Voices b5-1

by John Vornholt

  She felt the smooth sticks come out in her hands, and she knew the straps were now just lying across the top of the crate. All she would need was a swift push to be out of that stifling darkness. But once out, the secret of the box would be revealed. As with many boxes, there would be no putting back the surprise after it popped out. Whoever was shuffling around out there might view her as a stowaway and kill her. Or they might know Mr. Bester, who had to be looking for her by now.

  It was the unknown either way, decided Talia, and she would rather die with light in her eyes, fresh air in her lungs, and her back straight. She pushed open the top and stretched.

  A creature in rags gasped with flight and fell over a similar crate. Talia jumped out of her own crate and scrambled behind it. They peered at each other with fear and curiosity.

  He had long, scraggly hair and a grubby beard, but he was at least human. She was about to welcome him with a big smile, when she saw his hand ease out from behind the box, and it was holding a PPG pistol.

  “Suppose you just put your hands up,” he said in a Southern drawl. “I didn’t know I had company.”

  “Me neither,” gulped Talia, raising her hands. She was instantly afraid she might be better off with aliens or Bester than this seedy character. She didn’t want to tick him off by scanning him, and she had a feeling he’d been scanned before and would know it.

  She wanted to get a good look at the place where she might die, so she glanced around. To her surprise, she was in another, much larger cargo crate with alien lettering running all around the top. It reminded her of a Dumpster she used to play in as a kid. But there was a naked lightbulb and some sort of ventilation system supplying them oxygen.

  “I’ve seen you somewhere,” said the man suspiciously.

  She tried to smile. “Well, it’s obvious we frequent the same places.”

  “Keep your hands up,” he snarled. He didn’t wave the weapon around like a maniac. In fact, he held it very steadily, as if it were an extension of his arm.

  Talia looked around again, trying to see if there was any obvious way out of the Dumpster. There seemed to be a lid to the thing, and she could see what looked like a switch box amidst the alien lettering. But it didn’t look promising.

  Conversationally, she remarked, “I think we have more in common than a lot of people who have just met.”

  The man gave her a lopsided grin. “Well, maybe we do have some mutual friends. The question is—are you a plant put here to get me, or am I a plant put here to get you?”

  He scratched his stubbly chin. “Since I know I’m up to no good, you must be a plant.” He lifted the weapon and aimed it at her breastbone.

  “I’m running away!” she shouted. “I’m a fugitive!” She put her hands over her face in case he blasted her anyway.

  But he lowered the weapon and smiled. “Yeah, now I remember—you’re B5’s resident telepath. They got you for the bombing!”

  He howled with laughter, and she thought for a second about making a lunge for his weapon. She figured a second would be as long as she lived, if she didn’t make it.

  He laughed so hard that he had to dab his eyes with his dirty sleeve. “I guess you’re in too much trouble to turn anybody in. My name is Deuce.”

  “Deuce,” she breathed. “The one from Down Below?”

  He bowed mockingly. “One and the same. I see my reputation precedes me even in the hallowed halls of Psi Corps.”

  “I didn’t do that bombing,” she said, as if that made any difference to a man like him.

  “I know,” he said, dabbing his eyes. “You were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “You know who did it?” she asked accusingly.

  Deuce leveled the weapon at her again. “Lady, you were in the wrong place yesterday, and you’re still in the wrong place. Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.”

  Talia was fairly certain that Deuce was going to kill her, just as soon as she stopped being amusing. But they weren’t alone—wherever they were. Somebody was piloting this ship, and somebody had made a deal with Kosh to take her and deliver her somewhere. She and Deuce were not in a vacuum.

  Irrationally, Talia made a lunge for the switch box, trying to get out. Deuce leaped to his feet right behind her and knocked her down with a vicious punch to the shoulder.

  “Stupid bitch!” he muttered. “Don’t you know what those signs say?”

  Talia lay crumpled between the two crates, holding her throbbing shoulder. She just stared at him, waiting to see if he would kill her.

