BABYLON 5: THE VIRTUAL SIXTH SEASON
"THE PRICE OF FREEDOM"
Episode 14
MIDNIGHT AT MOMMY FORTUNA'S
"The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone."
Selene wasn't quite sure what a 'lilac' was, but she sighed happily anyway, settling into the deep chair Taan Churok kept in the back room. Since the Dark Star had re-opened after the Captain's crackdown on illicit activities, the bar no longer served as a pickup point for prostitutes or rendezvous for drug dealers, so Selene's older sister Trish had lifted her ban on the eleven-year-old's coming to visit her on the job. It still wasn't what upscale parents would consider a 'wholesome' environment, but it beat running loose through DownBelow or being confined in their shabby quarters when Selene's work was done and her best friend, Jaida Tefano, was otherwise occupied.
Normally Selene wasn't a big reader, but 'The Last Unicorn' was one book she had not only finished, but re-read three or four times now. The first time had been right after her father disappeared, almost three years ago, when she had found the datacrystal in a box with some other things in his room. The box had her name on it, and she had taken it as a sort of legacy. The book, with its lyrical language and odd quirks of humor - not unlike her father's, she recalled sadly - had helped get her through those first few difficult months.
It was then that she'd taken to calling her sister 'Molly Grue' - though not to her face, of course. The older girl would never have gotten it, and at first she would just have laughed derisively and gone off with her Lurker friends. Since Trish had gotten the job at the Dark Star and settled down, though, Selene sometimes felt that the name was even more apt - from a cynical and bitter adolescent she had turned into a finicky, almost obsessively responsible adult practically overnight. Trish worked so hard to support them - even now that Selene was taking a little of the burden with her co-ownership of the fledgling IGOT Coffee and Tea Company - that Selene often wished she could just...loosen up a little. Spend some time in a unicorn's wood, perhaps.
She had tried to get Jaida to read the book, back then, but the Centauri girl had been put off by the alien references - and besides, that had been when Jaida was in her 'techie' phase, soaking up everything she could access on math and hard science, and disdaining fantasy and frivolity of any kind. Fortunately, she'd gotten over it. Indeed, since the arrival of those three Centauri ex-Ranger trainees, and their own adventure in rescuing Sgt. Satamba's kids, she'd been regaling Selene with tales of Centauri swashbucklers and romantic heros during their work hours in the greenhouse.
Hey - maybe this would be a good time to try her on 'The Last Unicorn' again, Selene thought suddenly. Flicking off the display, she clambered out of the chair and darted out into the noise and bustle of the Dark Star. Her sister called an admonition to be home by 21:00 as she flitted by, but she blithely ignored it, skipping out into the corridor ahead of a pack of loudly carolling Narns in baseball uniforms.
Trish stood shaking her head for a moment, then went back to loading up a tray of glasses for the sonic cleaner. "So, tell me about this Mr. Bowman," she said. In the aftermath of the crackdown and the Dark Star's changes in policy, the bar's owner was finally, after all these years, coming to visit, and the staff was understandably curious. The Drazi manager shrugged and slung a glass of blue ale down the bar to a waiting Llort.
"Don't know much," he said laconically. "He hired me over the comm, and he calls a couple times a year to check on things, but other than that, he leaves me alone - which is how I like it." Taan Churok's reptilian head swiveled toward a shaggy-maned Brakiri draped unartistically over the bar. "Rukh, you're cut off!" he said brusquely. "Go on home, now."
"Ah, Churok!" that worthy protested. "My uncle Ock never threw me out of here - are you going to start now? Especially this early in the night..." Brakiri were nocturnal by nature. Most of those who dwelt onstation, among Humans, Minbari, and the other daywalkers, adjusted their schedules to match, but there were some who just didn't care, and others who found it...advantageous to prowl while the rest of the station slept.
"This early in the night, you have no business being that drunk," observed the draz. "And Ock is no longer manager here - I am."
"Ah, but you never would have been manager, if I had not put in a good word for my old friend from the Mutai..."
"And you wouldn't have survived the Mutai if Taan hadn't covered your ass," put in Trish. "I've heard all your stories, Rukh, and I'm tired of hearing 'em. Now just run along and bother somebody else for a while." As the Brakiri muttered something about 'going where he was appreciated', she turned back to Churok. "But surely you can tell me something about Bowman - how old is he? Does he have kids?"
Again, the draz shrugged. "How old? Older than me, which is saying something. In Human terms...eighty, ninety perhaps? The rest you can ask him yourself - he's coming in on the Asimov tomorrow. Why don't you take the little one and meet him?" he added.
"I might just do that," said Trish with a grin. Neither of them noticed as Rukh slunk out the door, a furtive smile echoing in his dark, snakelike eyes.
****************
Captain's Quarters
19:45 EST.
Captain Lochley was technically off-duty, but she had her portable monitor up anyway, checking the latest dispatches from Earthdome. She was looking for one in particular, and she smiled triumphantly when she found it. Now for the next step - she was pretty confident, though. As strictly as she preferred to adhere to regulations and protocols, there were times when being a personal friend of the President of the Interstellar Alliance did come in handy, and she doubted that John Sheridan himself would consider this small favor to be anything but a just reward.
As she was about to start recording the message, a call came through from C&C.
"Comm for you, Captain," said the brisk voice of her second in command, Lieutenant Corwin. "It's coded personal, from the Asimov."
"Put it through, Lieutenant." Now who on Earth - or in this case, off it - would be calling her from the Asimov?
The face, when it appeared, was that of no one she knew - a clean-lined Caucasian face, male, perhaps a well-preserved sixty, with ice-blue eyes and a short sweep of steel-grey hair matched by a precisely-trimmed mustache that set off his strong chin and aristocratic cheekbones. The man smiled, an odd diagonal slash of a smile, and for no reason she could name, Lochley felt a chill run down her spine.
"Can I help you?" she asked, abruptly aware that her hair was down and she was wearing the sleeveless t-shirt and sweats she worked out in.
"Elizabeth? Pardon me - Captain Lochley - but that's how I've always thought of you, you know. Little Lizzie. I must say you've grown into quite an impressive...officer." He smiled again at her affronted glare, and went on before she could speak (fortunately or unfortunately, the Stellarcomm hyperspace relays made communications delays negligible for relatively short distances). "You probably don't remember me, but I was a good friend of your father's. Colonel Avram Peterson - retired now, of course," he added, with a gesture indicating his expensive, charcoal-grey civilian suit. "I will be staying on Babylon 5 for a few days on business, and I was hoping we could get together and talk about old times...dinner, perhaps, if your schedule permits?"
Lochley suddenly felt like she'd been flying a Starfury in an advanced maneuvering drill - whipsawed in half a dozen directions at once. Peterson - she vaguely remembered the name. A friend of her father's, yes, although she wasn't sure just how eager she was to discuss 'old times' with anyone, even now...nonetheless, aside from anything else, being polite to civilians was part of her job. She pulled together a tight smile of her own and agreed graciously. "Just give me a call when you get settled, Colonel, and we'll work something out."
"Splendid," the grey-haired man said, smiling that lopsided smile again, and signed off.
****************
Starliner Asimov
Hyperspace
19:48 EST.
The man who had called himself 'Avram Peterson' was still smiling as he leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers contemplatively before him. Two decks away, still in the First Class section of the massive passenger ship, another man, equally contemplative though less generously endowed in the hair department, fired up an expensive cigar. Two decks away from him, a third man, older than the second and older-looking than the first, tossed restlessly in a dark and dangerous dream.
****************** Act One *****************
Babylon 5
Customs/Debarkation
12:35 EST, 07/15/2263
The Security guard at Inbound Processing was a new guy, and his expression was blank and bored as he asked for Garibaldi's identicard. Something flickered in his eyes as he read the name - was it that Garibaldi? If so, should he say something? But he settled on a safe, businesslike, "Welcome to Babylon 5, Mr. Garibaldi", which only made the former Security Chief feel that much less welcome.
And then there was the entourage. Last time, a month ago, he'd managed to get away on his own. This time he wasn't so lucky. The deal with SeroTech of Orion was a complicated one, and the negotiations would require a knowledge of the nitty-gritty details of the pharmaceutical business that Garibaldi didn't have and didn't particularly want. For this one, he was serving mainly as facilitator and rubber-stamp - at least as far as his official business was concerned.
As for his unofficial business - Garibaldi swept a practiced eye over the crowded chamber as he waited for Meeker and Spence to work their way through their own line. Lyta's people had said their contact would meet him here, but he had no idea what the guy was supposed to look like. He could be anybody. That was the worst fragging thing about telepaths, Garibaldi thought to himself, they could be anybody. As he was savoring the familiar flare of anger at that thought, like worrying a loose tooth, his gaze locked onto another passenger coming through the First Class line. It couldn't be...
But it was. The man turned as Garibaldi started forward -- the darkened hair and mustache were no disguise at all to the ex-Security Chief. What the hell was the leader of the renegade Earthgov organization known as "Bureau 13" doing on Babylon 5? Their eyes locked across the concourse. Molyneux gave a brief nod, and Garibaldi swore. This couldn't be good. Before he could move closer, though, he bumped into someone.
Normally he would have pushed right by, but something about this woman stopped him. She was tall and slender, with long, curling mahogany hair, coffee-and-cream skin and the face of a Nubian goddess. As he groped for an apology, she looked back and smiled at him, and suddenly he knew...
"Damn!" he said reflexively, and in that moment she was gone.
So was Molyneux.
"Damn!" he said again.
"Is something wrong, Mr. Garibaldi?"
It was Meeker, a top-level Edgars-Garibaldi Industries accountant who fully lived up to his name. Spence, the Process Analyst (whatever the hell that was), stood beside him, a faintly disapproving look on her prim features. Garibaldi sighed. "No. Come on, let's go - our first meeting's in an hour and a half, and some of us," he added, with a glance at Spence, who seemed as poised and unrumpled after their three-day journey as she would have at an eight A.M. StatRep back on Mars, "need to settle in first."
"Hey, Mr. Garibaldi!" the call, in a light, childish voice, came from a slender arm waving above the heads of the crowd. With a sudden grin, Garibaldi turned aside to greet the two excited girls, sparing a brief frown of almost-recognition for the thin, dark-haired young woman who accompanied them. Her return frown of warning and disapproval reminded him of Spence, and he glanced back to see his assistants hovering behind him uncertainly.
"You go on," he called, "I just need to say hello to these ladies." He turned back to the girls. "Have you grown a meter each since I saw you? And what's this I hear about you guys finding some abandoned coffee and tea plants and turning them into a business?" he added with a broad wink. Jaida giggled in delight, but Selene managed an ostentatiously disapproving glare - obviously modeled on her sister's.
"And what's this we hear about you visiting the station last month and not stopping by to see us?" she retorted.
"Woops," said Garibaldi with not-entirely-feigned chagrin. "Honest, I meant to, but things got a little...hairy while I was here..."
Jaida shrugged. "So what else is new?" she said. "Anyway, how long are you here for? Will you have time to come to the greenhouse? The plants miss you, you know - and we can introduce you to the new ones..."
Garibaldi laughed. "The plants miss me? Yeah, right," he said, but relented at her earnest expression. He sighed. "Look, I'll see what I can do - trouble is, I've got a lot of meetings to go to, with people who make your plants look like Albert Einstein in a green wig."
That one got under Selene's guard - even the sister cracked a smile. Garibaldi tried out one of his own on her. "Don't I know you from somewhere? I know you must be Selene's sister Trish, but..."
"We've met, a time or two," the young woman admitted. "I've been working at the Dark Star for about three years, and before that, well, we ran into each other once - I'm afraid I wasn't too polite."
Garibaldi snapped his fingers. "Now I've got it! It was when I was looking for that rat Devereaux - before I got shot in the back. Never forget a face," he concluded smugly. He looked her up and down appraisingly, and she raised a faint blush. "Looks like things have been working out for you," he added.
"You, too," she managed awkwardly. "Look, we have to meet somebody..."
"And I've gotta go. I'll give your dad a call when I get a minute," he assured Jaida. She nodded, and after a brief hesitation he stooped to give both girls a quick hug. As he moved off, Trish fancied she could read embarrassment in the lines of his shoulderblades, and allowed herself another small smile.
She turned back, squaring her shoulders and walking up to the Security guard at the First Class line. "Excuse me, I'm waiting for a Mr. Bowman, Christopher Bowman, from Earth? I don't know what he looks like..."
The guard scanned his passenger list. "He hasn't come through yet. Why don't you wait back there, and I'll send him over?"
Trish nodded and steered the girls out of the way of traffic. It wasn't long before the guard looked back at them, then gestured to direct a passenger's attention their way. Trish gasped in spite of herself.
"Why is he riding that...that chair with wheels?" Jaida asked.
"Hush," snapped Trish absently, stepping forward to meet the elderly man. He was, indeed, older than Taan Churok, even allowing for the differences between species, but he was still hale, with a large, lean frame that would have been impressively tall if he had been standing. A white fringe of hair decorated an open, amiable countenance, with smiling eyes that picked Trish and the girls out of the crowd unerringly. At the touch of an armrest control, the powered wheelchair moved smoothly over to them.
"Ms. Livingston, I presume?" Bowman said, smiling faintly as at a private joke. "And this must be Selene - and Dem'selle Tefano, of course. Delighted to make your acquaintance, ladies!" As the bemused girls worked through greetings and wondering how he knew who they were (Taan Churok's reports had apparently been more thorough than Trish had suspected), their meeting did not go unnoticed. Across the room, a rather seedy-looking Human in nondescript jacket and jeans watched them closely under the pretext of studying the arrival display. When they moved off toward the transport tubes, he followed, just barely making it into the crowded car with them.
****************
Brown Sector, Level 26
Alfredo's Pool Hall
13:06 EST.
"Make it quick, j'Nialth, it's past my bedtime," the Brakiri said. Behind him, islands of light dotted the dimness of the long room, where players of various species were using long sticks to poke heavy balls around long, flat tables, with due consideration for the effects of station spin. An irritated rustle preceded the proprietor's reply.
"I am on call 256 [un-renderable Thrakallan time-units] a day, Rukh," came the overly-enthusiastic tones of the insectoid's vocoder. "I expect those who work for me to do likewise. I have been considering the news you brought last night, of the arrival of the owner of the Dark Star on Babylon 5."
"He should be here by now," Rukh pointed out. "Are you going to go talk to him, try to get him to sell you the bar? Maybe he'll be more agreeable face to...um...face," the Brakiri added dubiously, considering the masked, alien visage before him.
The Thrakallan made a dismissive gesture with a foreclaw. "I have initiated negotiations with this Bowman creature four times via StellarComm, and been refused each time. I see no reason to think that a fifth would be any different. And I have not summoned you for a consultation on my business affairs, in any case." Rukh bridled at that, but the insectoid either did not register the silent protest or chose to ignore it. "There is an object that I wish to obtain. A specific object. And you, Mutari Rukh, are the optimal being to obtain this object."
****************
Red Sector, Level 6
Conference Room 12B
15:10 EST.
The decibel level was rising again, and by now the only thing that kept Garibaldi from calling Security to take all five of the squabbling corp-rats to the brig was the fact that Zack would never let him hear the end of it.
SeroTech was a relatively small but growing pharmaceutical manufacturer based in the Orion cluster of colonies. In fact, growth was its main problem at this point - increased demand since the end of the Shadow War had tempted management to overextend, and neither the control systems nor the infrastructure were in place to handle it. They did, however, have several excellently-positioned production facilities that could be expanded given an influx of expertise and capital, a lock on several patents developed using native alkaloids, and a good, if now faltering, relationship with their customers.
The newly-renamed Edgars-Garibaldi Industries, on the other hand, had just about filled its niche in Sol nearspace, and with the recent drastic cutbacks in the chemical and bioweapons divisions, was in very real need of a base of operations from which to expand into the rimward markets. Since said cutbacks had also resulted in a temporary increase in the cash reserve, the match seemed made in heaven.
Which was one of the good things about getting married in Medlab, Garibaldi thought as he watched the prospective "in-laws" from the two companies butt heads across the conference table.
"You break down the pre-packaging phase into twenty-seven distinct steps - our systems only allow for fifteen. There's no way we're going to be able to backfill all the data, and half of it is irrelevant for our processes anyway..." the analyst from SeroTech was whining again.
"Then your processes will have to change," said Spence, for the seventh or eighth time.
"But the expense..." that was the ST accountant, of course.
"And the retraining..." they'd brought a Human Resources flack, too - probably just so they could assure their employees that they were 'fighting the good fight'.
"We can always replace workers rather than retraining them. It would probably be cheaper anyway," retorted Spence, with a look at Meeker, who nodded reluctantly.
"Replace? Are you nuts? We're talking upwards of fifteen thousand employees here, most of them with advanced degrees!" protested the HR guy. "The Orion colonies aren't Calcutta or BosWash, Ms. Spence - you can't just sweep Ph.D's up off the sidewalks!" The guy was turning faintly purple, and there was an ugly glint in Spence's eye - Garibaldi sighed.
It was just like a brawl at the Dark Star, only with words instead of fists. He felt an upwelling of retrospective sympathy for Sheridan - he'd sat in on a few of the nastier League and War Council meetings, but he'd never been the guy in charge. Those were the good old days, he thought.
"Hey!" he said loudly, using his water glass as a makeshift gavel. Fortunately, it was empty. "There will be no replacements." At Spence's startled look, he added, "At least, not on any kind of mass scale. And if your people are as sharp as you seem to think," he added, turning to the HR guy, "retraining will be a non-issue, anyway.
"This meeting was intended to identify critical issues - that's critical issues, not this twelve versus twenty-seven step crap - and determine approaches for attacking them. And that's exactly what's going to happen. I'm calling a recess for two hours, and once you've all had a chance to cool down you'll reconvene here - you will reconvene - and you will draw up a document listing the top three issues, with three approaches for each, including pro/con lists and estimated costs for each approach. This report will be on my monitor at oh-seven-hundred tomorrow morning, otherwise all of you will find yourselves on the short list for the replacements that do get made. Is that understood?"
Silence, then, slowly, five nods.
"Now I'd suggest you take the next two hours and recharge, rethink your perspectives. Have some lunch, take a tour of the station - it's a pretty nice place. Stay out of Down Below, though. I don't want to have to come fish anybody's butt out of a Pak'ma'ra's lunchbox.
"Oh, and just out of curiosity, do any of you have Ph.D.s?" he asked. They all looked at each other. After a moment, Meeker raised a tentative hand.
"Well, Dr. Meeker, you're in luck - the weather is lovely in Boston this time of year."
With that, the others began picking up their files and trailing out of the room. Once the SeroTech representatives were out the door, he barked, "Spence!"
She halted and turned.
"Yes, sir?"
Garibaldi put his hands in his pockets and strolled up to her where she stood in the doorway. He looked down into her cold, perfectly made-up eyes. "You married, Spence? You have any kids?"
"Mr. Garibaldi, I hardly think that my marital status is pertinent to this discussion!" To his patiently raised eyebrow, she reluctantly replied, "No. No husband, no...no children," she added, faltering a bit.
"Pets?"
"Certainly not! As much as I travel, I wouldn't have anything like the time to take care of an animal, even if I wanted one - which I don't," she protested, perhaps a bit too emphatically. "And I still don't see what that has to do with the SeroTech acquisition."
"Empathy, Ms. Spence. We're coming into these people's turf, threatening their jobs, their livelihoods, their families. Have you ever heard the old saying, 'walk a mile in a man's shoes'? Take this time to try looking at things their way, Ms. Spence. Walk a mile or two."
Spence's mouth tightened. "I'm afraid that's not in my job description, Mr. Garibaldi." She started off, then turned back. "Perhaps you might consider hiring a telepath?"
He watched her walk away, chewing on the inside of his lip.
"Riiight," he said at last, and headed off the other way along the corridor.
****************
The Zocalo
15:40 EST.
Security Chief Zack Allan spotted the guy first - a decidedly suspicious-looking character leaning on the catwalk that overlooked the Zocalo, watching the crowd. He nudged his second, Sergeant Glenn Satamba, and the other man nodded. The two split up and headed for the stairs.
"All right, all right, move along," Zack rasped, shoving the big man's shoulder roughly. "We don't allow no vagrants in the Zocalo, pal!"
