Voices - Vornholt John - Страница 40
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After a few more sniffs of the real thing, Garibaldi went around to the front of the converted mansion. He thought he had seen a public commlink by the bathroom. Yes, he was right.
The commlink wasn’t busy, and Garibaldi ran his chit through and punched in his commands. Then he leaned against the wall to wait, knowing it could take a few minutes. Some very elegant women were arriving with their dates, and they reminded him of Talia—thoroughbreds, smart, fast, gorgeous. He didn’t know whether he would ever see Talia again, and that was beginning to depress him. Not that she had ever given him much more than the time of day, but she had been so assertive, confident, and proud of her accomplishments. It pained him to think she had been reduced to running like an animal, scared of every shadow.
He didn’t know how it would be possible to find Talia before the others, but he had to try. There was always the possibility that she hadn’t fled to Earth and had hitched a ride to the far ends of the galaxy. But he felt certain she had come to Earth. Not only was Emily Crane here, but this was familiar territory for her. People usually ran from the strange and to the familiar, not the other way around. Garibaldi often thought that if he ever had to run from B5, he would go back to Mars. He figured Talia would come here.
Earth was logical for another reason. If you were a human and you wanted to hide, you didn’t go where humans were rare—you went where there were a lot of humans. Unfortunately, that just made his job more difficult, and nothing short of finding her would help her now.
A synthesized voice startled him. “Hang on for your link to Babylon 5.”
“I’m hangin’, I’m hangin’,” he assured the computer.
An empty chair appeared on the screen, but presently Captain Sheridan dropped into it. “Garibaldi,” he frowned, “we’ve had a development here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Bester has flown the coop. His supposedly private doctor arrived, but they were really just a bunch of Psi Cops who whisked him onto their ship. We never saw a doctor, but we did see some orders that made it all official. Dr. Franklin doesn’t know whether to be angry or relieved.”
“Can Bester get around?” asked Garibaldi.
“Not well. The doctor said that in a few days he could get around on crutches or a cane. Since he’s refused all medication, he won’t be in a very good mood.”
“What do you think his plans are?”
“To get Ms. Winters,” answered the captain. “That’s all he could talk about. How are you coming along?”
Garibaldi glanced around and lowered his voice. “We’ve got strong leads on both Arthur Malten and Emily Crane. It’s good stuff, but we can’t pin them without Talia.”
“That is a problem,” conceded Sheridan. “We’ve got some happy people now that the last of Psi Corps is gone, but everyone feels badly about Ms. Winters. I wish we could have handled it differently. What’s done is done.”
“Don’t bet against me,” declared Garibaldi. “I’m going to bring her back, alive and free. Good-bye, sir.”
“Good luck. Sheridan out.”
Garibaldi signed off and paced around the foyer for a few seconds. He had to do something! Go somewhere! After all, they had learned everything they came to Washington to learn. Maybe he would go back to Boston right now and hang out in Emily Crane’s front room. Was the woman from the Mix so confident that she wouldn’t make a run for it? She and Malten had strong motives to stage these bombings, and that might inspire them to do something crazy.
Garibaldi tried to imagine a Psi Corps without the military trappings, threats, and overbearing nastiness, and he liked it. He liked it a lot. That thought made him realize that, philosophically, he was on the side of the bombers! Geez, why couldn’t things be white and black, good guys and bad guys?
The main thing was that he couldn’t sit around talking about Berlin, debutante balls, or frat parties. He had to ditch Gray right away. The telepath had been of surprising usefulness, being right about the Mars bombing fitting in with the B5 bombing. He had saved them a great deal of time by calling Marlon, but his usefulness was at an end. They knew everything they were likely to know without collaring either Emily Crane or Arthur Malten. For that they needed a bloodhound, which Garibaldi was. It could get rough, and Gray would just get in the way.
Garibaldi started out the front door of the restaurant, prepared to jog to the corner to catch an autotaxi, when he heard a loud, “Harrumph!”
He turned to see Gray, standing in the shadows with his arms crossed. “I wondered when you would run out,” the telepath said accusingly.
Garibaldi shrugged. “Listen, I just heard that your boss, Bester, is on the prowl again. I thought maybe you might want to connect up with him, make a report or something.”
“I thought we were a team,” said Gray, clearly wounded. “My orders were to get to the bottom of this, and working together we were getting to the bottom of it. I’m sorry that you don’t think our partnership is worthwhile.”
“Aw, look,” said Garibaldi with a smile, “I’m just antsy. I’ve got to do something. Tell you what, I’ll meet you back at Emily Crane’s office tomorrow morning at nine hundred hours. You can finish your dinner with your friend.”
“You’ll meet me tomorrow morning?” asked Gray doubtfully.
“Didn’t I just say I would?”
“All right,” said Gray. “Really, we’re the only ones who know what’s going on. We need to back each other up.”
“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Garibaldi, hurrying off. “See you tomorrow.”
“What about your part of the check?”
“Thanks!” hollered Garibaldi, disappearing down the driveway.
Talia Winters peered out the rear of the Hovercraft with Deuce’s beat-up binoculars. She wondered if she could spot the shuttlecraft before they spotted the Hovercraft. Probably not. Even if they did, that was only half the battle, because then they would still have to hide. They were skirting a ridge that had been formed by an old earthquake fault line, but it didn’t really offer any hiding places. They had to face the fact that they were ducks on a platter out here in this desert.
“This trip was only supposed to cost me one diamond!” complained Deuce. “And now it’s cost me four!”
As this was the two hundredth time he had complained about that particular injustice, Talia ignored him and pulled her wig and her hat down on her head. She guessed they were making good time for such a primitive craft, even if she was getting encrusted with sand; but it bothered her that she didn’t know where they were going. Clement? It didn’t ring a bell. They had to trust in Brother Sky’s directions.
“You know, those kooks might not have seen anything!” snarled Deuce. “You didn’t see a shuttlecraft, did you? Me neither!”
That thought hadn’t occurred to her before, and Talia turned to look at the gangster. “Do you think they just wanted us out of there, so they made it up?”
“Sure, maybe they turn us in and say we stole their Hovercraft. I doubt if we’re going to live to argue about it.”
Talia banged on his shoulder and shouted, “Stop this thing! Park it somewhere!”
Deuce let up gradually on the accelerator, and the Hovercraft came to a stop and thudded into the sand. He wiped the sand off his face and demanded, “What’s the matter with you?”
Talia jumped out of the craft and stretched her legs. “Stop and think about it,” she said. “They got us out of the village because they know, one way or another, somebody is coming after us. Whether they sent for them, or they spotted us, or they intercepted a message, it doesn’t matter. They know, and somebody’s coming. There’s no way to get across this desert by daylight without being spotted, so let’s camouflage this thing and wait it out until nightfall.”
Deuce stared at her for a moment, then stared into the unforgiving sun to the west of them. He grinned foolishly and scratched his stubbly chin. “Maybe we’re doing this all wrong,” he drawled. “Why should we run in a piddly Hovercraft, when they’ve got shuttles? Why should we run at all? Let’s set a trap for them. How many of them can there be?”
“Well,” said Talia, adjusting her wig, “assuming they’re Psi Cops and they’re after me, they won’t alert any other authorities. They like to bring down a rogue themselves, without anybody interfering. They probably have several two-man shuttles spread out over this area.”
Deuce grabbed the bumper of the Hovercraft and began to rock the vehicle. “Come on! Help me turn this thing over!”
“Why?” asked Talia, leaning down to grab the bumper.
“To make it looked like it wrecked.”
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