0-In the Beginning

by Peter David

  Lenonn, however, did not seem particularly disposed toward waiting. "No ... you must listen," he gasped out. He didn't seem to be looking at them anymore. Instead it was as if he was looking beyond them, his eyes focused on a future that only he could see. "They will come looking for me ... and they will blame you ... for me ... and the war will grow worse."

  Under the grime that coated his face, Sheridan blanched. He had envisioned any number of scenarios coming out of this meeting, but having matters become even worse than they were was not one that he had anticipated.

  Lenonn seemed to focus back on Sheridan for a brief moment. In a desperate whisper, he said, "Listen . . . carefully ... and repeat this ... exactly."

  He hissed something into Sheridan's ear. G'Kar leaned forward, trying to hear, but couldn't. Nor could Franklin. But Sheridan nodded grimly, jaw set. The words meant nothing to him, and that made him extremely nervous. What if he was hearing a sort of free association floating about in the dying mind of the Minbari? Words, phrases strung together that seemed to make sense to Lenonn, but in fact were nothing more than gibberish.

  He wanted to ask Lenonn to clarify, to make clear what it was that he was talking about, but then he heard an awful sound that rose from deep in Lenonn's throat. In an abstract way, he took note of the fact that the death rattle of a Minbari was indistinguishable from that of a Human. It was an interesting, if minor, piece of information, and one that Sheridan would much rather not have acquired.

  Franklin looked down upon the unmoving form of the Minbari, and it crossed his mind in a rather bleak fashion that his success rate with Minbari patients was abysmal. Specifically, they'd all died. He hoped that he would have the opportunity to rectify that in the future. He hoped he'd have a future. "Did you get it?" he asked Sheridan.

  Sheridan nodded slowly, repeating it to himself several times to make certain that it was solid in his memory. He was not sure of what use it would be, or whether it would do him one damned bit of good. But he instinctively knew that, whatever it meant, it might very well be his one opportunity for salvation.

  ~ chapter 14 ~

  What I am about to tell you now .. . never happened.

  That is not to say that it is fabricated, no. No, far from it. The actual events did occur. But what occurs in reality and what occurs officially are two vastly different matters.

  On the Minbari cruiser which served the Grey Council, word had slowly begun to filter through various individuals that Lenonn had some sort of a meeting planned with the Narn. There were even further rumors that Humans might be involved, as well. The political ramifications of such a concept were staggering, and Delenn was not quite prepared to cope with them alone. Not yet, in any event.

  People began to ask Delenn, casually, if she knew of anything. Now, you must understand, for a Minbari to lie is a considerable sin. They simply do not do so, unless a matter of honor is involved for another individual. Delenn was not completely certain that such a concern applied in this case. To conceal the nature of Lenonn's activities was not a question of honor, but rather one of expediency. Delenn knew that she had wandered into a gray area . . . appropriate, one supposes, considering who and what she was, but nonetheless she found herself wrapped in something of a moral dilemma.

  When approached on the topic by Morann, however, she finally chose to respond in the following manner:

  "I have heard many conflicting rumors," she told Morann . . . which was true. "And I am also aware that Lenonn has seemed to be most involved with some sort of affairs that he considers to be rather important, and for which discretion is required." Which was true. "Some are saying that it is connected to the Rangers." Which it was. "Others are saying that it is related to the war, and to the Nam, and even to the Humans." Which was true again. She took a deep breath and said, "Now, in my opinion ... if Lenonn were meeting with the Humans for some reason, I would assume that it is in connection with some sort of fact-finding mission. It is entirely possible that he desires to present himself as some sort of potential ally to the Humans, to make them think that peace is possible."

  All of this was absolutely true. At that point, Delenn hesitated, not certain of how to proceed. "That way," she began, and then let her voice trail off, and she looked at Morann expectantly.

