BABYLON 5: THE VIRTUAL SIXTH SEASON
"THE PRICE OF FREEDOM"
Episode 1
BLACK KNIGHT RISING
Elizabeth Anne Lochley had never considered herself a morning person. She didn't hate mornings, but she wasn't a bound-out-of-bed-with-the-sun enthusiast for them, either. Space duty only exacerbated her ambiguity about the whole concept: there was seldom any overt conflict between her set hours and the stimulus of sunlight and nightfall, but the absence of those referents made her feel oddly dislocated. The sunrises over Epsilon 3 were glorious but did nothing to reestablish her sense of day and night.
There was, however, one thing that she looked forward to every morning: her hot water shower. She'd become used to vibe showers - every spacer had to -- but she would never like them. Vibe showers worked, and were pleasant enough, but after a while the tingling sensations produced by the sonics just irritated the hell out of you. And there was something fundamentally soul-refreshing about a steady stream of hot water. She leaned into the flow now, breathing the steamy air, relishing the waves of heat over her body. Foam streamed down around her as she rinsed the shampoo from her hair. She soaped and scrubbed herself vigourously, lathered and rinsed, then let herself soak in the stream, just a few more seconds.
{{Come on, Lizzie, don't waste the hot water. Duty awaits.}} With a sigh, she shut off the water, grabbed the towel from where it was flung over the translucent cubicle wall and began drying her hair. Her mind on the day ahead of her, she kicked the shower door open and stepped out into the steamy air of the bathroom.
"Hello!" boomed a deep male voice.
Lochley shrieked. She absolutely couldn't help it. The flush that burst over her was only partly fury and embarrassment; some of it was pure chagrin at having resorted to that most brainless of sounds, the stereotypical feminine shriek. She fell back against the sink, one arm instantly jumping across her chest, the other covering her groin. In the centre of the bathroom, the golden-robed, middle-aged Minbari who stood there grinned broadly at her with every appearance of enjoyment.
"Security!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, before she remembered that she'd left her PPG and her link by her bedside, her robe was on the other side of the room, behind the Minbari, and she couldn't have spared the hands to use them anyway.
The Minbari only chuckled. "Please, my dear, there's no need for that." That did it. Without hesitation, forgetting embarrassment and confusion, Lochley lunged at the intruder, driving her fist straight at the infuriating grin.
The blow passed through him without meeting any resistance. Thrown off balance, Lochley stumbled through the intruder - there was a brief flash of golden light - and then she was on the other side, behind him. He had only just begun to turn when she shot out her heel in a scything back kick. That passed through him too, with no more effect than the other impacts. Lochley finished the spin and fell into a defensive crouch, more out of reflex than out of the belief it would do any good.
"Who the hell are you?" she panted. "What are you?"
"Somewhat illusionary, as you see." The Minbari gestured to himself. "I am Draal. I am the Guardian of the Machine. And I am going to the other room." With great majesty, the Minbari - Draal? - turned and walked out of the bathroom... straight through the wall.
Lochley stared after him. Abruptly there was another flicker of light and Draal's head leaned back in. "Please feel free to join me when you feel comfortable doing so... I believe that is your robe?" He nodded at the crumpled garment at her feet and ducked back through the wall.
Lochley bent down, grabbed her robe and put it on, fighting the temptation to climb back into the shower and just stay there all day. {{Just when I thought this place was going to settle down a bit. God help me.}} Glowering, she knotted the robe's belt tightly and stalked out into her living quarters.
Draal sat on the couch, running his hand over the fabric, looking curious. Where his palm touched the couch more flickers of light rippled around his skin. If this was a hologram, or projection, it was orders of magnitude more sophisticated than she had ever seen. At her entrance, he looked up and smiled. "Ah. Captain Lochley."
Rather annoyingly, Lochley felt her fury begin to drain away a little. She couldn't help it: that smile was a ridiculously winning combination of power, joy, and honest contrition.
"My apologies for the abrupt introduction," Draal went on. "But I have found that I like to surprise people. In surprise, we see people for who they are, with all their masks off, their defenses down. I wished to see the true you - the you that knows her fear and masters it, who reacts at full capability to threat, who knows when fighting is productive and abandons it when it is not."
"Did you now." Lochley narrowed her eyes. Flattery was cheap; she had never trusted it. "It never occurred to you that I might like the same advantage?"
"Oh, of course, but Rome was not burnt in a day, as you Humans say." Before Lochley could correct him Draal rose and strode towards her, robes flowing. "Still, we begin where we begin, and so I should. You are aware, of course, of the classified alien presence on Epsilon 3."
"Earthforce briefed me before my assignment here, yes." She frowned at him. "You?"
"Only in part. No, I am as you see me, a Minbari of humble origin and little talent." Draal bowed sweepingly. "The Machine which I serve is centuries older, built to maintain the continuum we know as history. The particular crisis foreseen is past. But there will be others. And to that end, I thought it was time that we got to know each other."
"The Machine." Belatedly, Lochley's brain began to function. She let herself drop onto one arm of the armchair. "Earthforce never did tell me what its purpose was - just its danger."
"They never knew its purpose," said Draal. "That secret was for those qualified to deal with it. Myself, and John Sheridan. Delenn of Mir. Captain Ivanova. The Ranger Marcus Cole." He sat back down on the couch and folded his hands. "And the man you knew as Jeffrey Sinclair."
Lochley stiffened. "You know what happened to Sinclair?"
"I do." Draal gave her a considering look. "But I am not sure yet that you are ready to hear it."
"You're not sure -- ?" Lochley glared at him. "Who the hell died and made you king of the planet?"
"Varn."
"What?"
"The previous Guardian of the Machine. Varn was his name. Dead now, for over four years." Draal gazed mournfully at the floor. "Now I serve the Machine. Whom do you serve, Captain Elizabeth Anne Lochley?" He lifted his eyes to her.
Something about the intensity of his regard stopped Lochley from ignoring the question as rhetorical. "Earthforce and the Earth Alliance," she said slowly, "in the person of the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
"Precisely." Draal pointed at her. "How great is your freedom to keep secrets, Captain? Where do your duties and your loyalties lie? When must honour give way to necessity? Until I know your answers to these questions I cannot tell you what you wish to know."
Lochley's mouth tightened. "In short, you're asking me to trust you to a degree that you're not prepared to trust me."
Draal scowled. "Captain Sheridan was not so suspicious when I revealed myself to him."
"I'm not Captain Sheridan." Really irritated now, Lochley stood up. "Captain Sheridan decided he had to sacrifice his oath of service and his career in Earthforce to a higher duty. Well and good; that's his prerogative. But that was then. This is now. I am not Sheridan, and I am not about to make the same decisions without compelling reasons. You want my trust? You earn it." Lochley folded her arms and glared at Draal. "Come back when you're prepared to level with me, Draal. Otherwise, get out."
Draal's eyebrows shot up in the surprised expression of someone who hadn't been snapped at or ordered about in a very long time. But before he could summon a response, a high-pitched electronic trill cut through the silence. It took Lochley a moment to realize what it was; then, in sheer reflex, she wheeled and plunged into the bedroom. She grabbed her link from the bedside table. "Lochley!" she snapped at it. "Go!"
"Captain?" It was Corwin, his voice grim and tight with more apprehension and anger than she'd heard in a long time. "I think you'd better meet me at your office as soon as possible. We have a problem."
"Acknowledged. I'll be there in ten." She closed down the link. "And you don't know the half of it, Lieutenant," she muttered to herself. Angrily she stalked back out into the living room. "Listen, Draal, I have to - "
She broke off. The Minbari was gone. But across the entire back wall of her quarters, four-foot-high letters glowed in golden light.
I WILL BE BACK
They lasted only long enough for her to read them. Then they faded from sight like mist in sunlight. Lochley shook her head, hoping the movement would clarify something. It didn't.
"Why do I get the feeling this is going to be one of those days?" she muttered.
******** 6:23 EST ********
Vir Cotto was not normally a rude man. Though somewhat less diffident than he had been, it was still, for the most part, a deliberate effort to be confrontational or ill-mannered unless he was genuinely angry. But for some things, there was simply no other response possible. Vir reared back and spat the mouthful of foul-tasting liquid onto the counter. The Abbai merchant who owned the stall jerked back with a yelp of surprise, anger and disgust.
"Brivare?" Vir wiped his mouth. "My friend, I'm sorry, but this - " he held up the dirty-green bottle from which he'd just swigged - "this, this is as much brivare as I am Lord-General Marrago! This tastes, well, it tastes like it was scooped from the sewage tank under the kHa'Ri's offices on the Narn homeworld!" He put the bottle down, grabbed a rag from the corner of the stall and wiped up the puddle of liquid. "Are you sure you spoke to the right merchants?"
The Abbai drew himself to his full height, the breathing bladders on the side of his neck swelling and pulsing with indignation. "I was promised the very best from the vinyards of House Tejuri, Ambassador!" he declaimed in a breathless tenor.
"Tejuri?" repeated Vir. "House Tejuri?" Helplessly, he began to laugh. "My friend, in the temple languages tejur is our word for, well, let's just say it's what our livestock usually leaves behind in the grazing fields." He shook his head and replaced the bottle where it had been, in a wooden rack of flasks and bottles to one side of the stall. "We've both been cheated, Kaborah. I suggest you be a little more careful dealing with Centauri smugglers."
Kaborah glared at him. "Perhaps I should be more careful dealing with Centauri in general, Ambassador. I risked much to obtain this for you."
Vir sighed. It would be a long time before the Centauri were trusted again in the eyes of the galaxy. Too many among the Leagueworlds and the Narn remembered the crushing Centauri boot. Even the Earth Alliance and the trading lines of the Worker Caste had suffered from the Regent's insane crusade, though nowhere near as badly. Perhaps Londo - he corrected himself mentally; perhaps Emperor Mollari had been correct to declare the Republic's isolation. The reparations and sanctions would make it nearly impossible to rebuild, of course . . . as well as severely limiting the availability of good brivare . . . but at least there could be no more temptations towards war.
Well, those were matters for another day. The Abbai remained before him. With a resigned exhalation he produced his credit chit. "For your efforts," he suggested. "Say, ten percent of the agreed-upon former price. As a, call it an advance? For a more successful trade?"
Kaborah looked as if he'd bitten something sour, but the chit in front of his face was too much temptation to resist. He snatched it, ran it through his reader and handed it back to Vir with a snort. "Talk to me in two weeks. I may have something for you."
Two weeks. Vir shook his head. Well, there were always the Human liquor shops . . . he was developing quite a taste for French brandy. It wasn't brivare, but it would do. He put his chit in his pocket and made as if to go, then turned. "Oh, er -- Kaborah?"
"Yes?" The Abbai gave a long suffering sigh.
Vir put one hand against the wooden rack of bottles and shoved. It went over with a mighty crash and splinter of wood, glass and liquid; most of the Abbai's stock disintegrated against the floor. Kaborah gave an outraged shriek and spun to face Vir --
THUNK.
Kaborah's movement stopped abruptly. His eyes crossed as he tried to focus on the knife quivering in the plastic support pole of his stall, just in front of him. Had he moved one step farther, the knife would have been in the side of his neck. For a moment, the clamour of DownBelow had died away. There was absolutely no sound.
Vir smiled. "You may not like me, Kaborah, but I am the Ambassador for the Centauri Republic. Try to cheat me again, or treat me as you did today, and you will regret it." He indicated the ruined wine-rack. "The ten percent I just paid you will easily cover replacing that garbage with a little to spare, so don't complain to me about your stock." He strode over to the stall, wrenched the knife free and held it up point first towards the Abbai's face. "Do we have an understanding?" Vir gave the merchant his sweetest smile.
Kaborah's mouth worked as if he wanted to curse Vir and every last one of his progeny, but the knife glittered in front of his eyes. What eventually emerged was a grudging but defeated, "Yes."
