0-In the Beginning

  Upon my arrival I found I had a slate of meetings waiting for me, as I usually did, most of them with various low-level Earth officials who tried to schedule time with me in an effort to elevate their own importance. But squeezed into a day of handshaking and pointless chitchat was a meeting with an aide to their planetary leader, the President. The aide's name was Hastur, and when I arrived he was in deep discussion with a military individual named General Lef-court. Hastur had a fairly bland face, as if his greatest skill in life was blending into a crowd. Lefcourt was indistinguishable from most of the military-oriented Humans. He had an aggressive, no-nonsense air about him, with a square jaw and closely cropped brown hair. Furthermore, he possessed a seeming unawareness of his own mortality . . . to say nothing of his race's.

  Lefcourt and Hastur rose as I strode into the room. I cut quite the dashing figure in those days, although it may be difficult to believe now. Hastur nodded briskly upon seeing me and put on an air of familiarity as if he and I were the best, oldest of friends. "Ah, Mollari! Good. I'd like to introduce you to General Lefcourt. General, Londo Mollari, liaison to the Centauri delegation."

  Humans have an interesting custom. It is called "shaking hands." The idea is that you approach each other and grasp each other's right hands firmly in order to show that you carry no weapons. I've never quite understood it. To me, a handshake allows you to immobilize your opponent with your empty right hand, keep them stationary, so you can then kill them with the weapon you've concealed in your left hand.

  Still, I should not single out Humans for criticism in this matter. Other races have their own traditions when it comes to greetings . . . and some of those traditions can, and did, have fatal and galactic consequences.

  But I am getting ahead of myself.

  I gripped Lefcourt's hand firmly and felt him grinding my knuckles slightly against one another. I sensed immediately that he was the suspicious type and apparently he didn't feel much trust for me. Whether it was something personal, or directed at the Centauri, or indeed at anything non-Human, I couldn't really tell. All I knew was that I wasn't going to show the slightest hint of discomfiture. Not to him. I gritted my teeth and smiled as Lefcourt shook my hand, and said, "A pleasure, sir."

  "Please, sit." Hastur waved to several large and comfortable-looking chairs.

  As we eased ourselves down, I asked conversationally, "How is your president? Well, I hope."

  "Much better," Hastur said. "I just saw her a little while ago in the Red Room, and she's gotten some of the color back in her cheeks."

  Lefcourt nodded sympathetically. "This damn flu's got half my staff down sick."

  I reached into my pocket. News of the President's illness had been broadcast on their news network with a gravity that could easily have been ascribed to a story about their sun going nova. (They named their sun "the Sun," by the way. Truly the imagination of their ancestors was boundless.) I withdrew a small vial and said, "I suggest you give her a little of this before she eats. I brought it with me from Centauri Prime when I heard she was ill. It will completely eliminate her symptoms in two, three hours at most."

  Hastur held it up to the light to study it with what I assume he thought was scientific expertise. I could see what was running through his little mind: What if this is a Centauri trick? What if it's poison? The Centauri are supposed to be our allies, but who knows how an alien mind may work? On the one hand, I almost applauded his concerns. If he really possessed such a suspicious thought process, he'd have made a credible Centauri. On the other hand, I was slightly insulted. Could he think that I would be that stupid -so stupid as to hand a vial of poison over to him in the guise of a flu remedy? One poisons an enemy because it can be done discreetly, in such a manner as to not provide an immediate trail that leads back to the poisoner. One isn't so obvious as to present a vial of toxin in front of two witnesses and wish the victim bon appetit.

  Ultimately, it did not matter. I knew that they would likely run tests on it before presenting it to their president. It was of no consequence to me. If they wanted their leader to be coughing up her lungs for another few hours while they fiddled in their laboratories, that was entirely their concern.

  "Thank you," Hastur said. "I'm sure she'll appreciate it." No trace of suspicion in his voice. Experienced fellow.

