by Joshua Colson
Prologue: 2254 (Six Years Ago)
Lisa Collins leaned back against the outside wall of the apartment complex, so exhausted she was hardly able to keep her feet. The old fashioned bricks that decorated the building dug into her back, and a strong wind was blowing. Although the fierce rain had died down, she was soaking wet and shivering in the unseasonably cold Boston night. Collins was breathing heavily, but surviving the ambush had been far more taxing mentally than physically: even for a highly trained, P12 rated telepath the numbers game had caught up with her. Using her talent to misdirect the mundanes' fire and attack the two rogues had left her too weak for even one more telepathic altercation. And though she had thought the last bullet had only grazed her left arm, with the rush of adrenaline wearing off she realized it hurt like hell, and she could barely lift it.
Her firearm raised in her right hand, Collins edged toward the nearby alleyway and peered into it, praying she would find no more assailants. She immediately recognized the shape of her mentor's mind, but it was so weak she was sure he was dying. Please no, not him too.
Lisa rushed over to the figure crouching in the darkness, unable to hear him in her mind. "Sir, can you hear me?" she whispered.
The psi cop looked up and groaned softly. "Sleepers..." He had been robbed of his telepathy by the drugged dart protruding from his arm. In the dim light bleeding into the alley from the street, Collins also noticed a crippling PPG burn on his leg. He seemed about to pass out.
"Hang on. I think all the rogues are down, but at least one of the mundanes got away."
"Passed through alley, didn't see me," the downed officer told her between difficult breaths. "Mathews?"
Collins could not bear to express it in words, even in her mind. She managed to send the glyphs of ambush to his mind despite his dulled senses.
(confusion)
(fear)
(pain)
(her body lying in the rain)
Revisiting the images of the recent carnage almost reduced Lisa to tears. Samantha had been her only real friend as long as she could remember.
"Go on... don't let him get away." He managed to look up, and she saw her own growing anger reflected in his eyes. She took off down the alley as fast as she dared.
It was nearly twenty minutes later, after the Bloodhound unit had finally arrived and joined the search, when Collins burst into the apartment containing the escaped mundane and two remaining blips. The blips, neither of them strong enough telepathically to be a threat, sat huddled fearfully in a corner of the living room, unarmed. The mundane, his face slightly burned from having been foolish enough to fire a PPG in the pouring rain, took aim at Collins from behind the dubious cover of a sofa. Somewhat recovered from her earlier exhaustion, she paralyzed him with a quick mental assault, and forced him to drop the weapon from his hand.
Pain. The mundane doubled over in agony and screamed. She ripped from his mind memories of the ambush, and realized he had been the one who had fired the shot that killed Sam. Collins walked over to the man as he tried to regain his feet. She shoved him against the nearby wall. "You son of a bitch! I'll kill you." She let him drop to the ground as the Bloodhounds entered and moved to secure the prisoners.
2260
Ta'Wher had suggested they stop for a bite to eat as they passed through Harvard Square. The small deli they found there was busy, with all the tables inside and many of those outside occupied. However, the weather was unusually pleasant for this season. Ta'Wher also enjoyed the bustle of humanity among the round tables, as well as the look of the small trees that dotted the brick sidewalk circumscribing the establishment. The crowd itself was not a problem for a Narn warrior with a large sword on his back; he was given wide berth.
Delighted to find Swedish meatballs were on the menu, he chose them for himself. Lisa, who seemed most uninterested in food, had said only, "surprise me." Ta'Wher purchased a curiously named "corned beef" sandwich for her and exited the deli. He quickly located his friend and sat down next to her.
As always, Lisa Collins was dressed all in black, the depressing ensemble of the psi cop. The ever present gloves and the little Psi Corps pin rounded out her forbidding appearance. She brushed back a strand from her medium length hair, which was fortunately also black, or else it might have ruined the grim atmosphere she presented. Even her pale skin seemed an absence of color. Like all humans she had that disturbingly mammalian quality Ta'Wher found so alien.
"Ms. Collins, your food has arrived," Ta'Wher announced with mock formality as he began his own meal. Of course she failed to notice and kept staring at her data pad, frowning.
"I really hope my next assignment involves something out in the suburbs," she said. "Do you have any idea what a pain in the ass it is to block out these large crowds?"
