The ship's grip on him remained tight, holding his straining limbs in their awkward positions, squeezing around his chest, pressing at his face, and somehow he could sense that intelligence all around him, the shifting yellow-green patterns winding over him, studying him. At last the pressure to breathe became overwhelming, and he gasped, his lips barely able to part.
To his surprise, oxygen filled his lungs. As his chest heaved with needy breaths, the grip on him loosened slightly. He realized he heard a sound, some kind of humming. At first he thought it was some strange echo caused by the material pressed tight over his ears, the same way a conch shell echoed with the rush of one's own pumping blood. But the humming changed, shifted.
The tune carried meaning within it, a meaning he could understand. It spoke of the beauty of order, of perfect symmetry and ultimate peace. It was the ship he was hearing, the ship singing to itself. The unity of its functioning, the satisfaction of service wove through its melody. Obedience was its greatest joy.
It reminded him of Anna, who lived only to serve the machine. Using his sensors he searched deeper into the ship, fearing that the Vorlons were no different than the Shadows, that they too enslaved living beings at the hearts of their ships.
He sensed the Vorlon, perhaps twenty feet away, an intense concentration of energy interacting with the ship's systems. The Vorlon was the nerve center, the controller of the ship.
He detected no being through which the operations of the ship were channeled, except for the Vorlon. Galen's sensors penetrated only a small portion of the ship, however; perhaps there was a being too distant to detect.
As Galen studied the exchange of energy and information between the Vorlon and the ship, it struck him that their relationship was in some ways similar to that between a mage and his ship, though the Vorlon vessel was obviously much more advanced. It had an intelligence of its own, separate from the Vorlon; the Vorlon connected with it to control it.
The ship's song continued, a repeating melody. It was waiting, Galen realized, waiting for further instructions. It lived to obey its master. Apparently the Vorlon's plan was not to kill him, at least not yet. Against the tight grasp of the ship, Galen forced a slight movement of his lips, spoke the words.
"Face me."
With his ears covered, he could not hear his voice at all. He waited, continuing with his exercises. The dim glow behind his eyelids began to build, like a sunrise, and as its intensity built, like more than a sunrise, like the sun rushing toward him, and more, like the sun swallowing him with its blinding brilliance. The light slid inside him. It burned like acid through his eyes and into his brain.
In the blazing light swam images of Elric, of Blaylock, and the others he had left behind. He was in his ship, flying through hyperspace toward the hiding place. He forced his mind away.
He yelled, "Get out of my head or I'll destroy you."
He was drowning in the blazing radiance, disintegrating in it.
"Do it now!"
He visualized a blank screen, holding with ferocious focus to his exercises. The brilliance pulled out of him, feeling, for a moment, as if it had sucked his brain out with it. A shifting radiance surrounded him.
"You are an abomination."
The voice, unmistakably Ulkesh's, whispered from the skin covering his ears. It echoed with resonances of other words, other meanings. Galen maintained his exercises, wary... Galen forced a slight.
"You came all this way to tell me that?"
"The pestilence must be eradicated."
"I agree. That is why I am here."
"You carry the pestilence."
"I know," Galen said. "And I agree. The pestilence must be eradicated. I wish only to stop two of my kind who serve the Shadows, before I stop myself."
"All of your kind serve darkness."
"You came here either to kill me or to help me. I am still waiting to learn which."
"Impatience serves chaos."
"Delay also serves them."
"If you were a servant of mine," Ulkesh said, "you would learn obedience."
"As you have taught your ship?"
"As our ships serve us, so you serve your masters."
"We are not slaves," Galen said. "We can fight the Shadows' programming. We can do good."
"In breaking their rules," Ulkesh said, "you serve only chaos."
"There's no winning with you, is there?"
"Good can only come from order. Order from obedience to rules. Control."
"I have maintained control for the last two years."
"All of you must die."
