Clark's Law, page 15
The deceased.
Brian.
Jacintha licked her lips and-finally-lowered her eyes to the shrouded body, the face. His face. Brian’s face.
He was not as she remembered him.
He was pale. The skin was bruised. There were contusions on the cheeks, a cut above the eyebrow. Brian was a big man. Well, wide, anyway. In life he had been given to sudden movements, dramatic if somewhat clumsy. Now he seemed somehow shrunken, as if death had robbed him of more than just his life, as if it had somehow managed to… to dull his presence even in her memories of him. As if it had taken the full color stereo image she had of him in her mind and reduced it to a flat, black and white copy, grainy and insubstantial.
Or had she done that by not loving him?
It didn’t matter. What did was the fact that Brian was gone. When he was buried her life would be her own again.
She sighed, settled wearily into one of the pews, sighed again as the ache in her legs and back subsided a little, then felt guilty at the sense of relief. Brian hadn’t had any relief. How had he felt? Had he known that he was going to die? Had he had time for a last thought? What had been his last sensations? Feelings.
How could she ever know? How could she ever even presume to try to understand?
Tears came then. She rested her head in her hands and surrendered to the feelings cascading through her, all sense of time and self washed away in a confusing torrent of emotions, until eventually there were no more tears, just a confused, vaguely uncomfortable emptiness that seemed desperately to cry out for something, some emotion to fill it.
There was nothing. She was empty. Drained.
When the sound of pews creaking told her there was someone beside her, she looked up. A figure was sitting in the front row, an arm’s length away from Brian. A human, dark skinned, wearing doctor’s whites.
“You must be Dr. Franklin.”
He nodded, glanced from Brian to her and back again. “It sounds morbid, I know, but… you can touch the body. If you want. Sometimes it helps. To let go.”
“Doctor, I haven’t ‘touched’ my husband for nearly three years.” Despite her grief and confusion, Jacintha found herself giggling, wondered briefly what Franklin must think of her, then instantly dismissed the thought from her mind, the smile from her face. “Believe me, letting go isn’t a problem.”
Franklin shrugged. “Whatever’s right for you.”
She nodded agreement. “What’s right is for me to take Brian home and bury him.”
Franklin sat perfectly still, said nothing. She felt something from him though. Irritation? Embarrassment? Surely not… shame?
“I’m… uh… I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”
Another flash of anger. “So the choice is yours, is it?”
Now it was Franklin’s turn to utter a humorless laugh. “If it was up to me, you could leave on the next flight.” A hesitation. “The directive comes from EarthGov.”
“I understand. They pay your salary. You have to do as you’re told.” Where had that bitterness in her voice come from? Did she really care whether Brian’s burial was delayed a few hours or days? Did it really matter in the long term? Or at all for that matter?
Yes. It mattered to her.
She just couldn’t say why.
Franklin nodded. “I’m sorry you feel that way. You should know it isn’t like that. Both Captain Sheridan and myself have-“
“-every sympathy. Yes. I know. He said that too.”
She watched his eyes then, saw into his head. Saw his doubt about her strength. Saw herself as he saw her: confused, upset, impressionable, shocked, lonely. The image angered her, made her even more determined to let no one else make assumptions about her, her state of mind, ever again.
Starting right now.
“Doctor, I told Captain Sheridan and now I’m telling you. I have a flight booked in fifteen hours. My husband and I will be on that flight. Or half the galaxy will know via the public broadcast networks why not.”
Franklin sighed, seemed about to speak. She didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. She simply rose and left the chapel, too upset to discuss the matter further.
CHAPTER 11
Vir found Londo in the Dark Star, probably one of the busiest of the Zocolo bars. The Dark Star was owned and run by Taan Churok, an old Drazi with a penchant for ancient pop music and fistfights, one of many entrepreneurs who had seen the advantage in obtaining a license to open twenty-four hours per day in order to catch business from workers from all three duty shifts.
