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								Overview


								     Ambassador G'Kar is desperate to get off Babylon 5, and in his rush

								     to leave, ends up kidnapping Garibaldi. Now Sheridan and a strange

								     Narn must begin a frantic search to find the two before tragedy

								     strikes.


								   Issue 9 (October 1995)


								   Setting: Between [7]"The Geometry of Shadows" and [8]"A Distant Star."

								    Writer: David Gerrold

								 Penciller: Rebecca Guay

								     Inker: Rick Bryant


								     _________________________________________________________________


								Synopsis


								   Ivanova clears a Narn ship, the D'Vordo, for docking. An urgent call

								   from G'Kar comes in; he demands immediate clearance to depart the

								   station from bay four. When she refuses, he sets his ship to launch

								   anyway; Ivanova warns the D'Vordo to abort its approach. Garibaldi

								   rushes to bay four to try to stop G'Kar, but when he arrives, G'Kar

								   stuns him.


								   G'Kar takes Garibaldi with him, but Garibaldi wakes up and fires a

								   starweb, a sort of net made of energy, at G'Kar, entangling him.


								   G'Kar's ship nearly collides with the D'Vordo as it rockets full speed

								   away from the station.


								   Ivanova tells Sheridan that Garibaldi is nowhere to be found; she

								   believes G'Kar has taken him off the station. Sheridan heads for a

								   shuttle to pursue G'Kar.


								   Garibaldi and G'Kar float in a cylindrical area. G'Kar is still caught

								   in the starweb, and Garibaldi sings annoying songs to him, threatening

								   to continue until G'Kar reveals what's going on.


								   On his way to the shuttle, Sheridan is intercepted by Greegil, a Narn

								   who claims to be a relative of G'Kar's, newly arrived on the D'Vordo.

								   He says he can help Sheridan catch G'Kar. Sheridan reluctantly brings

								   him along. As they fly in pursuit, Sheridan tries to find out exactly

								   how Greegil is related to G'Kar. Greegil won't offer any information

								   unless Sheridan offers something in exchange.


								   Garibaldi continues to sing. Eventually, G'Kar falls asleep. Garibaldi

								   wakes him up and asks where the food is; G'Kar answers that he doesn't

								   need to eat, as Narns can hibernate six days at a time. "I'll be happy

								   to watch you starve to death," G'Kar says. "At least it'll be

								   quieter." When Garibaldi points out that G'Kar will die, too, trapped

								   in the starweb, G'Kar answers, "There are worse things than death.

								   Dishonor is one."


								   Garibaldi continues to search for food, but he's never seen a ship

								   like the one he's in: no food, no controls, just solid walls

								   encircling them. He begins to sing "It's a Small World," which causes

								   G'Kar to surrender.


								   Sheridan and Greegil haggle over the value of information. Finally,

								   Greegil tells Sheridan how he's related to G'Kar, but the Narn

								   familial ties he describes are meaningless to Sheridan.


								   G'Kar shows Garibaldi where his food, a Narn delicacy called phroomis,

								   is stashed. He notes that Garibaldi does seem to have some negotiating

								   skills. On Narn, he says, negotiation is an art. Garibaldi asks G'Kar

								   about the ship, but G'Kar says it's better he doesn't know. Garibaldi

								   convinces him to play a game of "laser-mirror-starweb," loser tells

								   all.


								   Sheridan and Greegil catch up with G'Kar's ship, which doesn't respond

								   to Sheridan's signals. Greegil tells Sheridan that G'Kar is possessed

								   by a Lokvar, a seizure of the mind, that may cause G'Kar to be

								   violent. Greegil predicts that Sheridan will have to shoot G'Kar.


								   Garibaldi wins two games of laser-mirror-starweb, but G'Kar still

								   refuses to talk about the ship.


								   Sheridan grapples G'Kar's ship while Greegil tries to get him to put

								   up the shuttle's shields in case G'Kar fires at them.


								   G'Kar and Garibaldi hear a loud clanking sound from one end of their

								   chamber.


								   Sheridan and Greegil approach the airlock through a docking tube

								   they've extended from Sheridan's shuttle. They open the door.


								   The end of the cylinder swings open as G'Kar and Garibaldi watch

								   apprehensively.


								   Sheridan and Greegil enter G'Kar's ship... and find it empty. Greegil

								   concludes that G'Kar never left the station.


								   A cleaning robot enters the cylinder. G'Kar set his ship on autopilot;

								   they are actually in Babylon 5's core. G'Kar shouts that it's

								   Garibaldi's fault -- with just G'Kar's mass in the axis tube, the

								   cleaning robot wouldn't have come ahead of schedule. The two of them

								   flee through the other end of the cylinder, but the axis tube runs the

								   length of the station, five miles, and there are apparently no exits

								   along the way.


								   G'Kar's ship begins to self-destruct. He and Greegil flee. Greegil

								   gets to Sheridan's ship first, and promptly turns around and pushes

								   the airlock door shut as Sheridan floats toward it. G'Kar's ship

								   explodes before Sheridan's shuttle can escape; the shuttle's occupant

								   screams...


								Backplot


								     * Narn children are taught the art of negotiation at an early age;

								       the Narn consider themselves master hagglers.

								     * If Greegil is to be believed, the Narn kinial system has several

								       ranks denoting levels of family obligation: this-kini, val-kini,

								       dar-kini, on-kini, dru-kini, bas-kini, and ini-darka. Ini-darka is

								       the highest rank.


								Unanswered Questions


								     * Did Sheridan make it onto the shuttle?

								     * What does Greegil really want, and how is he related (familially

								       or otherwise) to G'Kar?

								     * Why is G'Kar trying to avoid him, if that's what's happening?


								Analysis


								     * Why would G'Kar drag Garibaldi all the way from the docking bay to

								       the core of the station? Clearly Garibaldi wasn't conscious for

								       most of the trip or he would have known he wasn't on G'Kar's ship,

								       so G'Kar could have left him in the docking bay or in a closet and

								       nobody would have been any the wiser.


								Notes


								     * This story takes place in early spring 2259, between the episodes

								       [9]"The Geometry of Shadows" and [10]"A Distant Star."

								     * Laser-mirror-starweb is rock-paper-scissors with different names.

								     * At one point (just after they haggle) Sheridan calls Greegil

								       "Greelig."

								     * This issue features a computer-generated cover picture by

								       Foundation Imaging, a rendering of G'Kar's ship nearly hitting the

								       D'Vordo.

								     * During one of the negotiation scenes, Greegil says, "You'd have me

								       cut my own throat, you dibbler". This is probably a reference to

								       Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of novels, which feature a

								       salesman called "Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler."

								     * This story introduces a lot of gadgets we've never seen in the

								       series (and probably never will.) The starweb and "shields" on

								       Earth ships are two that seem like they would have appeared in the

								       show if they were part of the canonical B5 universe. The

								       maintenance robot in the station's core is questionable, though it

								       at least isn't inconsistent with anything in the series. The stun

								       gas used by G'Kar might be the same as the "morph gas" mentioned

								       in [11]"By Any Means Necessary."


								jms speaks


								     * Ron did a CGI cover, though I've only seen a B&W repro, and can't

								       vouch for it in detail.


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								      Last update: October 30, 1996


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