by Eric Brown
“I’ll give you three hundred baht up front, if the information is solid. If I find her, you get the same again. Take it or leave it.”
“Mr Vaughan, you drive a hard bargain. You fail to understand quite how financially draining it is to look after my flock.”
“Three and three, Rao. My final offer.”
Rao looked down at the pix of the Thai girl on the tabletop, considering. “I find myself beholden to accept your paltry offer, Mr Vaughan. One moment.”
He turned and called a waiter, who hurried to the table. Rao fired off a volley of Hindi and the waiter nodded and made for the exit. Seconds later he returned, with a shaven-headed Thai boy, about eight years old, in tow.
Vaughan recognised the kid as one of a bunch of beggars who hung around outside Nazruddin’s night and day. The boy’s left arm had been removed, expertly, at the shoulder.
The boy stood meekly beside the table, like a pupil called to the headmaster’s office for wrongdoing.
“Now Kam,” Rao said, lifting the pix from the table and showing it to the boy, “I wish you to help me in a certain important matter.” He switched to rapid-fire Thai, and Vaughan caught only the odd comprehensible phrase. “Thai girl... very serious crime... was Abdul with her that night?”
The boy responded in a whisper, eyes downcast. At last Rao said, in Thai, “Go, bring Abdul here to me!”
The boy hurried off and Rao beamed. “The first stage of the process of locating the girl is under way. You will have no regrets in coming to Dr Rao, my friend!”
Vaughan smiled. “You’re one in a million, Rao.”
Rao’s pleased grin displayed an abundance of gold filling. “You should not have left it almost two years to reacquaint yourself with my efficacy, my good friend. Remember—Dr Rao is on hand to facilitate all manner of requirements!”
Vaughan nodded. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
He ordered a third beer and another lassi for Rao, and two minutes later Kam appeared at the door with a gangly Muslim ten-year-old.
Rao dismissed Kam and gestured Abdul to approach the table. The boy glanced from Rao to Vaughan with stark fear in his dark eyes.
Rao spoke to the boy, this time in Urdu, which Vaughan had no hope of following.
“Ah-cha,” Rao said, nodding. “Ah-cha, very interesting.”
He quizzed the boy again, and nodded at his reply. At last the boy fell silent and Rao smiled beatifically at Vaughan.
“It would seem, my friend, that Abdul made the acquaintance of the girl in question on the night before last. They met at perhaps nine o’clock, quite by chance, and fell into conversation.”
Vaughan said, “Does he know her name?”
“Her first name only—Pham. I have elicited all the relevant details from the boy and they are as follows. Pham is seven, and hails from Level Twenty. She was indentured to a factory owner manufacturing plastics. She ran away from the factory and followed her ambition to travel to the upper level. You see, Mr Vaughan, Pham had never in her short life seen the light of the sun.”
Vaughan said, “Two nights ago they entered Kandalay amusement park. I saw them on a surveillance cam. I know that Pham witnessed the murder. Will you ask Abdul if he saw anything?”
Rao turned to the boy and questioned him. The kid looked scared, shook his head, and replied in a murmur.
Rao said, “He saw a man in the amusement park. He thought it was a security guard, so he ran off. Pham was not so fast. Seconds later Abdul heard the sound of laser fire. He escaped down a service shaft to Level Three and did not go back.”
Vaughan said, “And Pham? Does Abdul know what happened to her?”
Rao spoke to the boy, who answered in a monosyllable.
Rao reported to Vaughan, “No, he does not know what happened to the girl.” He hesitated, then said, “He has not seen her since that night. He was too frightened to go back, after hearing the laser fire.”
Vaughan sighed and leaned back in his chair, taking a long drink of beer and considering his next question. “Will you ask Abdul if Pham told him if she was going back to Level Twenty, or if she planned to stay topside?”
Seconds later Rao said, “Pham told him that she never wished to return to the factory. She said she would rather die than go back.”
“Does he know the name of the factory owner?”
Rao asked. The boy replied, but Rao reported, “No, that he does not know.”
Vaughan nodded, suspecting that the doctor was withholding the factory owner’s name. “Ask Abdul if Pham told him where she intended to stay up here.”
Rao asked the question and duly translated, “Abdul does not know. The girl said she would beg on the streets.”
“She didn’t ask to stay with you, Rao?”
“Mr Vaughan,” Rao said disingenuously, “I would have told you if I had made the child’s acquaintance!”
“Okay, Rao. Anything else? Is that all Abdul knows about her?”
The doctor jogged his head in an Indian affirmative. “That is all he knows.” He paused, then went on, “However, I am certain that I could elicit certain answers—like the name of her employer, and where she planned to stay on Level One— from other sources. Of course, this would take time, and time—as I do not have to remind you— is money.”
