**********************Chapter 3*******************************************
I awoke back in my own bed. My head hurt and I wondered if I had another concussion. I looked around but the others were gone. Seated at the desk, watching the recording of my spar with Derhan, was Enthil'za. My father.
I sat up and studied him for a while. A smile crossed my face as I watched him. He was in his early sixties now, but he was still in excellent shape. He had served as president of the Interstellar Alliance for 18 years before refusing to run this year. He had felt that he had done all he could as president and had found another way to serve the Alliance by becoming the leader of the Rangers. Upon his refusal for re-election, the Alliance had chosen to elect my mother.
I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn't support me. My father heard me groan and turned in the chair so that he could face me.
"Isthil'za veni, In Valen's name, Enthil'za." I said again.
He grinned, his teeth flashing behind his stubbly gray beard. "No need to be so formal, David. It's just the two of us in here."
I matched his grin with one of my own. "But how we act alone should be no different than how we act with others. Just because there is no one around, does not mean I should be rude or deny my training."
He laughed. "You sound more like your mother every time I see you. Perhaps letting you come here was a mistake."
Now I laughed. "You and I both know that this is were I belong, Father."
He sighed. "I know, I know. That's what your mother keeps telling me." He grinned easily. "Can I help it if I worry? I just want you to be safe. I did the best job I could to make the universe safe for you, but there are still a lot of problems out there. And Ranger service isn't exactly the safest thing to do with your life."
"I know. But it is what I want to do. The people here, well most of them anyway, don't care who I am. After the first few days, they stopped peppering -did I use that right? Yes. Good. They stopped peppering me with questions about you and mother and the others. Then there were the questions I really hated." I put a vapid expression on my face and asked in a high voice. " 'How does it feel to be the son of John and Delenn Sheridan?', 'What's it like to be the son of such powerful and well known people?', and there was always the most embarrassing and stupid question: 'Exactly how human are you and your mother?'. Sometimes, I would almost be physically ill." I rolled my eyes. "What kind of person ASKS questions like that?"
He rubbed his eyes wearily. When he finally looked back at me, there was a look of such sadness on his face, I almost cried. "Has it really been that bad for you, David? We tried to shield you from the worst of it, but we knew that one day you would leave and you would learn."
I thought for a moment. It would be easy to blame my parents for the problems I had encountered. But it would be wrong. It was not their fault how others thought of them or of me. They had done what they had thought was right. And they had been right. They had told me everything, not willing to hide the truth from me. My mother said she had had of enough hiding things from my father. She had vowed, when she held me for the first time, that she would answer any question I asked to the best of her abilities and would hide no details from me.
She had explained her role in the Earth-Minbari war, as well as all her reasons for entering the chrysalis. She told me about the time jumps and about who Valen had been. She explained about hiding the fact that father's old wife had not died, as he had thought. She told me how hurt and lost she had felt when she thought Dad had died on Zha'ha'dum.
The worst thing they had ever told me was that my father would die before my 19th birthday. They had explained about how Lorien had saved him on Zha'ha'dum, and how he had later brought him back again when the vorlon had tried to kill him. I was thirteen the day I learned that my father was going to die. I had promised myself to be with him when he went. To let him know what he meant to me and to spend as much time with him as I could, because I knew there wasn't much time left.
As he sat there, I realized that if my training went according to plan, this might be the last chance I had to see him. He had less than two years left before he 'stopped'.
"I just finished watching your match against Derhan. You did very well." he said, completely unaware of the thoughts going through my head.
*I love you father,* I thought silently, unable to say the words aloud. I had grown up in a world were such things were not said. But as I looked into his eyes as he waited for my response, I knew that he knew how I felt. I could see his love for me in his eyes.
"Not really." I said, downplaying my role as much as I could without being dishonest. "It only lasted as long as it did because he wanted it to."
He shook his head. "No. It didn't." He moved to sit on Marcel's bed, so that he could lean closer to me. "I already spoke with Derhan. He told me that he had held nothing back during the fight. He had done his best to beat you, but it took a tiny patch of sweat on the ground to give him the opportunity to win. And even then, he told me he could barely put much strength in his blow."
I looked at my father in amazement. Could he be serious? Or was Derhan simply being overgenerous. "I find it hard to believe. Any harder, and he would have knocked me out."
"That's what he tried to do! Here, let me show you." He went back to the desk and rewound the recording to the point he wanted to explain. He started it in slow motion, right at the moment I planted my feet for my abortive spin. "Here, watch where you put your foot." The tape played back slowly. My foot came down right on a glimmering patch of liquid. My knee buckled, and I fell. Derhan face lost it's emotionless mask for a moment and I saw the surprise written clearly on his features. "See. He wasn't even able to move until you slipped. He was so surprised by it that it took him a few seconds to recover and strike back."