"Good." Vir turned and walked calmly away, whistling.
As he moved he tucked the knife up his sleeve with more relief than he dared let show. He'd only been practicing with it for a few months, and had actually been aiming behind Kaborah at the back of the stall; its impact on the post just in front of the merchant had been sheer luck. When Vir thought about how close he'd come to actually hitting Kaborah himself he felt a distinct urge to swallow.
Still, that look on the Abbai's face had been worth it. And the crowd was clearing to let him pass with a remarkably gratifying speed.
At the major bulkhead junction he hesitated, then decided to cut left. Usually he took a right back out to the lower maintenance levels and up into the Garden, but it was a roundabout route and he didn't have time today. He was exhausted; he'd been up all night in the course of the meeting he'd just finished, and was still working over its details. Between exhaustion and preoccupation, he paid no attention to the darkness of the corridor, or to the sudden quiet and stillness around him.
Then he bumped into something. "Excuse me," he said absently, and tried to step around the tall man in his path. The man moved in front of him. Irritated, Vir looked up. And up. And up.
The man was bald, dressed in torn denims, and had a gap or two in his distinctly dangerous smile. Vir blinked at him, wide-eyed. Slowly he backed away, then stopped as he finally began to pay attention to his senses. Carefully he looked around.
There were, he counted, five more of them. Three humans, one Drazi and one Brakiri. Several of them carried lengths of pipe or chain. No guns, thank the gods. Vir wondered frantically where in the Great Maker's name they had all come from but didn't waste much time on the thought.
He tried a smile. "Can I help you gentlemen?"
The leader grinned nastily. "Yeah, you can. Just hold still."
Vir looked puzzled. "Will that hurt less?"
The leader considered. "No, but it'll be over quicker." Without further speech, he stepped forwards and swung his crowbar at Vir's head.
Vir leaned neatly out of the way and caught the man's arm at wrist and elbow, then ducked, twisted and heaved. With a scream almost more surprised than agonized the leader hit the floor with a broken arm, his crowbar clattering away down the corridor. In sheer shock the others froze for a moment; by the time they recovered Vir was racing away down the passage. Then rage replaced astonishment. They howled and charged in pursuit.
From the shadows, a pair of reddish-violet eyes watched.
Lochley strode around the corner towards her office door and stopped as if she'd been hit in the face by a rake.
Corwin stood there. Beside him was a tall man with pale eyes, a hawkish face and close-trimmed dark blond hair. His fair complexion was set off by the black-on-black garb he wore: turtleneck, jacket, kid-leather gloves, sharply-creased trousers and gleaming black dress shoes. The bright bronze of the Psi Corps badge on his breast was the only colour in his uniform.
"Oh no." Belatedly, Lochley realized she'd said it aloud.
"Captain, this is Officer Colin Ferris of the Psi Corps Internal Police." Corwin stared at the wall with determined professionalism. "He's here to, er, well . . . he's . . . ." The lieutenant took a deep breath. "He's here to meet with you before taking up his post."
"Post?" said Lochley.
Ferris stepped forward with a polite cough. "What Lieutenant Corwin is clearly afraid to tell you," he said in a dry voice, "is that the Earth Alliance, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that in the wake of the conflict with Byron Gordon and his rogue followers, a permanent Psi Corps presence will be required on Babylon 5. Someone who can wield the Corps' full legal authority, not just a commercial representative." His shoulders twitched in a movement almost too minimal to be called a shrug. "So here I am."
He frowned and eyed her more closely. "Bad hair day?"
Lochley flushed. In her hurry she had had time neither to dry nor properly brush her hair; she'd just tugged it back in a tail and tied it. She'd hoped she could get this over with before it became the inevitable rat 's-nest. Apparently that was not to be. Silently she groaned. This day was just getting better and better. "Why wasn't I told about this?!"
Colin's mouth twitched. "Officially, because the fewer people who know I'm coming before I actually get here, the less likely it is that the people I'm after will have time to escape the area. After all, I *am* chasing rogue telepaths. Unofficially, however," and a strange quality touched his smile - almost like sympathy - "I suspect it's because Psi Corps wanted to surprise you, Captain, as much as or more than any potential rogues." He shrugged.
Lochley gave him a quizzical look. It was not in the habit of Psi Cops, or indeed any Psi Corps telepath, to make admissions like that. She sighed. "Alright, alright, let's just get the paperwork over with and then I - "
"Wait." Colin lifted his hand. The intensity on his face was mixed with something it took Lochley a moment to recognize. Alarm. And then, suddenly, fear.
He stared into space for a space of three slow breaths. Then he spun to face Corwin. "Lieutenant. Call Security."
"What?" Corwin stared.
Colin twisted back to Lochley. "Captain, call Security, now! There's a Centauri man in DownBelow being assaulted - " He jerked as if stabbed and clapped a hand to his side. "Aaaah!" he cried, and staggered. Reflexively Corwin moved to hold him up.
"Officer Ferris!" Lochley stepped forward and shook him hard. "What's happening?!"
"Send Security to - " Colin's face twisted in a mixture of agony and concentration. "Brown 37. Go!" As Lochley and Corwin exchanged a glance of disbelief, Colin forced himself upright. "NOW!" he shouted.
Something in that shout decided her. She slapped her link. "Security!"
"Captain?" came Zack's startled voice.
"Brown 37, there's an assault in progress right now, GO!"
****************
Blood.
Red blood from the two dead humans, and from the Centauri lying comatose, his chest rising and falling in slow, laboured agony. Cinnamon-coloured blood from the dead Brakiri. It spread across the floor in a slow, viscous pool, the only motion in the dead-end of the corridor.
The reddish-violet eyes watched it without passion, with only mild interest. He could sense the life leaking away into the air. He had seen death, been in its presence, so many times. It no longer terrified him as it had once, no longer outraged him. Now there was only the reluctant fascination, the not-quite-understood compulsion to watch. He derived no pleasure from it. But he could not look away.
From down the corridor came the sound of voices, and rapidly approaching footsteps. The watcher turned. Time to go. With silent steps he disappeared in the opposite direction.
Moments later Zack Allan and a security team pounded into the mouth of the dead-end corridor. Zack froze and stared at the carnage. Then he realized who the Centauri was. A groan escaped him. "Oh, God, no...." As his men flooded past him to examine the bodies, he hit his link. "Dr. Hobbs - get a trauma team down to Brown 37, stat!"
"On our way!"
Zack didn't even listen. Heedless of the blood on the floor, he rushed to Vir's side and knelt down. "Oh, God," he rasped. "Come on, Vir, don't do this to me." He grabbed the Centauri man's hand and gripped it hard. "Don't do this, Vir! Come on! Wake up!"
Vir's face didn't move.
"He's that much of a friend, Chief?" said one of the guards with cautious curiosity.
"More than that." Zack stared down at Vir's bloodied features. "He's the Ambassador to the only major star nation that isn't part of the ISA. And if he dies, we could be looking at another interstellar war."
***************** ACT ONE *****************
9:32 EST
Dr. Hobbs walked into the conference room still wearing her surgical scrubs, with the awkward stride peculiar to drained, exhausted people who are forcing themselves to move quickly for reasons not of their choosing. "Sorry I'm late," she muttered, and dropped into the sole remaining empty chair. With a weary tug she pulled the green cap from her hair and ran her other hand through it. Her normally musical voice was flat with fatigue. "God, I don't ever want to start my day like that again."
"We understand, Doctor." Lochley paused, wondering how long was long enough to express sympathy but quick enough to keep things moving. "Well?"
Hobbs sighed. "Ambassador Cotto was heavily and professionally beaten. Most of the ribs on the right side were broken and one lung was punctured. But the worst is his skull. There's a major contusion and a hairline fracture right along the back of the cranium. No subdural pressure buildup that I can tell, yet, but the Centauri bicardial system has a little more room for shunting internal pressures around. At this point . . . ." Her shoulders rose and fell in an exhausted shrug. "If nothing changes for the worse in the next forty-eight hours, he should recover. But there's nothing more we can do."
"So there's no hope of testimony, then."
Hobbs looked up at the strange voice, for the first time noticing Ferris. She frowned. "Who the hell are you?"
The Psi Cop glanced at Lochley. "I'm assuming she's not on your diplomatic staff."
Lochley fought down the urge to smile. She did not want to like this man. She had gotten fed up to the back teeth with Psi Corps over the course of the last year. But unlike Bester's snide witticisms, Colin's deadpan humour seemed to be utterly without mockery. He seemed to be one of the few telepaths she'd ever known who still had a real sense of humour - and she was not including Bester.
Maybe it was something inherent to telepathy as a gift, she mused. After all, how much could you keep appreciating jokes if you could always see the punchline coming?
"This is Officer Colin Ferris," said Zack, sounding as if he'd rather be introducing a nauseous Pak'ma'ra. "He's going to be on station here from now on. For good."
"Oh." It was a measure of Hobbs' exhaustion that that was all the reaction she gave.
Zack cleared his throat and looked at Lochley. "We got records on two of the goons that Vir, ah, put down. The Brakiri was named Dagool. He was a local. A thug-for-hire, basically, but usually he stuck to pickpocketing and minor theft. Some off-and-on work for Deuce Mosechenko as an enforcer, but when Deuce disappeared last year that business dried up for him. This kind of assault wasn't his thing."
"Desperation drives everyone to unusual acts," observed Lochley coolly. "Especially criminals."
Zack shrugged. "Maybe. But he'd have to know that BATCorp could cancel Vir's credit chit within moments of finding out about this. What would he need that much credit for that quickly?"
Across from him, Tessa Halloran cleared her throat and leant forward. She seemed to be the only person in the room who'd gotten a decent amount of sleep; her cool, elegant beauty was unruffled. "That may not be the reason for this."
"How do you mean?" said Zack.
Tessa motioned him on. "Finish your rundown first."
Zack shrugged. "The other guy was pretty much cut from the same cloth. Local muscle, not much brains. No records on the third one."
"No identicard?" said Ferris, his eyes alert.
"No, which means he was smuggled on board by someone. I've got BabCom doing a face-recognition search right now, but that's gonna take a couple of hours at least, if we're lucky." Zack glanced at Dr. Hobbs. "Lilian, if you or someone in your staff could get an autopsy done quickly, maybe I'll have some more information to narrow my search."
Hobbs sighed. "I'll get someone on it as soon as I get back to medlab."
"Thank you, Doctor." Lochley looked at Tessa. "All right, Director, what's your take on this incident?"
"Two possibilities." Tessa called up a file on her datapad. "Chief, you said in your report that about fifteen minutes before he was attacked, Mr. Cotto was involved in an altercation with a small-time Abbai merchant. Could the merchant have organized this in revenge?"
"Not in fifteen minutes." Zack shook his head. "Besides, I know Kaborah, he's not that stupid. And quite frankly I don't think he'd have the guts. He'd think about it a lot but he'd never have the nerve to do it."
"Or the money," added Ferris. "Whatever the going rate for kneecapping is these days, if the Abbai could afford that he could afford better stock."
Tessa frowned at him. "How do you know what the stock was like?"
Ferris shrugged. "I could say, 'I have my ways'." He put both hands to his temples and widened his eyes in a mock-mystical expression; then his face reverted to its deadpan. "But it's simpler than that. What Centauri would ever smash a bottle of alcohol unless it was the most vile stuff imaginable?"
The others traded bemused expressions; it was as if, Lochley thought while trying to keep her own face straight, they weren't sure if they were supposed to laugh or not.
At length Tessa cleared her throat and went on. "In that case, that leaves the other alternative."
"Which is?" said Lochley.
"That this was a blind. A fake mugging designed to hide something else. Probably a theft of something besides his credit chit. Something unusual, something we wouldn't know was missing."
"It could also have been an assassination attempt," suggested Lochley.
Surprisingly, Tessa shook her head. "No, I don't think so. If Mr. Cotto's death had been the point of this, he'd be dead. You can bank on that." She put down her datapad and leaned back, folding her arms. "They wanted something else. Something that was more important than killing him."
