Xenopath - [Bengal Station 02]

by Eric Brown

  He made his way to the nearest ‘chute station and dropped to the second level, then took the northbound shuttle ten stops. When he had the carriage to himself, he reached into his pocket and altered the controls of the chu. From the window beside him, a blonde Scandinavian stared back with an expression of ill-concealed triumph.

  He alighted at the ‘chute station beneath Chandi Road, then caught the upchute to Level One and found a public lavatory. In a cubicle he removed the chu, slung his jacket over his arm, then made his way to Nazruddin’s. He felt he deserved a beer or two.

  On the way, he stopped at a stall and ordered a plate of pakora, surrounded by a noisy gaggle of street-kids. As he left, he forgot to pick up the holdall. When he glanced back, the kids had found the bag and were retreating in delight to divide the spoils. Vaughan smiled. They’d get a fraction of the cost of the jewels when they sold them on to a fence, but they’d still be able to keep themselves in dhal and rice for a year.

  He reached Nazruddin’s and ordered a Blue Mountain beer, and only then thought about how to tell Sukara that he would be away from Earth for almost a week.

  * * * *

  SEVENTEEN

  PREMONITIONS

  Sukara routed the scan from her handset to the screen in the lounge and sat, fascinated, watching her baby.

  What amazed her was the fact of its perfection. From next to nothing, or rather from microscopically small seeds, the girl had evolved into this—a pink, almost translucent, miniature human being floating in its amniotic universe, knees drawn up, hands waving about its head. Without Jeff, she thought, this wouldn’t have been possible. She tried to think of life without the man she loved, and the thought, like the thought of death, terrified her. He was so vast a part of her existence that she would be nothing without him. Everything she did, her every action and thought, was in some way influenced by Jeff Vaughan, and far from being restricted by this, she felt liberated. For so many years she had been alone, with no one dependant on her; now Jeff loved her, and told her so in so many ways, and he filled her thoughts with happiness.

  And lately, thanks to Jeff, she had had Li to think of too. It was amazing, but the child was not yet born and she was already planning the future—or rather not so much planning, but daydreaming of Li at one year old, at three, and then five. The other day, over coffee, she had even found herself thinking ahead to when Li would be sixteen, and going off to study at university.

  With such pleasant notions, however, came the reverse: the nagging worry every parent was beset by when thinking of the future. Fear for her child’s welfare, its health, its well-being in a world full of cynical and grasping people.

  For the past few days Sukara had been visited by vague feelings of despair, indefinable but real. It was as if some terrible event in her future was reaching back to inform her, to warn her to be mentally prepared. She could not tell if this terrible event would befall her—if she were to die in some awful way: and even then, she was not fearful for herself, but could only think of Jeff, without her. Or whether something was going to happen to Li, or to Jeff. She had never had such feelings in the past, which made these ones all the more disturbing. Everything in her life was so good, too good: how could someone be so lucky and not suffer the consequences?

  The door that gave straight onto the outer corridor sighed open, sliding into the wall, and Jeff stood in the opening, smiling tiredly at her. He stepped inside and she launched herself into his arms. “Hey,” he laughed.

  And she found herself weeping against his chest. “I’m so happy,” she said.

  He stroked her hair. “Watching Li again?”

  She laughed. They had sat in the sunken sofa last night, with a bottle of wine, running the scan of their daughter over and over. She had found something different to be fascinated with on each run through, some particular movement, expression, the utter perfection of the unborn child.

  She looked up at him. “How are you?”

  “Tired. It’s been a long day.”

  “Tell me about it.” She sniffed him. “Heh. You’re sweaty!”

  He hesitated. “I’ll get a shower, then we’ll go for a meal, okay?”

  She beamed. “What’s the occasion?”

  He hesitated again, and in that fraction of a second pause, Sukara knew that something was wrong.

  He smiled. “No occasion. I just thought it might be nice... I’ll be back in five minutes.”

  She slipped into the sunken bunker and killed the scan, sitting and staring at the blank screen and wondering what Jeff was going to tell her.

  Something about the case he was working on, no doubt. Something had gone wrong. The killer had threatened Jeff and Kapinsky, or had even tried to kill him. Was that why he was so sweaty, because he’d been trying to evade the killer?

  She told herself she was being paranoid.

  She moved to the bedroom and changed into a pair of baggy maternity trousers and a loose-fitting shirt, then returned to the lounge to put her flip-flops on as Jeff stepped from the shower and changed.

  He was his old self as he came into the lounge and kissed her. “Where would you like to eat?”

  “Silly question, Jeff!”

  “Ruen Thai it is, then.”

  They took the upchute to Level One and walked through Himachal Park. The sun was going down, and the heat of the day was dying. Couples and families were taking advantage of the cool early evening to stroll through the park, and Sukara found it almost impossible to believe that soon she too would be a mother, with a little girl as beautiful as these children to look after and to love.