"Yes, I do, you complain about it at every opportunity. Please, eat."
Lisa finally noticed her sandwich, and put down her data pad. She rubbed her fingers at the bridge of her nose and sighed.
"You really should try to get more sleep," Ta'Wher said. "You've become rather cranky."
"Sleep... I spent most of last night wide awake, trying not to reach the only conclusion I could reach. You know what we're dealing with, too." It was not a question.
"Unfortunately, yes." Ta'Wher finally lost his jovial demeanor.
The psi cop lowered her voice slightly to be sure she would not be overheard. "The city's Chief of Police in her own home. The Corps won't let the media get a hold of the cause of death when she finally does die, but we know her memory was wiped out and she won't recover from the coma. It's just like three years ago, right down to finding the drifters in the harbor before the high profile murders start."
Ta'Wher looked down at his food and pushed it aside, suddenly feeling the meal had lost its flavor. Lisa's gloved hand crossed the table and brushed over his hand. "I can't imagine what sort of feelings this brings up for you. Other than the Corps I've never had a family. What you lost..."
"It's all right. I know the Mindblanker case was no circus for you either."
"Picnic."
"What?"
"'Was no picnic.' Never mind. What's important here is that we keep a lid on this thing. Having word get out about copycat killings that mirror the Mindblanker would be a huge embarrassment for Psi Corps."
"Yes, I recall the trial was a media picnic."
"Circus. Media circus."
"Bah. Learn to speak Narn so I don't have to put up with this!" Ta'Wher kept his face serious for a moment, but finally could not resist laughing. He was rewarded with an all too rare smile from his friend. "Hopefully we can stop this fiend before he strikes again. Let's find that trainee of yours and 'roll.'" Ta'Wher tapped her hand lightly and then stood.
"Kevin Tang is interning in Level 12 Investigations, so don't call him a 'trainee.' Most jobs where you're a trainee involve paper hats and questions about French fries."
"I happen to think you psi cops would look an awful lot more friendly in paper hats. As long as they're not black paper hats."
"What's wrong with black?" Lisa stood and raised her arms slightly. "Black is slimming, see? You'd look good in black," she joked.
"By G'Quan! Let's just find Mr. Tang and get on with all this."
"I've got him helping with the crime scene analysis at the New York lab. We should be able to catch up with him at the Meta Pol station in a couple hours."
"In that case, we may as well walk. And you might as well finish your sandwich. You'll waste away if you keep picking at your food like that."
"Nag, nag, nag." She picked up her sandwich. "After you."
Even after nearly three years at the Boston Meta Pol station Ta'Wher still drew suspicious glances, Lisa Collins reflected bitterly. If she had not made such a name for herself cracking open the Mindblanker case and with subsequent work, his presence would likely not have been allowed at all. As it was he was left out of all briefings there, forcing her to surreptitiously fill him in after the fact.
Ta'Wher sat smiling on the waiting room couch. He always took a perverse pleasure in being where he was not wanted. He greeted every telepath who walked by, even though he knew they would not acknowledge his presence. Mostly Ta'Wher watched the screen on the wall, as the Senate hearings on the allegations against President Clark droned ever onward.
Lisa paced impatiently in front of the main desk. The officer on duty looked up at her again. Care to take your pet Narn elsewhere, Ma'am? he 'cast to her. You're both driving me nuts.
I'll be gone as soon Mr. Tang arrives, she sent back. I thought the shuttle from New York was supposed to have arrived thirty minutes ago!
Yup... Must be runnin' late today. He returned to looking at the dispatch screen.
Collins had already talked about the case with her superiors, reexamined all the information herself, and the only thing she was sure of was that if Kevin came up with nothing she was back to square one.
Finally, Kevin Tang arrived. As he rushed in to meet Lisa Ta'Wher stood and followed him over.
"Anything to report?" she asked her intern.
"Sorry, Ma'am. We've got nothing to go on. Whoever he is, he's just as careful as- as the original." Tang avoided saying the actual name of the old case because he thought Ta'Wher was not allowed to know. Ta'Wher widened his eyes as if in surprise that he had been allowed to listen at all, then he wandered back to his couch to leave the "real" cops to their work.
