Babylon 5 01 - Voices (Vornholt, John)

by Voices (Vornholt, John)

  After about an hour of steady paddling, it began to get extremely warm in the conduit, and the air was thin and dry. "Don't worry," Uncle Ted told the strangers. "We'll get out of the aqueduct before all the air is gone." "That's good to know," said Garibaldi. "Does this aqueduct go outdoors?" "Yes," answered Ted. "It's just a short stretch, and it's well insulated. Or we'd be cooked. We're getting out just before the turbines." "Was that a real bomb you set off?" asked Gray with disapproval in his voice. "Not really," answered Uncle Ted. "It was mainly sound and smoke, although I think we used one concussion cap. I'm not into violence anymore." "Uncle Ted," said Talia, "I want you to know I'm innocent of that bombing on Babylon 5." "Of course you are, honey," answered the charismatic figure with a toss of his leonine hair. "I'm innocent of sedition, or perdition, or whatever they've accused me of this week. But that doesn't matter - they have to have their villains." He slapped his paddle on the water and said, "I plead guilty to wanting a Mars that is free from Earth's government and their greed. What are they to us? Do they know us? Do they care about us? Or do they want only what they can take out of our soil and our sweat?" Uncle Ted chuckled. "Stop me before I start making a speech. I'm a Jainist now, a follower of Gandhi, and I truly have disavowed violence Gandhi is sort of ancient history, and you young people probably don't know who he was." "I do," said Gray. "If you are really following the precepts of Mahatma Gandhi, I salute you. Many Martian revolutionaries do not." "Yes, I know," muttered Ted. "But we can't win by fighting Earthforce. We can only lose people and lose the moral high ground. What I do is organize nonviolent protests and tell my followers to resist passively. But it's hard being passive, when people are trying to kill you." He turned and smiled at his niece. "Sweetheart, I know what it's like to be in hiding, to run from every shadow. You and I can never be free, but then none of Mars is free. Maybe one day, you and I - and every Martian! - will be able to walk in the sun, free citizens." His lady friend lifted a fist and chanted, "Power to Mars!" "This is Moira," said Uncle Ted. "She keeps me together." "What do you know about the Free Phobos movement?" asked Garibaldi. "Nothing!" said Ted with a scowl. "I never heard of them before now. But those two stupid bombings sure brought us a bad crackdown and a lot of biased media coverage. I'd like to have a word with this Free Phobos bunch, before they do a third bombing." "A third bombing?" asked Garibaldi "Yes, Free Phobos released a statement this morning that they're planning a third bombing soon." He chuckled. "I have to admit, the threat of a real bombing made my little smoke bomb at the dock all the more effective." "We know who's behind Free Phobos," said Garibaldi. "If we put the right guy in jail, Talia can go free." "Right," muttered Ted sarcastically. He shined his flashlight on a grating that protected a line of pumping equipment recessed into the side of the aqueduct. They could hear a cascade of water somewhere in the darkness ahead of them, plus turbines churning. Uncle Ted steered his raft toward the pumps. "Tie up on the grating," he ordered. "There's a narrow footpath - just try to follow me. Remember, we have to take out the rafts and deflate them, so don't let them get away. We can't leave anything that will give us away." "Talia," said Garibaldi, "Arthur Malten is behind all of this. We've got to find him to clear you." She looked back at him, stunned and hurt. Maybe she didn't want to hear that Arthur Malten had set her up to die, but he couldn't spare her the truth. Talia lowered her head and appeared to be thinking about it. After what she must have been through, thought Garibaldi, could anything surprise her? "It's good to see you," she said finally. "You, too," he admitted. Uncle Ted grabbed the