  “I guess you don’t know,” he muttered, jerking his thumb at the strange letters. “This here is a methane-breathers’ ship. We’re in a self-contained cargo container with its own atmosphere. In this case, it’s set for oxygen. If you had opened that hatch, we’d be rolling on the floor, bug-eyed and suffocating, in about a minute.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Talia, sitting up. “I’ve never been a fugitive before. I guess I’m not too good at it.”

  Deuce shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he had gotten himself saddled with. He sat on the edge of a crate and just looked at her.

  “Lady, the problem is, you can’t do nothin’ for me, and I can’t do nothin’ for you. You’re poison, all the way around.”

  “That’s not true,” Talia insisted, shifting around to see him. “I won’t ask you any more about the bombing—I don’t care what you had to do with it. But I know you can get me a fake identicard and a new name, and some clothes. Maybe that’s why my friend put me here with you.”

  Deuce rubbed the stubble under his chin. “Your friend must be awfully well connected to know my comings and goings. Yeah, I could arrange those things.” He smiled at her. “What could you do for me in return?”

  Talia wiped her face with her forearm and tried to think. “Isn’t there something in your line of work that could use a telepath?”

  The criminal leaned back and considered the offer. “There might be. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re poison. By now you have Psi Cops, Earthforce, regular cops, and all the school crossing—guards looking for you. I’m small potatoes compared to you.”

  “Okay,” she promised, “I’ll leave whenever you say you want me to go.” She couldn’t believe she was making promises to a petty gangster, who had in some way arranged the bombing. What could she find out from him? She didn’t want to think what it would take to gain his confidence.

  “I’m going to regret it if I don’t plug you now,” said Deuce with all sincerity.

  “Commander?” said the communications officer at the command center. “A Mr. Gray wishes to speak to you. He says it’s the last time, and it will only take a moment.”

  Ivanova looked down from her station with a sour expression. As there was nothing pressing her for perhaps the next thirty seconds, she picked up a headset and put it on.

  “Patch him through,” she ordered.

  “Is this Susan?” asked an uncertain voice.

  “It is, Harriman. What do you want?”

  “To say good-bye. I’m leaving on a transport for Earth in fifteen minutes with Mr. Garibaldi.”

  “So I heard,” said Ivanova. “I don’t know whether to wish you luck or not. I don’t believe Talia Winters is guilty.”

  Gray replied somberly, “Whether she is or not, it’s better we find her than Mr. Bester. This escape of hers doesn’t look good, but we all know there’s more to this affair than meets the eye. Garibaldi and I will get to the bottom of it. And, Susan …”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m determined to do something that will win you over.”

  Ivanova finally smiled. “That I would like to see. Take care of yourself, and Garibaldi.”

  “Thank you, Susan. Good-bye.”

  Ivanova took off the headset and laid it on the console. Garibaldi and Gray were such an odd pair, she thought to herself, maybe they really would do something useful. The way it was going, they couldn’t mess things
up much more than they already were.

  “I’m sorry,” said a synthesized voice, “Ambassador Kosh is indisposed.”

  “Well, you get him disposed right now!” growled Captain Sheridan.

  “I’m sorry,” said the voice, “Ambassador Kosh is indisposed. Please contact the ambassador at a later time.”

  Sheridan banged on the intercom outside the Alien Sector and cursed. Yelling at a computer voice wouldn’t really do much good, he told himself, and he had no desire to storm Kosh’s inner sanctum. Mainly, he had no desire to see the squidlike Vorlon warships come out of the jump gate and turn Babylon 5 into dust.

  Everyone had warned him that Ambassador Kosh marched to his own drummer, but everyone had also said that contact with the advanced Vorlons was worth the occasional misunderstanding. However, in some of Kosh’s actions there was no misunderstanding, just a willful disregard for convention. Of course, being unconventional meant being alien, thought Sheridan, and there was no doubt that Ambassador Kosh was alien.

