Armies of Light and Dark (15 page)

"Is there a problem here?" the B5 station commander asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, she turned to Mariel, and added, "I don't take kindly to physical assaults upon diplomats. Well, on anyone, actually, but diplomats in particular," she amended. "Diplomatic incidents and little things like wars tend to develop from such unfortunate encounters. Care to tell me what provoked this?"

"He did," Mariel said immediately. "With his snide comments about Vir."

"You yourself said–" the confused Drazi started to protest.

"I myself? What does it matter what stupid things I may have said in the past?" she asked rhetorically. "What matters is the here and the now. And the simple fact is that Vir Cotto is the best man ... the best ambassador ... the best lover..." Vir colored slightly at that, then noticed the newly respectful stares coming from everyone within earshot which at that point was pretty much everyone. This eased his discomfort quite quickly. He even squared his shoulders and nodded in acknowledgment of his newly announced status. "... the best everything," Mariel continued. "I will not stand by and see him insulted. He is my love, he is my life."

She went to him then and ran her fingers under his chin in a teasing, loving fashion. Vir smiled and bobbed his head affectionately while, at the same time, trying not to feel chilled to the bone. She deserved it, she had it coming, just keep telling yourself that. He couldn't tell whether his conscience was buying it or not.

Lochley led the Drazi away, and for the rest of the evening the various diplomats and ambassadors seemed to be reevaluating Vir. It was a delicate game. After all, they didn't know that he knew the damage Mariel had done to him. So naturally they tried not to let on, endeavoring to get a feel for Vir without letting him realize that they were doing so. Vir, of course, could tell immediately, and was doing all that he could not to let on that he knew. It was a bizarre sort of shadow dance, and Vir couldn't help but wonder how in the world he had been led onto the dance floor.

It finally reached a point where Vir couldn't stand it anymore. Rather than listen to Mariel extol his many virtues one more time, Vir excused himself and bolted into the corridor. He simply needed some distance, some time ... and some firm conviction that what he had done was going to pay off in the long run.

His theory was quite simple: if Mariel could be so convincing with the members of assorted races, how much more likely would she be in handling members of her own species? Which meant that if he could get Mariel to start talking to the right people on Centauri Prime, he would be making his triumphant return in no time. The problem was still that he was going to have to figure out who the "right people" were. Londo was definitely not among them. He had, after all, been married to her. She'd been responsible for nearly killing him ... "accidentally" utilizing a booby trap that she had purchased on Babylon 5. He had divorced her, for heaven's sake. So Vir was quite sure that Londo would be immune to her charms. And Londo had spent a good deal of his life – usually when he was fairly inebriated – regaling people with horror stories of what his wives had been like.

The thing was, Vir was quite certain that the great court even the Centaurum itself ... was being taken over by new, young, aggressive individuals. They brought with them a large degree of arrogance and self-certainty. Women were not held in tremendous regard within the Centauri power structure, and there was only a handful of exceptions. So no one was likely to consider Mariel a threat. It was that very lack of consideration that Vir could turn into an advantage. Still when he considered what she had become ... what he had turned her into...

"Second thoughts?" The question originated right at Vir's elbow, and he was so startled that he was positive his primary heart had stopped. Galen was standing there, looking at him grimly ... and even a bit sadly. Vir automatically looked right and left, as if he were in the midst of a clandestine meeting. No one appeared to be coming, and Vir had a nasty suspicion that Galen had only shown up because there was no one around to see them together. At that moment, however, he didn't much care.

"How did you do it?" Vir asked immediately, without preamble.

"Do it?" Galen raised a mocking, nearly invisible eyebrow "You mean stir her dedication?"

"Yes."

"I spoke to her."

"You spoke to her." Vir wasn't following. "What did you say?"

"Fourteen words. It takes fourteen words to cause someone to fall in love."

Vir wasn't quite sure he was hearing properly.

"That's ... that's it? Fourteen words? I thought ... I figured there was some sort of device or something ... gimmicks ... technomageish things that reordered her mind or ... fourteen words? Only fourteen?"

"As with all things in life," Galen told him, "it is quality, not quantity that matters."

