BABYLON 5: THE VIRTUAL SIXTH SEASON
"THE PRICE OF FREEDOM"
Episode 12
THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Lieutenant Corwin spotted Captain Lochley as she strolled into the Zocalo.
"Captain!" he called. "There you are. I've been looking for you."
Lochley smiled and kept walking, heading for a lavish floral display.
"Just taking a moment to stop and smell the roses, Lieutenant," she said over her shoulder.
"Ma'am?"
She gathered up an exotic white bloom. "Do you realize, it's been almost three days since we've had any kind of a crisis around here? And the last one wasn't even a big one."
"Yes, it's been pretty quiet," Corwin agreed automatically, anxious to deliver his message and get back to C&C. He didn't get a chance, though, since she immediately launched into a circuitous monologue involving Sheridan, Garibaldi, and something called the 'Pauli effect'. This gave him plenty of time to wonder whether a selective memory was some sort of critical component of the command mindset.
Granted, the problem with lurkers resisting relocation while repairs were made to various levels of Brown Sector had been resolved quite handily, with the help of Ms. Marrago and that Narn kid, still it had been little more than a week since the whole station had come within a gnat's whisker of being blown up. And before that...well, the less said, the better. For the Captain to be so complacent about one week of relative quiet argued a degree of psychological discipline that the Lieutenant could only strive to emulate. Too bad he was going to have to burst her bubble...
"Over the last few months," Lochley went on smoothly, "this place has become...almost manageable."
For a moment Corwin wondered if she were joking -- but then he saw his chance.
"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," she said, coming back from whatever mental realm Captains went to when they were pontificating (another Command Concept he had yet to nail down, although he was working on it). "Obviously, you tracked me down for a reason. What is it?"
As he told her, he could have sworn he heard something go 'pop'.
At the inner end of the Customs chamber a set of transport tube doors closed on the elegantly attired and complacently smiling figure of Michael Garibaldi, once Chief of Security of Babylon 5, now Chief of Operations of one of the Earth Alliance's most powerful mega-corporations. A few moments later they reopened to reveal an oddly assorted pair of upper-class Centauri gentlemen engrossed in urgent conversation.
"Now whatever you do," said the shorter, older man, "don't sneeze in the presence of the H'ggorth Chief Facilitator. It's considered a serious insult to their gods -- if you even think you might be catching a cold, reschedule. Say that the omens are inauspicious -- they always believe that one. I've used it a hundred times...well, it feels like that many, anyway."
"Sneezing...gods...omens...got it, Ambassador," the gangly attache was zealously entering notes, his crest bobbing slightly as he nodded over the datapad. In the few months since his arrival, Volga Jaddo had devoted all his considerable energy to learning his duties as the Centauri Ambassador's attache, ever-mindful (and ever-reminded the Lady Brettaria, his formidable Aunt) of his position as breadwinner for the remnants of their extended family. Now he looked down at his superior, a wary look on his long, perpetually mournful face.
"Um, Ambassador -- there was one thing I wanted to ask you about..."
"Um, yes?" Vir Cotto answered absently, scanning the room for a particular face.
"Um, well, as you may know, um..." the younger man began (and yes, certain elements among the station's Human personnel *did* refer to the two of them as the 'Centauri Um...bassadorial Staff'), "my family has settled into their new quarters quite nicely, after that, um, awkwardness when we first arrived...and my cousin Narandro has recently started giving lessons in swordsmanship. He managed to rent some space in Brown 11 -- not the best neighborhood, I know, but..."
"Wait a minute," Vir interrupted, focusing on his attache once more. "Your cousin is Narandro Dok? The Champion of the Camulodo Cora Predo? I won fifty ducats on a match of his, once! Of course it was Londo's idea, and he did take half...but still...I'm sorry, you were saying?"
"Well, yes, Narandro was living in Camulodo, but his wives and children were killed in the bombing there. Then, when the Cora Predo was disbanded, he came to us, and, um..."
"Disbanded? What are you talking about?"
"You didn't hear? It was one of the first decrees the Emperor made after he took the throne. It was said that duelling societies are not suitable for an advanced culture -- that they encourage lawlessness and reckless behavior. It is now illegal to carry a kutari or other blade in public, or to teach the art of the sword anywhere on the homeworld. On the colonies, and here, within the restrictions imposed by the station's own policies, of course, there is more leeway...at least so far...but..."
"I don't believe it!" Vir protested. "Londo loved the Cora Predo -- he would never..."
"The Emperor made the proclamation himself," Volga assured him. "I was there, I heard it. But what I wanted to ask you is, can we -- I mean, can *they* -- borrow the Jaddo kutari, the one my Uncle Urza gave to the Emperor? I know he left it here, I've seen it in your quarters. Actually, I, um, polished it yesterday," he added with a sheepish smile. "We would treat it with great honor -- Narandro wants to hang it in the Salle itself, right over the shrine to Morg the Death-Handed. He is certain it would help bring in students who revere the old ways..."
"I don't know," the Ambassador said dubiously. "If His Majesty really...but I can't believe that he would...but if he has, then...I mean, it's not really for me to say..."
"What is not for you to say, my husband?" Lyndisty's lilting voice chimed in. Her brilliant smile drove all thought clean out of the Ambassador's head, as usual. The attache, a respectably (and presumably happily) married young man, was only slightly less at a loss for words.
"The um, the Ambassador was just giving me some, uh, last-minute instructions, dem'selle Marrago," said Volga, bobbing his head deferentially toward the diminutive Centauri woman. She favored him with a flash of that smile, and he blushed. Vir recovered himself enough to dismiss the young man, and the two of them walked slowly toward the gate.
"I'm sorry I'm so late, Vir," Lyndisty said. "There was a slight emergency at the Center, but Mrs. Sheridan was good enough to cover for me for a while. I was afraid you would be gone by the time I could get here..."
"Oh, not to worry," Vir replied. "I've got a good...um..." he looked up at the time display -- "three minutes left before the Justarius undocks. I am glad you came, though. I didn't want to go without seeing you..."
"Why, Vir, you are only going home for a few days! Although," she added wistfully, "I do wish I were going with you -- I would like to see Father again...and Mother, of course. It's just that there is so much to do here..."
"Maybe next time," Vir suggested. "I'm planning on visiting your parents while I'm there, anyway -- I'll be sure to tell them how much you miss them."
"Yes, and make sure Father is dressing warmly enough -- the old house is so drafty, and he still thinks of himself as the stalwart soldier who can ignore any hardship. And..." her smile faltered, "tell Mother I am well, and that I will record a message for her...soon."
"I suppose she'll be anxious to hear when we plan to complete our marriage," he suggested, and their eyes met in a look of shared wariness and longing. "I'll handle it," he assured her, pulling himself together. "I am, after all, a professional diplomat!"
"So you are, my Ambassador!" she agreed, taking his arm again with a relieved smile. "So, are you going to present your proposal to the Emperor?"
"Well, that is the main reason I'm going home, after all -- to report on my progress in dealing with the Interstellar Alliance here on Babylon 5. And if negotiating -- or, I should say, renegotiating -- an extensive trade treaty with almost two-thirds of the Alliance worlds, including the Narns, doesn't count as progress, then I don't know what does!" He couldn't help sounding a bit smug, and Lyndisty's eyes glowed as she looked up at him.
"I'm sure that the Emperor will be very proud of you, Vir! You must be careful, though," she said, sobering, "for there may be those at Court that will envy you -- you know how they are, there! And if anyone were to link you to the escape of Lady Morella and Carn Mollari..." she added, referring to the recent, thoroughly unauthorized rescue of the station by the current Emperor's nephew and the widow of the former Emperor. A Centauri warship had been diverted to arrest them, but the renegades had already left the station. Some said they had fled to Earth, some suggested less likely places. Vir himself did not know where they had gone -- Captain Lochley had said she'd take care of it, and he had been more than willing to leave the matter in her capable hands.
"Oh, yes," he assured Lyndisty, "I will certainly be careful! Fortunately, when I was at court before this, it was in far too lowly a position to make enemies...that is," his eyes tightened at a particularly painful memory, "surviving enemies...but never mind," he perked up and patted his fiancee's hand, "I'm sure everything will be fine, and I'll be back here with you before you know it! Ah -- they're calling for my shuttle, I have to go now."
Quickly, a little shyly, they embraced, and the Ambassador started through the gate. Struck by some unnameable impulse, Lyndisty called after him again.
"Vir!"
He turned back.
"Be careful!"
He smiled, and waved, and was swallowed up by the crowd. Lyndisty looked after him for a long moment, then sighed and turned away.
"Be careful," she murmured a third time. She shook her head. "Why do I keep SAYING that to people?" she asked, whether of her Vendrizi symbiont or of the Universe in general, she wasn't sure. A few steps later, she stopped short.
"And why do I have this feeling that they never listen?"
As she left the embarcation area through one doorway, two Narns entered from the opposite direction. One was stocky and in the prime of his Narnhood, while the other was younger, slimmer, and incongruously clad in an Earth-style jumpsuit.
"Are you sure you won't come with me, G'Stral?" the elder Narn was saying. "I'm sure it would prove most...educational."
The other shook his head vehemently. "I will never go back. There is nothing for me on Homeworld. My family, my whole village was obliterated by the Centauri."
"There are other villages," the Narn Ambassador pointed out. "From what I hear, the rebuilding is progressing remarkably well, with help from the Alliance."
G'Stral snorted. "And at what price?" he asked cynically. "When the Alliance is done rebuilding Narn in its own image, will it truly be Narn at all?"
"All worlds change, G'Stral -- even this place has changed, in the short time I have been here. I think you are simply afraid. Yes," he nodded as the young Narn scowled angrily. "Afraid to let go of your anger and need for revenge. You gather it all up into one lump and call it 'home', and cling to it like a yard-lizard clinging to her egg. But I have travelled much farther than you, my young friend, and let go of many things, and despite all the changes, I look forward to walking the sands of Narn once again. Perhaps I will even get a chance to visit the sea -- my ancestors were sailors, you know, before we learned to sail between the stars."
G'stral laughed shortly. "If you can call those tepid puddles the Centauri left us 'seas'," he said scathingly. "I remember when they announced that the last fish were extinct -- I was barely out of the pouch, but I knew we had lost something precious and irreplaceable..."
"Not necessarily," said Ambassador Ta'Lon. "There is a team of geneticists at the University of Mesoamerica on Earth that is making remarkable progress in recreating extinct species from preserved genetic materials. Just last week I sat in on some promising negotiations with them..."
At that moment the announcement for the Narn shuttle sounded, cutting off Ta'Lon's account as well as whatever retort G'Stral had been about to make.
"Ah -- I must go. Keep well, G'Stral, and...try to stay out of trouble until I get back!"
As the Narn Ambassador passed through the gate and his young protege faded back towards Down Below, two tall, golden-haired Humans approached the next gate over. The display screen for this one showed an imminent departure for Mars.
"So, are you going to visit Earth, too?" asked the black-clad Psi Cop, to be met by a blank stare from his companion.
"No, why should I?" she asked in return.
Colin Ferris shrugged. He didn't quite dare bring up the topic of Dr. Franklin, but he couldn't help being curious. "I don't know, I just figured since you were going to be in the neighborhood..."
Tessa Halloran shook her head, smiling slightly. "That's one thing that always amuses me about you Earthers -- that deepseated belief that your little planet is the center of the Universe. Believe me, if I do end up with any time on my hands -- which is highly unlikely -- Earth is the last place I'd go to play tourist. Besides," she added dismissively, "I caught most of the high points in college, anyway."
"High points? Like what? Mount Everest, perhaps?" the telepath prodded. Sometimes he just couldn't resist teasing Halloran -- as much for the pleasure at being trusted enough by a mundane to get away with it as for the chance to crack that ultracompetent demeanor of hers. Although she might not have Jamie Pratchett's almost intimidating puckishness, he found her more subtle responses delightful.
"Yes, as a matter of fact," she replied, deadpan. "A group of us Marsie transfer students set up an expedition. Oldstyle -- no elevators, no chair lifts, just our standard outdoor gear from home. The gravity was a bitch, but aside from that it was wonderful. The colors, that incredible horizon..." she broke off at the sight of Colin's vindicated grin. "Of course, it's nothing compared to Olympus," she said quickly. "And the rest of it -- Earthdome, the Louvre, the Taj Mahal...it all just seemed so...so self-important. So caught up in the idea of its own greatness that whatever had made it great in the first place was lost."
"Then you obviously picked the wrong 'high points'," Colin assured her. "Someday I'll take you on a tour -- we'll do the Caribbean islands, the coast of Norway, stop off at the Edmonton Arcology for a change of pace..."
"Well, while you're planning my next trip, I need to get started on this one." A trace of concern crept into her eyes. "Are you going to be all right, Colin? Are those...alien memories still bothering you?"
Typical Tessa, he thought. She herself had been seriously injured during the reactor crisis -- he had never gotten the details, but the emotional leakage he couldn't help picking up from Dr. Hobbs indicated that her recovery was somewhat of a medical miracle. Yet, not only did she go jaunting off to Mars before she should really be out of Medlab, but she was worried about his lingering...difficulties.
"Not as much," he replied, smiling. "It's amazing what a little distraction will do." She finally cracked a smile herself at his dismissal of the near-destruction of the five-mile-long space station as 'a little distraction'. "And, frankly," he went on, "I intend to spend the next week or so holed up in my quarters, getting those memories thoroughly sorted out and integrated. So don't be surprised if, the next time you see me, I'm speaking entirely in Vorlon aphorisms!"
Tessa laughed aloud, giving the round to Colin without rancor. "You'll drive Zack crazy! And speaking of Zack..." she looked around, but there was no sign of the Security Chief. "Oh, well, everything he should need is in his infile anyway."
She glanced at the display as the announcement for her shuttle began. "Take care, Colin!" she called, hitching her carryall higher on her shoulder and moving off through the gate, "Don't let the station go to Hell without me!"
Just as she disappeared, Zack Allan hurried up to the gate.
"Damn it," he said. "I was hoping to catch her before she left..."
"You could have her called back, if it's that important," Colin suggested. Zack looked up at him, distracted, then his gaze sharpened and he shook his head.
"No," he said curtly. "It'll wait. Besides," he said, his expression lightening as a trace of smugness crept into his voice, "I gotta see a man about a bet."
With that, he turned on his heel and walked off, to leave the Psi Cop looking after him in no more confusion than usual.
****************** Act One *****************
STATION PRIME, CENTAURI SYSTEM
It was one of those really realistic dreams -- the kind where you aren't even aware that you're dreaming, and take the hints of surreality, the sense of being somehow unstuck in time, completely in stride.
It had started out with this very trip; Vir's first visit back home since Londo's inauguration. There had been a party at the Royal Court, something about a picture gallery -- and over all, a feeling of something terribly, terribly wrong. Londo had been acting peculiar -- even more so than the last time Vir had seen him -- almost as though he were a prisoner in his own palace. Then there was that creepy Minister of Security -- Durla, was it? All very strange and frightening.
Then he'd gone back to Babylon 5 -- only it was suddenly last year, when President Sheridan was still there and Mr. Garibaldi was still Director of Covert Intelligence, before his drinking problem had gotten out of hand. That had gone strange, too -- something about a parade through Down Below, and a Centauri trying to assassinate the President. This horrid little black thing had come out of the man's mouth, and then that very odd technomage had stomped on it. The Human said something about "having to work on 'mysterious'"...and that's when Vir was awakened by a loud PING from the cabin's speakers.
"We are now approaching Station Prime," the dulcet voice advised. "Please remain seated until the shuttle has come to a complete stop."
****************
CAPITAL CITY, CENTAURI PRIME
Aragon Pernimi, former Telepath Guildmaster of Immolan V, looked out a narrow, grimy window at a cityscape of half-destroyed tenements and half-rebuilt office buildings. In the central business districts and the wealthy enclaves, reconstruction had progressed rapidly during the months he had been away, but in this neighborhood the scars of the bombardment were still raw and oozing. Even in the rebuilt areas, though, one didn't need to be a telepath to realize that all was not well on Centauri Prime. The things he'd seen in his few days here, the rumors he had picked up on the street (telepathically and otherwise) were extremely disturbing. Not, however, as disturbing as the instructions he'd just been given.
He had finally managed to win free of Babylon 5, the Human known as 'the Dragon', and even that overgrown kitchen-crawler j'Nialth, but the price of that freedom had been steep -- he was just beginning to realize how steep. He shook his head and turned away from the window. Clothes and bedding were strewn about the room, and a distinct odor of mildew drifted in from the fresher cabinet -- the only other chamber in this ramshackle apartment.
Wistfully Pernimi recalled his luxurious quarters on Babylon 5 -- and before that, his gracious mansion on Immolan, before his fate had started on its inexorable downward spiral. From Master of Telepaths on one of the Centauri Republic's most prestigious colonies to a hired killer hiding in a slum garret -- for the millionth time he cursed the man who had persuaded him to attempt to scan the Emperor. And now he was bound to attempt something almost as foolhardy.
He slung on his expensive but sadly worn jacket -- ironically apt for this neighborhood, where disposessed noblemen mixed with the rabble that had hastened to loot their demolished palaces -- and left the tiny apartment, locking the door carefully (if pointlessly) behind him.
****************
G'KAMAZAD, NARN
"My goal," the mellifluous voice enunciated precisely, "is to help you to become the best, most productive Na'Toth that you can possibly be." The petite Narn woman's smile was a professional one, finding no echo in her clear red eyes.
Na'Toth bared her own teeth in a predator's grin. "Then why have you not approved my request to return to active duty? Surely I would be more productive on a starship, or assisting one of our envoys, or even..." she looked around the room for inspiration, finding it in the cracks and fallen rubble that still marred a corner of her Rehabilitation Coordinator's office. "Sh'rakh, I'd be more productive on a building crew than I am lying around that retreat of yours like a t'gath cow in a mud puddle!" She planted her hands on the desk and leaned forward, pushing at the edges of the smaller woman's composure as she forced her to draw back.
"I need to WORK, Ta'Marr. If not for the Kha'Ri, then perhaps it is time that I take the Dongo'Norr and make my own way in the world."
That made the Coordinator sit up straight. "Don't be ridiculous," she snapped. "One must make allowances considering what you've been through, but I fail to believe that you would be so foolish as to resign from government service at this point in your career. Quite apart from the disgrace to your family, and your tremendous value to us as a proven leader, there is the matter of your therapy, which contrary to your opinion is not complete, and which is being covered -- in full -- by the Exchequer of the Kha'Ri. Unless of course you resign, in which case the costs would revert to you." Ta'Marr resettled her files before her as though trapping any protest beneath them.
Na'Toth sighed, acknowledging that her threat was an empty one. What little family she had left after the Centauri mass-driver attack -- those who had survived the subsequent occupation -- had eked out a meager living on her pension since Narn regained its independence. Since she had been returned to them, by what some called at least semi-divine intervention (and she herself, familiar as she was with the semi-divinity in question, had trouble chalking up to pure luck), her disability pay had provided them a few small comforts, as well as some long-delayed necessities. She could not, in conscience, take away that security, let alone saddle all of them with a mountain of debt for the medical treatment (physical and mental) that she had required as a result of her captivity.
She drew herself up and took a deep breath. "Give me an assignment," she repeated, on the verge of pleading. Ta'Marr regarded her steadily, then flipped open her top file.
"As a matter of fact, the committee has made a recommendation in your case, although I am afraid it is not in any of the areas you requested."
Na'Toth braced herself. It was an assignment, and whatever it was, it could not possibly be worse than the torture and degradation she had endured at the hands of the Centauri, so she told herself she would accept it with a positive, professional attitude.
"They want you to become pregnant."
It took a moment to sink in. Then,
"WHAT?!?" she shrieked, succumbing to a most uncharacteristic fit of the sputters. "PREGNANT? Me?!? I couldn't possibly...I've never even considered such a..."
"Well, I suggest you begin considering it immediately. Your therapists agree that the hormonal changes associated with pregnancy will help to alleviate your depression..."
"I am not depressed!" the taller woman snapped reflexively, but Ta'Marr kept talking.
"...and with over half a billion killed in the Centauri bombardment alone, we need to build up our population as quickly as possible. You will be permitted a free choice of co-parent, and in the meantime we have arranged for a posting that will make use of your skills while providing the required degree of...domestic stability."
"A desk job?" Na'Toth asked dazedly, still trying to assimilate the idea of herself as a childbearer and -- the heavens she didn't believe in forfend -- eventual assistant childrearer.
"That will be for the Councillor to decide," Ta'Marr answered, coming out from behind her desk in response to the flashing entry-request light by the doorway.
Na'Toth turned to follow her. "The Councillor? What Councillor..." she began, but was cut off when the door slid open to reveal the Narn in question.
"Councillor G'Kael, Executor Martial of the Kha'Ri," Ta'Marr announced unnecessarily, as the tall, athletic form of the famed war hero strode into the room, the blood-red metallic edging of his distinctive dark robes catching the light in subdued, elegant flickers as he moved.
Na'Toth had heard of him, of course. Ambassador G'Kar had mentioned him several times as an old comrade-in-arms, and since her return to Narn she had not been so sequestered as to have escaped the public information programs that covered (in rather exhaustive detail) the lives and qualifications of those raised to the new ruling council.
G'Kael had been a high-ranking operative in the Regime's Intelligence Service (the documentaries were uncharacteristically vague about that part of his career), and had commanded the outpost at Narlahk when it had served as a rallying-point for the surviving Narn forces after the Day of Fire. After G'Kar had won his people's independence but declined to lead them, G'Kael had been virtually drafted into the reborn Kha'Ri, and had directed Narn military activities against the Shadows, in support of Sheridan's rebellious Earthers and later in support of the new Interstellar Alliance. It was rumored that the personal health of General Na'Tok, who had defied both Sheridan's and G'Kael's orders in bombarding the Centauri homeworld, had suffered almost as much as his career in the aftermath of what some called a triumph and others (primarily the Followers of G'Kar), a disaster.
To that theoretical knowledge, Na'Toth could now add an impression of great physical energy and even greater intellectual power. He had to be close to G'Kar's age, yet the smile he gave her (though less expressive than those of the thin-skinned Humans) spoke of the abilities and interests of a much younger man. But then, age had never slowed the Ambassador down any, she recalled wryly.
The Executor's head tilted slightly as he regarded her, arms folded across his dark-tabarded chest.
"Commander Na'Toth," he stated smoothly, as though acknowledging a superior vintage of takhara wine.
Na'Toth lifted her own head proudly in reply, momentarily disconcerted to find that her eye-level still did not match his. The Rehabilitation Coordinator, completely forgotten, retreated to her desk.
"I have need of an assistant," G'Kael continued. "I understand that you are still recuperating from mistreatment at Centauri hands, and you will find me not unsympathetic to your...situation."
And just which situation was he referring to, she wondered.
"However, as Adjutant to an Executor of the Kha'Ri, I will expect you to put aside any ill feeling you may have towards aliens, and work wholeheartedly toward the recovery and eventual expansion of the Narn Regime, within the fraternity of the Interstellar Alliance."
Na'Toth's eyes glittered with crimson fire as she replied. "Councillor G'Kael, I served for almost two years with Ambassador G'Kar on Babylon 5. I believe you will find my discretion to be irreproachable, and my capabilities...more than adequate. May I ask what my duties will entail, specifically?"
"You may certainly ask," the former spymaster assured her, "and I shall answer as circumstances warrant. G'Kar spoke of you often, and with high regard," he went on, turning the subject deftly. "I believe that this will be a most satisfactory arrangement, on both sides."
He flashed her another of those reptilian smiles, then turned to Ta'Marr. "If you are finished with the Commander, Coordinator?"
"Certainly, Councillor," the woman replied, looking as though that were the only thing she was capable of saying at that point. Na'Toth sniffed -- the Councillor was admittedly an imposing specimen, but *she* had never been one to be impressed by masculine posturing.
As they left the building together, G'Kael spoke again, more softly this time.
"I would like to assure you that, whatever duties I may assign you, you will be allowed complete liberty to pursue your...personal goals." The appreciative look in his eyes left her in no doubt as to exactly what kind of liberties he was prepared to allow.
Na'Toth stopped, looking him square in the eye. "Councillor," she said quellingly. "Whatever you may have read in my file, I will ask that you keep to yourself. My *personal goals*, as you put it, are my own business -- not yours, not the Kha'Ri's, and *not*," she practically spat, "that of the Rehabilitation Committee. If that is not acceptable, then I will be forced to request another posting."
"Such a posting might not be nearly as...congenial as that of Executor's Adjutant," G'Kael pointed out, watching her carefully.
She contented herself with raising a brow ridge, and he surprised her by laughing aloud.
"Come along, Na'Toth," he said cheerfully. "I have something to show you. I believe you were worried about being assigned to a desk job?"
High overhead, a shuttle rumbled in for its approach to the capital's main passenger port.
****************
DOME 1B, MARS
As Teresa Halloran stepped out of the access tube into the main concourse of the John F. Carter Shuttleport, her senses were assaulted by a wave of color and sound, as well as the unique flavor of recycled air that meant "Mars".
The reports certainly hadn't overstated the case, she thought as she made her way toward the baggage claim. Not only had traffic naturally picked up since the Earthers had backed off on their 'war of red tape', as President Sheridan had so succinctly called it, but the excitement and opportunities (both political and economic) generated by the upcoming elections had the colony's primary transit nexus bustling like the proverbial poked anthill.
"Director? Ms. Halloran! Hey, Number One!"
Tessa's icy glare flew unerringly to a short, stocky, chocolate-skinned figure in a Dome One security uniform topped by an improbable but impressive weave of red-gold braids. Her lips thinned as she strode up to the woman.
"I was going to ask if you were insane, but since it's you, I suppose it's a moot point," Tessa said grimly.
The security officer smiled slightly as she began moving them toward the exit. "It got your attention," she said, "and I figured anyone else who put it together would be as likely to ask for your autograph as punch you out."
"It's not punches I'm worried about," Tessa replied. Feelings about the Resistance -- both for and against -- still ran high on Mars, and she could think of half a dozen reasons why someone recognizing its former leader might want to take her out. Her current position as the Interstellar Alliance's head of Covert Intelligence was no guarantee of universal goodwill either, and the crowded shuttleport would provide perfect cover for an assassination attempt.
"Our security screenings are quite thorough," the other woman assured her, and now that she was looking, Tessa saw at least half a dozen plainclothes agents within striking range of the two of them. She did not, however, notice the beefy man in Earthforce uniform who sidled over to the nearest comm unit as they passed.
Tessa nodded shortly. "Good work, Sergeant..." the other woman shot her a look, and Tessa glanced down at her uniform collar, "...Lieutenant Carr. My baggage..."
"Has been sent on to your hotel. I've got a private zipcar waiting outside -- the TPTB's want to see you soonest."
"TPTB's?" Tessa asked. The reports had missed that one.
"Temporary Powers That Be," Lt. Carr explained. "People started calling them that when they announced that the officers of the Presiding Council of the Provisional Government would be ineligible for office in this round of elections."
"I heard about that," said Tessa. "Amanda Carter's still eligible, though, isn't she?"
"Eligible, running, and favored for the Planetary Coordinator's seat," Carr answered. "Her Green Mars Coalition sits smack in the political center, although Hiram Esposito's Earth sympathizers -- the Blues -- are putting up quite a challenge, especially here in Main Dome. Now that the Earthers have accepted our independence, the megacorps and colony shareholders are more than willing to let bygones be bygones." She sounded as though she wasn't, which surprised Tessa a bit. When she and Carr had crossed paths before, the other woman had been a staunch supporter of the colonial status quo.
"Have the Reds settled on a candidate yet?" she asked, hoping her concern wasn't obvious.
Carr shook her head, turning it into a nod at the guard by the exit. "They're still broken out into three or four separate factions -- the outlying tent settlements don't trust the domers, and the prospectors and gypsies don't trust *anybody*.
"Plus the fact that Chico Allende and Tambut Singh still can't manage to be in the same room for more than five minutes without trying to throttle each other," she added with a sidelong glance at Tessa as they climbed into a low-slung, closed groundcar.
Tessa leaned her head against the seat back, closing her eyes with a faint groan. Lieutenant Carr's velvet-brown ones slid over. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap," she said quietly.
"Don't remind me," said Tessa without opening her eyes. She considered various things for a moment, then added, "Congratulations, by the way. On your promotion."
The other woman shrugged. "I did my job. I survived. I didn't piss anybody off enough to get...forgotten when things settled out. Or remembered the wrong way -- which is more than can be said for you," she pointed out.
"You mean getting drafted to run errands for the PG, or getting drafted as Chief Spook for the ISA?"
"Both -- and don't try to tell me you argued too hard on either count," Carr tossed back.
There was another short silence, this time broken by the Lieutenant, as she stared straight ahead through the security shield that separated them from the driver's compartment.
"Thanks."
"For what?"
"Not killing me, last time we met."
Tessa smiled. That had been one hell of a mission, with her cell trapped between the then-sergeant's task force and an Earther military transport that was due to explode in less than a minute. She'd managed to get the drop on Carr, and gotten her people out with seconds to spare. The sergeant, who had tracked and harassed the Resistance leader since hostilities had broken out, had fully expected to be killed out of hand, but even at the worst of the troubles that had not been Tessa's way with an enemy she acknowledged as honorable. She shrugged in turn, shifting forward in her seat.
"It would have been a waste. A domed colony needs expert security personnel, no matter who's in charge -- people who can not only follow orders, but work on their own, and you've always been good at that."
"True," Carr acknowledged with a complete lack of false modesty. "Actually, it's one of my side projects that prompted me to volunteer for your escort." At Tessa's inquiring look, she elaborated. "We know that when your people were...operating, they gathered several caches of rather nasty armaments -- artillery, chemical weapons, bioagents for habitat sabotage -- even a few nukes went missing. Trouble is, not all those caches were declared when Independence came -- at least half a dozen of them are still out there somewhere, unaccounted for."
"And you're trying to track them down, and you thought I could help?"
"Bingo."
Tessa drew a deep breath. "I wish I could, Lieutenant, I really do. But I turned over everything my branch of the organization had -- I never even knew where the rest were, that was part of the whole guerilla decentralization strategy."
"Yes, well, I'm afraid it worked a little too well in this case. Nobody we've managed to contact seems to know where they are -- and those who do know are still in hiding, for one reason or another."
"Well, I'll certainly have my people here keep an eye out -- and they're mostly Rangers, so their eyes are pretty sharp."
"That'll help," the Lieutenant acknowledged. She looked out the window -- they were turning into the driveway that led under the Provisional Government's headquarters. "I was also hoping that while you're here, between placating the bigwigs and scoping out the campaign," she continued, neatly encapsulating two-thirds of Tessa's mission in a leap of pure Sherlockian deduction, "you could sniff around and see if you can get something from your old connections -- I daresay you still have a few we don't know about."
