“Satai Delenn entered the chrysalis with my express approval and consent, sir. I believed it represented the best future for our people. I also believe that Lieutenant Ivanova – ” he was damned if he was going to call her Ambassador “ – killed my guards in an attempt to kill Delenn.”
“Why did you not explain this… chrysalis transformation to the Resistance Government? Why did you not seek our approval and consent?”
“Freely, sir?” Hague nodded angrily. “I believe that Lieutenant Ivanova has suborned certain members on the Government, sir. I believe that she intends to use the Resistance Government and all of humanity to fulfill her own aims and those of her allies. Delenn is more aware of these Shadows than I am, and she believes that her transformation would counter any influence the Shadows might have, and that she may be able to sway members of the Grey Council to end this war and to abort any attack here, sir.”
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight, Captain. You have taken a maximum security prisoner from our Detention Centre and up to your ship. You have denied us access to question her. You have opposed humanity’s legitimate and recognised allies. You have given a prisoner a chance to undergo a transformation, the results of which you did not fully know at the time, all on her say-so.
“Why in hell’s name do you believe a single word that Minbari bitch tells you? You more than anyone else should know how much they can be trusted, and that is not at all. After what they did to Earth, to Mars, at the Line, at Orion… to your daughter! No, Captain, all your information on this comes from the word of one Minbari. I am hesitant to mention the word treason, Captain, but I cannot believe that you fell for her charms. You have always been too smart for that. What was it, Captain? What did she offer you?”
“General, I resent that accusation. Everything that I have done…”
“Has been on the word of one Minbari! Or is there more? Can any others confirm your story? Name them, and I shall seek them out. Is there anyone who will back you up?”
Sheridan remained silent. There was G’Kar, of course, but mentioning his name would risk exposing his entire operation, and the Great Machine. He did not entirely agree with G’Kar, but he would not betray the Narn. Besides, that would only call his own involvement into question. His report on the Epsilon 3 incident had been a masterpiece of misinformation and obfuscation. Revealing the full truth now would only harm him further.
“I see,” Hague snapped. “At the moment, Mr. Welles is doing everything he can to break apart that Minbari bitch and get out anything he can. When he’s finished, or when time runs out for us all, she’ll be executed. Publicly, in as messy and unpleasant a fashion as can be found. If it weren’t for oxygen problems, she’d probably be burned at the stake. And after that, if there’s anything left of us after the Minbari have come, then you will be court-martialled and executed as a traitor to your race.
“I’m sorry to see it come to this, Captain, but you’ve left us no choice.”
“Ivanova’s left you no choice,” Sheridan responded. “Don’t listen to her, General. She’s lying. She’s been lying about everything, right from the beginning.”
“I’m not listening to this. I’ll be going, Captain, but try and think about this. What is Anna going to say when she discovers the truth?”
The General left, and Sheridan stared at the door. What was Anna going to say when she discovered the truth? What was he going to say when he discovered the truth about her?
Had she betrayed him? He didn’t like to ask that question, because he didn’t like the only answer he could find.
* * * * * * *
Mr. Welles had taken time to think, constantly running Miss Alexander’s suggestions and accusations over and over in his mind. The more he thought about them, the more sense they made. He had been experiencing suspicions for some time about humanity’s new allies, but he had put them down to his permanent sense of paranoia, and resolved merely to keep an eye on Miss Ivanova and learn as much about her as he could. Once he had learned about the Babylon 2 mission from General Hague and from General Franklin’s records, he had put his suspicions aside. Miss Ivanova’s story checked out, and he felt – along with everyone else – some sense of euphoria at the thought that humanity was no longer alone.
This recent incident had caused all his old suspicions to rise up again.
Miss Alexander had gone, pleading fatigue. He had been suspicious, but he wanted to put some of these ideas to Satai Delenn herself. If she and Miss Alexander were lying, then he would soon find out.
The first sign that something was wrong was when he arrived at her cell. There was no guard outside. There had always been someone on duty, either inside or outside. Usually there were both. He hesitated and drew his PPG slowly. He opened the door.
The sight of blood had never shocked him before – no one who had lived through the attack on Mars could ever be squeamish again – but what he saw on arrival shocked even him.
Cutter was laid out on the floor. Welles was unable to detect a cause of death from simple viewing, although it seemed likely that he had been strangled. There were deep scratches down his face, and his uniform was dishevelled.
Looking up, he saw Satai Delenn sitting calmly in her seat. She had evidently not tried to escape – she couldn’t have opened the door anyway. There were scratches and marks on her face, and her clothes – a makeshift medical gown – had been torn. Her eyes were red, and as she looked at him he could see that the child-like innocence that had marked them was gone.
“You,” he whispered, lost for words for the first time in his life. “You… did this?”
“He tried to hurt me,” she said. Had he been feeling normal, Welles would have identified every nuance and sign in her tone of voice, to see whether she was the child she had been before, or the dignified priestess he had known earlier. But he was not feeling normal, and he did not care.
“He tried to hurt me.”
Welles had known about Cutter’s somewhat… undiscriminating sexual preferences, but he still trusted the man. Cutter had always done his job well, had always served Earth and humanity, had always been loyal and dutiful.
