Voices

Chapter 18

The lure of the bullet station and immediate passage to Boston was strong, but the lure of a bed and a shower was stronger. When Talia passed a homey, old-fashioned hotel before she reached the station, she couldn’t stop herself from going in and pressing the buzzer on the check-in counter. It was the middle of the night, but she hoped she would still be able to get a room.

A kindly older lady finally appeared. “What can we do for you, miss?”

“A single,” she said. “Do you have one?”

“Yes, my dear, only sixty credits for a single. Interested?”

Talia found herself nodding before she even thought about it.

“Fine. I’ll need your creditchit and your identicard.”

Talia passed them over, thinking that was the second time she had used the fake identicard. She only had two more times. But she was so dirty and weary that she would risk facing a million Psi Cops to be clean and rested. Tomorrow would be time enough to get to Boston, she told herself, time enough to confront Emily Crane, clear her name, and get her life back.

She dragged herself to the room and ripped off the dirty clothes and the wig. Talia felt like throwing the entire outfit away, but she doubted if she would get very far naked. In the shower, she let the lukewarm water run over her hair and body, and she watched a river of sand snake from her feet to the drain. She was too weary to even adjust the water to make it warmer, although she had the strength to rub some shampoo in her hair.

When she staggered out of the shower, she collapsed into the droopy bed with beads of water still clinging to her back. She fell immediately into a sleep that was so deep it was beyond dreams.

Garibaldi, however, was having a dream. A nightmare, to be exact. In this dream, people were tying his hands behind his back, tying his feet together, and stuffing a gag in his mouth. He wanted to wake up, but he couldn’t open his eyes. It wasn’t until he began to squirm against his bindings that the dream turned really ugly. Someone slapped him across the mouth, knocking him to the floor, and his eyes bugged open. Unfortunately, the dream didn’t end—he was still bound and gagged.

He was also still in Trishman’s white living room, only the older man was not in sight. Instead, there were two brawny young men, well dressed in suits. One of them was standing over Garibaldi, glowering at him. Ah, yes, he thought, that was the guy he had punched in the stomach. Well, why was he upset? He wasn’t the one bound and gagged, lying on the floor with a drugged-out hangover.

The man looked like he wanted to slap him again, when a woman’s voice intruded. “Don’t even think about it.”

Garibaldi craned his neck as best he could to see who had entered from the bedroom. Lo and behold, it was Emily Crane! Only she wasn’t dressed in her usual frumpy outfit but in a sleek gray jumpsuit, with her hair pulled back severely. He tried to ask her how her trip to Mars had been, but everything he said came out a mumble.

“Get him back on the couch,” ordered the woman. The two goons complied and lifted him back into a semicomfortable position.

“Mr. Garibaldi,” she said, “if you promise not to cry out, I will remove the gag.”

He nodded. Crying out wasn’t really his style, but he was looking forward to kicking the crap out of these guys at the first opportunity. She snapped her fingers, and the gag came off.

“That was a quick trip to Mars,” he croaked.

“Don’t blame Ronald for lying,” she said, sitting beside him on the couch. “Or for calling us. We only have another twenty-four hours before we can put our plan into effect, and then we stage a bloodless coup of Psi Corps. Don’t you want that—to get rid of Bester and his ilk?”

“Sister, right now, your ilk doesn’t seem much better.” One of the goons moved forward with his fists balled, and Garibaldi winced, awaiting the blow.

But Emily Crane waved the man off and looked back at Garibaldi. “Do you see why we have to keep you quiet for twenty-four hours, until the bill is passed and signed? Your detective work was quite good, but we can’t let years of planning go down the drain to save one telepath.”

She smiled pleasantly. “I’m hopeful you’ll come around to our way of thinking. In twenty-four hours, after you see all that we’ve accomplished, you might want to forget about your investigation. The public is happy with Martian terrorists as the bombers—why can’t you be?”

Garibaldi wasn’t going to argue with the lady, because the alternative to agreeing with them was probably winding up as fish food in the harbor. “What are you going to do with me?” be asked.

Emily Crane got up, strode to the picture window, and looked out at the sleeping city. “Maybe we should move Mr. Garibaldi while it’s still dark outside. If something happened to him here, it would reflect badly on Trishman. Gag him, untie his feet, and keep a PPG in his back.”

