Ivanova shook her head. "Just remember, you're not Superman."
"Who?"
"Look out!" shouted Ivanova.
She shoved G'Kar out of the way and drilled a thug just as he was emerging from the shaft. He slumped against a long row of bodies, looking like the youngest in a family portrait.
"Vo'Koth!" called a voice from above. "Vo'Koth!"
G'Kar put his finger to his lips, telling Ivanova not to say anything. Silence was the only answer they wanted to give. Let them realize that whoever used the shrine to enter the catacombs was going to die.
"These aren't trained soldiers fighting for their home-world," whispered G'Kar. "These are cowardly cutthroats. Their losses must already be substantial, and Mi'Ra can't count on them to keep risking their lives forever. Let's wait them out until darkness."
Ivanova nodded in agreement, but she had a concern. "We humans are going to need water pretty soon, and we'll all need food."
"We'll get them," promised G'Kar, "somehow."
Ivanova and G'Kar stood watch at the shrine until it became clear that no more mercenaries were going to plunge blithely into the catacombs. The waiting game seemed to have set in on both sides. Ivanova still felt at a disadvantage, because she would have rather been on the surface than in this subterranean necropolis. But at least they were alive and not under attack.
As she and G'Kar wound their way back through the narrow passageway, they saw a light and dropped into a crouch. After a moment they realized it was Garibaldi, wielding a tiny candle.
"There you are!" he said with relief. "I was about to send the bloodhounds after you."
G'Kar chuckled. "We wanted to discourage them from coming after us, and I think we did. Any sign of them at your end?"
"None," answered Garibaldi, "and I scouted all the way to the well, where we first came down. I guess the only reason they came down before was to drive us into the open."
"Now they're waiting, like us," said Ivanova with certainty.
There wasn't much to add to that conclusion, and she followed G'Kar and Garibaldi into the eerie tomb, where they had met Pa'Ko and the children. Pa'Ko was there, along with Al Vernon and Na'Toth, who stood guard over the other two entrances.
Upon seeing the new arrivals, Pa'Ko jumped in front of G'Kar and slammed a fist to his skinny chest. "Sir, I understand you are a famous person, an ambassador! You were traveling in disguise, I saw that."
"I hope you can keep quiet about that," said G'Kar with a twinkle in his eye. "It would appear as if you can keep a secret, which is good to know."
"If I couldn't," said Pa'Ko brightly, "you would be dead."
G'Kar cleared his throat. "I suppose so. Then listen, soldier, we're going to stay here until nightfall. But our human friends need water, and we could all use some nourishment." He looked at Al. "Do you have any of those coins left?"
Al smiled sheepishly and fished in his pocket, pulling out a handful of black coins. "I got lucky on a few bar bets in that tavern," he said nostalgically. "Boy, would I like to be back there now."
He handed all the coins to an amazed Pa'Ko. "Do you think you could get us something to drink and eat for that?"
The boy nodded excitedly. "A feast!! I know a woman who cooks, and she can also keep a secret."
"A feast isn't necessary," said Al. "The water is the most important thing. Also a few motion detectors would be nice." He forced a smile. "Just kidding."
"Silsop cakes," suggested G'Kar. "Something that would be easy to carry. And keep some of the coins for yourself."
The boy nodded excitedly, then bent over in an exaggerated bow and clicked his heels. In a flash he was gone.
"I hate to buy people's loyalty," said G'Kar, "but it usually works."
Al wagged a finger at him. "You owe me some money, Mr. Ambassador, if we ever get out of here!"
"Pretty big 'if,' " grumbled Garibaldi.
G'Kar nodded gravely. "I know, I owe all of you plenty. And don't think I don't realize it. I've been a huge fool, but I've learned a substantial lesson about how to treat people."
The ambassador wandered to one of the three entrances and leaned against the wall, tapping his PPG pistol against his brawny arm. "Fear and neglect often go together," he observed. "We neglect what we fear by pretending it doesn't exist. Then we must fear what we neglect, knowing that someday it might come back to haunt us."
