'This is of interest, yes. Where?'
'When you have the information I need. Not before.'
'This one will wait. You will be contacted when all is known. We will speak later, friend.'
'Later.'
It took Marrago several minutes to stop shaking after the communication finished. Then he needed several cups of jhala to wash the foul taste out of his mouth.
'Ugly-looking planet,' Susan Ivanova muttered. 'And is it just me, or is that the same small group of ships passing overhead all the time?'
'It's not just you,' Sinoval replied, not looking up from his meditation. 'The Centauri do not have much of a fleet left, so they seem to have learned how to make it look as though they have far more ships than they really do.'
'Weren't there supposed to be Alliance ships here as well? I thought that was what you said was happening — Alliance ships guarding Centauri worlds.'
Sinoval rose, sighing, and walked around the circumference of the pinnacle. Sometimes it seemed so small and yet sometimes it was massive. Not for the first time he felt he was standing on the top of the galaxy, looking down at world upon world laid out for his inspection.
Except he had to share this vision with Susan, as always, and this was just one world. Centauri Prime to be exact.
'Yes,' he said. 'There were meant to be. The Alliance have dispatched some of their fleets to guard and protect Centauri worlds, not to mention maintaining order on the surface.' He paused, looking around at the spectacle before him. 'No, none here. It would not surprise me if the Narn captains of those ships have quarrelled with some functionary or another and simply stayed away, aggrieved at their help being so rudely rebuffed. That would make what is going to happen all the more truly tragic, of course. A sign of what will happen unless the Centauri accept their place in the new galactic order.'
He paused, still looking. 'When I was much younger, I saw a performer in the streets of Yedor. A former member of the warrior caste, exiled for some crime or another. He survived by performing tricks for passing crowds, for travellers and so on.
'He was balancing small spinning balls on his denn'bok, throwing them up into the air and catching them on the edge, always keeping them spinning and dancing. He must have been holding.... almost fifteen in the air at one point, and he never let one drop.'
Susan looked at him. It was not usual for him to be talking so much, but after his collapse following his tales of Valen, he had actively sought her company more. He would speak to her more often, reveal more of his plans, his intentions, his dreams, even trivial little stories like this.
She was not quite sure what this meant. Either she was succeeding in her purpose and he was actually seeing people as people, not just chess pieces. He could be opening up to her, letting himself be human.... or Minbari, or whatever. Alive. Letting himself be alive.
Or there was another, darker possibility.
He was sharing his plans so that if anything happened to him someone would be able to continue when he was gone.
'I feel like that warrior, balancing all those globes in the air, except these are not just spinning balls, but people, and if any fall then we lose more than just a toy.
'Vejar has failed, and it cost him his life. Galen is lost now, trapped by the Vorlons, and there is no way to get him out. Marrago is on his own and I have to advance his careful plans myself, risking everything he has worked for these past two years.
'And Sheridan....
'Sheridan....
'Without the telepath, I have to do this myself. It would be so much easier with her, but I fear there is little choice, and I certainly do not have the time to do this slowly. I have to rush, and what if I mis-step or make a wrong move? What if he sees me or rejects me?
'Ah, Valen, curse you. Destined for greatness, indeed!'
He made for the steps leading downwards. 'I have to commune with Sheridan again. I am.... making breakthroughs with him, slowly but surely, but I will have to move more quickly. Someone has to lead if anything happens to me, and without the Vorlon touch there would be no one better than him.
'If I can make him see!'
'Sinoval!' Susan called out. He stopped and looked back at her. 'Don't do anything stupid. We can't do this without you, and if you die and leave me to do it myself, I swear to God I'll find your soul wherever it's gone and kick the living crapola out of you.' He looked at her, and she looked down, annoyed at the outburst. 'You got that?'
He was beside her in an instant. H
'Susan,' he said. 'If I had to leave, I would trust you with all of this. Remember that.'
Then he was gone, and she was left to wait.
Hidden. Above Centauri Prime.
Waiting for the raiders to come.
Waiting.
After a while she began to whistle.
Da'Kal took a long, slow sip of the bitter jhala. It tasted foul in her throat and she could not understand why the Centauri drank it. It was too hot and too bitter and it scalded the roof of her mouth.
But, however foul the taste, it reminded her of victory.
'It was him,' H'Klo said, standing in the doorway. 'Again.' The Councillor of the Kha'Ri was normally unflappable, but now he actually sounded.... worried. H'Klo knew no fear, she knew that much. When he was nothing but a pouchling, he had been working with the Resistance. The Centauri had captured and tortured him, and he had said nothing even as they had peeled the skin from his back with red-hot pincers, one strip at a time. Da'Kal had looked at those scars, touched them, even kissed them.
H'Klo feared neither Centauri, nor Shadow, nor Vorlon, nor Narn. He had sworn to defend her in her quest, and she had no doubt he would. When a Thenta Ma'Kur assassin had attacked her in her bedchamber one night, H'Klo had faced him bare-handed and broken his back, despite being wounded five times in the process.
No, he feared nothing. Save one thing alone.
One person.
A prophet.
Da'Kal said nothing, but merely looked out across G'Khamazad. The city was so far beneath her, she could see the comings and goings of her people, free for the first time in their lives. Free from the Centauri. Free even from the fear of the Centauri. Now it was time for the Centauri to learn fear themselves.
She sipped at the jhala again. It was thick and cloying. She hated the smell. When she was young, before her name day, she had worked in the household of a Centauri noble, washing his clothes and cooking his food and pouring endless cups of jhala for him and his fat, vain wife and his spoiled, brattish children.
She remembered his face after the Resistance had taken his manor. G'Kar had killed his captain of guards in single combat and had made her lady of the manor. She had made the lord serve her jhala, and she had drained the drink in one gulp. Nothing had ever tasted sweeter, not even the taste of G'Kar's kisses that night.
'He will know,' H'Klo said. 'He will find us.'
'There is no need to be concerned,' she replied, still looking down on the city. One of the many things she had learned from the Centauri. Build high, and look down upon those you rule.
'I am concerned,' he snapped. 'Ask me to fight for you and I will. Ask me to kill for you and I will. But do not ask me to go against him, Da'Kal. He is.... our Prophet. He has something I have never seen in anyone else, not even you. He....' H'Klo paused, obviously struggling to find the words. 'He is special.'
'Yes,' Da'Kal replied, irritated. 'The mighty Prophet G'Kar. The wise, the bountiful, the saviour of our people.'
