10
G'Kar and Mollari: The Discovery of the Nenta
Chapter Two: The Nenta
"Lord Styella!" Mollari stormed at the wealthy Centauri landowner, "I demand to know what kind of nefarious activities you are engaging in here on these farms!"
The minute Londo Mollari had set eyes on the Narn/Centauri female named Ra'Laine Sylko he had ordered Varnas to send for his Master, the Lord Tellaine Styella. A few moments later, a rather disgruntled aristocrat had been shuttled up to the Narn work camp to meet with the Prime Minister. As he stepped out of his personal hover-craft, Lord Styella poked the ground with his walking cane. The cane was crafted from pure gold and had many intricate designs engraved all over it. Styella was somewhat elderly, and he looked to G'Kar as though he could have been old enough to be an adult while Narn was being occupied for the first time. His hair was grey, but it was spread out in such a flawless fan-tail arch that it positively shouted pride and privilege everywhere he stepped, decked out in his silver robe and wearing his gem-studded shoes.
The Centauri landowner had arrived so promptly that G'Kar had not been given much of an opportunity to introduce himself to the lovely Ra'Laine. She had the same red-hued eyes as G'Kar did, and she had called herself a member of the "Nenta" people. This was the same term that G'Quarn/Spot had used with regard to himself and his people, even though G'Quarn was obviously a full Narn. The word "Nenta" likely was a combination of the words "Narn" and "Centauri". At any rate, G'Kar wished to speak with her, more so than he did Lord Styella.
"I am G'Kar, by the way," he said to her as Styella exchanged greetings with Mollari. He gave her the Narn gesture of respect: two clenched fists held to his breast while bowing his head. She frowned at him slightly, as though she considered him very odd.
"I do not directly train the Narn workers, G'Kar," Ra'Laine told him, her head held high. She said it in such a fashion as to indicate that she considered him to be beneath her in social rank, but at least equal enough to merit a response to his introduction.
"I am not a worker, Ra'Laine," G'Kar responded in a dignified tone, "I am the Narn Ambassador to the Interstellar Alliance. I am here to inspect the conditions in this camp."
"No," Ra'Laine told him, "You are very foolish if you believe that you will be permitted to parade about this settlement as though you were the very Emperor himself; not on this farm, you won't. I have no idea what the 'Interstellar Alliance' is, but they will now have to do without you, if Lord Styella has anything to say about it. You are a Narn, and therefore you will be taken for labor; and, you will remain here for the rest of your days."
"As pleasant as the prospect of staying here on the farm with you is, I'm afraid that I will be leaving here, my dear. And I intend to take as many Narns back with me as I can. My companion is the Prime Minister of Centauri Prime, you see."
"You are very arrogant, Ambassador G'Kar of the Interstellar Alliance," Ra'Laine chided him, "As if the Prime Minister would lower himself to the level of being your companion!"
"I see that you have never contemplated the idea that Narns...and Nenta...are free beings with their own capacity for self-determination? You and the others have obviously been brainwashed by Centauri propaganda."
"You!" Lord Styella shouted at G'Kar. He strode over to the big Narn, waving his cane in the air.
"I have checked my computer records of the first occupation of Narn," Styella sneered, "and you—the one they call G'Kar—are still listed as a slave of the Centauri Republic. We kept records of all the Narn servants from the first occupation, and I have determined your identity after having discussed your nefarious deeds with Prime Minister Mollari. You are the son of Arkonn Charisa's servant G'Quarn, yes? You are the nephew of the late war criminal, G'Sten?"
"My Uncle was a war hero, not a criminal," G'Kar declared proudly, glaring at Styella without wavering, "He helped to free our people during the first resistance, and he died defending our freedom in the Narn-Centauri war two years ago."
Styella turned red with rage, and hit the Narn across the backside with his cane. G'Kar gave a low-throated growl, and Mollari rushed over to insert himself between the two of them.
"Lord Styella, please, I beg of you!" Mollari pleaded, "Do not provoke G'Kar. He has suffered greatly for his people; believe me, he has already been punished a hundred times over for his crimes, and those of his people. You cannot take him into your custody—he is the Narn Ambassador to the Interstellar Alliance! You would create an interplanetary incident if you attempt to enslave him. President Sheridan takes a very dim view of slavery, and he respects G'Kar too much to allow this. The Centauri Republic cannot afford to alienate the Alliance after everything that we have done to create havoc during the Shadow Wars! I'm sorry, Tellaine, but you cannot have this one."
"I do not recognize the authority of anyone outside of the Republic," Styella snarled, "Interplanetary politics bore me. The only two planets that I have ever known are this one—and Narn. I was living there as a young agricultural specialist, and I saw the economic advantages of using a primitive group of people as laborers. I am not like the soldiers that were stationed there, employing violence and creating mayhem. Instead, Prime Minister Mollari, I have used a system of rewards and positive reinforcement to create a contented herd of Narn workers.
