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

Of course there was danger. They were about to besiege a space station housing the most important people in the Alliance and guarded by a massive Vorlon fleet. Of course there was danger.

And where was Sinoval?

She thought she knew, but she prayed she was wrong.

There was a figure standing on the precipice, but it wasn't Sinoval.

Moreil turned sinuously to face her.

"The Chaos–Bringer is not here," he hissed, his ugly, rasping voice hitting her like fingernails on slate.

"No," she whispered, trying to get her breath back.

"He has gone ahead of us, to bring the war to the enemy."

"Yes," she breathed.

Yes, gone ahead to take on the Vorlons in single combat, presumably. God save her from all this death–or–glory rubbish.

"Then we must follow him, and spread the fire with our footsteps."

She looked at the alien, the Shadow–spawned alien, and she saw the fanatical zeal and passion in his twisted, wrong eyes. She knew why Sinoval had spared his life, and she knew he could be used, but she didn't like it, and she didn't like associating with him.

But as she raised her head and looked at the fleet arrayed in hyperspace around Cathedral, waiting for the order, and as she remembered her purpose, she made the decision that Sinoval had always known she would have to make.

Sinoval, if we both survive this, I'm going to....

She never completed that thought. Instead she looked at Moreil.

"Yes," she said.

* * *

OBEY US

* * *

No one troubled him.

No one stopped him.

No one interfered or even looked at him

Anyone who passed him by ducked to one side, pressing themselves tightly against the corridor rather than meet his gaze.

John Sheridan had acquired a reputation amongst the Minbari when he was younger. He was the Starkiller, and more than one Minbari child had woken from nightmare visions of his face in the dark. The John Sheridan who walked through the corridors of Babylon 5 was more terrible by far than all of those dream images put together.

He reached the door he wanted, a door that was unguarded, for who would want to break in here?

It opened at his touch, and closed behind him.

From here, he could see everything around him - the Vorlon ships massed and ready, the myriad jump points opening to admit the invading fleet. He should be there to defend his station from the invaders, but he was not needed.

<We have been waiting for you,> came the voice from the bone–white Vorlon.

He paused, and looked around at the beginning of the battle.

"I'm here now ," he said at last.

* * *

It is acceptable for you to hate us. It is even right that you do so.

You hate us because we are perfect, and that perfection merely reveals your own flaws. By hating us you see this, and you accept it.

Accepting your own weakness is merely the first step towards your apotheosis. You hate us, and hatred is merely a form of envy. You hate us because you wish to be us, and that hatred will be your first step along the path to becoming us.

To becoming perfect.

Chapter 4

We have never wished you harm, never wished to hurt you, or destroy you. You are our children, and we are your parents. All parents want only the best for their children, to see them grow and learn and become strong.

But as children grow they must be forced to become other than that which they were. Children are selfish and self–centred and greedy. An adult must be different.

The very act of growth is one of change, becoming different from that which you were. So it is with the growth of your race. We shall change you, that you may grow and become something better.

And then you will never need to change again.

* * *

He liked to think he did not feel, this creature of Order, of cold and passionless regimen and duty. That was what he had been told before he was.... changed, that he would never feel again.

And certainly, that was mostly true. He had felt no fear since the day he had been reborn. He had felt no doubt. Uncertainty and grief were now just words to him, or tools with which to manipulate others.

But there were emotions there. He sometimes thought of these as wrong, but at other times he recognised them for what they were.

Pride: in himself for acknowledging his own strength and conviction.

Satisfaction: on witnessing the effect of his existence.

Joy: in the aftermath of a task well done.

Gratitude: to his Lords for enabling him to be their tool.

Hatred: for those who would seek to oppose his great and holy work.

He felt all five at once as he stared down at the prone figures of his opponents. Satai Kats, the liar, the whore, the conspirator. Tirivail, the traitress, and the traitor's daughter.

And Sinoval.

The arrogant, the Accursed, the one who could not see where his duty lay. Sebastian had seen many like him over his long years of service. Petty little men, who sought to raise their heads above the herd and cry out, a piglet bleating to its mother to show it more attention than the others, a cog in the machine that thought itself more than the machine.

Vanity and vainglory, that was all it was. Some people simply could not accept that they were a tiny part of a greater whole, and they sought to become the whole, or worse, to create an entirely new whole built around their own selfish concerns and desires.

Some of those had seen sense, had repented and recanted and returned to their positions chastened and chastised. The others had been removed, smoothly excised like the cancerous cells they were. There would be a brief and localised illness, but the whole would soon recover.