Peter David - Out of the Darkness

Before his parents could stop him, David did as he was told. He braced himself and pulled the trigger. There was not, however, any of the expected recoil. Instead an image instantly appeared, floating in the air, materialized there by a steady stream of light from the end of the “PPG.” It was a scantily clad young woman, life-sized and in glorious holographic 3-D, performing a dance that could only be described as extremely suggestive. A grin split David’s face. “Wow! Who is she?”

“God, I wish I knew.” Garibaldi sighed. “Happy birthday, David.”

Delenn cleared her throat loudly. “Michael… I don’t know that it’s particularly appropriate…”

“If you’re going to keep the kid nailed to Minbar, the least you can do is let him get a view of what’s out there. Am I right, John?” He paused. “John?”

Sheridan was staring at the holograph. With an effort, he binked himself back into the moment. “Oh… right.”

“John!” Delenn sounded almost betrayed. “Delenn, it’s harmless.”

“Harmless! It teaches him to look upon women as physical creatures, rather than complete beings of spiritual and…” Her voice trailed off as she watched the gyrations.

She angled her head slightly. “Are those… real?”

“Absolutely,” Garibaldi said immediately. “You can tell.”

“How? No, on second thought, I don’t want to know,” she amended quickly.

“That’s probably wise,” Sheridan said judiciously. Then a thought struck him. “Oh! One other thing.” He crossed to a cabinet and opened it. David watched in curiosity as his father delicately removed an urn. Walking carefully, as if afraid he would trip and drop it, Sheridan brought it across the room and settled it on the table in front of David where his other presents lay. David looked at it skeptically. “It’s an urn,” he said.

“That’s right.”

“Well… that’s nice,” David said gamely. “I was figuring I’d finish off the evening by having myself cremated, so… now I’ve got someplace to put me.”

Sheridan laughed, and Delenn told him, “This is not just any urn. It was a gift from Londo Mollari.”

“Before he became an asshole,” Garibaldi added.

“Michael!” Delenn scolded.

“Okay, okay, you got me. He was an asshole already.”

“Michael!”

“Oh, come on, Mom, it’s not as if you speak highly of him.”

“Ease up on your mother, David. And Michael, please… for once,” and he made a quick throat-cutting gesture before turning back to his son. “David… I know that we’ve made some less-than-flattering comments about the Centauri in general and their emperor in particular. And God knows Londo has made some incredibly bad choices in his life. Then again… we all have.”

“Not me,” Garibaldi said. “Not a single mistake.”

“Single, no. Numerous…”

Garibaldi clutched his heart as if stabbed by Sheridan’s comment. Sheridan returned his attention to David. “The fact is that Londo brought us this urn before you wereborn. He told us that the Centauri tradition dictates that this be given to the heir to the throne when he comes of age.”

“Like a Christmas fruitcake?”

Sheridan blinked. “What?”

David chucked a thumb at Garibaldi. “He told me that the was only one Christmas fruitcake ever baked. And no one wanted it. So it gets passed around from person to person, throughout history, every Christmas.”

“You’re just a bundle of information, aren’t you, Michael.” Garibaldi grinned. “Boy’s got to learn sometime.”

“Yeah, well, hopefully what he’ll learn is to stop listening to you. The point is, David, that—at that time, at least—we were the closest thing to family Londo ever had. He felt a… a connection to you. You were a sort of surrogate son, I guess. He was reaching out to you and, in so doing, reaching out to us, as well.

“And then he spent the next sixteen years trying to conquer the galaxy.”

“I don’t know how much of that is Londo, and how much of it is his advisers,” Sheridan said. “In any event, they’ll never succeed. We have some intelligence—gathering facilities of our own…”

“And they’re not what they once were,” Garibaldi said.

Sheridan glanced at him in amusement. “You mean since you left the job, it’s gone downhill.”

But Garibaldi obviously took the comment quite seriously.

“If you want to know the truth: yes. You’re depending on what other worlds are telling you. Except I know that palms have been greased, that people have found it to their advantage to look the other way, and no one truly believes that the Centauri are capable of trying what I think they’re going to try.”

“Londo may be many things, Michael… but he’s not insane, Attacks on individual border worlds are one thing. But if the Centauri get it into their heads to make a fullblown strike at the allies, they’ll be smashed to pieces.”

“Londo may not be insane, but that prime minister of his is a few anvils short of a chorus,” Garibaldi replied. “The problem is that he’s ignorant and arrogant. Ignorance you can deal with, you can outsmart ignorance. Arrogance you can likewise get around. Arrogant people, you can appeal to that arrogance and set them up for a fall. Ignorance and arrogance is a deadly combination. Now, if the other members of the Alliance want to stick their heads into the sand, that’s their choice, of course. But I’m hoping that you, Mr. President, aren’t turning into one of those, or letting a gift from sixteen years ago soften you in your concerns toward the Centauri. Because I’m telling you: They’re a threat.”

“Believe it or not, Michael, I haven’t lost sight of that,” Sheridan said patiently. “But I also haven’t lost sight of the fact that, once upon a time, Londo Mollari was our friend. God willing, he may be again someday. And in hopes of that time… here,” and he slid the urn closer to David.

David picked it up, turned it over. “The bottom part is sealed,” he noted.

“Yes, we know,” Delenn said. “It’s supposed to contain water from a sacred river that ran in front of the palace.”

“It’s kind of okay,” David allowed. He turned the vase over, For some reason it felt… comfortable in his hands. Even though it was the first time he had seen it, he felt as if it had always been his. “It’s nice.”

“Kind of okay? Nice? From you, David, that is high praise indeed,” his mother teased him. He hefted the vase once more, then glanced at the leftover cake. “Mom, is it okay if I have another piece?”

“My God, he likes it,” Sheridan said, amazed. “Absolutely—”

“—not,” Delenn told him flatly.

David’s “Mom!” overlapped with Sheridan’s slightly less anguished, but just as annoyed, “Delenn!”

“You know how I feel about gluttony,” she said. “Besatisfied with what you have, David. The rest of the cake will be here tomorrow.”

“I sure as hell know I’m not going to take any of it,” Garibaldi piped up cheerfully.

“I don’t recall anyone asking you,” Sheridan told him.

David found that, the longer he looked at the urn, the more trouble he had taking his eyes off it. “Dad… would it be okay it I sent a message off to the emperor? To thank him?”

“I think that would be a very nice gesture,” Sheridan said “You may have to jog his memory a bit. He never had the opportunity to meet you, after all.”

“Who knows?” Delenn said. “If the situation changes for the better—perhaps you will have the opportunity to meet the emperor face—to—face someday.”

“And won’t that be wonderful,” Garibaldi said.

When General Rhys met the prime minister for breakfast, he found Durla to be in a fairly somber mood. “Is there a problem, sir?” Rhys inquired. Durla was holding a roll, staring at it. Then he placed it down carefully and looked at Rhys. “General,” he said after a moment, “my lady wife, Mariel, will not be continuing with us. I wish to have her returned to Centauri Prime as soon as possible.”