by Peter David
"I did," Sheridan said. "I figured it's never too late to try something new."
"Well, guess what. You were wrong." He put the cake aside Sheridan scowled. "It's just that... well, the kid's sixteen years old and he's never so much as flown on a shuttle by himself? Aside from a trip or two to Babylon 5, he's spent practically his whole life on Minbar. He should get out, have a chance to see the galaxy. My God, when I think what I was up to when I was sixteen..."
"The imagination fairly reels," Delenn said.
"It's a different situation, Michael, and you know it." Sheridan lowered his voice and glanced at David, as he said to Garibaldi, "And I don't know if now is the best time to-"
"Discuss it," David interrupted. He had finished his piece of cake, his teenaged taste buds apparently not the least put off. "God, I can't think of the number of times I've heard that. When is it going to be safe to discuss things in front of me, huh? How sheltered arn I going to have to be?"
Sheridan looked to Delenn, but she shrugged slightly in a "What-else-can-we-say?" manner. "It's just... different," he said. "How?" The question came from both Garibaldi and David. "Because," Sheridan said patiently, "I'm the president of the Interstellar Alliance. And the fact is that there are people out there-some of them outside the Alliance, some of them, I hate to say, part of it-who might well desire to put pressure on me any way they can. To say nothing of the numerous people I've piled up over the years who have individual grudges with me. And my son would be a terrific prize to acquire in that regard." "Wow, you really are paranoid," Garibaldi said.
"And so are you. Don't you remember? It's one of the things I've always liked about you." "And paranoia has its time and place," Garibaldi admitted. "That being all the time and every place," Sheridan replied. "True enough. But don't you think there should be some balance? Like I said, when I was sixteen-" "You were already bumming around the galaxy, I know. Snagging rides wherever you could, exploring colonies, getting into trouble. And it made you the man you are today." "God help us all," Garibaldi said cheerfully, "The point is," Sheridan continued, "David isn't you. You could do whatever you wanted, get into whatever trouble you wished, with relative anonymity. David had the bad luck to be my son."
"I don't think of it as bad luck, Dad." David sighed. "I wish you wouldn't put words in my mouth." "Sorry."
"He's got so many of his own they just kind of spill out all over the place into other people's mouths." "Don't help me, Michael," Sheridan told him. "The thing is, you're right about one thing," David said. "One thing." Delenn laughed. "My, my. That's an improvement of one hundred percent over most discussions you two have, John. You should be proud."
Don't help me, Mom," David deadpanned. He turned back to his father. "The thing is ... you're the president of the Interstellar Alliance. To all intents and purposes, you're the most powerful man in known space."
"A bit of a high-flown description, but I'll accept that Sheridan said.
"But why is it, then ... that the most powerful man in know space ... has the most powerless son?"
Sheridan looked down a moment and sighed. "David ... I wish the situation were different. I wish we lived in other circumstances."
"We live in the circumstances that we make, Dad. You can't create a certain set of circumstances, and then moan about it and chalk it off to the doings of fate."
"He has a point, John." "Et tu, Delenn?"
"I'm not saying that your concerns aren't valid. Just that his are equally valid. There is no easy answer," she replied.
"When is there ever?" He thought about it a moment, and then said, "Maybe when you're seventeen..."
"Forget it, Dad," David said impatiently. "Just forget it. I'll lock myself in my room and come out when I'm fifty, and maybe that will be safe enough." Before Sheridan could respond, David turned to Garibaldi. "Okay, so what is your present, then?"
"David, you raised the subject; we can't just let it drop," Sheridan said.
"You know what, Dad? It's my birthday. If I want to drop a subject, then I think it should get dropped."
Sheridan put up his hands in an attitude of submission, whereupon David looked back at Garibaldi. "So? My present?"
Garibaldi reached into his jacket and pulled out a PPG. He handed it to David, and said proudly, "Here you go."
David took it and turned it over reverently, feeling its heft "Wow," he whispered.
