Alone, again, as always, Londo waited for the creaking of a door that he knew would come. "You are there, my old friend?"
G'Kar entered the room, watching him, looking at the keeper balefully. "Yes," he said.
"They will never make it out alive, unless ..." He took another breath. "You see, my keeper will awaken any second. It will alert the others ... and my only hope will die. And I will die soon after. They do not take betrayal lightly."
And at the last... The words of Lady Morella floated to him across the years.
...you must surrender yourself to your greatest fear...
He wondered if that was strictly true anymore. Because in a way, his greatest fear was that he might continue to live.
... knowing that it will kill you.
He paused, an infinity of time passing in a second, and said the words that he had known, for as long as he could recall, that he was destined to say. "We have unfinished business between us, G'Kar. Let us have an end to it, quickly, before it stops me. I am as tired of my life as you are."
G'Kar came at him. His hands clamped around Londo's throat, and it did not seem right somehow, because in the vision he had always been fighting back. But he had no desire to do so. He just wanted it over, done, finished. He marveled at the Narn's strength, wondered what it would have been like to battle G'Kar hand to hand, man to man, back in his prime, back at a time when any thing seemed possible.
And then the keeper awoke.
G'Kar could not count the number of times that he had thought of this moment. There were times when he had, for his amusement, speculated what it would be like to sink his fingers into Londo's fleshy throat, feel the pulse beneath his fingers, feel it slowing, feel it stopping. He had wondered how long he would actually stand there, once there was no life, and still keep squeezing, just enjoying the lifelessness.
And that day – that terrible day, when he had learned of Londo's duplicity, drinking with him in friendship while Londo sent ships to kill thousands, millions of innocent Narns – he had gone berserk that day. When he stormed down the corridors of Babylon 5, howling for Londo Mollari's blood, he would have done more than strangle him. He would have ripped his living hearts from his body, held up one, and consumed the other while the life flickered from Londo's eyes.
Now...
Now he had him. Londo wasn't putting up a fight. He was... he was sacrificing himself. Surrendering to G'Kar, telling him to get it over with, so Delenn and Sheridan could escape.
Sheridan. "The king." And he was the hand of the king, and those hands were wrapped with murderous intent around the throat of a true king, an emperor.
The Narn named G'Kar who had imagined this moment, the Narn named G'Kar who would have reveled in it, had died years ago, replaced by a philosopher who was revered throughout the Narn Homeworld as G'Kar the wise, G'Kar the thoughtful, G'Kar the scholarly. His writings were endlessly studied, examined for the slightest nuance. Students who sat at his feet repeated his teachings, statues had been built to him, songs sung, stories written. They worshipped him as a man of peace even more than they had revered him as a man of war. Some called his writings the most important since those of G'Quan himself – a claim he had always considered to be a tad overblown, but there it was, and he wasn't going to deny it.
G'Kar the wise had forgiven Londo his trespasses. Had come to appreciate him, not for the man he was, but for the man he could have been ... and might yet be.
The hand of the king was going to have the blood of the emperor on it, and G'Kar's will faltered. He saw Londo surrendering to what he recognized as his fate, and something in G'Kar recoiled at the very notion. There had to be some other way. Sheridan and Delenn had to escape, yes. But there had to be a way for Londo to escape as well, something that would not cost him his life. It couldn't simply end like this, with cold-blooded murder... even if it was at the request of the victim. He was not an executioner. He was G'Kar, son of G'Qarn, scribe, sage, both teacher and student of the universe, and he could not, would not, do this thing.
And in deciding this, he began to ease up, ever so slightly, on Londo's throat.
And then the keeper awoke ...
We are threatened! We are being assaulted! It is trying to kill us!
The keeper howled in anguish and fear. It saw its host was in danger, saw its own life threatened, because they were bonded, one to the other. A keeper could disengage, but it was a lengthy process, one that took time ... time the keeper did not have. It did, however, have defensive capabilities.
In the early years of their relationship, the keeper had simply been an observer. But as time had passed, the keeper had insinuated itself so thoroughly into Londo's nervous system that, in times of stress, it could take over the body entirely for short periods.