He motioned around the dreary tomb. "Look at this place, where our children live. It is not enough to say that other societies have similar places—this must be dealt with! Ignore it, and we breed a race like those animals who are chasing us. And someday they won't be content to kill each other over a few coins."
Nobody could say much to refute G'Kar, especially under their present circumstances. They were out of grenades, but at least they had three PPGs and several candles. Ivanova also thought about the intense heat that would soon be roasting the surface. They should be happy to be ten meters underground, where the temperature would remain pleasantly cool. She could get used to temperatures like this, but never to the stale smells, the grinning corpses, and the claustrophobia of being inside the ground.
She doubted whether many humans would like it down in the catacombs. Whether it was a cloud-filled sky or an orbital station, humans liked open spaces.
Ivanova took up a station on one of the earthen entranceways and checked her PPG. She wondered how much charge it had left in it.
The commander gazed too long at a flickering candle and was stirred out of troubled daydreams by the sound of feet scuffling through the catacombs. She cursed herself for her carelessness and drew her PPG. Only the fact that the weapon would soon be out of charge prevented her from firing at once, and she was glad she waited. She heard Pa'Ko's gleeful chuckle before she actually saw him skipping toward her, dragging a plastic sack.
"It is dinner time for all of you!" he gushed. First the boy passed plastic bottles to the three humans, each of whom drank ravenously. The water smelled heavily of minerals, but it tasted cool and refreshing. Ivanova knew that she might be picking up parasites or bacteria it would take weeks to get rid of, but she didn't care.
The boy unwrapped packages of small cakes, various pieces of cured fish and animal flesh, and a few dried fruits. "I promised you a feast!" he said proudly.
"Thank you, Pa'Ko." G'Kar patted the boy's bald head. "You have served us well. If you want to come back to B5 with us—after this is all over—perhaps we could find you an adoptive family. Would you like that?"
"Critical!" the boy beamed. "Now you must eat."
G'Kar picked up a cake and began to much on it. "Did you see any of our friends out there?"
Pa'Ko nodded seriously. "I saw the beautiful lady, my friend, and she was yelling at some of the others. She called them cowards and buffoons." The boy laughed and slapped his thigh. "She knows them pretty well!"
He shrugged. "I think they would have killed her, but some of the braver and younger ones stayed with her. I saw her give bloodstones to some who went away. There has been so much fighting that they fear someone has called the rangers. Of course, they may come or not—who knows?"
"You saw a great deal," said Na'Toth, bending down to pick up a slice of cured flesh.
"Always!" grinned Pa'Ko. "The food is good, isn't it? I had some on the way here. Aunt Lo'Mal sure knows how to dry porcine. The others trade animals for her cakes, so she always has more than she should have."
Al grabbed a piece and took a big bite. "It's excellent!" he assured the boy.
"With all these supplies," said G'Kar, "we could easily make it to the plebeian village. As Mi'Ra loses people, she loses her ability to cover all of the escape routes. She'll still be expecting us to try for the outerwalk, so maybe we should try another way."
"I'm game," said Garibaldi.
It was amazing what food and water did to lift the spirits, even if you were entombed in a dreary stretch of catacombs, surrounded by dead and deadly Narns. Ivanova
giggled at the word play in her mind.
"What's so funny?" asked Na'Toth, and then she giggled, too.
Ivanova felt light-headed, but she wasn't alarmed until she saw G'Kar, who was clutching at his throat and staggering around, as if he had lost his motor skills. Na'Toth laughed uproariously at this until she started gagging and clutching her throat. Ivanova whirled around, losing her balance. She tried to concentrate on the bizarre objects that were whirling around the tomb, so she focused on the biggest thing in the room, Al Vernon. He was asleep on the dusty floor, completely unconscious.
Garibaldi whirled around, waving his PPG. She could tell by the way he kept rubbing his eyes and staggering that he wasn't feeling too well. "You poisoned us, you bastard!" he screamed. "Where are you?"
A childish giggle seemed to haunt the room.
