“I’ll be home by six tonight. Why don’t you meet me there? And don’t go asking anybody else. I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Great,” said Garibaldi, “we’ll buy you dinner.”
Looking very glum, Marlon signed off.
“Well done,” said the security chief, slapping Gray on the back. “You just have time to buy me lunch before we hop the rails to Washington. Let’s go.”
Talia Winters felt somebody toying with her hair, and she woke up with a start to find a teenage girl leaning over her. The girl jumped away.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “you have such beautiful hair. We’re not allowed to cut our hair short like that. I wish we could.”
Talia sat up, disoriented, and looked around the humble adobe hut, with the strange machine in one corner and the smells of cooking wafting from the other room. Once again she thought about how her life had taken on such a surreal quality that her dreams seemed normal by comparison. In her dream, she had been back on Babylon 5, conversing with tentacled aliens. Awake, she was a fugitive from the law, a rogue telepath, reduced to hiding out in the desert with a group of neo-primitives.
“My name is Rain,” said the girl, stroking her honey-blond hair over her naked shoulder.
Talia almost answered the girl in spoken words, saying she was Rain, too. But she didn’t have to say it. The girl laughed in a lilting voice.
“Yes, I know, you are Rain. When Brother Sky names the girls, they are almost always Rain. Some of the people place great significance in this, others say he is misogynistic, but I say he just doesn’t like to remember names.”
The teenager stroked her hair again, and her green eyes drilled into Talia’s. “I think we should call you by your real name. It suits you so much better.”
Talia almost cried out, but she forced her tongue back into her mouth as she stared into those vibrant green eyes.
“Winters,” said the girl. “Sister Winters is so perfect.”
The telepath fought back questions that tried to stampede out of her mouth. She shook her head vehemently, and the young Rain surprised her by nodding in sympathy.
“Yes, I know, you have to be Rain like all the rest of us. It’s not fair, when Winters is better for you. I’m sorry.” She shrugged and scrambled to her feet. As she dashed out the doorway, she whispered, “I’ll see you later.”
Talia tried to still her initial impulse to bolt from the pueblo and keep running. Where would she go? she asked herself. It’s not surprising for the Bilagaani to know her real identity, she reasoned. They weren’t as cut off out here as they seemed, not with that battery of antennae and dishes on the plateau. Lizard was out there now, stealing data off a secured link. It wasn’t panic time yet, Talia assured herself, although it wouldn’t take much to push her to it.
Young Rain had been so innocent about knowing her real name, and threatening at the same time. Talia couldn’t believe they were scheming to do her harm. Would an adolescent be allowed to blurt something like that out, if the tribe was planning to turn her in? The Bilagaani simply knew who she was, and they didn’t care if she knew it.
Hey, she reminded herself, these people were breaking serious laws themselves. They didn’t want Psi Cops around. By running, she had naturally fallen in with people like Deuce and this weird offshoot of the underground. These were the people who lived in the cracks in the sidewalk, who lived in places like B5’s Down Below. Like it or not, she was part of their world now, and she might visit more way stations in the underground before her journey was through.
If she didn’t clear her name, she would have to live in the cracks forever.
No! she told herself. She wasn’t going to let that happen. Talia wanted her real life back, and she resolved anew to keep her mouth shut, to keep to herself, and to keep moving. She wouldn’t admit to anything. But she desperately needed to dye her hair or get a wig to go along with her new identicard. Hell, she thought, these people had enough hair to make her a hundred wigs! She wondered if they could improvise a wig or a dye-job for Sister Winters.
Talia glanced at the mat where Deuce had been sleeping and wondered where he was. She wanted to know how soon they would be getting out of the pueblo, and by what method. She might opt to make her own travel arrangements if what Deuce had in mind was too dangerous. Of course, she thought glumly, she didn’t have any money. She could get Emily Crane’s business address at any public terminal, and then she would at least know her destination. She figured she could play it by ear after she confronted Emily Crane, but first things first—where was Deuce?
She got to her feet and shuffled out the doorway. Shielding her eyes from the intense sunlight, Talia peered into the courtyard formed by the crude semicircle of stacked adobes. The courtyard looked brown and dusty, like an old coin, and nobody was visible. Even the chickens and goats were sleeping under mat lean-tos. It was hot, but it was the kind of dry heat that didn’t leave her sweating so much as parched and enervated.
Talia sidled around the corner of Sky’s adobe and saw a ladder leaning on the wall and leading up to the next level. She heard some muted voices coming from above, so she decided to climb the ladder and try her luck. It was either that or sit around and go crazy, waiting for something terrible to happen.
The handmade wooden ladder creaked under her weight, but it was just the leather stretching; it never felt as if it was about to give way. She climbed up quickly to the next floor, which was the top of Sky’s roof, and saw several scattered wooden toys—crude wagons, blocks, and noisemakers. Through an open door, she saw three children asleep, as she had been until a few minutes ago. It was siesta time, she concluded, the hottest part of the day when anyone with any sense would be sleeping. It was amazing how cool the adobes stayed compared to the outside temperatures.
“We build the adobe walls with bales of hay in the center,” said Lizard.
She whirled around to see the handsome Bilagaani poking his head out of the low doorway of the neighboring adobe. His chestnut hair framed his face in sweaty ringlets.
“You were wondering how they stay so cool,” he explained. “Everyone wonders that. Come inside before you roast.”
Was Lizard a rogue telepath? wondered Talia. This would be the place for a rogue to hide out, she supposed, if there was such a place. She ducked into his cool adobe and was struck by a blast of air from a powerful fan; it blew her hair and clothes back and made her stagger. Lizard reached out a hand to pull her in.
“Keeps the dust out,” he explained, as he motioned around the cramped collection of electronic equipment, most of it in no order that she could discern. He went back to his desk and looked at one of his four viewers, this one filled with data.
“Can you be thirty-two years old?” he asked. “I don’t think you look that old, but this is the closest match. Height, weight, family background …”
She yanked at her blond hair, and he nodded.
“So you want to change your hair color, make it darker? I thought you might. Then I’ve got one that will match even closer. I’ll format that data, and we’ll run you a card on the machine downstairs. Now, listen, these identicards are good for maybe four uses, about a week of traveling, and by then”—he looked at the screen—“Frieda Nelson should be retired. You’ll have to become someone else, because the system will eventually realize that Frieda Nelson can’t be in two places at once.”
He crossed his brawny arms and stared at the screen. “She’s twenty-nine and hails from Eugene, Oregon. Remember, if you use it more than four times, you’re taking a chance.”
Talia nodded and tried to give him an encouraging smile. It was too bad that she couldn’t stay and chat with this exotic young man, but she had to get organized. She had to get out of here—she could feel something already closing in, even if it was just her paranoia. Talia held up two fingers and shrugged.