BABYLON 5: THE VIRTUAL SIXTH SEASON
"THE PRICE OF FREEDOM"
Episode 6
A SERPENT IN THE GARDEN
There were two ways you could go about decorating an interrogation chamber. There was dark and dank, with a strategic spotlight, as used to great effect by the Viet Cong in the late Twentieth Century. And then there was glaring and sterile, as used (also quite efficiently) by later organizations such as Section One...or Bureau 13. Both flavors of fear, as well as many others, were all too familiar to the man without a name. He had survived more time strapped into a chair than most people spent in a lifetime of dentists' visits...not that it helped much.
This time it was the glaring version, and the interrogator was his own second, Donne, the psychopathic ex-Psi Cop he had "inherited" from the Shadows. He allowed himself a small smile. Thanks to a small modification by his own Shadow mentors, he was impervious to her telepathic probes, and mere physical pain had long ceased to be a motivating factor for him.
As if sensing his confidence, the harsh-featured blonde woman gave her rasping laugh -- a souvenir of her "death" on the Shadows' homeworld of Z'ha'dum -- and leaned closer. Merciless light gleamed on the leather fittings of her night-black uniform -- sleeker and even more menacing than its MetaPol ancestor. Wisps of straw-colored hair escaped her ruthless bun, flying across her pale, empty eyes and the "D"-shaped scar on her cheek as she leaned in, seized his jaw and forced him into a deep, penetrating kiss. He recoiled, but he couldn't escape, couldn't breathe -- and now he could feel her mind invading his as well -- that wasn't supposed to be possible! It wasn't...his senses spun, and when the light returned Donne had somehow divided -- there were now three tall, athletic blondes surrounding him, each with Donne's hard lines transmuted into a slightly different, yet similarly pantherish, beauty.
Two he recognized -- one long dead, and one he had never met. The third he could not even have imagined, with her high-cheekboned face and one hand accented with some sort of silvery cybernetic implants. Full lips pouted over a spectacular figure poured into shimmery black skintights, but her gaze was cold as the shoulders of the Matterhorn. To her right stood Tessa Halloran, which at least made some sense, although how she and Donne could be working together was more than he could figure. She was dressed in well-tailored black of a style popular on Mars some years ago, her golden hair pulled back in a French braid, and she watched him coldly, hands clasped behind her back, as though he had already disappointed as well as angered her.
Disappointment was only the final frosting on the glacial venom of the third gaze, however. Clad in a black and silver uniform he could almost place, her wheat-colored hair flowed freely to frame her cold, accusing expression. From more than two hundred and fifty years beyond the grave she glared at him -- the one out of the hundreds of innocents (and not-so-innocents) he had betrayed and corrupted over the years who could, sometimes, give him pause, and make him wonder if there could have been another way. Not that he had ever admitted as much. His last sight of her had been twined lifeless in Michael's arms in the rubble of Section -- at least, at the end, they had been together...
As if summoned by his wandering thought, she stepped out from behind Nikita. Smaller than the other women, her slightly pixieish, yet solemn features framed in a cloud of dark hair, she was rather incongruously dressed in a Psi Cop uniform. Calm, as always. Deadly, as always.
"Paul," she acknowledged.
He whispered her name. Her head lifted -- he knew she was bracing herself. He did likewise, instinctively.
"You know how things are done here," she said quietly. "You know there is no escape. We will begin...now." She nodded at Halloran, who touched a panel that had appeared while the man wasn't looking.
The room began to spin, and as it spun, each woman applied a different implement of torture -- Halloran peering curiously as she activated cleverly-placed electrodes, Nikita relying on the tried-and-true backhand, the cyborg shooting writhing tentacles of metal into him...something about that chimed in the back of his mind, but he forgot it as the agony mounted.
"You cannot withstand the pain." Madeline's calm voice washed over him, over and over. Gradually he could made out other voices, as the torture continued.
"What do you want?" he rasped, not sure which of them he was talking to -- perhaps all.
"You will know pain, as I have known pain," whispered Nikita as she raked her nails down his chest, leaving trails of fire.
"You will know fear, as your victims have known fear," declared Halloran, touching a panel that sent images of death and destruction, anguish and loss crashing through his brain.
"And then," remarked the cyborg dispassionately, "you will die."
"What do you want?!?" he cried again. There must be something... some key...but they seemed not to hear him. The torment went on and on, and he kept asking, but they never answered, at least not directly, never telling him what he needed to know.
"Give in now, and your punishment will be...mitigated," Nikita whispered into his other ear, ripping at it with her teeth.
"Tell us what we want to know."
"Resistance is futile."
"WHAT DO YOU WANT???!!!!!????" he screamed.
"Nothing," Madeline said softly.
And darkness fell.
****************
Babylon 5
Docking Bay
12:37 EST, 03/14/2263
If Paul Frost had discovered one universal truth in his life it was simply this: there was no such thing.
It was accepted that telepathic contact was limited by line-of-sight. For the most part this was true. This was, however, only the shortest practical method of describing the actual nature of the limitation, which was knowledge of your target -- position, range and velocity. Human minds and senses limited as they were by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the easiest way to establish such data upon a previously unknown target was, simply, to look at it. Without knowing where your target was, who it was or what it looked like, getting enough knowledge to focus any but the lightest of surface scans was effectively impossible.
But with enough pre-existing knowledge of your target, enough information, the impossible sometimes proved to be nothing of the kind. And when dealing with P12 telepaths, minds so strong their very souls vibrated ceaselessly through the psionic ether, it was sometimes impossible not to detect their presence at distances and occlusions believed "impenetrable" by weaker telepaths. Given his close and intimate knowledge of one of those minds, and his lighter but still comprehensive acquaintance with the other, the result was a foregone conclusion. Frost knew that Alfred Bester and Sheynell Keynes stood in the debarkation bay of Babylon 5, preparing to leave, even as his shuttle from the Asimov rose into its docking frame.
He smiled, though it was tight through the blocks and cloaks he had rigidly sustained for the past few minutes. Logically, any sense he could draw of them, they could draw of him - he was "only" a P11, after all. But he had one advantage, the advantage that decided most crucial conflicts: he was expecting them. They weren't expecting him. And that put the element of surprise on his side.
It might not be a universal truth, he acknowledged his own self-mocking thought, but it was truth enough for now: the most effective way to hide was to ensure no one ever looked for you.
The shuttle lift drew to a stop with a rattling thud, and a low chime sounded throughout the cabin as the "SECURE SEAT" signs went off. Instantly the low babble of conversation jumped in volume, underlaid by a cacophony of metallic clacks and fabric-cushioned thumps as the passengers unbuckled themselves from their safety harnesses. Frost moved with the rest of them, knowing that to be particularly slow, fast, clumsy or smooth would stand out. From an overhead compartment he took his carryalls, sensible brown fabric and plastic cases tagged only with a name as false as a rapist' s promise. Down the aisle with the crowd he moved, expression vaguely abstracted but pleasant, an ordinary man on an ordinary business trip.
It was hard to keep the laughter silent in his throat. That it was based, he knew, not in mirth or amusement but in something dangerously close to hysteria only made it harder.
He dawdled a little near the end of the debarkation corridor, feigning clumsiness with one of the cases, waiting for the perfect moment for reasons he frankly admitted he didn't understand. He had no real idea why it was so important to do this as he'd imagined. Perhaps just to know he had deliberately passed within steps of one of the Psi Corps' best and brightest; had purposely flirted with capture at the hands of the merciless Alfred Bester. The intensity of the moment gripped him like a vise.
At last he strode forward. And as he rounded the corner, entering one of Babylon 5's four main transit lounges, he saw two black-uniformed figures striding down the hall, away from him, their steps firm and unwavering. They never looked back. One, short and compact, dark hair only faintly greying; the other taller, slimmer, femininely curved, with a fine mane of ash-blond hair descending to narrow but straight shoulders...
Frost's burgeoning triumph suddenly vanished.
Sheynell.
He had to physically clamp down on the desire to 'cast to her. He had not seen her in better than two years. She had changed. A momentary glimpse of a fading back was all he had, and still, he knew, she had changed. Taller now, harder, sharper - though she had always been sharp, and colder than most her age. Seldom with him, but still cold, sometimes.
And now she was under the direct tutelage of Alfred Bester.
Frost's fists clenched. He had no particular quarrel with MetaPol itself. But MetaPol too often wound up as only an iron puppet of the ghoulish megalomaniacs at its head, or in Engineering or Department Sigma. To defend any part of Psi Corps was to defend that rotten core, and Frost would not let that stand in his way. He would regret it, but he would sweep them aside, if they made it necessary.
He would sweep Sheynell aside, if it became necessary.
He hardened his face and his mind, proceeded through Customs - his false ID rang no alarms in the BabCom security net, as promised - and strode on. And because that purposeful gait did not waver, did not slow until he had left the transit lounge, he didn't see the young, black-clad woman stop at the end of the hall, turning back as if to look for a half-hoped, half-feared summons. He didn't see the dark-haired man urge her on with absent impatience. And he didn't see the way she turned slowly away and back to her departure, as if waiting for a call that would never come.
****************
STAR SYSTEM GC-8793
SECTOR 887, 43 x 79 x 42
16:20 EST
The long-range scout ship was so old and battered that any name it had ever possessed had long since been forgotten. Triangular and green, with a cigar-shaped fuselage down the centre, its duralloy skin was dented and rippled, warps fused together with rough patches. Its crew of twenty worked in three shifts, nominally. In reality, there was a fluid flexibility to schedules and postings.
Subcommander Zhirith was a victim of that flexibility right now.
She scraped one claw almost absently along the arm of the command chair. Her other hand was occupied at the moment propping up her head; palm to her cheek, elbow to the other arm of the chair, she sat slouched in the seat with a gracelessness she would not, a year ago, have thought herself capable of. But then, a year ago she'd been a rising young officer in the Ashvalkhir, the Defenders of the Freehold, noted for her courage and innovation in fighting the fleets of the Great Enemy and the Centauri.
Especially the Centauri.
And then she'd made the mistake of commanding a ship that had joined wholeheartedly in the bombardment of Centauri Prime, late last year. And despite the fact that they had done no more than what the Centauri had done in both their fleeting renaissance and their ancient days of empire, despite the truth and justice in their act, however grim, the politics of an Earther, a halfbreed freak pseudo-Minbari, and their puling Alliance had overridden the might, the glory, and the honour of the Drazi Freehold. The Coalition had scrambled for scapegoats. She, her crew and her ship had been among them.
And so now she served as executive officer aboard this rattletrap of a scout so far away from the rest of the civilized galaxy that it was worse than any possible jail sentence could have been.
She had tried for a time to maintain the proper military discipline for both herself and the ship. But scouts of this ilk did not employ the highest calibre of crew; the initial reactions of her attempts at regular inspections and drills had ranged from bored indifference to disbelief and amusement. She was one of precisely three officers assigned to the ship, and the Chief Engineer was so slovenly and casual about his quarters and habits (though not, thankfully, about the ship's engines themselves) that he might as well have been one of the ordinary crew. The Commander...
The Commander was the Commander.
As if thought summoned reality, the door to the bridge whirred open. Well, it would have whirred had it been working properly; as it was, it rattled open with a teeth-raking squeal. Zhirith winced as she jumped up, snapping to attention. "Commander Ulvargos."
None of the bridge crew even stirred. Ulvargos paused, leaned to look into a blank screen and regarded himself. "Yes. So I am. Thank you, Subcommander."
The scales on Zhirith's neck bristled. Her claws flexed. But she was able, with an immense effort of will, to keep her voice civil. "May I respectfully remind the Commander that he is over twenty shathtra late - "
"You may not." Ulvargos' deep voice didn't change, but there was a glint in his eyes that looked like a flicker of starlight off a drawn blade. Zhirith forced herself to calm down. However weary his chosen facade was, and how much of that was truth, was open to question. That there was still a dangerous edge left to this draz was not.
