"Oh God, this is crazy. I just don't believe it.... It's as if everything's just turned around and muddled up so it makes no sense whatsoever. Shadows, Vorlons, ideology.... And then there's Carolyn."
"Ah."
"Yes. I can still see her when I close my eyes. Lyta, who was she? Was she real, just an illusion, what?"
"She was real, alive. Somewhere in the heart of your Dark Star is a chamber, a sort of living instrument. She's trapped there, her mind fused with every part of the ship. Every Dark Star has one. Some of them are human, others alien."
"The Vorlons did that? That's monstrous!"
"Yes," she said. "It is. Kosh.... never liked it. It was originally used as a defence network around parts of Vorlon space. It was.... necessary. There were too many secrets the other races must not be allowed to uncover, and the network was.... one of the best ways of keeping them out. It.... didn't have to destroy people, you see. It could be used to misdirect and confuse. It was never designed for outright destruction."
"Until now."
"Yes. Until now."
"Fine. Where is this chamber exactly? There's a lot of space in the Dark Stars that we haven't been told anything about, other than not to go there. Engineering stuff. I'll find this chamber and...."
"And what? Destroy it? Break her free?"
"Yes! Of course. God, I can't leave her in there any longer, after what they're doing to her."
"You can't do that. Oh, you can free her body, yes.... but her mind is attuned to every part of the ship. Take her body away from the chamber and all you do is sever the link between body and mind. There'll be nowhere for her mind to return to if we ever could free her totally."
"Can you.... undo this link?" She shook her head. "Then how long is she going to stay there?"
"If the ship is not destroyed.... forever. There are certain.... rejuvenation effects in the technology holding her. Her body will not decay, her systems will not break down. She will live forever."
"We have to stop this!"
"Yes, we do.... but we cannot do it yet. The Vorlons have been preparing for this for millennia. They are going to destroy the Shadows once and for all, not merely defeat them but humiliate them utterly, break them apart and drive them from this galaxy."
"Then what can we do?"
"Watch, learn, wait. For now, the Vorlons want to use this to defeat the Shadows. They are our enemy too. So.... is the enemy of my enemy my friend?"
"Not when they're doing stuff like this! The Shadows weren't our friends just because we were both enemies of the Minbari, and the Vorlons certainly aren't our friends now.... not when they're doing things like this. It's.... God, I've never seen anything more wrong!"
"Nor have I, but David, listen to me. What can we do at the moment? We must try to defeat them in their own way."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Captain Sheridan is important to them. They've been trying to mould him to be their perfect general, their instrument of order. They think they need to purge him of anything else that might influence him, anything or anyone to whom he will listen other than them. You are his oldest friend, and they are trying to drive the two of you apart. Stay close to him, remain his friend, and make him find Delenn."
"Delenn? She is still alive?"
"Yes. I can.... feel her. I don't know where, but...."
"It doesn't matter. I'll find her. I knew it! I knew she was still alive!"
"Keep an eye on her. They may try to kill her.... and you."
"Don't worry. Now I know what's going on, I'm not going to let them win. Wait! What about Carolyn? Is there anything I can do for her?"
"Talk to her. Speak her name as often as you can. Remind her that she is still alive, still a person. Perhaps later we will be able to free her, and she will need still to be sane when that happens. Apart from that.... there is nothing."
He shook his head. "What about you? Won't you get in trouble for telling me all this?"
"For now they need me. Besides, I can.... obscure my involvement in this.... for a while at least. Afterwards.... I have no illusions about what they are going to do to me."
"No!" he said, his eyes flashing. "I won't let them put you in one of those ships."
"We may not have a choice. But I'm not planning on staying around. After the war is over I'm going to leave and find Sinoval. He can fight them, if anyone can. Don't worry." She reached out and gently took his hand. "I'm going to be fine."
"If you say so. Who.... who else here knows about this?"
"No one. There's no one else here I can trust. When I'm gone, it'll be up to you to tell someone you can trust. Not Captain Sheridan. They've touched him too strongly. And not Delenn. She's too connected to him. But anyone else."
She took back her hand. "You have to go now. We shouldn't be seen together. The less reason they have to be suspicious of you the better."
"I understand." He made for the door, and then turned. "Can we beat them?"
"I don't know," she said honestly. "I really don't know."
It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life. He had not been sure exactly what he had been expecting it to look like, but never in his dreams had he imagined it would be like this.
It was a flower, a shimmering, starry, living jewel of silky darkness and velvet shadows. There was a bright red bulb beneath the delicate, slender petals. It was hard, and yet transparent. There was something inside it, a tiny spark of life, curled up tightly.
Lord Kiro knew what the flower was, and what it did, and how to use it. He had seen it in his dreams for the last two weeks. He had seen an ancient civilisation, proud and wise, possessed of wings that had carried them across the stars, until they finally settled on an isolated, idyllic world. He had seen the passing comet that had left behind a spoor, and the flowers that had grown from that seed. He had seen the madness spreading as the flowers bloomed, and the massacres that came when the things inside them broke free.
And then he had seen the dark ships in the sky, the Dark Masters that came to claim the last, devolved, shattered refuse of the once proud race.
The thing within the flower was not ready to live yet. It would need to be nourished, and fed. But soon, weeks, maybe months. What did it matter? It would come soon enough.
"Here it is," he said, looking directly at the emissary of the Dark Masters. He did not care about the others who would hear. They were all his. They had all drunk deeply of the enlightenment that had swept Centauri Prime the last time these flowers had seeded. Tiny spores had settled in their minds, and their eyes had been opened.
"As you promised, but I have one question. Why did you not give it to me yourself? Why involve the noblewoman in this? She is not one of us." Kiro no longer thought of himself as a nobleman. Nobility, merchants, peasants, it did not matter any more. There were simply those enlightened, and those not, and former titles meant nothing.
"She is.... special."
"Ah," said Kiro. "Yes. She will be mine, yes? She will be the womb from which comes...."
"The future."
"Yes. Yes, the future. The fire."
"Yes."
He looked at the flower once again. The thing inside it looked so small. It would grow, but for that, it needed something else. "Mariel!" he called, and was rewarded by the slow shuffling that announced her presence.
She had been many things. She had been the wife of the man who was now Emperor, the lover of the man who had been First Minister. She had been one of those who had broken into Kiro's estate, and tortured and mutilated him.
None of that mattered now. Now she was his, a Shadow Crier, a servant of the Dark Masters. Everything that had been hers was now his, for the greater glory of the Dark Masters.