Thirdspace, p.14
Thirdspace, page 14
"So what've you found so far?" he asked her again as they strode down the hallway. Trent was carrying an assortment of reports under her arm. He noticed that the pile of reports she toted grew every day. Unfortunately the knowledge she was sharing with him was not increasing by a parallel amount.
Nor did she seem inclined to be any more forthcoming today than she had been any of the previous days. "Nothing I feel confident talking about," she said tersely.
"You've had five days."
Trent came to the realization that Sheridan wasn't just going to go away quietly into that good night. She momentarily toyed with the possibility of sending him in that direction with a firm shove of her boot, but that seemed potentially counterproductive, and it was a superb way to get her and her entire operation booted off the station.
Five days. As if that meant anything.
She'd dealt with these military types before. Their entire thought process was geared in campaign mode. They wanted everything moving on a precise schedule, wanted every breath drawn during every minute of every hour of every day accounted for, predicted, and clocked in. She couldn't blame them, really. It was how they were trained. If their minds didn't work that way, they'd probably be lousy at their jobs.
But the frustrating thing was that the military life was Sheridan's job, and scientific exploration was hers. She wouldn't have dreamed of telling him how to wage a war. Why did he insist on riding her every step of the way when she was involved in a project of her own?
There was only one way to deal with this type of mentality: explain things in the simplest, most straightforward manner possible-preferably with as many one-syllable words as possible-make it clear just who is the scientist, and let him know that she would not be stepped on or run roughshod over just for the purpose of his mindless dedication to schedules.
"Five days, yes," she agreed, making no effort to keep the impatience from her voice, "and we've barely scratched the surface. Look, Captain, with all due respect, this isn't your area of expertise. It's not like you can push a button on the back of that thing and a manual pops out explaining what it is and how it works. I could study that thing for five years, let alone five days, and not crack it. Science doesn't pay attention to the clock; it'll take the amount of time that it takes, no more, no less."
Sheridan, for his part, was darkly amused that once again the words "with all due respect" had been used to precede a comment intended in a completely disrespectful way. He was not, however, about to let the comment pass, no matter how amused he was. That was made clear when Trent tried to walk away and his sharp voice brought her up short.
"Doctor Trent..." he said, in a voice that seemed to indicate that if she took another step, he'd have security guards round her up and nail her feet to the floor. She stopped where she was, and turned to look at him with an expression carefully crafted of disdain and tolerance. Sheridan, for his part, didn't give a damn about her tolerance, her disdain, or her craft. He just wanted her to shut up and listen, and it appeared that he had at least accomplished that much.
"You're right," he allowed, "I'm not a xenoarchaeologist. But my wife was. She talked about her work, same as I did, and after a while you pick up a few things."
Trent seemed rather unimpressed by this announcement. It wasn't as if he had a doctorate he could whip out to impress her. He remembered, however, that whenever one speaks with a specialist in the field, it certainly helps to have key buzz words and phrases to toss about.
"By this time," he continued, "you're going to have surface reports, magnetic resonance scans; you'll have some idea if it's a ship or a mechanism, and a general notion of what it does, even if you haven't figured out all the specifics yet."
He watched her face carefully as he spoke, and was pleased to see a flicker of surprise in her expression. Maybe even just a bit of respect... maybe. At the very least, he'd gotten her attention and knocked some of the patronizing attitude out of her.
"In a conventional dig, that's true, but this is hardly conventional," she pointed out.
"There we agree," he said quickly. "Nothing about this is conventional." He paused, wondering if he should even bother to bring it up.
Zack had brought the unsettling situation, and its timing, to the captain's attention. It had been clear from Zack's demeanor that he had wondered whether Sheridan would just laugh him out of his office, for voicing the absurd notion that there was some connection between the arrival of the artifact and the sudden upsurge in violence. Zack was fortunate, though, because while Sheridan wasn't certain there could be a connection ... he wasn't dismissive of the possibility. Sheridan decided to lay it on the table. "Ever since we brought this thing here we've had a thirty-percent increase in violent activity on the station," he said.
