Babylon 5 - A Call To Arms (Scheckley Robert) Read online

  Chapter 10

  Although she'd heard of this place even before she had arrived on Babylon 5, Dureena still found Down Below astonishing, a cacophony of chaos-especially after the clean, modernistic look of the customs area. Going through there had been like moving through a dream of a better world, all of it bright and clean and shiny. But Down Below was a different sort of a vision-a glimpse of what a place comes to look like when no one pays any attention to it, and when it's occupied by a floating population that doesn't care how they live. She was in a crowded, industrial-looking area, something like a warehouse district in some ancient Earth city. A line of cars rattled by on overhead rails, throwing down showers of sparks. Machinery, disused and abandoned, lay piled against the walls or out in the rudimentary streets that wove, seemingly in haphazard, patternless lines, through the area. The air was warm, moist, hazy, with a tang of machine oil and chemicals. Steam oozed from fittings on pipes long past their time of inspection. There were people passing through this area, or just hanging out; people in ragged, shapeless clothing, warming their hands over heat barrels, killing time while time slowly killed them. Dureena noticed representatives of half the races of the galaxy, not all of them humanoid. Most of them were air-breathers, although a few wore respirating equipment to let them function here in this common area before returning to the more congenial atmospheric mixes of their own special sectors. But most of them seemed able to function in BS's oxygen atmosphere. Dureena glided through the populace, trying not to call attention to herself-though she was aware that her costume stood out too much in this place, and wished she'd brought along something more appropriate . Despite the amazing variety of beings found there- each wearing his or her own native garb-many of the denizens of Down Below seemed to possess some intuitive sense that told them when someone new had arrived . Since she was the only survivor of Zander Prime, she couldn't help but stand out in the crowd. To Dureena, it seemed as though all eyes had turned her way. Nonetheless, she was trying to act as if she had always lived here, a wised-up citizen of this place. And so she moved through the multicolored, fantastically arrayed crowd of the lost people of Down Below, looking for she knew not what, yet somehow aware that this was the end of the line, for the moment. Down Below! It was said that your nerves and your bad luck brought you here, far from whatever world you originated in. And here you ran out of your last vestiges of luck, or nerve, or both, and settled into the scruffy, comfortable life of scuffling along, taking it one day at a time, getting by, and not even noticing that the sands of your life were running out of the huge hourglass that marked each sentient creature's days and hours. There were rules of behavior, even in a place like this. Especially in a place like this. Dureena picked them up intuitively. The people of Down Below minded their own business. Many of them just liked to drift along in their own dreams, content to mind their own concerns, ignorant of the greater life that pulsed around them. But not everyone could afford to be so out of it. Nor did everyone want to. Many, rich and poor, had a living that had to be won each day. They all had to keep their eyes open for what came up, the unexpected opportunity or unprecedented disaster, and find a way to put it to good use. Any object, carelessly lost or discarded or stolen, might be sold, because there was a market here for just about everything. But if you couldn't find something to sell, there was always the possibility of latching onto some person new to Down Below and unfamiliar with its ways. Using who or what you found helped you get by another day, or maybe even another year, if you hit it lucky. Hycher Vlast was thinking such thoughts as he idled beside a heat barrel. He was a short, long-nosed, weasel-faced man with small darting eyes. A scar along his jawline bespoke an encounter with someone even less amiable than himself. Three healing scratches on his face gave evidence of his relationship to the opposite sex. Vlast was a scavenger who aspired to be something greater-a conspirator, perhaps. He had managed to get a good free meal the previous night-a consignment of old meats from the throwaways of the Eddisto, one of the newer restaurants. He had begged his dinner from Med, the busboy, whose vegetarian constitution had no use for it, and who owed Vlast a favor. Vlast didn't have much money on him. But he did have his eyes open. And when he saw the compact, golden-skinned woman, he sensed that he had come upon an opportunity. She was a newcomer. He could tell this by her strangely alien features, and the way she tried to blend in with the crowd. Her clothing alone would have given her away as a new arrival. She had on the sort of outfit a fighting man or woman would wear. Was she looking for bodyguard work? There was no fighting down here, unless you counted the occasional drunken scuffle and, of course, the assassin's dagger in the dark. But since she was raw, and ignorant of Down Below's ways, she had to be gullible, he reasoned. Here was a rich opportunity for Vlast. Nonchalantly, he began walking behind her, keeping a good distance to prevent being noticed. There was no need for following too closely, anyhow: she wasn't going anywhere. She could run, but she could not hide. There was no place she could get to here where Vlast could not find her. In his five years in Down Below, Vlast had learned every twist and turn of the place, every hidey-hole, every closet and cupboard. The woman had a casual air about her that Vlast figured must be feigned. She was looking for something, he was sure of that. And who better than he to help her find it? For a price, of course. Always for a price. She stopped, and he stopped, too. Something had attracted her attention. And now she was moving again, more surely now, into a tangle where five corridors met. Vlast hurried after her, moving as quickly as his stubby legs would take him, his ragged coat floating out behind him. Into the tangle of streets. Five directions to choose from. No sign of the woman in any of them. Damn it! What was the use of knowing all of Down Below if you didn't know what path your quarry had taken through it? He calmed himself. She'd had beginner's luck, eluding him that way. He'd find her. There was no place for her to go.