Sheridan's face was so dark that it looked as if thunderheads were rolling in. "Michael," he said stiffly. "May we speak privately a-"
"Oh, calm down, John. David, pull the trigger." "David, you will do no such thing!" Delenn snapped. "Will you guys trust me? After twenty-plus years, you'd think I'd've earned that. David, point it over in that direction and pull the trigger."
Before his parents could stop him, David did as he was told. He braced himself and pulled the trigger. There was not, however, any of the expected recoil. Instead an image instantly appeared, floating in the air, materialized there by a steady stream of light from the end of the "PPG." It was a scantily clad young woman, life-sized and in glorious holographic 3-D, performing a dance that could only be described as extremely suggestive.
A grin split David's face. "Wow! Who is she?" "God, I wish I knew." Garibaldi sighed. "Happy birthday,
"David."
Delenn cleared her throat loudly. "Michael... I don't know that it's particularly appropriate ..."
"If you're going to keep the kid nailed to Minbar, the least you can do is let him get a view of what's out there. Am I right, John?" He paused. "John?"
Sheridan was staring at the holograph. With an effort, he blinked himself back into the moment. "Oh... right." "John!" Delenn sounded almost betrayed. "Delenn, it's harmless."
"Harmless! It teaches him to look upon women as physical creatures, rather than complete beings of spiritual and . . ." Her voice trailed off as she watched the gyrations. She angled her head slightly. "Are those.. . real?"
"Absolutely," Garibaldi said immediately. "You can tell."
"How? No, on second thought, I don't want to know," she amended quickly.
"That's probably wise," Sheridan said judiciously. Then a thought struck him. "Oh! One other thing." He crossed to a cabinet and opened it. David watched in curiosity
as his father delicately removed an urn. Walking carefully, as if afraid he would trip and drop it, Sheridan brought it across the room and settled it on the table in front of David where his other presents lay. David looked at it skeptically.
"It's an urn," he said.
"That's right."
"Well... that's nice," David said gamely. "I was figuring I'd finish off the evening by having myself cremated, so.. .now I've got someplace to put me."
Sheridan laughed, and Delenn told him, "This is not just any urn. It was a gift from Londo Mollari." "Before he became an asshole," Garibaldi added.
"Michael!" Delenn scolded.
"Okay, okay, you got me. He was an asshole already." "Michael!"
"Oh, come on, Mom, it's not as if you speak highly of him."
"Ease up on your mother, David. And Michael, please ... for once," and he made a quick throat-cutting gesture before turning back to his son. "David ... I know that we've made some less than-flattering comments about the Centauri in general and their emperor in particular. And God knows Londo has made some incredibly bad choices in his life. Then again... we all have."
"Not me," Garibaldi said. "Not a single mistake."
"Single, no. Numerous ..."
Garibaldi clutched his heart as if stabbed by Sheridan's comment. Sheridan returned his attention to David. "The fact is that Londo brought us this urn before you were born. He told us that the Centauri tradition dictates that this be given to the heir to the throne when he comes of age."
"Like a Christmas fruitcake?"
Sheridan blinked. "What?"
David chucked a thumb at Garibaldi. "He told me that the was only one Christmas fruitcake ever baked. And no one wanted it. So it
gets passed around from person to person, throughout history, every Christmas."
"You're just a bundle of information, aren't you, Michael."
Garibaldi grinned. "Boy's got to learn sometime."
"Yeah, well, hopefully what he'll learn is to stop listening to you. The point is, David, that-at that time, at least-we were the closest thing to family Londo ever had. He felt a ... a connection to you. You were a sort of surrogate son, I guess. He was reaching out to you and, in so doing, reaching out to us, as well.
"And then he spent the next sixteen years trying to conquer the galaxy."
"I don't know how much of that is Londo, and how much of it is his advisers," Sheridan said. "In any event, they'll never succeed. We have some intelligence-gathering facilities of our own..."
"And they're not what they once were," Garibaldi said.
Sheridan glanced at him in amusement. "You mean since you left the job, it's gone downhill."