G'Kar collapsed to the floor, convulsing. Na'Toth was on her knees, throwing up repeatedly. Garibaldi was staggering around, unsure of his vision. The eerie, candlelit tomb pitched and swayed as if it were on a ship at sea, yet Ivanova could still spot the small Narn dashing for the passageway. She wanted to aim her PPG at him, but she didn't have the coordination.
He turned to them and shook his head sadly, like an adult considering the fragility of life. "Critical. That's what you are. Enjoy the afterlife, compliments of the Thenta Ma'Kur."
With a somersault, Pa'Ko was gone.
CHAPTER 17
Ivanova stopped staggering around and tried to concentrate on looking at her own hands. That was good, because the tomb, the candles, and the dead bodies stopped spinning around. She didn't know if it was true or not, but she convinced herself that the poison wasn't going to kill her. She couldn't say the same for G'Kar and Na'Toth, who were writhing in agony on the dusty floor of the tomb.
"Garibaldi! Garibaldi!" she called.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "That little bastard poisoned us!"
"I know," she said, trying to sound calm about it. As Garibaldi was the only one standing other than her, she spotted him easily and staggered over to grip his shoulders. "Listen, I don't think we're poisoned. The drug has a disastrous effect on the Narns but only a psychotropic effect on humans. On Al, it's having a narcotic-like effect."
"We've gotta get help for them," murmured Garibaldi, brushing his spiked hair back and looking dazed.
"I think I know where, but it's a long shot." Ivanova stopped to take her bearings in the candlelit tomb, and she considered the three exits. "Which one is it that goes back to the shrine?"
Garibaldi pointed to the left. "Susan, if you feel like I do, you're in no condition to make a trip like that."
"Somebody has to go," she answered, looking back at her dying friends. She reached down and picked up two things—a candle and one of the plastic bottles that had a bit of drinking water left in it.
"Wish me luck," she said.
But Garibaldi had fallen on to his rear end and was sitting in a stupor.
Clutching her PPG more for comfort than defense, Ivanova staggered down the passageway. She tried to ignore the leather Narn skulls that smiled knowingly at her. She decided that the poison had one salutary effect—it made the mummified Narns seem more of a hallucination than real. She stuck out her tongue at them as she staggered along.
Ivanova had no clear idea of the passage of time, but she had always been good at landmarks, even if they were a pile of skulls or an especially gruesome corpse wearing a bright red dress. She found the fork and branched to the left as she knew she was supposed to; in due time, she found the shrine. Actually the first thing she found was the body of the man she had killed earlier, and his sardonic grin was not comforting. She tried to ignore his vacant-eyed stare as she stepped between him and the small statuette of D'Bok, whose gaze made her feel guilty for desecrating the catacombs.
She muttered a curse when she saw the tattered ladder, half of it drooping against the other half. Well, she wasn't very heavy, Ivanova assured herself, compared to the men who had been climbing down the tattered strands. She stuck the PPG and the bottle into her belt and started up. Going slowly and using roots as handholds, she was able to climb the damaged shaft, and she found her senses clearing as she approached clean air and sunlight.
Unfortunately, there was a good chance her head would be blown off as soon as she poked it out of the hole. It was a good thing the poison was numbing her senses. Ivanova climbed out of the shaft and froze, holding her breath. When nobody shot her, she decided to quit worrying about dying for the moment, but she couldn't help but wonder where the gunners had gone. If they weren't waiting here, where were they waiting?
She looked around and saw that the large shrine was unchanged from their earlier visit. The air, however, was much hotter than before. Since she wasn't worrying about dying anymore, she left her PPG in her belt as she jogged into the street, searching for a sign that looked like a "Q."
Ivanova found it quickly, behind the rubble of the wall where they had hidden. She didn't knock—she just barged in—and she gasped as she saw several beds with horribly burned Narns occupying them. A nurse at the back of the cramped room gasped, too, as if she wasn't expecting to see an alien in the border zone. She was holding an intravenous bottle for one of the burn victims, and she carefully hung it on a stand.
"Doctor!" she croaked. "We need you out here." An older Narn woman dressed in white operating togs entered the room, and she pulled down her mask in amazement when she saw Ivanova.
"Doctor, please help me," said the human. "Several members of our party have been poisoned. It's not affecting the humans as badly, but the Narns look like they're dying!"
