by Peter David
And so he listened, via the device that was now in his ear. Listened carefully, and Throk -in his arrogance-wasted no time in telling him what he needed to know. “But he knew that I killed Welch.”
There it was … the evidence right there. All Vir needed to publicly …
To publicly what?
Throk came from too solid, too powerful a family. The house of Milifa was tightly allied with that of Durla’s … Mariel had confirmed that for him, even though he had already been reasonably certain of it. Plus Throk was one of the first of the Prime Candidates, and was destined for greatness. The death of one nosy Human wasn’t going to stop him from fulfilling that for which he was intended.
Of course, Vir could press the matter. He could go straight to the emperor. But he had every reason to believe that Londo would never stick his neck out, not at this point in time, because there were too many people out there who were interested in severing that same neck. Particularly if he were perceived as acting in a manner that was contrary to the best interests of Centauri Prime.
Furthermore, if Vir did desire to press the matter …
… he was a dead man.
That was beyond question. If the emperor couldn’t cross the powers that be, certainly Vir’s prospects were nil. He would be accused of operating in opposition to the grand and glorious destiny of Centauri Prime, as personified by Throk and his associates.
So if he did seek punishment for Throk through proper channels, he would most assuredly fail, and his life would be forfeit. He would have to lock himself into his quarters on Babylon 5, and never set foot out again.
The alternative was to turn the matter over to Sheridan. But then the entire matter would become known to all. The entire Centauri Homeworld would be at risk. Who knew how many thousands, hundreds of thousands, might die in the resultant chaos?
Vir turned it over and over in his mind.
He had sought out help. He had gone to Rem Lamas, who had proven to be something of an electronics expert. He had gone to Renegar, who had been pegged to oversee the dig on K0643 because he had familiarity with demolitions. He had been in touch with them somewhat regularly since the debacle on K0643, and they had learned from that disaster: They had learned whom to trust. They had learned that some of the underpinnings upon which the movements of Centauri Prime were based were, in fact, built upon sand.
Vir had brought them along slowly, building his own foundations , brick by brick. And Lanas and Renegar had begun speaking to others. Others who had survived K0643 and were disenchanted by the Centauri brain trust that had organized what had amounted to little more than a paid death camp. And others still, freethinkers who had been driven underground or exiled.
Now, though, matters had come to a head, a bit more quickly than Vir would have liked. He was a careful, methodical thinker, and he did not desire to act precipitously. He had to act at this point, though. He had to do something. Centauri Prime was simply not ready for a war, and he was not ready to roll over and let his world be assaulted again.
Garibaldi would not be satisfied with anything less than justice.
“No choice,” whispered Vir.
“You should have seen him,” said Throk with amusement. “Draping his arm around me. Acting as if I were his son. He-“
Muaad’s eyes suddenly narrowed. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Turn around.”
Throk looked puzzled. “Why?”
“Just do it .”
Throk did so, and Muaad’s fingers ran questingly over the back of Throk’s uniform shirt.
“There’s something here,” he said. “A small lump … some sort of a device.”
“He put something on me?” Throk’s fury was mounting immediately. “How dare he! What is it?”
“Some sort of transmitting device,” said Muaad. “He was eavesdropping on us.”
Vir had known that eventually deaths would be necessary. He had wanted to minimize it.
“I am a good man,” he said.
His finger quivered.
“I am a decent man.”
He thought about Cartagia, crumbling, with an astounded look on his face and a heartful of poison injected by Vir.
“I am a moral man.”
He thought about the Drakh he had killed when he had blown up the Shadow base.
“I am an ethical man.”
His voice was becoming increasingly soft as his hand shook.
Throk had killed Welch. The others had helped remove the body, and had stayed silent. They were guilty, all guilty, of a crime that had brought Centauri Prime to the brink of war and possibly total annihilation.
“I have no choice,” he said.
* * *
“I’ll kill him!” said Throk. “Enough is enough! How dare he plant a voice transmitter on me! He-“
Then he remembered something else.
Vir had patted Throk on the head as well.
His hand flew up. He felt the hard round disk, hidden by his high crest of hair. He pulled at it. It was attached via adhesive.
Vir flipped open the end of the cylinder. There was a small button on it. There was water dripping onto it, and he realized belatedly that it was his own tears.
He had found and read that book. The one about how all boys grow up, except one. He, Vir, had to grow up, his childhood ending with one stroke of a button.
“To die … would be an awfully big adventure,” he whispered . “I’m … I’m sorry”
He closed his eyes and pushed the button.
“Senna!” Throk cried out.
And then his head erupted in flame.
The windows of the safe house blew out, shattered glass flying everywhere. Passersby, completely unprepared, screamed and ran, momentarily convinced they were under assault yet again by the Alliance. Seconds later, the entire front wall collapsed , and the small structure tumbled down, while flames licked hungrily at it. There was more screaming, more running , and everyone was looking skyward, trying to see from where the next shot would originate.
