A Dream Given Form

Chapter Four

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."