Vaughan had to admire the doctor’s barefaced duplicity. “I’m happy with my three hundred’s worth, Rao,” he said.
Rao snapped something to Abdul, who was grateful for the opportunity to flee. Vaughan watched the boy leave the restaurant. He remained outside, talking to a group of street-kids.
Vaughan peeled half a dozen fifty baht notes from his wallet and dropped them in front of the Indian.
Rao smiled. “Mr Vaughan, you can rest assured that your kind donation will furnish the comfort of many a foundling street-child.”
He looked at his watch. “My word, sir. My generosity knows no bounds. I granted you thirty minutes and lo, one hour has elapsed. By rights I should make a certain surcharge to recompense for time lost.”
Vaughan laughed. “I’ll pick up your tab, Rao. Be thankful for that.”
Rao made a quick bow and said without irony, “Your munificence knows no bounds, Mr Vaughan. I will contact you if I should learn anything more about the girl.” He stood and made to leave. “Namaste, my friend. May your God go with you.”
“And the same to you, Rao.”
He watched the elderly Brahmin shuffle through the exit, then finished his beer in a thoughtful mood. He waited until Rao had vanished into the crowd surging down Chandi Road, then paid his bill. He glanced through the window. Abdul was still there.
Vaughan left the restaurant, but not before activating his implant.
He winced as his head was assailed by a piercing shriek of mind-noise. The scrambled thoughts of a thousand passing minds jumped him like a sudden migraine. Almost staggering under the onslaught, he filtered out the extraneous mush—the tangled emotions of the diners and passers-by—and concentrated on the bright point of Abdul’s mind as he pushed through the swing door.
He approached the timorous street-kid, who cowered back as Vaughan looked down at him.
He pulled a ten baht note from his wallet and passed it to Abdul, who took it with a muttered thanks.
Vaughan scanned, sank into the boy’s memories of the night in the amusement park, the little Thai girl he’d befriended, and the fear of what had happened soon after.
He read two things that Rao, in a bid to extort more baht from him, had failed to reveal: the name of the girl’s employer was Ranjit Prakesh, and Abdul had met Pham a day after the shooting, in Ketsuwan Park on Level Two.
Vaughan felt a stab of relief that the kid had survived.
He quickly deactivated his implant, breathing with relief at the instant cessation of mind-noise.
Smiling at the thought of Dr Rao’s flagrant lies, and heartened by the turn of events, he pushed through the crowd and made his way to the nearest dropchute station.
>
* * * *
TEN
KHAR
Pham spent the afternoon in Ketsuwan Park. She bought a big bottle of water and a plate of dhal and rice from a kiosk beside the eastern gate, then found her bench beneath the cedar tree and ate.
All in all, she had had an exciting time on the upper levels. She’d witnessed a murder, been chased by the killer, seen a crashed spaceship full of injured children... and then the voice. A voice had got into her head and spoken to her.
She had thought about the voice for a long time, even tried to speak to it again. She thought she knew what it was.
When people died, if they had been good in this life, then they were reincarnated as something better in the next. If they had been bad, then they came back as... rats or spiders or something horrid like that. But sometimes she knew if someone had been extra specially bad, then their souls were destined to haunt the earth in torment, until they were exorcised and could move on.
So, for some reason, the soul of the man lasered to death in the amusement park the other night had jumped into her head. Perhaps something to do with the laser had helped his soul to make the journey to Pham, the person closest to him when he died. That had to be the answer.
So... she had the soul of a bad person living in her head, and even though the voice had told her not to be frightened, that it could help her, she did not trust it. She would have to be careful.
“Voice,” she said now, under her breath so that people didn’t hear her and think she was mad. “I know you’re in there, and I know what you are. You accidentally got into my head because you were killed by a laser. You were bad in your last life, but now you’re with me you’ll have to be good, ah-cha?”
Silence.
Only, she wondered, how long would the bad man’s soul stay in her head? Would it stay with her until she died, or would it leave before then?
“Perhaps if you’re good, and we pray to Buddha every day, then he’ll let you out before I die, and you can be reborn as a better person than you were.”
She smiled to herself. She liked the idea of that.
“Voice?”
It was stubborn. It spoke to her only when it wanted to, and never replied to her questions. She wanted to know more about it, see if it would agree to be good while it lived in her head.
She had a worrying thought. What if it wanted to be bad, put bad thoughts into her head, and made her do bad things?
But, she told herself, it had told her not to be frightened, that it would help her. And in the crashed spaceship, it had told her to get out...
