To Dream in the City of Sorrows (27 page)

Sinclair paused to allow them to absorb what he had said, and to leave if any had the mind to do so. No one

C
HAPTER 22

THERE’S a part of me,” Sinclair said, looking up at the stars as he walked with Sakai across the compound, “that would still like to have the marriage ceremony on Babylon 5.” He brought his gaze down from the stars and smiled. “But maybe that’s only because I get a little anxious when I’ve been away from space this long. I’ve been on Minbar for what seems like an eternity already. Maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to get in the pilot’s seat of a ship and go. What do you think?”

“We did ask Garibaldi and Ivanova to be our best man and maid of honor,” Sakai said.

“And so many of our other friends are there. But unfortunately it would mean waiting at least a few more months.”

“As far as I’m concerned, I’ve already signed the papers,” she said. “It doesn’t matter that much which day the ink dries.”

He laughed. “You sound like a Vorlon.”

“I only mean, if it’s that important to you, I can wait for the formalities. Besides, it might be better to wait until ...” She hesitated mid-sentence, apparently unsure what she wanted to say.

Sinclair gave her a questioning look, but continued to walk in silence, letting her find whatever words she was looking for. Finally, she stopped and turned toward him.

For a moment all he could think was how beautiful she looked standing there in the light from Minbar’s two moons, framed by Valen’s temple behind her.

“Your work here is as consuming as it is important,” she began. “And it rightly takes up most of your time. I haven’t had any trouble keeping busy when I’ve been alone, reading up on Minbar and the Rangers, and studying the language. But it’s not enough.”

His heart sank. “I know how much you love your work, love being up there,” he said, his eyes going briefly once again to the swarm of stars above. “And believe me I know how you feel. But I guess I was hoping we wouldn’t be having this talk for at least another couple of months, not after just a couple of weeks. After what you went through on your last assignment-“

“I’m not talking about returning to work as a surveyor,” she said. “Jeff, I want to go through Ranger training.”

“No! Absolutely not!” Sinclair’s vehemence surprised even himself, and he regretted it instantly when he saw Sakai’s hurt and puzzled look. “It’s just that ...” He was floundering for an explanation that would sound reasonable to himself as well as to her. “It’s too dangerous.”

“What?” Now she was angry. “Damn it, Jeff, I was an Earthforce officer in the war. I’m a deep-space surveyor. I know how to handle myself in dangerous situations.”

“That’s the point,” he tried to explain. “I don’t want you to have to. I worry enough about you.”

“You worry too much.”

“You don’t worry enough.”

It was an old argument that had become almost a joke between them. It didn’t seem very amusing at the moment.

“Why is it so wrong to want to protect you?” he asked.

“Protect me from what? Life?”

Their voices were rising, no doubt carrying in the clear, night air. He saw two Rangers walking near the temple.

“Come on,” he said quietly, taking her arm. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for the Anla’shok Na to be having an argument in the middle of the compound.”

She pulled her arm away, but walked with him. After a moment, she spoke, her voice a bit calmer. “Jeff, what is this really about?”

“I just got you back into my life again. I don’t want you risking your life on this. It’s something I have to do, but-“

“But it’s okay for me to sit at home, worrying about you, while you risk your life? I know you love me and want to protect me, but I want to do this because I feel exactly the same way toward you. If I wasn’t qualified, that’d be different. But you know I am. Jeff, if I’m going to be a part of your life, let me be part of all of it.”

Sinclair didn’t answer, trying to understand for himself why he felt this way. Up ahead he saw Valen’s house – his house – and a chill went through him.

“Come on, Jeff,” she said gently, “I know you too well. There’s more to this than you’re telling me.”

Sinclair took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “In spite of everything, I have grown over the years to admire much about the Minbari. I find I genuinely like many of them, and consider a few of them as my friends. But they want me to believe as they do that I have a Minbari soul, that I am the fulfillment of Minbari prophecy. When I do something they approve of, they tell me I act like a Minbari. When I express appreciation for any part of their culture or world, they smile and nod knowingly. They have the unshakable certainty of true believers, and are backed up in their beliefs by the power and approval of the Vorlons.

