Babylon 5: In Valen's way
A/N: When you get to the end of the fic, recall the title.
BABYLON 5:
IN VALEN'S WAY
It was late--or at least it was late according to the clocks and
the biologies of most of the beings on the station, with the
possible exception of the Pak'ma'ra, who like to be contrary.
Being, as it was, a space station, Babylon 5 had no concept of day
and night as we planet-bound schmucks know it, which make things
like midnight snacks almost pointless, really, because when you
look out the window it's always dark and thus it really squashes
that neat feeling of eating a sandwitch in the dead of night with
nothing but stars outside like an overripe bug. As anyone--with
the possible exception of the Pak'ma'ra, who like to be contrary--
will tell you, the novelty of looking out the window and seeing
nothing but stars every time gets a little old after about...say,
a day--sorry, twenty-four hour period. Which is exactly why there
are so few windows on the station, because prolonged viewing of
stars outside has been medically proven to induce bouts of
crypticness and interminable philosophising, even in the most
rudely plain-spoken of beings--Americans. In the light of such
evidence, windows have been restricted only to places with
properly pretentious names such as Zen Gardens.
Nonetheless, even without something so concrete as a sun or moon
to base this observation on, it was safe to say it was late, as
most beings were asleep--with the possible exception of the
Pak'ma'ra, who like to be contrary.
Add to that Commander Susan Ivanova. Not because she's a
Pak'ma'ra, and not because she's particularly contrary with that
ease and completeness displayed only by the aforementioned aliens
(she tries, though), but because she's a night owl. That makes
getting up in the morning (such as it were) a lot of fun, but we
haven't gotten to that point yet. It's still about a quarter to
one in the morning and there she sits in her favourite chair, a
reading light on and her nose in a book.
The book's cover said, "Babylon 5, the Complete Book of Scripts."
Because, really, the reason why nothing goes on on that station
without her knowing about it should be painfully obvious....
It was a busy morning--or at least it was morning according to the
clocks and the biologies of most of the beings on the--oh, sod
this, you know the rant! And no-where was is busier than in the
Zocalo. Betcha thought I was going to say "the C&C," right?
Betcha thought I was going to ignore all logic and end this
sentence in a manner that would introduce the principals as early
on in the story as I could, huh? Please, what part of that
station sees more traffic in an average d--twenty-four hour period
than here, except maybe Downbelow? Or the Medlab, especially if a
crowd of Drazi have been drinking?
But you were right on one count--I want to introduce the
principals early in order to make this story short enough to fit
in one file, maybe two at the most, and so the Zocalo has
absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this scene. It's a
meaningless scene shot. So we'll switch to the pertinent scene
before the screaming, frothing mad faithful followers of
Straczynskism club me senseless with thick, meaningful tomes and
reams of impassioned diatribes--er, I mean holy texts.
The C&C broke one very important rule. Not the rule about
civilians in a military base of ops, even if alien ambassadors and
annoying reporters regularly tromp in and out, and not Murphy's
Law, no matter what Ivanova says, and not Ivanova's Law, no matter
what Garibaldi says. No, it flaunted the Surgeon General's
warning about windows on space stations with breathtakingly
massive impunity. The entire facing wall, the wall any poor
schlub walking in the door sees first, was almost completely
comprised of the most illegal transparent stuff, allowing the
poor, mistreated souls within a panoramic gander of one of the
most unhealthy things to look at since billboards--space. There's
a reason you never see Doctor Franklin in the C&C, you know. He
washed his hands of it the first time he clapped eyes on it.
Perhaps the only beings in there who were well-suited to prolonged
space-gazing were the aforementioned Ivanova (because she was
Russian and understood these things), the aforementioned Garibaldi
(being, as he was, a devoted follower of the Ancient Egyptian God
of Frustration), and Captain John (J) David Sheridan (because he
possessed that instantly likeable Kirkian quality designed to ease
disenfranchised Trekkers who were bored with Sisko and sick of
Janeway's voice into the show, and thus nothing fazed the man
unless JMS said so.) The rest, of course, didn't matter, because
they were always in and out of Medlab, blathering heavy
philosophical nonsense, twitching and foaming at the mouth. What
set them apart from those three, making the trio the principals,
was that when the principals blathered their constant streams of
heavy philosophical nonsense, they didn't twitch or foam at the
mouth--I guess they didn't work up a good enough blather.
(Ba'rump-Bump-Ching!)
Lengthy narration aside, one of the three could be seen standing
impressively right smack dab in front of that window, instead of
wisely looking away from it whenever possible like the others did,
gazing steadily and defiantly at the infinity. Because there was
one thing in that window's field of view that broke the
starfield's insidious and evil spell--the jumpgate.
And Ivanova, who was the person staring steadily and defiantly
into the starfield (okay, actually she was watching a bug crawl
slowly along the inside of the window, but that just doesn't sound
impressive enough for this show) looked at the jumpgate and
silently willed it for the sixtieth time that d--TWENTY FOUR HOUR
PERIOD, DAMNIT! to open or explode or suddenly rearrange itself so
that it spelt out "Hi there!"; something, anything to releive the
boredom! She hated C&C duty--it meant that all the others were in
the bleedin' story and she wasn't. Damnit, she was already losing
the race to see who was in the most episodes to Garibaldi! She
had to get in as much screen time as she possibly could before she
left the series for no apparent reason!
Ivanova quashed that galling thought. She unclenched her fists
and took a deep breath, relaxing her equally clenched jaw. She
knew that some people were staring at her, but she convinced
herself that it was just that a Human being was so much safer to
look at than those stars. She let out the deep breath she'd been
holding. The last time she did that, the narrator went on for
three more paragraphs before remembering that she'd taken this
huge breath and hadn't released it--the narrator had gotten one
sentence into the fourth paragraph when she'd turned purple and
fainted.
The jumpgate hadn't so much as moved when she looked at it again.
Ivanova glared viciously at the unoffending device.
Well, as anyone--with the possible exception of the Pak'ma'ra, who
like to be contrary--will tell you, a watched jumpgate never
opens. Ivanova stared at that thing until her eyes burned. She
closed her eyes and rubbed them, and then snapped them back open
again. Nothing. She turned and started to pace round and round,
then stopped and whipped her gaze to the jumpgate. Nothing. She
looked at everyone's terminals and rubbed a small spot off the
railing with her sleeve and accessed the computer and scrolled
through yards and yards and yards of text and orbited the room
again and looked for the news on whatever the Internet had become
by that time and pondered making random prank link calls and
accessed the computer again with the full intent of teaching
herself Narn and then turned off the computer with the full intent
of killing every Narn in sight, and wandered over to the door to
see just how close she could get to it before it opened and then
whipped her gaze to the jumpgate. NOTHING!
Ivanova wilted. This was going to be a long day. Eventually she
found herself in front of the computer terminal, engrossed in the
novel she'd picked at random and downloaded. She'd chewed her way
through the first two chapters and was just to the point where the
hero finds himself falling with alarming rapidity toward the fully
expected ground when someone said, "Commander, the jumpgate's
opening."
Ivanova paged down, as the hero smashed himself against the ground
with an obviousness that left the prose reeling, and was now
reading about his ascent into Heaven. The tech said, a little
louder, "Commander, the jumpgate just opened."
