A Call to Arms (11 page)

“The next bit is a little tricky,” Vlast said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d go first.”

Dureena studied the opening, vaguely visible in front of her by virtue of a faint glowlamp in the ceiling. She didn’t much like the look of it. And there was a faint odor, one which she couldn’t quite place...

“Isn’t there a back way we can use?”

“This
is
the back way. It’s the only way we can get to the lockers without setting off the alarms.”

That set off faint alarm bells ringing in Dureena’s mind, but she moved ahead, her senses on the alert. She moved through the square doorway. Even as she did so, she identified the strangely familiar odor--ailgii! She spun around to turn back, but a panel slid into place behind her, covering the opening before she could get to it. She heard another metallic clang and a hatch slid shut nearby. Automatic lights came on and she saw that she was trapped inside a square box about three yards to a side. Furiously she kicked at the door. It didn’t give.

She realized now that she was in a compactor box, of the sort used to press masses of ailgii, an edible fungus grown commercially on Alcestis 2. She had recognized the characteristic odor an instant before the trap had sprung, but too late to do anything about it. Ailgii gave off a sweetish grassy sort of smell, with a faint peppery tang to it. Unmistakable, once you had grown accustomed to it.

“What in hell is this?” she shouted. “You’ve trapped me!”

“Not at all, Dureena.” Vlast’s voice came to her faintly from the outside. “I’ve done a great deal of research. This is the only way of getting to the storage lockers without setting off the alarms.”

“Through the ailgii-compacting vat?”

“It brought
me
to a stop,” Vlast admitted. “But a lady of your talents should have no trouble dealing with it. It’s about time I learned how good you are at getting out of tight places.”

“Let me out of here,” Dureena said, her voice piercing and dangerous.

“Get yourself out,” Vlast said. “Then I’ll know for sure about your talents. And the way ahead will be open for us.”

“When I get out,” Dureena said, “I’m going to kill you, Vlast. Slowly. Painfully.”

“You’ll change your mind when I show you the treasure,” Vlast said. “It’s big. Oh, it’s very big, Dureena. I’m going to take you there. All you have to do is oblige both of us by getting out of the compactor box.”

Dureena had a few other things to say, but decided to use her time more usefully. She looked around, more carefully this time.

She was in a sealed metal box. That much was apparent at a glance. The floor beneath her feet was dusty. The recessed fluorescents glowed dimly, providing a faint light without shadow. At the box’s midlevel there were inspection ports, one to each side, with windows that were reinforced with heavy metal mesh. Through the window on one side she could see Vlast. The meshed port on the other side afforded a view of a passage that, in turn, led through an archway lit by a glowbulb. It led, presumably, to the lockers where the treasure was stored.

The compactor was empty, offered nothing she might use to break the Plexiglas. That was immovable, obviously welded into place. Looking around, she saw that the ceiling was slightly different from the rest of the box. It was a solid square of bright metal that fit inside the walls of the box, with a fit too tight to put a knife blade into.

Nonetheless, Dureena pulled a knife blade out of her pocket, one of several plasteel weapons she had concealed when giving Zack Allan what had supposedly been all her armament. Its heft helped her to concentrate.

She moved to the wire-mesh opening in the front of the box and looked out. She was able to see a circuit box on the wall. The box had two big buttons, one red, one green.

There was a hum of machinery, then a heavy metallic scraping sound. Glancing up, Dureena saw that the ceiling of the box had begun to inch down toward her.

“Did you do something?” she called out to Vlast.

“Nothing! I believe the compactor box turns on automatically whenever anything is introduced into it. I’ve heard that the specifications call for a crushing force of one and two thousand pounds to the square inch. This obstruction stopped me, but I have no doubt you have some trick up your sleeve.” Dureena again glanced up at the ceiling. It was descending very slowly, but with an awful finality. The scrape of metal on metal made a nerve-shattering screeching sound. It must have gone a long time between lube jobs.