  He turned to go, and he nearly bumped into Lennier, Delenn’s aide. The Minbari jumped sprightly to get out of the way.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Lennier,” said Sheridan, “I’m sorry. Did I step on your foot?”

  “It’s fine,” said Lennier. “I keep forgetting, human hearing is not very good, and I should clear my throat when I approach.”

  “Well, if you’re waiting to see Kosh, he’s not receiving visitors.”

  “No,” answered the Minbari, “I was waiting to see you, Captain Sheridan.”

  The captain shrugged. “I have a few minutes. But I warn you, it hasn’t been a good week. So I hope you or the ambassador don’t have some terrible problem.”

  They walked slowly down the corridor, and Lennier replied, “We have no complaints, but I’m very aware of your problem. This propensity toward violence is most regrettable.”

  Sheridan bristled slightly, knowing that was a gibe. He had seen the Minbari in warfare, close up, and he knew they could be as violent as anyone.

  “Can you get to the point?” he asked bluntly.

  Lennier stopped and gazed at him. “I may have some information for you.”

  “If it’s about the bombing,” said Sheridan, “I’m listening.”

  Lennier grimaced with minor embarrassment. “I became rather well acquainted with one of the attendees, a Mr. Barker. I gather he is a well-placed military liaison.” The Minbari smiled. “He considers himself an expert on Minbari affairs, and he is indeed a wealth of information. Most of it over a decade old.”

  Sheridan waited patiently. He had learned a few things in his life, and one of them was that the Minbari could not be hurried. Whether you were listening to a story or setting up a counterattack against them, they would take their time doing whatever they were doing.

  “At the reception,” said Lennier, “Mr. Barker had a considerable number of refreshments, and he took me into his confidence. At the time, what he said to me sounded bizarre, but considering the events of yesterday, his remarks were eerily precognitive.”

  “What did he say?” Sheridan almost screamed.

  “He said that he wasn’t worried much about Mr. Bester and the Psi Cops, because they were going to be aced out. That was the exact phrase he used, ‘aced out.’ I asked him who would take their place in the pantheon of Psi Corps, and he said the commercial sector would come out on top, because they had the money behind them. Mr. Barker wasn’t too happy about this one way or another, you understand. He envisioned the military getting the short end of the stick either way.”

  Lennier cocked his head and frowned. “He said that Bester was history, which at the time seemed mere wishful thinking. But the next day, Bester was almost history, wasn’t he? And the suspected bomber is from the commercial sector.”

  “Yes,” said Sheridan thoughtfully. “Everybody wants to blame Martian terrorists, but what is B5 to them? That’s been bothering me this whole time. Thank you, Mr. Lennier, you’ve given me something to think about.”

  “Can I ask one thing in return?”

  “Sure,” said the captain, fearing the worst.

  “Can you explain to me what that means, ‘getting the short end of the stick.’ A stick has only two ends and is joined at the middle—how can one end be shorter than the other?”

  Sheridan sighed. “Actually, it means getting the short end when you draw sticks—I think. Why don’t you walk with me to my office, and we’ll figure it out.”

  * * *

  Garibaldi gave a pained grin and held out his hand. “After you, Mr. Gray.”

  The slim telepath nodded his thanks and hoisted his flight bag onto his shoulder. Garibaldi followed several paces behind him on their way through the air-lock and onto the transport Starfish. It was the essential red-eye flight with about half the seats empty, and most of the other seats occupied by people who would soon be dozing.

  The only passengers who looked wide awake were six black-suited Psi Cops sitting in the first row. They gave Garibaldi a look of unbridled malice as he walked past them with Gray, and he tried not to look their way.

  The telepath stopped in the middle of the passenger cabin and asked, “Is this one all right?”

  “No,” growled Garibaldi, “in the back.” He almost asked Gray if they had to sit together, but that would have been a churlish thing to ask in a half-filled cabin: Later on, he would claim to be tired, then he would head off in search of some privacy and elbow room.

  They sat in the next-to-last row. Behind them a Centauri was already snoring, his hair sticking up from his pillow like a row of porcupine quills.

