From fletcher@netcom.comFri Jun 30 17:51:44 1995 Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 23:19:57 -0700 (PDT) From: "F. Sullivan Segal" Reply to: b5-creative@shell1.best.com To: b5-creative@best.com Cc: RidireRua@aol.com Subject: Thirteen The following short story is based on some speculation I have had about the future of the series. No doubt the next set of shows will utterly deny the possibility that any of this is true. Never the less, it was fun to sit down and create a new story with the existing characters. Constructive criticism cheerfully accepted. -ss ------------------------------------------------------------------ T H I R T E E N Of course the pay is going to make it all worthwhile. Just a year on that monolith, and there will be enough money for any college in the country. Not that you would settle for just any college. Your eyes are fixed on the external ship's monitor. Space, deadly and black, with only one object just ahead, illuminated in the harsh light of this system's sun. End to end it is over two kilometers long, rising slowly into the otherwise dark frame. Your ship completes its attitude adjustment with a queasy shudder that is even worse than the stomach wrenching weightlessness you've had to endure since embarking on this horrible voyage. It fills the vid, and from the distortion at the edges you figure that the cameras are probably zoomed out all the way. Slowly at first, then growing with startling rapidity, the applause breaks out all around you. Someone near you is sweating fear, but almost everyone is ecstatic. A few people cheer, and you release some exultation pheromone to show that you agree, that you also are excited, happy, expectant, triumphant. A small hairless paleoid with faceted eyes backs into you as the crowd unexpectedly moves away from the monitors. Someone in control must have altered the camera settings, and the sudden shift in perspective is disconcerting. Two breaths later the monolith has swallowed you whole, crew, ship and all as you dive into its darkly yawning maw. - - - "Ah, Lieutenant Commander. I was wondering where I might find you..." The humidity in the gardens was always set to about seventy percent, temperature about 34. Still it always seemed to Susan Ivanova as though it were slightly chilly in the lighter gravity, and thinner atmosphere. But with the sun lamps in rows overhead, this was the only place to get a decent tan. Susan glanced up from the book she was reading and paused for a moment before replying, "...Bester is it?" "Please call me... but then you don't really like me, do you Commander? What is it you are reading, Arthur Clarke?", he stopped on an expectant tone. "I don't know you well enough to like you. Is there something you want?" Susan let a somewhat ragged but authentic original of Rendezvous with Rama drop closed on the grass. "Come now, Commander. I am in no hurry. And we both know that I have known you for all of your life..." "I don't consider arriving once a month to destroy my mother's life to be any sort of a social relationship Mr. Bester. Now I am afraid I would prefer to be going." "But my dear Commander, I am afraid you can't leave yet..." - - - Incessant noise. Who would have thought that you would build a hole in space, populate it with a million thinking creatures, and forget to put in any sound dampening? The line moves forward one step, only two more travelers to go before your turn. Amazing how the place stinks. You wonder if you will be able to endure a year. The paleoid glances over its shoulder at you nervously. Its sour-acid scent tells you that it is worried. You bare your teeth in an attempt to look friendly, and release enormous amounts of reassurance pheromones. You tried purring earlier to let the thing know that you weren't hurt when it backed into you, but it fell down and lay on its back, feet in the air, and wouldn't respond at all until you went to find the medic. When you returned it had disappeared. Your reassurances seem not to help however, and the paleoid scuttles away leaving its place in line. What an amazing and bizarre set of creatures inhabit this place. "I.D., entry visa, certificate of credit." Your diverted attention returns from the departing paleoid to the matter under claw. The blue and red creature in front of you seems to want something, although its scent seems to indicate that it is extremely bored. You decide to agree, and emit your own boredom scent. "I.D., entry visa, certificate of credit. Don't you have some kind of translator or something?" It seems slightly annoyed, and you wonder if you've done something wrong. Meanwhile you are trying to keep your body from projecting hunt. You try to ignore the blue and red, and keep your attention on the top of the creature which is nothing like a Kiri. "Mac, see if you can figure out what this one is... Uh, it looks like room 3 is open. Got it?" "Room 3, no problem." Another blue and red steps up to you and tugs on your forearm. Fighting a rise of aggression, you begin to follow. How do they tell