"You see, our scientists have determined that the Narn brain is very primitive; it operates only on instinct and emotion, and is capable of very little in the way of rationality. If you traumatize its system too much, the Narn animal becomes unbalanced; it turns savage, and it cannot help itself. We, and no doubt your hallowed President Sheridan, have anthropomorphized the Narns for years. We made the mistake of considering them persons, and I am afraid that they are not any more capable of personhood than a Wexl in the woods. Oh, they are clever and imitative, yes. But they are not capable of making their own decisions, once they are taken out of their primitive state. We, the Centauri, made the grand mistake of taking them out of their state of animal innocence, and now we have been made to pay the price for it.
"My quest, Mollari, has been most beneficent. I wish to help the Narn to re-enter their state of lost innocence. We do that by being firm with them, but also by showing kindness to them—especially when they behave themselves. Part of what we have been doing here is to create docile Narns through selective breeding. These Narns have been so well-bred that you could leave any one of them in charge of a Centauri babe and rest in perfect peace while they cared for, caressed, and sang lullabies to it. The other part of our selective breeding process, of course, has been to create Narn-Centauri hybrids. I consider this process as something like being a genetic sculptor; I love to use creativity in my artistic endeavors."
"Great Maker!" cried Mollari, "You can't be serious, Lord Styella! Do you mean to tell me that you have created these hybrid creatures deliberately?"
"Yes, of course," Styella replied calmly, "We hoped to create slightly more intelligent beings for supervisory roles, and so that is why we introduced Centauri DNA into the mix. You would be amazed at how compatible Narn and Centauri DNA are for inter-breeding purposes. At any rate, Mollari—you may quibble with my methods, but you must admit that I have done very well for myself. There is not a farm on Centauri Prime over which I do not have direct or indirect power. I am the premier breeding specialist of Narn laborers, and I have made a huge amount of money teaching my under-farmers how to train and breed their own Narns. We now have a home-grown population of Narns and Nentas that exceeds the five million mark. And, because of my superior training methods, they are all exceedingly content to work on Centauri farms for the rest of their lives. Welcome to the new age of the Narn-breeding industry!"
"You are mad!" Mollari cried in horror, "What monster have you created with your...infernal inter-breeding program?"
G'Kar stood silently, watching as Mollari and Styella argued back and forth about the Narn-Centauri inter-breeding program. Just when he had thought that the Centauris could sink no lower in moral terms than they had already done over the past one hundred and thirty years or so, they surprised him by sinking that much lower. He was as shocked as Mollari by the horrific audacity of Styella, but he did not care to let them know that.
"You see, G'Kar?" Ra'Laine whispered to him, "Lord Styella is one of the wealthiest Lords in the whole Republic. Because of his wealth, he has even more power and influence than the Prime Minister...or even the Emperor!"
"It is not difficult to exceed the talents of the present Prime Minister," G'Kar whispered back, "And the Emperor, if I may be permitted to inform you, died last year."
"I know that, foolish one!" Ra'Laine cried, hitting him on the arm, "I am not stupid. But I think that you need to change out of those outlandish clothes. Come into the lodging hut and I will give you a Narn worker's loincloth. I am going to send you out to harvest the wild rugba, since you are such a wild-man yourself. This is to be your first duty—and since you are new, you will need to wear an obedience collar."
G'Kar followed her into the hut, but put up his hand to refuse the narrow metal collar that she was attempting to place around his neck.
"I cut through the last obedience collar that I wore as a young pouchling back on Narn, just after my father was killed by the Master," he told her darkly, "And I will not wear another one."
"G'Kar!" Ra'Laine pleaded with him, "I know you and your people were mistreated by the Centauri back on Narn—but here, it is different. We are not subjected to such horrors. Lord Styella is a very grumpy and argumentative old man, but he does care about our welfare, in his own way. If you learn to behave yourself, you will be treated fairly. Why, you may even earn the right to become a messenger, and go to town on your own!"
"Oh, my!" G'Kar could not stop himself from replying in a sarcastic tone, "To go to town by myself—as a messenger of my Centauri Lord! Well, it doesn't get any better than that, does it?"
"Oh, G'Kar!" Ra'Laine scolded him, "You are far too proud of yourself. If you continue to display such a disrespectful attitude, you will not earn any rewards from your superiors."
"I do not need to earn rewards from others!" G'Kar exclaimed, "I am a free Narn, and I make my own rewards. Would you not like to do the same, Ra'Laine? You could come with me, back to the station among the stars. It is named 'Babylon 5' and it has been run by Humans for the past five years. We work together there, for the greater freedom of all beings. You could be an Ambassador for the Nenta people—you could advocate for them, and pressure the Centauri Republic into freeing them. I could teach you what you need to know about making alliances with the other species of beings. You are far too intelligent to be wasting your time kowtowing to these...pompous Centauri asses!"