grating and hoisted himself onto a narrow ledge in front of it. He tied up his raft and helped Talia step out, then he caught the other two rafts and tied them at the grating. After everyone was safely on the ledge, hanging by their fingernails to the grating, Ted and Moira dragged the rafts out of the water and deflated them. Very carefully, they skirted the narrow ledge. Through the soles of his shoes, Garibaldi could feel the heat rising up from the metal. They squeezed through a gap cut in the grating and walked carefully among the high-compression pumps, kerchunking away. Finally they reached a secured doorway, and Uncle Ted produced another keycard that opened the door. They went through and found themselves in a storage room lined with shelves containing pipes, washers, fittings, and tools. There was a spiral stairway leading upward, and the air and temperature in the room were normal, or at least as normal as they got on Mars. "I think this room is as far as I'm going to go with you boys," said Uncle Ted. "You can talk to Talia here." For emphasis, he took his PPG out of his pocket. He studied the weapon for a moment before handing it to Moira. "I'm a pacifist, but I would fight to protect my Talia, after what they put her through." "Believe me," said Garibaldi, "we came here to save her. In order to do that, we have to find Arthur Malten - he's the key to this Free Phobos group and everything else. Does anybody have any ideas?" Gray stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Do your people have the ability to send out press releases to the media?" "Of course," answered Ted, "that's about the only way I can make myself heard these days." "Then let's expose him. Tell the press that Arthur Malten of the Mix is the man behind Free Phobos and the bombings. Coming from you, they're liable to believe it. Besides, it happens to be the truth." A smile crept across Garibaldi's face. "That won't make Mr. Bester very happy. He wanted to keep that a secret." "Well," answered Gray, "let's make them both unhappy, shall we? Once Malten is exposed, there's no reason for Bester to keep blaming Ms. Winters and the separatists. And Malten won't have to set off another bomb just to give his sham terrorist group some credence." "What is this all about?" asked Talia wearily. Briefly, Garibaldi told her, Ted, and Moira about Malten's attempt to privatize Psi Corps and have himself installed as head. They listened in rapt attention as he explained about the secret Senate bill, the fate of Emily Crane, and how closely the coup within Psi Corps had come to happening. "In fact," said Garibaldi, "it might still happen if we don't move on it. I'd like to see Psi Corps disbanded, not fall under another tyrant." "I'll be damned," muttered Uncle Ted. "Hey, I've got to tell this story right away, the whole bloody mess. And I think it's better Talia come with me, until she's officially absolved." "Fine," agreed Garibaldi, turning to the blond woman in the dirty beret. "I just wanted to make sure you were safe, and that you knew we were trying to help you." Talia stood up and gave him a grateful hug, allowing her head to rest on his shoulder for a moment. That made it all worthwhile for Garibaldi. "Give us five minutes," said Uncle Ted, heading for the staircase. "Then come up after us. You'll find yourselves in a factory up there - just ignore everyone and keep climbing stairs until you find a monorail stop." "Okay," said the security chief. "Give 'em hell." Uncle Ted shepherded Moira and Talia up the stairs, and the weary telepath looked back one last time to give Garibaldi a smile. He waved until she was out of sight. "What an experience she must've had," observed Gray with sympathy. "It's like she can barely talk." "She doesn't need to talk," answered Garibaldi. "Just the way she is, I would walk across Mars for her." "I know what you mean," Gray sighed. "Well, shall we go somewhere and wait for Mr. Bester to call us? He won't be very happy." The two men grinned at one another.

