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

Hell, thought Garibaldi, I’m still here! Wasn’t there a song with that title? He tried to remember the words.

“Mr. Garibaldi,” said a no-nonsense female voice.

He turned to see an attractive brunette woman in an Earthforce uniform striding to catch up with him. He stopped and waited.

“Hi, Susan.”

“Please,” she whispered, “we’re on our way to a briefing. Let’s try to show some decorum. Call me Commander.” She raised an eyebrow. Ivanova’s eyebrows were famous for what they could do to people.

Garibaldi smiled and leaned down. “Tell me, Commander, how come when I had a friend running the station, I was relaxed about it. Now that you’ve got a friend running the station, you’re all uptight.”

“He’s not my friend,” she whispered, “just my former CO. And I’m worried about you, not me.”

“Well, don’t be,” said Garibaldi with confidence. “What could Captain Sheridan possibly tell us that would spoil this beautiful day? I mean, the worst thing that can happen has already happened, right? Jeff is gone, but I’m still here, and you’re still here. The station is still here. No ka-boom.”

“Yet,” added Ivanova grimly.

Garibaldi grinned. “And Captain Sheridan has had a salutary effect on the other races. I love the way he’s not trying to make friends with them, or coddle them. They hate his guts, but they think you and I are great!”

Ivanova cleared her throat, put her hands behind her back, and strode toward the briefing room. She waited for the door to open, then charged in, followed by a grinning Garibaldi.

The captain was already there, leaning over a computer screen. He looked as handsome and distinguished as always, thought the security chief. Garibaldi was about the same age as Sheridan, around forty, but he didn’t think he would ever be able to look as distinguished as that, even if he had all his hair. The junior officers saluted, and Sheridan snapped off a salute of his own.

“Commander, Chief, have a seat.”

“Are we expecting anyone else?” asked Ivanova, slipping into a chair at the conference table.

Sheridan smiled. “I believe we will have one more before too long, but essentially it’s the two of you I want to see. I brought you down here because we have several consoles at our disposal; and I think we may be looking up schedules and personnel files long into the night.”

Garibaldi started to say something sarcastic, like “Great!” Then he remembered that this wasn’t Jeff Sinclair. He folded his hands and waited patiently.

“I’ve just been talking with Senator Hidoshi,” the captain began. “And a most interesting opportunity has come our way. You must have heard about the hotel bombing on Mars?”

“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.