Even Kevin thought Ta'Wher was just hired muscle, and Lisa was not about to let anyone in the Corps know she considered a mundane and an alien to be her partner. Buddy comedy movies aside, that sort of thing was unheard of, and Collins already had a reputation for being a bit too eccentric. If anyone found out she trusted Ta'Wher with sensitive information, she was likely to wind up in a ditch with a PPG burn on her back.
"Well then I guess we're-" Lisa started to say.
"Damn!" the dispatcher yelled. He switched to 'casting. Ma'am, the normals' law enforcement just reported finding a comatose mundane with no discernable injuries in-
He was so anxious that a picture of the building rather than the address itself appeared in her mind. That's less than two blocks from here! Lisa 'cast. Key card.
The dispatcher handed her a card to one of the hovercraft in the garage. Tell the mundanes to get the hell out of there now, she 'cast to him. Tell them we've got jurisdiction. And see if someone can't find the officer who reported in and blur his memory a bit. Make him think he hit his head or something. It may help with the cover-up later.
Yes, ma'am!
Kevin was already sprinting for the garage. "All right," Collins said out loud for Ta'Wher's benefit, "let's go." The Narn rushed to follow her out.
From the state the victim had been found in, it was possible the perp had attacked as little as five minutes before the mundane police officer had found her. However, it was more than enough time to flee the scene of the crime, so Collins had directed most of the Bloodhounds and her fellow psi cops to search the surrounding area. With Tang and Ta'Wher, she began a search of darkened warehouse where the crime had taken place, leaving a few of the Bloodhound officers guarding key points to prevent the killer from evading them and escaping if he was still in the building.
With the basement and the ground floor secure, they had moved on to the maze of catwalks and lifting equipment near the ceiling. Unfortunately, it had turned out to be the only way to reach the stairs to the roof. Kevin paused as they were crossing toward the door to the stairwell. Lisa noticed with dismay that there was no cover at all where they were standing, and that the door ahead was ajar.
What is it? She sent urgently.
I'm not sure. For a second I thought I got a sense of someone nearby.
Damn. Collins strained her senses to look for something ahead, but without a line of sight into the stairwell there was no way of knowing for sure-
Lisa had barely registered the arm reaching out through the doorway when the PPG in its hand opened fire. The bursts narrowly missed her head, but she felt Kevin's mind wink out instantly, accompanied by confusion and fear from Ta'Wher.
Collins dropped to her stomach and aimed her firearm, but the assailant had disappeared and ceased firing. She heard a thud not too far below, which she took as Kevin's body landing on another catwalk. The way his mind had disappeared from her so quickly, she was sure he had been killed instantly. She still had a sense of Ta'Wher, but he seemed close to panic, which was unusual considering how steady he had always been under fire.
Ta'Wher? She touched his mind trying to sense what was wrong. Normally a panicked mundane would leak his thoughts all over the place, but Ta'Wher had always been unusually difficult to get a read on.
Finally she picked up his surface thoughts. He had been blinded, and was apparently scared that saying so out loud would make him an easier target. At least he had had the presence of mind to stay down and not move.
Keeping her gun aimed at the doorway, Lisa called in to dispatch for reinforcements as quietly as she could. Then in her mind she focused more closely on Ta'Wher, to try to find out how he had lost his vision. In his disoriented state he could not help but to try to fight her off.
"Ta'Wher," she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear a meter away. "I need to you to relax so I can fix what's wrong."
His mind calmed and Lisa took a look inside. She found the mental blocks that stopped his brain from receiving any input from the optic nerves. It was frightening to her that such an effective block had been put up so fast; on a mind as disciplined as Ta'Wher's, even a strong P12 should not have been able to accomplish such a feat. It also begged the question of why such a powerful teep had not just killed Ta'Wher by shredding his mind outright, but she filed that concern away for later.
It only took a few moments to restore Ta'Wher's vision. Together they moved toward the doorway as quietly as possible, finally taking positions at either side of it. Lisa did not even bother to suggest that she go through first, because Ta'Wher was always adamant that he take the greater risks in these sorts of situations.
The Narn drew his sword and jumped through the doorway. Collins followed shortly behind him, her gun raised and her telepathic senses straining to their maximum. They found nothing but the short stairway ending in the door to the roof. Lisa took a brief moment to give the dispatcher a more detailed report of her situation.
