"This meeting is now over. I wish you all safe travel back to your estates, gentlemen."
With that, he left. Maybe now he would have time to do everything that had to be done.
There had not been enough time. Not nearly enough time.
How could two people undo the mistakes of an entire lifetime in one night? How could a mere few hours' words make amends for decades of recrimination and anger and pride?
Oh, he had tried. Both of them had. But there had just not been enough time, and too many memories pulling at them both.
Kulomani, Captain of the Dark Star fleet, sat alone as the Day of the Dead ended, and looked up as the comet herald faded from the skies. It would not come again in his lifetime, he knew that. Nor his son's. He wondered what would have happened had he died at any time in the war now gone. Would he have come back to meet his son? Would his son even have come to talk to him?
And would they have made even half an effort to undo everything that had passed between them? Would they even try?
"Where are you now, I wonder?" he asked himself. They were still alive, his wife, his son. Perhaps his wife had remarried. Perhaps his son was already wed by now. Could he have grandchildren he knew nothing about? It was possible. It was very possible.
Would any of them welcome him back into their lives?
Would his pride even let him try?
"We chose our own paths," he said. "You did not understand mine, and I do not understand yours." Something his father had said from beyond the veil mere hours ago stayed with him.
"Why did you not want to follow me? Was a life of carving things of beauty really so terrible to you? Would you really have hated so much to follow in my footsteps?"
He had not been able to answer that. He had not been able to explain his decision to join the army all those years ago when he had left home. How could he do so now?
"We choose our own paths," he said again.
"And only now do we realise where they've taken us," said an unfamiliar voice. Kulomani turned to see an elderly Centauri in a military uniform sit down beside him. The length of his hair indicated he was of high rank. The Centauri sighed. "Only now, at the end of our lives, can we see the choices we have made."
Kulomani nodded silently.
"Whom did you wish to see?" the Centauri asked. "Parent? Child? Friend?"
"My father."
"Did you say everything you wished to say?"
"No. How could we, with only one night? I have been waiting for this day for so long, and now it has come and gone I feel so.... hollow. I have had my greatest chance for acceptance, and it has passed me by. And you? Who did you see?"
"I came to see my daughter, but.... I saw an old friend instead. I think I saw the person I most needed to see, not whom I most wanted to see."
"Some have said that is the way of it. We.... understand how this night works a little. It is not something that makes sense to aliens, but most of us are able to choose whom we speak to. Yet somehow it is the strangers, the visitors, the guests, who emerge from it with the most fulfilment and understanding, while we, who are raised with the knowledge of this night, remain lost."
Kulomani stared out into the rising daylight for a while, and then said softly. "You are Marrago, are you not? The former Lord-General of the Centauri?"
"I am."
"I understand your Government has placed a price on your head."
"They have. Are you going to try to claim it?"
"No. I am a soldier, not a bounty hunter, and one old soldier can respect the decisions of another, even if we are on different sides."
"Yes, we are on different sides, but which of us is on the right one? Are you happy with the way things are?"
"Happy? I do not think I know. The war is over. That is good."
"And how long until another one begins?"
"That is not something I want to think about."
"It's coming, though. You can't deny that."
"No. I have felt something stirring, an undercurrent of.... pain and fear and anger. Soon it will all break free on the surface, and then....
"And then...."
He paused. "I think you had better tell me everything."
Sheridan immediately took a step back, the trance that had gripped him as he had walked the dead corridors at an end. His PPG seemed to fly into his hand and he pointed it directly at Sinoval.
But the Minbari was faster still. Stormbringer flowed in his hands like water, like an extension of his self. One thrust and the gun was knocked from Sheridan's hands.
"I did not come here to fight," Sinoval said simply.
"You could have fooled me," Sheridan replied. "You look like you were expecting one."
"A wise man prepares for every eventuality, is that not so? I did not think you would welcome me kindly, Sheridan."
"You thought right. The Alliance wants you brought in for a war crimes tribunal."
"Oh? And what war crimes have I committed exactly? I made no bargains with the Shadows. At best, you could say I treated with one who was working with them, but that was outwith my knowledge, and she is long dead."
"You are plotting sedition and rebellion against the Alliance."
"How can it be rebellion? I was never sworn to the Alliance, and I never will be. The Federation joined only after I departed, remember. If you mean I am assembling forces to bring you down, then yes, I admit it. But if I am going that far, then I expect the same honesty from you, Sheridan.
"Who rules the Alliance?"
"We all do."
"And still you delude yourself. I saw the truth in you in that Council Chamber over two years ago, and I still see it now. They rule you. They rule all of you, and you just do not see it at all. Who wants me arrested, Sheridan? Who orders the Inquisitors? Ironic, isn't it? They hide in the shadows and make you all dance to their tune."
"The Vorlons aren't our enemies."
"The Vorlons are destroying you all, and you are too blind to see it! Look, Sheridan! Open your eyes and look around and think for one moment! Is this why the Alliance was created? Did any of you have the Inquisitors in mind then? Look at what is happening to the Centauri. Is that what you had in mind? Look at what happened to the Drazi.
"Did you envisage any of this at the beginning? Secret police. Martial law. Civil war, even.
"Can you truly tell me you wanted these things at the beginning?"
"It's not that simple, and you know it. We have to make sure the Shadows don't come back. We have to make sure this peace is eternal, not just for a few years, or even for a thousand."
"And your methods.... these will bring war in months. All you have done is build a paper house around foolish dreams. You remember the war, as you should, but you think anything is preferable to that. What matter if we have lost our freedom? What matter if we weaken and shatter and destroy one of our oldest allies? What matter if we are angry and hungry and lost?
"What matter any of those things? After all, we have our peace, don't we? Our precious peace!