Темное, кривое зеркало. Том 4 : Будущее, рожденное в боли.

Gareth D. Williams Part 6 The Disassembly of Shadows.

Surrounded by machinery, trapped by tubes and wires, the dying man is content to wait. All his life he has been at the mercy of time, a prisoner of the vagaries of events taking place in other rooms, in other cities, on other worlds. All his life he has been the watcher, never the actor.

Except once. On one occasion, he acted. It cost him a lot. It cost him almost everything, but had he not acted, it would have cost him his soul.

Now he is content neither to watch nor to act, but to wait. Around him the world is turning, a continuing cycle of change and rebirth. New leaders, new rulers, new policies, new wars to fight. None of those things has anything to do with him any more. Let them revolve. He is content here, alone in his single room.

Except he is not truly alone. Of course there are the guards outside, people set to watch him, to ensure he remains here, until.... the time is right. People set to prevent him escaping, or being rescued.

He smiles through a broken mouth. Those guards are his men. He knows their names, their children's names, their dates of birth, their favourite foods. If he chose he could be out of this room in a heartbeat, but let those above him believe they are in charge. Let them dream their little dreams. He is done with dreaming now, and he is happy here, in a room he is content to die in.

That does not mean he is not averse to calling in a few favours.

The nurse arrives. He knows her name too. In fact, he helped her out with a little matter a few years ago. She was never actually a friend, but someone who owed him a favour. It is good to have people owe you favours. It is just a pity he will never be able to call them all in before the end, but, well.... such is life.

He has previously asked two things of her, with suitable promises that she will be blamed for neither. She accepted.

"She is coming here now," she says, and he smiles.

"Good. Thank you." The words hurt the back of his throat, but he ignores the pain. It is a transitory thing after all, and he will be doing a lot of talking soon. "And the.... other matter? There are still no problems there?"

"No. Just.... just call me when you're ready. Are.... are you sure this is...?"

"I'm sure. Trust me. It's all for the best. So much.... easier this way."

There is the sound of footsteps, and he looks up past the nurse to see the figure who has appeared at the door. A slow, sad smile crosses his features. The nurse, recognising that she is no longer necessary, nods and leaves.

He looks at the new arrival, remembering back to the first time he saw her, over three years ago. She had looked very different then, obviously. But he was different now as well. She had changed him, awakening something that had been dead for many years.

"I wasn't sure if you'd come," he says. She would have plenty of reason not to, after all. She owes him no favours, nothing of kindness, certainly.

"Of course I would," she replies, moving towards the bed. Her motion is.... slow, and a little awkward, but that is hardly surprising. Few people would even be walking after what she has been through. Most people, if he has heard everything right, would not even be moving. He does not try to pretend he understands what truly saved her, but a part of him long silent chalks it up to a miracle, which is as good an explanation as any.

"How are you?" he asks on instinct, and then an ironic chuckle escapes him. The laugh hurts, but there is no other reaction possible. "'How are you?'" he repeats, mocking himself. "I don't believe I just asked that. I'm sorry."

"Do not apologise," she says, in her strange, welcoming accent. "I am.... better. The doctors here wish to keep me longer to.... observe me, but I do not think there is much more they can do for me. They had no idea how my system worked even before I.... died. I think they have even less idea now."

"What about...?"

"Ah. They do not think I will ever be able to have children again. They may be wrong, of course. They said as much.... but they said the damage was too severe. There are some things Lorien could not heal."

The dying man closes his eyes, and something dies all the sooner within him. "I.... Sorry is just such a worthless thing to say. I could say it for a thousand years, and it still wouldn't undo...."

"It is done. I came here of my own will, knowing there would be a price to pay, and knowing that my sacrifice would bring about a reward. It has done so. This world is saved, and on the road to salvation. There were some here who listened to me, not many, it is true.... but even one would be enough."

"Then it was worth it? All you went through?"

"Oh, yes. Definitely. And you?"

"Me? I went through hardly anything." A sigh leaves his mouth. "Anyway, that's not why I asked you to come here. I have.... I need to ask you to do something. I know you have every right to say no and walk out of here, and I wouldn't blame you if you did, but I thought.... this would be.... appropriate."

"I will not leave here. What do you wish of me?"

"You are a religious leader of sorts, aren't you?"

"I am.... was.... am.... of the religious caste of my people. And I was highly placed in my caste, yes."

"I.... used to be religious. I belonged to an order called the Roman Catholics, a very old one by our standards. I'm.... extremely lapsed now. I really stopped believing in anything a long time ago.... but there's one practice I want to bring back.

