Voices

Chapter 9

“Yes, ma’am,” said Garibaldi pleasantly, “we’ve got to open up your briefcase and look inside.”

“I d-don’t know why you should,” muttered the short, dark-skinned woman. But she started to unlatch her case, anyway.

Garibaldi calmly took the case and set it on the table. As most of the contents were folders of transparencies, brochures, and business cards, he didn’t empty it onto one of the bins set aside for that purpose. But he did feel around on the bottom to come up with four smaller objects: her identicard, a creditchit, a dictaphone, and a data crystal.

He held the data crystal out. “What is this?”

The woman put her hands on her hips and gave him a quizzical stare. “Are you saying you don’t know what it is?”

“No,” said Garibaldi, dropping the crystal and the other objects back into the case. “Just wanted to make sure it was yours. Officer Baker will search your person.”

Huffily, the woman stomped on, and a female officer took charge of her.

Garibaldi sighed and looked up to find the cadaverous female Psi Cop.

“Uh, good morning,” he said warily. “Did you have a pleasant evening?”

She grinned evilly. “Yes. Trixie and I stayed up all night, talking about the good old days. I never laughed so hard in my life.” She winked at him. “We were experimenting a lot in those days.”

“I’ll bet,” admitted Garibaldi. He pointed to her bag. “Can you open it, please?”

“Gladly.” Without hesitation, the black-uniformed cop opened her handbag. “You are doing a fine job, Mr. Garibaldi. If anything happens, I know it won’t have been your fault.”

As he checked her bag, he whispered, “What do you think is going to happen?”

She held her regal chin up and sniffed. “It’s just something in their air, isn’t it?”

“No, that’s fresh paint,” said Garibaldi. “Thank you.”

“You will pat me down personally, won’t you?”

He winked at her. “Maybe the last day.”

With a deep-throated laugh, the woman moved on. Garibaldi went through the same routine with dozens of telepaths, all of whom offered various levels of resistance. However, many of them seemed to feign their anger; they secretly welcomed the overt demonstration of security, even if it did suggest that Psi Corps didn’t entirely trust its own members.

Garibaldi was just getting into a good rhythm, working the attendees through the main entrance to Green-12. That’s when he looked up to see Mr. Bester.

The Psi Cop smiled and held up his hands. “No briefcase or bag.” He tapped his head. “I keep everything I need up here.”

“That’s convenient,” said Garibaldi. “I’m going to wave you through. No pat-down.”

“How disappointing,” said Bester, glancing at Officer Baker. “Is conference room number nine secured?”

“We’ve swept it twice,” answered the Security Chief. “The lock will only open for the attendees on my list.” He showed him a transparency of the invited guests for the ten o’clock budget meeting.

“Hmmm,” said Bester with interest. “Ms. Winters is coming, too. What a pleasant surprise.”

Garibaldi screwed his mouth shut and nodded. “I’ve got people piling up here, excuse me.”

“Go on, go on,” said Bester with a wave. He strolled through into the Green Sector, greeting people standing among the potted plants, refreshment tables, and beckoning doorways.

Garibaldi sighed and went back to the next glowering telepath. “Excuse me, sir, you’ll have to open up your briefcase.”

“By whose authority?” grumbled a black-suited Psi Cop.

The chief smiled. “Security Regulation 13, section 4, sub-paragraph B, Special Circumstance 2.”

Talia lifted her arms and let the pat-down conclude as quickly as possible. It was embarrassing. Was Garibaldi doing this just to prove he was in charge? Oh, well, she had too much else on her mind to worry about the games he might be playing. She had come down through a lift entrance from another Green deck, thinking that she might avoid a security check. Fat chance.

“Sorry, Ms. Winters,” said a young female security officer, handing her portfolio back. “Just following orders.”

She nodded and tried to smile. “How are the attendees taking it?”

“Okay, mostly.” The lift opened again, and the officer was distracted. “Excuse me, sir, I’ll have to look inside that.”

Talia shook her head and moved on. The overzealous searches were a statement, but maybe they were the right statement. Despite the success of the reception the night before, there was a pall hanging over the conference. Of course, that was due mostly to the bombing of the original site, which was symptomatic of the ongoing problems of Mars. Everybody was thinking about Mars, but nobody wanted to talk about it. Mr. Bester had called down early that morning to abruptly cancel two seminars on Mars.

