Babylon5: The Short Stories

by J. Michael Straczynski

  "And when my prophecies fail to materialize?"

  "Just be sufficiently artistic—that is to say, vague—in your prophecies so that they can be interpreted later in whatever fashion best serves you. A prophetess once told me, ‘You must save the eye that does not see.’ " Londo shrugged. "It’s five years later, and I still don’t know what she meant."

  For the first time, Delasi relaxed. Londo thought he might actually see a smile forming but couldn’t be sure.

  “Tell me, Majesty, has a prophetess ever retired from Tuwain?” she asked.

  “They have all been retired by death. But to all things there must be a first time. Why?”

  "Well, after five or ten years of work in His Majesty’s service, holding a position of such authority, I would think that a title and land would be only proper compensation. To have the presence of a renowned prophetess placed in the royal court itself would be most … advantageous."

  "It would indeed," Londo said, and this time there was no mistaking it.

  She was definitely smiling now.

  Londo found the enshrinement at the river Tuwain to be a magnificent ceremony, rich in color and texture. Delasi, he thought, was quite stunning in her gown of white and gold, as she looked across the open expanse of stone and water at him with eyes that glittered like small silver coins.

  Which was most appropriate. What was it the humans said about the eyes being the window of the soul … ? No matter, he decided. They understood one another.

  The ride back to the capitol seemed shorter and less odious than the ride out, even with the presence of the Keeper intruding into his thoughts from time to time.

  She is still a potential threat, the voice whispered in his thoughts.

  True, but she has been publicly discredited. No one will listen to her now. She is far from the palace, and will never be allowed closer, so your secret is safe. You should be reasonable. Even you cannot eliminate all of the potential threats.

  Not today, perhaps, the Drakh sent back, but there is still tomorrow.

  Yes, Londo thought, there is always tomorrow.

  Upon arriving back at the royal palace, after his briefing from Minister Vole, Londo returned to his suite, where he found a letter waiting for him. Though he had not seen her handwriting before, he knew even before opening it that it came from Shiri.

  Thank you, the note read. There is no gift that I can give you that would be the equal of the one you have given me: my freedom, and the restoration of my father’s House. So I give you the only thing I have to give, the last prophecy I intend to make.

  One day, Emperor, you will be free of your burden. One day you will save our people, and all the sacrifices you make will not have been in vain.

  Londo set the note down again and looked out at his dear city, framed by scaffolding, climbing its way back from the horrors of war, and was surprised to find tears running down his face.

  The dream was the same. It was always the same.

  The chakat lay on the ground before him, its four legs bound by ropes, horns scratching the dry ground beneath its head. The sun was hot overhead.

  A voice, always the same voice, whispered from behind Londo. You know what you have to do. What you have always done.

  Londo stared at the creature, and its gaze met his own. The eyes that looked back at him were fierce, proud, unbowed.

  And in the dream, the eyes that looked back at him were the eyes of Shiri, frightened and alone … they were the eyes of his people as he passed them on the street … and then, at the last, he recognized them for what they were—his own eyes, looking up at him.

  It is duty, a voice whispered. You cannot fight duty.

  Londo looked down. The sword was in his hand.

  Yes, I can, he thought back, and brought down the sword, severing the ropes that bound the creature’s feet.

  It staggered upright and met his gaze one last time. Then, with a power and a freedom he had never experienced before, he watched it race away, disappearing into the distance, into the woods, into the future.

  The dream never came to him again.

  Genius Loci

  by

  J. Michael Straczynski

  ~January, 2263~

  "I can assure you, without hesitation, that I was in no way trying to seduce your chieftain's mate."

  G'Kar said this with complete sincerity and a tone of casual friendliness that seemed utterly oblivious to the pair of meaty fists wrapped around his throat.

  The Kurlin bodyguard assigned by its government to prevent indiscretions by the royal Kurla family—a family noted for a history of indiscretions so varied that they left native historians breathless and shaking—had seen G'Kar's hand on the knee (third knee from the left, to be precise) of the Kural Enfal (what humans would call a princess) and responded accordingly.

  In G'Kar's defense, Lyta thought, the incident was indeed an accident. Oh, he had placed his hand there deliberately; that much was certain even without scanning his thoughts as it happened. But at the time he did it, he didn't think it was her knee.

  Lyta decided it was almost good to see G'Kar back to his womanizing—femalizing? Alienizing?—ways. Since leaving Babylon 5 six weeks earlier, the tall Narn who had gone from warrior to priest to political figure to leader in self-imposed exile had begun to enjoy himself for the first time in years.

  Unfortunately, seducing females of any race and getting into fights about it seemed to be the Narn idea of enjoying oneself.

  Why knew they were so Human in that respect? Lyta thought just as G'Kar was thrown past her, colliding head-on with the wall. For a Human, it would have been a devastating blow; for Narns, with their leather-tough and spotted outer skin, and their resilient, almost catlike bone structure, such an impact could almost count as foreplay.