"It was called a confession. We would go before a priest, and confess our sins, and we would be forgiven, and granted absolution. I want to.... confess all the things I did wrong, and.... remember the things I did that were right. It won't be a standard confession, not at all.... but if I could talk to someone....

"And you're the only real religious figure I know. It's a different religion, yes.... but aren't all faces of God the same in the end?"

"I.... I would be honoured," she whispers, sincerity shining in her eyes.

"Then bless me, Fath.... Bless me, Mother, for I have sinned. It has been.... years since my last confession." He looks at her. "There's a chair around here somewhere. You might want to sit down. This could take a while."

She finds it and pulls it to the side of his bed, sitting down beside him, waiting patiently.

Arthur Lee Welles looks into the deep green eyes of Delenn of Mir for a long moment. "Are you comfortable?" She nods. "Then I'll begin...."

There was an old saying that David Corwin had once been told by someone he had loved very much. You can't ever go home again. It had been typical of Susan Ivanova's pessimism, but it was only now he was beginning to see the truth.

He hadn't thought about Susan in months. He didn't even know where she was. He had mentioned her during his conversation with Welles a few weeks before, surprising himself with his own question, only to learn that Proxima's Master of Information knew nothing at all.

"Ambassador Sheridan took her with him when he went to Z'ha'dum. I don't know why. I don't even know if she's still alive. If she is, that'll be where."

And Ambassador Sheridan himself. That was another cause for concern.

"He took the same blast I did," Welles had commented. "It probably killed him."

"We never found a body."

"Ah."

It was funny the things Corwin found himself thinking about. He supposed anything was better than the image that touched on his dreams: the image of a glowing, trapped person, imprisoned somewhere within his ship. The thought of one just like her inside every Dark Star.

He had not been sleeping well lately, and so he had so many more waking hours to fill with mindless thoughts. He remembered Susan, Ambassador Sheridan, he thought about Delenn, about Lyta — about Lyta a lot.... and about the future. That, too.

What sort of future was there? Would this war ever be over? And when it was, what then? Another long and bloody war, just as pointless? Or a peace ruled by the Vorlons?

These thoughts disturbed him, and so he had taken, on his time off, to going for long walks, revisiting areas of Proxima he had known before. He saw a park he had gone walking in with Susan. He saw a shop where he had bought food and newspapers. He saw countless little landmarks, each one sparking off another memory.

And he saw the devastation of so much of the business sector, destroyed by a Shadow ship, although there was some debate as to whether the destruction had been a deliberate attack or a consequence of the Shadow vessel falling from the sky. Either way the damage was colossal, the cost to Proxima's fragile economy devastating. The death toll was still unknown.

But most of all he saw the people. Not the soldiers, or the leaders, or the diplomats — the ordinary people. He saw the bakers, the shopkeepers, the secretaries, the people in the street, the parents, the children, the old, the young. He saw the fear in their eyes, the resentment. He had seen those things in the days before the Second Line, in the long, hard years of perpetual terror that the Minbari would arrive any moment.

He also took time to speak to them. Some would have nothing to do with him, whether he was in or out of uniform. Some were afraid of being overheard, or detected.

Most expressed admiration for President Clark, and complete disbelief that he would ever do such a thing. Many blamed the Shadows, who had deceived the greatest leader humanity had ever known. Some put it all down to the Alliance, who would willingly have massacred all life on Proxima, and would have succeeded had it not been for the sacrifice of Captain DeClercq, whom almost everyone was calling a hero.

Corwin listened to these things with the taste of ashes in his mouth.

Some whispered conspiratorially of help coming. Captains Tikopai and Barns would find help, build an army, come back and save Proxima, drive away the Alliance. Corwin spoke to some people who claimed to be hiding Tikopai's teenage daughter, keeping her safe from people who would use her to attack her mother. Corwin knew full well that Julia Tikopai was missing, but then so were many on Proxima these days.

The members of Clark's Government were spoken of in varying tones. Some saw Welles as a great patriot for his broadcast about what had happened to the defence grid, others called him a knowing ally of the Alliance plot, spreading false reports of Clark's actions. Some even said he had murdered Clark.

Ryan was seen as a coward by many, but as a loyal man doing what he thought was right by others, many of whom had the bearing of soldiers. Clark had been working on a massive programme to increase the size of Earthforce. That had now been suspended, and there were many former soldiers trying to hide, but something in their voices and bearing always gave them away.

Everywhere he went, however, he heard about Delenn. There were hushed whispers about the miracle of her rebirth, by many who claimed to have been there. If they were all telling the truth, about half of Proxima must have seen her come back to life. There were reports of other miracles, of the blind suddenly seeing, of a crippled war veteran being able to walk. Some said it was her sacrifice that had prevented the defence grid from firing for long enough.