Shortly after they made a similar exit from the building and onto the roof, three of the Bloodhounds joined them. Collins glyphed to them the situation and pictured which way they should spread out. A short time later the team had covered the entire roof and found nothing.
Lisa finally broke the silence when the five of them had reassembled by the entrance to building, obviously alone on the roof. "Well, did he climb down then? Why didn't anyone on the perimeter see anything? He didn't just fly away!"
Dispatch called in, and Collins learned that several other psi cops had arrived and searched the catwalks, but were unable to locate Mr. Tang's body there or anywhere in the building.
"That's impossible." Lisa returned to the scene of the firefight, but could not see any evidence of what had happened, aside from a few PPG burns on the far wall. "What's happening here?"
"Could the killer have taken the body?" Ta'Wher asked quietly behind her. Lisa was stunned by the possibility. Could someone have not only evaded a full scale search by highly trained telepaths, but also done so with a body in tow? To do such a thing would require a mind of frightening strength, capable of breaking the defenses and altering the memories of highly trained Bloodhounds.
"I want every centimeter of the building looked over with a fine-toothed comb," she told the Bloodhounds who had followed her onto the catwalk. "There's got to be something we're missing." However, Lisa had a sinking feeling that the search would turn up nothing. And she felt a certainty that things would get a whole lot worse before they got better, if they got better at all.
Lisa Collins pushed through the crowd, and the mundanes parted quickly upon recognizing her black uniform. Ta'Wher followed closely behind her. The entire concourse was filled with curious travelers, murmuring quietly among themselves. Logan Spaceport, Collins reflected, was about the worst place for the next killing to have taken place. It would be impossible to stop the media from getting wind of the nature of a murder in such a public place.
It had been four days since Kevin had been killed, and the body still had not been found. Losing her charge hurt badly, although on a case like this it was easy to forget her feelings and get lost in the work. And while her overpaid, Psi Corps supplied therapist told her she kept other people at too great a distance, the fact that she had never gotten to know Kevin Tang well at a personal level made coping a bit easier than it might have been. Still, she could hardly believe how badly she had failed the eager young intern.
The body of the newest victim had been found in a terminal which had been closed for renovations. The mundane officers guarding the doors to the terminal parted for her, while Ta'Wher took a seat nearby. Getting the Narn past the officers would have been a pain, and Ta'Wher would not have been allowed to see or hear anything of import anyway.
The victim, a young girl, was being placed on a gurney by two of the Corps' medical personnel. No mundanes had been allowed on the scene after the responding psi cops had arrived, but the girl's parents were waiting outside the terminal. Lisa noticed with dismay the approach of the Meta Pol station's public relations expert, Karl Holdsworth.
Hey there, sexy. Insofar as it was possible to 'cast with a disgusting leer, Karl did so. It's been too long since I've seen you. Just in case what he had 'cast was not inappropriate enough, this was followed by an obscene glyph of the two of them engaged in a sex act Lisa would not consent to if the fate of the entire Earth Alliance was at stake.
This sort of crap had been going on for months without end. When her first and only complaint of sexual harassment had returned to her in a roundabout fashion as an unwarranted reprimand on her record, Lisa had dug around a bit and found out Holdsworth was an old friend of the Assistant Director of the Psi Corps. Since then she had in every way possible made it clear he was not getting into her pants, but this "playing hard to get," as Holdsworth saw it, seemed only to encourage him.
One possible solution was to pretend to acquiesce, and when she had him alone tear apart his puny P4 mind and reconstruct it with a new personality. This probably would not be worth the risk of getting locked away for good if she were caught, though. She could request a transfer, but then she had spent her entire professional career in Boston. This was where most of her contacts and resources were, and leaving just to avoid one unpleasant man seemed like overkill.
The biggest problem was that Ta'Wher had some idea of what was going on, and would therefore very much enjoy decapitating this pervert. The Narn was overprotective. As much as Karl's death would improve the state of the universe, it would not be worth losing her only friend when the Corps avenged the death of one of their own.
There's a dead body of a little girl in this room, Lisa sent back angrily. Don't you have any respect?
Yeesh. She was just a mundane. Karl rolled his eyes. What's eating you?
Lisa tried to get the conversation on track by speaking aloud instead. "What kind of spin are you going to try to put on this with the media? We can't afford another 'Boston Mindblanker' uproar, especially with the government as unstable as it is right now."