"We will kill one another before long," Galen said. "We consume ourselves like the ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. The process has already begun. I simply seek to include these two who have escaped us. Does that not serve your purpose?"
Ulkesh was silent.
Galen realized that the Vorlon was waiting for him to say something. Then he realized what it was. He spoke into the shifting light.
"The Shadows will know nothing of your assistance. I will tell them nothing willingly. And they will take nothing from me unwillingly. I have a device within me. If they attempt to disable my tech and take my knowledge, the device will kill me."
Still, Ulkesh was silent.
Then, finally, in his whispering, resonant voice, he spoke.
"You are chaos."
"Are you going to help me or not?"
"You are chaos. When Chaos looks upon you, she will see chaos. Like allows like."
"That's it?"
The defense net was like the membrane in Morden's vent, then. It had recognized him as being similar, had allowed him to pass. Certainly this system, though, was much more sophisticated.
"To resist it is to betray yourself. In complete surrender you may pass."
"Thank you," Galen said.
"That is where you belong."
The brilliant light began to fade, Ulkesh retreating. The faint hum of the ship's song changed, and Galen realized it had received an order. The hold on him loosened, the material softening into a thick ooze. In a dizzying rush the current slammed into him, driving him backward, spinning him head over heels. With a rude sound it ejected him, and he was shooting through frigid blackness, the vacuum sucking the air out of him.
He slammed hard into the air lock of his ship. The rippling cylinder of yellow-green hovered above him, regarding him. Galen selected the command, and the air lock's outer door slid closed. Then air was rushing back in around him, and he pushed himself up. Beyond the air-lock window the extension retracted, flowing back into the main body of Ulkesh's ship, the mass rippling outward, dissipating. Galen was left with Ulkesh's final words.
When it suits us, you will all die.
The Vorlon ship raced off into blackness.
* * *
Anna handed her identicard to the security officer and looked out at the area beyond the checkpoint. Few beings moved about. It was a time of rest, according to the schedule most kept here. Primitive information screens covered the walls; lights too bright shone down upon rows of rigid chairs. Anna laid her hand against the wall.
This machine, Babylon 5, was large and held many lives. But it was soulless, dead. Justin had told her John controlled it, though not in the way Anna controlled the machine; instead, in the strange, indirect way Humans had of controlling things.
The security officer looked up from his primitive handheld device.
"Been out of circulation for a while, haven't you?"
"Is there a problem?" Anna said, tilting her head in an animated fashion.
The officer glanced again at his device, his forehead furrowing.
"No... no."
He handed back the card.
"Here on business?"
"I'm here to see my husband. John Sheridan."
He seemed to have nothing further to say, so she continued on her way. She followed the route to John's quarters. She had to concentrate to keep her balance on the shoes Morden had brought her. Her legs were such a primitive method of propulsion.
She passed down the corridors, reviewing all she had learned, all she must do. Then she stood before John's door. She pressed the code into the keypad, and the door opened.
Inside, in John's place stood the hated Delenn, the one who sought to take her place as John's wife. She wore a loose robe, her long hair cascading over it. The bony plate that circled her head looked almost like a crown. In her hand Delenn held a small transparent globe. Within it was a miniature version of the lighthouse from the beach, primitive reminder of the great Eye.
Anna wanted to shriek out an attack, to destroy this challenger to her power. But Justin had prepared her for this situation, and she remembered his instructions. Anna smiled and entered, holding out her hand.
"Hello. You must be Delenn. I'm Anna Sheridan. John's wife."
The globe fell from Delenn's hand.
* * *
Ahead, the image of Z'ha'dum grew, no longer a black speck, but a small disk streaked in different shades of brown. Galen sat quietly, hands pressed flat against his legs, an exercise of the alphabet holding his mind as still, and empty, as possible. Whatever came, he must not resist it.
He must allow it to pass over him and through him, to identify him as a creature of shadows, an agent of chaos and destruction. The Eye would allow him to pass, when no others could draw close, because he was kin. That was why the Shadows feared the mages; that was why the Shadows had insisted the mages join with them or die. The mages could infiltrate their bases, tap their communications.