Her shrine became filled with people. Delenn herself had not been seen in public since her 'death'. Corwin knew where she was, resting in hospital. He had not had a chance to talk with her, and he was not sure he wanted to. What could he say?

And so, as the days passed, he wandered through a beaten and resentful Proxima, a world that had once been his own, and day by day, the feeble remains of his pride, the part of him that said 'I am doing the right thing'.... it all evaporated, lifeless dust on the barren winds of his hopes.

"I am doing the right thing," he said, again and again, but the more he said it, the less he believed it.

I was doing the right thing.

Everything I did was right, all of it. So I thought. It was.... easy to rationalise. I was working for the Government of Humanity, the last hope of our people. These were desperate times, dark times. Some.... liberties had to be taken, some rights had to be quietly sidelined. It was all for the good of the people, wasn't it? No one could be allowed to rock the boat, to disrupt things.

I was Chief of Security, and also the Spymaster. All information came to me eventually, through one way or another, very few of them legitimate. I passed that information on, and it was used.... appropriately.

People disappeared. People died. Crimes went unpunished and the innocent went unprotected. I played a part in the deal with the Narns that gave them more or less complete control over our outlying colonies. I played a part in selling half the human race into slavery.

I'm sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. I was.... no one important before. My parents both worked for EarthGov in minor capacities, my mother a Senator's aide and my father in the Ministry of Agriculture. I had no brothers or sisters, very few friends.

My mother died when I was about twenty, a random victim of an assassination attempt by one terrorist group or another. Free Mars probably, but it could have been anyone. I used to tell people that was why I used my psychology degree from Cambridge to get me into the Intelligence Services, but that was a lie.

You see, the thing is, I've always been able to tell when other people are lying. I've always been able to read people, to know their secrets, their delusions, everything. I never really liked people. They all seemed so.... stupid, so ignorant. No one ever just stopped and thought about things for a minute.

So, after my mother died, I went into the Intelligence Service. I rose.... respectably, although not rapidly. I think I scared a few people slightly. Ah, well. I hit a sort of glass ceiling eventually, no more room for promotion, the work of a few of my colleagues who were jealous and afraid. They tried to hide it, but I could see it in them.

I was lucky to be on Mars when you came to Earth. There was no grand plan there, it was just luck. I was on a sort of holiday with my wife, Victoria. No, not a holiday at all. I was trying to get her to leave the solar system and get somewhere safe. She wasn't having any of it. As it happened, you came a little early, and both of us just managed to get out alive. Most of the rest of the Government was blasted, the Chief Ministers and the Senate practically wiped out. EarthGov had shifted base to Mars when it became apparent that Earth was under threat, but even so the attack was pretty bad. If it hadn't been for a very timely arrival by half our fleet, we'd all have been killed there.

Anyway, with the Intelligence Service collapsed around our ears and all our files gone, I suddenly became invaluable. I've always had a good memory, you see. Not quite perfect, but pretty good. I managed to recreate most of our files, and that made me indispensable to the new administration. I got promoted to Head pretty fast, and I took over the Security job as well, sort of folding Intelligence and Security together.

That was when I became involved in the dirty tricks, and, well.... came close to losing my soul.

There was a bottle of whisky on the table, opened, but untouched. Next to it there was a glass. It was empty.

And behind them both, looking at them the way a thirsty man in a desert looks at a single drop of water, was General John Sheridan, leader of the Dark Star fleets of the United Alliance of Kazomi 7. He had not touched the drink yet, but that was mostly for the memory of his wife Anna, and what drinking had done to her.

Corwin did not quite have Mr. Welles' powers of observation, and so he missed the bottle at first. He had been called to the General's private quarters, and so he had gone, albeit with some trepidation. They had not spoken for a while, not since they had found Delenn, not since the fight. Sheridan had been busy with countless administrative matters, and trying to co-ordinate the search for the missing Earthforce ships. Corwin had also been busy, after a fashion, discovering all that had been done to Proxima.

"You called me?" he said softly, adding a belated "General." He was not sure what to expect. Sheridan had not been.... himself for months now, ever since he had come out of his paralysis. He had seemed to return to near normality after finding Delenn, but.... he did not look well. His eyes were hollow and haunted.

Also, it was late at night. Very late. What business could Sheridan have with him at this time of night? At least the meeting was on Proxima, and not on the General's Dark Star. Corwin walked very uneasily on Dark Stars these days.

He wondered about the name of the telepath bound within Sheridan's ship.

"David," the General said. "Thank you for coming. I know it's late, and short notice, but...." He fell silent.