"With you on the case?" Tessa retorted with a smile, then she sobered. "I'll see what I can do. I don't like the idea of those weapons falling into the wrong hands any more than you do."
Carr snorted as she clambered out of the vehicle. "As if they were ever in the right hands," was her only comment.
****************
ROYAL PALACE, CENTAURI PRIME
Ambassador Cotto had been passed from one functionary to another until he began to wonder if the Emperor actually existed, or if he had been spirited away somewhere and this bureaucratic shuffle instituted to maintain the fiction of his presence. Unfortunately, he was well aware that such a scenario was not outside the realm of possibility, but he clung to his faith in Londo's irreducible stubbornness. Anyone -- or any political force -- attempting to muzzle, muffle, or otherwise control this Emperor was going to have its work cut out for it, Vir told himself confidently.
At last he was ushered into an spacious office that his directional sense assured him must be pretty close to the throne room. It was occupied by two men conferring earnestly over an ornate Donnato IX-style desk littered with papers and sporting one of the new sleekly functional comm/processor units. (The 'minimalist' fashion introduced by the late Emperor Cartagia as a decadent whim had struck a chord with the Centauri public, particularly after the Alliance attack, and a new aesthetic of utilitarian simplicity was sweeping the planet -- a trend Vir was decidedly ambivalent about.)
As the Ambassador approached, he could not help overhearing the heated discussion already in progress. The youngish man behind the desk was tall and slender, yet broad-shouldered, with a tightly-curled brown crest that spoke either of strict pragmatism or politic fashion-sense -- or, perhaps, of both. The man standing at his side was darkly bearded and more compact, and his crest seemed unable to decide between the reserve of current fashion and the extravagance of personal pride: it rose up a good half-hand, but then curled under sharply, as if embarrassed at its own temerity.
"But Kristo, if you make these cuts it will put hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of people out of work! And with the economy the way it is..."
"Nonsense, Denardo," the seated man replied firmly. "With the retraining facilities we will set up -- using only a small fraction of the conserved revenues -- these resources will quickly be returned to the community as productive assets, while our operations will run much more efficiently. I can't imagine what that old fool Jaddo thought he was doing, allowing these deadweight middle managers and hangers-on to keep sucking the lifeblood out of the Mollari holdings -- thank the gods Uncle Londo finally came to his senses and put us in charge!"
"Well, I think the fact that Minz Jaddo and both of Urza's sons were vaporized in the Alliance attack might have had something to do with it," Denardo suggested.
"'The heaviest rain is still good for the ghola'," Kristo reminded him, referring to the deep-burrowing root that provided a staple food for the lower classes. "Or, in this case, the heaviest particle-beam." The young man's gaze sharpened as he spotted the hesitantly approaching Ambassador.
"Can I help you?"
"Um...hello...how do you do," Vir faltered, somewhat intimidated by the Imperial nephew's imperious tone. "I'm...Ambassador Cotto? From Babylon 5? I'm, uh, here to see the Emperor?"
Kristo unfolded himself from behind the desk and came forward to deliver a perfunctory bow, which Denardo echoed, as if joined to the taller man by a string.
"Kristo Mollari at your service, Ambassador," the young man said crisply, his manner indicating nothing of the kind. "My brother, Denardo," he added, gesturing towards the shorter man, who bobbed another bow.
As Vir returned the genuflections, unsure of the exact protocol required between an Ambassador and a pair of Imperial nephews, he caught the look the other two exchanged. Suddenly he remembered that these must be Carn Mollari's younger brothers -- or half-brothers, he wasn't quite sure -- and that Carn had last been seen fleeing Imperial reprisals, on Babylon 5. He wondered whether running into them like this was a good thing or not.
"I believe the Ambassador was formerly our Imperial Uncle's attache, when *he* was still serving on Babylon 5," Denardo ventured, politely enough. "If you have any free time during your visit, Ambassador, I would be most interested in hearing of your experiences among the aliens..."
"The Ambassador is a busy man, Denardo," Kristo cut him off. "Besides, you will be fully occupied in overseeing the modifications we have been discussing. I suggest you get started," he added pointedly.
"Me?! But..." Denardo subsided at a sharp look from his brother. With a sigh, he bowed again, and this time when he came up Vir threw him a quick glance of sympathy and shared understanding. The younger man's mouth tightened in acknowledgement, and he turned and headed for the door.
Once Denardo had departed, Kristo returned his attention to the Ambassador. For a moment Vir wondered if he was going to ask about Carn, but the younger man simply stared at him coldly.
"Do you have an appointment, sir?" he asked at last, which was none of the questions Vir had been expecting.
"An app...well, not as such...I advised the Minister of the Court of my expected arrival time, but...um...not specifically an appointment, no..."
Kristo sighed heavily. "Of course you understand that the Emperor is heavily occupied with affairs of State. A personal audience must be requested at least a month in advance..."
"A month!" This was too much. Vir remembered this one now: Londo had once referred to him, in what was for Mollari an excess of avuncular affection, as a 'hyperactive young vulture-in-training'. And this was what had ousted young Volga and his family and sent them all packing to Babylon 5? His confidence rallied. "That is simply ridiculous," he stated firmly, "The Emperor knows I'm here, and he would be most displeased to learn that my report to him had been delayed by some..." his new diplomatic skills came to his rescue before he went too far over the edge in this palatial pit of political vipers -- "person he has placed in a position of trust in his new administration." He stopped right there, glaring at the younger man.
It seemed to make an impression.
"Very well, I'll see what I can do," Kristo replied abruptly, returning to his seat and addressing the screen. Vir couldn't see or hear who he was talking to, but the young man suddenly stiffened, as though repressing a strong sense of affront -- more so even than at Vir, which was interesting.
The conversation was short, and young Mollari's manner was markedly different when it was over -- almost friendly, in fact.
"You were right," he admitted, "the Emperor is waiting for you. Through there, second door to the left.
"...and good luck!" he added, which unnerved the Ambassador even more.
Gathering his resolution, Vir stepped through the gauze-hung portal into the Imperial reception room. It was a side door, near the back, where shadowed draperies extended nearly to the throne itself, and it took him a few paces to get around to a clear view of the royal dais.
From the throne a familiar voice spoke in an all-too-familiar tone of petulant impatience.
"It is about time you arrived, Vir!"
The first thing Vir noticed was the cold look in Londo's eyes -- flat and impersonal, as if any regard for Vir as a person had been completely subsumed in the glory of his new Imperial estate. It was the kind of look the former Ambassador used to give G'Kar across the council table in the bad old days, and Vir was saddened, and more than a little frightened, to find it turned on him.
Then he noticed the second thing: the living nightmare that stood beside the gold and crimson-velvet chair, leaning familiarly over the white-clad form of the Emperor. He was an ordinary enough man to the eye, with a modest crest crowning lean, ascetic features and the glacial eyes of a born intriguer, but the jolt of terror Vir felt at the sight of him had nothing to do with any ordinary intrigue.
"I would like you to meet my new head of Internal Security," said Mollari. "Ambassador Cotto, this is Minister Durla. I am sure you will get along...quite famously."
****************** Act Two *****************
G'KAMAZAD, NARN
The industrial haze blanketing the capital city of the Narn homeworld looked just the same as it always had. 'Always' meaning all of Ta'Lon's lifetime, and his father's, and his father's before that, ever since the Centauri had come to Narn. The city itself was a Centauri 'improvement'; there had been those, in the early years following the First Independence, who had argued for razing the place and returning to the loose affiliation of villages that had consituted what there was of a planetary government, before the conquerors came.
The Narns had learned the lessons of their masters too well, though. This city, and the others like it strewn across the planet's encircling land mass, were needed to maintain the industrial base essential to a modern galactic power. And the Kha'Ri was needed to guide the people of Narn as they rebuilt their devastated world and took their rightful place among the stars -- or so they kept telling everybody.
But it was still an ugly city.
Ta'Lon had seen some beautiful cities in his years of wandering, before he had fetched up on Babylon 5 like a piece of flotsam washed in by the tide. He had seen the crystal towers of Yedor, the painted hills of San Francisco, even (once and briefly) the baroque splendor of ancient Sphodria on Centauri Prime. Even the Drazi capital, with its twisted, dusty streets and wide-balconied warrens, had its own unique aesthetic, its own quaint appeal -- an appeal the cities of Narn completely lacked.
Three years after the Second Independence, the city's inhabitants semed determined to make up for that with sheer enthusiasm. The Great Hall of the Kha'Ri was a blank, bunker-like building built on the ruins of the Centauri viceroy's palace and by now thoroughly cleansed of Emperor Cartagia's transitory renovations. The square before it was cast in the local reddish-orange concrete, stark and unadorned, and was lined with equally blank, bunker-like office buildings. As Ta'Lon walked into the plaza, though, he was swallowed up by a noisy, colorful cross-section of Narn society.
It was early afternoon -- daymeal break for most of the city workers -- and the square was filled with vending carts and bureaucrats, construction workers and businesspeople, sidewalk entertainers and gawking tourists, all gathered into little clumps or leisurely-strolling clusters. Ta'Lon noticed that many of the men were wearing ta'fak: the loose robes designed to accomodate a full pouch. There were an unusual number of couples, too, and many of the single women in the street had that bright-eyed, bouncy look that was the only outward sign of pregnancy among Narns. They must be trying to build up the population, he thought. A good idea on the face of it, but not without implications. The next generation would be a generation with too few parents, too few teachers, lacking the infrastructure needed to educate and nurture a burgeoning horde of naturally-rebellious youths. And for role-models, they would have men and women like...Ta'Lon's mouth twisted wryly...G'Stral.
He thought about his own pouchlings -- two boys, grown now, if they were still alive. He had been very young when they were born, and eager to prove his manhood. He had not been all that good of a father -- the lessons supposedly instilled in a young man by caring for pouchlings had pretty much gone over his head. As soon as they had outgrown the pouch, he had turned them back over to their mother and left his home village, never to return. Maybe that was part of his feeling for G'Stral -- a sense of making up for missed opportunities. As he nodded in acknowledgement of a passing woman's flirtatious smile, he wondered, perhaps for the first time, what he would do if he were given a second chance.
Something to consider another time, he decided. This afternoon -- as soon as the meal interval ended, in fact -- he was scheduled to meet with the Diplomatic Committee, to review his first half-year as Ambassador. If he survived that, he might have leisure to consider his personal life goals. Shaking his head and hitching at the baldric of his katok reassuringly, he headed out into the square.
****************
ROYAL PALACE, CENTAURI PRIME
"Where is my nephew, Vir?"
"Um...back that way, the last I saw..." Vir pointed back the way he had come.
"Not them, you fool," the Emperor replied testily. "I cannot help but know where they are -- sometimes I wish I could."
"Where is Carn Mollari, Ambassador?" cut in Durla. "You must have spoken with him on Babylon 5..."
"He saved my life on Babylon 5, Minister," Vir shot back. "Along with the lives of a quarter of a million other people. You should be honoring him as a hero, not pursuing him like a common criminal..."
"Hardly that, Ambassador," Durla retorted. "He is the nephew of the Emperor, and was accompanied by the widow of Emperor Turhan, which makes him a most uncommon criminal. We are most anxious to...discuss certain matters with him and Lady Morella. Where did they go?"
Summoning all his courage, Vir looked Durla in the eye and replied evenly, "I don't know. They left Babylon 5 on an unregistered ship -- They could be anywhere by now."
****************
G'KAMAZAD, NARN
"You could have gotten anywhere by now," Na'Toth was saying. "Why in the Galaxy did you come to Narn?"
The haggard young Centauri shrugged, too exhausted to even try to explain. The woman at his side stirred and gathered her unobtrusively expensive cloak more closely about her. She opened her mouth to speak, but was forestalled by Councillor G'Kael.
"Where better for a pair of renegade Centauri, on the run from their own people, to seek refuge? No one would think to look for them here -- and if they did, any Internal Security agents sent to collect them would find an extremely cold welcome."
"Our security operatives are skilled professionals," cautioned Lady Morella.
"As are my people," G'Kael assured her. "As witness the fact that you were brought to me within an hour of your arrival. I apologize for making you wait so long for this interview, by the way, but there were certain...arrangements to be made." He smiled once more at Na'Toth.
"After the journey we have endured, it is a relief simply to stand on a solid planet once more," the Imperial widow assured him. "However, now that we are here, we must consider our position most carefully. We are aware that our people are no longer welcome here..."
"Your people were never welcome here," gritted Na'Toth, unable to resist the impulse.
"Na'Toth," G'Kael chided, "Her Majesty is our guest. Do try to contain yourself."
"A simple 'Lady Morella' will do," her ladyship corrected. "As we were saying, we appreciate that our presence will cause some difficulties. However, we are certain that we may rely on your assistance, Councillor."
"We are?" Na'Toth wondered aloud, without thinking.
"The Lady Morella is a powerful seer, Na'Toth," G'Kael explained, then turned to the Centauri woman with a perfect Court bow that somehow did not come off as either buffoonish or sarcastic. "If she tells us that she is 'certain' I will assist her, then who am I to fly in the face of Fate?"
Morella drew breath as if to speak, but the Councillor held up a hand to forestall her. "My assistant, Na'Toth, will see to your accommodations. It may be some time before I see my way clear to address the Kha'Ri in this matter -- there are...complications...as I'm sure you can understand. However, I intend to press for full asylum for both of you, as a gesture of gratitude for your efforts in protecting Babylon 5, which I and many of our people consider an important symbol of our independence and our hopes for the future."
Carn Mollari cocked his head and grinned wearily. "A good line, if you can make it stick."
"I intend to," G'Kael replied firmly.
Na'Toth looked hard at the young Centauri, for the first time seeing him as Londo's nephew. From what she could tell, a definite improvement. Which wasn't saying much. Accommodations?
She cleared her throat and regarded G'Kael expectantly.
"Accomodations?" she prodded.
"Ah, yes." He handed her a jingling pouch. "Use cash, it's more discreet. Start with Du'Mon, the host at the Seventh Tentacle in Lower Na'Haminar Street. He should be able to arrange something...suitable. Meanwhile, I have a Diplomatic Committee meeting to attend -- it should prove most amusing. Good day, ladies. Mollari."
With another bow he swept out, leaving the two Centauri looking dubiously at her.
****************
DOME ONE, MARS
Tessa threw her head back and looked all the way up to the ceiling of the nine-story atrium at the heart of Robinson's Department Store. There were twenty-one more floors above that, she knew, all bustling with practical-minded businessfolk and state-of-the-art data processing equipment. Down here in the store proper, though, gilded chandeliers, dark wood and glass counters, and ornate plasterwork hearkened back to a more opulent, romantic age. An age which had, in fact, never existed on Mars at all, but had been transplanted lock, stock and escalators at the whim of the man who had made a fortune supplying the early colonists. Like Sears, Roebuck, and Ward in the days of the American West, Ben Robinson and his successors had provided the necessities of life, plus a few treasured luxuries, to the intrepid settlers of the Red Planet. Even now, nearly 70% of the consumer goods purchased on Mars passed through Robinson's warehouses and outlets -- most of which were models of stark, cost-effective efficiency. The Dome One store was the company's showplace, though -- emporium, museum, and entertainment complex in one, and an acknowledged center of Mars urban culture.
Tessa and her secondary school friends had made the downtown store the focal point of many a teenaged exploratory ramble, meeting for a soda at the ninth-floor cafe, then gossiping and browsing for hours amid the glittering displays. They could rarely afford to actually buy anything, but it didn't matter -- just soaking up the atmosphere was enough for Tessa and her friends in those long-ago days before more serious and deadly games claimed her attention.
During her years on Earth she had visited New York and Chicago, hoping to find the originals of this extravagant copy, but they were long gone. Macy's, Marshall Field's, Carson Pirie Scott -- all the grand old edifices had succumbed to war, urban blight, or -- worse -- downsizing.
Robinson's still stood, though, a monument to calculated greed and conspicuous consumption that even the most dedicated utilitarian had to admire for its sheer audacity. It was a 'must-see' stop in the Centauri guidebooks -- not that Mars saw many Centauri tourists these days.
Tessa had chosen it as a meeting place for purely practical reasons, of course. It was crowded and noisy, and security was lax -- by Tessa's standards, anyway. There were a hundred entrances and exits, and myriads of rooms and passageways, all crawling with people at all hours of the day...but aside from all that, it was one of the few places in Dome One that she actually missed. Even when she was leading the Resistance, sabotaging Earther-run or -influenced commercial enterprises and always on the lookout for the spectacular 'statement', she had never even considered making an example of this place. One of her lieutenants had suggested it -- once -- and promptly found himself reassigned as liaison to the Hellas Basin gypsy camps.
So here she was again -- older, hopefully a little wiser, and every bit as enchanted as the four-(m)year-old who had first ventured through those magical revolving doors. And she had a good hour before she was to meet her contact (in the Electronic Entertainment department, seventh floor, between the vid crystals and the portable holosim chambers). An hour of pure sensual indulgence. Who knows, she thought, she might even *buy* something.
As she ambled by an upscale evening dress display, Tessa thought of Lilian Hobbs back on B5, with her love of beautiful fabrics. She wondered if the doctor had ever been here -- maybe she could take her back a small souvenir...
She spotted a purple beadwork purse and veered across the aisle traffic, just as a hurrying shopper, burdened by several large bundles and looking back over her shoulder, careened right into her. She reached out to steady the other woman, but only succeeded in knocking another bag out of her arms. Fresh from six months of (mostly) Earth-standard gravity, she managed to retrieve the flying parcel before it hit the ground, and turned back to meet an unexpectedly familiar expression of faintly petulant apology.
"I'm terribly sorry -- I should have been looking where I was going. Of course, they really need to do something about the number of people they let in here..." the woman's voice trailed off as recognition dawned. "Ms...Halloran, isn't it?"
Tessa smiled crookedly. "Fancy meeting you here, Ms. Edgars -- I mean, Garibaldi...I mean..."
"Oh, for heaven's sake just call me 'Lise'! This name business has gotten to the point where it's just embarrassing," the slim, elegant woman said lightly. "I had no idea you were on Mars -- Michael didn't say anything about it. Are you visiting family, or..." she frowned, "is there some kind of a problem...?"
"Nothing like that," Tessa assured her. "I am going to stop by and see the folks, but mainly it's just routine business," she lied blithely.
Lise relaxed visibly. Given the fact that the last time Garibaldi's then-fiancee had let him take a 'short trip' to Babylon 5 she hadn't seen him again for six months, Tessa could hardly blame her for being concerned.
"In that case, I hope you can make time to come out to the house -- or maybe coffee or something now, if you're not too busy?" she asked, with a slightly desperate air of entreaty. Tessa suddenly realized that being the trophy wife, then widow, of the owner of one of Mars' premier megacorps had undoubtedly wreaked havoc on the woman's friendships -- assuming she had had any. In fact...
"I don't see your people, Ms...Lise," she corrected, looking around nonchalantly. "They must be very good."
"My people? What do you...oh, you mean that dreadful man Michael has following me around. At least Wade was a civilized person you could talk to, but *this* guy...well, anyway," she said, tossing her head and sidling along the aisle, thereby forcing Tessa to accompany her, "I lost his little minions at a concert in Burroughs Park. With luck, I should be free of them for another hour or so. What do you say?" Lise grinned a distinctly catlike grin, to which Tessa could only respond with a thoroughly professional blank look hiding a sharp stab of dismay.
The damned overaged bimbette had ditched her security?!? Was the woman insane, or just a total flaming airhead? Either way, she was dangerous -- both to herself and, now, to Tessa as well. Robinson's' own security might be lax, but half a dozen of Garibaldi's picked people swarming around the store looking for his shopaholic wife would scare Tessa's contact off faster than a sandstorm could scrape shit, as they said in the outback. And the people she was contacting wouldn't be likely to be terribly forgiving about an apparent double-cross on her part, which would not only scotch her chances of turning up any weapons caches, but might even make her visit to Mars a bit more lively than she had hoped in the personal safety department.
On the other hand, if Garibaldi's people found their runaway charge quickly, and got her the hell out of there -- if she were, for instance, to remain in a highly visible location for an extended period of time, so that the first bodyguard to show up would spot her almost at once...Tessa looked up to the ninth floor cafe balcony.
Oh, look, an empty table.
She cocked an eyebrow and grinned back at Lise. "I wonder if they still make that killer mint torte," she said challengingly.
"Yes, as a matter of fact, they do."
On their way upstairs, they parked Lise's bundles at a bank of lockers stashed discreetly in an alcove outside the seventh floor restrooms.
"You seem to know your way around," Tessa said lightly. A spasm of distaste flickered over the other woman's face, so quickly Tessa wondered if she'd imagined it.
"I ought to. The first job I got when I came to Main Dome was here."
"Sales?"
"Cleaning crew," Lise answered grimly.
Tessa followed her out, thoughtful. She had known that the widow of the fabulously wealthy William Edgars was not, as one might say, 'to the manor born', but she'd always assumed that her antecedents were at least solidly middle-class. This hint to the contrary engaged her Director of Covert Intelligence instincts -- or, perhaps, something baser. But what the hell. "And yet, you shop here," she commented, fishing.
"Damn straight," the other woman replied with a steely glint in her eye.
By the time they had been seated in the airy cafe, Tessa's curiosity had been thoroughly piqued. She'd never thought much about Lise Hampton-Edgars-Garibaldi as a person before -- although she had noted the apparent incongruity of her marriage to Michael Garibaldi. The alliance of the forthright, tough-minded ex-Security Chief with the irrepressible (if somewhat morbid) sense of humor, and the elegant, humorless woman that Tessa had automatically categorized as a manipulative little gold-digger had seemed improbable, at best. By the time lunch appeared, though, she had realized that there was a lot more to the story.
Teresa Halloran was the second-generation Marsborn daughter of engineer parents, raised in the comfort of Main Dome and provided with an excellent education. She had given up an assured upper-middle-class future to work with the Resistance, out of a passionate patriotism born of typical cossetted post-adolescent rebellion but quickly tempered by harsh experience. Lise Hampton, on the other hand, had been born into a scruffy clan of third- and fourth-generation prospectors and itinerant laborers, migrating throughout Mars' double-length year along a carefully-planned route among the outlying domes and frontier tent settlements. Even the special treatments that kept children born on Mars from developing into the freakishly tall somatotypes called "Lopers" by the Earth-normal majority had only been administered at the insistence of Lise's grandmother, who had also been responsible for what education the scrappy little rover-brat had picked up.
Life in the Martian outback was often brutal -- not only physically, as the sheer inimicability of the environment threatened them at every turn, but also psychologically, with families cooped up inside the caravan-like rovers for weeks or even months at a time. Lise had run away to Dome One as soon as an opportunity presented itself -- she avoided mentioning what exactly she had been running from, but after spending quite a bit of time in the outback herself, Tessa could make a few educated guesses. She could also guess a lot of what Lise left out about the ensuing years, first struggling simply to survive, and later developing a passionate drive to fit in, to live the kind of life the vids and advertisements promised -- to be respectable. To be safe.
"And then," Lise stopped, and a wistful smile played around her mouth. "Then I met Michael.
"I was working the customer service desk for Pan Solar out at the shuttleport, when this big...jerk comes storming over to complain about his lost luggage. He'd been shuttled back and forth between bases for a few days, and his bags hadn't caught up with him -- something like that, anyway. I'd had a simply hellish day, and I was about ready to bite somebody's head off anyway, and here comes Michael. Drunk, of course, and spoiling for a fight.
"Which," she grinned up at Tessa, "I gave him. And about halfway through, I saw something in his eyes...change." She poked at her salad for a while, then went on.
"I found his bags. He bought me dinner. He called the next day, can you believe it? So of course I fell head over heels in love with him -- and he fell in love with me. And it was everything I'd ever dreamed of...for a while." Her face closed down, then.
Tessa wondered if she should let it go, but the opportunity was too good to pass up -- plus, the woman was acting like she wanted to get some of this out.
"The drinking?" she asked. Lise shook her head quickly.
"It wasn't that -- not at first, anyway. After all, from what I knew then, that was just...what men did. -- And a lot of women, too, although I can't stand being drunk, myself," she added with a little shudder.
"But he was so...impatient. All the time -- at home, *and* at work. Nothing was ever right, everything had to be done his way, and yet everything he did was always wrong -- at least in his own eyes, and soon enough other people would start to agree with him. Especially the people he worked for," she said with a wry grin.
"And then he'd just...get drunk. Every time he came home all bright-eyed and bouncy and 'ready to party'...I'd know he'd gotten fired again. Then in a few days, he'd get another lead -- some friend of a friend of a guy he'd met in a bar knew somebody who was hiring, and he'd be off to a new job, bound and determined to make good this time, until it started to go sour again.
"And then he met Jeffrey Sinclair."
"Wasn't it Sinclair who gave him a chance, on B5?" Tessa asked.
Lise laughed shortly. "A chance! A chance to start fresh -- to leave it all behind. Even me. And he leaped at it." She stabbed a defenseless cucumber through the heart.
"Didn't he ask you to go with him?" Tessa ventured.
"Of course he asked!" Lise snapped. "But I wasn't about to pick up and move to some...space station out in the middle of nowhere! I had a life by then -- I had friends, responsibilities...furniture -- oh, nothing like I have now, of course, but it wasn't a bad life, even with Michael's little...eccentricities." She paused for breath.
"In other words, you were scared."
After a startled moment, the other woman smiled ruefully.
"Terrified," she admitted. "Looking back, I think I must have thought of a space station as being like a big rover -- where you couldn't even go out for a walk in a coat and breather. But of course I didn't realize that then.
"I didn't realize a lot of things.
"So he went, and I stayed, and met Franz..." she took a deep breath. "And then Bill, and He brought Michael back to me."
Catching the capital 'H', Tessa wondered whether Lise meant Edgars or God. Both, perhaps.
"Story of my life," the brunette concluded cheerfully, cocking her head like a curious crow. "Your turn!"
Tessa looked around, then down into the atrium, but didn't spot anyone who looked like a bodyguard.
Rats.
"Well," she started slowly, "My father came to Mars with his parents from Boston when he was a little kid..."
"Did you say Boston?" Lise interrupted. "And his name was Halloran? What was his father's name?" she asked eagerly.
"Jerry -- Gerald, I think. Why?"
"Did he have a sister named Margaret?" the other woman pressed. A bit taken aback, Tessa tried to remember.
"Wait...yes, she was the one who stayed back on Earth. She was a police officer, I think..."
"Ha! That's it!" Lise cried gleefully, clapping her hands and earning glares from neighboring diners. "You and Michael are *cousins*! His grandmother was Margaret Halloran -- he used to talk about her all the time."
Tessa was dumbfounded. Then, slowly, a grin to match the other woman's crept over her face. She wasn't sure yet just how she was going to use this, but she'd bet a year's pay the opportunity would present itself...and when it did...
Lise checked her wristpad - a shiny expensive trinket that used a holofield rather than an inset display screen, Tessa noticed. Reflexively, she checked her own more utilitarian (and much more powerful) databand.
"Damn!" she swore. She had five minutes to make her rendezvous. She stood quickly.
"Look, I hate to run -- it's been great, we should get together again before I leave, but right now I really have to go..." she stood, and Lise stood with her.
"That's all right, I should be going too. I just need to get my things down on Seven, and..."
"Oh, for..." Tessa broke off and bolted -- the only thing she could do now was try to get to her contact before the all-too-well-known widow showed up!
Lise looked after her in confusion, then sighed. "It's got to be genetic," she said.
****************
ROYAL PALACE, CENTAURI PRIME
Eventually the Emperor ran out of patience and dismissed Minister Durla -- and not a moment too soon, as far as Ambassador Cotto was concerned. He had always been a terrible liar, and while he wasn't exactly lying (since he did not, in fact, know where the fugitives had gone), he had had rather more contact with them during their visit to Babylon 5, once the immediate crises had been averted and before their anonymous departure, than was perhaps politic. He felt certain that he and Minister Durla would have serious differences of opinion about which of his conversations with Carn Mollari and Lady Morella were any of the Minister's business, and there were certain aspects of those discussions that he really wouldn't even feel comfortable sharing with Londo.
But either his tenure as Ambassador was teaching him more about prevarication than he had thought, or the Emperor was being deliberately obtuse. At least twice Vir caught himself in a verbal stumble that should have alerted the former Ambassador that his former attache was, as the Humans said, 'winging it', and his hearts plummeted right down into his (new, and rather painful) shoes when Minister Durla suggested that his faulty memory might be...assisted by a representative of the Telepath Guild. Londo, however, only seemed to grow more distracted and restless, finally sending Durla off to 'turn over some large rocks', in the hope that he would 'find some helpless insects to torture'.
When the Minister had departed, his obsequiousness not even beginning to hide the glitter of cold calculation in his eyes, Londo pushed himself out of his throne and ambled over to a wide window. Outside, the sun gleamed pitilessly down on the half-rebuilt city. Vir joined him, unsure how to comport himself in the company of the man who had once been a friend of sorts as well as a mentor, and who was now his Emperor -- and, suddenly, almost a stranger.
"Your Majesty," he began tentatively, "as long as we have a moment alone..."
Londo snorted, then turned to fix Vir with a curiously intense look, his air of distraction completely vanished.
"Alone? An Emperor is never alone, Vir. The weight of the Republic is always heavy upon his..." he hesitated slightly, "...shoulders.
"But, yes," he went on more gently, "we have some time before the afternoon audience begins. Tell me, how are things back on Babylon 5?"
"Oh, fine!" Vir replied automatically. "Wonderful! Well, that is, except for the..." he stopped, not wanting to get back into the conversation he'd just escaped from. "And of course, there was the time..." well, no, he probably shouldn't go into that, either. "Well, it's been...pretty much the same as usual," he finished lamely.
"How comforting -- to know that there is at least one thing constant in the Universe," Londo commented dryly.
"Well, um, yes, I suppose...but what I wanted to talk to you about was this treaty I've been working on...with the other governments, you know. It was very difficult -- especially with the new import and export regulations, which, quite frankly, have been changing so fast that it's been practically impossible to keep up with them...but then I suppose you know all about that," he added as he suddenly remembered just who he was talking to. "...And I'm sure there are all sorts of excellent reasons for them...I'm certainly not implying that..."
"Yes, yes, Vir, I'm sure you have done a splendid job," Londo said impatiently, his gaze growing distant once more. "And I daresay the Centarum will give your proposal all due consideration."
"Well, actually, I was hoping...I mean, if you were to make a recommendation, I'm sure that..." Vir broke off as a glare as cold as interstellar space itself speared him.
"The Centarum will consider the treaty, and I will consider their report. That is the way things are done, Vir. Unless you are under the impression that our...former association gives you some special...influence over my decisions? Hmmmm? Is that what you believe?"