"This loser giving you any trouble, Chief?" Satamba's bass rumble echoed from the 'vagrant's' other side, and the man darted a quick glance behind him. The Sergeant was half again as big around as he was, though a head shorter, but that didn't deter him from spinning back to get the Security Chief in a quick head lock.
"Trouble? You want trouble?" the man said menacingly, a wild-eyed grin denoting either stark insanity, or...
Muffled choking noises were coming from under the man's armpit, and Zack's arms flailed wildly, as though unable to find a grip. Satamba snorted, then lost it completely. Garibaldi finally let up on Zack - he couldn't help it, really, he was laughing so hard the Chief had no trouble breaking away once he put his mind to it. Zack rubbed his neck as they exchanged back-slaps.
"Man, you been working out? And here I thought having a desk job had slowed you down some!"
"Ah, don't you believe it, Zack! Keeping these white-collar types on their toes is harder than it looks. Besides, I've got me a personal trainer now - actually, he's my wife's bodyguard, but..." At Zack's expression he stopped short. They looked at each other a moment, then they both cracked up again.
"Ah, never mind. Long story. I'll try and bring him out next time, though - I think you two would get along." He turned to the Sergeant, who had managed to retrieve his own composure by then. "Glenn, isn't it? Good to see you again. I heard Zack made you his second - I just hope he doesn't give you as much grief as I gave him..."
As the manly greetings wound down, something caught Garibaldi's eye down by the Eclipse Cafe. A Human, male, with shaggy light-brown hair, dressed in a fake-leather jacket and jeans. There was something about the walk, the set of the shoulders...he looked up, for just a moment, and Garibaldi was sure he knew the face. He couldn't place him, though.
"Hey, Zack," he said. "You know that guy?"
Zack turned around. "What guy?"
"That guy..." Garibaldi pointed - but the man was gone. He scanned the crowd, finding no sign of him. He shook his head. "Never mind. Look, I've got some things I need to see to, but why don't I stop by the stationhouse later? We can catch up then..."
"Sure thing - we've got rounds to make, anyway," said the Chief. As he and his second made their way back down the stairs, Zack couldn't help muttering, "His wife's bodyguard..."
"I wouldn't touch that one, if I were you," advised Satamba.
"Hey, it's not my touching anything that's the question!"
****************
Captain's Office
16:00 EST.
Approval of Captain Lochley's plan had come in from ISA Headquarters on Minbar earlier that afternoon, along with a brief personal note from the President expressing his regret that he hadn't thought of it himself. Now, the Captain regarded the official printouts with a suitably grim expression as Lieutenant Corwin stood stiffly at attention on the other side of the desk.
"Lieutenant," she said crisply. "I have been reviewing your performance over the past year and a half, and I am forced to say that I cannot, in good conscience, describe it as 'adequate'."
She knew that she was being callous about this - but after all they had been through since she came aboard, plus all that the station logs and personal stories told of what Corwin had been through in the years before, she simply couldn't think of any more appropriate way to handle the situation.
"But, Captain, I've done my best," the Lieutenant protested, looking younger than his nearly thirty years and even more painfully earnest than usual, "I know there have been some slipups, some things I could have done differently, but..."
"Lieutenant!" The young man subsided, as she rose to pace deliberately around the desk and confront him at close range. "I have served in Earthforce for almost twenty years now, nearly half of that in command positions. I had the privilege of Captain Foraker's support on the Acheron, and for a while I was afraid that that experience had spoiled me for future XO's..." She muttered "one way or another" under her breath before going on. "However, as I said before, your performance cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered 'adequate'."
She took a deep breath, and the grin finally escaped.
"It has been outstanding."
The expression on Corwin's face was all she could have hoped for. Before he could find words to respond, though, she hit him with the big guns.
"I have here the documentation required for a Lieutenant Commander's commission in the Interstellar Alliance's Army of Light, in which you are currently serving as full Lieutenant. Since the Army of Light," she couldn't quite suppress a grimace of distaste at the rather ostentatious name, which she avoided using whenever possible, "consists solely of those officers and crew who seceded from Earthforce at the beginning of the Shadow War, and then declined the amnesty offered by President Luchenko, you will, of course, not only be the only holder of a Lieutenant Commander's commission, you will in fact be the highest-ranking officer in that Army - in name as well as in fact," she added with a wry smile.
"However exhilarating that may sound," she continued, "there is also...another option. I have conferred with the proper authorities at Earthdome, and by special dispensation you have been offered a second chance to reclaim your place in Earthforce - with a Lieutenant Commander's commission there, as well. It's up to you, David." The glow in his eyes was positively nuclear. To shield herself from it, she ducked her head as if to reread the papers, moving toward the window.
"I'm sure you know what my advice would be," she added. "But in the final analysis, it's your call." She looked up, to find that he had regained enough presence of mind to nod acknowledgement. "Take some time to think about it..."
As Corwin was stammering out a response, Lochley spotted a gamine face peering around the edge of her doorway.
"Can I help you?" she said pointedly, and Jaida and Selene popped unabashedly into the office, followed by an uncomfortable-looking young woman and an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair.
"Captain! Mr. Bowman is here!" the girls chorused. The man in the wheelchair cleared his throat.
"Captain Lochley, I do apologize for the intrusion - I was intending to set up an appointment for later, but the young ladies were showing me around the station, and they insisted on stopping by here..."
"Not a problem, Mr. Bowman," Lochley said, recovering quickly. "This is my Executive Officer, Lieutenant..." she shot a quick smile at Corwin, noticing that he seemed to have re-misplaced whatever composure he had begun to recover before they were interrupted "...David Corwin. Ms. Livingston," she acknowledged with a nod, which the younger woman returned stiffly. "I believe this is your first visit to the station, Mr. Bowman, is that correct?" she continued.
"Chris, please, Captain, and yes, it is. Of course, I've followed the ISN reports, but the reality of this place is simply...staggering," Bowman replied, with a smile that invited her to share the small joke at his own expense.
Almost against her will, she found herself returning that smile. As determined as she was to disapprove of this man - a man who made money off of other people's weaknesses, after all - she couldn't help warming to him. As she was about to reply, though, her link bleeped.
"Lochley, go."
"C&C here, Captain," came the voice of Lt. Kreies, filling in for Corwin. "I have a call for you from a Colonel Peterson."
"Put him through," said Lochley, resignedly. If it wasn't one thing, it was three or four others. When the Colonel's coldly handsome face came on the big screen, it was smiling that wry smile again - a smile that did not seem to touch his eyes. They flicked over the room behind her, narrowing as they lit on the elderly man in the wheelchair.
At the same moment, out of the corner of her eye Trish caught the sudden clench of Christopher Bowman's hand on the chair arm.
"What can I do for you, Colonel?" said the Captain.
"I was hoping you had managed to find the time to join me for dinner, Captain," said Peterson smoothly. "I understand that the Fresh Aire restaurant recently received a four-star rating from Fodor's, and I was just about to make reservations. Shall I make them for two?"
Lochley remembered to close her mouth. Might as well get it over with, she thought. "If you don't mind making them for, say, twenty hundred?"
"That would be fine - I'm not quite on station time yet myself," Peterson agreed, and signed off amiably enough. Trish cleared her throat, and Bowman looked up at her, his gaze slightly unfocused. It sharpened, and he turned back to Captain Lochley.
"I won't take any more of your time, Captain - we'll talk more later. I believe the ladies wanted to show me the...Zocalo, did you call it?"
Jaida and Selene jumped in with enthusiastic descriptions, sparing Lochley the effort of more than a cursory farewell. Corwin took his leave immediately after, promising to get back to her as soon as possible about his...decision.
Of course, no sooner had she settled back at her desk with the next piece of hardcopy from her in-box when her link bleeped.
****************
The Zocalo
16:20 EST.
The small cavalcade wound its way through the Zocalo, with Jaida and Selene vying for Bowman's attention as they pointed out the toy store, the jewelry stall, and the place where the Babylon 5 Emporium used to be (now a shop selling rare books). Suddenly, Jaida waved to a pair of young men wearing brightly-colored jackets and proud Centauri crests. One had the typical fair-skinned brunet coloring, while the other's crest was an unusual pale blond - almost white.
"Peya! Alto, Prado! Arrente mari'!" she called. The former Ranger trainees conferred briefly, smiling, and made their way over. The girls made the requisite introductions...
"And this is Selene's sister Trish..."
"And how do you do?" the brunet, Alto, cut in, with a distinct Centauri accent and an all-too-familiar gleam in his eye. Trish gave him her second-best 'yeah, right - don't mess with me' smile, which he returned with oblivious good humor.
"Where's Armani?" asked Selene, referring to the missing member of their trio.
"He's at Dok's, teaching a class," replied Prado, who was the more fluent in English, as well as Minbari and several other languages. "It's a beginner's class - mostly Centauri kids, a few Humans, even a couple of Brakiri..."
"You know who he really wants to teach," put in Alto, "Is that G'Stral - the Narn Ambassador's son."
"Oh, they're not related," Jaida corrected, "they're just friends."
Alto snickered - at the girls' inquisitive expressions, and Prado's admonishing look, he protested, "What? You know how Narns are - that whole 'father' thing. It is...how do you say...an instinct. One minute they are all 'be sure to finish your spoo, children' and the next they are trying to act like warriors or something."
By now, the whole group was regarding him oddly.
"I am not saying there is anything wrong with it," the young man floundered, "it is just...how do you say..."
"Alien?" prompted Prado.
"Yes - that is it. That is it exacting!" he said with evident relief.
"Hey, Alto," ventured Selene thoughtfully. "When you were on Minbar, did you ever run into a girl named Julia Tikopai?"
The handsome young Centauri winced. Prado smiled, and leaned his pale crest close to murmur "Tuthonos alla Westcastl'ini, morro!" to his friend.
"'You've been Westcastled'?" translated Selene, who had picked up a little Centauri from Jaida. Alto looked a bit sheepish as Prado explained.
"The wife of the High Councillor was one of our instructors. Alto's first lesson with her was..." he hesitated, looking for the right words..."highly educational."
"For you, maybe," put in Alto. "I did not learn a kolvadi thing!"
"Obviously," sighed Prado.
"Where's Mr. Bowman?" Trish asked, noticing that he was no longer with them. After a moment the girls spotted him, talking animatedly to a strikingly beautiful woman with light brown skin and a dark, curly mane over by the Abbai's wine shop. Suddenly the woman shook her head defiantly and stalked away, leaving the old man looking rather stricken behind her. As they hurried over, he pulled himself together and apologized.
"Is nothing to apologize for," said Alto graciously, looking appreciatively after the woman as she threaded her way through the crowd. Prado's eyes followed her too, although the speculation in them was far from erotic.
Selene was looking in another direction entirely - suddenly she grabbed at her sister's arm. "Trish, look!" she cried. "Remember that guy?"
"What guy?" Trish asked, trying to figure out which of the twenty or thirty male humanoids in the general direction Selene was pointing she actually meant. The younger girl shook her head, frustrated.
"He's gone now. But I just know it was that guy Dad used to hang out with, right before..."
"Yeah, well, a lot of people come through here, you know that," said Trish quickly, not wanting to encourage the girl. "It's probably just some guy who looks like him, whoever he was, anyway." Selene didn't look at all convinced, but there wasn't much she could do about it at this point. Meanwhile, Jaida was inviting the young men to join them for ice cream at the Eclipse Cafe.
"Ice...cream?" repeated Prado dubiously.
"Yeah, it's kinda like frozen spoo, only sweeter. You'll like it, I promise!" the Centauri girl assured him.
****************
Grey Sector
16:45 EST.
{{That's far enough.}}
Garibaldi stopped, halted as much by his sudden anger at the silent voice as by the command itself. "Stay out of my head," he said tightly.
The woman from Customs stepped out from behind one of the stacks of containers piled high in this neglected storage compartment. "Do you have it?" she asked.
"Right here." Garibaldi fished a datacrystal out of his pocket and tossed it to her. "Encrypted using your codes, which I don't have the key to. It has the account numbers and access codes for your operating expenses for the next six months. You need more, just get in touch."
"Good. That's fine, thanks," she said absently. She seemed distracted, as though her mind was somewhere else - which, seeing as how she was a telepath, was quite possible.
"So, ah, you're a friend of Lyta's, Ms...?"
"What?" She looked up, startled. "Oh! Sorry. Walters - Toni Walters. And no, not really. She contacted the Resistance after Byron died, and we started working together - coordinating strikes, sharing information. Since she left, Byron's followers have to some extent been...absorbed into our organization."
Garibaldi was confused. "But...I thought the Byronites were Resistance?"
Walters shrugged. "A lot of them started out with us. But the Resistance leadership never really trusted Byron. Not just his association with Bester - although that certainly didn't help - but his whole attitude. He was just a...a loose warhead."
Garibaldi snorted. "And Lyta isn't?"
The woman smiled wryly. "Nuclear. But she's gone off with that Narn, for the time being anyway, and her people are some of the best. Hopefully, by the time she gets back we'll have put together a team that can do some real damage."
He nodded. "Hope so. Speaking of damage, did you know Molyneux is onstation?" At her look of incomprehension, he repeated, "Molyneux? Head of Bureau 13? Shadowtech in his head, can't be scanned? Ring any bells?"
Her gaze sharpened. "He's here? How do you know?"
Garibaldi chuckled, shaking his head. "You walked right past him in Customs. You telepaths crack me up. So sure of your 'special senses' that you don't bother developing the regular ones - but with this guy, you'd better be on your toes. He can sneak up on you and you'll never even know it until the knife goes in."
She pursed her lips - a sight that would have been most intriguing if he weren't quite so happily married. "That's a bit harsh, Mr. Garibaldi. As I recall, it was you yourself who arranged for our people to work with him, in exchange for certain resources and contacts..."
"That doesn't mean I trust the guy," Garibaldi pointed out. "Speaking of which, I'd appreciate it if your people could keep me posted on what he's up to - anything that might shed some light on his agenda, that sort of thing."
Walters eyed him thoughtfully. "I'll make you a deal, Mr. Garibaldi. We'll let you know what we can find out about Molyneux, and you let us know what you can find out about FutureCorp."
Now it was Garibaldi's turn to be puzzled. "FutureCorp? What about them?"
"That's what we'd like to know - particularly any connection with a certain telepath, a Dr. Paul Frost."
"Corps?"
"He was - he went renegade several months ago, and since then we've been getting...overtures, of a sort, from him. Indications are he has some pretty heavy-duty backing of his own, and the trail leads back to FutureCorp. Needless to say, given the incident with Mr. Edgars, we find any connection to the megacorps...disturbing, to say the least."
Garibaldi pursed his lips. "Deal," he said at last.
****************
Red Sector
Transient Quarters
19:50 EST.
The door bleeped. It bleeped again, then a third time. At that point, the person outside finally noticed that it was open a crack.
"Mr. Bowman? Did you still want to go out for dinner?" Trish called. There was no answer. She frowned, then went ahead and shoved the door back in its runner.
"Lights," she said. An indirect glow came up to reveal the stark furnishings of a standard guest suite, tumbled about as if a whirlwind had swept through. She took a couple of steps inside, which brought the sleeping alcove into her line of sight. She gasped.
Christopher Bowman hung half out of his wheelchair, a look of stark terror on his face...and the ornate hilt of a very large dagger protruding from his bloodstained chest.
****************** Act Two *****************
Stationhouse.
20:20 EST
"Looks like I got here just in time," said Garibaldi.
"Hey, Chief," said the Chief absently. "What do you make of this?"
Garibaldi looked at the dagger on Zack's desk. "Drazi," he said curtly. He picked it up and peered at the hilt. "Mutari ceremonial dagger. This the murder weapon? Any prints? DNA traces?"
"Not a damn thing. I don't get it, though. What connection could there be between the Mutai and an Earth Alliance businessman like this Bowman guy?"
Garibaldi shrugged. "Maybe none. Maybe..."
From the doorway came the unmistakable sound of a reptilian throat clearing.
"Chief Allan," said Taan Churok, "We need to talk."
****************
Fresh Aire Restaurant
20:10 EST.
Captain Lochley was a few minutes late for her dinner date - partly due to a snafu in the outbound routing that cropped up at the tail end of her shift, and partly due to an unforeseen difficulty in coming up with a suitable outfit. The last time she'd had the opportunity and the inclination to go shopping for civilian clothes, those horrible calf-length hobble-skirts had been in fashion and she had absolutely refused. Therefore, all she had in the closet were a few things she had hung onto over the years, stubbornly hoping the fashion cycle would come back around to them. After entirely too much time spent debating the issue, she had finally pulled together the top from one ensemble - a sleeveless, keyhole-necked white brocade tunic - and a pair of narrow silver satin trousers from another. With her hair up and tiny amethysts dotting her earlobes, she supposed she looked presentable enough for dinner with an old family friend. Now if she could just avoid spilling marinara sauce or whatever on the damned thing...
"Good evening, Captain - a rare honor indeed!" the maitre'd gushed. "Would you care for a table by the fountain?"
"I'm meeting someone," she demurred. "He's probably here already - a Colonel Peterson?"
"Indeed," the man said with what came suspiciously close to being a smirk. "Right this way." He led her to a table at the very edge of the 'open air' restaurant, where a hedge of thornless roses made a low wall between the diners and the Gardenlands beyond. Far across the fields and halfway up the curve of the immense cylinder, the white tower of the Rangers' compound glinted in the reflected sunlight of the local day.
"I'm sorry I'm late," Lochley said, and the Colonel looked up from his contemplation of the view.
"The exigencies of command," he replied easily as he stood to greet her, a study in subtle shades of grey. "I remember them all too well. I took the liberty of ordering wine and appetizers. I hope you don't mind burgundy, and...I'm afraid I'm not quite sure what these are..."
Lochley smiled gratefully as she took her seat, and explained about the gnurrils. When she confessed that she didn't remember meeting him as a child, he promptly produced a fully-loaded pocketpic. The images of her parents, younger than she remembered them, moved her more than she had thought possible, and she couldn't help blushing at the fat-cheeked, somber-eyed baby that they both seemed so delighted by. The other man in the pictures, barely more than a boy at the time, seemed much warmer and more approachable than her tablemate, who despite his gracious manner seemed, in some sense, even more closed and remote in person than he had via comm.
As they talked, she begain to suspect that she knew where he had lost most, if not all, of that innocence - the same place so many had: the War. Peterson mentioned that he had been invalided out in the last Minbari push, right before the Battle of the Line.
"By the time I came out of the coma, it was all over," he said, a wry quirk flickering under his mustache. "And somehow, we'd won! I'll tell you, it took some getting used to." He sobered, looking at her searchingly. "I was so sorry to hear about Hank."
She shook her head quickly, dismissively, but he persevered. "I meant to get in touch with your mother, but there were some...problems..." his eyes clouded. "At any rate, by the time I had put my life back together, there didn't seem to be anything I could say."
"No, there wouldn't have been," Lochley murmured. She looked out over the fields, not really seeing them. "I'd just made Lieutenant, then. I was serving on the Demosthenes, a short-range cruiser stationed out near Drazi space. We tried, but we couldn't get back in time." She started and shook her head quickly, just as the waiter came back with the entrees.
"And now we're trading with them," Peterson said, picking up a safer - or at least less disturbing - thread of the conversation.
"Hmm?" Lochley was concentrating on her fish - and the rather slippery, though delicious, green sauce it came in. "Oh, the Minbari. Yes, it's ironic, isn't it? They've become one of our staunchest allies."
"And that doesn't worry you?" Peterson's icy gaze seemed oddly intent.
Uh-oh, I hope he's not one of those, thought Lochley warily. She shrugged, allowing a touch of defiance to leak through. "Why should it? History is full of similar situations. Two aggressive powers meet, clash, and only then begin to discover grounds for cooperation."
"Ah, yes, but that usually happens after one side has proven dominant - in this case, the issue was left undecided. Almost suspiciously so, in fact."
Lochley speared another forkful of fish, heedless of splatters now as she warmed to the argument. "Maybe it was deliberate," she suggested. "Maybe...somebody thought it was time people started talking to each other without having to prove who has the bigger guns, for a change."
As Peterson smiled a condescending, lopsided smile and opened his mouth to reply, a soft, musical voice interrupted.
"Captain, how fortuitous to find you here." Lochley looked up at the tall, robed form of the Minbari Ambassador, flanked by two other Worker Caste Minbari.
