A Dark, Distorted Mirror. Volume 5 : Among the Stars, like Giants. Part 1 : Learning How to Live addm-5

by Gareth D. Williams

"Tell me, Durla Antignano. Who are you?"

  "No," he said.

  The human paused. Durla's eyes were still adjusting to the sudden influx of light, but he thought he could see a look of surprise on the human's face. Or was it self-satisfaction?

  "Who are you?" the human repeated.

  "No," Durla said again. "Who are you?"

  "I am the man with the key to free you permanently from this cell, to restore you to high office and to give you anything you want."

  "That is not what I asked, and I will not play games with anyone. If you will not tell me who you are, then at least tell me what you want and why you are here."

  "I am here to see if you are the sort of person who can be trusted with the task of guiding the Republic through difficult times. If you wish to remain here until you die, you have only to say so."

  "I wish to serve my Republic. I wish to serve my Emperor. I wish my voice to be heard by those people who never cared whether I lived or died. I came with information for the Emperor, and he repaid me by locking me up. I want an Emperor who will care about his subjects and a Republic that is worthy of my time and attention.

  "If those things do not exist, then yes, I wish to be left alone in this cell until I die. I am tired of exile."

  "I think we can arrange for your freedom, Guards-Captain Durla. My name is Morden. I am Emperor Mollari's.... personal advisor."

  "I do not think I care what your name is, or your title."

  The human smiled to himself. Durla could see that very clearly. The light in his cell suddenly seemed just a tiny bit brighter.

  * * *

  "A glass of orange juice?"

  "No, thank you."

  Smith sat down and looked at the man opposite him. William Edgars shrugged and poured himself a glass. He held it up to the light and smiled.

  "A legacy of my childhood," he said. "No matter how much things change, we can never escape our childhoods, can we? Something always remains, whether on the surface or hidden deep down below. Something is always there. Don't you agree, Senator?"

  Smith did not reply.

  "In my case, it is a love of orange juice. Something so insignificant. In yours, it's a little more.... obvious. My congratulations by the way. You have done wonders with Sector Three-o-one. Truly."

  "Thank you," Smith replied. "Now, I'd like to leave you alone there, and see how you fare."

  "Really? After all the help we have offered you already, as well. Some might see that as ingratitude, Senator. Who was it, after all, who.... arranged for a generous proportion of the Reconstruction Fund to go to Sector Three-o-one? Who was it who arranged for the.... disgrace of Senator Voudreau after her very vocal plans to have Sector Three-o-one completely demolished and rebuilt as a military complex?"

  "Both of them were you, and I'm sure so were a lot of the other mysterious events that have helped me. You know full well that I was aware of your involvement."

  Edgars sat down, sipping at his orange juice. "I did tell you we would be keeping a close eye on your career. You are a man of great promise."

  "You obviously control half the Senate...."

  "A little more than half, actually, but please continue."

  "You've seeded it with people in your pocket one way or another. So what do you need me for? Why not have me replaced by someone guaranteed to do as they're told?"

  "Ah, to be fair, some did feel that would be appropriate. Not me, however. I like you, Senator Smith. I admire your courage and your resolve. I feel there is a lot of potential within you. Thus far, you have been proving me correct." He smiled, as if at a private joke. "I do enjoy it when my faith in human nature is confirmed. It makes me feel.... content."

  "That thing was yours, wasn't it?"

  "That...? Oh, you mean the Hand of the Light. Yes, in a sense he was mine. More accurately, he was attached to another division and I merely provided local assistance, but your assumption is correct. A part of the telepath underground in Sector Three-o-one is still operating and a few telepaths are still fleeing there. Some of my.... associates felt it prudent to take steps to shut it down now that it has served its purpose. And with Mr. Trace gone, an agent of the Hand of the Light was sent in."

  "The Hand of the Light? A very melodramatic name."

  "You might not think so, but some of my associates are quite poetic at times."

