Summoning Light (15 page)

Yet the Circle had chosen Babylon 5 as the false gathering place in the belief that the Shadows would not make a direct attack in such a public setting. While the Shadows' powers were great, they would not want to reveal their abilities here. However, a more subtle attack was certain, and indeed necessary if Elric's plan was to succeed.

Whether the Shadows themselves were on Babylon 5, Elric did not know. On Zafran 8, Galen had learned that techno-mage sensors sometimes showed the Shadows as anomalous bodies of static. The mages must search for these. He only hoped they would find none. For if Shadows moved freely on the station, his deception would almost surely fail.

Their main chance of success lay in the Shadows' inclination to work quietly, through puppets. That best served Elric's purposes.

The Shadows had another trait that could work to the mages' advantage. They were arrogant. Sending Kell's body to Selic 4, revealing that they knew where the mages were gathering but still need not strike, demonstrated that arrogance. They believed they could exterminate the mages at any point. Elric hoped their confidence unjustified.

Yet it would not be, if they had made allies of any of the fifty mages within his group. Before leaving Selic, Elric had warned the fifty that they might be required to give their lives. None had objected. He believed he had chosen wisely. Yet how could Elric be sure that one among them would not have second thoughts, would not resent the fact that he might be asked to die so that the rest could live? One word from any of them to an agent of the Shadows, and the deception would fail.

For a moment, the hopelessness of the task overwhelmed him. They were a small group, weakened, on the run. They could not trust one another. The Shadows had powers of which they knew nothing. How could they possibly succeed?

These feelings, Elric knew, were unlike him. The unrelenting throbbing in his head was taking its toll; his energy was not what it once had been. The plan could work if he did not fail it. Once again, he reviewed all that had been done over the last two days.

Their ships had been safely hidden away and awaited their return. He and Ing-Radi had split the group into smaller teams. They would take different transports to Babylon 5, leading the Shadows to conclude the mage ships had been destroyed as part of their attempt to disguise their movements.

Each team would subtly draw attention to its arrival. They must create the appearance that mages were gathering on Babylon 5 from different places, and that, rather than fifty of them, there were five hundred. Once all fifty had arrived over the next few days, the arrivals would appear to continue for several more days, through a combination of falsified ships' records and illusions.

Elric would serve as spokesman for the group, coordinating the deception that must fool the Shadows. Ing-Radi, who was less adept at deception, would work mainly behind the scenes. If they were successful, they would rejoin the others within fifteen days and retreat with them to the hiding place. Only through a flawless plan and perfect coordination could they prevail. The Shadows must be convinced that they had killed all the mages, or there would likely be no escape for any of them.

It had been some years since Elric had orchestrated so elaborate a deception. Of course, he had never outwitted such a sophisticated enemy, nor had the stakes ever been so high. Yet the principles remained the same. The best deception was elegant and seemingly effortless, like a simple sleight of hand, a shell game. All the elements must be set up in advance, everything prepared, perfectly practiced and timed. Once the plan was set in motion, it must allow only a single, inevitable conclusion.

To the targets of the deception, events must seem to be under their control, when all along they were being directed, ideas planted in their minds, actions anticipated and used. Elric had quickly determined who on Babylon 5 might serve the mages' purposes, and had examined their records, their activities, gathered information to shed light on the secret darkness of their hearts. Some mages operated on instinct, or learned to read body language or voice inflection. For Elric, history was everything. Know a man's past, and you would know his future. The past was prologue.

History suggested that Rabelna Dorna would go to the bazaar. And yet, she had not emerged. They had only ten minutes before their ship would arrive.

Then, in the empty corridor, the door slid open. Rabelna appeared. Muirae gave Elric a tense smile. Time was short.

Elric switched from camera to camera, following Rabelna's course. She wore no scarf of purple or green. She did not dress like a Drazi at all, but like a Human, in a brown plaid jacket and skirt. The clothes bulged with the thick grey scales beneath them. Elric knew she spoke English nearly fluently, quite an accomplishment considering the difficulty Drazi had with other languages. The clothes and the language skills revealed both insecurity and determination. Most of her contacts on Babylon 5 were Human, and she obviously desired to fit in among them and to impress them. For other Drazi, she seemed to have little patience or affection.

