A Call to Arms (12 page)

Vlast told her, and Dureena keyed them in. Immediately, a series of numbers came up on the screen, listing all of the units in that area of the facility. She moved the cursor to the appropriate locker, then hit “unlock.”

“That should do it,” she said.

They went to the locker. “So let’s open it,” Vlast said.

“Be my guest,” Dureena said, stepping back. Vlast went up to the door, again dialed in the access code, and turned the handle. It turned easily. Dureena took another few steps back, watching him carefully.

Even so, the power of the resulting explosion took her by surprise. She was aware of being propelled through space, coming up hard against something, then everything went black.

When she returned to consciousness, she found she was lying on the corridor floor. Bishop was standing over her.

“Where in hell did you come from?” she asked.

“I heard you were hanging out with Vlast, so I assigned someone to follow you. You’re new here. You couldn’t be expected to know the man’s reputation.”

“I figured him out for myself,” Dureena said, carefully getting to her feet. She was bruised and sore, but there was nothing broken. “What hit me? Never mind, I know. Vlast is dead, isn’t he?”

Bishop nodded. “How did you figure?” he asked.

“I had a suspicion it was getting too easy. Having the code right there, easy to access. There was no way of telling, but I thought there might have been some sort of final booby trap. Vlast found it the hard way. Better him than me.”

“If you figured out that much, how come you got caught in the blast?”

“I didn’t figure anyone would use three times the amount of explosive needed,” Dureena said ruefully.

“Well, live and learn. Thanks for looking in on me, Bishop. I’m okay now.”

Bishop smiled. “I also thought you might need a little help getting the loot out of here.”

“Maybe I would,” Dureena said cautiously.

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing there. The locker’s empty.”

“Damn! Where could it have gone?” Dureena said, pounding her fist against the wall. “Judging by what Vlast said, that was a lot of treasure!”

“Maybe the guys who set up this scam figured there was too much valuable stuff to leave lying around,” Bishop commented, and Dureena noticed he avoided looking her straight in the eyes as he continued. “They could have put it into another of these lockers, or shipped it to any of a dozen other worlds. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.” Suspicion began to blossom, but she didn’t dare challenge him--clearly he was too powerful. So she shrugged.

“Well, it was an interesting adventure, though unprofitable. Tell you what, I’ll buy you a drink later, Bishop. You did look out for me--after checking on the loot.”

“Fine by me,” Bishop said.

But as it turned out, Babylon 5 security had different ideas for Dureena.

Early in her career, Dureena had come across an aging thief--a rarity, since there really wasn’t a great life expectancy in her trade. He had told her the secret of his longevity. “There are a lot of distracting things out there.” He had made a vague gesture to take in the entire universe. “Don’t let yourself get distracted. More people are brought down by distraction than by bad plans.”

Dureena had found that to be good advice. For the most part, she had followed it. It was too bad, she thought, mulling it over afterward, that she hadn’t followed it this time.

She was going through the Zocalo...

And then she noticed the man. He was a tall, skinny Earther, dressed in a faded red velvet suit. He had a long neck and a prominent Adam’s apple. She noticed that he had big feet, and they were encased in high-top, lace-up shoes of the kind only rural types wore.

He looked like he’d just stepped off the space launch, just arrived at Babylon 5. He had that raw, earnest look about him, the look of a man amazed by what he was seeing and trying hard not to show how much he was impressed by it. He looked like a small-time carny worker. And he was setting up a game right in the middle of a corridor.

She came closer and studied his features. On closer scrutiny, she decided he had two looks: one part of him was a naive country kid, and the other part was a wised-up country kid. She wasn’t sure which look was true. It might be interesting to find out.

He carried a folding table under his arm. He set it up, and from one pocket he took three silver thimbles. From an inside vest pocket he extracted a little golden pea, which he held up to show to the few people who had stopped to take a look. He turned it in his fingers, catching streaks of light from the overhead glowbulbs.