Oh, well, there was still plenty going on. Too much, in fact. She checked her watch to make sure she wasn’t running late to what was shaping up to be her most important appointment of the conference.

“There you are,” said a warm voice, and Arthur Malten was upon her. He was dressed in a very conservative gray suit this morning. It was almost an Earthforce uniform, except for the fact that it only had one insignia, Psi Corps, the only one that mattered.

“Arthur,” she said noncommittally, barely brushing his outstretched hand with hers.

He lowered his voice. “I’m sorry we never got back together last night. You knew, I struck out with Bester.”

“That’s fine,” she said cheerfully. “There was nothing left to talk about. In fact, I’d rather not talk about it this morning.”

She started to move away from him, but Malten doggedly followed. “Now don’t be discouraged. That was just the opening salvo. I thought we could slip it past him, so to speak, but he understands your worth. He’ll want to take something out of my hide for hiring you, I can see that now. But there are other approaches. We’ll find the right one.”

Talia wondered if she should tell Arthur right this minute that she wasn’t interested in leaving B5. No, she decided, this wasn’t the time or place to muddy the waters. Concentrate on the job at hand, her inner voice told her.

Malten rubbed his hands together. “At any rate, now we know he’s interested in you and your career. This is something good to find out.” He quickly added, “For you.”

“Of course,” she agreed, thinking of her disturbing conversation with Bester last night. Right now, she just wanted to get this budget meeting finished, then move on to the more pleasant aspects of the conference.

“How should we proceed?” she asked.

“Don’t attack Bester or the Psi Cops directly,” answered Malten. “But it’s okay to rake the military over the coals. I believe in being positive, expressing all the good things we’re doing.

He guided her down the corridor, which was flowing in both directions with conference attendees trying to find the right room, or the right person, or the right intimate group. Garibaldi’s security people were on hand to provide directions and give everyone another dose of suspicious scrutiny. The ebb and flow calmed her nerves for a moment and made her realize that she, Bester, and Malten weren’t the only ones in this place. As much as they thought the universe revolved around them, it didn’t.

In three short days, Bester, Malten, and all these self-important people would be leaving. Back to their slimepits, as Garibaldi so succinctly put it. And she would be going back to her peaceful life as the resident telepath on B5, none the worse for wear. What was she so nervous about?

Emily Crane nearly bumped into her. “Oh, excuse me, the researcher said sheepishly.”

“Hi,” said Talia. She looked over her shoulder, but Malten had been waylaid by a band of commercial telepaths who were giving him last-second instructions.

“How’s it going this morning?” asked Talia.

Emily made a face and shrugged. “I’m afraid m-most of the panels and seminars will be free-for-all messes. But what can I do about it?”

“Exactly,” said the tall, blond telepath. “That’s going to be my attitude from now on. What can I do about it?”

“Oh,” said Emily, fishing in her briefcase, “here’s that d-data crystal. Nobody takes time to look at figures, but you can say we have them.”\”Thanks,” said Talia. She slipped the crystal into her slim portfolio and sighed. She had to tell somebody. “Emily, I don’t think I’ll be joining the Mix anytime in the near future.”

The small woman smiled. “Well, it’s not for everyone.”

“But,” said Talia, “I would like to talk to someone about opening a branch office someday. Here on B5.”

Emily fished in her briefcase for a program. “There’s a seminar on that very subject, t-tomorrow at noon. Terrible time, isn’t it?”

“I’ll be there,” Talia promised. “Thanks for everything.”

“You’ve been a help, too,” Emily assured her. “Mr. Malten would never ask this, but you might want to sit close to Mr. Bester.”

“I will,” said Talia. “Since I don’t feel comfortable with this material, I’ll be as distracting as possible.”

“Good-bye,” said Emily. She touched her watch. “I’ve got a d-demonstration to prepare.”

“See you later.”

The small woman scurried off down the hall and dashed around the corner. Everybody was in a hurry but Talia; she felt as if her feet were in molasses, and her head wasn’t much better. This decision not to press Bester, not to push for promotion, had made her calmer, but it had also left her feeling drained. The adrenaline and emotions that had pumped all day yesterday were gone, without much left to replace them. It was just as well she wasn’t doing any demonstrations, because she didn’t feel as if she would be able to do an accurate scan on a two-year-old.