Trent, for her part, didn't seem the least bit interested in making any sort of mental leap. "That's your problem. It's got nothing to do with me."
"Maybe . .. but what if you're wrong?" Trent started to bite off a reply even more harsh and condescending than her earlier remarks, but caught herself. She put a hand to her head and said, "Captain ... look, I'm sorry, but I've had five hours sleep in the last thirty-six, I'm running on adrenaline and coffee, and I don't have time for this. You gave me permission to handle this, and I'm doing the best job I know how, with limited resources and not one whole hell of a lot of cooperation!" Her voice had started to rise until she was practically shouting the word "cooperation." She pulled herself back in, dismissed the anger that was building in her, and then said in a no-nonsense tone, "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get back to it."
But as she was starting to head away, Sheridan noticed something: a particular report that was the top sheet on her stack of papers. "One second ... is that a copy of the hieroglyphs you found on the artifact?"
Trent said, "Yes!" her exasperation in full bloom.
Sheridan said, "That's Vorlon."
That stopped her, as if he'd thrown a sizeable bucket of cold water upon her. Her gaze flickered over him, as if she were endeavoring to reassess him. Trent's entire motivation was to learn that which she did not know, and she had thought she had
Sheridan fairly well pegged. This latest bit of information was disconcerting, and she wasn't sure which bothered her more; that Sheridan was, in some way, on par with her, or that she might have been wrong about him. She'd always trusted her gut, and she disliked the notion that there might be any reason to doubt herself.
"You know Vorlon?" she said slowly.
He smiled grimly. "You'd be surprised," he said, as much to himself as to her. His mind seemed elsewhere for a moment, then he shook it off. "But any good xenoarchaeologist would recognize it. And a decent one would mention having found it."
The cutting remark was, of course, aimed at her. She chose to ignore it, and turned away from him. But Sheridan wasn't done as he called after her, "I'm giving you another forty-eight hours, then I want a full report on your findings. If I don't like what I see, I'm pulling the plug. Is that clear?"
Trent said impatiently, "Fine, fine, whatever ..." and she stepped into a convenient transport tube, the doors closing behind her.
Sheridan was not happy about the resolution of their conversation; indeed, it felt as if it hadn't been resolved at all. That she had barely been tolerating him, and couldn't be happier than to be rid of him. Sheridan did not take especially well to being simply "tolerated," and he was almost tempted to toss aside his deadline of two days and simply order her and her entire crowd of techies off his station, effective immediately. Sheridan and his people would explore the artifact itself, and if it never yielded up its mysteries, well... it'd make a hell of a paperweight.
But he decided not to be quite that extreme. Not yet. Instead he would wait forty-eight hours, as promised, before taking final action.
After all, two more days wasn't going to kill anyone.
In the security office, Zack Allan and Susan Ivanova stood on either side of Deuce, who looked about as emotional as an Easter Island statue. A guard was standing near the door just in case Deuce got any cute ideas about bolting. "Okay, Deuce," Zack said slowly, rubbing his eyes both out of frustration and determination not to fall asleep during a questioning. "I'm gonna ask you again: what were you doing down in the maintenance area?" When Deuce made no immediate reply-which didn't surprise Zack overmuch-Zack continued, "You were trying to open the air locks. Why?"
For the first time in a while, Deuce actually contributed to the conversation. It wasn't particularly helpful, but at least it was succinct. "I was going to go for a walk." When they looked at him skeptically, he repeated, "I was going for a walk."
Ivanova came around in front of him so that she was staring straight into his eyes. "Do you know what explosive decompression looks like? Do you have any idea what it would do to this place?"
Deuce looked at her ... except it didn't seem as if he was looking at her so much as through her. "I wanted to go outside."
"Why?" demanded Zack. He couldn't make sense of it. Deuce was a shady, two-bit operator, sure. But suicidal? Zack couldn't see it.
