To Dream in the City of Sorrows (12 page)

The next step then had been to determine how the gates worked so new ones could be built. That started the race to find Quantium 40 in order to build and control as many jump gates as possible. Eager for new customers, the Centauri started searching out worlds such as Earth, which hadn’t been as lucky to have one of the ancient gates conveniently in the area, and sold them access to their jump gates. But Humanity soon figured out how to construct their own gates and ships with jump-point generators, and eventually joined the interstellar party as equal participants.

“Approaching gate entry point,” intoned the ship’s computer. “Prepare for jump to normal space.”

“Acknowledged,” Sakai replied – letting the computer run the controls through the standard program, but readying herself to take over on manual if need be.

“Entering gate.”

For just an instant, the cockpit seemed to spin around her at a dizzying speed, then for an even briefer moment the Universe elongated – both she and her ship seemed to be stretched into a smear of atoms infinitely long – then snapped back into place, as Sky dancer began to shake. Two seconds later she saw the stars through the cockpit canopy and Skydancer sailed smoothly out into normal space.

“Pretty slick,” she said as she took over manual controls. Not a bad jump gate. Maybe they could do a little fine tuning on the transition-point boosters, but overall it had been a smooth ride.

“All right,” she said, warming to the task ahead. The blue-white star UTC45 was shining brightly down through the top of the cockpit. This gate was closer to the center of this system than many of the ancient gates. She adjusted her heading and banked sharply to bring Skydancer in line with the orbital plane of Planet UTC45-03A, code named Ymir.

“Computer, let’s get a fix on the target.”

Skydancer adjusted course again, and Ymir swung into view. It should have been just a typical Class 4 planet, a rocky, terrestrial world, brown and red with no surface water, just lots of craggy mountain ranges and long, deep canyons and crevices, covered by a thick but basically transparent atmosphere. Nothing very interesting except for the occasional volcanic eruption and of course the hoped-for Quantium 40. That’s what it should have been.

But there was something wrong with Planet UTC45-03A. What she saw was a smooth dark brown globe – no surface features at all. There was something wrong with the atmosphere. There was something very wrong.

“Computer, report on long-range scan of planet. Check for any signs of sentient life on the planet surface or in orbit.” Don’t rush in where unknown aliens may be treading. She had learned her lesson on that one.

“Negative result. No energy signatures, structures, or characteristic movement consistent with sentient life.”

“Increase speed to safe maximum and change preset orbital coordinates to the next standard higher orbit.”

“Acknowledged.”

Sky dancer’s engines hummed at higher pitch and Sakai was pressed back in her seat as the tiny ship increased its velocity toward the planet.

“Computer, report on atmospheric conditionsspecify anomalous conditions, summarize and report.”

“Unusually high level of particulate matter suspended in atmosphere planetwide. Surface temperatures one point four three of normal planetwide caused by greenhouse effect.”

This was not the world described in the Universal Terraform report, not the planet the initial robot probe ship had visited eight months before. With growing disbelief, Sakai built a new profile of Ymir from the incoming data.

“Computer, show chemical composition of particulate matter.” But she suspected the answer even before the data scrolled by on the screen – it was dust, a thick, choking cloud of dust that reached as high as the stratosphere and apparently covered the entire planet pole to pole. What could cause this to happen?

“Computer, check for any signs of a recent extreme extraplanetary object impact with planet.”

The computer worked for a moment. “Negative result on visible limb of planet. Total negative result projected from data, ninety-five percent certainty.”

So an asteroid or meteor hadn’t smashed into the planet. What had happened?

“Computer, go to continuous monitoring for sentient life activity, top priority.”

Sky dancer’s sensors would continue to report back data as the ship approached closer to the planet, but Sakai knew she wasn’t likely to get any closer to an answer until she could launch the sensor satellites and probes, so it wouldn’t hurt to redirect some of the sensors. She had a very bad feeling about the whole thing.