"No, no of course not," the Ambassador said hastily. "I would never..."
"Good," the Emperor snapped, turning back to look out the window again. When he was certain Vir had taken his point, the Emperor allowed a small sigh to escape. "And how is your new attache working out?" he asked, with only slightly forced geniality.
By now thoroughly cowed and more than a little confused (how quickly old habits come back, Vir thought), the Ambassador took refuge in small talk, and eventually the conversational temperature rethawed.
He even made the Emperor laugh once, recounting the discovery of Jaida and Selene's illicit gardening operation. Londo, in turn, told him of the young woman he had taken under his wing -- "No, not like that, Vir, it is all most respectable. She is a charming girl -- you will meet her tonight. Durla cannot stand her, of course," he added thoughtfully.
"Speaking of Minister Durla," Vir ventured. "I don't remember seeing him at Court, the last time I was here. How did he...why did you...I mean, no offense, but something about him...I don't know, I just don't like him, Londo."
"He is Minister of Internal Security, Vir. Being liked is not in his job description," the Emperor pointed out.
"But I liked Mr. Garibaldi -- and so did you," Vir replied, his courage rising again. "I get the feeling you don't like Durla any more than I do...and you're the Emperor!"
"Thank you for reminding me, Vir," Londo said waspishly. "I had almost forgotten for a moment. You would be amazed at how little the Emperor's likes and dislikes have to do with fulfilling his job description." His lips tightened, and he shook his head. "But enough of that. How is Mr. Garibaldi these days?"
Somehow, Vir didn't want to go into too much detail about Mr. Garibaldi's drinking problem, and its aftermath. "Um, well, he got married..."
"Poor man. I must remember to send my condolences."
"He seemed very happy..."
"Mr. Garibaldi is a very brave man, Vir. And what of your own lovely young bride, ah? Lord-General Marrago mentioned that she was remaining on Babylon 5. Have you two, ah..." Londo made a most un-Imperial gesture with both hands, and Vir winced.
"Not...exactly," he admitted. "She has her work on the station, and I have mine. We see each other from time to time...I think we're starting to become quite good friends, actually."
"FRIENDS?" the Emperor stared at him, aghast. "What IS this? Of all the people I could imagine succumbing to a taste for alien perversions, YOU are the last, Vir!"
"Well, I don't know...it just sort of...happened. I am suppposed to go visit the Lord-General and Lady Drusilla tomorrow..."
"Whatever you do, do not mention this 'friends' business to them!" Londo admonished. "It would kill Lady Drusilla, and then Marrago would be forced to kill you -- and we can't have that.
"No," he added, looking long and thoughtfully at his former attache, who had recently had a second encounter with Emperor Turhan's seeress widow. "We certainly can't have that..."
A discreet knock at the door heralded the arrival of the Minister of the Court with a polite reminder that the afternoon audience was about to begin. The Emperor resumed his throne, and the Ambassador faded unobtrusively back into the draperies as courtiers began to stream into the room. Nearby, unheard and unseen, a third figure shifted deeper into the carefully-hidden alcove behind the throne itself.
Shiv'kala, Sha'Drakh and First Claw of this particular arm of the Way of Return, nodded slowly. Features that most humanoid races would instinctively label 'demonic' showed little in the way of expression, but the observant would say he looked...content, if not precisely satisfied. The Emperor's surface thoughts and behavior were all just as they should be. The Ambassador was a complication, certainly -- his actions at the Emperor's Ascension Day, and his unexpected success in renegotiating that completely counterproductive treaty amply demonstrated that -- but now that Shiv'kala had had a chance to observe him in person, he did not think that the herbivorous-looking little creature would pose an actual threat. Especially if the Human, Molyneux, made good on his offer. Dismissing the matter from his mind, the Drakh settled in to observe the alien behavior of the Centauri Royal Court with the age-old patience of a born predator.
****************** Act Three *****************
G'KAMAZAD, NARN
Ta'Lon watched, outwardly impassive, as the members of the Diplomatic Committee filed in. His association with Ambassador G'Kar, serving as a sort of informal aide during the formative years of the Second Independence, had given him a detailed, yet almost clinically detached view of recent Narn political history. To this he had added a "refresher course" pulled together by his staff to while away the long hours of the flight from Babylon 5, and he was well able to match the incoming faces with names and affiliations.
In the dozen or so generations before the Centauri came, the villages of Narn had entered one of their cyclic periods of aggregation, forming closer associations that Humans might almost begin to call nation-states. Hearkening back to the golden age of G'Quon, they had formed a planetary Assembly of village representatives, which had in turn elected a "Kha'Ri", or Fivefold Circle of super-committees, to guide the people of Narn into a New Age.
Unfortunately, that age had been one of defeat, oppression, and exploitation by the conquering Centauri. However, tales of the heroic struggles of the Kha'Ri had helped to inspire the Resistance, and when the First Independence had been won, the Assembly and Kha'Ri had been recreated amid universal rejoicing. All but one of the members of the existing Kha'Ri had been killed or imprisoned in the Second Occupation, and that one had chosen to walk another path, but the Assembly itself had reformed immediately and drafted a new, skeleton Kha'Ri within days of the Second Liberation. Once again, the Narn Regime was directed by the five Executors of the Kha'Ri, each supported by a 20- to 50-Narn committee, or "Circle".
The Doshakh'Ri or Hearth Circle advised and directed in matters of housing, education, and medicine, and mediated in family or religious disputes. As the Fifth Circle, it formed one of the 'Feet of Narn', along with the Khrogath'Ri, or Agricultural Circle. Since the Centauri Occupation and its devastation of the planet's natural resources, the Fourth Circle had assumed responsibility for ecological recovery and conservation as well, though it was still ranked lesser in status than the two 'Hands of Narn'. These were the Third Circle (the Hanokh'Ri or Circle of Artificers), and the Jhonn'Ri -- the Circle of War, currently ranked Second. The Third Circle was effectively the Department of Industry, controlling the bulk of the Regime's economy, and only the exigencies of the last few years had allowed the Second to retain its precedence. Needless to say, the members of the Third Circle had a strong interest in Narn's swift return to a peacetime footing, which was countered by a purely patriotic hawkishness on the part of the Second. (Narn politics might lack the baroque trappings of Centauri, but more than held their own in terms of deviousness and complexity.)
First among these not-quite-equals was the Tal'Ri, the Circle of Wisdom. The Executor of the Tal'Ri was the official Head of State of the Narn Regime, and his Circle was charged with overseeing and coordinating all the other jurisdictions -- watching 'the big picture', as the Humans said. The Assembly, though a much larger body and tied to diverse geographic interests, nonetheless remained a strong element of the overall government, retaining the bulk of the legislative and judicial responsibilities as well as the authority to, in extreme cases, disband and re-elect the Kha'Ri itself -- including the Executors. If the Five Circles were the Feet, Hands, and Head of the Narn people, the Assembly was its Voice.
The Diplomatic Committee, like most committees at the planetary level, boasted three representatives of the people's Voice, each referred to officially only by the names of their regions: B'Hondal, Nirren, and Gyanimar, and carefully chosen for diversity of constituency. The middle-aged females and elderly male muttered softly among themselves as they took their seats along the wall of the circular chamber. The Committee members representing each of the Five Circles came next, but none of them seemed inclined to chat with his or her neighbor.
Ta'Lon recognized Na'Dron of the Jhonn'Ri, who had been invalided out of a generalship during the battle at Corianna VI. Despite the loss of an arm (which, in less desperate times, would by tradition have forced his retirement), he remained a vital and energetic figure in the reconstructed military, concentrating on training and tactical development. He was said to have a high regard for the Executor Martial, Councillor G'Kael, and had voted with him on most important issues. However, on those occasions when they *did* disagree, it was not always the ex-general who had ended up backing down.
Ro'Dan of the Third Circle was a wiry, intense woman who peered intently at Ta'Lon as she arranged her folders on the table before her. Ta'Lon's files had indicated that she was a protege of former Councillor Du'Rog of the Fifth Circle, who had been a noted adversary of his own mentor, G'Kar. Next to her, Ko'Roth of the Khrogath'Ri settled into his chair with the air of a man who had something to say, and was only waiting for a chance to say it. The surprisingly young G'Sadi of the Fifth Circle was as intent on scoping out her fellow committee members as she was on the Ambassador himself, her curious dark eyes flicking around each chair in turn before favoring him with a quirk of the lips that might almost be called a smile.
Finally, the representative of the First Circle came in with the final member of the Diplomatic Committee, the Executor Martial himself. The Councillor of the Tal'Ri was a tall man, but stooped with age, and G'Kael had to lean over a bit to murmur in his earhole. As he did so, his eyes met Ta'Lon's in a single crimson flash as keen as the kiss of his katok. As G'Kael took his place at the central podium, directly across from Ta'Lon, the Ambassador could not quite suppress a cold shiver of uncertainty, despite the midday equatorial heat.
His confirmation as Ambassador, at the behest of the revered G'Kar, had been made 'subject to the ongoing review of the Diplomatic Committee', and while he had never been one to waste energy trying to second-guess other peoples' responses to his actions, he was not unmindful of the fact that certain of those actions were likely to prove controversial, at best. He had discussed the matter of the Centauri Lord-General, Marrago, at some length with Councillor G'Kael, and was reasonably certain of his support on that issue, but the communiques following the celebration of the Centauri Emperor's Ascension Day, and Ta'Lon's rather unorthodox participation therein, had been brief and impersonal. Since then matters had seemed to go well, but who knew what political undercurrents might be stirring, in these troubled times?
G'Kael called the meeting to order, formally introducing Ta'Lon to the Committee members. No sooner had he reviewed G'Kar's bequest of his post to the younger man, though, than Councillor Ko'Roth spoke up.
"This man is patently unqualified for the post he occupies. Before the War of Fire, he was nothing but a common drifter!"
"Indeed," added Councillor Ro'Dan, her voice cutting sharp as a knife blade. "Our records indicate that he was in fact exiled from his home village as a young man, and has wandered about the galaxy as a mercenary -- or worse -- ever since. While we all respect the wishes of former Councillor G'Kar, one cannot but wonder if his judgement might have been swayed by...affection, or simply the disarray of the times..."
Councillor G'Kael cut in at this point. "Is this true, Ambassador? Were you actually *exiled* by your own village?"
"I left," Ta'Lon replied evenly. "If the village elders chose to save face by declaring me konnamari after the fact, that was their prerogative."
"I see," murmured the Executor Martial, turning back to the other committee members. "And you do not consider two and a half years at the side of Ambassador G'Kar to be a sufficient...apprenticeship?"
"We do not," said Ko'Roth, with a corroborative nod from the Third Circle representative.
"Honored committee members," spoke up the Councillor from the Fifth Circle, G'Sadi. "I have also consulted the records concerning Ambassador Ta'Lon, and could not help but be struck by an interesting detail. As you can see, the Ambassador bears a katok, and such things are not, by tradition, given lightly. The circumstances of its bestowing, however, are *not* on record. Perhaps, if the Ambassador would oblige us, an understanding of these circumstances might shed some light on our dilemna?"
Her phrasing might be tentative, but the thrust of her question was not. It was a question Ta'lon generally declined to answer, but in this case he feared he would be unable to avoid it. Councillor G'Kael confirmed this with a nod.
"Ambassador -- if you please, enlighten us."
Ta'Lon took a deep breath and bowed slightly toward the Executor. "Very well." He turned toward the Councillors' side of the room.
"Soon after my...exile, I made my way offworld, and eventually found myself on the planet called Ekanabar. Are you familiar with it, Councillors?"
"I believe it is one of our oldest colonies, but aside from that..." Councillor Ro'Dan replied, uncharacteristically uncertain.
"Indeed, some think it may be the oldest," Ta'Lon continued. "During the early days of the Centauri Oppression, a group of refugees...obtained a Centauri transport and fled to an obscure system on what was then the edge of known space. There they settled on a Narnlike world that was already inhabited by an indigenous sentient species. They coexisted peacefully with the natives for many years -- perhaps the only world of which that can truly be said," he added.
"At the time of my visit, however, both the Narn settlement and the allied natives were under attack by a neighboring, more aggressive tribe. I...found myself in a position to help, and before I left, the village elder there gave this..." he reached back with a well-practiced motion to touch the rune-carved ivory hilt that rose above his right shoulder, "into my keeping."
"According to *my* records," Councillor G'Kael put in dryly, "you entered the enemy stronghold, alone, captured their leader, and literally forced him to sit down with the allied leaders to negotiate a truce. Sounds like a natural-born diplomat to me," he concluded, with a brief smile, and Ta'Lon allowed himself to feel a glimmer of hope. To either side, the committee members murmured quietly among themselves.
"Tell me, Ambassador," said one of the Assembly representatives -- the elder from Nirren, Ta'Lon recalled. "Did the katok's holder relate its history to you, as is traditional? There are no more than five hands of these blades known to be still in existence -- I would be curious to know which of them this is."
Ta'Lon bowed to the lady. "The man who gave it to me took it from his own dead father's hand during the escape from Narn. He was unable to tell me more than its name, Lakh'to'Morinar, and the name of its maker, Shu'Niri."
The woman shook her head, unfamiliar with the names. "Is the man who gave it to you still alive?" she inquired.
"Alas, no, he died shortly before I left." At Ro'Dan's sharp look, he added, "He was one hundred and ninety six, I believe." The Third Circle Councillor subsided reluctantly. Noting that the Fourth Circle representative still looked disgruntled, Ta'Lon addressed him.
"Councillor Ko'Roth, while I am here, I would appreciate a chance to get together with you about some extremely promising negotiations I have been privileged to facilitate with the Humans, regarding the possibility of bringing back some of our extinct species. If you would have your office contact me..."
"I will certainly do so," said Ko'Roth, his closed expression giving way to one of grudging interest.
"Very well," said G'Kael briskly. "If no one else has any arguments against the Ambassador's fitness for his position, we may proceed to a discussion of his actions during the past months..."
"I have a question," broke in Ta'Garn of the First Circle, his voice slightly tremulous with age. The equivalent of a Professor Emeritus of History at the prestigious University of Gar'Amon in G'Kamazad, he had been persuaded to join the Tal'Ri, where he served as a close advisor to the Executor General himself. G'Kael bowed respectfully towards his seat.
"I understand that shortly before the War of Fire, you were captured by an alien explorer ship..."
"The Streib, Councillor," Ta'Lon supplied.
"Indeed. And, during the course of this...adventure, you made the acquaintance of the Human, Sheridan, who is now President of the Interstellar Alliance."
"That is true, Councillor."
"And later, you appointed yourself *his* bodyguard, before joining with the resistance formed by G'Kar on Babylon 5?"
"Briefly, Councillor," Ta'Lon acknowledged with a small smile. The former academic drew himself up and levelled a piercing glare at the younger man.
"So where do your loyalties lie, Ta'Lon? With your own people, or with the Alliance?"
Ta'Lon replied unhesitatingly. "With the world and the people of Narn, Councillor. My life may have been a life of wandering, but my heart has always been here. In my actions as Ambassador -- including the incidents with the Centauri that this committee may have concerns about -- I have always striven to behave according to the tenets of the wisest and noblest among us. And most particularly, I have striven to follow the example of my predecessor.
"That is," he added wryly, "insofar as that example applies to diplomacy and the peaceful interactions between governments and species."
Ta'Garn of the First Circle nodded, apparently satisfied. There was more discussion after that -- and as Ta'Lon had suspected, the bulk of it focused on Ta'Lon's dealings with the Centauri (his brief stint as bodyguard to the collaborator Na'Far did not go unremarked upon). However, he presented his position clearly and without evasion, and although the committee was by no means unanimously supportive, by the time the late-afternoon sun came slanting in the low windows, he felt that he was making some progress.
Finally, Executor G'Kael wound up the proceedings, with the recommendation that the committee members review their findings and reconvene in five days to make a final decision. As the Councillors and Representatives made their way out of the room, he beckoned to Ta'Lon.
"Ambassador, would you mind stopping by my office at, say, the sixth hour this evening? There are some matters I would like to go over with you."
"I am entirely at your disposal, Councillor. And may I say, I appreciated your support during the meeting."
G'Kael waved a hand dismissively. "I cannot show open partiality, of course, but Ambassador G'Kar's reports of you were most encouraging."
"And your own...investigations?" Ta'Lon inquired, to be answered only by an inscrutable smile.
****************
ROBINSON'S DEPARTMENT STORE
DOME ONE, MARS
The first thing Tessa noticed as she approached the Electronic Entertainment department was a huge scarlet banner emblazoned with an all-too-familiar logo. Models of starships that Tessa knew could never fly in this universe hung from the ceiling, and the strains of a painfully cliched two-hundred-year-old anthem reached out to enfold her.
Tessa Halloran considered the phenomenon of science fiction to be one of the most ludicrous communal absurdities ever perpetrated by sentient life-forms -- right up there with spectator sports and organized religion. Unlike those, though, SF seemed to be primarily a Human mania, and contrary to all expectations, Mankind's actual emergence as a spacefaring race had not only not killed off science fiction -- even its most prosaic form, space opera -- but had actually rejuvenated it. The "classics" were devoured as eagerly as ever by each new generation of nerds and screenweenies, and both new and old epics, in various media, periodically invaded the mainstream culture like some kind of literary planktonic overgrowth.
Foremost among these was the megalithic, metastatic corporate monstrosity known as 'Star Trek'. Tessa shook her head slightly as she scanned the aisles for her contact. This ridiculously overhyped premiere made one hundred more-or-less separate vid series, now. A hundred casts, a hundred settings, thousands of distinct storylines and perhaps millions of books, comics, and amateur fiction collections -- all based on a premise that had been irretrievabley outdated over two centuries ago! Instead of being relegated to the Realm of the Quaint along with Flash Gordon, Superman, and Star Wars, it had continued to thrive: a whole alternate history, extending almost three hundred years back and who knew how many centuries ahead of present time, with only the most general galactographic similarities to their own reality. Entire planets had been created out of whole cloth, with a veritable zoo of imaginary alien sophonts -- that was the part that completely bewildered Tessa. Why, in Heaven's name, did Humans feel the need to continue to write about 'made up' aliens when there were so many to choose from in the real world? She just didn't get it.
As the vidscreen next to her zoomed in on the viewport of a totally improbable ship, focusing on the bright, cheery new crew, Tessa spotted Jensen at last. Now she just had to get to him and get both of them out of there, before he caught a whiff of Garibaldi's people (who had to be around here somewhere by now) and panicked. She stepped forward briskly as the new Captain began to speak.
Some distance away, Lise Hampton-Edgars-Garibaldi muttered unladylike imprecations at a recalcitrant locker. As she stepped back to catch her breath before giving it another try, her attention was caught by the man lurking by the entranceway.
He was big and burly, wearing a voluminous brown coat and leaning -- almost hiding -- behind the small lip of wall separating the locker area from the main floor. His right arm was raised as though he was blowing his nose...or...aiming...
A gleam of metal, and the bottom of Lise's stomach dropped out as she realized that he was holding a gun...before she could move, though, the little weapon coughed. She lunged toward the man, calling out -- a hand caught her arm and spun her around roughly, and she felt another heavy hand slap a trank patch against her neck. As she fell, she heard the gun cough a second time.
The tall Nepalese with the Scandinavian name hurried toward Tessa. He was still two aisles away, though, when he clutched at his arm and stopped short. Wincing, he called out to the blonde woman, "Run! It's a trap!" before sagging against the nearest rack.
Tessa quickly scanned her surroundings, cursing herself for her careless haste. Just as she spotted the dark figure by the door, she felt a sting in her own arm -- she plucked out the dart, but it was too late. Already the fast-acting sedative was flooding her system, blurring her vision and blitzing her equilibrium. She peered past the shooter -- was that Lise the other man was dragging back into the shadows? Damn, Garibaldi was going to have her ass in a sling for this, she thought as she sank to her knees, clutching at a portable vidconsole for support.
This brought her face to face with the Federation Captain -- a diminutive, lushly curved Indian woman in a skintight StarFleet "uniform" talking earnestly to a...Tessa blinked, and blinked again. Was that a Brakiri, in blue makeup and a blonde wig? She'd had no idea that alien actors were working in Human vid productions...how had she missed this arguably positive cultural development, she wondered muzzily.
{{Must...tell...Sheridan...}} she thought, slipping into darkness.
Moments later a muscular young man with disheveled sandy locks contrasting oddly with his shiny new suit skidded into the Electronics department, to find only a few bewildered staff people and shoppers huddling, sheeplike, around some toppled shelves, while a disregarded timeship crew blathered on in the background.
"Damn," he muttered under his breath, "the boss is gonna have my ass in a sling for this!"
****************
CAPITAL CITY, CENTAURI PRIME
Ambassador Cotto could have requisitioned a groundcar for his visit to the Marragos, but he didn't. The weather was fine, he had plenty of time, and he could use the exercise.
Vir was probably in better shape right now than he had been in all his twenty-five years of life. After a rather nasty scare last year, when his weight and blood pressure had soared and his sporadic migraines had started attacking almost daily, Dr. Franklin had helped him work out a diet and exercise plan that he had actually been able to stick to. Well, mostly -- the advent of a McBari's onstation had set him back for a while, there. The exercise component had mainly consisted of long walks through the Garden and other parts of the station, although in recent months he had also taken a few private (very private) lessons in self-defense. On the trip out he'd even considered approaching Volga's cousin, but the thought of facing off against the great Narandro Dok, even with practice swords, left him in a cold sweat.
The past three days of confinement -- on the journey from Babylon 5 and settling into his rooms in the Palace -- had left him feeling restless and bloated, and neither his interview with the Emperor yesterday afternoon nor the elaborate State dinner that followed it had helped with either condition. A good long walk was just what he neeed, he decided as he stepped out across the grand avenue fronting the cityward side of the Royal Palace. This avenue, named after the legendary Emperor Palpatine, made what Humans would call a 'T' intersection with the great Processional Way that ran from the Palace all the way into the heart of the city.
Parkland lined the Way for perhaps half a kilometer, bisecting a crescent of noblemen's estates that curved around an upscale "strip" of commercial enterprises. For some reason, Humans shuttling in over the city invariably found this arc of greenery enclosing an extension of business district highly amusing, though when asked, they always attributed it to a resemblance to their letter 'C', for 'Centauri'. Vir, however, was not convinced.
By now, almost five Greater Months after the bombardment, the damage to the Imperial Estate was beginning to scab over. Through no fault of the attacking gunnery officers, the Royal Palace itself had escaped almost unscathed, and in the Capital's subtropical climate, vigorous groundcover had rapidly regrown over the scarred lawns while artful plantings disguised the places where the remains of trees had been removed and craters had been filled in. To Vir, who had last seen it immediately after the attack, it was a great improvement, but still a sad change from the stately groves and tranquil vistas of old.
The neighboring buildings, lacking the power of vegetative regeneration, were in worse state. Both prime addresses, closest to the Imperial grounds on the Processional Way itself, had been taken over by the government more than three hundred years ago after squabbles over their ownership had become too embarrassing even for the Royal Court, but they had retained their extensive gardens and elaborate, traditional facades. The lefthand mansion, which had housed the Ministry of Extraplanetary Resources, had been completely demolished, and was now simply a large fenced-off pit. Across the Way, the Ministry of Civic Engineering held its ground, albeit mostly sheathed in scaffolding.
Passing these mementos of destruction, Vir continued on along the Processional Way, watching the passers-by with unabashed curiosity. Centauri commercial architecture, like Human, ran to expansive storefront window displays, and between these and the vestments of the rich and noble-born shoppers, a provincial Ambassador could get a quick crash course in current Centauri haute couture.
Fashion wasn't the only thing he got a sense of, though. Here, too, buildings had suffered, and the economic squeeze of the imposed reparations to the ISA had delayed most rebuilding efforts outside the Imperial umbrella, so scaffolding and empty lots studded even this moneyed area of the city. The people on the street seemed subdued, wary -- almost fearful, and Vir didn't think it was just the severe lines and muted colors of the new fashions that made it seem that way. The looks they gave the Imperial Guards posted on every corner probably had something to do with it, as well as the hushed tones of their conversations -- conversations that abruptly stopped when the unfamiliar and (by their standards) quaintly-dressed Ambassador came within earshot. The few commoners in sight -- shopworkers, maintenance people, servants on errands -- hustled by quickly, eyes on the ground. Despite the brightly-painted facades and the midmorning sunshine, a grey gloom seemed to hang over the street. Even the few authorized groundcars whispered by quietly, their canopies and dark-tinted windows fully closed.
Up ahead, a small crowd of twenty or thirty people had gathered around a corner window. As Vir drew closer, he saw that it was an entertainment electronics display, featuring several large, expensive vidconsoles all tuned to the same channel. Whatever they were showing was causing quite a sensation...Vir edged into a spot from which he could see it.
There was a battle going on -- a fierce, hand-to-hand fight rather than some spaceborne extravaganza, and pretty obviously choreographed. Just then, one of the combatants -- a dark, petite Human woman -- turned toward the camera to say something. The sound, of course, was muted by the window, but Vir recognized the badge adorning her...person. He turned toward the man standing beside him.
"Is this the new 'Star Trek'?" he asked, the English words falling oddly in his native tongue. As the man replied, a murmur swept the crowd, and all he caught was something about "hundred", "timeship" and "Brakiri".
"Brakiri?" he echoed in confusion, then looked more closely at the nearest screen. There they were -- a dozen or so Brakiri in pale wigs, blue skin-coloring, and ragged 'primitive' garments, beating the stuffing out of...suddenly he realized what had caused the crowd's excitement. Those were *Narns*, covered in feathers, retreating amid a tumble of fakey-looking rocks! There was one Brakirioid in more 'modern' clothing, who seemed to be trying to rally the Narns, and another with the cluster of Federation Humans, 'Vulcans' and 'Klingons' helping the primitive blue guys.
Nonhumans on an Earth Alliance vid program? Granted it was one of a series whose popularity had spread widely throughout the known galaxy, for no easily explainable reason, but still! Vir's hearts leapt and an incredulous grin spread across his face. Less than two and a half years since the xenophobic Clark regime had been defeated, and the Earthers were bringing 'aliens' into their very living rooms!
What an excellent sign for the Alliance...that his people were no longer a part of.
As his smile faded, he realized that the main focus of the crowd was actually the fact that the Narn actors were losing the battle -- several of the young Centauri males were growing quite excited, in fact, egging the blue aliens on with loud and profane encouragement. Beyond the edges of the crowd, a group of Imperial Guards had gathered, looking grim. When an officer hurried up and spoke urgently with them, they headed resolutely for the gathered gawkers.
"All right, break it up! Nothing to see here! Be on your way now!" The Guards, unimpressed by the nobility and wealth of the spectators, began shoving them out of their prime viewing spots. Offended, the civilians shoved back, and in moments the impromptu vidparty had become a melee echoing the one on the screens. Once the Guards' truncheons came out, the shoppers quickly gave way, but by then the men in uniform were on a roll. With shouts of "ISA scum!" and "Kill the Earthers!", they attacked the store itself, smashing the window and the vidconsoles inside. Vir backed away, aghast, as some of the former spectators themselves joined in the destruction -- whether they were looking to pick up some of the goods, anxious to appear politically correct or just swept away by the excitement, he couldn't tell.
As he stepped back, he bumped up against someone and felt a hand reach out to steady him. He turned to thank the person, but there was no one there. As he turned back, a sudden wave of terror swept through him. What if this was a setup? What if that Security Minister, Durla, had found out about his regard for the Alliance and all the...questionable things he had done over the years? What if he had somehow contrived this minor riot to frame -- or even kill -- the potentially troublesome Ambassador? He had to escape -- to get away from here before they caught him! Blindly, Vir stumbled away from the fracas and took off headlong down the side street.
Across the Way, a somber-looking young man with a distinctive pale crest spotted the fleeing figure and nudged his two companions, who were amusing themselves by cheering guards and looters indiscriminately.
A block and a half down, Vir spotted an alley -- the perfect place to hide, he thought fuzzily. He looked back over his shoulder -- Great Maker, here they came! Three of them, in great, billowy cloaks -- he ducked into the alley. It dead-ended -- no, it turned, and beyond the corner a commercial van blocked the exit. He started to turn back, to find another way out, but suddenly his vision blurred and the blood thundered in his ears. A thick grey fog seemed to settle over his thoughts, like a heavy hand blotting out his consciousness. A metallic taste filled his mouth -- the taste of fear, for he knew that hand...
The pale-haired man and his companions came running around the corner of the alley just in time to see two shadowy figures lifting a third into a brightly-painted commercial van.
"Hey!" shouted one of the two darker-crested men, but the van moved off, oblivious.
"So, what do we do now?" asked the third pursuer.
"Follow," said the fair-haired man, turning back the way he had come.
Vir opened his eyes on a ring of unprepossessing faces, none of which belonged to the man he expected to see. He sat up with a gasp.
"Where is he?" the Ambassador asked frantically, looking around the room. He was lying on the floor of an abandoned industrial building -- abandoned for the very good reason that half of it was a charred tumble of wreckage. The half-dozen scruffy thugs surrounding Vir were obviously scavengers and criminals of the worst kind, and several of them were fondling short swords and long daggers in a thoroughly disconcerting fashion.
"Looky here," drawled the largest thug, a broken-nosed brute whose crest hung in grey tangles to his synthaleather-clad shoulders. "Th'Ambassador's awake! And here I was afeared this weren't gonna be no fun."
"Ambassador, huh?" cut in another, only slightly more cultured voice. "That explains a lot."
From the startled looks of his captors, Vir deduced that they were not expecting the newcomers. Three men, clad in old-style splendor right down to jewel-toned cloaks and tasseled boots, stood framed in the doorway. The speaker was a conventionally handsome lad, standing with arms folded in belligerent nonchalance. The man beside him was of similar build, but had the distinctive pale coloring of a native of the vanished island of Selini.
The third man was whip-thin and somewhat older than the other two, with a crest that bowed backward to allow for the receding hairline crowning his sharp features.
"Like what?" this worthy inquired, and the first intruder shrugged.
"I dunno -- I don't know what's goin' on here. But if I did know," he assured his companions, "I'm sure it would explain a lot!"
"He's got a point," the blond man observed.
"Yeah, six of 'em," agreed the third man. "Right on the ends of his..."
"Hey! What do you guys want?" the chief thug barked.
The fair-haired man shook his head sadly. "Now, that's the kind of thing that gives the rest of the Galaxy such a bad impression of us Centauri."
Vir glanced sharply at him, but his companions just looked mystified.
So did the chief thug, but he wasn't one to let a little thing like lines flying over his head stop him. "Why don't you three just move along and mind your own business?" he suggested.
"But surely," the third interloper replied, his derisive growl mutating into a syrupy croon, "The safety of our streets is the business of all concerned citizens."
"Yeah," the first agreed, jerking his head toward his friend. "What he said."
