Voices b5-1

by John Vornholt

  “That made no sense,” muttered Garibaldi. “Who are these Free Phobos people? I never heard of them. Almost everyone they killed in that blast was just a working stiff, most of them from Mars!”

  Ivanova shot him a glare at his outburst, and Sheridan stiffened his back and cleared his throat. “Mr. Garibaldi, you have served on Mars, I take it?”

  The chief lowered his head and scratched behind his ear. “Yeah, for about a year.”

  “Then you know,: said Sheridan, “the problems of Mars are very complex. Ivanova and I served together on Io, far removed from most of the difficulties, and that was bad enough. The thing is, the infrastructure of Mars is so fragile that we can’t really wage war there. We can’t wipe out the terrorists, so they have all the advantages. They can destroy targets—and the Royal Tharsis was a very astute target—but if we destroy anything, we’ll kill thousands and create a mess that will never be cleaned up.”

  “In other words,” said Garibaldi, “we could win it, but there wouldn’t be anything left to take home.”

  “Precisely,” agreed Sheridan. “So let’s not get too riled up about Mars, because the Senate will just have to suck it up and find a political solution. In one small way, though, we can help.”

  “What is that, sir?” Ivanova asked brightly.

  The captain wiped a speck of lint off the table. “Did you know that Psi Corps was planning to hold a conference at the Royal Tharsis? And now they can’t.”

  “Yes?” answered Ivanova, suddenly very grim.

  Garibaldi wasn’t about to say what he thought of that. It was hard to hate someone who made Psi Corps squirm.

  “Anyway,” said Sheridan cheerfully, “We have a chance to thumb our noses at the terrorists. We can make sure that Psi Corps has their conference—right here on B5!”

  Ivanova squirmed in her seat. “How many telepaths are we talking about, sir?”

  “Only about four hundred.”

  Garibaldi’s elbow dropped off the table, and he very nearly hit his jaw on it. “But, sir, in a few days—four hundred guests. I’m not sure the station can accommodate …”

  “Housekeeping informs me there’s no problem,” said Sheridan. “We’ve been remodeling Blue-16, and we simply step it up in the next forty-eight hours and get those rooms ready.”

  Ivanova looked truly stricken now. “Are we talking about Psi Cops, like Bester? Or commercial telepaths, like Ms. Winters?”

  Sheridan crossed his arms and stared at his subordinates in amazement. “Who do you think we’re talking about? The four hundred highest-ranking telepaths in Psi Corps, that’s who! No, they’re not Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but they’re a damned important bunch of people.”

  “But why do they want to come here?” asked Garibaldi suspiciously.

  The captain shook his head puzzledly. “I thought you would welcome this as a golden opportunity, which it is. It’s a chance for us to show everyone that B5 is past her growing pains, that we’re a suitable place for a high-level conference. You know, everybody thinks we’re a jinx! Psi Corps is doing us a favor by coming here.”

  Garibaldi glanced at Ivanova, but the commander’s lips were clamped tight. He knew that she had decided to withhold comment about Psi Corps for the moment.

  He gingerly held up his finger. “Sir, it’s just that, in the short time we’ve been open, Psi Corps has shown unusual interest in us.”

  “Nonsense,” snapped Sheridan. “Psi Corps shows unusual interest in everybody. But what are we going to do about it? Make them mad, so they show even more interest? The next time the Senate considers our appropriations, it would be very nice to have Psi Corps in our corner. Besides, all telepaths are not cut from the same cloth as Bester. Our own Ms. Winters is highly respected, and so are hundreds of other private telepaths. And, Chief, unless you lied in your report, Harriman Gray saved your life.”

  “Yes, he did,” admitted Garibaldi. He appealed to Ivanova. “Are you going to say anything here, or do you want Bester and four hundred of his friends to show up tomorrow?”

  The second-in-command sat up in her chair. “Captain,” she began, “if I may speak freely.”

  Sheridan sighed. “Mr. Garibaldi has no problem speaking freely, so why should you?”

  “I have a revulsion to Psi Corps,” she declared. “It’s personal. I have never let this interfere with my duty, except for the fact that I will not submit to a scan, for any reason. I’m sure this will hamper my career advancement at some point, but I will not let it interfere with my duty.”

