To Dream in the City of Sorrows (17 page)

Jenimer smiled again. “The Grey Council did not choose me for my robust health.”

An understated Minbari reply, but Sinclair understood, and was saddened to have his fears about Jenimer’s failing health confirmed.

After being assured that Jenimer was all right for now, Sinclair returned to his quarters, leaving Jenimer and Durhan to confer privately for a while.

He was headed for the bathroom, his only thought being to get into the spa and start jets of hot water flowing over his painfully bruised muscles, when he heard the message tone on his computer console. There was a document waiting for his perusal. He quickly called it up. and was rewarded with the report he’d been waiting for, detailing in full the movements of the Shadows to date. He read straight through it with a growing sense of alarm. It was more than he had expected. Far more than he had been led to believe.

Within moments of finishing, he arranged to have Rathenn meet him back in the conference room, informing him that Jenimer was not feeling well this evening and need not attend. He then hurried across the compound as the sundowner winds swept over the plateau and the day slowly faded into evening.

He arrived to find Rathenn had summoned Ulkesh as well. He had wanted to talk to Rathenn first, before speaking to the Vorlon, but he would deal with it.

“I won’t even ask why I wasn’t told earlier,” Sinclair said without preamble. “That isn’t important now. What’s important is to find out who you have told. Who else knows the contents of that report, how widespread shadow activity has been for the last couple of years, how many lives have already been lost? You didn’t tell the Council of Caste Elders all of this.”

“We told them enough to convince them,” said Rathenn, “but not so much as to panic them or the people.”

“But that’s the point. You almost didn’t convince them. Would you have told them the rest if they hadn’t finally agreed to go along with your plans?”

“But they did,” said Rathenn, “so the question is merely hypothetical.”

“I suppose that’s what you told the governments of Earth, Centauri, and Narn, as well. Not so much as to panic them, right? But what you did tell them didn’t convince them, did it?”

“The Shadows must not know how much we know,” said Rathenn. “And they must not know the Vorlons are assisting us. Or they will strike before we are ready. We must be careful what we say and to whom.”

“And how many people will die needlessly in the meantime because they weren’t warned?” Sinclair asked.

“Fewer than will die if the Shadows launch an allout war before we are ready.”

“You say that so easily,” Sinclair said with some anger, “as if it were fact instead of just supposition. And based on what? Horror stories from a thousand years ago? Or uncritical acceptance of everything the Vorlons tell you? My fiancee is exploring on the Rim, sent there by a corporation that knows nothing at all about the Shadows, let alone that Shadow activity has been thick in that area and is almost certainly responsible for most of the ships that have been lost there.”

“Your own government has enough information to warn them if they choose. They have chosen not to. Would such corporations listen to Minbari warnings?”

“You could have at least tried. And what about Babylon 5? How much have they been told? How much has Delenn told Sheridan?”

For the first time, Ulkesh spoke. “He is not yet ready.”

“The Vorlons aren’t the only ones who are hesitant to tell everything to Sheridan,” said Rathenn. “There are still those on the Grey Council who do not trust him and fear he would act precipitously if told too much too soon. Some even fear he might be allied with those elements on Earth who might be sympathetic to the Shadows.”

“There are members of the Grey Council, as well as most of the military caste, who still think that about me,” Sinclair said. “If I were still in command on the station, you’d be saying the same thing. You’d say it about anyone who was there, because it isn’t about who’s in command of Babylon 5, or who’s president on Earth, or anything other than the Vorlons’ need to control this information for their own purposes. Isn’t that right, Ambassador Ulkesh?”

But it was the voice of Jenimer, from behind him, that answered. “Would you forgive an old Minbari religious scholar for agreeing with the Vorlons in this instance?”

Sinclair turned in surprise.

“Too much has been kept from you,” Jenimer said, coming into the room, “and for that I do apologize. But we Minbari are a cautious people; I fear we move too slowly to suit the faster pace of most Humans.” He sat slowly and carefully, clearly in a great deal of pain. “Now I am only religious caste, but is it not a military truth that it is best if you can make your enemy assume you know less than you really do?”

