“Me neither,” gulped Talia, raising her hands. She was instantly afraid she might be better off with aliens or Bester than this seedy character. She didn’t want to tick him off by scanning him, and she had a feeling he’d been scanned before and would know it.
She wanted to get a good look at the place where she might die, so she glanced around. To her surprise, she was in another, much larger cargo crate with alien lettering running all around the top. It reminded her of a Dumpster she used to play in as a kid. But there was a naked lightbulb and some sort of ventilation system supplying them oxygen.
“I’ve seen you somewhere,” said the man suspiciously.
She tried to smile. “Well, it’s obvious we frequent the same places.”
“Keep your hands up,” he snarled. He didn’t wave the weapon around like a maniac. In fact, he held it very steadily, as if it were an extension of his arm.
Talia looked around again, trying to see if there was any obvious way out of the Dumpster. There seemed to be a lid to the thing, and she could see what looked like a switch box amidst the alien lettering. But it didn’t look promising.
Conversationally, she remarked, “I think we have more in common than a lot of people who have just met.”
The man gave her a lopsided grin. “Well, maybe we do have some mutual friends. The question is—are you a plant put here to get me, or am I a plant put here to get you?”
He scratched his stubbly chin. “Since I know I’m up to no good, you must be a plant.” He lifted the weapon and aimed it at her breastbone.
“I’m running away!” she shouted. “I’m a fugitive!” She put her hands over her face in case he blasted her anyway.
But he lowered the weapon and smiled. “Yeah, now I remember—you’re B5’s resident telepath. They got you for the bombing!”
He howled with laughter, and she thought for a second about making a lunge for his weapon. She figured a second would be as long as she lived, if she didn’t make it.
He laughed so hard that he had to dab his eyes with his dirty sleeve. “I guess you’re in too much trouble to turn anybody in. My name is Deuce.”
“Deuce,” she breathed. “The one from Down Below?”
He bowed mockingly. “One and the same. I see my reputation precedes me even in the hallowed halls of Psi Corps.”
“I didn’t do that bombing,” she said, as if that made any difference to a man like him.
“I know,” he said, dabbing his eyes. “You were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“You know who did it?” she asked accusingly.
Deuce leveled the weapon at her again. “Lady, you were in the wrong place yesterday, and you’re still in the wrong place. Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.”
Talia was fairly certain that Deuce was going to kill her, just as soon as she stopped being amusing. But they weren’t alone—wherever they were. Somebody was piloting this ship, and somebody had made a deal with Kosh to take her and deliver her somewhere. She and Deuce were not in a vacuum.
Irrationally, Talia made a lunge for the switch box, trying to get out. Deuce leaped to his feet right behind her and knocked her down with a vicious punch to the shoulder.
“Stupid bitch!” he muttered. “Don’t you know what those signs say?”
Talia lay crumpled between the two crates, holding her throbbing shoulder. She just stared at him, waiting to see if he would kill her.
“I guess you don’t know,” he muttered, jerking his thumb at the strange letters. “This here is a methane-breathers’ ship. We’re in a self-contained cargo container with its own atmosphere. In this case, it’s set for oxygen. If you had opened that hatch, we’d be rolling on the floor, bug-eyed and suffocating, in about a minute.”
“I’m sorry,” said Talia, sitting up. “I’ve never been a fugitive before. I guess I’m not too good at it.”
Deuce shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he had gotten himself saddled with. He sat on the edge of a crate and just looked at her.
“Lady, the problem is, you can’t do nothin’ for me, and I can’t do nothin’ for you. You’re poison, all the way around.”
“That’s not true,” Talia insisted, shifting around to see him. “I won’t ask you any more about the bombing—I don’t care what you had to do with it. But I know you can get me a fake identicard and a new name, and some clothes. Maybe that’s why my friend put me here with you.”
Deuce rubbed the stubble under his chin. “Your friend must be awfully well connected to know my comings and goings. Yeah, I could arrange those things.” He smiled at her. “What could you do for me in return?”
Talia wiped her face with her forearm and tried to think. “Isn’t there something in your line of work that could use a telepath?”
The criminal leaned back and considered the offer. “There might be. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re poison. By now you have Psi Cops, Earthforce, regular cops, and all the school crossing—guards looking for you. I’m small potatoes compared to you.”
“Okay,” she promised, “I’ll leave whenever you say you want me to go.” She couldn’t believe she was making promises to a petty gangster, who had in some way arranged the bombing. What could she find out from him? She didn’t want to think what it would take to gain his confidence.
“I’m going to regret it if I don’t plug you now,” said Deuce with all sincerity.
“Commander?” said the communications officer at the command center. “A Mr. Gray wishes to speak to you. He says it’s the last time, and it will only take a moment.”
Ivanova looked down from her station with a sour expression. As there was nothing pressing her for perhaps the next thirty seconds, she picked up a headset and put it on.
“Patch him through,” she ordered.
“Is this Susan?” asked an uncertain voice.
“It is, Harriman. What do you want?”
“To say good-bye. I’m leaving on a transport for Earth in fifteen minutes with Mr. Garibaldi.”
“So I heard,” said Ivanova. “I don’t know whether to wish you luck or not. I don’t believe Talia Winters is guilty.”
Gray replied somberly, “Whether she is or not, it’s better we find her than Mr. Bester. This escape of hers doesn’t look good, but we all know there’s more to this affair than meets the eye. Garibaldi and I will get to the bottom of it. And, Susan …”
“Yes?”
“I’m determined to do something that will win you over.”
Ivanova finally smiled. “That I would like to see. Take care of yourself, and Garibaldi.”
“Thank you, Susan. Good-bye.”
Ivanova took off the headset and laid it on the console. Garibaldi and Gray were such an odd pair, she thought to herself, maybe they really would do something useful. The way it was going, they couldn’t mess things up much more than they already were.
“I’m sorry,” said a synthesized voice, “Ambassador Kosh is indisposed.”
“Well, you get him disposed right now!” growled Captain Sheridan.
“I’m sorry,” said the voice, “Ambassador Kosh is indisposed. Please contact the ambassador at a later time.”
Sheridan banged on the intercom outside the Alien Sector and cursed. Yelling at a computer voice wouldn’t really do much good, he told himself, and he had no desire to storm Kosh’s inner sanctum. Mainly, he had no desire to see the squidlike Vorlon warships come out of the jump gate and turn Babylon 5 into dust.
Everyone had warned him that Ambassador Kosh marched to his own drummer, but everyone had also said that contact with the advanced Vorlons was worth the occasional misunderstanding. However, in some of Kosh’s actions there was no misunderstanding, just a willful disregard for convention. Of course, being unconventional meant being alien, thought Sheridan, and there was no doubt that Ambassador Kosh was alien.