos from earlier in the careers of both Delenn and Sheridan, and the room overall had more of an "Earth" feel to it. At least, that's what David was told. Having never actually been to Earth, he could only take his father's word for it. "Present? Is it the trip? Finally?" David asked. Delenn rolled her eyes, as if this were a subject that had been broached a hundred times before ... and indeed, perhaps it had. "David, we said eighteen.. ."
"What is the big deal about eighteen?" he demanded. Knowing that his mother was a dead end, he turned to his father. "Dad, I'm sixteen now. Would you please tell Mom that she's being paranoid."
"You're being paranoid," Sheridan told her promptly. "So you're saying I can go"
"No, you can't go. But it's your birthday, so I figured I'd humor you."
David sighed in exasperation. He turned to Garibaldi, his court of last resort. "Can you believe this? They won't put me on a shuttle by myself to go visit you on Mars. To go anywhere! What the hell is going on? " .
"Language," Delenn said primly.
"Sorry. What the bloody hell is going on?"
"Attaboy," Garibaldi said.
"A reminder here, David," Sheridan said. "You're 'sixteen' on a technicality. Minbari years are shorter than Earth years. By Earth standards, you've still got a ways to go."
"Okay, fine. But I've also got some Minbari blood in me, so that should count for something."
"Yeah. Don't get too attached to your hair, for one thing," Garibaldi cracked.
Delenn, who was busy slicing the white-and-chocolate cake that had been brought in minutes earlier, shook her head. "You, Michael, are precisely no help whatsoever." "Thank you." "You're welcome. Here," and she shoved a piece of cake at him.
"Look, I gotta tell you, the kid's got a point, that's ...., Garibaldi said. He took a bite of the cake, then said, "Who baked this?"