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.