Voices - Vornholt John (читать хорошую книгу .TXT) 📗

She nodded again. “Not a bad cover,” agreed Deuce, “because you can still communicate if you want to, with certain people. This ain’t new to me, you know. I’ve had experience with telepaths before.”

Talia nodded. She was almost certain of that.

Despite his best intentions to ignore the telepath, Garibaldi found himself peering over Gray’s shoulder at his stack of files. As the transport Starfish made its way to Earth, Gray began to explain his documents in a conversational tone that the security chief found he could tolerate.

“These are the photos and dossiers of all the people who died in the hotel bombing. Twenty-seven of them, according to the reports, although not all the bodies were recovered.”

“That’s not uncommon on Mars,” said Garibaldi. “In that atmosphere, an unprotected body can get desiccated very quickly. And the winds are strong enough to blow a body clean away, or it could fall into a crevice and disappear. Not to mention the difficulties of mounting a real search outside.”

“At any rate,” said Gray, “the police didn’t investigate these people too thoroughly, because they think they’re victims. They also found tracks outside the hotel, so they assumed the bomber came overland. This plays into the stereotype of the usual Martian terrorist, a madman who lives in the wilds and would be spotted immediately in polite company. But what if it was an inside job, like the bombing on B5?”

“You mean, the bomber is one of the missing employees?” asked Garibaldi doubtfiully. “That’s pretty farfetched, without some evidence.”

“I’ve got some evidence. Remember, Mr. Bester and I were at the site when it happened. When a person is going through a psychic trauma, their mind sends out a sort of SOS—a telepath can hear it for miles. And these people were dying as they were being sucked out of the hole in the side of that hotel. We could hear their voices, screaming for help, just as well as I can hear your voice now.”

“Mr. Bester told me that he counted twenty-six voices, and I think he’s right. But the reports list twenty-seven deaths, or should we say, dead and missing. I trust Mr. Bester’s talents, and I think one of those people lived.”

Gray leaned forward in his seat and eagerly explained, “All they had to do was to carry a suit and a breathing mask with them when the blast went off, and they could just walk away! Maybe they would leave one or two footprints going in both directions to fool the police. It was night, and somebody could’ve had a rover waiting for them.”

Garibaldi rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I can see the advantages,” he admitted. “You’re working inside, and you have your leisure to plan it all, get the bomb in, and detonate it. They don’t investigate you, because everyone thinks you’re one of the victims.”

“There is a modus operandi match, too,” said Gray. “Ms. Winters would have been a victim, too, if she hadn’t walked out when she did. Plus, that bombing on Mars made everyone take the Free Phobos group seriously, even though nobody knows anything about them. It was a setup for the B5 bombing.”

Garibaldi smiled and asked, “Can I take a look at the photos of those hotel employees?”

“Certainly,” said Gray, looking pleased with himself.

He handed over a stack of colored transparencies, and Garibaldi studied them intently. Most of them were what you would expect hotel waiters, cooks, and buspersons to look like—young, disadvantaged, with the pale pallor and surly expressions that typified people born on Mars. It was a hard place to live, and a lot of Martians resented having to bow and stoop to wealthy tourists to bring home a few credits. None of the employees’ photos showed smiling faces, eager to prove themselves.

On his second pass through the photos, Garibaldi stopped. There was a young, dark-skinned woman in a hairnet, an assistant cook. He looked at her eyes. They were not sullen eyes like the others, but they were guarded, as if she were trying not to reveal anything. But she didn’t fully succeed, because he knew he had seen her somewhere before.

More importantly, she had worked at the hotel for only a week when the bombing occurred.

“This is a possibility,” said Garibaldi. “Do you recognize her?”

Gray turned the photo several different angles. “I’m not definite, but she bears some resemblance to the woman we flew to B5 with, the one who accompanied Mr. Malten.”

“Do you know her name?”

Gray shook his head. “She was a mousy type—didn’t stick in the brain too well.”

Garibaldi sat forward and whispered, “If she’s the one who flew in with him, then she’s probably the one who flew out with him. I think her name, as a telepath, is Emily Crane.”

Gray gave him a sidelong glance. “Is that the name you have?”

Garibaldi nodded. “Yep. She borrowed a data crystal from Talia Winters, and she returned it to her the morning of the bombing.”

“Does anybody else know about her?”

The security chief shook his head. “No one.”

“Uh-oh,” said Gray with wide eyes.

“We can find her,” said Garibaldi. “I promised Talia I would check her out myself. Besides, we don’t want the regular cops or the Psi Cops shooting her, or spooking her, before she can clear our suspect.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Gray pointed down the aisle.