The hero was philosophising about the Pearly Gates and the prose
was describing them to the tiniest detail, telling Ivanova just
what kind of heavenly metal they were made of, its chemical
composition, the history of the poor winged schlub who'd
volunteered to craft these dazzling declarations of door design,
and what kind of dizzyingly hideous cologne St. Peter was wearing
that day. The tech shouted, "Commander, there's sixty Minbari
ships coming through that jumpgate!"
AARRGH, of all the interruptions, it had to be...
"Sixty Minbari ships?!" Ivanova shrieked, part in disbelief that
that many of the huge things could fit through their modest little
jumpgate and part in elation that finally the damn thing did
something! Something to do! Huzzah!
"Sorry, sir, I exaggerated to get your attention. There aren't
sixty ships coming through," the tech apologised.
"How many then?"
"Only fifty-nine."
Ivanova almost hit the floor when she suddenly remembered that the
C&C, with its metal deckplates and railing strewn about as though
from a giant saltshaker, was not the best place in the Universe to
do such takes. Instead, she looked out the window.
Indeed, streaming out of the jumpgate was an endless procession of
Minbari ships of all shapes and sizes, ranging from little bitty
fliers to those excessively large battleships.
"What is there, a flarn sale?" Ivanova muttered. Then she said,
"Get me Ambassador Delenn."
Someone got up and headed for the door. "I meant on the comm
unit!" Ivanova snapped, pointing a forceful finger at the
aforementioned screen. After a second or two, Delenn's face
appeared on the screen. The Minbari hastily put down the candy-
on-a-stick she'd been sucking on. Someone had been to the Zocalo,
though it was a pity she hadn't shown up in that meaningless
screen shot!
"What can I do for you, Commander?" Delenn asked, as calm and
serene as always. I guess Minbari don't get sugar rushes,
Ivanova thought. The sticks-in-the-mud.
"You can tell me why there are fifty-nine Minbari ships outside,
all banging on the door go come in!" Ivanova replied with that
peculiar down-home imagery in space typical to a J. Michael
Straczynski line.
A clueless look completely and efficiently spread itself across
Delenn's face. Her brows (such as they were) met in a look of one
combating such cluelessness and she uttered the quintessentially
clueless "Hunh?"
Ivanova waited. After two seconds she got thoroughly sick of
waiting and decided to help out, instead. "They just showed up--"
here she looked at her watch "--about a minute ago. Out of the
blue. No hostile intentions, just half the race wanting in."
The little wheels turned in Delenn's head for a moment. Then she
jumped as though stung. Ivanova realised a second later, that it
wasn't a metaphor as Delenn now jumped about, shrieking and
slapping at her back as best a humanoid can, all traces of
serenity well and truly done away with. A moment later the
Minbari returned, her dignity replaced and her clothes only a
little askew. Lennier could be seen in the background,
vigourously stomping one foot against the floor, repeatedly and
with a viscous savageness whose utter, unspeakably massive
incongruity made Ivanova's brain hurt.
"I see," the Minbari stated. She said, "I see" a few more times,
the point that she didn't see at all making itself painfully
obvious. Eventually it dawned on her and she smote a fist against
an open palm. "That's it!" she said.
"What's it?" Ivanova wanted to know.
"To-day is Valen day!"
Ivanova boggled. "Valen. Day."
"That's right, once every nine years on this date we celebrate the
day that Valen came to us," Delenn stated. Ivanova saw another
lengthy string of Minbari philosophy on yon horizon and wedged in
a word edgewise before Delenn could launch into it. That word
was:
"Hunh?"
"Once...every...nine...years..." Delenn repeated, slowly and with
an overenunciated cadence usually reserved for the students of the
Brad Dourif School of Acting.
Ivanova waved her hands. "No, I mean what...why d'you...what's
the...oh, for God's sake, Valen Day?!"
Delenn looked a little hurt. "Yes, Valen Day."
"Every nine years?!"
Delenn looked at her as though it were really the most obvious
thing in the Universe. That it was and Ivanova caught on after a
moment. "Okay, but still. Valen Day?"
"Actually, Valen Days," Lennier said from behind Delenn, back to
his unflappable self as though nothing had ever happened.
"Wait, lemme guess. There's nine of 'em, right? Nine crazy days
of Minbari partying down?"
"No, twenty-seven."
This time Ivanova hit the floor. She popped back up, ignoring the
pain from gracelessly slamming into the metal deckplates and
screeched, "TWENTY-SEVEN DAYS?! We're going to have half the
Minbari race hanging around and making a nuisance of themselves
for TWENTY-SEVEN DAYS?!" she concluded in a vein-popping bellow
usually reserved for the students of the John Cleese School of
Acting. Everyone in the C&C stopped whatever it was they were
doing to stare at their frothing commander and the door opened and
a PPG popped through, closely followed by the rest of the esteemed
Mr. Garibaldi. He stared, blinking, at Ivanova.
"Oh, it's just you and your primal scream therapy again," he
observed. "Now didn't I ask you not to do that in places where
people might stare at you?"
"Where did you pop up from?" Ivanova asked in a valiant effort to
lower her blood pressure.
"The lift," he replied. "I was just on my way here to ask you
what you knew about all those Minbari ships out there, but I can
see you just found out."
"Yes," she hissed. "It's Valen Days!"
"'Valen Days'?" he echoed. "I thought it was just Valen Day."
"The calendars only list the first day," Delenn informed them.
"A wise move, that," Ivanova observed. "Else the entire Galaxy
would have banded together and eradicated Minbar on the spot."
"Why? How many Valen Days are there?" was Garibaldi's obvious
question.
"Twenty-seven," Ivanova grated.
"Three cubed. Very Minbari," Garibaldi observed. He sighed.
"This'll be fun to sort out. Maybe we can just clear everyone
else out, ourselves included, and let them have the station for a
month."
"I don't think the question is 'what is everyone else going to
do?' as much as it's 'why here?'" Ivanova pointed out.
"That's a very good question," Delenn observed.
So the whole principal cast sat in a conference room, pondering
heartily. The excuse that other races might very well be
adversely affected was apparently enough to get Londo and G'Kar
and Kosh in there, as well, and Marcus could never mind his own
business anyway. Neither could Lyta, but that's just an
occupational hazard of telepaths.
"It could be that this station is as close as one can get to where
Valen appeared a thousand years ago," Delenn observed.
"Where did you Minbari hold your month-long party before now,
though?" Sheridan wanted to know.
"Minbar, of course," Delenn replied. "But that was before we had
Babylon stations."
"Makes sense," Marcus said.
"Well, what about you?" Ivanova said, looking at him. "What do
the Rangers have to say about this? You guys probably know more
about Valen than the average Minbari does."
"True, very true," He replied, basking in his own superiority,
however tenuously attained, for a moment. "It is said," he
began. IOh, God,/I Ivanova moaned mentally. "That Valen
passed down a decree, first through the Ianla'shok,/I then to
the rest of Minbar. 'Let there be twenty-seven days of
festivities every nine years starting on the date of my arrival,'
he said, 'let it be twenty-seven days and nine years because I
know Minbari are obsessed with the number three from experience
and I love creating unfounded causality loops left, right and
centre.'"
