Zack Allen settled into the council seat his son Carmine had sat proxy for during the last three years, and sat scowling. Already he'd been up against one in-family crisis: he had lost three rooms of his five-room lodging, literally sliced off by moving a partition, to accommodate two Borchardt cousins and their partners in alterday rotation, one of them with children who banged the wall and cried. His furnishings had been piled by workmen into what remained of his privacy.....lately occupied by his son Victor and his current affection. That had been a homecoming. He and Victor had reached a quick understanding: the woman walked out and Carmine stayed, finding the possession of an apartment and an expense account more important, and far better than transfer to Babylon 4 base, which was actively seeking young volunteers. Physical labor, and on Babylon 4's rainy surface, was not to Carmine's taste. As figurehead up here he had been useful, voted as he was told, managed as he was told, had kept Allen Company out of chaos, at least, having sense enough to solve minor problems on his own and to ask about the major ones. What he'd done with the expense account was another matter. Zack had spent his time, after adjusting to station hours, down in company offices going over the books, reviewing personnel and those expense accounts.
Now there was some of kind of alert on; ugly and urgent; he'd come as other councilors had come, brought in by a message that a special meeting was called. His heart was still hammering from the exertion. He keyed in his desk unit and his mike, listening to the thin com chatter which occupied council at the moment, with a succession of ship scan images on the screens overhead. More trouble! He heard it all the way up from the dockside offices. Something was coming in.721Please respect copyright.PENANAviRpjyGkWP
"What number do you have?" Michael was asking, and getting no response from the other side.721Please respect copyright.PENANAcF4gyr5Qnm
"What is this?" Zack asked the woman next to him, a green sector delegate, Alice Asher.
"More refugees coming in, and they're not saying anything. The carrier Asia, Station Athens 2: that's all we know. We're not getting any cooperation. But that's Chao out there. What do you expect?"
Other councilors were still arriving, the tiers filling up rapidly. He slipped the personal audio into his ear, punched in the record, trying to get current of the situation. The convoy on scan had come in far too close for comfort, above system plane. The voice of the council secretary whispered on, summarizing, offering visuals to his desk screen, none of it much more than what they had before them live.
A page worked through to the back row, leaned over his shoulder and handed him a handwritten note. Welcome back, he read, perplexed. You are designated proxy to Carmine Constantine's seat, number ten. Your immediate experience of Babylon 4 is deemed valuable. A. Garibaldi.
His heart sped again, for a different reason. He gathered himself to his feet, laid down the earplug and turned off the channels, walked down the aisle under the view of all of them, to that vacant seat on the central council, the table amid the tiers, the seats which carried most influence. He reached that seat, settled into the fine leather and the carved wood, one of the Ten of Babylon 5; and felt an irrepressible flush of triumph amid these events---justice done, finally, after decades. The great Garibaldis had held him off and maneuvered him off the Ten all his life, despite his strivings and his influence and his merits, and now he was here.
Not by any change of heart on Michael's part, he was absolutely sure. It had to be voted. He had won some general vote here in council, the logical consequence of his long, hard service in Babylon 4. His record had found appreciation in a council majority.721Please respect copyright.PENANALc5YhWEZJz
He met Michael's eyes, down the table, Michael holding the audio plug to his ear, looking at him still with no true welcome, no love, no happiness, whatsoever. Michael accepted his elevation because he must, that was clear. Zack smiled tightly, not with his eyes, as if it were an offer of support. Michael returned it, and not with the eyes either.721Please respect copyright.PENANAZxK4DOLdO6
"Put it through again," Michael said to someone else, via com. "Keep sending. Get me direct contact to Chao."721Please respect copyright.PENANAswfqfuTFuK
The assembly was hushed, reports still coming in, chatter from central, the snail-pace of the approaching freighters; but Asia was gathering speed, going into comp-projected haze on scan.721Please respect copyright.PENANARTxob2jcCg
"Chao here," a voice reached them. "Salutations to Station Babylon 5. Your own establishment can attend the details."721Please respect copyright.PENANA25Km6UY551
"What's the number you're giving us?" Michael asked. "What's the number on those ships, Captain Chao?"721Please respect copyright.PENANA1dguuqFMRf
"Nine thousand."721Please respect copyright.PENANAGRAMGyNws5
A murmur of horror broke out in the chamber.721Please respect copyright.PENANAaAxLoQgoLo
