"Only my brother is here," said Pa'Nar loudly. "He is very sick."

"I'll have to see him," insisted the officer. "I'll just take a look inside and check his identicard. Excuse me."

G'Kar kept his back to the doorway, wondering if he could possibly be lucky enough to encounter a security officer who didn't know him on sight. Probably not. As one of the four alien ambassadors on the station, he wasn't exactly an unknown quantity. He could feel his heart pounding as the security officer shuffled through the flap.

"Excuse me," he said, "we're looking for undocu­mented Narns in connection with Ambassador G'Kar's death. Are you on the station roster?"

G'Kar coughed and wheezed and tried to sound very sick. He pulled the blanket tighter around his broad shoulders with one hand and gripped his PPG weapon with the other.

"Did you hear what I said?" insisted the officer. "I need your name, and your identicard."

"Ha'Mok," wheezed G'Kar. From his waistcoat he pulled out his fake identicard and tossed it on to the floor behind him.

"Thank you," said the officer sarcastically. G'Kar could envision him bending down to retrieve the card, then running it through his machine. G'Kar had no prob­lem feigning labored breathing during the moments that followed.

"You are listed on the roster," said the officer. "But I have to see you to make positive identification. Turn over, please."

That, decided G'Kar, he could not do. He cursed him­self—why hadn't he donned his disguise earlier? It was too late now, and this young man had put himself squarely in the way.

"I don't wish to vomit all over you!" croaked G'Kar. "I have a virus ... a potent one! It is liquefying my intestines."

The security officer rose up and banged his head on the low roof. G'Kar wheezed, "It would kill a human in a day or two!"

Now the officer was lifting his hand to his link to call for instructions, just as Pa'Nar crept up behind him and smashed a crowbar on the back of his skull. The officer crumpled to the grimy floor in a gray heap.

"I hope you didn't kill him," said G'Kar, rolling to his feet. He bent down and retrieved his fake identicard from under the officer's nose. Warm moisture on the card revealed that the officer was still breathing.

"We'll have to kill him, won't we?" asked Pa'Nar.

"No," snapped the ambassador. "This action is not his concern. His death would dishonor my actions even fur­ther. Besides, I have to come back to B5 someday, after I step forward and admit to this deception."

G'Kar brought the heel of his boot down upon the offi­cer's handheld terminal, smashing the case and grinding the chips into silicon. Then he bent down and ripped the link off the back of the man's hand and thrust it into the trembling hands of the old Narn.

"Take his link far away from here, so they can't trace him by it," ordered G'Kar. "While you're at it, you had better keep going, Pa'Nar. Clean yourself up and get off this station on the first public transport."

"We're just going to leave him here?" gasped Pa'Nar.

G'Kar scowled. "If you want to carry him out, be my guest."

The old Narn gulped, stuck the link in his pocket, and scurried out. G'Kar turned his attention to the unfortu­nate Earthforce officer sprawled on the floor and said, "Your boss, Mr. Garibaldi, is very thorough. I must remember that."

The Narn began to undress, replacing the disgusting rags Pa'Nar had provided with the humble robe of an acolyte. The choice of the acolyte had been his, in mem­ory of the deceit employed against him by the assassins at Ka'Pul.

From the pocket of his robe G'Kar produced a mirror and the most important piece of his disguise—the skull cap. The thin layer of artificial skin covered his entire cranium and matched his skin color perfectly except for one thing—the spots were completely different. Where pools of dark pigment had blossomed on his head, the skull cap had seas of bronze, and vice-versa. It was sur­prising how much the appliance changed a Narn's appearance, and he supposed it was like a human exchanging ebony hair for golden hair.

Then he applied another piece of his disguise, the con­tact lenses that turned his eyes from their usual vibrant red to a dull brown. A Narn who met him would think that his eyes were quite unusual, but tests had shown that the effect of brown eyes on humans was just the oppo­site. They perceived a face that was bland and friendly, a forgettable face, much like one of their own. The final part of his disguise was an attitude adjustment—instead of his usual arrogance and bluster there would be a sub­servient timidity that required his head be lowered most of the time.

G'Kar jumped when a groan issued from the floor. Without a moment's hesitation, he scooped his old clothes off the floor and threw them into a cloth bag. He checked to make sure he had the proper identicard and the proper attitude as he lowered his head and ducked through the flap hanging in the doorway.

"Officer does not respond," came Lou Welch's report from the Brown Sector of Down Below.

"What?" answered Garibaldi into his link. Some crazy derelict in an access duct overhead was hollering just to hear the echo, a phenomenon that was typical when a person consumed too much dust. Everyone had shouted at the guy to be quiet, to no avail, and now two of his security officers were on their way to grab him and take him to medlab. This interruption had slowed down Garibaldi's search through the Green Sector of Down Below, putting him in an even worse mood. He was dreading all the diplomatic schmoozing he would have to be doing in a couple of hours, and he could barely hear himself worry.

"I said, 'Leffler doesn't respond!' " shouted Welch. "He was working a corridor alone, and now he's just dis­appeared. We're trying to trace his link, but it's not where it should be. I'd like permission to give up the search for Narns to search for Leffler. We may need to do a house-to-house."

"Permission granted," answered Garibaldi. He winced at the howling that reverberated over his head. "We're stalled here, too, so I'm coming over there. Garibaldi out!"

He turned to his subordinates in Green Sector and yelled, "As soon as you get him quiet, keep checking Narns until you're relieved, or you hear from me. I'll be in Brown Sector."

The chief jogged to get away from the din, but he did­n't find it any quieter in the connecting corridor. The explosion of G'Kar's ship and the rousting of the Narn derelicts had unleashed a kind of sullen resentment in the bowels of Down Below. There was some incidental ranting about heavy-handed Earthforce, and a few Drazi glared at him. No one looked like they particularly wanted to see him.

With a start, Garibaldi realized that this might not be the best time to be wandering alone through Down Below. Leffler was missing and not responding, and he had been working alone, too. The chief didn't make a big deal about it, but he slowed down his pace long enough to give every doorway, corridor, and alien a thorough inspection before he drew close. His hand dangled near the PPG weapon on his belt.

He was beginning to get the feeling that somebody in this collection of interstellar misfits knew something about G'Kar's death. Something was hidden down here, as it usually was. Garibaldi tried to concentrate on Mi'Ra, the Narn in the blood-soaked dress. She was the key. Could she be brazen enough to sneak on to the station and use Down Below as her base of operations? To kill an ambassador, you would need a place like this to wait, to bide your time. Hell, everybody in Down Below was biding their time, and the cost of living was low. The cost of dying was also low, and she could hire accomplices if she needed them.