"Let me tell you, it's some kind of fraggin' miracle. The victim had some kind of rare neurological disorder. Her parents think she got lost and then had a seizure. As long as our people handle the autopsy, we've got it made."
Collins was so relieved she almost forgot for a moment how much she hated the man in front of her. "Oh, wow. That's great." Although after she said it, it occurred to her that having the serial killer she was hunting get away with yet another slaying was a bit less than "great."
"Well, you better solve this thing soon, or all my work keeping this under wraps will be for nothing."
"Yeah, my heart's breaking for you, Karl." She glyphed to Holdsworth her own personal fantasy, one involving a rusted razor blade and his genitalia, and pushed it on his mind a bit harder than necessary. Lisa turned away as Karl flinched from the phantom pain. After conferring briefly with the medical team, she headed back toward the exit to the terminal.
Ta'Wher rose from his seat as she approached. "I know that scowl," he told her. "Either you are considering murdering someone, or Mr. Holdsworth was in that room."
"Couldn't it be both? Come on, let's go for a walk." As they made their way through the crowds, Collins filled in Ta'Wher on what she had just learned.
"I would say we are operating on borrowed time at this point," Ta'Wher told her. "If the killer is bold enough to strike in public places, even your Psi Corps will not be able to keep such a secret."
"I don't know if he's quite that bold. It's likely the victim was alone in the terminal. The murder could have just been an attack of opportunity."
"Then we have to ask ourselves the question, what was he doing in the spaceport if not to find his next target?"
Lisa frowned. "If he's decided Boston is getting a bit too hot, he could be anywhere by now. Logan has shuttles going all over the planet, and transports going through half of Earth Alliance territory to boot."
"I have even more bad news for you," the Narn told her, and pointed. A man seated nearby was reading a tabloid paper. The headline screamed in giant print: "New Boston Mindfragger Terrorizes the Hub!!!!!!" 'Mindfragger' had been the tabloids' name for the Mindblanker. "Fortunately, that headline only used six exclamation points," Ta'Wher told her, "When they reach nine we could be in trouble."
"If we're not in trouble yet, I'd hate to see what trouble looks like." Lisa thought for a moment. "Let's make some inquiries in the terminals around where the victim was found. It's a long shot, seeing as how our guy can wipe the memory of any normal he talks to, but I can't think of anything better to do."
Their first several inquiries at the ticket counters did not turn up anything. Not wanting to draw any more attention to the commotion around the closed terminal, Collins claimed she was looking for a dust smuggler when the mundanes wanted to know what was going on.
Finally, she hit pay dirt. "Ya know, that reminds me of the damnedest thing that happened a couple hours ago." This particular baggage handler had been rambling on for quite a while since Lisa had stopped him, eventually just devolving into gossip about his coworkers. She had to wonder if he was part of the reason Logan had been famous for travel delays in recent years. "I was back to the check-in to tell Eddie I want to go on break, and then I notice Eddie is just standing there while the customers are waiting, so I says to him, 'Workin' hard, or hardly working?'
The baggage handler laughed, or rather snorted at this witticism. "But then Eddie doesn't even answer me, even though he starts movin' again a few seconds later. It was like he was totally out of it for a second." The man leaned in closer to her. "Between you and me, I think he's got some kinda wicked dust habit. Screws up the brain, ya know?
"Then he tells me to carry some suitcase to one of the transports even though it's leaving in like five minutes! That was totally against policy, I mean ya gotta check your bags at least fifteen minutes before."
Lisa knew that the fugue state the baggage handler had just described could have been caused by a short term memory wipe. "The bags you took after you saw Eddie was acting funny, do you remember where you took them?"
"Uh, yeah, it was going to that, uh, what the hell's that place? It's right on the tip of my tongue."
Just after she had scanned him to figure out what he was trying to say, Ta'Wher said to her, "It occurred to me. What is the one place in the universe where a human will easily blend in and be able to hide, and yet the Psi Corps rarely exerts authority?" He pointed to a sign over one of departure gates.
Before she even turned to look at the sign, she knew it would say the same place she had just seen in the baggage handler's mind. "Oh, wait," the man said finally, "I got it... Babylon 5."
"Ah, Ms. Collins. It's good to see you again. It's been far too long."
