Xenopath - [Bengal Station 02]

by Eric Brown

  She turned and laughed. He was angled in the kitchen doorway, filling it, and smiling at her.

  “How long have you been there?”

  He grinned. “About an hour.”

  “Liar!” she cried, and ran to him.

  He looked tired, in his scruffy leather jacket, with his jaw unshaven and the stubble on his head growing out after the operation.

  He kissed her. “Mmm. Smells good.”

  “What? Me or the curry?”

  “Both.”

  “You smell like a pig. Busy day?”

  “Why do I expect compliments from my charming wife?”

  They had been married two years, and it still thrilled her when he called her his wife.

  She said, “You’re the best pig on the Station, will that do?”

  “I’m honoured. I’ll get a shower and tell you all about it.”

  She watched him cross the lounge, sling his jacket over a chair, and begin undressing before he reached the bathroom. Singing to herself, she returned to the workbench and prepared the chilli sauce.

  They ate in the kitchen, at the big table by the viewscreen, and Jeff told her all about the case he and Kapinsky were working on.

  Sukara shook her head, fork stalled before her mouth. “Three murders in nine months... and you think they’re linked?”

  “The first two certainly, and maybe even the third.” He was a big man, and his movements and speech were slow, deliberate.

  “Jeff, the man who murdered these people—”

  “Probably a hired assassin.”

  “An assassin? So if he knows you’re onto him...?” Panic flared in her chest. She waved her fork. “What’s to stop him going after you and Kapinsky?”

  He chewed, finished his mouthful, and nodded. “One, he doesn’t know we’re investigating him. Two, even if he did, we’re just a couple of smalltime private eyes, not worth bothering about.”

  She stared at him. “I’m not that stupid, Jeff! You’d be worth bothering about if you were close to discovering who he was, yes?”

  “Su—we’re professional. We won’t let the killer know we’re on to him, okay?”

  She bit her lip, nodding grudgingly. “It’s just that I worry, Jeff. I love you and I’m frightened.”

  He reached across the table, gripped her fingers. “I don’t want you to worry. I’m not some kid playing games, okay?”

  She smiled. “What do you think of the curry, Jeff?”

  He shook his head. “Words can’t do it justice. You should open a restaurant.”

  That night, in bed, Sukara held Jeff and whispered, “You do know I love you, don’t you?”

  He traced the line of her cheek with the back of his hand. Moonlight cascaded through the open viewscreen, silvering his jaw. “Of course.”

  “Jeff...” she began, and fell silent.

  “Mmm.”

  “Jeff, I wish you’d read my mind. I want you to read what I feel about you. I want to show you that I love you.”

  He pulled away and blinked at her. “I know you love me, Su.”

  “No, but I want you to see how much I love you!”

  He laughed. “Su—do you believe me when I tell you I love you?”

  “Of course!”

  “But you can’t read me, can you?”

  “No.”

  “Then trust me when I say I believe you love me.”

  She lay in his arms, in the moonlight, thinking about that. She smiled. “Mmm... Okay, Jeff,” she said.

  Minutes later she was asleep.

  * * * *

  EIGHT

  MALLORY

  Next morning Vaughan was awoken by the chime of his handset. He dragged it from the bedside cabinet and clamped it around his wrist. “Vaughan here.”

  Kapinsky was evidently an early riser. She was already in her office and it wasn’t yet eight. “Vaughan, what are your plans for today?”

  He rubbed his eyes and tried to order his thoughts. “This morning, going over to the Scheering-Lassiter HQ, see what I can dig up there.”

  Kapinsky shook her head. “I’ve tried it. No go. They don’t like private investigators.”

  “I’ll work out some way of getting in there.”

  “You’re an optimist, Vaughan,” she said. “What about this afternoon?”

  “I’ll check the surveillance cams in the area around the amusement park. You?”

  “I’m spending the day on the Mulraney case, questioning a few people, seeing if I can dig up a witness or two. Meet you here first thing tomorrow to collate what we’ve got, okay?”

  “See you then,” he said, and cut the connection.

  Beside him, Sukara stirred. She rolled onto her back and blinked up at the ceiling. Light—real daylight—slanted into the bedroom.

  “Like it here, Jeff,” she murmured.

  He leaned over and kissed her. “I’ve got to be going. I’m late already.”

  “Jeff, I don’t like what you told me about that killer last night.” She gripped his hand. “Take care,” she said, reluctant to let go of him.

  “I’ll do that,” he whispered.

  He showered, left the apartment, grabbed a couple of samosas from a kiosk beside the upchute, and rode to Level One with a cage full of businessmen and schoolchildren.

