Peter David - Out of the Darkness

“Why are you dying?” I managed to say.

“To annoy you. Anything else?” She seemed anxious to end the transmission, to do anything except talk to me, be anywhere except on a line with me. A hundred responses went through my mind, and only one emerged.

“I want you to know… I am sorry,” I said.

She stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. The seconds passed like an infinity.

Then her eyes softened ever so slightly. “You should be. But not for what you imagine you’re calling to apologize for.”

“I’m afraid I—”

“You don’t understand. But then you rarely took the time to understand, or even to consider your actions. You were impulsive the night you banished me from Centauri Prime.” The effort of speaking took a great deal from her. She stopped to breathe, and I said nothing.

“I have been less impulsive and have had more time to speculate, given my current condition. Londo, I know about your dilemma.”

“How could you possibly know?”

“Do you not remember Lady Morella? You asked her to tell you about your future.”

“That was a private transaction.”

“Mmm, everything important to a Centauri is a private transaction, hence everything important to a Centauri is open to public scrutiny. I’m your wife, Londo. Even in exile, I know almost everything you do.

“It comes with the territory.” She did not say these words flippantly. In fact, her eyes burned brighter.

Ah, yes, Timov knew just as all empresses knew of their husband’s good fortune and ill omens. I saw what she was saying now. She was implying that Lady Morella, previously a telepath somewhat stronger in psionic capability than the average empress, was granted special vision as the wife of Emperor Turhan.

Timov knew. As Lady Morella knew. I had to warn her. “It is very dangerous for you to speculate on these things. That is why you are kept in exile.”

“I know that. You are surrounded in darkness, and it is a darkness I know better than to penetrate.”

“I should go, Timov. I just wanted to call to say… many things. None of them expressible now.”

“Good-bye, Londo,” she said briskly.

I reached to cut off the transmission, and Timov abruptly said, “Londo…”

My hand paused over the cutoff switch. “Yes?”

“If you need me, call.”

“I won’t be needing you.”

“I know,” she said tartly. “That’s why I made the offer.”

The screen blinked off. And I knew at that moment that I would never see her again. But at least I had tried. Tried… and failed.

If I cannot achieve greatness, at least I can aspire to consistency.

Vir was hurriedly packing in his quarters on Babylon 5 when an urgent beeping at his door interrupted him.

“Go away!” he called.

“We need to talk,” came a surprisingly familiar voice. And yet it wasn’t entirely too much of a surprise. In fact, the main surprise for Vir was that it hadn’t occurred sooner.

“Come,” he called, his command disengaging the door lock.

Michael Garibaldi entered, looking entirely too calm. He glanced around. “Going somewhere?”

“Yes. You could say th—”

And then, before Vir could say anything further, Garibaldi was across the room. He grabbed Vir by the shirtfront and slammed him up against a wall, knocking over furniture.

“I don’t think so,” Garibaldi said, and he spoke with barely contained fury. “I think you’re going to tell me exactly how you think your people are going to get away with—”

He stopped. There was a blade pressed up against his throat, the hilt gripped solidly in Vir’s hand. And Vir was staring into Garibaldi’s eyes with absolutely no trace of fear. Any resemblance to the Vir Cotto who first set foot on Babylon 5 was long gone.

“What I think,” Vir said in a low voice, “is that you’re going to get your damned hands off me. And then we will talk like the reasonable men I know that one of us is.”

Very slowly, Garibaldi released his hold on Vir’s shirt and stepped back, keeping the palms of his hands up where Vir could readily see them. “The only reason you got away with that,” he said, “was that you were the last person I would have thought capable of doing it.”

“That’s how I get away with a lot of things these days,” Vir told him. He slid the blade back into the scabbard that was hidden under his vest. He studied Garibaldi a moment. The former security chief was unshaven and glassy—eyed. “How long since you’ve slept?”

“Did you know about it?” Garibaldi demanded.

“About your not sleeping?” Vir was completely lost.

“About David?”

“David.” It took Vir a moment to place the name. “Sheridan’s son. What about him?”

“They have him.”

Once again it took Vir a few moments to follow the track of the conversation… but then he understood. “Great Maker, no,” he whispered.

“Great Maker, yes.”

Vir walked around to the bar and promptly poured himself a drink. He held up the bottle to Garibaldi as an offering. Garibaldi took the bottle, stared at it a moment, then took a deep smell of the alcohol wafting from it before placing it back on the bar. “It’s a good vintage,” Vir said, slightly surprised.

“Maybe some other time… like when I’m on my deathbed.”

“Tell me what happened. Tell me everything.”

Something in Vir’s voice must have convinced Garibaldi, for after only a moment’s hesitation, he laid out the circumstances involving David’s disappearance, in quick, broad strokes. When he mentioned the small lump of a creature on David’s shoulder, Vir slowly nodded. “Drakh,” he said.

“What? What about the Drakh?” Garibaldi said.

“Go on. I’ll tell you in a minute.”

So Garibaldi continued, and when he was finished, Vir simply sat there, contemplating his drink. “His parents are going out of their minds with worry.”

“They have every reason to,” Vir said. His eyes narrowed. “I think their friends are going a bit crazy, too.”

“Sorry about… earlier,” Garibaldi told him, gesturing toindicate his unexpected assault on Vir. “You said ‘Drakh’ before. Are you talking about the same Drakh who inflicted the plague on Earth?”

“The very same. That thing that you saw on David? Londo has one like it on him. It’s how they control you, or watch you, or something like that.”

“Are you saying,” Garibaldi said slowly, “that the Drakh are somehow involved with Centauri Prime? With this kidnapping?”

Vir took a deep breath and let it out. “Yes. They have been for some time. They control Londo. I suspect they control Durla, to some degree. I also have reason to believe that a Drakh was involved in the death of Lou Welch.”

“You told me it was the Prime Candidates.”

“It was. But the Drakh apparently helped.” He shook his head. “The plague they inflicted on Earth is not dissimilar from the plague they’ve inflicted on my world as well… except on Cen tauri Prime it’s more covert.”

“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

“I couldn’t take the chance,” Vir admitted. “These are agents of the Shadows we’re talking about. I was concerned that if you knew they were on Centauri Prune, you would tell Sheridan, Sheridan would tell the Alliance, and that would have been all that was needed for the Alliance to come down on my people, attack without hesitation. The Centauri, after all, were seen as a beaten people. The Drakh would have been something that you would have goneafter… but Centauri Prime would have suffered. You would have killed the patient in order to annihilate the disease.”