To Dream in the City of Sorrows by Babylon 5 Read Free Book Online Page B

read the lengthy article, growing steadily more uneasy at the tone of hysteria, bigotry, and isolationism that pervaded both the President’s speech and the article itself. But he was totally unprepared for what he found when he turned to the back page to finish, and saw a sidebar article regarding himself.
    “‘AMBASSADOR’ OR CARPETBAGGER?” read the headline. What followed was an interview with Senator Balakirov in which the opposition leader launched a vitriolic attack on Sinclair, variously implying and stating that he had gone to Minbar under dubious authority, sent by President Clark only on the insistence of the Minbari, to function solely as a “goodwill Ambassador and fact-finder” to precede possibly setting up an official embassy. Now Balakirov questioned if Sinclair had “gone native and perhaps even turned traitor” and was attempting to “build a power base or reap some financial gain” perhaps with the “collusion” of the Minbari government. These charges were ambiguously and lukewarmly denied by presidential aides in explanations that only served to further confuse the issue. In “defending” his character as a war hero, the aides were careful to underscore the time he spent as a Minbari prisoner.
    Sinclair crumpled the paper and tossed it aside. He had agreed, against his deepest instincts as a soldier, to accept this diplomatic post in the hope he might be able to help turn Earth and Minbar away from a dangerous militarism and xenophobia he had perceived growing on both worlds, attitudes that could threaten the cooperation between them that until now had kept the peace among many different worlds.
    But now there was no denying that his appointment as ambassador was a sham, designed by Earth Central both to discredit the Minbari and keep him from pursuing any further investigation into the assassination of President Santiago.
    What the Minbari had in mind with his appointment, he still didn’t know. But it no longer really mattered. He couldn’t do any good here without support from Earth, and he couldn’t just sit here and do nothing while his planet slid into hysteria, authoritarianism, or worse. He would go to Babylon 5 first. He needed to talk with Delenn, and he knew the new commander, Captain Sheridan, and believed he could trust him.
    Sinclair canceled all the rest of his appointments for the day, wrote up a resignation letter, sealed it, gave it to Venak to give to Rathenn, then returned to his quarters.
    Sinclair went immediately into the bedroom to start packing the few things he had been able to bring with him. Preoccupied as he was, it took a minute for him to realize that his bed was back to a forty-five-degree angle. In spite of everything, he went over to it and stared. He looked under the bed and examined the mechanism. They had replaced his bed, probably deciding the old one had been broken.
    Sinclair shook his head and went back to packing. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to be there much longer anyway.

C HAPTER 5
    EARTH survey ship Skydancer skimmed swiftly through the upper troposphere of Planet UTC43-02C, code name Fensalir. Its onboard surveying instruments sampled the thick radioactive atmosphere that blanketed the remote, desolate world. Then its pilot, Catherine Sakai, brought the small craft into a higher orbit.
    “Computer. Launch UTC Mineralogical probe 02C-2 and UTC Environmental probe 02C-2 on my mark. Mark launch.”
    Skydancer shuddered slightly as the lander probe blasted toward the planet surface, then again twenty seconds later as the atmospheric satellite launched into its own preset orbit.
    “Receiving data stream from 02C-2,” the computer announced. “Nominal functioning.” It would be an hour before she would hear if her second ground probe was functioning as it should, but Sakai felt certain it would only confirm the data from the first lander probe she had launched several hours earlier to a different site. She could mark this one down