Lochley nodded slowly. "But unfortunately, we have no way of finding out what that was until Vir wakes up." She hesitated. "If he ever does."
There was a moment of heavy silence in the room. Then Tessa straightened a little, her face tightening with something between apprehension and eagerness. "Actually . . . there might just be one way."
"What?" said Zack.
Tessa looked at Ferris. One by one, the others followed her gaze. As he realized the converging focus of their attention, the Psi Cop's eyes widened. He shook his head. "No. Absolutely not. I will not risk an interstellar diplomatic incident by conducting an unauthorized scan on a recognized ambassador."
"Oh come on," snapped Zack. "Look, you can try that crap elsewhere, but we know what you people are really like - "
"'You people'?" repeated Colin. "What, you mean Scots?"
"You're Scottish?" said Hobbs.
"Only on my mother's side. On my father's I'm Inhuman Tyrant." Ferris rounded on Zack. "Listen, Chief, I know very well you've had unpleasant experiences with some of the people in my uniform. I can understand how that might bias you against me. After all, everyone in an
Earthforce uniform is exactly alike, correct?"
Zack's face tightened. Lochley intervened. "I think you've made your point, Officer Ferris -- "
"No, I don't think I have." Ferris slapped the table and glared around at them. "I am here to do a job, people. I'm not here to take over this station, or run your lives, or waste my time sifting through every mind I meet. All I ask is that you judge me by me. Not my uniform. Is that so much to ask?"
"Considering that the last time the Psi Cops were here it ended in a firefight that almost got one of my best friends killed and hurt a lot of people I care about," gritted Zack, "yeah, I think it's a little harder than you might guess."
"Really." Colin looked thoughtful. "And had we not come? Had Byron and his people been allowed to go on as they were? Telepathically blackmailing every ambassador in the ISA? Babylon 5 would have been embargoed by half the powers in the galaxy and outright destroyed by the other half to prevent that kind of information release, and the Interstellar Alliance would have died in its first year. We stopped that, Mr. Allan."
Colin struck himself on the chest. "We saved the Interstellar Alliance. Because that is the job of the Psi Police. To prevent the abuse of telepathic powers on those who cannot defend against them."
He exhaled a long, angry breath. "And I cannot do that job if I indulge in that abuse myself. I will - not - scan -- Mr. Cotto. Not unless he consciously requests it."
There was a beat of silence while everyone else exchanged glances. Lochley cleared her throat. "Are you finished, Mr. Ferris?"
"For now, yes."
"Good. Then you can apologize to my Chief of Security for the incredible rudeness you just showed him." Colin opened his mouth, but before he could say anything Lochley snapped her gaze to Zack. "And you, Mr. Allan, can apologize to Officer Ferris for your unbelieveably prejudiced attitude towards him."
Zack looked poleaxed. "Captain - "
"That's an order, Mr. Allan." She looked at Colin. "I can't order you, but I can make your job easier, or I can make it much, much harder. Your choice, Officer Ferris."
The two men exchanged a distrustful look.
Lochley smiled. It held absolutely no humour. "This isn't an option, boys. This is my playground. And there will be no fighting here. Clear?"
Zack slumped. "Clear," he muttered. He held out a hand. Colin hesitated a moment, then shook it grudgingly.
Lochley rubbed her forehead. "I knew this was going to be one of those days," she muttered under her breath.
******** 10:17 EST ********
Amid the quiet bleeps and the cool green-and-teal plastiform panels of Medlab One, the tall, tanned, leathery Narn warrior stood like a column of rough-hewn stone rearing out of a carefully tailored garden. Dark reddish-brown eyes stared unblinkingly down at the still form of the Centauri in the medcot. The hilt of the sword across his back glinted in the light of the overhead lamps. His arms were folded. The fingers of one hand drummed a steady, slow rhythm on his armoured sleeve: it was the only sound or motion that came from him. He might have been an image of some ancient god of judgement, staring down at the newest soul to arrive before his throne.
"Behold, the universe is ever full of new wonders," said a husky contralto voice from the door in a light, teasing, lilting accent. "An indecisive Narn."
The Narn turned his head slightly to glare sidelong at the Minbari woman. "Are you a telepath, Sherann, to know what I am thinking?"
"Some minds, Ta'Lon, it's impossible not to read." The Minbari Ambassador to Babylon 5 clasped her hands behind her back and strolled into the wardroom. "I saw a religious Minbari once at a debate - a simple man, but of great faith. All the speakers had compelling arguments of wondrous value. The poor man became so wrapped up in trying to figure out what he believed that by the time he was ready to speak, the debate had been over for hours and he was the only one left in the Speakers' Hall."
"And your point, Sherann?"
"Besides this?" Whimsically the Minbari touched the tip of her crest with one hand. "My point is merely that you look as undecided as that poor man. My question is, about what?"
Ta'Lon looked back down at Vir, searching his bandaged face as if scrying a glass for a vision. "All my life, his people have been the enemy. All my life, they have been our demons, the Great Evil. Even the Shadows, we never hated as fiercely as we did the Centauri.
"And now I see a good man, an injured man, a man beset by too many foes in defiance of honour and justice. A man who fought valiantly before being brought down. A man who has always fought to help my people, even in the final occupation, against the command of his master and his Emperor. And I no longer know what to think."
Sherann bit her lip. "Are you still so attached to hatred, Ta'Lon?"
"Only as a man grasps at a rock in a black sea, Sherann." The Narn turned, and a glint of humour shone in his eyes, mixed with something deeper - unease? Pain? Even fear? "Though that rock may be razor-sharp, may cut and gash his hand and bring only pain, still . . . that pain is preferable to letting go, and falling into the black unknown."
"I know . . . our mistake."
They twisted sharply at the faint words. Vir slowly moistened his lips, his eyes still closed, and rasped out another whisper. "We should have . . . read . . . your poetry. Then we would have known . . . you were not barbarians."
His eyes cracked open, and amazingly, a twinkle of pain-fogged mirth shone through them. "But we made the mistake . . . of listening . . . to your opera first."
Ta'Lon's mouth twitched in something that was almost a smile. "Do not look at me, Cotto. I am tone-deaf, and always have been."
"Doctor." Sherann tapped on the transparent wall of the wardroom. Across the Medlab's central chamber, Hobbs looked up. Her eyes widened over her mask; she ripped the fabric from her face and rushed into the room, already scanning the medcot's displays.
"Well?" said Ta'Lon.
Hobbs slumped in relief, then smiled brilliantly. "No cranial hemorrhaging. He'll be all right." She turned and tapped Vir on the nose; his eyes crossed to look at her finger. "He'll listen to his doctor and stay in bed for two weeks, but he'll be all right."
Dismay crossed Vir's face. "Two weeks?" he gasped, and pushed feebly at the mattress. "No, that's unacceptable, I have to get - I have to get up - " He managed to raise himself a few inches before grimacing in pain and falling back to the mattress. "In just a few minutes."
"Ambassador Cotto." Hobbs put her hands on her hips. "Outside this room you may represent the great and glorious Centauri Republic. In here you are my patient and you will do as I say, do you understand?"
Vir looked desperate. "But I have to..." He cast around the room. "My belongings -- my belt pouch -- " His eyes widened with remembrance, and he managed to get one arm free of the medcot's scan unit and pointed across the room to where his ruined clothes sat on a shelf. "That pouch! Bring it to me, please!"
"Ambassador -- !" began Hobbs.
"Doctor, wait." Sherann crossed to the pile of clothes, extracted the pouch, and turned it upside down into her other hand. A couple of copper eighth-ducat pieces fell out, along with a plastic-wrapped mint or two. Nothing else emerged. Sherann looked up and shrugged.
Vir, who had been watching, closed his eyes and fell back to the cot. "Gone," he groaned. "Ah, gods, I thought I felt them take it -- I was hoping I was wrong --"
"Take what, Cotto?" snapped Ta'Lon.
Vir opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling in despair. "A datacrystal," he sighed. "A crucial datacrystal."
"What was on this crystal?"
"I can't tell you."
"You do not trust a Narn, Cotto?"
"I'm under orders!" Vir's groan was a blend of anger and pain. "It's not the right time yet. I have to recover that crystal -- Doctor - I need a wheelchair, a gurney, anything that will let me move -- " He struggled to get up again.
Ta'Lon's hand came down hard on his shoulder and shoved him back to the mattress. "You will do nothing, Cotto." He stepped back and folded his arms, glaring at the astonished Vir. "I will recover your crystal."
Vir goggled. "You?" he gasped. "But...why?"
"I confess, the question had occurred to me as well," said Sherann.
"I have no love for your people or for you, Cotto," Ta'Lon growled. "But the men who did this to you were cowards and rogues and thieves. And you defended yourself with more bravery than I had thought to see in your people. There is an issue of honour here. It has nothing to do with you."
"Oh, indeed," murmured Sherann. Hobbs hushed her with a glare.
"You killed three of them," went on Ta'Lon as if Sherann had not spoken. He ignored, too, the way Vir closed his eyes and turned his face away at that blunt statement. "How many more were there?"
"Three others," muttered Vir. "Six in all."
"Six to one." Ta'Lon made a spitting noise of disgust. "All larger than you, I do not doubt. There will be an accounting. You were attacked in Brown 37. Where?"
Vir blinked at him. Ta'Lon sighed and spoke in deliberately slow, clear tones. "You left the Abbai's market stall in DownBelow and travelled, where?"
Vir closed his eyes and let out a breath. "It was the adjunct corridor to one of the service lifts, I don't remember where . . . the lift was out of service."
"Good." Ta'Lon nodded. He turned and strode to the door of the wardroom, pausing on the threshold at a whispered sound.
"Ta'Lon?"
The Narn did not speak.
"Thank you."
"I do not do this for you." Ta'Lon's hand tightened on the frame of the wardroom egress. "I do this because I must." His hand fell, and he left.
Sherann broke the silence with a melodramatic sigh. "Like all wonders, it was too good to last. I wonder when I shall ever again see an indecisive Narn."
Vir gave a choking, ragged laugh which degenerated into a cough. "Put a spoon in his left hand and a knife in his right hand. Place a bowl of fresh hot spoo to his left and a bound and gagged Centauri to his right. Then you'll see a Narn in the throes of indecision."
Sherann snickered reluctantly, but Hobbs glared down at him. "That isn't fair."
"And fair has what to do with what, exactly?" Vir let out an uneven, painful breath. "Never mind. You're right, Doctor. I'll, I'll apologize when I see him again." He smiled ruefully. "If Londo were here, he could lend me his telepaths, and I could apologize now."
Hobbs stiffened, snapped her fingers, spun, and raced out of Medlab. The aliens watched her go in some surprise.
"Was it something I said?" asked Vir.
Sherann shrugged.
******** 10:32 EST ********
It was a slow period for the Eclipse Cafe, between the breakfast and lunch rushes. The Narn who sat at the corner table had it to himself, and the tables surrounding him were empty. He was shorter and slimmer than most of his kind; the bright sheen to his scales and hide betokened a youth his reddish-violet eyes did not bear out. They were cold, those eyes, and hard, not like marble but like flint or ice: a brittle hardness, an abrasive, chilling look meant to drive its receiver back, to keep people away. He had scavenged a human-style jumpsuit from somewhere, and wore it as if defying people to find it odd or funny. The name-patch had been ripped from the jumpsuit's breast, with only stray threads dangling.
The lack of identification didn't put the purchaser amiss. "You are G'Stral?" he said as he approached.
The young Narn didn't look up from his bowl of coroth. "I might be. Who says I am?" The voice, too, lacked the bass resonance of an adult Narn; but those eyes . . . . The purchaser decided not to worry about it. He had, after all, far more important things to consider.
"People," the purchaser answered. He sat down without waiting for an invitation; the Narn glared, but said nothing. "Around and about. People say you do good business. Closed business."