The thugs untied the rope around Garibaldi’s ankles and hauled him to his feet. They shoved the foul-tasting rag back into his mouth, but he was willing to give up his voice in exchange for having his legs free. His hands were still tied behind his back, but he could kick, he could run! He saw one of the goons pull a PPG out of his jacket pocket, and he felt the metal in his back. Maybe he wouldn’t kick or run right now, thought Garibaldi.

Emily Crane opened the door and checked the corridor to make sure it was clear, then she motioned for them to follow her. Garibaldi stumbled out, sandwiched between the two thugs, one of whom had a PPG in his back. The only reason they were letting him walk, he decided, was to keep from having to carry his dead body. Nevertheless, he couldn’t think of any way to get away from them, and he behaved himself all the way down the elevator and the escalator.

In the street, he told himself, maybe someone would see this obvious kidnapping and call the cops. But there was no one in the street in these dead hours just before dawn, nothing but a silent row of electric-powered vehicles. If he ran, thought Garibaldi, he was trying to decide how many meters he would get before the guy with the PPG drilled him. He figured three.

Suddenly, a strange voice seemed to speak in his head. It told him to duck! Garibaldi had nothing to lose, so he pretended to trip. He stumbled to the pavement a split second before a PPG blast ripped the head off the man behind him. The other goon was drawing his weapon when three blasts from entirely different directions turned his midsection a fiery orange. The two pieces of him fell to the ground.

Emily Crane ran for it, and her short height let her elude the first shots directed at her. Then two black-suited Psi Cops jumped out of the bushes directly in front of her. As she stumbled away from them, begging forgiveness, they executed her.

Strong arms picked Garibaldi off the pavement and guided him to a black shuttlecraft that awaited them in an adjacent parking lot. They tossed him in like a bag of potatoes, the hatch slammed shut, and the thrusters blasted the craft off the ground and into the black night.

“Hold still,” said a familiar voice, and Garibaldi felt hands untying the ropes at his back. Once his hands were free, he ripped off the gag and rolled over to greet his saviors.

The first thing he saw was the relieved and smiling face of Harriman Gray. Behind him, swathed in bandages and holding a cane, sat Mr. Bester. The only other person in the shuttlecraft was the pilot, and she was concentrating on getting them through the skyscrapers of Boston.

“It would be polite to say ‘thank you,’” suggested Bester.

“Yes, thank you,” croaked Garibaldi. “You … you wasted them. Damn it, Emily Crane was the only one who could clear Talia Winters!”

“Rogue telepaths,” said Bester. “All perfectly legal, although I doubt if we’ll claim credit. Actually, you owe your life to Mr. Gray here. He got worried about you last night and contacted my office. When I spoke with him, he told me all about Emily Crane and the Mix. We just managed to get a tail on her before she came over here with her friends. We’ve been hoping you would come out soon.”

Garibaldi touched his partner’s arm. “Thanks, Gray.”

The young telepath looked a bit sheepish. “I wasn’t planning to tell Mr. Bester last night, but I got worried about you.”

The security chief looked out the cockpit window at the vanishing lights of the city. “Did you warn me to duck?” he asked.

Gray nodded, and Garibaldi cleared his throat, thinking about what would have happened to him if he hadn’t ducked. He lifted his hand, and it was still shaking.

“We’ll leave the bodies there,” said Bester contentedly. “I always say, if you can’t talk to the person you want, leave a message.”

Garibaldi rubbed his dry lips and looked back out the window. He shouldn’t be an ingrate, because they had probably saved his life, but he felt rotten about the cold-blooded executions. That could be Talia lying down there in the street, he reminded himself.

“The person you want is Malten,” he said hoarsely.

“It certainly is,” agreed Bester. “I want to thank you two, you’ve done a wonderful job on this case. Beyond my expectations. You led us right to the rattlers’ nest.”

Garibaldi remained single-minded. “Then you’ll let Talia Winters go now, right?”

Mr. Bester frowned. “That is a concern. To let her go would be to admit we made a mistake, and we don’t like to air our dirty linen in public. Plus, we want to keep the Mix healthy and in place, with a few more controls and minus Malten. The Free Phobos group will never be heard from again, so what is the harm in letting them keep the blame?”

“Talia Winters!” barked Garibaldi. “Read my lips. She’s not guilty, and you know it.”

Bester swallowed and looked past him. “I’ve arranged for your passage back to Babylon 5, and Mr. Gray’s passage to Berlin. There will be commendations for both of you in my report.”