Because all attention was directed to the heavens, no one would even have noticed if Vir had been nearby. He wasn’t, however. He was several blocks away, leaning against a wall, while sobs racked his body so violently that he felt as if he would never be able to stand up again on his own. By the time rescue teams arrived to pull bits and pieces of the Prime Candidates out of the rubble, Vir was long gone.
* * *
Garibaldi stood on the balcony at the palace, watching the activity in the city some distance away. The entire area had been brightly illuminated, lights rigged to allow the rescue teams to do their job.
There was a chime at his door. “Come in,” Garibaldi called, and G’Kar entered with that brisk stride of his. He went straight to the balcony and stood next to Garibaldi, who hadn’t taken his eyes off the emergency scene. “Manage to find out what’s going on?”
“Nothing definite,” said G’Kar. Sardonically, he pointed to himself, and added, “It’s not as if this is a face that is going to set Centauri tongues to wagging. You?”
“It’s not as if anyone’s big on Humans either,” he admitted ruefully. “The only thing I’ve managed to pull together is that no one seems to think it’s an accident. I’m not sure if anyone is dead…”
“Yes. Some are dead.”
G’Kar and Garibaldi turned to see that Vir was standing in the doorway. He had not bothered to ring the chime. He looked haunted.
“Who? Who died?” asked Garibaldi.
“Several of the Prime Candidates.” He paused a moment, and then added almost as an afterthought, “And me.”
“What?” Garibaldi shook his head, uncomprehending. “I don’t underst-”
Then he realized. It all hit him with the intensity of a burst of white light.
And Vir could obviously see in Garibaldi’s eyes that he understood. He nodded in silent affirmation.
“G’Kar,” Garibaldi said. “I think that we’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
“We will?”
“Yes. We will.”
Then G’Kar comprehended, too. “Oh,” he said. “Yes. Of course we will.”
Vir nodded once and started out the door. He stopped only when Garibaldi said, “Vir … thank you.”
He turned and faced Garibaldi, and said, “Both of you can go to hell. And me, too.” Then he walked out without so much as a backward glance.
- CHAPTER 16 -
“You should have let me do.”
Renegar spoke in a low voice as he sat in Vir's quarters on Babylon 5. Vir was staring at his own reflection in a bottle of liquor, and didn't seem especially inclined to respond.
“Vir,” prompted Renegar. “Did you hear what I said?” The remarkably beefy Centauri seemed to take up more than his fair share of the space in the quarters. “You should have let me do it. It was my explosive charge.”
“But it was my responsibility,” Vir replied. They were the first words he had spoken in an hour.
It had been days since Vir had returned to Babylon 5. And one by one, the various individuals he had summoned were assembling. Soon they would be in this one room, which was not Vir’s customary quarters. He had rented a separate facility on Babylon 5, under a fake name, paid for with funds pulled from a blind account. He was taking every possible step to be cautious. He was all too aware that that was how it was going to have to be for him for, quite probably, the rest of his life.
“Vir … look … you tried to warn me of things that I wasn’t willing to pay attention to before,” Renegar said. “I owe you for opening my eyes. I would have-“
“Renegar,” Vir said slowly, “we are going to do everything we can … to spare lives. We are going to be as careful as possible . But I’m not an idiot. I’m not naive. I know that, sooner or later, people are going to die. Perhaps innocent people. I will do all that I can to avoid it … but it may very well happen.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m no longer going to be able to keep my hands clean.”
“So you figured you’d get them dirty all at once.”
Vir nodded.
“All right,” Renegar said with a heavy sigh. “But if you’re going to get this worked up and distraught over people dying … you may very well be in the wrong line of work.”
“Don’t think that hasn’t occurred to me,” said Vir.
Finally, the last of them arrived.
Vir looked around at the people gathered in the room. A dozen had been able to make the trip; that had been all that seemed judicious at the time. He had chosen them so carefully because one wrong move meant the end for all of them. If he missed a bet, if he brought a spy into their midst, he was signing their collective death warrant.
There was only one person missing… and, moments later, the door hissed open and he entered. Vir actually smiled when he saw him. He was the oldest individual in the room, certainly, and yet he moved with a spring in his step that evoked an old warhorse being pressed into service.
“Hello, Dunseny,” he said.
The former valet of Londo Mollari bowed his head slightly. “Hello, good sir.”
There were nervous, suspicious glances from several of the others in the room. Rem Lanas voiced the worries that were going through all their heads.
“This man worked for House Mollari for his entire life. Is it wise to have him here?”
“I still work for House Mollari,” Dunseny promptly replied. “And the interests of House Mollari are not served by the bastards who are presently in power.” He bowed slightly to Vir. “What small skills I can provide are yours, Ambassador, as you may need them.”
“Gratefully accepted,” Vir said.