"That explains that," Sheridan observed. "But that still doesn't
answer the question of why they're having these twenty-seven days
of festivities here."
"Maybe Delenn's right and it's closest to where they found him,"
G'Kar put in.
"Maybe because everyvone know that vhen you vant to party, you
come to Babylon Five," Londo put in.
"Maybe because this place is the best place to be when the
inevitable strikes after twenty-seven days of partying," Franklin
grumbled.
"Maybe we're making a bigger problem out of this than it really
should be," Lyta said, looking about suspiciously. A hush fell
over the room.
"Don't tell me..." Ivanova gasped.
"Yup," said the telepath.
"What? Are the Shadows responsible?" Delenn asked.
"Nope. Worse."
"Psi Corps?" Franklin suggested.
"Even worse."
"What? What? What? The First Ones? Technomages?" Sheridan
spluttered.
"Even worse than them. We're talking about fanfic writers!" Lyta
replied.
The whole group turned pale.
Londo gulped. "No...not fanfic writers..."
"This evil scourge has plagued my people enough!" G'Kar yelled.
"I say we throw down this insidious force!"
"We can't!" Delenn hissed. "No-one yet has fought them and
lived!"
A hush fell over the room again. Everyone looked at each other,
then eventually, one by one, all eyes turned to look at the
Vorlon, who had stood silently by the entire time.
"What...what should we do?" Sheridan whispered.
There was a pause. The Vorlon created some unintelligible sound.
The translator unit said this, and only this:
"Japanese alphabet soup comes in three varieties."
The group came away from that conference as clueless as they had
been when they went in. In fact, the only satisfaction derived
from this meeting of the minds was from having clubbed the Vorlon
senseless for yet another nonsensical observation.
"I guess the only thing we can do is try to ride it out,"
Sheridan observed as the Humans and the Minbari walked down an
endless and thoroughly obligatory corridor. "We'll let in as many
Minbari as we can fit."
"Who knows, maybe the reputation of Valen Days precedes itself and
half the station will flee in terror," Ivanova observed wryly.
Delenn turned to Sheridan, that Mona Lisa smile on her face and
said, in her calm, gentle voice, "We shall see." Behind her back
she dropped the iron tubing with which she had just pounded
Ivanova into the floor. They moved on down the corridor.
When Sheridan had said, "We'll let in as many Minbari as we can,"
he hadn't exactly been banking on this much of a crowd. Indeed,
as he stood on one of those high catwalky things overlooking the
docking bays, he saw that two stations had been set up there.
One, manned by the trusty Zack Allen, took care of the constant
stream of people leaving the station. It seemed Ivanova was
right, but Sheridan had learned well from the unfortunate
Russian's involuntary example and wasn't going to breathe a word
of that to Delenn. Everyone--with the possible exception of the
Pak'ma'ra, who like to be contrary--really was leaving Babylon 5!
The other station, manned by the ever-capable Mr. Garibaldi, took
care of the almost constant stream of Minbari coming in. Minbari
of all castes, all walks of life, all ages. Rich Minbari, poor
Minbari, reasonably well-off Minbari. Old Minbari and young
Minbari and every Minbari in-between. Warriors and priests and
butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers. Rangers and the
average schlub off the street. Short Minbari and tall Minbari.
Men and women. Half the race had turned up and it seemed the
other half were on its way.
Sheridan sighed. At least some of the people running businesses
and stands in the Zocalo had stayed, and it was amazing the number
and range of purveyors who figured they could stand to make a
profit from the sudden influx of Minbari.
Sheridan watched the line of Minbari as it continued. Then he
walked away, figuring that he could stand there for an hour and
nothing would change except the faces on the Minbari. He could
come back in three hours and see almost exactly the same thing.
He could come back here tomorrow and see almost exactly the same
thing! No, Sheridan was not worried in the slightest that he was
going to miss something.
"Fresh flarn! Getcher fresh flarn here!"
The amount of hawking and selling among the stands was insane
today, Londo noticed as he wandered about, looking for someone,
anyone, who didn't have a bone crest on his head! It was the
second day of these so-called Valen Days, and no end in sight to
the Minbari streaming onto the station. He figured that
eventually the whole station would fall out of its orbit under the
weight of so many people and crash and burn on the planet below,
putting an end to the Minbari and their silly Valen Days. He
pushed that witty, Peter David-esque thought aside and hunted
through the stands and kiosks. It was only then that he realised
the true horror of the visiting of Valen Days upon the station:
everyone here, with the exception of a few stand-runners, was
Minbari. And that meant--he clapped his hands to his face in
sudden horror like Munch's screamer. All these Minbari...
Not a drop of liquor in sight!!
The alarm buzzed at Ivanova to wake up. "Yeah, okay, shut up, I'm
awake!" she croaked at it. It fell silent. She looked at the
clock. 0700. Gawd, two hours of sleep! It was only the third
day of these ridiculous Valen Days, but if this insane partying
kept up any longer, she'd throw the whole lot of them out the
nearest airlock! The culminating factor that brought her to this
conclusion was the disturbance at four in the morning. Looking
out her door, Ivanova'd seen that the entire population of
partying Minbari had formed one massive conga line and were
dancing up and down the corridors. She couldn't remember whether
she'd said anything to them, because she had gone immediately to
her vodka in an attempt to drink herself into a stupor--anything
to avoid having to listen to conga songs sung in Minbari!
A very hung-over and sleep-deprived Ivanova showered and dressed
and somehow made her way through the station, surrounded, as she
was, on all sides by happy, cheerful partying Minbari!
She shuffled into the lift, thinking evil thoughts about fanfic
writers the whole way, and only just remembered to tell the thing
where she wanted to go. Just the fact that she got there in one
piece was evidence enough that not all fanfic writers are nasty
people, but the chaos that was Valen Days swirling around her made
it difficult for her to be convinced of this fact. She braced
herself for another day of insanity.
By the second week of Valen Days, G'kar was dearly, sorely wishing
he'd left the station when he'd had the chance. Of course, now,
not so much as a Starfury could fit through the impenetrable clog
of Minbari ships. Trade of every kind had ground to a halt and
communications as well, as every channel available and some that
weren't--like his own, for example--was clogged up with twenty-
four hour calls to home or anywhere else these Minbari could
possibly think to contact, including every point on the station!
G'Kar wondered who there was at home for these Minbari to call--
the entire race was already here!
He pushed a thought through the sea of exclamation marks--the
thought was a query as to just how Ambassador Delenn was handling
the entire Minbari population showing up on her doorstep, as it
were.
He contemplated calling her, but when he turned on his Babcom
screen, two Minbari were on it, chatting animatedly about who said
this and who did that. He contemplated screaming at them to get
off his line, but he knew it wouldn't do him any good. He
switched it off. He decided, instead, to take comfort in the fact
that Londo was just as miserable, if not more so. That thought
had made him reasonably happy many times. Yes, if everything else
changed tomorrow, and the station was upside down and bright green
and air was edible and food was breathable, the sometimes childish
animosity and outright jealousy between the two would still
continue, and always would, until the day they died. They'd still
trade insults until they were blue in the face.