The thugs looked at each other and laughed.
"Oh yeah?" called one of them. "What are you gonna do about it?"
"You ain't even armed!" said another, brandishing a wicked looking blade.
The handsome young man sighed, scratching his crest with one hand as the other went back to his waist.
"Yeah, doesn't that just suck, though? You've got those swords and whatnot -- nice sporoda, by the way -- and all we've got is these silly things."
There was a triple snick, and all three men were suddenly holding Minbari fighting pikes, fully extended and held in perfect guard positions. Vir scrambled to his feet, completely ignored by the thugs who surged toward the intruders. At least one of them recognized the weapons, though, because cries of "traitor!" and "ISA filth!" arose.
"Yeah, I know," called the first man with easy bravado, "but you gotta work with what you got!" He stepped in under the first attacker's swing and deftly knocked him into a wall.
"Hey," he cried in apparent surprise, "This thing may be good for something after all!"
The other two moved into the fray, holding off the criminals easily and bantering among themselves as they fought.
"Armani!" called the pale-crested man. "What was that move Sech Westcastle kept trying to teach us?" Starting to turn toward his friend, he stepped backward, swung around, and caught the thug behind him square in the ribs. The victim fell howling and clutching himself in agony.
"Nah, that's not it," the older man replied. "It was like this..." He took a quick step backward, whirled and caught one man in the chest, then whipped the denn'bok around to crack another across the back. Both went down.
The first young man looked over from where he was holding off his own two attackers, one of them the man with the shortsword. "By Morg, I think he's got it..." he began, then turned back just in time to dodge a nasty swipe. "Do you mind?" he asked testily, cracking the swordsman across the knuckles. As the other man dropped the sword, he ducked down swiftly and scooped it up. As he rose with the blade in one hand and his pike in the other, a delighted and unmistakably bloodthirsty grin broke over his face. Both his opponents backed up hastily. All over the room, thugs were pulling themselves together and retreating, and in moments, Vir was alone with his three rescuers.
"Hey, guys, look at this!" the young man called, brandishing his confiscated weapon.
"Put it down, Alto," the other brunet admonished. "You know those things are illegal, and unlike the pikes," he added, snicking his denn'bok closed and slipping the resulting palm-sized cylinder back into his belt pouch, "they're too damn hard to hide."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," the first man sighed, "I just wish..." he looked sadly at the blade, turning it to catch the light from the doorway. As he watched, Vir blinked. He felt a swooping sensation, as though he were looking through a camera whose focus had abruptly shifted. For a moment it seemed to him as though it was his aide, Volga, who stood there, holding the Jaddo kutari in just that pensive fashion, while at his feet sprawled something...something too horrible to even look at. Vir shook his head, and the dizzy, breathless feeling went away, along with the vision.
As the three young men introduced themselves, they all made their way out of the half-destroyed building and back towards the nearest subway station. Vir's captors had taken him halfway across the city, to a much poorer part of town where hired groundcars rarely dared go, and it was much too far to walk back to the Imperial Quarter and Lord-General Marrago's estate. Fortunately, however, this branch of the Capital's extensive subway system was one of the ones that had been repaired -- the caved-in sections of tunnel restored and the maglev lines reconnected.
Ambassador Cotto was advised that his rescuers were named Alto, Prado, and Armani, and that they were at his service. He, in turn, professed himself eternally grateful for their assistance.
"So you're really an Ambassador?" asked Alto, his earnest expression mitigating the sting of his disbelief.
"Actually, yes," Vir replied. "To Babylon 5, you know. And...you're really Anla'Shok?" he asked in turn.
The three men exchanged wary looks.
"Well, almost..." said Alto, defensively.
"We were this close to the end of the training cycle..." added Armani, demonstrating with finger and thumb.
"And then the word came down about the Republic leaving the Alliance..." said Prado, shaking his pale head regretfully.
Armani snorted. "'Terminated without prejudice' was the way they put it."
"Kicked out, in other words," Alto explained helpfully.
"Booted out," corrected Armani.
"Unceremoniously," added Prado.
"Which is very unusual for Minbari," put in Alto. "You'd think they'd have had some old ritual lying around that they could have brushed off for the occasion," he went on, "but nooooo...just, 'see ya! take care! have a nice life!'" he tossed his head and strode on, angered anew by the memory.
Prado sighed. "They weren't happy about it," he explained, almost apologetically. "The High Councillor himself expressed his regrets, and Sech Durhan let us keep the denn'boks we'd been practicing with..."
"But they did it," snapped Armani, thin-lipped.
Vir didn't quite know what to say. "I...I had no idea," he began, feeling somehow responsible. Surely, as Ambassador and a personal acquaintance -- even friend -- of the Entil'zha, he should have had some idea that his people had been accepted into the Anla'shok -- and he certainly should have been aware that they had been...terminated. What a horrible word, he thought.
Armani shrugged. "There's no reason you should have, and it's not like you could have done anything about it. Anyway, here we are, home again on lovely Centauri Prime -- no jobs, no future, just the clothes on our backs, heads full of alien philosophy, and denn'boks instead of swords at our sides." He hitched at his cloak. Now that Vir had a chance to see them up close, he realized that his companions' fine garments were indeed worn, and overdue for cleaning.
Alto bit off a curse. "Man, I should have kept that sporoda."
"No, you shouldn't have." Prado repeated Armani's arguments as they clattered down the stairs and onto the platform. "Besides," he added, "It wasn't really a very good blade, anyway."
"I know, I know," Alto agreed reluctantly as they stepped onto the train. "Gods, do you guys know what I'd give to hold a well-made kutari in my hand again?"
"You don't have anything," Prado pointed out, just as the light-panel went on in the Ambassador's still unsettled mind.
"Wait a minute -- why don't you three come back to Babylon 5, with me?"
The adventurers looked at him in astonishment, then looked at each other. Vir kept talking, fleshing out his sudden inspiration as he spoke. He could stretch his meager budget to lend them the credits for passage, and once onstation, he would bet good money (actually, he would be betting good money) that his attache's cousin would hire them as instructors -- or they could join Security, or...at the very least, their prospects would be better than they seemed to be on Centauri Prime.
The ex-Ranger trainees were dubious -- until the Ambassador mentioned the name of Narandro Dok. At that they perked up considerably, and by the time they arrived at the station nearest the Marragos' estate the three of them had agreed to give it a try.
As they climbed the stairs (pink marble rather than plain grey concrete, in this part of town), Prado fell back to walk beside the Ambassador.
"When you woke up," the younger man asked hesitantly, "you said, 'where is he?' -- who were you expecting to see?"
Vir sighed and explained about Aragon Pernimi, the former Telepath Guildmaster who had fallen in with bad company and turned to crime, back on Babylon 5. Although the renegade had never actually been in Vir's mind during that time (for which the Ambassador was profoundly grateful), the sheer flavor of the man's personality (which he described haltingly to the young ex-Ranger trainee as 'a sort of bluish-violet moaning sound, with a kind of an oily feel to it, if you know what I mean...'), was unmistakable. Now that he thought back on it, he realized that his sudden terror during the fracas at the electronics store could easily have been induced by an accomplished telepath -- and he seemed to recall brushing against someone in the crowd. Prado nodded thoughtfully.
"His name is Pernimi, you say?"
"Yes -- why, do you know him?" Vir asked anxiously.
"No," the pale-crested man demurred, "but I know his kind."
Vir nodded, not understanding, but willing to take his word for it. A thought struck him then, and he hurried to catch up with the younger man again as they crossed the street.
"So, if you saw me on the Processional Way, how did you follow me all the way to...wherever it was we were?" he asked. Prado stopped and turned back to him, with the expression of a man looking for a safe answer. He never got a chance to try one, though, because just then, a shrill voice cut across the relative quiet of the upper-class residential neighborhood.
"Vir? Vir Cotto! Is that you?"
Vir looked over to where a rather large private groundcar had pulled to a stop in the roadway next to them. Its heavily-tinted back window slid down to reveal the bald head, sharp eyes and pursed berry-red lips of a petite, yet commanding lady of a certain age...
"Vir! Come here! I wish to speak with you!" the penetrating voice came again, and the Ambassador paled.
"Great Maker," he murmured, "It's the Empress!"
****************
G'KAMAZAD, NARN
Ta'Lon hit the doorlight button outside Councillor G'Kael's office. When the response came, he stepped inside to find the Executor discussing something with a woman, presumably his adjutant. On one wall of the spacious office, a vidscreen was running with the sound muted, showing an advertisement of the kind Humans traditionally sprinkled through their entertainment programs. He couldn't help wondering why the Executor Martial of the Narn Regime was watching a Human vidchannel, but before he could formulate the question, G'Kael smiled and waved him over.
"Good, you're just in time -- Na'Toth, this is Ambassador Ta'Lon, from Babylon 5. Ta'Lon, my adjutant, Commander Na'Toth. The two of you have something in common, by the way: Na'Toth was Ambassador G'Kar's aide, before the Day of Fire."
The two looked at each other with expressions of mingled wariness and curiosity. Finally, Ta'Lon spoke first. "The Ambassador spoke often of you, Commander. He greatly regretted your absence, these past few years."
"As did I," Na'Toth replied flatly, to which Ta'Lon's only response was a slight bow of acknowledgement.
So this was the man who had replaced her at G'Kar's side, Na'Toth thought with a twinge of envy. She noted the stolid build, characteristic of the polar peoples, and the rather commonplace features -- although the wide set of his eyes and the small, noncommittal smile that curved his lips hinted of more intelligence, and humor, than might be apparent at first glance. Then there was that sword of his -- Na'Toth was only vaguely familiar with the tradition of the katok, and what she did know seemed a little silly. And since when had Babylon 5 Security permitted people to wander around the station carrying arm-length blades, anyway? Probably some sort of compensatory psychological crutch, she decided, gleefully reapplying some of the psychobabble she'd been inundated with in the past few months. Although in all fairness, from what she had heard about events on the station since her departure she suspected the thing had come in handy a time or two.
But now this...commoner, this upstart, had been given G'Kar's place as Ambassador to Babylon 5 -- the place that should, by right, have been hers. Na'Toth's eyes flashed, and she set her jaw in sudden fury. Even as she did so, though, cold common sense quenched her flare of righteous indignation. She knew herself far too well to truly believe that she was suited to an ambassadorial position. Much as she had enjoyed working with and for Ambassador G'Kar, she knew she lacked the temperament -- and the patience -- to take the point position herself. She took a breath and returned Ta'Lon's bow, allowing the briefest of rueful smiles to flicker across her own face.
Ta'Lon, for his part, saw a tall, strikingly beautiful woman who carried herself with the proud grace of the natives of the equatorial plains. The flash in her eyes and the set of her jaw bespoke their famous temper, as well, he noted. From the tales G'Kar had related -- from her deception of the assassin Tu'Pari through her abortive shon'kar against the Dilgar general Jha'Dur to her heroic endurance in the dungeons of the Centauri -- he knew she possessed a keen intelligence, along with great courage and loyalty. He suspected, however, that she would have made a terrible Ambassador.
"Well," said Councillor G'Kael, interrupting their mutual appraisal, "if you two have finished snarling over G'Kar's figurative remains, I'd like you to take a look at this." He indicated the vidscreen, which had returned to its main program. Several heavily made-up and outlandishly-dressed people were standing around talking, while stars drifted unrealistically by outside the oddly-shaped viewports.
"Ah, the new 'Star Trek'," observed Ta'Lon. Ambassadors Cotto and Kullenbrok were both fans, and the Narn ambassador had attended several of their informal viewing-parties during the brief interludes between station emergencies. Na'Toth, however, looked completely bewildered -- even more so once G'Kael had explained the basic premise. Meanwhile, Ta'Lon's attention was captured by the characters on the screen.
"Sh'rakh!" he exclaimed, the oath causing the other two to look at him sharply. "Those are our people, wearing...feathers?"
G'Kael grinned at the Ambassador's outraged expression. "Yes, I understand there were problems with that at first. Several of our actors had trouble tolerating their makeup -- something about the glue, I believe. But once that was straightened out, the production went very well. In fact, Na'Haral, there, has been offered a continuing role, along with his Brakiri colleague," he added, indicating the dignified-looking alien in the pale wig and bright blue make-up. "Here we go," he said as the camera closed in on the Human captain, "this is the part I've been waiting for."
The sound came up, with the small, dark-skinned woman's English automatically translated into slightly-accented Narn. She gave the obligatory speech recapping the episode -- apparently both Brakirioids were from a species that would be allied with the Federation in the far future, but one of them (the one in restraints), had gone back into the distant past to disrupt the agelong partnership of his people with the feathered Narns, and only the intervention of the Federation timeship Pegasus, guided by the second Brakirioid, had restored the timeline to its destined course.
At that point, the Narn actor spoke his piece, reaffirming his people's friendship with those played by the Brakiri, and the blond-wigged actor finished up with a solemn homily about all species sharing in the Voice of the Universe...
"Isn't that..." began Ta'Lon.
"Straight out of the ISA Declaration of Principles," G'Kael confirmed. "A nice touch, don't you think?" The credits began to roll, and once he had pointed out the names of the Narns involved, he shut down the screen. Ta'Lon shook his head, laughing softly.
"Using an Earther vid program to carry the message of the Interstellar Alliance," he said. "Who would have thought it?"
"Actually," G'Kael replied, "whatever else you may say about their organization, the main theme of the various Star Trek series have always been tolerance and appreciation of the Unknown. Even Clark's regime did not dare ban them entirely, although they did shut down new production for a while. Now that they are back in business, the producers have been particularly creative about including more progressive elements, as you've just seen.
"I must admit, though, I prefer the classics myself: the original twentieth-century programs. Especially that one about the space station..."
"Deep Space Nine," supplied Ta'Lon, nodding sagely. "That one is particularly popular on Babylon 5, for..." his eyes glinted with humor, "...obvious reasons."
G'Kael smiled in return. "Indeed. It's strange, but at times I have found myself almost sympathizing with that Cardassian leader -- what was his name? Oh, yes, 'Gul Dukat'. Interesting coincidence..." he murmured thoughtfully. "...At any rate, it always seemed to me that his character was somewhat...underappreciated -- that perhaps his decisions would have been made differently, if the others had not always expected the worst of him."
Ta'Lon tilted his head, considering. "Possibly so," he acknowledged, "if the writers had allowed it. Personally, I tend to be more drawn to the stalwart soldier types -- the characters that are brought on for a single episode, as a focal point for some statement the writer is making, then get killed off or simply...disappear."
"Perhaps you see yourself in them?" put in Na'Toth, with a trace of teasing slyness. G'Kael's smile slipped a trifle.
"Perhaps," Ta'Lon allowed, "or perhaps they make me value my own, at least subjectively more complex, role in this theatrical we call life..."
At that moment, the light over the office door began to flash, in the stuttering off-rhythm that meant the person on the other side was pushing the button repeatedly.
"Come!" the Councillor called, and a cowled figure darted inside as soon as the door slid open. Na'Toth moved quickly to intercept, with Ta'Lon a split-second behind, and the Executor rose from his chair. Before they could reach him, however, the newcomer flipped back his cowl, revealing the crested head of...
"Carn Mollari!" exclaimed the Ambassador. Startled, the young man's glance darted toward the stocky Narn, but then, recognizing him, Mollari relaxed.
"Ambassador Ta'Lon," he acknowledged. "It's good to see you again."
"What are you doing here?" Na'Toth demanded. "I told you it was dangerous to leave the apartment..."
"Yes, I know, but..." Carn turned to G'Kael and Ta'Lon. "the building is in one of the less affluent quarters, that have still not recovered from...ah, well, anyway. The owners cannot afford to make the repairs needed to attract respectable tenants, so they rent to people who would rather remain...unnoticed by the neighborhood residential committee," he explained.
"The walls are very thin, and as I was resting, I overheard some Drazi talking in the next apartment. They were discussing..." he took a deep breath. "They are planning to poison the planetary water supply!"
"What?" burst out Na'Toth. Ta'Lon stifled an urge to reach for his katok, and G'Kael's eyes glittered dangerously.
"How, exactly, are they planning to do this?" he asked in a deceptively soft voice.
"Pergorris," Carn answered shortly, and Na'Toth bit off an oath.
The Centauri toxin had been developed early in the expansion of the Republic, to eradicate unwanted plant and animal life from planets targeted for mineral exploitation or ecoforming. It spread rapidly through the hydrosphere and was deadly to all known forms of life, but had a relatively short half-life, breaking down into harmless compounds within ten Centauri years. It had been outlawed more than two centuries ago, but scandals surrounding its illicit or otherwise surreptitious use continued to crop up on occasion.
"So that's what was in those shipments," G'Kael murmured.
Carn looked at him curiously for a moment, then went on to explain that the canisters had already been sent overland across the equator (still passable now, at the tag-end of the planetary winter) to the northern coast, where a former Centauri stronghold had been occupied by the Drazi's co-conspirators. Carn had not been able to tell, from the conversation, whether this was strictly a Drazi operation or not -- he didn't get the impression that these were official covert operatives, but he couldn't be certain.
At any rate, from this place the poison would not only immediately contaminate one of the two main reservoirs of the planet (such as they were), but would spread in the sparse spring rainclouds to the remaining inland watersheds. With the storms of spring to stir up the atmosphere, the southern hemisphere would soon be affected as well, and it would all happen too quickly for the effects to be counteracted or the populace evacuated. The death toll would be enormous, and once the poison was tracked back to its origin, it would be blamed on the Centauri, as evidence would indicate that the canisters had been stored there and released by remote control from an orbiting spy-ship.
"Did they mention the name of this stronghold?" asked Ta'Lon anxiously.
Carn nodded. "Yes, they called it...Nakh Tol." Seeing the Ambassador's frozen expression, he asked, "Why? Do you know it?"
Ta'Lon nodded stiffly. "I do." He turned to the Executor. "From the oldest days, the island of Nakh Tol has been occupied by pirates and brigands of the Northern Sea. When the Centauri came, they rebuilt the fortress there and used it as their headquarters to control the entire region. The island is a bare spire of rock, threaded by tunnels and hidden passages. The villagers..." he broke off, gritting his teeth, then began again. "The neighboring villagers have developed the habit of minding their own business, and avoiding the island. It is the perfect place for such an operation," he concluded, his voice taut with repressed emotion.
"How do you know so much about it?" asked Na'Toth. Ta'Lon stared blankly at her, but G'Kael answered for him.
"Tol Hodath, the coastal town nearest the island, is Ambassador Ta'Lon's home village," the Executor explained. "He...left there a long time ago." He turned, clasping his hands behind him to pace across the office and back. He stopped, considering the Ambassador, who was staring at the blank vidscreen.
"Ambassador, I am afraid I must ask a very difficult thing of you."
"You want me to go and stop them," Ta'Lon said immediately, his light tone belied by the tension of his stance.
"I cannot go myself," G'Kael explained, almost apologetically, "and although I have every confidence in Na'Toth's abilities," he went on, ignoring the startled look his new adjutant gave him, "your knowledge of the area would be invaluable."
"You forget that I have been declared konnamari in Tol Hodath," the Ambassador pointed out.
G'Kael shrugged. "You are not going there to live, or to become involved in local politics," the Councillor replied, outlining the restrictions of the traditional order of exile, "and there is certainly no reason you can't go back for a brief visit..." At Ta'Lon's mirthless laugh, he stopped right there.
"No reason," the other man said bitterly. "No, I suppose there is no longer any reason to stay away," he said quietly. He drew himself up, and looked at G'Kael with resolution. "When should I leave?"
"Tonight. This needs to be resolved as quickly -- and quietly -- as possible. Na'Toth..." the Executor began, but was interrupted by young Mollari.
"Executor -- if this was a Centauri stronghold, the security systems may still be operational. Without my knowledge of those systems, the Ambassador and the Commander may not be able to get in at all, let alone locate the contraband in time...I must go with them!"
"Certainly not!" exclaimed Na'Toth, but G'Kael was looking at the young man thoughtfully. After a moment, he nodded.
"It will be difficult, but if you are willing to take the risk, I believe it will significantly increase our chances of success. No, Na'Toth," he said, forestalling another outburst, "My mind is made up." He moved to his desktop comm unit and summoned someone named Tu'Honek. "I am sending this man to Lady Morella," he explained to Mollari, "to reassure her that you are all right, and will return in a few days. The three of you will depart immediately, by shuttle across the equator, and then..." the flashing of the doorlight interrupted his instructions.
The functionary, Tu'Honek, turned out to be a slight man of middle age, who was reduced to incoherent awe at the sight of Na'Toth. The Commander rolled her eyes, and Ta'Lon hid a grin behind his hand as he realized that the man was a Follower of G'Kar. He suspected that these people had been honoring G'Kar's former aide with almost the same fervour as they had the man they were beginning to call "Ha'Cormar'ah", or "Enlightened One". Whether it was Ta'Lon's nondescript appearance, his pragmatic discouragement of such nonsense, or something else, the Ambassador himself had had minimal trouble of that kind, and what did come his way he simply shrugged off. Na'Toth, however, with her more volatile temperament, was simmering visibly. Fortunately, Executor G'Kael managed to give the man his message and dismiss him before blood was shed, and the four of them set about making plans.
****************
SOMEWHERE ON MARS
Tessa woke to darkness and the thrum of shuttle engines. She was lying mostly on her back in a nest of what felt like rough sacking, with her hands bound in front of her and...yes, about three feet of slack in the shackles on her ankles. Underwhelmed by gratitude at her captors' consideration, she struggled to a standing position, ignoring the pounding in her head, and found the nearest wall by the simple expedient of walking into it.
From there she felt her way around to the nearest hatch -- locked, of course, but beside it was what she was really after: the light switch. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the glare, turning to scan the chamber. Yup, it was a standard shuttle's cargo compartment, all right, the back half taken up by the pile of empty sacks with Jensen and Lise crumpled in their own little nests. Some subliminal sense of the sound of the engines must have sent her in the right direction, otherwise she would have tripped over them. There was something, though...
She turned back to the doorway and found it -- over the switch, four screw holes and a line of grime showed where a small panel had been removed. She made her way to the rear hatch -- managing not to fall over the bags and bodies with her hobbled steps -- and found a similar scar there. Aside from that, there was nothing to identify the owners of the shuttle -- even the canvas sacks were plain and unmarked, as far as she could tell.
As she was rummaging around, though, she did manage to wake Jensen. The former Resistance fighter rolled quickly to a crouch, then put his head in his bound hands and moaned, sitting back on his heels. Tessa grinned mirthlessly.
"I had some aspirin in my bag. You think if we ask nice, they'll give it back?"
The tall Nepalese snorted -- then winced at the slight motion. "Not bloody likely." He sighed, and added, "I am so sorry..."
"Why, were you in on it?" Tessa rapped out, and he looked up quickly, despite the resulting pain.
"No! I was trying to warn you -- I spotted one of Allende's men on the way up, but there were at least two more already in position. Tambut said we had a leak -- I guess he was right." "Those were Chico's guys? Why the hell would they want to jack me? He could have just commed, for Chrissake!"
"Damned if I know," the man replied. "But it was his guys all right -- I spotted Martinez down in Kitchenware, and it was Tanner that shot us."
Tessa's eyes narrowed. "Did you see anyone else while you were at it? Private heat?"
Jensen shook his head. "No. Yours?"
"No. Hers." Tessa nodded toward Lise.
"Who she?"
"William Edgars' widow."
Jensen whistled. "You think maybe they were after her, and just picked us up as collateral? Or 'cause I recognized 'em?"
It was Tessa's turn to shake her head. "No, the way it went down, they could have grabbed her without us even noticing...well, maybe not," she ded, reconsidering. "Anyway, they know both of us -- no, this had to be aimed at me. If anyone's 'collateral', it's her...which means Chico just bought himself two worlds of trouble," she said with grim satisfaction. "The question is, why?"
"Well, there's some strange shit going down, with the election and all," Jensen replied thoughtfully. "Chico's got a line on some serious cash -- nobody knows where it's coming from, but he's been throwing it around like Syrtis fines. Vid spots, hardcopy pamphlets and posters, the whole nine meters. The rest of 'em -- Tam, Marina Rostov, Olaf Torkelsson -- have to rely on freemail and word of mouth, maybe a few handouts..."
"Maybe if the three of them got together..." Tessa suggested.
"They'd love to, but every time they set up a meeting, something happens. Last time, out at Alba Patera, the whole north side of the tent came about loose about ten minutes after Olaf got there. It took us two hours to get it secured -- seventeen people died, and most of the food crops were trashed."
"Damn," said Tessa appreciatively. Though much cheaper than domes, and under normal circumstances almost as safe, the huge polymer tents that covered many of the outlying settlements were subject to several kinds of disasters -- including sabotage. As she was considering just how much she didn't like the sound of all this, the sound of the shuttles' engines changed.
"Wherever we are, we're there," observed Jensen.
****************** Act Four *****************
CAPITAL CITY, CENTAURI PRIME
Vir looked sidelong at the woman sharing the passenger compartment of the groundcar with him. Her offer of a ride to wherever he was going had been more in the nature of a command, and he had barely had time to give his new friends his access code before being whisked away in the long, low vehicle emblazoned with the crest of House Mollari. Once he had explained his errand, however, she had made another offer -- one which sent a premonitory chill down his spine. "It was most kind of you to offer me a ride, Lady Timov, but there's really no need to...um..." he essayed.
"Oh, pish tush, Vir. I quite insist. You won't last a minute against Lady Drusilla, and I have little enough else to do these days anyway."
"Um, well, I wasn't exactly planning on going up against her. I mean, it's really more of a social call..."
The Emperor's wife shrugged, her pencilled brows and perpetually-pursed mouth assuming an expression that was, if possible, even more disdainful than usual.
"There's no other way when it comes to Drusilla Marrago," she declared. "Everyone who knows her is either against her or under her thumb -- except Marrago, of course, but then he is Lord-General, and I suppose that must count for something. But you, Vir -- even judging from our admittedly limited acquaintance, and despite all appearances," she added with a quick glance up and down his improved but still far from impressive person, "I suspect you are not one to remain under anyone's thumb for long. On the other hand, if you're left to your own devices you will undoubtedly make a complete muddle of things. Therefore I shall come along to make sure the two of you get off on the right foot."
The expression she used was Centauri, of course, and had nothing at all to do with feet.
"Then you know...that is, you know about the...um..." Vir fumbled, in a vain attempt to avoid putting one of his down his own throat.
"The marriage between you and Drusilla's girl? Of course!" Timov said briskly. "And I must say, from what I've heard, the two of you are showing remarkable good sense. Having the opportunity to get to know each other as people before being thrust into the bonds of matrimony is an incalculable gift -- you should make the most of it."
Vir was oddly gratified by Lady Timov's support, but could not help voicing his concern. "Yes, well, that's pretty much how we feel...at least most of the time. That is, when I'm not...or she's not...that is, if she ever does...which it certainly seems like..." the piercing, slightly quizzical gaze of the Emperor's wife brought him back to his original thread of thought with a snap. "Anyway, the Emperor seems to think..."
"Londo thinks a good many things that have nothing to do with reality," she pointed out. "More every day, if the reports I get are anything to go by," she added with a sniff.
Vir was confused. "The reports you get? But I would think...I mean, after all, you are his wife..."
Timov laughed -- a short, brittle sound. "I may be the Emperor's wife, Vir, but I am, as you know, far from being his confidant. In fact, he has yet to invite me to even visit the palace. Not that that's any great loss," she went on. "I've always detested the place, and the very idea of living there..." she shuddered fastidiously.
Vir looked at her in some bemusement. Of all the noble ladies he knew, he could not think of one who wouldn't jump at the chance to move into the Royal Palace. Well, maybe one, he thought with a small warm glow in the vicinity of his hearts. "So," he said hesitantly, "you're still living..."
"At the Mollari estate," she finished for him. "Aside from the workmen, it's very quiet there now, since the Jaddos have gone to Babylon 5 and Londo's nephews have moved into the Palace." She gave Vir a speculative look, and he braced himself for yet another interrogation on the whereabouts of Carn Mollari.
Lady Timov merely arched an eyebrow and said, "By the way, Vir, how is Lady Brettaria these days?"
When they reached Marrago's mansion, they were shown into a salon overlooking the expansive gardens at the back of the house, where sunlight streamed in through several sets of tall Velurian doors, valiantly attempting to brighten the conservative dark green of the walls and furniture. Lord and Lady Marrago awaited them there, the latter ensconced on a small sofa, her elaborate, low-cut gown blending into the upholstery as if specifically chosen to match it. Which, Vir thought, it probably had been. Lord-General Marrago, dressed in dull bronze brocade and looking even older and more tired than Vir remembered from his visit to Babylon 5 several months ago, stood by one of the tall glass doors as if edging toward an escape.
"Lady Timov, daughter of Algul, Ariana Mollari," declaimed the major-domo, "with Ambassador Vir Cotto." Vir noted that, indeed, Timov was using only the title that proclaimed her the senior wife of the head of a noble House, not the acknowledged consort of a reigning Emperor.
"My dear Lady Timov," said Lady Drusilla, in a voice whose waspish edge seemed engrained in the very lines of her finely-chiseled features. "How delightful of you to visit us in this...charmingly spontaneous fashion. Do sit down," she added grudgingly.
"As it happens," said Timov, perching primly on a spindly chair, "I passed by Ambassador Cotto on his way here. Learning that he was on his way to make your acquaintance, Drusilla, I decided to come along -- to keep him from being eaten alive."
"I see. Soooo..." Drusilla drew out the word, "since your Imperial Husband has deserted you, you've taken to chasing after his flunkies?"
"Drusilla!" snapped Marrago, aghast.
"Oh, it's all right, Jorah," Timov said dismissively. Drusilla's lips thinned even further. "Entertaining as the idea might be," (Vir threw her a startled look), "I understand that young Vir is betrothed to your daughter, and, as you know, I have never been one to tread in another's garden."
As a wave of color struggled with Lady Drusilla's makeup, Marrago cut in with an attempt to defuse the suddenly volatile conversation. "How is Lyndisty getting along, Cotto?"
"Oh, just fine, Lord-General!" Vir hastened to assure him. "She...um...sends you her love. Um, both of you, that is," he said quickly.
Lady Drusilla sniffed. "I don't know how fine she can be, gallivanting about that station of yours, associating with aliens and the gods know what sort of riff-raff..."
"I hardly think the Jaddos and Lady Brettaria Diana Plado count as riff-raff," Timov put in. "Although I have sometimes wondered if she might be an alien..."
"...And the work Lyndisty has been doing in Down Below is very important," added Vir earnestly. Lady Drusilla's hawklike glare swung his way again, and the Lord-General cleared his throat.
"Speaking of gardens, Vir, allow me to show you mine," said Marrago. "Since my return from Babylon 5, I have made remarkable progress with the klaridia beds -- I flatter myself you'll be impressed."
