Garibaldi started to tell him where to put his theories, but he decided to tell him after they were safely away.
Captain Sheridan took a deep breath and turned toward Dr. Franklin. “Why don’t you sedate your patient and get started.”
“Not a bad idea,” said Franklin. “Nurse, hypo!”
“Wait a minute,” protested Bester, thrashing around in his bed. “I need to report in! I need to call the president …”
Franklin administered the hypo.
Still scowling, Bester lay back in his bed. “Do a good job, you two,” he murmured. “You don’t want me to have to get out of this bed and come after you… .” His voice trailed off as he fell asleep.
“Mr. Garibaldi,” said the doctor, “before you leave, we could use some extra security on the door.”
“All right,” scowled the security chief, “but having extra people hasn’t solved any problems so far.”
“We need to think like these terrorists,” suggested Harriman Gray. “I have a lead of my own to follow up. I’ll tell you about it on the flight. See you later, Mr. Garibaldi.”
The slim telepath dashed off to follow his lead, and Garibaldi rolled his eyes at Captain Sheridan. “Sorry, sir, but why are you making me bring him?”
“Just like you said,” answered Sheridan, “by ourselves, we haven’t done much good so far. Maybe if we join forces with them—I don’t know, it’s worth a try. And I want to say, I know how you feel about Ms. Winters, but she’s a fugitive. Bring her in, if you get the chance.”
“I will,” agreed Garibaldi. He lowered his voice. “I think it was Ambassador Kosh who helped her. I haven’t got any proof, but he went to visit her half an hour before she escaped. Rupel, who’s a linguist, listened to their conversation and couldn’t understand a word of it.”
“All right,” said Sheridan grimly, “leave Kosh to me.”
Talia sat in total darkness, wondering if she was going to her death, to her freedom, or just going mad. Under Kosh’s orders, and against her screaming better judgment, she had ditched her Minbari outfit and crawled into a reinforced cargo box. And that’s where she had remained for the better part of an hour now. There had been no instructions from Kosh, except to show her how the pins could be removed from the inside to let the straps work themselves free. Not even a proper good-bye from Kosh or anyone else, and she had been sealed up in this box. Even though Talia knew she could get out by pulling the pins, she had no idea where she would find herself.
She presumed she was on a vessel and that her rescuers had left Bablyon 5, because she had been knocked around by some pretty good g-forces. Or maybe somebody had simply tossed the crate down a stairwell—it was impossible to tell! In the absence of instructions or guidance, what was she supposed to do, stay in the box forever? Or until customs sold it for unclaimed surplus?
Worse yet, she had started to hear scuffling sounds outside in the—wherever she was. The sound was too heavy and massive to be rats, she hoped, but that didn’t explain what it was. Could it be somebody moving the crates around? Or a heavy person just passing through? She had heard no voices, which for some reason made her think that it wasn’t the crew. And if it wasn’t the crew, who was it?
She had reached the level of endurance for breathing foul air and listening to strange noises in the darkness, while hunched in a terrible position. She had to find out where she was, or go crazy. So Talia reached for the pins that held the straps closed from inside. She already knew they would slide out easily, because she had been toying with them in the dark for the better part of an hour.
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.”