  With nowhere else to go to wait, Garibaldi and Gray took refuge in a nearby canteen devoted to military personnel from Earthforce. They arrived just in time to catch the news. The newscaster raised an eyebrow as he reported the story, but he got it essentially correct when he said, "There has been a dramatic development in the Psi Corps bombing story. Noted Martian revolutionary Theodore Hamiliton is claiming that the Free Phobos terrorist group is actually one man - Arthur Malten, founder of the Mix!" "According to this report, Arthur Malten was poised to take over the leadership of Psi Corps with the passage of a privatization bill in the Senate. Details of this bill have now been verified by independent sources in the Senate. According to Hamilton, who is also Talia Winters's uncle, the bombing on Babylon 5 was really an attempt by Arthur Malten to rid himself of political opponents within Psi Corps." In the canteen, there were gasps of surprise and an o
ccasional "I told you so!" Everyone put down their Ping-Pong paddles and pool cues to listen to the gruesome details, which included two fatal bombings, dozens of deaths, and the murder of Emily Crane. Garibaldi frowned, because the report stuck it to the bad guys, but it didn't clear Talia. With Ted being her uncle, the news reports made it seem as if the information was coming from her. Public opinion would still figure her to be in the thick of it. He looked at Gray and asked, "Are you sure Bester knows where we are?" "I was very clear about it," answered the telepath. The commlink on the wall buzzed, and the closest officer answered it. After a moment, he called out, "Is there somebody named Gray here?" "That's me!" called the telepath. "There's a shuttlecraft on its way for you," reported the man, and he returned immediately to watching the news. Gray and Garibaldi smiled at one another. Because of Mars' thin atmosphere, every shuttlecraft had to dock with an air-lock, and most small shuttlecraft had a hatch at the bottom for that purpose. So Gray and Garibaldi had to climb up a ladder through the air-lock in order to board the black shuttlecraft through its underbelly. If Mr. Bester was surprised to see Garibaldi, he didn't say so, and Garibaldi certainly wasn't surprised to see him. "I hope you two are proud of yourselves," he sneered. "I ought to arrest you for collaborating with the enemy." "What are you talking about?" asked Garibaldi. He and Gray looked innocently at one another. "Thanks to you, there is no way we can handle this quietly now. The whole Alliance will know. . . ." "That you made a mistake," offered Gray. "That you're fallible." "No," muttered the Psi Cop, "that Psi Corps is vulnerable to attacks from within. That's the one place we fear the most, attacks from within. And that's why we Psi Cops are so important to the Corps." "Aren't you forgetting one thing?" asked Garibaldi. "If it hadn't been for me and Gray, by this time tomorrow you would've been out of a job! I'll have second thoughts about that for a while, I can tell you." Bester narrowed his eyes angrily. "I know what you want from me, and I'm not going to give it to you. Ms. Winters will remain a suspect and a rogue telepath. I imagine she will soon go on the list of known Martian terrorists." Garibaldi nearly jumped out of his seat to strangle the pompous twit, but his inner voice warned him to keep calm. This was the only man who could remove the most damning of the charges against her - rogue telepath. "I will testify in Ms. Winters's behalf," vowed Gray. "And when we capture Malten, he can testify." Bester chuckled humorlessly. "Do you think I would let Arthur Malten go on the stand to testify? His trial would become a trial about Psi Corps itself, and the Mix would get destroyed in the process. To save us all a lot of embarrassment, we're negotiating with Arthur Malten." Garibaldi sat up in his seat. "You know where he is? Why don't you bring him in?" "Yes, bring him in!" echoed Gray. "Well, we don't exactly know where he is. Mars is a big planet, and he's very clever. The Mix has a private underground transmitter, and we've been communicating over that. So we have a vague idea what area he's in." Gray was sputtering with anger. "How . . . how can you negotiate with Malten? The man tried to kill you, remember, and he succeeded in killing two dozen innocent people!" Bester scratched his nose. "There is that, of course. But we have some things we need from Mr. Malten. We need him to sign a confession, thanks to your loose lips. It'll have to be worded carefully to make it clear that he, Emily Crane, and those other two were the only telepaths involved from the Mix. His supporters in the Senate will have to officially condemn him. Then Malten will have to address the Mix employees - give them a pep talk and appoint a successor. We have several good candidates in mind." The Psi Cop paused in thought. "In exchange for saving the Mix, there will be a plea-bargained conviction, and he will be paroled to some distant planet." "Then you'll kill him," said Gray. Bester smiled but did not correct that assumption. "What about Talia?" insisted Garibaldi. Bester was distracted by his pilot, although she hadn't moved or said a word. "What did you just receive?" "Finch is reporting that Malten broke off negotiations. He may be running. There was an echo on his last transmission, and we think we may have pinpointed his hideout. I have coordinates - we can be there in fifteen minutes." "Go!"