The bar was just this side of legal, had been known to teeter on the edge occasionally. Taan Churok, the owner, was rumored to have been a winner of the Mutai in his younger days. Vir had personally found this claim dubious until the day when a pair of Morellians had stomped in high as a ComSat on salted wheat crackers and demanded free time on the gaming tables. Taan Churok had granted them three free spins each in the name of a quiet life, but had drawn the line when the Morellians had demanded free time backstage with the dancers.
Taan Churok had told them they were getting no free anything, with anyone, backstage, onstage, or anywhere else for that matter, unless it was free directions to the exit. The Morellians hadn’t liked that. They’d told Churok the only thing more out of date than his morals was his music. Vir had quietly sidled toward the exit himself at this point, only to be overtaken by a bloody Morellian dragging his semiconscious friend as fast as he could on only three legs away from a glowering Churok.
From that time on Vir had come to take both the owner of the Dark Star and his taste in music a little more seriously.
Vir stood in the entrance to the Dark Star and studied the crowd of Centauri and aliens drinking, shouting, watching the dancers, gambling. Two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old human rock music was a solid wall in the smoky air, battering at Vir and plucking at his clothes with such frantic energy that he was surprised the noise dampeners were able to stop it getting out into the Zocolo.
Vir forced his way through the crowd. All around him people of various species shouted, clicked, barked, and whistled to each other above the music. Vir passed a Deneth triplet giving each other the eye, scrambled underneath the arched segmented coils of a Ynaborian Sinnining-dangerous because her eyes were squeezed tightly shut and each of her fifty-kilo segments seemed to have picked up the rhythm of a different subbeat of the music-and finally stepped over a drunken Froon collapsed across the hugely muscular fifth leg of a Throxtil. The Throxtil was so engrossed in a tactile conversation with a blind Cauralline that it simply hadn’t noticed the snoring Froon wrapped snugly around its leg. Vir hoped the Froon came to before the Throxtil decided to sit down.
Vir moved on through the crowd. He’d expected to find Londo at the gaming tables, a simpering female on each arm, a trio of dice in one eager hand, a large drink clutched firmly in the other.
Not today; today Londo was doing the other thing he did well.
He was propping up the bar.
Vir watched him from the ramp leading down from the Zocolo. He looked so alone. His back was hunched defensively, his eyes were downcast, his whole demeanor seemed heavy with sadness. He stirred his drink absently, fished out some kind of sweetmeat, popped it into his mouth, chewed as absently as he had stirred.
He sipped his drink.
Even the half-naked Centauri dancers seemed unable to hold his attention for longer than a few seconds.
Vir felt unlooked-for empathy. Sitting there, quiet, alone in the crowd, Londo reminded him very much of himself.
He shook his head, put aside the maudlin thoughts. He pushed through the crowd toward his mentor, took the next seat. It didn’t escape his notice that no one was sitting too close to Londo, and it was obvious that it hadn’t escaped Londo’s notice either. He looked up as Vir sat, a mixture of surprise and pleasure at the thought of company. His face fell when he saw who it was.
“Vir. It’s only you.”
Vir ordered drinks for them both. “It’s still early. I thought you would have been talking to the Tuchanq delegation.”
“They are still considering the Republic’s offer.””
The barman placed a drink in front of each of them. Londo lifted his immediately to his lips. “You have completed your work for the day, Vir?”
Vir shook his head. “I have found something out which, I am afraid to say, distresses me greatly.”
Londo uttered a short, humorless laugh. “Look at all these happy smiling people around you, Vir. Do you think they would be here if they were truly happy elsewhere? Everyone is distressed about something. Do you not think I would understand that? I am one of these people after all.”
Vir sighed inwardly. Since the appearance of Morden instation, Londo had become increasingly withdrawn. Since the war had ended he had suffered terrible mood swings. Elation and depression. Incredible highs followed by desperate lows. And Vir had been drawn into those mood swings with Londo, at times admiring the Ambassador, at other times pitying him, at still others laughing uproariously at some bit of outrageousness as the old and altogether too rarely glimpsed Londo Mollari shone through the darkness that his life had in recent months become.