  "We've arrested it."

  "I was aware of that. I would appreciate his release as soon as possible."

  "The law in three-o-one is not for sale any more."

  "I was not saying it was. However, it is my experience that anything anywhere is for sale at the right price. I would not think of bribing you, though. I would merely remind you that we have an amicable working relationship, you and I, and it is undoubtedly in the best interests of both of us for that relationship to remain amicable. This naturally involves performing certain services for each other. Think of this as a deed done in good faith for a good ally."

  "The law in three-o-one is not for sale. That thing is going to be charged and put on trial."

  "I do have access to several lawyers who will be able to have him released from all charges and set free within days. That would bring a great deal of the affair into the public eye, though, and neither of us would like that."

  "Hire all the lawyers you like. It's going on trial, and so are any more of those things we find in three-o-one. The Pit is off limits to you, and your.... Hand of the Light and your Inquisitors and whatever other agents or creatures or abominations you dredge up out of God knows where."

  "The Hand serves a valuable purpose. They do, after all, only hunt down telepaths. We both share a concern over their power. You are perfectly safe from them, of course. I have made sure you are placed off-limits."

  "Was that meant to be a threat?"

  "Of course not. I do not make threats, Senator Smith."

  "Well, I do. Keep them out of three-o-one. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a poker game to get back to." He rose and made for the door.

  "Of course. Good fortune, by the way, although I doubt you will need it. You strike me as a particularly fine card player. Oh, have you heard from Miss Winters recently?"

  Dexter stopped and turned.

  Edgars simply raised an eyebrow. "Mere curiosity, I assure you. Have a safe trip home."

  Dexter left. It was only after he had gone and the feeling returned, that he realised that when he had been with Edgars he had not been able to feel the thing's mind crawling around within his. He returned to his apartment with a splitting headache.

  * * *

  I wish sometimes I could have known G'Kar as a young man. I have spoken to those who saw him then, who heard him speak, and I see the eyes of old men light up at the memory. They told me of a man who could have talked the rocks down from the mountains, who could have charmed fire from the earth and voice from the land itself.

  I never heard him speak. Wait, let me correct myself. I spoke to him often during my apprenticeship by his side. I have read all of his speeches. But cold words are pale imitations of the passion and fury he must have had. I have tried to imagine the old man I knew as the young and fiery orator I have heard described to me. Sometimes, when I caught his glance in the dancing shadows of the firelight, I thought I saw something there, but only for an instant and then it was gone.

  He had lost so much by that time. We all had, but he seemed to take it all personally. He spoke the names of people I had never met: Neroon, Michael Garibaldi, Alfred Bester, John Sheridan. He spoke of the Great Machine, of Babylon Four and of the technomages, and I almost wept at the thought of all those wonders lost forever from the galaxy.

  During the course of the Wars of Light and Darkness, G'Kar changed, irrevocably and permanently. The turning point was probably the Battle of the Third Line, where he lost forever the Godlike power that had been at his fingertips, and saw his dreams for the future vanish a millennium into the past.

  But that was only one event. There were
countless others. The loss of his eye, the betrayal that was the Night of Blood, the Last Night of Shadow that both of us were fortunate to escape when so many others did not.

  Still, there were brief moments of respite as well, tiny pinpoints of light in the darkness. One such occasion he recounted to me. It occurred at the Brakiri Day of the Dead....

  L'Neer of Narn, Learning at the Prophet's Feet.

  * * *

  Whispers from the Day of the Dead — VI

  "You have changed greatly, Ha'Cormar'ah."

  "Have I really? So much?"

  "Your eyes. They do not burn as they once did. Your breath is tired. Your gestures are slow and heavy. Yes, Ha'Cormar'ah G'Kar, you have changed."

  "I did not think it was so clear. Yes, I have changed. I am tired and weary. I have fought enough, and when I think it is over, there is still more."

  "The war is over then?"

