Alfredo Garibaldi looked up sharply from the desk covered with notes and emergencies which wanted immediate attention. "Alliance?" he asked in dismay.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlRQQBTNCj6
"A P.O.W.," the security head told him, standing uncomfortably before the desk. "Part of the Olympia's evacuation. Turned over to our security separate of the others. A pickup from a capsule, minor ship, armscomper, confined at Olympia's. Australia carried I'm in----no turning him loose among the refugees. They'd kill him. Ivanova added a not to his file: He's your problem now. Her words sir."
Alfredo opened the file, stared at a young face, a record of several pages of interrogation, Alliance ID, and a scrap of notepaper with Winters's signature and scrawl: Young and scared.
John J. Sheridan. Armscomper. Alliance fleet minor probe.
He had five hundred individuals and groups who'd thought they were headed back to their original housing; warnings of further evacuations in the secret instructions Winters had left, which was going to take at least most of orange and yellow sections, dislocating more offices; and six Terradyne agents who thought they were headed beyond to inspect the war, with no merchant king who would agree to take Terradyne scrip to take them aboard. He didn't need problems from lower levels.
The boy's face haunted him. He turned back to that page, leafed again through the interrogation report, scanned it, remembered the security chief still standing there. "So what are you doing with him?"
"Holding him in detention. None of the other offices agree on what to do with him."
Babylon 5 had never had a P.O.W. The war had never come here. Alfredo thought it over and fretted the more for the situation. "What does Legal Affairs suggest?"
"That I get a decision here."
"We're ill-equipped for that kind of detention."
"No, sir," the security chief agreed. It was hospital facility down there. The setup was for retraining. Adjustment----what rare times it'd ever been needed.
"We can't treat him."
"Those cells aren't set up for long stays, sir. Maybe we could rig up something more comfortable."
"We've got people without lodgings as it is. How are we going to explain that?"
"We could set up something in detention itself. Take a panel out; at least get a bigger room."
"Postpone that." Alfredo ran a hand through his sparse hair. "I'll consider policy on the case as soon as I get the emergency matters settled. Deal with him as best you can with what you've got at hand. Ask the lower offices to apply some imagination to the case and send me the recommendations."
"Yes, sir." The security chief left. Alfredo put the folder away for later use. A prisoner of that kind was not what they needed at the moment. What they did need was a means to secure housing and feed extra mouths and to cope with what was coming. They had trade goods which were suddenly going nowhere; those could be consumed on Babylon 5 and on Babylon 4 at the base, and out in the mines. But they needed others. They had economics to worry about, markets which had collapsed, the value of any currency in doubt as far as merchant kings were concerned. From a star-spanning economy, Babylon 5 had to be tuned to feed itself, to self-sufficiency; and maybe----to face other changes.
It wasn't the single Alliance prisoner they had in hand, identified, who had him worried. It was the likely number of Alliancers and sympathizers who would grow in quarantine, folk for whom any change was going to look better than what they had. There were only some of the refugees with papers, and many of those had been discovered not to match the prints and photos attached to them.
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"We need some kind of liaison with the quarantine zone residents," he advised a council at that afternoon's meeting. "We'll have to set up a government on the other side of the line, someone of their choosing, some manner of elections; and we'll have to deal with what results."
They accepted that, as they had accepted everything else. It was the worries of their own constituencies that had them distraught, the councilors from dislodged orange and yellow from green and white which had gotten most of the influx of station residents. Red sector, untouched, abutting yellow from the other side, was anxious; the others were jealous. There was a deluge of complaints and protests and rumors of rumor. He made note of them. There was debate. It finally came to the necessary conclusion that they had to relieve pressure on the station itself.
"We do not authorized further construction here," the man Bass interposed, rising from his seat. Alfredo just stared at him, given heart to do so by Talia Winters, who had called a bluff on Terradyne and made it good.
"I do," Alfredo said. "I've got the resources to do it, and I will."
There was a vote. It went the only sane way, with the Terradyne observers sitting in silent anger, vetoing what was passed, which veto was simply ignored while plans proceeded.
The Terradyne men left the meeting early. Security reported them later agitating on the docks, and trying to engage a freighter at inflated rates, with gold.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq7oBPMXHzb
There was not a freighter moving, for anything except in system hauling, ordinary runs to the mines. It didn't surprise Alfredo when he heard that. There was a cold wind blowing, and Babylon 5 felt it; everyone with instincts bred of the Further felt it.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq4mxLHacm9
Eventually perhaps the Terradyne men did, at least two of them, for those two engage a ship home, to Earth, the same which had brought them, a smallish and decrepit jump-freighter, the only merchant king with a Terradyne designation which had docked at Babylon 5 in the better part of a decade, laden with Babylon 4 curios and delicacies for its return, as it had brought in goods from Earth, which sold high, for their curiosity. The four other Terradyne representatives upped their offers, and boarded a freighter for an unguaranteed run on the freighter's own schedule to call at Ares 2 and wherever else the unsure times left safe. They accepted Winters's conditions from a merchant king captain, and paid for the privilege.808Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbHNBROkd0Y
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