He studied the men gathered around him. They waited for him to speak. He couldn’t recall the last time people had sat in such anticipation, waiting for him to open his mouth. He wondered if G’Kar felt the same way when the Narn gathered around him and waited for him to bestow new pearls of wisdom upon them.
“All right,” Vir said slowly. “There is much that needs to be done, and much we have to do. Centauri Prime is proceeding down a road that it must not be allowed to follow. And we have to do everything we can to forestall it. Even as we speak, there are installations, buildups underway on colony worlds whose very purpose has been corrupted. They have been forced into the service of an escalating war machine. We have to stop it.”
“You’re speaking of sabotage,” one of the Centauri said.
Vir nodded. “That is exactly right, yes. All of you have had cause to suffer under the current regime. All of you are freethinkers , or have had your eyes opened by various circumstances that you could not have anticipated … but now that they have happened, you cannot turn away. The Centaurum is propelling our beloved Homeworld toward certain destruction , and we have to do whatever we can to head it off”
“But isn’t it a delaying action?” asked Rem Lanas. “By engaging in sabotage, we’re not putting a halt to anything. We’re just slowing things down. Isn’t it possible that, sooner or later, Centauri Prime will still be pulled into the center of a “W?*
“Yes. It’s possible,” Vir admitted. Then, his voice strong, he continued, “It is also possible that, if we provide sufficient resistance, we will be able to get people-both those in charge and those who are disdainfully thought of as the commoners-to reconsider what they’re doing. It doesn’t matter how small the insect is; repeated stings will bring a body down.
“I cannot emphasize enough the danger that’s involved. You are not all of the individuals involved in this effort. I did not feel it wise for any one person, outside of myself, to know everyone who is involved in our little endeavor.”
“That way if any one of us is captured, he cannot turn in the entire underground at one time,” Dunseny said.
Vir nodded. “Ideally, of course, if any of us is captured- Great Maker forbid-he will not turn in any of us. Death before dishonor.”
There were affirming murmurs from throughout the room.
It was so easy to say, of course. So easy to believe that death would be embraced before the names of any coconspirators would be turned over.
But he had no choice now. He had gone too far. It had gone too far. He had no choice but to see it through.
Despite Londo’s assurances to the contrary, Vir Cotto had never felt less invincible in his entire life.
“All right,” Vir said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. . : ‘
EXCERPTED FROM
THE CHRONICLES OF LONDO MOLLARI.
Excerpt dated (approximate Earth date)
January 18, 2271.
Durla told them all it was an isolated event. At least, that was what he said publicly.
Privately he sang a very different tune, and promised a full investigation into the destruction of the Prime Candidates safe house, which had not proved to be so safe. Howling the most loudly was Milifa of the House Milifa, the patriarch who had lost his son in a hideous explosion that people still speak of in hushed voices, even though it happened months ago.
After all this time, Durla’s investigation continued to turn up nothing concrete , only supposition. He told any and all who would listen to him that there was an underground movement brewing, a group of saboteurs who had been responsible for the killing of the handful of Prime Candidates, and who would undoubtedly make more strikes against us if given the opportunity. The problem is that relative peace causes complacency, and because there were no further assaults, Durla’s theories soon lost credence.
That has all changed, however.
Today we received word that there were attacks on two of our colony worlds. And not just any attacks. The munitions plant-my pardon, the educational facility-on Morbis was blown sky high. The weapons development center-my pardon, the health facility-on Nefua is now a pile of rubble. Both blasts happened within a day or so of each other.
It was a clear message to us that we are not simply dealing with happenstance or an isolat
ed instance. This is nothing less than war … a war being waged from within.
Durla, however, is managing to work the situation from both sides. He cannot seem to make up his mind. Sometimes he claims that the attacks are part of an internal underground of saboteurs and protestors. Other times he states that the Alliance is behind the attacks. Occasionally he blends the two, stating that there is indeed some sort of rebellious crew of saboteurs, who are being supported and funded by the Alliance. No one appears to notice the fluidity of Durla’s sentiments. Either that, or no one wishes to point it out, for fear that Durla will not react well.
It is hard to dispute Durla’s success, however. Minister Vallko has been holding up Durla as an example of all that is well and good in Centauri society, and they have formed a formidable team. I worry for the direction that matters are presently taking.
And here I sit, feeling increasingly frustrated and helpless … but simultaneously feeling very much in control. With all that is going on, the presence of the emperor has almost gone unnoticed by those who are vying for power. They are making such noise in battling one another, that one cannot help but feel that they will end up drawing fire upon themselves. And when all that fire is burned away, then with any luck, I shall be the only one left. And would that not be the ironic, final laugh upon them all.
The one bit of good news to come from all this is that Dunseny has returned to my employ. With the passing of Throk-and good riddance to him-I was left without a valet. Apparently Durla had matters of greater importance to worry about than who should be at my side to help me on with my coat or whisper in my ear about matters that do not seem to have much in the way of great consequence for Centauri Prime. Truthfully, I do not know if I should be relieved or insulted.
