by Eric Brown
Then Dr Chang had handed her on to an admin clerk, who had gone through a lot of facts and figures about the various treatments and their respective costs. What it boiled down to, though the clerk had not said this in so many words, was that the higher the grade of hospital care Sukara’s insurance cover could pay for, the greater Li’s chance of survival. Her daughter’s life would only be assured if she had the requisite funds to pay for her treatment.
Numbed, Sukara had allowed the clerk to download all the literature into her handset, and told the woman that she’d contact the health authorities when she’d discussed things with her husband.
The first thing she’d done on leaving the specialist’s office had been to contact Jeff, but she’d been able only to blurt a few words before breaking down and cutting the connection. Now she wished she hadn’t bothered him. He was working on a murder case, and for all she knew he might have been scanning when she called. She wondered if that might be why he hadn’t called back yet.
Li tugged her hand. “Pet shop now?” she piped.
Sukara smiled, fighting back tears. She nodded. “Just for a short while. We’ve got to pick Pham up from school in an hour.”
“Soon I go to school like a big girl,” Li said with all the pride of a four-year-old.
Sukara nodded, biting her lip to stop the sob that welled in her throat.
They left the hospital and entered the vast cavernous space that advertised itself as Level Two’s recreation area, a square kilometre of sculptured parkland, lakes and forests. To the west, the entire outer bulkhead of the station had been removed to allow a free circulation of air and sunlight - except that, with the monsoon late this year, the air here was as cloying and sultry as a sauna-bath.
Next to the hospital was an arcade of kiosks and shops. Li dragged Sukara to her favourite: a tacky emporium selling all manner of furry creatures, and some not so furry, from the many colony worlds of the Expansion. Li had badgered her parents to be allowed an alien pet, but Jeff was having none of it.
Sukara agreed. She didn’t agree with keeping Terran animals, even cats and dogs, and the latest fad for extraterrestrial pets she considered sick.
Li squealed with delight and ran off down the aisle, pressing her nose up against the glass enclosure, which housed, Sukara read, a Merk from Sigma Draconis IX. Li laughed and pointed at the creature, a snowball with six legs and four eye-stalks. She moved on to the next animal, and the next, and Sukara stared down at a gallery of weird and improbable creatures. She wondered how they felt, captured and ferried across the light years to end up in the home of some pampered office worker on Bengal Station.
Her friends had just laughed at her concern, saying that the animals were no more intelligent than rats or mice, but even so Sukara thought that their imprisonment was wrong.
She remembered when she was little more than a prisoner, shackled to the Bangkok brothels she had worked in; she was sure that some of her customers had thought of her as less than an animal back then, and had proved it by treating her like one.
She shut her mind to memories of the past. She had a great life here...
Then she saw Li, skipping with delight from animal to animal, and fear clutched at her heart.
She wanted nothing more than to be in Jeff’s arms, to hear his reassuring words. She thought of calling him again, apologising for hanging up so abruptly, and telling him that she was fine now, that Li would be okay... But she knew that she couldn’t trust herself not to break down again, and anyway Jeff was obviously busy.
She lured Li from the alien pet shop with the promise of a Vitamilk, and she bought two ice-cold bottles from a street-vendor’s stall. They walked to Pham’s school on the far side of the rolling parkland, sucking at the straws.
The school was a tubular building surrounded by lawns dotted with play areas, climbing frames and sandpits. A noisy posse of children milled behind the perimeter fence, while mothers, fathers, and even in one or two cases spider drones, waited for their children to be processed. Sukara inserted her pin into the gate’s sensor unit and the school’s guardian drone responded and led Pham to the gate, which slid open at her approach.
Pham ran into Sukara’s arms, kissing her cheeks.
“Hi, Li!” Pham laughed. Then she remembered and looked at Sukara; “What did the doctor say about Li, Mum?”
