SG-1 had visited space stations before, had seen the inside of some of the largest spaceships, but nothing could have prepared them for what they saw on Babylon 5. The station truly was like a city in space. Beyond the docking bays, with their departure gates heading out and the customs and immigration lines queueing to be allowed access, there were waiting areas, convenience stores, information points and public bars. Signs pointed every which way, towards the various exits or advertising the availability of rest stops. Vehicles that looked like monorail trains deposited more travellers before shuttling away the new arrivals. Everywhere, there was the relentless energy and monotony of lives being lived.
Some of the travellers wore uniforms, presumably reporting for work on the station, while others had on smart suits and were clearly there on business. The large majority of the new arrivals, however, were dressed in simpler, often ragged attire, and they stared around at the noisy bustle of the station arrivals area with wide eyes filled with hope and apprehension.
Garibaldi and Ivanova led SG-1 to a platform to await a monorail, the area lit by the soft glow of coloured lights and the occasional sweep of a spotlight from one of the businesses outside trying to catch the attention of commuters.
Sam jumped on the spot a couple of times, making Jack turn to her with eyebrows raised. "Carter?"
She grinned. "Rotational gravity," she said, as though that explained everything. Her smile slipped a little. "Oh, come on. How many times have we been on spaceships with artificial gravity? Isn't it cool just for once to have basic physics do the job instead?"
Jack gave a bewildered shake of his head and turned away in time to see the monorail transport glide to a stop at the platform. They all stepped aboard and before long the vehicle was on its way.
"Smooth ride," commented Jack.
Ivanova nodded. "We could have taken the core shuttle," she said, "but, as the name suggests, that travels along the centre of the station." Seeing Jack's blank expression, she explained: "It's like Major Carter said: we use the rotation of Babylon 5 to simulate gravity, so down at the core it's close to zero G. I figured you'd all have had enough of that sort of thing for one day."
"Ah," replied Jack, ignoring Sam's smirk.
Daniel put his face close to the window of the monorail, watching the different zones of the station zip by outside. "How many people live here?" he asked.
"It varies," replied Ivanova, "but it's usually upwards of two hundred thousand people at any one time."
"It's amazing," said Daniel. "I've never seen humans living in peace alongside so many alien races."
Ivanova gave a short laugh. "I wouldn't quite call it 'peace'," she said, "but most days we manage to get along, more or less. Around forty percent of the station population is non-human – although a lot of them will keep to the Alien Sector, of course."
"Alien Sector?" asked Teal'c, turning to Ivanova. "You keep the aliens segregated from the humans?"
Ivanova looked appalled. "Not at all!" she said. "It's just that some races have different needs in terms of environment, atmosphere and so on, so it made sense to build units capable of supporting those needs in the same area."
Teal'c nodded, an acknowledgement and an apology for his presumption implicit in that one gesture.
The monorail began to slow as it reached its destination.
"Are we there?" asked Jack as the vehicle came to a stop and the doors opened.
"Not quite," said Garibaldi, stepping out onto the platform. "We'll need to take one of the transport tubes to reach Commander Sinclair's office."
"Transport tubes?" asked Jack, beginning to feel like a country cousin on their first visit to the big city.
"Yeah, they're for moving between floors," replied Garibaldi. "Here we are." He pressed the call button next to a set of doors and soon the doors slid open and they all stepped inside.
"You don't call them elevators any more?" Jack asked as the doors closed behind him.
Commander Sinclair stood up and smiled warmly as the Stargate team walked into his office. Stepping around his desk he shook hands with each of them as Ivanova made the introductions.
"Welcome to Babylon 5," he said.
"Thank you, sir," replied Jack. "It's a faintly bewildering pleasure to be here."
Sinclair laughed. "It's strange for us, too. It's not every day we have visitors who walk through our Jumpgate."
"Or that we get a call from about two hundred and fifty years in the past," put in Garibaldi.
"I think it might be further than that," said Sam, "and not just in time, either."
By way of explanation, Jack felt compelled to say, "Sam is our… expert."
"Really," said Sinclair, sounding interested. "On what?"
"Everything," said Jack, Daniel and Teal'c in unison.
Sam did her best to ignore them and continued. "Does Earth have a Stargate?"
"Not that I'm aware of," said Sinclair. "Ivanova told me what you told her about it, that it's a sort of stone circle you use to travel in time and space?"
"Not time," said Sam, but then she stopped and reconsidered. "Well, not usually."
"That doesn't mean the Gate isn't there," argued Jack. "The Stargate is a secret from most of Earth in our time; on a need-to-know basis. A lot of our own military personnel know nothing of the programme."
Sam pressed on with her train of thought. "Commander Sinclair, do any of these words sound familiar: Goa'uld? Tok'ra? Jaffa?"
Sinclair spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I'm sorry, Major, we get a lot of races coming through Babylon 5, so it's possible."
Sam shook her head. "No, if you'd met them, you'd know. That means that this universe may be wildly divergent from our own."
"You still have Daffy Duck though, right?" said Garibaldi. As Jack smiled and nodded, Garibaldi feigned great relief. "Oh, thank god for that."
"There was one thing I didn't quite understand from your communications, however," said Sinclair. "What brought you to Babylon 5?"
Jack glanced over his shoulder. "Daniel?"
Daniel stepped forward, looking a little sheepish. "I had a dream," he said.
"A dream?" asked Ivanova with an incredulous laugh.
Daniel was getting used to this reaction. "Someone in that dream told me the coordinates for your Gate and wanted to make damn sure that we'd come here. Someone named Kosh."