“I don’t know what motivates the Vorlons, but I do believe the Minbari mean well. Nevertheless, it’s been difficult because at times it feels like they’re trying to chip away at my Humanity, at my very identity. And then you arrived, a central and very Human part of my life untouched by the Minbari. This had made them rather unhappy, and where the Vorlons are concerned in particular, that’s not a good thing.”

Sakai reached out, took his hand in hers. “But all their efforts haven’t changed you, Jeff. And they’re not going to change me.”

They had arrived back at the house. Once inside the door, he stopped and kissed her. When he spoke, he deliberately took a much lighter tone than before. “Being the fulfillment of prophecy is not all it’s cracked up to be. No matter what I do, I can’t get them to stop treating me like I was the Pope or the Dalai Lama.”

“Well, you’ve always acted like a man on a mission from God,” said Sakai, adopting the same light tone. “Maybe that’s what they’re seeing.”

“Father Raffelli used to say that every living being – Human and alien alike – is on some kind of mission from God. The trick is to figure out what it is.”

Sakai immediately seized upon that. “Mine is to be with you. To help you all I can. Let me help you to the full extent of my talents, Jeff.”

He hesitated again, but knew she was right.

“You’re going to be one hell of a good Ranger,” he said at last, managing to smile.

“I always aim to be the best,” she said, leading him into the bedroom.

C
HAPTER 23

MARCUS felt his left leg going numb. Perhaps he could move it just a little to relieve the pressure without attracting the attention of the meditation teacher Sech Turval and his reed cane. On the other hand, the whack across the shoulders he’d receive for such a slight movement might sting enough to keep him awake and save him from a far more painful thwack upside the head he’d receive for drifting off to sleep. It was amazing how Sech Turval could apply that lightweight reed in such a way as to not do any physical damage or injury, yet still have it sting as much as it did.

Marcus hated meditation class. It was the one part of Ranger training so far that he disliked the most. Most of the rest of it was bearable, some of it even enjoyable. He’d never had a problem with rising early, hard work, physical exercise, or learning new things. There was none of the depersonalization or pointless drudgery in this training that he had found so unbearable in Earthforce training. And it wasn’t too bad being at the bottom of a chain of command, since no one seemed to abuse it. He was still having trouble getting acclimated to the shorter Minbari day, but that was only a problem in meditation class where he had a tendency to doze off.

What exactly was the point of this, anyway? How did it fit into becoming a Ranger? None of Sech Turval’s convoluted, indecipherable religious-dialect lectures had done anything yet to enlighten him.

On the very first day of orientation, Sinclair himself had told the new recruits, “The Minbari believe that every individual should learn delight, respect, and compassion. Of the Ranger, however, more is expected. He or she must embody those qualities. So everything you do here, everything you learn here, will be taught to you through these attributes. Understand this, and that which might otherwise puzzle you, will be made clear.”

That didn’t seem too far out in left field, and Marcus had been willing to give it a shot, but so far it had done nothing to explain meditation. “Respect” and “compassion” had definitely been stressed, right from that first speech Sinclair had given at the embassy office. And as Sinclair had promised, those qualities permeated every part of their training.

Delight, too, was expected in everything they did – delight in effort, in learning, in accomplishment – but it was also taught in a special course, for one hour a day, right between the introductory courses to hand-to-hand combat and intelligence-gathering techniques.

The first two classes had been all right: they had simply spent time outside to discover delight in all the processes of nature. But this, unfortunately, had been followed by four classes to introduce them to a lot of tedious, incredibly complicated ceremonies for meals, for special Minbari holidays, for greeting the day, for going to bed at night, for giving gifts, for just about everything, it seemed, short of blowing one’s nose and going to the bathroom. And at the end, they were told each ceremony would be revisited at a later time for a more thorough examination. Suddenly, “delight” no longer seemed like much of a delight to Marcus.