  “How’s the case going, Jeff?” she asked.

  “We made a big breakthrough today,” he replied.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Over dinner, okay?” he said, and something in his tone alarmed her.

  They left Himachal Park and crossed the busy Chandi Road, moving down a tree-lined street to the three-storey building that housed the Ruen Thai.

  It was early, and they selected a window table overlooking the quiet street.

  “Jeff, is everything okay?”

  He reached across the table and smiled. “You’re amazing, you know that? I couldn’t keep a secret from you.”

  “I knew something was wrong,” she whispered.

  “You sure you’re not telepathic?”

  She smiled. “What is it?”

  They were interrupted by the waitress. They ordered, Sukara her usual extra hot gaeng panang and Jeff a green Thai curry with rice and noodles.

  Jeff said, “You’ve got the mind-shield on you?”

  “Of course.” She tapped her shirt pocket. “You were saying?”

  “The case was officially closed today.”

  She stared, wide-eyed. “You solved it? You got the killer?”

  “If only. No, the police think they got the killer, think he killed himself. But it’s a cover-up. Someone high up in the force has been bribed to look the other way, close the case and pay off Kapinsky and me.”

  Sukara slowly shook her head.

  Jeff went on, “The Scheering-Lassiter people are behind the killings. They’re trying to cover up something that’s happening on one of their colony worlds.”

  “Do you know what?”

  “If we knew that, Su, we’d be close to closing the case.”

  Sukara shrugged. “So that’s it. You’ve been paid off. What now? You work on another case?” She hoped so, fervently she hoped that would be the end of trying to track down the laser killer.

  Jeff was watching her. He shook his head. “We’re not going to let it lie. We’re not going to be bought off.”

  His words sank like weights in her gut. She felt sick. “But...” she managed at last, “isn’t that dangerous? I mean, if someone high up in the Scheering company wants the case closed, and if you ignore that and try to find out the real killer...” She shrugged. “Won’t that be dangerous, Jeff?” Now she knew the reason for his earlier hesitation, his re
luctance to talk about the case until now.

  He nodded. “Yes, it’s dangerous.”

  Their food arrived. It looked great, but Sukara had never felt less like eating.

  “So...” she said in a small voice, “so why can’t you just ignore this one, work on something else?”

  “You sound just like Kapinsky,” he said. He reached across the table and took her hands. “Su, two years ago, you remember Osborne?”

  “How could I forget the bastard?”

  “Well, the laser killer working for Scheering is probably even more dangerous than him. He’s a hired killer. He’ll go on killing, taking life after innocent life, as long as Scheering pays him.”

  She looked into his eyes. “So it’s Jeff Vaughan’s job to stop him?” she said, and then wished she hadn’t sounded so mocking.

  He squeezed her fingers. “Su, not only is it my job to nail the killer, I’ve got to find out what Scheering’s trying to cover up on the colony world.”

  The lead weight in her stomach turned to ice. She wanted to shout at Vaughan, hit him, ask him how he could be so cruel. She wanted to tell him to think of her, to think of their unborn daughter. How could he go off to another planet, venture into enemy territory, and leave her behind to worry herself sick about him?

  She shook her head. “What do you mean?”

  “Su, I’m taking a voidship to Mallory tomorrow. It’s the only way. I’ll be gone about six days.”

  She was weeping. She couldn’t help it. “Six days? Six fucking days? Jeff, we’ve never had a day apart—and now you’re going off for nearly a week!”

  “I won’t exactly be enjoying myself.”

  She slammed down her knife and fork. “That’s not the point! You’ll be in danger! I’ll be worried sick!”

  “Su, Su. Listen. I can look after myself. I’ll be fine. And someone has to stop what’s going on there.”

  “What is going on?” she asked through her tears.

  “I... I don’t know. It’s something big enough to have Scheering hire killers to silence people working for his organisation.”

  “And silence investigators trying to get at the truth!”

  He was silent for a time, shaking his head. “I’ve got to go, Su. I couldn’t live with myself if I just sat back and let Scheering get on with it. Look at it this way, if I crack the case, no more innocent people will be lasered to death.”

  She nearly said, “And if you don’t crack the case, you’ll be lasered to death.” But she held her tongue. Jeff was determined, and she told herself that she was being selfish. She hated her husband for what he was putting her though, but at the same time a small, odd part of her felt a certain pride that he would risk himself to save the lives of others.

  She nodded, wordlessly, returning the pressure of his fingers. “I love you so much, Jeff, I just can’t imagine life without out you.”

  Pain passed across his eyes. “I’m sorry, Su,” he said.

  They finished the meal in silence, Sukara unable to appreciate her dish. They left the restaurant as the sun was sinking into the sea, and they lingered a while in Himachal Park to watch the last pink filaments of cirrus fade over India.