each other apart, if they all look the same? The blue and red turns its back on you, and that is when it happens. Without a thought, before you can even stop yourself, your arm whips outward, claws extending in mid flight to lengthen your reach another six inches. In a last moment appeal to your muscles you just manage to divert your arm upward. At least you missed all of its vital regions. Just that funny protuberance at the top that doesn't remind you of a Kiri at all. "... Mac! Oh god. Mac..." The smell of hot blood washes over you making your muscles quiver even as you clamp down on emotion, hunger, death. The adrenaline in you blood makes it difficult to see or think; at least you managed to avoid the vitals. The next thing you smell is burning flesh, followed almost immediately by intense pain and nausea. Pain sparks through your consciousness twice more and you remember nothing more. "...don't die Mac. Medic! Somebody get a Medic. Oh damn, Mac." - - - Ivanova stood in the hallway passively. "I'm rotating around in a damned tin can. The tin can is rotating around this planet. The planet rotates around a star which in turn rotates around the center of the galaxy which no doubt is rotating around the geographical center of this galactic cluster, which certainly must be rotating around its super cluster... it's enough to make a girl dizzy." The news had hit like a rock; only the Coriolis effect meant that not only was she smashed to a pulp, but the rock was spinning as well, grinding her down like a mill wheel. "I have to stop thinking like this. Snap out of it Ivanova." She hadn't felt this ill since Ganya died. The hallway was just too much to take. How often had Susan huddled in the corner at the end of the hall. In range of sound, but just out of sight of Mother and Father. But she could always see him. "Damn you, Bester. Damn all your kind." What could she do? Take the drug? That way lay rape and death. "You can't control Psi powers darling," her mother would say. "You can only make someone so confused that they can't concentrate on Psi or anything else." She used to beg her mother not to take the drugs. In her lucid moments her mother would agree, but every month the Corps came back. And every month mother let them in. She couldn't bear the thought of joining the Corps. "I can't go anywhere. They would find me anywhere, and it would just be worse." Actually mother did run away once. Even Susan didn't know where she had gone. But it wasn't even six months between the time she was returned by Bester and two others and when that she took her own life. "What can I do Mother? Can't this just be a dream?" A sob of despair echoed down the hallway, touching the steel alloy walls with a ring, caressing the thin and tightly woven carpeting, rising through the wire mesh ceiling to travel down a minor ventilation shaft. Ivanova stood passively, though if you were to look closely you might notice a tremor, a tiny trembling motion, slightly tensed muscles as if she might be in deep concentration. - - - [Did no one tell you that you must wear your visor at all times!] Kithpoor stands before you, and you lower your eyes in obeisance. His mane, bright and golden, hangs very nearly to his waist, the very image of the alpha-male. And he is radiating an agitation so intense it is difficult for you to keep from prostrating. Golden eyes stare intensely into yours and you know that you cannot meet them, even for a moment. [But 'First Right to Eat', I was not in the station yet, and I did manage to avoid striking at the vitals...] [Fool! The human is dead!] Kithpoor crushes the visor into several fragments in his fury. "Is all of this leading to anything?" Garibaldi was unimpressed with the few minor noises motions, and the destruction of one pair of sunglasses that had emanated from the giant creature in the last five minutes. "...thiss crreature iss too sstupid forr worrdss...", Kithpoor rumbled in his species thick accent. You try to emit only your most subservient pheromones, but the pain in your body, and the smell of burning flesh and fur make it difficult to tell whether or not you succeeded. You wonder what they will do with you now that the alien is dead. No doubt the widow and children would have to be taken care of, and that might as well dismiss your plans for college. If only your head would stop hurting so that you could think straight. "Well does he admit to murder or not? I don't have all day and I have a dozen witnesses..." Garibaldi growled back. The room was too bright, his back end too sore, and he'd just had to bury a friend. The room door's relocking servos ticked a slow count to ten, one for each second before the answer came. "...it iss ssorry..." "You bet your sweet... It, is going to be sorrier still in a couple of hours. Look what do you mean you're sorry. I could give a damn how sorry you are. That man is dead, and your fellow there has to answer for it." "...iss not a fellow... ...iss a female..." Futility an frustration warred with one another for a position on Garibaldi's