"But I...that is...of course, I'd be very interested in seeing your...um, ladies, if you'll excuse us?"
"We'll speak again, Mr. Cotto," Lady Drusilla promised. Vir gulped and followed Marrago out into the garden.
For a while they walked in silence, admiring the flowers. Klaridia, as Vir vaguely remembered, was a highly-hybridized and rather delicate perennial that came in various colors and changed hue as it aged, growing darker and taller with each succeeding season. Marrago had been working on his beds for several years now, and most of them showed carefully planned sweeps of rainbow blossoms. Two of them, however, contained only groundcover backed by a slender crescent of short, pale shoots -- places where the garden had been hit in the bombardment. From the back, Vir could see where one wing of the house had also been struck.
"Um, very nice," he said. Marrago said nothing.
"Do you know," the Ambassador tried again, "there's a man on Babylon 5 that I really wish I'd had a chance to introduce you to. He's a gardener, you see, and, um..."
"Vir," said Marrago, gazing off across the garden to the distant hills -- hills that formed part of the Imperial Preserve beyond the Palace. "How do you find our capital, these days?"
"Well, I took a groundcar in from the shuttleport..." Marrago gave him a sharp look. "I don't know, actually," he temporized. "I've only been back for a few days, you understand. But there seems to be a certain level of...um...restlessness and...well...dissatisfaction among the people. I'm sure it's just a matter of adjusting to the changes..."
"It is not," said Marrago. With that, he walked off down the path, peering closely at the blooms as he passed, hands clasped behind him. Vir hastened to follow.
"I have lived in this city all my life, Vir," the Lord-General continued, when the Ambassador had caught up. "I have seen factions and coalitions rise and fall. I have seen four Emperors and a Regency that led to disaster. I had thought that I had seen all the variations of political climate that our world had to offer, but I have never seen anything like the cloud of despair that has crept upon this city since the day Londo Mollari was proclaimed Emperor."
"You...you think Londo..." Vir said, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper.
"I think Londo has taken on the most difficult task that any Emperor has faced in the last thousand years," Marrago said grimly, "and I believe that there are forces working even now to destroy his reign -- and this Republic -- from within."
"But who...who are they?" asked Vir, his thoughts immediately flying to the ominous Durla. And Pernimi -- if indeed it had been the ex-Guildmaster who had attacked him earlier.
"That, I do not know," the Lord-General admitted. "But I have had...messages, communications from unknown persons who claim to be working for the restoration of the greatness of Centauri Prime. Persons whose motives I regard with the deepest suspicion.
"They say they want me to join them. They say I can be of immeasurable assistance, that with my influence at court, with the military, and even with the Centarum, I can help bring the Republic back to the glory of the old days," he looked at Vir, and the old man's depthless gaze seemed to pierce the Ambassador's soul.
Voices of the past echoed in Vir's mind -- those same words, those same sentiments spoken by Londo, and Refa, and others -- with a sigh that was too tired to be a curse, he dropped his gaze to the flagged pathway. A fallen klaridia petal lay there, its vivid blue fading to a sad violet along its shrivelled edges.
"It is possible," Marrago continued, "that this is simply a ruse by Internal Security -- a test of my loyalty. Such things have been done in the past, and not always without due cause. It is also possible that some...lunatic fringe of conspirators has taken it into their minds that I might be able to help them. However, there are also other possibilities. Darker possibilities."
"You say you've had...messages. Comm messages? Written messages? Strange people coming up to you in public places...?"
"All of those, and more. My communications specialists have been unable to trace the comm calls, or to prevent them, and I have thus far been...unwilling to involve Internal Security in this matter..."
"I can certainly understand that," said Vir. If there was a conspiracy afoot, the sinister Minister was at the very top of Vir's list of potential conspirators. "What...what have you told them?"
Marrago sighed. "The only thing I could tell them." He paused, and looked slowly around his garden, drinking in the rich color and vibrant life that flourished, heedless of the destruction that had been visited upon it only months before. Vir looked around, too, but could not help but think of the way the capital of the Narn homeworld had looked, the last time he had been there. If the cycle of pride and destruction continued, would Centauri Prime eventually come to resemble that ravaged world, after all the centuries men like the gardener, Ari Tefano -- and in his own way, Lord-General Marrago himself -- had struggled to preserve her?
"You must understand, Vir," said Marrago, gazing at the ruin of the guest wing. "If I were a younger man, and my position were not so...prominent, I would have no hesitation in going along with them, in order to determine who they are, what they want -- who they serve. But I cannot. Therefore I told them to leave me alone, that I would have nothing to do with their plans, or any action against my Republic or my Emperor.
"And I will maintain that stance, regardless of the cost. Do you understand?"
Again, Vir was pinned by the old man's gaze. He swallowed and nodded.
"Yes. I...I believe I do, sir. Perhaps..." he took a deep breath. "Perhaps I can do some checking around. At least while I'm here -- people don't tend to take me very seriously, you know, and sometimes things slip out..."
Marrago nodded. "Also, you have the ear of the Emperor..."
"I'm not so sure about that," Vir demurred.
Marrago looked at him thoughtfully. "Sit, Vir," he said, waving toward a stone bench. They sat.
"First of all," the old man said with a wry smile, "Men think you have the ear of the Emperor, and that may be enough to lure them to you. But more importantly..." he paused, organizing his thoughts.
"Monarchy is a cruel system, Vir," he went on at last. "Cruel to those it rules, and no less so to the rulers. To put a single man at the head of a galactic empire -- there are many among the other races, and even among our own people, who consider this pure madness. And madness can, indeed, be the price of Empire."
Vir nodded, thinking of the two previous rulers of the Centauri Republic, Cartagia and Varini, both of whom, if not insane to begin with, had quickly toppled over the edge. Was this to be Londo's fate as well -- and, according to Lady Morella's vision, his own? He thought of the poor souls trapped in the Shadow warships, and then, incongruously, of that odd Minbari, Draal, who had taken over the Guardianship of the Great Machine on Epsilon 3. In many ways, the office of Emperor entailed the same sort of symbiosis -- and, in all honesty, it scared him to death.
"And yet," Marrago continued, "what may be our greatest folly can also be our greatest strength. The center and pinnacle of our government is not a committee, or a council, or a set of laws and traditions that have been gnawed over through the ages by voracious hordes of lawyers, but a man. A living, breathing man with hearts and a soul.
"A man who knows doubt, and fear, and pain...and friendship. He needs you to be his friend, now as never before, even though he cannot allow himself to show it. For now, he must distance himself from all he has known in the past -- from anyone who might influence him, or sway his thinking.
"He is terribly alone, Vir -- and that is as it should be...as it must be. You, as his friend, must not allow this necessity to destroy your friendship. Your loyalty to Londo the man must hold firm, even though it may seem misplaced -- even betrayed. Do not simply look at the fact that he is pushing those close to him away, look at how he is doing it. That is where you will see the measure of the man.
"You, his protege, he appointed Ambassador to Babylon 5, where you are not only safely away from the Royal Court, but may even be able to do some good. As for the Jaddos..."
"Yes! The Jaddos!" Vir broke in. "That is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about. How could he do that to them -- send the whole lot of them off into exile like that? By all the gods, I don't need an attache -- it's all I can do to keep myself busy, these days!"
"But they needed a home, Vir," Marrago said gently. "When Mollari defeated Urza Jaddo in the morago, Urza's family became his responsibility. At first, he fulfilled that responsibility by making Urza's brother, Minz Jaddo, the overseer of the Mollari business interests -- this was in many ways a good thing, but it also bred resentment in...certain quarters."
Vir nodded, thinking of Kristo Mollari and his 'modifications'.
"With Minz dead and Londo's nephews raised to the Royal Court," the old man went on, "the rest of them were no longer safe here. So he sent them away -- to you, whom he trusts."
"I...I see..." said Vir, stunned. He'd never thought about it that way before, but once he did, it seemed so obvious. And what of Lady Timov, the one wife Londo had kept when he was allowed to divorce the others? Was his seeming neglect of her also a form of protection? Actually, he reflected, that had always been Londo's way -- the cruel things he did, he did openly, while kindnesses were always furtive, diguised beneath a mask of indifference and disdain. Vir sighed and shook his head.
"I'm going to have to think about all of this," he said.
"Then do so," replied the old warrior. "In the meantime, we should probably go back to the ladies, lest we find only a few scraps of bloodstained silk when we return!"
As Vir rose to follow he felt that swooping sensation again, and a shadow seemed to fall across Marrago's face. Vir looked up. The sky was clear. He opened his mouth to speak -- without having the faintest idea what he was going to say -- and a sharp pain lanced through his temples. He moaned, instead.
"Are you all right, Vir?"
Vir rode out the pain and answered when he was able. "Migraine," he gasped, "I've been taking my medicine, but sometimes..."
"I have some gannis I take for my back -- let us go see if it will help."
The Ambassador remembered just in time not to nod, and followed the Lord-General into the house.
****************
SOMEWHERE ON MARS
"Hey, Number One -- what was it you wanted to talk to me about, anyway?" Jensen asked.
"Please, just call me 'Tessa'. Right now I don't feel like Number One anything, unless it's Number One idiot!"
Something in the blonde woman's tired voice nudged Lise out of her own morbid funk. She had barely been conscious when the shuttle had landed -- the combination of her slight frame and direct application of the trank patch to her carotid had put her out much more deeply than the other two. She had still been groggy when they were dragged, manacled, into the office of a man she vaguely recognized from various Red Party ads and posters: Chico Allende, the former Resistance leader and labor organizer who had managed to bring half of the outback under his influence in the past year or so.
He was a tall man, deep-chested and broadshouldered, with the dark good looks of his Spanish and Amerindian ancestors. As he spoke, warmly, apologizing for the unfortunate circumstances of their meeting, Lise had almost begun to feel that the whole thing had been some sort of terrible mistake.
Then Tessa had snapped back at him, and the illusion shattered. Lise hadn't followed the details of the conversation, laced as it was with names and references that she was unfamiliar with, but the gist of it was chillingly clear. Apparently, Allende was being 'sponsored' in his bid for the Planetary Coordinator's seat -- and his sponsors were acutely interested in acquiring one Tessa Halloran, Director of Covert Intelligence for the Interstellar Alliance.
Lise, it seemed, was just along for the ride. In fact, Allende seemed perplexed as to exactly what to do with her, now that he had her. He couldn't just let her go, since by this point she had seen enough to seriously damage his P.R. effort, at the very least. Extortion of one sort or another was a possibility, but would have to be handled very carefully, due to (again) P.R. concerns as well as the growing reputation of her new husband as a man it did not pay to mess with.
Tessa's friend Jensen was another bit of unwelcome baggage. Once Tambut Singh learned of his lieutenant's capture, Allende's chief rival would spare no effort in tracking him down, and Lise had an unpleasant suspicion that Jensen's life expectancy would be measured in minutes once Allende's people were done interrogating him. For how, however, the three of them had been unshackled and shoved into a small barracks room, furnished with four cots and not much else. Lise rubbed her arms -- she'd gotten too used to decent heating, living in Bill's house for so long.
"It's about the weapons caches," Tessa was saying. "According to Main Dome Security, there's about half a dozen of them still out there, just waiting for some nutcase to get his hands on them."
"And you thought I'd know where they are?" said Jensen. He shook his head. "I'm no fonder of Security than the next guy, but something like that, I'd sure as hell have told somebody. That goes for all of us, from Singh's cell -- you know that!"
"Yeah, but what about the others -- like our friends out there?" Tessa jerked her head at the door. "I figured you might know somebody who knows somebody..."
Jensen's mouth tightened, and he nodded reluctantly. "I might, at that," he admitted. "Tell you what -- once we get out of here, I'll ask around."
"And how, exactly, are we going to do that?" asked Lise, a bit sharply. "We don't even know where we are! We could be halfway around the planet from Main Dome..."
"Not that far," Tessa assured her. "I wasn't out for more than an hour or two, and we got here pretty soon after I woke up."
"How do you know how long you were out?" Lise demanded. "They took our databands!"
"Yeah, I know, that's one of the things I'm trying not to worry about," Tessa replied. Lise swallowed as she suddenly realized what kind of files might be on the other woman's personal databand -- sure, they'd be encrypted, but as Michael had mentioned to her more than once, anything could be hacked.
"...But it's not that hard to estimate," Tessa went on, in answer to Lise's question. "Given the size of the darts, the drug they used and the probable dosage..." she shrugged. "Like I say, two, two and a half hours, tops."
"Which gives us a radius of, what, a couple thousand kilometers?" Jensen pointed out. "That's a lot of country."
Tessa agreed. "So our first order of business is to find out where we are," she said. "Then, if possible, split up. Jensen..."
"I'll keep them off you, you get Ms. Edgars..."
"Garibaldi," Lise corrected.
"Whatever," said Tessa. "I'll get her home, and you get your butt back to Tam and pass the word that Chico's a sellout. Normally I'm not one for interfering in local politics --" she grinned toothily at Lise's startled expression " -- but in this case I'm willing to make an exception."
"All right," said Jensen, slapping both knees and unfolding himself from the cot he was sitting on. "You want to do the honors, or shall I?"
"I'll do it -- you've got more reach," replied Tessa, to Lise's utter bewilderment. Without more ado, the blonde woman strode over and pounded on the door. "Hey!" she called, in an authoritative, penetrating voice. "You guys gonna let us go to the can, or do we have to piss down the air ducts?"
After about ten minutes of this, during which Tessa's demands grew progressively more colorful, the guard gave in and opened the door. Not being a proper cell door, it opened inward, and as the guard unwisely stuck his head in, Jensen reached around from behind it and grabbed him. Tessa deftly extracted the guy's PPG as he hurtled past on his way to a rendezvous with the floor, and a chopped-off "hey!" followed by a thud indicated that she had neutralized his partner as well.
Lise slipped out behind the two ex-Resistance fighters, sticking close to them as they made their way quickly and quietly down the hall. The dingy metallic walls were eerily similar to those she remembered from her frantic escape through the innards of Babylon 5 with Michael and Wade -- or that place those horrible people had kept her in after Bill...died. She shuddered. Every time it seemed like she finally had her life under control, something like this had to come along and blow it all to hell...and where was Michael this time? Babylon 5, of course!
Tessa raised a hand, and they came to a halt at the end of the corridor. Lise thought she remembered them coming from the right-hand cross-corridor, but after a moment Tessa gestured left, and off they went. A number of turnings and several stunned Red Party members later, they edged up to the doorway of a large hangar. Off to one side, partitions marked off an area containing computer equipment. At the moment, it stood empty, and the escapees managed to dart over there without alerting the men working on a shuttle in the main hangar.
Lise leaned in toward the console, where Tessa's databand was peeking up out of an interface slot. "What did they get?" she murmured.
Tessa shook her head in frustration. "I can't tell. Whatever they got was re-encrypted and stashed in a secure node. Damn." She sighed. "It just depends on whether their hacking program got through the algorithms yet or not -- the thing can't have been running for more than an hour or so."
Lise looked around for her own wristpad, but there was no sign of it. No doubt somebody had pocketed the expensive trinket, once they made sure there was no useful information on it. Tessa beckoned for Jensen to join her at the console, where she had brought up a map on the display. Lise was curious, but the Nepalese handed her his PPG and gestured for her to keep watch.
Swallowing nervously and gripping the weapon in hands that had suddenly gone cold and trembly, she peered around the partition. Yes, there were two men out there, working on a shuttle -- she stifled a gasp as she realized what they were doing: painstakingly removing the special heat-, cold-, and just about everything-else-proof paint of an Earthforce insignia on the vehicle's flank.
What did it mean? Was it Earth that was sponsoring Chico Allende's bid for power? But that didn't make any sense, Lise thought. Earth already had a voice in Hiram Esposito's Blue Party, and it was the Reds that were the most radically anti-Earth. So, how had Allende ended up with Earthforce materiel? Even -- she looked closer at the men doing the work -- yes, that one guy was wearing an Earthforce maintenance uniform, along with a blatantly non-regulation headscarf emblazoned with some kind of complex logo in gold on purple.
She looked around at the rest of the vehicles in the hangar. There was another shuttle, with a telltale scar on its flank also -- presumably the one they'd come in on -- plus an assortment of surface vehicles, from a full-sized rover to a pair of fat-tired scooters parked just inside the massive hangar doors. A touch on the shoulder made her jump, but it was only Jensen. With great relief, she handed the weapon back to him as Tessa explained their next move.
Moments later, Jensen ambled out toward the shuttle, hands in his pockets. The guy in the headscarf looked up.
"Hey, do I know you?"
"Nope," said Jensen. Then, as the other man looked over, "Yo, Chavez! You skimmin' with Earthers now?"
"What the...Jensen!" cried Chavez. He reached for his gun, but Tessa's bolt caught him in the shoulder first. Before the other man could react, Jensen's PPG was out of his pocket. Instead of firing it, though, he stepped forward quickly and swung a long-armed punch, catching the Earther upside the head with the butt of the weapon and crumpling him beside his co-worker. With a quick nod back toward the others, Jensen sprinted for the shuttle's access hatch.
As the two women dashed across the floor, Lise stooped and grabbed the incongruous (and now bloody) headscarf.
"Come on!" called Tessa from the open hatch of a four-man minirover. By the time Lise joined her in the drivers' section, the inner doors of the hangar were creaking open and Tessa had fired up the vehicle's powerful motor. They started off with a jerk, heading for the slowly opening doorway as the shuttle's engines began to grumble behind them.
The inner doors of the lock had barely closed behind them, the outer doors spilling humid oxy-nitro into the thin Martian air, when a klaxon began to sound. "Come on, come on!" muttered Tessa. The Reds couldn't re-open the inner doors without losing pressure in the hangar, and Tessa had disabled the system override, so they couldn't reverse the lock cycle from inside. There were undoubtedly personnel locks elsewhere in the complex, though, and probably external weapons emplacements as well. Every second of delay increased their chances of recapture -- or worse.
The moment the door cleared the minirover's height, Lise expected Tessa to gun it, but the blonde woman just shook her head grimly and sat tight. Suddenly the shuttle roared by, streaming sparks from its topside as it shoved its way under the slowly rising door. As the craft emerged, PPG bolts speared toward it -- at first mostly hand weapons that spattered harmlessly off the hull as it lifted into a tight bank around the base. Within seconds, though, heavier beams stabbed into the pale orange sky, a few scoring glancing hits on the military shuttle's armor plating. Ducking and weaving with surprising maneuverability, it sped off southwards, behind the canyon wall that the base was dug into.
Meanwhile, Tessa leaned on the throttle and sent the rover lurching across the valley floor and away up a side-canyon. A few shots pursued them, but most of the fire was concentrated on the shuttle.
"Won't they follow us?" Lise asked anxiously, fumbling with the controls for the side- and rear-view displays.
"I doubt it," gritted Tessa, just as an explosion tore through the cliffside behind them. "It's amazing what you can do with environmental control systems, given a little imagination," she added, a bit smugly. She drove with grim concentration, careening the sturdy vehicle along the rocky surface. Lise, turning her attention to the navigation system, managed to bring up a medium-range schematic, covering perhaps a hundred square kilometers of tumbled canyonlands. Something about the formation tugged at childhood memories...
"I know where we are!" she cried.
"Melas Chasma," Tessa said, preempting her. "About a hundred and fifty klicks south of the Main Drag," she added, referring to the Valles Marineris: the great gash across the face of Mars that made the Grand Canyon look like a bike rut.
"There's some icons here -- if the one behind our marker is the base, then there's some sort of installation about sixty klicks east, but it's over some rough country..."
"That's what this baby's made for," Tessa assured her.
"Take a left -- that slope should take us up and over into another canyon that will get us closer..."
"Hang on," called Tessa, and the rover heaved up the slope on its tough, oversized tires. As they came up high enough to see over the canyon walls, Lise spotted a bright streak across the southern sky.
"Is that..." she said, just as it flared, then died.
"Jensen," said Tessa quietly. She shook her head. "Which way now?"
Lise swallowed and looked back at the display through suddenly misty eyes. "North -- I mean, right. There should be a turnoff about three klicks up..."
"Fine. You drive for a while."
"What?!?"
"You can drive one of these, can't you?"
"I...my uncle let me drive his scout a few times..."
"Great. Just keep her steady. This thing has a transponder on it somewhere, and I've got to disable it before they regroup and come after us."
Gingerly, Lise took the controls. Her heart seemed stuck in her throat for the first kilometer or so, as she kept darting glances at the schematic and the peripheral-view displays, then quickly looking back out the front port, squinting to make out the best path among the shadowed boulders. Gradually, though, she fell into a rhythm, and after a while she even remembered to breathe.
Tessa came out from under the copilot's console with a wire-dripping chunk of hardware. "Got the little sucker," the blonde woman crowed. She tossed the transponder into the back of the compartment and settled into the copilot's seat, flicking on her console's navcomp monitor.
"Now..." she said, lacing her fingers together and stretching them out in front of her, "Now comes the fun part!"
****************
NORTHERN COAST, NARN
The early-morning frost still sparkled on scraggly weeds lining the roadway as the sturdy rihat -- a six-wheeled combination minibus and pickup truck -- made its way through the outskirts of Romanessar, half a world away from the Narn capital. Ta'Lon had driven this road, to and from the provincial transport hub, many times in his youth. The last time had been as a bitter and disillusioned young man, leaving his home with no destination, no goal other than to put as much distance as possible between himself and his family.
The sense of familiarity as he came back along that same road, more than twenty years later, was jarring -- all the more so for the many changes that snagged his eye. The tumbledown buildings, some of which had been brand new the last time he had passed this way; the gaunt exhaustion of the people, even now, three years after the Centauri scourge had been banished from their world. Here in the far North -- about as far as one could get from the inland population centers and still be on the same planet -- direct hits from the mass-driver attack had been few, but the tremendous quantity of dust kicked up by the impacts had taken months to even begin to settle out. Even now, dirty brown streaks marred the pale golden clouds and hazed the peach-colored sky even on the clearest days. Dead trees stood or lay fallen, and the year's new growth had a wan, sickly tinge instead of the normal healthy spring-olive.
"Nah, looks like we might finally get a decent mahok crop this year," the driver -- a local man -- informed them. "Not to say we ain't grateful for them biomass converters," he hastily assured his passengers. He had obviously pegged them immediately as some kind of high-up official from the capital and her assistants. "Garn, without them the cattle woulda died off afore the sun come back, and us with 'em. It's just, well, mosta the scrub brush around here is that there tanka weed, and the taste gets into everything -- not just the cakes themselves, but the meat, milk, cheese...after a while..."
After a while, Ta'Lon tuned out the old man's nattering. The road wound slowly up the east wall of the deep-cloven river valley to the rolling plains above, where it cut northeastward another hundred kilometers or so to Tol Hodath on the coast. They crested the bluffs just as the sun peeked out of some cloud cover, sending long golden fingers to wake glints of crimson, violet and bright yellow from the early wildflowers and turn the scrubland into a rich tapestry of tenacious dark-green vegetation and rusty earth. Ta'Lon, practical and unromantic as he always liked to consider himself, could not help but feel something in his spirit coming awake at the panorama that spread out before him. Whether he was riding toward some sort of resolution, at last, or to more pain, he had no idea, but he knew in his soul that one chapter -- no, more like a whole volume -- of his life was closing, and another opening, marked by this morning's drive.
"What's that?" asked Na'Toth from the seat beside him. Ta'Lon and the driver looked over -- Carn Mollari was still curled up under his cloak in the back, catching up on his sleep. Off across the plain, a crescent-shaped grandstand rose above the scrub, its open end pointing back toward the distant hills.
"Why, that's the Romanessar Raceway, Missy," said the driver. "Don't tell me you never heard of the Ro'Mana 200?"
"Of course, but I didn't realize that it was here," the Commander replied. Ta'Lon smiled reminiscently. The ancient network of roadways that spanned the planet had evolved from foot-trails broken by intrepid explorers into paved highways bearing carts, riding beasts, and, for more than a thousand years now, powered vehicles. Roadracing, of any and all varieties, was a deepseated racial passion -- although the Human sport of baseball was gaining popularity in the cities. One of Ta'Lon's childhood dreams had been to race on that track someday, and giving up that dream had been one of the more difficult parts of his exile.
Na'Toth shook her head, smiling and shrugging her heavy coat closer around herself. At Ta'Lon's inquisitive look, she said, "It just reminds me of something from Babylon 5. There was a woman there, G'Nala, who kept trying to talk Mr. Garibaldi into bringing his antique Earth motorcycle here to Homeworld, to race."
"Mr. Garibaldi rides a two-wheeler?" Talon said, surprised. "I would have thought him more of a stock car man, myself."
"He built it himself," she explained. "Of course, that little Minbari, Delenn's aide, did help him with it."
"Lennier?" Ta'Lon chuckled. "Now that one, I can see as a bike racer!"
"Indeed? Things have changed," she observed with some surprise.
"All things change, Commander," the Ambassador reminded her. "Change is in the Nature of the Universe..."
"Please!" said Na'Toth, rolling her eyes. Ta'Lon chuckled -- apparently one Ambassador rambling on about the Nature of the Universe was enough for her.
"So what do you think of the new Captain?" she asked then, starting off a spirited discussion of the current state of the station. As he brought her up to speed ("How many wives does he have?"), the driver slotted an audioprogram up front and drifted off into his own little world. When Ta'Lon mentioned Dr. Hobbs, though, she frowned thoughtfully. "Is that the red-haired man with all the face-fur, from Medlab Two?"
"No, you're thinking of Dr. O'Rourke. Dr. Hobbs is a little light-brown woman, with black hair -- I believe she rotated between the Medlab facilities before becoming Chief of Staff."
"Ah, I think I remember her now -- I never did know her name, though."
"Indeed? If I had an aide, I would expect her to be familiar with the names and qualifications of all of the higher-ranking station staff."
Na'Toth glared at him in startled affront, but he just smiled. "That was a joke, Commander," he explained, with a gentle hint of condescension.
"I see," she said frostily. "Well. I always enjoy a joke, once I know about it. Perhaps you will give me a little more advance warning, next time."
It was Ta'Lon's turn to stare -- she held his gaze, expressionless, for a long moment, then a corner of her mouth quirked. "That was a joke, Ambassador."
He laughed, and felt a small thrill go through him at her answering throaty chuckle. To cover his sudden discomfiture, he reached over to open the cooler they had brought from the shuttle.
"Let's see -- what have they packed for us...bread, cheese...ah, komarr berries. Would you like some?"
As she took the small packet from him, their eyes met. Ta'Lon cleared his throat and looked away politely, abruptly remembering that a gift of fruit was sometimes used as a courtship ritual in the southlands. Na'Toth frowned, however, looking down at the packet as though she had never seen such a thing before. After an awkwardly long period of silent contemplation, she nodded sharply and took a deep breath.
"Ambassador. I have a proposition for you."
When he heard her proposition, Ta'Lon nearly choked on his cheese sandwich. "Commander," he said quickly, "you have already proven your ability to make a joke..."
"This is no joke, Ambassador. I seriously believe that this is the best solution for both of us. I will get the Rehabilitation Committee off my back, you will have an obvious link to Homeworld, and...and the fact that we reside in separate star systems will effectively prevent any...inconvenient entanglements."
Ta'Lon sat back in his seat, completely at a loss for words. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly several times before his diplomatic skills finally came to his rescue. "I see," he temporized. "I admit there is a certain logic to it, although I'm not sure how the Diplomatic Committee -- or the other Ambassadors on Babylon 5 -- would react to the idea of a Narn Ambassador with pouchlings..."
"Nonsense," she said quickly. "Everyone knows that a man with young children is the best choice for a position of authority. His judgement is better, his perspective is more grounded in everyday reality and less prone to flights of idealistic fancy. Besides, Human women manage it all the time, and *their* young are much more difficult than ours."
Ta'Lon smiled to himself, thinking of young Akili and Jojo, back on Babylon 5, and of his own young sons..."You should know," he told the Commander, "that I have had pouchlings before."
"Good," she said, a little too sharply. "Then you, at least, have the required experience. Where are they now, if I may ask?"
"That...is one of the things I intend to find out," he replied softly, looking out the window again.
It was midday by the time they rolled into Upper Tol Hodath. Here, neatly-kept gardens spilled gracefully (if a bit wanly) down terraced slopes toward the bay that glinted like a great copper coin beneath the noonday sun. Below, on a wide, rocky beach, the ramshackle buildings of Lower Tol Hodath clustered around half-a-dozen wharves that extended out into the water.
Na'Toth was peering at the houses, which were built in the northern style, airy and open to the sun. Ta'Lon was looking out the window, too, absently noting the inevitable changes, but his mind kept circling around to Na'Toth's 'proposition'. He had managed to put her off, politely, and -- he hoped -- without hurting her pride. Pride was all that was involved, he felt sure. Her tight control and brusque delivery during the brief discussion had betrayed her discomfort and distaste for the idea -- which, of course, was the crux of the problem.
Narn ideas of romance were not Human, and Ta'Lon was certainly not holding out for the kind of relationship that, for instance, Sheridan and Delenn had. However, he did feel rather strongly that 'getting it over with' was not an appropriate attitude for a prospective parent of any Narnlike species. Nor, quite frankly, was it the kind of attitude he looked for in a bedmate -- even one as attractive as the Commander.
In fact, his very attraction to her was precisely what inclined him so strongly against her request: she deserved more than that -- from him, and from herself. Yet he could not bring himself to refuse her outright, since his treacherous imagination persisted in tantalizing him with images of what could be, if her attitude were to change -- if she ever came to...appreciate him as he was beginning to appreciate her...
Fortunately, just his thoughts reached that rather disconcerting juncture, they pulled up in front of the guesthouse. As they had agreed, Na'Toth took the lead in the checking-in process, while Ta'Lon shepherded the heavily-cloaked (supposedly ill) Carn Mollari up to their suite. Even so, Ta'Lon was certain that their arrival -- his arrival -- had not gone unremarked.
His forebodings turned out to be well-founded. Carn was just exclaiming at the view, so totally different from anything he had expected to find on this 'devastated' world, when there came a flash at the door. As Na'Toth's putative assistant, Ta'Lon went to answer it, while Mollari quickly ducked into an inner room (while it was by no means certain that the first provincial Narn to recognize the young man as a Centauri would immediately leap on him and try to rip his throat out, they had judged it prudent to keep him out of sight as much as possible). When the inner door had closed, Ta'Lon opened the outer, to face an imposing older woman dressed in the flowing robes of a village elder. She looked Ta'Lon up and down with an expression of fierce contempt.
"So, it is true. You have returned," she stated. The Ambassador bowed slightly, but said nothing. This seemed to annoy her even more. From behind him, Na'Toth's clear voice cut the air.
"Who is this...person, Ta'Lon?"
