101: Infection

Dr Vance Hendricks, one of Franklin's med-school mentors, arrives on board with a collection of artefacts from Ikarra, a world that has been dead for over a thousand years.  His associate, Nelson Drake, murdered a customs inspector to smuggle the goods through because they are of a biological nature.  Hendricks plans to sell the goods to a private industrial group so the humans can develop organic technology to match the Vorlons and the Minbari.  Meanwhile, station personnel are being interviewed by ISN reporter Mary Ann Cramer determined to get their perspectives of life on Babylon 5.

Drake is infected by an active piece of the new technology and begins to mutate into an Ikarran killing machine.  Franklin and Hendricks determine that the killing machines were programmed to destroy all non-pure Ikarran life: the powerful Drake is now rampant aboard the station attacking people.  But the machines' definition of "pure" was too stringent and resulted in the extinction of the Ikarran race; Sinclair confronts the mutant with the truth and it destroys itself, allowing Drake to revert to human form again.  Franklin has Hendricks arrested for his knowledge of Drake's illegal activities.  Sinclair finally brings himself to face ambitious ISN reporter Mary Ann Cramer and tell her about life in space.

Notes: Hendricks' studies have been funded by Interplanetary Expeditions (IPX), an organization behind many nefarious dealings (In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum, Thirdspace, Crusade).  Garibaldi's story about crashlanding in the Martian desert with Sinclair is recounted in the Babylon 5 comic strip Shadows Past and Present (see also Messages From Earth).  Proxima 3 gets a mention (see Severed Dreams and No Surrender, No Retreat).

Guest Cast: David McCallum (Vance Hendricks) appeared regularly in the TV series The Man from UNCLE and Sapphire and Steel.  Marshall Teague (Nelson Drake) appears later as the Narn Ta'Lon.  Patricia Healy (Mary Ann Cramer) is seen again in By Any Means Necessary.