  Gray opened up his briefcase and took out a stack of transparencies, dossiers, and photographs. Garibaldi couldn’t help but watch the telepath arrange these materials in meticulous order. Then the telepath looked expectantly at Garibaldi and asked, “What have you found out?”

  The security chief smiled smugly. “I haven’t got a stack of files, but I’ve got one name. And that should be enough.”

  Gray pursed his lips. “The name is?”

  The security chief smiled. “First, you tell me what you’ve got.”

  “All of these files,” said Gray proudly, “are a record of the bombing at the Royal Tharsis Lodge on Mars.”

  “Mars?” mused Garibaldi. “I thought we were trying to solve the bombing on B5?”

  “But they are related. The Free Phobos group claimed responsibility for both bombings, and Mr. Bester and myself were present at both.”

  “You saw the bombing on Mars?”

  “Thankfully, at a distance,” answered Gray. “Although if it hadn’t have been for Mr. Bester’s quick reactions, both of us might have been casualties. Do you see why I think they’re related?”

  “Yeah,” said Garibaldi thoughtfullly, “unless it’s some kind of conspiracy against the places themselves. What if somebody had a thing against this hotel on Mars, and they also had a thing against Babylon 5. So they picked the two places just to wreak havoc there. What I’m saying is, whoever the idiot was who picked B5 may have also had something to do with the bombing of the hotel.”

  “No,” said Gray, chuckling. “That was me. I suggested Babylon 5.”

  Garibaldi jerked up in his seat. “You brought them here!”

  His hands were reaching for the telepath’s throat when a feminine computer voice made an announcement: “Welcome to Earth Transport Starfish, serving the routes between Babylon 5, Earth, and Centauri Prime. The first leg of our journey—Babylon 5 to Earth—will have a duration of forty-eight standard hours. Please settle back in your seats, and relax. A robotic cart with food and drink will appear in the center aisle after departure. You may signal for it by pushing the service button on your armrest. Credits are accepted. Enjoy your flight.”

  Still seething, Garibaldi slumped back in his chair. Forty-eight hours was too long to sit next to a dead body, and that thought was the only thing that kept him from throttling Mr. Gray.

  The little
man looked embarrassed. “In retrospect, it was a mistake bringing the conference to B5. At the time, it seemed a logical choice. Removed from Mars, good security, a new place for most of them. I was very surprised when the violence followed us from Mars. This makes me believe even more strongly that the two bombings are related, and not just by the claims of a mystery group. I don’t see how we can solve the second bombing without starting with the first.”

  Garibaldi muttered, “But Talia Winters was nowhere near Mars when the hotel bombing happened.”

  “Precisely,” answered Gray, “which is an indication of her innocence, or the possibility that she was used as a dupe. Now tell me about that lead you have?”

  Garibaldi smiled and closed his eyes. “When you show me something really good, I’ll show you mine.”

  “Prepare for departure to Earth,” purred the synthesized voice.

  Chapter 13

  Talia screamed new nodules on her vocal cords as she felt the sudden sensation of weightlessness. At first she thought the ship had stopped until she heard the whistling of wind all around them. Deuce cut forth with a litany of swear words, and their voices were quickly drowned out by a rush of air against the Dumpster-like cargo container. They weren’t just weightless—they were plunging through planetary atmosphere! Massive gravity had its grip on them.

  Then the naked bulb burst, showering them with glass fragments, and the air ventilators stopped working—and both of them were screaming! Talia hardly noticed the way the cargo boxes banged against her, threatening to crush her in the free-fall. She just spun around in the darkness, her body a rubber ball cascading from one wall into another, swiping Deuce and the boxes in the process.

  When she realized she might as well die calmly, Talia wrapped her arms around her head, tucked her legs in, and tried to still her galloping heart. Then the floor of the container abruptly rose up and crashed into her! She lay sprawling, gasping for air, as the big crate righted itself and shifted around. Now she heard groanings and creakings of a weirder sort, and air roared around the exterior of their strange vehicle.