"Understood, sir. Apologies." She stepped to one side. "Command is yours."
"Thank you, Subcommander." Again, that dry undertone. She could never decide if it was mocking or not. He came to stand beside her and examined the main viewscreen, eyes following the tumbling shapes of asteroids as they whirled slowly through the belt dominating the screen. "Anything unusual to report?"
"No, sir. Nothing."
"Mm." Ulvargos gazed at the screen as if scrying it for arcane secrets. "How far are we from the local gate?"
"Six desrai flight time, sir."
"Very well. We shall continue observations here for my shift, then when the Shipmaster takes over, make best time for the gate and move on." Ulvargos turned, went to the command seat and dropped into it, arranging himself in a comfortable sprawl.
"Accepted, sir."
"Beautiful, is it not?"
Zhirith scowled. "Sir?"
"Do you ever just look at space anymore, Subcommander?"
Zhirith glanced at the screen. The belt's asteroids shifted with the same slow speed. No difference was apparent. "I am not certain I understand, sir."
"Look." Ulvargos pointed at the screen. "The depth of it. The beauty of the dark. The glamour of the night." His voice had dropped to a whisper; Zhirith had to strain to hear - Drazi were noted for the keenness of scent and sight, but their hearing was not their strongest suit. "We here on the fringes of the stars, we know, we see, the majesty of space. The vast magnificence of the void. The ultimate cold, the final deeps of nothingness. Do you not see, Subcommander?
"Do you not see?"
The bridge had fallen silent.
Zhirith almost hated to speak. But the anger in her would not be silent. The best she could do was keep her voice so low that only Ulvargos could hear her. "I see a prison, Commander," she rasped. "I see the mindless injustice and ruin of our people's pride. I see a meaningless joke! Is that what you wished to hear?"
It was a moment before Ulvargos responded. "No. And neither was it what I meant." He raised his voice. "Comm-scan!"
"Commander." The draz at the named station jerked upright. Zhirith had a horrible suspicion he had only just woken up.
"Scan main grid Gsi-32, and enhance by one hundred."
The commdraz shrugged. "Accepted, sir." He typed unhurriedly. A section of the screen boxed itself off and expanded to fill the whole.
Zhirith sucked in her breath.
The ship that revolved in that display was even more battered than the Drazi scout itself, if that were possible. The greatest wound was a gaping hole blasted in its rear, the edges ragged in places and melted in others. Scores and dents and scarring marred the rest of the hull, broken stabilizer flanges looking like bites taken out of the ship. There would have been five such flanges, arranged in a starlike pattern around a long, narrow, blue-white fuselage like a deep, narrow-belled flower. Now, only three were intact: one was gone entirely and a second half-severed. Faint flickers of light stirred from parts of the hull. There was no other sign of life.
Zhirith scowled. She had never seen a ship like this before. "What -- ?"
"Drakh." Ulvargos' voice held dread and fury... but a strange resignation was there as well. He spun. "Weapons! Target lock, but do not fire. Helm, bring us in. Comm-scan, link your station with Helm's. Be ready to signal the instant you see anything that could be interpreted as hostile. Weapons, fire the moment you receive such a signal."
"Accepted, sir."
"Accepted!"
The scout rumbled dimly as its engines fired; faintly through the compensator field, Zhirith felt a trace of acceleration that would normally be over four drazgravs. Even that little was an indicator of how badly the ship's systems were working. But she had no mind for that now. She only stared at Ulvargos.
"Commander - what are the Drakh?"
"A nightmare." Ulvargos' claws rasped against his palms. "A nightmare I would rather destroy, had I the choice. But..." He sucked in a ragged breath. "This chance may never come again. They are broken and helpless but some may still be alive. We must capture any survivors, Subcommander, if we can. We must."
"Why?"
Ulvargos took a moment to answer. "To survive, Zhirith. To survive."
****************
BABYLON 5
BROWN SECTOR
23:44 EST
G'Stral came awake with a knife at his throat.
In that first instant surprise was so great it drowned out fear. He never slept that lightly, and his door had been secured besides. Nobody should have been able to gain entrance to his pod without waking him, let alone sneak up close enough to get a blade into contact with his skin. Without tensing he let his muscles and his senses tell him where the intruder was: kneeling behind him, arm over his chest, elbow to his breastbone, knife tucked just under his chin. A dangerous position. But if G'Stral flung himself backwards, chin up, left arm sweeping down and back -
The knife blade shifted, curving further in against the underside of his neck, lying flush against the hide, so close that any side-to-side movement would slice his own neck open for him. The weight of his attacker's body pressed down over his. G'Stral had no leverage lying prone on his side like this. He could not, even with Narn strength, push himself away fast enough to escape the blade. Still there was only surprise and shock. How had he known? How -- ?
"No tricks, boy," whispered a voice G'Stral had not heard for over two Earther months. But he recognized it all the same. "You know me, don't you?"
If there was one thing the young Narn knew how to be, it was careful. {{Yes, Mr. Frost,}} he thought as clearly as he could, forming the words in English. {{I do.}}
{{That makes you a liability.}} The buzzing current of mindspeech vibrated in G'Stral's skull with a feeling like that of putting one's hand against a dynamo - the same electric thrill of channelled, lethal power. {{I'm no longer in a place I can afford to leave liabilities behind me. You have five seconds to convince me you're an asset.}}
At last, the fear came.
****************** ACT ONE *****************
BABYLON 5
BROWN SECTOR
23:45 EST, 03/14/2263
For some people, fear was a paralysis. For G'Stral, it was a stimulant. He let it burst over him and deliberately channelled it, shivering, ignoring the jittering of the knife blade against his throat. {{G'Lan no G'Lan no G'Lan no G'Lan no G'Lan -- }}
"Stop that!" Frost snapped.
It was what he'd waited for, what he'd banked on - the sudden shock of the emotional surge had rocked the telepath back just enough. G'Stral's hand lashed up and struck the knife away. He rolled to fetch up against the wall, coming to his feet in a combat crouch. Frost was not, unfortunately, stupid enough to give him any more; the telepath had backed away too, rather than coming for him in an attempt to regain his hold or turning away to try retrieving the knife. He stood now across the pod's door, the only way out, blocking it with hands stiffened into blades. His stance, like G'Stral's, was loose and crouched, ready to fight.
The Narn and the telepath stared at one another. Frost grimaced in anger. "Clever, boy, but you're only prolonging the inevitable."
"Not really." Despite the fear they both knew was real, G'Stral's voice was level. "I just don't like anyone taking information before I'm good and ready to give it to them."
Oddly, a glint of humour and a half-smile moved across Frost's face. "If you think this is bad, boy, wait until your race redevelops its own telepaths." The smile disappeared. "You can't block me out for long, and you know it."
"Maybe not." G'Stral's fingers flexed. "But you want to bet that you can get past my blocks, keep my mind intact and restrain me physically at the same time? The moment you shift focus to zap me, I break your neck."
"That might not be as easy as you think, boy."
"Wanna find out?"
"Not especially," Frost admitted. "But I'll take the chance if I must. Unless you can prove to me leaving you alive is the lesser risk."
"See, now, that's where I can help you." Deliberately, G'Stral stood up out of his crouch and folded his arms. "You wanna talk business, Mr. Frost? Let's talk business."
Frost stared at him. A slow smile rippled along his mouth. "And what can you offer me that I can't take from your mind for myself?"
"Cooperation and contacts." G'Stral didn't return the smile. "Specifically, a group of people you'd probably be interested in meeting."
"And these people are...?"
"I think you call them 'Byronites'."
****************
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
BENEATH THE TRANSPORT CENTRE
03/15/2263
Dr. Franklin looked up when his captor stepped into the room. He had been lying awake for what felt like an hour or so - the room was comfortable enough, but with no windows, no vid, nothing to read, and the constant lighting, the boredom was starting to wear on his nerves. A calculated effect, no doubt.
"Good morning, Doctor," the white-haired man said. Franklin sat up.
"Is it?" he asked.
The man smiled, as at an old joke. "Yes, as a matter of fact it is. A bit early, perhaps, but then we're both early risers. You'll be glad to know the Z'shailyl made it back to his ship all right," he added. "He promised to assure the Drakh Council that we did all we could to save the Vaarliht. It wasn't your fault, Doctor." His mouth twisted wryly. "I double-checked."
Obviously, the head of Bureau 13 had not trusted Franklin not to somehow sabotage his treatment of the ailing Drakh. Which proved that despite all the information the secret organization had gathered on him, there were a few things they didn't know -- or that Molyneux wouldn't let himself believe. Franklin ran his hands through his close-cropped dark hair, exasperated.
"So what happens to me now? I don't suppose you could see your way clear to just turning me loose..."
"I'm afraid not. Unless, of course, you would consider joining us?"
"Not a chance."
"And you won't even dissemble. I admire your honesty, doctor, although I regret the alternative."
"What are you going to do, kill me? I know you said you had a double filling in for me at the Center, but eventually somebody's going to notice..."
"Not for some time -- our operative is very good. But, yes, eventually it will become apparent that his work is not up to your...standards. He will be fired for incompetence, and will, regrettably, commit suicide. An addiction to stims will be involved -- quite tragic. As for you, I'm afraid you're much too valuable to be wasted, even if you are not...consciously cooperative."
Stephen snorted. "Deep scans and drugged debriefings are no substitute for a living, working mind!"
"True. But we'll make do. Now, the conditions of your captivity are another question. We could keep you here, in this cell... constant light, minimal physical and intellectual stimulation -- or we could make things quite...comfortable."
"And the price?" Franklin asked -- not that he was resigned to any of this, but it couldn't hurt to know his options.
"Oh, nothing much. Just a small research problem I could use some help with..."
"I told you, I won't help with your 'projects' - "
"This isn't for the Bureau." Molyneux cut him off. "It's a... private investigation, if you will."
He reached into his jacket and removed a small vial, containing a yellowish fluid, tinged with blood. "I have here a sample of alien biotechnology. It is malfunctioning. I need you to fix it."
Despite himself, Franklin reached for the vial. "I don't see anything..."
"It is nanotechnology, Doctor. Tiny machines that work within the body, replicating themselves as needed, and feeding off the host for energy and nutrients."
"Nanotech..." Franklin shook his head. "I've heard of it, but never encountered any.... besides, I'm a doctor, not an engineer!"
Molyneux smiled, realizing that Franklin had unconsciously risen to the challenge. "I'm sure you'll manage, Doctor. I've assigned the other medical staff elsewhere -- you'll be able to work undisturbed. I'll check in with you later. For now, enjoy your breakfast, and... good luck."
The door closed behind the white-haired man, leaving the doctor peering at the vial.
****************
STAR SYSTEM GC 8793
All the while the scout ship closed with the broken Drakh vessel - a process that took time, despite the power of the ship's engines; most people forgot just how big space was - Ulvargos sat on the bridge, his alert gaze never leaving the sight of the ship as it grew gradually larger in the viewscreen. Zhirith had left watch, eaten, slept, and returned nearly six desrai later to find his posture unchanged and his eyes unwearied. With something resembling awe she took her seat to his right.
"Subcommander," said Ulvargos distantly. "Good. You should be here to see this. Have we any better readings, Comm-scan?"
"No, sir, not yet. And we're barely a khasra away. If we haven't got decent readings at this range I doubt we ever will."
Zhirith swallowed the impulse to whack the draz across the back of his head. She was the Subcommander; it was her prerogative to challenge the Commander if such was merited. "There can't be any power left aboard that vessel," she said instead. "Not enough to power any kind of effective jamming shield."
"It may not be a powered field," said Ulvargos. "There are measures that can be physically built into a hull, materials that can disrupt or absorb scan beams. We will have to go over in person."