  His eyes lit with understanding. "Of course," he said with mounting admiration. "That way, it would build within them a false sense of hope. While we prepare ourselves for the final push toward obliterating Humanity, they will be busy convincing themselves that peace is in the offing. Their defenses will be lowered. There will be no more cowardly seeding of asteroid fields, no more sneak attacks. They will grasp at the false hopes presented them, and as a result, when our attacks begin again in force, they will be that much more crushed. The last of their resolve will slip away, their last hope gone, and we will annihilate them with minimal risk to ourselves."

  Delenn nodded and, trying to keep the relief from her voice, said truthfully, "That certainly seems a valid interpretation of events."

  To Delenn's surprise, Morann seemed almost chagrined. "I am loath to admit this, Delenn, but I, who have been among Lenonn's greatest critics, may have sorely misjudged him. I only wish that he had discussed this strategy with the Grey Council."

  "You know Lenonn," Delenn replied. "He must do things his way. Besides, as we both know, we have given him little reason to trust the Grey Council, of late."

  "I am very aware of that. But that is going to change, Delenn. You have my word . .."

  At that moment, a member of the religious-caste crew came to the doorway. "I . . . apologize for the intrusion, Satai," he said. His look appeared to encompass both Delenn and Morann.

  "It is not a bother. What is it?"

  "We have received a distress beacon, from a solo Minbari vessel."

  Immediately an alarm began to buzz deep within Delenn. "A solo vessel?"

  "Yes. We have verified the registry. It belongs to Lenonn."

  "Can you track it?" she asked.

  "Absolutely, Satai."

  "Take us there. Immediately."

  "Immediately, Satai." He bowed quickly before leaving the room. Delenn could almost feel Morann's eyes boring through her. She turned to meet his gaze levelly and say, "What do you think it means?"

  "I think," he said, "it means that Lenonn should have indeed consulted us and brought along people to provide cover for him. I think it may be that the Humans have taken from us another of our greatest and bravest. And if that is the case, I shall tear the living hearts from their leaders with my own hands."

  And Delenn knew, beyond all doubt, that once again only the truth was being spoken.

  The salvage ships arrived on the surface of the planet and found Lenonn's vessel in no time. It seemed that Lenonn- ever the cautious individual, as his entrance with the leveled weapon had indicated-had left his ship with a time-delayed distress beacon. If he did not return to shut it off within a specified period, the beacon would go off automatically. The blasts from the Centauri cruiser overhead had, miraculously, missed striking the ship directly. The ground next to it had been struck and the vessel had half sunk into the wind-blasted surface of the planet, but its beacon was still intact and was doing its job of summoning aid.

  The Minbari rescue team looked around. One of them, as happenstance would have it, was Sonovar, my old source for all matters Minbari. It was Sonovar, an individual with sharp eyes, who spotted the caved-in bunker.

  Speaking was a problem over the howling of the winds and the breathing devices that they were using to facilitate survival on the planet's surface. Yet they moved quickly, efficiently, their robes whipping around them, and discovered rubble and debris piled high in front of the collapsed door. But for the Minbari, it was only a matter of moments to push it aside and enter the bunker.

  They did not know what they expected to find, but it was certainly not the body of Lenonn, being cradled in the lap of a Human. There were two Humans-a darker-skinned one, and the
one who was next to Lenonn. That one looked up with a mixture of alarm and, yet, grim determination.

  Sonovar spotted G'Kar and said sharply, "Who are you? What are your names?"

  "I am G'Kar," he replied to them in Minbari, and then he paused and turned to the Humans. "They want to know your names."

  Sheridan froze. It was well that he did, for at that point, he was mere seconds away from death. For he was aware, thanks to Lenonn, that he was known as "Sheridan the Star-killer" to all the Minbari. They would undoubtedly have picked his name out of INN broadcasts that had been bally-hooing the destruction of the Minbari war cruiser to a victory-starved populace, broadcasts that the Minbari would have had no trouble monitoring. They knew his name, they knew . . .

  My God, they've probably seen my picture! It was plastered everywhere! He realized this with utter horror.