Ra'Laine looked at him in a knowing manner, bumping her hip against his seductively.
"Aha, G'Kar," she said, "I know what you want from me. So you would teach me to make alliances, would you? And I have no doubt that the first alliance would take place with me, in your bed. Would it not?"
"Only if you chose it," G'Kar replied, running his gloved finger over her cranium, "And I must admit that the prospect is most appealing. But I truly am not trying to seduce you, Ra'Laine! If you came to Babylon 5, there would be no expectation on my part that you become my friend. You would be free, for the first time in your life. You could make your own choices! Would that not appeal to you?"
"I make my own choices here," Ra'Laine retorted, "and besides, there would be no fields or birds or trees or Wexls on your star-station. There would be no breeze caressing my face. And, I do not think that the space station would be an appropriate setting for my five-year-old son, do you?"
A young Narn boy came running into the hut and crashed into his mother, embracing her with all his might. To G'Kar's surprise, the boy had a pony-tail/ruff of black hair growing at the back of his head, just as his mother did. This boy, however, had a distinctly Narn appearance, other than the hair.
"Who is that Narn, Mama?" the boy asked, "Does he belong to that fat man out there?"
"Hush, Telka!" Ra'Laine scolded him, "That is the Prime Minister of the Centauri court, Londo Mollari. He may become the Emperor one of these days, so don't you dare call him 'fat'."
"'Pleasantly plump' would be a more complimentary description of him," G'Kar said to the boy, "I am G'Kar, Telka. I am pleased to meet you."
"I am the son of Spot," Telka told him, "And he is one of the main Narn servants around here. Therefore, I outrank you, G'Kar. You must obey me!"
"Yes, Fine Sir," G'Kar answered in mock submission, somewhat bemused by the combination of the boy's fiery Narn energy and haughty Centauri arrogance.
His conversation with the two Nentas was interrupted once more by Lord Styella's grand entrance into the hut.
"You!" He bellowed at G'Kar, pointing his golden cane at him with the air of a mighty god, "You are Ilan. That, I have determined, was the name that your Centauri master, Arkonn Charisa, gave to you when you were a small child. Therefore, that is your name now. As I was saying before, you have never been de-registered as a slave of the Centauri Republic. I have been explaining the finer details of Centauri bureaucracy to our new Prime Minister, but he is having difficulty understanding. Ilan, you are hereby being claimed by the Centauri Republic, and I am taking over your ownership from Arkonn Charisa."
"But...but Lord Styella!" Mollari begged the older man, "You can't take over his ownership—he is a free Narn! He is my bodyguard, and I won't let you have him. This is ridiculous—I am the Prime Minister!"
"I have been granted legal authority by the former Emperor, Cartagia, to take charge of all Narns on Centauri Prime," Styella argued, "I'm afraid that even you are not above the law, Prime Minister. If you want to buy Ilan from me, you'll have to obtain written permission from the state, and written permission from Arkonn Charisa's son Lukkon. You will also need to fill out an application for ownership, and you will need to qualify for Narn stewardship by taking a written examination."
"Written examination?! This is outrageous!" cried Mollari, "Vir! You will go and try to arrange these things for us, yes? Go, now, my boy."
"Londo!" Vir exclaimed, "What about you and G'Kar? I can't just leave you here!"
"I will not leave G'Kar as long as he is being treated in this barbaric fashion!" Mollari told him, "Take the ground-vehicle and go, Vir. And contact Babylon 5...send a message to President Sheridan and Ambassador Delenn. They should know what has happened."
"Yes, Sir," Vir responded anxiously, running off on his bureaucratic nightmare of an errand.
G'Kar stared at Mollari in astonished disbelief.
"Do you mean to tell me, Prime Minister Mollari, that you are unable to stand up to this...this Land Thief, this Body-Napper?" G'Kar asked in a furor, "We have come here to secure the freedom of Narns, not to add me to their list of unpaid laborers!"
Lord Styella gave his newest captive several whacks with the golden cane before Mollari grabbed it from him.
"Lord Styella!" He yelled, "Since you are unwilling to listen to me, then I must tell you that I intend to stay by G'Kar's side the entire time he is here. Consider this my peaceful protest on behalf of decent Centauris everywhere. I will stay with G'Kar until my aide returns with the paperwork."
"Very well, Prime Minister," Styella replied, calming himself slightly, "You may supervise Ilan's training, but you are not permitted to refer to him as 'G'Kar'. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at how well we treat him here. I will give you my personal handbook on how to deal with Narns, and you can study it so that you can pass your exam. If all my requirements are met, I may be generous and give you back your pet. But you will call him by his proper name while he...and you, are here. Do I make myself clear, Mollari?"
"Yes, Old Man," Mollari responded, attempting to control his temper, "You have made yourself perfectly, crystal clear."