Invoking Darkness (21 page)

The probe on Londo Mollari's attache, Vir, revealed that he was standing with Londo in the suite of the visiting Centauri minister, Virini. Londo assured the minister that his differences with Lord Refa would soon be settled. He failed to say that he would end those differences with Lord Refa's impending assassination.

Galen turned down another corridor, and as if at the end of a long tunnel, saw John Sheridan coming toward him, the overhead lights shining off his sandy blond hair. John seemed to be part of some impossibly distant reality, a universe of light, while Galen lived swathed in darkness.

John's head was bowed, his hand held slightly in front of him. It moved up and down, as if he was gesturing to himself. Galen studied this man on whom so much depended. As they passed, John spoke.

"Come to me."

The voice was soft, a whispering exhalation, yet it echoed with strange, powerful resonances. Galen thought he recognized it. He turned after John.

"Did you say something?"

John stopped, looking surprised to find anyone else in the corridor.

"What?"

"I'm sorry. I thought you said something."

John smiled.

He had combed his hair and shaved since leaving the war room, yet still there was a weariness around his eyes.

"Probably talking to myself. It's been known to happen. Especially these days."

He extended his hand.

"Captain John Sheridan, commander of Babylon 5."

If he was put off at all by Galen's appearance, he didn't show it.

"Guy Phillips. I just arrived."

Galen scanned John.

"Well I hope you enjoy your stay."

"Thank you."

He found nothing unusual in his readings. John nodded, continued down the hall. He was obviously preoccupied and exhausted, but he had a youthful energy and a strange, engaging quality, a mixture of confidence and compassion that Galen had not noticed through the probes. No wonder so many followed him. But what had Galen heard?

He knew the voice, from his many observations of Babylon 5. It was Kosh, the original Vorlon ambassador to the station, dead now four months. Yet how could it be?

When Kosh had been alive, he had touched John's mind at least once. Vorlons excelled at planting dreams and images in the minds of others. Since Kosh's death, John had been involved in a few strange incidents, signs that perhaps some connection remained between him and the Vorlon. Galen had thought only that Kosh's death had left some lasting mental impression. This, obviously, was more.

Galen had read ancient legends of Vorlons who could travel inside the bodies of others. He had never believed it possible. Yet what if, somehow, Kosh survived inside John? And what if Kosh was trying to reach Galen? The Vorlons had always despised and distrusted the mages. What could this one want with him? Perhaps Kosh wanted to kill him, to finish the extermination of his order that the Shadows had begun.

G'Leel was standing farther down the hall, watching him. She approached, each shoulder moving forward in turn. He didn't want to hear whatever she had to say.

"Come back to the room."

The white scar across her nose stood out sharply against her golden skin.

"Alwyn is sorry for what he said."

"I felt he deserved a warning. I have given him that."

"We should work together. Find out all we can about the upcoming attack, as quickly as possible. Then we can split up. I'll make sure Alwyn doesn't give you any trouble. He's like a child in many ways. He listens to me."

"He needs to control his temper."

"Like you control yours."

"No, not like me."

He had known what to expect from Alwyn. He had known Alwyn meant no harm, but he had allowed Alwyn to upset him anyway. The fastest way to get rid of Alwyn would be to work with him in some small way. Then Galen could tell him the danger to Regula was imminent or whatever was necessary to get Alwyn on his ship. In the meantime, Galen would hold the walls of his exercises tight around himself, rendering Alwyn's words no more than a distant curiosity.

"Your teacher – Elric. He's dead, isn't he?"

Galen said nothing.

"It was something in your face. Something I recognized from before. I didn't say anything to Alwyn."

Galen began walking back toward their suite, and G'Leel fell into step beside him.

"I understand your people are suffering as much as mine," she said. "You took the time to help us once. You destroyed the weapons that were to be shipped to the Centauri. You warned me of the danger. I got my parents and family out just in time. They are alive because of that vision you showed me."

"And the crew of the Khatkhata? What of them?" Galen believed G'Leel's old shipmates had been at the Thenothk spaceport when he'd destroyed it. G'Leel's red eyes flicked away.

"I haven't been able to reach them. But they knew the risks."

"I doubt they knew this one."

Her red gaze returned to him, and she grasped his arm, stopping him.

"I want to help you. Whatever your task is. Wherever it takes you."

She had transcended herself, had become a force for good. But she could do no good with him. He extricated himself.

"You can help me most by convincing Alwyn to leave for Regula tonight. And leaving with him. I work best alone. Even being seen with me now, you risk retribution later."

He continued walking, and she followed.

"You need to let Alwyn help you. At least a little. You don't understand how happy he was to hear from you. He really misses you and the others – and Carvin. I try to play his games with him, but I can't really do it."

When Galen did not reply, G'Leel continued.

"I'm worried about him. He drinks a lot. Sometimes takes stupid chances. I thought it would get better with time, but it's not. I guess the bond between a teacher and apprentice is very strong."

Galen looked down the corridor.

"Alwyn was devoted to her."

"Coming here is particularly difficult for him."

"Then he should leave, as soon as possible. He needs to return home. That will help him as well. It is painful for a mage to be separated from his place of power."

"I could take him there and come back to help you."

They had reached the door to the suite. Galen faced her.

"He needs your help," Galen said. "I do not."

"Will you at least allow Alwyn to work with you a little, before you send him off?"

Galen nodded.

G'Leel inserted her keycard. The door opened, and Alwyn stood anxiously, beer bottle in hand.

"I'm sorry. I get carried away sometimes."

Galen entered.

"As do we all."

* * *

Anna was receiving some strange optical input. Rather than seeing through the surface of her skin, both inside and out, the imagery arose from only a single position. The input was of poor resolution, and as her attention fell on various objects, she was unable to magnify the image. She had been in darkness for a time she could not measure.