He said, “It’s a pea, my friends, just an ordinary pea, but it’s made of gold. Not solid gold all the way through, but twenty-four-carat gold-plated. It’s worth something, friends, maybe a hundred credits. I’ll put this object of intrinsic and artistic value up against your money. Fifty credits secures the bet. But I’ve got cash, too. I’ll wager any amount against an equal amount. I’ll bet you can’t find which thimble the pea is under. The hand is quicker than the eye, friends. Or is it? Watch where the pea goes.”

Dureena knew at once what he was up to. This was a version of an old Earth game called three-card monte. In the playing-card version, you tried to find one card--an ace, perhaps--while the handler moved it and two queens back and forth. In the cup version, you tried to determine which cup or thimble the object was hiding under. Either way, the sucker lost.

Although a lot of people knew the game, there were always some who didn’t. Or some who thought they could outsmart the sharper. Professionally interested now, Dureena watched as he manipulated the thimbles.

The first thing she noticed was that he wasn’t very good. His motions were slow, clumsy, and a fine tremor shook his fingers. Dureena decided this guy wasn’t going to be in business long. Not only were his motions clumsy, he was manipulating the golden pea in such a way that it made a faint clinking sound as it came into contact with the side of first one thimble, then another. It was very faint: Dureena wasn’t sure she could find the pea by the sound alone. But there was someone else in the crowd who had caught on to this and was stepping forward confidently.

It was an Emyr from Ogden 6. This race, of remote lemurian ancestry, was characterized by large pointed ears that could swivel 180 degrees and tilt up or down through 12 degrees of arc.

“You seem pretty sure of yourself, young man,” the lemurian said when the kid had finished his manipulations. “Might I look at your hands?”

The kid held them out. The lemurian grabbed them both, immobilizing them.

“Hey! What’s the idea!”

“I just want to make sure you stop here. I’ll take your bet, young man.”

“Let’s see your money,” the kid said.

The lemurian nodded toward the crowd. “May I have some assistance?”

A large shaven-headed man in a black leather vest came up and took over holding the rube’s hands.

The lemurian reached into his wallet, took out fifty credits, put them down on the table.

“You still confident?” the lemurian asked.

“I am!” the rube said.

“You really got any money?”

“I got plenty! Leggo my hands!”

The lemurian nodded at the shaven-headed man. He released the rube, who took out a billfold stuffed with credits.

“This enough for you?” he asked.

“I’ll take another fifty,” the lemurian said. “Anybody else want to get in on this?”

“Hey, just a minute,” the rube said, as he seemed to notice the lemurian’s ears for the first time.

“You said you’d wager whatever we put up,” the lemurian reminded him. “Everyone here will hold you to that promise.”

There was a murmur of agreement.

“Anyone else want to get in the lemurian asked.

Others in the crowd had heard the click of the pea against the side of the thimble. And enough knew the hearing skills of lemurians. Half a dozen came forward and put down their own wagers. There must have been a thousand credits on the table before they were through. The man in the vest counted out a similar amount from the rube’s billfold, then handed it back to him.

“I think we’re ready now,” the lemurian said cockily. “But one of
us
will pick up the thimble. Not you.”

The rube looked as though he wanted to complain, but the crowd growled at him and he agreed, with a poor grace.

“Now, friends,” the lemurian said, “I personally heard the pea hit the side of the thimble on the left. But does anyone else have a better idea?”

Several in the crowd muttered, but decided to leave it to him.

“Then here we go,” the lemurian said. “Here is your pea!” He lifted the thimble.

There was nothing under it.

“Damnation!” the lemurian cried. “He must have palmed it!” He lifted the next thimble, and then the one at the far end. Under that one lay the golden pea.

Dureena had anticipated something like this. She watched as the rube picked up his winnings and moved away quickly. The lemurian was busy explaining how it must have happened. “He must have clicked the thimble with his fingernail. It sounded just like the pea striking it. Damn it, I’m out fifty credits!”

He strolled off, muttering under his breath.

Dureena thought the lemurian’s explanation had some merit to it. But more than likely, the rube and the lemurian were partners in this short-time grift.