"That's fine, General. I'm at your disposal."

"General.... yes. I didn't call you here as a leader, as your superior officer. I asked you here because.... I need a friend, and you were the only person I could think of. I've.... burned a fair few bridges over the last few months."

Corwin should have been pleased about this. After all that had happened, John still considered him a friend. But he wasn't happy. The tone of voice was.... dark. The General was disturbed about something.

Then he noticed the bottle.

"Oh, this? I found it in Clark's office. Completely untouched. The trappings of power, hmm? Anna would have killed for a glass of this. The proper stuff. I haven't drunk any yet.... not that I haven't wanted to, but....

"My Dad said once that there were a number of solutions to every problem. You could pretend it never existed, which is what this stuff does. It'll work for a while, but not nearly long enough. Or you can talk to someone. That won't make it go away either.... but it won't sound as bad. That's what he said.... He was rarely wrong about anything else.

"Have we found his body?"

"No."

"Maybe he's not dead, then. I don't know.... I just think it would be easier if.... if he was. I so wanted to think it was all a dream, when I saw him on Kazomi Seven, and then at Z'ha'dum. It wasn't a dream. I don't know why my father went and worked for those.... murderers, but....

"I need to know. Oh, what the hell, that's not why I asked you here.

"I need a friend. I need someone to talk to. I've.... discovered something, and I've no idea how I should react to it. Someone to talk to might be a start. A friend.... if you still consider yourself my friend...."

"Of course I am."

"Oh.... good. Sit down, and let's have a drink. Another thing my Dad used to tell me.... never drink alone. It's always a bad idea."

"A wise man, your father."

"Oh, yes.... Oh, yes."

You've been in love, haven't you? You know what it's like.

Her name was Victoria. I'd met her at university. She was a student, a year younger than I was. She was studying medicine. She wanted to be a doctor. She saw sick people and wanted to make them better. Especially children. She couldn't stand to see sick or dying children. She loved them. I didn't, I hated them. Children were even more stupid than adults were.

I'd never been able to read her, not at all. She could lie to me and I'd never know. She could keep everything she knew a secret and I'd never suspect. She didn't.... at least, I don't think she did, but she could have done.

I remember the first time I saw her. I was sitting by a river bank in the rain when she passed by, on a boat. I always liked the rain. She hated it. She turned to look at me, evidently having sensed me staring at her. I caught her eyes for one brief moment and.... there was a connection. You could call it love at first sight, I suppose. For me anyway. I don't know how she reacted.

We met up again while I was working in Intelligence. She'd become a doctor by then. She got involved in one of our operations quite by accident. She'd stumbled across a survivor of a team sent by rogue extremists to assassinate the President. He'd been wounded in a shoot-out, but had managed to escape.

I wasn't assigned to that mission. At that stage I had no real responsibilities at all. Even making the coffee was a little too technical for me then. I wanted advancement. I wanted promotion and I resented being held back by jealous and inferior people.

I wasn't a terribly nice person then. You may have gathered. I'm not a very nice person now either, but there was a time.... when I was with her, when I was different. She made me want to be a nicer person, a better person.

Anyway, she got the would-be assassin admitted to an underground clinic. I came across it on my private investigations, and ran into her. Somehow.... I still don't know how.... she talked me out of reporting it. She made a speech about compassion, about fear, about the quality of mercy.... I believed it.... coming from her, I believed it.

I didn't get my promotion.... that time. I moved up a little eventually, as I said. I used my free time to find out everything I could about the clinic, and about her. It turned out she was running it, a place for people who'd fallen between the cracks, who couldn't afford medical care, for the lost, the damned, the lonely.... I could have reported it, but I didn't.

We were two completely different people, you see. I couldn't stand humanity. I'd spent my whole life watching them, uncovering all their dark little secrets, the petty lies they sought to keep concealed. She thought that there was some good in everyone, that everyone deserved a second chance, and usually a third and fourth. I'd begun to doubt there was any good in anyone before I met her.

Somehow she convinced me. There may not have been good in everyone, but there was definitely good in her.

I asked her out over a year after I'd met up with her again. I asked her to marry me almost three years after that. We were married the day of first contact with your people.

We never had children, and eight years later she was dead.

Resources were.... tight, very tight after we lost Earth. A good number of things had to be de-prioritised. Everything we could spare went on defence, and after that food and interstellar relations. Medical care for non-essential personnel was quite a way down. Vicky couldn't bear to see this and opened another of her underground clinics, treating people who weren't considered important enough to get treatment in the few hospitals that were open.

She didn't have enough medicine, or people, or time to treat everyone. She couldn't possibly. Not everyone saw it that way.