face as he looked from one creature to the other and shook his head slowly. Through the bulkhead he could hear the shouts of angry security people outside, and hoped that he wouldn't turn around to find that the people he had stationed outside to protect this mountain of fur had joined the side of the people shouting. - - - "Shhh. Don't say a word, just rest." For a moment Susan thought it was her mother standing next to her, caressing her mind just as she had done when she was a child. "Get out of my mind! You can't go there. No one can go there..." Talia stepped back quickly, "I was just trying to help Susan. You were broadcasting all over the station." Susan stopped slack jawed. "It's true then isn't it? I thought, I had hoped for a moment that it was a dream." "Latent telepathy?", Talia asked quietly. Susan just nodded. First once, then a second time, then the whole story of her life came forth in a flood for Talia to hear. Talia came closer and held Susan's hand, flesh touching flesh, and lent her every bit of support she had to offer. And she listened. Everyone is afraid of something. "My mother's telepathy started when she turned thirty..." - - - "They want to lynch her, or space her, and I can't say I half blame them. John, you should have seen what that thing did to Mac, damn near decapitated him. It makes my stomach turn." Garibaldi was sitting in the situation room, which the Commander had redesignated as his private briefing and staging area. "So you are telling me that these uniforms have the basic colors and markings of some alien that has been a blood enemy of this species for as long as anyone can remember? That's idiocy. Can't these people get into the same room with one another?" Sheridan shook his head in disbelief. "They aren't people, and they don't react the way you and I do. This stuff is hardwired into their brains, and don't ask me to explain it. Their ambassador tells me that their species has particularly strong reactions to sight, sound, and especially smell. I guess this color pattern just makes them crazy." "Hell Michael, can't we change our damned uniforms? Why are we letting people on board who can't control themselves when they see a uniform?" Sheridan emphasized his points one at a time by poking a strong index finger of his left hand into the palm of his right. "The Ambassador assures us that all members of his species are warned in advance that they must wear color filtering sunglasses before they enter the station. This one just messed up. That's all, and the rest is just water under the bridge. We can't change it now even if we want to." "Will they plead guilty to wrongful death? I can't see just letting this drop." "Ambassador K. is claiming diplomatic immunity, and is asking for immediate release into his custody." "We have the right to expel her from the station." "Commander, Mac had 20 years on the force. He would have retired in just three days, and everybody looked up to him. His name was MacGowan, but he'd answer faster to Pops. This won't just go away. People are angry, and they need something to let their anger out, otherwise this is just going to ferment." Garibaldi sat back to collect his thoughts. "John, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just telling you like it is, and something has to be done. Maybe we send the entire security force back to earth and get replacements. I don't know what. But you have to do something, and do it fast." Sheridan sat still for half a minute, contemplating. Only one choice possible really. Damn. "Cut her loose Garibaldi. Two armed guards will escort her to her quarters, people you can trust. I'll contact their delegate, and if we can't come to any other agreement, we'll expel them from the station. Those are your orders, any questions?" "No Sir." Michael turned to leave. "And Michael?" "Sir?" "Plain clothes, okay?" - - - The couch was large and comfortable, of a plush black leather. An end table sat next to the couch with intricately carved legs, each covered at the knee with a Victorian modesty. The surface of the table was a wood inlaid picture of a small german village as it might have looked in the seventeenth century, open timber houses, cobbled streets. The lamp on the table was strictly functional, government issue, with one on button, color black, and one off button, color red. Bester sat down heavily. This plan wasn't developing as he had hoped. Surely Ivanova would know how telepaths were being smuggled off of Babylon 5. If ever there were the makings of a psi-scab sympathizer surely it was her. He had a trace on her. The Psi Corps P-3 Locator was sitting across the room from him, concentrating heavily, head cradled between his hands. Locators might be stone deaf as telepaths, but they could work with anything a subject had ever handled in order to find them, and the paperback book he had brought back from the garden should be good enough to follow the Lt. Commander anywhere in the solar system. But the Commander wasn't moving. Just sitting in Talia Winters' room, and not moving a