Out of the Darkness (37 page)

"No, Delenn, not at all," Garibaldi told her. "Takes an old security warhorse to understand: they're standing guard. You can't stand guard if your back is to your enemies."

"That's exactly right," Senna said. "Although it's also more than that. Londo ..." She seemed to know what she wanted to say, but had trouble putting it into words.

Vir stepped in. "We have Londo facing away from the capital that he inhabited for so long ... obsessed over for so long ... that it was all he could see. He didn't look to the long-range results of his decisions, because he was so blinded by his poor decisions."

"So instead," Senna said, "we're positioning him the way I think he would have wished he had been. He's looking away from the city and, instead, to the horizon."

"Very nice," Sheridan said. "And something tells me that G'Kar would have appreciated the irony of protecting the capital city of what were once his enemies."

Garibaldi commented, "And the way that you have them positioned ... they're really watching each other's backs."

"As they did in life," Delenn said. "It has a symmetry to it. Well done, Vir and Senna... very well done."

"I just wish they could have lived to see it," Sheridan said.

She put her arm through his, linking them. "You know, John... I think, in a way that we'll never understand... they did."

EXCERPTED FROM
THE CHRONICLES OF VIR COTTO.

Excerpt dated (approximate Earth date)
January 20,2278.

Senna and I returned to Centauri Prime today. The reception was muted, which is to be expected. We are still burying our dead, and naturally it's a little difficult to get all worked up over the arrival of the man who has been promised to be the next emperor.

The fires have long been put out, but the damage remains. The smell of burned flesh still hangs in the air; if I take a deep breath, my gag reflex kicks in. Upon my arrival, the first thing I did was walk through the streets of Centauri Prime, surveying the damage. It was as if I were wandering through a ghost town, except the ghosts were out and about. People looked at me with haunted, almost vacant expressions. Despite my brief holographic appearance, they likely didn't know who I was. I have not yet taken to wearing the white. I don't know when I will. I think there's a long way for our world, our people, to go before we start assuming the outward vestments of the past.

The palace, of course, remains untouched. Naturally. For the Drakh, it was a symbolic stronghold of their influence, second only to the Tower of Power they engineered. Sheridan showed me a picture of a tower on an Earth desert, constructed by insects and swarming with them. That's what the Tower of Power was: an infestation. We exterminated that infestation. But, like any number of insects, the inhabitants of the Tower turned around and stung us. It will take us a long time to recover from such a severe stinging.

On the shuttle from Minbar to here, I brought some acquisitions that Sheridan and Delenn were generous enough to give me. Books and some assorted pieces of furniture, including several tables, chairs, and a large wardrobe. All very old and Grafted in the Minbari style. Their generosity is amazing.

I have had initial discussions with my ministers. I intend to make General Rhys minister of Internal Security. He told me he didn't want the job. That's more than enough reason to give it to him.

When I arrived at the palace, Dunseny was waiting for me, as were Caso and Renegar. Renegar handed me a crystal that, when I played it, revealed a communication from Gwynn and Finian on it. Both of them looked... tired. As if the events that had transpired had taken a lot out of them. I couldn't really blame them, I guess. I think we all felt that way. But the fact that they were techno-mages should have... I don't know... protected them somehow.

"It's over, Vir," Finian told me. "But it's also just started. And Gwynn and I both want you to know... that if an emergency ever presents itself... if there is ever some catastrophe facing you as you proceed on your path as emperor of Centauri Prime, trying to pull together the shattered remains of your republic... in short, if there's ever a situation in which the talents of the techno-mages are required... then both Gwynn and I want you to know..."

"That you can forget it," Gwynn completed.

I actually laughed out loud at that as the picture blinked out. One had to credit them: techno-mages habitually spoke in a manner so oblique, so indecipherable, that it was a pleasure to see that they could say exactly what they meant when they put their minds to it.

As the day drew to a close, I held Senna close to me and watched the sun turning red on the horizon. So much to do. So many things that needed attending to. And I found my thoughts turning to Timov, the former wife of Londo. Word had reached us that she had passed away quietly, of illness. Apparently she had hung on for far longer than the doctors had believed possible. She died on the exact same day that Londo did. On the one hand, there is certainly no reasonable way she could have known. On the other hand, considering the formidable woman she was, it might be that she was simply so stubborn that she felt she had to outlast Londo, no matter what.

