Уильямс Гарэт Д. - Темное, кривое зеркало. Том 5 : Средь звезд, подобно гигантам. стр 172.

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And then you will never need to change 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.

This Sinoval would be no different. He had power, yes, and, unusually, he had power both spiritual and temporal, and he wielded authority among too many. He was intelligent and quick, and possessed of devious cunning.

But he was playing games with those who had been masters of the game since time immemorial, and eventually he would lose. He was mortal after all, and mortality carried within it a flaw as basic as the need for breath or nourishment or love.

Some were flawed in many different ways, or by many different means, but all possessed at least one flaw. Some few - the blessed, or the fortunate, or the particularly virtuous - were permitted to transcend, and that flaw was removed. Some few were made perfect.

Sebastian had knelt, glorying in the holiness of the Lights Cardinal, and he had heard Their plans to render the entire galaxy perfect, as he had been rendered perfect, and he had wept with joy and exultation at such an existence.

But first, there was one matter to deal with. One little matter, and that was all he was. No matter how great or noble or heroic he thought himself, Sinoval was only a small concern in the grand scheme of things.

"Primarch Sinoval, I presume?" Sebastian said, standing over the body of his opponent.

* * *
you will obey us

* * *

She had told G'Kar though, not long before he had left for Narn. He had looked surprised, and then confessed he had felt exactly the same way.

And, in common with G'Kar, she regretted the lack of a past here. Kazomi 7 reminded them all with every step what the Alliance was for. No one could look at these stones bathed in blood and not be chastened and touched. Kazomi 7 was built on the blood of the innocent and the memories of the survivors.

Babylon 5 was new, far away from Kazomi 7 - in a central position at the heart of numerous trade routes, but still far from the people the Alliance was meant to represent.

Perhaps if it had existed sooner, if it had known battle and fear and death and glorious defiance as Kazomi 7 had done, then maybe it could have been the emotional centre it so desired to be.

If the station survived this onslaught, perhaps it might yet become that, and the Alliance might be strengthened by it, but Delenn doubted that very much.

The Alliance was dying, perhaps even dead. The thin, hairline cracks she had seen during the past few years had grown into mammoth fissures. Any attempt to heal them could be no more than plasters to a man missing all his limbs.

But she was a healer. She had discovered that for herself. She was a healer, and she would heal.

She would at least try.

Fortunately there were others who felt as she did. G'Kar, Lethke, Kats, David.... she tried to think of other names but faltered. Surely there were others, or had the entire Alliance become filled with warriors or cynics or opportunists? Had the good men and women become so filled with bitterness that they no longer saw even the possibility of victory without bloodshed?

She missed Lyta - but Lyta was gone, defected to join Sinoval, or so it was said. Delenn could not even find the mind of the woman who had been her closest friend.

She missed Londo, but he was close to death, burdened by his own problems and his own illhealth. She could have acted sooner to help him, to save him, but she had preferred the good of the whole Alliance over the good of one friend, or one friend's people. Just another paperthin crack that had become a chasm.

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