But Garibaldi obviously took the comment quite seriously. "If you want to know the truth: yes. You're depending on what other worlds are telling you. Except I know that palms have been greased, that people have found it to their advantage to look the other way, and no one truly believes that the Centauri are capable of trying what I think they're going to try." "Londo may be many things, Michael... but he's not insane, Attacks on individual border worlds are one thing. But if the Centauri get it into their heads to make a full-blown strike at the allies, they'll be smashed to pieces."
"Londo may not be insane, but that prime minister of his is a few anvils short of a chorus," Garibaldi replied. "The problem is that he's ignorant and arrogant. Ignorance you can deal with, you can outsmart ignorance. Arrogance you can likewise get around. Arrogant people, you can appeal to that arrogance and set them up for a fall. Ignorance and arrogance is a deadly combination. Now, if the other members of the Alliance want to stick their heads into the sand, that's their choice, of course. But I'm hoping that you, Mr. President, aren't turning into one of those, or letting a gift from sixteen years ago soften you in your concerns toward the Centauri. Because I'm telling you: They're a threat."
"Believe it or not, Michael, I haven't lost sight of that," Sheridan said patiently. "But I also haven't lost sight of the fact that, once upon a time, Londo Mollari was our friend. God willing, he may be again someday. And in hopes of that time ... here," and he slid the urn closer to David.
David picked it up, turned it over. "The bottom part is sealed," he noted.
"Yes, we know," Delenn said. "It's supposed to contain water from a sacred river that ran in front of the palace." "It's kind of okay," David allowed. He turned the vase over, For some reason it felt ... comfortable in his hands. Even though it was the first time he had seen it, he felt as if it had always been his. "It's nice." "Kind of okay? Nice? From you, David, that is high praise indeed," his mother teased him. He hefted the vase once more, then glanced at the leftover cake. "Mom, is it okay if I have another piece?" "My God, he likes it," Sheridan said, amazed. "Absolutely-" "-not," Delenn told him flatly.
David's "Mom!" overlapped with Sheridan's slightly less anguished, but just as annoyed, "Delenn!"
"You know how I feel about gluttony," she said. "Be satisfied with what you have, David. The rest of the cake will be here tomorrow."
"I sure as hell know I'm not going to take any of it," Garibaldi piped up cheerfully.
"I don't recall anyone asking you," Sheridan told him.
David found that, the longer he looked at the urn, the more trouble he had taking his eyes off it. "Dad . . . would it be okay it I sent a message off to the emperor? To thank him?"
"I think that would be a very nice gesture," Sheridan said "You may have to jog his memory a bit. He never had the opportunity to meet you, after all."
"Who knows?" Delenn said. "If the situation changes for the better-perhaps you will have the opportunity to meet the emperor face-to-face someday."
"And won't that be wonderful," Garibaldi said.
- chapter 12 -
When General Rhys met the prime minister for breakfast, he found Durla to be in a fairly somber mood. "Is there a problem, sir?" Rhys inquired.
Durla was holding a roll, staring at it. Then he placed it down carefully and looked at Rhys. "General," he said after a moment, "my lady wife, Mariel, will not be continuing with us. I wish to have her returned to Centauri Prime as soon as possible."
"Is she feeling ill?" Rhys asked solicitously.
"You can say that, yes." "Ah" was all Rhys said.
"I believe she wants to go home. This surveying of our fleet is too strenuous for her."
"Ah," he said again.
"Furthermore," Durla continued, "I think it best if she be kept to herself for a while. I am concerned about things she might say and do."
"What... sort of things?" inquired Rhys.
Durla looked at him darkly and seriously. "Unfortunate things. Things that, if they were spoken by just any woman, would be considered disloyal enough. But spoken by the wife of the prime minister? They could serve to undermine my people's faith in me. 1 will not have it, General. I will not be undercut by her."
"That's very understandable, Prime Minister," Rhys said judiciously. But he was more than capable of reading between the lines ... and was wondering, in a bleak manner, why Durla wasn't insinuating that the woman simply succumb to an "accident" on the way home. It was not a suggestion, however veiled, that Rhys was looking forward to receiving. He was not quite certain how he would react to such a thing. He was a soldier, not an assassin.