“Mr. Bester!” snapped Gray. “That is patently unfair! You know very well she is innocent.”

The Psi Cop shook his head in amazement. “Don’t you know how many agencies are after her now? I couldn’t call them off even if I wanted to! If she turns herself in—to the right people—she might stand a chance.”

“Then I’m going to keep after her,” vowed Garibaldi.

“It is no longer your concern!” Bester seethed. He winced in pain as he shifted in his seat.

“Not true,” said Garibaldi. “I’m bringing back a fugitive who escaped from Babylon 5. I can do that all day long. Put this shuttle down! I’m getting off.”

“Me too,” said Gray, jutting his chin.

“All right,” snapped Bester. “Put them down.”

“Is Miami okay?” asked the pilot. “That’s the closest big city without backtracking.”

“Fine,” responded both Garibaldi and Gray. The security chief gave his partner a nod and glanced out the cockpit window. He saw that they were in space, in reentry, and half the globe was shimmering in the sunlight of a new day.

“One more thing,” said Bester through clenched teeth.

“Yeah?”

“Stay away from Mars.”

Garibaldi chuckled and looked at the Psi Cop. “You’re talking about my old stomping grounds. Is that where Malten really is? On Mars. Why don’t you get him?”

“We know he’s on Mars, but we don’t know where. If you find out where he is, call us. Let us handle him.”

“Sure,” said Garibaldi, “and if you find Talia, call me. Let me handle her.”

They felt the thrusters of the shuttlecraft kick on, and the noise level increased. They strapped themselves into seats and braced for the descent into Miami.

Talia lay in the swaybacked bed, just watching the sun stream through the dirty lace curtains of the old hotel. It was not the kind of place she would have stayed a week earlier, but it felt so warm and friendly that she never wanted to leave. She knew she had to get up, keep moving, but her body told her to rest. It creaked with protest when she forced it out of the bed.

She strolled past the viewer and wondered if she should put the news on. She couldn’t bear to see herself in that wig again, either in a computer mock-up or in real life, so she had decided to trim her regular hair a bit and stuff it all into the beret. Even though she dreaded seeing her face on the screen again, she couldn’t resist the masochistic impulse to turn on the viewer. She dialed the news, hoping against hope that something good might have happened while she slept.

Thankfully, she caught the tail end of the report on her, which summed up that she was still at large. This came as some relief, she thought ruefully, just in case the hotel room was really an ingenious prison. At large, thought Talia. What a strange phrase—it sounded as if she were everywhere and nowhere at once, which was sort of true.

She was about to turn the viewer off when she heard the announcer mention a name, Emily Crane. Talia jumped back as if she had been shocked, and she stared at the image on the screen. It was Emily Crane, the one who had turned her into a hunted fugitive. Only she was dead, and her PR photo was replaced by a more grisly shot of a limp body on a sidewalk. Talia concentrated on the announcer’s words:

“There are no suspects, and police are asking that anyone with information on the murder of Emily Crane, Michael Graham, and Barry Strump please come forward. Once again, three commercial telepaths from the Mix were brutally murdered about five o’clock this morning. There was no apparent robbery or motive. In sports, we have a new champion in field hockey …”

Talia punched it off and slumped back into the bed. Now, what the hell was she going to do? The one person who might be able to clear her was dead! She felt like curling up in the droopy bed and just staying there until her money ran out, or the Psi Cops found her, whichever came first.

After a moment, Talia sat up and wiped her eyes. She stared at the morning light as it streamed through the window, knowing what she had to do. She had to run for real. No more running to somewhere, just running away from everything. The one person who might have cleared her was dead, and she would never get a break.

Where could she go? In all the exotic places she thought about, such as Minbar, she would stick out and be easily recognizable. Earth was just too risky, and she couldn’t get near where she really wanted to go—her childhood haunts. She needed someplace that was chaotic, with a thriving underground, because she was firmly a part of that social strata now. She could think of only one such place.

Mars.

Uncle Ted had been part of her undoing, so maybe he could help her now. Plus, Mars would be cheap to get to. She hurriedly put on her clothes and stuffed her hair under her beret. A glance in the mirror warned her that she looked too much like herself, and she resolved to do something about that later. First, she had to figure out a way to let Uncle Ted know she was coming.

She ran her chit through the viewer slot and punched in her mother’s address. Then she entered her E-mail: “Hobo, Uhkhead.”