She made her way toward the bazaar. The marketplace was one of the less reputable on the station, crowded with small, dimly lit stalls that offered exotic and often illegal items.

Well aware of Rabelna's progress, Alwyn and Carvin positioned themselves at a stall where she often stopped. The Human proprietor traded in stolen wares.

Rabelna wound her way through the bazaar, stopping periodically. At last she approached the stall where the mages waited.

Alwyn had planted probes there, and Elric now accessed those, using the common key they had all agreed upon. Elric selected a probe stuck on a display case. Rabelna stood over it, waiting for the proprietor to finish with another customer. Alwyn and Carvin stood to one side, their backs to her. They spoke in well-rehearsed Drazi.

"Captain Vayda fired us because he was afraid we'd win," Alwyn said.

"It's not our fault we two drew purple and the rest of the crew drew green," Carvin said. "We had to fight. That's no reason to fire us."

"It's Green oppression," Alwyn said.

Rabelna's expression soured with the talk of the Purple/Green conflict.

"I'm going to file a complaint with the shipping commission. Those techno-mages are paying a bonus. We should have gotten a share."

At the mention of techno-mages, Rabelna glanced subtly in their direction. Suddenly she was interested. She reached into her pocket, activated a small recorder.

Alwyn took Carvin's arm, lowering his voice. "I have a better idea." Rabelna inched closer. "The Zekhite will arrive here in ten days to take the techno-mages away. When the ship comes, we can lead the Purples of Babylon 5 in an attack. Teach Captain Vayda and those Greens a lesson."

"That's brilliant!" Carvin said. "Let's find the Purple leader."

They began to walk away, and Rabelna deactivated the recorder, the grey scales of her face twisting with a sly smile. She looked curiously after Alwyn and Carvin.

To follow their progress, Elric accessed one of the security cameras in the bazaar, continuing to maintain his connection with the probe on the stall. The two images appeared side by side in his mind's eye.

Alwyn and Carvin didn't get far. They ran into a trio of Purple Drazi, who were staring down a group of Green Drazi across the marketplace. The Purples, encouraged by the increase in their numbers, slapped Alwyn on the back and headed toward the Greens, eager for a fight.

Never one to undertake an illusion with anything less than one hundred percent commitment, Alwyn took the lead. He walked up to one of the Greens and rammed his shoulder into the Drazi as he shoved past. Apparently he didn't take the weight of the Drazi into account, for the force of the impact spun Alwyn around, and in that moment of vulnerability, the Green hauled off and punched him.

Alwyn fell stumbling back, and Carvin jumped to his defense, pummeling the Green with a few quick blows. A brawl broke out.

Rabelna turned to the stall's proprietor with a condescending shake of her head. "I'll be moving up my trip," she said in perfect English. "I need to leave immediately. Do you have anything for me?"

Elric relaxed a bit. She'd embraced the deception completely. Their first step had been successful. News that the techno-mages had hired a Drazi freighter, the Zekhite, would reach their enemies when she did. Records would show it could carry over five hundred, promoting the illusion that all five hundred mages were leaving together from Babylon 5.

That was one of three means of transportation Elric had arranged for their departure. In the shell game of his deception, the shells were the three ships, the mages the pea hidden within one of them. The second ship was an Earth transport, the Tidewell. It too was scheduled to arrive in ten days and could carry five hundred passengers. The mages had purchased it under the name of a false holding company Alwyn had long ago established. The transaction had been carefully disguised so that their enemies, when they searched the records with sufficient effort, could discover the true owners. Elric expected they would apply that sufficient effort within a day of his arrival on Babylon 5.

Once they discovered that the mages had purchased the Tidewell, the Shadows would destroy it, hoping to delay the mages and throw their plans into disarray. At the same time, the Shadows would continue their investigations. They would assume that the mages had some second method for leaving the station; their order's use of deceptions and misdirection was well established.