Vir licked his lips. “Forgive my saying so, Ambassador, but… just lately you seem… well, a little down.”
Londo downed half his drink. “Don’t you worry, Vir. It’s a passing phase.”
“Perhaps it would pass more quickly if you saw Dr. Franklin, asked him for a prescription… perhaps something to help you sleep… ?”
“No!” Londo answered quickly. Too quickly. “The only medication I need is right here in the bar.” Londo finished his drink and ordered another. “So,” he added as he waited for the drink to arrive. “What brings you to my little drunken aerie, this fine and glorious day?”
Vir shook his head, somehow unable to bring himself to confront Londo with G’Kar’s accusation.
Londo pointed a finger at him. “Vir, let me give you a bit of friendly advice. If you want to become an Ambassador in your own right, there is one thing you must learn. Never, ever let them see you hesitate.”
Vir shook his head, uttered his own version of Londo’s humorless laugh. “I was merely attempting to protect your feelings, Ambassador.”
Londo sat up straighter on his bar stool, slopping his drink over his robes as he did so. “And that’s another thing you must learn, Vir. When to go for the throat. The art of politics is when to strike, when to hold back.”
Vir nodded. Londo was very drunk. Perhaps he’d speak to him later. He got up to leave, felt Londo’s hand on his arm holding him back.
“So tell me, Vir. Here we are, both of us together in an informal situation, and I am four-fifths drunk. So you tell me. Is this a time to go for the throat? Or is it a time to hold back, consider the situation, listen, and learn?”
Vir frowned. “Ambassador, I don’t understand what-“
“My dear Vir, of course you don’t!” Londo interrupted in a slurred voice, spreading his hands and slopping his drink as he did so. “That is why I am the Ambassador and you are the attache!” Mollari beamed expansively, took another slug of his drink, turned his attention away from Vir toward a Centauri dancer performing on a raised stage on the other side of the room.
That was when Vir began to get angry. “All right, Ambassador, if that’s the way you want it. I had thought to mention something which has come to my attention, but seeing as how you are obviously-“
“Obviously nothing, Vir!” Londo interrupted again. “Just get on with it, will you?”
Vir tried to control his anger. “I have spoken with G’Kar. He accuses you of trying to have him killed. Is this in fact true?” Mollari blinked, then abruptly laughed out loud. “Why, Vir, I think you may actually have learned when the time is right to go for the throat after all!”
Vir felt his hands clench uselessly by his sides. “Is it true?” Londo took a deep breath, finished his drink and ordered another. Vir wasn’t halfway through his first drink yet; Londo was already on his third since Vir had joined him. He stared at Vir, a direct stare, eyes too wide, too bright. Not for the first time Vir had an impression of what it might be like to make an enemy of him.
“Vir, let me tell you something. We sit here together and you see an old drunken Centauri. One with delusions of grandeur, perhaps. One whose control over his gambling and drinking is slipping; oh just a little, but slipping nonetheless. You see a fat old Centauri with his mind locked in the past while his ambition reaches past his abilities into the future. Well, let me tell you something, Vir. My vision is not unique. If you were any sort of Centauri yourself you would share that vision. A vision of the Republic as it could be. As it will be. And let me tell you, Vir, anything I can do to make that vision happen, I will do. Knowingly, willingly, with joy.”
Vir felt sick. His mouth worked silently as, for the second time in as many hours, the right words simply would not come.
“Nothing to say, Vir? Well? Is it time to go for the throat? Or time to hold back? Why don’t you tell me, Vir? Show me what you’ve learned in your time here with me.”
Vir found himself shaking. The music in the bar was deafening, smashing into his head. Human music. It seemed to be everywhere these days.
“Ambassador…”
“Yes?” Amusement. Indulgence.
“Londo…”
“Yes?” Irritation now. And impatience.