"People say a lot of things."
"People say you enjoy your credit." The man flashed a chit briefly in the palm of one hand and made it disappear again. "People say you know people. That you help . . . facilitate connections . . . for the right price."
G'Stral considered, the spoon pausing briefly as it scooped the viscous porridge of the coroth to his mouth. "Who do you want to get to know?" Before the purchaser could answer he added, "But I don't do sex. Personally or pimping. You want that, I know a few people I can steer you to. Just make sure you've got all your shots first."
"Nothing so crude," said the purchaser tightly.
G'Stral laughed. The purchaser blinked. "What?"
"You. Behaving like you're so dangerous, you can't even say a few blunt words. Look, you're wasting my time. What do you want?"
{{Fine,}} decided the purchaser angrily. {{I can play this game.}} "A decryption expert," he snapped in a low voice. "And the more familiar he is with Centauri encryption the better."
"I see."
"I highly doubt that."
"Doubt away." The Narn waved a hand. "I don't care. Five hundred for location services. Another five for the introduction. And make sure you save enough to pay his fee, which'll probably be at least another five. Maybe ten depending on the job."
"That's expensive."
"Narn's gotta make a living. Besides, try finding an expert yourself and see how long it takes you. You're paying for convenience, speed, reliability, and confidentiality. Where else you gonna get all that?"
"Fifteen hundred total, you and the expert split the net."
G'Stral considered that. "Eighteen hundred."
"Sixteen."
"Seventeen-fifty."
"Sixteen twenty-five."
"Seventeen."
"Done."
They didn't shake hands, that would have been too blatant. G'Stral merely pushed his reader-block across the table; the purchaser ran his chit through, entered the amount and sat back. "Well?"
G'Stral took a last bite of his coroth and smiled. "Meet me here at thirteen. I'll have the expert here with me."
The purchaser stared at him a long moment, wrestling with temptation; but it was simply too much of a risk. "Very well." He nodded curtly, rose, and walked away with a stride neither fast nor slow. Within seconds he had vanished into the Zocalo crowd.
G'Stral picked up his reader and stared at the digits gleaming on it, the account that had just risen by seventeen hundred. An odd smile pulled at his lips.
"Is this," he asked the air, "how they plan to remember Byron?"
***************** ACT TWO *****************
10:43 EST
"Are you serious?" Vir glanced uneasily from Colin to Lochley to Dr. Hobbs, looking as if he suspected a practical joke but wasn't sure he got it.
"We understand the inconvenience, Ambassador -- " began Lochley.
"Do you?!" Vir struggled upright. "Have you ever been scanned by a telepath? Either of you?" He looked from Hobbs to Lochley. Neither answered. "I have, and I can tell you, it's slightly less fun than being the referee at a Drazi sporting event."
"Did you resist?" said Colin, sounding almost clinical.
"Of course I resisted!" Vir glared at him, then dropped his gaze to the floor. "Not that it did much good, that was exactly what I was being set up to do, but, well, that's another story entirely."
"There are techniques to block scans," said Colin. "Mental disciplines. They won't work against a brute-force scan by someone really powerful, but they can serve as a defence against casual eavesdropping or low- to mid-level probes. I could teach them to you, if you like." He ignored the puzzled looks Lochley and Hobbs were directing at him.
Vir frowned. "Why would you do that? Teach someone how to protect against you?"
Colin smiled thinly. "Firstly, because it's my job to help protect people from telepathic abuse. And secondly --" the smile became thinner, almost razor-sharp -- "because as I said: they won't protect against a brute-force scan by someone really strong."
Vir gave him a narrow-eyed look. "In other words, if you want to rip something out of my mind, you can, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop you."
Colin shrugged. "Well, in theory. You start telling some Narn jokes and I'm sure I'll be getting out of your mind faster than you'd believe possible."
Vir blinked. Colin went on. "This scan would be recent memory only, and it would be with your full cooperation. There would be no pain and no discomfort, other than whatever you feel at experiencing those memories again."
"Some of those were pretty painful." Vir touched his side.
Colin smiled. "I can block the pain centres of your brain while we're doing this. You won't feel a thing."
"Yes, that's what they all say," muttered Vir darkly, and gave a reproachful look to Hobbs. The doctor fought with a smile.
Lochley went to the computer console beside the medcot, slotted in a blank datacrystal and looked over at Vir. "Well?"
Vir sighed heavily. "Oh, why not. Another traumatic experience will be all in a day's work."
Lochley switched the crystal to record mode and activated it. "January 7th, 2263, Interstallar Alliance Space Station Babylon 5," she said to the console. "Computer, record standard Psi Corps legal boilerplate for consenting telepathic scan."
"File accessed -- and recorded. Request ID: scan subject," said the computer.
"Ambassador Vir Cotto, of the Centauri Republic," said Vir.
"Voiceprint: confirmed. Request ID: Psi Corps agent performing scan."
"Officer Colin Ferris, Psi Corps Internal Police," said Colin.
"Voiceprint: confirmed. Warning: Statute 9 of the Psi Corps Charter, under the authority of the Earth Alliance Constitution, establishes that no information gained by telepathic scan constitutes admissible evidence in any Earth Alliance court of justice, subject to Amendment D below."
"Pause," said Lochley. "What's Amendment D?"
"Internal legalese," said Colin absently. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing slowly and deeply. "Nothing that applies here. Let's go on."
Lochley hesitated, but finally let out her breath. "Computer, continue."
"Request ID: local governing authority."
"Captain Elizabeth Lochley, governor, Babylon 5," said Lochley.
"Voiceprint: confirmed. Scan: authorized. Visual recording mode: on. This record will constitute a binding contract under the Psi Corps Charter and the Earth Alliance Constitution."
{{Which will do no one any good if the Ambassador of the Centauri Republic decides to make a diplomatic issue out of it,)) thought Lochley, but she said nothing. Just because the other shoe might inevitably be going to drop didn't mean she wanted to pull it down on her own head any sooner than possible.
"All right." Colin moved to stand beside the medcot and laid his right hand gently on Vir's forehead. Vir flinched, just slightly, but if the Psi Cop noticed he gave no sign. "I want you to relax, and breathe evenly. Don't think of anything in particular. Just close your eyes and let your mind go blank."
"Which should not, as Londo would say, be difficult," muttered Vir.
Colin's mouth twitched. "Don't make me laugh, Mr. Cotto, I do have to concentrate to do this. Now. . . ." He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and let it out. Vir did the same. The seconds passed slowly.
Hobbs nudged Lochley. "Look," she whispered, and pointed at the medcot displays. Pulse rate and breathing rate had fallen to a slow, stable rhythm.
"I know," Lochley murmured. "And look at them. They're breathing in synchrony." She looked at Hobbs. "Never seen a scan before?"
"No." Hobbs watched the silent men, Psi Cop and Centauri, with undisguised fascination. "Back when Ms. Winters was the official rep, Dr. Franklin authorized the few legal scans we had, and after she was recalled to Earth the opportunity never came up. Ms. Alexander . . . " Lilian's mouth tightened. "She never worried about legalities or medical concerns much."
"The situation didn't exactly lend itself to the finesse of law," said Lochley.
Vir tensed. On the medcot display, his pulse rate accelerated.
{{"Can I help you gentlemen?"}}
{{"Yeah, you can. Just hold still."}}
{{"Will that hurt less?"}}
{{"No, but it'll be over quicker."}}
{{I remember this part}} said Vir silently, aside to the alien presence in his mind.
{{GOOD.}} The images froze; the gap-toothed man grinned movelessly, like a skull carved in stone. {{DID YOU SEE THE OTHERS?}} Though Colin formed the thoughts with smooth, gentle precision, the sheer strength of his psi power made them reverberate in Vir's skull. It was not uncomfortable, precisely, but Vir suspected it might become so if sustained too long. There was a reason why most professional and commercial scans were performed only by the low- to mid-level telepaths of a race.
{{Not yet.}}
{{THEN WE WILL GO ON.}}
Vir sighed.
In his memory, the man swings. Vir throws him and breaks his arm, then runs. The others pursue him. There are only fleeting glimpses of the faces as he snatches quick glances over his shoulders. He feels Colin pause briefly at these glimpses, but then move on. Somehow he knows -- perhaps as a side effect of the telepathic link -- that Colin is waiting to see if a clearer, better image exists before he goes back to dig these others out of Vir's subconscious.
Then Vir-that-was makes that vital wrong turn and ends up in the cul-de-sac where a corridor ends in service maintenance panels that he cannot undo. He turns, panting. Almost without thinking Colin does -- something -- and suddenly Vir no longer feels the physical sensations of his body. The memories become a substanceless hologram.
The pursuers spread out. There are five of them; as he watches the sixth man, the first one who attacked, comes gasping up to join the others. A Drazi, short and squat with yellow scars on his scales. A Brakiri, tattooed face snarling inhumanly. The tall, bald man. A shorter man with thinning brown hair and a paunch that is more muscle than fat. Vir feel's Colin's dismissal of all of these, his bored categorization of them as hired muscle.
Then the last two. An oriental man, dark hair in a long braid, dressed in black and red; an angular-faced man with a mustache, black haired with white at the temples, in a leather jacket and battered denim trousers.
From Colin comes a pulse of emotion so strong that Vir can only catch traces of it before the vision shatters and dumps him shaking back into reality.
{{Shock.}}
{{Outrage.}}
{{And pain.}}
"AAAAH!!!" Vir sat up with a yell. Colin staggered back as if an overstressed cord tying them together had just given way, his own eyes wide with fright and pain.
It was like nothing Lochley had ever seen on a Psi Cop's face before, and it was the only thing that kept her from drawing her sidearm and ordering Ferris to the brig immediately. As Hobbs jumped to Vir's side to activate a tranquilizer drip and stabilize his system, Lochley grabbed Colin's arm, pulled him away from the medcot and spun him to face her.
"What happened?!" she snarled.
Colin was gasping. "Something I never expected --" He closed his eyes; almost reflexively a smile twitched across his face. "Well, not so soon, anyway, not now, not with him . . . ." He took a deep breath. "I'm babbling."
"Yes, you are," said Lochley, more flabbergasted than amused.
"Come with me." He moved to the computer console, switched it to keyboard input and began typing with a flurry of speed, too fast for Lochley to follow or read all of what he typed. Files whirred by at lightspeed on the screen. "You have to see this, Captain."
"Have to see what?!"
"This." Colin stopped the flickering passage of filepics. A face stared levelly out of the screen at them: a man in his late thirties or early forties, black-haired except for the white streaks at his temples, wearing an expensive dark suit and the Psi Corps badge. Colin turned and looked over at Vir. "Mr. Cotto. Was this the man who led the attack on you?"
Vir, still breathing heavily, forced himself upright. At sight of the image he closed his eyes in a grimace and nodded. "That's him. Well, he's grown a mustache, and he wasn't wearing the suit, but yes, that's him."
"You know this man," said Lochley, tapping the screen. It wasn't a question.
"His name's Frost," said Colin. "Dr. Paul Frost. Rating P11. He was a scientist, and one of our most loyal supporters. So we thought, anyway." He sighed. "Then, four months ago, he vanished. We didn't know if he'd gone rogue, run afoul of a terrorist, or just had a genuine accident."
"As opposed to the arranged variety?" muttered Lochley.
Colin ignored her. He looked over at Vir. "The other man you saw, the oriental man with the braid, was Timothy Nakamura, a rogue we've been hunting for a long time. We suspected he might have tried to make his way here to join Byron, but evidently he came to his senses and realized that course of action was . . . " He hesitated. "Unwise," he finally finished.
Lochley considered several cutting remarks about Psi Corps' crippling reflex of understatement, but finally abandoned them. She didn't have the time and she couldn't think of anything suitably mordant anyway.
"Telepaths," she said instead. "Rogues. What would they want with a Centauri data crystal?" She turned to Vir. "If you have anything to add, Ambassador, now would be a good time."