Suddenly, Talia had a strange image of Ambassador Kosh in her head. It was a flashback to that silly scan of “Invisible Isabel” three days earlier. She could see the Vorlon’s mysterious bulk looming over her, the questioning tilt of his massive head-gear, his tubes and orifices probing the air.

The voice which was not there.

A little explosion went off in her head, and she staggered for a moment. She caught herself on the wall before falling down completely. Malten rushed over to catch her.

“Are you all right?” he asked with concern.

“Oh, sure,” she lied. “Just lost my balance. How much time do we have?”

Malten checked his timepiece. “About ten minutes, although I suppose you could go in and sit down now.” He looked worried. “You aren’t scared of Bester, are you?”

“No,” she continued to lie. “The only control he has over me is what I choose to give him.”

“That’s a healthy attitude,” agreed Malten with a smile. “The commercial sector had such a banner year last year that he has to give us something. Let’s just be polite, and keep hammering away.”

“Hammering away,” Talia repeated, holding her head. She looked around. “I think I will go in and sit down. Number nine, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Malten, glancing over his shoulder. “I’ll see you in a few minutes. I have some hand-wringers out here who need to be reassured.”

Talia managed a smile. “Go ahead. I can take care of myself.”

She walked to the door of conference room nine, expecting it to open at her touch. But it didn’t open. Then she remembered and pulled out her identicard. When she pushed it into the slot, the door slid open, to her relief. Talia slouched into the well-appointed conference room, expecting to find no one there. But she was wrong.

A chair swiveled around at the head of the amber table. Mr. Bester smiled at her and formed his gloved hands into a triangle.

Talia tried not to look surprised. She almost set her portfolio down at the opposite end of the table, but then she remembered what Emily Crane had suggested. So Talia walked slowly to the head of the table and took the seat to the immediate right of Bester, setting her bag on the floor.

The Psi Cop nodded approvingly. “I figured you to be a punctual person, Ms. Winters.”

“I try,” she remarked.

“You know,” said Bester, “before telepaths came along, people used to do studies on body language and spatial relationships—to find out what people were thinking. For example, there were many studies devoted to the way in which people would arrange themselves in a room, when given free choice in seating.”

He smiled. “It tells me something that you would take the seat beside me when there are all these empty seats.”

“What does it tell you? Besides the fact that I don’t want to shout across the room.”

“It tells me,” said Bester, “that you wish to be close to the seat of power. We need to see if your colleague, Mr. Malten, will take a seat at the foot of the table, thus showing how much he opposes me. That would also demonstrate how much he wishes to keep his distance.”

The Psi Cop motioned to the closest seats. “The military will gang up and surround me. They would have taken your seat, so I thank you for taking it first. My own people will sit to my right, and there’ll be two people from Corps Administration. You and Malten alone will represent the profiteering side of things. Do you know, Malten could bring more people to this meeting, but he prefers to do everything on his own. To be honest, Ms. Winters, your presence is just a subterfuge.”

If that wasn’t a kick in the teeth, thought Talia, she had never had one. So she asked him point-blank, “Do you know how this meeting is going to turn out? I mean, do you have an open mind, or is this all a facade?”

Bester narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t know what will happen any more than you do. I’m always prepared for the unexpected.”

The door opened, and three military telepaths entered, looking very important, grim, and ready for battle. One sat beside Talia, and the other two sat across from her, taking the three seats closest to Bester.

The Psi Cop looked at her and smiled.

Mr. Malten, however, did not sit at the foot of the table. He sat to the left of Bester, about four seats away, and nobody sat directly opposite Mr. Bester. Despite his nonthreatening seat, Malten was doing most of the talking in the early part of the meeting.

“You want long-term?” he asked. “Look at what we’ve done. We have managed to infiltrate more cities and planets than you and the military could ever dream about. Bester, while you try with pathetic results to keep what you’re doing on Mars a secret, I have a dozen offices there. I have nearly as many people as you have. Because we can work openly, we will always have the advantage.”

Malten leaned forward. “Commercial telepaths work among the people, and they’re not afraid of us. When they receive their first scan in a nonthreatening commercial situation—and it doesn’t hurt—then they’re more receptive for a security scan later on. We do a lot of good for Psi Corps. We want to keep a bigger percentage of what we make, that’s all. We’re pulling the load, but we’re not getting paid for it.”

