Galen, Alwyn, and G'Leel were already in the small cafe having pastries and drinks when Morden arrived for his customary after-dinner coffee. He wound his way through the "open-air" cluster of tables, about half of which were occupied.
To her credit, G'Leel slipped quickly into talk of the Citizens of Light Disaster Relief effort, and the Narns' need for large quantities of medicines. Working with Alwyn had taught her how to deceive.
Morden passed them, took a seat several tables away, seemingly alone. He wore a well-tailored suit, his dark hair styled neatly back, a shiny black stone on a silver chain about his neck. A mild smile revealed a hint of his even white teeth.
Though Galen had tried to prepare for it, the actual fact of Morden's physical presence sent a jolt through him. He told himself that he'd shared countless after-dinner coffees with Morden from the hiding place, and this one was no different.
But it was different. Because here, with one thought, he could kill Morden.
Morden spread his temptations. Some succumbed, while others resisted. Either option brought only devastation.
Galen forced his gaze away from those even white teeth and turned his mind to his task. He scanned the area around Morden, searching for his companions. There, at the upper end of the infrared band, he found them: two angular silhouettes crawling with white dots of un-resolvable interference, one on each side of their agent. It seemed odd that they followed Morden so closely.
Yet that was how they preferred to work – invisibly, through their puppets. He remembered Elric teaching him how mages worked:
The greatest of us – Virden, Gali-Gali, Kell – have so perfectly controlled the perceptions of others that in many cases those others never knew technomancy had been employed. They never even knew a mage had walked among them.
The Shadows, he realized, were master magicians, manipulating, controlling. They had passed through the station for years, undetected. They communicated their intentions silently to their agents. They wielded immense powers, unsurpassed technology.
Perhaps, Galen thought, they were even the result of the transcendent unification of being and tech that Blaylock envisioned. Galen would have preferred to keep a greater distance from them until he was ready to act, but he must first test his idea. Elric had detected some sort of receiver implanted in Morden's brain that allowed the Shadows to communicate with him.
Galen hoped the same spell that had allowed him to tap into the Shadows' messages to the Drakh would allow him to tap into their messages to Morden. Averting his eyes, Galen scanned Morden himself. He found nothing unusual. He increased the sensitivity of his scan.
A constant, low-frequency energy was radiating from a tiny area of Morden's brain. It was nothing like the focused, high-energy Shadow transmissions he'd previously detected. Perhaps the Shadows used a different type of signal with Humans.
Galen began to record his findings for later study. He'd thought that to intercept the Shadow signals he needed to be within three feet of the recipient. On Thenothk, however, his connection to the Drakh had continued even to fifteen or twenty feet.
In the suite earlier, Galen had asked Alwyn what experience he'd had with the spell, which Galen had given him before leaving for the hiding place. Alwyn, though, had never been able to translate it. Galen's modest attempt to help him had come to nothing.
In any event, Morden sat about a dozen feet away. Whether he was close enough or not, Galen wasn't sure. But he would make the attempt.
He gave a short nod to the others, prepared for the strange sensation of tapping into the Shadow signals. The last time he'd done it, the words had seemed to saturate his body.
He focused on Morden and visualized the simple, one-term equation. The tech echoed the spell. Nothing seemed to happen, at first. Then he realized he did feel a change; a strange sense of blankness was spreading through him, a cloud of gray silence rippling out along his blood vessels, seeping into his cells, suffusing his mind. He dissolved the spell. The signal carried no content. This was no communication. So what was it?
Then his sensors detected an intense energy burst in a narrow, focused band. That was the Shadow transmission he knew. A waiter brought Morden his coffee, and Galen gave the others a second nod.
As he visualized the equation again, a rush of words bubbled through him, streaming through his blood, whispering up the brilliant golden strands of tech, possessing him.