Ta'Lon almost smiled. The Commander was nothing if not quick on the uptake. "Commander Na'Toth," he replied, turning as if placatingly toward the tall woman. "May I present Elder Ro'Hola of Tol Hodath."
The two women eyed each other warily. Dismissing the younger woman as a mere *kiawa*, or inlander, thus of little consequence in the village politics that made up her world, Ro'Hola returned her attention to Ta'Lon.
"Why are you here, konnamari?" she snapped.
"He is here with me," Na'Toth replied sharply, "on important business for the Kha'Ri."
The older woman's eyes kindled with anger. Gratifying as Na'Toth's support might be, Ta'Lon realized, it was only delaying the inevitable, and perhaps even making things worse than they needed to be -- if that was, indeed, possible. He knew that this was a conversation that would have to be gotten through sooner or later, if they were to succeed in their mission, and sooner was probably better than later.
"Commander," he said, "the Elder and I have some...family business to discuss. We shall do so outside, where you will not be disturbed."
Na'Toth caught his eye, and at his nearly-invisible nod, gave way. "If you must," she said disdainfully, then cast a glance at the door behind which Carn Mollari waited. Ta'Lon nodded again, then gestured for the older woman to precede him. Gathering her robes about her as if to avoid his proximity, let alone touch, Elder Ro'Hola moved off down the hallway.
****************
MELAS CHASMA, MARS
Tessa was back under the rover's main console, having gotten the information she needed out of its computer. As she worked, she found her mind drifting, oddly enough, to Stephen Franklin -- presumably safe and sound back on Earth with nary a thought for his long-distance lover, who was fleeing for her life at a significantly shorter distance than usual.
For many years, this kind of thing had been her life -- this headlong jumping from frying pan into fire and back again. Stephen had fallen into the midst of that, and his combination of bright-burning energy, untarnished idealism, and gentle empathy had given her a sort of emotional lodestone...as well as some much-needed distraction. Lately, though, they seemed to be walking different roads -- which was only to be expected, given that they were living in different star systems and doing very different kinds of work. Maybe if their bond had been deeper to begin with, they might have been able to sustain it better -- or maybe if they put more effort into sustaining it, it would have deepened, regardless of the distance.
What it came down to, Tessa admitted to herself at last, was whether she wanted it to deepen. Whether he wanted it to was another question, but before she could even let herself dive into those deep waters, she had to figure out what she herself wanted. Unfortunately, this was all tangled up with who she was, her fears, her goals -- and what were her goals, anyway? She had taken the job as DCI partly to cement the agreement with the Alliance, and partly, she had to admit, out of frustration and disillusionment with the way the new Mars Government was shaping up. Reactive, not proactive, decisionmaking, she realized. That would have to change.
The more she thought about it, though, the more clearly she realized that whatever path she walked for the next few years, she was going to have to walk alone and wholehearted, not clinging to a connection that, however blissful it might be when they were together and able to forget about the rest of their lives, was not actually contributing to those lives. She had moved beyond "seizing the moment", and so had he -- and it wasn't really fair to him to keep things in this kind of limbo between them. The last time they had been together, when Delenn had had her baby, they had both known that a decision had to be made, but they had managed to avoid making it. Now...well, once she got out of this one, she thought ruefully...it would have to end.
It wouldn't come as a surprise to him, she told herself -- and despite his badly-hidden fears, it would have nothing at all to do with Colin.
Colin Ferris, she thought then, reaching for another connection. Navcomp, steering linkage...Psi Cop. From the very beginning, her deep-rooted hatred of the fascistic telepath organization had been at war with her instinctive sympathy for the man that wore the black uniform. As Babylon 5's inevitable sea-change had been wrought in him -- and in the rest of them, as well -- she had come to think of him as a friend...perhaps more than a friend.
How much more? Here was a man whose path walked beside hers, whom she saw and worked with almost daily...and who was a telepath. Although his deeply-ingrained ethics and rigorous training would keep him from entering her mind against her will, any...deepening of their relationship would bring with it the possibility of her opening herself more fully than she had ever imagined -- or was sure she really wanted to imagine. And what of his needs? Was it even possible for a telepath and a mundane to have an intimate relationship? She remembered the bond that had sprung up between him and that other telepath, Tolmanes. The connection between them had fairly shimmered, even to her mundane senses, and although, for whatever personal reasons, they had apparently parted without any sort of commitment, Tessa wasn't at all sure she wanted to take on that level of competition.
Speaking of competition, she thought with a grin, Colin's friendship with the Captain showed signs of testing those limits of intimacy between telepaths and mundanes Tessa had just been wondering about. Better her than me, she decided ruefully. After all, as the ex-wife of a man who had come back from the dead and been inhabited by a Vorlon -- the same one who had recently bequeathed his remaining memories to Colin, at that -- Elizabeth Lochley was arguably better prepared to deal with the issues involved. Besides, attractive as the guy unarguably was, when it came right down to it, she really felt more sisterly toward him than anything else. Of course, never having had a brother, she couldn't really be sure...her grin suddenly turned fiendish.
So Garibaldi was her cousin, was he? Good thing she hadn't shot the guy...
"Hey, Tessa?" Lise called from above, derailing Tessa's train of thought. Instantly alert, she began to scramble out from under the console.
"No, it's all right -- I was just wondering something," the other woman assured her. "You and Chico seemed...well, you seemed awfully well acquainted. I mean, stop me if I'm getting too personal, but I couldn't help noticing a bit of an edge when the two of you were going at it back there."
Tessa chuckled. "You could say that," she admitted. "When I first started working for the Resistance, I came out to Marineris and ended up working under Chico..." at a small, stifled noise from the driver's seat, she grinned. "Yeah, well, what can I say? He was bold, and dashing, and an irresistible romantic figure to a naive, idealistic young college girl like I was at the time. That wore off rather quickly, though, and by the time I got back from an extended mission with Tambut Singh -- Chico's second in command, at the time -- well, let's just say that things started to get a bit...tense between the three of us. Soon after that, Tam and I went back to head up the Resistance at Main Dome, while Chico stayed here in the outback."
Lise snorted softly. "And let me guess...Chico Allende is not the kind of a guy who likes to lose -- at anything."
"Yeah, well, neither am I," said Tessa grimly. "There, I think that's got it." She pulled herself out from under the console, put her tools away, and came to stand behind the driver's seat. "I'll drive for a while," she said. "You hit the head and, if you don't mind, could you put some sandwiches together? I think we're going to need them."
As Lise moved off toward the back of the minirover, the last rays of the setting sun struck crimson fire off the rocky face of the canyon wall.
****************
TOL HODATH, NARN
"Sh'rakh, it's cold out here," Na'Toth complained, shivering in her hooded synthetic coat. Beside her, comfortable in his everyday jacket, Ta'Lon grinned, taking the crisp sea air in deep breaths that made the southern woman's lungs hurt just watching them. In the shadows under the rocks, she could swear she saw traces of frost lingering, even this late in the day. She shivered, and tried to walk faster, hoping to generate enough body heat to ward off the arctic chill.
A few lonely seabirds cried raucously, wheeling through the pale peach sky above them as they walked along the stony shoreline. Just because the sentient race happened to be reptiloid did not mean that Narn lacked for bird-analogs -- or mammaloids, for that matter -- although the fish had, indeed, been casualties of Centauri exploitation.
The seas were far from lifeless, though, even now. Indeed, it was life -- alien life, imported by the Centauri -- that had nearly destroyed the native marine ecology. As they approached the water, Na'Toth began to make out long, sinuous dark shapes swirling ominously just beneath the surface.
"Overgrowth from the kelp beds," Ta'Lon explained. "They try to contain it, but the stuff was tailored to thrive in our waters -- and it does so, far too well."
Na'Toth nodded. "I have heard about this," she said. "The stuff still makes up a large proportion of our exports, though, does it not?"
"Indeed. Several other species besides the Centauri consider it a delicacy, and there are engineered varieties that have medicinal value, as well. Since the fishing began to fail, in my grandfather's time, the local economy has shifted almost entirely to the kelp beds. Cultivating the very species that destroyed our own traditional livelihood..."
"Where are they, exactly?" Na'Toth interrupted briskly. "I was expecting to see them as we came into town."
Ta'Lon pointed to the promontory up ahead. "Just beyond that point."
As they crested the ridge, the next stretch of coastline lay spread out before them, curving around for another league or so to a yet higher ridge -- a veritable wall of reddish rock that ran out into the sea, protecting the shore behind it. The calm waters within were dark with kelp, and criss-crossed by the narrow causeways the workers used to tend the beds. On the beach behind them, clusters of long, low sheds and assorted maintenance buildings took up most of the level space and ventured up the slope. Most of the workers were gathered around these for the daymeal, but a few tended to other tasks, including several men or women in small boats at the edges of the beds, working on the outer fences. Beyond them, some distance out beyond where the ridge sank beneath the waterline, it rose again; a sharp, forbidding spire of stone, concrete and metal looming out of the sea.
"Nakh Tol," said Ta'Lon unnecessarily.
As they made their way down the slope, a small open cart trundled toward them on the main road back to town, a little ways inland of the path they had taken. When they got closer, Na'Toth could see that it was driven by an old man, perhaps in his 150's or so, who seemed to be shouting something at the top of his lungs. A smile tugged at her companion's mouth, and he turned their steps to intercept.
At about the time Na'Toth realized that the old man was actually singing -- a badly mutilated selection from one of her least-favorite operas, at that -- he abruptly shut his mouth, stopped the vehicle, then allowed it to drop open again. Ta'Lon stood in front of the cart in a confident parade rest, with that small, self-mocking smile playing across his lips. Na'Toth, standing behind him, could see how tightly his hands were clenched together.
"Dai?" the old man called. He rubbed his eyes and peered more closely at the younger man. Suddenly, a delighted grin lit up his face and he sprang spryly from the cart to practically run up and embrace Ta'Lon.
"Dai! It is you! After all these years!"
"It is 'Ta'Lon' now, Grandfather, as you know perfectly well," the Ambassador chided affectionately, enfolding the wiry old man in his own powerful embrace. Na'toth could not help smiling herself as they spoke quietly together, Ta'Lon's expression more open and unguarded than she had yet seen it.
Eventually, he remembered her existence. "Na'Toth!" he called, beckoning her over. "This is my father's father, Ro'Galt. Grandfather, this is my...associate, Commander Na'Toth. We have come from the Capital on business, and can only stay for a few days."
The old man sighed. "Probably just as well, boy, but it's good to see you, nonetheless." He looked at Na'Toth, dark red eyes glimmering within the folded wrinkles of his eyepatches. "Another unbeliever," he said at last, shaking his head. "I won't hold it against you, though, lass, although some around here might." To the deeply conservative and technically monotheistic followers of Ro'Man, she knew, the casual "Na" faction were the worst sort of infidel -- second only to the radically secular "Ta". For the first time it occurred to her to wonder how a child of the provincial "Ro'Mana Belt", as it was called inland, had chosen to follow the teachings of Ta'Kor. Sensing that this was not the best time to ask such questions, she merely bowed her head in reply.
"Have you seen your mother yet?" asked Ro'Galt.
"No, but I spoke with Aunt Ro'Hola at the guesthouse," Ta'Lon replied. The old man snorted.
"I can imagine what she had to say. Pair of stuck-up bitches, the both of them. Especially now that Ro'Hola has been named Elder, and Ro'Vana has taken over the family business. Never could figure what your father saw in that woman -- other than her money, and little enough good that's ever done us," the old man grumbled.
"Ah, now, Grandfather, I did not come all this way to hear about old grudges! Tell me about the family -- how is Uncle Ro'Gar? Aunt Ro'Shorin?"
"Ah, well...Ro'Shorin's moved up to Upper Tol Hodath now -- got a good deal on one of the new houses up on the ridge when old Ro'Tarok went bankrupt. Ro'Gar, though..." the old man's face went tight. "He...was killed by the Crested Devils when they came back." He sighed heavily. "It was a hard time, boy. A very hard time -- for all of us." He looked up into the younger man's eyes, his own bearing more than one man's share of grief. Na'Toth saw Ta'Lon's jaw tighten as he steeled himself for the next question.
"Ro'Laren? The boys?"
The old man said nothing, only looked at him searchingly, for a long moment.
"Come with me," he said finally, climbing back into his cart. The other two followed as the little vehicle trundled up the ridge road and along the brush-covered spine of land leading back behind the town. Soon enough, they came to an open meadow surrounded by stunted zhalwa trees, most of them standing dead and leafless in the midafternoon sun. The old man dismounted and led them between overgrown slabs of wood, set flat into the tops of low mounds of moss-covered earth. He stopped before one such row of mounds, looking sadly back at Ta'Lon.
Wordless, the younger man knelt before one of the mounds, stretching his hand forth to caress the weathered wood. From where she stood, Na'Toth could tell that the carvings on this one and its neighbors were relatively fresh -- no more than three or four years old. As Ta'Lon turned his blank gaze to the next two mounds, she read their inscriptions over his shoulder.
Ro'Thol and Ro'Ton, pouch-brothers, aged twenty-two when they were killed by the Centauri.
Ro'Laren, natural causes, forty-six.
"She raised 'em up good," Ro'Galt was saying, "but they were their father's boys -- and their grandfather's. Couldn't keep their tongues behind their teeth, and when they got together with their Great-Uncle Ro'Gar, who never did have enough sense to choke a mackerel..." he trailed off sadly.
"And Ro'Laren?"
"Ah, she was gone by then, poor lass. Waiting for them in the Garden of the Saints, I daresay," he added with rough piety. Ta'Lon snorted softly.
"What was it?" he asked. Then, as the old man hesitated, he turned to pin him with a swordsman's fierce glare. "What WAS it?" he asked again, soft and deadly.
Ro'Galt dropped his own eyes before the crimson fire in his grandson's.
"Tokh'on'Morr," he whispered. Ta'Lon's face clenched in pain, and he turned back to pound the earth of the grave with his fist, over and over, in grief and anger too deep for words.
Na'Toth thought she understood why. The disease was relatively rare, and fatal if untreated, weakening its victims gradually before its final assault on the lungs and kidney. It was curable, but the drugs and therapies required could only be found in the cities. If it had struck during the Occupation, there had probably been no way to get the woman proper treatment. For perhaps the millionth time, rage at the heartless depredations of the Centauri rose in Na'Toth's throat.
"Nah, well, then, I have to get the cart back," Ro'Galt was saying. "Come see me back to the house when you...get through here," he added. At a wordless nod from his grandson, he cast a quick look back at Na'Toth, clambered back into his cart, and drove off. There was no singing, this time. Na'Toth wondered if she should leave Ta'Lon alone, too, but something in the dejected set of his shoulders convinced her to stay.
"Another mark on the endless tally against the Centauri," she said sympathetically, but he shook his head.
"No, this cannot be laid entirely on their hearth," he replied. "The boys, yes -- although such a fate is hardly unexpected. I, myself, would not have lasted much longer under the Occupation -- it was, perhaps, a small miracle that I managed to get to Babylon 5 when I did. But she..." he shook his head again. "It would have been no different, for her."
"I don't understand," said Na'Toth. "Surely, if not for the Centauri, she could have been treated..." Ta'Lon laughed -- a short, harsh sound.
"Remember where you are, Na'Toth. This is Ro'Mana -- home and heartland of the First Saint, four thousand years before G'Quon united the Southlands. It was from this very shore -- about fifty leagues west of here, in fact -- that she sailed for the Uttermost North, after healing the Seventeen Acolytes. And did She not instruct us..." he went on, his voice falling into a bitter mockery of the singsong cadence of a Speaker, "that the gift of healing is reserved to the God and Her Saints above -- that if we trust not in Them Alone, we shall be cast out into the icy darkness forever?"
"I suppose, if you say so," said Na'Toth, who had never paid that much attention in her Comparative Religion classes as a child, "But that's just..."
"It is the Word of Ro'Man," Ta'Lon said emphatically, holding her gaze. She swallowed.
"You mean...they would have let her die?"
Ta'Lon stood slowly, brushing his hands against the skirts of his coat. "There is a clinic in Romanessar, mostly for those who come for the races, but the nearest modern hospital is three days' drive from here, in Makarezad. Aside from first aid and a few surreptitious home remedies, the healing of the body is left to the Saints."
"That is..." she stopped, unable to come up with an appropriate adjective.
"It is the way things are done here, Na'Toth," Ta'Lon replied sharply, and suddenly she seemed to sense dank, dripping stone walls closing in on her again...
"Let me tell you a story, Commander," he went on, jolting her out of her momentary flashback. "My father, Ro'Than, fought the Centauri with his pouch-brother and -sister, in the last years before Independence. All three of them came back, which was accounted a singular blessing of the Saints -- few families were so lucky. They found work in the kelp beds, and Ro'Than caught the eye of the manager's daughter. It was something of a scandal, since she and her pouch-sister were the brightest hopes of their very Upper Tol Hodath family.
"We...I...was raised to some extent between worlds, although there was never any question of where I ultimately belonged." Ta'Lon smiled wryly. "At any rate, Ro'Laren, also of Lower Tol Hodath, was my closest companion from late childhood. Her pouch-sister died young, as did mine...I suppose it is only natural that we turned to one another, when the time came. Soon after she told me she was pregnant, my father began to weaken."
It took Na'Toth a second or two to get it, but when she did, she gasped in horror. "Tokh'on'Morr?"
Ta'Lon nodded. "The Elders refused to provide funds for the journey or the treatment -- and even if they had, it would not have mattered, for he refused to go. For all his outspoken ways, my father was a simple, deeply reverent man when it came to religion. The rest of us...well, it tore the family apart, but I was the only one who dared to openly defy the Speaker and the Elders. I even tried to take him myself, once he had gotten too weak to resist...but the others found out, and I was kept in jail until he...joined the Saints," he finished bitterly.
Despite herself, Na'Toth reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. His came up to clasp it, blindly. "The boys were born soon after, so I could not leave until they were out of the pouch, but then..."
"Then you left, and have not been back since? I'd say that's entirely understandable!" Na'Toth said with some heat.
"Perhaps," he said absently. He started walking, slowly, as if drawn by some irresistible call, toward a small, overgrown mound at the very end of the row.
Na'Toth suddenly realized that there had to be more to the story. The death of his father had only been the final blow that had severed his connection to his home and family -- the first cut had to have been made earlier, otherwise the child, Dai, would never have taken a name so defiantly at odds with his heritage. "That's not all, is it?" she asked softly.
He said nothing, staring at the weathered slab beneath his feet. The inscription on this one had faded beyond recall, as the wood, along with the body beneath it, was absorbed back into the earth. It had been a very small body.
"What was her name?"
"She never had a name," he answered. "We called her Dari, for the fireflies that dance upon the plains in the summer evenings. She was..." he sighed. "She was much cleverer than I -- stronger, swifter -- always coming up with some master plan to get us in hot water with the menfolk...until the last one." He turned, slowly, to look out across the ridge. Far off to the northwest, the topmost turrets of Nakh Tol caught the afternoon sun in a baleful bronze gleam.
"We 'borrowed' a motorboat and went out to the island. It was absolutely forbidden, of course -- since the Centauri left, nobody went there, and there were stories of ghosts, undead, monsters, mutants..." he smiled grimly. "All utterly irresistible to a pair of overimaginative and overconfident ten-year-olds. On my own, I would never have dared, but Dari had no fear. She argued and pleaded and eventually blackmailed me into it -- I've forgotten what she used, now, but it doesn't matter. We went, and spent the whole day exploring the caves and tunnels, and what rooms we found open...
"Then it began to get dark, and we were coming down the path along the cliffs. She was running along ahead of me, as usual -- I called to her to wait. She looked back at me, laughing, and her foot turned on a stone. She fell, hard, perhaps half a dozen lengths onto the rocky shore." He drew a deep, shaky breath.
"I'm so sorry," said Na'Toth, knowing how pathetically inadequate that must sound.
"She was not killed," Ta'Lon said grimly. "I carried her, broken and unconscious, to the boat. The motor refused to start -- Dari was the one who was good with machines -- so I rowed all the way back to the kelp beds. She was still alive when we got to shore.
"She lived for three more days, but never woke again."
"They...they didn't..." Na'Toth faltered, horrified. Ta'Lon's eyes were slits, his mouth a thin line of pain and determination as he stared toward the grim island, which once again held death -- this time for the whole town, and perhaps the world, if they could not stop it. They stood together, silent, while the bright orange firefly of the sun inched toward the haze-rimmed horizon.
"We should go," the Ambassador said at last. "Ro'Galt will be able to get us a boat."
Na'Toth followed without a word, and they left that place.
****************
MELAS CHASMA, MARS
Night had fallen on Mars hours ago, and starlight cast a silvery gleam across the Red Planet. Deimos rose low in the east, a white spark barely larger than navsats that hung against the distant stars. From the other horizon, the larger spark of Phobos hurried to meet it, its silhouette waxing perceptibly as it moved through quicksilver phases. Below, the warmer sparks of a minirover's headlights, shielded from above but reflecting off the rocky surface, bobbed and flickered as the vehicle maneuvered along the edges of the canyon walls.
For a moment it seemed to hesitate, but then the buglike mobile habitat charged ahead with renewed determination...right off the knife-sharp edge of a cliff, and into the abyss.
****************** Act Five *****************
ROYAL PALACE, CENTAURI PRIME
Halfway between one pointless meeting and the next, someone called Vir's name. The first couple of hails went right past him -- the fact of the matter was, after almost six months he still wasn't used to being called 'Ambassador'. When he finally looked up, he found himself practically face to face with Denardo Mollari, who quickly ushered him into an alcove out of the way of traffic in the busy palace hallway.
"A moment of your time, Ambassador," the young man said, "I just wanted to ask you -- have you heard anything at all from my brother Carn?"
Vir hesitated, occupational paranoia struggling with his instinctive sympathy for the Emperor's youngest nephew, who seemed so very conscientious about his new responsibilities. Either way, he decided, it wasn't as though he actually had any information that might be damaging -- or reassuring, for that matter.
"I'm sorry," he said regretfully, "but I haven't heard anything since, well, since we spoke back on Babylon 5. He seems like a very...um...resourceful person, though. I'm sure, wherever he is, he's doing just fine..."
****************
TOL HODATH, NARN
Carn Mollari peeped out from under the deep hood of his cloak at a scene that might have come straight out of one of his race's worst nightmares. Around a blazing bonfire of scrub brush, several score reptilian creatures with flaming red eyes cavorted, their guttural cries filling the night beneath a dust-hazed crimson moon.
"Can we go around them?" he asked, hoping the Centauri words would not be overheard. His Narn was sketchy at best -- if he and Lady Morella ended up staying here indefinitely, that would have to change.
"Not really," replied Ta'Lon in the same language. "The boat's at the third wharf, right over there." He pointed through the thick of the celebration.
"Funny how your grandfather didn't happen to mention that there was a party out here tonight," Na'Toth commented. Ta'Lon just grunted in reply, searching the crowd until he spotted someone he knew.
"Ro'Gaen!" he called, striding forward to talk to the man at a safe distance from Carn. When he came back, he told them that the party was in honor of a local girl who had won an important race that day, qualifying her for the provincial finals. Young Ro'Chura was popular in Lower Tol Hodath, and the revels would undoubtedly last into the wee hours. It was critical that the three of them make it out to the island under cover of darkness, but getting Carn through that swirl of overstimulated Narns undetected was going to be a trick.
As Na'Toth watched the partyers dancing, drinking the cheap, mildly intoxicating root beer, and starting to pair off, a slow smile crept over her face. Carn didn't trust that smile -- or the sparkle in her eyes as she looked him up and down measuringly.
****************
MELAS CHASMA, MARS
When the sun rose over the canyonlands, Tessa switched off her handlight. They had made perhaps ten kilometers since leaving the rover, which wasn't bad for hiking through rough country in the dark, on no sleep. Lise was flagging, though -- they needed to get to shelter soon.
Fortunately, unless her memory -- and the leftover Resistance file on her databand -- was playing her false, they were within a kilometer or so of their destination. The hard part was going to be finding it, in this tumbled landscape. She hitched her heavy pack higher on her back, grateful for Mars' forty-percent gravity, and turned back to check on the other woman. Lise was trekking gamely along behind her, sweat showing behind her breather-mask even in the deep chill of the Martian dawn.
Tessa mimed checking her oxy reserve. Lise stopped to do so, then indicated "not much" with thumb and forefinger. Tessa swore to herself -- that had been the weak point in her plan all along. The hidden shelter, which was not even marked on the newer files on the rover's navcomp, should be stocked with food, water, and air enough to last two people several days, but all that would be useless if they didn't find it in time. She briefly considered leaving Lise with the packs -- she could move faster unencumbered and on her own -- but decided against it. If it took her too long to find the place, Lise might run out of air before she got back -- and what if Tessa herself took a fall? No, better for them to stay together.
A few minutes later, she checked her databand again. They should be right on top of it -- or, more likely, under it. They were standing on the floor of a small canyon, barely two meters across, with walls sloping up four or five meters on either side, reddish stone folded into a distracting jumble of light and shadow.
"Wait here," she called. Lise unslung her pack and sank gratefully down onto it, using it as insulation from the frigid ground. Tessa removed hers as well, bracing it carefully upright against a rock. Plotting the most efficient course, she begain to scramble along the walls, looking for the camouflaged entrance.
There -- a set of seemingly random scratches on a knob of rock indicated that it was more than it seemed. Tessa pried the camouflaged cover off of the miniature access panel and tapped in a code, and a thin line appeared in the rock face, rapidly widening as the concealed door slid aside. She turned to call to Lise -- and swore instead. The other woman sprawled, unconscious, beside the packs.
****************
TOL HODATH, NARN
The alien stench of takhara wine rose in Carn's nostrils as he struggled to support entirely too much of Na'Toth's considerable weight. He pulled the hood closer around his face, staggering through the crowd of celebrating Narns with the Commander murmuring endearments into his ear at the top of her lungs --
"Have you ever made love on a boat, my little man? Neither have I, but I've heard it's incredible. Maybe if our friend is very, very good we'll let him join us -- what do you say? Ah -- you think you are enough for me, all by yourself? We'll see about that -- remember, the Healer said you should take it easy after your illness. We wouldn't want to wear you out..."
Carn cast a desperate glance back at Ta'Lon, who was bringing up the rear, carrying the satchel containing their equipment, and trying very hard to keep a straight face. All around them, people called out encouragement to Na'Toth and advice to Carn -- most of it, thankfully, too colloquial for the Centauri's limited vocabulary.
At long last they made it through the revelry and on down the wharf to where the boat awaited. It was a sturdy craft with a small cabin belowdecks to which Carn and Na'Toth immediately retired, much to the amusement of the onlookers. Ta'Lon tossed back a jaunty salute as he fired up the boat's engine and steered the vessel out into the bay.
Once they were far enough out that the bonfire had dwindled to a warm spark, Carn came back topside. He discarded the damp, fragrant cloak and joined Ta'Lon at the controls.
"I'm glad you remember how to drive one of these," he remarked.
"Just like falling off a bicycle," replied the Ambassador absently, watching the blood-tinged moonlit waters ahead.
Na'Toth came up then, and stood on his other side. She had not said a word since they came on board, and had stayed as far away from Carn as possible in the tiny cabin. Now she spoke into the night.
"I must apologize, Mollari. I...I may have gotten somewhat...carried away back there." She shook her head, unable to explain further.
Recalling a story the Emperor had told him late one night after much too much brivare, Carn smiled. "I guess it's just my irresistible Mollari charm," he replied, and startled Narn laughter rang out across the dark water.
****************
MELAS HASMA, MARS
"Lissy! Lissy, wake up! Da's comin', you hafta hide! Wake up!"
Lise blinked, peering up through her dust-filmed breather mask at the inhumanly tall figure looming over her.
"Mandy?" she murmured. It couldn't be, she thought fuzzily. Her sister was...
"Lise, it's Tessa. You have to wake up now. I got you an oxy-clip, but I can't haul you up to the shelter by myself, and we've got to get under cover. Come on, up you go..."
With the other woman's help, Lise managed to struggle to her feet. She looked down -- "What about the packs?" she asked worriedly. She reached down to get hers and almost fell over.
"I'll come back for them," Tessa assured her. "Come on now, we've got to climb a bit."
A short time later, Tessa heaved the larger of the two packs into the shelter and scrambled in after it, sliding the door shut behind her. Small glow-panels came on, providing a dim yellowish light. Lise had already found the water tank and drawn off a flask to hook to her breather -- now, at the other woman's nod, she hit the button that opened the reserve air tanks to pressurize the small, roughly-finished cavern.
The hidden chamber measured perhaps two meters deep by three wide, and not quite high enough to stand up in, with the back wall taken up by tanks and cabinets filled with supplies. All the reserves seemed to have been topped off -- Lise wondered how recently, and by whom. When she asked, Tessa shrugged.
"Hard to say. Might have been Chico's people, or it might have been whoever was operating out here during the Civil War. I'm just glad they did -- my worst fear was that it had been used near the end of the War, and nobody had bothered to restock." The green light by the door came on then, and both women gratefully doffed their masks.
"If Allende knows about this place, though," said Lise worriedly as she rummaged for ration bars, "won't they come after us?"
"Not for a while, anyway -- the rover will be trashed pretty thoroughly after that drop. Even if they have Earthforce scanners, it will take hours to be sure we weren't in it. And if there's one good thing about Mars rock and fines," Tessa added, referring to the ultra-fine sand that covered the Red Planet's surface, "it's that it doesn't hold footprints at all well. Plus, the way I rigged the autopilot, they'll have no way of knowing how far to backtrack. With any luck we'll have a day or two -- and that should be all we need."
As she spoke, she was simultaneously grabbing bites of her ration bar and funbling one-handed with her pack. Exhausted as she was, Lise knew that Tessa was at least as tired, so she pushed herself over to help. Before long they had unpacked and set up the comm unit Tessa had pulled out of the rover, hooking it up to the shelter's battery for power, and to the inside terminal of a hidden antenna that extended almost invisibly from the top of the canyon wall. Lise watched as Tessa fiddled with the settings.
"Can't they intercept the signal?" she asked.
Tessa shot her a grin. "You really are paranoid, you know that?"
"Must be the company I've been keeping," Lise said wryly.
Tessa chuckled. "It's a good thing -- and, no, they shouldn't be able to. This frequency I'm using is the secret one for Tam's cell -- there probably aren't half a dozen people alive who'd know to scan for it -- fewer than that, now," she added grimly. Lise nodded, remembering the flare of Jensen's shuttle against the evening sky.
"Better get some sleep," the blonde woman advised, reaching for a blanket.