"We?" said Zhirith.
Ulvargos opened an internal comm channel from the controls in his command seat. "Bridge to Mrezak!" he snapped, not waiting for the startled response to finish. "Bring Tirov and Dralakh to airlock three in five shathtra. Full battlesuits." He stood. "Subcommander?"
"Sir?" Zhirith really, really hated feeling like she didn't understand what was going on.
"Are you coming?"
Several responses jammed in her throat. {{And remove both Command officers from the bridge?}} was one; {{You're giving me the option?}} was another. {{How dare you even assume you could abandon me?> was a third.
But the one that came out was:
"Without hesitation, sir."
Drazi battlesuits were bulky, armoured, beweaponed things that made the wearer into the effective equivalent of a tiny spacegoing tank. But in zero gravity, the laws of motion became much simpler and easier to manipulate. Zhirith soared through the void of space like a wisp of breath, the mass of her armour and blasters no more than a speck of drifting dust.
As she manipulated her thrusters carefully, holodisplays on the inside of her helmet outlined the spinning, broken ship. Far too many of the readings were showing UNKNOWN or INDETERMINATE for her liking. Some of the components were organic, others indisputably metallic, some ceramic, and some didn't seem to be anything the battlesuit's computers recognized.
They were closer now. Zhirith began to calculate the trajectories needed to get them safely through one of the breaches.
"Commander!" It was Comm-scan. "I have a power build-up in the forequarters of the ship. Possible weaponry coming on line."
"Accepted. Scout team! Scatter randomly!" Ulvargos' thrusters fired and he arced away high to the left. Instinctively Zhirith split down to the right. The other three curved off in different directions. The Drazi weaved and wavered back and forth, always closing in but never from quite the same point two seconds in a row.
A blister on the side of the ship glowed. In silence a coruscating beam of energy split the night. But the Drazi were too small, too fast, moving too unpredictably. The beam seared vacuum and flickered out. Before it could charge to fire again the battlesuits swung small but powerful weapons to bear. For some things, Drazi needed no orders. Five streams of energy converged upon the gun-turret. It fluoresced and disintegrated without a sound.
Zhirith hissed in triumph. For the first time in too long she felt like a warrior again.
"Power readings," Ulvargos demanded.
"Dropping, sir," the ship reported. "I think that's finished it. Nothing left." A beat. "Commander - the readings are getting better; the power loss must have shut down a jamming field. I have lifesigns. Two. One exceedingly weak."
"Jamming field?" Zhirith scowled. "Commander, I thought you said there was not enough power left for that."
"No, Subcommander. You said that."
Zhirith's scales rippled to dump the heat of her humiliated anger. "I meant - "
"I know what you meant, Zhirith. Their cloaking technology is evidently subtle as well as powerful. A jamming field that we cannot even detect jamming us -- " The Commander broke off. "It does not matter. Scoutship, location of lifesigns?"
"Near central body of the ship, sir. Commander -- "
"Yes?"
"Be careful."
For a strange, painful moment Zhirith actually had to bite down on her hurt. Two words. That was all. But they and their sentiment were more than she had ever had from this crew.
"I will."
The battlesuits converged on the largest of the hull breaches. One by one, they disappeared inside as if swallowed.
****************
BABYLON 5
GREY 24
Even within DownBelow, some areas were more desirable than others. The passages G'Stral walked now, Frost at his side like a razor-edged shadow, were near the bottom of that desirability.
Grey Sector had originally been intended as the industrial/maintenance area of Babylon 5, and still for the most part served that function. As such, its temperature was significantly lower than that of the rest of the station - averaging perhaps ten to twelve Celsius - and much of its work was done on levels that were close enough to the station's outer hull to suffer measurably higher gravity than the 1g-or-lighter middle to inner levels. Neither condition was more than a nuisance in itself. Combined, they drained energy from the sector's long-term inhabitants as surely as an Antarctic winter. G'Stral felt the drag of the weight and the chill even now. He knew Frost must be feeling it too, though the human showed no sign of it in his brisk, unflagging stride.
"How do they survive here?" Frost asked abruptly.
G'Stral shrugged. "They steal food. Work for it at times -- doing docking jobs that shipmasters don't want to pay Guild rates for, or that Security would be too interested in. Other odd jobs. I think one or two work as buskers in the other parts of DownBelow -- singing, juggling, that kind of thing. And there are charitable offices around that donate to them. Medlab will sometimes pay for donated blood units, although that's a risk if the doctors decide to test the blood down to its DNA. They scrape by."
"And nobody knows they're here."
"A few escaped the Bloodhound purge last year. Others were in transit and didn't find out about Byron's death 'til they got here, which didn't leave them anywhere to go. And some are just isolated rogues who wound up here by accident and stuck with the first group they could find."
"Perfect."
"What?"
Frost was rubbing his hands. "I was worried I'd have to deal with martyrs or purists. But these people will be desperate. This is exactly what I was looking for."
"To do what, exactly?" G'Stral wasn't sure why he asked; it wasn't as if he cared. But the satisfaction in Frost's voice made him nervous.
"I was wondering that myself." The words were underlaid with the whir of a charging PPG. Frost and G'Stral whirled.
The man who had emerged from the half-open pod door they'd passed was of lean build, pale, with dark haunted eyes and a mane of unruly black hair. But his gaze was unflinching, as was the muzzle of the pistol he held on a point just precisely between the two of them - close enough to both he could swing to shoot one and swing back to the other before either could react. "What are you doing, G'Stral? I thought you had a code in these matters."
"I do," said the young Narn flatly. "And if you people had a standing contract with me I'd have kept my mouth shut. Your leader chose otherwise. Besides, he's one of you."
"What?" The man frowned.
"Allow me to introduce myself." Frost straightened. "Dr. Paul Frost, late of Psi Corps Central Administration, now independent. Rating P11." He smiled; and suddenly the air around him seemed to shimmer with intangible, invisible radiance. As if in reflex response, G'Stral felt a similar wave of power radiate from the smaller man. But it was weaker, less potent. The two men locked eyes, power surging between them. G'Stral had the sudden disturbing sensation he'd ceased to exist.
"Owen was a P10," said the stranger abruptly. "With blocks strong enough to keep out a P12. He died. They all die. What makes you think you can do any better?"
"Because strength is useless when not paired with skill." Frost's smile took on an edge. "Isn't that right, Makay?"
The other man's hand flashed to his temple. "How did you -- I never felt -- " The PPG sagged. "Nobody's that subtle."
"MetaPol has no need of subtlety," remarked Frost. "We who work in the shadows, we needs must evolve different techniques. Some of which I'm prepared to teach you."
"What about him?" Makay gestured with the PPG at G'Stral.
"Oh, there's one simple way to keep him quiet." G'Stral bristled at the dismissive tone, but cut off his angry words as Frost turned to him. "Mr. G'Stral - we're very shortly going to be in need of a major supply acquisition. My contacts have the money to make it worth your while. Interested in working for us?"
"How much?"
Frost rummaged in his pocket, extracted a credit chit and tossed it to him. G'Stral caught it neatly, scowled at the mustached telepath and put his thumb to the reader-display. The figure that came up in the display window made his mouth go dry. "I, uh... yes. Certainly. Contracted."
"Excellent." Frost turned to Makay. "G'Stral, you see, has his code. And now I have a standing contract with him. He is obliged to keep silent, isn't he?" {{And by the way,}} came the quick hard telepathic followup, {{if I discover you exploiting any more loopholes I'll have you flayed. I will not have you disrupting my plans again, Stral.}}
It was not only the cold, dispassionate intent of the sending that stabbed into G'Stral. It was the knowledge contained in that threat. First, that flaying was historically the worst punishment in Narn culture, the manner by which G'Quan, Ta'Kor and Na'Kiri had all met their deaths in the Days of Darkness. And second, that it was an insult of crippling humiliation to be addressed without the prefix of your name -- so contemptuous it said, 'You are unworthy of your Patron; you are beneath even hatred -- worth only revulsion and disgust.' So horrific was that curse that, in fact, it had died out under the Centauri occupation -- that level of anathema was now reserved solely for the Centauri; never for another Narn, never again. That Frost, a human, had found out about it, and knew exactly how to use it -- what else did he know? What other surprises had he repared? What were his plans?
For the third time this year, G'Stral came yet again to an unpleasant and unfamiliar realization: he was definitely in over his head.
"All right." Makay holstered his PPG. "I'll take you to see Evenrain. She'll want to meet you. She might..." He hesitated. "She might disagree with you, Doctor."
"I'm sure she will." Frost inclined his head, a gesture that somehow contained no hint of respect. "Leave Evenrain to me."
Makay opened his mouth. Frost pinned him with a glare. "Leave her... to me."
Makay swallowed.
****************
STAR SYSTEM GC-8793
UNIDENTIFIED DRAKH VESSEL
The internal passages of the Drakh ship were hexagonal in cross-section, taller than they were wide, and lined with a strange mesh of metallo-organic ribbing that had pouched out under the zero gravity to form rungs along all six walls. Under power, Zhirith guessed, the ribbing probably smoothed itself out to form an easily-walked floor. An ingenious arrangement.
The battlesuits had proven too big to navigate the ship's corridors. Disengaging from the suits left the five Drazi in only their inner e-suits, with hand weapons. But by now there was no thought of turning back. Following the directions from the ship, they navigated through oddly-arranged passageways and broken rooms filled with strange equipment and dead consoles until, near the rear of the vessel, they came to a broad ovoid door sealed against vacuum.
"All the power's on the far side of that door," came Comm-scan's voice in their helmets. "And the remaining lifesigns -- correction, lifesign. We've lost one signal."
"Dead?" said Ulvargos.
"Most likely. Could just be a fluctuation in the scanners but I don 't think so."
Ulvargos harrumphed to himself. "We will assume he's alive until we see. Tirov, can you trigger the doors?"
The Drazi technician had already pried open a control pad, but was staring in bewilderment at the array of crystalline and organic components within. "Uh -- "
"I'll assume that's a 'no'. Zhirith, prepare a rescue pod. Tirov, stand back. All of you, get a grip and hang on."
Tirov backed hastily away. As Zhirith unfolded a package strapped to the support-pod of her suit, Ulvargos levelled his rifle at the opened control pad and fired. The disruptor bolt vapourized circuitry and plating in a gout of blue-white fire and gas. The twin doors shot open.
A wave of force -- the escaping air of the interior chamber -- slammed over them. Before Ulvargos could give any orders something shot past. Zhirith tried desperately to see what it was and, despite the brilliant beams of her suit's searchlights, simply couldn't. It was big, vaguely drazoid, with a skull-shaped face and dark, burnt-out hollows for eyes -- but most of it was surrounded by some impossible distortion, as if it didn't quite share the same space-time as the rest of them. It hurtled down the corridor with the boneless crumpling impacts of the dead and vanished.
"Zhirith!"
Belatedly the Subcommander remembered. She hit the controls on her thrusters and blasted forward into the wind.
The chamber appeared to be some kind of engineering station. Screens glimmered all around, with banks of ruined consoles below them and a pillar in the centre flickering with more unreadable displays. Clinging to that pillar was another creature, vaguely similar to the first body they'd seen but with a clearer outline; its skin was leathery, its skull horned, its fingers clawed, its colour a dull dun shade like sun-bleached ghortha hide. Its eyes shone a dazed red, the sense fleeing rapidly from them as the gusting wind around its robes began to fail and dissipate. Zhirith waited, her thrusters pushing her closer...closer...
Now. As the last of the air escaped she flung herself upon the creature. It turned, struggling weakly, but was almost unconscious. Within seconds she had sealed it into the long cylindrical pod of fabric she'd unfolded. A touch on a control pad activated the support systems of the pod: it inflated with a rush of air and became taut.