  They made love that night, slowly, on their sides, Jeff holding her to his stomach, cupping her swollen belly in his right arm, and afterwards they clung to each other in silence like the survivors of some natural catastrophe.

  In the morning she helped him pack, and then went with him by flier to the spaceport.

  He held back passing through the boarding check until the last call, and then hugged Sukara to him. She found his lips. “Be careful, Jeff,” she whispered, steeling herself against the tears she wanted to shed.

  “Love you,” he said, turned and strode through the barrier and disappeared from sight.

  A vast cold weight of depression settled over her. She had never felt as alone as she did now, not even when Tiger had left her in Bangkok all those years ago.

  She made her way to the observation lounge and stood by the rail, staring through the great viewscreen across the apron of the spaceport to the mammoth, streamlined shape of the voidship, connected to the terminal building by boarding umbilicals.

  It was strange to think of her husband taking his place aboard the ship, strange to think that in less than two days he would set foot on an alien planet, nearly seventy light years away.

  Thirty minutes later the connecting corridors and tubes retracted, and the voidliner powered up with a deafening crescendo of engines. It rose, ever so slowly, and despite herself Sukara felt a strange thrilling sensation in her chest as the colossal vessel inched slowly across the spaceport, out over the sea, beautiful in its vastness and power.

  When the voidship was beyond the edge of the Station, hanging over the ocean like some vast fish surreally translated into the air, it began to phase from this reality. It shimmered, losing substance, then flickered in and out of existence briefly before vanishing in an instant.

  Sukara found herself crying, wondering where Jeff was now.

  Slowly, rubbing at her tears with her fingertips, she left the spaceport and made her way home. She knew now the reason for the premonitions of tragedy she had experienced for the past few days.

  She knew, with a terrible and inevitable certainty, that she would never see her husband again.

  * * * *

  EIGHTTEEN

  WELCOME TO MALLORY

  “Welcome to Mallory, Mr Lacey,” the customs officer said, handing back the ID card. “Here on business?”

  “Pleasure,” Vaughan said. “Sightseeing in the southern mountains.”

  “Have a great stay.”

  Vaughan stepped through the customs barrier and collected his luggage, a single holdall, then made his way out into the arrival lounge. The slightly lighter gravity of the colony planet gave his gait an odd buoyancy.

  Kapinsky had issued him with a false ID card and, should he need to use it, a chu which he’d concealed inside his musiCom. He was unarmed—weapons of all types were not allowed to be brought into Mallory—but with luck he would neither need to defend himself, nor to attack.

  The spaceport at Mackintyre, Mallory’s capital city, was smaller than many international airports on Earth, and a tenth of the size of the ‘port on Bengal Station. Just three ships a week arrived on Mallory from Earth, plus a couple from other nearby colony worlds. The place had a quaint backwater feel about it, and this impression was heightened when he stepped through the sliding glass doors and looked out over Mackintyre.

  The ‘port was situated on a rise of land above a plain across which the large town sprawled, a series of timber buildings built on a grid-pattern of streets. Vaughan felt an immediate wave of nostalgia: the capital had the look and feel of a remote settlement in his native Canada, the same type of weatherboard dwellings in spacious gardens pressed flat by a seemingly limitless expanse of blue sky.

  Only the presence of three large moons, tumbling visibly overhead as if tossed by a celestial juggler, told him that he was off-world.

  His first task was to hire a vehicle, and then buy a decent map-pin for his handset. He found a car-hire place next to the terminal building, staffed by two women in light blue uniforms like air-hostesses. His request to hire a flier for six days was met with surprise, then a bright smile. “I’m sorry, sir. Air-traffic, other than that authorised for government use, is prohibited on Mallory. We have a range of the latest ground-effect vehicles for hire, though.”

  He bought a map-pin from the counter, and after inserting it into his handset and studying the screen, he asked if they had a sturdy four-wheel drive for hire.

  The woman took him into an enclosed lot and gave him the choice of a Bison all-terrain jeep or a beat-up mountain truck. He selected the Bison.

  Ten minutes later he drove from the compound and headed into town, surprised at the physicality of driving a road vehicle after the smooth handling of air-cars. It was a long time, over ten years, since he’d last driven
a vehicle whose wheels were in contact with the ground.

  He found a general store and bought provisions to last him a few days: half a dozen two-litre canisters of water, a dozen foil-wrapped self-heating meals, and a bag of local fruit not dissimilar to bananas. He had a long drive ahead of him, and much of it would be through sparsely populated terrain.

  He put the Bison on a southward course and headed out of town—an operation that took all of five minutes.

  With the town behind him, he pulled off the road and consulted the map on his handset. He was on the larger of Mallory’s two Africa-sized continents; Mackintyre was situated on the western coast, close to the planet’s equator. His destination, Campbell’s End, was located in the southern mountains some five hundred kilometres south of the capital.