Vir looked torn, but finally pressed his lips together and looked down. "I'm sorry, Captain. I can't. Not yet."
"Maybe they were hirelings as well," suggested Hobbs. "It's possible, isn't it? Rogue telepaths have to make money too."
Colin shook his head. "Frost didn't take orders from anyone. He was too arrogant -- " again the reflexive twitch of a smile - "even for a telepath. If he was involved, he was leading. Bet on it."
Vir looked worried. "Perhaps we should track down Ta'Lon. Tell him what we have found. If his investigations lead him into more than he can handle - "
"Ta'Lon?" cut in Colin. "The Narn Ambassador?"
"He's out there looking for this crystal?" said Lochley.
Vir sighed. "It surprised me too."
Lochley triggered her link and lifted it to her mouth. "Lochley to Security."
"Security, go," said Zack's voice.
"Find Ambassador Ta'Lon. Find him now."
A beat. Then Zack's voice returned, distinctly less happy. "BabCom says his link's off, Captain. We're gonna have to sweep the station."
"Fine. Do it. Even better, I'll come down and join you. Lochley out." She shut off her link and was halfway out of Medlab before she realized Colin had easily kept pace down the room with her. She slowed to glare at him. "What do you want?"
"Not want," said Colin. "Must. These are rogue telepaths. I have to be there, Captain." He gave her a steady, level stare. "This is my job."
Unfortunately, he was right, and she needed no telepathy to realize they both knew it. After a moment Lochley's glare crumbled. "Come on," she muttered, and resumed her swift lope to the transport tube. Colin matched her stride for stride without a word.
******** 12:19 EST ********
Ta'Lon moved through the DownBelow crowd with the absent, confident air of a man in strange but unthreatening territory. The lurkers and scavengers sensed his leashed menace and sensibly avoided him, though hushed whispers and speculative glances followed him. He ignored them. He was not a frequent visitor here; his rare occasions in the B5 underworld were usually attempts to talk sense into the odd pocket of G'Karrans who still haunted unused storage pods here and there. They seldom really listened, but they would usually quiet down, go elsewhere, and take a week or two to begin harassing the locals again.
It was as much as he could do, and Ta'Lon accepted it as such. He did not much like it, but he accepted it.
There were times he would have liked to have more authority. He knew he would never earn the same awed worship that G'Kar had, and he was grateful for that rather than envious. He was too prosaic and pragmatic to win, or desire, worship. But sometimes it would have been nice to know his words were actually having a long-term effect.
Still, sometimes what effect they did have was enough. A few words to a lurker, and the promise of a quick few credits, had elicited a description of a Drazi and a Brakiri who had followed Vir out of this particular DownBelow hall. The Brakiri, Ta'Lon had seen dead on an autopsy table in Medlab - no help there - but he thought he recognized the lurker's stammered description of the Drazi. A few more questions, and a pass through the BabCom files, had confirmed his guess. Yes, sometimes words had exactly the effect you needed, he thought as he moved towards Kaborah's stall. It was empty, and he settled himself against a support girder, waiting.
Admittedly, G'Kar's words had been having almost too much effect. To too many Narns, G'Kar was the only replacement they could understand or accept for their visions of greatness, the visions they had lost under the Centauri-Shadow alliance. Even now, many refused to abandon their reverence of him. Most were thoroughly convinced that if they only prayed hard enough G'Kar would come back and lead them back to greatness.
Ta'Lon understood the desire. He was, after all, a Narn. To spend a hundred years in hatred and slavery, then another hundred years rising to become one of the interstellar Great Powers, only to have that arrogance brutally smashed out of you -- again -- by the race you had thought decadent, wasted, dying . . . . Ta'Lon knew what the rest of the Narn Regime would never admit: that the bombardment of Centauri Prime had not been about ending a war, or protecting shipping lines, or even defending the Interstellar Alliance. It had been the vengeance the entire Narn people had dreamed of for so long, finally fulfilled. And that fulfillment had left the Narns bereft. Achingly aware of their sudden purposelessness. Sick of war, unable to remember peace, lost and drifting. . . except for G'Kar and his spreading vision of harmony, the last dam against the rising tides of despair -- a vision that spared the Narns from finding and forging a new vision of their own.
All races needed a vision, Ta'Lon mused. A sense of their own destiny, their purpose for existing. Valen had given the Minbari their vision, a thousand years ago. The Humans had had a vision, born with their entry into the stars, forged and tempered in the Dilgar War but shattered by the Minbari; it had fallen to Babylon 5 to restore that vision, and to open it for the galaxy to share. The Centauri's day had come and gone; their vision was not vision, but memory, a hunger for past glories that the Shadows had briefly renewed and then taken away, like the capricious gods they were. The Vorlons... well, in the end, their only vision had been to see the Shadows' vision broken, as the Shadows had wanted the Vorlons broken. It was that realization more than anything else that had truly ended the Eternal War.
The Narns had thought their vision was of greatness. But it had been, in the end, only about vengeance. Now they were empty. The kHa'Ri was decimated and fumbling. The homeworld would require decades more ecoforming to repair all its war damage, even with the assistance of other Alliance worlds. It was no wonder at all to Ta'Lon that the Narns had embraced G'Kar as their new messiah. The only wonder was that G'Kar could have remained so blindly astonished at the fact.
"Why must they worship me?" the older Narn had wailed to him once. "If they must worship something, let them worship the message! I am only the messenger!"
Ta'Lon smiled. He had not known what to say at the time. As was usual for him, the best words had only come later. But he knew now something that he wished he could have said to G'Kar before his departure to roam the stars. Knew, now, that the word shaped the speaker as much as the speaker shaped the word. Almost all races shared the myth of the True Name: the belief that to know something's true name was to gain power over it.
Quantum physicists acknowledged that observation might create the universe, but it was communication - it was the naming, it was the Word -- that made that universe consensual, that shared and unified a billion relative perceptions into one absolute existence. And any being with common sense knew that if you said something often enough, you would begin to believe it yourself; and believing, would make it true.
{{The messenger is the message, G'Kar.}} He sent the thought out, knowing he had no telepathic talent but hoping, somehow, it would reach its listener. Somehow. Somewhere.
{{The messenger is the message.}}
Out of the crowd appeared Kaborah, in the company of a ragged-looking Hyach. The latter was carrying a crate of bottles of wine -- though wine, he acknowledged, might be over-dignifying the product somewhat. As Ta'Lon watched, the Hyach placed the crate on the counter; Kaborah ran his credit chit through the Hyach's reader and sent him off with a wave. The Narn snorted. Like all weeds, DownBelow traders went flat when you squashed them and sprang up, almost no worse for wear, bare minutes after you walked on.
Kaborah hoisted the crate off the counter and bent down to place it on the floor of the stall; Ta'Lon exploited the Abbai's distraction to hasten swiftly and silently up. He enjoyed the merchant's startled yelp when he straightened up to find the Narn looming over him. "Gyaaahh!" Kaborah recovered, breathing sacs pumping furiously. "Ambassador. What can I do for you?"
"Cotto."
"What?"
"Vir. Cotto. Centauri. The one you sell your smuggled, so-called 'brivare' to." Ta'Lon grinned toothily down at the much smaller being. "Don't worry. I won't turn you in to Security."
"Ah. Well. I'm...grateful. But I'm still not sure I understand."
"Cotto was followed to his ambush." He saw the way Kaborah's eyes narrowed, and his grin widened. "Ah, you heard about that, did you? There was no way his assailants could have known where he was, without following him. And, Kaborah --" Ta'Lon produced a flatpic from his tunic. "I know you know at least one of them. Don't bother to lie," he rode over the beginnings of the Abbai's protest, "I've already talked to other people who saw it, and I recognized him from the description alone, so I'm sure you'll recognize the picture I got from the BabCom records." He held the pic of the Drazi up before the merchant.
"Is it a crime to know a man?" muttered Kaborah sullenly.
"It is if you obstruct justice in hiding a known criminal."
"I don't know anything of the sort." The Abbai rallied and drew himself up. Ta'Lon supposed he shouldn't be surprised; one needed a certain strength of character to survive in DownBelow for any length of time. "And where's your ID, Ambassador? I didn't know you'd joined Station Security."
"I haven't. I'm still the ambassador for the Narn Regime. Meaning, Kaborah, I have diplomatic immunity for anything I might care to do to your stall here." Ta'Lon leaned on the counter, which creaked alarmingly under his weight. "Or to you yourself."
Kaborah's crest rippled, the Abbai equivalent of a human or Centauri gulp of fright. "Er, well, Rukhinos, yes, of course I know him, how could I have forgotten - what, er, what do you need to know about him?"
"Where I can find him these days. Does he still operate out of that filthy bar over in Grey Sector?"
"No." Kaborah stared at the ground. "After that human Ranger, what was his name, Cole, tore the place up in a couple of bar brawls, he started going elsewhere. He has a number of different places, but you might find him in the Dark Star."
Ta'Lon grimaced. G'Kar had dragged him to the dance club a time or two in the past year - more, he suspected, out of wistful nostalgia than any real desire to indulge his fetish for human females. Ta'Lon didn't understand it himself. Human females were so soft, and squidgy, and only came in those horribly dull shades of pink or brown, their heads crowned with that ridiculous itchy growth of stringy fluff, with none of the hard muscle, fiery passion, or smooth taut hide of a real woman . . . .
It belatedly occurred to Ta'Lon that he had gone nearly a year without a woman's touch, and he decided to abandon that avenue of thought before it distracted him too much. "Will he be there now?"
"You can try. That's all I know." Kaborah glared at him defiantly. "Will you beat me unconscious for knowing when to look away?"
"No, but I may yet do so for insolence. Or for indiscretion. Do I make myself clear?"
"Perfectly," Kaborah muttered.
"Then we have achieved what the Minbari call a Moment of Mutual Understanding," Ta'Lon beamed. He reached down and, before Kaborah could react, plucked a bottle of Narn gor'shae from the crate behind the counter. "Which must always be toasted with a drink. Cheers." He waved the bottle gaily at the Abbai and strolled off.
Kaborah stared after him. "The Minbari don't drink!" he finally yelled, as if it was the only thing he could think of to say.
"As the humans say: oops." Ta'Lon didn't even look back.
Had he done so, he might have noted the figure that moved from a shadow not far beyond Kaborah's stall, and with a silence even deeper than Ta'Lon's own quiet stride, followed him deeper into the depths of DownBelow.
The Dark Star hadn't improved in the months since Ta'Lon had last been; it was still grungy, tawdry, superficially glittering and full of bored and horny beings of one race or another. Humans made up the majority, but there were a fair scattering of Centauri, an individual of other races here and there, and -- astonishingly -- two worker-caste Minbari off in one corner. Of course, for all Ta'Lon knew, they were Rangers employing the tactic of "be as outrageous as possible so no one will guess what you're really doing", but they certainly seemed to be enjoying the human dancer's gyrations on the stage.
"Not a good idea, friend." A compact but strong hand planted itself right in the centre of Ta'Lon's chest; he stared down at it, then followed the arm up to its owner, a slim woman with dark brown hair in a single tail and unflinching brown eyes. "We've got more than a few Centauri in here right now, and Security's not around. They might decide to take a little repayment out of your hide."
"This would grieve you?"
"Hey -- you break this place, I can't do my work. I can't do my work, I don't get paid. I don't get paid, my kid sister goes hungry. You really want that?"
"Trish?" The two of them turned as a stocky draz came over with the peculiar stomping stride of a compactly muscular biped prepared for violence. "There a problem?"
"No problem, Taan." Trish pinned Ta'Lon with a glare. "Our friend was just leaving."
"Yes," agreed Ta'Lon. "As soon as I find Rukhinos. Have you seen him?"
"Who?" Taan looked studiously blank.