G'Kar sat down, then, with his writing and decided right then and
there that if this ridiculous Minbari festival got the best of
Londo (and he was certain it already had), he wouldn't let it get
the best of him. He tuned out the Minbari party music and started
writing.
Garibaldi had an almost insurmountable task before him. That task
was to walk from one end of the Zocalo to the other. Ordinarily,
unless he were, say, lame, such an activity wouldn't even be a
task. But not today. Not for the last two and a half weeks.
Every day, just getting from point A to point B was a trial that
would make Sisyphus' rock look like a piece of cake.
At least, Garibaldi thought as he started to squeeze his way
through the crowd, he hadn't had to bring any of these revellers
with him anywhere, beyond the occasional schmuck who'd gotten
hopelessly lost and asked him for directions. Yes, even when
Minbari party hearty, they somehow manage to do it peacefully.
Oh, not quietly, and definitely not calmly, but peacefully in that
in the two and a half weeks they'd been there, not one fight had
started. Not a one. You really had to admire them. Everywhere
he went there were Minbari telling him to have a happy Valen Day,
whichever Valen Day it was. Yes, each day in this crazy festival
had a name and a specific thing the partiers would do. There was
Dancing Day and Feasting Day and Historical Re-enactment Day
(which had left Garibaldi desperately wishing he had hair just so
he could rip it out while screaming incoherently) and Game Day and
a different Dancing Day and a different Feasting Day. And while
we were at it, there was Singing Day and Writing Poetry Day and
Random and Senseless Creativity Day (where anything that wasn't
specified on any of the other Days was made and displayed
everywhere possible) and Build-Yr-Own-Denn'bok Day and then Duel-
With-Yr-Own-Denn'bok Day and Come as You Aren't Day, and...
And to-day was Floating Contest Day. There were a number of
little contests going on everywhere on the station, whose
locations constantly moved. They ranged from the reassuringly
normal (such as "Guess How Many Beans In The Jar" and "Translate
The Vorlon Quote") to the maddeningly bizarre (such as "Confuse
The Human" and "Hide and Seek In The Docking Bays") to the
painfully loud, such as the Roving Karaoke Contest. Because the
point of the contest wasn't who had the best stage presence, or
who could sing the best, but who could sing the worst. Apparently
Valen couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, so all of this
caterwauling was in his honour. How the Minbari had come up with
something so close to karaoke, even down to the bad singing and
the words on a screen in front of the singer, was the real
question in Garibaldi's mind.
He continued through the crowd.
"Flarn? No, thanks," he said to a salesperson.
"Thanks, but I don't think I'll be needing a commemorative Valen
Days photo book."
"Why would I need a holiday planner? The festival's half over."
"No, I don't need 'Valen Days on Babylon 5' glassware."
"No, I don't have a special someone to buy that for, and thank you
ever so much for reminding me!"
"I don't need a Valen doll!!"
Finally, panting and sweaty from squeezing through the crowd and
refusing sales left right and centre, Garibaldi reached the other
end of the Zocalo. He left the Zocalo, nearly smacking facefirst
into a display as he walked round a corner.
He looked round it. "Could you...ah, move this? It's kinda in
the way," he said.
"WHAT?!" its Minbari owner screamed over the loud music coming
from the next display over.
"I NEED YOU TO MOVE THIS! IT'S BLOCKING THE HALLWAY!" Garibaldi
hollered.
"SORRY!" The Minbari yelled back. He and his assistant started
to push the thing against the wall.
They may deafen you with bad music and try to sell you things you
don't need, but at least they're co-operative, Garibaldi thought.
And Valen Days continued.
And, as Valen days neared the end of its third week, by the
calendar, Lyta came to one very important realisation: Minbari
may be cut out for twenty-seven straight days of partying, but it
was sure as hell that Human's weren't.
She came to that realisation while she sat dazedly on a chair in
Medlab, with about twenty other Humans, most in Ranger garb.
Looking across the room, she saw Franklin walk in the door, a box
in his hands. He set the box down and started to pull out bottles
and littler boxes, opening them and sorting their contents into
little bitty bags.
"I knew this was going to happen," he groused. "Like I haven't
got anything better to do than treat fifty-seven cases of
dehydration, sleep depravation, and indegestion!" He pushed the
little bags into a pile on the table. "There's enough medication
in here to clean out your systems and keep you awake for a while,
though, if you ask me, all you need is some sleep and to stay away
from Minbari food!" Lyta didn't need to be a telepath to know
that Franklin was positively peeved. She got the feeling, just by
looking at the man, that, aside from war, the thing he hated most
was marathon partying. The Rangers and such wisely retreived a
bag of pills each and cleared out as quietly as they could, until
Marcus and Lyta (what a coincidence!) brought of the tail of the
line.
"You I'd expect this from," Franklin grumbled at Marcus, who
smiled sunnily and said, "Always glad to live up to expectations."
"But you I didn't," he continued, looking at Lyta.
The telepath shrugged. "The phrase, 'if you can't beat 'em, join
'em' seems to sum it up," she said. "I spent the first three
days hiding and wishing they'd go away, but then I realised how
pointless that was, so I gave up and decided to have some fun.
Valen Days only comes once every nine years."
"Thank God," Franklin added as the telepath left.
It wasn't as though Sheridan was sorry to see them go. It wasn't
as though anyone--with the possible exception of the Pak'ma'ra,
who like to be contrary--was sorry to see them go. Okay, maybe
Marcus, but only because he liked the opportunity to party down
with his Ranger pals.
But go they did. Valen Days was finally over. After waking up at
what would be dawn over the capital city on Minbar, the Minbari
and Rangers and such gathered in the Zocalo (the only place
conceivably big enough to hold all of them at the same time) and
reverted to true Minbari form--after twenty-six days of partying,
almost all of the twenty-seventh day was spent in a ceremony. I
know and you know and the entire Universe knows how much the
Minbari like their ceremonies, and Valen was no different,
apparently.
So now Garibaldi, Sheridan, Ivanova, and Delenn stood on the
catwalk and watched the crowds of Minbari leave the station.
Zack, in the security station by the entrance, looked as though he
hadn't had much sleep. Perhaps he hadn't.
"Well, looks like we weathered Valen Days," Garibaldi observed.
"Mm-hm," was all Ivanova was going to say in reply. She'd
learned her lesson the first time, thank you very much.
"Look," said Delenn, pointing. They all looked. In the crowd
was a familiar figure in Ranger garb, who had managed to hide in
the crowd the whole time (not, judging by the size of the crowd in
question, a difficult thing to do)--Jeffrey Sinclair.
As Sinclair drew closer to the security point, a young man
approached him. Sinclair instantly didn't like him, though he had
no idea why. He seemed like an ordinary fellow--clad in civvies,
with dark hair, a small crystal on a chain around his neck, and a
boyish smile, which he now used on Sinclair.
"Greetings, IEntil'zha,/I" he said. "You've come to the
attention of myself and my associates. So I come with a question
I want you to answer very carefully. What do you want?"
"That's it?" Sinclair asked. "What do I want?"
"That's right. What do you want?"
Sinclair had this to say and only this:
"I want you to move. You're in my way."