"Subcommander?" Ulvargos peered within.
"I have it, sir." For once there was no bitterness in saying the word. The triumph was odd for something done in the service of purposes she didn't understand. But now, at least, she had a claim to an explanation. "Suggest we infiltrate the pod with a sedative."
"Accepted. Execute."
Zhirith twisted a dial. On the tiny screen of the support block, the atmospheric indicators shifted subtly. Assuming this thing had anything in common with Drazi metabolism - and it should; it appeared to be an oxygen-breather - this should keep it out for a good few hours at least.
"Commander Ulvargos!" It was Comm-scan. "We've got more power buildup. Systems we never even saw -- they're threading everywhere in the ship!"
"Weapons?"
"I don't think so, sir. There's too much power and it's going everywhere in the hull - sir, I think your survivor might have triggered a self-destruct mechanism!"
Ulvargos and Zhirith locked eyes. The Commander spun in place. "Tirov, Mrezak, Dralakh - back to the ship! Fast as you can - full thrust! Go!" He hit his own thrusters and shot out of the room. Towing the rescue pod behind, Zhirith followed. They slalomed down the passageways, heading back towards the breach.
With a last right turn they saw stars at the end of the corridor, occluded in places by the battlesuits. Dralakh looked back. "Sir, the battlesuits, it'll take time to -- "
"Leave the battlesuits! Go!"
The five Drazi hurtled out of the breach in the hull and sailed into the stars, arcing towards the green shape of their own starship, the rescue pod trailing in Zhirith's wake. Behind them, lines of dull radiance in the hull began growing brighter and brighter, as if veins of blood had suddenly caught fire inside the ship. Light poured along the lines, ripping through the skin of the broken vessel. Zhirith's suit sensors began to rise with the wash of heat and energy boiling after them through space. She opened a general signal. "Don't look back, any of you! It could blind you!"
Space turned bright as day. There was no air to carry the kinetic shockwave, but Zhirith felt the heat against her back like a tangible pressure. Her sensors whooped alarms. She pushed her thrusters to dangerous levels, ignoring the further alarms the action set off. The scoutship fired its manoeuvring jets, twisting to present its already-open airlock. Glowing shards of shrapnel whirled past them in nightmare kaleidoscope spinning patterns. She saw some of them impact on the hull of the Drazi ship, scarring it. And then the airlock was rushing at her.
She thudded into the far wall with a painful jolt. The others slammed in behind her in a tangle of arms and legs, piling up on top of her and the rescue pod. As Mrezak, the last one, landed with a hard thump the airlock's outer door slid shut. Sound and gravity returned with a rush of air. Through the plexicrys portal in the outer lock, the blinding radiance of the burning Drakh ship still glared.
Ulvargos ripped off his helmet. "Helm!" he shouted. "We're in! Full thrust, get us out of here, set course for the jumpgate!"
"Accepted, sir - " The rumble of acceleration vibrated through the hull. The glare faded from the viewport as the ship turned.
Zhirith removed her own helmet, gasping, her scales rippling as her body tried desperately to cool down. "Now what, Commander?"
"Now we see if it was worth the risk." Ulvargos nudged the rescue pod. His eyes were narrow and cold.
****************
BABYLON 5
GREY 13
The old woman looked up briefly from her knitting as the three people came in. Two of them, she knew. The third she did not recognize. But she knew what he was at first glance. That power, that arrogance, they were sure betrayals. She had had something similar, once upon a long time ago. She turned back to her knitting, waiting for them to come.
****************
STAR SYSTEM GC-8793
UNIDENTIFIED DRAKH VESSEL
It was a long hall, dim and lit only by the small, carefully tended fire at its centre. As the three walked down its centre towards her the others turned from their cots, nooks and crannies to watch. Makay Dubois would have been comment enough, to begin with; for the first time since Owen Strainger's death his shame and pain were overlaid with something else -- fear: a new fear; a strange fear. G'Stral was even more unusual. She did not like the young Narn, but she respected his uncompromising honour, and he had secured assistance for them at times. That he did so at exactly the maximum possible price they could afford for such aid, every time, was less likeable, but they were not in a place to pick and choose. Still, he never sought them out; it was always the reverse. She didn't like the change.
The third, though....
As they drew close she heard all of them breathing a little harder than usual. Without looking up she allowed her mouth to quirk in a smile. "Get your exercise coming in, did you?"
"Eleven levels... up a crawlway shaft." The mustached man managed a grin. "Lady Evenrain, you do have some clever measures. That's the only way in, I assume?"
Evenrain nodded. "And the only way out, barring being burned to ash and dumped down a ventilation duct." She put down her knitting and pointed at them with a spare needle. "Who are you and what do you want?"
"Blunt. I like that." The mustached man sucked in another breath and straightened up. "I'm Dr. Paul Frost and I want you."
Evenrain eyed him sidelong. "No flowers or candy?"
"I should clarify. You...and your people." Without warning he turned around, eyes casting up and down the length of the hall. It was a gesture only; he knew where their attention was focused, as did Makay and Evenrain. Even G'Stral could read enough of the currents to follow the tension in the room. "I need you. All of you."
"For what?"
"Freedom."
"Whose?"
Frost didn't look back at her. "Mine and yours. All of ours. Freedom to live and work as we will. Freedom not to be genetically twisted and tortured. Freedom not to be hunted like animals simply because we choose neither to blind ourselves nor crucify ourselves with strictures. And most of all," now he did turn to glance at Evenrain, "the freedom to survive. To fight to live. To act, not to flee and hide! To make our own worlds ours again, not go begging and blackmailing for a castoff planet! I need you to be human again, to help all our people be human!"
The echoes of his proclamation died away, ringing in the silence; only the crackle of the fire filled the space afterwards.
Evenrain made a pfft sound that punctured the awe like a pin in a balloon. "Fine words, young man. What have you got to back them up? Assuming we want them?" She caught the others with her own gaze, her own power; it was not the equal of his, but it was more known to them, more intimate, touching deeper levels. "Your pretty speeches always seem to leave out the dying and the killing. The pain and the sorrow. How many of us would you sacrifice to your vision of freedom?"
"None." There was no hesitation. "I'm not here to convince you to be warriors. That's not my way, for one, and it isn't yours either. But I can give you more options to choose from when you decide your own way. That's all freedom is, after all. Choice."
Frost swept them all slowly, making eye contact one by one. "Many of you ran the moment you knew what you were. Many others suffered under Psi Corps only a few weeks or months. Some few of you have not inconsiderable power. But you do not have the training." He made a fist and swept it down through the air. "And I'm not talking only about your psi abilities! I'm talking about the training to survive, to be responsible for who and where you are. To take command of your life!" He slashed a hand across them. "That is what I'm here to teach you. What you do with my training, that's your choice. But after I'm done with you, you'll know what true freedom really is."
"Specifics, Dr. Frost," growled Evenrain. "More pretty speeches. More loud slogans, and I still see dead bodies at the end of this. Provide me an example."
Frost stopped moving. Then, slowly, he smiled.
And disappeared.
Evenrain jolted upright. The Byronites recoiled with a babble of shock both audible and telepathic. Her mind swept out, seeking the psionic emanations of Frost's thoughts. Nothing came to her, though her searching beam slashed through others, triggering sparks of shock and amazement. There was nothing, anywhere. It was as if he had just --
" - vanished?" And Frost stood by the fire, solid, the glow of his mind as bright and powerful as ever. A pulse of stunned astonishment surged over the hall and faded into silence.
"Only Byron ever had the training for that," whispered Evenrain. "And not even he could hide from all of us. Only from mundanes."
Frost folded his arms, smiling. "And if I can hide from all of you, imagine how I can teach you to hide from mundanes. Security forces." He paused. "Medlab guards." And his eyes went to a blanket-wrapped form, a pale young girl whose skin was bright with sweat even in the chill of the hall.
Evenrain bit her lip as she felt the weight of her followers' gaze upon her. She didn't like this man. She didn't trust him. She was, in fact, rapidly becoming afraid of him.
But that kind of skill and training....
Slowly, she leant forward, placed her elbows on her knees, rested her chin on her folded hands, and pinned him with bright black eyes. "Start talking, Mr. Frost."
Frost's smile took on an edge of heat and triumph. Makay leaned away from him. And at the back of the hall, G'Stral turned and fled.
****************
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
BENEATH THE TRANSPORT CENTRE
03/16/2263
"How are you progressing?" Molyneux asked.
Franklin didn't even look up from the eyepiece of his microscope. "Just fine, considering that I have no idea what I'm looking for, or even what I'm looking at."
The door hissed shut. Stephen sighed and looked over. Molyneux looked tired, drained, the lines on his face graven deeper than usual. His white hair, which Stephen had thought incongruous until he learned that the man had been rejuvenated by the Shadows -- perhaps twenty years taken off his true biological age -- suddenly made him look fragile, vulnerable. The pieces fell into place.
"It's you, isn't it? You're the host for these nanites! But what are they supposed to do? Keep you from aging? How long -- "
The door hissed open again, to reveal the man's assistant, the telepath Donne. "Mr. Molyneux," she said in her dry, slightly rasping voice. "I understood that this facility was closed down."
"Ms. Donne," her superior replied. "I understood that you were on your way to oversee the Ganymede operation."
"My shuttle leaves in half an hour. I thought I'd do one last check around the complex before I left."
"Commendable. Do continue," Molyneux invited.
Donne turned to leave, then turned back. "Has Dr. Franklin decided to work with us, then?"
"He's looking into something for me," Molyneux replied noncommitally, forestalling Franklin's outraged denial. The doctor subsided, matching the interplay closely. The two pale, icy-eyed, dark-clad Humans, putatively united in enmity to all Franklin held dear, stood poised in clear opposition. The doctor wondered if there was some way he could turn their division to his own advantage -- but the woman, a psychopath if he'd ever seen one, gave him the screaming heebie-jeebies, and the man, though outwardly more civilized, was for that very reason even more dangerous.
Suddenly, the telepath's intent gaze shifted to the doctor. Moving with deceptive swiftness, Molyneux interposed himself between them. They stood in silent, unacknowledged combat for a long moment.
"That will be all, Ms. Donne," the older man said at last. A brief hesitation -- the former Psi Cop nodded shortly, turned on her heel, and was gone.
As the door hissed shut, Molyneux sagged and would have fallen if Franklin had not stepped forward to help him to a seat on a lab stool. Sweat stood out on the white-haired man's forehead, and his hands shook as he steadied himself against the counter.
"Are you all right?" Stephen asked, mentally kicking himself for his reflexive concern. This man was his enemy, dammit!
Molyneux nodded. "That....was harder than I expected. We're running out of time, doctor."
"Time? Time for what?" Franklin asked, puzzled -- then looked at the vial in its stand. "You mean..."
Molyneux nodded again. "We should be safe enough for the moment. But when she gets back -- I'm afraid both our lives will be in your hands."
****************** ACT TWO *****************
BABYLON 5
MEDLAB ONE
23:47 EST, 03/20/2263
"And there we are," murmured Lillian Hobbs softly through her mask, manoeuvring the tiny controls on her surgical station control. On the large screen above the medcot, a field of pulsating red was dimly illuminated in odd bluish and violet highlights. To one side was a dark mass. "My, my, that's a large one. Got to it just in time."
The nurse glanced down at the unconscious man lying on the cot, a tiny slit in his side giving bloodless access to the microlaser probe. "What does that make, nine? It's a miracle he wasn't dead already."
Lillian nodded soberly. Carefully she brought the microlaser probe to bear on the dark mass of the clot, centering it on her screen. "It's not entirely like the clots you're familiar with, Jacob. This isn't the natural coagulation of an over-cholesterolled diet - there's a particular vitamin in Minbari food that very occasionally reacts with human blood to form an erratic, but powerful, hypercoagulin."