"I've got constant scans going on every known frequency, plus a whole bunch that aren't," Lieutenant Carr was assuring the annoying, if rather hunky, civilian who'd been breathing down her neck more-or-less continuously since late yesterday afternoon. "Plus I've got APBs out in every dome, tent, and outpost on the planet, and as many flitters and rovers out as I can spare. And you're quite welcome to join them," she added, fixing the stubborn young man with her own equally stubborn glare.
Harrison Daker grinned wearily. "Don't tempt me. I'd give anything to be in the outback right now -- even on this featherball planet -- and as far away as possible from anywhere within reach of Mr. Garibaldi, once he finds out his wife is missing."
"You mean you haven't told him yet?" Carr demanded, appalled -- but then her mouth quirked. "I guess I can understand it, though -- if we find her pretty quick, you may get out of this with a whole skin yet, and if we don't, well, he can't kill you more than once."
"I sure hope not," the heavyworlder sighed.
"Lieutenant!" called one of the officers monitoring the comm signals. "I'm getting something -- on one of those ultra-secret frequencies you gave me!"
Carr and Daker exchanged a quick look, then hustled over to the monitor to check the trace.
****************
CENTAURI PRIME
The following day, the last full day of his visit to Centauri Prime, Vir went to see his family, which was about as pleasant and uplifting an experience as he had expected. His uncle still ruled the family with an iron fist, and his cousins and half-brothers still saw him as the rather embarrassing runt of the litter: his appointment as Ambassador to Babylon 5 impressed them not at all. Instead, pride of place at dinner had gone to one of his oldest cousin's boys, who had just joined some sort of new youth organization. Vir didn't get all the details, but it didn't seem like a particularly good thing to him -- some kind of quasi-military elite that bid fair to increase the little brat's arrogant ignorance rather than correcting it.
He got back to the Royal Palace late that night, but couldn't manage to fall asleep. He kept thinking about that Star Trek show, and the three would-be Rangers, and what Marrago had said -- finally, in desperation, he dug up a bottle of light flower-wine (not brivare!) and wandered out into the garden to think. At some point during the long night, he happened to look up at the palace. There was a light on in the throne room, and a shadow at the window...he couldn't help wondering whose it was.
****************
NAKH TOL, NARN
Ta'Lon eased the boat into a tiny cove, barely a niche carved in the rock of the island. The moon was hidden behind the bulk of the tall rock spire, leaving them in almost-total darkness as they made their way up the steep slope. The dull amber handlights the two Narns carried did almost nothing for Carn, so he stumbled along as best he could in their wake. When even those winked out, he started to protest, but was silenced by Na'Toth's leathery hand over his mouth. She drew him up ungently beside them to peer over a ridge overlooking what must be an entrance to the island fortress' lower levels.
Two reptilian bipeds guarded the metal doorway, but the reddish light of a pair of lanterns showed them to be not Narns, but Drazi. They seemed to be engrossed in some kind of gambling game -- Ta'Lon and Na'Toth nodded to each other and swung over the ridge as one. Na'Toth practically landed on the nearer draz, but the other one got off a single wild shot before Ta'Lon decked him (or her -- Carn had never been up on Drazi sexual dimorphism, and this was hardly the time to worry about it).
Carn scrambled down quickly and ran to the door -- he had recognized the design as Centauri, and, as he suspected, it was locked from the inside. Finally he was able to bring his own small handlight into play, as well as the belt pouch of specialized equipment he had requisitioned from Executor G'Kael (how the Narn official had been able to get hold of said equipment at a moment's notice was another question best left for another time). In minutes they were inside, with the door alarm safely bypassed, and making their way through dark tunnels deeper and deeper into the solid rock of the island.
"Do you have any idea where we're going?" asked Na'Toth, as Ta'Lon hesitated at a fork in the tunnel.
"In a general sense -- maybe," the Ambassador replied thoughtfully, peering through each dark archway in turn. "This was the way my sister and I came in -- of course the doors weren't there then. I remember we found some kind of storage area not far from here. Seems like a good place to start, anyway. This way, I think."
He led the way, Carn right behind him in case they came upon more remnants of the Centauri occupation. Na'Toth played rearguard, glad to have no witness to just how uncomfortable this tunnelling business was making her. Granted this was the dry stone of Narn and not the dank underbelly of the Centauri Royal Palace, the closed-in stillness of the place was definitely getting to her. As often as she reminded herself that she was free, she was home, her captivity was past, some primitive part of her mind gibbered that the past few months had been only a dream, that around the next corner she would find herself, in chains, huddled in the corner of that thrice-damned cell.
As her fears grew in the darkness, she lagged behind, and there came a time when her handlight no longer flickered on the retreating figures ahead of her. She stopped, lost in the silence of her memories. Slowly, fighting every inch of the way, she found herself folding into a curled-up huddle of skin and bones against the wall once more. A choked sob escaped her, then another, as her mind gave way to the darkness. The handlight winked out against the stone.
Up ahead Carn paused, some slight sound reaching him in the heavy air. "Ta'Lon!" he called softly. "I think we've lost the Commander."
Ta'Lon shone his light back along the tunnel. "Sh'rakh!" he swore, shouldering past the Centauri to hasten back the way they came. In his hurry he took a wrong turn -- it was Carn who spotted the huddle of spotted hide a little way down a side-corridor. He sprinted to catch Ta'Lon, then back and around to kneel beside Na'Toth.
"Commander," he said gently, pulling her hand away from her eyes -- but when she saw his alien face, she only whimpered and shrank back in terror.
"Get back," snapped Ta'Lon,and the mortified Centauri scrambled aside to let him by. As he watched the Ambassador take the tall, proud warrior-woman in his arms, crooning softly to her as he'd heard Narn fathers comforting their pouchlings in the labor camps, a sick horror settled in his belly.
Carn had thought he had known fear when the Narn soldiers occupied Ragesh 3 -- it seemed like a lifetime ago now -- and again during the bombardment of Centauri Prime, when death had rained from the sky. But now he realized that he had only sampled the merest taste of true terror. The kind of deliberate cruelty that could break the mind and heart of a creature as noble as this woman he had come to admire, alien or no -- that could leave her, even now, lost and trembling at its mere memory -- that he could not comprehend. Knowing that it was his people who had done this, and worse...the sickness in his belly turned to cold steel as icy words etched themselves into his brain: never again.
Slowly, Na'Toth came back to herself. Slowly she became aware that the Ambassador who was speaking so gently to her was not the one who had delivered her from that cell -- and that the Centauri lurking just beyond the edge of the light was not one of those who had put her there. Slowly she remembered when and where she was, and their mission. With remembrance came a shock of embarrassment -- she pulled away from Ta'Lon sharply. He released her, with that enigmatic smile playing about his lips again in the dim light.
Contrite, she reached back to lay a tentative hand on his arm. "I'm sorry -- I..." she began.
"It's all right," he said easily. "These tunnels can be...disorienting. I think we're getting close, though. I saw a light up ahead, just before..."
"Before I made a complete fool of myself?" Na'Toth supplied dryly, getting to her feet. She shook her head at his protest and turned an unreadable look on Carn, which the Centauri returned. "Let's go then," she said, and motioned for Ta'Lon to lead the way. This time, though, Carn brought up the rear.
****************
MARS
Lieutenant Carr and Garibaldi's man Daker, along with a fully-armed squad of Security personnel, had been en route to the source of the clandestine transmission at the best speed the D1Sec shuttle could make for a good hour and a half. So far, Daker had had time to regale Carr with as much of his life story as he felt comfortable revealing to a Security officer -- from his childhood on the 1.6-gravity colony world of Dakota II, for which his ancestors had been semi-illicitly genetically engineered, through the brief stint in Earthforce that had allowed him to get offworld just before Clark's coup, to the odd jobs that had eventually stranded him on Mars without the cash or credit to make it to a planet where he wouldn't have to spend half the day working out just to avoid serious skeletomuscular atrophy. (Even as he spoke, he was hoisting a couple of air tanks without even thinking about it, which Carr couldn't help but find just a tad disconcerting).
"So how'd you end up working for Garibaldi, then?" she asked, finally.
"Met him at the gym."
Carr raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Don't tell me the head of one of the biggest corporations on Mars doesn't have his own gym!"
"Oh, he's building one -- a whole complex, for the employees: pool, tennis courts, you name it. But in the meantime, he works out at Murphy's, over on West Smith. Started coming in about three months ago, just a few weeks after I started working there. We got to talking, and..." the young man shrugged, "he offered me a job."
Carr shook her head. "Never pictured Garibaldi as the kind to take in stray puppies. He was always too much of a stray puppy himself."
"You know Garibaldi?"
"Knew him. He was working Main Dome a few years back -- before all the excitement started," she added wryly. "Our paths crossed a time or two. Mouthful of wisecracks and a chip on his shoulder big as Tharsis, that was Mike Garibaldi. When he wasn't drunk on his ass."
"Man, I never knew that," said Daker. "He seems like such a laid-back kinda guy." He thought about it for a moment, then added, "Except when he gets mad. Then it's like a PPG, you know? Just this kinda silent hum in the air as he charges up, then WHAM!"
"Yeah, well, just hold that thought, because if we don't find Mrs. Garibaldi pretty damn' quick, your ass is gonna be the next target."
****************
Something was beeping. Lise opened her eyes to the unchanging dimness of the glow-panels and one flashing red light near the edge of the sealed doorway. A scant second later, Tessa had rolled out of her own blanket, grabbing her breather and her PPG in almost the same motion.
Lise hurriedly slipped on her mask and kicked free of her blanket. The sucking sound of the air vents crescendo'd and her ears popped as the room depressurized to Mars normal. The hidden door began to slide open, revealing Martian daylight...and an elongated alien face partially covered by a grotesque parody of a Human's breather-mask.
Wide-set liquid-velvet eyes gazed serenely at the two women, and a pair of long, thickly-furred ears swiveled back, then forward as the plastic-encased muzzle let out a muffled but still penetrating "eeeee-yawwww!"
Lise gaped in astonishment, but Tessa just laughed, holstering her weapon and swinging her legs out the door to slide down the crumbling slope beyond. When Lise closed her mouth and crawled to the opening herself, she saw the rest of the tough little burro, air tanks and several ungainly-looking bundles strapped to its sturdy barrel, balancing precariously against the rock face with its rear hooves braced on a minuscule ledge a full two meters above the canyon floor.
"Come on down!" called Tessa.
As well as several more of the four-legged Earthers, there were half a dozen of the bipedal variety, ranging from a trio of Mars-adapted Lopers to a barely five-foot bundle of energy who turned out to be the legendary Tambut Singh himself. Lise couldn't help smiling at the image of this man -- nimble and wiry even in his bulky Mars-camo parka -- with Tessa, and her smile almost turned into a giggle-fit when he modestly introduced the two-and-a-half-meter Amazon at his side as "my wife, Nadia."
"...And of course, you've already met Esmeralda," Nadia added, after Singh had introduced the rest of the Humans. It turned out that the donkeys -- three donkeys, two Himalayan ponies, and a mule named Chico, to be exact -- were her pet project, and their excuse for ranging some twenty klicks from their rover-caravan campsite.
"We headed out as soon as we got your call," Tambut explained.
"I'm just glad you had someone listening," replied Tessa. "I was afraid that, now that things had settled down, nobody would be monitoring that frequency."
Tambut snorted. "Settled down? From where you sit, out at Babylon 5, it may look like that, but things have been plenty crazy around here, lately."
"I know," said Tessa. "And I can give you some good reasons why, too -- although there are some parts I'm not sure of yet, and -- I hate to say this -- but some parts I can't tell you..."
As Tessa and Tambut headed up the canyon, deep in conversation, Lise helped the others round up their hoofed companions to follow. She found herself walking beside Nadia, who seemed happy to give an impromptu lecture on the importation and adaptations of the useful creatures.
"The limiting factor so far is feed," the big woman explained. "Even with the biomass converters, these babies really pack it away -- and then of course there's the ongoing debate about contamination from the results...I'm sorry, in all that I didn't catch your name?"
"It's Lise -- Lise Hampton," she said, sticking out a gloved hand. "I mean, Edgars -- I mean, Garibaldi," she corrected quickly. At the other woman's raised eyebrow, she shrugged. "It's kind of complicated."
Nadia Tsioltova DiMarco Singh grinned. "Isn't it always?"
One of the others, a Loper man with reddish hair wisping out from between his breather and parka hood, was walking close enough to overhear and spoke up. "Hey, you wouldn't be any relation to old Russ Hampton, would you? I heard he had a Shortie girl by that Romany woman of his -- what was her name -- the one that got killed in the rockfall over to..."
"Shut it, Fritz," snapped Nadia, noting the frozen expression behind Lise's breather. "You're wasting oxy. Go see what that rockheaded Chico thinks he's doing over there." Lise smiled at her gratefully, and after a moment the other woman moved closer to murmur, "I've met Russ Hampton. If I were you, I'd stick with 'Garibaldi'."
"I'm planning on it," Lise replied earnestly.
Soon they came out into a much wider canyon, with scattered boulders littering the floor. Chico the mule had wandered off the line of march again to investigate an outcropping. Suddenly he threw his head back and screamed as only an equine can scream -- until a second plasma bolt caught him in the throat. PPG bolts criss-crossed the canyon, driving the hikers to cover. They were armed too, of course -- except for Lise, who was hunkered down behind a rock with Nadia -- and they quickly began returning fire toward the indistinct shadows moving furtively along the canyon walls.
****************
NAKH TOL, NARN
The light Ta'Lon had seen at the end of the tunnel turned out to be, in fact, the chamber they were looking for. Perhaps two-score shoulder-high metal canisters were clustered near the middle of a fairly large cavern, through the center of which a channel in the floor frothed with seawater. All the conspirators had to do was dunk each canister's little head under and loosen the valve, and within hours the small arctic ocean and its coastline would be dead.
Na'Toth growled and started forward, but Carn put out an arm to stop her. Red eyes flared in the dimness, but he held his ground, pointing to a series of small violet lights embedded in each side of the entranceway. Na'Toth nodded and stepped back, and the Centauri got to work. Moving quickly, he found the exterior access to the alarm system and set about bypassing it. As he hacked his way through the codes, though, they ran out of time.
Four burly reptiloids in protective coveralls and masks entered the chamber from another tunnel and began wrestling a pair of canisters toward the water. Ta'Lon and Na'Toth looked at each other -- looked at Carn -- Carn looked up and swore in Centauri, then quickly reached in and pressed two contacts with his bare fingers. "Go," he hissed, and they went.
The Narns had brought beam-weapons, but they didn't dare used them so near the poison canisters. While Ta'Lon's katok made short work of one of the Drazi, his companion took off running for the exit. By the time Ta'Lon caught and killed him, the fourth draz (the one Na'Toth wasn't grappling with) had managed to get his canister in the water and was fumbling with the valve. With a hoarse cry, Ta'Lon hurled the bloody blade, which flew end-over-end to stick miraculously in the middle of the Drazi's back. Too late, though, for a geyser of evil green spurted from the end of the canister. Horrified, Na'Toth stopped bashing her draz's head against the floor and leaped toward the canister.
Ta'Lon joined her, slinging the satchel off his back and reaching inside for one of the phials of catalyst G'Kael had provided. One phial should be enough to neutralize a canister...given time. Ta'lon cracked three phials and tossed them into the water while Na'Toth hurried to close the valve, then turned his attention to the remaining canisters. Na'Toth helped, screwing each phial to a canister valve as quickly as possible. They were still screwing phials when a Centauri oath sounded from the tunnel.
Carn ran over to them, holding the badly burned fingers of his left hand to his chest, as a raucous wail cut the air.
****************
ROYAL PALACE, CENTAURI PRIME
Aragon Pernimi made his way stealthily along the palace corridor. He dared not extend his senses fully, for fear of alerting any of the various telepaths that resided in the Royal Palace -- the Imperial Tetrapathy had been executed by Cartagia, but there was still a contingent of Guild telepaths attached to Internal Security, as well as others reporting to various Ministries. Sneaking into the building had required all of his skill, and he was not such a fool as to let his guard down now that he had apparently succeeded. As he approached the door he wanted, though, he allowed the merest tendril of power to unfold.
It was the deepest hour of the night, and all around him murmured the thoughts of sleepers, innocent and otherwise. He touched the mind of the one he sought -- close now, as he knew from the instructions he had been given -- and...awake? At this hour?
Almost, he pulled back...but this was his last chance. The Ambassador was due to return to Babylon 5 tomorrow -- today -- and if Pernimi were to complete his assigned task and win his freedom as promised, it had to be now. Resolute, he focused on his prey. Yes, Cotto was definitely awake...but...not in the room in front of him! He started to turn -- and Night crashed down upon him.
****************
Vir looked down at the fallen telepath, still gripping the wine-bottle in his hand. It was tough ceramic, not glass, and had not shattered even on Pernimi's hard head. He wondered dispassionately if he had cracked the telepath's skull, but doubted that he could have gotten *that* lucky. As he'd come around the corner, his mind still churning sleepily with the weighty issues that had kept him up so far, he had subconsciously recognized the set of the intruder's shoulders and swung without thinking -- which was the only effective way to swing at a telepath! Whoofing explosively as the extent of his good luck sank in, Vir carefully set down the bottle and proceeded to drag the unconscious Pernimi into his quarters. There was something he very much wanted to do, but it was incredibly dangerous and he didn't have much time.
He kicked the door shut behind him and rummaged quickly through his bags, looking for the ampoule of seriolani drugs he had purchased after the incident at the electronics store. He hadn't been sure just how it might help, but had figured that any defensive weapon was better than none at all. He found it in the last place he looked and jammed it against Pernimi's neck, praying frantically to whatever gods had been favoring him so far that it would take effect before the ex-Guildmaster awoke. Then, using various belts and curtain-cords, he tied Pernimi securely to the chair -- trying not to think of how easily he could be forced to untie those knots if his luck failed.
As Vir sat in the other chair, he considered the fact that this was quite possibly the most idiotically suicidal thing he had ever done in his life. He had been in extreme danger more than a few times in the past few years, but each had been a time of crisis, when events catapulted him into danger and out of it again almost before he had a chance to register what was happening. Now, he simply sat and waited, his mind an echoing vault of anticipation, while the coin of his fate spun glinting in the lamplight. Dimly he recalled an ancient riddle from his school days, about a gordo in a box, with a blaster controlled by radioactive decay...until the researcher opened the box, was the gordo dead or alive? Until Pernimi awoke, was Vir dead or alive? At the moment, he honestly didn't know. There was, of course, Lady Morella's prophesy, that he would be Emperor someday...idly, he supposed he found that reassuring...
The telepath's eyes opened.
****************
MELAS CHASMA, MARS
Lise spotted a flash and ducked -- beside her, Nadia cried out and fell back, dropping her PPG. Lise bent over her.
"Get...the gun...shoot..." the woman passed out. Lise looked at the gun. Suddenly something seemed to snap inside her, and she grabbed the weapon and whirled around. Holding it two-handed -- it was a big gun, for a big woman -- she gritted her teeth and fired, aiming at anything that moved on the clifftop. When she saw one parka'd figure drop, her feral grin widened. With a wild laugh, she pressed the button again -- nothing happened. The charge was exhausted.
A shadow fell to the ground behind her -- she spun, crouching, then launched herself with a fierce cry at the menacing figure looming over her. Sheer surprise allowed her to bowl him over, and as she came down on top of him she found a shard of rock under her hand. He tried to fend her off, but she struck fast and hard, right at his mask.
Unfortunately -- or fortunately, depending on how you look at it -- the plastic was proof against her efforts. Before she could strike again, another attacker plucked her from her victim and began to drag her away up the canyon. She struggled and yelled, but to no avail.
Across the canyon, Tessa spotted Lise from behind her own boulder, but dared not fire for fear of hitting her. Just as she was seriously considering breaking cover to go after her, a shadow swept overhead and a hugely-amplified voice filled the canyon.
"This is Dome One Security. Cease fire and drop your weapons. Repeat -- this is Dome One Security. Cease fire and drop your weapons at once!"
Needless to say, the only people who ceased fire were Tambut's, and nobody was fool enough to drop their weapons. The shuttle disappeared over the canyon wall, to be replaced almost immediately by a squad of jet-scooters manned by armed and armored Security personnel. As their rescuers poured over the edge of the wall like a herd of Martian Cavalry, Lise freed herself from her captor with a sudden jerk and ran to join Tessa and Tambut, who had hurried over to where Nadia was struggling to rise. While the other scooters rounded up Allende's people like cattle, two swooped towards them and settled to the ground in a cloud of fines. A short stocky figure dismounted from one and a tall stocky figure from the other.
"Mr. Singh, Ms. Halloran, I trust you're both all right?"
"Lieutenant Carr -- I never thought I'd say this, but I'm damned glad to see you," said Tessa, rising from the fallen woman's side. "You didn't happen to bring a medic with you, by any chance?"
Carr didn't have to answer, since a third scooter was even then settling beside them. Meanwhile, the Lieutenant's companion pushed back his parka hood, revealing disheveled blond curls. Even behind the breather mask, the man's glare was daunting -- though only the merest hint, Lise knew, of what was in store for her when her husband got home and learned that she had deliberately eluded her bodyguards. Her chin came up defiantly.
"Mr. Daker," she said.
"Mrs. G," he replied, then gave a heavy sigh. "You know," he said, "the concert wasn't really all that bad!"
****************
NAKH TOL, NARN
There were four canisters left to neutralize when armed Drazi began swarming from both entrances. Ta'Lon glanced at the channel of seawater, but immediately dismissed it as an escape route. Between the unknown length of the underground tunnel from here to the open sea, the intense chill of said sea, and Na'Toth's guaranteed unfamiliarity with the art of swimming, that way was certain death, whereas a mere...his gaze flicked over the oncoming aliens...eight opponents was more in the nature of a challenging workout.
He grinned and flipped Na'Toth the wicked, serrated Drazi blade he had confiscated from one of their earlier sparring partners. She returned his grin and leaped to engage the nearer quartet of foes, while Carn kept working, one-handed, on the canisters.
The next time she got a moment to glance back at the Centauri, his shirt was ripped open to the waist and...something -- or rather, several somethings -- were taking the place of his wounded hand in holding the canister steady while he attached a phial. Turning back to the fray, she took the sudden wave of panic that washed through her out in a vicious uppercut at the nearest Drazi. His partners gave way at the sheer ferocity of her onslaught, and, some cold thread of strategy guiding her, she pressed them further into the middle of the room, clearing the far entrance.
"Carn!" yelled Ta'Lon, seeing the chance. "Adria mi'renn!" Remembering what the young Centauri had mentioned about working with Minz Jaddo in the export business, Ta'Lon gambled on his grasp of at least elementary Worker-Caste Minbari. The gamble paid off, as Carn finished with the last canister and darted, shirttails and whatever else flying, for the doorway.
Once there, he drew and charged his Narn-style beamer, firing with surprising proficiency at one of he attackers, who had broken off to check the canisters.
"Good!" cried Ta'Lon as he joined the Centauri, quickly sheathing his bloody katok to draw his own hand-weapon. "We just need to keep them off the canisters long enough for the catalyst to take hold."
Unfortunately, Carn's shot had reminded the Drazi that they had beam-weapons also, and the melee became a firefight, with both sides careful to avoid the pressurized canisters. After a few minutes of this, Ta'Lon gave the signal, and they began to retreat down the tunnel. Five of the remaining Drazi followed, while the sixth dashed for the canisters. With a last, lucky shot, Na'Toth got him in the leg.
"That should slow him down," she said. Ta'Lon shot an attacker full in the chest, sending him reeling back into his fellows, and the three saboteurs took off running.
This tunnel led upward, winding and twisting up into the spear of rock that was Nakh Tol. Again Ta'Lon spotted a gleam of light, and soon they came out onto a wide, brightly lit landing platform. It was carved out of the peak of the original island, with a tall tower of metal and concrete rising on one side of it. The other two sides fell off toward the sea, far below. Another squad of Drazi was running toward them from the tower, while footsteps and harsh cries approached from the tunnel behind them.
There was a small flyer of Narn civilian design parked in the middle of the open space -- but as Ta'Lon, Na'Toth, and Carn ran towards it, its engines rumbled and it began to move toward them. Na'Toth gave a fierce cry and fired her hand-weapon directly at the nose of the oncoming vehicle.
Much to everybody's surprise, the flyer promptly exploded. As Ta'Lon hit the ground, out of the corner of his eye he saw a larger shuttle swooping over them again, beams stabbing down at the Drazi from its small but powerful turrets. It whooshed to a landing between the pursued and pursuers, and a silk-clad, pale-skinned arm beckoned them toward an open hatch.
As they stumbled inside and the shuttle lifted, Na'Toth was the first to realize the identity of their rescuer.
"*Lady Morella?*" she exclaimed in disbelief, sitting down abruptly on the deckplates. Ta'Lon and Carn were speechless.
Lady Morella folded her hands complacently across her voluminous skirts, looking at the three disheveled adventurers with mingled pride (in them) and self-satisfaction (at her own resourcefulness). Then she saw Carn, and an eyebrow lifted.
"Fasten your shirt, Mollari," she said. "We are not in a bordello!"
By the time they had been deposited outside Upper Tol Hodath and had made their way, escorted by armed Narns, to the Guest House, they had pieced together the story.
Tu'Honek, the man that G'Kael had sent to brief Lady Morella, had been overwhelmed with awe once he had learned her identity. As a fervid Follower of G'Kar, he was quite familiar with the passage about Emperor Turhan's ill-fated attempt to reconcile their two peoples, and the knowledge that the late Emperor's surviving widow was among them had amost undone the poor man.
Irked at being left behind, and quick to take advantage of a gods-given opportunity, Lady Morella had lost no time in exerting her considerable charm over his entire congregation, enlisting them in a hastily-arranged backup expedition. Since many of the Followers of G'Kar were Narns of wealth and position -- incluing several members of the Assembly and even a few of the Kha'Ri -- arms and a fast shuttle had not been hard to come by.
"...And here we are," Lady Morella concluded smugly as Ta'Lon opened the door to their suite.
"And here, indeed, we are," echoed the equally smug voice of Executor G'Kael from within.
****************
ROYAL PALACE, CENTAURI PRIME
Minister Durla stooped to pick up a ceramic wine-bottle from the carpeted floor before proceeding along the corridor to pause in front of a specific door. Before knocking, though, he indulged in one of his favorite pastimes -- eavesdropping.
The conversation he was listening in on had begun only moments ago, when Aragon Pernimi had awoken to a familiar, anxious moon-shaped face and an even more familiar -- and even more infuriating -- sensation of his head being wrapped in several layers of thick felt. Seriolani drugs -- what the Humans called 'sleepers'. Again. He sighed.
"Why were you outside my room?" the Ambassador asked.
"Why do you think?" Pernimi asked tiredly in return.
"Well, I think you were trying to kill me, but I could be wrong. It certainly wouldn't be the first time...'
Pernimi just looked at Cotto, and the Ambassador swallowed visibly. "What do you want me to say?" the telepath asked, exasperated. "That I'm sorry? I'm not. I'm only sorry that I failed -- and, of course, somewhat hopeful that I'll be able to get out of this chair and take you down by hand," he added, testing the strength of his bonds.
"But why?" Cotto persisted -- and Pernimi was surprised to realize that he was genuinely curious. "I mean, I know things haven't been going well for you lately," the pudgy little man went on with severe understatement, "But I don't see how you can think it was my fault..."
"Of course not, Ambassador," Pernimi said scathingly. "It has nothing at all to do with you personally -- but in case you'd forgotten, for the past several months I have been...constrained by circumstances to a lifestyle that is not at all what I was accustomed to. Those constraints have, to a certain extent, been lifted, by certain parties whose identities are irrelevant to this discussion -- and their complete removal is contingent on my performing one last service..."
"Removing me?"
"Precisely. -- And no, I don't know why," he added, as the Ambassador drew breath to ask.
"You couldn't have...um..." Cotto waved at his head, and Pernimi shook his, smiling in spite of himself.
"No, all transactions were by comm. And even if they weren't..." he shut up suddenly -- the damn drugs were always more disorienting than he counted on. He wasn't sure he believed the rumors about Mr. Molyneux -- that the leader of the mysterious 'Bureau 13' was over three hundred Earth years old, that he couldn't be scanned -- but he did believe that the icy-eyed Human would take very unkindly to Pernimi spreading those rumors around. And his reach, as Pernimi had reason to know, was very, very long.
Cotto sighed heavily, plucking at a loose thread on the hem of his overvest. "I just don't understand it. Why people make the decisions they make -- how they end up in positions where it seems as though they have no choice, when at each step of the path that led them there, they had to make a choice...oh, I'm not just talking about you," he hastily added, seeing the expression on Pernimi's face. "I mean me, and...well, and Londo, and...the gods know, even that Durla person had to have had one moment where he could have...I don't know...taken another path..."
Just then a knock sounded. Cotto started and looked at the door as if it were some bizarre alien technology -- then looked back at Pernimi. Pernimi shrugged.
"Don't ask me," he said, "I'm drugged up, remember?"
Another knock. Cotto scrambled up out of his chair and went to answer it.
"Is this your wine-bottle, Ambassador?" a smooth voice at the door asked. Pernimi had never met the new Minister of Internal Security, but he recognized the man from the encrypted datacrystal Molyneux had sent.
"Oh, yes, I'm terribly sorry, I must have left it in the hallway..." Cotto blithered, as Minister Durla gazed around the room, taking in the shambles of Vir's hasty search for the seriolani ampoule, the dangling curtains...the telepath tied to the chair.
"Aren't you going to introduce me to your...friend?" Durla asked with a stiletto smile. Looking into the Minister's steely, unsmiling eyes, Vir Cotto made a choice.
"This is...this is an acquaintance of mine from Babylon 5. He's a telepath, and...someone injected him with seriolani drugs -- an overdose, I think. He was disoriented -- thrashing around -- I was just afraid he was going to hurt himself, you see, so I...um..."
As Vir was talking, he was also quickly untying Pernimi. The glare he gave the telepath was laden with meaning that slashed through the fog of the drugs like a particle-beam through a flower garden. Pernimi nodded slightly, pushing himself up to stand -- perhaps a bit more unsteadily than he actually felt -- braced against the chair.
"Thank you, Ambassador, I'm feeling much better now."
Durla stepped forward quickly. "I think it best if I escort you to a groundcar myself, Mr....?"
Aragon raised his gaze to meet the Minister's --
"Pernimi," he said distinctly. "Aragon Pernimi."
Vir suddenly realized that while throwing one predator to another might not be defensible on moral grounds, the idea had its good points from a pragmatic perspective..."Um...shouldn't I just come along, and make sure he gets home all right?"
"You should stay right here and get your rest, Ambassador," replied Durla with transparent solicitude. "You have a long day ahead of you -- your shuttle leaves before noon, and the Emperor will expect to see you before you leave. Good night, Ambassador," he concluded firmly, escorting the telepath out of the room with a firm hand at his elbow.