She suddenly thought about Sinclair. He always said he didn’t like surprises – the result of a life spent in the military. She remembered him lecturing at the Academy: Surprises in the military could cause disaster or death. That’s why one trained and prepared over and over to eliminate as much of the element of surprise as humanly possible. That was the catch, of course, Jeff would say, since there were always going to be surprises springing from outside the sphere of Human influence that no amount of training and preparation could eliminate. But just keeping that in mind would help reduce the impact of those kinds of surprises.

For all his stern lecturing, however, she had quickly learned something else about him: he appreciated a good mystery and was rather proud of his abilities at solving them.

“What would you think of this one, Jeff?” she wondered.

Skydancer reached orbital distance and assumed its preset orbit. Sakai initiated launch sequence on the satellites and sensor probes. She knew what question Universal Terraform would want her to ask first, and when data began beaming back from the probes, she asked it:

“Computer. Report on initial findings regarding presence of Quantium 40 on the planet.”

“Initial data indicates trace elements suspended in atmosphere only. No Quantium 40 on planet surface.”

This made no sense. How could there be trace elements in the air, but none in the rock below?

“Computer, analyze chemical composition of ground material at initial target area and report to screen.”

Sakai read with growing amazement as the unexpectedly short list of minerals scrolled by, outlining a completely unexpected, relatively simple composition composed of far more iron-magnesium minerals than would be expected outside of–

“Oh, my God!” she muttered, a chilling implication suggesting itself. “Computer, is the composition of matter at the initial target site consistent with the general composition of a Class 4 planet’s upper mantle?”

“Affirmative,” said the computer.

“And is the composition of the particulate matter in the planet’s atmosphere consistent with the general composition of a Class 4 planet’s outer crust?”

“Affirmative,” said the computer.

“What the hell is going on?” she demanded aloud. “Computer, correlate data to present and answer question: Are there areas of the planet that appear to be missing the normal outer crust of rock, thus exposing what appears to be the planet’s upper mantle?”

“Affirmative.”

“Project, over what percentage of the planet surface does this condition exist?”

The computer worked for a moment. “Projection to twenty-eight percent of the planet surface.”

Sakai could hardly believe what she was hearing, as the terrifying implications sank in. What could blast away the outer surface of a planet to a depth of from ten to thirty-five miles deep over twenty-eight percent of the planet’s surface in a time frame of eight months or less? What ... or who?

C
HAPTER 10

“WHICH is the greater outrage? It is hard to decide, is it not?” Neroon of the Star Riders Clan gazed out over the assembled members of the Council of Caste Elders – the nine members from the religious caste,the nine members from the worker caste, and the other eight members of his own military caste. “Is it a greater outrage that a few members of the religious caste have misled our beloved Chosen One into participating in a potentially illegal attempt to subvert the majority will of the Grey Council? Or is the greater outrage that they have willfully misinterpreted sacred prophecy, twisting it beyond recognition in their obscene attempt to make us all believe it could possibly refer to a Human!”

Sinclair was impressed with the amount of venom Neroon had managed to put into that last word. The Great Hall of the Caste Elders echoed with the intensity of the Minbari’s hatred.

Sinclair had felt that anger firsthand on three occasions in the past. The first had been at the Battle of the Line, and though he had not actually met Neroon personally, the Minbari had been alyt (second in command) to Branmer, one of the leaders of the Minbari attack.

The next time he and Neroon crossed paths – or was the better word “swords” – Neroon had brought the body of the recently deceased Branmer to Babylon 5, ostensibly to allow all the Minbari onboard the opportunity to pay their respects. But it had been clear to Sinclair that Neroon’s intent was to try to provoke the Humans on Babylon 5. As events had escalated, Neroon had even attempted – unsuccessfully – to ambush Sinclair in his own quarters. They had eventually parted on what Sinclair had hoped was better terms, but in retrospect he realized that Neroon’s display of reconciliation was only a temporary reaction brought on by a severe reprimand from Grey Council member Delenn – and the embarrassment of having been beaten in a fight by Sinclair, a mere Human.

Because in their third meeting, Neroon had done his enthusiastic best to have Sinclair convicted and executed on the phony assassination charges.

