Гэрет Уильямс - Темное, кривое зеркало. Том 5 : Средь звезд, подобно гигантам

Hyperspace! Oh, my God, we're in hyperspace.

Calm down, Lauren said. The network somehow crosses hyperspace. We don't know how. There are little…. folds and tunnels. We're in one of them now.

But how…?

Careful! Talia snapped. Something's here!

It rose out of nowhere, forming around them from nothing. It towered above all of them. Size meant nothing here, but fear did.

When Chen was a child, he had had recurring nightmares of spiders. He had been unable to sleep for fear of a blanket of them on top of him, crawling over him, suffocating him, moving slowly over his eyes and into his mouth so that he was unable to scream. During his first year with the Corps those dreams had been locked away, unable to hurt him any more. He had even identified the source of them — when he was a baby, a spider had crawled into his crib, a tiny, harmless thing, but to his child's eyes so much more.

The thing before him was the biggest spider he had ever seen. Just one of its hairs was bigger than he was, just one of the hairs he had dreamed was brushing against his skin.

And in its eyes, in its impossibly large eyes, as it looked at him, Chen sensed a human intelligence. No, an intelligence far greater than human.

He screamed. He did not know what the others were seeing, did not know whether they could be seeing the same thing, but all he knew was that this thing was real and dangerous and terrifying.

Remember! cried Talia's voice through his own screams.

Something dripped from one massive fang. It dropped just past him, searing hot as it passed close to his skin.

Remember who you are!

I am Chen Hikaru, he thought to himself. The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father. Maternis, Paternis.

No, the spider was too big, the fear too ingrained.

There was light. It was strange, the spider seemed so dark, but now it was covered with light. Chen looked and saw Talia. She was not afraid. She was looking at him, concentrating, and light was pouring from her mouth and eyes. Chen knew that she was not looking at a spider. She was not looking at anything at all.

He sensed another presence behind him, and he turned, hardly daring to imagine what he would see there, so afraid that he would witness another nightmare from his past.

It was a man, shorter than he was, dressed in a spotlessly clean black uniform with gloves, cradling one hand against his chest. A Psi Cop badge glinted and reflected the light.

He smiled, and in an instant the spider was gone, as if it had never been. The man, who had a name Chen dared not say even in his mind, moved towards Talia, ignoring the rest.

Chen did not want to intrude on a reunion he knew would be personal, and so he turned to Lauren. She was not shaking any more, but the residue of her fear was still there.

It was a doorway, a big, black doorway, and I knew there was something waiting on the other side, but I dared not open it. I just could not open it.

What was it? An illusion?

If I understand it correctly, the network is made up of the minds of thousands of telepaths, all trapped, their powers channelled in specific directions, to send messages, to block them, to heal, to destroy. This is the cumulative subconscious of all these minds. Why should their nightmares not be here as well?

We have to destroy this.

I knew you would understand. Just as soon as you came in. Everyone does once they've seen this.

Chen looked up, and the man was gone. Talia was looking back at the others. I've found what I needed. We're leaving now, quickly.

We have to destroy this, Chen thought again.

We will, Lauren replied. Did you see who that was?

Yes, I did. I didn't want to hope, but….

Now, I think we're in with a chance. We might just be able to do it.

"This had better be good."

"Trust me," Julia replied. "I know better than to interrupt your testosterone, beer and cigar night if it's not serious, don't I?"

"Were there any cigars?" Dexter asked. "I don't smoke."

"There should be cigars," Zack muttered. "What's a poker night without cigars? It's like…. um…. well, like something without something that should go with it."

"Well, there aren't any cigars, so what does it matter?"

Julia rolled her eyes. "And you wonder why you can't get any women to come to your poker nights?"

"Tradition," Dexter replied, smiling. Julia had a tendency to act a lot older than she really was, sometimes.

She had taken them to the Sector 301 guardhouse, refusing to elaborate on what it was they were meant to be seeing, saying only that they would undoubtedly not believe her unless they saw it with their own eyes.

"We arrested it about an hour ago," she was saying as they went towards the cells. "There was a report of an assault and a suspicious person sighted down-sector. We caught the suspect almost immediately. Like it didn't care if it was spotted or not."

"You keep saying 'it'," Dexter observed. "An alien, or something?"

"I certainly hope so."

Cells were meant to be secured by an electronic force field over the more conventional locked doors, but this was the Pit, where the budget was a little skimpy. As a result, the cells here were little more than locked doors. At least there were more security guards than there had been, and all of them were honest these days.

"Have a look," Julia said, gesturing at the screen in the office just off the cell block. Each cell had a camera, naturally.

"There's nothing there," Dexter said. "You've got the wrong cell."

"No, that's the right cell."

"Then the camera's faulty," Zack said. "That's not exactly unusual around here."

"No fault detected. Besides, it's showing the interior of the cell well enough. Just not the occupant. And yes, we know it's still there. We couldn't take any photos or electronic records either. Not even fingerprints."

"Okay," said Dexter. "Now I'm interested. Can we see this…. individual?"

"I'm not the boss here," Julia shrugged. "I would recommend a lot of people standing by ready though. This thing is…. dangerous."

"Dangerous how?" Zack asked.

Julia shook her head. "I don't think I could explain, and I don't think you'd believe me if I could."

Dexter looked at the empty cell in the picture again. Something caught his gaze, something just off-centre of his perception. He looked again, harder.

There was a brief flicker of light, and in his mind, a voice. Come to us. Come and see the light.

He frowned.

She knows why she has come here. It is not for diplomacy, not for strategy, or tactics, or alliances. It is not for the good of her people. It is for herself, one selfish action in a lifetime of service to the Minbari.

