Franklin stood up and shrugged helplessly. “Medlab is sort of crazy at the moment, so I had them bring you here. You could go to medlab if you wanted, but you might be more comfortable staying here.”
Talia wrung her hands and looked from Ivanova to the doctor. “Am I under arrest?”
Franklin looked back at the door and frowned. “I wouldn’t expect to be going anywhere real soon.”
He turned back to Talia and said sympathetically, “You rest, get something to eat, and we’ll give you a thorough exam later. I’ll do my best to see that you aren’t disturbed too much. I might be able to keep the newspeople out, but I don’t know about the rest of them.”
Franklin grabbed his bag. “I’ve got to get back to my prize patient.”
“Who is that?” asked Talia.
“Mr. Bester. It’s definite—he will live. Whether any of us in medlab will, with him as a patient, I don’t know.”
Franklin started to the door and turned. “Good luck to you, Ms. Winters. It’s been hell for all of us, but that will be over in a few days. Your hell is just starting, I’m afraid.”
The angry voices rose a pitch as he opened the door and ducked out, and Talia fought back the temptation to answer them all with a primal scream.
“Wrong,” she muttered. “They’re wrong.”
Ivanova sat on the bed beside her and shook her head in amazement. “I don’t know you all that well, Talia, but I never figured you to be a Martian terrorist.”
Talia half-laughed and half-cried at the absurdity of it. “Is that what they’re saying? I’ve never even liked Mars—a dusty old place with rabbit warrens for cities. All blue-collar, no decent restaurants.”
The telepath suddenly grew very somber. “Listen, I need to talk to the captain or Garibaldi and tell them I’m innocent. I need to clear this up.”
“You need to talk to legal counsel,” said Ivanova somberly. “You need someone to argue for you, and advise you. You’re looking at charges of mass murder, terrorism, and treason. On top of that, the Psi Cops might decide you’re a rogue. If they get custody of you …” She shuddered and couldn’t finish her thought.
Talia started to reach for Ivanova’s hands, but she stopped when she realized that neither one of them were wearing gloves. “Help me,” she begged. “You be my counsel. Command officers can, in an emergency.”
Ivanova leaped to her feet. “I don’t think I can. I wish you well, but I don’t think I can spend weeks on end talking to them. Besides, with charges this serious, defending you could become a career.”
“Please,” begged Talia. “Just until we see what’s going to happen.”
“Why me?” asked Ivanova.
“I need somebody who won’t be afraid of them.”
A firm knock sounded on the door, and the women looked up with a start. “It’s Captain Sheridan,” called a familiar voice. “And Mr. Garibaldi.”
Talia rubbed her eyes and pointed to her closet. “I’ve got a robe in there. And my gloves.”
Before she fetched the robe and the gloves, Ivanova hung up Talia’s evening gown from the night before. It seemed like another lifetime ago, thought the telepath, just those few hours. It was amazing how quickly your life could turn to junk.
Ivanova gave Talia her things with a brave smile. “Just stick to the truth.”
“That’s all I’ve got,” answered Talia, pulling on her gloves. She stood up and pulled off the nightgown, momentarily nude. Ivanova didn’t turn away. Talia slipped on the robe, and knotted it. Then she looked at Ivanova and waited for her to open the door.
Captain Sheridan and Mr. Garibaldi entered, both looking as if they had gone through their own set of traumas. Talia could see and hear the commotion outside the door, and a man in a black uniform was shaking his fist.
Garibaldi growled at them, “You’ll get your chance!”
“Garibaldi!” snapped Sheridan.
Mercifully, the door closed, ending the angry shouts, for the moment. Sheridan and Garibaldi took deep breaths to try to calm themselves, but their anxiety was more unnerving to Talia than the ridiculous charges against her.
“Thanks for coming,” she said, for no particular reason. It was doubtful they had come to rescue her, she told herself.
Sheridan tried to keep his voice even. “Ms. Winters, do you understand what’s happened?”
“I didn’t do it,” she claimed. “I didn’t take a bomb into that room.”
“Well, then,” said Garibaldi, “somebody slipped the bomb into your portfolio. My own forensic people will swear to that. We’ve got the residue of your handbag all over everything.”
“Plus,” said Sheridan, “you ran out just before the bomb detonated.”
Ivanova stepped between them. “Excuse me, Captain, is this an interrogation, or a trial? You have to let her tell her side of it.”
“There’s nothing to tell!” shouted Talia. “I was as surprised as anyone when that bomb went off!”
“Why did you get up and leave the room?” asked Sheridan.
“I didn’t feel well.” Talia frowned, knowing how lame that answer sounded. “It’s the truth.”
“What did you have in your bag?” asked Garibaldi.
Talia shook her head in desperation. “Just some notes and cards, a conference program, a data crystal—nothing unusual!”
“A bomb is highly unusual,” said the captain.
“I didn’t know it was there!”
Garibaldi held out his hands, trying to calm everyone and think at the same time. “There are a lot of things wrong with this,” he declared. “First of all, it was a very small, very sophisticated incendiary device. We think it was of alien design, because we don’t have anything that small that would do that kind of damage, and leave so little trace.”
“Secondly,” he continued, “just moments after the bombing, that Free Phobos group on Mars was claiming credit for it!” We hadn’t released a single word about it, yet some jokers on Mars acted like they had won the World Series. That’s the same group who claimed the hotel bombing last week. They must have known about it, but how?”
“I’m not a terrorist,” Talia insisted. “I don’t even have any connection with Mars!”
Sheridan held up a finger. “Ms. Winters, that’s not entirely true. While he was conscious, Mr. Bester gave us the rundown on Ted Hamilton, your uncle.”
“No!” The telepath balled her hands into fists and slumped onto her bed. It didn’t matter what she said—fate or some terrible power had beaten her to every signpost, turning every one of them to make her look guilty.
“Please,” said Ivanova, “there’s got to be some doubt in your minds! Had she died in the blast, you would have figured she was innocent. But since she had the misfortune to live, you think she’s guilty?”
The first officer continued, very calmly, “Most of us have worked with Ms. Winters for over a year now—has she ever given any indication that she hated Psi Corps enough to blow up a roomful of them? Now, if it had been Garibaldi or me …”
Sheridan cast her a stern glare. “Please, Commander, the well-known animosity of my staff toward Psi Corps isn’t helping matters.”
“But she’s right, Captain,” said Garibaldi. “If Ms. Winters had an uncle who was in the Mars resistance, you never would’ve known it from her. I never heard her talk about Mars.” He smiled at Talia. “Except once, when I asked her to do a favor for me.”
Sheridan scowled. “She wouldn’t necessarily broadcast the fact that she had an uncle who was a terrorist.”
“Okay,” said Garibaldi, “there’s one more thing that’s really strange. We’ve been over the conference room a hundred times, and we haven’t found any remains of a timer or trigger device. So there must’ve been a filament or some kind of microscopic fuse inside the charge, and they must’ve triggered it remotely. But Ms. Winters had only gotten about five meters beyond the room when it blew, and she didn’t have any devices on her. In other words, if she pushed the button, where’s the button?”
“I didn’t push any button!” moaned Talia.
Sheridan shrugged. “If I were the prosecutor on this, I could answer every one of these questions. The fact that this Martian organization already knew about the bombing shows that she had accomplices. So, she planted the bomb, and somebody else detonated it. Or she detonated it, and her accomplice took the device out of her hand while she was lying in the corridor.”
“I didn’t do it,” said Talia firmly. But nobody was listening to her. It was terrible the way they were talking about her as if she weren’t there. As if she were already dead!