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?”