Lisa took a brief glance at the screen where she had expected the traffic controller to appear again. "Mr. Bester, I was wondering if you were going to try to get in touch with me." Once she had confirmed that the ship was on course for the jump gate, she turned away from the controls and faced psi cop on her the screen. "You usually handle the problems that crop up at Babylon 5, after all."
"Yes, unfortunately I'm otherwise engaged. And the bearer of bad news, I'm afraid. Our ship holding in hyperspace has not found your wayward transport. Either it's been substantially delayed, or it hasn't followed its registered flight plan."
"I wish I'd followed my first instinct and gone after him right away, instead of expecting he'd be caught the easy way. I'll bet the blip managed to influence the flight crew somehow. And if he guessed we'd be looking for him so soon, then the last killing at the spaceport might have been a deliberate attempt to let us know where he was going. I still can't understand why, though."
Alfred Bester's image frowned slightly. "Yes, this is quite an enigma you've stumbled onto. There hasn't been a P12 who has disappeared or gone rogue lately, and yet only a P12 could possibly have managed to do all the things described in your reports."
"Maybe the new killer came from the exact same place the old one did?" Lisa asked angrily. She immediately regretted letting the accusation slip.
"My dear, you wound me." Bester managed to sound almost lighthearted, but Collins knew she was on dangerous ground. "Why do you think I'd withhold information like that from you? Is there a reason I shouldn't trust you?"
"I should hope not." Although that was exactly the problem. "My point was that you didn't even find out where the original came from until well after the fact," she improvised.
"And why would you blame me for that? Everyone involved in that little black project was killed when their test subject escaped. Hence no one left to warn the rest of us when he went on a homicidal rampage. Even I'm not omniscient." Bester smiled disarmingly.
"I'm sorry. I suppose I've been a little upset lately."
"Of course. I read about the death of... Mr. Tang, was it? My condolences. I hate to see one of our own turn against the family like that.
"At any rate, Lisa... you don't mind if I call you Lisa?" Collins nodded slightly. "I can assure you that your new blip does not share the same origin as the original Mindblanker. That project was discontinued. Not that I wouldn't have wanted to continue it. After all, turning a P7 into at least a P12 is more than worth looking into, even if it did drive the subject mad. However, when the facility was destroyed everything was lost. There was not enough information left to even figure out what they were doing, let alone how they did it.
"Far more likely this rogue of yours somehow managed to erase his name from the records, although even that would be quite a trick. As for why he's copying the Mindblanker... Well, one hardly needs a reason to hate mundanes, wouldn't you say?"
Lisa forced a polite laugh. "You're right, of course. I didn't mean to get angry with you, I was just afraid I'd been left out of the loop again. No one ever tells me about all the crazy black projects going on," she said lightly.
Bester became a bit more somber. "In all seriousness, Lisa, there is a reason for that. I know you haven't seen much of me since we first met, but you seemed very promising back then, and I have been keeping tabs on you."
"'Seemed' very promising? Has there been something wrong with my performance?"
"Not at all. You've been a great service to the Corps. In fact, you've done so well for yourself that you should have much more influence than you do. Unfortunately, you don't seem to be very... politically astute. You tend to tread on the wrong toes, and of course there's that Narn that follows you around. You should be more concerned about getting along with the family, Lisa."
"The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father." Collins confirmed.
"Exactly. Next to that, can you really trust an outsider?"
"No, I don't trust him any further than I trust any mundane. He has proven himself very useful though."
"Well, that may be true, but appearances are important. You're still young, Lisa, and I'd like to see you grow to your full potential. When everyone feels... more confident that you're putting the Corps first, you'll find new opportunities waiting."
"Thanks for your concern, Mr. Bester."
"Please, call me Al. And I'm glad we had this talk. I take it you've looked at the report on my last trip to the station?"
"Yes. I must admit I'm a bit taken aback by how little they trust us. How did the command staff expect you to be able to help them after they forced you to take sleepers?"
"They were too shortsighted to want my help, or care that I would have been more effective with my abilities intact. In fact, I'm a bit worried that your trip to Babylon 5 will be a waste of time. We can't give you any official backing given the nature of your investigation, and I doubt they'll just let you aboard of their own free will."
"I imagine they'll change their tune when mundanes start dropping like flies aboard their station."