Stop them, Londo! We love you! We care for you! We will never leave you!
The creature had never been so terrified, not since its spawning. When Shiv'kala had removed it from its nourishment pouch, it had feared the Centauri. Feared it so much that it had trembled in Shiv'kala's keeping. But the Drakh had assured it that all would be well, and it had been.
And now it wasn't.
Protect us, Londo! Protect us! Save us! Love us!
And Londo's arms flew up, not of their own accord, but at the keeper's command. They grabbed on to G'Kar's throat, clamping in with ferocity.
C
HAPTER 26
"I am Dunseny, and this is Caso," Dunseny said by way of hurried introduction as they proceeded down the corridor. "I tell you that so that, if this does not go well and we die, you will know whose name to curse with your final breath."
"Very considerate," Delenn said. She cast a worried glance at Sheridan, who was suddenly starting to look a little uncertain on his feet. Dunseny hurried on ahead, Caso behind him, leading the way for Sheridan and Delenn. His hand hovered near his weapon, just in case some sort of resistance might be met.
Suddenly Sheridan's legs began to buckle once again. He leaned against the wall, supporting himself. Delenn took his arm, her face a mask of worry. "What is it?"
Sheridan tried to fight off whatever had a hold of him, but was unable to. "I'm ... being pulled back again. Go on, hurry, don't wait for me."
"No. I won't leave you," she said firmly, shaking her head.
He tried to take a few more steps, got halfway down another corridor, and then the pain overwhelmed him. "It's no good... I can feel time pulling at me ..."
She held him tightly. "Then take these words back with you to the past: Treasure the moments you have. Savor them for as long as you can, for they will never come again."
She knew that was all she should say. That she could take no chance of disrupting the past. Who knew what she might change? If she said the wrong thing, David might never exist, or the Shadows might triumph, or... or anything. There was simply no way of knowing, and every instinct, every fragment of common sense she possessed, warned her to keep her mouth shut...
And then she heard her own voice blurt out, "John ... listen to me, do not go to Z'ha'dum. Do you understand? Do not go to Z'ha'dum..."
She held him desperately, wishing she could shield him from harm with her own body, and suddenly Sheridan tore away from her, slamming against the wall as if in the grip of some vast invisible fist. He convulsed once more, his head snapping this way and that, and then with tremendous effort he focused on her.
"Delenn ..." he whispered. "I ... I blanked out, I ..." He looked around the corridor in utter astonishment. "How did we get here? How did ..."
Caso had stopped, and was standing there. He was looking around with barely controlled nervousness, clearly concerned that someone might show up. Realizing that they had halted, Dunseny came back to them and gestured urgently. "What are you waiting for?" he demanded.
Sheridan looked in confusion from one to the other. "Are you... taking us to Londo?"
"We were just there," Delenn told him. "John ... we can't stop here and discuss this. Later. Later we can–"
Suddenly his hand clutched her arm so hard that pain shot up to her shoulder. Then he realized what he was doing, and eased up. "Babylon 4," he whispered. "The time flux ... this was it..."
"Yes," she said, relieved that she wasn't going to have to explain.
"I thought I was suddenly having deja vu," he said, looking around.
Urgently she suddenly inquired, "Z'ha'dum ... did you–"
"Go?" He nodded. "Yes." He sounded almost apologetic, because obviously he remembered her breathless advice ... and had felt constrained to disobey it anyway.
She felt an awful mixture of relief and pain, all at the same time. Relief because she had allowed a moment of weakness to jeopardize everything that was, or might ever be ... and nothing had come from it. And pain because it meant that, in three years at the most, John would be lost to her. The time given him as a reprieve against death would be running out. If he had not gone to Z'ha'dum...
"Ifs," Sheridan had said to her, years before. With an amused grin he had explained, "My father used to say 'If ifs and ands were pots and pans, the world would be a kitchen.'" She hadn't been entirely certain she understood it, but the message was clear.