And naturally, thoughts of Timov turned me to Mariel.

We all carry our sins upon us. Mariel will always be mine. I was working to save a people... and in doing it, destroyed one woman. I can justify it as much as I want. I can make myself believe that she had it coming. That it was necessary. That it was any one of a hundred things. But what I keep coming back around to is that it was wrong, and it's something that I can never, ever fix. Not ever.

I felt a frost upon my spine, feeling as if a shadow had touched me, and held Senna closer as the night chill began to fill the air.

C
HAPTER 30

"Do you want me to sleep with you tonight?" Senna asked.

Vir considered it a moment, but then shook his head. "The time... isn't right." He sighed. "I don't... I can't... I..."

She put a finger to his lips and hushed him. "When the time is right, then." Her lips brushed lightly against his. "Good night then, Vir."

"Good night."

He went to his quarters then. He had selected something simple for himself, nothing ostentatious. He couldn't bring himself to take over the private quarters that had once belonged to Londo. Too many ghosts that had not been laid to rest, and quite possibly never would be.

As the door slid shut behind him, he glanced around the room approvingly. The things he'd transported from Minbar had been brought there and set up just as he had specified. There was the desk, and the chairs. And the wardrobe, polished and ornate, big as a man and twice as wide.

It was late; he'd had a long day, and he had a series of meetings scheduled for tomorrow that were going to be pivotal in his decisions as to what direction Centauri Prime should go. Yet with all that, he could not bring himself to sleep. Instead he sat down at a computer and recorded another entry in his chronicles. There were many ways in which he had no intention of following Londo's example, but the concept of keeping a journal was a good idea. For an emperor owed it to more than himself to try to keep his thoughts orderly, try to maintain a record of his achievements, or lack thereof. An emperor owed it to whoever followed him in the office. A blueprint, a template, for what to do right... and what to avoid.

"I felt a frost upon my spine, feeling as if a shadow had touched me, and held Senna closer as the night chill began to fill the air," he said, and was about to continue when another chill struck him. That was odd, however, because when he'd been with Senna, they'd been standing on a balcony. Here, however, he was in a room that had been warm only moments before.

The room also seemed darker somehow, and the shadows were – impossibly – starting to lengthen.

Slowly Vir rose from his chair. He appeared for all the world as if he wanted to cry out, but he could not.

A form separated itself from the shadows and stood facing him in the middle of the room.

"Shiv'kala," Vir managed to say. "You're ... not dead."

"In that ambush? No." When he'd encountered Shiv'kala in the past, he'd always been struck by the calm, level tone of the Drakh. Now, however, Shiv'kala sounded as if every word from his mouth was laced with rage. He couldn't be sure, but it looked as if Shiv'kala was actually trembling. "No, I was able to make my escape ... for all the good it did me."

"Good?"

"I," the Drakh growled, "have been shunned. Shunned by the Drakh Entire. Because of Londo. Because of you."

"I... don't understand..."

"Of course you do not," he snarled. "You cannot understand. Cannot know what it was to commune with the Entire. But our hold on Centauri Prime has disintegrated, my people are in retreat. The mighty fleet we helped construct now seeks us out to destroy us ... and they blame it on me. They say I did not treat Londo harshly enough. I attempted to educate him, you see." He was circling Vir, exuding anger. Vir was rooted to the spot. "Tried to teach him our purpose. Our reason for existence. Tried to get him to understand the Tightness of our cause. Instead he mistook compassion for weakness, and betrayed us in a way that he never would have if I had treated him appropriately. I did not break him sufficiently. I will not make that mistake again.

"My people have abandoned me along with this world... but I will get them to understand. I will show them just what I am capable of. I will bend this world to the way of the Shadows, single-handedly if I must. And the Drakh will see my accomplishment, and return. If it takes a century, it will not matter, for we have nothing but time, despite all your ships' pathetic attempts to track us down and annihilate us. But it will start with you, Vir Cotto."

"You mean ... you ..." Vir gulped. "You're going to try to break me the way you didn't with Londo?"

