John Vornholt - Voices

“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?”

Talia 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.”

Sheridan nodded thoughtfully. “I would suggest you remember one thing, Ms. Winters—when you’re up-front, they’ll shoot at you first.”

Talia nodded curtly and stared down the walkway at the closed air-lock. On the eve of this important conference, she didn’t need to hear ominous warnings from her Station commander. On the other band, it was evident that they wouldn’t be here if terrorists hadn’t bombed that Martian hotel. Was Sheridan trying to tell her the same thing Garibaldi had been trying to tell her? Keep it safe. Keep it low-key.