"Fortuitous, indeed," she agreed. "Ambassador Sherann, I'd like you to meet Colonel Avram Peterson, retired, from Earth. Colonel, this is Ambassador Sherann of Rhell, the official representative of the Minbari government to Babylon 5 - and a personal friend of mine."
The two other Minbari looked almost as shocked as the Colonel, but there was an answering gleam in Sherann's eye as she took her cue, drawing herself up to her full height before performing the complete form of the Bow of Greeting.
"I would be honored to discuss the harmonious relations between my world and yours at a later date, Colonel, Captain. However, my new assistants Heyonn and Vuralt have recently arrived from Minbar, and I must escort them through the Third Ritual of Acclimatization to Foreign Customs. I believe they are serving chocolate mousse this evening," she added. Lochley nodded with a completely straight face as the Ambassador and her entourage swept off to a table by the fountain.
"Now, what were you saying about the Minbari, Colonel?" she asked politely.
****************
Stationhouse
20:25 EST.
"So you're telling us that this is your knife that was found sticking in the chest of your boss, but that you didn't put it there?" Zack summed up, with perhaps the slightest hint of skepticism in his voice. Garibaldi snorted softly. Behind him, Satamba watched, expressionless.
"Correct," replied the draz. "As soon as Ms. Livingston told me what happened, I looked for my zhotakhe blade, and found it missing. Reporting the theft appeared to be the most...prudent course of action."
"You could have run," Garibaldi pointed out. "With your contacts, you could quite easily have lost yourself in DownBelow, or even managed to get offstation. Maybe. Of course, that would have pretty much confirmed that you did it," he added.
"Just so," said Churok. "Besides, I have no desire to 'lose myself', on or off this station. We have had our differences in the past..." his beady eyes touched on each of the three Humans in turn. "...but you have always dealt honestly with me, and I with you - insofar as circumstances have permitted. I would rather trust to your regard for justice, Mr. Allan, than attempt to circumvent you.
"And you, Mr. Garibaldi," he added, turning to the tall Human, "Perhaps it is a stroke of Fate that you are here at this time. If anyone can determine the truth of this matter, it is you. Will you help me?"
Garibaldi balanced the dagger in his hand as he looked consideringly at the tall, powerfully-built draz, whose eye-level matched his own. This was no longer his jurisdiction - his turf - and it wasn't as though he didn't have enough to keep him busy this trip. Still, Taan Churok had done him a favor or two, over the years - and the fact that he had come forward voluntarily spoke well for his innocence. Then again, streetwise as the ex-Mutari was, he had to know that despite Garibaldi's words earlier, his chances of a clean escape would have been slim. Perhaps he was trying to bluff it out...which was a bit subtle for most Drazi he'd met, but Churok was a cagey old lizard. Garibaldi looked at Zack, who gazed back at him steadily, ready to support whatever decision he made. He put down the knife.
"You sound like a man who thinks he needs help," he pointed out.
Churok gave a thin reptilian smile. "Someone has obviously gone to a lot of trouble to lay this on my balcony, Mr. Garibaldi. As yet, I do not know who - and it is never wise to underestimate an unknown enemy."
"Fair enough," the Human acknowledged. "So, where were you from 17:00 this afternoon until Ms. Livingston told you about the murder?"
The draz hesitated. "I'd rather not say," he admitted at last. "It was...personal business, and I promised the others involved that it would remain confidential. I can assure you, however, that I was nowhere near Red Sector."
Sergeant Satamba's heavy sigh was echoed by both of the other Humans.
"Well," observed Garibaldi, "this investigation is certainly off to a rip-snorting start!"
****************
The Zocalo
The Eclipse Cafe
21:45 EST.
David Corwin knew he shouldn't be drinking coffee this late, but he somehow doubted he'd have gotten to sleep anyway. Ever since the Captain had dropped that bomb on him, his thoughts had been racing, and he didn't think they would stop until he made his decision.
The promotion part of it was almost anti-climactic. In the back of his mind he'd known that he was overdue for one. Hell, he'd been holding down Ivanova's job for a year and a half now - officially. Unofficially, given how much of her time she'd spent dealing with the Shadow and Civil wars, it was almost twice that - and she'd come into it as a Lieutenant Commander. A couple of times he'd considered chatting up Lieutenant Balamanga, the unsung hero who coordinated the less glamorous details of maintaining the Army of Light, to find out exactly what procedures would have to be gone through to make that promotion happen, but he'd always found an excuse to procrastinate.
Really, with things the way they were, it had never made all that much difference. There were twenty-nine other full Lieutenants onstation - not counting a few Earthforce regulars who'd been rotating in and out as needed - but he had seniority on most of them, and by now they were all well accustomed to looking to him for direction in the Captain's absence. The crisis a month and a half ago, when the reactor core had nearly blown and had taken almost all the station's systems down in the process, had made that abundantly clear.
Still, having his growth as an officer acknowledged felt pretty good - as much for the confidence in him that it showed, on the part of both the Captain and President Sheridan, as for anything else. The other part, though - the chance to rejoin Earthforce, to pick up the career he'd thought he'd turned his back on forever - that was the part that had him trying to see the future in a cup of IGOT coffee at the Eclipse Cafe when he should be catching up on the daily reports and getting ready for bed.
To this day, he wasn't sure why he hadn't jumped at the chance to join up again at the end of the Civil War, as Captain Ivanova had. He'd told himself that it was because so much needed to be done onstation, and nobody had the knowledge and experience he had, but sometimes he wondered if it weren't simply that, after everything that had happened, on some level he was afraid to leave.
Well, if he went back to Earthforce, he'd be reassigned elsewhere sooner or later. Probably sooner - the higher-ups would undoubtedly feel that getting him away from Babylon 5 was a top priority, for several reasons, most of which he had to admit made sense. He wasn't at all sure how he felt about that. He thought about his brother's visit to the station, a few months ago, and how they had parted...well, almost friends, for once. Being closer to his family - even Adam - would certainly be a good thing, although there was no guarantee he'd be posted closer to Earth! Maybe they'd put him on an Explorer ship, send him out toward the Rim. Maybe they'd want to keep 'questionable' characters like him away from the new recruits...
Darn, he thought, Maybe I have been here too long - I'm starting to think like Mr. Garibaldi, getting paranoid and second-guessing the higher-ups' motives.
On the other hand, if he stayed...as Captain Lochley had pointed out, he would effectively be the 'higher-up'. That was another thing he'd avoided thinking about - maybe for too long. The infrastructure of the Army of Light had been running pretty much on autopilot since Captain Sheridan had become President Sheridan. Their pay was still channeled from the station's docking fees by Lieutenant Balamanga and his staff, but ranks had been essentially frozen. With Captain Lochley in command of the day-to-day operation of the station (and, of course, the continuing crises) there had never seemed to be a screaming need for 'in-house' leadership or long-term planning for the AoL as such. Maybe that was a job that should be tackled - by someone who knew this station, and the people who ran it, like the back of his hand.
Maybe it was a job for Lieutenant Commander David Corwin.
As he was digesting this rather daunting concept, he noticed that he'd gotten to the bottom of his caffe mocha. He rose to take the cup back to the counter, and spotted a familiar figure drooping disconsolately over her own coffee cup at a nearby table.
Odd. He would have thought Ms. Livingston would be at work by now - if she weren't still escorting her employer, that Mr. Bowman, around the station. In fact, this was the first time David had ever seen her just hanging around the Zocalo - not that he'd been looking, or anything. Before he had consciously decided to do so, he found himself walking over.
"Ms. Livingston?"
She looked up, and the nervous smile froze on his face. Her eyes were black pits of despair, and the tracks of tears gleamed on her face. Halfheartedly, she brushed at her cheeks.
"Yes, Lieutenant? Is there something I can do for you?" A touch of her usual acerbity tried to lighten her voice, but it was buried beneath the burden of whatever grief she was carrying.
"No! No, I just saw you sitting there, and..." without thinking about it, he slid into the other chair. "Are you all right? Is...is your sister..."
"Oh, she's fine!" Trish said quickly. "I'm...fine. Everybody...oh, God...everybody's fine but..." helpless, and furious at her helplessness, she started sobbing again, turning away from the dismayed Lieutenant.
"Um...can I...um...oh, oh hell!" He dragged the chair around and gathered the young woman into his arms, surprised at the delicacy of her thin body and half-afraid of breaking her. He knew she was strong, though - their scramble through the guts of the station during the reactor crisis would have proved that, even if he didn't know that she held her own every night at the Dark Star among some of the nastiest customers this side of Proxima. What could have done this to her, if it wasn't some harm or threat to her little sister, Selene?
After a few minutes, Trish got herself more-or-less together, pushing away from Corwin abruptly and apologizing. He turned so that he was actually sitting at the table and folded his arms on it, not knowing what else to do with his hands.
"Um...I'd really like to help, whatever it is..." he said tentatively.
She took a deep breath. "You know Mr. Bowman - the guy we were with this afternoon? Well...he was murdered. I found the body, in his quarters. And that's not the worst of it. I think...it may have been Taan Churok's knife that was used, which..."
"Which makes him the prime suspect," supplied David.
Trish nodded, thin-lipped. "And that's just impossible!" she said, slapping the table. David decided that anger was better than despair - at least it was something he was used to, from her. "Taan Churok is one of the best, most decent...well, people...I've ever met. Oh, sure, he was in the Mutai, and God knows what else besides - he's tough, and ruthless enough when he needs to be. But other than that..." she shook her head emphatically. "There's no way he could have done something like that. Not in cold blood."
"Drazi actually are warm-blooded," he pointed out. At her glare, he added, "A lot of people don't know that," rather defensively. "But...what if it wasn't 'in cold blood'? What if they had an argument, or something?"
"Over what? They got along great - we started our tour at the Dark Star, and it was a good thing there weren't many customers, because I could hardly tear them apart. Like old friends who hadn't seen each other in years."
"Were they?" Corwin asked.
"No - that's what made it so cute. Taan says he's only spoken to him on the comm, maybe a dozen times altogether."
"Well, then maybe it's that they didn't know each other. Maybe Bowman said something that offended Taan's...Drazi sensibilities, somehow...you know, in the meetings I've been in with the Ambassadors, they can get pretty riled up, and Ambassador Vizhak and his staff are among the worst."
Trish shook her head. "I don't know, but I just don't see it. If only there were something I could do - but I can't even go in to work: Security closed the Dark Star pending the investigation.
"That's bad," said David. "When things get really bad, the best thing I've found is to just...bury yourself in the work, you know? You just keep doing what has to be done, and somehow you come out the other side of it..."
"Yeah, tell me about it," the girl agreed glumly. "After my dad disappeared, for a while I just ran around with my friends - getting wasted, trying to forget about it. But I couldn't, and there was Selene to take care of, always reminding me. Once I got the job at the Dark Star, though, especially those first few weeks when I was learning the ropes, sometimes whole evenings went by when I didn't even think about it."
"Your father...disappeared?" Corwin couldn't help asking.
"Near the beginning of the Shadow War, though we didn't know that at the time," Trish explained. "He just went off one morning, and never came back."
"Couldn't Security help?"
The girl laughed derisively - a bit more like her old self, David noted. "Security? They were up to their ears in NightWatch, Narn refugees, and heaven knows what else - one lurker more or less wasn't going to light any rockets under them! I didn't even get to talk to Mr. Garibaldi or Mr. Allan - they just took my report and filed it."
"I'm sorry," said David.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, it wasn't your fault!" Trish's tone was snappish, but a quick smile flickered over her mouth as she said it. "Or theirs either," she admitted. "They really were swamped. Not that I could see that at the time, of course. Which is probably why I have so very little faith in their ability to get to the bottom of this situation. I'm just afraid they'll take the easy way out - arrest Taan and have done with it."
"Well, I can talk to Mr. Allan, if you'd like..."
"Thank you," she said, looking at him straight on for perhaps the first time since he'd sat down. "I'd appreciate that."
Inspired, he went on. "And maybe...I'm sure they're doing all that forensic stuff, and some kind of routine data search, but maybe we can...I mean, I can, try some angles that they might not think of - or have the clearance for..." he trailed off as he realized what he was saying. Use military clearance for the Earth Alliance datanets for a personal search...when he wasn't even, in fact, a member of Earthforce? The latter consideration probably wouldn't have occurred to him if the situation had come up yesterday, but since his talk with Captain Lochley, it jumped to the front of his brain in big neon glyhs. Trish was looking at him with a gleam of actual hope in her eyes, though, and surely there could be no harm in just looking around at the public-level information...
"Come on," he said. "If we're going to do this, we should get on it."
Neither of them thought twice about it as he led her off to his quarters.
****************
Red Sector, just off the Zocalo
Paulie's
21:50 EST.
The blue neon tracing out "Paulie's" over the doorway shone the same as ever, Garibaldi noticed, and the rich, red cloths and gleaming silverware on the tables provided the same air of casual elegance that they always had.
The last time he had been here was with Lise, the night before they headed off to Mars. He'd hoped Sinjun would be singing, but Paulie had said she'd gone off somewhere - and maybe it was just as well, he had decided. Sinjun and Lise in the same room was not a concept to bring peace to a newly-married man's soul, however technically innocent that man might be.
As he followed Zack to the bar, he cast an almost furtive glance at the stage, but it was occupied by a girl with long, dark hair tuning up a guitar, and there was no familiar gleam of deep auburn in the audience.
Just as well, he thought again.
"Hey, Paulie, how's it going?" Zack called to the proprietor, who stood braced against the gleaming wooden bar with a big, fat cigar stuck in his mouth. Same as always.
"Pretty damn lousy, since the Captain went and had that hissy-fit," Paulie replied, scowling amiably. "But I get by, I get by. Hey, rich man," he called to Garibaldi. "What are you doin' back here? Slumming?"
"Couldn't stay away, Paulie," the bald man replied easily. "Even us colonists need a little real culture now and again. So, uh, new girl?" he jerked a thumb back at the stage.
Paulie grinned. "Nah, she's been workin' here a few months. That neo-folk revival stuff is pretty hot right now. And no, Sinjun never did come back. Apparently, her other boss found some critical mission for her on the other side of the galaxy," The big man added with a grin.
Sinjun Ross had been one of the first Rangers that ex-Commander Sinclair had sent to keep an eye on the station. Although she was a brilliant operative, her 'artistic temperament' had sparked conflict with some, including the official chief of the Anla'Shok intelligence division, Colvhar Vendim. It wasn't too surprising that High Councillor Westcastle had seen fit to separate the two of them by as many light-years as he could conveniently manage.
"So, what can I get you guys?"
"Gingerale, if you got it," said Zack.
"Water," said Garibaldi.
"Back on the wagon, huh?" said Paulie sympathetically. Last year, Garibaldi had done all his drinking in his quarters, but somehow word got around.
The bald man's mouth tightened. "Yeah."
"Hey, Paulie," said Zack. "You know anything about a guy named Christopher Bowman?"
Paulie plunked down two glasses. "Not off the top of my head. Local?"
"He's from Earth, but he's - well, he was visiting here," Garibaldi amended. "He was the owner of the Dark Star."
"Oh, yeah, now I remember. You said was?" Paulie's eyes narrowed.
"Yeah," said Zack, "until about 19:00 this evening, when somebody stuck a knife in him. You know anything about it?"
Paulie chomped on his cigar for a moment before answering. "Now there's a hell of a thing - somebody goin' around offing bar owners. Might make a guy nervous. What does Churok have to say about it?"
"It was his knife," Garibaldi replied. "But he says he didn't do it."
Paulie snorted. "No motive. Running the Dark Star was a sweet deal for Churok, and he's 'way too smart a draz to throw that away."
"Maybe," said Zack. "And maybe the guy was going to fire him or something. That's just one of the many things we don't know about this case."
"And, surprise surprise, we thought you might have some leads," added Garibaldi. "You may have closed down the back room since the crackdown - you did close it down, right?"
Paulie did his best 'innocent' look - which was very impressive, if not at all convincing to the ex-Security Chief. Zack had told Garibaldi what happened when they raided Paulie's, early on in the crackdown: when they'd barged into Paulie's famous 'Back Room', fabled home of various and sundry upscale vices, all they had found was a bunch of old furniture and cleaning equipment. "What back room?" Paulie asked smugly.
"Yeah, right. Anyway, Zack says you're still plugged into everything that goes on on this station - so what's the scuttlebutt? Anything going on at the Dark Star? How did they handle the crackdown?" Garibaldi already knew the facts, from Zack, but he wanted to hear the other side of it.
"Not too great. They got raided, got closed down. Churok and that Livingston spent some time in the brig, some of the girls working the place got brought up on charges. Then I guess this Bowman guy must have called in some high-powered lawyers, because they opened up again a few weeks ago. Cleaned up, though, for the most part - or so I've heard. So, the owner finally comes out to visit, and somebody scrags him, huh? Hell of a thing. What's gonna happen to the bar now?" he asked.
"Why, you wanna buy it - start a franchise?" asked Zack, half-seriously.
"Nah, I got enough grief," Paulie replied. He chomped thoughtfully on his cigar. "But come to think of it, I know somebody who'd jump at the chance." A sudden grin split his wide face. "Figuratively speaking, at least. If I were you guys, I'd pay a little visit to Alfredo's."
"The pool hall down in Brown Sector?" Garibaldi asked, disbelieving. Zack swore, and Garibaldi looked at him, completely lost, as he pushed away from the bar.
"Thanks, Paulie. I owe you one," the Chief called over his shoulder as he hurried toward the door. Garibaldi started to follow, then turned back.
"Hey, Paulie - where do you get those cigars, anyway?"
"Fedor's, in the Zocalo, half a dozen doors spinward from the catwalk," the big man replied.
"They carry Morley Perfecto Triple Golds?"
Paulie grinned. "Only the best," he said.
****************
Brown Sector, Level 26
Alfredo's Pool Hall
22:09 EST.
"My father's name was Alfredo," Garibaldi said. The corridor was a main artery - which in Brown 26 wasn't saying much. Some of the lights flickered intermittently, and sullen eyes watched them from dark corners. Up ahead, a cheap biolume sign had been hung from the ceiling struts, with an arrow pointing to the open hatch, from which raucous noise and smoky light spilled out into the hallway.
"Yeah, I know," Zack replied, sidestepping a somnolent denizen.
"It's a good name," Garibaldi pointed out.
"Yeah, it is," Zack agreed.
"I hate this place," Garibaldi complained.
"Wait 'til you meet the new owner," said Zack.
Moments later - "Oh, Christ, not another Thrakallan! I thought we'd seen the last of those bug-eyed hoodlums when n'Grath got himself squashed."
"Yeah, well, they're members of the Alliance, so they've got as much right to be here as anyone else," Zack replied grudgingly.
"That's nuts. Their whole culture is based on organized crime!"
"'Alien business practices'," parroted the Chief. "As long as they obey our laws while they're here, we can't keep 'em out. And so far..." Zack sighed. "...we haven't been able to pin anything on him."
"Then you need bigger pins," said Garibaldi.
In Garibaldi's time, Alfredo's had been a favored resort of the lower-ranked Security officers, while the noncoms frequented Paulie's, and the Chief, of course, divided his time between there and Earhart's. Now, however, there were only a couple of off-duty Security there, both big, burly guys who nodded in acknowledgement of Zack's sharp look. Another dozen or so rather seedy-looking patrons, mostly Human, were at the tables, and a lone Brakiri sat at the bar, discussing something with the being Zack had pointed out as the owner.
The bartender - an Enfili, Garibaldi noticed - moved toward them, but j'Nialth waved him off.
"Chief Allan!" An incongruously hearty voice issued from the insectoid's vocoder. Accustomed to the precise, staticky tone of n'Grath's less sophisticated device, Garibaldi couldn't help being disconcerted - then amused. "To what do I owe the extreme pleasure of this visit?"
"J'Nialth," Zack replied with slightly forced politeness. "You stayin' out of trouble?"
"Trouble, Chief? Why, we Thrakallans hardly know the meaning of the word. May I get you and your...friend a drink?"
"Ah, no, that's okay, we just wanted to stop by and say 'hello'." The alien's masked, mantis-like head tilted inquiringly. "By the way, my friend here is Mr. Michael Garibaldi - you might have heard of him."
"Indeed! Many tales have been told of your reign, Chief Garibaldi - and your most glorious ascension to the leadership of Edgars Industries. I am most honored, most honored indeed."
