I do not know....
I do not know his name.
Another....
I will not let you die without a name, my son. I will not....
Commander Corwin.... what is his name?
David.
Yes.
He was John's best friend. He did not trust me, for the sins of the past.... but he helped me, and he came to like me, for John's sake.
Were you to....
.... live
.... my son, he would be your friend as well. He would be your teacher, your.... uncle.
You are David.
My David.
Our David.
You are David, son of John Sheridan and Delenn of Mir. You were conceived in love, and you will always be remembered in love.
Please....
David....
Live!
You must live! We will both love you.... your father and I. We will teach you so many things....
We will teach you about the galaxy, and about the wondrous races who live within it. We will share with you the joys of the universe, the wonders of life....
We will teach you how to love
.... how to live
.... how to....
No!
It's.... starting!
You must live, David! We love you!
Oh....
I can feel your heartbeat....
Through my fingers.... I can feel your heartbeat....
I love you, David.
We love you....
Don't die.
Please.
I can feel your heartbeat.
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Live!
Oh, David....
It hurts....
I can
feel
your
heart
beat....
No!
The last
heart
beat
stopped.
Part 5 : The First Footsteps on the Road to Babylon.
The forces of destiny begin to converge on Proxima as the war comes to the home of humanity. As internecine power struggles grip the heart of the Resistance Government and Delenn lies helpless in a forgotten and abandoned place, a dark plan nears fruition and a terrible punishment is prepared. Humanity chose wrongly, out of fear and out of fury, and the punishment for that choice may well be the extinction of all that they are, and all they will ever be.
Chapter 1
"We have come home."
Captain David Corwin, aboard the Dark Star 3, the Agamemnon.
"Let them come. If they believe they are pursuing their own purposes here, then they are sadly mistaken."
President William Morgan Clark, private observation.
David....
He is dead....
My son. Our son.
David....
I can feel your heart beating.
Live, my son.
Please, live.
"Interesting," said the cold voice. "She's speaking in her own language, or rather.... some dialect of it. It is possible each caste has its own language, I suppose. And yet some things are in English. A recurrence of names, as well. John.... and David. I wonder about their significance. Perhaps...."
"Perhaps you did not hear me, Doctor," snapped another voice, an angry one. "I asked how she was doing, not for an in–depth analysis of linguistic patterns."
She knows these voices, somehow. One of them anyway. The second voice. The last time it spoke to her there had been the same.... anger. The other voice she recalls hearing dimly across a veil of sleep, of drugged anguish.
"Oh.... she's doing well. As well as can be expected anyway. We managed to stabilise her system after the blood loss, but we feel the major damage was to her.... was psychological. Something like that would be a tremendous shock to anyone, of course. It was worse in this case because of.... ah...."
"Because of what?"
"The anaesthetic.... It was not entirely effective. Something in her system we could not account for. Unfortunate, really. We believe she was partly conscious throughout the operation."
"Good God! You mean to tell me she was awake while you were killing her baby?"
"If you want to put it like that.... Unfortunate, really. Still, we could hardly expect...."
"You had all the time in the world to perform all the tests in the world to expect that very thing, Doctor! Did it escape your notice that she is a unique biological specimen? Did it also escape your notice that she is to stay alive.... at all costs?"
"Well.... no, of course. As I said earlier, most of the medical problems were easily resolved. The.... ah.... unusual thickness of the vascular layer of the endometrium caused the excessive haemorrhage, but we managed to compensate for that. A transplant would be difficult.... for obvious reasons, but we are well on the way to developing an adequate synthetic. As I said, the problems are mostly psychiatric. We believe she has willed herself into a catatonic trance."
"Listen to me, Doctor. Forget the jargon. You are a man of medicine. She is a sick patient. You will make her better, and if you do not I will personally have you killed, and your family, and your friends, and your family's friends, and in short, everyone you have ever met.
"Do not fail me in this, Doctor."
"We will do what we can, Mr. Welles."
Welles. She knows that name, but somehow....
.... it escapes her.
He speaks to her again, and this time the anger is gone from his voice, and there is only a terrible sadness. She wants to reach out and comfort him, but something prevents her.
"I am sorry," he says to her. "Oh, Delenn, I wish.... there could have been....