A/N: When you get to the end of the fic, recall the title.
BABYLON 5:
IN VALEN'S WAY
It was late--or at least it was late according to the clocks and
the biologies of most of the beings on the station, with the
possible exception of the Pak'ma'ra, who like to be contrary.
Being, as it was, a space station, Babylon 5 had no concept of day
and night as we planet-bound schmucks know it, which make things
like midnight snacks almost pointless, really, because when you
look out the window it's always dark and thus it really squashes
that neat feeling of eating a sandwitch in the dead of night with
nothing but stars outside like an overripe bug. As anyone--with
the possible exception of the Pak'ma'ra, who like to be contrary--
will tell you, the novelty of looking out the window and seeing
nothing but stars every time gets a little old after about...say,
a day--sorry, twenty-four hour period. Which is exactly why there
are so few windows on the station, because prolonged viewing of
stars outside has been medically proven to induce bouts of
crypticness and interminable philosophising, even in the most
rudely plain-spoken of beings--Americans. In the light of such
evidence, windows have been restricted only to places with
properly pretentious names such as Zen Gardens.
Nonetheless, even without something so concrete as a sun or moon
to base this observation on, it was safe to say it was late, as
most beings were asleep--with the possible exception of the
Pak'ma'ra, who like to be contrary.
Add to that Commander Susan Ivanova. Not because she's a
Pak'ma'ra, and not because she's particularly contrary with that
ease and completeness displayed only by the aforementioned aliens
(she tries, though), but because she's a night owl. That makes
getting up in the morning (such as it were) a lot of fun, but we
haven't gotten to that point yet. It's still about a quarter to
one in the morning and there she sits in her favourite chair, a
reading light on and her nose in a book.
The book's cover said, "Babylon 5, the Complete Book of Scripts."
Because, really, the reason why nothing goes on on that station
without her knowing about it should be painfully obvious....
It was a busy morning--or at least it was morning according to the
clocks and the biologies of most of the beings on the--oh, sod
this, you know the rant! And no-where was is busier than in the
Zocalo. Betcha thought I was going to say "the C&C," right?
Betcha thought I was going to ignore all logic and end this
sentence in a manner that would introduce the principals as early
on in the story as I could, huh? Please, what part of that
station sees more traffic in an average d--twenty-four hour period
than here, except maybe Downbelow? Or the Medlab, especially if a
crowd of Drazi have been drinking?
But you were right on one count--I want to introduce the
principals early in order to make this story short enough to fit
in one file, maybe two at the most, and so the Zocalo has
absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this scene. It's a
meaningless scene shot. So we'll switch to the pertinent scene
before the screaming, frothing mad faithful followers of
Straczynskism club me senseless with thick, meaningful tomes and
reams of impassioned diatribes--er, I mean holy texts.
The C&C broke one very important rule. Not the rule about
civilians in a military base of ops, even if alien ambassadors and
annoying reporters regularly tromp in and out, and not Murphy's
Law, no matter what Ivanova says, and not Ivanova's Law, no matter
what Garibaldi says. No, it flaunted the Surgeon General's
warning about windows on space stations with breathtakingly
massive impunity. The entire facing wall, the wall any poor
schlub walking in the door sees first, was almost completely
comprised of the most illegal transparent stuff, allowing the
poor, mistreated souls within a panoramic gander of one of the
most unhealthy things to look at since billboards--space. There's
a reason you never see Doctor Franklin in the C&C, you know. He
washed his hands of it the first time he clapped eyes on it.
Perhaps the only beings in there who were well-suited to prolonged
space-gazing were the aforementioned Ivanova (because she was
Russian and understood these things), the aforementioned Garibaldi
(being, as he was, a devoted follower of the Ancient Egyptian God
of Frustration), and Captain John (J) David Sheridan (because he
possessed that instantly likeable Kirkian quality designed to ease
disenfranchised Trekkers who were bored with Sisko and sick of
Janeway's voice into the show, and thus nothing fazed the man
unless JMS said so.) The rest, of course, didn't matter, because
they were always in and out of Medlab, blathering heavy
philosophical nonsense, twitching and foaming at the mouth. What
set them apart from those three, making the trio the principals,
was that when the principals blathered their constant streams of
heavy philosophical nonsense, they didn't twitch or foam at the
mouth--I guess they didn't work up a good enough blather.
(Ba'rump-Bump-Ching!)
Lengthy narration aside, one of the three could be seen standing
impressively right smack dab in front of that window, instead of
wisely looking away from it whenever possible like the others did,
gazing steadily and defiantly at the infinity. Because there was
one thing in that window's field of view that broke the
starfield's insidious and evil spell--the jumpgate.
And Ivanova, who was the person staring steadily and defiantly
into the starfield (okay, actually she was watching a bug crawl
slowly along the inside of the window, but that just doesn't sound
impressive enough for this show) looked at the jumpgate and
silently willed it for the sixtieth time that d--TWENTY FOUR HOUR
PERIOD, DAMNIT! to open or explode or suddenly rearrange itself so
that it spelt out "Hi there!"; something, anything to releive the
boredom! She hated C&C duty--it meant that all the others were in
the bleedin' story and she wasn't. Damnit, she was already losing
the race to see who was in the most episodes to Garibaldi! She
had to get in as much screen time as she possibly could before she
left the series for no apparent reason!
Ivanova quashed that galling thought. She unclenched her fists
and took a deep breath, relaxing her equally clenched jaw. She
knew that some people were staring at her, but she convinced
herself that it was just that a Human being was so much safer to
look at than those stars. She let out the deep breath she'd been
holding. The last time she did that, the narrator went on for
three more paragraphs before remembering that she'd taken this
huge breath and hadn't released it--the narrator had gotten one
sentence into the fourth paragraph when she'd turned purple and
fainted.
The jumpgate hadn't so much as moved when she looked at it again.
Ivanova glared viciously at the unoffending device.
Well, as anyone--with the possible exception of the Pak'ma'ra, who
like to be contrary--will tell you, a watched jumpgate never
opens. Ivanova stared at that thing until her eyes burned. She
closed her eyes and rubbed them, and then snapped them back open
again. Nothing. She turned and started to pace round and round,
then stopped and whipped her gaze to the jumpgate. Nothing. She
looked at everyone's terminals and rubbed a small spot off the
railing with her sleeve and accessed the computer and scrolled
through yards and yards and yards of text and orbited the room
again and looked for the news on whatever the Internet had become
by that time and pondered making random prank link calls and
accessed the computer again with the full intent of teaching
herself Narn and then turned off the computer with the full intent
of killing every Narn in sight, and wandered over to the door to
see just how close she could get to it before it opened and then
whipped her gaze to the jumpgate. NOTHING!
Ivanova wilted. This was going to be a long day. Eventually she
found herself in front of the computer terminal, engrossed in the
novel she'd picked at random and downloaded. She'd chewed her way
through the first two chapters and was just to the point where the
hero finds himself falling with alarming rapidity toward the fully
expected ground when someone said, "Commander, the jumpgate's
opening."
Ivanova paged down, as the hero smashed himself against the ground
with an obviousness that left the prose reeling, and was now
reading about his ascent into Heaven. The tech said, a little
louder, "Commander, the jumpgate just opened."