  Ivanova took a deep breath and concluded, “I will get all of their ships in safely and assist in the Psi Corps conference however I can. I will do my best to put the station in a good light. However, if one of those buggers tries to scan me, I will rip his lungs out.”

  Garibaldi nodded in agreement. “Yeah, and it’ll take five guys to pull her off. And another five guys to arrest her, then all those doctors in medlab. Do we really want to risk it, sir?”

  Sheridan rubbed his eyes. “I have sympathy for your feelings, but they can’t stand in the way of this opportunity. Therefore, Commander, you will be restricted to quarters during the duration of the conference, except for your normal hours of duty. In fact, Commander, you are under orders not to talk to the attendees. If they don’t like that, you can talk to them just long enough to tell them to come see me.”

  “Uh, sir,” asked Garibaldi hopefully, “could we arrange it so that I don’t have to talk to them either?”

  “I’m afraid not, Chief. They’re going to be paranoid about security, especially after this Mars thing. To put it bluntly, it’s going to be a nightmare for you. I could requisition some outside security to help you, but I don’t want to risk it. We don’t know who they might send.”

  “No, that’s okay,” said Garibaldi, his shoulders drooping. “Hundreds of paranoid Psi Cops, just what I always wanted. I don’t suppose there’s any way you could be talked out of hosting this shindig?”

  “Well,” said the captain, “if you had offered reasoned arguments against it, I might have listened. If your only objection is that you hate Psi Corps, that’s not unusual enough.”

  Sheridan tapped the link on the table console. “Captain Sheridan to Ms. Talia Winters.”

  “Captain!” said her startled voice a moment later. “I was just about to call you! Did you hear about the conference? Isn’t it wonderful!”

  The captain surveyed the long faces of Ivanova and Garibaldi. “Oh, yes, we’re jumping up and down here. You are supposed to make an official request, I believe, on behalf of Psi Corps.”

  “Oh, I’m so relieved to hear you say you will accept! I had the silly notion there might be some problem.”

  “Of course not,” said Sheridan magnanimously. “We’re down in the briefing room now, and perhaps you’d like to join us and get the ball rolling. Oh, Mr. Garibaldi wonders how many of the attendees will be actual Psi Cops, like Mr. Bester.”

  “About a hundred or so.”

  Garibaldi buried his head in his hands.

  “The theme is commercial applications,” Talia added. “I’ll be right down to tell you all about it!”

  “I look forward to it,” answered Sheridan. “Out.”

  The captain looked grim as his gaze traveled from Ivanova to Garibaldi. “An advance team from Psi Corps is already on its way to help coordinate, and the rest will follow in the next day or two. Listen, people, for the next six days, you love Psi Corps. And your mission in life is to make sure they have the best conference they ever had. Do you understand?”

  Garibaldi and Ivanova just looked at each other and sighed. “Yes, sir,” they muttered.

  Chapter 3

  “Well,” said Garibaldi, leaning over a stack of diagrams, “we’ve got the Blue recreation room. You can have that. Unless our work crews fall asleep, a couple of Blue meeting rooms will be ready. The cafe in Blue Sector is under private contract, but the proprietor says he’ll have it open in time for
the reception.”

  “We’ll want to run a security check on the proprietor,” said Talia Winters. “And we’ll need more than a couple of meeting rooms. The idea of this conference is to break off into smaller discussion groups. Intimate gatherings.”

  Garibaldi cocked an eyebrow. “I’ll bet.”

  Talia pursed her lips, but she let it pass. “What about the meeting rooms on Red and Yellow?”

  The security chief scowled. “I’m trying to keep all of your people in the Blue Sector, and pretty much seal it off. For their own safety.”

  Talia smiled even while she shook her head. “No way, Mr. Garibaldi. These people don’t like to be told that certain places are off limits. No place is off limits for them.”

  “Wait a minute,” he protested, “I can’t give them complete run of the station! You don’t want them Down Below, do you? With that element. Or in the Alien Sector. What if they meet up with the carrion-eaters? I can’t protect them on every square centimeter of every cargo bay of B5.”