"No," the Drakh said, speaking so softly that Vir could barely hear him. "You ... I am simply going to kill. I will deal with whoever follows you... but you I will not suffer to live."

Vir licked his lips, seeming to summon his courage. "No. You won't kill me. Instead ... you're going to tell me where I can find the Drakh that spawned the keeper on David Sheridan."

It was hard to believe that a Drakh could look surprised, much less as surprised as Shiv'kala did just then. "I had thought," he said slowly, "that you simply acted the fool, in order to throw suspicion from yourself. But I was wrong. You truly are a fool."

"Tell me," Vir said, as if somehow he had the upper hand.

"You want the Drakh who produced David Sheridan's keeper?" He spread his arms wide. "He stands before you." And then his hands came together, and he advanced on Vir.

Vir didn't budge. "Thank you. I figured as much. And it's all I wanted to know."

Shiv'kala had taken only two steps toward Vir when the door of the Minbari wardrobe cabinet banged open. He spun, staring in confusion.

Standing inside the cabinet, a PPG clenched securely in both hands, was Michael Garibaldi. There was a lopsided, wolfish grin on his face and a glitter of death in his eyes.

"What's up, Drakh?" he asked.

Shiv'kala let out the howl of a damned soul, and his arm moved with a blur. But Garibaldi didn't give him any time. He squeezed off two quick shots, and both struck home, one in the Drakh's stomach, the second in his chest. The impact lifted him off his feet and slammed him against the far wall, even as a pointed steel rod flew from Shiv'kala's sleeve. It thunked into the wood six inches to the right of Garibaldi's head. He didn't even flinch, or seem to notice.

Shiv'kala flopped about on the floor like a beached whale. The only sound issuing from his mouth was a sort of incoherent grunting, and his chest made a wheezing, sucking noise that Garibaldi knew all too well. The floor beneath him became dark and stained with the awful liquid that passed for the creature's blood.

Garibaldi stood over him, aiming the PPG squarely between Shiv'kala's eyes. "The first one was for David... and the second was for Lou Welch. And this..."

"Mr. Garibaldi," Vir said sharply. Garibaldi looked to him, and Vir extended his hand, a stern expression on his face. "I can't let you do that. Give it here. Now."

Slowly, reluctantly, Garibaldi handed it over. Vir held it delicately, hefted the weight, clearly impressed by the lightness of it. Then he looked down at the fallen Drakh. "In the end... Londo had you pegged," he told the Drakh. "He said you were predictable. And you were. Your ego had to bring you back here, make you vulnerable. To get away, all you had to do was leave. We'd probably never have found you. But you had to stay around, to have your vengeance. You refused to admit that the time of the Drakh on Centauri Prime is over. A lot of creatures that walked or swam or flew this world's surface didn't realize when their moment passed. But it's strange: Nature doesn't care whether they knew it or not. Nature just got rid of them. Turned them extinct. Oh ... and by the way," he added, almost as an afterthought, "... this is for Londo and G'Kar." And with that, he blew Shiv'kala's head off.

David Sheridan's shriek was so loud that many Minbari within a mile radius claimed to have been able to hear it.

Sheridan and Delenn were there in seconds, neither of them having even bothered to pull on robes. They had no idea what they were going to find when they entered the room, although neither of them would have been surprised to discover their son's corpse.

Even faster on the scene, amazingly, had been Stephen Franklin, who had opted to stay on Minbar for a time, to monitor the boy's condition as best he could. He was already there when Sheridan and Delenn arrived, and his body blocked their view of their son. "Stephen!" Sheridan cried out. "David! What's wrong with David?"

Franklin turned around, and said with an absolutely unreadable expression, "Wrong?" Then he stepped aside.

They saw with astonishment that Franklin had just finished unstrapping the teen, who wore a pale and wan expression. Sheridan immediately looked to the keeper... except it was no longer there. There was a severe reddish mark indicating where the creature had been, but it was gone. Instead he saw Franklin crouching and picking it up with a pair of forceps. Its tendrils were hanging limply. Its eye lay wide open, but was glassily blind. It seemed about as threatening as a clump of seaweed. Clearly the creature was dead or dying. Franklin opened a large specimen jar and dropped the thing in, and it landed with a sickening little plop.