There were numerous gangs in the underworld in those days. Well, there still are. One of the many petty criminal gang members had been injured in a shoot-out with Security and went to Vicky's clinic for treatment. She'd run out of medicine for him, and couldn't do anything. Still, she tried. She did all she could, in circumstances where most people would have washed their hands and said 'there's no point'. She didn't. She tried, but failed. She'd done all she could.

His companions didn't see it quite that way, and they shot her, point-blank.

As she went, so went my soul. I didn't even bother hunting down the people responsible.... what would be the point? I didn't even take time off for the funeral. My work consumed me.

And bit by bit I watched any hint of ethics or morality fall away from me, until all that was left was despair, and the realisation that things would never get better, but that we would tear down all of Proxima before we let them get any worse.

"How are things out there?"

Corwin hesitated, truly unsure of how to answer. Very little about this meeting felt right, and the Captain.... the General.... John.... did not sound himself. Well, he sounded more like himself than he had in almost a year, but that was still not much. He had been insulated from the real world in his Dark Star for months, a ship built around an imprisoned and probably insane telepath.

Could he handle the truth? The way things really were?

"There's no need to think hard, David," the General said wryly. "I know how I must look, but.... I need to know. You're right. I've been insulated from the real world too long. I need to know."

Corwin started, his heart beating faster. He hadn't said those words aloud, had he? But the near exactness of phrasing.... He coughed, and tried to order his thoughts. He had known General John Sheridan for years, and been his best — sometimes only — friend for so long. If he could not trust him, whom could he trust?

(An unbidden image of Lyta crossed his mind.)

"They're bad," he said. "Possibly worse than I can ever remember."

"Exaggerating, surely? You do remember the years after Orion, don't you?"

Oh, yes, he remembered. The Orion colony destroyed in a single night by a Minbari war fleet. The death toll had been relatively low.... that night, even if the General's daughter had been among them.

But the months afterwards, that long and terrible winter. Corwin could see again the people starving in the streets of Proxima, the riots, the prison break-outs, the near-anarchy. But the thing he remembered most was the complete despair. Before Orion there had been a slow and steady increase in hope, a growing belief that humanity had seen the worst the universe could offer, and had survived. After Orion, there had been nothing.

He did not hesitate in replying. "Yes," he said, simply. "It's worse."

The General didn't say anything, and a heavy and uncomfortable silence fell across the room. Corwin shivered, seeing a momentary flash of light appear above the General's head. A halo.... or a chain?

Or just a figment of his imagination?

"At least then we all knew who the enemy was," he said finally, desperate to fill the silence, to explain his feelings, just to get some reaction from his oldest friend. "The Minbari were the enemies. We could see them, we could identify them. There was absolutely no doubt at all. But now...." He sighed.

"People are being told so many things. Strange as it sounds, they liked Clark. Really, really liked him. Most of them are saying that he wasn't responsible for the turning of the defence grid. Some say the Shadows were responsible, others that we were. And none of them like us. We're the humans who sold our race out to the aliens, remember. We're the people who swore to defend Proxima and then came back with an alien fleet and Minbari allies."

(An alien fleet built around enslaved telepaths, some of them human.) If he concentrated hard enough, Corwin could just about shut out their screaming.

"Nobody really knows who to believe out there. There's a lot of anger and fear and hate and.... I've never seen Proxima this bad. Never."

"There'll be free elections soon. We'll have a war crimes tribunal, put a few people on trial, reform the Senate. There'll be an elected Government by this time next year, if not sooner."

"And who are they going to vote for? Nobody is going to believe the elections are free anyway. I don't think we can put together twenty people in this whole planet who actually want to lead it at the moment."

"You could."

Corwin did not know what to say. He almost fell from his chair. "Me? But.... that's crazy. I'm a soldier, just a soldier. Why don't you...?"

"I couldn't.... not any more. Anyway, I'll be going back to Kazomi Seven once this war is over, going back there with...."

"With Delenn."

"Yes.... with Delenn." The General's eyes darkened, and he suddenly picked up the bottle and raised it to his lips. "Cheers," he said, taking a long draught.

"Cheers."

I did.... we did a lot of horrible things over the years. We had to, or at least that was what we told ourselves. The survival of the race mattered. All of humanity was resting on our shoulders. We had to be strong enough to bear that burden, to do what was necessary.

Me, Clark, President Crane, General Hague, Takashima.... a few others. We would go down in history as the saviours of humanity.... or as the final, pathetic lost: Oedipus twisting and turning to avoid his fate, Lear raging vainly against the storm.

