Dalshon

Chapter 22

"You're awake. Good." Bester smiled. He was sitting on the edge of his desk.

From outside the building, there was a sound like a football stadium.

Sheridan went to rub his eyes and his hand stopped moving. He blinked and looked down. His arms were tied to the chair. "Mm? What the hell is this?"

"I know, I know. You came here for my help. You also asked me not to let you leave. If you'll recall."

"Right."

"You realize you've put me in an awkward position," Bester said.

"What would you call this?" Sheridan griped, wriggling his arms.

The crowd noise outside was developing into a chant. "No more Psi Corps, No more Psi Corps." There were sounds of breaking glass and the crump of Molotov cocktails going off.

"I've been taking a peek inside your mind, while you were unconscious. You have some very dark places in there. Also some very bright ones, alien, things I don't really understand. Vorlon, I presume?"

That would explain the terrible headache, Sheridan thought.

"Can you break it?"

"What, your mind? Easily. But I don't—Ah. Of course. Can I break the loribond. No. No one can do that, President Sheridan."

From somewhere up above—above? – there was an alarm going off.

"Never mind all that," said Bester. "The rioting will be contained shortly. The mob mind is easily influenced. As long as they don't have a strong leader to rally around, they'll never get inside."

"Now that you know…"

"We must be able to do something?" Bester finished Sheridan's thought. "If you were someone else, I suppose I could keep you here indefinitely, to prevent the assassination. But you're not someone else, and holding you is dangerous. For me personally, for the Corps, and for Earth."

'But it's all in my mind,' Sheridan thought.

"No, it isn't," Bester said ruefully, getting up and walking around behind his desk, where he could look at a monitor. There were no windows in here. They were underground.

Bester continued in a distracted voice, "The loribond is physical. It's not in your mind, it's in every cell of your body. People have tried to get rid of it. Both humans and Minbari. Once it's fused to your mitochondria, you can't get the shisep out of your body cells without killing them."

He turned off the monitor. "And now I think I really should go take care of something."

"Wait," said Sheridan. "I can't—"

'Can't tell anyone,' Sheridan thought at Bester. 'But you can. Tell Delenn.'

"Somehow, calling up Delenn in her command ship in the Whitestar Fleet and telling her I've got you tied up in Psi Corps's basement and that I found some interesting secrets in your mind is just not very appealing."

There were thumps on the ceiling, and yelling sounds.

Bester said, "I'll be back soon. Then we'll figure out what to do with you."

Bester left. The sounds from outside the building turned from chanting to screaming and the rattatat of gunfire. Now there was yelling in the hallway. The door opened.

It was Sheridan's bodyguard, the Ranger. Behind him was a young woman carrying a placard that said Teeps Go Home, and an elderly man with a Freedom For Telepaths, Down with the Corpse sign. Between them the unlikely allies were carrying an unconscious Psi Cop—not Bester—whom they tossed to one side in the office.

Also following the Ranger were a man with a rock in his hand, another man wearing Remember Byron shirt, and an ISN cameraman.

"Oh, no," Sheridan said.

A woman ransacked the desk and came out with a pair of scissors. "It's Bastille Day!" she shrieked at the camera, and started cutting Sheridan loose.

"No, no," Sheridan said. "I'm here voluntarily. I'm here to get help."

The woman ignored him as she cut the other hand free.

"No," Sheridan protested. "I'm here to get the help I need to—to become a productive citizen—I'm sorry— apologize to Earth and—my— my family-- "

That was coming out all wrong. Sheridan had started trying to explain about the loribond command, and it came out sounding like a Clarkist-style show-trial confession. The formula was too close to the surface of his mind, the associations brought up by being here on Mars, like this.

Wait, maybe he could use that. Let the style carry him along. "Wrong— to attack the Earth President—help me—get the help I need—"

There, it was almost out! He had almost managed to say it!

The woman finished cutting him free and the Ranger helped him to his feet. "Let's get you out of here, sir."

His sense of triumph vanished as he realized who he had said it to. That was all going out on ISN.

The Ranger hustled him out of the office, got him into a staircase and locked it behind them, sealing out the protestors and reporters. "They can take the elevator," he said. "It's just up one level to parking garage, we can commandeer a transport. Are you alright, sir?"

"Fine, fine. Did you lead the attack on the building?"

"No, sir, that was the alien."

"What alien?"

"I'm not sure, sir, I've never seen his kind before. He's not an Alliance race, I'm sure of that. We study them all in Anla'shok training."

They got into a groundcar, which the Ranger hotwired. He ran the engine loudly and headed for the exit of the garage, but a big track-wheeled garbage truck ground across the exit.

The Ranger started to turn around, but the garbage truck driver shot out the groundcar's tire. "Cor! Stay where you are!"

Then someone in a cloak and hood opened the door and got in beside Sheridan. "Drive. That way."

"The tire—" said the human Ranger.

"The groundcar will still move, do you care if you ruin it?"

The Ranger drove in the indicated direction. It was not a marked exit, but an orange plastic fence across a construction zone. He flattened it, and the groundcar stuck.

"Out. Come on, the Drakh will kill us both." The hooded man led the way down an alley, around the riot, and out into a relatively quiet street. He pulled down his hood.

"Lennier!" shouted Sheridan.

"Loridano."

"Oh, thank God." Sheridan sagged to his knees in the street.

"I apologize profoundly," Lennier said. "The Drakh—never mind. It's not important what tricks and threats they used."

"It's over. It's over," Sheridan said.

"You still have to get out of here," Lennier said. "The Drakh aren't even after you, they're here for me. I got away from them. But now they've seen you. You have to leave."

"He's right," said the Ranger. "Come on, sir."

Sheridan stood up. He looked Lennier in the eye, and seemed about to say something. But then they heard the crowd scream a block away. Sheridan took off running, the human Ranger right behind him. Lennier ran the other way.

End of chapter 22