Nor could Ivanova. Deuce seemed to focus on her momentarily, and she felt chilled for some reason.
"Because it's outside," he said with quiet confidence. "It's calling me. It's calling all of us. They know who we are, there in the city."
Zack caught Ivanova's reaction to that from the corner of his eye. She seemed startled by it, and her eyes appeared to cloud over momentarily. Then she noticed that he was looking at her, and he mouthed silently, You okay?
Fine, she said without speaking, even as she turned back to Deuce and demanded, as if it were suddenly the most important thing in her life, "What city?"
His eyes narrowed, suspiciously at first, but then with a craftiness that seemed to indicate he understood something. Something that perhaps she herself didn't fully grasp. "You know," he said, sounding almost coy. "You've been there ... you've seen. I can tell by looking at you." He lowered his voice and there was an intimacy in his voice that was chilling. Ivanova felt unclean, as if she wanted to shower just after listening to him. "We belong to them, you know. And they're going to come for us soon. We have to open the door. We have no choice," he said with rising urgency. "Those of us who hear the call, we belong to them."
Ivanova could see in Zack's expression that he clearly thought Deuce had gone completely around the bend. What truly frightened Ivanova, though, was that everything Deuce was saying made a strange sort of sense. It was as if she and he were the only two people in the room who truly knew what was going on.
His voice lowered, filled with warning. He was speaking solely to Zack, as if there was no need to talk to Ivanova because she already knew the score. "The others, who do not hear the call... will not survive it."
Zack had had enough. Cocking a thumb toward the door, he said to Miller, "That's it. Get him outta here. Maybe the doc can figure him out."
Miller nodded in agreement, more than happy not to have to stand around and listen to Deuce's rantings anymore. He grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him out. Deuce, for his part, never lost that lopsided, smug expression. The smile of secret knowledge, and the utter conviction that he knew he was right. It was an expression that was borne by most zealots, religious fanatics, and lunatics. On rare occasion, it was also seen on someone who genuinely knew the truth of things and was looking forward to his vindication.
Ivanova desperately wanted to believe anything except that last option. As if trying to convince herself that there was some other possibility, she said, "I don't get it. Deuce is a survivor. He runs half the rackets down below. He would never do anything this stupid."
"I agree," said Zack. He looked at her with slightly angled head, still curious about her earlier reactions. "What was that about a city?"
Well, I had this dream, see, and there was this city, and what this very likely means is that Vm probably going as nuts as Deuce. . . .
"Nothing," Ivanova said dismissively. "He just started getting to me."
It was a lame explanation, and she could see that Zack knew it was lame. Deuce, getting to Ivanova? Susan Ivanova had coolly faced down gigantic and mysterious alien races who could have obliterated her with minimal effort, and a two-bit hustler like Deuce was "getting to" her?
"You're sure?" Zack said, making no effort to keep the skepticism from his voice.
"Yeah ... positive." Perhaps just a little too defensively, she added, "What else could it be?"
He didn't answer. Merely stared at her as if he was waiting for her to answer her own question. Except she didn't know what to tell him. Everything rattling around in her head was still half-formed speculation at best, none of which made the slightest bit of sense. Finally she told him, "Still... let me know if you hear this from anyone else, all right?"
Zack nodded, his gaze never leaving her, as she pivoted on her heel and walked out of the room. Once in the corridor, she paused a moment, leaning her hand against the wall, and taking a deep breath to steady herself.
"What the hell is going on around here?" she asked of the empty air. Unfortunately, the empty air had about as many answers as she did.
Alex Rosen was wondering if something had gone wrong.
He, Leo, and Sheila were seated around a table in the Eclipse Cafe. At first, Alex's heart soared when he saw Sheila and Leo enter together, because to his amazement, Sheila had her arm intertwined through Leo's and she was talking a mile a minute, just like the old days. In fact, she seemed to have a cheerful glow around her, and Alex found himself wondering just how friendly his brother's reunion had been with his former wife.