"Ah, likewise, I'm sure," said Garibaldi, balanced between revulsion and hilarity. He leaned an elbow on the bar casually. He noticed, out of the corner of his eye, the Brakiri slipping out of the room. "Hey, listen, maybe you'd be honored enough to give us a little help on something. Paulie - you know Paulie? Well, he told us you'd been talking to Taan Churok about buying the Dark Star. Is that right?"
"Talked, yes indeed," replied the Thrakallan heartily (or at least the vocoder translated it heartily). "But, unfortunately, he was not in a position to make such a decision." Garibaldi and Zack looked at each other. The phrasing made it sound like Churok would have sold out if he could - was that an artifact of the vocoder, or egotism on the bug's part...or something else?
"Did you...discuss the matter with the owner, Mr. Bowman?"
"Yes, several times via StellarComm," the insectoid replied. "He did not wish to sell." Various hard-shelled limbs moved in a complicated Thrakallan shrug. "There was nothing else to be done."
Another possibly vocoder-born ambiguity, Garibaldi noted, wondering if his suspicion circuits were on overdrive again. "Did you talk to him in person, since he came on board?" he asked. Again, the insectoid head tilted.
"On board? Mr. Bowman is on this station? Why, I had not heard! I shall have to make an appointment at once!" The enthusiasm level of the artificially-generated voice rose to an almost sportscaster-like level. It seemed a shame that Zack had to disappoint the poor bug.
"I'm afraid you're a little late, j'Nialth. He's been murdered."
More limbwaving. "Murdered! How terrible. Do you have Churok in custody yet?"
This time, the two Humans didn't even have to look at each other, but it still took a moment for Zack to formulate the next question:
"Any particular reason we should?"
Nice, thought Garibaldi. Very smooth.
"But of course," the Thrakallan answered, as though surprised that the Chief would even ask. "In a...reorganization of this type, it is always the underleader who is the most likely to be responsible. I understand that you Humans do not reward such ambition the way we do, but rather punish it (which leads to an enviable subtlety in your methods of social progression), however, one cannot expect a Drazi to comprehend such complexities."
"Um, yeah, right," said Garibaldi. "But just assuming for the moment that it wasn't Taan Churok that did it, would you have any other ideas as to who it might be?"
"Ah, well, there are any number of possibilities. I was not the only one who had approached Churok on such a matter - I know that Eklos Sabijian, who owns the Oilcan down on 37, had an interest in obtaining the property."
The two Humans couldn't help making vaguely disgusted noises. The Oilcan was a dive that made the Dark Star look like Paulie's, and Alfredo's look like...well...a decent place to go to shoot some pool and have a beer.
"And then, of course, there were the providers..."
"Providers?"
"Pimps," Zack supplied. "Yeah, that's a possibility we need to track down. Even though the crackdown was the Captain's idea, some of the people running the girls that used to work the Dark Star might have been honked off when Churok kept them out. The drug dealers, too - and both types have a nasty habit of takin' out their grudges physically."
"But with..." Garibaldi cut off what he was about to say abruptly. Damn, was he losing his edge already? The Thrakallan tilted its head at him and clicked its mandibles thoughtfully. "So, how well do you know Taan Churok, anyway?" he went on, covering as best he could. "I mean, do you guys ever get together to shoot the breeze, bitch about the customers, that kind of thing?"
"Processing," said the vocoder in a completely different voice, then, "Ah - I understand. No, I am afraid we do not engage in predation on air currents. We are both very busy beings, you understand..."
"Yeah, right," said Zack. "Oh, by the way, j'Nialth, where were you from 17:00 until 20:00 this evening?"
"Why, right here, of course. Several of your Security officers can confirm that for you, I'm sure. One of them lost ten credits to me on that table, right over there," j'Nialth pointed with a foreclaw.
"You shoot pool?" said Garibaldi, surprised. "No offense, I just thought that..." Looking more closely as the Thrakallan displayed its multijointed limbs, which ended in even more multijointed and hardshelled fingers, he realized that his initial impression had been simplistic. The creature was obviously capable of stabilizing a pool cue at angles most Humans could only swear at, and those big bug eyes might even give him an advantage in calculating angles and trajectories.
"I have made a study of the art in the past few months, yes," the alien replied. "Would you care for a game?"
"Ah...maybe later," the Human said quickly. "We need to, um..." he pointed at the door.
"Thanks for your time, j'Nialth," said Zack.
The insectoid watched them go, head tilted consideringly.
****************
Back at Paulie's
12:23 EST, 07/16/2263.
"So, what have we got?" Garibaldi asked.
"One gingerale, one water," said Paulie, depositing two glasses on the table. "Any luck?"
"Not unless you count 'bad'," Zack replied. Paulie shook his head and moved off. "Forensics finished their sweep of the quarters - again, no DNA traces, and nothing seems to be missing. It definitely looks like our perp was searching for something, but we have no idea what it was, or whether he, she, or it found it."
"How about the team questioning the neighbors?" Zack's people had reported in while Garibaldi was making use of the facilities (since Paulie's were more agreeable - not to mention more hygienic - than those of most of the places they'd been in the last few hours).
"Nothing - that corridor is a fairly busy one, but nobody remembers seeing anyone stop by his room."
"Securicams?"
"Not a trace on the hall monitor - and no obvious looping, although I've got a guy going over the record with a pattern analyzer to be sure. The room cam was never turned on - we still don't do that unless we think we have a good reason, and in this case..." Zack shrugged. Who would have expected somebody to break in and kill an old guy in a wheelchair?
"And so far, in our first night of pounding the proverbial pavement, we've got..." Garibaldi started ticking them off on his fingers:
"One Thrakallan would-be real-estate mogul, who's trying to get his claws on every square meter of revenue-producing station space he can,
"One Human bottom-feeder looking to move up,
"Three 'providers' and half a dozen low-level drug-dealers, none of whom could have afforded this kind of a hit, even if they wanted to," he summed up.
"That one guy mentioned the Thieves' Guild..."
"I'd put them last on my list of possibles," Garibaldi replied. "They don't go for high-profile stuff like murder - you know that. No, so far it looks like we've got two things to go on: the knife, and the fact that it was a professional hit. Whoever is ultimately behind the murder ordered it done, he didn't do it himself."
"Unless Bowman managed to piss off a professional," Zack pointed out. "Hell, it could have been someone who followed him out here from Earth."
"Or someone here, who recognized him and held a grudge..." Garibaldi sighed. "Ah, hell, Zack, I'm gonna have to call it a night - I'm whacked."
"Yeah, me too - tell you what. Tomorrow morning I'll get a list together of people onstation who could have pulled this off, and we'll start from that end."
"Sounds good. I'll...oh, hell," Garibaldi said, suddenly remembering the report he'd already requested. At Zack's inquiring glance, he added, "My day job..." and gave the Chief a thumbnail sketch of the SeroTech situation.
Zack shook his head. "Sounds like fun all around," he said. "So, uh, how's it going, anyway? I mean, the job, and the wife, and, uh, the wife's bodyguard..."
Garibaldi laughed. "Yeah, okay, give it a rest, all right? Seriously, things are going great. It's a lot of responsibility, but I'm starting to get a pretty good team put together, and that's half the battle. And Lise..." he sighed again, but it was a happy sigh, made up of equal parts contentment and wonder. "I don't know how to explain it, Zack, but it's like she's the center of my life - where there was never a center before. Whatever happens, at the office or on a business trip - or even here, in the back of my mind I know she's there, waiting, thinking of me, and it's just...I feel whole, you know?"
Zack smiled wryly. "Well, not really, but I'll take your word for it."
"What about you, Zack? Is there anybody special?"
The Chief shook his head quickly. "Ah, you know me, Michael, half the time I'm too nervous to say anything to anybody, and the other half I end up with my foot in my mouth. And after...well, you know..."
"Lyta and Byron? That must have been pretty rough."
"Yeah. 'Rough' is a good word for it. Anyway, since then I just...." Zack trailed off for a moment, then started up again, hesitantly. "Actually, I did ask somebody out to dinner...just, thinking, you know, what the hell...but she turned me down. Which was probably just as well," he added, in an obvious attempt to convince himself.
"Anybody I know?"
Zack took a deep breath, and regarded his former Chief warily. "This is just between us, right?"
"Zack!"
"All right, all right - I just don't want anybody getting the wrong idea. It was just dinner, and she turned me down anyway..." he took another breath, "...it was Tessa - Director Halloran."
Garibaldi whistled, then a slow grin stole across his face. "Is that a fact? Well, I can tell you one thing - you don't have to worry about the Doc. She already dumped him. Sent him a 'Dear John' comm a couple weeks ago."
"You're kidding! Is he...okay?" asked Zack, quickly calculating that that had to have been after his abortive dinner invitation. Which meant...what? Nothing, probably, he decided.
"Yeah, he'll be fine. They were kind of a fair-weather thing anyway, you know? But, listen, Zack - if I know you, which I do, you're probably goin' around thinking you're not really good enough for her, stuff like that, right?"
"Well, yeah..."
"Let me tell you one thing I've learned about beautiful women, Zack - they're people, just like the rest of us. No, I mean it - they have as much crap to deal with in their lives as anyone else, it's just...different crap. If she's worth it to you, stick with it. Just...treat her like a person, you know? If there's something there, it'll come out, sooner or later.
"But...don't make the mistake I made," he added. "Don't put your whole life on hold waiting for something that might or might not happen. I got lucky - incredibly lucky - but along the way I made some choices that I wish I'd made differently. Passed up some...opportunities, because I didn't have my own head on straight enough to tell the difference between loyalty and...oh, I don't know. Self-pity, maybe, or just good old blue funk. But now, I think I'm paying for it."
Zack was confused. There was only one thing he could think of that his friend could be talking about, and he had a hard time believing that one - "You mean, like...technical stuff?"
"What? Oh! No, not that!" Garibaldi said dismissively. "Well...in a way, maybe, a little...but that's not what I was getting at. Just living with another person, dealing with them on a day to day basis - I'll tell you, it takes some getting used to! The first time around with Lise was like playing house - we were both so caught up in the roles we were playing that we lost track of who we were. I suppose that might have been part of the problem. This time, it's almost the other way around - at least for me, anyway. I'd gotten so used to being on my own...having my own space, not having to check with anyone when I go somewhere, all those little decisions...look, okay, one example - the house, all right?"
"The house? You mean, Edgars' house?"
"Bingo. Edgars' house. Edgars' company, Edgars' wife, Edgars' fragging living room with that...damned painting that looks like some lunatic three-year-old used a cat for a paintbrush..."
"So...move," suggested Zack. "Or redecorate. It's not like you don't have the money..."
Garibaldi snorted. "Move, he says. Like it's just a matter of boxing stuff up and hauling it up a couple levels and down the corridor. The house is attached to the main office, it's part of the whole complex. If we don't live there, what are we gonna do with it? Make it a bed & breakfast? And, in all honesty, there's no place better to move to.
"As for redecorating...look, you know me, Zack, I've always been kind of a homebody - my place is my place, it looks like my place, it feels like my place. And cooking - I like to cook. It helps me relax, you know? It's a...a creative outlet, if you will.
"But that house...she won't let me touch that damned living room -- says it's 'petty' of me to want to change it. It reminds her of...him, and she tends to get a little...tense whenever I say or do anything that sounds like criticism - calls it 'jealousy', which is just plain ridiculous. Yeah, the guy was nice to her, but to the rest of the world....well, anyway. So there's the living room. And the kitchen is about twenty meters down a hall and completely out of the way of the main living areas, because we have a cook to handle all that, so why should I even bother?" He realized that he had lapsed into a sarcastic whine, and took a deep breath.
"I'm sorry, man, I don't know why I let this piddly stuff get to me - like I said, everything else is going great. And we did redo the bedroom - together," he added with a leer. "And I turned one of the guest rooms into an office, so that's all mine. We made Edgars' old office into a kid's room, for when we get Deborah back..."
"Hey, yeah, how's that going?" Zack cut in, seizing onto the new topic eagerly. "Didn't I see something on ISN..."
"Probably. Her ex - Franz - " he said, not even trying to hide the sarcasm now, "is fighting it, but this time we've got the clout on our side - they'll stall as long as they can, but they can't win. The lawyer says probably by Christmas, we'll get her for good. Man, that'll be something - having a four-year-old running around the house..." he drifted off for a moment, then came back. "Meanwhile, the press is having a field day with the case - especially seeing as how it's an election year."
"Geez, yeah, I hadn't thought of that," said Zack. He laughed, suddenly. "Hey, you know, it's too bad you're not eligible for office - you could probably get some pretty good mileage out of the whole thing!"
Garibaldi fixed his friend with a totally humourless glare.
"Don't even think about it!" he said grimly.
****************
Blue Sector
Executive Quarters, Lt. David Corwin
00:30 EST.
Corwin yawned, buttoning the top button of his worn, blue-flannel pyjamas. Trish had gone off home about an hour ago, thoroughly exhausted from the various excitements of the day. Their parting had been...odd, fuzzed with fatigue and tinged with a tension that David hardly dared identify.
After she left, though, he hadn't been able to let go of the quest - there was always another query to run, which sparked another, and another...trouble was, none of them had produced anything that really seemed to help. All the public records of the Dark Star's 'birth', when the station had first been commissioned; everything that was publicly available about Bowman himself, his successes in the data warehousing business, his varied philanthropic interests - which Corwin had considered rather odd for a man whose other indulgence was ownership of a distinctly shady space-station bar - all very interesting, but very little to the point. Finally, he had forced himself to stop, after sending off one last query. He had early duty, and the day after he'd been offered a promotion was not the time to be showing up late, or yawning.
At the thought, he yawned again. In mid-gape the soft, yet penetrating voice of the computer brought his lower jaw up with a snap. He shook his head to clear it and bent over the monitor, peering at the information streaming across the screen...
"Holy Toledo," he said reverently. He shook his head again and hit "Save". Trish was definitely not going to like this - but it would have to wait until morning. If this meant what he thought it meant, their prime suspect wasn't going anywhere.
"Lights down."
****************** Act Three *****************
Red Sector
Stationhouse
10:47 EST, 07/16/2263
It was late morning before Lieutenant Corwin had a chance to break away from C&C. He made his way to Chief Allan's office with dignified haste, to find Mr. Garibaldi and - oh, dear - Trish and Selene already there, discussing the case.
"Oh, man, don't tell me the station's blowing up again," said Zack, looking up from his monitor as the young man skidded into the edge of the doorway.
"David - what's happened?" said Trish, prompting a sharp look from her sister.
"What? Nothing - that is..." Corwin pulled himself to attention. "Mr. Allan, I think I may have, um, stumbled across some information that might be pertinent to the murder of Christopher Bowman. If I could just..." he moved toward the monitor, but Zack held up a hand.
"Wait a minute. You stumbled across some information? Like what, a pile of dirty laundry with 'Property of Chris Bowman's killer' on the labels?" his eyes narrowed as Corwin floundered, and again when he caught the looks the Lieutenant and Ms. Livingston were exchanging.
"It was public information," Corwin finally managed. "I didn't use any military clearances...here, let me show you..."
Exchanging a look of his own with Garibaldi, Zack let him get at the terminal. Once he realized what the file was, though, and what it said, he swore and poked at his link.
"Pantazis, this is the Chief. Have you guys checked out Bowman's will yet?"
"Uh...it's next on my list, Chief. You want me to pull it up now?"
"Yeah, why don't you do that?" Zack suggested.
"Yes, sir. Here we go...last will and testament...leasehold and assets of the establishment hereinafter referred to as the 'Dark Star'...left to one Taan Churok, citizen of the Drazi Freehold..." the voice broke off with a long whistle.
"Hey, Chief, you know what this means?"
"Yeah, I think I got an inkling. Keep looking, see if you turn up anything else. Allan out." He tapped the link off. "Son of a bitch," he informed the room at large.
"You mean Taan gets the Dark Star?" said Selene. "That's great! I mean..." she looked around at the adults and noticed that none of them seemed to think it was all that great. "What's the matter?"
Trish drew a deep breath. "The thing is, hon, if Taan knew he was going to inherit the Dark Star, that gives him a reason for...but that doesn't make sense! Why would he use a weapon that could be traced to him?"
Zack shook his head. "I dunno. Some kinda Drazi honor thing? I know, I know - it still stinks like a cargo-podfull of dead fish to me, too. But it's all we've got to go on, so I'm afraid we're gonna have to keep him here until it gets sorted out."
"All we've got to go on?" repeated Trish unbelievingly. "What about j'Nialth, and those other guys you tracked down? What about that guy that was talking to the Captain, or the woman in the Zocalo? What about..."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," cut in Garibaldi. "What guy? What woman?"
Quickly, Trish filled them in on Colonel Peterson's call to the Captain's office, when the two men had seemed to recognize each other, as well as Bowman's discussion with the mysterious woman in the Zocalo. Corwin hadn't noticed Bowman's reaction to Peterson, but he did give his opinion that there was something he hadn't liked about the guy. Based on Trish's descriptions, Garibaldi muttered, "I'm not surprised," and volunteered to follow up on both leads.
"Wow," a new voice broke in at that point. "If I'd known you guys were having a party, I'd have brought beer."
"Ms. Halloran, come on in," said Zack. "What can I do for you?" A stifled snort from Garibaldi brought a tinge of color to the Chief's face, but he kept admirable control of his expression.
"I made a comm call to a contact onstation, and it got routed to Security. Thought I'd stop by and find out what was going on."
"Let me take a wild guess," said Garibaldi. "Your contact's name was 'Bowman', right?"
Tessa raised an inquiring eyebrow. "I thought you were out of the game," she observed.
"Who, me? Not a chance," he replied, grinning. "Nah, I'm just giving Zack a hand with the case."
"Gee, thanks," said the Chief wryly.
"Any time."
"Case?" said Tessa. "What case? Does it have something to do with Mr. Bowman?"
"You might say that," said Zack. "He was murdered last night."
Tessa blew out a sigh. "Frag," she said. "I knew I should have called him yesterday when he got in..."
"Oh, yeah? What's your connnection with Bowman - or is that classified?" Garibaldi asked.
Tessa returned his twinkling gaze with cool detachment. Just because he had held the position of ISA Covert Intelligence Director before her - had in fact had the position created for him by his friend the President - did not automatically make him privy to the information she gathered. "It probably would be, if I'd had a chance to find out what it was. I got a call from him about a week ago, on a relatively secure channel, and even then he wouldn't say much. Only that he wanted to meet me - in person - and that he had some information that I should be aware of. I didn't think all that much of it at the time. I figured he'd call me, but then some time opened up ths morning, so I thought I'd get it over with, whatever it was..."
"So you have no idea what this 'information' he had was about?" said Zack.
"Not a clue."
Lieutenant Corwin cleared his throat. "It sounds like you are considering other suspects, so, um..." he looked at Trish, who nodded gratefully. "I'd better get back to my station."
"Yeah, sure," said Zack. "And, Lieutenant? I oughtta give you the speech about not interfering in an investigation, but I guess you know all that already, so...thanks."
"Not a problem, Chief. Ma'am," he nodded to Director Halloran and glanced back at Trish.
"Oh, Lieutenant," said Garibaldi. "Could you ask the Captain to give me a call when she gets a minute? Tell her it's about this 'Colonel Peterson' character."
"Yes, sir," said Corwin, and he finally made his escape.
"Who's Colonel Peterson?" asked Tessa.
Garibaldi smiled grimly. "I'm afraid that's classified," he said, darting a glance of his own at Trish, who took the hint.
"Listen, we'll get out of your way. We just..." she looked around. "Hey, where's Selene?"
As the adults looked around, wondering when the child had disappeared and where she'd gotten to, a tousled dark head popped in at the doorway.
"Are we ready to go?" Selene asked.
****************
Red Sector
Stationhouse "Brig"
10:51 EST.
Security Officer Dipak Hsu was an Earthborn Human male in his early thirties, of mixed Hindu and Chinese ancestry. He applied the spiritual as well as physical aspects of his martial arts training to his work, and although his amiable features and deceptively slender build often led unobservant malefactors to underestimate him, his nearly five years of service, both under Earthforce contract and with the Army of Light, had been marked by dependability, good judgement, and effectiveness as a fighter when things got sticky. His only known quirk was a deepseated conviction that he was the reincarnation of the martial arts legend Bruce Lee, for which he received a certain amount of good-natured ribbing from his friends and co-workers. It didn't bother him - he made due allowance for their less-evolved spiritual natures and kept right on training.
