Voices

Chapter 1

“Welcome to Mars,” said the sultry, automated voice. “The time is 24:13 Martian Central, and the temperature is currently 201degrees Celsius. Tomorrow’s high temperature is expected to be 274, with light winds and dust. Please watch your step as you disembark, as Martian gravity is thirty-eight percent that of Earth. Have a pleasant stay.”

Yes, thought Harriman Gray, his step did indeed feel springier as he negotiated the moving walkway. A shy, reserved person, Gray did not usually have a bounce in his step, nor did he whistle while he worked. His job as a telepath for Earthforce required a demeanor slightly less serious than that of an undertaker.

But he couldn’t help feeling rather chipper tonight, as he was about to embark on a new assignment—liaison to Mr. Bester. Bester was the top Psi Cop, the one who got the tough cases chasing down rogue telepaths. But he was much more than a Psi Cop, as Gray well knew. Bester was one of the most powerful figures in Psi Corps, the closely guarded organization charged with training and regulating both military and civilian telepaths. Although Bester’s name did not appear on any list of prominent citizens, a more powerful man in the Earth Alliance would be hard to find.

Gray was distracted by some children bounding several strides ahead of their parents in the light gravity. He was glad that he didn’t have any of those to worry about, although, lately, he had been feeling unaccountably paternal. It was Susan, he thought, Susan Ivanova from Babylon 5. She had brought out these strange feelings in him, and what had he brought out in her? Loathing and disgust. He was afraid to give himself encouragement when it came to Susan, but toward the end of his eventful visit to Babylon 5, there had been a twinge of sympathy, a smidgen of understanding in her response to him. Or so he imagined.

After all, nobody chose to be telepathic. Better than anyone, Susan Ivanova should know that. She could have unlimited sympathy for her mother, a rogue telepath, so why couldn’t she have some for him? Was he any different, just because he had chosen to accept his gift and allow the Corps to train him and place restrictions on his behavior? Was he any different than a soldier, trained to kill one moment and keep the peace the next? They lived in a society that had rules, and the rules were for the good of everyone.

Okay, Mr. Gray had to admit, the rules worked better for some people than for others. But nobody wanted anarchy, such as the revolt on Mars a few weeks earlier. The fighting was over, he reminded himself, and most of the real damage had occurred on another part of Mars, not this region. Stopping the dissension on Mars would be easier than winning Susan’s heart. If only he could return to B5 and have another chance to talk to her, to convince her that he wasn’t a monster.

A moment later, another female intruded into his mind. It was the security guard at the end of the walkway, and Gray separated her voice from the innumerable voices which babbled inside his head whenever he was in a crowded place. They weren’t real voices—they were thoughts—but his mind translated the thoughts into an interior monologue. If he concentrated, he could pick out the voice he wanted, amplify it, and even look behind it at the motions and motives which informed it.

He produced his identicard a moment before she asked for it. Then he felt a jab of fear from her in response to the card and his Psi Corps insignia, although her smiling face said, “Have a pleasant stay on Mars, Mr. Gray.”

Many telepaths loved that instantaneous fear they inspired in total strangers. They got off on it and were

disappointed if a person’s psyche didn’t cower before them. Gray only found it depressing.

With his guard down, he was struck by a mind-scan so severe that it staggered him. If it hadn’t been for the Martian gravity, which bounced him harmlessly off a wall, he would’ve fallen to the floor.

“Are you all right?” asked the guard as she grabbed Gray’s elbow and steadied him.

“Yes, yes,” he rasped, trying to clear his head. Who the hell had done that to him?

A small, middle-aged man in a black uniform stepped from behind a pillar. He smiled, trying to look friendly, but he only succeeded in looking heartless.

“Your friend will look after you,” said the guard cheerfully, literally pushing Gray into the man’s gloved hands.

“So pleased to meet you,” said Mr. Bester without speaking a word.

Gray blinked in amazement and answered telepathically, “I didn’t expect you to meet me personally, Mr. Bester.”

“You’ll find,” said the Psi Cop in spoken words, “that I believe in the axiom ‘If you want something done right, do it yourself.’ “

Gray almost protested over the way he had been scanned without permission, or warning for that matter. But he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Bester was above the law, if anyone was, although he preferred to work from behind pillars and politicians, not in front of them. In a privileged class, Bester was the most privileged.

Harriman Gray was a slight man, and he took some comfort in the fact that Mr. Bester was no taller than he. In fact, without the considerable amount of hair that Bester possessed, he might have been even shorter.

The Psi Cop frowned. “Yes, but I’m a P12, and you’re only a P1O.”

“I didn’t mean anything by that,” said Gray apologetically.

