Voices - Vornholt John - Страница 9
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“I agree!” Talia replied. “We must leave this terrible place at once.”
Suddenly, there was a disgusting cracking sound, followed by howls of rage and joy, in equal measures. Talia averted her eyes from the sights on the other side of the room and found herself looking at Garibaldi. Even he was preferable. To her, Garibaldi looked more like a criminal than most of the criminals—crude, shifty, wolfish, a man who prowled instead of walked. On occasion he said something funny, but those occasions were not as numerous as he believed. She would have to be out of her mind to get too friendly with him, yet he obviously liked her. It was hard to hate a guy who drooled whenever he saw you.
The bedlam had died down to a roar, and she was able to hear him say, “This is not a terrible place for Down Below. This is a nice place. You see a fight, and they serve you some flavored antifreeze and take your money. What more do you want?”
Then he smiled and rubbed his chin. “Oh, I forgot, you folks can’t gamble.”
“Isn’t that a silly regulation?” asked Malten. “I don’t see any way we could determine the outcome of this primitive sport, so what would be the harm in betting on it?”
“It would be wrong,” said Emily simply.
Malten smiled. “Yes, I suppose so. But we don’t know anything about some of these species, do we? They could be far more telepathic than us, yet no one tells them they can’t gamble. I think it’s a ridiculous rule. Everybody knows who we are, and they can let us play at their own risk.”
Garibaldi frowned. “Can’t you be horsewhipped by Mr. Bester for saying stuff like that?”
The private telepath snorted a laugh. “I’ve been saying stuff like that for a long time, only nobody listens. I’ve worked for thirty years to have telepaths accepted as just another professional class, no different than doctors or pilots. Do you think I like to see Bester and his crowd ruining all my work?”
Talia shifted uncomfortably on the crate where she was sitting. She tried to change the subject. “These fistfights—they can’t possibly be legal.”
“No,” admitted Garibaldi. “We could shut this place down, but the fights would just spring up ten minutes later in a manufacturing bay, or a cargo bay. We haven’t got the manpower to patrol all of the station. Down Below was used a lot during the construction of the station. Then funds ran out, and it was left unfinished. People get stranded on B5, or kicked off the crew of their ship, or just dumped here, and there’s nowhere else for them to go.”
He shook his head in amazement. “I don’t understand this place either, but we’ve had social engineers through the station who say that Down Below is normal. If it hadn’t grown organically from poor planning, we would’ve had to invent it. If you have order, they say, you also have to have chaos.”
The chief looked meaningfully at Talia. “Does that make sense to you?”
“I think chaos can be avoided,” she replied.
“It makes sense to me,” said Malten. “I want to see more.”
Garibaldi led them into a grungy corridor and sniffed the air. “If I’m not mistaken, down this way we have people sifting through garbage. I don’t know how they reroute it down here, but they do.”
Emily crinkled her nose. “P-people steal garbage?”
“Yes,” said Garibaldi with a reassuring smile. “But they don’t keep all of it, just the good stuff.”
“I think we can pass on that,” said Mr. Malten. “What’s down this corridor?”
“A shanty camp. Do you want to see it?”
“Yes,” answered Malten forcefully.
Talia hung back, but she couldn’t hang back too far as Garibaldi led them briskly through a scene of both despair and amazement. Aliens of every description—with jutting jaws, fins, segmented limbs, hairy pelts, or compound eyes—commingled with humans. Adults, children, old people, the dying—they all had a haunted look on their faces as they stared at the visitors. The shanties had been cobbled together from old crates, stolen panels, sheet metal, shelves, and whatever else might stand up.
“We give them fresh oxygen,” said Garibaldi. “That’s about all they get from us, although the Minbari run a soup kitchen. We can go there next.”
Talia couldn’t decide which was worse, the sense of despair or the smell of the place. To her surprise, the voices she heard in her head were not demanding, begging, or insistent. Some were resigned and helpless, others were angry at their plight and their well-dressed visitors, and a few were clearly insane. It was a mixture, like any bunch of people, and she knew that some of these unfortunates would scrape their way out of here. Others would sink even deeper until there wasn’t a trace of them left.
A thuglike woman stepped in front of Mr. Malten and glared at the telepath. “Hey, buddy, got some chewing gum?”
“No,” said Malten, taken aback.
She sneered, “You want to buy some?”
“Beat it, Martha,” growled Garibaldi. “You know that chewing gum is illegal on the station.”
He hurried his party along.
“Top quality!” the woman called after them. “Real sugar!”
“I doubt that,” said Talia.
Emily Crane shuffled along beside her, holding a handkerchief over her nose. “I’d like to leave now,” she sniffed.
“So would I,” agreed Talia. “We’re not going to let the attendees run loose down here, that’s for sure.
“All the more reason to see as much as we can,” said Malten. “One or two more stops, please.”
“It’s your play,” said Garibaldi. He halted in front of a long tunnel that was rather badly lit. “This way is a shortcut to that Minbari soup kitchen.”
Talia looked doubtfully at him. “A dark, deserted tunnel?”
“It’s not deserted,” said Garibaldi. “I see someone moving around down there. And I can’t help it if people keep stealing the light fixtures.”
Talia peered into the gloom. There did seem to be vague shapes moving through the passageway. She wished she hadn’t asked Garibaldi for this VIP tour, but now she had to trust his instincts.
“Come on,” said Malten, stepping into the entrance. “There are four of us, Mr. Garibaldi is armed, and we can always protect ourselves telepathically.”
“Only against humans,” Talia added.
The foursome started moving down the tunnel, and Garibaldi and Malten had to stoop where smaller ducts crossed overhead. The ducts were seeping a foul-smelling liquid, and Talia dashed under each one. She stumbled, and her hands brushed against the sticky walls. For once she was glad to be wearing gloves for a reason other than to avoid skin contact. When Talia found herself shoving Emily Crane in the back to hurry her along, she told herself to calm down. They were still on Babylon 5, her home base, just in an unfamiliar part of it.
However, Garibaldi’s talk about chaos had made her nervous. She didn’t like the idea of chaos, and she suspected Mr. Malten wouldn’t like it either, if he were actually confronted by it. This was precisely why the control offered by Psi Corps was so important. It could make order out of chaos. She hoped.
Talia noticed that the vague figures at the other end of the tunnel were not at the other end anymore. And they weren’t vague anymore. They were three large, hooded figures, and they were rapidly walking toward the party of genteel telepaths and one security officer. There would be a confrontation, Talia could feel it. For one thing, they barely had room to squeeze past each other in the confines of the tunnel.
She didn’t want to pry into their minds, but she had to know what the three strangers were thinking as they strode briskly toward them. She could see them clearly now, even in the dim light, and she tried to hear their voices.
Talia gasped. Their minds were cold and alien! They were not human!
“I know,” said Malten, hearing the alarm that was sounding in Talia’s head.
“Just pay them no mind,” Garibaldi suggested, although he didn’t sound like his usual, cocky self. Talia noticed that his hand was resting on his PPG weapon.
The security chief quickened his step to get out in front of the others. He waved jauntily as the first hooded figure drew abreast of him. “Top of the mornin’!” he called.
The alien never stopped moving as he slammed his shoulder into Garibaldi and crushed him into the bulkhead. A huge knife flashed under the dark robes, and Emily screamed.
The other hooded thugs rushed toward the telepaths, knives gleaming in their gloved hands!
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