"Silence!" Michael said; it was obscuring com. "We copy, nine thousand. This will tax our facilities beyond safety. We request you meet us here in council, captain Chao. We have had refugees come in here from Olympia on unescorted merchant kings; we were constrained to accept them. For humanitarian reasons it is impossible to refuse such dockings. Request you inform Fleet command of this dangerous situation. We need military support, do you understand, sir? Request you come in for urgent consultation with us. We're willing to help, but we're approaching a point of a very difficult decision. We appeal for Fleet support. Repeat: will you come in, sir?"721Please respect copyright.PENANAkpQ79mNPQ3
There was a little silence from the other side. The council shifted in their seats, for approach alarms were flashing, screens flicking and clouding madly in their721Please respect copyright.PENANAUoTSVusUug
attempt to reckon with the carrier's accelerating approach.721Please respect copyright.PENANA9jxFwkMCNB
"A last scheduled convoy," the reply came, "is coming in under Bass of Europe from Pan-Venice. Good luck, Station Babylon 5."721Please respect copyright.PENANAfT8kzOdCzA
The contact was abruptly broken. Scan flashed, the vast carrier still gathering speed more than anything should in a station's vicinity.721Please respect copyright.PENANAHCWdtRH4cF
Zack had never seen Michael angrier. The murmur in the council chamber deafened, and finally the microphone established relative silence again. Asia shot to their zenith, disrupting the screens into breakup. When they cleared, it had passed on, to take an unauthorized course, leaving them its flotsam, the freighters moving in at their slow, inexorable pace toward dock. Somewhere there was a muted call for security to Q.721Please respect copyright.PENANAEbx6eRaGJ1
"Reserve forces," Michael ordered one of the section chiefs over com. "Call up all off-duty personnel----I don't care how many times they've had callup. Keep order in there if you have to shoot to do it. Central, scramble crews to the shuttles, herd those merchant kings into the right docks. Throw a cordon of short-haulers in the way if that's what it takes."721Please respect copyright.PENANA9dPJUqXYod
And after a moment the collision alarms died and there was only the steady remaining report of the freighters on their slow way toward station: "We have to get more space for Q," Michael said, staring around him. "And with regret, we're going to have to take those two levels of red section---partition them in with Q---immediately." There was a sorrowful murmur from the tiers, and the screens flashed with an immediate registered objection from red-section delegates. It was perfunctory, as there were no supporters on the screen to second their objection and bring it to a vote. "Absolutely," Michael continued, without even looking at it, "we can't dislodge any more residents, or lose those upper-level routings for the transport system. Can't. If we can't get support from the Fleet----we have to take other measures. And on a major scale, we have to start shifting population somewhere. Zack Allen, with apologies for short notice, but we wish you could've made yesterday's meeting. That tabled proposal of yours....Our on-station construction can't handle security-risk workers. At one time you had plans in some detail for widening the base on Babylon 4. What's the status of those?"721Please respect copyright.PENANAHzLDRPQwVb
He blinked, suspicious and hopeful at once, frowned on the barb Michael had to sling, even now. He gathered himself to his feet, which he did not need to do, but he wanted to see faces. "If I had received notification of the situation, I would have made every effort; as it was, I came with all possible haste. As for the proposal, by no means impossible: housing that number on Babylon 5 could be done in short order, without difficulty----except for those housed there. The conditions----after three years, I can tell you----are primitive. Downer labor making pit housing, airtightened to a reasonable extent; enough compressors; and the simplest locally available materials for the bracing. Downer labor is always the most efficient down there; no inconvenience of breathers; but humans in great enough numbers can replace them----field work, manufacture, clearing land, digging their own dome shells. Just enough Babylon 5 staff to supervise and guard them. Confinement is no problem; particularly your more difficult cases would do well down there----you take those breathers away, and they're not going anywhere or doing anything you don't want."721Please respect copyright.PENANAifw6WNvDLY
"Mr. Allen." Londo Mollari stood up, an old man, a friend of Michael's and a stubborn do-gooder. "Mr. Allen, I must understand what I'm hearing. These are free citizens. We're not talking about establishing penal colonies. These are refugees. We're not turning Babylon 4 into a labor camp."721Please respect copyright.PENANA29Kg3UtbQz
"Tour Q!" someone shouted from the tiers. "See what a wreck they've made out of those sections! We had homes there, beautiful homes. Vandalism and destruction. They're tearing up the place. They've attacked our security people with pipes and kitchen knives, and who knows if we got all the guns back after the riot?"721Please respect copyright.PENANAUhkeqq0GAD