The hero was philosophising about the Pearly Gates and the prose
was describing them to the tiniest detail, telling Ivanova just
what kind of heavenly metal they were made of, its chemical
composition, the history of the poor winged schlub who'd
volunteered to craft these dazzling declarations of door design,
and what kind of dizzyingly hideous cologne St. Peter was wearing
that day. The tech shouted, "Commander, there's sixty Minbari
ships coming through that jumpgate!"
AARRGH, of all the interruptions, it had to be...
"Sixty Minbari ships?!" Ivanova shrieked, part in disbelief that
that many of the huge things could fit through their modest little
jumpgate and part in elation that finally the damn thing did
something! Something to do! Huzzah!
"Sorry, sir, I exaggerated to get your attention. There aren't
sixty ships coming through," the tech apologised.
"How many then?"
"Only fifty-nine."
Ivanova almost hit the floor when she suddenly remembered that the
C&C, with its metal deckplates and railing strewn about as though
from a giant saltshaker, was not the best place in the Universe to
do such takes. Instead, she looked out the window.
Indeed, streaming out of the jumpgate was an endless procession of
Minbari ships of all shapes and sizes, ranging from little bitty
fliers to those excessively large battleships.
"What is there, a flarn sale?" Ivanova muttered. Then she said,
"Get me Ambassador Delenn."
Someone got up and headed for the door. "I meant on the comm
unit!" Ivanova snapped, pointing a forceful finger at the
aforementioned screen. After a second or two, Delenn's face
appeared on the screen. The Minbari hastily put down the candy-
on-a-stick she'd been sucking on. Someone had been to the Zocalo,
though it was a pity she hadn't shown up in that meaningless
screen shot!
"What can I do for you, Commander?" Delenn asked, as calm and
serene as always. I guess Minbari don't get sugar rushes,
Ivanova thought. The sticks-in-the-mud.
"You can tell me why there are fifty-nine Minbari ships outside,
all banging on the door go come in!" Ivanova replied with that
peculiar down-home imagery in space typical to a J. Michael
Straczynski line.
A clueless look completely and efficiently spread itself across
Delenn's face. Her brows (such as they were) met in a look of one
combating such cluelessness and she uttered the quintessentially
clueless "Hunh?"
Ivanova waited. After two seconds she got thoroughly sick of
waiting and decided to help out, instead. "They just showed up--"
here she looked at her watch "--about a minute ago. Out of the
blue. No hostile intentions, just half the race wanting in."
The little wheels turned in Delenn's head for a moment. Then she
jumped as though stung. Ivanova realised a second later, that it
wasn't a metaphor as Delenn now jumped about, shrieking and
slapping at her back as best a humanoid can, all traces of
serenity well and truly done away with. A moment later the
Minbari returned, her dignity replaced and her clothes only a
little askew. Lennier could be seen in the background,
vigourously stomping one foot against the floor, repeatedly and
with a viscous savageness whose utter, unspeakably massive
incongruity made Ivanova's brain hurt.
"I see," the Minbari stated. She said, "I see" a few more times,
the point that she didn't see at all making itself painfully
obvious. Eventually it dawned on her and she smote a fist against
an open palm. "That's it!" she said.
"What's it?" Ivanova wanted to know.
"To-day is Valen day!"
Ivanova boggled. "Valen. Day."
"That's right, once every nine years on this date we celebrate the
day that Valen came to us," Delenn stated. Ivanova saw another
lengthy string of Minbari philosophy on yon horizon and wedged in
a word edgewise before Delenn could launch into it. That word
was:
"Hunh?"
"Once...every...nine...years..." Delenn repeated, slowly and with
an overenunciated cadence usually reserved for the students of the
Brad Dourif School of Acting.
Ivanova waved her hands. "No, I mean what...why d'you...what's
the...oh, for God's sake, Valen Day?!"
Delenn looked a little hurt. "Yes, Valen Day."
"Every nine years?!"
Delenn looked at her as though it were really the most obvious
thing in the Universe. That it was and Ivanova caught on after a
moment. "Okay, but still. Valen Day?"
"Actually, Valen Days," Lennier said from behind Delenn, back to
his unflappable self as though nothing had ever happened.
"Wait, lemme guess. There's nine of 'em, right? Nine crazy days
of Minbari partying down?"
"No, twenty-seven."
This time Ivanova hit the floor. She popped back up, ignoring the
pain from gracelessly slamming into the metal deckplates and
screeched, "TWENTY-SEVEN DAYS?! We're going to have half the
Minbari race hanging around and making a nuisance of themselves
for TWENTY-SEVEN DAYS?!" she concluded in a vein-popping bellow
usually reserved for the students of the John Cleese School of
Acting. Everyone in the C&C stopped whatever it was they were
doing to stare at their frothing commander and the door opened and
a PPG popped through, closely followed by the rest of the esteemed
Mr. Garibaldi. He stared, blinking, at Ivanova.
"Oh, it's just you and your primal scream therapy again," he
observed. "Now didn't I ask you not to do that in places where
people might stare at you?"
"Where did you pop up from?" Ivanova asked in a valiant effort to
lower her blood pressure.
"The lift," he replied. "I was just on my way here to ask you
what you knew about all those Minbari ships out there, but I can
see you just found out."
"Yes," she hissed. "It's Valen Days!"
"'Valen Days'?" he echoed. "I thought it was just Valen Day."
"The calendars only list the first day," Delenn informed them.
"A wise move, that," Ivanova observed. "Else the entire Galaxy
would have banded together and eradicated Minbar on the spot."
"Why? How many Valen Days are there?" was Garibaldi's obvious
question.
"Twenty-seven," Ivanova grated.
"Three cubed. Very Minbari," Garibaldi observed. He sighed.
"This'll be fun to sort out. Maybe we can just clear everyone
else out, ourselves included, and let them have the station for a
month."
"I don't think the question is 'what is everyone else going to
do?' as much as it's 'why here?'" Ivanova pointed out.
"That's a very good question," Delenn observed.
So the whole principal cast sat in a conference room, pondering
heartily. The excuse that other races might very well be
adversely affected was apparently enough to get Londo and G'Kar
and Kosh in there, as well, and Marcus could never mind his own
business anyway. Neither could Lyta, but that's just an
occupational hazard of telepaths.
"It could be that this station is as close as one can get to where
Valen appeared a thousand years ago," Delenn observed.
"Where did you Minbari hold your month-long party before now,
though?" Sheridan wanted to know.
"Minbar, of course," Delenn replied. "But that was before we had
Babylon stations."
"Makes sense," Marcus said.
"Well, what about you?" Ivanova said, looking at him. "What do
the Rangers have to say about this? You guys probably know more
about Valen than the average Minbari does."
"True, very true," He replied, basking in his own superiority,
however tenuously attained, for a moment. "It is said," he
began. IOh, God,/I Ivanova moaned mentally. "That Valen
passed down a decree, first through the Ianla'shok,/I then to
the rest of Minbar. 'Let there be twenty-seven days of
festivities every nine years starting on the date of my arrival,'
he said, 'let it be twenty-seven days and nine years because I
know Minbari are obsessed with the number three from experience
and I love creating unfounded causality loops left, right and
centre.'"