Now she emerged, disoriented. It felt as if pieces of herself were missing, and others rearranged. She was not as she had been. She had regained other senses, though they too were strange. She remembered, vaguely, feeling this way before. During the horrible time when she'd been separated from the machine. She was small, nearly incapacitated, her capabilities extremely limited.

Over her stood two technicians, their long gray fingers fluttering. They were in a small, brightly lit white room crowded with crude devices. One of the technicians was turned away, making adjustments to the devices. The other arranged shiny, primitive tools on a tray to Anna's side. Then she sensed it, pulsing behind the walls like blood, its power whispering through her with the faintest, most desirable touch.

A machine.

The most powerful she had ever sensed. She must join with it. She needed to coordinate, to synchronize, to strike, to fulfill the needs of the machine, to follow the direction of the Eye. She needed to incorporate herself once again into its perfection, to beat out the flawless march, to swoop down on the enemy, to shriek the red ecstasy of fire.

She remembered again. When she had been separated from the machine, she had sensed another one inside a wall, like this one, only much less powerful. For a short time, she had joined with it. Whether joining her with the machine was the technicians' intention, she didn't know. But she'd had enough of their interfering. This was her purpose. She must become one with it.

The closest wall lay just beyond the tool-covered tray, and it appeared composed of removable panels. Anna explored the sensations of her reduced body. She had four limbs, two of which possessed well-articulated grasping mechanisms at their ends. They would not flow, as the machine's skin did, but she could move them. She made a slight trial motion when she wasn't observed.

A crude, mechanical effort was required, but she could control the limb. She waited until the technician arranging the tools looked away, then shot her limb out. Her grasping mechanism, she was shocked to see, looked very much like the hand of a Human, the pale skin branching into five small appendages. Long, horny extrusions extended from the end of each. As she stretched to reach her goal, the limb trembled with weakness. The horny extrusions barely brushed the wall.

The technician reached for some item on the tray, knocking her limb into the instruments. He looked down at her, and his black eyes widened in alarm. He did not want her to have the machine.

Anna grasped one of the implements from the tray. As her shaking appendages closed around it, it emitted a sound, a whirring sound, and the metal tip of the device rotated rapidly. Against these vulnerable creatures, a weapon. She plunged the tool into the technician's gut, and as the metal tip drilled through him, hot liquid sprayed over her skin.

She opened her orifice, let out a shriek. The control of this body was returning to her. The second technician grabbed her from behind. He dared touch her. She rolled to face him, jammed the drill into his throat. He made a high, wheezing sound, thick fingers fluttering. Then he dropped to the ground.

Evolution through bloodshed,
Anna thought with satisfaction. She had to get to the machine. She attempted to stand, as some instinct now told her she could, but as her extremities touched the floor, they quivered and collapsed. There was a sound, a close sound – her respiration, heavy and fast. She extended her upper extremities in front of her, trying to pull herself toward the wall. She could not find her balance.

Gradually she dragged herself forward, reached the white panels. She scraped with her grasping mechanism at a seam there. Her small appendages did not want to fit into the seam. She jammed them in, and two of the horny extrusions broke away. A trickle of red ran down the bright white wall.

With a twisting motion the panel dropped away, and there it was, the mysterious, gelatinous blackness shot through with pulsing silver. The substance through which she would connect with the machine. She pulled her shaking body close, thrust her head into it. In an exhilarating rush of sensation, they connected, and she sent herself out through the machine.

Signals raced along neurons, information sped through circuits. She discovered where she was: deep underground on Z'ha'dum. The machine was huge, running up through channels and shafts in the rock all the way to the surface of the planet, and even beyond, into the stone pillars that reached into the sky. Its great fingers extended deeper, also, toward the core of the planet and a brilliant golden gathering of energy, the heart of the machine.

Countless systems connected to it: weapons, information, communications, sensors. She could see better and farther than she ever had, her vision encompassing the area surrounding Z'ha'dum and reaching far across the solar system, into the ships that approached.

The machine's power ran through her, and she felt tireless, invulnerable. This was her true form. This was what she was meant to be. As her awareness spread, she took control of the systems, coordinating, synchronizing, directing.

Chaos through warfare.

It was the Eye. Anna tried to locate it. She sensed, suddenly, that it was all around her. And it was angry. She hadn't felt the Eye's discipline since she'd been in her earliest stages of training. It focused on her, collapsed around her, seized her.
I will order and you will obey.
The power of the Eye was ferocious, irresistible. Her control of the systems slipped as the Eye pressed at her.
Relinquish control. This machine is mine.

This great machine was the Eye, Anna realized. At its core was a central processing unit like her. Yet much, much older and more powerful. Anna was being pushed back out of the great stone pillars, out of the sensors, the weapons and other systems, down into the channels and shafts of stone, narrowing on one location, the location of her hated, limited body. She was losing the machine. Again.

But why should the Eye have this machine instead of her? She slipped down through the silvery threads toward that glowing golden heart. If she could control that, she could control it all.

In war those unfit are exterminated. Only in bloodshed can true progress be made, can promise be realized.

She felt the Eye gathering its power, focusing.

Discharging.

A needle-sharp spike pierced her brain, erupted in a brilliant detonation of pain.

She was a void.

Blank.

After a time, she realized the white void was the ceiling above her. And to her broken mind, thought began to return.

Obedience.

Obedience the only option.

The Eye ordered, and she obeyed.

A technician bent over her. The machine was so beautiful, so elegant. Perfect grace, perfect control, form and function integrated into the circuitry of the unbroken loop, the closed universe. She would be one with it no more, not until she did what the Eye required.

C
HAPTER 10