Today he had brig duty, which was pretty boring. Things were relatively quiet onstation, as far as routine petty crime was concerned, and the only prisoner right now was the Drazi bartender the Chief was holding for questioning in that murder case. Since the guy hadn't actually been charged with anything yet, he was lodged in what they called the "Ritz" - a large, comfortably-appointed room with its own multispecies sanitary facilities. Dipak was whiling away his duty hours practicing kicks when he became aware that he had an audience.
"Is that fighting or dancing?" asked the dark-haired preteen girl who was watching him from the doorway.
Dipak pulled himself out of his low stance and fished his shoes out from under the desk. "A bit of both, actually," he said. "I don't think you're supposed to be here, though."
"I'm here to visit Taan Churok. My sister works for him - she's talking to Mr. Allan right now. He said I should come on back," Selene lied blithely. Actually, she had slipped out right after Chief Allan had said that they weren't going to let Taan go. She figured somebody ought to let him know what was going on - besides, she'd always wanted to explore inside the Security headquarters, which was normally off-limits.
"Well," said the guard uncertainly, "If the Chief says so - maybe I'd better check..." he reached for his link.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. He and my sister were discussing something important with Mr. Garibaldi - I don't think they'd want to be interrupted."
The mention of the previous Chief, for whom Hsu had the greatest respect, caused him to hesitate. Taking advantage of her momentum in a way any martial arts master would admire, the girl flashed him a blinding smile. "Is he down here?"
"Uh, yeah, number three - I'll buzz you in," replied the bemused guard. The whole time she was in with the draz - only about five minutes, but it seemed longer - Hsu worried that he had made a big mistake. What if the alien was more dangerous than they thought - what if he took the little girl hostage? Hsu had no concern over his ability to take the old lizard-man down, ex-Mutari or no, but he wasn't entirely sure he could prevent the child from being hurt in the process, and in any event, it would be a black mark on his hitherto-spotless record.
She came out again in one piece, though. Hsu sighed and reset the cell's automatic locks, noticing that she seemed pensive. Well, if her sister worked for Churok, that was understandable. With the owner of the Dark Star dead and the manager in custody, the older girl might well be out of a job.
"Thanks, Officer. I'd better get back to my sister now," was all she said as she passed by Hsu's desk.
****************
Command & Control
11:01 EST.
"Good, you're back. If anyone calls, I'll be in Cargo Bay 7 - there's been some kind of mixup with a Vree shipment, and they insist on talking to me personally."
"Uh, sure, Captain - um, Mr. Garibaldi wants you to give him a call..."
"Mr. Garibaldi? Oh, my God, that's right, he's back, isn't he? Where did you...never mind, it'll have to wait. Carry on, Lieutenant."
"Yes, ma'am, but..."
"Lieutenant Corwin? I've got a hail from the Narn transport Nu'patha..."
Corwin sighed in defeat as the Captain disappeared throught the doorway. "Route it to my console, Lieutenant."
****************
Red Sector
Stationhouse "Brig"
11:25 EST.
Officer Hsu peered through the double-strength plexicrys of the holding cell door. Inside, Taan Churok was working his way through an elaborate series of forms. As Hsu watched, the ex-Mutari came to a finish in what the Human recognized as a classic Drazi guard stance - low and centered, right side forward, left arm down. Although age had thickened Churok's limbs and darkened his scales, he still moved smoothly, and he didn't seem to be breathing hard after his exertion.
Intrigued, Hsu pressed the annunciator. Churok looked up and beckoned, and with only the slightest of qualms, he unlocked the door and stepped inside. Even the low-security cells like this one required an access code and handprint for egress, so the prisoner couldn't escape by overpowering the guard and stealing the "keys". Besides, Taan Churok had come in voluntarily, and wasn't officially a suspect yet, so why would he want to escape?
The Drazi greeted him politely, ushering him to the lone chair, and before long they were deep into a discussion of comparative martial arts theories. Hsu was thrilled - he knew Taan Churok by reputation, of course, and had tried several times to get him to talk about his experiences in the Mutai, but until now the old draz had politely but firmly evaded all such inquiries - from anyone, as far as Hsu could tell.
Dipak Hsu had been fascinated by the Mutai for as long as he could remember. The earliest records indicated that it had begun almost a thousand years ago, as a lingering remnant of the alliance of races that had fought in the last Shadow War. While the official military bodies of the various allied species (including the Minbari Anla'Shok) had withdrawn to their home territories, a few independent-minded warriors - including many now-legendary heroes of their own peoples - had banded together to forge a truly multispecies martial arts tradition, blending ruthless fighting techniques with the spiritual seeking that seemed universal among those races that made an art of personal combat.
Before the Interstellar Alliance, before Babylon 5 and the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, the Mutai had been one of the few truly integrated organizations, along with the Thieves' Guild and, some said, the Order of Technomages. When Humans had come onto the galactic scene, quickly becoming a 'presence' with their primitive but enthusiastic military technology and their downright ferocious trading practices, the leadership of the Mutai had closed ranks against them, arguing both the newcomers' physical inadequacies and their lack of spiritual development. Needless to say, the Human martial arts communities were not pleased, and their displeasure took a myriad of forms, from deliberate isolationism to overt competitiveness.
Dipak Hsu had grown up with the not-uncommon daydream of being the Human who would break through those barriers, and only his admiration for Walker Smith had mitigated the sting of losing that dream when the boxer had fought the champion Gyor to a standstill and won acceptance from the Muta-Do of Babylon 5, only a few weeks after Hsu's arrival. Since then, a handful of other Humans had fought in the Mutai, and two had been accepted into the ranks of the Muta'haan, the Pledged Ones, from whom were chosen the Muta-Do'in themselves. Hsu, however, had not been among them. After the Walker Smith incident, Chief Garibaldi had made it abundantly clear that any Security Officer who showed a non-professional interest in the Mutai did so at the cost of his job, and Hsu hadn't been ready to make that leap of faith.
He still wasn't, but the chance to talk at length with a former Prime-level Muta'haan was not to be missed. The normally-taciturn Churok seemed to be almost eager to regale the younger Human with stories of his youth - perhaps, Hsu thought, it helped to take his mind off his current predicament. At any rate, he learned that Churok had become involved with the Mutai as a young Hunt-Second serving one of the larger trading-Houses on the colony world of Zaranash, on the border of Brakiri space.
Over a score or more of the local years, he had risen to become Sho-Rin, holding the champion's title for five and a half seasons before being defeated by a younger adversary. He then served for a time as a Master of the local Khut'mai, or dojo, and was eventually awarded a zhotakhe blade, the Drazi Form of the Talisman of the Muta-Do. This Talisman was said to lead the prospective Muta-Do on a quest of enlightenment, which might last a year or a century - and only the Muta-Do himself would know the precise nature of his (or her, or its) quest, or know when it was achieved. When Hsu wondered aloud if that didn't make it easy for power-hungry or impatient Muta-Do aspirants to fake it, the draz simply smiled.
"Perhaps," he said. "Although I would not suggest such a thing to HaaTuzTef, the Muta-Do of this place, if I were you. All I can say of my own quest is that four years ago it led me to this station, and now..." he gestured expansively, "it has led me to this cell." Churok smiled a reptilian smile.
Hsu glanced at his link. "Frag, I gotta go. If I don't check in," he added apologetically, "the Chief might think you whacked me over the head and took off, or somethin'."
Churok's smile widened to a grin. "Well, we certainly wouldn't want the Chief to think that!" He rose politely to see Hsu out, and equally politely averted his eyes as the Human punched in the access code.
Hsu was still smiling politely himself as he lifted his hand from the panel, heard the door whoosh open, and felt something very like a medium-sized shuttle hit him in the back.
****************
Red Sector
11:50 EST.
The office Garibaldi was looking for was at the end of a little-used corridor on the same lavel as the Stationhouse and the DCI's offices. It was identified only by a modest plaque above the room number - and the fact that the door opened just as Garibaldi raised his hand to the annunciator.
"Come on in, it's open," a confident tenor voice issued from within. Garibaldi put his hand back in his pocket and strolled inside. The office was small, just big enough for a desk and a couple of standard-issue chairs. An inner door with a state-of-the-art locking mechanism must lead to a makeshift holding cell, and a few chillingly spare Psi Corps posters hung on the walls. The young man behind the desk folded his Universe Today, swung his feet to the floor and rose in a smooth motion, black-gloved hand extended and a glint of unalloyed delight in his blue eyes. "Mr. Garibaldi! An unexpected pleasure. Colin Ferris, Metapol - how can I help you?"
Garibaldi just looked at the hand until it retreated. He met Ferris' polite gaze with his own frozen one, and was pleased to see a brief flicker of uncertainty cross the telepath's face. "You know who I am, you must know why I'm here," he said bluntly.
The blond man actually frowned. "I know who you are because I've done my homework, Mr. Garibaldi. But unless your antipathy towards telepaths is even stronger than I've been led to believe...no, I'm afraid I have no idea why you're here. Would you care to have a seat and tell me about it?"
Garibaldi backed warily into a chair, and Ferris resumed his seat behind the desk, leaning forward over steepled fingers with an expression of polite inquiry. The archetypical concerned public servant, thought Garibaldi cynically. He wasn't buying it. Despite Dr. Franklin's surprisingly generous report on the guy, and Zack's even more surprising grudging quasi-approval, Garibaldi couldn't manage to consider the idea of a full-time Psi Cop onstation to be anything but an affront. Maybe this Ferris character had managed to lull everybody else's suspicions, but Garibaldi knew teeps - he knew how treacherous they were. He also knew how incredibly dangerous it was for him to be in this office, less than twenty-four hours after associating with a known...better not even think about it. However, the information Zack's people had turned up on Bowman's family had been intriguing but incomplete, and Ferris was the only lead he had toward completing it.
The Psi Cop's mouth quirked. "Um, Mr. Garibaldi, I really am not going to read your mind. Which means that you're going to have to tell me what it is you want from me." He looked as though he was going to add something, but thought better of it.
Garibaldi reached deliberately into his jacket pocket and pulled out a brand new packet of Morley Perfecto Triple Golds. He waved one at Ferris by way of asking permission, and the Psi Cop nodded, producing a small glass dish from somewhere in the desk. Garibaldi snipped the cigar's little head off and lit up, carefully holding the flame from his platinum-plated lighter just under the end of the smouldering cylinder and never taking his eyes off the other man. He blew a stream of fragrant smoke in the general direction of the ventilator.
"What do you know about a guy name of Derek Bowman?"
Ferris frowned. "Nothing, offhand. Is he a telepath?"
"Was, according to the records. His father, Christopher Bowman, was killed last night just a few levels from here. I'm helping out with the investigation while I'm here, and Zack's people turned up the fact that his wife and son were both telepaths - both deceased, by the way. Since B5 security doesn't have access to Psi Corps records, that's about all we know. I was hoping you could fill me in a bit - see if there's anything in their backgrounds, or their deaths, that could be connected with the murder."
"I'd say the chances of that are pretty slim," said the Psi Cop with another frown. "But it never hurts to be thorough. You said the father was...not a telepath?"
"Not as far as we know - or as far as Psi Corps knew, presumably," Garibaldi couldn't help adding. Ferris nodded absently and went to work at his terminal.
As the file came up and the younger man scanned through it, his face went hard. Garibaldi waited, cultivating patience. At last Ferris sighed. "Phaedra Bowman was a P7 - commercial telepath. Met her husband on assignment for his company, bucked the Corps to marry him. One son - and he turned out to be a P12."
Garibaldi snorted. "So much for planned breeding," he said. Then he got it. He leaned forward to look at the monitor, which Ferris obligingly turned his way. "So the kid was a Psi Cop?"
"The 'kid' was the same age I am - to the month, as it happens. I don't recall ever running into him, but we may well have crossed paths somewhere along the line. He was based out of San Francisco - not that far from my home base, as things go these days." Ferris spoke absently, continuing to read down the file. As Garibaldi followed the scrolling text, he began to see why the other man might be a little shook at the parallel. Bowman had been shot in the pursuit of a fellow Psi Cop who had gone renegade - a woman, Anthonia Mkweze, of about Bowman's own age.
At Garibaldi's request, Ferris brought up Mkweze's file. The image was that of a coffee-and-cream-skinned woman with elegantly chiseled features and a tumble of dark curls: the woman who had been seen talking to Christopher Bowman in the Zocalo the day before. The woman who had introduced herself to Garibaldi as 'Toni Walters'.
"What?" said Ferris, eyeing him curiously.
"What what?" retorted Garibaldi, struggling to maintain his outer calm. If this were Bester, he'd not only have caught Garibaldi's flash of recognition, he would have sucked up the whole meeting with Walters by now - maybe this guy was a little slow, but he had to get out of here before the Psi Cop wised up and scanned him!
"It looked," said Ferris, emphasizing the word, "as though something about that file struck you as familiar. Would you care to tell me what it was?"
Garibaldi looked him straight in the eye. "No."
Ferris held his gaze for a moment. Garibaldi felt nothing, except his own fierce determination and a cold worm of fear. Ferris nodded. "Very well then," the Psi Cop said as he closed down the file. "I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help. If there's anything else I can do, don't hesitate to let me know."
"Yeah, sure. I'll, uh, I'll do that..." said Garibaldi, rising. As he did so, he noticed that the wall he'd been sitting against - the wall Ferris must spend most of his time looking at - held a holopic of a gently-wooded Northern coastline, all soft blues, greens, and greys with a shimmer of golden sunlight on rippling water. He stopped to look at it a moment, then turned back, to meet the Psi Cop's open, curious gaze. "Um...thanks," he said, wanting to say more, but not knowing what. Ferris just nodded, picking up his newspaper again with a brief smile.
Picture or no picture, Garibaldi put three levels between himself and the Psi Cop's office - and checked his backtrail twice - before he allowed himself a deep, shaky breath. Damn, but that had been close. Of course, maybe the guy didn't need to track him physically...Jesus, telepaths, he thought as he made his way back to his temporary quarters. Just the kind of complication this case needed. So, Walters had killed Bowman's son - could Bowman have threatened to expose her, prompting her to kill him as well? She had certainly seemed distracted when he'd spoken to her yesterday - which, now that he thought of it, was right between the time she'd been seen with Bowman and the time he'd been stabbed.
On the chance that she hadn't left the station yet, he left a carefully-worded message in the Byronites' secret drop-box on the BabComm system, asking for a meeting. Then he flung himself on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a while, before being interrupted by Spence with an update on the SeroTech negotiations. Once he'd straightened them out and set them going on the next stage of the merger plan, he was at a loss for what to do next. Find Peterson/Molyneux and confront him? No, he wanted to talk to the Captain first, and figure out what kind of a game the guy was playing with her. Maybe he should talk to Churok again...
As he was thinking that, the BabComm unit bleeped. It was Satamba, with the news that the ex-Mutari had escaped, leaving a much-chastened Officer Hsu with a pair of cracked ribs and a good-sized goose egg over his left eye. Perfect. Just fragging perfect. Suddenly, Garibaldi knew exactly what he needed.
****************
Brown Sector
12:27 EST.
Lyndisty Marrago was in the middle of an English class when the hooded figure appeared at the door of the Center she ran in Down Below. For a moment she thought it was Lennier, back from wherever he'd gone, but as she stopped, startled, and looked again she realized that this person was much taller and broader. She waved toward the back of the room and turned to select one of her more promising students to take over.
When she joined the mysterious figure, it pushed its hood just far enough back for her to recognize Taan Churok. "Oh, thank the gods you've come!" she said quietly. "Dasouri sent a message - he has managed to trace those dark rumors. He has identified the dreiz who is providing these terrible new weapons to your people - although the ultimate source is still unknown. Are you sure you cannot take some time off to return to Zhabar and help him?"
Churok laughed shortly. "There have been some...complications. I may well have to leave this station, and Zhabar is as good a place to go as any. There is one thing I must do first, however, and you may be able to help me with that."
"Whatever I can do, I will," the young Centauri woman assured him.
"One thing though," said Churok. "What is the name of this dreiz that Dasouri has found?"
"I believe it was...Zirith? No, Zhirith. Commander Zhirith."
Churok gave a long hiss of surprise. "'The flower in the flame'," he muttered softly.
"Why, do you know her?"
The draz shook his head. "She was here, at the Dark Star, the night Ambassador Sherann was set upon. I remember her only because the name seemed so...what is the word...not what one would expect from seeing her." At Lyndisty's inquiring look, he explained, "The zhirith is a small white flower, very delicate. This dreiz...was hardly that." He sighed. "So. The Muta-Do saw truly. But before I can seek this 'flower', and the flame that enfolds her, I must retrieve the zhotakhe blade, and that I can only do by finding the real murderer..."
At Lyndisty's look of concerned confusion, he began to explain.
****************
The Zocalo
14:47 EST.
Michael Garibaldi sauntered past the Abbai's wineshop with nary a wistful glance. A solid workout had settled his frustration almost as well as alcohol could mask it, and with none of the nasty side-effects. Feeling more than a little smug, he turned his steps toward the Eclipse to grab a late lunch, but stopped when a shadow on the catwalk caught his eye.
A lean, dark-suited figure stood there, watching the passers-by as Garibaldi had done the day before. Instead of leaning casually on his elbows, though, the grey-haired man stood braced on widespread hands, as though monitoring the efforts of not-entirely-trustworthy subordinates. Garibaldi smiled grimly at the thought and made his way to the staircase. When he reached the middle of the catwalk he paused, hands in pockets, looking out over the bustling chamber. The man gave no sign of being aware of his presence. Garibaldi cleared his throat.
"Colonel Peterson, isn't it?"
A thin smile flashed across the man's face and was gone. "Mr. Garibaldi," he said, rising and turning with deliberate grace. "What a pleasant surprise. What brings you to Babylon 5?"
"Business," Garibaldi replied tersely. "You?"
"The same. Well, perhaps not exactly the same," the man who called himself 'Peterson' added with a return of that wry, one-sided smile. "It must be...interesting for you to come back here, to the scene of so many intense moments, so much that changed your life, your perspectives and goals..." the man spoke almost wistfully.
"Yeah, speaking of goals," Garibaldi cut in, in no mood to be sidetracked by his own or anyone else's nostalgia, "one of my big ones is making sure that people I care about don't get hurt, especially by people like you. What's your business with the Captain?"
The smile faded. "That's quite an ambitious goal, Mr. Garibaldi. You can't protect everyone, you know. No matter how hard you try. As for the Captain, I hardly think she needs - or would appreciate - your solicitude."
Garibaldi held the man's icy gaze with his own for a moment, then turned to lean his elbows on the rail. Peterson put his hands in his pockets and stood watching him.
"You know," said Garibaldi thoughtfully, "I ran across something you might find interesting, you being such a history buff and all. This friend of mine has a hobby - well, had a hobby, I should say, he's a little too busy for hobbies these days - being President of an Interstellar Alliance will do that for you - anyway, he used to collect information on conspiracies. Secret organizations, black projects, that sort of thing. Came in real handy from time to time - like that business with the cyber-ops. You remember that one?" he glanced up at the man who now ran Bureau 13.
"Before my time," said Peterson/Molyneux, almost apologetically.
"Yeah, right," Garibaldi acknowledged. "Well, like I say, he's been collecting this stuff for a long time, and a couple months ago he sent me copies of some of his old files. I mean real old, twenty-first century stuff, even late twentieth." He paused, savoring the slight tension that he now sensed in the man beside him. "Came across one very interesting report, all about this massive, top-secret anti-terrorist organization that operated completely under the radar of the world's governments and official intelligence agencies for almost thirty years, until it crashed and burned in the late 'hundreds. There were half a dozen different branches, nominally under the oversight of a central body - but as you'd expect there was a certain amount of internal rivalry. Section One, in particular, had a tendency to...shall we say, overstep the bounds of good taste? Seems the guy running it had a touch of the old megalomania bug - thought he could be the 'man behind the curtain' and run the whole world. Real sharp guy, but a few plates short of a deck, you know what I mean? Didn't even use his own name - went by some cornball code name...what was it again..."