damned muscle. The viewscreen set midway up on the wall nearest the door came to life abruptly with a chirp. "Reginald Bester, is this Reginald Bester?" "What's going on." Bester was surprised. He hadn't disembarked under his own name. "Sir, I know this is highly irregular, but we have a gold channel communication for you. Gold channel is only supposed to be used for diplomatic emergencies, but. Well, I can't explain it but the person calling for you was very persuasive. He wouldn't give his name, just said it was Bureau 13 calling, he said you would recognize it. Will you take the call, Sir?" "You'd better put him through." The image on the screen was replaced with a face Bester had seen only a dozen or so times before. Grumman Porzhikhov, the sole P-13 to ever have been born of the fledgling human species, was an intimidating man. Surely it was Bester's imagination that was telling him he could sense the man's agitation fifty seven light years from earth. "I don't know what you're up to Bester, but I'm reigning you in. Do you understand me, Mister. Don't you ever mess with one of my agents..." "One of your agents, Sir. I don't understand." Bester pasted his best puzzled look on his face, and left it there. "Don't give me that crock, Mister. I'll come out there and wring your neck myself if I have to." Bester paled visibly, but managed to keep steady. "Perhaps if you could explain, Sir." "My daughter you ninny. The one you helped me condition from childhood..." "But, I've never met Talia Winters before and I didn't know..." "Who is Talia. We're talking about my daughter. Lieutenant Commander Ivanova. Earth Force Directorate. Permanently assigned to Babylon-5." - - - Susan Ivanova raised herself up on her elbows. The room was dimly lit and warm. Talia looked over to where she stirred, and a moment later walked up to her, offering a large mug of hot chocolate. "So, this is how the other half lives." Wisps of cocoa crept from the cup, and Susan flared her nostrils. "Thanks, I'd love some." "My room? What do they make you all bunk together?" "Well, there was once..." Susan began. "Actually no. We get our own quarters, but ten years in the military gives you certain... habits. Everything neat and orderly. I can't even break the habit of hanging all my clothes facing the same direction... I don't think I'd be able to consider leaving a jacket hanging over the back of my couch." Talia turned to look, then blushed. "Well normally..." "I didn't mean to seem disapproving." "No, of course not. Well." "Really. No, listen, I've been thinking a lot about life since my father died." Susan bit back her words for a moment to quell the emotions they were bringing forth, and sipped at the cocoa. "When my father died, it struck me more completely than it ever had before, more than mother, more even than my brother Ganya, that I've spent too much time avoiding life, not enough time living it." Talia waited patiently, expecting more. "But now that's all over. If Bester wasn't sure before he certainly is now. All these years I've worried. But Talia, you heard me from across the station, so it must be true." her sentence faded in a desperate gasp. Talia sat for a moment longer. "Well, I don't know if this will help or not, but I wouldn't worry about Bester hearing you. P-12's keep up a shield a mile thick. They wouldn't be able to concentrate if they didn't." "I love you Talia. This is wonderful." Susan sat bolt upright, and suddenly realized she was no longer wearing her familiar uniform. Looking down she saw long luxurious folds of night black oversize silk shirt slithering gracefully over equally black baggy silk pajamas. She looked up at Talia and raised an eyebrow. "You looked so uncomfortable." Talia gestured futilely back toward the blue and maroon jacket draped over the sofa. "Oh bother. Have you ever stood between two mirrors?" - - - Amazing how calm the world seems when all you can see are greens and yellows. You observe your arms and admire the beautiful golden sheen of your fur. Perhaps you should lead the clan one day. After the change of course. What a pleasant walk. What a pleasant day. Two human guards are leading you down the hallway. They certainly don't look as dangerous in yellow and green. You are still a little sore in the shoulder, side, and back where you were damaged by the pulsed plasma nodes, but everything seems to be pretty much back to working condition. Perhaps you will finally be able to start your job.... It would certainly be nice to think that you were moving toward the eventual time when you will be able to leave. From not very far ahead there seems to be a commotion. The scent of anger drifts down the hall to meet you. "Hey hey lads, that looks like the monster what killed Pops." Swaying in the hallway you see several more humans have just turned to face your direction. "Back off Lem. This one has diplomatic immunity." "You gonna take up the cause of this murderer over Mac!" Lem fell back in disbelief, or possibly due to dizziness, it was difficult to tell which. Then moments