A knock sounded on her door, and Talia looked up with a start. As she pressed the button to open it, she called out, “Come in.”
Emily Crane stumbled into the room. She was wearing high-heeled shoes and a peach evening gown with a single strap. It didn’t look half-bad on her, thought Talia. If she could get accustomed to asserting herself, she had promise.
“What are you d-doing?” Emily asked accusingly. “You should be getting ready for the reception.”
“Oh, sorry,” said Talia, glancing at the clock over her screen. “I’ve been studying this data crystal you put together about the budget. Now I sort of wish you were going, because I don’t think I’ll be familiar with this by tomorrow morning.”
“Do you think I am?” asked Emily. “You know the things to say. We can back it up later in a memo.”
“All right,” sighed Talia. “I don’t think I can read any more of this crystal tonight, anyway.
“Then g-give it to me,” said Emily, stepping carefully toward the viewer. “I have some updates for a few of those charts. I don’t think you’ll need to show them anything, but I’ll give it back to you before the meeting, just in c-case.”
She drew the crystal out of its slot and tucked it down her bra. “What we want is the research center. The rest is all smoke and m-mirrors.”
“Thanks,” said Talia. “I guess I had better get dressed now.”
Emily nodded and hobbled out the door. After it shut, Talia thoughtfully pulled off her gloves. It felt good to have her fingers free, and she used them to unzip her skirt and let it fall to the floor. She stretched her fingers and pushed back her hair as she moved languidly toward the shower.
Garibaldi was having a wonderful dream. He was in the shower, with the water cascading all over him. This obviously was not on Babylon 5, he decided, because the water on B5 mostly dribbled. Anyway, he was in the shower, cleansing himself, and he knew that when he stepped out, the four hundred telepaths from Psi Corps would all be gone. It would be just the usual two hundred and fifty thousand dregs of humanity and aliens. He could hardly wait!
He turned off the shower and jumped out, already dry. He liked this shower. And he strode through a dreamworld of laughing, cheerful people, raising glasses and toasting him for ending the horror of the Psi Corps conference. There was Londo, grinning in his snaggletoothed way.
“I got the tape on them!” claimed the Centauri, lifting his glass.
“Excellent,” replied Garibaldi with a big grin.
“Well done, Mr. Garibaldi,” said Captain Sheridan, patting him on the back. “You’re an asset to this station.”
“Asset,” muttered Garibaldi, thinking he had been insulted.
Then he saw Talia, who was dressed exactly as he was, which was not at all. “I’m taking a shower,” she remarked, but her naked body floated past.
He wanted to follow her, but more people were pulling him along, raising their glasses to him. Without warning, the security chief bumped into someone he wanted to see in real life, but not someone he wanted to see in a dream. It was Deuce, the grubby kingpin of Down Below.
“Aw, Garibaldi,” drawled Deuce, “you didn’t have to get rid of them. I would’ve done it for you.” He laughed and stepped back into the shadows.
Then it was Lennier, underfoot as usual. The peaceful Minbari held up a wad of cash. “We came to an understanding,” he explained.
Ivanova walked somberly beside him, deep in thought. “Could you love a telepath?” she asked. “Could you really love one of them?”
“I love Psi Corps!” he replied, which seemed to be the right answer. Everybody smiled at him.
And the last being at the end of the line was Kosh, the Vorlon ambassador. The mountain of marble and fabric moved directly into his path and cut off his escape.
“Where have all the Martians gone?” asked the Vorlon in his strange combination of musical notes and synthesized voice. Kosh peered at Garibaldi with a tubelike telescope that issued from his stomach, and added, “Long time passing.”
“They are all gone!” cried Captain Sheridan, raising his glass. “Here is to Mr. Garibaldi and his remarkable solution to the problem of Psi Corps.”
Since everyone else stopped to look at him and lift their glasses, Garibaldi did likewise. Only he wasn’t holding a glass—he was holding a block of wires with globs of dirty plastique. The detonator ticked menacingly!
Garibaldi gasped and tried to throw the bomb away. As it left his hands, it turned into a seering blast of white light and a monstrous KA-BOOM!
The last thing Garibaldi saw was Bester howling with laughter—then he mercifully woke up, clutching his blanket in his sweaty hands. Garibaldi’s link was blaring, and his personal computer seemed to be shrieking at him, too.
“Okay, okay!” he growled. “I’m up.”
“Twenty-hundred hours,” said the computer.
He tapped his link, and the captain’s voice sounded, “Garibaldi, this is Sheridan. Everything is under control, but I just wanted to make sure you didn’t oversleep.”
“No danger of that,” croaked Garibaldi, smacking his lips to get the weird taste out of his mouth.
Sheridan answered, “Glad to hear it. I’m at Blue-16 now and it’s already filling up. We’ve had some would-be gatecrashers, but the only outsiders we’ve invited are the ambassadors and their aides. So access has been fairly easy to control.”
Garibaldi didn’t like hearing the captain sound so nervous, especially after the dream he had just had. “Fifteen minutes,” he promised. “Thank you for the rest, Captain, I’m a new man.”
“We could use some new men,” said Sheridan glumly. “Excuse me, Mr. Bester has arrived.”
Talia Winters took a drink of her Centauri wine and smiled at Ambassador Delenn. The Minbari female looked as small and fragile as a porcelain doll, but Talia knew there was a tough, hard-nosed politician under that demure exterior. A member of the Grey Council and an early backer of Babylon 5, Delenn understood the importance of the station as few others did.
“My aide and Mr. Barker seem to have hit it off,” remarked Delenn, looking with satisfaction at Lennier and a stout military man. They were leaning into each other, involved in an animated conversation that excluded all others.
“Well, they should,” remarked Talia, “they both hate your warrior castes.”
Delenn’s smile faded only a little as she looked up at the taller women. “You don’t seem yourself tonight, Ms. Winters. Is there something on your mind?”
Talia pushed back a strand of yellow hair, which perfectly accented her black evening dress. Her white, shoulders gleamed like a spotlight above the black dйcolletage.
“You’re right,” she admitted. “I’m agonizing over a decision. In fact, it’s a whole bundle of decisions all wrapped up in one knot.”
Delenn cocked her head. “One should never make a decision hastily. Or alone. I am not much for mingling at parties, and I would be happy to give you my full attention.”
Talia swallowed. “All right, I’ve been offered a new assignment, probably on Earth, with a very big firm. They say they want me for my interspecies experience, but I got that experience working here. In other words, I’d like to take this opportunity, but I don’t want to leave B5. Does that make sense?”
“Perfect sense,” answered Delenn, taking a demure sip of her tea. “If this firm is who I think it is, there may be a solution. Why don’t you open up a branch office for them on B5? Then you can fall under their umbrella while staying with us.”
Talia chuckled, then grew somber. “I thought of that. Unfortunately, my physical presence is required for some aspects of this deal.”