He moved the tape forward a few frames and zoomed in an Derhan. "Watch how he shifts his weight. He put as much of his strength as he could into this blow."
The tape moved slowly through the frames, showing me what I had missed during the match. Derhan had hit me as hard as he had been able to that final time. He had fully expected me to be knocked unconscious. He had placed the point of his pike at my throat not only because it was the ritual ending of the match, but because he feared that I would get up and continue the fight!
It was a startling revelation. Derhan was the greatest Minbari warrior in several centuries. No one had been able to beat him in more than 40 cycles. And today, in a sparring match I had thought of as an excuse for him to get some painful points across to the students through my body, he had come within millimeters of losing. If my foot had landed five millimeters to either side of the patch of sweat, my blow would have landed and I would have won.
I just sat there for a few minutes, letting all the implications set in. "This is . . . this is amazing!" I said when I could finally speak. "How did I do that?"
My father laughed loudly. "I have no clue, son. Neither does Derhan. He's gone over the tape several times. He did nothing different than he ever has, yet you beat him. You saw through all his feints, you caught on to all his tricks, and you were able to take his hardest blows without staying down. I'm proud of you, David. And when I show this tape to your mother, she'll be just as proud as I am." He snickered gently for a moment. "But I don't think either of us are as proud of you as Derhan is. One of his students has finally beaten him. He has waited for this moment for 30 cycles. He wants you excused from his classes as a student and wants you to be installed as a tutor for the others."
"And after watching your fight against him, and the incident in the mess hall, I agree with him." He shook his head ruefully. "Consider it official. Starting two days from now, you are no longer enrolled in any of the combat classes. You will be helping to teach them."
"I don't know what to say." I was nearly overcome with my love for him. "I don't know if I deserve this. There are others in the class better than me."
"Yes. There are." he said. It was not the reaction I had expected, but who was I to complain? "And don't think Derhan doesn't know it either. Take your friend, what's his name? The big one with the blank face?"
"Marcel." I supplied eagerly.
"Yes. Marcel. He's the one that was found on that planet on the Rim, wasn't he? He was living with those strange aliens and the computers?"
"That's him." I agreed.
My father leaned close enough to whisper in my ear. "I've seen that set up. It was more advanced that anything else I've ever seen. The only time I ever saw anything that advanced that wasn't Vorlon or Shadow in nature was the Technomages."
I nearly jumped out of bed. "Are you saying that you think Marcel is a Technomage?"
He shook his head. "Him, no. At least, not yet. But I do think whoever setup that little habitat of his was. Hell, he's probably the son of a Technomage or two. No one's really sure how they get more since they refuse contact with all the other races."
He cleared his throat and leaned back. "Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes. You won't be the only one excused from the classes. Your big friend, Marcel and two others are also getting cut free."
"At least I won't be the only one." I muttered loudly enough for him to hear. "That way, people won't be able to say it's only because of you and mother, right?" I asked.
"Partly." he admitted, his gaze sliding away from mine for a moment. "The universe is still an ugly place. It will always be an ugly place. Until everyone agrees to make it beautiful." His eyes looked deeply into mine and I held my breath. "I don't have much time left. It's your turn to try and make them see that. To make them understand. People like Lucas need to be shown the way. Sometimes you'll have to use force to make them even consider what you're saying. Sometimes, words will be enough. And when words and force aren't enough, you'll need to come up with something else."
I tried to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat. "Do you know . . . how long?" I asked, licking my lips. My stomach was doing aerobics.
He looked away from me again, his eyes brimming with tears. When he answered, his voice was even more craggy than usual. "No. At best guess, maybe a year and half."
I couldn't keep the tears from falling anymore. All my pent up grief and anger flowed out of my eyes. It wasn't fair that my father had lived the last twenty years knowing when he was going to die.
My father sat down beside me and threw an arm over my shoulder. He let me cry for a while, tears streaming down his own face. After I got control of myself, I hugged him as hard as I could.
"Don't be upset, David. I had to go sometime." he said, trying and failing to cheer me up. "It's been a good run, David. Hell, it's longer than I ever expected to live. Half the time, I didn't know if I'd live through the day." We both knew that he didn't believe that himself.
"Does Mother know?" I asked.
"Yes." He seemed to be far away for a moment. "We made our peace with this a long time ago. You'll have to find your own way to deal with it. I just wish . . . I wish that I could be there to see you as a man. To see you live your life. To watch you grow and find a family of your own."
"So do I, " I whispered to him. "So do I."
He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I've got to change." He reached into a hidden pocket and pulled out a data crystal. "This is a message from your mother. She explains everything. We'll watch it when I get back."
