Clark's Law, page 17
That and the thought of revenge.
CHAPTER 14
When Jacintha left the chapel and Medlab, she found herself unsure which way to go. The problem was, she didn’t know what she wanted to do. But then again was that any wonder? She’d come here to get Brian, take him home and bury him. That was simple enough, wasn’t it?
Not for the Babylon 5 administration, it seemed.
Jacintha supposed she would have to think about renting a room, calling home to tell Janna, her neighbor, she was going to be longer than they’d thought and would she mind looking after the kids for another day?
And would she mind making sure they didn’t watch the news broadcasts?
Her mind made up, Jacintha began to walk toward the Blue
Sector monorail terminal. She turned a comer-and walked into a demonstration. The corridor was filled with humans and aliens carrying banners and chanting. Writing on the banners proclaimed:
Protect Innocence!
Save the Tuchanq!
Love the Alien!
Free D’Arc!
She stopped short. In that moment she was swept up in the group and tumbled along a number of corridors into the Blue Sector Plaza. With more space the press of people around her eased slightly, but only slightly. The demonstration was drawing a crowd.
Jacintha tried to get her bearings, turned, attempted to walk out of the demonstration and through the crowd into a space clear of people. Signs indicating the way to the monorail terminal caught her attention. If she could reach that—
Before she took more than a dozen steps she was confronted by a young woman. The woman thrust a plastic badge into her hands. The badge reiterated the slogans painted on the signs and chants.
“Love the alien, save the Tuchanq,” the girl chanted, whirled away into the crowd.
Jacintha struggled to get her bearings, struggled even harder to get her feelings under control. Save the Tuchanq? It was a Tuchanq who had killed Brian. Who had murdered Brian. This D’Arc about whom the demonstrators were chanting.
Jacintha felt herself jostled with increasing violence as more people joined the growing crowd of prolife protestors.
And suddenly it wasn’t just her body being assaulted by the noise, the banners, the chanting; it was her mind as well. Because until now she hadn’t had much time or inclination to think about the conditions surrounding Brian’s death. He was gone. That really was what mattered. Now she was not so sure anymore. Now the circumstances surrounding his death seemed very important indeed.
Another demonstrator thrust a fistful of scrappily printed literature into her hand. “Save D’Arc, protect innocence!” the man chanted.
Jacintha felt her confusion grow into rage. She grabbed the man by his lapels, shook him as hard as she could. “Save D’Arc? She killed my husband!”
But the man had broken away without hearing her words. She caught a glimpse of a disgusted expression splashed across his face before the crowd hid him from view: horror, pity. He thought she disagreed with his ideals. Thought she was a racist. A Home Guard.
Jacintha finally managed to push her way clear of the crowd. She realized she was crying again when a woman slung her arm around her shoulders and comforted her. “I know you’re upset. We’re all upset. It’s a political fiasco. We won’t stand for it. Come with us to Blue One and picket Security Control. They’ve got D’Arc in a cell there. We’ll show the administration that the people have a conscience even if EarthGov doesn’t. We’ll show them we won’t stand for this kind of immoral behavior toward an intelligent being.”
Jacintha shook off both arm and words, ran as fast as she could under the earth-normal gravity toward the monorail terminal. Her chest ached; her back and legs were in agony. She had to stop. Just stop and rest. Just for a moment.
No. She had to go on. She had to see for herself the being who had killed Brian, who had fundamentally reshaped her life.
She had to see D’Arc.
No matter what it cost her.
CHAPTER 15
G’Kar stood outside the door to Londo Mollari’s quarters, wondered how two years of striving for peace had managed to bring him to this moment of violence; how a century and a half of freedom from the tyrant’s reign had somehow brought his people back to slavery again.
He shivered.
The humans would say he was back to square one.
That wasn’t quite true. Now he had purpose. That and the dagger; he could feel its weight against his waist, cold, comforting. A tool with which he would define both the following few moments and afterward, his life, his future.