“Did you do it? Did you have G’Kar attacked? Did you try to have him killed?”
And Londo laughed, loud and long. “Oh, no, Vir, no, no, no. It seems I was wrong about you. That was the wrong time to go for the throat. You should have waited, listened, learned. Perhaps offered me another drink. Loosened me up even further. I’m sorry, Vir. You were wrong. But never mind. At least you’ve learned that there is still much to learn. I tell you what: Let me buy you another drink to commiserate.” Londo waved drunkenly at the barman.
Vir said quietly, slowly, “Do you remember when my family tried to have me removed from office, taken back to Centauri Prime? You helped me then. Threatened to leave if I was made to leave. You said I was indispensable to you. I thought we could trust each other. I thought we were friends.”
Londo sniffed, drank deeply from the freshened glass. Avoiding Vir’s gaze, he stared at the bar top. “This new Republic is no place to form friendships, Vir,” he said eventually. His voice was barely audible above the music.
Vir could control his anger no longer. “Is that more political advice? Or your self-pity speaking?” He got up to leave. “Perhaps it’s the drink speaking?” He stared at Londo very hard, willing him to understand. “Then again perhaps it’s not you at all. Perhaps it’s someone else talking.”
Londo lifted his eyes to regard Vir with something akin to surprise.
“In any case, I’m both afraid and ashamed to say that you’re right.” Vir pushed through the crowd and left the bar.
He had some serious thinking to do.
CHAPTER 12
Garibaldi stopped by Security Control to pick up an old bag of cash he kept lying around for bribes, briefed Allen quickly on his itinerary, then jumped onto a personnel lift that shot him up toward the core of Blue Sector. From there he donned an AE suit and moved south until he came to the first of the entrances to the alien sector.
Red Sector, as it was officially known, was essentially a huge cylinder within a cylinder built around the station core. Like the carousel it rotated-but faster than the main station in order to provide the extremes of gravity heavy planet dwellers found comfortable at its outer rim. The cylinder was separated from the main station infrastructure by a double hull. Access was through air locks situated radially around the core.
The idea was you stepped through one air lock, crossed a short stretch of curved deck, stepped across the interface where the floor changed speed, gained a little weight (not too much here at core), and then entered the alien sector through another air lock.
Garibaldi stepped with special care across this floor interface between sections. There was an old story about a guy who’d owed big money in the casinos whose feet had been hyperglued to adjacent pieces of floor moving at different speeds. It had taken twenty minutes for his leg to be tom off. He’d been saved… but the medics had to chase him halfway around the core to stanch the bleeding.
He’d heard people bust a gut over that one for an hour, improbable as it was.
Garibaldi stepped carefully across the interface, cycled the lock that let him into the Hanging Garden. Running the length of Red Sector, the Hanging Garden was a long cylinder wrapped around the station core. Curved glass panels set into inner and outer walls gave visual access to both the core shuttles and the business and habitation cylinders located further out toward the rim. The cylinder’s atmosphere was mainly methane-ammonia, the second most commonly occurring atmosphere besides the oxygen-nitrogen variations. The Hanging Garden got its name from various-sized spheres of soil that were floating at different distances from the core, supported on thick chains that were anchored to both inner and outer walls. Growths of phosphorescent alien vegetation ranging from bush-to tree-size clustered in lumps around these tethered balls of soil, their fronds spreading out in slowly waving masses. The bright globes of vegetation receded into the distance until their color was leached away by the foggy atmosphere. Aliens and humans seeking an alternative place of recreation to the earth-normal Park glided through this environment, their AE suit lights winking through the fog like clouds of glowing pollen caught in shafts of sunlight.
Garibaldi activated his thruster set and moved into the fog. He had arranged to meet n’Grath at the Dilgar War Memorial, located halfway along the chamber.
n’Grath was Trakallan, a methane-breathing insectoid whose natural home was the upper middle atmosphere of one of the gas giants orbiting Beta Lyrae. Nobody seemed to know when
