Peter David - Out of the Darkness

Garibaldi was staring at him, extremely concerned, supporting him by holding his arms up. “Happened?” Sheridan aged to get out thickly. “I don’t—” Then it came back to him with the force of a hammer blow, and Sheridan shook off the confusion in an instant. “David! Something happened to David! There was this… this thing!”

“John!” It was the alarmed voice of Delenn this time, she was barreling down the hallway, followed by a Minbari whom Sheridan recognized as the sentry from the port. “John, David was at the port last night! He attacked this man and stole a shuttle!”

“It wasn’t David,” Sheridan said. When he saw the perplexed expressions of the others, he quickly clarified, “It wasn’t David in control. It was something else… this… this thing on his shoulder, I’ve never seen anything like it. It looked like a lump of clay, but with an eye. It was controlling him. It had to be.”

They ran quickly to David’s room. Sheridan cursed himself for honoring his son’s request for privacy by having his room set far apart from that of his parents. If he’d been nearby, he mighthave heard something earlier on, and been able to intervene before matters got out of hand.

Sheridan and the others looked in dismay at the wreckage. Whatever clues they might have found seemed hopelessly lost. Everything was smashed to pieces.

Sheridan leaned against the wall, sorting through everything he had seen. “Where could it have come from?”

“If it’s as small as you say it was, it could have snuck in through any part of the house,” Garibaldi said. He looked around. “David didn’t go without a struggle, I’ll tell ya. He tried to fight that thing off.”

Delenn suppressed a shudder as she picked up the pieces of the Centauri urn, which had apparently been shattered along with other objects in the room.

“We’ve got to find him,” Sheridan said furiously. “I want word sent out to all the members of the Alliance…”

“That might not be wise,” Garibaldi told him. Sheridan looked at him incredulously. “How could it not be wise?”

“Because it’s everything you’ve ever feared,” Garibaldi said. “if you advertise to everyone that your son’s disappeared, two things are going to happen. First, knowing that he’s off Minbar, every bounty hunter, every crackpot, every nutcase is going to turn out in force looking for him. They’ll want to snatch him and use him to exert pressure on you. And second, any nut and his brother can claim that they have him and start making demands. Sure, they won’t be able to prove that they have him, but you won’t be able to prove they don’t. You go wide with this, I guarantee you’ll solve nothing, and create a thousand headaches you can’t even begin to imagine.”

“What would you suggest, then?” Sheridan asked icily. “Where would we start looking?”

“Centauri Prime,” Delenn answered. They looked at her. “What?” Sheridan said.

She was holding up pieces of the urn, pieces from the lower half of it. “Londo said that this held water from a sacred river? It’s dry. There’s no sign of its ever having been wet, not the slightest aroma of mildew or any smell that would accompany stagnant water. There’s no moisture on the cabinet that it was on when it broke, none on the floor.”

“It could have evaporated,” Garibaldi offered uncertainly. “It could have. But I don’t think so. I think that thing John saw was hidden inside here, in some sort of hibernation. Waiting, all these years, for us to give it to David.”

It made sense.

It made horrific sense.

“He said we would always be friends. Do you remember, Delenn?” Sheridan said. His jaw constricted with mounting fury. “Remember what he said the day he gave it to us? That that day in our company meant so much to him. Well, now we know exactly what it meant, the bastard.”

“What do we do?” Delenn asked.

“We go to Centauri Prime,” Sheridan said without hesitation.

But Garibaldi shook his head. “You do no such thing. You don’t know for sure that it was Londo.”

“Are you defending him now, Michael?”

“No, I’m trying to make sure you don’t rush into something half-cocked,” Garibaldi said. “I’m as furious about it as you, but I’ve got more practice than you do keeping myself wrapped up. If David was taken from here, it was for one of two reasons: either they’re just going to kill him as a means of revenge, or they’ve got plans for him. If it’s the former, you can’t help him. If it’s the latter, those plans will certainly involve you, and you have to sit tight until you find out what their next move will be. His kidnappers will contact you. At that point, you’ll know for sure that it’s Londo, or whoever, and that s when you can plan your strategy.”

“My strategy is already planned,” Sheridan said tightly. “It starts with killing Londo Mollari. After that, I’ll improvise.”

I cannot remember the last time I ran.

Not just ran. Sprinted. My personal guards actually had to run to keep up with me, and everyone we dashed past gaped at us. At me. And why should they not?

My office is all about ceremony and posturing and maintaining dignity. The sight of the emperor charging down a corridor as if the hordes of hell itself were on his heels, well… I would have gaped as well.

I flung open the doors to Durla’s private suite, the place that served him as both home and office. Durla was in a huddled conference with several of his ministers. Truthfully, I do not remember which ones. This has nothing to do with my recurring difficulties with memory. In this instance, I was simply so furious over the circumstances that had brought me here that I saw no one save for Durla.

He opened his mouth to make some oily inquiry as to why I had decided to grace him with my presence. I did not give him the opportunity to ask. “Get out,” I snarled, and it was more than evident that I was referring to everyone but Durla.

And yet, incredibly, the ministers did not immediately leave. Instead they glanced at Durla, looking for confirmation. His. Over mine. The wishes of a prime minister over those of an emperor. Scandalous. Insanity. That such a thing could ever happen, and that I could be the emperor who had allowed matters to sink so low… it was a ghastly situation.

Trembling with rage, I said, “Atoiv/” Just as I said that, Durla nodded, and the others rose and departed the room. I turned to my guards and said, “You, too.”

“Highness, perhaps it may not be wise to—” one of them began.

“I am the emperor and you will do as you are ordered!” Whatever vestiges of pride and authority I might have had were obviously sufficient to get the job done, because the guards turned and walked out, leaving Durla and me alone.

“Is there a problem, Highness?” Durla inquired, unperturbed.

“Tell me how you did not do it,” I said through clenched teeth.

“What ‘it’ would that be, Highness?”

He knew damned well, but if he wished to play his games for the few seconds longer I was going to allow him to live, so be it. “I have heard,” I said, “that the son of John Sheridan is here. That you have kidnapped him. Yes? No?”

“No, your Highness.”

“You deny that he is here?”

“No, I deny that he was kidnapped. Apparently he arrived here of his own freewill.”

“And why did he do this, eh?”

“Because we are Centauri Prime,” he told me, “and it is our destiny to have all our enemies delivered unto us.”

I could not quite believe what I was hearing. “What?”