Fresh bandages wrapped his chest and thigh beneath clean clothes. He had removed the old, bloodstained ones before he left the Park, replacing them with others he had carried with him in a small kit bag. The bloodstained clothes were now shredded, dumped into the recycler in his quarters. That would cost him an extra ten credits for power usage this week-but then again he could afford it now.
Very soon he would have no need of affording anything ever again.
G’Kar banged on the door to Londo Mollari’s quarters. There was no reply. He banged again, more loudly this time.
Mollari’s voice echoed irritably from within. “Whoever it is-go away. I’ve got a hangover. I want to be in pain by myself.”
G’Kar allowed himself a thin smile. “Mollari. It is G’Kar.”
Long silence.
G’Kar drew himself up to his full height and said, “I have come here to negotiate the terms of the surrender of the Narn population on Babylon 5.”
Another long silence.
The door slid open.
G’Kar entered.
The door closed behind him.
G’Kar found himself looking around Mollari’s quarters, the opulence, the vanities, the expensive luxuries. All unnecessary, now.
Mollari emerged from the bathroom wearing a sleeping robe. His eyes were puffed, rheumy, his hair bedraggled. He had obviously been fast asleep only a few minutes before.
Mollari waited for G’Kar to speak.
“It has been many months since we have talked with anything like civil tongues,” G’Kar said quietly. “So I would be grateful if… ” Then he stopped. He was here to kill someone. Not conduct pleasantries with them. And anyway-standing here, staring at Mollari-all he felt was rage. This being had been responsible for the decimation of his homeworld. He was a despot, a tyrant in the making. To such a being civil words would have no meaning-and in any case the time for words had long since passed.
Mollari adjusted his robe, waited for him to continue.
G’Kar said nothing, felt Mollari’s eyes on him. Did he suspect? The Ambassador may be a sop but he was nothing if not observant.
G’Kar cast his eyes submissively toward the rich carpet. How much had that carpet cost Mollari to ship instation? The cost of medical treatment for ten Narn casualties? Twenty? And the commission of his portrait hanging upon one wall: artists’ time was valuable; that portrait might have bought the lives of a hundred Nam.
Mollari said impatiently, “You said you’re here to discuss terms. Discuss them.”
G’Kar felt himself growing angry. The arrogance of the man! To even consider discussing the enslavement of G’Kar’s people while still dressed in his pajamas.
G’Kar lowered his eyes even further. Mollari must believe him implicitly. “Can we not at least have one drink together before we negotiate terms?”
Mollari considered. “Victor to vanquished?” He pursed his lips, rubbed sleep from his eyes, thoughtfully preened his crest of hair. Eventually he nodded. “It would be only… civilized.” He half turned away from G’Kar to walk toward the kitchen area. “I will prepare-” Mollari stopped then, as if suddenly aware of the position he was in.
Too late.
G’Kar pulled the dagger from his pouch, lurched painfully across the intervening space, and slammed the dagger up to its hilt in Mollari’s back.
Mollari let out an agonized wail and sank to his knees. G’Kar pulled the knife free. Mollari’s hands arched back toward the wound as blood soaked into his robes. On all fours, he managed to turn to face G’Kar. His eyes were bright with a terrible rage. “You… you…”
G’Kar smiled. “Now you understand. Your greed and arrogance have laid you at my feet.”
Mollari struggled to speak. Blood bubbled from his lips instead. He collapsed into a sitting position, shaking violently with shock, making choking noises, trying to suck air into his ruined lungs.
G’Kar stood over him, asked softly, “Do you know why I hate you so much?”
Mollari gurgled, eyes wide with pain and rage… and now fear.
G’Kar explained it to him. “I have lain awake at night for months trying to work it out. At first I got nowhere. We were so different, you see. You the bloody tyrant, myself the innocent victim. I could never understand what would drive an intelligent species such as the Centauri to invade an agrarian world like Narn. But then, slowly, with your help, I began to see the truth.”