  CHAPTER 21

  GARIBALDI stared out the starboard window of the shuttlecraft and watched the barren terrain of Mars streak by. Mars never looked real from the air, he thought to himself, with all those lifeless and craggy hills, broken up by the occasional dusty habitat, monorail tube, or factory dome. Mars was a place that couldn't possibly exist, yet here it was, a monument to humanity's determination to bring life to a dead planet. No matter how many buildings they put up, the edifices of man always looked tenuous on Mars, like vines trying to cling to a smooth metal door. The terrain didn't look real from ground level either, he recalled. From that perspective, the mountains, chasms, and sheer cliffs looked too large and too vivid to be real. They rose at odd angles out of the pockmarked, reddish soil, like crystals growing in a culture. The mountains looked like sand castles, as if they would crumble in a strong wind. "I hate this place," muttered Gray beside him. "Yes, Mars is an acquired taste," agreed Garibaldi. He looked at Bester. "Psi Corps has certainly acquired it." Bester was ignoring them as he leaned forward intently. "Status?" "I'm running sonar," reported the pilot. "The readings indicate that there is a structure where we picked up the echo. It's the size and shape of a bunker." "Underground?" asked Bester. "Yes, but not too deep. I can hover over it and turn on the thrusters. That might blow away some of the camouflaged covering." "Do it," ordered Bester. Garibaldi braced himself as the pilot - who was damned good, he had to admit - positioned the craft directly over a small mound between two jagged mountains. The mound looked like a mogul on a ski slope, and he had seen hundreds of similar protrusions on Mars, formed by the pressures of lava flow. The pilot came so close to the mound that she nearly landed, then she popped the thrusters. The shuttlecraft rose like a shot between the two mountains, shuddering and rattling until she could regain control of it. Then she banked the craft away from the peaks and swerved around for another view. True to her word, she had blasted a star-shaped hole in the artificial surface covering the mound. Under the singed material, sections of gray metal shone dully in the sun. "Can you raise anybody in there?" asked Bester. "I've been trying," she answered. "So has Mr. Finch. Malten has either left, or is keeping quiet." "Damn," muttered Bester, "if we've lost him - if he ran for it - well, there will be no more negotiations!" "I can land on the mound," the pilot offered. "We might be able to cut through, or find a hatch." "If you've got a suit," said Garibaldi, "I'll go out and take a look." "They're in the storage bin in the back," answered Bester. "Right beside the air-lock chamber. You can exit there." Garibaldi started off, then stopped. "You won't leave me out here, will you?" Bester scowled. "Leave you alone with Malten, or maybe a batch of his secret files? Not bloody likely." Garibaldi found four environmental suits in the closet, and he was glad to see they were all roomy and optimized for use on Mars. With the low gravity, nobody had to worry about carrying around too much weight, so a Martian environmental suit could carry the maximum amount of high-grade insulation, plus cooling and air-processing equipment. He stripped off his uniform, figuring the pilot had seen it all before, and squeezed into the suit. He lowered the helmet onto his head, locked it, and waved to the pilot. She set them down carefully on top of the camouflaged bunker, but they could still hear the grinding of metal against metal. There was a scary moment as something crunched and the ship shifted, but it settled down at an angle that wasn't too terribly dangerous. Garibaldi guessed that a few more pieces of the camouflage material had broken away under the weight of the shuttlecraft. He pressed the button to open the air-lock chamber, then crammed himself into the tiny space. With a deep breath, he pressed the second air-lock and opened the hatch to the outside. The brightness of the Martian landscape startled him at first, and he lifted his eyes to the dark sky until they could adjust. A few seconds later, he was scrambling like a mummified mountain goat over the top of the bunker, trying to find a way in. With his foot, he kicked off more chunks of the soil-colored camouflage material until he final