Jacob looked thoughtful. "So if the clotting action is that powerful but that erratic...."
"...you get clots that form quick and solid, but by that very token are almost impossible to dislodge. So unless one happens to form right in the heart, it's seldom lethal. Given this only happens to one in a hundred thousand humans anyway, I don't think the Minbari cooks have anything to worry about." She triggered the pulse of the laser. A tiny section of the clot dissolved. "Which doesn't mean that we don't have to be very careful...with one right near the heart, the laser itself could dislodge it and trigger the attack we're afraid of." She paused. "I think we'll need suction here. Can you infiltrate with an iris-funnel catheter?"
"Give me twenty minutes. If he's stable, you might as well take a..." Abruptly Jacob yawned. "...rest. You've been on this shift for over sixteen hours."
"Rest? I'm not -- " Lillian yawned. " -- that tired." Reluctantly she grinned. "See, now you've got me doing it too -- "
She blinked. Something was...something was strange. Her fingers felt numb, and her nose had gone cold. It was as if she'd had too much to drink. But she hardly touched alcohol at all, and never on the day of a long shift. "Jacob, what --" She yawned again. "What's...going...on...."
" -- God, oh God, DOCTOR!" And suddenly Jacob was bent over the convulsing man, his medical gown and gloves soaked with red. The man's head pounded on the medcot, the wild bleeping of the monitors signifying fibrillation, the microlaser cord tearing at the edges of its insertion incision. Lillian sucked in breath with a whistle that sounded like a scream and dove to help. There was no time to ask how, there was only time to read the monitors, to know that somehow the clot had broken free and was embedding itself in the heart, and that the man had seconds to live at best.
"Ten c.c.s vasoparizine, direct infiltration!" she shouted. As Jacob grabbed up the drug and filled a syringe from it, she grabbed the microlaser controls and piloted the fibre-optic catheter farther up the vein. The blood in the huge vessel was trembling with currents like a flood tide, making it difficult to keep the hairthin surgical probe steady. If the clot had actually gotten into the heart he was already dead; the only thing she could hope was --
There. Yes. The clot was stuck in an auricular valve, preventing it from closing, sending the entire muscle into spasms. This would take inhuman timing. But there was no way the vasoparizine would work quickly enough. She brought the laser to bear, aimed, and fired.
The corner of the rough, jagged mass vaporized, and the valve closed. In the instant of its jerking shut Lillian shoved the controls forward, firing the briefest pulse possible as she did. The laser burned a hole into the clot as the valve began to open again, sucking the clot forward - and Lillian impaled the clot upon the microprobe, then drew back.
The clot came with her. Carefully, carefully, she pulled it free, then held it, trembling. Just a second. Just a second to recover her breath. Then farther back, farther, until she was a solid six inches away from the heart. The organ's pulsing stabilized, began to slow.
Jacob stared at the screen in awe, then at her. She'd forgotten he was there.
"You did it," he whispered.
"I --" Sudden fury and self-loathing whiplashed through Hobbs like a spray of acid. But she bit down on the words. "I'm withdrawing the probe to the base of the abdomen. We're going in with direct surgery to get this out. If we wait for the vasoparizine to work it may just fragment and clot again."
"Understood." Jacob increased the tranquilizer drip, then handed her the scalpel that was still part of every surgeon's kit. Mechanically, her mind in turmoil, she chose the location and pulled the probe back, carefully as ever.
She'd thought she was up for this. Sixteen hours was not light duty, but she'd pulled worse in her time on E.R. trauma teams. But that had been years ago. Could she have so misjudged her endurance, her stamina, as to blank for a few vital seconds right in the middle of a cardiac operation? She hadn't even had any stims! This wasn't supposed to happen to her! She was sensible, for God's sake, not a driven idealist like Stephen Franklin! She was...she was....
She was very damn near close to a murderer. And at the thought, only iron self-control kept her tears from blurring her vision uselessly.
She didn't notice the clock on the wall, the displays of which might have alerted her to a discrepancy odder than that. Nor did she notice the not-quite-closed cabinet in the corner of the lab.
****************
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
BENEATH THE TRANSPORT CENTRE
03/20/2263
After several days of intensive research, Dr. Franklin summarized his findings.
"The neurohormone psionephrine is used in conjunction with specialized neural networks to produce the phenomena we call telepathy, telekinesis, et cetera. Now, even 'mundanes' generate a minute amount of this hormone, but not nearly enough to produce the effect, nor do our brain cells have the required configuration.
"The drug known as 'dust', which produces a limited, temporary form of telepathy, not only mimics the psionephrine molecule, it also forces the neurons into a configuration similar to that found in 'natural' telepaths.
"Your nanites operate in a somewhat similar fashion, except that they, themselves, make up the network as they gather in the brainstem. Unlike the telepaths' neural nets, however, the nanites' network produces an anti-telepathic field -- a jamming signal, as it were. This network is also 'fueled' by psionephrine..."
"Production of which is also stimulated by the nanites. I am well aware of all this, doctor," Molyneux pointed out impatiently. The head of Bureau 13 was looking increasingly haggard -- not only was his resistance to telepathic scans nearly gone, but it seemed as though either the failure of the nanites themselves or the stress of attempting to function normally under the threat of his ambitious second's imminent return was getting to him. "The researchers I hired when I first joined the Bureau discovered as much."
"They told you that?" Stephen asked dubiously. "Well, I hate to say this, but either they were lying to you, or they were guessing -- in any event, they were wrong."
"What?!?"
"They were wrong," the doctor repeated. "Your brain cells aren't producing any more psionephrine than mine, and they never have. The nanites themselves contained a reserve supply -- undoubtedly provided by the Shadows when they implanted the things in your brain stem. This stuff is very stable, and the way the network is configured makes the rate of leakage very low -- for years they've managed to replace what was lost from the trickle you do produce, but it's finally caught up with you. To put it simply, you've run out of gas."
"Well..." the white-haired man paused, nonplussed. "Isn't there some way to...make my brain cells produce more?"
Franklin snorted. "Psi Corps has only been trying to find one for the last hundred years or so...even you'd be shocked at some of the things they've tried -- well, maybe not. At any rate, I doubt we'll be able to manage it in the next few days. There is one possibility, though..." He broke off, considering.
"Well? What is it?" Molyneux asked eagerly.
"When the Shadows -- or whoever they had working on this -- came up with these things, they tailored them specifically to humans. In fact, they even programmed them to 'hide' in your lymph nodes to escape detection when you concentrate on a specific thought-pattern..."
"Obviously -- that's how I got you that sample. What does that have to do with anything?"
"Well, the specific form of the hormone that the nanites use is the human form -- which means that, under the right conditions, psionephrine from another human -- a telepath -- could be used to, well, refill the nanites' reservoirs, giving you another few years of protection..."
"You mean, like a...transfusion?"
"In a way, yes. Now, extracting the hormone will be very tricky, and right now I have NO idea how to go about 'filling up' the nanites themselves..."
"But it's a chance, doctor -- a chance I'm willing to take." Sudden hope galvanized Molyneux. "How long to you think it will take you to come up with a transfer procedure?"
"I'm not sure -- but the main problem will be finding a donor. No offense, but this isn't exactly the friendliest group I've ever seen -- Psi Corps, ex-Psi Corps, and the occasional rogue telepath. Is there anyone among them that you'd actually trust -- or would trust YOU enough to let me drain their precious bodily fluids, as it were?"
Molyneux' diagonal slash of a smile reappeared. "I'll take care of the donor. You just worry about the technical details."
****************
BABYLON 5
GREY 13
01:56 EST 03/21/2263
Miri had passed out again, the fever driving her back into dreams. Kneeling at her side, Frost carefully injected first one, then another of the vials he'd brought from the medlab. Those of the People who had gone with him gathered around, watching.
All but Makay.
Evenrain knew he was sitting on his cot at the back of the hall, head down, staring at the floor. She sensed less from him than she had, but he, as with the others of the People who had volunteered to learn Frost's skills, had become harder to read. From transmitting to reception to blocks, concealment and attacks, every skill of Frost's pupils was becoming cleaner, harder, more accurate. As a teacher Frost was brutally merciless, but he was fast, and was more than willing to let multiple watchers into his mind to absorb his tricks as he demonstrated -- something few instructors even in the Corps were willing to do, especially nowadays. There were too many secrets in the Corps for most instructors to be that open any more.
{{And then again,}} she thought to herself below the level of her own blocks, {{with his skills, he can let you as far as he likes into his mind, and no farther, and you would never even know there was more hidden beneath...}} It was the kind of instruction reserved for the best of the best, the Psi Cops and the geniuses of Engineering and Department Sigma. Few of the People were much above P5 or P6 -- she herself was only a P8 -- and even had they stayed with the Corps, never would they have benefitted from this kind of training. Even Byron had avoided it -- not because of incapability or secret shame, but because he had firmly believed neither the brutality of the methods, nor the military lethality of the skills, were necessary in the new world they had been trying to build.
Evenrain sighed. She had loved Byron as a son, but even at her most devoted she had known the impossibility of those dreams. Her people had found that out through centuries of oppression and misery, ever since the whites had come to the Americas. When she gathered the few who had survived Bester's purge and welcomed in the others as they arrived, she had given up on trying to build a new world and simply concentrating on living in the one they found.
She had thought that love, companionship and peace were worthy aims, even at the price of poverty and secrecy. She had thought most of the People -- as she had begun to call them, after the tradition of her own ancestries -- had agreed with her.
She was beginning to think she'd been wrong.
She belatedly became aware that the everpresent sense of sick heat, of dim pain, that Miri had given off since contracting her fever was fading. Without showing her urgency she rose, walked slowly to the girl's cot and looked down at her. Miri's breath was more even now, and Frost wiped some of the sweat from her face and forehead. The look in his eyes was difficult to read. There was compassion and affection there, but most of all was a curious intensity - as if the girl was some sort of experiment, or gamble.
{{and it is, isn't it, Mr. Frost}} she sent abruptly, on a tight hard transmission meant for him alone.
He made no movement to acknowledge the glyph.
{{do you think you can buy our allegiance for the price of a life?}}
At that he turned. His expression relaxed into a friendly smile -- as did the superficial aura his mind carefully radiated -- but a single thought, as hard and cold as her own, snapped back at her. {{didn't G'Stral teach you? Everything is for sale.}} "I think she'll be all right."
Evenrain had to force the words out. "Our gratitude is...considerable."
"Is that the royal 'our'?" Frost laughed. A few of the People who'd joined him laughed as well.
Eenrain made herself smile. "Miri is much loved among us."
"I know." Frost looked down at the girl, and for a moment his careful smile took on a hint of genuine fondness. Evenrain felt a terrible sense of dislocation. What good was telepathy when it only increased the baffling complexity of a person?
She turned and walked away, and before she knew quite where her steps were taking her she was standing beside Makay, who had stretched out on his cot and closed his eyes. Reasonable; it was after two in the morning, after all - but she was in no mood to let him sleep. He alone of the People who'd gone on the Medlab raid had not returned jubilant with success. True, for Makay jubilation was an alien emotion to begin with...but there was something even more acute about this.
He spoke without opening his eyes. "Hello, Evenrain."
"Makay." Carefully she settled herself on the cot beside him. She had to move carefully in everything she did, these days. Old bones. And the hall's chill didn't help. "What's troubling you, my son?"
His mouth stretched in a humourless smile. "What isn't?"
"Dr. Frost thinks Miri will be all right." She sighed. "I wish I could be happier about that than I am, but... I dislike owing a life to this man."
"Don't worry. You may not."
She glanced down at him. "What do you mean?"
At last Makay opened his eyes, pale with misery and, after a moment of searching her face, apprehensive understanding. "Nobody's told you."