Bester smiled and started down the corridor. “Of course not. Do you know, there have been studies showing that shorter men are actually more predisposed toward telepathy. Do you suppose that could be evolution making up for a height disadvantage?”

“I read the Berenger Study, too,” answered Gray, “but I didn’t think that he proved his hypothesis. For example, the same study showed that taller women were predisposed toward telepathy. It looks to me like a statistical aberration.”

“That’s why I wanted to pick you up myself,” said Bester with satisfaction. “To have some time to talk with you. You know, this assignment won’t last very long, just until we iron out the details of the conference and get the weekend started. However, I am looking for a new assistant.”

Gray was caught off-guard by Bester dangling a ripe promotion in front of his nose, but he blocked his reactions as best he could. He could feel the Psi Cop probing his mind for a reaction, but he thought he had a very effective way to shut the probing down.

“Yes, I heard about poor Ms. Kelsey,” said Gray, shaking his head. “Terrible tragedy.”

Bester shrugged and stopped his scan. “She knew the risks. We got our man, that was the important part. Of course, when you went to Babylon 5, you also came back minus one.”

Touchй, thought Gray. “Yes, that was also a tragedy,” he said with all sincerity.

“Nonsense,” snapped Bester. “Ben Zayn was a weakling, a war burnout. Just like Sinclair.”

The man in the black uniform swept down another corridor, and Gray hurried after him. Except for the ease of moving in the light gravity, there was no indication that they were on Mars. The docking area looked like any other space facility designed for oxygen-breathers; there were the usual crowded corridors, gift shops, florists, news-stands, restaurants, and credit machines. One had to go to an observatory dome to see anything of the red planet.

Bester went on with his diatribe about Babylon 5. “Neither Sinclair nor Ben Zayn was right for that post on B5. Now we’ve got another war hero there—John Sheridan. That’s the trouble with the Senate and the President, always appointing war heroes to positions of command, just because they’re popular.”

“You don’t think much of Captain Sheridan?” asked Gray with surprise. “Everyone at Earthforce think it’s finally the right move.”

“At least Sheridan is by the book,” conceded the Psi Cop. “An honest plodder. But he may find that Babylon 5 is not covered in the book. I’ll reserve judgment until I see how he handles the pressure.”

“You would rather have someone from the Corps running B5?”

“No,” answered Bester. “We work better behind the scenes. But it would be nice to have a friend in that post.”

Gray cleared his throat and thought that he had better turn the conversation back to the promotion. “If you get a new assistant, doesn’t he or she have to be a Psi Cop?”

“That has always been the conventional thinking—Psi Cops sticking with other Psi Cops. But it’s not official

policy. In some respects, it would be better to separate my assistant from my backup person. I can always find new cops to go after the rogues, but an able assistant is a bit harder to replace.”

After negotiating another corner, Bester continued, “My assistant has to be a member of the Corps and be willing to undergo a deep scan. That goes without saying. Otherwise, it could be anybody.”

The older telepath turned abruptly, stepped in front of Gray, and looked him squarely in the eyes. “I’ve done a lot of research on you, Mr. Gray. I especially like the way you manage to come out on the winning side of every skirmish. That quality, plus your military background, is very appealing to me.”

Gray waited for the blast of a deep scan, but it never happened. Bester just looked at him, a satisfied smile on his surprisingly youthful face. It was as if he was saying he could jump his mind anytime he wanted to, but he wasn’t going to, for now. So the liaison official took the offer at face value—he was on a trial period to be Mr. Bester’s full-time assistant.

However, Gray couldn’t forget the fact that he had a job to do, and that was to promote the military’s needs in the upcoming conference of high-level telepaths. Press releases claimed the focus was on commercial applications for telepaths—and there would be representatives from the commercial firms—but everyone knew who really controlled the Corps these days. Military and corporate telepaths were fighting for crumbs of power compared to what Bester already had. They controlled their own domains, but Bester and the Psi Cops controlled them.

“The monorail is this way,” said Bester. “We have a private car.”

“My luggage,” said the young telepath.

Bester smiled. “It’s being delivered to your suite. I think you will find that the Royal Tharsis Lodge is being quite accommodating.”

Once inside the security of the sealed monorail car, Harriman Gray finally relaxed and took in the sights, such as they were on a dark Martian night. The angry red planet didn’t look so angry when it was crisscrossed with monorail tubes, prefabricated dwellings, and shielded domes. It looked like a giant gerbil habitat on a dusty parking lot.

A canyon yawned beneath the monorail tube, lit up by a science station perched on the rim. The canyon was, Gray estimated, about six kilometers deep, or about three times the depth of the Grand Canyon. The canyon faded into the distance before Gray could get a very good look. With a minimum of gravity and friction, the monorail was breezing above the surface of Mars at a speed of four hundred kilometers per hour.