Your plan to regain Mollari's loyalty has worked perfectly. In plotting the assassination of Refa, Mollari has become reliant once again on your assistance. Refa will soon be dead, and Mollari awakened to the joys we offer. The Centauri consume each other with their vendettas and greed for power. In their conflict they become strong. We have shown them their true natures. But Mollari must be kept in check. In the morning, you will leave for Centauri Prime to see Emperor Cartagia. Arrange for Cartagia to recall Mollari to the royal court – a promotion. There we can better control him. And prepare him for what is to come. Then we will put our plan against Sheridan into motion. As always, chaos is the way to strength. Chaos is the nature of the younger races. Chaos is the engine powering life. The spread of chaos is our triumph. And the greatest joy is the ecstasy of victory.
The influx of words ended, yet the words remained, circulating through him, breaking apart, recombining.
What is to come.
Prepare him for vendettas and greed for power.
A promotion.
Your plan has worked perfectly.
Control him for what is to come.
Control.
The greatest joy.
At last the echoes faded, and Galen became aware of two hands lying limp, palms up, on the table. His hands. With effort he raised his heavy head, finding Alwyn and G'Leel watching him as they continued their conversation.
He sensed no further transmissions from the Shadows, nor any response from Morden. If he was correct, Morden did not have the ability to send a response. That would require a much more extensive network of tech through the brain, as mages had.
He took a shaky breath and broke the contact. As he'd hoped, he could listen in on the communications Morden received. What he now needed to learn was how Morden, in carrying out the Shadows' business, sent messages to others; specifically, how he would contact Elizar or Razeel if necessary.
Techno-mages must have the ability to receive messages from the Shadows. Since the Shadows were always with Morden, Galen guessed that Morden would send the message through them. For Galen to accomplish his goal, he needed to be able to detect the message as it was sent, and then follow it to its destination.
Thus far he had focused only on tapping into the signals through a recipient, like Morden. Here, though, were two senders. He must try his spell on one of the Shadows. He detected no bursts of energy from the Shadows; their presence, he believed, was too heavily shielded. But if they were engaged in communication, perhaps his spell would access it.
He focused on the Shadow to Morden's left, visualized the equation. The tech echoed the spell, but he sensed no words, no blankness, nothing. He tried the Shadow to Morden's right.
Still nothing.
The Shadows hid themselves too well. Perhaps if he was closer. He took a sip of coffee, maintaining the two spells in his mind's eye, hoping to detect something.
Alwyn nodded his head to one side, and Galen followed the movement to Morden. The Shadows' agent stood, greeting a man beside the table.
"The suits you requested are ready," the man said.
"Did you follow my specifications exactly?"
"Yes. And I have the rest of the things – the shoes, the stockings, the makeup."
Alwyn shot Galen a bemused smile. Did Morden have a girlfriend? Galen had seen no hint of it. Morden and the man talked a bit further, and Galen noticed Morden kept his right hand in his pocket, his left arm bent at the elbow. The extension of his left hand indicated openness, yet the concealment of the right signified deception, something suppressed or hidden. Morden often kept that right hand in his pocket, even when by himself. What was he hiding when alone with the Shadows? He had no alcoholic urges to repress, like Michael Garibaldi. What was it that he kept to himself?
Galen had studied all Elric had written on Morden. Although Elric had never felt confident in his understanding of the Shadows' agent, he'd believed Morden's alliance with his "associates" had arisen from a desire for revenge against the terrorists who had killed his wife and daughter.
If that was so, then Morden was incredibly cold and calculating, for he had secured Londo's alliance by creating a similar motivation, killing Londo's girlfriend and offering to help him exact revenge.
Galen found it hard to believe Morden had ever had a family, or if he had, that he'd cared for them. In his mind, Morden's motivation was very simple: He was evil.
Morden agreed to visit the man's stall in the Zocalo to check the merchandise. The man left, and Morden sat.
"Business meeting, Mr. Phillips?"
Michael Garibaldi stood over them.
