“Does Boston sound right for Emily Crane?” asked Lizard.
She nodded, and the young man printed Emily Crane’s address onto a clear address card. When he went to hand it to her, his hand caught hers, as if to steady it, and their thoughts mingled disconcertingly. He told her, It doesn’t matter who you are. She gripped his hand in return and told him telepathically, It does matter! I am a hunted terrorist, and I will destroy you all if I stay. I have a life, and a purpose. Only death will stop me from clearing my name.
Talia yanked the address card out of his hand and studied it. She memorized it all, including floor 38, and tucked the card into a zippered pocket of her jumpsuit.
“All right,” said Lizard with resignation. “You’ll need clothes, a disguise. Come with me.”
He took her back out into the sunlight. Despite the heat, they climbed down the ladder and walked completely around the pueblo and toward the plateau that protected it. Talia wanted to ask where they were going, but she didn’t dare. She saw the crops that Sky had talked about—neat rows of squash, corn, and various herbs she didn’t recognize, all irrigated from the muddy stream. Tied to wooden stakes in the garden were colorful bits of cloth and miniature windmills; she supposed the purpose of the adornments was to frighten away the birds.
She also saw modern equipment connected to a concrete building. That had to be the collection center for their power transformer, Talia deduced, because of all the wires stretching from the building to the solar panels on the plateau and the windmills beyond. This was quite an operation they had here. Although the Bilagaani lived primitively by twentythird-century standards, they weren’t exactly nomads or monks who had taken a vow of poverty. They couldn’t just get up and leave this pueblo. She wondered how it happened that they never got raided. Did they pay people off? Maybe they paid them off with information.
Before she could fully worry about such a prospect, Talia’s attention was drawn to the extraordinary erosion on the plateau. Close up, it looked pockmarked and pitted, not the smooth rose-colored monument it had seemed from afar. Even Lizard appeared subdued by this sight, as if he could remember the plateau a million years ago, when it had been young and tall, a budding mountain. Now it seemed to mirror the tribe—a ghost of a grandeur long past, something more depressing than beautiful.
True to his name, the young man darted among the pock-marked cavities in the rock face and promptly disappeared. Talia hurried after him, and she almost cracked her resolve by calling his name. When she finally saw the low entrance to the cave, barely a meter high, she stopped. Ever since she was a little girl, she had been afraid of caves. Fortunately, she had never had much cause to come into contact with caves, growing up in a succession of urban areas. But here was one now. It had swallowed Lizard, and now it beckoned her.
Was he waiting inside to jump her? Talia thought fretfully. If he was the type to do so, she decided, she might as well confront him here and now. There was certainly something inside the cave he wanted her to see, and there was no time like the present to see it. Talia got down on her hands and knees in the caked sand and crawled into the hole.
The telepath was surprised to see a glimmer of light just ahead of her, but she didn’t dare get to her feet until she saw how low the ceiling was. Then she rounded a corner and saw Lizard, standing upright and lighting an old lantern with some liquid floating in a glass bulb. She didn’t know how it burned, but it gave off an amazing amount of light. She assumed that if the tall Bilagaani could stand upright in the cave, then so could she.
As she walked toward him, she saw the remarkable treasure hidden in the cavern. There were dozens of trunks, suitcases, and boxes filled to overflowing with clothes, hats, coats, belts, umbrellas, and other accessories. She moved from one box of treasure to another, surveying ancient things like fox stoles and brocaded bob jackets. She remembered when those had been popular about a dozen years ago. This cave was like the world’s largest emporium of antique clothing!
“The desert keeps these things very well,” observed Lizard. “When people come to join us, they bring goods they cannot use anymore, and we store them here. We keep thinking we will burn them, but every now and then something turns out to be useful. You are welcome to anything you find here.”
Talia nodded her thanks, although she felt a bit overwhelmed. She wanted a clean suit of nondescript civilian clothes, not trunkfuls of dirty, exotic, antique clothing.
“There is a mirror over there,” said Lizard, pointing to what looked like a narrow doorway containing more people and another lantern. Talia jumped before she realized it was just their reflection.
“I will go finish your identicard,” said the muscular young man. “Take your time.”
Talia nodded her thanks and looked around with dismay at aged trunks full of dusty clothes.
Mr. Gray leaned forward in the autotaxi. “That’s him,” he said, pointing to a slim man walking down the sidewalk.
“He’s late,” muttered Garibaldi.
“Marlon has a very responsible job,” countered Gray. He ran his chit through the slot on the dashboard, settling their debt with the robotic vehicle, and the doors opened to let them out.
Once they reached the sidewalk, Marlon glanced back at them, but he exhibited no inclination to greet them. It was cloak-and-dagger stuff all the way, thought Garibaldi, as they followed the man through the wrought-iron gate and into the courtyard of his apartment complex. This was one of those pseudo-Roman places, thought Garibaldi, with lots of chintzy columns and porticos. The piиce de rйsistance was a lighted swimming pool with a fake mosaic portrait of Neptune on its bottom.
Without saying anything, they followed Marlon to his apartment on the first floor, poolside. Garibaldi looked around as Marlon unlocked his door, figuring that if anybody was watching them they would assume that the guy was about to be mugged. But this strange procession had taken only a few seconds, and they were all safely ensconced in his apartment a moment later.
Marlon and Harriman Gray hugged each other like the old friends they were.
“Thank you for seeing us,” said Gray.
Marlon gave Garibaldi an annoyed glance. “You didn’t give me much of a choice, did you? How did you find out about bill 22991?”
“It’s connected to the bombing on Babylon 5,” explained Garibaldi. “So tell us about it.” The chief sat down on the silk sofa, crossed his long legs, and waited.
The clerk sighed and went to his well-stocked bar. “I need some sustenance first. You want one?”
“Sure,” said Gray.
“I gave up sustenance,” answered Garibaldi.
Marlon collected his thoughts while he mixed the two drinks. He looked very serious as he delivered Gray’s drink and took a seat beside Garibaldi on the sofa.
“It’s like this,” he began, “a lot of people hate Psi Corps.”
“That’s not exactly a news flash,” said Garibaldi.
“Yes, but they really hate them, especially the Psi Cops and the intelligence groups. Only they’re too afraid to say anything. I’m talking about senators here! You should see some of the things Psi Corps does to them—blackmail, intimidation, threats—it’s terrible!”
Marlon took a gulp of his drink. It smelled like a martini to Garibaldi, a strong one, too. The clerk continued, “It’s a secret proposal so far, but there’s a bill under consideration that would privatize Psi Corps. Under the guise of saving money, this bill would take Psi Corps out of the military—which doesn’t control it, anyway—and make the governing body of telepaths a completely civilian office.”
He took another drink and went on, “Even though a lot of the same telepaths would still be around, the Senate hopes this will cut their ties to their allies, kill all their secret intelligence gathering, and basically neutralize them. All the good stuff they’re doing, they can keep doing as a civilian entity that answers directly to the Senate. As far as the public is concerned, nothing changes—Psi Corps just becomes private instead of military. In reality, a lot changes.”
Gray interjected a question. “This sounds like quite a windfall for somebody. Who would take over Psi Corps once it’s privatized?”
Marlon shrugged. “Who else? There’s only one firm of private telepaths that’s big enough—the Mix.”
Garibaldi and Gray looked at one another. They didn’t need to be reminded who Emily Crane’s employer was—the Mix.