G’Kar held Mollari’s shoulder, pushed the dagger firmly into his chest, twisted it, pulled it out again sharply.
Mollari let out an agonized squeal.
G’Kar released the Ambassador, and he slumped onto his side. His head slammed into the floor, sending strings of spittle and blood to stain his expensive carpet.
G’Kar said, “Today I killed a Centauri in cold blood. Stabbed him in the back. Without honor. Without fair warning. Does this sound in any way familiar, Ambassador?”
Another choking gurgle.
“No? Substitute for a dagger four lurker assassins disguised as Tuchanq and see if it becomes any clearer then.”
Mollari’s eyes widened. Surprise? Shock? Probably both.
“You see, Ambassador, the lowly Narn has intelligence after all.” G’Kar kneeled beside Mollari, showed him the dagger with his own blood smeared along the blade, said bitterly, “I hate you because I’m like you. We are the same. And you have made us that way.”
G’Kar lowered his face close to Mollari’s, inhaled deeply. “Let me taste your last breath, Ambassador. Let me taste the fear, the anger -the injustice, the humiliation of being stabbed in the back.” He paused, smiled. “Let us share one last moment together: victor to vanquished.”
G’Kar looked into Mollari’s eyes, pushed the dagger back into his chest. Mollari jerked backward with a cry. Blood welled from the new wound, soaked into his robes.
G’Kar bent even closer, listened for the last sound Mollari would make, the rattling sigh in his throat as death finally claimed him.
Instead he heard a faint bleep.
Mollari whipered “… Vir…”
G’Kar looked down the length of Mollari’s body. Something was moving at his waist. Quickly he wrenched aside the robe, snarled angrily. The tentacles. He’d forgotten Mollari’s tentacles. One of them held the Ambassador’s link, peeled off the back of his hand. It was active.
“… Vir!…”
How long had the link been active?
G’Kar wrenched at the knife buried in Mollari’s chest. It moved an inch and then jammed between his ribs. G’Kar rocked the dagger. It wouldn’t come free.
There was a soft sigh of noise from floor level.
Mollari was laughing.
G’Kar stood, scrambled backward away from the dying Ambassador, pressed his back to the door.
Mollari spoke, though how he summoned the strength to form words, G’Kar was unable to imagine. “… not… die… yet…” A gurgle, then, “… together… die together… years from…” The words turned into laughter, as if Mollari had shared a joke he knew G’Kar could not possibly understand. A moment, then his laughter bubbled away into silence.
Behind G’Kar the door opened as his elbow hit the control. The corridor beyond was empty. For how long?
G’Kar stumbled from the room into the corridor beyond, his head whirling. Not die yet? Die together? Years from-? What was that supposed to mean? Damn Mollari! Even in death the Centauri mocked him.
No matter. Mollari was dying; that much was obvious. Revenge was his after all.
G’Kar jumped as the door closed behind him, sealing off Mollari’s dying whimper. He hurried away from the Ambassadorial section. He couldn’t afford to be discovered yet. There was still one death to arrange.
His own.
CHAPTER 16
Garibaldi jerked awake with a cry-at least he tried to cry out. His throat wouldn’t work properly.
He became aware of a figure at his side. “Hey, there, take it easy. You’ve been unconscious for nearly three hours.”
Franklin.
He was in Medlab.
But the plasma bolt-the ruptured faceplate—
He began to struggle again.
There was the sting of a needle as Franklin administered an injection. “Garibaldi, you’re more trouble than you’re worth. Calm down or I’ll put you out again.”
Garibaldi struggled to get his throat working. “You and whose army?”
Franklin did not smile. “Drink this. It’ll take the edge off that pain in your throat.”
Garibaldi allowed himselt to be helped into a sitting position, took the cup and swallowed the contents. “What happened? I was shot. I should be dead.”