"Hello, Mr. Garibaldi," Galen said. "Have you met? Thomas Alecto, coordinator for the Citizens of Light Disaster Relief Society, and his consultant, G'Leel."
Michael did a double take on Alwyn.
"The Citizens of Light? I've heard rumors... about a relief mission you made to Narn."
"To the Narn home-world itself?" Alwyn said. "Now that would be impossible, wouldn't it? Dangerous things, rumors. But we have helped many Narn refugees."
"Your clients?" Michael asked Galen.
"That remains to be seen."
The security chief would draw Morden's attention; he could be a valuable distraction.
"You make a strange combination."
"Not at all," Alwyn said. "Disaster relief depends on getting the necessary supplies to their destination quickly. Guy has often come through for us in the past."
Alwyn turned to Galen.
"We're hoping to build a more permanent relationship with him."
Alwyn was playing games, but Michael's gaze had drifted to Morden. His main purpose here was to let Morden know he was watching. The security chief set himself up as the one Morden must evade, while other, hidden security provided the real surveillance. Michael took a photograph from his pocket, handed it to Alwyn.
"Have any of you seen this man? He's missing. There's a reward for information on his location."
Alwyn shook his head, passed the photo to G'Leel, who then passed it to Galen. It was Stephen Franklin.
"How much?" Galen asked.
"You tell me where he is, and I find him there, and he's in good condition – five hundred credits."
Morden stood and began threading his way through the tables toward them, out of the cafe. The Shadows came one ahead of him, one behind, their angular silhouettes moving with a strange, scissor-like action.
"I'll keep a lookout," Galen said, and returned the picture to Michael.
As Morden approached, he looked toward Michael, smiled. The shape ahead of him, shimmering with white dots of interference, seemed to seethe with malice. And then the words were bubbling up through him again, only now there were a hundred times as many as before, his blood effervescing with the rush of them. Words upon words, whispers upon whispers, messages upon messages boiled through him.
...to strengthen Clark's hold – destruction of the fighting spirit...
...The raids of the Drazi...
The bubbles ran in strings, each string a different message shooting up through chest and neck and brain and skull, sending a sharp prickling blush over his scalp as it lanced through him and raced toward its destination.
Somehow he had diverted the messages, so they passed through his body on their way. He struggled to sort through them. Some were in the language of the Shadows, some in other languages, yet somehow he understood them all.
...workers to give us the power for ultimate...
...Garibaldi is a nuisance.
...But we will use his weakness against him. Soon his time – alliance knows nothing of our strategy. They will break apart, demoralized, after our next strike.
He tried to follow that string of words, hoping for more information about the attack. But he kept drifting between transmissions, catching only bits and pieces. When he came upon talk of the attack again, he focused on the string, imagined himself grabbing on to it.
With a jerk it yanked him along, whisking him up through snaking blood vessels, up through brain and skull and out into the cafe, through the ceiling, the outer layers of the station blurring past him before the sudden blackness of space. Then the blackness wrapped tightly around him, and the string accelerated down the narrow, constricting channel, pulling him with it.
Beneath his hands, the words bubbled, revealing their message.
If they knew of our plans, Sheridan would already be gone from the station to meet us in battle. Yet he remains. Soon we will have him. The alliance will fall, and he will fall. The Vorlons tell him nothing. Their rules lead to their downfall. Chaos shall reign supreme.
The string sped ahead, and he felt as if he were a cork about to break free to the surface of the ocean. And then the constricting blackness unfolded from around him and he did break free, into the vastness of space once again. As the string carried him toward the spidery black shape of a Shadow ship, he quickly studied the positions of the stars, struggling to commit enough to memory that he could discover the location of the ship.
The shifting black Shadow skin enveloped him, and with a jumbling rush of images he plunged into the recipient. A brilliant, seething light surrounded him, and the string circulated through it, intertwining with other word strings, curling, twisting. He was inside a Shadow. It was time to go back. He imagined himself back in his body in the cafe.