One of the military liaison officers began to sputter, but Bester held up his hand. The Psi Cop wasn’t angry, thought Talia; he seemed to be enjoying the banter with Malten.

“Granted,” he said, “our services are not as popular as yours. But which are more necessary to the safety and security of the alliance? When telepaths go rogue, nobody but us can bring them down. What should we do afterward—stand on streetcorners and pass the hat?”

The other Psi Cops at the table laughed, but Talia felt another white flash in her brain! She screwed her eyes shut to fight the headache and the dizzy sensation. Luckily, no one was paying the slightest attention to her, because Bester was still speaking:

“When you work in secret, Mr. Malten, as we do, you cannot expect support from the public. You and I are like two different fortune-tellers. One of us gives the customer good news, and the other one gives them bad news. You will be paid well, while we work in ignominy. Don’t begrudge us a little handout.”

“I’m crying for you,” Malten scoffed. “If your budget is too tight, at least look at some of that huge research and development slush fund in the military.”

“One moment!” blustered a military liaison. “We must always be ready in the event of war, not to mention the Martian separatists, and one or two new threats. If any of these cold wars become hot, psi weapons may turn the trick. All of our enemies are using them.”

Talia sat up in her chair and blinked to stop the pain. Blast it, she didn’t know what was happening to her, but it felt as if her head was becoming unhinged! She kept thinking of Ambassador Kosh and the strange scans she had been performing for him.

“Gone, like the pickled herring,” came Kosh’s words.

Malten had turned his attack on the military. “While you go out of your way to antagonize other races, including the Minbari, I’m opening up an office on Minbar. Who is in a better position to do intelligence, you or me?”

Bester rapped his fingers on the table and asked, “You would perform intelligence tasks with your people?”

Malten smiled enigmatically. “Let’s see what we get out of this budget. If you will stop and look, I think you will find that the commercial sector is poised to be very useful. We have the grass-roots organization which both of you lack. We’re everywhere, even Babylon 5. If we had the right facilities and support, all of you could be in commercial jobs, purely as cover, and still be doing exactly what you’re doing now.

While Bester and the military liaisons digested that one, Talia Winters bolted to her feet. It was overwhelmingly oppressive in the conference room, and she had to get out!

She thought she was quite calm as she said, “Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom.”

Bester looked at her thoughtfully. “Yes,” he agreed, “you had better take something for that headache.”

“Thank you,” she muttered, but Bester had already turned his attention back to Malten.

“I’ve heard this before,” said the Psi Cop, “vague promises that your people would start doing intelligence work for us. But when it comes time to implement it, they’re too busy with their regular jobs! Well, let me tell you …”

Talia staggered to the door and pressed the panel that opened it. She couldn’t get out quickly enough, and she beat on the door to make it open faster. Then she squeezed out before the door had even opened all the way.

Although it was exactly the same remanufactured air in the corridor, it smelled so much better than the air inside the room that she almost skipped with joy. Maybe she was having a reaction to the fresh paint, she thought with a burst of realization. That was probably it. A thing like that might curtail her conference activities.

Just as she was about to stop and catch her breath, a monstrous explosion ripped through the doorway of the conference room, and the concussion hurled her off her feet! The corridor filled with acrid smoke, and alarms and people started shrieking at the same time. It was bedlam in the corridor, and she was nearly trampled by people rushing to see what had happened.

It was finally a security officer who dragged her out of the way and propped her against the wall. “Medical emergency!” he shouted into his link. “Explosion on Green-12, conference room nine! Injuries and possible dead! We need medteams! Bomb squad!”

“The hull is secure!” somebody was yelling. “Everyone just stay calm. This was a localized explosion!”

People ran through the corridor with fire extinguishers, and they shot streams of foam into the smoldering remains of conference room nine. Talia looked down at her sleeve and could see drops of blood, although she wasn’t bleeding. It was somebody else’s blood! The stench invaded her nostrils, and the sirens and voices of the dead and dying split her senses.

Talia covered her ears and screamed! But that scream was more than her mind could accept, and it shut down. The voices stopped, and she toppled over into oblivion.