“I mean no disrespect to Satai Rathenn or the Grey Council,” Neroon continued, bowing to the section of the hall where Rathenn, after having finished his lengthy presentation regarding the Shadow threat and the Rangers, had taken his place with the other members of the Grey Council, sitting hooded and partly in shadow. One empty chair out of nine attested to Delenn’s absence. “In fact, I think I respect the Grey Council even more than Satai Rathenn and certainly more than Satai Delenn – who, I will note, could not find the time to break away from her dealings with Humans on Babylon 5 to honor us with her presence here.”

That brought a bit of grumbling from the Caste Elders. The Grey Council sat unmoving and silent, as they had throughout the prolonged proceedings of this extraordinary convocation of the Chosen One, the Grey Council, and the Council of Caste Elders. Jenimer sat quietly in a section that with the Grey Council and the Caste Elders completed a circle of chairs.

Sinclair, arms folded, shifted uncomfortably where he stood behind and to the right of the Minbari leader. He’d been standing there for far too many hours without a break. So had Ulkesh, who was to the left of Jenimer, but of course that sort of thing never seemed to bother a Vorlon. They were the only others present.

Neroon was too obviously aware of the singular nature of this meeting, and was doing his best to take advantage of this uncommon chance to speak before members of the Grey Council, who so rarely visited Minbar. He spoke in both the religious and military dialects, switching between them with ease to make different points. Though Sinclair had been supplied with an earpiece hooked to a translating computer, he was able to follow most of what was being said on his own, and thanked God one more time for the gift he’d been born with for learning other languages.

“But Satai Rathenn seeks to overturn the decision of a majority of the Grey Council who say that the tune is not yet right to restore the Anla’shok to full military status. And he dishonors all of us by alleging that the ancient prophecy could ever be interpreted to mean that a Human,” and for the first time Neroon acknowledged Sinclair’s presence, pointing at him with disdain, “should be the Entil’Zha, should succeed Valen, because, Rathenn says, the archaic text refers to ‘a Minbari not born of Minbari.’ He would have you believe this refers to an alien who adopts Minbari ways. But I invite you to look at the ancient text yourselves, and listen to the majority of our scholars who interpret that phrase in the ancient language not as ‘a Minbari not born of Minbari’ but as ‘a Minbari not born on Minbar,’ perhaps on a colony world or a ship. But a Minbari nonetheless, not an alien, and certainly not a Human.”

Sinclair shook his head slightly. He had seen this sort of thing on Earth, far too many times, when people sought to base their actions solely on the literal dictates of an ancient text written in an archaic language. The questions of what were the right things, and the moral things, and the sensible things to do too often were lost in the debate over text interpretation.

“Look at him,” Neroon said suddenly. “Standing there with smug insolence in this consecrated hall that no Human should ever have been allowed to defile. How many insults are we expected to endure at the hands of these Humans? How many more outrages can we expect you and your kind to heap upon us?”

Neroon was now standing just to the side of Jenimer so that he could direct his tirade squarely at Sinclair. “In less than a lunar cycle you have promoted the most hated and dishonorable of Humans to the command of Babylon 5, attempted to kill our new Chosen One, and now wish to usurp the sacred title of Entil’Zha and defile the names of Valen and the Anla’shok.” Neroon spun on his heel and walked back to the Caste Elders. “I say he should be removed from our presence and deported back to the depraved world from which he came.”

Sinclair saw that Neroon’s words, spoken with confidence and eloquence, had made an obvious impact on his audience, in contrast to the excruciatingly thorough, but dry and complicated presentation Rathenn had made. Neroon turned once more toward Sinclair, this time to gloat.

It was only then that Jenimer finally spoke. “A moment ago you asked Ambassador Sinclair a question, Neroon. It is his right to answer.”

It was a toss-up as to who was more astounded by this, Neroon or Sinclair. Sinclair had been specifically told by the rules of the meeting he would not be allowed to speak.

“Great Leader,” said Neroon, trying to sound shocked but humble, “I beg your forgiveness, but he is an off-worlder, and an observer here only. By the rules governing this great convocation, he cannot speak.”