Gray shifted his gaze toward the distance and their destination, the famed Tharsis Rise—a jutting plateau of volcanic ridges that was five kilometers high. It was lit up like the Pyramids, but the lights failed to convey even

one-tenth of its size. By daylight, it was a monstrous thing that seemed to go on forever, but Gray knew it was only about three thousand kilometers across.

Tharsis Rise was a bona fide tourist attraction, no one could deny that. And the Royal Tharsis was a posh resort, so posh that both the manager and the chef were Centauri. Fine, thought Gray, but once you got past a few Centauri luxuries, there wasn’t anything out here to see but a big flat rock. He would have preferred an Earth setting for the conference—with greenery and water—not hot, dusty rocks.

Bester was quiet and thoughtful as he gazed out the convex window. “You don’t see anything of interest out there, do you,” he remarked.

“I’m afraid I don’t,” answered Gray. “I’ve always found the mystique of Mars to be sadly lacking. Behind all these sleek tubes, there’s a lot of poverty, dissension, and nothing. People came here looking for something, and only a few found anything of value. Now they want to blame the planet they came from for all their problems.”

“Yes,” said Bester, staring at the vast, rose-hued horizon. “But if you find something of value here on Mars, it may be priceless.”

Even though the two men were totally alone in the private car, Gray leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, “There are rumors about what’s going on at our facility in Syria Planum. If I may ask, Mr. Bester, what’s going on out there?”

The little man bristled. “That information is on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know.”

“Sorry, sir,” said Gray, straightening in his seat.

Actually, the military had a good idea what was going on at the Psi Corps training center, and Gray had been secretly briefed about it. But this was not the time or place to pursue the matter.

Bester relaxed a bit, but he still looked preoccupied. “Don’t you see,” he explained, “we can’t tell anyone about Syria Planum, because we’re the only ones who can keep a secret.”

“Yes,” admitted the young telepath, nodding his head sagely. [1] It was their burden, in a way, that all the mundanes, the nontelepaths, were doomed to become a second class under the telepaths. He didn’t really like it, but he understood it as a sort of natural evolution of society. Who could stand in their way?

“It’s late,” said Bester, “but I can arrange a tour of the hotel for you right away, if you like.”

“I’ve been here before,” answered Gray, “although I was only here for the day. It’s a beautiful facility.”

“Secure, too,” said the man in the black uniform. “The monorail is the only way in or out. Except for overland, which would be insane. During the weekend of the conference, we can make sure that only the Corps and our handful of invited guests even get off the rail.”

Gray shook his head apologetically. “I’ve been travelling around so much, I haven’t kept up. Are we still worried about the separatists?”

“Bloody idiots,” muttered Bester. “They haven’t got a chance. We’re not going to give up Mars to a bunch of illiterate miners, I can tell you that.”

Gray cleared his throat. “Of course, the military would have preferred to go to Earth for the conference. West Point or Sparta, some place like that.”

Beater smiled. “Have you ever played Martian basketball?”

Now Gray sat forward eagerly. “No, but I’ve heard about it.”

“It’s just like Earth basketball,” said Bester, “only with the low gravity, everybody gets to dunk it. They have some lovely courts here, and perhaps you and I can take some time for a match in the morning. We don’t have to sign the contracts with the hotel until tomorrow afternoon.”

“I’d like that,” answered Gray, beaming.

The young man was feeling more relaxed already. Certainly all those terrible stories about Mr. Bester were simply not true. He could see the hotel very clearly now, an art-deco monstrosity that looked nothing like a lodge, as he thought of a lodge. Only the jutting ridge of Tharsis gave the complex any perspective whatsoever.

An explosion suddenly lit up the jagged rock face, and a flaming section of the hotel spewed outward, along with tables, chairs, and other objects that were sucked into the thin atmosphere.

The flames went out immediately, but debris continued to fly out. The shock wave jarred the monorail and would have knocked them out of their seats, if not for their restraints. Lights flickered in the car, and the monorail screeched to a bumpy halt.

The oxygen wasn’t gone yet, but Gray was already panting for breath.

“Stay calm,” ordered Bester. “Whatever you do, don’t take your restraints off. What’s the matter with this thing?”

He pounded on the panel over his head, and a dozen oxygen masks fell out, hanging from the ceiling like the tentacles of some bloated jellyfish. Swift changes in air pressure made papers and cups fly around the room.

“Put a mask on,” ordered Bester, although Gray already had four of them in his hands.