"This is all very interesting, but I hardly think relevant to present-day concerns..." Peterson cut in, to be interrupted in turn by a suddenly incisive Garibaldi.
"Who was Christopher Bowman and how did you know him?"
The other man shrugged. "A businessman. Data warehousing, I believe. We met at a fund-raiser for one of his charities, back on Earth. I'm afraid he took a dislike to me for some reason. You said was?"
Garibaldi stood up. "Effective around 19:00 last night, courtesy of a Drazi ceremonial dagger. And you were where?"
"Resting, in my quarters, before going to dinner with Captain Lochley. I'm sure your friend Chief Allan can provide records of my entering and leaving, although I'm afraid the room cameras have suffered a slight...malfunction. I hope that's not an inconvenience."
"I'll let Zack know so he can send the maintenance guys around. Of course, it will show up on your bill."
"I have a generous expense account. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment...with the Captain. Be seeing you, Mr. Garibaldi." As the man strode off along the catwalk, Garibaldi looked after him thoughtfully.
"Operations. That was it," he said at last.
On the floor below, a nondescript Human passed beneath the catwalk, his freshly-trimmed brown locks brushing the shoulders of a genuine t'gath-hide jacket.
****************
Blue Sector
14:58 EST.
"Twenty three and a half metric tons of unrecyclable and toxic waste, sent on its way into the sun. Do you know, that quantity is almost exactly what the builders of the Great Machine referred to as one glorrzif-hau?"
"I had no idea, Draal," the Captain replied, a bit testily. "And if you don't mind..."
"Isn't that rather a lot, for a station that was intended to be self-sustaining?"
"We still can't recycle everything. Besides, about half of it is dumps from ships passing through - for which we charge an extra fee, of course."
"Of course. How...enterprising of you, Captain."
Lochley shook her head absently, working her way down the columns of figures. "Wasn't my idea. Commander Ivanova came up with it when the station was trying to make ends meet after the break with Earth."
"Yes, and I understand that the Earth Alliance stations have now made it standard procedure. Quite a resourceful person, that Susan Andreevna Ivanova. I quite enjoyed her company," said the hologram of the Minbari Guardian. "And I must stay I miss having her around - although the things she's been getting up to in that...sorcerous ship of hers have been quite entertaining..."
Not particularly pleased at the reminder that the Great Machine of Epsilon III could 'eavesdrop' on events taking place far away in space and time - and tap into practically any computer network in the civilized galaxy - Lochley snapped, "I'm sure they are, but right now I'm really not interested. Hell, the last time I encountered Susan Ivanova," she continued in an annoyed mutter, "it was over the sights of a plasma cannon, during the Civil War."
"Well, you're in luck, then, Elizabeth. It just so happens that..."
A sharp knock interrupted the portly hologram in mid-revelation.
"Captain Lochley? Am I early?" a crisp, cultured voice inquired.
"Colonel Peterson! I'm sorry - I got so caught up in my paperwork I lost track of the time," Lochley explained, a bit flustered.
"Now there's a frightening concept," the grey-haired man said cheerfully, but his glance at the robed Minbari was far from amiable.
"Oh - Colonel Peterson, this is Draal. He's, um, attached to the station staff in an advisory capacity," she said. Close enough, she thought, he's attached to the planet, at least for all practical purposes. "Draal, this is Colonel Peterson, from Earth - an old friend of my father's."
"So it would seem," Draal replied noncommittally, folding his hands into wide sleeves just as the Colonel extended his. The Human's jaw tightened, and the Captain cleared her throat.
"Ah, Draal was just leaving," she said, jerking her head slightly toward the doorway. The skin above the Minbari's left eye contracted, pulling the wrinkled eyelid up, and she frowned a warning in return.
"I suppose we can continue our conversations another time, then," said Draal reluctantly. "In the meantime, take care, Captain. Take very great care." With that, he swept past the grey-clad Human and out the door, to disappear from view around a corner.
Something about Draal's passage seemed to strike the Colonel as odd - probably the lack of wind, warmth or scent, Lochley realized, but she wasn't about to enlighten the man. He was obviously upset enough at the idea of her consorting with Minbari; she hated to think what would happen if she threw the Great Machine and its holographic technology into the mix. Besides, he wasn't cleared for it.
"Just let me close this down and I'll take you up to C&C," she said.
"That would be delightful, Captain," said Peterson, wandering over to the wide, ivy-festooned window that looked out the endcap of the great cylinder. "What a marvelous view you have from here - it's like looking out over an entire little world of your own...ruler of all you survey."
Lochley snorted. "Not exactly how I'd put it. You ready to go?"
The man without a name smiled, one-sided, and followed her out of the office.
****************
The Garden
15:17 EST.
True to his word, Mr. Garibaldi had come to visit Jaida and Selene while they worked in their greenhouse. There, the illicit agricultural project that had begun as a minor bending of the rules by then-Lieutenant Commander Ivanova had slowly grown, over five years and two changes of caretakers, into eight staggered shelves full of potted coffee and tea bushes, occupying two thirds of one of the long greenhouses that provided controlled environments for more than a score of alien mini-ecologies in the great Garden. The rest of the space was taken up by processing equipment, packaging, and an impressive amount of ready-to-go inventory. Since the Captain had chartered the girls' secret hobby as a legitimate small business (co-signed by Trish and Jaida's father, of course), they had quickly expanded their operations, even hiring a few trustworthy lurkers from Lyndisty's Center to help out. Garibaldi had to admit he was impressed.
"You sure you don't want to move to Mars? There's still a couple of seats open on EI's Board of Directors..."
Jaida giggled. She was normally the 'sensible one', but Mr. Garibaldi always seemed to bring out the little girl in her. Maybe it was the head.
"That's all right, Mr. Garibaldi," Selene said, grinning. "I couldn't leave my sister, anyway. Speaking of that," she added, looking up to fix him with a completely serious gaze, "have you found out any more about the murder?"
Garibaldi did her the courtesy of being serious back. "Nothing conclusive," he said. He thought a moment, then sat down on a large overturned pot, coming down to their level. "I don't know if anyone told you, but Taan Churok escaped from the brig. We're not sure why - we hadn't had a chance to tell him about the will..." Selene's eyes flickered, and Garibaldi's narrowed. "Oh, hell, Selene, don't tell me..."
"I thought he should know," the girl said defiantly. "And I didn't think he'd go and do something stupid - get himself in even more trouble! He didn't...he didn't hurt that nice officer, did he?"
Garibaldi shook his head. "Not too bad - Dr. Hobbs is patching him up. He should be okay. But that was a damned irresponsible thing to do, Selene. I ought to tell Zack - or at least your sister..." at her horrified look, he relented. "All right, all right, it's over and the damage is done. But Zack's people are hunting Taan now. He's running scared, and he could be dangerous - even to you two. You get me?" He looked each of the girls in the eye, and they nodded solemnly. He sighed and stood up. "Okay, just...be careful. Call Security if you need to - or me. I'll be around for another couple of days, at least. Hopefully, we'll get this wrapped up by then - before we have five more murders to deal with," he muttered to himself, thinking of Meeker and Spence and the SeroTech representatives.
After he left, the two girls worked for a while without speaking, each wrapped up in her own thoughts.
"Hey, Selene," said Jaida at last. "You still have that book you wanted me to read?"
"Yeah, sure, I've got it right here," said the Human girl, reaching a muddy hand into her pants pocket. A startled look crossed her face, and a string of words she wasn't supposed to know in two or three languages she didn't speak crossed her lips as she pulled out something round, yellow, and shiny.
"That doesn't look like a datacrystal," observed the Centauri girl.
"Of course not, silly, it's a coin," Selene replied.
"A gold coin, like the nobles use," added Jaida as she got a better look. "It's not one of ours, though - that triangle and the writing looks sort of Minbari, but I didn't know Minbari used gold coins. Where did you get it?"
"Mr. Bowman gave it to me, right after our tour. He said he wanted me to hold it for him - but that he'd want it back later. Now that he's, um...Jaida, do you think I should tell Mr. Allan or Mr. Garibaldi about it?"
Jaida's leaf-green eyes kindled. "Oh, I think so! It might be a clue - if you run, you can still catch him!"
Selene nodded, but before she took off, she reached back into her pocket and fished out the crystal that held 'The Last Unicorn' for her friend.
****************
Medlab 2
16:00 EST.
Trish and Selene found Officer Hsu flat on his back under an impressively blinking medical apparatus. After giving the coin - and a hasty explanation - to Mr. Garibaldi, Selene had left Jaida to finish up in the greenhouse and nagged her sister into going to Medlab with her so she could apologize in person.
Hsu accepted the apology graciously (or as graciously as was possible when one was flat on one's back getting one's ribs fused), pointing out that the girl couldn't have been responsible for what the draz had chosen to do with her information. When Trish asked him if Churok had said anything that might give them a clue as to where he might have gone, he lay quietly for a few moments, considering.
"The Chief asked me that, too," he said at last, "and I couldn't think of anything at the time. And I still don't know - not really. But Taan Churok did say something about that knife: that it had led him here. Maybe - if he really didn't do it, if the blade was stolen, he'd want to find out who stole it..."
"It was - well, it was supposed to be in a heavy wooden box, on this kind of altar thing," said Trish, remembering. "The box didn't look like it had been moved, and it was still locked. Or locked again. Whoever took it knew exactly where it was, and how to get at it..." Her eyes narrowed. "We have to find out who would have known about it...I'll have to go talk to the Muta-Do."
"Me, too!" said Selene.
"You can't!" exclaimed Hsu, moving as if to rise. He fell back with a wince even before he hit the restriction of the fusing mechanism. "Not by yourselves - I'll have to go with you."
"You're not going anywhere until those ribs fuse," cut in a soft, sharp voice. Dr. Hobbs strode over to check the readouts, sparing an admonitory glare for her patient and a quick smile of greeting for his visitors. "I won't have you puncturing a lung now, after all my hard work."
"But you don't understand," the young officer protested. "Aside from the fact that the Khut'mai is in a really lousy neighborhood, the Muta'haan won't let anyone in who isn't a warrior..."
"A warrior, huh?" said Trish, with a gleam in her eye, "well, don't worry, Officer, I think I know just where to find one. Selene, I want you to go to Jaida's for a while..."
"Not a chance," said the younger girl. "Whatever Officer Hsu says, it was my fault Taan ran off, and I'm going to help find him. I'm not a little kid anymore, Trish!" she added firmly.
They matched glares for a while, until the older girl gave way with the age-old parental strategic retreat: "We'll see."
A short while later, coming out of C&C at the end of his shift, Lieutenant Corwin practically tripped over the two of them. He looked to Trish for an explanation, but she hesitated, and in that moment Selene jumped in.
"We're going to go talk to the Muta-Do about Taan's knife, and Officer Hsu said we needed a warrior to get in. Can you come?"
"A what?" asked Corwin.
"A warrior," repeated Selene, as if to an idiot. "You're in Earthforce, right? Doesn't that make you a warrior?"
"Ah, not exactly," Corwin stammered, looking down at his dark Army of Light uniform shirt. "...and not really!" he added quickly, as he finally realized what she meant.
"Close enough," said Trish with one of her quick smiles. "It shouldn't be that big of a deal - we just need to get down there and talk to the guy for a few minutes. Would you mind?"
Torn between flattery, astonishment and...well, nervousness at the thought of escorting the girls into the heart of Down Below...somehow the words 'Lieutenant Commander' floated to the front of his mind and he found himself agreeing.
Quite soon after that he found himself regretting it, as he and Trish made their way along the dank corridors of Grey Sector to the renovated ballast-chamber occupied by the Mutai. After another, longer and more acrimonious discussion between the two sisters, Selene had been left behind, and Corwin was glad of it. He tried to make himself look as imposing and confident as he thought Mr. Garibaldi or Mr. Allan might have, while Trish prowled beside him like some kind of lean, dangerous cat. This was the first time he'd seen her in what was, in some sense, her own element, and it was at the same time daunting and somehow...exciting. He glared authoritatively at a hulking Bilubi doorwarden as they approached, demanding to speak to the Muta-Do.
"Only warrior may step in Sands of Blood," croaked the frog-faced humanoid.
"I am..." Corwin cleared his throat and tried again. "I am a warrior. Lieutenant David Corwin, of the Army of Light - the army that defeated the Shadows. This...um...this woman is with me. And I wish...I will speak with the Muta-Do," he said firmly. He'd handled untold numbers of irate ship-captains and an entire roomful of irate Ambassadors, he told himself; he could handle a bunch of martial-arts nuts.
Very tough and unfriendly-looking martial-arts nuts, he amended, looking around at the small crowd that had gathered around them. The Bilubi blinked.
"Wait here," he, she, or it said. As the creature ducked beneath the doorcurtain, Corwin and Trish looked around at the others. Corwin started to smile - a primate's instinctive gesture of appeasement - and at the very last moment remembered to not show teeth. Trish parked her hands on her narrow hips and surveyed the onlookers with icy disdain. He wondered why, exactly, she had thought she needed a 'warrior'.
The Bilubi reappeared and beckoned for them to follow. There were perhaps twenty-five or thirty fighters practicing in the main room: half a dozen sparring matches, a multispecies group doing distinct yet oddly harmonious forms, and a few scattered singletons. They all looked very buff and very determined, and many bore scars of one kind or another. Perhaps a handful also bore the narrow red sashes that distinguished the Muta'haan, the Pledged Ones, from the 'amateur' contenders.
The leader of the forms group, a small, wizened Yolu of great age and greater dignity, garbed in crimson silks, transferred his position to a Narn with a bow and joined the two Humans in the middle of the room.
"Who would speak with the Muta-Do?" said the alien, in a deliberate, rasping voice.
"Um, I would - that is..." Corwin looked at Trish. He wasn't sure if this was the guy they were looking for, or somebody else they needed to go through...Trish was sure, though.
"Honored Sir," she said quickly. "I work for Taan Churok, at the Dark Star. There's been a problem..."
The old Yolu stared unblinkingly at the young woman as she told her story, and at the end of it he gave a long sigh, sounding remarkably like a leaky gas valve. He looked up at the fighters who had unaccountably worked their way closer to their conversation. "Go! Have you no respect? This is not a matter for you!" As they scattered, he turned back to Trish. "And, I am sorry to say, it is not a matter for the Mutai. Churok must find his own way - what was to be said, has been said. The rest...is written in the sands." He bowed and turned to leave them.
"But what about the knife? Don't you even care that it was stolen?" a new, lighter voice cut in.
Trish looked down, horrified, to find her little sister at her side. "Selene! Where the frag did you come from? Did you follow us all the way down here, after I told you to wait for me at home?!?"
"A warrior, indeed," observed the Muta-Do, "although, perhaps, a warrior who needs to learn obedience!"
Selene blushed and looked down, somewhat to the other Humans' surprise. "I'm just really worried about Taan," she said. "I don't want him to get hurt - or have to hurt anyone else."
"Pain is part of life, small Human," the old Yolu said. "However, you are correct. It is never good for an outsider to become involved with a Talisman. Only the Muta'haan know the secret of the Talisman Box, and no Muta'haan would kill in...such a way. Therefore, the one who took the blade must have passed it to another - to an outsider. For an outsider to use such a blade in such a way...this is a very bad thing. I must consider," he concluded.
"So you're saying it must have been someone who is, or has been, a Mutari," said Corwin.
"But somebody completely unscrupulous, with no sense of loyalty or...as you say, respect," added Trish. Selene pulled at her sleeve and pointed to a far corner. The older girl's eyes widened and her teeth flashed.
"Rukh!" she cried.
Across the room, the Brakiri heard her - as did everyone else. Before anyone could react, though, Rukh slung a punching bag into the draz who had been spotting him and sprinted for the doorway. The three Humans pelted after him, but when a few others made as if to follow, the Muta-Do raised a hand to stop them.
"Rukh is no longer Mutari," he told them, in the secret language of the Mutai. "If he returns, his life will feed the Sands of Blood. But this hunt...belongs to them." His voice lifted harshly. "Return to your training!"
By the time they cornered Rukh, they were in some deep reach of Grey Sector that Corwin wasn't at all sure he could find his way out of. Seemingly oblivious to that, and to the fact that the man they were chasing was an ex-Mutari, Trish demanded to know if he'd killed Bowman, as well as stealing the zhotakhe blade.
"The Muta-Do didn't think a Mutari would do it, however low he'd sunk, but I know you, Rukh. You're lower than a snake's belly in a coal mine. Did you kill him?"
By then Corwin had pulled and charged his PPG, but it didn't look like he'd need it. Rukh cringed against the bulkhead, looking around in vain for an avenue of escape.
"No! No! I didn't kill anybody!" the Brakiri protested. "I didn't even know about it until I went to the Dark Star for a nightcap, and it was closed..."
"When was that?" demanded Corwin.
"Oh, around 07:00 this morning, your time..."
"And when did you steal the blade?" cut in Trish.
"What? Me? What makes you think I took Churok's...um..."
"Then how did you know what we were talking about?" Selene darted in like some small, sharptoothed predator. Rukh looked from one to the other, then at Corwin, who stood with PPG aimed unwavering at his torso. Two-handed, but unwavering.
"Okay, look," he said. "It wasn't my idea - it was the bug. He wanted the zhotake, I didn't know why at the time, but he must have given it to whoever he got to kill the Earther. He paid enough, I wasn't about to ask questions."
"And it never occurred to you that your old buddy Churok might not be too thrilled at your walking off with his property?" asked Trish.
"Yeah, well, there was that, I guess, but I figured if Churok went up for the murder, it wouldn't be an issue, right? I forgot you were his right-hand man - er, I mean woman - Livingston. I should have known he'd send you after me. And you found yourself a soldier-boy with a gun, too - I'm impressed, really..." His beady eyes flickered, as he spotted something moving in the shadows behind the Humans. "But I don't think it's going to be enough to get you out of here!"
He launched himself to one side, just as a crashing blow came down on Corwin's head from behind. Trish whirled, swearing, but found herself in the grip of something small, wiry, and incredibly strong, with what seemed like half a dozen arms. Her last sight was of her sister, screaming as she was pulled down into the darkness by a hulking, ragged Humanoid.
****************** Act Four *****************
Brown Sector, Level 37
The Oilcan
16:25 EST, 07/16/2263.
Michael Garibaldi sat in the shadows, dressed in a voluminous multicolored overcoat and a soft, floppy hat of the 'Renaissance' style popular in the inner colonies. He had a couple of them at home, in brighter colors and better fabrics. Lise always laughed when he wore them and said he looked like something out of an old art gallery, but he liked the effect - it went with his new image. He had picked this one up at the market nearby, along with the coat, and it drooped quite satisfactorily over his face as he stared into what looked convincingly like a large glass of straight whiskey.
Actually, he was glaring at the drink, since it was, in fact, real whiskey. Or at least real alcohol with some questionable artificial coloring and even more questionable artificial flavoring in it. Probably not the kind of thing he'd want to imbibe anyway, even if it weren't just for show. Which it was. Most definitely. Just for show.
Before he had told himself that more than a dozen more times, a shapely feminine form dropped softly into his lap.
"You haven't been drinking that, have you?" a sultry voice murmured into his ear.
"Of course not," he answered, his own voice unexpectedly husky. He cleared his throat. "Just...didn't want to look suspicious, that's all."
"Good," said the woman, whom the shifting lights revealed as the Telepath Resistance leader, Toni Walters, in an extremely distracting silk dress. She plucked the glass from his encircling fingers and downed a healthy slug, grimacing at the taste. "If there's anything more annoying to be around than a mundane control freak, it's a drunk mundane control freak. Now, why did you call me?"
Manfully resisting all the various temptations presented, Garibaldi got right to the point. "Christopher Bowman was murdered last night. I know you scragged the son - did you take out Pops, too?"
Walters froze, and once again Garibaldi felt the cold thrill of fear. Again, too, he felt nothing else...until he realized that the girl was trembling. As soon as he noticed, she pulled away from him, fumbling for a nearby chair.
"How...how did you find out about...what happened to Derek?" she asked, not looking at him. He hesitated - a moment too long. Her eyes swept up, and now he did feel something - like the swift, sharp stab of an icepick behind his eyes. It lasted less than an instant, and before he could react, she gripped his wrist and hissed "Wait!" Her eyes went distant while she processed the information she'd just ripped from his mind. She sighed, then. "Ferris," she said. "That...might be a complication."
