A Dark, Distorted Mirror. Volume 4. A Future, Born in Pain addm-4
Page 31
Will they go home after this?
The enemy wants to see me as a monster, not as a person. I....
I can't do the same. They are people.
Welles said something as he left.
"There is no act of evil that cannot be done by a fundamentally good man, Delenn.
"Believe me. I know."
Are they good men? Is Welles a good man? Clark? Do they believe that what they are doing is right?
I don't know. I wish I did,
.... but I don't.
Why should they have any doubts about what they're doing? My son is not a person to them, he's nothing more than a collection of cells. He's not even a 'he', he's an 'it'.
He is a person. He's my son. John's and my son.
A name!
He needs a name. I.... have to think....
.... of a name.
How do humans name their children? I did wonder, but I never asked....
Is there a system? Some set of rules? G'Kar told me once that Narn children are given simple, childish names until they come of age, when they choose an adult name for themselves. Do humans pick their names in the same way?
How? Is it.... based on something that happens when the child is born? A momentous event? Named after another born on that same day in the past? Named after a sight outside the birthing room?
Family? Do they.... adopt names of others in their family?
I don't know!
You must have a name, my son. I will give you a name. You....
.... can't die without a name.
I will give you a name.
What human names do I know? There are different names for males and females. Human male names....
Think!
John! John.... I like that name.
But.... can I? No.... John does not know about this baby, about his son. I cannot take his name.... not now, not like this. He does not know. It would not be fair.
Oh, John! I love you....
What other names? Oh.... William.... that is Clark's first name, isn't it? Yes, President William Clark.
What am I thinking? I can't give you that name, my son.
Marcus! Oh, Marcus.... it has been so long. I forgot you....
I am sorry. I did not.... mean to forget you. I wish I could have known you better, but when I did know you.... you believed. You did believe.
But there was.... an ill fate around you. I do not know if you were cursed, or an unfair victim of.... dark forces.... but you deserve to rest at peace now. I cannot wake you from your rest by giving your name to my son. Perhaps....
Perhaps we will meet again.
There must be another name! I.... can't....
.... think
.... of
.... any.
There must be....
What is Welles's name?
....
I do not know....
I do not know his name.
Another....
I will not let you die without a name, my son. I will not....
Commander Corwin.... what is his name?
David.
Yes.
He was John's best friend. He did not trust me, for the sins of the past.... but he helped me, and he came to like me, for John's sake.
Were you to....
.... live
.... my son, he would be your friend as well. He would be your teacher, your.... uncle.
You are David.
My David.
Our David.
You are David, son of John Sheridan and Delenn of Mir. You were conceived in love, and you will always be remembered in love.
Please....
David....
Live!
You must live! We will both love you.... your father and I. We will teach you so many things....
We will teach you about the galaxy, and about the wondrous races who live within it. We will share with you the joys of the universe, the wonders of life....
We will teach you how to love
.... how to live
.... how to....
No!
It's.... starting!
You must live, David! We love you!
Oh....
I can feel your heartbeat....
Through my fingers.... I can feel your heartbeat....
I love you, David.
We love you....
Don't die.
Please.
I can feel your heartbeat.
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Oh, David....
It hurts....
I can
feel
your
heart
beat....
No!
The last
heart
beat
stopped.
Part 5 : The First Footsteps on the Road to Babylon.
The forces of destiny begin to converge on Proxima as the war comes to the home of humanity. As internecine power struggles grip the heart of the Resistance Government and Delenn lies helpless in a forgotten and abandoned place, a dark plan nears fruition and a terrible punishment is prepared. Humanity chose wrongly, out of fear and out of fury, and the punishment for that choice may well be the extinction of all that they are, and all they will ever be.
Chapter 1
"We have come home."
Captain David Corwin, aboard the Dark Star 3, the Agamemnon.
* * *
"Let them come. If they believe they are pursuing their own purposes here, then they are sadly mistaken."
President William Morgan Clark, private observation.
* * *
David....
He is dead....
My son. Our son.
David....
I can feel your heart beating.
Live, my son.
Please, live.
"Interesting," said the cold voice. "She's speaking in her own language, or rather.... some dialect of it. It is possible each caste has its own language, I suppose. And yet some things are in English. A recurrence of names, as well. John.... and David. I wonder about their significance. Perhaps...."
"Perhaps you did not hear me, Doctor," snapped another voice, an angry one. "I asked how she was doing, not for an in–depth analysis of linguistic patterns."