  Chapter 11

  When Dureena had entered Down Below, she'd had no idea where she was going. How could she? It was the first time she'd seen this place. The folks around here didn't furnish any street maps, and there certainly were no street signs. Nor was she about to ask directions from any of the people in the area, who, to say the least, looked very strange. Maybe she didn't know where she was going, but she knew what she was looking for. The organization to which she belonged was clandestine , secret, illegal, but very far-ranging. They had branches everywhere, on all planets where civilized beings assembled. She was sure she'd find some sign of them here. She moved at random through a howling metal wilderness of coiling and intersecting corridors running off at bewildering angles. Steam, leaking out of vents and loosened pipe fittings, furnished spooky effects, making the denizens of this place indistinct. They moved through the warm fog like ghosts of themselves. The people she passed seemed to come from all corners of the universe. Only a few of them were Humans, and they were not the best-looking examples of that species. Many of them looked like they had be en damaged in transit, or maybe they'd been malformed to begin with. And the aliens were no better. A great number were clad in cast-off bits of native costume- as was Dureena herself-but they carried it off less tastefully, she thought. She couldn't identify most of the races. There were a few good-looking red-skinned ones, tall and with delicate features. They could almost be Human. But if so, why were they invariably in consort with a short, scaly bald species with long antennae on their foreheads? Symbiotes? Or sheer chance? There were mysteries here that would take a lot of time to clear up. She went by several little food markets, the goods spread out on the sidewalk. Did people actually eat that stuff? A little farther on, she passed a fast-food stall selling a meat-filled bun that reminded her of klashpies, a delicacy of her native region-back when she'd had a native region. She was tempted to sample one, but decided to check it out later. There was no telling what they might put into those buns. And money was a problem, though, she hoped, not for long. The sector was crowded, especially where several corridors intersected, forming open spaces where people could hang out and talk. In one of the open areas she saw two dancers, of a species she couldn't immediately identify, dancing to the sounds of a drum and fife played by two vaguely Human-looking people. She stopped for a moment to watch, and felt someone come up behind her. "Hello, little lady," a voice said. She turned. It was a Dipsha, a species she'd rarely encountered. This one was leering at her. He was wearing a ridiculous purple velvet cap that she supposed was to make him attractive. "What do you want?" Dureena asked doubtfully. "Fun," the Dipsha said. "Frolicsome fun. You and me together. In a place I know. I pay good." "Get lost," Dureena said. The Dipsha looked like he wanted to take offense at the remark, but, noting Dureena's aggressive readiness, he controlled himself and moved away. He was the first of the people on the make, but not the last. Several other men, or at least males of whatever species they were from, indicated that they'd be happy to make her acquaintance. Some of them seemed ready to force their attentions on her, but something about her look-the taut, well-conditioned look of a person accustomed to fighting-put them off, and they spared her their importunities. Dureena had a look that said, I am not to be taken lightly. She continued walking, her gaze roving the surfaces of her new home, looking for a familiar sign. But when one came, she almost missed it. She saw just the barest indication of a swirl of paint, half-hidden behind a decaying poster. Pushing it aside, Dureena saw an odd-shaped glyph painted on the wall in red and violet. It was circular, its circumference made up of short, curving lines that did not join. There was a twist on one side of the glyph. It looked like an afterthought, but Dureena knew it indicated a direction. She went the way it pointed, down another corridor, and then she climbed up a series of stanchions set into the wall.

