Garibaldi tried to imagine a Psi Corps without the military trappings, threats, and overbearing nastiness, and he liked it. He liked it a lot. That thought made him realize that, philosophically, he was on the side of the bombers! Geez, why couldn’t things be white and black, good guys and bad guys?
The main thing was that he couldn’t sit around talking about Berlin, debutante balls, or frat parties. He had to ditch Gray right away. The telepath had been of surprising usefulness, being right about the Mars bombing fitting in with the B5 bombing. He had saved them a great deal of time by calling Marlon, but his usefulness was at an end. They knew everything they were likely to know without collaring either Emily Crane or Arthur Malten. For that they needed a bloodhound, which Garibaldi was. It could get rough, and Gray would just get in the way.
Garibaldi started out the front door of the restaurant, prepared to jog to the corner to catch an autotaxi, when he heard a loud, “Harrumph!”
He turned to see Gray, standing in the shadows with his arms crossed. “I wondered when you would run out,” the telepath said accusingly.
Garibaldi shrugged. “Listen, I just heard that your boss, Bester, is on the prowl again. I thought maybe you might want to connect up with him, make a report or something.”
“I thought we were a team,” said Gray, clearly wounded. “My orders were to get to the bottom of this, and working together we were getting to the bottom of it. I’m sorry that you don’t think our partnership is worthwhile.”
“Aw, look,” said Garibaldi with a smile, “I’m just antsy. I’ve got to do something. Tell you what, I’ll meet you back at Emily Crane’s office tomorrow morning at nine hundred hours. You can finish your dinner with your friend.”
“You’ll meet me tomorrow morning?” asked Gray doubtfully.
“Didn’t I just say I would?”
“All right,” said Gray. “Really, we’re the only ones who know what’s going on. We need to back each other up.”
“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Garibaldi, hurrying off. “See you tomorrow.”
“What about your part of the check?”
“Thanks!” hollered Garibaldi, disappearing down the driveway.
Talia Winters peered out the rear of the Hovercraft with Deuce’s beat-up binoculars. She wondered if she could spot the shuttlecraft before they spotted the Hovercraft. Probably not. Even if they did, that was only half the battle, because then they would still have to hide. They were skirting a ridge that had been formed by an old earthquake fault line, but it didn’t really offer any hiding places. They had to face the fact that they were ducks on a platter out here in this desert.
“This trip was only supposed to cost me one diamond!” complained Deuce. “And now it’s cost me four!”
As this was the two hundredth time he had complained about that particular injustice, Talia ignored him and pulled her wig and her hat down on her head. She guessed they were making good time for such a primitive craft, even if she was getting encrusted with sand; but it bothered her that she didn’t know where they were going. Clement? It didn’t ring a bell. They had to trust in Brother Sky’s directions.
“You know, those kooks might not have seen anything!” snarled Deuce. “You didn’t see a shuttlecraft, did you? Me neither!”
That thought hadn’t occurred to her before, and Talia turned to look at the gangster. “Do you think they just wanted us out of there, so they made it up?”
“Sure, maybe they turn us in and say we stole their Hovercraft. I doubt if we’re going to live to argue about it.”
Talia banged on his shoulder and shouted, “Stop this thing! Park it somewhere!”
Deuce let up gradually on the accelerator, and the Hovercraft came to a stop and thudded into the sand. He wiped the sand off his face and demanded, “What’s the matter with you?”
Talia jumped out of the craft and stretched her legs. “Stop and think about it,” she said. “They got us out of the village because they know, one way or another, somebody is coming after us. Whether they sent for them, or they spotted us, or they intercepted a message, it doesn’t matter. They know, and somebody’s coming. There’s no way to get across this desert by daylight without being spotted, so let’s camouflage this thing and wait it out until nightfall.”
Deuce stared at her for a moment, then stared into the unforgiving sun to the west of them. He grinned foolishly and scratched his stubbly chin. “Maybe we’re doing this all wrong,” he drawled. “Why should we run in a piddly Hovercraft, when they’ve got shuttles? Why should we run at all? Let’s set a trap for them. How many of them can there be?”
“Well,” said Talia, adjusting her wig, “assuming they’re Psi Cops and they’re after me, they won’t alert any other authorities. They like to bring down a rogue themselves, without anybody interfering. They probably have several two-man shuttles spread out over this area.”
Deuce grabbed the bumper of the Hovercraft and began to rock the vehicle. “Come on! Help me turn this thing over!”
“Why?” asked Talia, leaning down to grab the bumper.
“To make it looked like it wrecked.”
Chapter 17
Talia Winters watched a scorpion scuttle across the sand about a meter away from her face. The tan arachnid blended in perfectly with the sand, and she hadn’t noticed it when she picked this place to lie down. Now its deadly tail was curving up and down, and its little pincers were looking for something to pinch. She was in horrendous fear that her nose would look delectable to the scorpion, but she couldn’t possibly move or cry out. She would just have to let the scorpion sting her and take her chances with the venom.
Because a sleek, black shuttlecraft was about a kilometer away and swooping in for a landing.
Talia closed her eyes as the shuttlecraft landed and its thrusters blew sand all over her. After this sojourn in the desert, she wondered if she would ever feel clean again. She held her breath, waiting for the scorpion to get blown directly into the center of her face, stinger first. When that didn’t happen, she held perfectly still, trying to look dead, or at least close to it.
She could imagine what the scene looked like from the air: an overturned Hovercraft which had skirted too close to the ridge, and the body of a woman lying a few meters away, broiling in what was left of the late-afternoon sun. It didn’t look very threatening, she hoped.
Talia heard the door of the shuttlecraft open, and she heard their boots crunching across the sand. As she had guessed, there were only two of them, and she felt them probing her with their minds. Even though they were P12s and she was a mere P5, she had the advantage of all that contact with alien species; she was able to disrupt a casual mind-scan with bizarre images. Talia thought again about Ambassador Kosh and Invisible Isabel, knowing they wouldn’t be able to make much sense out of that.
“She’s alive,” said one of them, “but she’s delirious.”
“Is that the rogue?” asked the other. “They said she had blond hair?”
“Hair color doesn’t mean anything,” said the first. “Besides, if we leave her here, she’ll just die. Better take her in.”
With her eyes closed, Talia wasn’t able to see if they had returned their PPG weapons to their holsters. But they couldn’t very well lift her, if they didn’t. She heard their footsteps coming very close now, and it was time for her to give the prearranged signal.
She moaned loudly.
That drew their attention, and neither one of them heard Deuce as he rose up, covered with sand, and drilled the nearest Psi Cop in the arm with his PPG. The cop collapsed to his knees in shock, and the other one started to draw his weapon.
“Go ahead.” Deuce grinned. “I promised the lady I wouldn’t kill you, but I’m not great at keeping my promises.”
Talia scrambled to her feet and grabbed the PPG out of the wounded Psi Cop’s holster. Then she very carefully took the PPG from the other cop.
“You won’t get away,” said the black-suited telepath. “We’ll bring you down.”
Talia said nothing. She was busy gathering up the water bag and Deuce’s briefcase and duffel bag from the fallen Hovercraft. As an afterthought, she left them the water bag.