"Where are they?" asked the doctor warily.
"In the catacombs, not far from here." The aged doctor scratched the folds under her chin. "We don't see many humans down here. Did you have something to do with the carnage out on the street today? Did you burn these men?"
"They were trying to kill us!" shouted Ivanova, shaking her head with frustration. "It all revolves around a Shon'Kar. Listen, Doctor, I'll be happy to explain the whole thing at another time, but right now I need an antidote for this poison!"
"I don't know." The doctor glowered at her. "I'm rather busy right now, thanks to you."
Undeterred, Ivanova held out the bottle of water. "This is poisoned water. Can you analyze it?"
With a scowl, the old doctor grabbed the sample from her. "Don't we have enough problems in the border zone without humans and wealthy Narns mucking about?"
"I'd say you do," said Ivanova. "What do you want from me? My friends are dying, and you're wasting my time! If you'll just give me the antidote, I can administer it."
The doctor growled something under her breath and shuffled into the back room. Ivanova stepped into the doorway and saw the woman pour some of the water into a centrifugal device. It spun around a bit, then she dropped some filaments into the sample. After another moment, she looked at her readouts.
"Katissium," she pronounced. "A popular poison that is tasteless and cheap to make. But the antidote is expensive."
Ivanova dug out her credit chit and tossed it on the counter in front of the doctor. "This should cover it. Time is scarce, Doctor."
The woman smiled. "Interesting that katissium should have such little effect on humans. I must make a note of that in my journal."
The doctor shuffled to a cabinet and pulled out a syringe gun. "I don't know about the humans, but you must administer the injection to the Narns in their necks. Right here." She touched the right side of her neck between a ripple of cartilage and a large artery. "They will need to rest afterward."
"Just hurry!" begged Ivanova.
The commander stuck the syringe gun loaded with antidote into her uniform, then skirted along the front of the buildings. Street Jasgon was still as dead as they had left it, although the doctor and others had had the decency to pick up the bodies. Seeing no one to stop her, she ducked into the shrine and scampered down the ladder as quic
kly as its hacked-up condition would allow. She dreaded returning to the tomb and finding G'Kar and Na'Toth dead, but she steeled herself to that possibility. At least she had done everything she could, and maybe Al or Garibaldi would need the antidote.
Ivanova dropped the last meter to the bottom of the shaft, which was now strewn with rubble. She stumbled out and lit the candle in her pocket with her PPG. Clutching the syringe gun to her chest, she ran down the passageway. Ivanova dodged the dehydrated mummies that jerked and danced as she rushed past, disturbing the air of centuries. Just when she thought she had made it, she heard a sound like a stone being kicked, and she whirled around, fumbling for her PPG.
She stood for several seconds in the ageless catacombs, shivering and staring, but there was nothing behind her but darkness and softly swaying cadavers. She shrugged it off as best she could and kept running.
Ivanova rounded the corner where the passageways met and continued to the tomb. Be careful not to trip, she told herself. She saw the familiar landmarks, the pyramid of skulls, the well-dressed corpses, and she kept on running. It seemed longer than it had before, and everything she carried—the candle, the PPG, the syringe gun—seemed heavier than before. She slowed down, reminding herself that she was still suffering the effects of the drug, and it wouldn't do anyone any good if she passed out. When her head cleared, she started running again.
Finally, she saw the light at the end of the passage, and she knew it had to be the tomb. It had to be! She staggered into the dimly lit room and saw Al Vernon bending over Na'Toth, shaking her.
"Wake up!" he sobbed. "Wake up!"
"Get back!" Ivanova yelled at him, pushing him off the prostrated Narn. She whipped out the syringe gun and administered a quick shot of antidote to Na'Toth's neck, not even bothering to check if she was alive or not.
Then Ivanova jumped up and staggered over to G'Kar, where Garibaldi was keeping a death vigil. The ambassador was still alive but barely; he coughed weakly. Ivanova concentrated on her task and injected a dose of antidote into his neck. Only then did she slump against the wall of the tomb and begin panting.
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