Without hurry, Dureena reached into her clothing. She took out a flexible piece of cord that might have been mistaken for a part of her garment. She bit off a piece of it and crimped the cord twice with a peculiar motion. She placed it on the narrow ledge where the Plexiglas was inset, then stepped to the back of the box and turned away.

There was a brief, sharp explosion. Shards of Plexiglas, too small to hurt her, flew everywhere. Dureena turned back to the mangled mesh and pushed it out. It dropped to the deck with a tinkle.

From his position behind the compactor box, standing on tiptoe and peering into the inspection port, Vlast figured out what she had done. “Very nice,” he said. “But perhaps you didn’t notice that the opening is too small for a lady of your goddesslike proportions.”

“I wasn’t planning to crawl out through it,” Dureena said. “Though I could manage if I had to. No, I just wanted to clear some space for this.”

She reached into her hair and pulled out something. It was crescent shaped, and Vlast thought it might be some kind of a hair clip or ornament. He changed his mind when, with an economical but powerful sidearm motion, Dureena threw it through the front port she had just opened.

The missile struck the red button squarely and solidly. The machinery turned off. The ceiling stopped descending. There was a click of circuits, and the front and back of the box opened.

Vlast stared, scarcely believing what he had seen.

“You can step through now,” Dureena said. “It isn’t going to bite you, and neither am I-for the moment. Now can we get a look at this treasure?”

Moving more quickly than before, they went through more corridors and connecting passageways, past more ancient debris and clutter.

“Doesn’t anyone ever clean up this place?” Dureena asked.

Vlast shrugged. “I’ve never been here before. As I told you, I never got past the compactor box. The ailgii processing system hasn’t been used since the time of the Shadow Wars. The rest has been set aside for valuables sent to Babylon 5 from planets trying to survive the Shadows. Each planet was assigned its own automated locker space, and allowed to make whatever provisions were considered necessary to preserve its goods.

“But in the desperate rush that prevailed at that time, no one really checked the credentials and backgrounds of the companies who claimed to be storage providers. Unscrupulous operators preyed on the desperate races who were fleeing the Shadows. The storage company brought the goods to Babylon 5, but they no doubt changed the codes so they would have easy access, should the treasure owners be killed.”

The passageway narrowed again. The light became murky, and as they went through a tight turn, they found themselves in darkness. The glowlamps had been extinguished in this part of the station, or had burned out.

Pulling a small, handheld lamp from a pouch, Dureena led the way, moving forward slowly, cautiously, watching each step.

Almost immediately she felt that something was wrong. She could sense something waiting in the darkness, some presence darker than the absolute blackness that hovered outside the narrow beam.

“What’s going on?” Vlast asked. “What’s the matter?”

“Be very still,” Dureena said. For at the sound of his voice she had heard something stir in the darkness, felt the slight movement of the air as something moved.

“But I---”

“Shut up!”
she hissed.

She listened, every sense straining. She had picked up the faint, almost subliminal hum of machinery.

She smelled the dusty air and the faint trace of machine oil. With infinite care, she took a step to the left, then another, and another after that, bringing her to the corridor wall. She moved slowly: it would be disastrous now to blunder into any movable object. She could tell that the thing, whatever it was, was moving again, but more slowly. She could hear the almost imperceptible noises it made as it quested, turning this way and that. Always avoiding the flashlight beam.

Then she heard Vlast, a few feet away from her, his voice quivering with fear, whispering, “Dureena? What can you see?”

She didn’t answer. But the thing in the darkness gave a single creak at the sound of Vlast’s voice. It had come to a stop about six yards to her right, as far as she could tell.

Dureena willed Vlast to speak again, and he didn’t disappoint her. She heard his hoarse whisper.

“Dureena--what is it?”

On the basis of almost imperceptible subcues, she could sense the thing as it tensed, heard it as it coiled, preparing itself for a leap... She timed it perfectly. Kicking out with every ounce of energy in her body, she caught the thing in midair, just as it launched itself at Vlast.

Vlast squealed involuntarily and tumbled backward, crying, “Help! It’s got me!”

