The Royal Court, in its traditional manner, was keeping Morella’s death a secret for the moment, but as Londo was acting First Minister in the wake of Urza’s assassination – sorry, accident – he could hardly be kept in the dark about this, especially when he stormed into the Court and demanded to know what was happening. Emperor Marrit and that quadruple-damned Lady Elrisia had tried to play down the affair, but Londo had put on his best loyalty persona and had uncovered the truth.

Lady Morella had been murdered in her bed last night, quite unpleasantly. There had been a lot of blood, and quite some mess. Apparently the serving maid who found the body had fainted with shock, and then conveniently killed herself from grief.

A human had been discovered sneaking around the palace shortly after the discovery and had promptly been arrested and detained. Londo had thought it preferable he meet this human before an accident or suicide befell him also. Murder investigations were always so much simpler when all the suspects were still alive and able to answer questions. It did help quite a bit.

As he walked towards the dungeons, he pondered a few things. Morella had been a seeress, and by all rumour a powerful one. All Centauri had some degree of prophetic ability – notably the ability to see their own deaths. Londo still remembered the vision of his death, being strangled by G’Kar on the steps of the Imperial Throne. Had Morella experienced a similar vision? And if she had, surely she must have made preparations, perhaps left a message?

Or perhaps not. She was a seeress after all, and they tended to be confusing, oracular and ambiguous to a fault. If she had left a message it would probably be something along the lines of ‘the rose blooms best at night’, or similar gibberish. She might as well have been a Vorlon.

He reached the cell which held the human prisoner, and stopped. The guard opened the door, and Londo handed him a purse of ducats. The guard nodded and stepped aside, as Londo entered the cell.

The human did not look in particularly fine form. He had been beaten quite a bit – resisting arrest, as the popular excuse went – and there was fatigue in his bearing. Nevertheless, he stood up as Londo entered.

“Ah,” he said. “You must be Minister Mollari. A pleasure to meet you.”

“And who are you then?” Londo asked.

“Funny. That’s just what I was going to ask you, Minister.”

Londo paused. Perhaps the guards had beaten him a little too badly. He didn’t sound very mentally stable. A pity. These humans could be so fragile at times.

“Oh no,” the prisoner said. “I’m quite sane, believe me.”

“Sane enough to murder a noble lady. Now if it had been Elrisia, that might be understandable, but Lady Morella…”

“I didn’t do it.”

“No, I suppose you were wandering around the Royal Palace for the good of your health, yes? Taking in the water and the sights.”

“Actually I’m here on business. I’m a… trader of sorts.”

“Are you? And what might your name be, Mr. Trader?”

He smiled. “Morden.”

Alfred Bester subscribed to a great many sayings. He believed in ancient wisdom, and the classic methods of doing things. Efficiency, clear thinking, forward planning and extensive preparations were never old fashioned.

The first rule he held dear was the simplest of all: ‘Know Thine Enemy’.

No one could ever accuse Bester of having small dreams. He wanted everything. Cursed from birth with a useless hand, cursed in adolescence by his lack of height, cursed with an ability that no one understood and everyone feared, Bester had had only his ambition to maintain him. His ambition and his superiority.

Others looked down on telepaths, scorned them, hated them, pushed them aside into a big, black box called Psi Corps and left them to rot there. Bester was not the first to realise the truth about telepaths, but he was one of the first to take advantage of another old saying:

‘One man’s curse is another man’s blessing.’

Telepathy was a gift, not a curse. It was a valuable resource, to be harvested and cropped and protected. Telepaths were the strong, the gifted, the blessed, the inheritors of the future. And he would be their harvester.

Bester’s own powers of telepathy had been strong, very strong. Rated at P12, he was quickly inducted into the Psi Cops, the best of the best. He soon grasped at the power – both personal and political – such a position gave him. So what if he was still not free, and so what if he had to marry whoever the Corps told him to, and follow the Corps’ rules? He was patient. He could wait.

And with the Corps gone, he was now the sole inheritor of all their knowledge and power, all of it invested here, in the place simply called Sanctuary.

He alone knew the secrets that were supposed to have died with the Corps. He knew of the Lazarus Project, and the Control Programme. He knew the secrets of Bureau 13, and the Star Chamber, and Interplanetary Expeditions.

There was yet another saying: ‘Knowledge is Power’.

Bester was not much of a military man. He preferred to operate behind the scenes and let other people’s hands get dirty. Events would force him to change that stance soon enough, but he would be ready when they did. Meanwhile, he was content to sit back, and wait and learn, and amass knowledge. Although military matters were not his forte, he had read the words of Sun Tzu, acknowledged greatest strategist of all time. There was one very valid piece of advice in those words.

‘He who knows neither his enemy nor himself will not win in a hundred battles. He who knows himself but not his enemy will only win fifty of those battles. He who knows both his enemy and himself will not lose in a hundred battles.’

Bester intended never to lose even once, but he also knew that sometimes a loss was merely victory in other clothes.

He looked up, feeling the emotions of the four people outside his door, and he smiled. Most telepaths needed line of sight to make a scan, and so did he, but he could still pick up the background hum of stray thoughts even through a door, or a wall.

There was Michael Garibaldi, as loyal and as fearless as ever. Bester wondered how his wife Lianna was doing. There should only be a few months of her pregnancy left by now.

There was Commander David Corwin, loyal and… Bester sighed. That was annoying. He was practising those strange techniques to block telepathic scans. They seemed Minbari in nature, and that was not very surprising, really. Another telepath might be confused, but to Bester it was as effective as a paper wall would be against a battering ram. Still, it was annoying.

Then there was Satai Delenn. Her own mental walls were much weaker, which was surprising. He could sense a residual undercurrent of pain. Yes, he’d been expecting that. The sooner he had details of the exact nature of her change, the better.

And then there was Captain John Sheridan, the Starkiller.

“Door,” he said, and it opened. Garibaldi was the first in, of course, but behind him was…

“Captain Sheridan,” Bester said. “It is good to see you again. I’ve been… looking forward to another meeting for quite some time now.”

“Where… is… she?”

Susan Ivanova sighed, and sat back. Marcus had grown very repetitive lately. It was annoying.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you it wasn’t polite to talk about another woman when you’re with someone?”

He was angry, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Oh, he could have attacked her, but that wouldn’t have done either of them any good. It wouldn’t have got him any nearer to finding his beloved telepath, and she would have hated to have damaged him at all.

Besides, he wouldn’t attack her. He couldn’t bring himself to hurt a woman. In some ways Marcus was like a knight of old – pure, noble, kind, virtuous…