“Yes, it is,” replied Sinclair.

“Then in that we are agreed with the Vorlons, whatever their reasons.”

“But it’s also bad policy to keep your allies in the dark,” said Sinclair. “It could very well leave you with no allies at all.”

“Agreed,” said Jenimer. “So together we will work out a plan for better informing those who should have a fuller understanding of the situation. Sheridan, for instance, has been told more than Rathenn has unintentionally led you to believe. Please do not give up on us yet, Ambassador Sinclair. We are trying to do what is right and we do need your help.”

“I know that,” said Sinclair. “And I’ve made my commitment to seeing this work through, but I need to be kept fully informed, not in the dark.”

“Agreed,” said Jenimer.

Sinclair hesitated only briefly. “And I wish to get a message through to my fiancee.”

Once again, unexpectedly, Ulkesh spoke: “You must forget what is personal. Concentrate on the cause.”

“You can never forget the personal,” said Sinclair. “Or else what are you fighting for? The person who fights only for the cause is always in danger of becoming a fanatic, or of losing any reason for fighting at all. But the person who fights for his family and his home fights just long enough and just hard enough to win, without losing himself to the violence or the cause. Every Ranger under my command will learn that alongside the Ranger credo.”

Sinclair turned back to Jenimer. “I can word a message that will not tell the Shadows anything, but will put Catherine just enough on alert to help keep her alive. Will you allow me to do that?”

Jenimer looked to Ulkesh, but the Vorlon had nothing further to say. “We will try.”

C
HAPTER 13

Catherine Sakai was satisfied with the data she was collecting on Planet UTC 51-03B, code name Glasir. A pretty nice little place it had turned out to be. Rich in Quantium 40, it would definitely please her employers at Universal Terraform. As an added bonus, it was also proving to be a mineralogical storehouse.

Sakai studied the planet surface on an overhead monitor as she worked through her daily exercises on the training apparatus. Even from orbit, this planet was more attractive than most Class 4 planets. The usual drab red and brown had a bit more variation in shade, including some areas of pink and jet black, and wide swaths along the equator of yellow and orange. Surface images sent back by the planetary probe had revealed a landscape of amazing beauty. The howling winds had carved out geological features of lacelike delicacy in some cases, and gravity-defying balancing acts in others. It was a welcome and somewhat calming contrast to the planetary devastation she had encountered on her previous stop.

That undoubtedly was fueling the regret she now felt at the thought of UTC robot miners someday smashing through those natural wonders to get to the mineral resources deep beneath them. She had made a point of programming her sampler robots to avoid some of the more spectacular formations, and to dig carefully. It would take longer, but she had the time. She planned to fill quite a lot of the sample bay from this planet alone, more than enough to please everyone.

Part of her hoped the scientists and preservationists would find something in the data and samples she brought back to warrant a less destructive approach, but that was out of her control. She gathered the information and handed it over for others to decide the fate of these planets.

Which brought her thoughts once again to her previous stop at Ymir. In fact, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. What had caused that planet to meet such a destructive fate? It had disturbed her enough that she had sent a preliminary report in an emergency-coded transmission to the coordinates where the Operations ship was scheduled to be. It wasn’t standard operating procedure; all data was usually delivered directly to the corporation reps on the Ops ship at the end of the mission. Perhaps they hadn’t seen it as quite the serious matter she did, and that was why, now three weeks later, she had still not heard a word in response.

That had given her three weeks on her own to speculate about the planet’s condition. Perhaps the original robot probe had been malfunctioning, had sent back garbled data. Perhaps someone had misread the data. Perhaps it was a geological oddity. Perhaps some sort of natural disaster had occurred, of a type never encountered before.