  "The war we fought is over, yes. But I fear there is a greater war on the horizon, just beyond our perception. You once said that I see more than others do, that I look at the world with different eyes, that I remove all the blinkers others have raised about themselves."

  "I remember."

  "I wish I did not. I wish I were blind like everyone else."

  "Truthfully?"

  "No. Not truthfully. But sometimes, yes. No one listens any more. No one has been listening for a very long time."

  "Then make them listen."

  "I try. I speak and they listen, but when I turn my eyes away they carry on as before. Is that all I am to them? Is that all I will ever be? A stern teacher who is followed only when I am there, and ignored when I am not?"

  "You were never that to me."

  "Then why do they not understand? They are blinded by old hatreds. I thought.... I convinced them to end the war. The fleets went to help the Centauri. They actually fought and died to defend Centauri Prime. Who could have believed such a thing was possible?

  "But now? Now they continue as before. They plot and they plan and they think I do not notice. We have assimilated too many things from the Centauri, but their 'Great Game' was the worst of them. The worst by far.

  "We will destroy them in the end, or we will destroy ourselves, and why? Because they cannot see beyond the past! They cannot look to the future.

  "No one listens."

  "What do you expect me to say? I am dead, remember. I understood only at the very end. I betrayed you and everything you stood for. Before that I betrayed my people and my lord. And after that, I betrayed my new masters. Three betrayals, and only after the third did I truly understand.

  "That did not help anyone else of course, but it helped me."

  "Is that it? Will they only understand when they are dead?"

  "I do not know. I truly do not."

  "There must be more. There must be something."

  "Why did you come here? I do not believe for an instant that you were simply passing through."

  "Ah.... no. I had heard the rumours. I was afraid, and sceptical, but if there was the slightest chance...."

  "Was I the one you wanted to talk to?"

  "Truthfully?"

  "Of course. You cannot hurt my feelings. I am dead, after all."

  "I do not know. I do not know who I wanted to talk to. My father. My mother. Any one of a hundred friends from my days in the resistance, or the Kha'Ri, or the Rangers. There are so very many of them."

  "That is it, isn't it? You came to feed your guilt. You live when so many others are dead, and you came here to remind yourself of them all. You came here to feel guilty and to flagellate yourself. I know you too well."

  "...."

  "Well, if you will not talk, then I will. This is not an opportunity I will have again for a very long time, and by then I doubt that anyone will care. How is she?"

  "Well."

  "Is she happy?"

  "I believe so."

  "Does she love him?"

  "Yes. There is no doubt."

  "Ah. I am.... glad she is happy. Do they.... have children?"

  "No."

  "Ah. A pity. She would make a fine mother."

  "In a sense, she is mother to all of us."

  "In a sense, you are father to all of us. You brought the Rangers together. You gave us purpose. You cannot understand that, but that does not make it false. Believe it or not as you will, Ha'Cormar'ah G'Kar. Ta'Lon, what of him?"

  "He is the same. He speaks little, and does much."

  "Tell him it falls to him to look after you now."

  "He already knows."

  "I do not doubt that."

  "The sun is rising."

  "I know."

  "Do you.... do you have a message for Delenn?"

  "No. Please do not tell her that you met me. If she is happy with him, then so much the better for her. That is enough for me."

  "I am glad I could speak with you again."

  "As am I. I am honoured. Did my words provide any comfort? Ah, probably not. I was never good with words."

  "You are better than you think."

  "You do not see yourself as the inspiration you are. That is your greatest weakness, G'Kar. Look past that and see yourself as we do. There, my last piece of advice. Goodbye."

  "Goodbye, Neroon."

  And then the room was silent.

  * * *

  Sheridan looked at the image the screen was showing him, and found it hard to believe. Even in a life such as the one he had led, some things were almost incomprehensible.

  "It looks like a space station," he said.