Not that she was about to reveal that to the suckers.

They got what they deserved.

A moment later, a Hyach buyer caught her attention. He was leaning over a display of miniature etchings inscribed on synthetic jewels. His purse, dangling from his belt by a string, looked nice and enticing. It would be fun playing with the money, she decided. So she moved past him and, with a single deft move, cut the purse and tucked it away. He didn’t notice a thing...

But someone else did.

Two someone elses.

Zack and his men had been scanning the Zocalo all morning, looking for the people depicted in President Sheridan’s drawing. They had received copies, along with a demand that they observe the utmost confidentiality in this matter.

None of the three had shown up yet on Babylon 5, not even the Drazi, who was ugly even by Drazi standards and hence easily recognizable. But no one had seen him. The security officers had begun to think this was a wild-goose chase, until they spotted the woman. There was no mistaking her; Sheridan’s drawing had caught something of her savagery and independent attitude.

The officers exchanged hurried glances.

“Let’s get her!” one of them said.

With a single accord, they jumped into the crowd and tackled Dureena before she even knew they were there.

Once they had her, however, it took another two station personnel to help them keep her down. Zack notified Lochley, who showed up almost immediately. She gave Dureena a long, searching look. “Well, I’ll give you this one,” she said. “She’s a dead match for the drawing.”

In the station commander’s office, Sheridan and Lochley were looking at a screen that displayed Dureena’s picture and the drawing side by side. There was no doubt about it. The two were a match.

“Who is she?” Sheridan asked.

“You don’t know?” Lochley responded. “But you drew her.”

“It’s a long story. What’s her name?”

Lochley consulted her notes. “Dureena Nafeel. She arrived a few days ago. Judging from the half dozen purses and wallets she was carrying when the guards got her, I’d say she was a petty thief.”

“But a good one,” Sheridan said. “To steal that much without anyone noticing... Where’s she from? I’ve never seen an alien like that before.”

Lochley checked a file on her desk. “Zander Prime.” She frowned. “But... I thought that was a dead world.”

“It is,” Sheridan said. “Now. Zander Prime was wiped out during the Shadow War. During the last days of the war, the Shadows revealed one of their biggest weapons...”

As he spoke, the image formed up in his mind. Once again he saw the deathcloud reaching with tentacles of darkness toward a planet... The cloud was a thing almost too huge to conceive.

“It was capable of engulfing whole worlds,” Sheridan went on, seeing it happen again, seeing the cloud, inky black and still expanding to fill all the visible horizon. And then the missiles began to pour in, thousands of them, a silvery rain of missiles.

“Thermonuclear missiles from the deathcloud penetrated deep into the planetary core, where they exploded, destroying the planet from the inside out.”

His mind filled for an instant with the explosion of a world, splitting into a thousand fragments, molten magma pouring out from its core, its surface stripping away in the titanic blast like shredded skin stripped from a burn victim, mountains tumbling into space, oceans vaporizing.

He shuddered slightly despite himself. “Zander Prime was one of the last planets destroyed by the Shadows. We thought no one had survived. Until now.”

Lochley said, “I told her we were going to throw her off the station for theft. We’ll bring her by to see you on her way to deportation. Might make her a little more cooperative.”

Just then, Lochley’s link
breep
ed. She toggled it.

“Yes?”

It was Lieutenant David Corwin, her second in command. In a flat voice that still betrayed his excitement, he said, “We’ve got a Captain Anderson on the line. He wants to speak with the president. Says it’s urgent.”

“All right,” Lochley said. “Put him through.” Then she asked Sheridan, “You know this guy?”

“I don’t think so,” Sheridan said. Anderson’s face--a dark, square, handsome face with a quiet dignity to it-appeared on the monitor.

Anderson said, “Hello, Mr. President. By any chance, have you been looking for me?”

Sheridan and Lochley looked from him to one of the two remaining drawings. It was another match.

“So it would appear,” Sheridan said.

Half an hour later, Sheridan and Anderson were shaking hands in the conference room on Babylon 5.

“Mr. President,” Anderson said.