We had to win. There was no other choice. We would do whatever was necessary. Sell out half our race to the Narns? If they'd protect the other half, then fine! Make deals with a man who saw us all as microbes and was relishing the chance to assert the superiority of his race over ours? If he'd help, then of course. Institute laws that all but banned freedom of speech, of assembly, that let criminals run free and the innocent suffer? If we had to.

Ally ourselves with an alien race of whom we knew nothing but that they wanted to help us? Did we even need to think about that one?

I was never on very good terms with any of them. Well, I was never on very good terms with anyone other than Vicky. When she was alive, I at least had something to focus on. A reason to want to save humanity. In her smile I saw something worth redeeming, worth saving. When she was gone.... there was no longer the dream of survival, only a game.

I didn't even hate the people who'd killed her. I caught them, eventually, and they were punished just as if they'd murdered anyone who wasn't my wife. I didn't glory in it, though. There was no sense of revenge. I doubt they even knew it was my wife they'd killed. What was the point in taking revenge on them? They were just like the rest of humanity, right?

So, it became a game. Pitting my wits against yours, against everyone. I studied the Narn ambassadors who came to patronise and mock us. I gathered blackmail information on all of them. I never used it, it was just an intellectual exercise. I studied the records of your people. I gathered as much information as I could. Oh, it was woefully incomplete, at least it was until we captured you, but.... I didn't care what we did with it.

Every night I went home to my dead apartment, and slept in the bed that still smelled like her. Sometimes I went for long walks, unable to sleep, unable to care. I saw people, I saw humanity, and I wondered why we bothered trying to save them at all. Let your ships come. Let them blow us apart. What did it matter?

I began to wonder just why my companions in the Government were bothering. It didn't take me long to find out. Crane had been elected before the war had even begun, and still in some sense believed she was leading the same people as she had then. Hague was fighting because it was all he knew how to do and because he knew he couldn't turn that burden over to anyone else. Takashima.... well, all my opinions on her were wrong. At the time I thought she was the only idealistic and genuine person among us, but a couple of years ago I found out she had a secondary personality and was doing whatever Bester told her to.

Ah.... strange as it sounds, I like being wrong sometimes. It adds variety. But most of the time, it's just annoying.

And Clark.... He took it all as a personal insult. He was ambitious, and always had been. He wanted power to.... well.... to put things right. That's according to his definition of 'right', of course. There's a blanket assumption that all dictators are evil, megalomaniacal madmen who just want power for its own sake. I've never met or heard of anyone like that. Most of them, I think, just want to put things right.

Take your Sinoval, for example. Not that I've ever met him, but from my reports....

Sorry, digressing again.

Clark had been in politics all his life. Ever since he was a child he'd dreamed of gaining power, of using it wisely, of being so much smarter, so much more adept than the people in charge at the time. In a very scary way he might have been me, except I didn't care, and he did.

And then you came along, just when he was beginning to get somewhere. He could have been right at the top in ten years, maybe fifteen. But then you came, and threw everything upside down. He shot up faster than he'd planned, but not because he was smarter, or better, or more astute, or more popular. He shot up because most of the people above him were dead. Anyone can rise that way. What kind of intelligence does that require?

You'd made it easy for him, and that cheapened him in some way. Also, it sort of undervalued his position. When he finally did get to power, it was by poisoning Crane, by the way. Oh yes, I knew all about that. When he did get to be President, what was the point? He couldn't fix anything, because it would take him his whole lifetime just to clean up the mess you'd left him. Oh, he enjoyed doing what he could.... you should have seen him blackmail the Narns.... but that wasn't the way he'd dreamed of it happening. He wasn't the leader of a powerful young race, ready to take its place in the galaxy. He was the last leader of a pathetic people, clinging on to survival by their fingernails, with half of them ready to let go and drop into the abyss.

He blamed you for all of that, and after a while he blamed us as well.

Until the Vorlons came along. That, I didn't know. I knew he was acting strangely, but by that time I wasn't thinking straight. Just like all those years ago, when I first saw Vicky, my life had been turned upside down — although just like with Vicky, I wasn't to realise it for some time, almost too long.

That was meeting you, of course.

Corwin knew he should have moved forward, should have done something, but he didn't. There was nothing to do, nothing to say, nothing even to think.

Delenn.

He had not seen her much since she had been found in Sector 301, at the place where she had died and been reborn, a place that had become a shrine to her, in a way he found both disturbing and strangely comforting. It was ironic, perhaps, but Sector 301 seemed to be coming out of the chaos better than anywhere else on Proxima. Perhaps the Shrine of the Blessed Delenn had something to do with that, but Corwin put it down to human industry and endeavour.

Then.... he didn't want to think about that now. He wanted to think about his friend.