later he spun around, no longer swaying, rock solid. "Let me have him Jimmy. This ain't no matter for you." "Lem, you can't do this. You know we're sworn to uphold the law." "I have the drop on you Jimmy, and you wouldn't want me to have to use this." He waved the antique .44 magnum in their general direction. "Besides, if you look behind you, you'll see I have friends." As the two guards glanced quickly over their shoulders to assess the situation Lem and one of his cohorts stepped forward quickly to slap a crowd control patch on the plain clothed officers shoulders. Jimmy slumped to the ground, a happy smile on his face. "Oldest trick in the whole damned book. Too bad you weren't wearing your uniform." Lem slipped the .44 inside his waist band, and quickly scooped up the two officers' PPGs. "You two. Drag them into the shed around the corner and tie 'em up tight. Make sure they don't get loose while we figure out what we do with this nice, peaceful, quiet, mountain of man-killing alien." You observe these creatures with a curious interest. For just a moment it seemed as though the two humans on either side of you might be afraid. But they quickly became happy again, shortly after the other two humans stepped forward. What an unusual species. The new human points at you, and then points down the hallway. Do they think you are an idiot. Kithpoor very clearly ordered you to follow the humans without making any trouble. You consider purring for a moment, but decide against it. The human tugs on your arm, and you follow it down the hallway. - - - "God, I'm starving." Talia slipped out of bed pulling half of the bed clothes after her. "I can't believe it. I guess I would describe myself as something more like exhausted. You are truly... unique, Talia." Somewhere behind her footsteps could be heard making their way across the room. "You looked like you needed to be a little more relaxed. I have ice. And orange juice. Real orange juice." "This isn't the sort of thing I normally do Talia." Susan stepped to the bar to accept a tall glass. Susan's bare feet stood on marble tile, a cold white full length blouse not tucked in under cotton slacks, but falling instead to mid thigh length. Her hair was somewhat disheveled. She held the glass in both hands and drank deeply. "Don't be so serious," Talia turned toward her with a half smile. "Commander." "Don't leer at me. I'm serious." "Okay serious. I have an idea." Talia's smile broke into a full grin. "Really. Look Bester doesn't know for certain that you have it right? So all you have to do is fail the test." "Fail the test..." Susan moaned. "I think I'd rather take my chances and try to run away. At least that way I might be able to keep both my life and my sense of self. The Corps tests are foolproof." "No more so than your average polygraph. Its really up to the evaluating officer to make the judgment." Talia confessed. "Look, I really shouldn't be telling you this, but its all a matter subliminal response. Two hours on a bio-feedback machine and you can learn to give the wrong response. We used to play at it all the time." Susan looked doubtful. "The med-lab ought to be able to provide a bio-feedback unit, and I might be able to scrape up the test equipment. Give it a try, okay?" Talia's smile took on an edge of concern, but with a few moments consideration Susan agreed. - - - "...a pirate's life is the life for me. Twiddle hey. My enemies shall drink the sea, twiddle oh.... Ah here we are." Lem stopped still near a large section of floor painted in yellow and black stripes in an interlocking design. "Mind if I call you Goliath? Now Goliath, what we do here is we're about to create a small but largely irrelevant accident. Fatal I'm afraid, but only for you." Lem pressed a series of buttons on a wall panel, and a siren sounded momentarily, to be silenced a moment later. Then with a deft twist of one and a momentary whooshing noise the multi-person escape module trapped in the space below the deck was released, sufficient velocity imparted by the spin of the station to send the module off into an orbit of all its own. "Tch. tch. Now Goliath, that was your first mistake. You are supposed to get into the module before launching it, not after. Let's seal her up." The deck plating seems thin here, humming slightly with the sound of working heavy machinery. You wonder why the human has taken you here: you had all these emergency training classes back on your own world. It smells awfully excited. Perhaps something has happened. This far out from the station center, apparent gravity is almost half again as much as you are used to, and you are tiring quickly. Without warning the yellow painted stripes in front of you pull apart, and you have to jump back quickly to avoid falling in the quickly widening pit. Perhaps that is what the human was jabbering about. It points to you, and then to the pit, and then waves the piece of metal it is holding toward you. Your sense of smell tells you that there is something wrong, but the colors are all wrong. Carefully you