(Babylon 5 and its characters were created by J. Michael Straczynski, and belong to Joe and Warner Bros., and are used without permission. The rest belongs to Cathy Faye Rudolph.)

"Get Lyta to do it."

The traffic milled about her, yet always there was a thin buffer of space, air, disdain. She hadn't meant to hear Sheridan's words, had not deliberately tapped in. Yet there he was, talking with station personnel. And expecting her to do something. "Get Lyta to do it."

The group had emerged from the White Star, erupting into the Arrival Area to cheers and shouts of welcome. Sheridan held Delenn close, his arm tight against her shoulders. Lennier and Franklin supervised the offloading of the few wounded who had returned with them, as well as greeting the medical personnel who were overjoyed to see them again. As Sheridan and Delenn were met at the concourse by well-wishers, and Lennier and Franklin escorted the last of the gurneys to MedLab, Lyta found herself alone.

Alone. In a room full of people, heartrendingly alone. She watched as station personnel waylaid Sheridan, their problem put to him and punctuated by rapid hand movements. Then, Sheridan shaking his head, and saying "Get Lyta to do it." A careless wave of his hand in her general direction, and then the congratulatory tide along the concourse swept Sheridan and Delenn away out of sight.

She hitched the strap for her bag up on her shoulder again, and walked slowly to her room. She wanted to believe that maybe later someone would say...thanks, Lyta. Maybe someone would say...we saw that you cared enough to do this, and we're grateful. Maybe they _would_ say something later....but they hadn't said it up to now, because it hadn't occurred to them to say it.

The door to her quarters would not open. An unfamiliar device was fastened at the mechanism, jamming her access code. The voice in the BabCom speaker informed her that her quarters were sealed for non-payment of fees and rental. It did no good to protest that she had been asked by Sheridan and Franklin to assist with the plans against EarthForce. She did not ask if Sheridan's quarters, or Delenn's, or Franklin's had been locked out for non-payment in their absences. She did not need to ask, for she already knew the answer.

She'd always given the best service she could when working as a commercial telepath. It seemed as if more and more clients had demanded extra services, extra hours, extra assurances, all for the same price. Or worse, the clients only paid half, or delayed any payment at all until their financial reverses righted themselves. She struggled along, carrying the debts of others, caring for their circumstances when often they themselves cared very little.

She had ripped a vital location from a Centauri telepath's mind. She'd helped in the search for John Sheridan. She had betrayed and helped kill a Vorlon. And it was she who had provided the answers to the Shadow teep awakenings and the key to using them in the fight against Earth. Those things she had asked no payment for. And for those things no one had offered a kind word, a blessing, or the simple utterance of thank you.

"Get Lyta to do it."

You _use_ a comm-unit, or a transport tube, or a PPG, she thought bitterly. You don't compliment the comm-unit on a job well-done, because....it's not a person. It's a tool, a convenience, a utility. It's used and has no opinions about being used. It has no feelings to be bruised by neglect. Used well or ill, it doesn't matter, the comm-unit is simply a means to an end.

A comm-unit could not run after Sheridan and Delenn, beg to ingratiate itself with them. She could. Yes, she _could_ sell herself, wheedle invitations, monopolize conversations, insert self-congratulatory hype and embellishment into every exchange, promote herself over other people, constantly remind everyone of HER gifts. She could walk away from jobs where her fee was not forthcoming, pointing out that she couldn't eat virtue and that if the job was that important she was sure the client would find the money for her fee somehow.

Was it about respect, she wondered? Did they really respect her so little? Was it that she was so unworthy of consideration, that she should ask only to struggle through with her burdens and theirs, that her skills made her less than human? It is about respect you will never have, she concluded. They are interested in using what you can do, not in who you are or who you could be.

Lyta did not wait for the few items locked out of reach within her room. She secured passage on an outgoing freighter in exchange for commercial services at the next four ports of call. After that... maybe she could find somewhere to start again, somewhere that would value her as a person and not a utility.

As C&C cleared the freighter on its path to the jumpgate, Sheridan took a call from Franklin. One of the last Shadow teeps had awakened when his cryo unit malfunctioned, Franklin shouted out over the background din of sparking cables and wailing sirens. We need to get the teep back into cryo before he takes out half of MedLab. Sheridan sighed, and rested the handful of reports against his now-empty coffee mug. It's always something, he thought with mild irritation. He spoke brusquely into his comm link.

"Get Lyta to do it."

Utility © 1997 Cathy Faye Rudolph