I awoke back in my own bed. My head hurt and I wondered if I had another concussion. I looked around but the others were gone. Seated at the desk, watching the recording of my spar with Derhan, was Enthil'za. My father.
I sat up and studied him for a while. A smile crossed my face as I watched him. He was in his early sixties now, but he was still in excellent shape. He had served as president of the Interstellar Alliance for 18 years before refusing to run this year. He had felt that he had done all he could as president and had found another way to serve the Alliance by becoming the leader of the Rangers. Upon his refusal for re-election, the Alliance had chosen to elect my mother.
I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn't support me. My father heard me groan and turned in the chair so that he could face me.
"Isthil'za veni, In Valen's name, Enthil'za." I said again.
He grinned, his teeth flashing behind his stubbly gray beard. "No need to be so formal, David. It's just the two of us in here."
I matched his grin with one of my own. "But how we act alone should be no different than how we act with others. Just because there is no one around, does not mean I should be rude or deny my training."
He laughed. "You sound more like your mother every time I see you. Perhaps letting you come here was a mistake."
Now I laughed. "You and I both know that this is were I belong, Father."
He sighed. "I know, I know. That's what your mother keeps telling me." He grinned easily. "Can I help it if I worry? I just want you to be safe. I did the best job I could to make the universe safe for you, but there are still a lot of problems out there. And Ranger service isn't exactly the safest thing to do with your life."
"I know. But it is what I want to do. The people here, well most of them anyway, don't care who I am. After the first few days, they stopped peppering -did I use that right? Yes. Good. They stopped peppering me with questions about you and mother and the others. Then there were the questions I really hated." I put a vapid expression on my face and asked in a high voice. " 'How does it feel to be the son of John and Delenn Sheridan?', 'What's it like to be the son of such powerful and well known people?', and there was always the most embarrassing and stupid question: 'Exactly how human are you and your mother?'. Sometimes, I would almost be physically ill." I rolled my eyes. "What kind of person ASKS questions like that?"
He rubbed his eyes wearily. When he finally looked back at me, there was a look of such sadness on his face, I almost cried. "Has it really been that bad for you, David? We tried to shield you from the worst of it, but we knew that one day you would leave and you would learn."
I thought for a moment. It would be easy to blame my parents for the problems I had encountered. But it would be wrong. It was not their fault how others thought of them or of me. They had done what they had thought was right. And they had been right. They had told me everything, not willing to hide the truth from me. My mother said she had had of enough hiding things from my father. She had vowed, when she held me for the first time, that she would answer any question I asked to the best of her abilities and would hide no details from me.
She had explained her role in the Earth-Minbari war, as well as all her reasons for entering the chrysalis. She told me about the time jumps and about who Valen had been. She explained about hiding the fact that father's old wife had not died, as he had thought. She told me how hurt and lost she had felt when she thought Dad had died on Zha'ha'dum.
The worst thing they had ever told me was that my father would die before my 19th birthday. They had explained about how Lorien had saved him on Zha'ha'dum, and how he had later brought him back again when the vorlon had tried to kill him. I was thirteen the day I learned that my father was going to die. I had promised myself to be with him when he went. To let him know what he meant to me and to spend as much time with him as I could, because I knew there wasn't much time left.
As he sat there, I realized that if my training went according to plan, this might be the last chance I had to see him. He had less than two years left before he 'stopped'.
"I just finished watching your match against Derhan. You did very well." he said, completely unaware of the thoughts going through my head.
*I love you father,* I thought silently, unable to say the words aloud. I had grown up in a world were such things were not said. But as I looked into his eyes as he waited for my response, I knew that he knew how I felt. I could see his love for me in his eyes.
"Not really." I said, downplaying my role as much as I could without being dishonest. "It only lasted as long as it did because he wanted it to."
He shook his head. "No. It didn't." He moved to sit on Marcel's bed, so that he could lean closer to me. "I already spoke with Derhan. He told me that he had held nothing back during the fight. He had done his best to beat you, but it took a tiny patch of sweat on the ground to give him the opportunity to win. And even then, he told me he could barely put much strength in his blow."
I looked at my father in amazement. Could he be serious? Or was Derhan simply being overgenerous. "I find it hard to believe. Any harder, and he would have knocked me out."
"That's what he tried to do! Here, let me show you." He went back to the desk and rewound the recording to the point he wanted to explain. He started it in slow motion, right at the moment I planted my feet for my abortive spin. "Here, watch where you put your foot." The tape played back slowly. My foot came down right on a glimmering patch of liquid. My knee buckled, and I fell. Derhan face lost it's emotionless mask for a moment and I saw the surprise written clearly on his features. "See. He wasn't even able to move until you slipped. He was so surprised by it that it took him a few seconds to recover and strike back."