And here he was, one more victim of the Minbari.
“One more,” he whispered. “One more.” Never taking his eyes off Delenn, he bent down and closed Cutter’s eyes. There were deep nail marks across one of them.
“How many more, then?” he said, speaking as much to himself as to the woman before him. “Just how many more?! In God’s name, where will you stop?”
He had not realised he was still holding his PPG until he was pointing it at her, both hands trembling, the merest fraction of a second from shooting her down in cold blood, from killing her the way she had killed Cutter, and everyone on Earth, and all the dreams of humanity.
She looked at him, and this time there was innocence in her eyes, not the innocence of a child, but the innocence of one who was gone beyond dreams, but still dares to believe, the innocence of one who hopes for the future, the innocence of one who has dared to wonder, and has not experienced disappointment.
The innocence of one who is facing death in the knowledge that her life had meaning.
The innocence of one who knows that another will pick up where she has left off.
Welles looked into her eyes and saw none of this. For the first time in his life, his chosen skills had abandoned him. He was effectively blind.
* * * * * * *
At first Refa thought it was Vir who had come into his quarters. He had been dozing, trying to regain some of the sleep he’d been unable to get last night. He stirred at the sound of a door opening – one of the reasons he was still alive was that he was a light sleeper – but he doubted he had anything to worry about here.
He was wrong, as he discovered when he felt the cold touch of metal at his throat.
“It’s a Minbari fighting pike, Ambassador,” said a female voice. “One twitch and it can crush your throat.”
“I fea
r you have me mistaken for someone else,” Refa said calmly. “I am no Ambassador, merely a humble diplomat.”
“You’re taking this very calmly, Ambassador.”
“My lady, I have survived more assassination attempts than you have men. The difference is, I can tell mine apart in the dark.” A deliberate insult. It would either make her angry – and sloppy – or it would rile her into a debate, prolonging this so that he could gain an advantage. At least, that was how it usually worked.
It didn’t. She only laughed. “The figure isn’t that high, Ambassador. What say we cut to the point?”
“I am, as you humans say, all ears.”
“Your name is Antono Refa, head of your house. After a little… power struggle in recent years, you were banished to a derogatory post of little importance on Minbar, where you were seen as little more than a joke. You are here at the behest – probably, anyway – of Satai Sinoval of the Grey Council. If I leave anything out, you’ll be sure to tell me.”
Refa was pondering the staple response in such a situation – outright denial – but he sensed that was not going to work. This lady was too well informed. He wondered if it was time to play a trump card.
“You are very well informed, Ambassador Ivanova,” he said. “I wonder then, why you have not shared this information with your Government.”
“That’s Ivanova,” she said, correcting his pronunciation. “And who’s to say I haven’t? Who’s to say this isn’t with their permission? This is a warning, Lord Refa. Tell the Grey Council whatever you like, but if their fleets come here, then they’re all dead. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly, my lady.” Refa was slightly disappointed. This was nothing more than a straightforward threat-cum-blackmail, then.
“Good.” She lifted the weight from his neck, and vanished. He waited a few moments before rising and activating the lights. He then leapt from the bed and looked around. She was definitely gone, and Vir was nowhere in sight. He doubted she’d have killed him – not that he would have minded if she had, but if she had killed Vir, then she would have had to have killed him as well.
Fortunately, he had another – what had been Londo’s phrase? – another trump card to play? Typical Londo. All he ever did was play cards and drink and eye up women. He had never had any ambition.
Refa then looked at his trump card. His recording device, deliberately left on, would have picked up every bit of their conversation. It could work in any degree of lighting and it recorded sound as easily as images. It had cost him a fortune, but it had been worth every ducat.
He wondered idly where Vir was, as he activated the device and played back the image.
He swore. “Great Maker!”
* * * * * * *
Lyta Alexander was worried. Very worried. About Marcus.
She hadn’t seen him in days. Mr. Welles didn’t know where he was – and it was Welles’ job to know everything about everything – and Ivanova had been appearing in public without him. She was afraid for him.
She had never been able to rationalise her feelings towards Marcus. She was hesitant to mention the L word – she had always resigned herself to the fact that love would never play a factor in her life. After all, Psi Corps would arrange her marriage based on genetic conformity. Emotional attachments did not come into it.
When Psi Corps was effectively ended with Earth, she felt oddly free. She wasn’t bound by their rules, their codes of conduct any more. She had tried to turn her power – which she had always seen as a curse – into a blessing. She had tried to live life. Except for her involvement with Bester, she was now as free as she had ever been…
It had taken her a long time to realise that even freedom must have restrictions. She had lost more than one lover because of her incautious use of her powers and her new, fresher approach to life. She doubted that she had ever felt strong feelings for anyone before.
And now there was Marcus. It wasn’t just physical attraction – although there was certainly that – and she wasn’t sure it was true love. The trouble was she didn’t know what it was, except that she wanted it to continue.