"No."
Makay let out a slow, deep breath. "This is the way it happened, Evenrain." He reached over and put his hand on hers.
{{Five people, united in the Power, walking the halls to Medlab. Guards do not see them, their perceptions altered by the Power. Passersby do not notice them, interest and memory damped by a much lighter touch. Cameras are avoided, or record only drably-dressed figures with hidden faces. And then they are in Medlab.
{{The doctor and her nurse are bent over a man, operating.
{{This is a surprise to all, especially Frost. That is why they have come here so late, after all. But Frost recovers. His idea, and his plan, alter instantly, and instantly everyone knows.
{{Only Makay feels doubt. But weakened by self-loathing and desperate for redemption, he cannot advance enough resistance to stop it. They reach out, settling about the doctor and the nurse, cloaking their minds -- and it is so easy, now, with their new skill and their combined Power. The doctor and the nurse stop moving. Their eyes are blind, their ears are deaf, their minds stopped. The beeping of medical instruments and the hiss of their breathing is the only sound in Medlab.
{{rost's orders are silent and instantaneous. They scatter, gathering drugs, equipment, blankets, anything and everything they need. The harvest is swift and efficient. Makay is responsible for taking the surgical instruments. Microlasers, fuselaser sealants, scalpels, and the like. He gathers what they might need, making an effort to take as little as possible. The longer they have before this theft is noticed, the better. He considers whether to take a larger probe --
{{Alarms and clamouring screeches go off. They all spin, realizing in the same instant it's the medical alerts over the medcot. Red lights are flashing and the patient has begun to bleed from his probe-slit, his breathing turning thick and ragged and his lips looking oddly purple in the light.
{{But neither doctor nor nurse move, still amber-trapped in the thick weight of the Power.
{{GO! NOW!~ Frost breaks the gestalt, spilling them all free of the union, and singlehandedly takes over the grip on the medics' minds. The rest scatter, each fleeing Medlab and taking a different route out, keeping their illicit acquisitions hidden. Only Makay lingers, to see Frost move to the medlab master computer console --
{{-- where he ignores the alarms and the dying man and calmly proceeds to access Medlab's security records, hacking past the commands with the ease only telepathically pilfered passwords will allow, and then to delete everything the camera has seen in the past ten minutes.
{{The choked gargles of the dying man are weakening now. Makay cannot stand any more. He turns and flees. Knowing only that he had hoped to redress his failures with Owen, and somehow has only ruined his life further.}}
Evenrain shook free of the vision with a gasp. Now it was she who was covered with chill sweat. But this fever of fright and fury was beyond the alleviation of any drug.
"He let the man die," she whispered.
Makay shook his head. "I don't know. If he let them go right after we got out of Medlab there might have been enough time to save him, but...I don't know."
"No freedom is worth this." Evenrain's hand, shaking, tightened into a fist. "I will not buy your lives with the lives of innocent people. Not like this, not this way." She took one last look back towards Miri's cot where Frost was being congratulated, then smoothed her blocks to a calm, tranquil surface. "I will not have him here any longer, Makay."
"They want him."
"But you and I do not. And that may be enough." She closed her eyes. Two. It might be enough to start.
It would have to be.
****************
DRAZI SCOUTSHIP
HYPERSPACE, EN ROUTE TO DRAZI HOMEWORLD
The scoutship was too small to have any Hunt or Huntleader appointed to it, but Dralakh - who was big, relatively honest and not quite as dumb as he looked -- had assumed informal duties as Master of Arms. He, Zhirith, and Ulvargos met the ship's one medtech, an edgy and skinny dreiz named Kalshir, at the door of the brig cell. Kalshir looked nervous, but she always looked nervous.
"Well?" said Ulvargos.
Kalshir dropped her head in a circling bob, a gesture either of indifference or admitted ignorance. Sometimes it was both. "I think it must have been in some sort of healing hibernative state. It finally woke about four hours ago... it appears healthy and alert. I didn't want to try getting blood samples, but it's breathing the air and its lifesigns are good."
"Then we'll try." Ulvargos tapped in the security code. As the door opened Dralakh stepped in first and levelled a disruptor rifle at the alien.
The Drakh didn't move. It didn't even look at Dralakh. Its shadowed eyes stared straight ahead, its arms folded around itself. Discoloured patches and swellings under the scales showed the lingering marks of its exposure to vacuum. Its breathing was a slow, rasping hiss as steady as a machine's. Dralakh scowled at it.
Zhirith glanced at Ulvargos. The Commander's eyes narrowed. He stepped forward and in, Zhirith following, and signaled to Kalshir. The medtech looked uneasy, but closed the door behind them. Ulvargos stepped slowly towards the Drakh.
"Do you speak Interlac?" he said.
The Drakh did not move.
"Do you understand me?"
The Drakh did not move.
"Are your eyeballs purple and your spirits light?"
Zhirith snapped her head to look at Ulvargos, startled -- and then realized the Drakh's eyes had flickered, its studied immobility slipping just a fraction. Ulvargos smiled mirthlessly. "I thought you understood more than you were letting on."
The Drakh spoke. Its voice was a hissing rasp, roughened by vacuum and five days of unconsciousness. "All understanding is misunderstanding."
"Wisdom from your vanished masters?"
The Drakh's eyes flickered to Ulvargos again. This time what shone in them was unmistakably rage. But its voice was even softer than before. "You will not speak of the Ancient Ones. You have not earned the right."
"Rights are not earned, they are inborn," snapped Ulvargos. "Mistake me not, creature. Fence with me all you like, but know this: you are in my power now. Your ship is destroyed, your crew is dead, and any hope you have of life comes from me and me alone."
"Perhaps I do not desire to live."
"Don't you?"
"Does it matter what I desire?"
"I know what you desire."
For the first time the Drakh turned to look Ulvargos full in the face. "And I know what you desire." He glanced at Zhirith. "What you desire --" Another look to Dralakh. "And what you desire. And I tell you this: those desires cannot all be met. What one wants, another fears. There will be no peace, no order between them. No compromise." It spat the word as if it tasted foul. "There will be blood. And there will be death. And in the end, one desire alone will be achieved."
Silence for a long minute.
"What do I desire?" Ulvargos murmured.
"To serve your people."
"And I?" said Zhirith.
"To serve your people."
The Drazi exchanged glances. Dralakh smiled slowly. "And my desire is -- ?"
"To serve your people."
Ulvargos laughed, low in his throat. "Those hardly seem incompatible."
"Do they not?" And at last the Drakh smiled, a thin, bitter expression that seemed to gleam in the cell's dim light. Its teeth were carnivore-pointed, yellowish-grey in colour. "What is service? And who are your people?"
Zhirith abruptly decided this creature had controlled too much of this conversation. "Service is power," she spat. "Power for the Drazi Freehold. The power of your technology, your secrets. Isn't that what we came here to find?" She looked at Ulvargos. "You weren't surprised to see that ship. You were looking for something of the sort. Weren't you?"
It took Ulvargos a moment to answer. "I was following my orders. I have still not yet decided how to interpret them."
"All orders disorder the universe," murmured the Drakh. "For one being's order is another's disorder. Is it not strange how order is purely what benefits oneself? And chaos, disorder, that which does not?"
"Is it not strange how many proffered benefits have hidden prices?" growled Ulvargos.
The Drakh moved. With sudden fluidity it stood, drawing its ragged cloak about itself with swift grace. Ulvargos and Zhirith backed away a step; Dralakh raised his rifle. But that was the Drakh's only movement. It glared at them with vast disdain.
"You know nothing," it hissed. "You do not know what you want, what price you are willing to pay. You do not know what I can give you. You could not understand if I told you. You are like the blind, shopping for paintings." Again the harsh, humourless, thin and bitter smile. "You seek strength, without knowing how to take it. You seek glory, without knowing who you must humiliate. You seek power, without knowing the price. And this I have, this we have, to offer. Strength. Glory. Power. But be sure of your desire, Drazi. Be sure before you offer to buy."
It sat down slowly, lay back on the cot, and closed its eyes.
For a long minute none of them moved. The Drakh's breathing slowed to a seemingly impossible lethargy. At last Zhirith dared to step forward and set her claws to the Drakh's neck. After a moment she let out her own breath. "The pulse has dropped as well. It must be in hibernation again."
"As effective a way of ending the discussion as a slammed door," muttered Ulvargos. He turned and tapped on the door; it opened to reveal a nervous Kalshir. "Take more bioreadings while you have the chance. And make sure you can get away quickly." He strode past Kalshir without waiting for her acknowledgement.
Zhirith caught up to him halfway down the corridor. "Well?"
"Well?"
Zhirith was out of patience. "If I wanted word games, Commander, I'd have stayed in that rhaksavath cell!" She hurried past him and turned, forcing him to stop. "You know what he was offering as well as I do. If he shares with us the technologies that ship must have had, the places he knows and the treasures hidden there, we can gain - anything. Weapons. Wealth. Power. This is a priceless opportunity, Commander!"
"No, Zhirith, it is anything but priceless." Ulvargos stepped forward, closing the distance, glaring down at her. Zhirith had to fight down the impulse to step back and the equally strong impulse to swing for his throat. "Do you really want to take us back into war again? Our worlds are broken, Commander. After the Great War, the fiasco with the Enphili last year, the humiliation of that Ascension Day ceremony --" Ulvargos snarled and turned, slamming a fist against the wall. "We cannot afford another loss. The gifts of Shadows bring nothing but blood."
"Shadows?"
Ulvargos' smile was mocking and angry. "The Drakh served the Shadows, Zhirith. They served the Great Enemy that brought us these destroying wars. Do you really trust them?"
"We do not need trust." Zhirith pointed back at the cell. "We have complete power over him, you said so yourself! And if we can use the tools of our destroyers to take back the power we lost, then that is only justice, yes?"
"Will the Vree see it as justice? The Pak'ma'ra? The Enphili?"
Zhirith stared at him in disbelief. "Do you even care what has happened to our people?" The moment the words were out she knew she'd gone too far.
Ulvargos held very still, muscles rippling with fury. "Never tell me that I do not care, Zhirith." His voice was a whisper. "It is because I care. I would not see our children dead. I would not see our worlds in flames again. What we can take from him to improve our ways of life, that I will take. But I will not buy our glory at the price of innocent blood."
He turned and strode away.
Zhirith waited a few moments to be safe, before she let her mouth contort into its desired snarl. "There is no innocent blood, Ulvargos," she murmured.
****************
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
UNDERGROUND
03/21/2263
Donne paced deliberately along the hidden corridor leading from the Geneva shuttleport to the subterranean complex of Bureau 13. Purposely left rough to betray no hint of its destination, the walls and ceiling were festooned with rusting conduits and leaky pipes, the floor littered with rubbish, the lighting dim and intermittent. Her heeltaps echoing hollowly before her, she ignored the infrequent gaping mouths of branch corridors, singlemindedly advancing on her goal.
A shadow reared up before her, resolving into the familiar figure of one of Bureau 13's rogue telepaths. Lip curling in distaste, the ex-Psi Cop moved to brush past without acknowledging him, but he reached out to stop her.
"What is it, Yves?" she asked, insultingly aloud. Yves LeTourneau, a small, wiry man with thinning dark hair pulled back in a scraggly tail, was one of the first -- and strongest -- of the non-Corps telepaths Molyneux had begun recruiting soon after the move from the old San Diego headquarters. Donne had protested the change in policy, and still worked only grudgingly with the renegades.
"Boss told me to wait for you here -- I have something for you," the little man said, and with no more warning than that, launched a telepathic attack. Never entirely off-guard, Donne had her basic blocks up, but they barely sufficed to ward off the first scything blow from the P10 rogue. Quickly she threw up fallback defenses, layers of reflective shielding folding back on one another as she readied her counterattack -- but before she could strike, a crashing blow fell from behind, and she knew no more.