"You know him?"
"Not personally, but we've been keeping close tabs on him for a while, now. Half the Resistance leadership wants to kill him, half want to recruit him, and the other half think he'll end up doing more good where he is, working on the inside."
"He's working for you, then?" said Garibaldi, trying to add up the halves. "The Resistance, I mean?"
She shook her head quickly. "No, no - he's Corps, all right. He's pulled in more than enough of our people to prove that. But he's a Humanist - a follower of Claude Heckman; an early Psi Cop who believed that the Corps could be reformed."
Garibaldi snorted. "An idealist."
"Precisely," Toni agreed. "Sooner or later he'll grow out of it - if he lives that long - and when he does, he'll be a tremendous asset for us. He's a good man, as well as one of the strongest telepaths in Human space."
"Stronger than you?" he couldn't help asking her. Stronger than Bester? he couldn't help asking himself.
"I said one of the strongest," she replied tartly.
He grinned, and after a moment she grinned back. She looked down at the glass, turning it to catch the intermittent, smoky light. "So. Ferris' records show that I killed Derek. That's a coverup. Bester and the others didn't want anybody to know how many of us there really were - how far the 'corruption' had spread in Metapol's West Coast base."
"You mean, he was trying to escape with you?"
She nodded. "He was my partner - my lover, my best friend since we were both kids. We didn't get to see our parents much, and since his father was a mundane, that made it even more difficult, but...even so, Chris Bowman was as close to a father as I ever had. After Derek...died, though, I couldn't risk contacting him - making the Corps more suspicious of him than they already were. Yesterday was the first time I'd spoken to him in almost ten years. He wanted to get together, but I didn't dare. I just...walked away. And now..." tears glittered on her downcast lashes.
Garibaldi shifted uncomfortably. The fragility of telepaths - the more-than-human vulnerability that was the flipside of their more-than-human powers - was something he hated to be reminded of. In Lyta it had usually just been annoying - and he'd never seen a trace of it in Bester - but once there had been another telepath who had aroused this feeling of protectiveness in him...along with other feelings, which he had no business even thinking about. He cleared his throat again.
"Um, just for the record, where were you between the time you left me and about 20:00?"
She wiped her eyes with her fingers. "Meeting with some of our operatives, at a place called Paulie's, near the Zocalo."
"Yeah, I know the place. So that's what Lyta's hard-earned money is going for, huh? Dinners at places like Paulie's?" As she drew herself up to retort, he laughed, with only a little effort. "Come on, why don't we go back up there and I'll buy you a real drink?"
On the way upstation, Garibaldi asked if she was going to be able to keep the Psi Cop from finding her, especially given that his suspicions might well have been aroused by Garibaldi's inquiry. She shrugged. "I think so. I'm leaving tonight, and I'm pretty sure I can dodge him until then. He thinks he knows all the tricks, but he doesn't - not yet."
****************
Grey Sector, Level 35
16:47 EST.
Trish woke to a rough Drazi voice.
"So, you come back to our place, but where your Anla'Shok friends now?"
"They're coming!" Selene said defiantly. "You better let us go, or you'll be in real trouble! This guy here is a Lieutenant - they're gonna have Security and Earthforce and everybody out looking for us..."
"Ah, but without this, they will not know where to find him!" The draz held Corwin's link to the light, and Trish saw the badly-healed scar that crossed his left eye and cheek. She pulled at the cords that bound her to a sturdy strut, then tried to get her legs under her, but to no avail. On the other side of her sister, who was similarly bound, she could just make out the unconscious form of Lieutenant Corwin, and past him, Rukh. Maybe a dozen lurkers of various species, all in dark-green or grey rags, hunkered around the room watching the proceedings.
"Selene!" she called, and the girl looked over with thinly-veiled terror in her eyes. "It's okay, honey, we'll get out of this."
The lurkers laughed - but she was used to that. She glared at the draz, who grinned a reptilian grin and turned his attention to her. "What do you want from us?" she asked sharply.
"What can we get?" replied the draz. He plucked at her baggy shirt, and she moved aside with a grimace. "Skinny one...maybe sell to Halgo for...mmm...fifty credits. Little one...more valuable...yess" He turned back to tilt Selene's head back with a grimy claw under her chin. The girl jerked her head away and came back at his hand, teeth flashing.
"Selene!" cried Trish, appalled. "Do NOT bite that! You don't know where it's been!"
The draz laughed. "Maybe we keep this one, huh?" he called to his comrades. His scaled head swiveled back around to Trish. "Or maybe you buy her back? Maybe you buy all..." he waved at the captives, "all back. You got credits? Jewels? Gold?"
"Hey, I have gold!" Rukh piped up from the far corner. "Untie me, and I'll show you."
"Why not just take?" asked his Yolu guard, reaching for the Brakiri's robes.
"Wait!" said the draz. He walked over to peer down at the cowering Rukh. "This one, I know. Thief, cheat, maker of mischief. Coward! Once fought in Mutai - strong fighter then, yes?" Rukh sat up a bit straighter at this. "But now, weak! Fit only to take messages - you take this message, Brakiri, to Chief Al-laan. Tell him we have Lieutenant and females - tell him, five thousand credits and passage off station for all Nightblades, or they die. You understand?"
Rukh's eyes glittered as he looked at the girls. When he nodded, the Yolu cut him loose. As he scuttled for the door, though, the lurker snagged his arm and swung it behind his back, laying the edge of a viciously-serrated blade across his throat.
"Before you go - give us gold," said the draz.
The straining Brakiri reached carefully into a pocket and pulled out a large gold coin. Selene gasped as the draz plucked it out of Rukh's hand and turned it in the light. Trish looked closely, and could just make out some sort of triangular design before it vanished somewhere in the draz' rags. At another gesture from his leader, the Yolu kicked the scrambling Brakiri out the door.
On Selene's other side, Lieutenant Corwin was starting to come around.
****************
16:55 EST.
Rukh scuttled warily through the dim corridors, looking for some indication of where, in these neglected depths of the station, he actually was. Warily, because the fact that the Nightblades had let him go was no guarantee of immunity from the other gangs that infested Grey Sector. There was also the worrisome question of his destination. He had no intention whatsoever of going to Security. Livingston and her Lieutenant - and that pestilent sister of hers - would just have to fend for themselves. He couldn't go back to the Khut'Mai, and j'Nialth wouldn't want him hanging around Alfredo's, now that his theft of the zhotakhe blade was known. Before he could find sanctuary anywhere, though, he had to find his way back to someplace he knew.
He was contemplating a cross-corridor when his sharp Brakiri hearing caught the slightest hiss of an indrawn breath. He turned - too late, as a large scaled fist snapped his head back the other way. His assailant caught him roughly by the shoulder before he went down.
"Out for a stroll, Mutari Rukh?"
Rukh had heard Churok use that quiet, deadly tone before. He shuddered in the draz' viselike grip. "I...had an errand..." he stammered.
"Yes, I saw. It will be dealt with. But first - why did you take the blade? And who did you give it to?"
The Brakiri's chin came up. "What, you don't think I killed the Earther? Livingston did."
Churok laughed a dry laugh. "She does not know you like I do. If you had been paid to kill Bowman, you would not be sober enough to walk for half a cycle."
"Yeah, well, I was paid - in gold, too. I figured the bug was paying off a favor or something by getting it for the guy, but then when Bowman turned up dead..."
"You realized that you had bitten into a live grazhakh, hah? Who is this 'guy' who ended up with the blade?"
Rukh shook his head. "I don't know - I never saw him. J'Nialth mentioned that the gold came from some Earther who needed to convert it to EeAy credits. Bug-breath was gloating over the cut he'd taken on the exchange, how it almost made up for what he'd paid the guy..."
"So," murmured Churok. "The Thrakallan...I will have to speak with him. After I see to the Humans. Come along, Rukh," the draz said, dragging the hapless Brakiri down the cross-corridor. "I can't give you to Allan - yet - but I think I know someone who can keep you from getting into more trouble in the meantime."
****************
Captain's Office
17:30 EST.
Prime shift had ended some time ago, but Lochley remained, determined to finish up her administrative 'paperwork'. She knew it would only start piling up again, but she figured she might as well get rid of the backlog while she had the chance - before another crisis came along to occupy her attention for hours, or days. Colonel Peterson had gone off with a group of the watch officers to Earhart's after his tour. All of them, except perhaps Lieutenant Corwin, seemed utterly charmed by the man.
Lochley herself was developing a strong and disturbing ambivalence toward the Colonel. On the one hand, he was charming, in a calculated way, and a few times she had caught him giving her the sort of look that...well, it certainly wasn't what she would have expected from a friend of her father's, even if he was a few years younger. On the other hand, some of the opinions he had expressed - about the Minbari, aliens in general, and the policies of the Earth Alliance itself - were so reactionary and inflexible that she found herself wondering how her father had been friends with the man at all. Despite his hard and brittle shell, Henry Lochley had been a scrupulously fair and ethical man, with an introspective side that had shown through in fitful gleams between the drinking bouts and the brutal discipline. There had been a few - too few - precious moments in Elizabeth's preteen years when father and daughter had actually talked, and the man she remembered from that time would never have tolerated views like Peterson's. For all his relative youth and longstanding retirement, the Colonel sometimes sounded more like a battle-hardened, war-weary veteran of the previous generation.
She smiled to herself, thinking of one gentleman she knew of that generation whose opinions and attitudes were anything but antiquated. She wondered what the chances were of staging a little 'discussion' between Colonel Peterson and Ambassador Sheridan before the Colonel left...then paused, looking right through her monitor as she was blindsided by a sudden crystal-clear memory of the Ambassador's son.
Two cadets, only a few months from graduation, stealing an illicit night together thanks to his roommate's absence on a training mission. Their youthful energy had outlasted passion, and they had spent the better part of the night in a wide-ranging exploration of each others dreams, hopes, theories of life, the Universe, and everything...
She remembered the light in John's eyes as he told her about his journey to Tibet the previous summer, when he had actually spoken with the Dalai Lama. There had been some story of past lives and ancient evils, and for a moment both of them had almost believed the words of the child with the thousand-year-old soul - that they had a destiny, a heroic part to play in some epic history...and so, indeed, he had, Liz thought wryly.
Shaking her head, she returned her attention to her monitor. She herself had still been rebellious in those days, before she had turned her energies toward enforcing the rules rather than breaking them. Yet now, after being caught up in the paradigm-shifting nexus of possibilities that was Babylon 5 for a year and a half, she found herself swinging, like a pendulum, back that way. And John, after making a name for himself as a hardline commander, had become the most famous rebel of their time - and was now just as energetically forging a reputation as a statesman, of all things...while Peterson had evolved from the amiable young man of those family pictures to a cold, calculating xenophobe who plainly regarded any softer sentiment as a weakness. The changes people go through - some for the better, some for the worse...
Some long overdue.
"Lochley to C&C," she said to her link, on impulse. When the response came back, she asked to be put through to Lieutenant Corwin, but was told that he wasn't in his quarters - and that his link wasn't responding. That was odd. Standing orders required that all senior officers keep their links within earshot at all times, and Corwin was the last person she could imagine flouting that rule - or any other, for that matter. Maybe he was in the shower or something, she thought, bringing up another file. She'd try back later.
****************
The Zocalo
17:45 EST.
"If they have Lieutenant Corwin, shouldn't we go to Security?"
The English words in a nearby Centauri conversation caught Ambassador Sherann's attention. As she leaned closer to the flimsy barrier that separated her from the speakers, she recognized the next voice as that of Ambassador Ta'Lon's friend, G'Stral.
"If we tell Security, they'll get Churok," the young Narn explained impatiently. "No, the five of us together should be able to handle them. We need to hurry, though. I told Churok we'd meet him in Grey 35, Section 14, a couple of corridors over from where the Nightblades are holed up."
"We need to stop by Dok's and pick up some weapons," put in a second Centauri voice. "Those practice blades aren't great, but they're better than nothing. You think Dok would mind if we borrowed the kutari?"
"YES, he'd mind!" replied the first Centauri. "He'd have our scalps if we took the Jaddo kutari on a jaunt like this, and you know it! I don't think we should take blades at all - if things go wrong, we could get busted for weapons violations, too. That's the last thing we need, especially now that Val'na Pratchett has agreed to talk to Westcastle about letting us back into the Anla'Shok."
"Oh, come on, Prado," came a third Centauri voice. "This is the kind of thing the Anla'Shok are for, right? Daring rescues, braving dangers no one else will face - all that kind of thing? We'll take the practice blades, and have the denn'boks as backup."
"Sh'rakh, it's just a bunch of lurkers," muttered G'Stral. "You don't have to make a fragging opera out of it."
"Lurkers who have taken the lovely dem'selle Livingston prisoner," the first Centauri pointed out.
"And her sister, Jaida's friend," added the second. "And while we're sitting around talking about it..."
"Let's move," the third said decisively, and a rustle of fabric and skreel of chairs on deckplating heralded their departure. The Minbari Ambassador stuck her head around the wall of the shop cubicle just in time to watch the colorfully-clad aliens vanish into the crowd.
She frowned, thinking hard and fast, her feet already taking her the other way, toward the Security complex. Lieutenant Corwin and Trish Livingston were two Humans for whom she felt both respect and affection - and she was surprisingly fond of young Selene, as well. There was no question that Security had to be notified. Those young...males were as likely as not to get themselves and the prisoners killed. But what had the Narn meant about Taan Churok? From Trish's accounts, and the little she had seen of the draz herself, Sherann believed him to be an honorable person - whatever Security wanted him for, it was bound to be some kind of misunderstanding. As she rounded the turn into the Stationhouse corridor, she resolved to do whatever she could to prevent harm from coming to the ex-Mutari.
****************
Grey Sector, Level 35
17:59 EST.
David Corwin was getting tired of waiting. When he'd come to, his captors had taken great pleasure in explaining just how thin a thread his life, and the lives of the two females, hung upon. The Nightblades had no great confidence that the Brakiri would deliver their message, let alone that the Captain would agree to their terms. Some argued that they should leave this place, in case Security came against them in strength, but the Drazi leader believed that Lochley would not put her Executive Officer in such peril. He agreed that the likelihood was that Rukh had just scampered off into some dark hole or other, but bade them wait a bit longer, in case he decided to try for a reward from the authorities to make up for his lost gold.
Meanwhile, Corwin wracked his brains trying to come up with some clever way of getting himself and the others free. He thought of getting the lurkers angry enough to want to fight him, one on one - but common sense told him that their more likely response to provocation would be a quick shot from his confiscated PPG. At one point Selene wheedled them into letting her go, under guard, to their makeshift restroom, but the Drazi's threat to disfigure Trish - his knife drawing a thin line of blood down her cheek - kept the younger girl from causing any trouble.
Corwin leaned back against the strut he was tied to, closing his eyes. He tried to imagine what Captain Sheridan would have done in this situation - or Commander Ivanova, or even Chief Garibaldi. If they couldn't fight their way out of it, they would have come up with some clever ruse or other - they certainly wouldn't have just sat here like a misplaced carryall. And only last night he had been looking forward to his promotion, and seriously considering taking the reins of the Army of Light. Lieutenant Commander Corwin, who knows the station like the back of his hand...yeah, right, he thought disgustedly. So, what good could knowledge of docking protocols or station specs possibly do him now? What possible good...
Then he had it: the barest germ of an idea. He opened his eyes, peering up into the corners of the room - there, yes, and over in the far corner...perfect. Quickly he went over in his mind what he would have to do, then he looked back at the pipe dripping a clear fluid down the far wall. "Uh-oh," he said, pitching his voice to be heard by the lurkers as well as by Trish and Selene.
"What?" said the older girl, looking up at him. The Drazi leader glanced over briefly, then went back to arguing with his henchbeings.
"Remember when the reactor almost blew, and the station's life-support systems went offline? Well, we got them back all right, but the stress didn't do the conduits any good - especially down here where maintenance is sketchy at best. It looks like that pipe is going to blow any minute, and when it does, we're all going to be in trouble," Corwin finished ominously.
Selene's eyes widened - he risked a quick wink, and she said quickly, "You mean, like what happened to Toruka's family over in Brown 92? I heard even Dr. Hobbs couldn't fix those horrible scars..."
The draz was starting to look worried, now. He strode over to the pipe and looked at the fluid dripping out of it. "Looks like water," he said, and went to test it with a claw.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said Corwin quickly. "The fluid that circulates in those pipes is used for defibrillating the hydroxyl-ion shafts. It'll melt your scales right down to the bone, full strength. The only way to stop it is to get into that panel over there," he said, jerking his head at a rusted-over panel in the far corner near the ceiling.
"And do what?" demanded the draz.
"It's pretty complicated," said Corwin. "If you untie me, I can take a look at it..."
After a certain amount of grumbling and threats they did untie him, although the draz kept the PPG charged and aimed at his head. Then there was more fumbling around as they stacked some crates for him to stand on so he could reach the panel - he thought of trying something then, but the wary eyes of the Drazi stopped him. Exchanging a wary look with Trish, he climbed up on the crates, which put his feet at chest level to the hovering lurkers. He poked at the panel with his bare fingers, trying to look knowledgeable, then sighed and turned back. "I'm going to need a screwdriver - I don't suppose you've got one handy? A pocketknife, maybe?"
"You think we're gonna give you a weapon, you're nuts," advised one of the half-dozen Human gang members.
"I think it's leaking more," said Selene, staring fixedly at the leaky pipe.
"Dave, is this the same stuff Maintenance Chief Ranaswami was telling us about, the other night at the Dark Star? The stuff they needed the extra-strengh plasfoam to contain?" asked Trish helpfully.
"Gyangrit'shah, give him your knife," ordered the drazi leader.
Now that he had the knife, the question was what to do with it. He worked at the screws of the panel, listening carefully for any opening. All he needed was for the Drazi's aim to waver...
Something clattered in through the doorway, the draz turned to look, and all hell broke loose.
Corwin launched himself at the nearest lurkers. The draz turned back, but was unable to find a clear target. Meanwhile, the small object that had been tossed into the room started smoking profusely, shrouding the entry of an unknown number of figures, some armed with long blades that flashed in the fitful light. The other lurkers attacked the newcomers with their crude weapons - the Drazi snarled and fired the PPG, but missed the other, larger draz who rolled and came up with a vicious whirling kick that flung him into the wall near where Trish and Selene were tied. The PPG clattered off into the shadows, but the younger draz came back up swinging a sturdy metal bar to hold Churok at bay.
Corwin managed to get in a couple of good hits, but was taken down by a punch from the Human - who then made the mistake of stooping to get his knife back. Alto's boot connected with the seat of his pants, sending him lurching into one of his buddies, but then Alto himself was tackled by a pair of Yolu, and his blade was stomped out of his hand. G'Stral was trying to avoid being strangled by a huge Bilubi, and the others were similarly beset. The rescuers, skilled as they were, were badly outnumbered, and numbers were beginning to tell.
Trish and Selene pulled frantically at their bonds, with no better results than they had had before. "They're losing!" wailed Selene, and a steady stream of curses issued from Trish's direction. Then a screech of protesting metal sounded, and the sealed hatch on the other side of the room crashed open to reveal the glaring beams of handlights.
"Security! Everybody freeze!" came the familiar rasping voice of Chief Zack Allan.
****************
Brown Sector
19:00 EST.
"I think you'll get a kick out of this," said Zack to Garibaldi as he hit the annunciator. Unlike most of the doorways on this level, this one was burnished to a rich bronze gleam, and the words "Babylon 5 Solidarity Center" were carefully stenciled above the entry panel in half a dozen different scripts. That was odd enough, but when the door opened to reveal a petite, modestly dressed young Centauri woman, Garibaldi's eyebrows crawled halfway up his forehead.
"Chief Allan! What has happened?" cried the young woman, surprised and almost fearful, eyeing the two beefy Security guards that stood behind Zack.
"It's okay, Ms. Marrago," the Chief hastened to reassure her. "We've got Churok, but he's off the hook for Bowman's murder. And Corwin and the girls are fine," he added, to her obvious relief. "Ah, listen, Churok said you had a 'package' for us? We've come to pick it up, if you don't mind."
"Not in the least," she replied. "This place was not intended to be used as a prison - I'm afraid I had to improvise, and my...guest was not at all happy about the whole situation..." She fluttered to the back of the room, where a cabinet had been pushed across a doorway. As Zack motioned for the guards to help her out, Garibaldi pulled him aside.