  “I think you will find, Mr. Garibaldi, that most telepaths are capable of taking care of themselves. Besides, most of them have never been to Babylon 5. They’ll be disappointed if they don’t receive the full experience.”

  “Is that so,” grumbled Garibaldi. “You know, Ms. Winters, we’ve had our share of murders and disappearances here, and a couple of the other Babylon stations were blown to bits. The full B5 experience is not what I really want them to have. I want them to have a safe, boring experience. I want them to go back to their slimepits and say, ‘Gosh, that B5 was the most boring place I’ve ever been. There is certainly no reason to go back there again.”

  Talia’s icy-blue eyes burned into him. “This is only our first day of planning, Mr. Garibaldi, and I will not allow you to start insulting the Corps. If we have a problem we can’t resolve, I suggest we get Captain Sheridan to arbitrate it.”

  “I’m doing exactly what the captain wants,” the chief countered. “He wants us to look like grown-ups, no more Wild Frontier stuff. He wants B5 to look like a proper place to hold a high-level tкte-а-tкte, and I don’t blame him. The more money we can bring in by ourselves means the less we have to rely on our allies and the Senate.”

  Now Garibaldi looked into Talia’s eyes, something he did not mind doing whatsoever. “Look, Talia, B5 is not a swank resort, and that was their first choice. Security is going to be stretched like we’ve never been stretched before, just dealing with the arrivals. We haven’t had time to get the word out, so all of our regular traffic will be piling up at the docks. I’m not saying we can’t do it, but have a heart!”

  “All right,” conceded Talia, “we will label certain areas, such as Down Below, cargo bays, and the Alien Sector as ‘Travel at Your Own Risk.’ In the handouts, we’ll advise the attendees not to go there. Satisfied?”

  “Not exactly,” muttered Garibaldi. As Talia was not going to back away from him, and her closeness was making him nervous, he found a chair and began to go over the diagrams again.

  “Okay,” he told her, “Green Sector has a business park that hasn’t been opened yet. It has a lot of standard offices and meeting rooms, even a few larger rooms for light manufacturing. Hey, that’s nice—a few of these offices have dual-atmosphere. Anyway, I guess your folks could take over the whole business park. So you’ll sleep in Blue-16 and party, or whatever you do, on Green-12.”

  Talia sat on the desk and crossed her legs, and the tight gray skirt rode up to midcalf. “Panels mostly. I’m moderating a panel on currency exchange, and I’m going to attend two seminars on mining law. You know, everybody thinks when telepaths get together, they study telepathy. Hell, we already know about that. We have to bone up on the other stuff, that everybody else knows.”

  “Okay,” said Garibaldi, “so maybe this won’t be so bad. And if it gets too boring, we can always send for some Martian terrorists to liven things up.”

  The telepath sat forward, looking grim. “You won’t let that happen, will you?”

  Garibaldi lowered his lofty forehead at her. “Let us say that nobody will get into Blue-16 or Green-12 except your people and my people. But you had better give the attendees an advisory about the rest of the station.”

  He frowned. “And I’ll give the rest of the station an advisory about them.”

  “We do want to be able to use one more room,” said Talia. “The casino.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. Telepaths aren’t allowed to gamble. Why would they want to go there?”

  Talia insisted, “Just to have someplace fun and cheerful to go. Would you like to be cooped up in a bunch of boring offices and crew quarters? You said it before, this isn’t a luxury hotel, but we should go the extra centimeter to make it pleasant. The casino would simply give them someplace to go, to mingle with the populace. As for the gambling, shut down the games.”

  “Shut down the games?”

  “Out of consideration.” Talia tossed her sleek blond hair and leveled him with her firmest gaze. “Look, Garibaldi, I’ve given in on everything. You are getting it as easy as I can make it. Don’t you think you can give me one thing—a place to party, as you call it. I will go to the captain with this, if you insist on fighting me.”

  “No, no, leave the captain alone,” said Garibaldi. “He’s up to his eyeballs in VIPs, and they’re not VIPs I want to see.”