The question, however, promptly became moot when Durla spoke again. "From whisperings I have heard, and things she has said ... I believe the emperor has taken an interest in her fortunes."
"I thought the emperor despised her," said a surprised Rhys. Durla shrugged, clearly mystified. "Who can possibly intuit the way in which the emperor's mind works ... or even if it does work at all." He laughed heartily at his little witticism, but when the general offered little more than a slightly pained smile, he reined himself in. Instead, all business, he continued, "So make certain that she is kept to herself. I do not want her talking to others. I do not want her sending communications to others. She needs time, I think, to assess the current state of affairs and come to terms with them."
"As you wish, Prime Minister."
Durla smiled. "There are times, General, when I think that you alone fully understand my concerns."
"You wish to make Centauri Prime great again," Rhys said, "You see our future as a great monument. Naturally you must chip away at anything that is not in keeping with your vision."
"Yes, yes. Exactly." He let out a sigh, as if relieved.
Then he got up and walked over to the great bay window that overlooked the field. There, in the morning sun, the ships gleamed. Not as many as in his dream, no. But a considerable number nonetheless.
Besides, his dreams always looked to the future, not to the present or the past.
In the distance, the construction facility was going full strength. It provided him further affirmation that nothing could possibly stop them. The future was in his hands. His hands.
He looked over at Rhys. General Rhys, who, when he led the troops into battle, would cover himself with glory. General Rhys, who simply carried out the orders, but did not-should not-be the one making the final decisions.
It was remotely possible that, once the battle began, it would be Rhys who would be remembered. Despite the assertion of his dreams, that it would be Durla whose name would be celebrated, he nevertheless felt a degree of uncertainty.
He could see it now. General Rhys led the attack, General Rhys launched the ships, General Rhys paved the way...
There had to be a reminder of just who was in charge. "General," he said abruptly, "I have given the matter some thought. Only one individual should have the final go-codes." A flicker of uncertainty moved across Rhys' face. "Pardon, sir?" "The final go-codes. The launch codes," Durla said matter-
of-factly. "When all our ships have moved into position, the final encoded signal confirming the assault should come from me. Our fleet should answer to no other voice." Slowly Rhys stood, uncoiling like a great cat. His gaze never left Durla. "Prime Minister," he said slowly, "with the greatest of all respect. . . those codes should also be in the hands of the fleet general."
"You mean yourself."
"Yes, I will be on site. You will not be ... or at least, should not be, for you are too important to the future of Centauri Prime. Ideally, you should relay the go-order to me, and I in turn will inform the fleet..."
"Leaving the decision to strike, ultimately, to your discretion. I do not find that acceptable."
Rhys stiffened. "Prime Minister, I must ask ... is there anything in my actions, or something in my conduct, that leads you believe I am not trustworthy?"
"Not thus far," Durla said mildly. "But I do not intend to wait and find that I have misjudged. It is my vision, my dream that has brought us this far, General Rhys. It is my voice that the brave soldiers of our Republic are entitled to hear when they hurl themselves against our enemies in the Interstellar Alliance. And that is how it shall be."
Durla wondered just how much Rhys was going to object. He expected a fairly lengthy argument over it. He certainly hoped that he wasn't going to have to relieve Rhys of duty. He had proven too dependable an officer.
Fortunately, that dependability held up, for Rhys bowed slightly, and said, "If that is the prime minister's wish, then that is how it shall be."
"Thank you, General," Durla said, with a thin smile. He looked out once more at the fleet. "Marvelous, is it not?" He sighed. "To think that the foolish Houses of Centauri Prime thought I required their cooperation to create it. They did not realize how much could be accomplished in spite of them."
Rhys said nothing.
Durla turned back to him, feeling that the silence connoted disapproval of some sort. "Problem, General?"
"Since you are asking me, Prime Minister ... I believe your lengthy campaign against the House heads, and the Houses themselves, has been ..." He seemed to search for the right word. "Unfortunate."