"Isn't that Vir's old girlfriend?" asked the bald man, sotto voce. "The one who was a little..." he swirled his finger around his ear.
"That's her, all right," Zack assured him, grinning widely. "She, uh, had a pretty rough time in the Centauri War, which I think was some kinda wake-up call for her, you know what I mean? Then when she wound up here, one of those Vendrizi - you know, the big centipede guys that crawl into your spine? - Anyway, it took a liking to her, and after that she decided to stay here and help with the lurkers. Of course, it's just a drop in the bucket, but..."
"Are she and Vir still...."
Zack shrugged. "Hell if I know. They seem pretty friendly, but, well, whatever the Centauri use for wedding bells, I ain't heard 'em yet."
By then the guards had gotten the door open and were hauling a ragged, cringing bundle out of the back room.
"Keep her away from me!" the prisoner yelled, cowering back from the demure Centauri. "You see what she did to me, that sunscarred bitch? She's the one you should be taking away!" Several dark bruises were swelling his facial creases shut, and he held one arm protectively with the other.
Garibaldi pursed his lips, remembering the Narn that Lyndisty had captured as a 'present' for Vir, when she first visited the station. So delicate, so innocent-looking, and so deadly...
"I'm afraid he was under the impression that I was going to let him get away," the girl apologized. "I'm sure Dr. Hobbs can repair him quite easily, though," she added with a dazzling smile.
"Yeah, question is, will she be able to get rid of the stink?" Zack asked rhetorically, stepping forward to tilt the prisoner's head up. "Rukh, right?"
"That's right," said the Brakiri sullenly. "but she had no right to keep me here! I've done nothing wrong! Bad enough my old friend Churok had to turn on me and beat me and...and kidnap me, but to turn me over to this..." he trailed off into his own language.
"Yeah, well, now we're here, and these guys are gonna take you over to Medlab, and then to a nice, comfy cell. Get him outta here," Zack told the guards, "Make sure he's ready to talk to us in an hour." he turned back to Lyndisty. "Your buddy G'Stral was still in Medlab when we left, but I'm sure he'll be down here pretty soon to give you all the details."
"Thank you, Mr. Allan, I'm looking forward to it. And Mr. Garibaldi," she said, looking up at the tall man with a distinct twinkle in her eye, "it's nice to see you again...from both of us," she added, flashing another of those brilliant smiles at his complete confusion.
****************
Customs
22:30 EST.
"Starliner *Brin* now boarding for the Orion colonies, with stops at Proxima III, Lesser Krindar, Greater Krindar, and Kazomi Seven. Please have your boarding passes and identicards ready.
"Transport Nu'Patha now departing for Narn via Ragesh III. All passengers should now be on board. Last call for Narn transport Nu'Patha.
"Shuttle Varini, destination Station Prime, is now commencing pre-boarding certification. Please have all documents ready for boarding. Unauthorized passengers will not be permitted in the boarding areas."
As the announcements were repeated in Minbari, Drazi, and Narn (Centauri having been dropped from the list of required languages since the secession), Colin gazed over the crowd from his vantage point near the spinward transport tube banks.
A group of four business types hurried toward the starliner's gate, one severely-tailored woman saying emphatically, "...of course you realize that this is only a temporary assignment. If Mr. Garibaldi is satisfied that the preliminary phases are progressing as planned, I should be able to talk him into letting me go back to Mars within a few months at most..."
"I'm counting on it, Ms. Spence," one of her companions said wearily as they were swallowed up by the crowd. Colin smiled, chalking up another one for the inimitable Mr. Garibaldi. He had spent the last several hours doing further research on the Mkweze/Bowman case, after Garibaldi's odd reaction had piqued his curiosity.
There had never been any question of scanning the man, of course. Ferris was well aware that Garibaldi's distrust of telepaths went much deeper than Zack's, and for good reason, he had to admit. Of all the tales of Bester's misdeeds - from authenticated reports through patently preposterous rumors - the story of his use of the unwitting mundane to uncover Edgars' plot against their people was the hardest for Colin to stomach. It was the ultimate case of the end arguably justifying the means - if Edgars' plan had succeeded, the resultant subjugation of Human telepaths would have exceeded almost anyone's worst nightmares, yet the calculated rape of an innocent mind, subconsciously turning a man against his friends, his ideals, everything he had ever believed in...it was worse than an abuse of power, it was...well, he could certainly understand that Garibaldi would find it unforgivable, and paint all of Psi Corps - indeed, all telepaths - with the same tarred brush.
And yet, in Garibaldi's recognition of Mkweze there had been no obvious animosity, only surprise. However, Ferris also knew that Dr. Franklin, Garibaldi's close friend on the station, had helped the Resistance with their 'underground railroad' for quite some time, and he could well have encountered her then, under more sympathetic circumstances. The connection with Bowman was interesting, though - more so, the more he read through the classified files on the incident. It hadn't taken him long to realize that those files were a whitewash job, and once he knew what to look for it hadn't taken him long to put together a picture that was undoubtedly much closer to the truth. For some reason, the story of the pair's doomed love and desperate break for freedom haunted him - maybe it was just that Bowman was his own age, and according to the records rather similar in personality. All he knew was that he couldn't manage to settle in to reading or sleeping, so he had set off on his usual circuit of the station, albeit at an unusual hour. Maybe just walking, and drifting through the mental ambiance of the station, would drive his doubts and uncertainties away...for the moment, at least. He took one last look around the room before starting to turn back to the transport tubes.
As the lines of text indicating the latest departures winked off the display board, a startlingly clear glyph bloomed in his mind - the sparkling pastel caress of a blown kiss. He whipped around, raking the chamber and as much of the docks beyond as he could reach with a swift, blanketing probe...but there was nothing. Not a trace, not a ripple in the surge of mundane thought-patterns that filled the local 'ether'.
He stood a long time, wondering, before he finally turned away.
****************** ENVOI
*****************
Earhart's
19:00 EST, 07/17/2263.
Captain Lochley rapped sharply on the edge of her water glass for attention. Earhart's was crammed to the gills with off-duty Army of Light and Earthforce officers, plus a few specially-invited guests. The sound of their celebrating was deafening over the subliminal bass throb and eerie wails of the latest jumpwave hit.
"Kat!" she yelled at the bartender, and the music died, leaving a dull roar. Exasperated, the Captain put two fingers to her lips and gave forth a piercing whistle. Silence fell.
"As you all know," she said, "we are gathered here this evening to celebrate the promotion of Babylon 5's executive officer, Lieutenant Commander David Corwin..." a wave of cheering and applause swept through the room, and Corwin, seated beside her at the head of a series of shoved-together tables, blushed a furious crimson. When it died down a bit, she continued. "Against my advice, and to Earthforce's everlasting detriment, Lieutenant Commander Corwin has elected to remain with the Army of Light, thereby becoming the ranking officer in that army under President Sheridan."
More whoops and whistles. Lochley shook her head ruefully, then motioned for Corwin to rise. At his appalled look, she grinned. "And now, a few words from the Lieutenant Commander!" She sat, leaving him alone in the figurative, if not literal, spotlight.
"Um, well, first of all, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Captain Lochley, and President Sheridan - and the people in Earthforce who extended the invitation to return to service with the Earth Alliance." The young man took a deep breath, glancing at the Captain, then at Zack, a couple of seats down on his right. "It was a difficult decision, and, um, I want to assure those of you who are Earthforce that it's not anything against you guys."
A ripple of laughter greeted that, and he relaxed a bit. "Being a Lieutenant Commander is going to be something of a challenge, and being the first Lieutenant Commander in the Army of Light is...well, it's a special challenge. I hope I'm up to it - but I can assure all of you that I'm going to do my very best."
They seemed to be expecting him to say more...well, what the heck, might as well start off with a bang...
"We - the Army of Light, that is - have been pretty much coasting since the Captain - I mean, the President - left," he added. "Now, I think you all know that I'm not one to go jerking people's chains just for the heck of it, but it's high time we put together some kind of overall organizational strategy. I know there are a lot of things that could be done better, and some that haven't been done at all. For instance, we need to get the promotion system working again - yeah, I know you guys are all here for the love of the job, not for personal advancement..." (more laughter) "...but a little incentive never hurts, and I hear the docking fees are pretty healthy these days, so the Captain and I are going to be putting in some recommendations. Now, I don't want to get anybody's hopes up," he added, not quite able to avoid looking in the direction of Lieutenant J.G. Amanda Kreies, "but I feel certain that there are going to be some uniform modifications showing up around here pretty soon.
"Speaking of which," he added, tugging at the hem of his grey-piped black jacket, "is it just me, or is this thing scratchy?"
After Corwin sat down again, everyone went back to their previous conversations. Tessa, who was seated between Zack and Colin Ferris, asked how the murder investigation was going.
Zack sighed. "Well, Rukh's statement cleared Taan Churok, so that's something, anyway. We still haven't been able to track down the killer, though. The Thrakallan denies ordering the hit, and there won't be a data trail if he used a generic credit chit, so at this point it's Rukh's word against his."
"Show her the coins," suggested Garibaldi, from Zack's other side.
Zack reached into his pocket and deposited three large gold coins on the table. "These were Rukh's fee for stealing Churok's knife. We confiscated one from the Nightblades and he turned over the other two. He says j'Nialth got them from the Human he gave the knife to - the guy wanted to exchange them for credits, and j'Nialth passed 'em on to the Brakiri. Then he supposedly paid the other guy to kill Bowman, using the knife to frame Churok. Clever, huh?"
Tessa nodded absently, but her attention was on the coins themselves. "This is the same design as that scarf Lise picked up from the Earthforce guy at Allende's base on Mars - she did tell you about that, didn't she?" Tessa looked up at Garibaldi, hoping she hadn't just started a domestic quarrel. He nodded grimly, though.
"Did you ever find out what it means?" asked Zack.
"Yes and no. Ambassador Sherann did some checking on the design for me. The writing is definitely Minbari, but it's a script and dialect that hasn't been used for more than ten thousand years. It seems that back then, before the castes evolved, one clan became powerful enough to control most of the main continent for a while -- so powerful that their name became the Minbari word for 'Empire'. This word here is a form of that name," she said, pointing to the bottom line of text, "with a noun suffix that means something like 'association' or 'order'. The other two lines translate to something roughly like our old saying, 'might makes right'. As for the triangle, well, that's standard Minbari. I don't know what to make of the circle, though, let alone that star or crab or whatever it is tying them together."
"'Might makes right," mused the Psi Cop. "Now there's a cheerful concept."
Garibaldi and Zack stared at him, and he shrugged. Garibaldi reached into his pocket. "Well, Tess, if you liked that, you're gonna love this," he said, tossing a fourth gold coin onto the table with the others. It had the same design. "Bowman gave this to Selene to hold for him - probably figured somebody might break into his room. Which, in fact, they did. Anybody want to take bets that this is what he wanted to talk to the DCI in person about?"
Tessa shook her head. "No bet," she said. "He must have known or discovered something about this 'Imperial Order'...only they got to him before we could."
"In that case," said Zack thoughtfully, "maybe j'Nialth just thought he was hiring the guy to kill Bowman. Maybe our perp was already planning the hit, and the Thrakallan just gave him a bonus."
"And a diversion," Garibaldi pointed out. "Which kept us chasing our tails while he made a clean getaway."
"Not necessarily," mused Colin. "Since we've lost his trail, there's no real reason for him to leave the station. Whoever these people are, they may well want someone here - to keep an eye on us."
The other three exchanged worried looks. Then Garibaldi looked back at Colin, eyes narrowed. "Yeah, well, that's a strategy you'd know all about, huh?"
Colin sighed and sat back in his chair - and was surprised to hear Zack's voice reply.
"Ah, cut the guy some slack, Michael. He's just doing his job." As several pairs of disbelieving eyes fastened on the Security Chief, he went on uncomfortably. "I mean, sure, I don't like having a Psi Cop here any more than anybody else, but I've gotta admit, in the time he's been here, Officer Ferris hasn't stepped one inch over the line - which is more than I can say for some people." He looked pointedly at his predecessor.
"What's that supposed to mean?" demanded Garibaldi.
"Well, I seem to recall something about somebody getting hold of some people's security jackets when they came on board, which they weren't exactly cleared for," Zack answered staunchly, flicking a glance toward the Captain.
Garibaldi opened his mouth, then closed it again, suddenly remembering that Ferris had made a point of staying out of his head, while Toni Walters/Mkweze hadn't hesitated to rummage around in there the moment she got impatient. That line of thought was an extremely uncomfortable one, but he was saved from pursuing it by the Captain.
She leaned around Corwin and called, "Mr. Garibaldi? The Lieutenant Commander here says you wanted to talk to me about Colonel Peterson?"
He pulled his thoughts together. "Yeah, I did. How do you know this Peterson guy, anyway?"
Lochley shrugged. "He was an old friend of my father's. He was here on business, and he just wanted to get reacquainted, that's all."
"You're kidding," said Garibaldi. "And your dad died when, again?"
"At the Battle of the Line. Why? What's so funny?" Garibaldi was chuckling into his water glass.
"I'm sorry," he said, sobering. "It's really not funny...oh, hell, yes it is. I'm afraid somebody's been pulling your leg, Captain - an expert, I might add. This guy you've been jawing about old times with is not the Colonel Peterson your father knew, that's for damn sure."
Lochley was dumbfounded - and yet, on some level, not surprised at all. "That's ridiculous," she said halfheartedly. "I'm not naive, Mr. Garibaldi. I checked his file, plus he had pictures, he knew things..."
"Yeah, yeah, his people are good, all right," Garibaldi admitted. "But the fact is, during the Minbari War that guy was a popsicle in a secret Shadow installation, waiting on his wake-up call."
"What?!?" Lochley eyed the bald man in disbelieving exasperation. "Mr. Garibaldi, can you PROVE any of this? No offense, but it sounds like another one of your paranoid fairy stories."
"Yeah, and how many of those have turned out to be true in the last few years? Look, this isn't the kind of information I carry around with me, but I guarantee you, that was not Colonel Peterson - and it would be very interesting to know just what kind of information he was trying to get out of you."
Lochly poked at her link. "Lochley to Temporary Quarters."
"TempQ here - what can I do for you, Captain?"
"Patch me through to Colonel Avram Peterson, please."
"I'm sorry, Colonel Peterson checked out this morning. He said he was catching the Heinlein back to Earthspace. I can probably get you his home number from Earthnet, if you like..."
Garibaldi snorted.
"No...no thanks," said Lochley, holding the bald man's gaze. "Lochley out. So spill it, Garibaldi. What's the story on this guy?"
"Well, it all started back in '59....or back in the early 21st Century, depending on how you want to look at it..."
"MISTER Garibaldi!"
****************
22:43 EST.
Just before the party broke up, Garibaldi snapped his fingers and reached into his jacket pocket. "When Lise was telling me about your little adventure," he said to Tessa, "she told me something else, too. I got on the horn to the folks back home, and my Uncle Francis came up with this." He handed her a nicely-framed holopic; a group shot of about a dozen people in turn-of-the-century style clothing. "That's my grandmother and grandfather, right there, and there's your grandfather and grandmother, and that little guy there would be your dad."
Well, hell, there goes my surprise, Tessa thought absently, studying the images.
"It was taken just before they left for Mars," her cousin added, grinning smugly. "I also looked up your parents in Main Dome. Good people," he added.
"Wait a minute," said Zack. "You mean you two are related?"
"Hey, come on," said Garibaldi genially, "a little nepotism can be a good thing. Look at the Centauri!"
"Yeah," said Zack, "Look at 'em."
Tessa laughed, and fell back on the first thing she'd thought of when Lise had put it together - "Yeah, well, I suppose it's just as well I didn't have you shot, after all."
"I'll reserve judgement on that," quipped the Captain.
****************
Brown Sector
The Dark Star
15:00 EST, 07/18/2263
Garibaldi attended one more party before he left for Mars. It was an impromptu combination wake/re-opening celebration/going-away party - and the latter aspect was not, as he discovered, in honor of him.
"I must go, Patricia," Taan Churok explained to Trish, holding her slender hands in his scaled ones. "The blade has lain quiet these past cycles, but now it has awakened, and I must follow wherever it leads. You will do well here, as manager in my place - and I warn you, I will be in touch from time to time, as owner, and I expect a steady income, as we discussed - so don't get sloppy!"
Livingston made a sour face, then laughed, which David Corwin, standing next to her, was glad to see. Garibaldi tossed back his iced tea and asked where, exactly, 'the blade' was leading Churok to -
"Back to Drazi space, to start with," the draz replied. "Then...who knows? Space is big."
"That sounds almost exactly like what...someone else said to me, recently," said Lyndisty, catching herself (or being caught) before she named any names. "I wonder if you'll run into...um...anyone you know..."
Churok smiled. "I am counting upon it - and I will send you word, as and when I can," he assured her. Garibaldi watched them narrowly, certain that there was something going on there...but, hey, it wasn't any of his business any more, now was it? His business was, in fact, sitting over at a table by himself, looking almost exactly like an accountant in a newly-mostly-rehabilitated strip joint.
He sighed and beckoned to one of the off-duty waitresses, a luscious-looking blonde in a spangled, midriff-baring top and a pair of very tight tights. "Hey, look, could you do me a favor and go over there and talk to that guy for a while? Just, you know, cheer him up a bit?" He slid a credit chit along the bar towards her.
The girl darted a nervous glance at Trish. "Um, we're not supposed to do that kind of thing any more..."
"What, talk to people? Come on, we've only got an hour or so before our transport leaves for Mars, and I'm gonna spend it right here, so if you could just...keep him from feeling too out of place? He's really a nice guy when you get to know him - plus, he has a Ph.D.," Garibaldi added, giving her his best conspiratorial smile and a wink. After a moment she winked back and sashayed over to Meeker's table. With the credit chit. Garibaldi grinned and turned back to the others.
Jaida and Selene were sitting on the stage and sipping fruit juice, kicking their feet absently against the side of the riser. They had been hanging around a group of younger people, including G'Stral and Alto, but those guys had gone off with some young Drazi to play tokball, leaving the girls to people-watch.
"I just thought of something," said Jaida.
"Hmmm?"
"You know how you said you sometimes thought of your sister as Molly Grue?" Somewhere in the past few days, the Centauri girl had managed to find a couple of spare hours to devour 'The Last Unicorn'. "Well, look at the grown-ups. Do you see what I see?"
Trish was laughing now, at something Mr. Garibaldi was saying. At her shoulder hovered Lieutenant Commander Corwin, his lanky form looking somewhat dashing in the new uniform, yet even more nervous and ungainly than usual. As Selene watched, slurping rather noisily through her straw, Trish took a step back - apparently in mock-fear of her new boss (who was, of course, the same as the old boss). Corwin started to step backwards to make room for her, but bumped into Lyndisty - and in apologizing to her, stepped back onto Trish's foot. Instead of biting his head off, the new manager just smiled and gently moved him aside...Selene scowled. Now that she thought about it, those two were getting a little too friendly for her taste, almost like...suddenly she got it, and her scowl morphed into a giggle.
"Omigod, Jaida, you're right! Lieutenant Corwin - I mean, Lieutenant Commander Corwin - he's Schmendrick! He is so Schmendrick the Magician - he's tall and skinny, and he's funnier than he thinks he is, and a lot better at his job than you'd think..."
"So you think they'll run off together?" teased Jaida.
"I don't know about running off, but..." she stopped, and thought it all the way through for the first time. "Yeah," she said at last. "I guess that'd be okay. I mean, she could do a lot worse, right?"
"Yeah, especially hanging around here! So, who else have we got? Rukh is Rukh, of course, but who's King Haggard? And the Prince? And who would be the Unicorn? I think the cat would have to be Ambassador Sherann..." Jaida was off and running - mentally, at least. As usual.
Selene grinned at her friend, but then she sobered. "You know, I think that's the saddest part of the whole story - at the end. Schmendrick and Molly Grue go off singing together, but the poor unicorn is left all alone."
Jaida shrugged, her leaf-green eyes looking off into the distance, beyond the bulkheads. "Oh, I don't know," she said. "I don't think it's necessarily a sad thing, at all..."
Captain Lochley, looking out the Observation Dome at the endless stars, would have agreed.
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