"Perhaps. It could be your quarry is not even heading for Babylon 5. If he influenced the course of the transport he could have taken it elsewhere."
"I consider that unlikely. Showing up where you're not supposed to be is a bit more conspicuous than just showing up where you're expected a few hours late. You'll contact me if the transport is sighted at Babylon 5?"
"Yes. And I'll call ahead to tell them you are coming. I'm sure they'll be even less friendly if you drop in unannounced."
"Thank you."
Bester nodded, and then his image disappeared. A few moments later, Ta'Wher entered the room and sat down in the copilot's chair. Together they watched as their ship reached the gate and entered hyperspace.
"Well, it's good to know I'm trusted 'as far as any mundane.'" The Narn grinned mischievously.
Lisa chuckled slightly. "Well, you know, got to talk the talk." She raised her hand and made a motion of a speaking mouth. "I can't even imagine what kind of trouble I'd be in if Bester knew I let you listen in on our conversation."
"Indeed." Ta'Wher looked down toward the floor. "Are you aware there is a small, glowing device attached to the bottom of this console?"
"I was wondering how long it would take you to notice that. A little something I managed to pick up that blocks just about any form of electronic surveillance. I'm sure if Mr. Bester knew about it, it would improve his opinion of how much influence I have."
"Somehow I doubt he would be pleased to know you had such resources. In fact I'd characterize your conversation as a bit adversarial."
"It's just more confirmation that I've become a bit too different for my own good."
Ta'Wher looked again at the device. "Is it on because this room is bugged?"
"No, at least not that I could find, and I'm pretty sure I know about the sorts of bugs we put on our own ships. But we're going to have to start being a bit more cautious. Having someone like Alfred Bester uncertain about my loyalty to the Corps can be a very dangerous thing."
"And how is your loyalty to the Corps these days?" Ta'Wher asked. "You've been increasingly troubled about something lately, even beyond our investigation. Are you having doubts about what you do as a psi cop?"
"Yes... no... ah, hell." Lisa crossed her arms, then leaned back into her chair and looked briefly at the ceiling of the cabin. "I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. I mean, I agree with the Corps that rogues have to be brought in. Telepaths are too dangerous to the normal population to have us acting unrestricted. I agree that mundanes need to be protected from us, we need to protect ourselves from them, and the Psi Corps is the best way to do it..."
"And?" Ta'Wher asked expectantly. As much as it was good to have someone to talk to, sometimes Lisa wished the Narn would stop forcing her to think about things she would rather not think about.
"I guess I even agree that sometimes the rules have to bend a little to do all that. But... some of what we do is just too much. I mean, even mundanes are people, but we treat them like animals." She grinned sheepishly. "Um, no offense."
"None taken. The Centauri have been calling Narns animals for years, so we're quite used to it." He said this rather stiffly. When Ta'Wher talked about the Centauri, it was either with his emotions carefully hidden, or when he was fully enraged.
"Well, it's all completely moot. It's not like I have any choice in what I do for a living."
"There are always other choices one can make."
Lisa made a skeptical grunt. "Go rogue. Yeah, that'll be the day," she said sarcastically. "Or go on the sleepers and lose everything that makes me what I am."
"You are much more than a bag of telepathic tricks."
"That's all that anyone seems to care about. Except you, of course." Collins paused for a moment. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Certainly."
"Why are you still following me around?"
"You don't enjoy my company?" Ta'Wher asked with renewed mischief. "I always thought you had an appreciation for fine wit and brilliant conversation."
"I'll let you know when I encounter some," she joked, but then shook her head. "No, this is a serious question. After all that's happened, what the Centauri have done to your people, I know you want to try and help them. But instead of doing that you stay here. Why?"
"My debt to you-"
"Has been repaid in full several times over, and I've told you as much. What's the real reason?"
"That you've told me my debt is repaid does not necessarily make it true. But if you want another reason... I feel that if I cannot save a single person, I can hardly expect to save an entire world." With that, Ta'Wher stood and made his way toward the door.
"What do you mean, save me? I don't need to be saved," Lisa said irritably. "Well?" But Ta'Wher simply made his exit. She looked out at the shifting patterns of hyperspace. "Blasted Narn," she muttered to herself. But with the mention of Ta'Wher's debt, she could not help but remember how she had come to earn the Narn's undying gratitude...