  It did look like a space station, albeit one designed by no race he had ever seen. The bulk of it seemed to be an asteroid, and if he looked at it only briefly, he might have remained convinced that that was all it was.

  But on closer inspection what might have been mere rifts and folds in the rock were clearly buildings and constructs. As he studied it further, Sheridan was sure there was a docking bay, or an observation post. It was as if the very fabric of the asteroid itself had been carved to the form its creators had desired.

  "Any life signs?" he asked.

  "No. I don't think so," the tech replied. "There's some very strange shielding around it."

  "What about power? Does it even have any?"

  "Yes. Although it uses some sort of energy we can't pick up on. There have been traces of energy usage recently though. Someone's been there in the last couple of days minimum.

  "Can you tell what race?"

  "No idea. Sorry, sir."

  "Hmm." He stood back, still looking at the image. Without that particular piece of information he would just have chalked this up as a strange piece of hyperspace debris. There was enough of it, especially this far from the main beacon routes.

  However, the unusual radiation trail had led them directly here, and there were signs that someone else had been here recently. No one lived in hyperspace. At least, there were no confirmed reports. Sheridan found it hard to accept that anyone could live here.

  So what, then? A completely new alien race? A group of very powerful and very lucky smugglers using this as a base? Perhaps the renegade group who had attacked Gorash 7?

  Or perhaps someone else entirely. That was where his instinct was going. Whoever these powerful alien ships belonged to, they had to have a base somewhere. Why not in hyperspace? The asteroid seemed big enough for either an impressive force or very big aliens.

  "Someone's in there," he whispered to himself, not caring how he knew that, or remarking on the strange warmth of the armrest of his chair.

  "All right," he said at last. "Prepare space suits. Muster a few security men. I'm going in there. I need a look around."

  The techs did not rush to disagree with him. Perhaps because they were curious, too. Or perhaps they did not wish to contradict the fearsome Shadowkiller himself.

  Sheridan did not care either way.

  * * *

  There was something about him that chilled the blood, even to one as inured
to fear as Morden. He had faced death, faced fear. He had seen Gods and fought Gods. He had been imprisoned — more than once — and he had seen a million rays of light rise in the face of a trapped man.

  But he had never seen anything like this. Never.

  It had been three days since the Emperor had collapsed and the rioting had been dispersed. Londo was still comatose. Hopes for his recovery were.... slim. Morden hoped he would recover. Partially this was due to an affection of sorts for Londo as a person, but there was also a pragmatic concern. He had not had enough time to build an effective power base of his own here yet. If Londo died there would be chaos, and no one wanted that.

  Durla snapped to attention. He was doing well, Morden had to admit that. He had chosen well in appointing Durla Captain of the Guard. He had spent over a hundred days chained up in a cell and yet he had been ready to perform his new duties within hours of being released.

  He was also the only person unaffected by the human at his side.

  Morden had heard the name of course, but he had never seen him before. Very few had, not even the old man. He walked in the shadows, moving as the Vorlons dictated. He was their personal agent, assigned their most delicate tasks.

  It was no wonder that he had been given this task.

  Unlike the other Inquisitors Morden had met, this one did not wear the insignia. In fact he did not even wear the traditional robes. Instead he wore a very fine quality suit, of a style centuries old. The top hat had come back into fashion briefly when Morden was a child, and his father had owned a few, but no one he had known wore one as naturally as this individual. A small cane was held casually in his left hand, where immaculate gloves also rested.

  "I trust this is important," he said, his voice precise, dwelling on every syllable. It was a voice that commanded the attention of everyone who heard it. "My time is too precious to be called away for every little problem."

  "Of course, sir." Morden had settled on that as the appropriate form of address, and he had not been contradicted. The man did not have a title, but Morden knew he was ranked too far above him for first name terms to be acceptable. "This is exactly within your purview."

  "Yes?"

  "There is someone within our cells here you will wish to meet. We captured a Soul Hunter yesterday. He was found travelling outside the capital."