  I bowed slightly. "My pleasure. Now, gentlemen," and I clapped my hands together in my best down-to-business manner, "perhaps you will tell me why you arranged for this meeting."

  Hastur pocketed the remedy and nodded toward Lefcourt. "Of course. General?"

  There was a starmap posted on a nearby wall. It was decorated with a series of graphics that indicated expansion, identified territories marked out as Earth's, noted unknown territories, and so on. Lefcourt had a degree of smug pride as he tapped it. Ah, the joy of seeing a young and confident race flexing its muscles. It's the same feeling one gets upon seeing an infant, first learning to walk, taking those initial confident and rapid strides across a room, and the expression of satisfaction on his little face just before he slams full-tilt into a wall.

  "Following our victory against the Dilgar," Lefcourt said, "we've been taking advantage of the goodwill from the other worlds to expand our sphere of influence." His hand swept across the starmap to encompass entire vast areas. "We're making trade deals and mutual defense treaties with the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. Most of the races have been very receptive to our advances." And then his face daxkened slightly. "Others have been downright hostile. And a few are still a mystery to us "

  He paused, and I had a sense that we were about to get to the meat of the meeting. "What do you know," he asked slowly, "about a race called Minbari?"

  I felt cold.

  I wanted to give myself time to think, and so I walked slowly toward a bar at the far side of the room. When one is faced with a difficult situation, it is always wisest to provide a period of silence before attempting an answer. This will buy you time to come up with the least inflammatory response, and make you appear to others as if you are very wise, your opinions worth waiting for.

  Understand: We had presented ourselves to the Humans as a powerful and intelligent race, and to a degree we were. But we were a mere shadow of what we had once been. A large degree of our greatness had turned to, at best, artifice.

  But the Minbari were quite frightening, quite powerful, and quite genuine. They were an unknowable people. They inhaled secrets and exhaled intrigue.

  In case you have never seen a Minbari: They wear robes, generally, or flowing gowns, as if anxious to disguise every aspect of their forms. They are bald and possess no eyebrows. Their ears are situated near the base of their skulls, and they have a bone crest ringing the back of their heads. The Minbari divided themselves into three distinct social castes: warrior, religious, and worker.

  They were not completely mysterious, mind you, even then. We had our fingers poking into the affairs of every sentient race, and the Minbari were no exception. My source on Minbar was a fellow named Sonovar. Sonovar was attached to the staff of a relatively influential member of the warrior caste, a Minbari named Morann ... and Morann in turn had close ties to the inner circle of a religious caste member named Callier. So if there was anything to be known, Sonovar had a knack for hearing of it, even though Sonovar himself was a fairly low-level member of their warrior caste.

  At the time, I felt that the warrior caste was the only one that could be reasoned with. In later years, I would discover no truer friends-or more formidable enemies-than the Minbari religious caste. Two in particular: one a young Acolyte named Lennier, and the other . . .

  The other was Delenn.

  I will tell you of her ... but later.

  So there was General Lefcourt, waiting for my reply as I poured my drink in a most measured manner. I did not wish to hint to him that the Centauri felt in any way intimidated by the Minbari. The Humans respected strength, were taken by our swagger and confidence, and I would be damned if I did anything to under
mine that respect.

  Trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, I said, "We had some dealings with them in the past," as noncommittal as if the dealings had been little more than friendly card games. In point of fact, the last time we'd dealt directly with the race as a whole had been fifty Earth years before and had involved a minor dispute over territorial rights, a dispute that was quickly settled by the arrival of a Minbari fleet so daunting that our vessels retreated to Centauri Prime without so much as a shot being fired. "But nothing in recent years," I concluded. "Why?"

  Hastur's hands were draped behind his back in what he likely fancied to be a self-confident manner. "We're going to send an expedition to their border to find out if they pose a threat to our program to expand our sphere of influence."

  It may have been my imagination that the temperature in the room had further dropped by twenty degrees and was plummeting rapidly. I looked from Hastur to Lefcourt, seeking confirmation. The general nodded. "We understand that fully a third of their population is dedicated to warfare."