"There've been murders over there," someone else shouted. "Gangs of hoodlums."721Please respect copyright.PENANA8PbziA3Ngc
"No," said a third, a strange voice in council. Head turned to the thin man who'd taken a seat, Zach saw, in the place he himself had vacated above. The person stood up, a nervous, sallow-faced individual. "My name is Mario Pilson. I was invited to come out of Q. It was a councilor on Olympia Station. I represent Q. All that you say did happen, in a panic, but there's order now, and the hoodlums have been removed to your detention."721Please respect copyright.PENANAzoSJV7DaGz
Zack took a breath. "Welcome to councilor Pilson. But for the sake of Q itself, pressures should be relieved. Population should be transferred. The station has waited a decade on the Babylon 4 expansion, and now we have the manpower to start it on a large scale. Those who work become part of the system. They build what they themselves live in. Does the gentleman from ! not agree?"721Please respect copyright.PENANAv6Rj4HGCcF
"We need our papers cleared. We refuse to be transferred anywhere without papers. This happened to us once, and look at our situation. Further transfers without clear paper can only add to our predicament, taking us further and further from any hope of establishing identity. The people I represent will not let it happen again."721Please respect copyright.PENANAo3I9KGulBP
"Are you threatening us, Mr. Pilson?" Michael asked.721Please respect copyright.PENANAMvqalolVCX
The man looked close to collapse. "No," he said quickly. "No, sir. Only I--am speaking the opinion of the people that I represent. Their desperation. They have to have their papers cleared. Anything else, any other solution is what the gentleman says---a labor camp for the benefit of Babylon 5. Is that what you want?"721Please respect copyright.PENANABpyUwH9sL7
"Mr. Pilson, Mr. Pilson," said Michael. "Will everyone please settle themselves to take things in order. You'll be heard in your turn, Mr. Pilson. Zack Allen, will you continue?"721Please respect copyright.PENANAz5BkJFbDDt
"I'll have the precise figures as soon as I can have access to central comp. I need to be brought current with the keys. Every facility on Babylon 4 can be expanded, yes. I still have the detailed plans. I'll have a cost and labor analysis available within a matter of days."721Please respect copyright.PENANA1sLjbXZ7d9
Michael nodded, looked at him, frowning. It could not be a pleasant moment for him.721Please respect copyright.PENANAz9aplTBhnt
"We're fighting for our survival," Michael said. "Plainly, there's a point where we seriously have to worry about our life-support systems. Some of the load has to be moved. Nor can we allow the ratio of Babylon 5 citizens to be refugees to become unbalanced. We have to worry about riots----there and here. I'm sorry, Mr. Pilson, but these are the realities under which we live, not out of our choosing, nor, I'm sure, of yours. We can't risk the situation or the base on Babylon 4; or we find ourselves all on freighters bound for Earth, stripped of everything. That's the third choice." 721Please respect copyright.PENANA8tsIli8vZx
"No," the murmur went around the room.721Please respect copyright.PENANAM8kcbp0biS
Zack sat down, silent, staring at Michael, reckoning Babylon 5's present fragile balance and adds as they existed. You've been lost already, he thought of saying, of standing up in council and laying things out as they were. He didn't. He sat with his mouth tightly closed. It was a matter of time. Peace----might afford a chance. But that was far from what was shaping out there with this influx of refugees from all these stations. They had all the Further flowing in two directions like a watershed, towards themselves and toward Alliance; and they were ill-equipped to handle it under Michael's kind of rules.721Please respect copyright.PENANAgd9fkKoosl
Year upon year of Garibaldi rule, Garibaldi social theory, the vaunted "community of law" which disdained security and monitoring and now refused to use the clenched fist on Q, hoping that vocal appeals were going to win a mob over to order. He could bring that matter up too. He sat still.721Please respect copyright.PENANAmq2kcUPoQS
There was a foul taste in his mouth, reckoning that what chaos Garibaldi leniency had wrought on the station it would manage to wreak on Babylon 4 too. He foresaw no success for the plans he was asked for: Nico Garibaldi and his wife would be in charge of the work, two of a kind, who would let the Downers take their own time about schedules and protect their superstitions and let them do things their own leisurely, lackadaisical way, which ended with equipment damaged and construction delayed. And what that pair would do with what was over in Q offered worse prospects.721Please respect copyright.PENANAcepv0hr5bU
He sat still, estimating their chances, and drawing unhappy conclusions.721Please respect copyright.PENANASFypsSgYrf
