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?'