Dureena had no time to attend to Vlast. She dropped the flashlight--things were happening too fast for it to be of any use. She followed up her kick with a stride and then a plunge into the darkness where she knew the thing was. She could hear it scrabbling around on its back, making audible clicking sounds now as it tried to right itself. And then she was on it.

It was smaller than she had imagined, perhaps the size of a large cat. Her hand closed on its head. She wrenched, releasing and focusing her energy with a shout that echoed throughout the corridor. The creature’s metallic head came off in her hand. The thing quivered, its limbs twitched, and it expired.

Vlast scooped up the flashlight. After he’d recovered enough to realize he was not injured, he managed, with shaking hands, to turn it on their assailant. They examined the creature that had been stalking them. It was a small, spiderlike metal thing. Smoke arose from its interior circuits.

“I’ve heard of these things,” Vlast said. “It’s a vermin catcher. A lot of storage facilities use them nowadays. It’s battery-operated, with motion sensors to detect rats or anything else that scurries around in the darkness. They’re supposed to be programmed not to attack something as large as a person.”

“The owners of this storage facility wanted to keep out vermin of any size,” Dureena commented. Throwing the mechanical remains off to one side, she continued, “Shall we get on with it?”

Another short walk brought them to an anteroom lit by ceiling glowbulbs. It seemed to have been a receiving dock of some sort. There were benches, and an unmanned desk with a dusty communicator and a keyboard. Behind the desk, a closed metal door apparently led to the storage area itself.

“At last!” Vlast breathed. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited for this moment. Imagine it, Dureena! The lockers must lie just behind that door. And the treasure of Myost awaits us.”

“First we have to get through the door,” Dureena pointed out.

“I don’t suppose it just pushes open,” Vlast said, giving the door a shove. It was immovable. “I was afraid not.”

He studied the door. “No handle or locking device. No visible hinges. Nothing but a single big steel plate. Damnation! Could we have come this far for nothing?”

“Obviously,” Dureena said “the door isn’t meant to be operated manually.”

“How, then?”

“Whoever comes here must communicate with it by the computer.” She studied it. Though it was covered with dust, its ready light was on. She tapped a key. A program came up on the screen. It read, “Entry level. Authorized personnel only. Password required.”

“This may not be too difficult,” Dureena said. She sat down in front of the computer, rested her fingers on the keyboard, thought for a moment, then typed, “Password.” There was a hum of small servos kicking into life, and the metal door slid smoothly open.

“How did you know that?” Vlast asked.

Dureena shrugged. “I figured it was no big secret, just a matter of form. This used to be a manned station. People came in and out of here every day. Whoever ran this facility didn’t want to simply leave the door open. But there was no reason to make getting through it difficult, either. Anyhow, all of the traffic would have to have been service facility personnel. If anyone else had gotten this far, they must have already proven they were authorized.”

“Then why a door at all?” Vlast asked.

“How should I know? People put up doors whether they need them or not. Maybe they wanted to avoid drafts. Shall we go in?”

Inside was another, larger room. It was the storage facility. There were lockers on all the walls, from floor to ceiling, square containers about two yards to a side.

They had markings identifying their planet of origin. Myost’s locker had a double-crossed arrow symbol marking it.

Dureena studied the setup. She saw that entry into the locker was controlled by a keypad. “See if you can open it,” Dureena said.

Vlast punched in a series of numbers. The locker didn’t open.

“The operators of this facility must have changed the codes,” Vlast said. “Make it easier for them to get at the goods when no claimant turned up. No wonder they didn’t have to lock the door. You can’t get into your locker anyhow!”

“We should be able to find the correct code, anyhow. It probably isn’t buried very deeply.”

“Maybe not. But who are you going to ask?”

“The computer, of course.”

She went back to the desk, Vlast following. Sitting down, she called up a menu of programs. Since the computer was dedicated to the single task of controlling the storage facility, this wasn’t difficult. She found a help file and called up a screenful of definitions.

“Here’s what we want,” Dureena said. “Access codes.” She typed in the words. The computer responded by requesting the locker number.

“What are the coordinates of the Myost locker?” she asked Vlast.