  He took an air-taxi the three kilometres to the centre of the Station. He would normally have travelled by train, but as Kapinsky was picking up the expenses he could afford to travel in comfort.

  The Scheering-Lassiter headquarters was situated in the high-rise business sector, a tapering obelisk like extruded glass, which, until last year and the construction of the central government tower, had been the tallest building on the Station.

  It looked, Vaughan thought as he stood in the plaza outside the edifice, suitably phallic and thrusting for a company whose aim it was to seed the stars. He watched the comings and goings of business execs and company workers, fingering the pass in his pocket and hoping its validity had not been erased after its owner’s death.

  Everyone going into the building through the single, sliding entrance proffered a pass-card, which was scanned by an electronic eye. Security guards were on hand to turn away personae non gratae. A small proportion of the people entering the building made enquiries at reception; far more simply walked through the lobby and made for the elevators.

  The thing to do was to go in exuding confidence, an air of belonging, and once inside take it from there. With luck he would get a bit further than Kapinsky had yesterday.

  He walked towards the building and activated his implant. Instantly a hundred minds flared in close proximity—a cacophony of hope and desire, anger and joy—with a dull backing of the mind-noise of the rest of Levels One and Two.

  He felt his pulse race as he approached the sliding glass door. As it opened to admit him and a couple of suited Thai women, a curious thing happened.

  The mind-noise that was a constant background hum remained in his head, but the bright flares of individual minds cut out the instant he entered the building. He was so surprised that he almost forgot to show the staring camera eye his purloined pass. He fumbled with it, heart hammering, and passed into the lobby without being apprehended.

  He bypassed reception and headed straight for the elevators, where a wall plaque described the departments on various floors.

  He bought himself time by consulting the plaque, at the same time coming to terms with the fact that everyone in the building—everyone employed by Scheering-Lassiter—was mind-shielded.

  There were exceptions: a cleaner scouring the marble tiles was without a shield, as were a couple of lowly office boys, along with casual visitors to the building—but Vaughan estimated that more than ninety per cent of everyone in the building was unreadable.

  Which meant that he wouldn’t learn as much as he’d hoped this morning—but the fact that the company kept its personnel shielded was interesting in itself.

  The first floor was given over to individ
ual offices and a list of executive’s names. The second through tenth floors housed various departments, corporate strategy, research and development, and Terran administration among others.

  On the fifteenth floor he found what he was looking for: colonial affairs. In offices one to five were housed the Mallory Department.

  Vaughan entered the elevator and rose to the fifteenth floor.

  He stepped out into a spacious area of wide corridors and open-plan offices, decorated with what he took to be specimens of Mallorian flora: blue shrubs and startled-looking blood-red cacti, alien to eyes accustomed to verdant Earthly horticulture. Men and women in smart business suits moved back and forth, barely giving him a second glance. They, too, were shielded. He killed his implant, and the distant mind-noise from the rest of the Station fell blissfully silent.

  Across the wide corridor, facing the elevator, was a big head and shoulders photograph of Gustave Scheering, the head of the organisation. He appeared to be in his sixties, the beefy slab of his face staring out at the world with all the self-confidence of a self-made millionaire. Vaughan read a potted biography of the great man beside the photograph: born in New York, he’d risen from obscurity to the status of a major tycoon in his twenties, running a couple of Luna-Mars shipping Lines before starting up in the colony business with his business partner, Reb Lassiter. Scheering had assumed total control of, the company after Lassiter’s death five years ago.

  To the left of the elevator was an exhibition area given over to educating the visitor on the positive aspects of Mallory’s human colonisation.

  Vaughan browsed the softscreens and holo-cubes, which gave condensed histories of the planet’s discovery, exploration, and colonisation. Documentary-footage was accompanied by a saccharine female voice-over, sotto voce corporate hard sell.

  It was, he had to admit, a stunningly beautiful world.

  Take Switzerland, expand it, add a North African climate and gravity a little less than Earth’s, and the result was the exotic colony world of Mallory. The fact that the grass and most growing things were a shade of blue only added to the planet’s allure.

  There was very little on Mallory’s native fauna, and nothing about Scheering-Lassiter’s ecological policy. Not that he’d expected much in that department.

  He read everything there was to read in the exhibit, listened to all the anodyne commentaries, and came away knowing he’d been fed the party line.

  It was time to find someone who might be able to answer a question or two.

  He bypassed the open-plan office area—the desks occupied by glorified secretaries—and made for an enclosed office at the far end of the chamber.

  The door was marked: Gita Singh, Co-Director.

  He knocked and opened the door without awaiting a reply.

  A woman in her thirties, power-dressed in a severe black suit more like a uniform, looked up from a softscreen in surprise. “Can I help you?”

