She nods. "Whatever you need me to do, I will do. My life is yours."
"Your life belongs to no one but yourself. I have.... been distracted recently. I have broken one of the simplest rules of warfare: never fight a war on more than one front. Sonovar, the Vorlons, the Enemy, I thought I could destroy them all.
"Perhaps I can, but I will do so one at a time, my lady. First, I must deal with Sonovar. It was I who created him, I who ravaged this world every bit as much as he did. I will end this, and re-unite our people."
Her eyes look at me with renewed hope. I smile to see it.
"And, my lady.... I will return Kozorr to you. That, I promise you."
I am many things, few of them complimentary, but I have never been an oath-breaker.
I have many skills, and one of them is mastery of war. I know what to do to deal with Sonovar, and I swear by those who once swore to me.... I will do all I can to finish this.
The old man poured two glasses of orange juice and passed one over to his guest, who took it gratefully. He sat down and began to sip at it. Yes, it was definitely better. Whatever new processes had been applied to it, the taste was definitely improved. He preferred the all-natural flavour of course, but that was sadly impossible these days.
"I'm sorry I'm late," said his guest, also sitting down. "There was.... pressing business."
"Yes, I heard. Has the declaration of war reached the Alliance yet?"
The guest made no sign of surprise at the information the old man possessed. He had got used to it by this time. "Not yet. There are lawyers framing the exact terms and so forth. Media reasons and legal sophistry, you know how it is."
"Oh, exactly. The timing is.... not bad, all told. I think we've more or less sucked Sector Three-o-one dry by now. Our little social crusaders have thrown up a few too many problems, and the underground telepath railroad running through there is going to fall apart very quickly, I fear. Ah well, we've done well enough out of the area.
"A pity though, I actually almost liked Mr. Trace. Such.... naked ambition, and complete lack of morals. On the other hand, all men need some moral centre, don't you think?" He took another sip of the orange juice. "We all have a purpose we work towards, the greater good of the race." The old man looked at his guest, who was still and unmoving. He sighed softly.
"Telepaths," the old man said again. "They're the key. Every war has.... some great strategic weapon, something that will turn the tide, and the side that gets that advantage is sure to win. It could be.... control of a trade route, an important river, perhaps a mine, or a piece of powerful technology.
"In this war it is telepaths, and whoever controls the most telepaths will win. It is that simple." He finished his drink and placed the glass on the table. Rising, he stretched, and began to pace up and down.
"Miss Winters will no doubt have escaped by now. Let her escape, let her go running to Mr. Bester, and we will follow. We will find him wherever he has holed up and...."
The door opened and the old man turned, breathing a soft sigh of relief when he saw who it was. "Mr. Morden, always a pleasure."
"Likewise," he said. "I heard you had company, so I thought I'd.... make myself available."
"Indeed. Well, Mr. Morden, I would like to introduce you to...."
The guest began to speak. "Call me Wi.... Oh, that might be a little confusing, mightn't it?"
"A fine name," the old man said with a soft smile. "Well, you know who he is, anyway. This is Mr. Morden, a longstanding and valued employee and.... agent of mine."
"A pleasure to meet you at last," Morden said, smiling.
"Likewise," said the guest. They shook hands.
It was victory of a sort, although as Captain David Corwin thought about the death toll and pondered the faces of those who greeted the victorious liberators of Beta Durani, he wondered whether this victory might not have been worth the winning.
He could see fear on their faces. Some cried out insults and hurled projectiles, but most merely watched, horrified, numb. Children were shaking and crying.
For so long humanity had been terrified of an invasion by all-powerful aliens they could not hope to defeat. For a few brief years they had thought they were free of that fear, only for the hope to be torn from their grasp and shattered.
That is the way of things. Hope is ephemeral. Fear is eternal.
The Captain was not here. He preferred to remain on the Dark Star flagship, ready for any attempted counterattack. Corwin had been given the task of securing the colony itself, although there was very little to do. Governor Young had tried to flee, only to be caught and arrested easily. Her fate was still undecided.
Corwin sat in her office, thinking about victory. Would this war ever be over? Would there ever be a time he could sit, and rest, and raise children in a world free from harm?
"It's just as well you left, Mary," he said idly. "You wouldn't like what's happening here."
He wished he'd kept the ring he'd bought for her. He had thrown it away.
Sighing, he reached for some of the papers on the desk. The Captain had asked him to look for any important points relating to military matters in Governor Young's office. She had been a favoured protegee of President Clark, and had been reckoned for swift promotion. She was likely to have been involved in a number of matters the Alliance should know about.
Her desk, however, was a mess. There were obvious signs that she had tried to grab as much as she could before she fled, and she had understandably not bothered about tidying up after herself. Routine maintenance reports were mixed with census records and private letters. Corwin buried himself in the work, anxious for anything to take his mind away from the dark thoughts that were plaguing him.
As he dug into a mound of reports, he found a newspaper and pulled it free. A copy of Proxima Today, dated a few days ago. He made to throw it on a rubbish pile, when he caught the headline, and started.
"Oh, my God," he whispered, unsure whether to laugh or cry. He swiftly activated his link. "Get me Captain Sheridan," he said in a hurry. "This is urgent."
He looked back down at the front page.
DELENN CAPTURED. WAR CRIMES TRIAL PREPARED.
Mr. Welles was a man of iron will, not given to showing his emotions lightly. The truth was that he was an intensely guarded and private person, unable to show his inner self for fear of rejection. Only his wife had ever glimpsed his true self, and with her death there was no one who could claim to know him properly at all.
As a result of this intense privacy many people interpreted him as cold and emotionless. This was not true, it was merely that he kept his emotions firmly under control for fear of revealing his true anger and grief, for fear of letting his true self-loathing manifest itself in horror at the things he had done over the years in the name of a good cause.
Displays of rage were very rare. When she heard the sound of crashing and breaking, his secretary initially thought he was being attacked, or had possibly suffered a heart attack. Rushing to see what was wrong, she was horror-struck at the sight of Welles tearing down pictures and books from the walls of his office and hurling them around, seemingly in a drunken rage. He turned to look at her, and she recoiled from the fury of his gaze. Whatever was wrong with him, she knew he was as sober as any man ever born. She retreated, in need of something to drink herself.
His rage sated, Welles sank slowly to the floor, bitter tears running down his face. This was crazy. He knew he should keep his emotions private, but he could not. Clark would find out, Sheridan would find out.