It might be a message Ambassador Kosh would appreciate, she thought with a grim smile. Talia was sure her mother would get it, because “Hobo, Uhkhead” was her baby-talk way of saying “Hello, Uncle Ted.” She had seen herself say it often enough in old home visuals. She wanted to say a lot more to her mother—like “Mom, I’m innocent!”—but that would have given away the sender. She hoped the cryptic message would look like garbled junk to whoever was reading her mom’s mail.

Before she left the hotel, Talia took the card with Emily Crane’s address on it and ripped it up.

“Now boarding shuttle 1312 for Clarke Spaceport,” announced the computer. Gray and Garibaldi were already in line for the trip to the orbital spacedock, from where they would grab a flight to Mars.

Garibaldi glanced around the Miami Interstellar Port, marveling at the odd choice of colors. He had never seen a transportation center painted all in turquoise before. Ah, well, maybe they had gotten a deal on the paint. At any rate, the pastel color softened the hard look of many of the passengers in line with them.

He turned to Gray and said, “You know, you don’t really have to come with me. You could just wipe your hands of this and go enjoy your place in Berlin for a few days.”

“No,” said the telepath, “we’re a team. I was glad to have been of assistance this morning, when you needed it.”

“There’s something I didn’t tell Bester,” remarked Garibaldi, lowering his voice. “Emily Crane said that the plan would be put into effect within twenty-four hours. So if Bester doesn’t find Malten by tonight, by tomorrow Malten may be his boss.”

They shuffled ahead a few more steps in the line, and Gray replied, “That would be fittingly ironic, but I think Mr. Bester will be at the Senate today, twisting arms. His problem is how to bring down Malten without bringing down the entire Mix.”

The two men strolled down the rampway and onto the shuttlecraft. It was a medium-sized craft and seated about forty people. Gray stopped midway down the aisle and pointed at two empty seats, then he remembered and shook his head.

“The rear, right?”

Garibaldi nodded, and they found seats once again in the next-to-last row. “You can see everybody from the back,” he remarked.

“What makes you think that Ms. Winters will go to Mars?” asked Gray.

The chief shrugged and looked out the port window. “I don’t know. It’s close by, and that’s where I would go if I were running. She needs to find an underground organization to hide her, and there are plenty of them on Mars. It’s a good haystack, if you’re a needle.”

“She might be very useful to the Martian separatists,” said Gray. “She’s a telepath with a full knowledge of Psi Corps, plus she has her experience with aliens. I often wonder, what would we do if the Mars separatists allied themselves with an alien power?”

“Let’s not think about it, okay?” asked Garibaldi. “Mars is a mess. We ignored it for too long, and now we don’t know what to do with it. You wonder why the hell the alliance tries so hard to hang on to it.”

“Yes, don’t you,” Gray remarked dryly.

In the gift store at Sky Harbor Travel Center, Talia bought an expensive print scarf, which she tied around her beret. Now it looked less as if she were tying to hide her hair color, she hoped. She bought some sunglasses, which were tinted lightly enough to wear indoors, and she glanced in the mirror at Frieda Nelson, the eccentric artist from Oregon. The real Frieda was probably a straight-laced professional, and she hoped that she wasn’t destroying the woman’s reputation.

“Announcing the departure of shuttle 512 to the Clarke Spaceport,” droned the computer voice.

She glanced at her ticket—yes, that was her. She was booked all the way to Central Mars, and she wondered how often she would have to show her identicard. There would probably be a check-in when she reached the Clarke Spaceport, because space stations wanted to make sure that people were coming and going, not sticking around. Then she would have to show the card again when she disembarked at Mars. That would make four uses, right at the limit.

Talia tightened the scarf under her neck and headed for her gate. She walked briskly, to make it look as if she were a busy person, not a fugitive skulking about. She had become a bit more optimistic as she realized that there were other people who could clear her name. Deuce, for one; and surely Emily Crane had other accomplices. Some of them might be on Mars, and the would keep her eyes and ears open.

She darted importantly between two police officers, daring them to look at her. They did, but despite her thumping heart, they didn’t rush after her. If she could make this last jump to Mars, and not get nabbed, maybe she could catch her breath. Unfortunately, she had begun to figure out who had killed Emily Crane. That was one way the Psi Cops handled rogues—to slaughter them in the street. Talia shuddered, but she shook off the panic attack and marched down the ramp to her shuttlecraft.