She knows these voices, somehow. One of them anyway. The second voice. The last time it spoke to her there had been the same.... anger. The other voice she recalls hearing dimly across a veil of sleep, of drugged anguish.
"Oh.... she's doing well. As well as can be expected anyway. We managed to stabilise her system after the blood loss, but we feel the major damage was to her.... was psychological. Something like that would be a tremendous shock to anyone, of course. It was worse in this case because of.... ah...."
"Because of what?"
"The anaesthetic.... It was not entirely effective. Something in her system we could not account for. Unfortunate, really. We believe she was partly conscious throughout the operation."
"Good God! You mean to tell me she was awake while you were killing her baby?"
"If you want to put it like that.... Unfortunate, really. Still, we could hardly expect...."
"You had all the time in the world to perform all the tests in the world to expect that very thing, Doctor! Did it escape your notice that she is a unique biological specimen? Did it also escape your notice that she is to stay alive.... at all costs?"
"Well.... no, of course. As I said earlier, most of the medical problems were easily resolved. The.... ah.... unusual thickness of the vascular layer of the endometrium caused the excessive haemorrhage, but we managed to compensate for that. A transplant would be difficult.... for obvious reasons, but we are well on the way to developing an adequate synthetic. As I said, the problems are mostly psychiatric. We believe she has
willed herself into a catatonic trance."
"Listen to me, Doctor. Forget the jargon. You are a man of medicine. She is a sick patient. You will make her better, and if you do not I will personally have you killed, and your family, and your friends, and your family's friends, and in short, everyone you have ever met.
"Do not fail me in this, Doctor."
"We will do what we can, Mr. Welles."
Welles. She knows that name, but somehow....
.... it escapes her.
He speaks to her again, and this time the anger is gone from his voice, and there is only a terrible sadness. She wants to reach out and comfort him, but something prevents her.
"I am sorry," he says to her. "Oh, Delenn, I wish.... there could have been....
".... another way.
"I am sorry."
She wants to say something, but the words she reaches for are soon gone. A moment later her consciousness recedes, and she is again lost in a world where all she can hear is a heart beating, slower and slower each time.
* * *
There is another who cannot hear his heart beating, for it does not beat any longer. He is dead, and has been dead for a thousand years, lost and alone in his self–imposed prison of darkness and fire. There are others he could talk to, there is a vast land stretching out for miles in all directions had he but the courage to seek it out, but he does not, and so he stays, still, quiet, dead.
Alone.
For a thousand years he has been alone, living always with the ghosts of his past and the spectres of his future. He talks to those long dead, to those he loved, those he betrayed, and those he killed.
He walks deeper into caverns and catacombs, and stops, noticing something wrong about the scene before him. It takes a mere moment to realise what it is. With a sad smile he stretches out his hands, and something rises from the ground at his feet. It is a small shrine, and a candle. With a thought he lights it, and he looks at the words carved on the rock. He cannot remember exactly what he wrote there on that day a thousand years ago, the last day on which he was a warrior, but that hardly matters. He has used new words this time, and it is better. The result of a millennium more experience.
"You understand, don't you?" he says, speaking to someone who is not there. "You understood why it was necessary. I saw it in your eyes as I raised my pike for the final blow. You forgave me.
"You were a warrior. You understood.
"I wonder where you are now. Has your soul been reborn again? Many times over, perhaps. I remember.... something that prophetess said. You remember her, don't you? The woman we found... ah, where was it? Tai'Kondaroga? No, no.... Beiridein? No, not there.
"Delphis! That was it. She was in that temple at Delphis. I remember now. She said the two of us had.... a karmic link. Our souls would be bound to each other through countless lifetimes. You scoffed afterwards, and so did I. What matter past lives, or future ones? We were warriors. The present was all that mattered.
"I wonder, my friend.... Have you been alone in all the lifetimes since then? Lost, and damned? My soul is trapped here, while yours has been reborn. I remember what you said as you died.... You were wrong."
He pauses, and looks out past the shrine into the deeper cavern beyond. He knows what is there. The voice that spoke to him before. He fled from it. It will not be there now.... this is a world of his own making. Surely the immortal voice will not be there now....
Or maybe it will be. Shaking, for the dead can feel fear just as the living can, he turns and heads back the way he came. He is not afraid any longer, and as he thinks about the ancient wisdom in the remembered voice, he thinks again of Valen.
"What did you know?" he snaps. "I would have beaten you. You were a coward.... too cautious, too heedful of life. We are warriors! We are trained to kill, and to die. Death is.... should be.... nothing but the release from our obligations. Who said that? My tutor, Durhan. That was his name. Just as his trainer was Durhan, and his.