Ivanova's smile disappeared.
"Kosh?" said Garibaldi.
"You know him?" asked Daniel.
Garibaldi gave a wry laugh. "Oh yeah. If someone's going to mess with your head, you can bet it'll be a Vorlon."
"Kosh is the ambassador for the Vorlon homeworld," explained Sinclair. "We have several ambassadors living on this station."
"Could he have sent this message to me?" asked Daniel.
Sinclair shrugged. "I couldn't say for sure. We know very little about the Vorlons. One thing we do know is that nothing they can do surprises us anymore."
"He made it pretty clear that we were needed here," said Daniel.
"Pretty clear?" interrupted Jack.
"Yeah, okay, he said a lot of odd, cryptic poems," said Daniel, "but that's the impression I got from him. Would it be possible to meet him?"
"Well, I can try to arrange a meeting," said Sinclair, "but I can't promise anything."
"Thank you," said Daniel. "That would be great. We don't have much time."
"In the meantime," said Ivanova, "I'll show you to your quarters – if you'll follow me?"
As they were led through the more populated part of the station, Jack and his team were reminded of just how lively Babylon 5 always was. There were cafes and bars, stalls and kiosks. Humans and aliens – some vaguely humanoid, some less so – went about their business, never sparing a glance for the four visitors.
"This is the Zócalo," said Ivanova, "our main marketplace."
"It all looks so… ordinary," said Daniel. "If it weren't for the fact that some of the people aren't, well, people, this could be any marketplace on earth."
"What did you expect," replied Ivanova, "alien monsters sucking the brains out of defenceless humans? Because that hardly ever happens."
"No," said Daniel. "No, it's just not what I was expecting."
"To be honest," explained Jack, "it's unusual for us to meet an alien race and not have them shooting at us – or kidnapping us, cloning us, possessing us, replacing us with robot doubles, or otherwise trying to spoil our day. Actually, this is rather refreshing."
He took in a deep, happy breath, just as a stallholder thrust a handful of rubbery tentacles under his nose.
"Gappa squid, Earther?" said the stallholder. "Fresh off the shuttle from Nandos IV."
Jack's face almost turned the same green as the squid. "No… thank you," he wheezed.
As the others laughed, Ivanova's communicator beeped and she answered it.
"Lieutenant Commander," said a hurried voice, "there's been an explosion in Green 5. No hull breach at this time and fire suppression has been auto-activated, but we are getting readings of a continuing disturbance from that section."
"I'll check it out myself. Ivanova out."
She turned to the Stargate team. "I'm sorry about this," she said. "I'll have someone else see you to your quarters."
"Anything we can do to help?" asked Jack.
Ivanova shrugged. "Well, it's not like you're civilians, so I guess it can't hurt. Come on."
Green Sector looked much like the previous one but for the green stripe running along the walls and a very large plume of thick smoke billowing from one of the doorways.
Ivanova hurried into the room, ducking low to avoid the smoke, followed by Jack and his team.
"I don't want excuses, I want ventilation set to maximum for Green 5," Ivanova shouted into her communicator. "Either this smoke gets blown out into space, or you do; it's your choice." She jabbed at the communicator's 'off' switch, angrily.
"Now," she muttered. "What the hell's been going on here?"
The room was in disarray. The blast had scorched the walls and smashed most of the room's furniture. Strangely, despite the continuing clouds of smoke, there appeared to be nothing in the room that was actually on fire.
"Over here," called Jack, who had located the source of the smoke, a small black box lined on the outside with what appeared to be velvet, which sat on a low table, surrounded by candles and weighty books. Jack reached out gingerly with the toe of his boot and knocked the lid of the box shut. The smoke ceased immediately and slowly began to dissipate from the room.
"So much for 'no smoke without fire'," said Daniel, waving a hand to waft the remaining clouds away.
As the smoke cleared they were able to make out a figure, standing in the corner, his arms raised out to either side.
Ivanova quickly drew her weapon. "Don't move!" she yelled, but the figure made no attempt to get away.
The smoke thinned and they saw the reason why the figure remained motionless. It was the dead body of a young man, his head shaved bald, dressed in the scorched remnants of a dark cloak. It was clear he had been pinned to the wall by the blast.
"Aw, damn," said Ivanova. "What a mess."
As she used her communicator to make the necessary arrangements for cleaning up, removing the body and investigating the blast, Jack and the others took a look around the room.
"These seem to be books on astronomy and astronavigation," said Sam, "but there's stuff mixed in there that looks astrological as well."
"The science of astrology?" said Daniel. "Now there's an oxymoron. At least it's in English. Look at these. They're more like some sort of magical tomes."
"It looks like we've got an aspiring techno-mage," said Ivanova, who had finished making arrangements.
"A techno-mage?" asked Sam.
"They use highly advanced technology to create the semblance of magical powers," explained Ivanova. "I've never seen a real techno-mage – very few people have – but I've heard of this sort of thing happening before. Kids get into the whole 'mystical powers' thing, think it'll be good for picking up girls at parties, reckon they can fry the bigger kids who kicked sand in their faces – whatever. Then it blows up."
She gestured at the body in the corner. "Seems our friend here was trying a little experiment, only his smoke-box got a little overheated and he couldn't see what he was doing. Such a stupid waste. It's not like he was going to get anything to happen."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Jack from the other side of the room. He had found what looked like a small marble, suspended about four feet from the floor, its surface like swirling oil.
"What the hell is that?" asked Ivanova.
"I do not know," replied Teal'c, bending over and peering at the object, "but I believe it is growing larger."