"That explains that," Sheridan observed. "But that still doesn't
answer the question of why they're having these twenty-seven days
of festivities here."
"Maybe Delenn's right and it's closest to where they found him,"
G'Kar put in.
"Maybe because everyvone know that vhen you vant to party, you
come to Babylon Five," Londo put in.
"Maybe because this place is the best place to be when the
inevitable strikes after twenty-seven days of partying," Franklin
grumbled.
"Maybe we're making a bigger problem out of this than it really
should be," Lyta said, looking about suspiciously. A hush fell
over the room.
"Don't tell me..." Ivanova gasped.
"Yup," said the telepath.
"What? Are the Shadows responsible?" Delenn asked.
"Nope. Worse."
"Psi Corps?" Franklin suggested.
"Even worse."
"What? What? What? The First Ones? Technomages?" Sheridan
spluttered.
"Even worse than them. We're talking about fanfic writers!" Lyta
replied.
The whole group turned pale.
Londo gulped. "No...not fanfic writers..."
"This evil scourge has plagued my people enough!" G'Kar yelled.
"I say we throw down this insidious force!"
"We can't!" Delenn hissed. "No-one yet has fought them and
lived!"
A hush fell over the room again. Everyone looked at each other,
then eventually, one by one, all eyes turned to look at the
Vorlon, who had stood silently by the entire time.
"What...what should we do?" Sheridan whispered.
There was a pause. The Vorlon created some unintelligible sound.
The translator unit said this, and only this:
"Japanese alphabet soup comes in three varieties."
The group came away from that conference as clueless as they had
been when they went in. In fact, the only satisfaction derived
from this meeting of the minds was from having clubbed the Vorlon
senseless for yet another nonsensical observation.
"I guess the only thing we can do is try to ride it out,"
Sheridan observed as the Humans and the Minbari walked down an
endless and thoroughly obligatory corridor. "We'll let in as many
Minbari as we can fit."
"Who knows, maybe the reputation of Valen Days precedes itself and
half the station will flee in terror," Ivanova observed wryly.
Delenn turned to Sheridan, that Mona Lisa smile on her face and
said, in her calm, gentle voice, "We shall see." Behind her back
she dropped the iron tubing with which she had just pounded
Ivanova into the floor. They moved on down the corridor.
When Sheridan had said, "We'll let in as many Minbari as we can,"
he hadn't exactly been banking on this much of a crowd. Indeed,
as he stood on one of those high catwalky things overlooking the
docking bays, he saw that two stations had been set up there.
One, manned by the trusty Zack Allen, took care of the constant
stream of people leaving the station. It seemed Ivanova was
right, but Sheridan had learned well from the unfortunate
Russian's involuntary example and wasn't going to breathe a word
of that to Delenn. Everyone--with the possible exception of the
Pak'ma'ra, who like to be contrary--really was leaving Babylon 5!
The other station, manned by the ever-capable Mr. Garibaldi, took
care of the almost constant stream of Minbari coming in. Minbari
of all castes, all walks of life, all ages. Rich Minbari, poor
Minbari, reasonably well-off Minbari. Old Minbari and young
Minbari and every Minbari in-between. Warriors and priests and
butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers. Rangers and the
average schlub off the street. Short Minbari and tall Minbari.
Men and women. Half the race had turned up and it seemed the
other half were on its way.
Sheridan sighed. At least some of the people running businesses
and stands in the Zocalo had stayed, and it was amazing the number
and range of purveyors who figured they could stand to make a
profit from the sudden influx of Minbari.
Sheridan watched the line of Minbari as it continued. Then he
walked away, figuring that he could stand there for an hour and
nothing would change except the faces on the Minbari. He could
come back in three hours and see almost exactly the same thing.
He could come back here tomorrow and see almost exactly the same
thing! No, Sheridan was not worried in the slightest that he was
going to miss something.
"Fresh flarn! Getcher fresh flarn here!"
The amount of hawking and selling among the stands was insane
today, Londo noticed as he wandered about, looking for someone,
anyone, who didn't have a bone crest on his head! It was the
second day of these so-called Valen Days, and no end in sight to
the Minbari streaming onto the station. He figured that
eventually the whole station would fall out of its orbit under the
weight of so many people and crash and burn on the planet below,
putting an end to the Minbari and their silly Valen Days. He
pushed that witty, Peter David-esque thought aside and hunted
through the stands and kiosks. It was only then that he realised
the true horror of the visiting of Valen Days upon the station:
everyone here, with the exception of a few stand-runners, was
Minbari. And that meant--he clapped his hands to his face in
sudden horror like Munch's screamer. All these Minbari...
Not a drop of liquor in sight!!
The alarm buzzed at Ivanova to wake up. "Yeah, okay, shut up, I'm
awake!" she croaked at it. It fell silent. She looked at the
clock. 0700. Gawd, two hours of sleep! It was only the third
day of these ridiculous Valen Days, but if this insane partying
kept up any longer, she'd throw the whole lot of them out the
nearest airlock! The culminating factor that brought her to this
conclusion was the disturbance at four in the morning. Looking
out her door, Ivanova'd seen that the entire population of
partying Minbari had formed one massive conga line and were
dancing up and down the corridors. She couldn't remember whether
she'd said anything to them, because she had gone immediately to
her vodka in an attempt to drink herself into a stupor--anything
to avoid having to listen to conga songs sung in Minbari!
A very hung-over and sleep-deprived Ivanova showered and dressed
and somehow made her way through the station, surrounded, as she
was, on all sides by happy, cheerful partying Minbari!
She shuffled into the lift, thinking evil thoughts about fanfic
writers the whole way, and only just remembered to tell the thing
where she wanted to go. Just the fact that she got there in one
piece was evidence enough that not all fanfic writers are nasty
people, but the chaos that was Valen Days swirling around her made
it difficult for her to be convinced of this fact. She braced
herself for another day of insanity.
By the second week of Valen Days, G'kar was dearly, sorely wishing
he'd left the station when he'd had the chance. Of course, now,
not so much as a Starfury could fit through the impenetrable clog
of Minbari ships. Trade of every kind had ground to a halt and
communications as well, as every channel available and some that
weren't--like his own, for example--was clogged up with twenty-
four hour calls to home or anywhere else these Minbari could
possibly think to contact, including every point on the station!
G'Kar wondered who there was at home for these Minbari to call--
the entire race was already here!
He pushed a thought through the sea of exclamation marks--the
thought was a query as to just how Ambassador Delenn was handling
the entire Minbari population showing up on her doorstep, as it
were.
He contemplated calling her, but when he turned on his Babcom
screen, two Minbari were on it, chatting animatedly about who said
this and who did that. He contemplated screaming at them to get
off his line, but he knew it wouldn't do him any good. He
switched it off. He decided, instead, to take comfort in the fact
that Londo was just as miserable, if not more so. That thought
had made him reasonably happy many times. Yes, if everything else
changed tomorrow, and the station was upside down and bright green
and air was edible and food was breathable, the sometimes childish
animosity and outright jealousy between the two would still
continue, and always would, until the day they died. They'd still
trade insults until they were blue in the face.