  But Sonovar was staring at him with no sign of recognition. Sheridan realized that, at the moment, he presented a very different picture from that shown on the INN broadcasts. He was bruised, bleeding, his face smeared with soot and grime. That was combined with the fact that the Minbari were not all that experienced with individual humans. It was entirely likely that, to Minbari, all Humans tended to look alike.

  But if he spoke his name, his true name, that would be more than enough to alert the Minbari to exactly who they were dealing with.

  All of this lanced through Sheridan's mind even as Franklin said simply, "Stephen Franklin."

  The Minbari turned to Sheridan expectantly.

  "John Smith," Sheridan said.

  A moment of confusion flickered over Franklin's face, but then he understood. G'Kar, for his part, was already a step ahead of Sheridan, and kept his expression carefully neutral.

  Sheridan was wise to act as he did. Sonovar later told me, when he learned, after the fact, just who he had been facing, that had he known the identity of this dirty and disheveled human, he would have killed him without a second thought. Indeed, the compulsion to kill the Humans was a sizable one in any event. This was, after all, the race that had slain Dukhat, and was also apparently now responsible for the death of Lenonn.

  But there in the bunker, Sonovar felt a flicker of confusion. This was not a simple case of arriving to discover a Human holding a smoking weapon, standing over the body of a Minbari. From the look of the Humans, they had been caught as unaware by whatever attack had been perpetrated as Lenonn had been.

  Still, they were responsible in some manner, of that much Sonovar was certain. In any event, it did not matter. Humans were to be killed, slaughtered, regardless of whatever the circumstances surrounding their capture. "No mercy" had been the battle cry of the war. "No mercy." And there was no reason to extend it now.

  "Shall we execute them?" a Minbari standing behind Sonovar inquired. G'Kar reacted ever so slightly to the question, just enough for Sheridan to be able to tell what it was that had been asked.

  "I need to speak to someone in authority," Sheridan said urgently to G'Kar. "Tell them. Tell them that I have a-"

  He did not manage to get the rest of the sentence out, however, for Sonovar found Sheridan's voice to be most annoying. He stepped forward and, before Sheridan could react, swung a fist with blinding speed and struck Sheridan on the side of the head. Sheridan went down, momentarily stunned, unable to collect his thoughts. Sonovar nodded approvingly.

  "Well?" the Minbari asked Sonovar once more. He looked at his helpless victims . ..

  Helpless.

  Sonovar was momentarily annoyed with himself. The Humans had been helpless during much of the incursion against them, but it had been so easy to just blast their ships out of space. To see them face-to-face, to kill a barely conscious Human, or another who was clearly unarmed and non-threatening . . .

  But they had to be executed. No mercy.

  Sheridan's entire future and, as it would so happen, the future of the entire battle against an enemy of darkness whose presence would not be known for a decade ... hinged on the decision of a Minbari whose name Sheridan would never even learn.

  "We take them back with us," Sonovar said decisively. His voice hardened. "Those closest to Dukhat, such as Satai Delenn, have never had a chance to look upon the creatures who took Dukhat from us. Perhaps they will wish to ask questions of them. Perhaps they would like to simply see the faces of a race who would take the greatest among us away. They can always be killed. Bringing them back to life after they have been killed is more of a problem." He looked sadly at Lenonn. "Let us bring Lenonn home . . . and give those responsible for his death a short moment of hope before we kill them."

  Franklin looked to G'Kar and said urgently, "What are they saying?"

  G'Kar considered a moment and then told him bluntly, "Do not ask questions to which you do not really want the answer."

  Franklin didn't ask again.

  Turning back to the Minbari, G'Kar said, "There are things you must know. You do not fully comprehend what happened here. You see-"

  And Sonovar looked at him with as fierce a glare as he had ever summoned. "We are not at war with you, Narn. We are willing to believe that you are a helpless dupe in all of this. But if you say one more word . . . one more . . . you will not only die where you stand, but after we are through with the Humans, we will exact revenge for your involvement upon the Narn homeworld. Is that understood?"

  His lips pressed tightly together, G'Kar nodded and said nothing more.