The General put down the bottle and sighed. "I was so sure," he whispered. "I was so goddamned sure. I mean, I'm a soldier. It seems I've been a soldier forever. A soldier lives off his instincts.... you know that. I've acted on instinct thousands of times, and never been wrong before.

"But there.... I was just so sure." He shook his head. "How could I have been so wrong?"

Corwin had a theory of his own, but he did not want to put it into words. He was having enough difficulty coming to terms with recent revelations concerning the Vorlons without having to voice them to another, least of all someone in a condition as.... fraught as the General's.

"It doesn't matter now," Corwin said finally. "Delenn's here. She's alive. She's safe. You're.... you're together. It doesn't matter any more."

The General chuckled, the mirthless laugh of someone who knows the joke everyone else is laughing at isn't funny. "Doesn't matter? Oh.... yes it does. It matters a lot. If I hadn't left her there....

"She was pregnant. My baby. Our baby.

"They killed him. The people here killed our baby."

"What?" Corwin breathed out and almost choked. He'd never heard.... he hadn't known.... Good Lord! Surely people couldn't have done that to her.... to an unborn child. "How.... Why? Why, for God's sake?"

"Some.... political game, I think. I don't know. Probably just because they could. They did it badly, too, really messed her up. Hell, they damn near killed her, even before that mess in three-o-one. She's not going to be able to have any more children."

"Oh, God...." There really was nothing to say.

"She's tried to tell me otherwise, but we both know the truth.... It's my fault. I should never have left her there...."

"No, it's not your fault."

"Yes, it damned well is, and you know it!" Corwin shrank back, momentarily surprised by the sheer anger in the General's voice. The light surged up around him, blazing and flashing, tendrils of lightning shooting from his eyes. "Of course it's my fault!

"It's my fault for daring to think I could do something other than fight a war! For deluding myself there was anything else I could do other than kill people! It's so easy to take lives, isn't it? So damned easy, especially when you rationalise it to yourself. I'm a soldier. This is war. It doesn't matter who they are.

"Delenn's seen that. She's done that, and she managed to break free. So why the hell can't I? Face it, I'm not a soldier, I'm a murderer, and I just murdered my unborn son!"

"It's not your fault," Corwin said again, desperately trying to get through. Where was this coming from? John had seemed.... better recently. Changed. The discovery that Delenn was alive....

"No? If not mine, then whose? The people who did it? I don't know who they are. Besides, they were only following orders. You can't blame anyone for just following orders, no more than you can blame yourself or your crew for doing what I tell you to.

"Welles? He was just doing what he thought was right, and he's on some damned life support machinery now. Clark? He's dead. My father? My own father?

"I'm telling you, if I can't blame myself there's only one other person I can blame, and I'd much rather blame myself than her."

"What?"

"Forget it." He sighed, and buried his head in his hands. "I don't want to. God.... I know it wasn't her fault, but.... could she have done something? Anything? God.... I don't want to blame her.... but somewhere.... somewhere right at the back of my mind....

"I do."

He lifted his head, and his eyes were filled with a dark madness, a truly terrible sight.

"God help me, David.... what kind of person am I?"

Breath came more slowly now. His throat hurt. He could not remember the last time he had spoken so much, the last time he had said so many things he had not wanted to say.

"There's.... there's an old saying," he said, struggling to keep his eyes open. He should not have stayed awake this long. He should have let the drugs and the painkillers slide him into unconsciousness, but he could not do that. He had to finish, and if not now, then he never would.

"It comes from one of our philosophers. It goes...." He breathed in, and sharp bursts of pain triggered across his shattered ribs. Ignoring the pain was becoming harder and harder.

"It goes.... 'If you gaze into the abyss.... the abyss....

"the abyss gazes back....

"at you.'

"That was me. I gazed into the abyss for years.... and it changed me. Then I saw you....

"just as I'd seen....

"Vicky

"for the first time

"I looked at you....

"and you looked back at me.

"And you changed me.

"It just took me.... so

"long.

"So long to see it.

"Delenn.

"I'm sorry!"

She reached out, and he felt her cool, soft hand touch his. "There is nothing to say," she whispered. "You have already said it all, if not with your words, then by your deeds and with your eyes. I will accept your forgiveness.... and I pray you can accept mine."

There was a harsh moment of laughter. "Yes," he said. "Of course."

"I wish I had known your Vicky."

"You would.... have liked each other.... Delenn.... Do you think.... I will see her again.... after.... I die?"

"I do not know," she said simply. "If there is any justice.... then you will. But justice may be.... in short supply." Her eyes suddenly widened as she caught something in his tone. "But I thought.... your injuries were not fatal."