"A Drazi, Mr. Churok. A thug. I'm told he sometimes uses this . . . establishment . . . as a place of business. Is he here?"
"Do you see him?"
"No. But just because you don't see something doesn't mean it isn't there."
Trish snorted. "They used that line to tell me about God, when I was a kid. I didn't believe it then, either."
"Livingston." It was a warning this time, and Trish subsided, though her eyes blazed. Churok turned back to Ta'Lon. "He might be in the back. In which case, he's . . . otherwise occupied."
Ta'Lon snorted. It was an open secret that the Dark Star was something of a brothel as well as a dance club, though it was erratic and highly informal. "Then disturb him." He cut off Churok's response with a lifted hand. "I have time, Mr. Churok. I'm more than willing to come back with Station Security."
"They wouldn't find a thing and you know it."
"No, but they'd shut you down for hours while they searched. We all know how much that would cost. Is it really worth the inconvenience?"
Taan Churok hesitated, weighing Ta'Lon with his eyes. After a moment he appeared to come to a decision. "Wait here." Without pause, he turned and strode to a small door beside the stage, disappearing into the back corridors of the bar.
Trish glared bitterly at him. "I hope you're happy."
"I'm sure Rukhinos is."
"What?"
Ta'Lon smiled. "To visit a . . . companion . . . at this hour suggests he's just come into money, and he's in a hurry to spend it. I'm very interested in how he earned that money."
"Yeah, well, you be interested, I'm just -- "
A yellow-scarred Drazi burst from the door beside the stage, panting violently. Ta'Lon tensed, moving forward; but before he could say or do anything the Drazi merely pointed and howled, "NAAAARRRNNN!!!"
A moment of dreadful silence fell, the music suddenly hollow and impotent, as every Centauri in the place stood and turned.
"Crap," muttered Trish.
Ta'Lon drew his sword. "Get behind me."
"The hell you say!" Trish snapped.
"You little idiot, we don't have time for this --"
He got no further. From every Centauri throat in the place there erupted a bellow of rage and fury. Tables went crashing over as the enraged Centauri charged towards the door, straight for Ta'Lon.
***************** ACT THREE *****************
Ta'Lon braced himself as the Centauri came charging in, knowing that despite his skill they were far too many to stop if they couldn't be broken. He could only hope that killing one or two quickly would cause the rest to pull back, and even that was not guaranteed --
Somebody shoved him violently in the back. Caught completely off guard, Ta'Lon fell to one knee and dropped his sword. But before the Centauri could dive on him the air exploded with the thunder of superheated plasma discharged in automatic fire. The Centauri and the other patrons screamed, diving for cover behind overturned tables and chairs. The PPG fire died away. Numb with surprise, Ta'Lon looked up.
The Narn who stood over him was young, perhaps eighteen cycles -- barely into adolescence as Narns aged. But he was already adult-tall, if not adult-muscular. His jumpsuit was Human, but on him looked natural. Somehow, he managed to make the PPG rifle in his arms look natural as well. All around the Dark Star, black patches on the walls smoked and steamed.
"Fifteen on one." His voice was amused. "Even for Centauri, that's cowardly." Dark glares and mutters flashed among the Centauri, but died as the Narn boy charged the rifle again with a whirring sound. "Now fifteen on
two, that's not much better, but I'd be willing to give you guys a break. You want to try taking us now, hairheads?"
"Get out." Trish's face was scarlet with fury. "Both of you, get out! NOW!"
The Narn boy gave her a contemptuous glance, but began taking slow steps backward out of the Dark Star. His rifle's aim didn't waver. Silently, Ta'Lon sheathed his sword and did the same. Over the heads of the crowd, he caught Rukhinos' yellow eyes and gave him a glare.
The Drazi flinched.
******** 12:37 EST ********
"Anything?"
It was an effort to be civil, but at least Ferris' voice wasn't whiny or imperious, only urgent. Zack managed to keep his voice calm as Lochley and the Psi Cop joined the security patrol in their stride down the DownBelow corridor. "No, nothing yet."
"It would help if you could give us some idea of where to look," rumbled Glenn Satamba, Zack's second. He was a big man in middle-age, balding with a grizzled mustache, muscle and fat combining to make a heavy but powerful girth. His dark coffee-coloured skin stood out against his immaculately clean grey uniform. "DownBelow's an awful big place, you know. Where would these guys be likely to hang out?"
Ferris shook his head. "They're too smart for that, Sergeant; they know about tracking by behaviour patterns. They don't let themselves develop any. Besides, they haven't been here long enough."
Satamba looked thoughtful. "Seems to me every man develops habits he doesn't know about."
"He has a point," observed Lochley.
"Not Frost," Ferris insisted. "He's a genius and he's dangerous and he's on this station. We have to find him."
"So call in the Bloodhounds," Zack growled. "Get another hostage situation going, why don't you."
"Oh, for God's sake --" Colin rubbed his forehead. "Look, Chief, it may or may not have occurred to you, but I know damn well I have to live on this station, at least for the next year. Do you really think I'm interested in alienating everyone and disrupting the place that's going to be my home?"
"Bester practically lived here," muttered Zack. "Never seemed to stop him."
"I -- am -- not -- Bester!" Colin gritted. "For one thing --" He stopped, took a deep breath, and abruptly produced a lopsided smile. "For one thing, I'm much taller and better looking."
Zack and Lochley blinked. Satamba laughed heartily. "Better be careful, Mr. Ferris," he snorted between guffaws. "You keep that up and we won't be scared of you any more."
"Did it ever occur to any of you that maybe that's exactly what I want?" said Colin with such bitterness it actually made them stop and look at him for a moment. Zack saw the bemused look on Lochley's face. His heart sank. Was she actually considering listening to this?
It was not in Zack's nature to be vindictive or spiteful. But this once, Lochley's innate sense of fairness and order was working against her. Zack knew Psi Corps, knew its dark side in a way Lochley had only heard about, and only partly seen. He had watched Garibaldi, his mentor, his friend and (though he would have died rather than admit this) his hero, torn to shreds, pushed back down into his alcoholism by Bester's machinations; Lochley had seen only a man doing a difficult and bloody job, an unpleasant man but a necessary one. She hadn't even liked Garibaldi all that much! She had to be stopped. If they couldn't get Ferris off this station, at least they could keep him as far away from their minds and hearts as possible. So he unlocked the bitter fury in his heart and let it speak for him.
"Of course you don't want us to be scared of you," he snarled. "Because if we're scared of you there's no way we'll trust you, and if we don't trust you, there's no way you can screw us over for Psi Corps, right?!"
Satamba and Lochley whipped their heads around to stare at him, sheer shock holding them numb for a moment. But Zack was only peripherally aware of that. His eyes were locked on the Psi Cop's. The other man's face had closed with blinding swiftness to a blank mask. But Zack had been watching, and in the split second before all expression was wiped from Colin 's face he saw something he hadn't been expecting.
Pain.
{{What the -- ?}}
There was no time for the thought to finish, no time for the swelling fury on Lochley's face to explode in biting orders, no time for anything but reaction. For Zack's link burst into alarmed shouting with the shrill breep of an emergency signal.
"PPG fire in Brown Five! All security, Brown Five!"
******** 12:50 EST ********
Outside the Dark Star, Trish slammed the heavy pressure lock and dogged it shut. Then she whirled on the stranger. "G'Stral, you absolute idiot, what the frag did you think you were doing?"
G'Stral scowled at her. "Stopping a brawl. No need to thank me."
"You son of a --" Trish drew her hand back for a slap.
Ta'Lon shot out his own gloved hand and seized her wrist. Trish staggered and glared at him. "Let me go -- !"
"He did save my life, Miss Livingston," Ta'Lon pointed out dryly. "And almost certainly saved you some injury. I know, they weren't after you," he went on as she drew breath to interrupt, "but you were in their way, and they would have hurt you regardless."
"They wouldn't have hurt anything if you hadn't been there in the first place," Trish muttered.
"Perhaps, but that's my fault, isn't it?" observed Ta'Lon.
"And why do you think he's here?" Trish jabbed a finger at G' Stral. "He followed you in! He must have! Why else would he be here?!"
"Coincidence?" said G'Stral innocently.
"I don't believe in God and I don't believe in coincidence either."
Ta'Lon frowned. "Isn't there a paradox there?"
"Shut up!" Trish shouted. "I have had it up to here with the both of you! Just get out and leave us --" She fell abruptly silent.
Her rage collapsed into resigned despair. "Aw, frag it . . . . "
Listening, Ta'Lon heard the rapidly swelling sound of many footsteps. Within seconds the halls to both sides had filled with black-and grey-uniformed Security personnel. Zack forced his way to the forefront of the group, PPG pistol levelled at G'Stral. "All right, drop the weapon! Now!"
"Chief." Though he would never be G'Kar's equal, Ta'Lon had a command of his own, and he used it now. "It's all right. He's with me."
G'Stral scowled at him.
"With you?" Sergeant Satamba frowned.
"Nobody was hurt, Sergeant, Chief." His eyes moved to Lochley. "Captain. The rifle was used only on the walls, to convince a group of Centauri to leave me alone. He never meant to hit anyone."
Zack looked unconvinced, as did Lochley. Ta'Lon let his voice harden just slightly. "I will, if I have to, claim ambassadorial privilege, Captain."
"That's not meant to shield criminals from security violations, Ta' Lon, and you know it," Lochley snapped.
"But the letter of the law does support that interpretation. Most especially if the being in question has no ISA or Babylon 5 citizenship identicard." Ta'Lon looked at G'Stral. "Do you have such an identicard, young G'Stral?"
"You know," said G'Stral in a monotone, "I always meant to get one. It just kept slipping my mind."
The Humans exchanged glances.
The iron fist had been used; now it was time for the velvet glove. "Captain." Ta'Lon's voice softened. "He didn't hurt anyone, he didn't
mean to hurt anyone, he's only a boy as my people reckon his years, and he just saved my life. I'm trying to keep him from regretting that action."
Zack looked at Lochley. The woman finally sighed and threw up her hands. "All right. All right, Ta'Lon, he can stay with you." She pointed at the PPG rifle. "But the weapon goes right back to Security's armoury."
"Of course."
"Hold on just a fraggin' minute here --"
"G'Stral. Shut. Up." Ta'Lon gripped the boy's shoulder hard; G' Stral's mouth tightened, but he made no other acknowledgement of Ta'Lon's crushing grasp. With his other hand Ta'Lon tugged the rifle free of G' Stral's hands and tossed it to Satamba, who caught it and ejected the energy cap in a single smooth motion. At the sight everyone relaxed perceptibly. Zack holstered his gun.
Satamba checked the weapon over with a quick professional eye. "Good shape. You know your way around a gun, boy."
"Where the hell did you get a PPG rifle, anyway?" Zack growled.
G'Stral glowered past him. Ta'Lon cleared his throat. "Might I remind you, Chief, that I have invoked --"
"-- 'ambassadorial privilege', yeah yeah yeah." Zack turned away in disgust.
"Hello." Trish waved her hands. "Remember me? The one who works here? Are you people going to come in for a drink or what?"
"I think we'll pass," said Lochley, with a calm Ta'Lon found both admirable and frightening. "Thank you, Miss...Livingston, isn't it?"
Trish did a double-take. "How the hell do you know who I am?"
Lochley opened her mouth, paused a beat, and smiled slightly. "I have my ways." And she shot a sidelong glance at, of all people, Ferris.
It was hard to say who looked more bemused by the comment, Zack or the Psi Cop.
******** 12:57 EST ********
"Rogue telepaths." Ta'Lon sounded more intrigued than anything else. "This situation just becomes more and more interesting, doesn't it."
G'Stral snorted.
"That's one word for it." Lochley surreptitiously massaged her forehead. "I've put out a station APB. We'll find this Rukhinos sooner or later. And I've stopped all departures, he's not getting off this station. We'll find him."