They secured their oxygen masks and waited in the flickering lights. Gray felt a tug at his clothing, and the hair on his arms and neck seemed to rise with the drying of the air. They were going to be in oxygenless, 200-degree heat in a few minutes, he thought in a panic! He glanced at the gaping hole in the Royal Tharsis Lodge, and he saw things still flying out of it—things that might be human bodies! Or Centauri bodies. The voices started to bombard his head, and Gray closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing.

Bester ripped his mask off and sniffed the air. “Stay in your seat,” he barked. “That is an order. I am going to loosen my restraints and try to get this thing into reverse.”

Gray lifted the lip of his mask. “No, Mr. Bester! If the air gets sucked out, you might, too!”

“Do you think I want to sit here and bake to death?” asked Bester, unsnapping his restraints. He sprang to his feet and ripped out an entire bank of panels over his head. “Although,” he remarked, “dying of dehydration is supposed to be one of the more pleasant forms of death.”

“I wouldn’t know!” shrieked Gray. He gulped and drew the oxygen mask back over his face.

Bester was like a man possessed, ripping out panels in the ceiling, on the floor, in the storage bins, and the

bathroom. He occasionally had to grab a mask for a hit of oxygen, but he never faltered from his task. Finally, in the panel above the water dispenser, he found what looked like a pair of old-fashioned levers.

“Manual override,” he panted. “Undocumented feature. It’s amazing what you learn when you read people’s minds all day.”

Bester took one more breath of oxygen from a nearby mask and reached over the water cooler to grab the levers. His normally coiffed hair was plastered across his forehead in dripping ringlets, and the sweat drooled off his chin. The Psi Cop braced himself to give the levers a forceful jerk.

He needn’t have tried so hard, because the levers moved easily in his grasp. There was a comforting clunk, and the car shuddered on its overhead track. One second later, the car flew into reverse so quickly that Bester was dumped on his backside. Gray considered himself fortunate that he was still strapped in.

Bester sat up groggily and staggered like a drunk into a seat, any seat. He strapped himself down, reached for a gas mask, and gratefully sucked oxygen.

Gray suddenly realized that he was a quivering rag of sweat, too. He tried to remain composed, but it was difficult with the dark hotel and its gaping wound in his direct line of vision. That was when the voices, the screams, and the agony grew louder! Gray put his hands over his ears and shrunk down into his seat.

“Don’t give in to them!” growled Bester. “Block it. You can’t help them now.”

The assured words helped to calm Gray and give him some control, which he used to push the voices into the background while he tried to concentrate on his home in Berlin. His home was a grim little apartment, on the second floor, with stark furnishings and one window with a flower box that looked down upon a koi pond. He loved it. Gray had just gotten the apartment a few months ago, and he was very proud of it, even though he had only spent a handful of nights there between assignments.

He wanted to bring somebody to his apartment for dinner. Somebody like Susan. He tried to concentrate on Susan Ivanova until the terrified voices faded from his mind.

Bester coughed and cleared his throat. “Well, the Royal Tharsis Lodge is off the list. Where do you think we can hold this conference on short notice? No, do not suggest Earth or the training center at Syria Planum.”

“If not Earth,” said Harriman Gray, “I was going to suggest Babylon 5.”

Bester took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. “Hmmm. You want to go to B5, eh?”

“Yes,” said Gray, straightening up in his seat. “We’d both like to see how Sheridan is getting along there. The station is self-contained and relatively secure. I know Mr. Garibaldi has an attitude problem, but he gets the job done and has a good staff. We have a resident telepath there, Talia Winters, who can act as our coordinator.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Bester. “You’d like to invade B5, on a few days’ notice, with the four hundred

highest-ranking telepaths in Psi Corps?”

“Yes, sir.”

Bester tapped his finger to his lips and smiled. “Even though we can’t play Martian basketball there, that does sound like fun. You approach Ms. Winters, and I’ll work through my channels. We want her to ask Captain Sheridan for permission, but we want to make sure he won’t say no.”

Gray swallowed and started to say, “Commander Ivanova …”

“Will be difficult as always.” Bester clicked his tongue with disapproval. “A spotless record, except for her strange aversion to Psi Corps. You would think her mother was the only telepath who had ever been put to sleep.”

Gray shook his head and decided not to mention Susan again. Bester didn’t have to know about his personal life, although he might have already found out about his crush on Susan during that unexpected mind-scan. Well, thought Gray, he was on a new assignment and headed back to B5, and that was all that was important.

The young man chanced another look out the window. Half of the hotel on the great ridge was illuminated again, which was encouraging. The emergency systems and airlocks must have kicked in. Best of all, thought Gray, the voices had died to a whimper.

“Do you think the Mars separatists did that?” he asked softly.

“Who else?”

“I wonder how many people died in that explosion?” Gray mused.

Bester closed his eyes. “I counted twenty-six.”