  “Yes, I know,” replied Talia, pulling up the flap on her leather glove to check her timepiece. “I really should be going to meet them.”

  Garibaldi pushed the link on the back of his hand. “Link, take a memo. For the benefit of our conference guests, the station is assigning extra security to Blue-16, Green-12, the docking area, connecting corridors, and connecting tubes. Oh, and the casino. The attendees will be told that all other areas are to be entered at their own risk. They are not protected in the other areas.

  He lowered his hand and smiled at Talia. “I believe in getting things in writing.”

  “So do I,” agreed Talia. “Make sure you mention that gambling in the casino will be prohibited all weekend.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” muttered Garibaldi. He spoke into the back of his hand. “Gambling will cease in the casino in exactly twelve hours, not to be resumed except by my authority. End memo. Priority distribution.”

  Talia grabbed the diagram of the business park in Green Sector and studied it. “Are these spaces expensive? Maybe I’ll lease one, when this is all over.

  “Lady,” said Garibaldi, “you get me through this, and I’ll make sure you get the nicest one—for free.”

  Talia gave him her professional smile, the one that dazzled the opposition and made them realize they had been beaten. Garibaldi was suitably dazzled.

  “Thank you, Michael,” she replied. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.” Talia sauntered to the door and tossed over her shoulder, “I’ll get you a schedule of the panels.”

  “Thanks!” he said, as if he really wanted one.

  When the door finally shut, Garibaldi rolled his eyes toward the heavens. As miserable as this black cloud was, even it had a strand of silver lining. No matter what else happened in the next six days, he was going to be spending a lot of time with Talia Winters.

  “Be still, my heart,” he told himself with a chuckle.

  * * *

  Talia Winters was a bit surprised to find no one waiting at the docking bay except for Captain Sheridan and half a dozen extra security officers. She didn’t expect a brass band exactly, but a small show of ambassadors or dignitaries would have been in order.

  “Captain,” she said. “Are more people coming?”

  “Hello, Ms. Winters,” he said, not dispensing with the niceties simply because she had. “We’ve got everyone working double shifts down in Blue Sector just to get it ready. Mr. Bester will have to be content with you and me.”

  “What about Ambassador Mollari?” she asked. “Or Ambassador G’Kar?”

  “What about them?”

  T
alia started to say that Commander Sinclair would have gotten the ambassadors to come, but she squelched that thought before it left her lips. Odd, she mused, how you didn’t notice certain qualities in people until they were gone. On the face of it, Captain Sheridan was a cultured, charming man; but underneath he was intractable, like a sword in a supple leather scabbard. Commander Sinclair had been intractable on the surface, but underneath he was open-minded, ready to sympathize and take risks. Perhaps too ready.

  The captain gave her a pleasant smile. “Are you scanning me?”

  “No,” she said defensively. “But I was comparing you to Commander Sinclair. I’m sorry.”

  Sheridan nodded. “That’s understandable. When I came here, I was surprised to learn how popular my predecessor was. On Earth, they said he was crazy, a loose cannon, but here people thought he was a saint. Now compare that with the way General George Armstrong Custer was perceived during the conquest of North America. His commanders in Washington thought he was brilliant, but in the field, everybody knew he was crazy.”

  “Perceptions are not what they seem,” remarked Talia. “That’s why we need telepaths.”

  “You’ve never regretted joining Psi Corps?”

  “No,” she answered, taken aback by the very idea. “Do you regret the training you had? Does a musical prodigy regret his musical training? We are seeing the emergence of a new talent in thousands of people, and it must be nurtured and regulated. Psi Corps is everything anyone could hope it would be.”

  “But Psi Corps has become an issue,” the captain declared. “People fear it, people discuss it. People try to stop it. My predecessor at this station became an issue, and that’s what ultimately hurt him. That’s where I’m different—I want my presence here to be neutral, just enough to make the station run efficiently. So don’t expect me to go overboard, on anything.”

  “Understood,” said Talia. “I sincerely appreciate your cooperation on this conference. However, Captain, I don’t think that Psi Corps can take a backseat any longer. We have a certain destiny to fill, and we need to be up-front about it.”