He moved the tape forward a few frames and zoomed in an Derhan. "Watch how he shifts his weight. He put as much of his strength as he could into this blow."
The tape moved slowly through the frames, showing me what I had missed during the match. Derhan had hit me as hard as he had been able to that final time. He had fully expected me to be knocked unconscious. He had placed the point of his pike at my throat not only because it was the ritual ending of the match, but because he feared that I would get up and continue the fight!
It was a startling revelation. Derhan was the greatest Minbari warrior in several centuries. No one had been able to beat him in more than 40 cycles. And today, in a sparring match I had thought of as an excuse for him to get some painful points across to the students through my body, he had come within millimeters of losing. If my foot had landed five millimeters to either side of the patch of sweat, my blow would have landed and I would have won.
I just sat there for a few minutes, letting all the implications set in. "This is . . . this is amazing!" I said when I could finally speak. "How did I do that?"
My father laughed loudly. "I have no clue, son. Neither does Derhan. He's gone over the tape several times. He did nothing different than he ever has, yet you beat him. You saw through all his feints, you caught on to all his tricks, and you were able to take his hardest blows without staying down. I'm proud of you, David. And when I show this tape to your mother, she'll be just as proud as I am." He snickered gently for a moment. "But I don't think either of us are as proud of you as Derhan is. One of his students has finally beaten him. He has waited for this moment for 30 cycles. He wants you excused from his classes as a student and wants you to be installed as a tutor for the others."
"And after watching your fight against him, and the incident in the mess hall, I agree with him." He shook his head ruefully. "Consider it official. Starting two days from now, you are no longer enrolled in any of the combat classes. You will be helping to teach them."
"I don't know what to say." I was nearly overcome with my love for him. "I don't know if I deserve this. There are others in the class better than me."
"Yes. There are." he said. It was not the reaction I had expected, but who was I to complain? "And don't think Derhan doesn't know it either. Take your friend, what's his name? The big one with the blank face?"
"Marcel." I supplied eagerly.
"Yes. Marcel. He's the one that was found on that planet on the Rim, wasn't he? He was living with those strange aliens and the computers?"
"That's him." I agreed.
My father leaned close enough to whisper in my ear. "I've seen that set up. It was more advanced that anything else I've ever seen. The only time I ever saw anything that advanced that wasn't Vorlon or Shadow in nature was the Technomages."
I nearly jumped out of bed. "Are you saying that you think Marcel is a Technomage?"
He shook his head. "Him, no. At least, not yet. But I do think whoever setup that little habitat of his was. Hell, he's probably the son of a Technomage or two. No one's really sure how they get more since they refuse contact with all the other races."
He cleared his throat and leaned back. "Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes. You won't be the only one excused from the classes. Your big friend, Marcel and two others are also getting cut free."
"At least I won't be the only one." I muttered loudly enough for him to hear. "That way, people won't be able to say it's only because of you and mother, right?" I asked.
"Partly." he admitted, his gaze sliding away from mine for a moment. "The universe is still an ugly place. It will always be an ugly place. Until everyone agrees to make it beautiful." His eyes looked deeply into mine and I held my breath. "I don't have much time left. It's your turn to try and make them see that. To make them understand. People like Lucas need to be shown the way. Sometimes you'll have to use force to make them even consider what you're saying. Sometimes, words will be enough. And when words and force aren't enough, you'll need to come up with something else."
I tried to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat. "Do you know . . . how long?" I asked, licking my lips. My stomach was doing aerobics.
He looked away from me again, his eyes brimming with tears. When he answered, his voice was even more craggy than usual. "No. At best guess, maybe a year and half."
I couldn't keep the tears from falling anymore. All my pent up grief and anger flowed out of my eyes. It wasn't fair that my father had lived the last twenty years knowing when he was going to die.
My father sat down beside me and threw an arm over my shoulder. He let me cry for a while, tears streaming down his own face. After I got control of myself, I hugged him as hard as I could.
"Don't be upset, David. I had to go sometime." he said, trying and failing to cheer me up. "It's been a good run, David. Hell, it's longer than I ever expected to live. Half the time, I didn't know if I'd live through the day." We both knew that he didn't believe that himself.
"Does Mother know?" I asked.
"Yes." He seemed to be far away for a moment. "We made our peace with this a long time ago. You'll have to find your own way to deal with it. I just wish . . . I wish that I could be there to see you as a man. To see you live your life. To watch you grow and find a family of your own."
"So do I, " I whispered to him. "So do I."
He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I've got to change." He reached into a hidden pocket and pulled out a data crystal. "This is a message from your mother. She explains everything. We'll watch it when I get back."