  Chapter 12

  Down Below was all eye
s. Someone was watching Dureena's moves. This time it wasn't Vlast; for the moment , he had been left behind, baffled. The person watching her was named Rolf. Rolf was a large, imposing man, wearing ragged clothes that might once upon a time have been rather fine. He was bald-headed, imperious in his movements , yet with a feline quality about him that let him dissolve into a crowd. He had a gift for being unobtrusive , almost invisible. If Dureena had noticed him, which she did not, she would have envied his ability to appear not to be there. If there was one thing she was having trouble with on Babylon 5, it was blending in with the crowd. She was highly skilled at what she did, but her distinctly alien features and her clothing, which was splendid and barbaric , called far too much attention to her. Rolf was observing all this, and he noted that the lady's feisty quality was not a good trait in this place. Many fierce people had come to Down Below, and sooner or later they had all learned that there was al- ways someone fiercer, stronger, more feral. It was a valuable lesson, if one could learn it and remain alive. Dureena turned a comer and found another marker on a wall, the same design as before, only this time the pointer indicated a direction straight up. The only obvious way was through an open grate, too high to jump for. She found a couple of pipes set into the wall, climbed, then pulled herself into the grate. She was in an air duct, a square pipe that sloped upward at a steep angle. Setting her feet, she made her way through it, finding handholds, slithering snakelike , around one bend and then another, until at last she came to an egress that dropped her in a wholly unfamiliar area. Cautiously, she poked her head out. She was still in Down Below-that much was clear-in a place filled with battered garbage cans and discarded boxes. There seemed to be no one around. She pulled herself out. Then she looked around again-and froze. Someone was pressing a gun to the back of her head. Whoever could get behind her that way was good- very good. She was about to congratulate him on his stealth. But the man spoke first. "Good night," Rolf said. And he coldcocked her with the gun butt. Coming out of unconsciousness was not what Dureena had expected. She was in a place that wasn't at all like Babylon 5, didn't seem to be in or on Babylon 5. She was lying on frozen ground, in a cold place plagued by high winds and swirling dust. But how could that be? Down Below had been steamy, sweaty, pungent with the odorous effluvia of its many inhabitants. Where was she? Dureena opened her eyes, blinked, and scrambled to her feet. She was on a gigantic tumbled landscape of bare, twisted rock and shining black solidified lava. She was near a cliff wall that rose high and sheer above her. Standing back, she could see broken walls and tumbled buildings where a city had once stood. Clouds roiled in the nighttime sky, and flashes of forked lightning lit up the scene in sepulchral flashes. It was a place she thought she remembered. "Oh, no!" Dureena gasped. "I can't be back ... I can't.. ." "Can't you?" a voice asked. She turned. A tall man in a uniform was smiling at her. Sheridan! She had memorized his face; she would know him anywhere! The detested Earther, author of all her woes! Her reaction was immediate, lethal. She launched herself at him, prepared to maim, kill, destroy this hated enemy whom she had never met, but knew very well. Her charge carried her right through him, and his image rippled as she came out the other side and rolled in the dirt. It had been nothing but an image, with nothing substantial about it. She turned to face it again, but now the image had changed. Instead of Sheridan, it was a Drakh, its hideous face grinning at her in a sneer of triumph. She tensed herself to charge again. But the Drakh was holding something in his hand, stretching it out toward her. In his open hand was a tiny Milky Way galaxy. As she watched, his fingers closed around it. The light from the galaxy briefly bled through his fingers, and then went dark. And then the image of the Drakh was gone. And a voice was speaking to her. "This is not your world, Dureena Nafeel. But it shared a common fate." She turned, and found a cloaked young man standing behind her. "I am called Galen," the man said. He held up his hand as she tensed, prepared to attack again. "When the time comes to choose your target, be sure to pick the right one. Because you will get only one shot." She stared at him, trying to make sense of his words, trying to grasp the situation. Then the land shook beneath her and she was knocked to the ground. When she opened her eyes again, she was back on Babylon 5, in Down Below. Her hands were manacled. And there was a circle of faces around her.