  I shook my head and noticed that my hands were trembling ever so slightly. The drink splashed a bit in the glass and I fought to steady it. We Centauri fully believe in precognition, as you know. The future is open to all of us in our dreams, and to some of us in our waking moments. I am hardly a seer. But at that moment, disaster was writ in great letters across the star-filled sky. "They have a warrior caste," I corrected him. "Not exactly the same thing."

  "Semantics." Lefcourt waved it off. "We need to know all we can about them."

  I gestured with such emphasis that I was in danger of spilling my drink. I put it down and said urgently, "Then send one ship. One ship only. Any more than that could be perceived as a threat. If that were to happen, I can assure you that they would never return home."

  With insufferable swagger, Lefcourt replied, "My people can handle themselves. We took care of the Dilgar. We can take care of the Minbari."

  Up until that moment, I had felt-at most-bored with Lefcourt. Now anger bubbled just below my surface. "Ah, arrogance and stupidity all in the same package," I said. "How efficient of you."

  Lefcourt's face reddened, and Hastur said, "Just a minute-"

  In a way, I blamed myself. I had been so concerned about trying to maintain the Centauri air of superiority that I might have given the impression that the Minbari were not a serious threat. But I realized I had reckoned without Lefcourt's mind-set. Ignorance, you see, can be outthought. Arrogance can be outmaneuvered. But ignorance and arrogance combined are unassailable.

  I knew I had to assail them, though, for I suddenly intuited that right there, in that fairly nondescript room, the future of the Human race was being bandied about, and only one of the three people in the room realized it. Unfortunately, it was the only one of the three who was not in a position to make decisions regarding that fate.

  I could depend only on reasoning, and I knew that I had to try to provide it. I knew that I had to put aside the facade of Centauri superiority, however momentarily, so that I could make the Humans understand just what it was they were contemplating. With as much honesty as I have ever employed in my life, I said, "Listen to me: The Minbari are one of the oldest spacefaring races. Even at the height of the Centauri Empire, when we were expanding in every direction, we never opposed the Minbari. If you do not bother them, they will not bother you."

  Something in my voice-sincerity, perhaps, which would certainly have been a novelty-seemed to penetrate ever so slightly, at least into Hastur's mind. "Perhaps," he allowed, but then he drew himself up and proceeded to spout the official line. "But the decision has already been made. All we're asking from the Centauri is that you give us whatever you have on the location of their military forces, so we can avoid any possible contact."

  How charming. They wanted our cooperation in a spy mission. They wanted to know precisely where they could skulk about with the least danger of running into opposing forces. To give them that information-even if Sonovar were willing to provide it, and I had no reason to assume that he would be-would be a tacit approval on the part of the Centauri. This business had disaster written all over it, and I had no desire for the writing to be scribbled upon us as well.

  "No," I said firmly. "This is foolish."

  Lefcourt, radiating suspicion, said, "You'll excuse me for saying so, but it sounds like you're mainly concerned with keeping your monopoly on our business. If they're as advanced as you say, maybe we should buy from them instead of you."

  I could not quite believe what I was hearing. Everything, as far as the Humans were concerned, b oiled down to profit. In an oblique manner, there was some truth to what he said. I was trying to protect an investment of time and resources. If the Humans were obliterated, as I knew the Minbari were perfectly capable of doing should there be a military encounter, that would naturally have a negative impact on our business dealings. Corpses are rarely in a spending mood.

  But this went beyond the simple financial concern. I couldn't stand by and watch a race jeopardize its existence simply because of the stupidity of its leadership. However, it seemed that there was little I was going to be able to do.

  Trying to make matters clear to them, I said tightly, "Minbari have no interest in alien affairs or alien business, and I resent your implication. I have tried to help you. You have refused to listen. There we are."

  I considered dropping the matter at that, but I realized that the sole hope they had for avoiding disaster rested with me. As much as it angered me, pained me to do so, I saw little choice. "I will get you the information you've asked for, and that is the end of it. Good luck with your mission, gentlemen. I only hope that in your stumbling around, you do not wake the dragon. Good day."