  But Lyta knew they didn't have time for this. One of the things they desperately did not want was to draw attention to themselves. Although G'Kar might not be recognized for who he was this far from home, Lyta—with her bright red hair and distinctive, aquiline features, a face that had been plastered across wanted posters in every Psi Corps field office in this sector— would definitely be recognized.

  It's not like there were a lot of Human females traveling with Narns, after all.

  She had to break up the fight, but without drawing attention to herself. So far everyone in the small bar that was the watering hole for Durk 3, a tiny commercial space station near the Earth Omega Colony, was intent on watching the fight. As long as any other telepaths weren't in the room, and she couldn't feel any at the moment, she could act.

  She sent out a mental probe, carefully touching the mind of the Kurlin bodyguard. She was repelled by the naked violence she found there, but pushed past it to the primitive—the even more primitive, she corrected herself—parts of his brain. She found the neural on-off switch that would shut down the synaptic relays to the voluntary nerve receptors. But she couldn't shut him down all at once, or it would draw attention to the presence of a teep in the audience of onlookers.

  She waited until he started after G'Kar again, then cut the impulse to the right side of his body. His legs kicked out from under him. Then she cut the rest as his head hit the floor. The vidtapers would record that the bodyguard tripped, fell, and knocked himself out.

  G'Kar picked himself up off the ground and caught her gaze. She psi'd at him, We have to go. Now.

  He nodded and moved quickly out of the bar, pausing only to gather his bag, containing his ever-growing Book of G'Kar, and to nudge the bodyguard with his toe, reassuring himself that he would not be tackled again. After he was gone, Lyta waited for a moment, then finished her drink and followed.

  "And where would you like to go now, Lyta?" G'Kar asked once they were safely inside their ship, a compact little explorer G'Kar had purchased back at Babylon 5 when it became clear that neither of them could return to their respective homeworlds without causing considerable problems for themselves and others. Their alliance, born of c
onvenience and necessity, had proven strangely comfortable for them both.

  While they waited to see what the universe had in store for them, they took the opportunity to see what was out there. Lyta had the resources, and G'Kar had the time. And now it was her turn to choose their next destination.

  She paused to consider. While at Durk 3, she had heard rumors about a colony world in sector 843, settled long ago by telepaths from various worlds. The dream of creating a homeworld for telepaths was one of the goals she had set for herself since her lover, Byron, had died in pursuit of that dream nearly a year earlier. G'Kar wouldn't approve, of course; he had invited her on this little jaunt among the stars because he felt she needed to rediscover her own Humanity before she could help her people ... but she didn't have to tell him.

  After all, he hadn't warned her about the chieftain's mate, now, had he?

  "Sector eight-four-three," she said at last.

  "Eight-four-three it is," G'Kar said, and hit the thrusters.

  The small vessel—christened by G'Kar the Na'Toth—emerged from the wheel-shaped space station and arced toward the local jump gate, disappearing from normal space into the violent maelstrom that was HyperSpace.

  G'Kar estimated it would take eight days to reach sector 843. He nodded in satisfaction. It would give him time to work on his book. Since the early—and unauthorized—publication back home of his personal journal, he had decided to use these later chapters to correct some of the more intemperate chapters written earlier, when he had been a much angrier Narn. These early chapters were being used to justify all kinds of disagreeable notions back home involving Narn superiority, and he didn't much care for the idea.

  Stylus in hand, he paused, remembering the events at Durk 3. He sometimes wondered if he was trying too hard to destroy the image of the holy figure so many of his people believed him to be. He'd had no real interest in the Kurla woman. He was trying to find the Narn he had once been, not to embrace or recapture it, but to create a balance in his own life. If in his past he had been too much the— what was the word Lyta used? Ah, yes—if he had been too much the rascal, and if he had become too much the priest, then perhaps finding a median between the two would allow him to create a G'Kar that he, and his people, could accept equally.

  He was about to begin writing this newest revelation when the proximity alert on the Na'Toth sounded. Typical, he thought, turning to the controls. No one understands the writer's need for silence and privacy.

  G'Kar was calling up the image from the aft monitor as Lyta appeared in the door to the main compartment. "What is it?"

  "A ship," G'Kar said, checking the instruments. They looked up as the image of the nearby vessel grew on the monitor, emerging from behind a HyperSpace veil.

  The type of ship was one G'Kar had seen before, a Human vessel of the Asimov class, usually owned by commercial transport companies. But there was a major difference: This one featured a large Psi Corps symbol across the bow.

  He glanced to Lyta, saw her eyes widen at the sight. The Corps had been pursuing her vigorously since her departure from Babylon 5. So far they had managed to avoid detection, but that seemed about to change.

  According to the scanners, the approaching ship was bristling with weapons. G'Kar concluded that they couldn't beat it in a fight and couldn't outrun it.

  This should be interesting, he thought, and smiled. Nothing brought out the best in G'Kar more than the prospect of a hopeless battle against overwhelming forces.

  Then he noticed that the ship wasn't approaching under power. It was drifting, its engines cold.