"If you ... that is to say, if I ..." Vir wasn't quite sure how to considered. Children have a rhyme: `Sticks and stones shatter bones, but names can never hurt you.' They are children. What know they of the truth of things?

"You will always be her greatest priority, Vir. She will be able to function perfectly well in all capacities ... but your well-being and interests will remain her paramount importance." There was something in his voice, a tone, which was unmistakable.

"You disapprove," Vir said after a moment. "You did what I asked you to... but you disapprove."

"I think ... I liked you better when you stammered more. You had more charm." Galen gave that same chilling smile. "What you have done ... what I did ... was nothing less than robbing the woman of free will."

"And what she did to me? What was that?" demanded Vir.

"Ahhhh ..." The exhale came from him in a manner that sounded almost like relief. "And there it is, finally as I said. You operate out of your injured vanity. That was your motivator."

"You didn't answer my question," said Vir, raising his voice slightly, but still keeping it at a respectful level. The last thing he wanted to do was get Galen angry with him, and speaking in a disrespectful tone might do exactly that. "When she had her free will, she used it to injure me, manipulate me. Is what I did to her... what I had you do to her ... as bad as that?"

"No."

"You see? That's exactly the poin–"

"It's worse," he said, as if Vir hadn't spoken. Vir had no answer to that, but merely scowled. "Would you like to know the single greatest tragedy here?"

"Could I stop you from telling me if I wanted to?" Vir replied.

As if Vir hadn't spoken, Galen said, "Even I cannot create love from nothing. There had to be feelings, emotions already present. An ember that I could fan to full flame. Despite what you may have thought, Vir Cotto ... the woman did feel something for you. Something deep and true. Given time, the feeling might actually have been genuine. But you will never know."

"I don't want to know. Love isn't high on my priority list right now," Vir told him with a bit more harshness than he would have liked ... and more fervency than he truly believed. "In fact, considering the road ahead of me, I doubt I'd want it, or know what to do with it if I had it."

"Then perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps there are twin tragedies this day." Once again, Vir said nothing. "Good luck, Vir Cotto. You will need it," Galen said. He turned and walked off, rounding the corner of the hallway.

"Wait!" said Vir, heading after him. "I still want to know what –" But when he followed Galen around the corridor edge, he discovered – to his utter lack of shock – that Galen was gone. By that point, he was becoming quite accustomed to the abrupt comings and goings of techno-mages ... which wasn't to say that he was especially thrilled by them.

C
HAPTER 7

"Come meet us in the Zocalo." That had been the entirety of Mariel's message. Vir wondered just who the "us" might be, even as he hurried to the Zocalo in response to Mariel's summons. It had been a very strange month for Vir. Mariel had ceased her sojourns from Babylon 5. Instead she had remained primarily on the station, continuing to be her entertaining self. And all during that time, she had continued to talk up the virtues of Vir Cotto to whomever would listen. Fortunately she was able to do so in such a charming manner that she didn't make a nuisance of herself. Vir had total strangers winking at him, nudging him in the ribs. Zack Allan was back to telling him how Mariel was "all that and a bag of chips," an expression that continued to make no sense to Vir, no matter how many times he heard it.

Even Captain Lochley seemed to be regarding him differently. She said nothing to him at first, merely appeared to be evaluating him whenever he happened to be passing by. Finally Vir had gone up to her and said, "Is there a problem, Captain?"

"Problem? No."

"Then why do you keep acting as if you're ... I don't know ... sizing me up or something?" he had asked.

She had smiled slightly.

"I apologize. I wasn't aware I was being that obvious."

"Obvious about what?"

"About wondering how such a mild, unassuming individual can ... how did she put it ..." In a fair approximation of Mariel's voice, she intoned, "'... can reduce a grown woman to tears of ecstasy with one well-placed, gentle caress.'" Then she batted her eyelashes at him. That was more than enough incentive for Vir to stay away from Captain Lochley.

It was an exercise in the surreal for Vir, considering that, although they continued to share quarters in order to keep up the appearance of the relationship, Vir never touched her. Mariel had seemed hurt at first, but finally she had complacently settled into the life, satisfied that the distance was what Vir truly wanted. And if it was what Vir wanted, that was more than enough for her. In the night, as he lay upon the spare mattress he had obtained and tossed on the floor, he would hear her whispering to him, calling to him, like a siren of old, trying to tempt him.