"Yes, Durhan said that. It was carved in the stones outside our temple. 'Death is nothing but the release from our obligations.' I wish it was a release for me.... but then I betrayed my obligations, didn't I? Perhaps I do not deserve peace.
"Damn you, Valen! You did not understand us. You betrayed us all a thousand times over before I ever turned against you. I was better than you in every way, all I had to do was prove it to you.
"If only Derannimer had known that."
Sorrowfully, he shakes his head and carries on. The lakes of fire are up ahead, so similar to the ones where he died. Wait! They are not in Z'ha'dum, they are.... somewhere else.
Oh, what does it matter? He will return to the fire, and be refreshed and reborn in the terror of his death.
He does not know it, but someone there is waiting for him.
* * *
"Why do I have to say this? Why exactly do I have to warn you to be careful? Why do I have to point out the risks of meeting strange people we don't know in a strange location after receiving an ambiguous message?
"Why do I even have to ask these questions?"
"Karma?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Maybe you did bad things in a past life? Maybe whatever you did was so bad as to merit being stuck with me."
"I don't believe in reincarnation. Hmm.... so what must you have done in a past life then? To end up here, I mean."
"Oh, probably nothing. I've done all the bad things in this life. I'm going to be reincarnated as a Pak'ma'ra or something."
"I've met a Pak'ma'ra. They're.... decent enough, I suppose, as aliens go. Just don't try reading their mind or watching them eat and you'll be fine."
"Well, in my experience of dealing with alien races I'll put messy eaters a long way below those who try to blow me into little tiny pieces."
"Yes, I suppose I can see the reasoning behind that. I can't of course see the reasoning behind this meeting."
"Oh, come on. You always try to read my mind."
"I'd really rather not take the risk. Besides, it is.... uncomfortable doing that at the moment."
"Yes? This has something to do with what happened in that compound, hasn't it? You could try talking to me about it."
"No.... that is.... not a good idea at the moment.... However, I could point out the unfairness between what happened to me and what happened to you."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh come on! I get.... well.... I have various nastiness happen to me and you get stuffed full of orange juice and offered a job."
"It wasn't quite like that. But yes, it was.... strange, which for the record is why I'm here. Whoever sent us the message promised us information, remember. I don't know about you, but I'm willing to take the risk. I'm tired of being led around by the nose."
"And I notice you didn't read the rest of the message."
"What rest of the message?"
"The part that says, 'P. S. This is a trap.' And our mysterious visitor is late. I hate people who don't show up on time."
She suddenly started, and straightened at the sound of movement just up ahead. "I'm sorry for being late," said a polite, if slightly strained voice. "Punctuality is a lost art these days. However, I was.... unavoidably detained."
"Yeah, you and the rest of the solar system. So, who are you?"
"My name is Welles. You have probably heard of me. You, sir, certainly have. I remember meeting you two years ago. I could of course have gone for the whole cloak–and–dagger business and done a 'Deep Throat', but frankly I don't have time.
"I'm come to put a deal to both of you. Normally I wouldn't take this risk, but I don't have time to play safe. I've been following you two for quite a while, and I'm fully aware of what you've been trying to do here. You more than anyone else might be willing and able to do what I need.
"So, Dexter Smith, former Earthforce Captain and current social crusader, and Talia Winters, telepathic saboteur and secret agent, otherwise known as Mrs. Tamara Winter, Lieut
enant T. Stoner, Bridget O'Shaughnessy, Anne Elizabeth Clements, among others....
"I need you to do something for me."
"What?" asked Smith.
Welles smiled slightly. "Steal something. Or rather someone. An individual I am sure you have both heard of.
"Her name is Delenn."
* * *
"I was killed in fire, you know. It is said that is the worst way to die, slowly, in agony. I did not mind so much at the time. I wanted to die, in any way possible.... but there was a moment, as my skin was crisping, my clothes alight and only my will kept me conscious, that I changed my mind.
"I could still live. There was one moment of clarity just before I died, when I realised I could still live. I could do so much. I could seek forgiveness, seek redemption, return to the man I had been.
"But of course I could not. I died, and my last sight was of the figure standing watching me, humming softly and cradling a globe in his outstretched hands. I realised what he was, and I started to scream.
"Everyone should remember their death, don't you think?"
Marrain stood on his precipice, looking out at the sea of flames erupting all around him. He raised his arms, and the flames rose higher and higher. Sinoval stood watching him silently from a nearby rock ledge.