Yves looked up at the white-haired man, who stood over the fallen woman with a length of pipe in his hand and a very dangerous-looking smile on his face. Those ice-blue eyes flicked to his.
"Are you all right?"
"Oui. A little...shaken per'aps. She is very strong. When she awakes..."
"I have an assignment for you offworld. See Venki for the details and your travel papers."
The little man nodded briefly and scuttled off down the corridor. Behind Molyneux, Dr. Franklin stepped out of a cross-corridor, carrying a small satchel. He turned to look back, toward the shuttleport.
"Don't even think about it, Doctor," said Molyneux, without lifting his gaze from the unconscious woman's face. Franklin sighed, and knelt beside her.
"Did you have to hit her so hard?" he grumbled, probing the swelling at the base of her skull.
"The bruise will hide the puncture mark," Molyneux replied. He watched, impassive, as the doctor inserted a long needle into the woman's skull, drawing fluid into a specialized receptacle. "She should be out for an hour or so."
"I'll give her something to keep her out for a while -- it will take a day or two for her psionephrine level to return to normal. The loss shouldn't be noticeable unless she stretches her talents, but the more time before she tries, the better."
"And how long until you can transfer the hormone to me?"
"That I'll have to do in the lab. It should take effect almost immediately, though."
"Very good. A patrol should come through here soon -- they'll bring her back to headquarters. I'll be able to keep you safe as soon as those nanites are working again, but the fewer people who know about this, the better."
"You'll get no argument from me about that," Franklin remarked. "You do realize that this is only a temporary solution. You'll need to repeat the process every three to five years, as long as your need for this kind of immunity continues."
"Sort of a... telepathic vampire?" The other man laughed softly. "Fitting, I suppose. Well, let's get on with it, then." Carefully laying the length of pipe where it could reasonably be expected to have fallen after breaking loose and clonking the telepath, he led the way toward the main complex. With one last look back toward freedom, the doctor sighed again and followed.
****************
BABYLON 5
ZOCALO
08:33 03/21/2263
Hobbs sat alone in the Eclipse Café. The tea on the table before her had long since gone stone-cold. And although her exhaustion showed in the bruised skin under her eyes, the lines of tension and pain in her face, there was no sleep or comfort to be found in those dark eyes.
She could not have slept had her life depended on it. She had gone back to her quarters after stabilizing the patient and closing the operation, then sat on her bed and stared uselessly at the wall for hours. Every time she tried to let her eyelids fall shut, the horror of those moments in Medlab, those dozy dreamy seconds that had torn apart to reveal sickening, contemptible failure, came back to her like sledgehammer blows to her skull and stomach. She had gone through her morning routine mindlessly, finding the only anaesthetic she could in its repetition, and sat now at a table she had chosen only for its distance from everyone else.
"Doctor?"
Of course, some people were willing to cross greater distances than others. Hobbs closed her eyes. "Ambassador Sherann, I'm really not in the mood to talk right now --"
"Of course you are not." Startled by the brisk tone, Hobbs opened her eyes to watch the Minbari woman sit down. "Which is precisely why it is the best time to do so."
Old habits died hard; Lillian could not but help notice that the Minbari was wearing an outfit she'd never seen before -- it was the typical dark brown of the worker caste, but it seemed to have been designed almost along warrior-caste plans: tough fabric, close-fitting shirt and trousers, and durable shoes, with not a hint of the usual Minbari preference for flowing loose lines. She frowned. "Ambassador, what in the world --"
Sherann shook her head impatiently. "That is not important. What is important is that a blind temshwee could see from across the station that you are suffering, and I have come to ask why."
"I --" Lillian's voice locked.
Sherann's eyes softened. "We have not known each other long. But you have always been kind to me, and I have a great deal of respect for you." Her mouth twitched. "Of course, it is never wise to have disrespect for the people who repair you when you break yourself..."
Lillian couldn't help it; the silliness of the phrasing was too much. She coughed up a laugh. Sherann smiled. "There, you see? Nothing is so absurd as life itself."
Lillian swallowed. "Tell that to the wife of the man I almost killed last night."
"What?" The Minbari looked genuinely shocked. Lillian felt a spark of sour satisfaction. All Minbari, even the relatively relaxed worker caste, worked hard to maintain their air of elder inscrutability, and while Sherann was far more open than most it was still rare to catch her that off-guard.
"I blanked out last night." Lillian dropped her eyes to her tea mug. She just couldn't say this and look anyone in the face. "In the middle of an operation. I phased out completely. Almost unconscious on my feet. And a man almost died because I did that at exactly the wrong moment."
Sherann spoke carefully. "I do not see how you can hold yourself responsible for --"
"I misjudged my limits!" Lillian snapped, jolting Sherann back. "I should have known better, I should have gotten help, I should have -- I should have done something, the man almost died because I couldn't -- couldn't --" And abruptly she was crying, the tears hot and scalding on her face, and she sat back to bury her face in her hands while her shoulders shook.
She was dimly aware of the Minbari woman rising, coming around the table to sit beside her, placing one arm around her shoulders. "It is all right, my dear," she murmured. "No more. Do not do this to yourself."
"But it's my fault -- "
"I highly doubt it is anything of the sort."
Something in the iron tones of the other woman's voice penetrated Lillian's haze of misery. She sniffed, scrubbed at her eyes, and managed to focus on Sherann. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that I think you and I should see someone. Right now." She drew Lillian to her feet. "Come with me."
****************
BABYLON 5
PSI CORPS METAPOL OFFICE
09:12 03/21/2263
"You want me to what?" Colin Ferris eyed the Minbari woman with disbelief.
"You want him to what?" Lillian sounded just as floored.
"I would like you to scan Dr. Hobbs," Sherann repeated firmly. "Because I have reason to suspect she was interfered with telepathically."
Colin cleared his throat. "Ambassador, while I certainly respect your judgement, I have to point out that you aren't a telepath and you don't know how to recognize telepathic interference."
"I recognize uncharacteristic behaviour," insisted Sherann. "I recognize something Dr. Hobbs is simply physically not capable of."
"Ambassador, fatigue and exhaustion can get the better of anyone --"
"Not like this, not this way." Sherann looked at Hobbs. "No false modesty, Lillian. No self-doubt or blame. Answer me truthfully. Did you feel exhausted before your blackout? Have you ever done this before or anything even remotely like it?"
"I --" Lillian swallowed. "No."
"There's a first time for everything," observed Colin.
Sherann whirled and pinned the Psi Cop with a glare so angry that the telepath rocked back in his seat. "If you have nothing constructive to say, then be silent!" She turned back to Lillian. "I have heard tales like this, from the days before Valen, when our telepaths were as factionalized as the rest of our race. They would cloud minds at opportune moments, allow chaos to result, and blame it on exhaustion or error. I know you, Lillian. At least, I know enough of you to know you would not do this."
Lillian blinked at her. "You have an awful lot of faith in me."
"Yes I do." She glanced at Colin. "You may have him scan me, if you do not believe me."
"Ahem," said Colin deliberately. "I'm not with the Commercial branch, you know."
"No. You are with MetaPol. And this is a crime. Are you going to investigate it, or not?"
Colin smiled lopsidedly. "First time anybody here's yelled at me about not doing my job." He looked over at Lillian. "I can only do this with your direct permission."
"Do we need to record it?"
"Eyewitness testimony of an Ambassador should suffice." Colin sat back and began to pull off his gloves. Lillian gulped. The gesture was eerily reminiscent of a doctor preparing for an operation, but utterly reversed. "Try to relax. Calm your mind. The less resistance you put up the easier this will be."
"That's comforting."
"That's exactly what I'm talking about." Colin rose, moved around the desk, leaned against it and took Lillian's head in his hands. His fingers were light and soft against her forehead. "Now, this may sting a little..." She heard the smile in his voice.
"You've just been waiting to use that line, haven't you?"
"For months," Colin admitted dryly. Lillian had to smile. And it was in the moment of that smile the scan began.
Medlab. Jacob opposite her, the operation proceeding smoothly. A pause, for a moment -- the vision freezes -- as Colin, with gentle but unflinching firmness, probes her subconscious awareness of body. And with shock she realizes Sherann was right. She was tired. But not that tired. Colin's intrigue at the realization fills her mind.
{{The memories resume. The operation continues. And then - a blur, like an edited video recording...exactly like an edited video recording, she feels Colin's appalled realization. Over and over again those moments play. But nothing emerges from the blur. The memory excision has been complete and precise. Nothing will ever restore for her the memory of those moments lost in Medlab. The blur ends as she and Jacob panic over a dying man - and Colin instantly pulls her back from that pain, with a compassion she had not expected.
{{Compassion, Hell,}} come his thoughts, still tinged with dry humour. {{While I'm in here, whatever you feel, I feel. And I've got enough self-dislike of my own to live with.}} The feel of a dry grin, like the taste of unsweetened grapefruit juice, fills her mind. Lillian feels her own humour begin to return.
Then Colin returns to that blurred second, that strange instant of not-consciousness. His awareness flickers over it, through it, again and again, like a man looking over a strange sculpture. Looking for something, she realizes, though she is not sure what. The examination continues, swift and complete, unspinning the traces of power left behind in that psychic scar. Mote by mote, the remains of a unique signature begin to emerge, the signature left by every unique mind, the signature of...
The scan broke. Lillian jerked back, gasping, with the intangible impact. Colin spun away, bracing himself on the desk, breathing hard. Fury gathered in his eyes.
"Officer Ferris, what -- ?" Sherann reached tentatively for him.
He turned before she could actually touch him, held up an ungloved hand, and snarled one word.
"Frost."
****************
DRAZI SCOUTSHIP
HYPERSPACE, EN ROUTE TO DRAZI HOMEWORLD
The Drakh looked up as the door opened.
Zhirith stepped in.
For a moment the two beings only looked at one another. A snarl rippled, half-unconsciously, across Zhirith's lips.
"You said --" She had to take a deep breath. "You said -- we."
"Do you doubt your hearing, that you ask me?" Acid irony laced the words.
Zhirith's scales rippled; her breathing harshened. "I doubt your meaning. That is why I ask you."
"Good."
Thrown, Zhirith stared at it. "Good?"
"You have begun to question that which was never questioned. A small question... but a true one. Do you know the difference between true questions and false?"
Silently Zhirith shook her head.
"The answers to true questions are what is. The answers to false questions are only what you want."
"And if what is, is what I want?"
"Is it?"
Zhirith hesitated. But the stillness was enough of an answer. The Drakh smiled as if every bitter thought and furious pain was visible in the air around her. "Then you have discovered the role of questions. They are the beginning."
It raised a hand, pointed to her, then to itself. "And we," it murmured in almost gleeful triumph, "have begun."
****************** ACT THREE *****************
BABYLON 5
COUNCIL CHAMBERS
09:37 EST, 03/21/2263
History, Lochley reflected, always outpaced bureaucracy. It was a truth ranging from vast matters of inter- and intra-species policy -- like President Sheridan's too-little-too-late Alliance policy on telepaths -- to details that seemed insignificant to everyone except those they affected.
Like, for example, the design of a room -- which was insignificant to everyone except those who actually had to sit in it.
The Council Chambers of Babylon 5 had been built to reflect a more chaotic, less balanced apportioning of power. With the final relocation of the Alliance Assembly, the President and the Executive Board to Minbar, certain inequities about the room had become apparent. The former Leagueworlds -- each now independent, fully-franchised members of the ISA -- had rapidly come to resent the "audience" chairs facing the central curved table which had once held the ambassadors of the Great Powers, and still did. They felt, Lethke Kullenbrok had put it most eloquently once, like schoolchildren waiting for their teachers to agree on homework.
