Babylon 5 10 - Psi Corps 01 - Dark Genesis - Birth Of Psi Corpus (Keyes, Gregory)
Page 6
Chapter 6
"Ah, Senator Menshikov," Lee said. "So good of you to join me." Out on the grounds, the party had quieted, though perhaps twenty people still played croquet as the fireflies trembled up from the grass. Lee sipped his bourbon and leaned over to kiss Alice on the cheek. "Alice, would you mind seeing how everyone else is doing?" His wife disengaged herself from him and rose a little unsteadily to her feet. She had had a bit too much to drink, something that was beginning to worry him. Menshikov waited silently, until she was gone. "Quite a place you have here," he commented, taking a seat in one of the large rocking chairs. Lee gestured at the house and grounds with his bourbon. "Not my ancestral home," he remarked. "I grew up in one of the block tenements that used to stand just over that hill, on the outskirts of Natchez. My friends and 1 used to sneak over to admire this place, just to spend a few minutes in the gardens before the gardeners chased us out." He smiled at the recollection. "It was a big house, and I suppose we got big dreams from it. Antebellum revival, you know, built in 2064. Sturdy stuff." "No slaves, I notice." "Now, Senator, no need to be nasty. I don't provoke you with asides about human rights issues in your own past-and I believe the Russian Consortium boasts a few. We take the good from the past, you and 1, and we leave the rest to rot. We aren't romantics, are we?" Menshikov grinned sardonically. "I assumed you brought me-and the rest of your guests-to talk about the present?" 61 Lee shook his head. "The future. I'll be frank-I' d like to know why you're blocking me on the military issue." "I don't believe telepaths have any legitimate function in the military." Now it was Lee's turn to show a wolf's grin. "You mean in the Earth Alliance military, don't you? Because you have them in your own." Menshikov leaned into the chair, his eyes widening slightly as it rocked back, but otherwise keeping his composure. "I deny that categorically. I hope you didn't invite me to your house to insult me." "Quite the opposite. I'm tryin' to schmooze you. Can 1 get you another drink? Vodka. You're a t raditional guy-you can't turn down a drink." "No, I suppose I can't." Lee signed for a servant, who already had the drink poured. "To understanding," he toasted, and they drank. The girl brought two more. "Senator." Menshikov chuckled. "I seriously hope you don't intend to try to drink me under the table. Russians have evolved a higher capacity for drink through the simple process of natural selection." "Senator," Lee replied, "You're talking to the end product of four hundred years of hybrid vigor when it comes to that. I'm descended from a long line of drunks from thirteen different countries . Prosit." They drank again, and Menshikov cocked his eye. "Aren't you satisfied? You've placed your MR4 people in the business sector, in the judiciary system-now you want EarthForce to have them?" "We need them to maintain stability, and you know it. Every Earth Alliance nation-state keeps its own stable of telepaths, despite the resolution against it. I know it and you know it, so let's not play that game-not here, not now, with no reporters around, just me and you. That's fine. But we can't go too far that way. If we aren't going to devolve into some twentieth-century nightmare--if EardiForce is to play its role as the peacekeeper and enforcer of the solar system--EarthForce needs telepaths." More vodka appeared. Menshikov took the small crystal glass and held it between thumb and forefinger, staring speculatively at the cold, clear liquid. "You know," he said, "it isn't so much that I disagree with you. The problem, you see, is that anything we give to the MRA we also give to you, Senator. You have become entirely too powerful in entirely too short of a time, and to be frank, I do not like you. The fools in the Senate have given you telepaths-the only ones in the world legitimized to use their powers. Then they allowed you to place these people among the most powerful corporations on Faith, and to involve them in the process of the judiciary-" "No one objected to that. Business begged for them, to monitor transactions, all on the up-and-up. The judicial system needed them, too, to help victims identify criminals. Bottom line was, I was asked to justify the existence of the MRA in monetary terms-by you among others, if I remember correctly." Menshikov nodded sadly. "It was a mistake, I see that now. I won't compound my mistake by giving you the military, too." "Don't you think you are being the least bit paranoid, Senator?" "Hah. Russians have also been bred for paranoia. First, everyone in the world invaded us. The Mongols. Napoleon. Hitler. Then we put our trust in Stalin, in Khrushchev, in Yeltsin, in Kolishnikov . We reluctantly trusted the West once again to help us rebuild after the civil war, and found ourselves an economic colony for twenty years. So yes, I am paranoid, and history has taught me that I am right to be-that I would be a fool not to be. And I do not trust you, Senator Crawford. You are entirely too glib and entirely too strong. And I do not find that I want any more of your vodka." He set the glass down. "Wait a moment, if you please, Senator." "For what?" "I didn't want to do this." "What, for God's sake?" "A girl named Lena. A pregnancy. A threat to go to your wife and the papers. A lonely corpse in a block of concrete in the ooze at the bottom of Lake Baikal. I know where she is." Menshikov stared at him. "You see, I don't like you either, Senator. I don't like old men who play with thirteen-year-old girls. I don't like men who have their playmates killed because they become inconvenient. Call me old-fashioned, but I just don't like it. I ought to throw you to the wolves, because it's what you deserve." "You can't prove it. Damn you and your telepaths, anyway. But their testimony isn't admissible in court." "It doesn't have to be. I