  He’d decided to be direct, rather than try to catch her out with dissimulation. “I hope so. I’m Jeff Vaughan and I’m investigating the murder of one of your colleagues.”

  Singh was suspicious. “Have you cleared this with security?”

  He flashed his identity-pass. “How do you think I got this far?” he smiled, disarmingly. “I know you won’t be able to tell me anything linked directly to the case itself, but I’d appreciate some background information about the planet.”

  Singh’s gaze was professionally neutral. “Mr Vaughan, I really am very busy this morning. By the elevator you will find an informative display, which should tell you all you need to know.”

  He shook his head, his smile sardonic now. “I think not. I’ve taken the tour, and in fact I think it told me nothing about what I really want to know about Mallory.”

  She held his gaze. “And what might that be?”

  Vaughan was placatory. He spread his hands. “Look, I’m on your side. Someone sliced one of your colleagues to bits and I want to solve the case. I’m sure you appreciate my concern?”

  “Of course, Mr Vaughan. But I cannot see how anything I might tell you about Mallory could have any bearing—”

  “Perhaps I should be the judge of that, Ms Singh? To begin with, I’d like some information about Scheering-Lassiter’s ecological policy regarding Mallory, its relations with Eco-Col, and the management of indigenous fauna.”

  Discreetly, but not so discreetly that Vaughan missed it, Singh slipped a hand beneath the desk and applied pressure.

  The audience was over.

  Vaughan sighed. “Well, I can see that I’m wasting my time here, Ms Singh. It’s been pleasant chatting.”

  She watched him with an expression that indicated the sentiment was not mutual.

  He rose and left the room, quickly, before security arrived and quizzed him about the pass-card. He took the elevator to the ground floor and stepped out into the punitive noon sunlight, happy with the morning’s work. At least he’d got a lot further than Kapinsky, and he’d come away with one or two interesting pieces of information.

  * * * *

  As the air-taxi powered down onto the landing shelf, Vaughan looked out at the sable edifice of the Law Enforcement headquarters, rising from the deck of the Station like an Aztec ziggurat. It brought back a slew of unpleasant memories.

  Two years ago he’d found himself involved in an investigation with a cop called Jimmy Chandra. Their enquiries had taken them off-planet, to the colony world of Verkerk, where Chandra had died. Chandra had been an optimist, his Hindu cheer a foil to Vaughan’s then cynicism.

  Vaughan had changed since then, however; now he could share Chandra’s upbeat world-view. The world had not changed one bit—but Vaughan had.

  He showed his ID at the entrance and dropped into the bowels of the building, making his way through the dimly lit corridors to the surveillance room.

  It was a long, low chamber, badly lighted, and the ventilation system seemed to have given up trying to cool the place. It was like a sauna in there, made worse by three cops smoking cheap cigarettes as they stared at their screens.

  Vaughan found a corner booth and powered up the com. It flared, showing a grid-map of Level One, beside a rank of numerals should he require views of other levels.

  He found the amusement park, entered its reference number and the day and approximate time of the scene he wished to view, and waited.

  As expected, there were no surveillance cams in operation in the park itself. He returned to the map, worked out where the killing took place, and entered the reference of the nearest street which might be covered by a cam.

  This time he was in luck.

  There were three cams covering the length of the deserted street, and one of them showed a section of the area where Kormier had died.

  He magnified the view, enhanced the image: he made out the concourse between the ghost train and the empty McDonald’s kiosk.

  He ran the tape at three times the normal speed, and the only indication that time was elapsing was the flicking digital display at the top right of the screen: the scene itself remained static.

  He glanced at the timer: 23.40. According to the SoC’s report, the killing had taken place at some time twelve minutes either side of midnight.

  He slowed the image to real-time and watched.

  Two minutes later he saw movement.

  He leaned forward, magnifying the image, and saw two small figures cross the concourse, climb the steps of the ghost train and enter it through the ghoul’s open mouth. Children: a boy and a girl. From the way they were dressed, in ragged shorts and T-shirts, he guessed they were homeless street-kids taking refuge for the night in the park.

  They appeared again, minutes later, emerging from the exit of the ghost train—another open mouth. Then they stopped suddenly, and one of them pointed across the concourse before ducking back inside the open mouth.

  Vaughan made out what the boy had pointed at.

  Another figure had appeared on the con
course.

  Vaughan reached out and stilled the image, his pulse racing. He stared at the figure. It was a man, tall and dark, in his fifties: Robert Kormier.

  He restarted the footage, playing it real-time now. He glanced at the digital display: it was nine minutes to midnight.

  Kormier paced back and forth, between the ghost train and the fast-food kiosk. From time to time he glanced at his wristwatch. So he had clearly arrived at the amusement park to meet someone.