  "Lyta," he started, "it's—"

  "I know."

  He looked to her, and then remembered that HyperSpace amplified a telepath's abilities. He tried not to think about it too much, because the idea of Lyta's Vorlon-enhanced abilities being heightened any further was almost too much to bear.

  "I can only sense one mind on board," she said. "Badly wounded, almost dead. The rest..." She frowned.

  "Dead?" G'Kar asked.

  "No. A ship like that should have a crew of a hundred or more. But there's no one else on board."

  "Shall we investigate?"

  Lyta hesitated. Though he was not a telepath, G'Kar could tell she was weighing the balance between curiosity and fear. There was always the possibility of a trap.

  "Take us in," Lyta said finally.

  G'Kar smiled as he angled the thrusters to take them into the gaping docking bay of the derelict starship.

  Lyta's heels clicked on the metal floor of the Psi Corps mothership, the sound echoing down the deserted hallway. It was unsettling; the ship should have been busy, a blur of activity and noise. But there was just the sound of her heels, G'Kar's padded footsteps, and their breathing.

  A check of the systems display confirmed that the ship was operational, rotating to provide gravity and air, but the engines had shut down after failing the receive any new command within the fail-safe period designed to keep a ship from moving too far off the beacon system that made it possible to navigate the HyperSpace byways without getting lost.

  The bridge was silent except for the occasional ping of the automatic instruments. A black-uniformed Psi Cop lay on the floor, barely breathing, his face gaunt and drawn.

  Lyta crouched down beside him and psi'd into his thoughts. His eyes fluttered open, trying to focus on her. If he recognized her, his thoughts gave no trace of it.

  He tried to speak, but couldn't, his throat dry, his lips cracked and bleeding, as though he had spent long days without food or water.

  Don't try to talk, she psi'd to him. What happened?

  ...planet, he psi'd back, not on the charts, captain investigated ... terrible, terrible...

  What about the rest of the crew?

  Dead. One hundred thirty of us, dead ... At last he found her eyes. Avenge our people, he psi'd. Avenge our—

  Then he was gone. Lyta pulled back quickly, not wanting to go with his thoughts as he died. She caught only a piece of them, the image of an endlessly expanding event horizon...

  She blinked hard, pushing it away, and found G'Kar staring at her.

  "What did he say?"

  She cleared her throat and told him, adding, "We have to find the ship's logs, figure out where they went."

  "And are we going where they went?"

  "Yes. They're still my people. I want to know what killed them."

  "Well, I can tell you what killed this one," G'Kar said. He starved to death. But the ship's stores are full of food. How can someone die on a ship filled with food?"

  "I don't know," Lyta said, and she had that look in her eyes. "But I intend to find out."

  The planet was a green and brown world without any obvious signs of technology, no visible cities or lights they could see from low orbit. They had left the Psi Corps mothership adrift in space, setting the controls to take it off the guiding beacon and into the depths of HyperSpace as a monument to those who had died.

  "Any signals?" Lyta asked.

  G'Kar scanned up and down the frequency range. "Total silence," he said. "I'm taking her down.

  The Na'Toth fired her landing thrusters and decelerated into the planet's atmosphere. G'Kar piloted the ship through turbulence that eased as they came out of a thick cloud bank. A wide, flat plain revealed itself— a perfect landing spot. He set the small craft down on the open field with a minimum of bumps.

  After checking the atmosphere and ensuring it was breathable, they stepped out onto the field. It was bordered on all sides by thick forests, the tall trees a shade of green so dark they were almost black. Wind was the only sound that drifted across the field to them.

  Lyta let her thoughts extend to the line of trees, sensing for any minds that might be watching them. She found nothing.

  "It's safe," she said. "For now, at least."

  "Actually, it's not for now," G'Kar said. "Perhaps safe for here, for this place, would be better, since there seems to be no one about. If we go
where there are others, whether now or later, then it will not be safe. Yes ... for now works on the surface, but for here would be a much more accurate—"

  But Lyta was already walking across the open field, gun in hand, glancing left and right as she went. G'Kar smiled. Some habits died hard. What does someone like Lyta need a weapon for, when she is a weapon?

  He moved quickly to follow, hoping for another opportunity to split semantic hairs with Lyta; getting that look was half the fun of the journey.

  They entered the forest, and the trees seemed to close in all around them. No paths were visible, so they had to pick through the thick roots and vines that grew so close together that at times they could only walk in single file.

  The records found in the Psi Corps mothership indicated that the pilot had come across this world accidentally, that it was off all the known charts. The first shuttles down had summoned the rest, until soon they were all down here, leaving the ship to run on autopilot until one dying telepath struggled back alone.

  But so far G'Kar had seen nothing that could be of any possible interest ... no cities, no people, and no sign of the hundred-plus Human telepaths who came here and, presumably, died here.

  "G'Kar?"

  He stirred from his reverie and realized that he had lost sight of Lyta. He looked around for the source of her voice.