"That may do little good," Ta'Lon observed. "We are discussing the contents of a datacrystal. If they can break the encryption, all they need to do is wirejack a tachyon relay station and transmit the information. No matter how thick your security or how solid your lockdown, you cannot stop that." He looked from Lochley to Zack. "Can you?"
Zack sighed. "Not without a complete power shutdown, no." They arrived at the door to Blue Section, and Zack absently punched the entry code. The door rolled back and he led the way through, still talking. "We can kill the command codes from C&C, but hell, Captain, you proved just how effective that was."
Lochley shivered. She still didn't know exactly what had happened on the Day of the Dead. She had had to reroute a tachyon transmission through what her instruments were continually insisting was twenty-seven light-years of space before she could reach someone no farther away than the other side of the station. Ghosts and revenants she could handle, almost. The blind insistence of her most trusted systems on something that simply could not be. . .
Colin cleared his throat with deliberate noise. Lochley blinked and realized the Psi Cop was looking distinctly uncomfortable. She flushed. "Don't tell me."
"It was very strong, and very near." Colin's voice was low and even, but somehow sounded embarrassed in its very lack of expression. "I apologize for the intrusion."
Lochley took control of herself. Nothing she felt about this was good, but none of it belonged in her job right now. "If someone screams at the top of their lungs, you don't apologize for overhearing them," she said flatly. "Forget it. Ta'Lon, I think I should thank you."
The Narn frowned. "For what? I have done nothing."
"No, but you gave me an idea." She looked at Zack and Satamba. "We can't possibly monitor every tachyon transmitter or DownBelow pod in this station. But we can build up a working guess as to who might have the capabilities to break Centauri Imperial encryption codes. There can't be more than six or seven people on-station, all told. All we do is monitor every one, wait for someone to approach them, and bang. We've got them."
The Security men and the Psi Cop exchanged a startled glance. Ta' Lon smiled slowly. "An excellent idea, Captain. Allow me to --"
"I have to go."
Lochley started. She'd almost forgotten G'Stral was there. "Do you," she said. Her eyes narrowed at him.
"I have an appointment."
"With who?" said Zack suspiciously.
"My podiatrist, now do you mind?"
"Actually, son --" began Satamba.
"I'm not your son!" G'Stral snapped.
"-- you're under Ambassadorial protection right now. Do you know what that means?" Satamba didn't appear at all fazed by the young Narn's rudeness, but something glinted in his eye.
G'Stral, for all his anger, was evidently quick enough to see it. His reply was guarded. "Not. . . entirely."
"It means that you enjoy his diplomatic immunity as long as he's directly personally present with you, or as long as you're in his quarters."
Zack grinned without any hint of humour. "In other words, the moment you leave and he lets you walk away -- bang. We got you on possession of an illegal weapon."
G'Stral stared, then looked at Ta'Lon. The Ambassador shrugged. "Blunter than I would have put it, but yes."
For the first time a hint of something like panic flared in the younger Narn's eyes. "No. I can't - I have to have privacy to work. I can't work like this." He whirled to face Ta'Lon as if daring the Ambassador to do something. "I have an appointment!"
"Then we'll keep it together." Ta'Lon shrugged.
"Not a chance in the Nineteen Hells!" shouted G'Stral.
"You keep it with him, or you keep it with us," said Zack, his voice flat. "Or you keep it with all of us, I don't care. Your call."
Lochley shot a sidelong glance at Colin. The Psi Cop was staring at them all as if they were crazed. "Captain, what's the point of this?" he whispered.
It was the irritation and honest confusion in his voice that tipped something over inside Lochley. He didn't know. He really didn't. He could have done so in a second without any of them the wiser. But he had been concentrating so hard on not scanning them, even inadvertently, that he had missed the signs obvious to the non-telepaths. Or perhaps he was simply so used to telepathic communication he had forgotten the subtler sorts of non-verbal scanning. The tension in G'Stral that had built as he listened to the conversation; his almost invisible start as they'd mentioned the Centauri encryption. And the obvious, obvious conclusion.
"He knows, Colin," she murmured to him. "He knows something. Look at him. You don't even need to scan him. Look at him."
Colin blinked at her, then focused on G'Stral. His eyes narrowed. Lochley saw the realization spread over his face like a spill of pale bright liquid. He slapped a hand to his forehead, closed his eyes and made an inarticulate sound. "How could I have been so - "
"Stay out of my mind!" G'Stral shouted instantly.
"I'm not in your mind." Colin glared at him. "There wouldn't be room for me, for one thing."
G'Stral drew breath for an outraged shout. Lochley cut him off. "Enough." She turned to Ta'Lon. "Ambassador, I have enough evidence to convince me that this boy is a material witness in our case. I formally request that you turn him over to Security."
Ta'Lon sighed. "Captain, I can't do that without his consent. More accurately, I won't do that. He is one of my people." He looked at G'Stral. "However, the only way I can continue to protect you, G'Stral, is to keep you in my company or confine you to my quarters. Which is it to be?"
G'Stral stared helplessly at him. "I have an appointment," he finally said.
Ta'Lon returned the gaze for a moment. "And you don't break your appointments, do you," he murmured.
"Not if I have any choice," muttered G'Stral.
"You can't make me believe this is that important to you," said Zack.
"Can't I?" G'Stral lifted a shaking finger up to Zack's face. "There are only two ways to survive in DownBelow, Chief Allan. One way is, when you make a contract, you damn well keep it. Because it's the only way to live with yourself and keep people off your neck. And the other is just to tear everything out of yourself and become an animal. And that works, but never as well, or as long. And I've --" He broke off, turning away and holding his arms around himself as if cold. "I've lost too much already," he finished, his voice barely audible.
He looked back over one shoulder, and the pain and anger in his face was terrible to see. "You want to arrest me? Fine. I hereby renounce Ta' Lon's ambassadorial immunity. Go ahead and lock me up. But I will not tell you what you want to know."
Lochley's mouth tightened. "Mr. G'Stral. I'm going to give you one more chance to cooperate with us."
"Or you'll what?" G'Stral sneered. "Turn your pet telepath loose on me?"
"Pet," said Colin, to the air. "And here I was hoping for the status of guard dog."
Lochley ignored the comment. "Oh no, G'Stral." Her voice was soft. She smiled. "I wouldn't be that nice. I'm going to turn me loose on you. And I promise you. That's a much less appealing alternative."
G'Stral's glare wilted a little with uncertainty, but not enough. Not damn near enough. Abruptly weary, she waved to Zack and Satamba.
"Take him to the conference room outside C&C. This conversation isn't over." As the Security men grasped the Narn by the arms and briskly walked him away, Ta'Lon trailing behind them, she turned and put her forehead in her hands.
"God. . . ."
"Headache?"
She only nodded.
"If I may --" Abruptly, cool fingertips touched her forehead. She flinched back in startlement, but Colin's gloved hands followed and maintained their steady touch. It felt remarkably relaxing. Too surprised to move, she stood still and let him continue the massage.
"One thing we learn," he said absently, frowning down at her forehead as if she was a half-finished clay sculpture, "is pressure points and nerve responses. Even without telepathic assistance, this usually helps...." It was, too. Under the light, even strokes of his fingertips, the smooth and soft friction of the fine leather against her skin, the headache was dissolving.
It occurred to Lochley that this was the most intimate contact she'd had with. . . well, with anyone for far longer than she really cared to think about.
He paused. "I can do this more effectively if you'll consent to a light mental link --"
They both felt her entirely automatic flinch this time, both realizing in the same moment that this flinch had nothing to do with surprise and everything to do with blind, reflexive fear. And though she was no telepath, Lochley swore she felt the wall slam down around Colin. He immediately dropped his hands and put them behind his back, his face a mask of stone. "Yes, of course. My apologies, Captain."
"Ah, none needed." She scrambled for her usual cool poise and got it back in place, but it felt like an ill-fitting garment, rumpled and ragged. "We should get to the conference room. I'll need you there."
"I won't scan him unless he consents to it."
"I know."
The calm way she said it stopped him for a moment. "You do?"
"Yes."
On the long walk up to C&C, Colin opened his mouth several times as if to respond to that. Each time he closed it again without speaking. That was perfectly fine with Lochley. Some conversations she just had no interest in re-starting.
******** 13:15 EST ********
At a table in the Eclipse Café, a dark-haired mustachioed man with white streaks in his temples and an oriental man dressed in red and black sat in silence, both sipping from cups of something that tasted almost, but not quite, entirely unlike coffee. They appeared to be paying no attention to anything.
A listener with the right senses, however, would have known the fury of the communication passing between them.
{{this is ridiculous - it's quarter past thirteen - he's not coming}}
{{everything I hear of the Narn says he never breaks his contract}}
{{then he's been caught}}
{{perhaps}}
{{then what are we still doing here? security/the psi cop could be on the way!}}
{{everything I hear of the Narn says he never breaks confidentiality either -- and I know Ferris -- I don't believe he would scan him without consent}}
{{"you hear", "you know", "you believe" -- did it ever occur to you that you could be wrong?}}
{{frequently [humour] but usually I go lie down and the feeling passes}}
{{[disgruntlement]}}
{{[silent laughter] patience - you worry too much - besides I don't think he's necessary}}
{{what?}}
{{open your mind - feel the minds around you - no need for a deep scan just test the feel}}
The oriental man closed his eyes. For a moment neither moved. And then his eyes opened again, wide with surprise, and he revolved to stare at the small, dark-haired woman three tables over who was lost in what appeared to be one of the cheaper forms of romance track on her reader.
{{her?}}
{{feel that mind -- the discipline, the edge, the mathematical purity -- the book is a cover, she's not reading it -- nobody else in this room even comes close}}
{{so what do you suggest?}}
{{that we renegotiate and save ourselves some time}}
The oriental man smiled.
Felicia Anstruth put her reader down as the two men approached. "Can I help you gentlemen?" she said coolly, not taking her eyes from them.
It didn't faze them at all, which was a rarity. A woman who looked a man directly in the eyes without any smile or body language usually put men off; they weren't used to it. But these two didn't even blink. "Yes," said the mustached one. "Yes, I think you can. Are you --" He paused a second. "Felicia Anstruth?"
"Are you with Security?"
"Not at all."
"'Cause if you are, and you've got something weird in mind, this whole conversation could be called entrapment."
The oriental man snorted. "Believe me, Ms. Anstruth, we aren't Security."
"Then what are you? And could you cut past the roundabout crap, that stuff always gives me a headache." She picked up her reader again and moved her eyes over the lines, ignoring the words. Books like this always made people underestimate you when they saw you reading them. Where the hell was G'Stral? He was over twenty minutes late now --
A datacrystal clattered onto the table before her. She started and looked up. Neither man was smiling now.
"You are an expert in decryption techniques, particularly Centauri." It was stated in a flat tone which did not brook argument or dissembling. "We want this crystal decoded by eighteen hundred tonight. What is your charge?"
{{Well, I asked them to cut the crap. . . .}} "Depends on the complexity. Minimum seven-fifty, an additional two-fifty every hour after the first."
The mustached man snorted. "Highway robbery! Five hundred basic with fifty every hour."
"Seven basic. Two hundred per hour."
"Still ridiculous. Let's try --"
"Paul." The oriental man had been staring at her. "Give it up. We don't have time for this. She thinks she can probably do it in under ninety minutes."
Cold lashed through Felicia like a gust of air frozen in deep space. "How did you --" Then she realized. "You -- you're --"
"Capable of tearing your mind apart like a twig if you even think of betraying us." All jollity had vanished from the mustached man; he leant down and stared unblinkingly into her eyes. "The contract has changed. You will do this, and you will begin now, and we will come with you and watch you. And your payment will be your sanity and life. Do we understand each other?"
Felicia's brain yammered in her skull; but what could she do? What option could be taken when her enemies could literally see the thought before she acted on it?
"What are you doing?" was the only thing she could think to say. It came out in a broken whisper. She didn't really expect an answer.