have the body. You were thoughtful enough to preserve that body in concrete, so I have a dead child, and inside that dead child another with your DNA. I have the sworn testimony of your goons, who weren't quite as up on telepath court procedure as you. Even if you somehow beat the courts, you're finished, Menshikov." "Unless I do what you say." "Yes." "And you do not think you have too much power." "Don't you talk to me about power, you bastard. I don't use my power to rape little girls and have them murdered." "Yet despite your outrage, you are willing to let me get away with it to further your own position." Lee just smiled bitterly and tilted his head. Menshikov shook his head and then laughed. "You have beaten me. I concede." He lifted the vodka. "Salute!" And they drank again. "And now I go to my bed." "Tell your wife I said hello." Menshikov shuffled off into the darkness, and Lee set his empty glass down and breathed in the night air, syrupy with honeysuckle, fresh-cut grass, mimosa blossoms. He looked back out toward where he was born, remembering the tiny cubicles, the missed meals. Who would have thought that a boy who lived in that place would ever own this one, would ever gather the reins of heaven into his very hands? But it was all failing into place. "But you don't have everything you need." He looked up. The vodka was just starting to flatten the world. The speaker was an attractive, dusky woman perhaps thirty years old, with almond eyes and hair that gleamed like obsidian. With her was a pale, long jointed man; a giant with almost black skin; a nervous-looking brunette; and a small redhead with a sarcastic smirk that seemed a permanent part of his face. "Who are you? How did you get past my guards?" The woman laughed without humor. "We are the Night, the Wind, the Sorcerer." "Telepaths." "Indeed." "Did you come here to kill me? Did Tokash send you?" Now the smirking man laughed. "No," the woman said. "We could, but what would be the point? No, we rather like what we've seen of you, Senator Crawford . Your exchange with the Russian senator just now. We liked that." "Who are you?" "I am Blood, and this is my kith. My family." "And you say you have something I need?" She nodded. "We've been around and about. We've been to Geneva, where you keep your little stable of telepaths. Did you know that the best of us have escaped you? The strongest. We can end that, because we're the best there is. You want your MRA to have the best and the brightest; it starts with us." Lee wished he hadn't had so much to drink, now. He had thought his night over. "Why? Why come to me?" "I want my family to have a home. We're tired of hiding. We want the same thing you want, Senator-a little power, a little control." "How do I know that?" "You just have to trust me, I suppose." "Well," said Lee, tapping his fingers to the rhythm of the whippoorwills that had just begun to sing. "Well. Welcome, then." "That went well," Teal said, as they ma
de their way back to where they had parked the car. "Yes, it did," Blood said. But she noticed that Monkey had his blocks up. "Monkey? Do you have something to say?" "Yes. Yes I do." He took a deep breath. "I'm not going." Surprise all around, exploding like firecrackers. Anger. "We all agreed-" "No, you all agreed." "We're a family, Monkey. We make decisions together." "Maybe it's time I was orphaned then. I'm not going." "What's the alternative?" Teal snapped. "Hiding for the rest of omomm our lives? Becoming military slaves like our brothers in the ConsoRium`!" "I picked up that last from Menshikov, too," Blood admitted. "Another reason to join the MRA. We can not only reveal things like that, but be in a position to do something about it." "Crawford doesn't give a good damn about us, you all saw that. He wants to use us just like everyone else," Monkey said. "Not like everyone else. He doesn't want to kill us, as many do. And we can use him." Monkey set his mouth stubbornly. "No machine was ever fixed from the inside. Don't make that mistake, Blood. We belong out here, with our brothers and sisters. Normals can't be allowed to tell teeps what to do. We can't put our lives in the hands of mundanes.11 'Exactly. The MRA has to be a teep organization. It has to be ours. Who better to do that than us?" "It shouldn't exist at all," Monkey said. "We can organize, build an army. People are going underground, going to the countries where they think we're holy. We can-" "Monkey dreams," Blood said. "Don't confuse yourself with your namesake. You taunted me about The Man Who Would Be King, and you were right. But you want to be Sun Wu Kong, build up an army of monkeys, challenge the emperor of heaven, have your name stricken from the book of death." We are too much alike, you and I. We are both too much like spoiled children. This is the real way, the realistic way. The Man Who Would Be King and Sun Wu Kong the Monkey King both ended badly. It's a stupid dream. All that matters now is the family. Grow up. Better to serve in heaven than to reign in hell, eh Blood? I remember when you were better than that. I'm not going. "I'm not going," was all he repeated aloud, to the rest. "Who is coming with me?" No response. " Mercy?" . "I can't. If they catch me, if they make me take an injection again-" She broke off. "I can't." Monkey nodded, bitterly. "I'm taking the kid," he said. "I won't let you drag him off to some fascist training camp." "Since when do you care about the kid'? Or about these 'brothers ' you keep talking about us having?" Monkey lifted his chin, and for once he did not smile. "Maybe you're wrong about me, Blood. Maybe I have grown up, just not the way you have. But I'm taking the kid. He doesn't even test as a teep. I won't let you give him up." "Monkey-" Mercy began, but she never finished. Something inside her shut her up. "Go then," Blood said, softly. "Go." And Monkey went. That very night. Good luck, she sent, after he was gone, on their own private wind. 1 love you. But there was no reply. She knew there would not be.