When Deuce reached for his PPG, the old chief was quicker and grabbed his wrist. Talia also attacked Deuce, whirling around and punching him in the stomach.
“Okay, okay,” croaked the petty crook. “Two stones it is!”
The Bilagaani dropped him to the floor of the cave, and he scrambled for his briefcase. “I want a fast one, and I’m gonna pick it out myself.”
Eyeing everyone suspiciously, Deuce extracted two diamonds from his briefcase and gave them to Brother Sky. The old man pointed toward the hole leading out of the cave and nearly pushed him through it.
Talia started to follow, and she felt Lizard grab her arm. She wrenched it away from him and glared at him. She wasn’t in a mood to be friendly, especially to a guy who would kick her out into the midday desert with Psi Cops patrolling the air. She glanced around the graveyard of ancient clothes and decided it was more like a tomb.
Lizard shrugged helplessly. “We’ve got to get you out of the pueblo, that’s all. Too many people’s lives would be in jeopardy. Personally, I would like you to stay.”
She nodded, softening a bit. It really wasn’t his fault or the tribe’s fault that she was a fugitive. It was her own damn ambition and foolishness. She touched Lizard’s bare chest once, briefly, before she crawled out of the cave, and she hoped that would give him a strong enough impression to remember her by.
The sun was brutal, baking the pueblo and the plateau to a dusky brown. But she noticed that it had slipped substantially toward the west, and she guessed that it was about four in the afternoon. Talia didn’t know much about fleeing across a desert, but she figured that nighttime was the right time. Well, it would be dark in a few hours, and maybe they could elude capture until then. She didn’t want to count on her luck, because she hadn’t had any lately.
Talia didn’t know whether Deuce had picked the fastest Hovercraft, but he had picked the one with the loudest, brightest paintings on its hood. She guessed there was some logic in that—if they were spotted from above, it would be assumed they were Bilagaani. She was glad now that she had the long hair to fit the image of a Bilagaani plainswoman.
As Deuce was already in his seat, she climbed aboard without another word. The tribe was gathering around to see them off, and they were silent and noncommittal. Morning, the middle-aged woman who had comforted Deuce, was the only one who was crying. What a strange place this speck of North America was, thought Talia, odder than anything she had seen on Babylon 5.
“They were traveling west,” said Brother Sky, pointing toward the sky. “If you travel northeast, you will find the town of Clement. Beware the salt flats.”
“Thanks,” muttered Deuce, not sounding like he meant it. Lizard suddenly handed Talia a waterskin, and she gripped it for dear life. “Peace,” he said somberly.
She nodded and tried to give him a smile. Deuce started the engine and gunned it, but the solar-powered turbine didn’t make much noise. The Hovercraft lifted into the air a few centimeters and blew sand all over Lizard, Sky, and the others, but they stood their ground. A few even lifted their hands in a gesture of parting. Talia gripped the roll bars as they rocketed out of the Hovercraft pen and headed for the mountains to the northeast.
The crabcakes and sirloin tasted great, but they didn’t sit very well in Garibaldi’s stomach. He kept thinking about all the things he should be doing and all the places he should be running. The sedate Washington restaurant wasn’t distracting him enough. The conversation of Marlon and Harriman wasn’t doing him any good either, as they kept reliving fraternity pranks and trips to Fort Lauderdale. Then Gray launched into a description of his apartment in Berlin, and soon they were both discussing decorating ideas. Garibaldi wanted to climb the drapes.
“Excuse me,” he said, rising from the table. “I need to take a little walk. We don’t get rich food like that on Babylon 5, and my system is staging a revolution. Maybe I’ll find a commlink and check in.”
Gray gave him a quick look of concern, and Marlon paid no attention as the security chief slipped away from the table. He shot through the French doors and lacy curtains and found himself on the patio. He took a flight of curving stairs down to a meandering garden.
The out-of-doors smelled wonderful, and it began to lift his spirits immediately. There were gardens and open spaces on Babylon 5, but you had to seek them out. He seldom had time. The air of Babylon 5 was the best money could buy, but it couldn’t compete with the pine aroma of the trees and the genuine steer manure on the lawn. It made him wonder how he could spend his days on a space station, revolving around a spooky, half-dead planet, when there was this planet, perfectly designed for the habitation of humans.
He thought about having to go back to Boston tonight, or first thing in the morning, and he realized what he missed about B5. It was self-contained. No running around in funny little vehicles trying to see people—everyone on B5 was a twenty-minute walk, or closer. And a quarter of a million people was considerably more manageable than four billion. Yes, the air smelled good on Earth, but it wasn’t home.
After a few more sniffs of the real thing, Garibaldi went around to the front of the converted mansion. He thought he had seen a public commlink by the bathroom. Yes, he was right.
The commlink wasn’t busy, and Garibaldi ran his chit through and punched in his commands. Then he leaned against the wall to wait, knowing it could take a few minutes. Some very elegant women were arriving with their dates, and they reminded him of Talia—thoroughbreds, smart, fast, gorgeous. He didn’t know whether he would ever see Talia again, and that was beginning to depress him. Not that she had ever given him much more than the time of day, but she had been so assertive, confident, and proud of her accomplishments. It pained him to think she had been reduced to running like an animal, scared of every shadow.
He didn’t know how it would be possible to find Talia before the others, but he had to try. There was always the possibility that she hadn’t fled to Earth and had hitched a ride to the far ends of the galaxy. But he felt certain she had come to Earth. Not only was Emily Crane here, but this was familiar territory for her. People usually ran from the strange and to the familiar, not the other way around. Garibaldi often thought that if he ever had to run from B5, he would go back to Mars. He figured Talia would come here.
Earth was logical for another reason. If you were a human and you wanted to hide, you didn’t go where humans were rare—you went where there were a lot of humans. Unfortunately, that just made his job more difficult, and nothing short of finding her would help her now.
A synthesized voice startled him. “Hang on for your link to Babylon 5.”
“I’m hangin’, I’m hangin’,” he assured the computer.
An empty chair appeared on the screen, but presently Captain Sheridan dropped into it. “Garibaldi,” he frowned, “we’ve had a development here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Bester has flown the coop. His supposedly private doctor arrived, but they were really just a bunch of Psi Cops who whisked him onto their ship. We never saw a doctor, but we did see some orders that made it all official. Dr. Franklin doesn’t know whether to be angry or relieved.”
“Can Bester get around?” asked Garibaldi.
“Not well. The doctor said that in a few days he could get around on crutches or a cane. Since he’s refused all medication, he won’t be in a very good mood.”
“What do you think his plans are?”
“To get Ms. Winters,” answered the captain. “That’s all he could talk about. How are you coming along?”
Garibaldi glanced around and lowered his voice. “We’ve got strong leads on both Arthur Malten and Emily Crane. It’s good stuff, but we can’t pin them without Talia.”
“That is a problem,” conceded Sheridan. “We’ve got some happy people now that the last of Psi Corps is gone, but everyone feels badly about Ms. Winters. I wish we could have handled it differently. What’s done is done.”
“Don’t bet against me,” declared Garibaldi. “I’m going to bring her back, alive and free. Good-bye, sir.”
“Good luck. Sheridan out.”
Garibaldi signed off and paced around the foyer for a few seconds. He had to do something! Go somewhere! After all, they had learned everything they came to Washington to learn. Maybe he would go back to Boston right now and hang out in Emily Crane’s front room. Was the woman from the Mix so confident that she wouldn’t make a run for it? She and Malten had strong motives to stage these bombings, and that might inspire them to do something crazy.