  Chapter 13

  Dureena took a moment to gather her wits about her, then slowly got to her feet. The circle moved back slightly to give her room. They looked like a hard-bitten bunch, clad in a great variety of gaudy and ragged clothes. Those present all seemed to be Humans, or of Human stock. A little back from them, and seated on a raised platform , was an older man, in his mid-forties or fifties, with a tough, wised-up face. It didn't take a lot of insight to realize that this was the leader of whatever she had gotten herself into. And it took no smarts at all to see that her wrists were cuffed in bright steel. The man on the platform said, "I'm Bishop. I'm in charge of this chapter of the Thieves' Guild. You were having a bad dream. And you have awakened to another . What's your name?" "Dureena. Dureena Nafeel." "Do you have the mark?" Dureena nodded. "Show us." Dureena raised her manacled hands. One sleeve fell back to reveal the glyph tattooed on her arm. When one of the women beside him whispered an affirmation to him, Dureena realized that Bishop was blind. An appropriate choice for justice among thieves. "Who trained you?" Bishop asked. "Who brought you into the Thieves' Guild and taught you our ways?" "Mafeek, of Tripani 7," Dureena replied. "Mafeek is known to me. Who was his teacher?" "Gant the Elder." "And how long have you been a thief?" "Long enough to be good at what I do." Rolf, standing in the circle, smiled unpleasantly at her cockiness. "But not good enough to avoid being seen, captured, and restrained." Dureena stared him down. "I hardly made a secret of my desire to find you. I wanted to check in as soon as possible, and the best way to do that was to draw your attention. I was captured because I chose to be. But there was no reason to treat me this way. Had I known the level of your hospitality, you would have been the one on the floor, not me." Rolf said, "You talk pretty good for someone who's chained up." Dureena looked at him, wide-eyed and mocking. "What chains?" As the result of a movement too quick to follow, the chains fell to the floor. Dureena was in full stride before they had landed. Knocking two thieves aside, she grabbed Rolf and, with a single powerful move, threw him halfway across the room. Rolf scrambled to his feet, his face dark with fury. He was about to come at her when Bishop raised his left hand, freezing everybody in place. He said to Dureena, "You've made your point. I welcome you, as one Guilder to another." Dureena relaxed slightly. The all-important first step had been accomplished. "While you're here," Bishop went on, "you'll follow the rules: Do not interfere with the activities of any other member of the Thieves' Guild, and do not betray our presence to the authorities. "We support rigged games, pickpocketing, theft, con jobs, black marketeering, and barter, but nothing violent , nothing that would cause the authorities to notice us. We get ten percent of your earnings in exchange for a place to stay and our support. If you are captured by the authorities, you are alone; we cannot help you. Any questions?" "No," Dureena said. "Then you can go. I'll have one of the others show you the way." As Dureena turned to go, Bishop said, "One last thing. You're a long way from home, Dureena Nafeel, wherever that is. I don't think I've ever seen someone quite like you before. What are you doing here?" Dureena looked at him and shrugged. "I don't know," she said, then turned and left the room without waiting for an escort.