G'Kar sat down, then, with his writing and decided right then and
there that if this ridiculous Minbari festival got the best of
Londo (and he was certain it already had), he wouldn't let it get
the best of him. He tuned out the Minbari party music and started
writing.
Garibaldi had an almost insurmountable task before him. That task
was to walk from one end of the Zocalo to the other. Ordinarily,
unless he were, say, lame, such an activity wouldn't even be a
task. But not today. Not for the last two and a half weeks.
Every day, just getting from point A to point B was a trial that
would make Sisyphus' rock look like a piece of cake.
At least, Garibaldi thought as he started to squeeze his way
through the crowd, he hadn't had to bring any of these revellers
with him anywhere, beyond the occasional schmuck who'd gotten
hopelessly lost and asked him for directions. Yes, even when
Minbari party hearty, they somehow manage to do it peacefully.
Oh, not quietly, and definitely not calmly, but peacefully in that
in the two and a half weeks they'd been there, not one fight had
started. Not a one. You really had to admire them. Everywhere
he went there were Minbari telling him to have a happy Valen Day,
whichever Valen Day it was. Yes, each day in this crazy festival
had a name and a specific thing the partiers would do. There was
Dancing Day and Feasting Day and Historical Re-enactment Day
(which had left Garibaldi desperately wishing he had hair just so
he could rip it out while screaming incoherently) and Game Day and
a different Dancing Day and a different Feasting Day. And while
we were at it, there was Singing Day and Writing Poetry Day and
Random and Senseless Creativity Day (where anything that wasn't
specified on any of the other Days was made and displayed
everywhere possible) and Build-Yr-Own-Denn'bok Day and then Duel-
With-Yr-Own-Denn'bok Day and Come as You Aren't Day, and...
And to-day was Floating Contest Day. There were a number of
little contests going on everywhere on the station, whose
locations constantly moved. They ranged from the reassuringly
normal (such as "Guess How Many Beans In The Jar" and "Translate
The Vorlon Quote") to the maddeningly bizarre (such as "Confuse
The Human" and "Hide and Seek In The Docking Bays") to the
painfully loud, such as the Roving Karaoke Contest. Because the
point of the contest wasn't who had the best stage presence, or
who could sing the best, but who could sing the worst. Apparently
Valen couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, so all of this
caterwauling was in his honour. How the Minbari had come up with
something so close to karaoke, even down to the bad singing and
the words on a screen in front of the singer, was the real
question in Garibaldi's mind.
He continued through the crowd.
"Flarn? No, thanks," he said to a salesperson.
"Thanks, but I don't think I'll be needing a commemorative Valen
Days photo book."
"Why would I need a holiday planner? The festival's half over."
"No, I don't need 'Valen Days on Babylon 5' glassware."
"No, I don't have a special someone to buy that for, and thank you
ever so much for reminding me!"
"I don't need a Valen doll!!"
Finally, panting and sweaty from squeezing through the crowd and
refusing sales left right and centre, Garibaldi reached the other
end of the Zocalo. He left the Zocalo, nearly smacking facefirst
into a display as he walked round a corner.
He looked round it. "Could you...ah, move this? It's kinda in
the way," he said.
"WHAT?!" its Minbari owner screamed over the loud music coming
from the next display over.
"I NEED YOU TO MOVE THIS! IT'S BLOCKING THE HALLWAY!" Garibaldi
hollered.
"SORRY!" The Minbari yelled back. He and his assistant started
to push the thing against the wall.
They may deafen you with bad music and try to sell you things you
don't need, but at least they're co-operative, Garibaldi thought.
And Valen Days continued.
And, as Valen days neared the end of its third week, by the
calendar, Lyta came to one very important realisation: Minbari
may be cut out for twenty-seven straight days of partying, but it
was sure as hell that Human's weren't.
She came to that realisation while she sat dazedly on a chair in
Medlab, with about twenty other Humans, most in Ranger garb.
Looking across the room, she saw Franklin walk in the door, a box
in his hands. He set the box down and started to pull out bottles
and littler boxes, opening them and sorting their contents into
little bitty bags.
"I knew this was going to happen," he groused. "Like I haven't
got anything better to do than treat fifty-seven cases of
dehydration, sleep depravation, and indegestion!" He pushed the
little bags into a pile on the table. "There's enough medication
in here to clean out your systems and keep you awake for a while,
though, if you ask me, all you need is some sleep and to stay away
from Minbari food!" Lyta didn't need to be a telepath to know
that Franklin was positively peeved. She got the feeling, just by
looking at the man, that, aside from war, the thing he hated most
was marathon partying. The Rangers and such wisely retreived a
bag of pills each and cleared out as quietly as they could, until
Marcus and Lyta (what a coincidence!) brought of the tail of the
line.
"You I'd expect this from," Franklin grumbled at Marcus, who
smiled sunnily and said, "Always glad to live up to expectations."
"But you I didn't," he continued, looking at Lyta.
The telepath shrugged. "The phrase, 'if you can't beat 'em, join
'em' seems to sum it up," she said. "I spent the first three
days hiding and wishing they'd go away, but then I realised how
pointless that was, so I gave up and decided to have some fun.
Valen Days only comes once every nine years."
"Thank God," Franklin added as the telepath left.
It wasn't as though Sheridan was sorry to see them go. It wasn't
as though anyone--with the possible exception of the Pak'ma'ra,
who like to be contrary--was sorry to see them go. Okay, maybe
Marcus, but only because he liked the opportunity to party down
with his Ranger pals.
But go they did. Valen Days was finally over. After waking up at
what would be dawn over the capital city on Minbar, the Minbari
and Rangers and such gathered in the Zocalo (the only place
conceivably big enough to hold all of them at the same time) and
reverted to true Minbari form--after twenty-six days of partying,
almost all of the twenty-seventh day was spent in a ceremony. I
know and you know and the entire Universe knows how much the
Minbari like their ceremonies, and Valen was no different,
apparently.
So now Garibaldi, Sheridan, Ivanova, and Delenn stood on the
catwalk and watched the crowds of Minbari leave the station.
Zack, in the security station by the entrance, looked as though he
hadn't had much sleep. Perhaps he hadn't.
"Well, looks like we weathered Valen Days," Garibaldi observed.
"Mm-hm," was all Ivanova was going to say in reply. She'd
learned her lesson the first time, thank you very much.
"Look," said Delenn, pointing. They all looked. In the crowd
was a familiar figure in Ranger garb, who had managed to hide in
the crowd the whole time (not, judging by the size of the crowd in
question, a difficult thing to do)--Jeffrey Sinclair.
As Sinclair drew closer to the security point, a young man
approached him. Sinclair instantly didn't like him, though he had
no idea why. He seemed like an ordinary fellow--clad in civvies,
with dark hair, a small crystal on a chain around his neck, and a
boyish smile, which he now used on Sinclair.
"Greetings, IEntil'zha,/I" he said. "You've come to the
attention of myself and my associates. So I come with a question
I want you to answer very carefully. What do you want?"
"That's it?" Sinclair asked. "What do I want?"
"That's right. What do you want?"
Sinclair had this to say and only this:
"I want you to move. You're in my way."