She finished her dhal and took a long drink of water. She checked her money pouch and found that she had just fifty baht left, which was not a lot. It would buy her food for another three days, four if she had only one meal a day. The thing was, how did you find work on the upper levels? She hadn’t seen any kids working anywhere up here, only boys and girls begging. What would she do when her money ran out? She didn’t want to beg, and she didn’t want to go back to Mr Prakesh’s factory.
She thought of Abdul, who was nice. Perhaps her only option might be to live with him and the other kids on the starship?
The voice in her head said:No.
“Voice?” she said, sitting upright. “Are you there? Why don’t you want me to go back to the ship?”
The silence stretched. Just when Pham thought Voice was not going to reply, it said: It is not a good place for you.
“But why?”
Silence.
“Voice, what are you?” she asked. “You’re a bad soul, right? The man who was killed, you’re his bad soul. But... but you won’t make me bad, will you?”
Maddeningly, Voice did not respond.
“You can live in my head until you’ve earned the right to move on, ah-cha?”
This time, after a delay of a few seconds, Voice replied: Do not be frightened. I am not a bad soul. I wish you no harm. In time I will move on. Before that, I will try to help you.
“You will? But how can you help me?”
Listen to me. From time to time I will speak. Then, do as I say. The rest of the time I will be silent.
Pham nodded. “Ah-cha,” she whispered. “Voice,” she said after a while, “what is your name?”
Voice said: Call me Khar.
She nodded. “Khar,” she said. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Pham.”
Khar was silent for five minutes, then said: Would you like to see the zoo on Level Three?
“I didn’t even know there was a zoo.”
I think you will like it there.
“I don’t know the way—”
I do. Just get up and walk from the park, and I will show you...
She did as she was told, leaving the park by the western exit and boarding a shuttle train for the southern edge. The odd thing was, Khar never said a word to her after she left the park. It was as if she knew how to get to the zoo without being told. She wondered if Khar could put thoughts, information, into her head.
She wondered if she should be frightened, but another odd thing was that she didn’t feel a bit scared. Perhaps Khar was controlling her fear, too?
If Khar wasn’t a bad soul, she wondered as she jumped from the train and hurried out into the street, then what was it?
The zoo was a massive complex that ran for a kilometre along the southern edge of the Station, with great viewscreens that overlooked the ocean. Pham paid five baht for a ticket and received a brochure telling her all about the zoo.
She read that the animals didn’t live in cages, but had whole compounds to themselves. And, she discovered, the zoo housed not only animals from Earth—like lions and tigers—but extraterrestrial animals from many of the colonies across the galaxy. They lived here for one year, and then they were returned to their planets and set free.
She wondered why Khar wanted to visit the zoo.
A wide boulevard ran between the vast viewscreens looking out over the ocean and the animals’ compounds. Pham strolled along the boulevard, stopping from time to time to stare down at the strange beasts grazing on odd-looking grasses. Some of the compounds were sealed, because the atmosphere inside was not like Earth’s, and these animals were even stranger than the others. She saw things like blue crabs the size of air-cars, and great orange creatures that rolled through a vast tank of blue water.
She walked on. She felt that Khar was moving her towards where it wanted to be.
At last she came to a compound that stretched back for what seemed like a kilometre, and was almost as wide. Tall blue grass glinted under the glare of an artificial sun, and the plain was dotted with twisted trees bearing big red flowers.
Then she saw the animals, and she had the strange feeling that she had seen them before somewhere. Which was impossible, because surely she would have remembered seeing creatures like these in books and on holo-vision.
Three big animals were grazing close to the glass canopy that arched over the compound. They had hides like elephants, but brown and wrinkled, and longer legs than elephants, and shorter, thicker trunks. Their eyes were big and blue, and set on either side of their big heads. From the sides of their mouths, several sharper tusks projected, and similar horns sprouted from above their eyes.
They looked fearsome, but at the same time friendly.
A recorded voice from a nearby speaker said that the animals were called Grayson’s Pachyderms, and came from the colony planet of Mallory, Eta Ophiuchi.
As she watched, two of the pachyderms wandered off, but the third looked up and seemed to stare directly at her. Slowly, it approached the canopy and stood perhaps three metres from where Pham leaned against the padded rail, looking down with wonder at the strange beast.
She felt suddenly sleepy. “Khar,” she said, “why did you want to...”
But she never finished the sentence. Her eyes fluttered shut, incredibly heavy, and though she fought against slipping into sleep, she felt herself going under.
Then she was awake, and
amazingly she was still standing upright, and the pachyderm down below was moving off, its big feet plodding ponderously through the high blue grass.
“Khar?” she said. “What happened?”
Maddeningly, the thing in her head chose not to reply.