Garibaldi followed his finger and saw the six Psi Cops slouching their way down the aisle. In their black uniforms, they looked like a motorcycle gang from twentieth-century visuals Garibaldi had seen. Before he even had a chance to unfasten his seat belt, the six were leaning over him and Gray.

“You let our people get killed,” snarled one. “And then you let that murderin’ bitch get away.”

“Leave Mr. Garibaldi alone,” ordered Gray huffily. “He did the best he could.”

“Shut up, worm,” snapped another. “We don’t think he did the best he could. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of our way.”

One of them grabbed Garibaldi’s collar and tried to hoist him out of his seat, but his seat belt held him fast. So instead he slapped the security chief hard across the face.

As Gray stared at him with concern, Garibaldi massaged his inflamed cheek. “Is it going to take the six of you to beat me up?”

“Yep,” said another one. He put his foot on Garibaldi’s toes and tried to grind them into the deck.

This time, the security chief yelped with pain and jerked his foot back. Gray was still staring at him, wondering what he would do.

“Keep your belt on,” he whispered to Gray, “and hang on to your papers.” The little man did as he was told.

“You’re hot stuff on your own turf,” said one of the Psi Cops. “but off it, you’re nothin’. You’re yellow.”

“No,” said Garibaldi, “I’m just smart. For example, did you fellows know that there’s an emergency pull cord under the seats of this kind of transport? If you didn’t know, there’s a little sign over on the bulkhead that explains it.”

But they weren’t listening. A brutish Psi Cop gripped his collar again. “Now it’s time to send you to the medlab.”

Garibaldi reached under his seat and yanked on the emergency cord. At once, alarms went off inside the cabin, and another thing happened. The ship began to slow to a stop. With the absence of acceleration, the simulated gravity inside the cabin stopped also. The six Psi Cops, and anyone else who had been moving around the cabin, began to float weightlessly.

“Help!” screamed one, as he floated past Garibaldi, who was still strapped safely in his seat.

“Let me help you,” said Garibaldi. As the man floated helplessly past him, the lanky security chief reached up and grabbed his collar. Holding him steady, he smashed him in the nose. Globules of blood went floating out of his nostrils. Clutching his documents, Mr. Gray watched all of this in amazement.

When the man tried to retaliate by swinging his fists, Garibaldi just gave him a shove, which sent him spinning into the bulkhead. There was a loud clang as his head hit the metal. The chief then calmly grabbed the leg of another Psi Cop who was floating past and pulled him down just far enough to punch him in a very sensitive spot. The man howled with pain, and Garibaldi sent him crashing into the ceiling.

By now the other four Psi Cops were trying desperately to get away from Garibaldi, but all they could do was float. They were saved by the captain’s voice on the intercom.

“What’s the matter back there?” she asked. “Who pulled the emergency stop?”

“I did, Michael Garibaldi, Security Chief of Babylon 5,” he reported. “There was an altercation, and this was the simplest way to end it.”

“I hope it’s over,” said the pilot. “Because you’ve cost us at least half an hour. That’s the time it will take to get us back up to speed. Anybody floating will just have to keep floating until then.”

“Too bad,” said Garibaldi. A Psi Cop floated overhead, and Garibaldi flicked a long arm up and punched the man in the stomach. The Psi Cop groaned and rolled over.

The chief smiled at Mr. Gray. “There’s a lesson in this—it’s not good to be overconfident.”

“I never am,” Gray replied somberly.

The first rays of sunlight brought the slate-colored clouds to life, and they looked like the underbellies of a herd of buffaloes, slowly stampeding across the sky. Talia could see their woolly heads, their massive horns, their hooves, and the steam which shot from their nostrils. The crest of rugged mountains to the north was like a fence that penned them in, with the sun chasing them from behind.

Talia watched, fascinated, as the fiery dome of the sun rose over the desert floor. The vast desolation of this land was both frightening and soothing. It reminded her too much of her present life—drained and shot to hell, but filled with a strange promise of light that could chase away the darkness.

Deuce was asleep in the sand of the dry wash, clutching his briefcase and his PPG pistol across his chest. She could easily wrench one or both away from him now, but what good would that do her? Where could she go without Deuce and his friends, whoever they were? She did steal a few sips of his water, though, after she found a canteen hidden in his duffel bag. With Deuce’s well-developed sense of self-preservation, he had failed to mention that he had any water.

Talia climbed out of the wash and watched the sun thaw the dew off the flat leaves and thistles of the plants which grew along the wash. It had been a long time since she had seen a sunrise on Earth, and the woman couldn’t help but to feel a bit sad and homesick. She fought the temptation even to think about going to see her family. They would be watched. They would be hounded by newspeople, police, and the curious. Her family was undoubtedly going through hell, and that was just more incentive, if she needed any, to clear her name.