lean over the edge to get a look at the bay below. Clearly it is an escape pod bay, but the pod is obviously missing. You wave a claw in the direction of the bay, to point out the obvious. "Git down there you mutinous cretin, afore I blow your brains out." The human is pushing and gesticulating. Clearly it wants you to descend. You climb down into the bay, looking at the control panels. Everything seems to be in order, except of course that the pod is missing. The human moves out of sight, and you start climbing back out. "Whoa! No. Back down there. Move. Scoot." Your body is pulling you downward, the air is too rich. In all you feel a little light headed. The human pushes you down into the pod bay, and you lose your footing, falling to the outer doors. With a groan you pick yourself up. You have a bad feeling about this and rapidly ascend the wall rungs back to the top of the bay. The doors are a third closed when you get to the top, and thinking quickly you extend a paw to break the door closure beam. The doors reopen above you. "What in the seven hells. Down. I mean it." The .44 is in one hand. In the other is a remote. You extend a claw in the direction of the outer doors, clearly indicating the missing escape pod. The human has obviously gotten the wrong location. This pod is all ready gone. The human steps on your shoulder pressing his weight down hard. You again slip down a few rungs unable to bear the extra load. A moment later the doors are again closing. You start to climb again when a flame leaps from the metal object, accompanied by an incredibly loud report. Adrenaline rushes through your body as the skin of the bay door below you ruptures. In a single bound you leap through the closing doors overhead and manage to bury four claws in the decking. The optical interlock is broken, and the door closure sequence is stopped. The large doors move back into their open position. Loose papers hurl past you in the shrieking wind forming a small cloud outside and within the bay as rapid decompression causes water vapor to crystallize. You look around to see if you can get better purchase and realize that the human has been knocked flat. His body is on the ground and being blown rapidly toward the airlock. Several other humans must have been hiding behind the accumulated debris in this section of the station, and are having trouble finding anything to grasp that isn't moving. Your visor is gone, and the world doesn't seem quite as golden. You try to get another set of claws onto the deck so that you can climb out, but three tries leave you exhausted, and no closer to rescue. The human you came here with is on the verge being blown through the door, and blown into space. You resist a moment, but realize that there is only one real choice. Everyone can die, or it can just be you. Descent is simple. You make certain that your right arm is hooked tightly about the top rung, then release the claws of your left. Pain shoots through your right arm as it tethers you into the bay, and you wonder passingly if it is broken or merely dislocated. Punch in the three code sequence, and the doors are closing above you. Seven seconds. Six... It seems so cold. - - - "I don't get it." Commander Ivanova was sitting on her own sofa in her own apartment, legs crossed, reading for the fifth time the short note which had been delivered an hour earlier. "Unexpected business has suddenly come up, and I am sorry to say that I won't be able to test you this time out. Please accept my apologies, and report for your next routine checkup July 1 2177. Be seeing you in ten years. Bester." "I don't get it." - - - Sheridan mounted the stage with a determined step, trying to look his most ambassadorial, what ever the hell that was. "Ahem. I am here today as the official representative of Earth to posthumously recognize the valorous conduct of Melkith e` Lyeth e` Tanith, who sacrificed her own life for the life of many others." "Few indeed are those whose vision of duty exceeds even their own will to..." Breep. "What is it! I'm kind of busy here." "Sorry Commander, it's Garibaldi, two vorlon ships just warped in from hyperspace..." ------------------------------------------------------------------ F. Sullivan Segal, Copyright 1995, All Rights Reserved. This work may be distributed free of charge for non-commercial purposes. In the unlikely event that this speculative story is ever read by J. M. Straczynski, the author hereby grants irrevocable rights to Mr. Straczynski to make whatever use of the material he deems fitting, free of any license, use, distribution, duplication, or any other fees whatsoever. -- -F. Sullivan Segal _______________________________________________________________ _ /V\ E-Credibility: (n -- ME) The unguaranteed likelyhood that ' the electronic mail you are reading is genuine rather than someone's made up crap. _______________________________________________________________ GCS d-- p--(---) @c++ u e-(*) m+(-) s/+ @n++ h--- f+ g+(--) w+(+++) t++(-)@ b5++ yij++ r(dm)+ y+(*) Mail to: fletcher@netcom.com