But the moment they were at the table, eating breakfast, something seemed to change in the air. Alex couldn't quite put his finger on it, but Leo was ... different. Sheila was merrily chirping on about her work, and her life, and this, that, and the other thing, and Leo seemed to be listening. Every so often, though, he would seem to look outward, away from the two of them and out toward something far away.
"Leo, are you okay?" Alex asked at one point when Sheila had paused for breath.
Leo swivelled his gaze toward them. "I'm fine, Alex. Perfectly fine. This is so nice, the three of us. Just like the old days." "Better than the old days," Alex said. " 'Cause we don't have to have that suspicion anymore that made the good old days, well... not so good."
"Yes," said Leo distantly. "Such suspicions. Such silliness."
Sheila reached out and took his hand. She was surprised to feel that it was colder than she remembered, but she ignored it as she said, "I'm glad you realize that, Leo. I'm glad that you know there's other things in life besides pointless worries...."
"Oh, of course. Because there's really only one thing that matters."
"Love," said Sheila.
"Family," said Alex at almost the same time.
But Leo looked at them in a patronizing, almost pitying way and said, "The city."
This prompted Alex and Sheila to stare at each other, each clearly wondering if they had missed something. "The city?" asked Alex after a moment.
"You don't know," said Leo. He shook his head sadly. "Neither of you know. I can see it in the emptiness of your eyes. Eyes that have never seen anything truly great, truly... perfect."
"Leo ... I'm thinking, maybe you might want to go lie down...." Alex began.
Leo rose from the chair, his breakfast untouched. He leaned forward and whispered, loudly enough so that they both could hear, "I know what you did. The city knows. It told me true."
"We're back to that again?" Alex couldn't quite believe it. "Leo, the telepath lady... your own person... she told you..."
"Doesn't matter what she told me," replied Leo. "None of it matters. I don't have to listen to her... or you, or you," and he pointed to Alex and Sheila respectively. "The city is all I need now. It's my beginning, my end. And you will understand. You will. And after you understand..." And he smiled in a way that didn't touch his eyes. "After you understand, you will die. And I will live forever, in the heart of the city. And I will be there laughing at you." His voice took on a singsong tone as he walked away. "Laughing, forever and ever and ever..."
There was a long moment of silence at the table as Alex and Sheila watched his receding form, walking with jaunty confidence.
"It's the sickness," Alex said softly. "It... must be further along than he admitted. Delusions, hallucinations ... perhaps some medication can ..."
"For this I came?" Sheila asked.
"Sheila..."
"For this I came, Alex?" her voice rising in irritation. "To be the subject of... of more accusations, of..."
"No," he said firmly. "He knows in his heart now, Sheila. He knows that it wasn't true, that it was never true. This man here at the table, this was not the man I was speaking to just the other day. It's a phase, that's all. Some moment brought on by the disease, I just know it. You'll see. It's just a passing thing. In a few hours, he may forget everything he just said. He'd probably be mortally embarrassed by it." "Let's hope so," said Sheila, in the tone of a woman who was not going to be tolerating much more of what she perceived as confusing, and even boorish, behavior on the part of a man about whom she had barely thought for the past several decades.
Her perceptions, as it turned out, were extremely limited. She could not begin to perceive the full danger of the situation, or how much jeopardy she was genuinely in. She did not have the slightest clue that she would be running, screaming, bleeding, and pleading for her life with her former husband. And all he would be listening to would be the bloodlust pounding in his head and a vision of a perfect city that was calling to him.
Chapter 13
Bill Morishi felt like his mind was racing a mile a minute as he sat in the control room, already hard at work on his day's duties. He was trying to figure out the best way to approach Dr. Trent with the suspicions that were beginning to form in his mind.
The problem was, he wasn't exactly certain what to say to her. Trent was about as down to earth, relatively speaking, as they came. She wasn't going to have any patience with conjecture, suspicions, or half-baked notions. How was he supposed to tell her that he thought maybe the artifact was causing erratic behavior among the residents of Babylon 5?