"Good...good night..." Vir trailed off. "Whoof!" he said again. He shook his head in exhaustion, closed and locked the door, and fell onto the bed for a few short hours' sleep.
****************
MARS
After dropping Singh and his people off at their camp, Tessa and Lise rode back to Dome One with Carr and Daker in the shuttle.
"I always said she would have made a great Resistance fighter," said Tessa to Lise, with a knowing smile at the Lieutenant.
Carr snorted. "Not a chance, Number One. I'm as much a Marsie as any of you -- my mother worked on the icecap project -- but when the troubles came, I knew my job was to keep what order could be kept, not to pull down everything we'd built. Besides, I had my daughter to think of."
"That's right," said Tessa. "I remember her from the file we put together on you -- how is she doing?"
The other woman's face went still. "Dead. Almost a year, now. She was diagnosed with Ryerson's Leukemia about a month after Independence, but the medicine that would have saved her was held up by Earther red tape."
Lise put her hand on the Lieutenant's arm. Carr looked up, startled, into sympathetic eyes.
"Bill tried for years to get access to that patent -- or come up with an analogue," said Lise. "I'm so sorry..."
Carr patted Lise's hand awkwardly, sliding her arm out from under it with the same motion. "It's not your fault!" she protested. "But I have to say," she went on, looking seriously at Tessa, "it probably did more to change my attitude toward Earth than all the Resistance propaganda your people put out in the past ten years."
Tessa nodded solemnly.
Daker cleared his throat. "So, what was that you were saying about Allende having Earthforce support?" he asked.
"Not Earthforce as such," Tessa corrected. "That much I'm sure of, although who these people are working for, and where their financing is coming from...well, I'm hoping our friends in the other shuttle will be able to shed some light on that. We're talking ex-Earthforce, here -- maybe associated with a renegade group whose leader was arrested a couple of weeks ago, maybe some other bunch. A good many ships went missing in the Civil War, and not all of them have been accounted for yet. But we are most definitely working on it," she concluded grimly.
Struck by a sudden thought, Lise searched her pockets until she came up with the headscarf she had taken from the man at the hidden base. "What about this?" she asked, spreading it out on the seat next to her. It was a silky, yet absorbent square of deep purple, with a complicated design printed in gold -- a triangle intersecting a circle, the whole built around an eight-armed star shape, with the diagonal lines curved, as if to form back-to-back C's. Along each side of the triangle was some sort of alien writing, and dark bloodstains splotched the fabric from where Jensen's PPG had crashed against the side of the man's head.
Tessa leaned over to run her finger along the writing. "It looks Minbari, but...not like anything I've ever seen." She looked up at the others, but Carr shook her head and Daker shrugged.
"Don't look at me," the man said, "I've never picked up any boney language, let alone writing."
"I'll take it back to my people on Babylon 5, if that's all right with you," Tessa said to Carr, folding it up again.
"Sure, just keep me posted," said the Lieutenant. "By the way, did you run across any trace of those weapons caches?"
"Not a whiff," Tessa replied. "I mentioned it to Tambut, though -- he'll get in touch with you if he turns up anything, but he's going to be busy for a little while, what with the elections."
"Understood," said Carr. "I just hope we get a line on them before somebody gets hurt."
"Somebody else, you mean," put in Lise. "But if there's anything good that came out of this..." the others looked at her curiously, and she found herself actually blushing.
"Well, it may not be much," she said apologetically, "but up until now I guess I've been sort of avoiding thinking seriously about the elections. I really haven't known what to think," she went on, seeing the expressions of the other two women. "All the people in our social circle, if you want to call it that -- the other business owners, CEO's and their families -- they all seem to agree with Hiram Esposito, that we need to keep close ties with Earth now that they have recognized our Independence. I don't know about Michael -- we've never discussed it -- but I've never really been comfortable with that. I think we're going to have to decide where we *do* stand, and start making our feelings known -- no matter how unpopular it makes us." She smiled ruefully -- "Not that there isn't plenty of talk about us already -- a jumped-up secretary and an ex-Security guard aren't exactly Mars High Society's idea of a model couple!"
Carr snorted again. "Considering where most of them started out, I don't think they're in any position to be looking down at you, honey," she said. "Which isn't to say they won't, of course. So, are you turning Red on us?"
Lise smiled and shook her head. "No -- not that far, I think. But...I wonder if it would be presumptuous of me to invite Amanda Carter to lunch?"
"Take her to Robinson's," suggested Tessa with a grin. "Only this time, take Daker with you -- he looks like a man who can handle a dangerous mint torte!"
****************
G'KAMAZAD, NARN
"I think that went rather well," said Executor G'Kael of his presentation to the Kha'Ri, as he perched nonchalantly on the desk in Ambassador Ta'Lon's quarters. The Ambassador was packing for his return to Babylon 5, taking with him a unanimous confirmation from the Diplomatic Committee as well as an invitation from Councillor Na'Dron to visit his ancestral home, where he claimed to have some ancient records that mentioned the smith Shu'Niri.
Carn Mollari and Lady Morella were out, suitably escorted by Narn security, looking for a permanent residence in the city now that they had been officially granted asylum in thanks for their help in saving the planet from the Drazi conspirators. The Drazi government, of course, had vehemently denied any connection with the plot, but there was something about their protests that neither G'Kael nor Ta'Lon found entirely convincing. They had been up the better part of the previous night in consultation with various parties, including the new head of Narn Covert Intelligence and Ambassador N'Rothak on Minbar. Once he returned to Babylon 5, Ta'Lon himself planned on having long talks with both Ambassador Vizhak and DCI Halloran.
Na'Toth was overdue for a meeting with her Rehabilitation Coordinator, which she was planning on putting off for as long as possible. At the moment, she was leaning against the wall by the door, watching Ta'Lon move smoothly and efficiently between the closet and his bags on the bed, and admiring the glow of the warm, soothing light from the equatorial-style fixtures on the gems and embroidery of G'Kael's formal tabard as he regaled them with a totally unnecessary recap of his speech. Her eye caught the Ambassador's, and he returned her slight smile.
"And you, my dear Na'Toth," G'Kael interrupted himself, sliding from the desk to pace over and take both her hands in his. Ta'Lon stepped to the bed with an armful of clothing, and Na'Toth sidled self-consciously past him toward the middle of the room. "You have fully vindicated my faith in you, as well as G'Kar's. I could not be more pleased with your performance on this mission. What would you have of me, as a reward, Commander?" His ruby eyes gleamed into hers, and his warm voice seemed pitched for her earholes alone. Ta'Lon moved behind her, back to the dresser. G'Kael's hands clasped hers with confident strength -- she looked down at them, searching for an answer. His long fingers seemed to encircle hers...she looked up.
"It was no more than my duty, Executor," she said lightly. At the flicker of startled hurt in his eyes she added, "You were correct when you said that my serving as your adjutant would be beneficial for both of us..." his smile returned, and she quickly freed her hands. "...and I look forward to working with you on an ongoing basis," she concluded, backing up a step.
Ta'Lon moved back to the bed, and again Na'Toth stepped aside to let him pass, now putting her own back to the desk. G'Kael's gaze remained locked with hers for a long moment, then he addressed Ta'Lon over his shoulder with an apparent non sequitur.
"By the way, Ambassador, I spoke with the Village Elders of Tol Hodath. They have agreed to reconsider the matter of your status as konnamari. I have also mentioned to Councillor G'Sadi that the...situation in Ro'Mana may merit review by the Fifth Circle."
Ta'Lon looked up at him calmly, over his own shoulder. "I appreciate your concern, Executor," he said. "However, for the foreseeable future, my place remains on Babylon 5."
"Despite the...attractions of home?" G'Kael asked pointedly, unable to resist a glance at the woman on the other side of the room. Na'Toth drew a sharp breath. Something was happening here, something about the way they were all moving around the room, hidden meanings shifting behind their innocent-seeming words. It was something she didn't understand -- or didn't want to understand.
Ta'Lon simply smiled and moved back to the dresser -- closer to her, she noticed suddenly. G'Kael took a step forward to match, then halted, poised between the bed and the door.
"Perhaps we should leave the Ambassador to his packing, Na'Toth," the Executor said, a dangerous edge creeping into his voice. Ta'Lon froze, his back to G'Kael, both hands gripping the edge of the dresser. The katok lay sheathed on the polished wood before him.
Suddenly Na'Toth's uncertainty vanished, and her chin came up. "If you don't mind, I will report to you later," she said firmly. "I have some...personal business to discuss with the Ambassador."
G'Kael's head snapped back, and his teeth flashed briefly before he forced them into the semblance of a smile. "Very well," he said. "I shall expect you at the sixth hour, Commander." With a single, laserlike glance at Ta'Lon's rigid back, he was gone.
Na'Toth's burst of confidence drained out of her as the door slid shut. She leaned back against the desk, her knees having suddenly developed the consistency of fresh spoo. She tore her gaze from the door to meet burning red eyes shining at her out of rather commonplace features. Ta'Lon's stolid form straightened, turning to her like an arctic snowflower toward the sun.
Although infant Narn do suckle, mammal-like, as pouchbound pre-infants, that instinct fades quickly and as adults they do not kiss. As omnivores, however, they do nibble, and as reptiloids, they lick -- savoring the heady mixture of pheromones exuded by each other's leathery hide. The thickness of that hide also means that the feather-touch caresses of more thin-skinned species are not natural to them, since a firm, almost shiatsu-like pressure is required to reach the sensitive nerves beneath. A scientifically-minded observer might have noted that G'Kar's comments to Lyta Alexander about her "pleasure threshold" were not, entirely, the empty self-aggrandizement that they might have sounded like to the uninformed.
Na'Toth, however, was not in a particularly scientific frame of mind at the moment. As she rode the unaccustomed waves of sensation, somehow linking the play of his hands and mouth across her body with the heaving swell of the ocean they had sailed upon such a short time ago, she marveled at the strength of her own response. However, even as she returned him taste for taste, probe for probe, she became aware of a dissonant thread of panic swelling gradually in the back of her mind. She tried to ignore it, but as his arousal mounted and his touch became more urgent, more focused, she found her breath coming faster in fear, rather than passion.
While it was technically impossible for a Centauri to rape a Narn -- or vice versa -- both sides had, early on in their mutually inimical acquaintaince, devised ingenious 'work-arounds' to approximate the psychological effect. The moment Ta'Lon came in contact with the area in question those memories came flooding back, shattering the flimsy barriers her therapists had worked so hard to build. Unlike most females her age, Na'Toth had little in the way of more pleasant memories with which to balance them -- even as an adolescent she had had little patience with such 'trivial' and undignified pursuits, and in adulthood her work had been her life.
She knew what she was supposed to do next -- books and vids and gossip were all very clear as to the protocols involved -- but she simply couldn't make herself do it. If she broke off at this point, it would not only be a failure -- and cruel to the by now almost painfully aroused Ta'Lon -- but she would also be breaking her word. And yet...she couldn't.
A tormented whine issued from between her clenched teeth -- unmistakably distinct from any cry of passion.
Ta'Lon froze immediately, his breath coming in short gasps. His arms trembled slightly as he raised himself to look down upon her where they lay sprawled across the bed amid the ruins of his packing. She let her own hands drop, folding them across her abdomen in an unconsciously self-protective gesture.
"I..." she began, not knowing what to say but feeling that she had to say something. He shook his head quickly, rolling away to sit upright on the bed.
"You are not ready," he said. The harshness in his voice cut at her like a whip.
She pulled herself up to sit against the wall, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped tightly around them, as she had spent so many hours in that dungeon cell on Centauri Prime. "I thought I was," she whispered, closing her eyes in shame. "I thought...I only wanted..." a sob shook her, and he turned around. At the sight of her huddled up like that he started to reach for her, but then stopped, knowing it would only make things worse...for both of them. His hand fell.
"Na'Toth," he said softly, his voice coming back under his control. He said it again, and again, until she came out of herself enough to hear.
"I have never," he said, holding her despairing eyes with his, "in all my life, been so honored as when you chose me just now." He spoke quickly then, overriding her protest. "When I was given the katok, when G'Kar chose me to follow him, none of those moments came anywhere near the joy I felt when I knew that you had decided to trust me with this...especially given the competition," he added with that self-mocking smile that had somehow worked its way so deeply into her heart.
She gave a mirthless laugh and buried her head in her arms. G'Kael -- what if it had been him she had chosen? Not that there had ever been a chance of that...and now she thought she understood the real reason why -- that she had known, deep in her heart, that she was not worthy of him...
"Na'Toth, listen to me!" Ta'Lon's light, yet powerful voice brought her back yet again. "You are a strong and beautiful woman, and in time you will learn to love and to be loved as you should be loved. By me, or by another -- although I must confess to hoping that I...that we...will have another chance. And I am willing to wait, Na'Toth. As long as it takes."
She raised her head enough to prop her chin on her forearms.
"Do you mean it?" she asked. His mouth tightened. Suddenly he rose and stalked to the dresser, the room's reddish light glistening on his muscled and spotted hide as he grasped the katok in its sheath and started to draw it.
"Oh, for pity's sake stop that!" she snapped in her own voice once more, pragmatic cynicism breaking through her confusion like sunlight through stormclouds. The hormone-induced fog began to dissipate from her mind, taking with it much of the fear and some -- though not all -- of the shame. She unfolded herself into a more normal posture and started pulling her clothing together, as Ta'Lon laughed in relief and put down the weapon. Once they had put themselves in order again, though, she looked at him rather wistfully. "I wish you didn't have to leave," she said. "Not that I would want to put you through that again -- but maybe, if we took it slowly...what is it the Humans say, 'practice makes perfect'?"
Ta'Lon smiled, shaking his head regretfully. "Tempting as the idea is, I'm afraid I must go back to Babylon 5...for now, at least. And who knows, by the time I return you may have found yourself another...sparring partner, shall we say?"
Na'Toth laughed in spite of herself.
"One thing is certain, though," he went on, quite seriously, "Whatever else happens, you have made yourself a friend."
She clasped his forearm with a warrior's grip. "As have you, Ta'Lon. Always."
****************
ROYAL PALACE, CENTAURI PRIME
"Guildmaster Pernimi. We meet at last."
"You have the advantage of me, sir." To the surprise of the linguists (but no one else) this was one idiom that did translate directly between English and Centauri. It was a lie, in the idiomatic sense at least -- Pernimi knew quite well who Durla was. However, he was curious as to how his latest captor would present himself. He was gathering quite a collection of captors, was becoming, perhaps, something of a connoisseur of captors. He was in no doubt that Durla was the latest in his collection, despite the fact that he was ensconced in the Minister's office rather than in a cell. He didn't even bother asking why they were there instead of finding him a groundcar -- he wasn't that curious.
"I am Durla, Minister of Internal Security."
Pernimi found it interesting that the man didn't use his House name -- he wondered idly whether Durla had renounced them, or vice versa.
"You may be wondering why I have not asked you how you entered the Palace," the Minister continued. Reaching languidly for a control panel, he brought up a display on the wall screen -- a view of Pernimi making his way toward Ambassador Cotto's quarters. Pernimi smiled.
"But of course. And do you have cameras in the rooms, as well?"
"Naturally -- however, it is our policy to respect the privacy of the residents and guests...insofar as is practical. However, as it happens, I have been watching you, in particular, for quite some time. I was impressed at your escape from Babylon 5 -- for a while there, I was afraid I had lost you entirely."
This succeeded in taking Pernimi aback. If Internal Security had been tracking him that far back, then Durla must know...his flash of fear must have shown on his face, because Durla's smile widened to a predatory grin.
"Yes, Guildmaster, I am quite aware that it was you who attempted to scan the Emperor, shortly after his inauguration. And, since the soft-hearted Ambassador Cotto was so thoughtful as to give you seriolani, I have the pleasure of revealing to you just how I know this...tell me, Pernimi, did it ever occur to you to wonder who Vayando Refa, the man who hired you to scan the Emperor, was working for?"
"I assumed he was seeking vengeance for his cousin's death..." Pernimi said. Then he registered the Minister's smug expression, and jumped to the desired conclusion. "You!" he breathed, a chill running through him. If the Minister of Internal Security himself was working against the Emperor, then Pernimi was swimming in much deeper waters than even he had dreamed. Next question, did Durla know about Molyneux?
This question was answered almost at once, as the Minister nodded in gracious acknowledgement. "Now," he said, "to business." He leaned forward, steepling his fingers in a gesture that Pernimi found obscurely disturbing. "I understand that your...current employer instructed you to assassinate the Ambassador, as a gesture of goodwill toward...certain parties that I, also, have an association with." Pernimi's chill coagulated into a bellyfull of solid ice.
"Unfortunately, you have once again bungled your assignment. I fear Mr. Molyneux will be most displeased -- the consequences for you may be, shall we say, severe? Now, I am in a position to protect you from those consequences..."
Pernimi sighed. "Let me guess. You want me to do something for you."
"Very good, Guildmaster! Don't worry, though, it is nothing so dangerous as scanning an Emperor or assassinating an Ambassador. I simply want you to...pay a little visit to Lord-General Marrago..."
****************
"Ah, Vir, my old friend and most trusted Ambassador! Would you care for a drink?"
"But Londo," said Vir, surprise banishing any sense of protocol, "It is barely dawn!"
"Then let us toast the sunrise!" replied the Emperor heartily, hoisting his half-full goblet toward the open window. "The damned thing comes up every day whether we want it to or not, so we might as well acknowledge its persistence, ah?" He tossed off the rest of the brivare and reached for the decanter to fill it again.
"Londo -- Your Majesty -- I have to leave for the shuttleport soon, but I just wanted to ask you, once more, to look very carefully at that trade agreement. I tried very hard to make it as fair as possible, and while I realize that there are...political issues that I don't understand, still..."
"You do not understand, Vir," Londo cut him off sharply. "And pray that you never do. I know you are confused -- things have...changed a great deal in the last few months. All I can tell you is that you must be very careful, and very quiet -- and above all, you must survive. Do you hear me?"
"I hear you, Londo, but I can't just go off to Babylon 5 and leave you here -- not like this!" Vir ran his hand through his crest, unsure how much of what he had to say would penetrate the Emperor's alcoholic haze. Londo had moved back to his throne, somewhat unsteadily, and was watching him over the rim of his goblet. "Look, I've been doing a lot of thinking while I've been here -- about choices, and responsibility, and...and friendship." The Emperor did not, as Vir half-expected, dismiss this as foolish sentimentality. Perhaps he was simply too drunk, but Vir chose to interpret it as encouragement, and it all came tumbling out -- what Marrago had said, Pernimi's attacks, the things he had seen in the streets and in the palace -- all of it.
When he finally stumbled to a halt, the Emperor sighed deeply -- then reached for the decanter once again. "Now you should have a drink, Vir," he said. "You have worked hard enough to deserve it."
"Londo," said Vir, exasperated. "Haven't you heard anything I've said?"
"Yeeessss," said Londo, "I have heard it -- and in a very short while I shall set about trying very hard to forget that I have heard it."
"But..."
"But you are right? Is that what you are going to say? Yes, of course you are right! I did not train you for almost five years only to have you remain the naive fool you were when we first met -- more's the pity. And now, you must listen to me, Vir." The Emperor was slurring his words, and his hand was unsteady on the goblet he passed to the Ambassador, but his eyes were as clear -- and as hard -- as Vir had ever seen them.
"Marrago was correct -- to an extent. You, and the others I...have a responsibility to...are safer away from this place. And..." he stopped, staring into the dark fluid in his goblet. He tossed it off with a gulp. "I need you -- all of them, but particularly you, Vir -- to remember who I...was, and the few times that I tried -- and I did try -- to do what was right, for you and for our people. You know why -- why you, above all, must be careful, and be safe."
"Because of the prophesy," Vir agreed reluctantly. "But Londo -- you must be careful, too. If things are as...as dangerous here as you are hinting, then you are not safe either. And...whatever is going on, we need you, too -- I need you. If...if something were to happen to you...what Lady Morella said...Londo, I'm just not ready!"
Londo laughed aloud. "Ready! How could you ever be ready, for...this? How could anyone? But do not worry, my friend. Lady Morella said that you would be Emperor after I am dead -- but she never said how long after. For all we know, there could be half a dozen Emperors between us -- poor devils! There will be time for you to learn what you must learn -- to do what you must do. Perhaps, if something, as you say, 'happens' to me, you might amuse yourself by setting up a Resistance movement on Babylon 5, ah? Perhaps you could get G'Kar to give you some pointers..."
"Londo, you mustn't even joke about such a thing!" Vir gasped, appalled. The Emperor waved a hand dismissively.
"Whyever not? Ah, but it is not a particularly funny joke, is it? That is the trouble with jokes nowadays...they are not funny any more. Perhaps I shall issue an Imperial Decree...ah, now that would be a joke, would it not? But listen to me, Vir --" he leaned forward suddenly, reaching out to grab the Ambassador's wrist in a grip of iron. "One thing that is not a joke -- I was waiting for you to come this morning, preparing...I knew...at least, I hoped that you would speak to me in this...most inappropriate fashion." A wry smile flashed across his face, then vanished. "But you must never, ever, under any circumstances say such things to me again. Do you understand?" His eyes burned with a desperate light, and his fingers closed around Vir's wrist until he could swear he felt the bones creak.
"No...no, I don't..."
"Then you must simply obey me in this, Vir. As far as I am concerned, this conversation never happened. You must tell no one. This is very important! No one must know that we have spoken like this -- but you...you will remember, Vir, will you not?" Tears glimmered in the older man's eyes now, and Vir's hearts twisted inside him. He still wasn't entirely sure that the Emperor wasn't simply raving in a drunken frenzy, but he couldn't help responding to the urgency in his plea.
"I swear it, Londo," he said, grasping the Emperor's hand and trying, subtly, to loosen it. "I have to go now, to make my flight...will you be all right here?"
Londo sighed, released Vir's wrist, and fell back in his throne. "No," he said, leaning his head back against the tall chairback and closing his eyes. "No, but I will manage. Go, Vir -- go quickly. I think if I drink any more I will throw up all over my Imperial vestments, and that would be such a bother for the servants."
"Well, goodbye then...and...be careful," Vir said, echoing Lyndisty's words unwittingly, as he made his way out of that place.
****************** ENVOI
*****************
OUTER HULL, ENGINEERING
13:22 EST, 06/04/2263
BABYLON 5, GREEN SECTOR
"Lights!"
The lights came up in Ambassador Ta'Lon's quarters on Babylon 5. Once they had been set to the dim, sheltering red of the equatorial cities, when G'Kar of G'Kamazad had dwelt there. Now they shone with the bright, unfiltered northern light of Ro'Mana, gleaming on spare, ascetic furnishings and an extravagantly polished wooden floor. The Ambassador slung his bags onto the narrow bed and unfastened the longest one. From it he took his sheathed katok and another, equally long cylinder.
He placed the former on its rack and unrolled the latter to reveal a wallpic, blank at the moment. Kicking off his boots, he stepped up on the bed and fastened the thin rectangle to the wall, then pressed a corner twice to bring up the display and sound.
Coppery waves rolled up onto a red- and olive-striped shore beneath a clear peach-colored sky, with the bright orange dot of the sun rising eternally from behind dusky hills, and the soft sighing sound of the sea washed through the room.
Ta'Lon stood for a moment, hands on hips, a small, enigmatic smile on his face. Then he swiftly changed into a clean pair of soft pants and lifted his practice sword from its place beneath the katok. Starting slowly, he gradually progressed to a full-speed workout -- and then beyond, driving himself past his limits into a transcendant dance of long-pent emotion. It was a full range of emotion, from frustration, anger and anguish through deepwelling joy and delight. As the blade -- scarcely less fine than the katok itself -- flashed and spun in his hands, he began to feel the infinitely delicate balance of the even finer blade that he carried in his heart.
****************
"They should be able to make repairs, but it's going to take a while -- half of Brown 11 was a shambles after those...um...things broke loose, and my cousin's Salle was right next door to the holobrothel..." Volga Jaddo was filling the Centauri Ambassador in on what had been happening on the station while he was gone.
"Holobrothel? How did a holobrothel survive the Captain's crackdown?" asked Vir, somewhat lost -- a fleet of Soul Hunters, an entire species trapped in a glass ball, and now a holobrothel!
"It had just started up," Volga replied. "Sergeant Satamba called it the mushroom effect, whatever that means," he added helpfully.
"I go away for a Lesser Month," Vir commented, "and everything around here goes completely..." he paused, and reconsidered. "Well, actually I suppose it's pretty much business as usual," he concluded with a wry smile.
"Ambassador," said Volga impulsively, "I know I haven't been here terribly long, but sometimes it seems as though there's something about this place that...attracts trouble. Do you know what I mean?"
Vir laughed aloud at the earnest expression on the young man's face. "Yes, Volga, I know exactly what you mean! However," he said, sobering, "I am afraid that trouble is no stranger to Homeworld these days, either. Which reminds me..." he went over to the wall, where a pair of kutaria were displayed between the portrait of the former Ambassador, now Emperor, and that of the new Ambassador, who might someday be Emperor -- if he could just stay alive long enough. He stretched up on tiptoe and very carefully took down one of the leather-sheathed blades. Holding it balanced on both hands, he turned and presented it to Volga.
"Here," he said. "Take this. It is yours by right, anyway, and I think...I think the Emperor would want you to have it."
"But...um...I...um..." the attache stammered.
"Take it," said Vir again, and Volga accepted the weapon clumsily. "Another thing," he continued. "There may be three men arriving from Homeworld soon -- they will ask for me, but if I'm busy when they get here, make sure they get settled. They are excellent swordsmen -- if there is any chance your cousin can use them as teachers, that would be ideal, but at any rate, I'd appreciate it if you scouted around and tried to find them something. They saved my life on Centauri Prime, and I owe them."
"All right...I'll...um...I'll do what I can..."
"...And one last thing, if you don't mind -- could you stop by the fruit stand in the Zocalo and pick up some oranges? About a bowlful -- there, that one will do nicely," he said, indicating a Sphodrian blackware vessel on the counter, currently filled with coins, clips, and other detritus of the Ambassador's working life.
"Oranges?" Volga echoed. "You mean the Earth fruit? Um...why do you want Earth fruit?"
Vir tilted his head and regarded the tall young man thoughtfully. "You know, I don't really know...it's just...all of a sudden I have a craving for them. See what you can find, will you?"
****************
RED SECTOR
Security Chief Zack Allan met DCI Tessa Halloran when she debarked on Babylon 5, and immediately began briefing her on the bizarre events of the past week and a half. She walked along with him, making listening noises in all the right places, but just as he was getting to the part about the Soul Hunter volunteering to join the Ralga in their globe she stopped, letting her bag drop to the floor.
"That's all very interesting, Zack, but I've got a lot of catching up on my own work to do, plus it's about three o'clock in the morning Dome One time -- can we maybe get together tomorrow and go over this?"
"Yeah, sure, no problem, I was just..." the Chief hesitated, taking a deep breath and flicking a sidelong look at her.
{{What now?}} she thought with some irritation.
"Look, maybe we could, um, 'get together' over dinner tomorrow?"
"Dinner?" Tessa echoed blankly.
"Yeah, dinner. You know -- food, wine, a little atmosphere? I know this great Centauri place..."
{{Oh, for...}} Tessa felt like sitting right down on the deck and crying -- or laughing, she wasn't sure which. After the whole mess with Chico Allende and Tambut Singh to remind her of the consequences of rashly following her amorous impulses, and with the comm-call she had determined to send to Stephen Franklin tomorrow, the last thing she needed was another entanglement. And Zack, of all people -- so sweet, under that gruff exterior, and so totally guaranteed to get himself hurt...she closed her eyes and sighed heavily.
"Zack, that's a lovely thought but...I really don't think it would be a good idea. I mean, we have to work together, and...it's kind of hard to explain, but I really can't, right now."
Zack nodded, his craggy features doing their usual good job of hiding his feelings. "I know -- it's the Doc, isn't it? I didn't mean to intrude, I just thought that..."
Tessa put up a hand to stop him. "It's not Stephen," she couldn't help saying. She knew that it might pique his interest, but she couldn't stand having anyone think of her as someone's 'property'. "I just..." She shook her head. "I just can't, that's all." She picked up her bag and moved off.
"That's...that's fine...I'll stop by your office after lunch, then..."
****************
ELSEWHERE
The Drakh Entire reflected upon what was, and upon what would be.
The capture of the Human renegade Wallace had been both a setback and a windfall: while it would certainly have been pleasing to have the Earth Alliance and the Interstellar Alliance at each other's throats, the absorption of Wallace's remaining followers into the group of disgruntled Earthforce and Minbari warriors who were being secretly guided by the Council of Return was of no small benefit.
The Drakh marvelled at this bizarre weakness of the Younger Races -- their willingness to turn on each other in pursuit of a goal, or an ideal. Even though the Drakh puppets on Mars had failed to secure the ISA's Holder-of-Hidden-Knowledge, their influence on the Humans' primitive Consensus might yet prevail -- unless their fellow Humans were able to uproot and thwart them. In any event, their unity would be significantly compromised. The Entire was regretfully certain that these creatures would never be sufficiently docile to serve, even once their centers-of-power were destroyed.
The Drazi, by contrast, were shaping up into quite a satisfactory subject race -- although they, too, had been thwarted in their attack on the Narn homeworld. Fortunately, Drakh influence was in no danger of discovery there, since the saboteurs had worked through 'normal' black-market channels to obtain their poison. The more advanced weapons promised to Zhirith and her followers would be delivered soon -- once the ambitious dreiz had proven herself worthy.
Finally, there was the Arm of the Way of Return that involved the Centauri -- here, a swell of what passed for mirth among the Drakh swept through the Entire, its epicenter the one who walked in flesh as Shiv'kala. The assassin provided by the Human, Molyneux (another puppet of the Drakh, though for the moment they indulged his illusion of independence), had failed to remove the minor nuisance of the overly-zealous Ambassador, but had then been turned into a weapon in the hand of their other puppet, Durla. A glyph manifested in the Entire, of a blade used by one hand to feint, then sent spinning into the other hand for the true strike.
All in all, things were going well. Slowly, perhaps, and not without the occasional setback, but in the long run, as always, the Darkness would prevail.
****************
DOME ONE SATELLITE 14B, MARS
Michael Garibaldi folded his wife into his arms, breathing in the clean scent of her night-dark hair. "So," he asked, resting his chin on the top of her head, "did anything exciting happen while I was gone?"
"Oh," she said, and he felt her delicate shoulders move in a quick shrug, like the flutter of a bird's wings under his hands. "Just the usual. Why, did anything exciting happen on Babylon 5?".
"Oh," he said thoughtfully, seeing again the streams of sentient golden light...a tormented scientist...a dying Soul Hunter...Captain Lochley's image in a pink Merry Widow...
"Just the usual."
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