But of the mages' arrangement with the Zekhite, no records existed, so it could not be discovered-except through this "chance" leak. When Rabelna brought news of it to the Shadows, they would believe the Tidewell had been the mages' misdirection, and the true plan was to leave on the Zekhite. In their arrogance, they would believe they had discovered the whole of the mages' strategy.

What they would not know was that there were not five hundred mages on Babylon 5 but only fifty. And of those, only half would board the ship that was to be the target of the Shadows – an unavoidable sacrifice necessary to maintain the illusion. For the other half, Elric hoped, there was the third shell in this game, a third method of transportation: twenty-five tickets bought under a variety of names on a small luxury liner, the Crystal Cabin.

In the bazaar, security arrived to break up the fight. Alwyn was being pounded by two Greens; Carvin climbed up onto a nearby display counter, ran down its length, and launched herself at them. Elric had told Alwyn and Carvin to bond with the station's Purple Drazi, though he hadn't envisioned the bonding taking this form. He knew that Alwyn, at least, was enjoying himself, and he thought Carvin was as well. He just hoped they would be able to slip away before they were detained.

Elric broke the contact, leaving them to their own devices. The transport was entering the station's vast docking complex. Elric nodded to Muirne and Beel, directing them to retrieve their few belongings.

As they did, he accessed the cameras in the busy customs area where he and the others would disembark. He was gratified to see, amidst all the activity, three Centauri. He had timed his arrival perfectly.

One of the Centauri was critical to his deception.

When reviewing Muirne's records, Elric had been pleased to learn that Morden, the "dead" archaeologist, frequently visited Babylon 5 and was currently on the station. Even if Elric could not deceive the Shadows, he could deceive their Human servant. Morden would be the mechanism through which his deception worked.

To reach Morden, he would have to operate through a pawn. That pawn would be the Centauri ambassador, Londo Mollari. Londo was a man of great appetites, and a man of great appetites could be easily manipulated. Apparently Elric was not the first to think so.

Londo appeared to have some preexisting relationship with Morden. What exactly their relationship was, Elric had not been certain until just an hour ago. While Morden had spoken with many on Babylon 5, just as he had spoken with many at the mages' convocation, including Elric, that did not always mean the subjects of his interest became his allies. Yet Morden had gone to Londo's quarters several times, and they seemed also to visit the station's gardens at the same time, where they could meet within the vast hedge maze without being observed by security.

More than that, Morden kept Londo under observation. Elric had discovered that Morden had several agents working for him. These agents would meet with Morden, and later appear in the casino when Londo was there, or follow him through the Zocalo. Elric had even seen one of these agents gambling with Londo, winning a great deal of money from the ambassador. Elric wondered how many of Londo's extensive gambling debts were Morden's doing. Limiting Londo's resources would help keep him under control.

Initially Elric had imagined that, when faced with the question Morden seemed to favor – What do you want? – Londo would ask for money to repay those never-ending debts, or for women, or for some advantage over his nemesis, the Narn ambassador, G'Kar. He had not yet grasped the depths of Londo's evil.

The Narn base in Quadrant 37 had been destroyed by the Shadows at the end of last year, ten thousand Narns killed.

Elric had assumed the Shadows had undertaken the attack to secure an alliance with the Centauri, sworn enemies of the Narn. But Elric had not believed Londo the one to request the attack – it seemed too bloodthirsty for the petty, dissolute, discarded diplomat Muirne had described.

Yet he had learned differently.

Since their arrival the day before, Alwyn and Carvin had planted probes on as many of the station's residents as possible, and in particular – following Elric's instructions – on Vir Cotto, Londo's attaché. Elric dared not plant a probe on Londo, for fear Morden or the Shadows might detect it and realize the ambassador had been targeted.

But the probe on Vir had proven extremely valuable. Only an hour before, Vir had been present at a meeting between Londo and Refa, a lord among the Centauri.