Surprisingly, she got one.
"Fighting for our future, Ms. Anstruth." No anger had gone from the dark-haired man's face, but it was different now, colder, as if focused a long way away. "Gathering our power for a revolution. That requires sacrifice, and pain, and the doing of deeds we find monstrous. But the alternative is to let deeds even more monstrous go unchecked and unanswered. To save our future, Ms. Anstruth. . . yes. We are willing to die, if we must, for our future.
"And we are also willing to kill."
***************** ACT FOUR *****************
16:07 EST
Lochley's head throbbed. Up and down the grey-and-blue-walled conference room Zack paced, his glower directed at G'Stral on the upturn and at the air on the downturn. "I don't believe this," he growled. "Three hours we've been at this and he won't say a fragging word. Ta'Lon, cut us a fragging break, will you?!"
"I'm not the one you should be asking, Mr. Allan." Ta'Lon's posture was infinitely more dignified than the slouched, arms-folded glare G'Stral had adopted, but it was equally intransigent. "If G'Stral really wants to abandon my protection, I will leave."
"I want," said G'Stral promptly, through gritted teeth, "to abandon your protection!"
"No you don't," said Ta'Lon.
"Damn it, Ta'Lon, you heard him --"
"Yes, but I don't believe him." Ta'Lon looked at Lochley. "And neither do you, Captain, which I suspect is why we're all still here."
Lochley sighed. "Doesn't matter what I believe, does it? You're the Ambassador here. I can't countermand that authority without declaring martial law over the station, and I haven't got the grounds for that."
Zack threw himself into a chair. "For God's sake, Captain, can't we just wring it out of him now and put together a justification later?!"
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that, Zack."
Zack's glower collapsed under her cool stare. "All right," he muttered, folding his arms. "It just burns me up to think of the people who stomped Vir getting away 'cause this little bastard won't speak up."
G'Stral snorted, once, loudly. Zack sat upright, rage sparking anew in his eyes. "And what's that supposed to mean, huh?"
G'Stral lifted his head and returned the gaze coldly. "It means, Chief, that if you're trying to win my cooperation by arousing my sympathy for a Centauri, you're using the wrong tactics."
"Abrahamo Lincolni."
"What?"
"Abrahamo Lincolni," Ta'Lon repeated. "The Centauri clerk who freed thousands of our people during the latest occupation. Surely you've heard the name."
"Here and there," said G'Stral suspiciously. "From other refugees. What's your point?"
Ta'Lon gave him a level look. "Because Vir Cotto was Abrahamo Lincolni."
G'Stral blinked.
"He risked his life and his career and his honour to help our people," went on Ta'Lon inexorably. "He is owed something for that."
G'Stral's face twisted. "He's a Centauri. He only did what he did because his people wrecked our world in the first place. We owe them nothing." The last word was snarled with such hatred that Lochley saw Colin actually jerk back, as if something had slapped him.
"Then what of your own honour?" snapped Ta'Lon. "You're defending terrorists, G'Stral. Terrorism is the act of the weak and the cowardly, the dishonourable!"
"He's right, G'Stral." Colin leant forward, pale eyes intent. "Do you want me to show you the photos of the children who died, when the training centres for our Psi Corps were bombed? Of the civilian employees whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? You're here because of your honour, G'Stral. What honour is there in hiding people who don't know the meaning of the word?"
"And what do you call our fight against the Centauri?!" G'Stral shouted. "Of course it's terrorism to you, they were your children who died! Do you think I don't know how they think? What they do? They are fighting a war, Human. Just as we were. A war in which my parents died -- " The young Narn had to pause, breath hitching thickly in his throat. But when he went on his voice was as harsh and strong as ever. "What you call terrorism, they call their struggle for independence. And how can you be so sure you are right?!"
Colin didn't move, eyes holding G'Stral's; but something in his bearing told Lochley he'd been startled by the strength of the response. Which was not, actually, surprising. Colin must have been used to getting the answers he wanted, out of sheer fear of his uniform and badge if for nothing else. Such defiance would not be familiar to him.
Or was it something more, thought Lochley suddenly. Was it, just maybe, because he had actually listened to what G'Stral had said?
"This is going nowhere," said Zack in disgust. "Captain, I'm gonna go talk to Glenn and my people. We've only got a couple more names to get locations on."
Lochley nodded, not really concentrating. "Might be a good idea. How many people are we talking, exactly?"
"Eight. So far we got positive locations on six of 'em."
"Who are the two you're missing?" said Colin.
"Lemme see." Zack consulted his datapad. "A Ms. Felicia Anstruth, and a Mr. Raj Lalwani. Still looking for them. But with any luck we should have 'em soon -- " He broke off as the BabCom screen on the wall began flashing the words INCOMING MESSAGE: CHIEF OF SECURITY ZACHARY ALLAN. ORIGIN: MEDLAB.
"Medlab?" Zack frowned, then looked at Lochley. "Can I take this?"
"Go ahead." Lochley shrugged.
Zack turned back to the screen. "Accept."
The BabCom logo reappeared briefly, then cleared. Vir's bruised and worried features appeared on the screen. Zack's eyebrows went up. "Vir? What's up?"
"I need to talk to you and Captain Lochley."
Lochley moved into the screen's pickup. "I'm here, Vir. Go ahead."
"All right. Um - Captain, is this line secure? Not that I don't trust you, or Ambassador Ta'Lon, there, or Mr. Ferris, but, um, well --"
"BabCom, accept priority command code, Chief of Security Allan: scramble this line." Zack waited; the screen fuzzed briefly, then cleared again. "Okay, Vir, we're secured. Go ahead."
Vir took a deep breath. "My government has just authorized me to reveal to you, Captain, and to authorized agents of Earthgov only, the information on that datacrystal."
Lochley stiffened, alert. "Go on."
Vir closed his eyes. "Over the last few weeks, I've been meeting one-on-one with many of the ambassadors here at Babylon 5. Everybody except the three major powers of the Alliance: Earth, Minbar and Narn. What I've been negotiating is..." He sighed. "Is the conditions for a covert treaty which would lighten the sanctions placed on the Republic, and open up some mutual trade again."
Zack frowned. "That doesn't sound so critical. What's the big deal with some trade talks?"
"In themselves, nothing." Vir leaned closer to the pickup. "But it's that vital first step. Once we get this agreement ratified, it lays the groundwork for more treaties, closer work, and eventually full readmittance of the Republic into the Interstellar Alliance."
"If it's that critical, shouldn't it have been conducted on Tuzanor?" said Ta'Lon.
"It will be," said Vir. "The agreements here are only a first step. But if a Centauri legation appears on Tuzanor with preambles signed by every ambassador here at Babylon 5 - "
"Every ambassador?" Ta'Lon said pointedly.
Vir flushed. "I was saving you, Sherann and Captain Lochley for last. I figured you'd be more likely to take it seriously if I could show you all the nonaligned worlds had agreed."
"And you got them to agree," said Lochley, her eyebrows rising.
Vir looked uncomfortably red. "Yes. Partly by promising them I would keep it all as covert as possible. Do you see why I was so slow in providing this information?"
Lochley sat back and rubbed her forehead, sheer surprise dulling her headache. If Vir had gotten agreement out of species as disparate as the Gaim, the Drazi and the Llort, he was far defter a diplomat than anyone -- possibly including himself -- had ever suspected.
"Well well well," said Colin. "So, G'Stral, you're not just defending terrorists, but pirates as well, not to mention disrupting something that could help stabilize galactic peace for good. Now do you feel proud of yourself?"
"Ho, ho, wait a minute - pirates?" said Zack.
"Trade treaties always include shipping plans," said Colin matter-of-factly. "And over the past six months or so the rogues have begun gathering resources on an unprecedented scale. It was only a matter of time before they turned to piracy. If they can secure a raider ship, Centauri merchant vessels would be the perfect target. The ISA can't hunt down the raiders because as rogue telepaths, they're an internal problem for Earthgov. And Earthgov won't waste much time hunting for the raiders because they're only hitting Centauri ships -- Earthdome knows damn well that if they start fighting to protect the Centauri, they'll make too many enemies in the other governments of the ISA for comfort." He shook his head in something that was almost admiration. "Frost. This has to be Frost. No other rogue would be so aware of political realities outside the Earth Alliance."
"But how could they have found out -- ?" Vir began.
Colin simply raised an eyebrow at him.
Vir went beet-red. "Never mind."
Lochley took a deep breath, calming herself as best she could. "All right." She looked at Zack. "Remember when I said I had no grounds?" Zack nodded. "Now I have grounds."
She raised her link to her mouth and triggered the general broadcast circuit. "Attention all operating personnel." Her voice spoke out of Colin's, Ta'Lon's and Zack's link and out of the BabCom unit's speakers as well, sounding weirdly stereoscopic against the measured monotone of her real voice. "This is Captain Lochley. As of this moment, I am suspending all ambassadorial privilege, shutting down all incoming and outgoing traffic, and locking down all communications, effective immediately.
"Babylon 5 is now under martial law."
******** 16:13 EST ********
{{you heard?}}
{{I'm in the same bloody room - of course I heard}}
{{this changes everything!}}
{{this changes nothing - we simply have to accelerate things}}
{{we can't stay here!}}
{{we need this information}}
{{they know - it will be changed - useless very shortly}}
{{if we can get even two or three strikes out of this data the operation will have been worthwhile - and the trade lines are products of interstellar geography; there is a limit to how much they can be changed}}
{{that still means nothing if we are arrested before we can transmit}}
{{[sigh] very well - begin assembling the rerouter}}
Felicia glanced over at the men as the Oriental rose and moved to the BabCom unit in the wall. Its inspection panel already lay open; they had gone to it as soon as they'd entered the unit and disabled several vital circuits. There would be no way for her to use it to call for help, and they'd tossed her link in a waste recycler on their way out of the Eclipse Cafe.
Not that she could tell anyone where she was, even if she did find a way. They had done something to her mind -- she wasn't sure what -- but once out of the Zocalo she'd felt a flicker inside her brain and suddenly her sense of sight was gone. Along with the shutdown of vision had come a hard telepathic pulse like a knife at her throat: ((Make a sound and die.}}
They had hustled her through the station through a route so circuitous and swift her sense of location was completely lost. Her vision had been restored only upon entering the tiny res-unit they now occupied.
She suspected the room was somewhere in Grey Sector -- several units were maintained here for staff on long-term jobs; this looked like one of them. There was a single bed, one table, a tiny fresher unit and a BabCom terminal from which the oriental man was now removing several of the circuit blocks. As she snuck careful glances from her terminal keypad, he snapped a magnifying lens over one eye, bent over the blocks and began carefully rewiring their connections.
"Pay attention." The mustached man rapped her hand sharply, for all the world like a teacher chastising a daydreaming schoolgirl. "You don't need to see that. How are you doing?"
Sullenly she focused back on her screen. Algorithms flickered by at lightspeed, the system pruning down ciphers of logic to the point where the last remaining datastream would unlock the secrets of the crystal. It had already taken longer than she'd thought, having to be reset and restarted twice when dead-ends in the algorithm's fractal equations had suckered her elimination programs. She still wasn't sure how much longer it would take. This was top-of-the-line stuff. She opened her mouth to tell him.
"Thank you."
Anstruth gritted her teeth. That she felt none of the scan didn't matter; it pissed her off to know someone had just jumped inside her mind. "Why do you even bother to ask?"
"Because it makes you think about the answer, which saves us both the trouble of a deep scan." The mustached man smiled dryly. "Trust me, Ms. Anstruth; you don't want to know what that feels like."
"Speaking from experience?" she muttered.
"Yes."
The coldness of the word quelled her as nothing else could.
******** 16:45 EST ********
The shouting in the Zocalo struck Lochley like a wave as she came through the wall of guards Zack had set up at the main gate, Colin at her side. Even Ta'Lon and G'Stral, just behind her, betrayed