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"It can't survive," he said to Carmine that night, to his son Carmine and to Daryl Bourchardt, the only relative he favored. He leaned back in his chair and drank bitter Downer wine, in his apartment which was piled with the attacked expensive furniture which had been in the other, severed, rooms. "Babylon 5's falling apart under us. Michael's soft-handed policies are going to lose it for us, and maybe get our throats cut in a riot into the bargain. It's going, you understand me? And do we sit and take what comes?"721Please respect copyright.PENANApIltEUPV4t
Carmine looked suddenly whey-faced as his habit was when talk turned serious. Daryl was of another kind. He sat grim and thoughtful.721Please respect copyright.PENANApLAGIIztiG
"A contact," Zack said yet more plainly, "has to exist."721Please respect copyright.PENANAAWiOAnQ6Wc
Daryl nodded. "In times like these, two doors might be a sensible necessity. And I'm sure doors exist all over this station----with the right keys."721Please respect copyright.PENANAZjH4U4hN4D
"How compromised---do you reckon those doors are? And where? Your cousin's handled cases of some of our transients. You have any ideas?"721Please respect copyright.PENANAMUaGgH5In8
"Black market in rejuv drugs and others. That's in full flower here, don't you know? Michael himself gets it; you got in on Babylon 4."721Please respect copyright.PENANAWu6HkXsphf
"It's legal."721Please respect copyright.PENANA4tYYwU8i9U
"Of course it's legal; it's necessary. But how does it get here? Ultimately it comes from Allianceside; merchant kings deal; it comes through. Someone, somewhere, is into the pipeline----merchant kings---maybe even station-aide contacts."721Please respect copyright.PENANAt3u41FU6wi
"So how do we get one to get a contract back up the pipeline?"721Please respect copyright.PENANAWS1Eoi6pdb
"I can learn."721Please respect copyright.PENANANM52tIfiZQ
"I know one," Carmine said, starling them both. He licked his lips, swallowed heavily. "Susan."721Please respect copyright.PENANAABgQiGsmN1
"That whore of yours?"721Please respect copyright.PENANAnfw07Jpj6r
"She knows the market. There's a security officer----high up. Clean paper all the way, but he's bought by the market. You want something unloaded or loaded, what a blind eye turned---he can arrange it."721Please respect copyright.PENANAZO21xlnahR
Zack stared at his son, this product of a year's contract, his desperation to have an heir. It was not, after all, surprising that Carmine knew such things. "Excellent," he said dryly. "You can tell me about it. Maybe we can trace something. Daryl, our holdings at Atlantis----we should look into them."721Please respect copyright.PENANA0LYi6kNMJd
"You're not serious."721Please respect copyright.PENANAKL8ZKPSVrU
"I'm very serious. I've engaged Tycho. Her crew is still in the hospital. Her interior's a shambles, but she'll go. They need the money desperately. And you can find a crew---through those contacts of Carmine's. Don't have to tell them everything, just sufficient to motivate them."721Please respect copyright.PENANAvorTv6qdtx
"Atlantis is the next likely trouble spot. The next certain trouble spot."721Please respect copyright.PENANAZ3TqHBWqU6
"A risk, isn't it? A lot of freighters have accidents with things as they are. Some vanish. I'll hear from Michael over it; but I'll have the out----an act of faith in Atlantis's future. A confirmation, a vote of confidence." He drank the wine with a twist of his mouth. "You'd better go fast, before some flood of refugees hits us from Atlantis itself. You make contact with the pipeline there, follow it as far as you can. What chance has Babylon 5 got now but with Alliance? Terradyne's no help. The Fleet's adding to our problem. We can't stand forever. Michael's policies are going to see riots here before all's done, and it's time for a changing of the guard. You'll make that clear to Alliance. You understand----they get an ally; we get---as much as we can get out of the association. That second door to jump through, at worst. If Babylon 5 holds, we just sit still, safe; if not, we're better off than others, aren't we?"721Please respect copyright.PENANA7qz8Agh5DW
"And I'm the one risking my neck?" Daryl said.721Please respect copyright.PENANAmxzm2SohPh
"So? Would you rather be here when a riot finally breaks through those barriers? Or would you rather have a chance to make some personal gain with a grateful opposition----line your own pockets? I'm sure you will; and I'm sure you'll have deserved it."721Please respect copyright.PENANAU2WwLfmbzs
"Generous," Daryl said sourly.721Please respect copyright.PENANAMHg14eJJic
"Life here," Zack said, "isn't going to be any better. It could be very uncomfortable. It's a gamble, but then again, what isn't?"721Please respect copyright.PENANA4xWIPmYvDl
Daryl nodded slowly. "I'll run down some prospects for a crew."721Please respect copyright.PENANA1nOOxqrKjp
"I thought you would."721Please respect copyright.PENANA0Cvc52H5Cu
"You're too trusting, Zack."721Please respect copyright.PENANAoiAx9IXIeF
"Only this side of the family. Never Garibaldis. Michael should have left me there on Babylon 4. He probably wishes he could have. But council voted otherwise; and maybe that was lucky for them. Maybe it was."721Please respect copyright.PENANAg2Z2MC00Bm
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