Lochley had had every intention of redesigning the room. For one thing, with the arrival of Interstellar Alliance Ambassador Rathenn, former Satai of the Grey Council, two days ago, they now required five chairs at that curved table again: her own, Ambassador Sheridan's, Ta'Lon's, Sherann's and Rathenn's. (Vir had his own awkwardly improvised podium off to one side; it was old and tended to slant slightly, but it was the best they could do to represent the Republic's outsider status.) Unfortunately the fifth chair, the one Ambassador Kosh had never even sat down on, had been stolen sometime last December... probably auctioned off on the black market for a ridiculous price, Lochley reflected gloomily, as a "genuine Vorlon artifact". Nobody had ever made more than five; they'd been specially commissioned from a design firm on Earth that had gone out of business under Clark. Ambassador Sheridan, being the good sport he was, had volunteered to take the slightly smaller, distinctly less impressive replacement seat, but Lochley had privately vowed that as soon as she got a free week she was having this room torn apart and put back together with all new furnishings and design.
Said free week had never materialized.
The display screen above the central table showed a Centauri freighter, listing and pouring fire. Vir gestured with a laser pointer, illuminating the small pods clustered upon it like piranha against a dying, drowning bull. "You see here, and here, the breaching pods have gone straight for the points of maximum hold access." He triggered a control; the display rewound at accelerated speed until the freighter, undamaged now, cruised through unmarked space. A blue vortex opened up; the raider battlewagon that emerged discharged fighters and breaching pods. The fighters swiftly took out the freighter's few armaments; the breaching pods shot straight for the hull modules. Vir followed their courses with the laser pointer. "No hesitation, no pause to scan before they launched. And you see here, and here --" He illuminated the port cargo modules. "These pods, containing raw ore for industrial processing, are passed up, while these pods --" he illuminated the starboard modules --"containing food, medical supplies and personnel weapons, are all breached and gutted."
He turned to face the crowd of diplomats. "We thought these raids would ease off once the rogue telepaths exhausted the material they stole from our trade routes two months ago. But they've continued to strike at us. We believe they're scanning captured crew to obtain more shipping data."
"Do not forget other point, Ambassador Cotto," Vizhak noted from his place in the front row.
"Other point?" said Lochley.
Vir looked uncomfortable. Vizhak fixed Lochley with a steady stare. "What the honourable Centauri Ambassador --" the phrase wasn't quite mocking -- "is clearly afraid to say is that raider ship, fighters and breaching pods are of Earthforce making."
Lochley looked at Vir. The Centauri shuffled uncomfortably. "I, um, well, it's kind of obvious, really...."
"Obvious indeed." Vizhak leaned back, arms folded. "Earthforce making; therefore, Earthforce problem. What need have we to be here?"
"Rein in, old lizard." Ambassador Sheridan's tone was as mild as ever but a faint steel underlay it. "You know as well as I do that Earthforce sells surplus equipment and vehicles to any private buyers goin'. Hell, the Drazi Freehold's still got a big arms business, Interstellar Alliance or not. Kinda goes against the grain to call others on it."
"There have even been arms deals made on this very station," observed Ta'Lon with silken politeness. "If a place built for peace deals in implements of war, who among any of us can criticize others for it?"
Lochley banged her gavel as a mutter of discontent began to rise. "Okay, okay, that's enough, all of you," she stated. Why wasn't Sherann here, anyway? Where was she? These kinds of arguments were much harder to start with her in the room; it was difficult to get a serious quarrel going when one of the major ambassadors only saw the humour in everything said. "Vizhak, I'm assuming your point is to implicate Earthforce and the EA in covert support of these pirate telepath strikes. Am I right? And don't bother with the Old Warhawk dialect," she added as he opened his mouth to speak. "Right now it's just pissing me off."
"You are direct," observed Vizhak. "Why then may I not be direct?" But he was smiling, as if oddly pleased by the bluntness. "Very well, Captain. You are only partially correct. I do not genuinely suspect the Earth Alliance to have any hand in these attacks, direct or otherwise."
"Thank you, Vizhak, you've taken a load off my mind," Sheridan drawled.
Vizhak nodded to the older man. "But I do note that so far it has had nothing to do with the Alliance as a body. No member state is threatened, the criminals themselves are under internal political jurisdiction --" He waved to Sheridan, who rolled his eyes. "-- and we have, in fact, neither the right nor the responsibility to take action in this matter."
"Yes, well, I'm sorry, Vizhak, but..." Vir took a deep breath. "That's where you're wrong."
"Am I."
Vir turned to the room at large. "Official trade with the Republic has dwindled to a trickle, but it still exists. And we all know that there's no merchant captain in existence who doesn't use a few, ah, let's say, 'unofficial' channels of commerce." He smiled, and an almost reluctant current of amusement ran through the room. But then Vir's smile faded. "But the Centauri captains know these routes. The official and the unofficial. And the people attacking them are telepaths."
He let that statement sink in.
It was Rathenn who gave quiet voice to the growing dismay. "You believe that these rogues will learn other trade routes from their Centauri captors, and spread their operations to all the Alliance races."
Vir nodded. "Initially they were too weak to risk reprisals. But they're becoming stronger day by day. I felt it was the obligation of the Republic to warn you all of this potential danger."
[Learn the error of their ways, they will,] said the Gaim diplomat through its buzzing, echoey translator voice. [The Centauri we are not. Allied and strong we are. Surely they fear to rouse the hive?]
"That could be exactly what they want," said Sheridan Sr. He gnawed thoughtfully on his knuckle. "By ISA law, these rogues are an internal matter for Earth. There's no shortage of idiots in our own government who'd contend that attacking them is stepping on our toes. Which would be the excuse they're looking for to stir up dissension."
"So if they do want to provoke internal strife in the ISA, then they're hoping we will respond to this and butt heads over it," said Lochley slowly. "But if they don't want any response, then they're hoping that we'll be too afraid of butting heads over it to do anything."
Sheridan nodded. Then he grinned disarmingly and looked around the room. "So, who else here is gettin' a headache?"
Lochley sighed in silent relief as chuckles rippled around the room; at least half the diplomats understood the joke well enough to raise their hand or similar appendages. She tapped the gavel lightly on the table. "I'm calling a ten-minute recess, we can debate the possible measures when we return --"
"-- Captain!"
Lochley scowled as shouts and irritated oaths came floating in from the corridor outside. What in the name of -- ?
Colin burst in. Amazingly, at his side was Sherann, of all people, shouting at the guards that she was the Minbari Ambassador and he had her permission to be here! But the guards forced their way past her anyway. From the grim expressions of dislike, they'd clearly absorbed Zack's opinions on Psi Corps and Psi Cops. Colin ignored them as they took him by the arms.
"-- Captain, please, just two minutes, you have to listen to me, this is critical -- "
On any other day Lochley might have stopped the fooferah immediately, but she'd strained her authority today, she had a headache, the ambassadors would not want a telepath in the room given what they'd just been discussing, and she had never ever liked being interrupted. She raised her voice. "Mr. Ferris, you know the diplomatic protocols! Get him out of here!" She glared at him. "If it's that critical you can wait for me in my office, I'll be there as soon as I can --"
"Captain, Frost's back!" Colin cried.
Lochley froze.
Vir and Ta'Lon exchanged swift looks.
And then Lochley grabbed up the gavel and pounded it furiously. "Meeting adjourned!" She pointed to the guards. "Let him go," she ordered. "Mr. Ferris, go to my preparation suite and wait there." She pointed to a small door just behind the central curved table. "I'll be in in two minutes."
Colin jerked his arms out of the guards' grasp, smoothed his uniform with chilly dignity, and strode to the door, vanishing through it without looking back. Lochley looked at Sherann. "If this is a practical joke, Sherann --"
"I do not joke where lives are at stake."
Lochley nodded curtly. Without another word she went herself to the private exit and left. Neither she nor Sherann noticed the second glance Ta'Lon and Vir exchanged, a glance that led them to the main exit door in the same swift stride.
****************
CAPTAIN'S BRIEFING OFFICE
COUNCIL CHAMBERSbr>09:49 03/21/2263
For the fiftieth time in the course of the last few weeks, Zack silently blessed Jaida, Selene and Lochley for the careful arrangement that made limited amounts of honest-to-God real coffee available to senior staff. The thermos he swigged from now was the only thing keeping him awake. He'd been up 'til three in the morning chasing down the latest in a string of credit frauds from BabCom, and the paperwork was not only irritating him but boring him senseless. The call to Lochley's office next to the Council Chambers had actually been a welcome relief.
His day brightened further when en route he ran into Tessa Halloran - also on her way, she explained, to the Captain's diplomatic briefing office. When she wasn't being coolly professional or coldly lethal, the Director of Covert Intelligence had a remarkably nice smile and a sly sense of humour that was absolutely deadly. Despite his exhaustion, Zack found himself enjoying the small talk immensely.
For the first time in ages, the memory of red hair, depthless brown eyes and a soft soprano voice wasn't obtrusive enough to disrupt his attention.
The pleasant morning lasted right up to the time they entered the Captain's office together and found the small room crowded with Lochley, Sherann, Hobbs and the Psi Cop, all looking grim. Zack did his best to look professional, but his heart sank and his stomach tightened. Nothing good ever portended when Ferris looked that grim.
He'd tried to get past his dislike for this man. He really had. When it came right down to it Ferris had been nothing but professional and pleasant. But every time Zack saw that badge he had to remember what Bester had done to Michael, to Lyta, to Talia Winters. To the rogues, to Byron. And the bitterness and anger of those memories was too strong to choke down. Perhaps Lochley was capable of rising above personal prejudice. Zack was really not sure he was.
Still, damned if he'd show that. The Psi Cop probably knew already, of course -- he could sweep Zack a dozen times in half a second and Zack wouldn't feel a thing, and they both knew that. But there was a principle involved. Zack wasn't sure what it was or how it applied, but he knew there was a principle to this thing somewhere.
"What's the problem?" Tessa asked.
"Mr. Ferris believes that Dr. Paul Frost has returned to the station." Lochley's voice was cool.
Zack scowled. "How do you know?"
Quickly, Colin summarized the story, Sherann interjecting at various points. When they finished the office was silent for a long minute. Finally Zack rubbed his temple. "Captain --" He pointedly didn't look at Colin. "The only evidence we've got that Frost's here at all is the Doc's fugue in Medlab, which could just as easily be due to exhaustion, and the telepathic traces of one deep scan by a Psi Cop whose testimony probably ain't the most objective. And for this you not only pull me off the Zocalo credit frauds but you want my men to sweep the station as well?"
Lochley glared sourly at him, but said nothing for a moment, which told Zack right off she agreed with him more than she was willing to admit. "I don't think you're giving Dr. Hobbs enough credit, Zack," she eventually said. "Have you ever known her to blank out before?"
Zack shrugged. "First time for everything."
Sherann and Colin exchanged a startled glance, then a snicker. Zack looked between them. "What's so funny? What'd I say?"
Colin gave him the lopsided smile. "You'd never understand."
"Captain," Tessa interjected, before Zack could snap back at Colin, "while I grant the evidence isn't particularly solid, can we afford to ignore even the possibility Dr. Frost's come back?" She tapped a few commands into her datapad. "I did a little digging after the last time this happened. Frost's not somebody we can take lightly."
Colin blinked. "What exactly have you found out?"
"Not as much as I'd like," Tessa admitted. "The problem with Psi Corps records isn't always inaccessibility, it's reliability. You're never sure how much of what you find is bureaucratic cover fiction." She finished accessing the relevant pages and laid the datapad on Lochley's desk. "But Dr. Frost had one convenient background link that gave our contacts a direct in."
Lochley picked it up and flipped through the pages. "Well, well, well. And he doesn't even look Japanese."
Hobbs frowned. "What are you talking about,