  * * *

  Delenn was waiting in the corridor of the Minbari cruiser when Sonovar brought in Lenonn's broken body. It was hard for her to comprehend the depth of her own feelings, the immensity of the loss. People such as Lenonn, as Dukhat, had been so filled with life. To see them devoid of it now . . . it seemed almost an obscenity to her.

  Sonovar placed Lenonn upon a white, cloth-covered gur-ney, surrounded by members of the religious caste. Delenn was in the cloak of the Grey Council, her face obscured by it. She felt as if she were falling into darkness, seeing Dukhat and Lenonn at the top of a pit, reaching out their hands to her, but they were so far away and she was plummeting so quickly. Falling into despair and hatred.

  What had been the point? What could possibly have been the point of it all?

  They had murdered Lenonn. What had she been thinking? She was overwhelmed by guilt as the harsh reality of it crashed home upon her. They had killed Dukhat, and hers had been the deciding vote that sent them to war. Then she had felt guilty, felt uncertain. The words of Dukhat had come to her, telling her that the Humans would be necessary allies, and she had begun to relent. She had enlisted Lenonn...

  ... and he had paid the price for what was, once again, her abysmal judgment. What had she been thinking? In Valen's name, what had she been thinking?

  As they wheeled Lenonn away, Sonovar indicated the three captives who were being shoved forward by other Minbari warriors. "We found these with Lenonn," he said, acting as if they were not even worth acknowledging in terms of sentience. "The Narn, we will send away. We brought you the Humans in case you wanted to question them prior to execution."

  Delenn, from within the folds of her hood, was barely able to shake her head, so struck was she by the loss and grief. She had no interest in the Humans at that point. She did not even want to look at them. Did not want to know them, to see them. She simply wanted them gone.

  The Minbari began to pull Sheridan and Franklin away, and Sheridan sensed that this individual (he could not determine even so much as her gender, so shrouded in gray was she) was someone whose words would make a difference. "Wait! I have a message .. ." he began.

  She didn't hear him. Delenn was familiar with the Human tongue, although she was not quite as fluent as Lenonn had become. At that moment, she hoped she would never hear a word from Humanity again, and so Sheridan's words did not even penetrate her consciousness. She screened him out.

  "I said I have a message!" Sheridan repeated more urgently.

  She responded now not to the words, but to the tone.
She half turned, glanced back at him, her face invisible beneath the hood. She was not waiting for him to speak, really; she was pausing for the briefest of instants, her attention momentarily caught.

  "I know . . . what is in Dukhat's sacred place," Sheridan said. "I-"

  Even as he spoke, he knew nothing of what he was saying. He did not know who Dukhat was. He did not know what that "sacred place" might be. What he did know, however, was extreme pain. For, with a growl of rage, Sonovar struck Sheridan squarely across the face, then again in the stomach. Sheridan doubled over. The pain from the gutshot, combining with the ache from his ribs, almost sent him back into the state of unconsciousness from which he had only recently emerged.

  He fought off the blackness desperately, for he knew that if he lost the capacity to communicate once more, he would never be saying anything again. At least, not in this lifetime.

  Sonovar had not understood what Sheridan was trying to say. But one word had leapt out at him, or to be more precise, one name. The name of Dukhat. To hear that most revered of names uttered by one of the race that slaughtered him . . . the mere act was an obscenity. Having struck Sheridan a flurry of blows, Sonovar snarled, "You dare even speak Dukhat's name?"

  He expected Sheridan to say nothing, to lapse into respectful silence. But Sheridan hadn't understood Sonovar's words, and I doubt it would have made any difference if he had. "I know-" he began to say, and again Sonovar struck him. Sonovar glanced in the direction of Delenn, but she was saying nothing. Merely standing there, like a Grey shadow, watching the proceedings.

  "Say his name again," Sonovar warned, "and your death will be terrible beyond description."

  Sheridan looked up at Sonovar with an expression of pure frustration. What the hell is this guy's problem? he wondered, having no idea what it was that was angering the Minbari. With every ounce of will, he said, "I know . . . what is in . . . Dukhat's sacred place ... I know . . ."