Like could fight like.
So he would be admitted, and the Trojan horse would invade the stronghold of the enemy. It fell on him like a brilliant, black light, streaming down over him, probing, searching for access. Galen relinquished his exercise.
The black light poured in through his eyes. It spilled down over the back of his head and prickled against the stippled discoloration along his shoulders and spine, flowing inward. It tingled against the sensors in his fingertips, reached in along the threads of tech, up his fingers, up his arms.
At the same time that it invaded him, he felt its blackness bathing his ship, slipping into the silvery body of his chrysalis, coiling around its threads, considering. As it twined up along the lines of his tech, the tech, in turn, began to warm, to quicken.
Galen wanted to suppress the energy with an exercise, but he could not or he would be detected. Adrenaline raced through his system, setting his heart pounding. Then, as it circulated through him, the black light began to speak.
It carried words, whispers, just like the Shadow communications. They infected him.
Chaos is the proper state of being, the state in which all impulse is freed to act. Chaos is the way to strength. Chaos is the engine powering life. Chaos finds its fullest expression in times of war. In war all are put to the test. In war those unfit are exterminated. Only in bloodshed can true progress be made, can promise be realized. In war we are victorious, and through war true perfection will be realized.
The Eye's whispers elicited a sympathetic vibration from the tech, and he found it echoing those words, reveling in thoughts of destruction, its energy building, burning, churning. And as it did, so did he, since they were one and the same, indivisible unto death.
He whispered with the joy of chaos, the rapture of impulses freed at last to act, to strike down, to strike down the enemy, to rid the universe of them, to attack and not to stop, not until the enemy was utterly destroyed.
To suffer no more in tolerance and patience, to kill those who killed, to kill those who threatened, to kill those who offended, to kill those who erred, to kill those who could be killed, for the greater good, the good of evolution, the good of progress, the good of perfection.
He was blazing, incandescent, energy singing along the meridians of the tech, a vibration so pure it was painful. This was how it felt to be truly alive, not hiding in a tiny prison of his own making, hiding unnecessarily, as if he had done wrong, when it was the universe that was wrong, the universe that should hide from him.
He remembered the raging joy of crushing Drakh after Drakh, Shadow after Shadow. They deserved to die, just as Tilar deserved to die, just as Circe and Londo and Morden and Elizar and Razeel and so many others. The Circle, for lying to him. She, for leaving him behind. His parents, for giving him birth.
He was a fool for trying to kill only three people. He should destroy it all – the Shadows, the Vorlons, the Centauri, the Narn, the Minbari, the Humans – they were all programmed for destruction, all programmed to hurt one another, and keep hurting, for as long as they could. But he could stop them. He could crush them all. He wanted to crush them all. With a rush of satisfaction, the black light flowed out of him.
The Eye turned away.
But still the brilliant incandescence raced through his veins, shot down his neurons. His body was shaking, both seized with the energy and surging with it. He wanted to destroy. He wanted to kill. Who or what, it did not matter.
He visualized the equation, brought the energy down upon himself. The brilliant blue fire rushed over his body like living lava, searing him, consuming any hair from his body.
Again.
Again.
At last his mind cleared enough that he could visualize a single letter glowing in blue in the upper left corner of a blank screen. A.
He clung to the letter, unable to think what came next, unable to continue. Finally he realized what he must do. The blue fire raked down his skin, scouring it away. He doubled over, his nerve endings overloaded with sensation, with pain. Then he was able to continue.
AB.
And again.
ABC.
He continued with the exercise, and after that, another, and another, retreating from that place, from that time, recoiling from those feelings, withdrawing farther down the dark tunnel, drawing the walls up tighter, squeezing the fist of his will until there was no past, no future, no universe, nothing but a ship, and within the ship a body, and within the body a heart, a dark heart, beating, beating, beating.