Uncle Ted whipped out a cardkey and got them into a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. Talia stopped to hold the door open for Garibaldi and Gray. When the two men tried to talk, she put her fingers to her lips and glared at them. The telepathic message she sent them wasn’t subtle either—it said they could follow or not, but they were not to stop her and Uncle Ted.
Garibaldi followed without question, and Gray looked around like he needed some encouragement. But with the others rushing away from him, he sprinted to catch up. The strange caravan of a dashing figure, a frightened woman, and two confused men swept through a sweltering kitchen where workers were baking doughnuts. The bakers glanced up from their work with minor interest, as if they were prepared for such intrusions.
After they rushed out another door, the group found themselves in a gray, unfinished corridor full of conduits and ducts for ventilation and life support. Uncle Ted suddenly pulled his PPG and pointed it squarely at Garibaldi.
“Honey, I wasn’t expecting you to have friends from Earthforce.”
Garibaldi just tried to ignore him. “Listen, Talia, we caught the real bombers—we all know you’re innocent.”
Talia scowled. “Oh, now you know! And I see what happens when you ‘catch’ someone—shot to pieces all over the sidewalk.” Self-consciously, she pulled on her gloves. Garibaldi’s eyes followed the action with fascination. She turned to Gray. “Are the Psi Cops still after me?”
“Yes,” admitted the telepath.
“Then I’m still running.”
“Please, we’ve got to talk,” begged Garibaldi. “Let us come with you!”
“Out of the question,” declared Uncle Ted.
“If you come with us,” said Talia, “you’ve got to swear that you won’t turn us in.”
“I swear,” he answered. “Besides, I know your Uncle Ted.”
The flamboyant man squinted at him. “From where?”
“Here. It was almost two years ago, and I arrested you for creating a public nuisance, remember? You were railing against the new emigration rule—good speech. I was supposed to rough you up, if you’ll remember, but I let you go with a warning.”
“Yes, yes! Thank you!” beamed Uncle Ted. Then he frowned. “Those were the days when I could still speak in public. So, are you with the movement?”
“Not exactly,” admitted Garibaldi. “But I’m not gonna let your niece out of my sight again. We have to talk somewhere about what to do next, and it might as well be at your place. Right, Gray?”
Mr. Gray looked stricken with fear at the thought of continuing with this dangerous group, but he didn’t say no. Uncle Ted motioned for them to follow, and he took off at a jog down the dimly lit corridor. Talia could hear nothing but a rush of air coming from the ducts overhead, plus their pounding footsteps, echoing between the narrow walls.
Uncle Ted stopped at a large hatch in the center of the floor and motioned to Garibaldi. “Help me with this.”
The security chief put his back into it, and the two men managed to twist the wheel enough to open the hatch. They threw back the cover, and Uncle Ted took a small flashlight out of his pocket. He turned it on and blinked the light three times into the hole. There was an answering beam of light that flashed three times across what looked like a river of coffee at the bottom of the conduit.
Talia leaned farther over the edge and peered down. She saw the flashlight beam sweeping eerily over the black water, and it was followed by the noses of three inflatable rafts gliding into view. The first raft had a young woman in it, and she was steering the other two rafts with her hands.
“With two people in each raft,” grumbled Uncle Ted, “we’ll probably all get wet. Don’t worry, it’s clean water. Or as clean as recycled water gets on Mars.”
A metal ladder descended from one side of the cavity, and Uncle Ted started down. The woman floating below carefully positioned an empty raft underneath him, and he dropped into it with hardly a splash. He motioned for Talia to come down, and she did so without question. What was her fear of caves and tunnels anymore, when hundreds of Psi Cops were chasing after her?
She wasn’t as adept at getting into the raft as Uncle Ted, and water came sloshing over the sides, coating the seat of her pants. Thankfully, it was warm water, almost the temperature of bathwater, although it did smell strongly of chemicals. Garibaldi came down next, and the young woman expertly guided the last empty raft underneath him. He alit in fine shape, only swamping it a bit. He grabbed a paddle and began to position the raft for Gray.
“You!” called Uncle Ted to Gray. “Shut the hatch before you come down. Don’t worry about getting it tight.”
Gray did as he was told, getting the hatch closed with no problem. He descended the ladder cautiously, doing everything right, but Garibaldi overshot him as he tried to position he raft. Gray landed half-on and half-off the inflated rubber, and he finally gave up and slid into the water when he realized how warm it was. He treaded water until Garibaldi extended the paddle to him and pulled him aboard, swamping the raft and getting both of them soaking wet.
“Earthlings,” muttered Uncle Ted.
The young woman laughed heartily and said, “You’re lucky. A lot of Martians don’t know how to swim.”
“Keep your voices down,” ordered Uncle Ted as he put his paddle in the water and angled the raft into the current.
With powerful strokes he took off, and the others followed, trembling flashlight beams leading the way. Soon the only noise in the darkness was the sound of paddles slipping through liquid and the steady drip of condensation over their heads.
After about an hour of steady paddling, it began to get extremely warm in the conduit, and the air was thin and dry. “Don’t worry,” Uncle Ted told the strangers. “We’ll get out of the aqueduct before all the air is gone.”
“That’s good to know,” said Garibaldi. “Does this aqueduct go outdoors?”
“Yes,” answered Ted. “It’s just a short stretch, and it’s well insulated. Or we’d be cooked. We’re getting out just before the turbines.”
“Was that a real bomb you set off?” asked Gray with disapproval in his voice.
“Not really,” answered Uncle Ted. “It was mainly sound and smoke, although I think we used one concussion cap. I’m not into violence anymore.”
“Uncle Ted,” said Talia, “I want you to know I’m innocent of that bombing on Babylon 5.”
“Of course you are, honey,” answered the charismatic figure with a toss of his leonine hair. “I’m innocent of sedition, or perdition, or whatever they’ve accused me of this week. But that doesn’t matter—they have to have their villains.”
He slapped his paddle on the water and said, “I plead guilty to wanting a Mars that is free from Earth’s government and their greed. What are they to us? Do they know us? Do they care about us? Or do they want only what they can take out of our soil and our sweat?”
Uncle Ted chuckled. “Stop me before I start making a speech. I’m a Jainist now, a follower of Gandhi, and I truly have disavowed violence Gandhi is sort of ancient history, and you young people probably don’t know who he was.”
“I do,” said Gray. “If you are really following the precepts of Mahatma Gandhi, I salute you. Many Martian revolutionaries do not.”
“Yes, I know,” muttered Ted. “But we can’t win by fighting Earthforce. We can only lose people and lose the moral high ground. What I do is organize nonviolent protests and tell my followers to resist passively. But it’s hard being passive, when people are trying to kill you.”