Things didn’t improve with the next two classes, spent listening to long, pointless, and mostly incomprehensible stories by their Minbari instructor, Sech Nelier. Perhaps the stories might have been somewhat amusing had they been related at about one quarter the length and in English instead of the discursive, highly formal religious-caste dialect.

Marcus had been just about ready to give up on the very notion of ever being delighted again, when at the very next class, Nelier had announced that each trainee would get up and tell a story he or she found delightful, particularly one that made him or her laugh. The first few trainees, not really sure what was expected of them, hesitantly told rather pallid stories from their life, or from some book or movie they knew, that they clearly hoped would demonstrate an elevated, spiritual understanding of delight. Though not awful, the stories had elicited little laughter from the class and stern looks of apparent disapproval from Sech Nelier. This prompted the next few trainees to try a few jokes and some more colorful stories, and were soon drawing real laughter from the class.

Then trainee Catherine Sakai got up. Of course, Marcus and the others knew who she was, and he had wondered just what kind of story the Anla’shok Na’s fiancee would tell. When it turned out to be a raucous, truly funny story from her Earthforce Academy days – involving a hated instructor, a visiting senator, an “exotic” dancer from a nearby nightspot, the Academy’s goat mascot, a keg of beer, and a series of mistaken identities – the floodgates opened. The jokes and stories got more and more hilarious, and considerably more vulgar. Soon all the Human trainees were laughing so hard that tears were rolling down their faces and some could hardly breathe. Even the Minbari students were laughing and enjoying themselves.

Then it was time for Marcus to stand up. He had glanced over at Sech Nelier, expecting to see a scandalized look on the Minbari’s face. Instead he saw the Minbari instructor smiling broadly with satisfaction, and Marcus realized this was what Nelier had hoped to achieve. At that moment, Marcus gained a much greater appreciation for the Minbari notion of delight.

Without planning to, Marcus had found himself telling a couple of stories about William and himself as kids, and as he sat down with the class’s laughter ringing in his ears, he had wondered if maybe his brother had told those same stories to his class.

Marcus had to move, even just a little, or his leg might never recover. He adjusted his position slightly, moving his left leg just a fraction of an inch. He waited a few seconds, then flickered his eyelids open to take a quick look for Sech Turval. The Minbari was standing at the front of the room, staring right at him. Marcus squeezed his eyes shut and tried to look more meditative.

Marcus did not see how meditation would ever help him develop a sense of delight, respect, or compassion. It was merely boring. At least pilot training was next. That he absolutely loved, and not only because he was the best in the class, if he did say so himself. Sinclair was one of the teachers. And Sakai, though still a trainee, had been called upon to work as an assistant teacher because of her experience. The two of them were the best pilots he’d ever seen. The class trained on a motley collection of real flyers and shuttles, as well as on sophisticated computer simulations that included some amazingly advanced craft of Minbari design Marcus wasn’t really sure existed for real, but which gave them all quite a workout.

Marcus had the uncomfortable feeling that Sech Turval had moved closer to where he was sitting. He didn’t dare open his eyes to check, so he tried to sit even more still and hoped the Minbari would move on to someone else.

Just stay awake,
thought Marcus.
It’s almost over.

What was after pilot training today? His other favorite class – the Minbari fighting pike known as denn‘bok. That had proved to be an unexpected Minbari delight for Marcus. He remembered training briefly with similar weapons in Earthforce, but not liking it as much as this, or being as good at it. He was proving to be one of the best of all the recruits, including Minbari, and there was talk that he might qualify to be among the group to get personal training from Durhan himself.

Without warning, Marcus got a sharp whack across the back of his head from Sech Turval’s reed cane, and he yelped before he could stop himself. He opened his eyes, resisting the urge to try and rub away the stinging pain, and found Turval circling him slowly, like a Minbari shark. Marcus sat very, very still, staring straight ahead.

“Everyone will please pay attention,” said Turval, speaking in English for the first time since Marcus had been attending his training course. Now the entire class was staring at the Minbari instructor, and at Marcus. “Tell me, Mr. Cole. Do you find this daily practice of meditation to be a waste of your time?”