Talia pressed her face against the small window and could see two more guards lying unconscious on the anteroom floor. She looked instinctively at the air vents—if there was a gas, it was invisible. Just like her friend.
The seconds seemed to drag on, and there was nothing to do but stand there and wait for the next act of this surreal drama. In a few moments, the door on the other side of the anteroom—the one to freedom—opened, and Ambassador Kosh glided in. If the Vorlon was surprised by the sight of three guards lying unconscious on the floor, it didn’t show in his movements. He went straightaway to the desk. When he stopped, a small mechanical claw issued from his ornate robe and picked up the cardkey. Then it extended over a meter to insert the card into the slot, and the door opened.
Talia walked into the anteroom. When she didn’t faint, she knew the gas had dispersed even if its effects remained in force. She looked at Kosh, wondering what he would do next. The Vorlon’s robe opened, and a little shelf slid out.
Upon the shelf was a Minbari robe and hood. She took the hood and put it over her head. It not only hid her face, but it hid the fact that her head didn’t look like the hairless, crested dome of a Minbari.
“I’ll be tall for a Minbari,” said Talia with a humorless smile.
Mr. Bester was sitting up in his bed. He still looked terrible, thought Mr. Gray, and his mood was even worse. Gray almost felt sorry for the man who stood in front of him, getting a dressing-down.
“Captain Sheridan,” growled Bester, “how dare you defy me! You cannot delay justice forever. I will get that woman in my custody—it is inevitable. If you persist in blocking me, it will mean the end of your career! After that pathetic show of security, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Senate was already picking your replacement. And if you defy me, and the will of the Senate, by letting Talia Winters elude justice—nobody in the Earth Alliance will be able to save you!”
Sheridan’s lips thinned. “Are you done?”
“No!” shrieked Bester. “I’m just beginning. By tomorrow morning, my people will have talked to the senators on the judicial committee. We will have a reversal of your foolish policy so fast that you won’t know what hit you!”
“As a matter of fact,” said Sheridan, “I’ve already heard from several Senators. They are putting the pressure on me, and so is Earthforce. But I told them exactly the same thing I’m telling you—this crime was committed on Babylon 5, and that’s where we’ll try it. We won’t rush to trial either. Our investigation isn’t complete, and Ms. Winters deserves the best legal counsel we can find, It may take weeks, or months.”
Bester twisted in anger and followed it up with a grimace and a howl of pain. Dr. Franklin, who had been hovering nearby, stepped between them.
“Captain Sheridan,” said the doctor, “this man is due to receive artificial skin grafts in one hour. If you can’t talk to him without aggravating him, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“But he summoned me!” protested Sheridan.
“That doesn’t matter,” said the doctor. “He’s the one who’s lying in bed, wounded.”
Bester croaked, “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m calm. Sheridan is fighting a losing battle here, and he knows it. If he wants to go down fighting, that’s his business. I’ll be happy to take him down.”
There was some commotion in another part of the medlab, and Gray looked up to see Garibaldi and another security guard rush into the room. Garibaldi had been looking terrible for days, thought Gray, and now he looked worse than Mr. Bester.
“Captain,” said the security chief, “we have a major breach in security.”
Sheridan visibly blanched. “What’s happened now?”
Garibaldi sighed and looked at Bester. “I guess we can’t keep it a secret.” He turned to the security guard who accompanied him. “Tell them what happened, Rupel.”
The guard shook his head, as if he still wasn’t sure. “It was peaceful at the brig, nothing was going on. And I looked up and saw Ms. Winters standing on the other side of the door, out of her cell!”
“What did you do?” asked Sheridan.
The man shook his head. “I started to go for my weapon and the cardkey and … that’s all I remember. The next thing I know, I wake up on the floor, and the other two guards are out cold, too. She got clean away.”
With horror, Gray glanced down to see if Mr. Bester had been seized by fits of anger, but the Psi Cop was unaccountably smiling. In fact, he looked pleased with the shocked expressions all around him.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Garibaldi,” said Bester. “Your incompetence has just ended a lot of pointless debate. A telepath who is fleeing prosecution is automatically classified as rogue.”
Bester smiled with the delicious irony of it. “Now that Talia Winters is a rogue telepath, we don’t need anybody’s permission to go after her. Mr. Gray, call my subordinates in. We’re going to bring down a rogue.”
Chapter 12
“Sir,” said Garibaldi desperately, “let me go after her.”
Captain Sheridan and the security chief regarded each other with a mixture of confidence and uncertainty. They hadn’t worked together very long, but they had been forced into a level of faith reserved for old comrades. Despite the way things had gone so far, thought Garibaldi, there had to be a way to pull this out of the fire. The captain had to trust him.
“How do you know she’s left the station?” asked the captain.
“We’re looking for her,” explained Garibaldi. “My people are all over the docks, but we’ve been so backed up with the conference—and the mass exodus after the bombing—that we’ve got transports taking off every five minutes! We’re eyeballing everything that goes out, but we could be missing something. In fact, we may already be too late.”
Garibaldi rubbed his jaw. “To escape like this, she must’ve had help. I have a hunch about who helped her, and I have a hunch about where she went. There’s a lead that only she and I know about—she might try to follow it up.”
From his hospital bed, Bester was leaning forward with interest. “I’m a great believer in hunches, Mr. Garibaldi. Tell me, where is she going?” He cocked his head, as if listening, then he smiled. “You don’t have to tell me. It’s Earth.”
The chief looked at the Psi Cop with disgust. “Your people are the ones who spooked her. They’re the ones who made her run.”
“I don’t agree with that,” said Bester. “I think fear made her run. But I agree that she had help. She’s had help from the beginning, and just like you, I want to find out who’s bankrolling this. So let’s make a deal.”
Bester grimaced as he shifted around to get a bit more height in his bed. “I will hold back my Psi Cops for a few days. Instead, let’s send Mr. Garibaldi and Mr. Gray to Earth to find her. And her accomplices.”
Garibaldi turned his attention to the pasty-faced Gray. “I don’t want him coming with me.”
“Okay, Mr. Gray,” said Bester. “Let’s alert my people on Earth—they can bring her down as soon as she steps off the transport.”
“Wait,” said Sheridan, holding up a weathered hand. “Mr. Bester is right about one thing—as soon as he calls the Psi Cops on her, it becomes an assassination. The local police will be after her, too. If we’re going to find out anything, we want her investigated. We want all the leads followed up. Garibaldi, if you think you know where she’s going, go there. And take Mr. Gray with you.”
Garibaldi shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I work better alone.”
Bester smiled. “I think you will find Mr. Gray is very little trouble. And he’s not a Psi Cop—he’s not authorized to take her out. He’s just an investigator, like yourself.”
Garibaldi looked at Mr. Gray, who gave him an encouraging but nervous smile. He doesn’t really want to go, thought Garibaldi; he just wants to get away from Bester, and I can’t blame him for that. The security chief decided he would agree for the time being to take the telepath, and ditch him as soon as possible.
He scowled at Gray. “All right. The last transport for Earth is leaving in an hour, docking bay five. Let’s be on it.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Gray. “I have some theories of my own about this matter.”