Galen's words kept coming back to him, and Vir felt as if he was doing penance for his deeds by depriving himself, while his body was screaming to him to indulge himself. No one would ever know. She says you do it anyway. She wants it. You want it. What matter how it came to this pass. Seize the day, spineless one! His inner dark side was quite vocal on the subject, while his conscience seemed disgustingly mute. This provided no end of irritation to Vir, who couldn't remember the last time he had had a solid night's sleep. It had been a very long month.

"Come meet us in the Zocalo." Who could it be? He hurried into the Zocalo, Babylon 5's most popular gathering place, and glanced around. A number of aliens waved at him and he waved back in an unenthusiastic but determined fashion, even as he continued to scan the room. He spotted Mariel in short order, and there was a Centauri seated across from her at a table. Vir couldn't see who it was, because he was facing away from Vir. But then Mariel pointed and the man at the table turned. Vir's breath caught in his throat.

"Minister Durla," he said, trying to sound casual but unable to mask his complete surprise. "What an honor. I was unaware that such an ... an esteemed person was coming to Babylon 5."

"These are dangerous times, Cotto," Durla told him. "I find it best if I do not advertise my comings and goings. The Centauri have too many enemies. We are hated by all."

As if on cue, a half dozen individuals, of varying races, walked past Vir and every single one of them greeted him warmly, or winked at him, and one of them playfully nudged him in the shoulder. There was something about the appearance of boundless virility that simply commanded respect. Vir wondered why that was, and realized he couldn't even begin to hazard a guess. It may have been the single most depressing realization he'd had all year.

"Vir is beloved by all," Mariel said promptly, apparently feeling the need to underscore that which assorted passersby had already made quite obvious.

"Yes. So it appears," Durla said, and although there was a smile etched on his face, there was no warmth in his smile, and a positive chill emanated from his eyes. "I was speaking to Mariel of this, and other matters. The lady Mariel used to be quite the social creature. However, apparently that is no longer the case. She says she is more than content these days to remain full-time on Babylon 5 ... because of you, it seems, Cotto."

"The minister apparently came all this way to discuss my social calendar, Vir. Isn't that amusing?"

"I have pressing business not far from here," Durla corrected her archly. "I simply thought I would stop by and visit with our ambassador. And what better way to begin that visit than to discuss how our ambassador is doing in his post with the woman he calls ... lover."

That was all Vir needed. Those few comments told Vir everything that he needed to know. Once upon a time, Vir had been one of the most "obvious" of individuals, seeing nothing beneath the surface, accepting everything that was said to him. But during his time with Londo, and then on his own, he had learned that people rarely said what was on their mind. Indeed, oftentimes they said anything but. Unlike Galen the techno-mage, the rest of the world tended to converse almost solely in subtext, and Vir had become quite fluent in the language.

He immediately assembled a series of inferences, all of which seemed quite solid. He knew that Mariel had worked in some sort of spy or information-gathering capacity. To accomplish that end, she had made a habit of traveling to assorted points of interest, and had culled assorted useful tidbits from those with whom she flirted ... or whatever it was she was doing with them. But since Vir had become the focus of her life, she had been relatively station-bound. Since she reported to someone on Centauri Prime, that someone must have wondered why her patterns had altered so drastically.

Vir was quite certain Mariel would have taken no time to inform her contact of just exactly why she was staying put. She would, naturally, be waxing eloquent about the wondrous creature of light that was Vir Cotto. This would inspire an even greater degree of curiosity. Had she been reporting directly to Durla? Vir didn't think so; in the recording Kane had provided him, as evidence of her duplicity she had been addressing someone as "chancellor." Durla was a minister at the time of that message, so she had been speaking to an underling. Why, then, had Durla come, instead of the underling? Coincidence? Never ascribe to coincidence that which could be attributed to a plan. Besides, Vir already knew the answer. Senna had told him. Durla had an interest in Mariel, and that was an interest Vir could readily exploit for all that it was worth. The man was taken with her. The minister Durla had some sort of preoccupation with Mariel. That was all Vir needed to know.