The humans had a saying Londo had heard. He had never really understood it until now.
It never rains but it pours.
* * * Whispers from the Day of the Dead — II There was no understanding, no wisdom, no intelligence, no plan. Nothing.
There was only the dead, and they were everywhere, hundreds of faces, looking at him, screaming at him. Some of them he knew were dead, Mary, Michael, his parents. Some he did not know for sure, Susan, Lyta, Lianna. There were many faces he did not know at all, human, Minbari, even Drakh, people he had killed in the war.
David Corwin did not even remember why he had come to Brakir. He did not remember much of anything he had done these past months. He did remember that last day, the day he would mark down as being the one on which his sanity had snapped, and the walls around his world had begun to tumble down.
First had come the news that Mary had died. A tumour, something as simple as that. Random chance, nothing more. No dark fate, no hideous whim of some omnipotent being. Just simple natural causes.
Then his ship had been destroyed. Scuttled, was the official report. Too much combat damage to remain viable. He had heard Carolyn's last scream and now he knew she was alone forever. He had not seen her here today. She was definitely dead, but also not dead. She would be alive and screaming for eternity, trapped in the void the Vorlons had created.
The next day he had left Kazomi 7, left the Alliance and just gone, seeking something out there that would make sense.
Sometimes, in his more lucid moments, he recalled an old story he had heard, of a fisherman who had grown sick of the sea. He had planned to take his oars and walk inland carrying them, until he reached a place where no one knew what he was carrying.
Corwin was carrying something much heavier than oars, and he could not put them down, as everyone had recognised what it was he was carrying.
Particularly everyone here.
'You've got to be one of the good guys, 'cause there's way too many of the bad,' one of the dead said to him. 'I told my son that. Do you think he listened?'
'Go away,' he said. 'You're dead.'
'Yeah? Yeah, you're right. But that doesn't make me wrong. You'd have agreed with me once. There's too many of the bad out there.'
'Yes, there are. And they're too big, and they're too strong, and we can't touch them. None of us can. What's the point in being one of the good guys? We can't win.'
'That's exactly the point. We can't win if everyone talks like that.'
'Was it worth it? Was it all worth it? You've left behind your wife, your son, everything.... Was it worth it?'
'Ah.... I don't know, really. But I do know this. If I'd backed out, if I hadn't been one of the good guys, I wouldn't have been able to look either of them in the face again.'
'Go away. You're dead.'
'By the looks of it, you will be soon as well. You could have been a lot more than this.'
'Go away.'
'I'm not angry with you. I should be, but I'm not. Just think for one second, will you? Just think.'
There were more, countless thousands of Minbari, skin sloughing from their faces, eyes dull and hollow, poisoned and sickened and dying, all a result of what he had done. Him, and people just like him. They had been good men, the people who had attacked Minbar. Some of them had wives and children and families. They watched sport and played with their sons, and read stories and played cards.
They were all just like him. All of them. He had done it.
He could not look into their eyes. He could not even bear to look at any of them. He had not imagined the Day of the Dead would be like this.
He did not know if he slept at all, if it had all been a dream, but there had been a long delirium and then light had touched his eyes, the light of the sun rising. He stirred from the place were he had lain, and looked up to see someone standing over him. It was a Minbari woman, another of the thousands.
'I'm sorry,' he whispered. 'Please....' Tears were rolling down his dirt-streaked face. 'Please.'
'There is nothing to be sorry about,' the woman said, in flawless English. 'May I sit?'
He looked at her closer. She was short, and slender, and pretty.
'You aren't dead,' he said.
'No,' she replied. 'No, I'm not.'
* * * 'They aren't human,' Chen said.
'No,' Talia replied. 'They aren't.'
'Then what are they? They look human, or they did at first, but.... It's not a Changeling Net. What are they?'
'It's hard to explain,' she sighed. 'At least it is until you see the artefact. Then a lot of things become clear.'
'What artefact?'
'You'll be taken to see it shortly.'
It had been a couple of hours since Chen had been rescued from the terrifying creatures who called themselves the Hand of the Light, and it seemed he had spent most of that time asking questions and not receiving answers. His rescuers had taken him to an abandoned warehouse, where they had built a camp. Chen knew of army bases less well protected.
They had brought the prisoner with them. He had stumbled and tripped and had been dragged most of the way. He mumbled occasionally. He looked as if he were drunk, or very tired. As he looked at him Chen felt a strange surge of pity, and the memory of what the man had been faded.
'Don't!' Talia snapped, looking at him. 'Don't forget what they are. That's one of the ways they win.'
Chen had rested at the camp a little, washing his face and drinking a lot of water. There were perhaps forty people here, almost all of them telepaths, but there were a few mundanes also. There were even a couple of aliens, but they were telepaths as well.
'What is this place?' he had asked when he arrived.
'You ask a lot of questions, don't you?' Talia replied. 'I don't blame you. This is a hideout for the time being. We'll be moving on soon. We have to.'
'Where to?'
'We don't know yet. Somewhere safe. Somewhere we can help more people.'
'Don't you mean, help telepaths?'
'No, help people. Teep or mundane, it doesn't matter.'
After he had rested Ben Zayn had come for him, staring at him with those dark eyes of his. Chen had never been afraid of mundanes before, not even as a child. He had always known he was one of the special people, but as Ben Zayn looked at him, he wondered if the mundane understood that.
'Talia wants to see you.'
'What about?'
'She thought you might like to be around when she questions the thing we captured. She even thinks you might be useful there. I'll reserve my judgement, but listen to me. I worked for Bester all my life. Him, I trusted completely. He trusted Talia, so I will as well. You, I don't know. Don't go thinking I'll treat you with kid gloves just because you're a teep. Prove yourself, or go out into the big wide world and be incorporated into the network. I don't care. Got that?'