"Mr. President," Dunseny said with extremely forced politeness, and he indicated that the hallway awaited them.
Without any further discussion, Sheridan and Delenn bolted down the corridor. A series of quick turns and they emerged through a door of the palace. On a pad nearby, there was a shuttle waiting for them.
"It's the emperor's personal landing pad," Dunseny informed them. His attitude seemed to carry the message that for the emperor to provide such a service for them was a singular honor. They were, to Dunseny's mind, probably not acting with sufficient awe or gratitude. "He wished me to convey to you his hope that the shuttle will sufficiently accommodate you."
"What about David," Sheridan said urgently. He turned to Delenn. "Where is he?"
She rested a hand on his arm, and said firmly, "Londo assured me that David would be safe. That he would be gotten off-world. Londo said he himself would attend to it personally. Come." And she was pulling him toward the shuttle.
Had he not been so groggy and confused, Sheridan would have put up a greater struggle. As it was, he was arguing nevertheless, dragging his heels, not petulantly, but with determination. And each word or phrase was matched by a small stomp of a foot. "We aren't... leaving... without... David..."
"It has been attended to, sir," Caso offered. He led them over to the shuttle. "Now you have to leave..."
Clearly Sheridan was getting his usual fire and composure back, because standing just outside the shuttle, he rounded on the guard, and said, "Listen, sonny. We don't 'have' to do anything that gets in the way of what's important: namely, getting our son back." His hand was trembling, and he was shaking a finger at Caso. "If he doesn't turn up–"
"John!" Delenn's voice was a cry of alarm, flooded with relief. "Look!"
Sprawled in the center of the shuttle, like a large bag of produce, was David. Delenn ran to him, checked him over. She was relieved to see that his chest was rising and falling in a wonderfully normal manner. "David.. David, wake up ..."
"That would not be wise. Nor feasible," Dunseny said. "He's asleep because we drugged him."
"Drugged him!" Delenn said in alarm.
"Well... drugged his food, technically."
"What have you done to my son?" Sheridan demanded angrily.
If Sheridan's anger was intended to intimidate Dunseny, it didn't work. The faithful retainer looked at him with only the mildest of concern. "Nothing that wasn't necessary."
Suddenly Delenn understood. She pulled back the edge of his shirt, around the throat. The small mass of protoplasm – the thing called the keeper – was still attached, its single, fearsome eye closed. It slept as soundly as David.
"In Valen's name ..." she whispered.
"As you see," Dunseny said mildly. "We did to him what the emperor did to himself, but on a far more extreme level. As I said, necessary. If his – associate – were to see the two of you, it would put an end to your escape." His face twisted in disgust. "The Drakh may be in the process of abandoning this world, thank the Great Maker. But if the keeper were in working order, you can rest assured that one of their vessels would still find the time to blow you out of the sky."
"He should be out for some time yet," Caso told them. "Perhaps not quite long enough for you to get to Minbar... but far enough, at least, to be safe in deep space, several jump points away."
"At that point, if he awakens, don't tell him your position. We're hoping even the keeper can't send information to the Drakh that his host doesn't possess." Dunseny looked around apprehensively once more. "Standing here talking is counterproductive. Leave. Now."
Sheridan quickly moved forward to the cockpit of the shuttle, Delenn staying by David's side, caressing his hair gently. Some part of her couldn't quite believe that he was with them again. She looked to Dunseny, standing outside the shuttle, looking in unflappably as the door irised shut. The skyline of the burning city was visible behind him, in the distance. Just before the closing door cut off her view of his face, he said – without the slightest trace of irony – "Thank you for visiting beautiful Centauri Prime. We do hope you've enjoyed your trip. Please come again."
And then the door closed.
C
HAPTER 27
Far, far away from it all...
The female Centauri lay on her deathbed.
The women who tended her were moving around like moths, flitting about, dabbing her head that was burning with fever, trying to keep liquids in her, and taking care of her needs. She did not pay attention to any of them, did not seem to know that any of them were there. She stared at the ceiling, although since her eyes were glassy, it was difficult to know just how much she actually saw.