  I turned on my heel and stalked out. I paused only the briefest of moments to glance over my shoulder, and there I saw the two of them in a hurried, whispered conference. I was hoping that they were deciding at the last minute to listen to me and would conclude that this mission should be canceled before it was too late.

  They did not, of course. They didn't listen. Arrogant men never do.

  Sadly, arrogance has never been exclusively a Human trait. Considering the number of people who have tried to warn me off my own course of destruction, throughout my life, I think it safe to say I know this better than most. For that matter, arrogance travels between the stars like solar winds . ..

  It was as swift as those winds that I reached Sonovar. We had an elaborate contact system, one so thorough that my calls to him, and his replies to me, were utterly untraceable.

  Sonovar was a typical youthful Minbari, who wore the classic look of confident arrogance on his face. The difference between him and Lefcourt was that Sonovar was entitled to it. I told him of the situation, wondering how he would react to the prospect of the Humans stumbling about, trying to make first contact. Would he be concerned? Angry? Anticipatory?

  Actually, he seemed rather bored by the notion. I was even more surprised when he gave me the key locations of the Minbari fleet, simply upon my asking. I asked him why he was being so utterly cooperative, and he smiled in a way that did not generate positive feelings.

  "What does it matter if they know where we are?" he said reasonably. 'They cannot hurt us. And if they did try to hurt us ... we would crush them."

  It was hardly what one would consider a pronouncement to put the soul at ease. I cleared my throat, smiled gamely, and said, "Well, let us hope it does not come to that."

  "Let us hope indeed," Sonovar replied.

  "Dare I say, Sonovar, that you seem in a particularly good mood."

  "Your facility for observation remains undiminished, Mollari."

  I shrugged. "May I further dare to ask why?"

  "Shall we just say that matters are proceeding well for the warrior caste?" Sonovar said. "Some political difficulties are on the verge of being attended to? And leave it at that?"

  But Sonovar would not leave it at that; I knew that beyond any question.
For Sonovar was a self-satisfied and rather smug individual, basking in the inherent and perceived superiority of his clan. Some year?; later the religious and warrior castes would find themselves at war with each other, and that came as no surprise to me, for I could see the seeds of the arrogance already freely scattered about.

  I probed with an innocuous question or two, and it took no effort whatsoever to get Sonovar to speak to me of a meeting he'd heard about-from the lips of Callier himself. A meeting which, according to him, spelled the beginning of the end of the only aspect of Minbari life which might pose a challenge to total dominance by the warrior caste. It concerned a group they called the Anla-Shok ... the Rangers. A group whose very existence teetered on the edge of extinction . . . and if they were to disappear . . . one of the last lines of defense against a great darkness would be forever removed.

  And no one would know until too late.

  ~ chapter 2 ~

  The architecture on Minbar is like none you've ever seen, I assure you, or ever will see unless you travel there yourself. A dazzling array of crystalline surfaces, oftentimes in geometric shapes, most predominantly that of the triangle. To the Minbari, everything reflects off the number three. Their caste system, their inner circle called the Grey Council, their most sacred relics . . . even their architecture, all are evocative of "three."

  In their city of Tuzanor stood a temple, one of many, and a most impressive structure. To that temple, an older Minbari had come. His name was Lenonn, and he moved with a slow grace that both underscored his age and, by the same token, lent dignity to it. He felt a soft wind against his face that day, and sensed it to be a wind of change.

  (Yes, yes, yes, I cannot have been privy to precisely what was going through his mind at that exact moment. You will indulge an aging emperor his attempts at poetic scene setting, and grant some dramatic license throughout, for this is my story and I will tell it as I see fit. I have a number of fairly dry history texts I could provide if you desire a recounting of various events in a less stylistically vivid manner. Otherwise, you will kindly allow me the latitude that my rank and age have earned me.)