ly discovered a docking hatch. He activated the radio inside his helmet and waved at the shuttle pilot in the cockpit. "I found a docking hatch. Do you want me to go in, or do you want to fly ten meters over here and try to dock?" Garibaldi waited a few seconds, and the pilot replied, "Get clear. We're going to dock." He bent his legs and jumped about twenty meters to the ground, landing so lightly that he had to run a few steps to slow himself down. That was when he saw the fresh rover tracks in the red soil. The sight of the tracks gave Garibaldi a very bad feeling in his stomach. He didn't know why, but he didn't think Malten would flee overland by rover. He just wasn't the survivalist type. But it was too late to suggest caution, because the shuttlecraft lifted up again and came down expertly atop the hatch he had uncovered. Whatever Bester's bad qualities, thought Garibaldi, he had attracted a very good pilot for his shuttlecraft. When the thrusters went dead, Garibaldi jumped back on top of the bunker with one effortless leap. He peered under the shuttlecraft and saw the robotic mechanism of the air-lock twisting around by itself to find the hatch. They finally paired up and locked with a solid clunk. He tapped his radio again. "Do you have atmosphere in the bunker?" "Positive on that," answered the pilot. "Come back in. Mr. Bester is opening the hatch." Garibaldi hurried as fast as the bulky suit would allow to the chamber at the rear of the craft. By the time he got through the air-lock and was stripping off his suit, Mr. Bester was halfway down the hatch. The Psi Cop groaned with pain at every rung of the ladder, and he pounded the head of his thick metal cane on the ladder. Gray looked at Garibaldi and shrugged. "He insisted on going down." The chief began putting on his uniform. "Be careful down there! I saw fresh rover tracks outside." Bester's head disappeared into the hatch, and he was gone. Gray scrambled down after him, and Garibaldi tried to be patient as he waited his turn. He glanced at the young pilot. "Keep the motor running," he advised her. Then he heard a shout. "Oh, my God - stay back!" Garibaldi was so anxious to see what was happening that he dropped the last few meters of the ladder onto very plush blue carpeting. He was amazed when he saw the vast layout of viewers, computers, and editing equipment - it was truly a decked-out communications bunker. There were hardly any other furnishings in the room, except for a workbench and a few chairs. It was one of the chairs that Bester and Gray were staring at. Arthur Malten, wide awake but looking haggard, was tied to one of the chairs, with a bomb strapped to his head. He was trying to hold perfectly still, but the sweat was running a marathon race down his face. Pinned to his chest was a note that read: "Compliments of the real revolutionaries." "They came in," he gasped. "Martians! I didn't see them!" Garibaldi edged forward. "Can we disable it." "No, no!" screamed Arthur Malten. "It's got a motion detector on it. You get too close - kaboom! If I move too much - kaboom! They explained it to me in loving detail. They also have a remote!" That last admission made Bester start hobbling toward the ladder with his cane. "Listen, Malten, we're not the bomb squad. I'll send for some specialists." "Bester!" called the desperate telepath. "I didn't mean it personally! You understand, it was politics." "Of course," said the Psi Cop. "It was a damn good try, too. You took me by surprise and nearly succeeded. I'll remember that." "The Mix," croaked Arthur Malten. "Try to save it." "We will. Come on, gentlemen." "But we just can't leave him here," Gray protested. "Garibaldi, do something!" The security chief rubbed his hands together and tried to think. "We need some small clippers, but if we can't get close to him . . ." "Mr. Bester!" called the pilot from above. "An unidentified man is telling us we have thirty seconds to get off or else!" "I am sorry about Talia Winters, too!" wailed Malten from the chair. "And Emily!" He began to sob, and his head bounced around, which made Bester squirt up the ladder. "That's a deathbed confession," said Garibaldi, pushing Gray toward the