She knew that Marcus was wrapped into something serious, something that had Captain Sheridan’s mark all over it. He wouldn’t talk about it, and someone had been teaching him to shield his thoughts, so she couldn’t find the information herself, at least not without hurting him. She wished he would stay away from Sheridan. Lyta did not know the Captain very well, but she did know he was the sort of person who would send a man to his death if it suited his purposes. Oh, he could reason it, and explain it and maybe even justify it, but the dead would stay dead, and no amount of justifications could bring them back.
She would not let that happen to Marcus. Not if she could do anything at all about it.
There was a knocking on the door. She started and rose from her bed. Knocking? As if the person didn’t know how to use the bell properly. “Open,” she said slowly.
In walked a Centauri. He was looking around nervously. Lyta tried a quick scan – reading aliens had always been something she had been good at – but all she picked up was a haze of concern and panic. He had learned techniques to block casual scans as well. Was no one fighting fair any more?
“Can I help you?” she asked politely.
“Um, well, I think. It’s more that you can help other people, you see, but, well, we think we can trust you… and I’ve had some, um, information about you and…”
Lyta blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“I really shouldn’t be doing this. I don’t have the… authority, you see. But I can’t get in touch with the others, and if I don’t act fast, there’s going to be, well… whoo… trouble, to say the least.”
“You aren’t making any sense.”
“No, I suppose I’m not. That’s the kind of life I’m having at the moment. My name’s Vir. Vir Cotto. I’m… a sort of diplomatic attaché, but I’m also something else… I… oh, I really shouldn’t be doing this, but he thinks we can trust you. He thinks you can help us. We… talked before I left to come here and well, I didn’t listen. I never listen to much really, but he mentioned your name and…”
“Who?” she asked. She didn’t know any Centauri.
“Ah, that’s going to have to remain a… ah, secret for the moment. I really can’t… tell you that, but there is… something else. I’d better begin at the beginning, so to speak. That would make some sort of sense.”
“I hope something does.” She tried a second, deeper scan, but all she picked up was the image that he was telling the truth in whatever it was he was trying to say.
“Um, please stop doing that. I’ve had some… bad experiences… with telepaths, you see. They don’t have many scruples… at least not Centauri ones. I’m not saying you don’t have any scruples or anything, but well…” Lyta withdrew. “Thank you. Now…
“There are, well… beings in the universe billions of years older than… ooh, anything. Well not anything, but… they’re pretty old. Very old. Now the oldest of these are called the Shadows…
“And well, basically, they aren’t very nice…”
* * * * * * *
Subsequent events on Proxima 3 that day are very much open to interpretation. Some things are known. It is known that Anna Sheridan – concerned about the whereabouts of her husband – sought out her friend, Susan Ivanova, to discover if there was any truth in what she’d heard of recent events. Susan Ivanova, however, was nowhere in sight, and Anna went so far as to visit the Babylon to try and find her or John.
Lyta Alexander, licensed telepath, meanwhile spent the afternoon listening to millions of years of history conveyed slowly, haltingly and repetitively by Vir Cotto, diplomatic attaché.
Captain Sheridan, Commander Corwin, Marcus Cole and Satai Delenn all remained in prison. Mr. Welles was reporting to the Resistance Government the details he had found concerning the two murders aboard the Babylon. He kept his suspicions to himself, as well as how near he had come to m
urdering Satai Delenn.
The Babylon was nearly deserted now. Mr. Welles had pulled his Security officers away, having discovered everything he felt he could, and feeling the need to interrogate most of its senior staff. If anyone recognised the lunacy of rendering Proxima 3’s flagship – and only surviving capital ship – leaderless, no one said so.
Ambassador Refa spent the day making transmissions to Centauri Prime, various Centauri colonies and Minbar. When he heard one particularly pleasing piece of information from Gorash 7, he broke out into laughter.
Susan Ivanova’s whereabouts were unknown.
By mid afternoon, everything came to a head. It began, as so many things did, with Satai Delenn.
* * * * * * *
Dealing with the security guards was simple this time. Lyta simply changed their minds. Literally. She no longer felt guilty about doing so, especially in this case. She had no evidence that Marcus was involved in this, and she was not sure that she believed any of Vir’s story, but she did know that Delenn was involved. Drawn by her strange link to Satai Delenn, she felt she had to help, especially when so much that was mystery had been cleared up – albeit very long-windedly – by Vir.
Vir was not with her. He was taking care of other situations, but although she doubted he would have been that much of an asset, it still grated that she was doing this alone. She trusted Vir – but only because her frequent scans had proved that he was telling the truth about the Shadows and about a Circle of Light being formed against them.
There were no guards outside Satai Delenn’s cell, and no guards inside it either. Fortunately Lyta had obtained the security code by mind-scanning Welles earlier – just in case, and very gingerly. His was the sort of mind she did not want to stay in one minute longer than necessary. She had not, however, been in Welles’ presence since she scanned Delenn this morning, or she might have seen a side to him that she didn’t know existed.
She opened the door to the cell, stepped inside and came to a halt. Feelings… of death, of lust, of pain hit her, all the force and strength of a brick wall. She recoiled and stumbled back against the wall. She rubbed at her eyes and blotted out tears, and then she saw Delenn’s face looking at her.
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