He smiled. "No," he rasped. "No, they aren't. I could be.... out of this bed.... in a few months.... walking around in a year.... and in two years or so.... I'd have no sign but a very.... distinguished.... limp.

"Of course.... that doesn't matter. I'll be put on trial.... convicted.... and shot in the street like a dog.... No.... I know the means.... of manipulating the public. If.... the new Government.... wants me as its villain.... then so be it. As long as.... one person knows.... the truth."

"I know," she said, firmly. "And I will not let that happen."

He shook his head. "Doesn't matter.... Doesn't.... matter.... at all.... Sorry, Delenn.... can't.... stay.... awake."

"I understand." She rose, the sheer grace of her presence undoing the awkwardness of her movements. "We will talk again. You must let me finish your confession."

"Yes," he whispered, his eyes closed. "Mother.... what is my penance?"

"I do not think you need one," she said. "You have made penance enough for any number of sins."

"Ah." He smiled again. "Ah."

Her fingers brushed his gently, and then she left. He was now ready to face his end, his final destiny.

There was not much for Corwin to say after that. What was there for him to say? Sheridan certainly didn't want to say anything after that revelation. His self-loathing practically radiated from him, and Corwin could feel the air become thick with pain.

He tried not to think about what Delenn had gone through. He tried not to think about what it must have cost her to tell him.

And what it must have cost Sheridan to comfort her, to love her, even through his own suffering.

"I love her," came a whispered voice. The provisional leader of humanity, the General of the Dark Star fleet, the legendary Shadowkiller, was resting his head on his arms, harsh sobs racking his body, anguished words filling the room with his sorrow. "I do.... Oh, God.... why do I feel like this? It's not her fault. I know it's not her fault. How can it be? But...."

What could he say to reply to that? He knew there was no way Delenn could be blamed for what had happened. For one dark moment he suspected the Vorlons of manipulating Sheridan again, of pushing him and Delenn apart, of removing any emotional link to peace and happines in the creation of their 'Shadowkiller'.

But then he realised the truth. The Vorlons needed no control, no manipulation, nothing. They needed nothing more than the darkness within one man's soul, the legacy of a daughter taken too young, and a son butchered before he even had a chance to exist.

There is no evil greater than that which humanity does to itself.

Tomorrow, things would return to normal. Corwin would resume his search for the missing Captains Barns and Tikopai. Sheridan would become the General again, guiding his forces towards a war that was becoming more and more costly. Delenn would rest in the hospital, making contact with the Alliance Council on Kazomi 7 and trying to heal her body and her soul.

And the war would continue. More people would die. More people would suffer. More people would grieve.

And for what?

David did not know.

The sobs coming from John's body lessened, as he finally fell asleep. David rose and walked to the window, looking out across the buildings and streets and people of Proxima's Main Dome.

We fought for all of you. We'll continue to fight for all of you.

But let it be over soon, please. Oh God, let it be over soon.

He sighed, and shook his head, recognising the futile lies in his hopes. It would never be over.

Never.

He was ready now, at last. He had made his confession, he had said what needed to be said. He was ready to face the infinite.

"Are you sure?" asked the nurse again. "Are you...?"

"Yes. There is no other way. Do not worry. You will not get into trouble for this."

"I wasn't. It was just.... No, it doesn't matter. Goodbye, sir."

"Goodbye. And thank you."

She left him alone. Alone, as he had always been. His fingers gently caressed the pad in his hand. It controlled the level of his life support, the amount of the painkilling drugs he was receiving, his entire treatment programme. He was definitely not meant to have it, but the fact that he had acquired it somehow should not surprise anyone.

Besides, no one would be unhappy with the use to which he would put it.

He began moving through the instructions on the pad. It was security coded of course, but that took him all of five minutes to break. He would have done it sooner, but his swollen fingers had trouble inputting some of the codes.

He began flicking through the options, settling on the one he wanted. He was not a doctor, but he had been married to one for eight years, and his memory had always been near perfect. Medical advancement had been limited since Vicky had died, and he was more than capable of adjusting the dose of his medicines to a lethal level.

It was so much easier this way. No show trial. No interrogations. He would not be forced to the same ordeal he had put so many through. He would be gone and forgotten, surviving only in curses and nightmares. Let him be the monster of Clark's rule. One person knew the truth now, and that was enough.

It was over. Gone, and forgotten. All of it.

Except Vicky. He had kept her alive all these years in his memory, never fully letting her go. Now another knew her. He could not pass beyond into whatever Heaven or Hell awaited him without ensuring that Vicky's memory would survive.

He closed his eyes, and felt everything begin to slip away. The end called to him, and he answered.