She was having a hard time completely buying the rationalizations she had managed to cobble up. The truth was, something devastating had happened to that planet, and she simply had no idea of what caused it. And she could not dismiss what seemed more and more like the most probable explanation: that it was the deliberate act of some alien species. There were many aliens in the galaxy as yet not contacted by Humanity. Ymir could well have been on the edge of some alien federation that used the planet as their main Q-40 source.

Of course, this allowed her to come back to the comforting possibility that the first robot probe had malfunctioned and somehow reported the data incorrectly. Maybe the planet had been like that for a long time, the result of years, if not centuries, of mining.

Maybe. She was taking extra precautions, keeping more than the usual number of sensors turned outward as well as planetward, but she couldn’t allow her gnawing unease to prevent her from doing her job. She couldn’t allow her imagination to run away with her. The chances of her encountering anyone at all out here, let alone anything like that again, had to be infinitesimal.

The trouble with long solo missions to the Rim was that it left far too much time for the mind to engage in such speculation and imagination. Just stay focused on the job. The mission was nearing completion – just two more stops. Soon, she’d be back at Babylon 5. Planning a wedding. That ought to be a scary enough thought to drive all other concerns from her mind, she decided with a laugh. Getting married. Something she had always sworn she would never do. How things change.

She was folding away the exercise equipment when the computer announced an incoming transmission. At last, she thought, as she maneuvered over to the cockpit and strapped into her console chair.

“Incoming transmission from Universal Terraform tachyon transmission channel four zero five zero zero seven.”

“Receive and record.”

The data log scrolled by on the communications monitor with the usual mission coordinates and technical instructions, nothing regarding her transmission to them.

Her disappointment was transformed to delight, though, when she saw the last header at the end of the scroll-a coded personal transmission, only a few bytes long. It had to be from Jeff, she thought. He’d actually managed it somehow. She eagerly punched in the decode command, waited for the computer to reconstruct the message. It was very short.

Catherine, Remember Sigma 957?
Your current situation is different – but similar.
Be careful. All my love,
Jeff

Sakai sat back, puzzled. She hadn’t known what message to expect; in truth had never really expected him to be able to cut through the red tape and send her a message at all, as much as she enjoyed hoping he might. But this was – odd. It almost read like a joke. Sigma 957? She was nowhere in the vicinity of that planet, nor was she going to be, not on this mission, and not ever again if she had her way. But he had gone to what must have been extraordinary lengths to send her this message. A little joke? Not likely.

A warning. That’s what it seemed to be. He had always worried about her – too much she told him. But he wouldn’t go to such an effort just to send a general warning to be careful. No, this had to be a specific warning, probably worded in a way he hoped she would understand, but would seem innocuous if intercepted by others. By whom?

Figure the message out first, and then the rest will be clear. What happened on Sigma 957? She had gone there on a surveying mission, just as now, but the results had been very different. She had not come back with any data whatsoever. Instead, she had almost died there. Out of nowhere a massive alien ship had appeared, so technologically advanced and powerful compared to her own tiny little ship that its electromagnetic and radiation wake had nearly destroyed Skydancer. Most likely the aliens hadn’t even noticed she was there. She had survived only because the Narn ambassador G’Kar knew she was putting herself in danger from the movements of these unknown aliens, and had sent rescue ships after her.

So what was Jeff telling her? It wasn’t likely that he was sending any ships out after her.

There was only one answer that made any sense: As G’Kar had warned her about Sigma 957, Jeff was trying to warn her that there was a dangerous alien presence on the Rim. Not the same species she’d encountered on Sigma 957, he seemed to be saying, but every bit as powerful. Certainly she had proof of that if what she had seen on Ymir had any connection to these aliens.

For some reason, Jeff had felt he couldn’t be more specific. Had he been afraid of somehow accidentally letting them know he was warning her? The chilling possibility suddenly occurred to her that these aliens could be listening in to all her transmissions.

“Oh, Jeff, thank you,” she said as she began calling up her automated jump gate and orbital procedures programs to make a few changes. “You have no idea how careful I’m going to be.”