It is warm this night in the capital on Brakir. There are many people moving and dancing in the streets, processions and carnivals. The Day of the Dead is a holy event to these people, and even more so now, a time of celebration. There are so many dead to speak to. Yesterday there was mourning, tomorrow there will be morning. Tonight, there is a chance to meet again with old friends, old enemies.

Old loves.

Tomorrow, Satai Kats will return to Minbar to continue the slow rebuilding. Tomorrow, the faint semblance of diplomacy that brought her here will be concluded.

Tirivail understood. She alone would understand, Kats knew that. "Go," the warrior had said. "And if you see him, tell him…. tell him…."

"Tell him what?"

"I was wrong. He was not a coward. He was never a coward."

"I will."

Kats had not dared to hope. No one in living memory had experienced a Day of the Dead. The last had been over two hundred years ago. The very concept of the dead returning went against everything she had ever been taught. The warrior caste believed in ghosts and ancestor-spirits, but the religious caste taught that souls returned to the ether, to be endlessly reborn.

And even if the legends were true, who could say she would meet again with Kozorr? Why not her father, or Hedronn, or anyone?

But she had to hope.

She stood on the balcony, looking down at the people passing by in the street below. A tall, dignified-looking Centauri man moved with steady conviction, but he had the same air of desperate hope she had herself. In the alleyway beneath her room, a human sat moaning and whispering to himself. A Narn in a simple robe made for a nearby temple, and a Brakiri in the uniform of a Dark Star captain looked up at the sky, staring in wonder at the comet overhead.

"There you are," said a voice, and Kats stiffened, unable to believe that she had truly heard the words. Scars both old and new throbbed with remembered pain as she turned to see Kalain move from the shadows into her room.

He looked as he once had, before the illness had ravaged and torn his body. He looked proud and haughty and arrogant, a prince of all he surveyed. He had always belonged to a different time, the earlier days, where he could have walked beside Marrain and Parlonn and shaken the world with the sound of his footsteps.

But he had been born into the wrong time, and he had dedicated his life to changing that.

"You thought you were free of me," he said, his voice commanding and proud, not the hoarse rasp it had later become. "You thought you could escape from your sins."

Kats looked at him. "Why?" she said softly.

"Is this one of your worker tricks?" he asked. "To ask questions which make no sense?"

"Why did you do all the things you did to me? You enjoyed it, Kalain. Don't say you did not. Was that all there was to it?" She remembered his voice growing louder and louder, exhorting her to beg for forgiveness. She remembered his laughter at her screams and her pleas for mercy. Sebastian had been brutally cold and efficient. He had taken no pleasure in his work. But Kalain had.

"I did it to purify you, to make you repent your sins, to make you…."

"You are not of the religious caste. Why should you care for my sins? You are a warrior. Was I truly the most fitting opponent for you? Was I the only person you could fight?"

"Stop this! You lie! Have you forgotten who it was who massacred the Grey Council? Have you forgotten…?"

"No! I have not forgotten, and I never will forget. It was not I who did that, and you knew that. You always knew that. So, I ask you again, Kalain. Why?"

"Because…. because you deserved it! There was a day you would have knelt in the mud at my feet as I walked past, and you would have thanked the ancestors that I even deigned to look upon you! There was a day when you would have addressed me with downcast eyes and spoken only when given permission. There was a day when we were warriors, and that was understood by all, when we did not have to make people aware of anything, when we had but to speak to be obeyed, when…."

"When you had true power. When you had true respect?"

"Yes!"

Kats sighed. "Then that was what you wanted. You wanted respect and power, even if it was only from one person, only over one person. The rest of the Grey Council followed you only at Sinoval's orders. You had lost all respect from them when you faltered at Mars.

"But I was there. I was a worker who thought herself worthy to stand at your side. I thought myself able to command warriors. I thought myself worthy to stand in the Grey Council, where Valen himself once stood.

"So you brought me to the Grey Council, and you showed me just how little power I had, and you made for yourself someone whom you could command, someone you could hurt as much as you liked.

"I apologise, Kalain. I thought you tortured me for your own pleasure. I was wrong."

"I had to…. I was a warrior. I was…."

"Wrong?"

"I was wrong."

"I forgive you, Kalain. You hurt me, and you weakened me, and you almost broke me, but you did not. I am stronger now than I ever was, and for that I thank you, and I forgive you."

"I never apologised, and I never sought your forgiveness."

"I know, but I offer it all the same. Be at peace, Kalain."

"And you. There is…. someone else who wants to talk to you. I think you want to talk to him as well. I will see you again in another life, worker."

"May your Gods welcome you home," she said, the words sounding hollow to her, but she knew they were important to him.

Perhaps the Day of the Dead did not show you those you wished to speak to, but rather those you needed to speak to.

She touched her necklace gently, and then all the air seemed to be sucked from the room.

"My lady," said his voice. "I swear you are more lovely than ever."

She whispered his name, just once, and there were tears in her eyes.

The room was larger than she was used to, larger than she found comfortable, even. This was the place she had spent more time in than any other on Babylon 5, more even than her sleeping quarters, and yet she had never liked it.

Perhaps it was because this room seemed to breed so much strife, so much conflict.

Sometimes Delenn longed for the old days. There had been just a handful of them at the beginning. Herself, Londo, Lethke, Taan Churok, Vizhak. There were so many now, people she did not know, people who had not seen the things she had, people who did not seem to understand why there had to be an Alliance.

The races needed to be one. They needed to protect and help and shelter each other.

And yet so many did not understand.

Durano was still speaking. Delenn did not know him well. Londo had sent him personally, and Londo usually had good judgment. There was just something in him that made her uncomfortable. He was so…. rigid and formal. It was as if all his life was a mask and no one knew what lay beneath it, not even Durano himself.