Talia flashed him an angry look, but he ignored it. Nevertheless, she told herself, it was very good advice. The last thing she needed was to settle down out here in the wilderness, with a bunch of misfits who had stolen somebody else’s culture. What did she really know about these people? She could wake up one morning and find Psi Cops staring down at her, while Lizard and Sky pocketed a nice reward. No, she was a shark now—she had to keep moving. She had to search out her prey, the same ones who had preyed on her.
That thought brought her back to Emily Crane. Ever since Garibaldi had elicited that name from her, Talia had wondered whether Emily actually had something to do with the bombing. If the bomb had been hidden in the data crystal—and she didn’t know how likely or unlikely that was—then Emily had indeed not only tried to kill her, Bester, and Malten, but she had succeeded in killing five telepaths and casting the suspicions onto an innocent person! In other words, Emily Crane was an extremely dangerous and ruthless person. She had to be stopped.
Talia sat on the packed-dirt floor and wrapped her arms around herself. Having an identicard would make traveling possible, but it didn’t mean she could travel with impunity. It didn’t mean anything, except that she could risk her neck a dozen other places.
Sky came back into the room holding a handmade ceramic bowl. Its contents smelled good, and Talia sat up eagerly. The old man put the bowl in her lap, with no spoon, and she tried to ignore the strange things she found in it. There was a base of some sort of gruel, some vegetables which might’ve been bits of cactus, and some meat and black things.
Talia looked at Sky, and he smiled encouragingly. “Go ahead. It’s all yours.”
She apparently wasn’t going to get a spoon, so she dipped her fingers into the potpourri and grabbed a glob of it. After her first hesitant taste, the weary fugitive was soon scraping the sides of the bowl with her fingertips.
“I’m glad you like it,” said Sky, grinning. “You want some, Brother Deuce?”
“No, thanks,” said the grubby criminal, stretching out on the mat. “But I could use a nap.” He put his briefcase under his head as a pillow.
“Make yourselves at home,” said Sky. “I have some crops to attend to.”
He strode out through the low opening in the adobe hut, leaving her alone with Deuce, who was quickly snoring. Taking a hint, Talia lay back on the hard-packed earth, thinking she could never get comfortable on bare dirt.
She was asleep in a matter of seconds.
Chapter 15
Garibaldi stood on the concourse of Boston’s Travel Center, staring at a blank viewer and waiting to link up with Babylon 5, as hundreds of commuters rushed behind him, headed toward bullet trains that would take them up and down the eastern seaboard. Gray stood to his left, fidgeting.
Finally, there was a chime and Captain John Sheridan’s handsome face appeared on the viewer. Garibaldi sighed with relief “Captain, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get through, but I thought I’d better report in.”
“That’s fine,” answered the captain. “Have you turned up anything?”
Garibaldi glanced around to make sure nobody but Gray was eavesdropping. “Yeah, I think we found the bomber. But I don’t know bow we’re going to prove it without having Talia Winters to testify. Her name is Emily Crane, and she works for the Mix in Boston. She handed Talia a data crystal just before they all went into that conference room.”
“Interesting,” mused Sheridan. “She’s a commercial telepath, and that corresponds with some information that Mr. Lennier gave me. At the reception, he was talking to a military liaison named Barker.”
Gray interjected, “He’s high up.”
“I gather that,” said Sheridan. “He told Lennier that Bester would soon be history, and that the commercial sector was going to make a grab to control Psi Corps. I can’t imagine how they would go about doing that, but it ties together.”
Garibaldi frowned. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t clear Talia, because she’s also in the commercial sector. But it does let us concentrate our search.”
The captain’s link buzzed, and he lifted his hand to answer it. “Excuse me,” he said. Over the long-distance connection, Garibaldi couldn’t make out every word of the captain’s conversation, but he clearly heard “Mr. Bester” mentioned several times.
“Out,” said Sheridan. He turned back to the viewer and shook his head. “I’ve got to go. Our prize patient is making life difficult for everyone again. Now he’s demanding to have his own doctor flown in! Dr. Franklin is about ready to walk. Keep me posted.”
“Right, sir.” Garibaldi pushed the button to sign off, then he nodded to Mr. Gray. “Time to call your friend.”
“But he’s only a clerk in the Senate,” Gray protested.
“That’s good enough. Those guys do all the work, and they know everything. Call him up, and ask him about Senate bill 22991.”
Reluctantly, Gray pushed his creditchit into the slot and dialed some numbers on the commlink. After a few moments, a clean-cut, bookish-looking man about Gray’s age came on the viewer.
“This is Senator Donaldson’s office.”
“Marlon, it’s me—Harriman! How are you?”
“Harriman, what a surprise! My gosh, how long has it been? Was it the frat reunion in Montreal? Was that the last time I saw you?”
“I believe so,” answered Gray. “You’re an old hand now—five years working for the senator.”
“And you look great,” Marlon replied. “Where are you living these days?”
Garibaldi sighed and gave Gray a hand signal to hurry up. “Berlin,” answered Gray. “Listen, Marlon, I need some information about a Senate bill. I believe it’s still in committee and hasn’t gone to the floor yet.”
Marlon smiled helpfully. “Whatever you need.”
“I think the bill has something to do with telepaths. It’s number 22991.”
A pall fell over Marlon’s face, and he looked as if he had been struck by a severe case of gastrointestinitis. He glanced around nervously and lowered his voice. “How do you know about that? I can’t talk about it.”
Garibaldi stepped into the picture. “Oh, I think you can, Marlon, or we’re going to come down to the senator’s office and ask everyone who goes in and out until somebody tells us.”
“Who are you?”
Gray rolled his eyes with embarrassment. “This is Michael Garibaldi, Chief of Security for Babylon 5. We’re working on a case together.”
“Is he serious about what he just said?”
“Yes,” answered Gray with a sidelong glance at Garibaldi. “He’s impatient, rude, and has very little tact.”
“None,” agreed Garibaldi.
The Senate clerk was still shaken. “I can’t talk about this on a public comm. Do you still have my address? It hasn’t changed since I’ve been in Washington.”
“Yes,” said Gray, consulting a small electronic device.
“I’ll be home by six tonight. Why don’t you meet me there? And don’t go asking anybody else. I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Great,” said Garibaldi, “we’ll buy you dinner.”
Looking very glum, Marlon signed off.
“Well done,” said the security chief, slapping Gray on the back. “You just have time to buy me lunch before we hop the rails to Washington. Let’s go.”
Talia Winters felt somebody toying with her hair, and she woke up with a start to find a teenage girl leaning over her. The girl jumped away.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “you have such beautiful hair. We’re not allowed to cut our hair short like that. I wish we could.”
Talia sat up, disoriented, and looked around the humble adobe hut, with the strange machine in one corner and the smells of cooking wafting from the other room. Once again she thought about how her life had taken on such a surreal quality that her dreams seemed normal by comparison. In her dream, she had been back on Babylon 5, conversing with tentacled aliens. Awake, she was a fugitive from the law, a rogue telepath, reduced to hiding out in the desert with a group of neo-primitives.
“My name is Rain,” said the girl, stroking her honey-blond hair over her naked shoulder.
Talia almost answered the girl in spoken words, saying she was Rain, too. But she didn’t have to say it. The girl laughed in a lilting voice.
“Yes, I know, you are Rain. When Brother Sky names the girls, they are almost always Rain. Some of the people place great significance in this, others say he is misogynistic, but I say he just doesn’t like to remember names.”