ladder. "Let's move it!" "There's no hope for him?" asked the telepath. "Not unless we get help. Move it!" The light gravity allowed them to bound hand-over-hand up the ladder, as Malten's sobs grew loud er and more pitiful. When they reached the shuttlecrafi cabin, Bester was already strapped in, and the pilot was going through her preignition checklist. Bester stumbled to his seat, and Garibaldi struggled to get the hatch shut. He fell backward as the robotic link broke and the mechanism retracted into the shuttlecraft. "Five seconds!" called the pilot. They heard a low rumble beneath them, and Garibaldi shouted, "Now!" She jammed on the thrusters as a fireball and concussion rocked the little craft, sending it spinning around. Garibaldi was tossed into Bester's legs, and the Psi Cop screamed in anguish. The pilot bore down and never gave up on the bucking craft, yet Garibaldi could see one of the jagged peaks looming ever closer in the window. He braced himself for impact, but the pilot hit the thrusters again and spun them away from the mountain. She picked up altitude as quickly as she could, and everyone craned their necks toward the ports to see what had happened. All that was left of Arthur Malten's secret bunker was a huge, black crater with a few smoldering sparks at its edges. Debris and twisted bits of metal were scattered for half a kilometer around the site. "Oh, my," murmured Gray, slumping back in his seat. Bester looked reflective. "Maybe it had to end this way. Well, I suppose we can tell the press that he died constructing a bomb." Garibaldi scowled and shook his head. "You never want to give the right people credit for anything, do you? The revolutionaries found him before you did, and they weren't in a negotiating mood. Face it, Bester, you have been one step behind everybody this whole chain of events." The Psi Cop bristled. "I'm still going to take down Talia Winters and her uncle." "No, you're not," said Garibaldi confidently. "I didn't want to use this, because I'm ashamed of it, but you force my hand. Do you remember the reception on Babylon 5 the first night of the conference? It was our only successful event." "Yes, what of it?" asked Bester, sounding wary. "That night I made a visual of several of your Psi Cops gambling in the private quarters of Ambassador Londo Mollari. I believe he was teaching them three-card monte." Mr. Bester looked pale, but he still managed a smile. "That can't be true. You're bluffing." "Am I?" Garibaldi countered. "You can ask Ambassador Mollari for confirmation. He was, shall we say, my accomplice." Bester's lips thinned, and he stared hard at Garibaldi. But Harriman Gray inserted himself between the men and warned, "Don't scan him, Mr. Bester. I will help him block it. Suffice to say, Garibaldi told me about this incriminating visual, but I begged him not to use it." Gray looked with disgust at Garibaldi. "He must feel you gave him no choice." The security chief picked some Martian dirt out of his fingernails. "You will drop all charges against Talia Winters, especially the rogue telepath. And you'll do it right this minute, or the next thing you'll see on the news will be Psi Cops gambling. Won't the press enjoy that right after this juicy scandal with the Mix? Maybe the Senate will have enough courage to throw you out on their own." "I don't believe you did it," muttered Bester, "but it's the kind of thing Ambassador Mollari would do." He called out to the pilot, "Get me a channel to headquarters." "Yes, sir. You're on-line." "This is Mr. Bester with a final report on the Babylon 5 bombing. This information is cleared for immediate release to the media. Arthur Malten confessed to forming a terrorist organization called Free Phobos, and his only accomplices were three other telepaths from the Mix - Emily Crane, Michael Graham, and Barry Strump. Unbeknownst to anyone, they were Martian sympathizers. Mr. Malten died this afternoon, the victim of an accidental bomb explosion." "In light of this new information, all charges against Talia Winters have been dropped. She is to be taken off the list of rogue telepaths. with all her duties and rights as a member of Psi Corps restored to her, effective immediately. Bester out." Garibaldi nodded, leaned back in his seat, and closed his eyes.