“The AE suit absorbed a lot of the blast. You’ve got some ammonia bums because the suit was breached. That’s what the pain in your throat is. Basically. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“I don’t get it. I remember getting tangled up in the trees, the mask coming off… Doc, I was a goner. How did I survive?” Franklin indicated a figure sitting beyond a glass wall in the ward visitors’ area. “Guy over there pulled you out, took you to the medics treating n’Grath-who, before you ask, is going to be fine after a few weeks’ regen therapy. Which is what you really ought to have on that throat.”
“Want to see him.” Despite Franklin’s protests Garibaldi levered himself out of bed, managed the feat by sheer willpower. He stood in pajamas and bare feet on the cold floor, tottered weakly across to the visitors’ area. Franklin sighed, went with him in case he fell.
He reached the visitors’ area. The figure had his back to Garibaldi, attention apparently absorbed by a magazine.
Garibaldi began without preamble, “Hey, I guess I owe you a big favor for saving my life-“
He broke off as the figure turned.
That smile.
It was Morden.
He stood, nodded to Garibaldi, left the ward without a backward glance.
Garibaldi shivered.
Franklin helped him back to bed.
“Where’s my link? Got to speak to Sheridan.”
“I’ll tell him you’re awake.”
Garibaldi nodded, sank into the bed. He sighed. Franklin was right, he shouldn’t have moved. His throat was killing him. And his chest. And his face. And his back.
Garibaldi let his head fall back onto the pillow, closed his eyes. Borden. The guy from the Icarus that Sheridan had made such a brouhaha over only a couple of months ago. Morden had been trouble then; Garibaldi had no reason to suppose he’d be any different now. So what was the guy doing running around Red Sector and saving his life?
Garibaldi’s thoughts were interrupted by a low humming noise And a sound like someone breathing. “Hey, Doc, back already?
I guess you just couldn’t keep away, right?”
He opened his eyes.
Not Franklin.
Kosh.
“Obligation is a hangman’s noose.”
The Vorlon’s translater produced the words almost as music. Then, while Garibaldi was trying to frame a suitable reply, he simply turned and glided out of the ward.
Garibaldi watched him go and shivered. Suddenly it seemed very cold in the ward. Very cold indeed.
CHAPTER 17
Blood.
Great Maker, how could there be so much blood?
Vir stared down at Londo Mollari’s body and saw in its huddled, pathetic, blood-soaked form a vision of the future.
So clear.
Humans. Minbari. Narn. Centauri. Everything gone. Just blood and memories and radioactive wastelands where planets had once been vibrant with life.
The process had already started with the Narn Homeworld.
The future was coming.
Vir knelt beside his mentor. The carpet squelched as his knees touched it. He was kneeling in Londo’s blood.
Londo gurgled softly. Still alive. For how long?
A moment passed. The stench was foul. Vir expected to want to be sick-was surprised when the feeling never came. He studied the body dispassionately. What would Londo say if he were Vir now?
There’s a time to go for the throat.
Acting Ambassador.
Short-term powers; Vir was realistic enough to know his temporary position as full Ambassador would never be ratified by the Republic. But short-term powers; what could be accomplished here and now with short-term powers?
Some good?
Maybe.
If Londo died.
A bubbling sigh. “… Vir…” A tiny movement.
Vir saw the knife then, and everything changed.
A Narn ceremonial blade.
G’Kar’s dagger.
Vir felt his world lurch suddenly.
His fault. This was all his fault. If he hadn’t been put off by Londo’s drunken aggression, if he’d made sure he was safely back in his quarters, if he’d realized for one moment that there was a real danger associated with G’Kar, then…
Londo would not be lying here. Bleeding. Dying.
And the choice that lay before him would not exist.
Because Vir really did sympathize with G’Kar, his people. Because the Centauri were evil. Because Morden cast shadows over all he touched, and right now both Londo and himself were as far into darkness as it was possible to go and still have minds of their own left to acknowledge their guilt.
Vir’s mind skittered over the implication of the dagger in Londo’s chest. That G’Kar had used it was obvious-but why had he left it here to incriminate himself?
What if he hadn’t used it? What if someone else had left it here to incriminate him?