Sukara put on a brave smile. “She’ll be fine. She needs some pills, and a short stay in hospital, then she’ll be as good as new.”
Li danced in front of Pham, holding the carton of Vitamilk before her grinning face. “Look what I’ve got!”
“I’ll get you one on the way home, Pham,” Sukara said.
“Can we walk today?”
Sukara smiled and nodded. They usually took the train home, but Sukara couldn’t face the thought of the crowds today. Their ocean-view apartment was beyond the park about a kilometre from here.
She bought another round of Vitamilk from a kiosk and set off home.
She watched her daughters race ahead across the grass, two slim jet-black haired, beautiful girls who to all outward appearances were biological sisters. Four years ago they had adopted Pham, an orphan runaway from a factory on Level Twenty whose ambition had been to see the sky for the first time; her other dream, though she knew it wouldn’t be achieved as easily as seeing the sky, had been to belong to a real family, with a mother and father who loved her.
Sukara loved her like her own. Pham was a bright kid with a great sense of humour and a serious side that belied her age; her sophistication was, Sukara thought, quite natural considering what she’d gone through to reach the top level, where she had at last seen the sky.
When Li was born, Pham was beside herself with joy: not only did she have a real mother and father, but now she had a little sister, too.
They ran after each other across the grass, spilling milk and giggling, and Sukara felt like crying again.
Her handset chimed, and more than anything she wanted it to be Jeff.
She beamed when his face filled the screen. “Jeff! I’m sorry about... I shouldn’t have-”
“Su, don’t worry, okay. I’ve looked into things. Li’ll be fine, okay?”
Lips pursed, Sukara nodded. “I know, Jeff. It’s just...”
He said, “Su, will you do something? As soon as you get home, pack a few bags. We’re going away for a while.”
She stared at his face on the screen. “Away?”
He hesitated, then said, “A holiday. A short break. We all need a rest.”
“A holiday? Not away from the Station? Li needs-”
He interrupted. “No, not away from the Station. A luxury hotel on Level One, west side.”
She just laughed and shook her head, knowing better than to ask him where he’d get the money to pay for it.
“I have a couple of things I need to clear up here. But I’ll get back in about an hour. Be ready to leave then, okay?”
She nodded, wanting to ask him what all the hurry was about.
“I’d better get off. See you soon, Su. Love you.”
“Love you too, Jeff. See you.”
Pham danced towards her, pulling Li after her like a rag-doll. “Was that Dad?”
Sukara nodded. “We’re going on holiday, kids. A big hotel.”
“Will it have a pool?” Pham asked.
“I think it probably will,” Sukara said.
“And pets?” Li chipped in. “Pets from the stars? We went to the pet shop, Pham. I saw ice-mice! Ice-mice, ice-mice!”
“Well, probably not alien pets. But you never know, it might have aliens staying.”
“Aliens with ice-mice!” Li cried, and they ran off laughing and yelling again.
They arrived at the apartment thirty minutes later, and while Pham fixed herself and Li a quick meal, Sukara filled two cases with clothes and toiletries. While she packed, she wondered about what Jeff had said about a break. It was unlike him to act on impulse like this; he usually discussed holid
ays with her and the girls.
She finished packing and sat on the bed. She could hear the girls, crashing about in the kitchen. Soon the smell of toast and tomato soup drifted through the apartment.
She tried not to think about the future and Li, and told herself to be brave when Jeff arrived; but when she heard the outer door slide open, and he called her name, she broke down and ran into the lounge, sobbing.
She hit him in a rush and he caught her, reassuringly solid. He held her to him, stroking her hair, repeating soothing words while she cried. “The doctor said it was leukaemia, Jeff. He said Li had a seventy per cent chance of getting better.”
“That’s good odds, Su,” he said softly, stroking her hair. “She’s going to be fine.” He looked around the room. “All packed?”
She nodded.
“Fetch the girls. I’ll get the insurance details. Where’s the pin?”
“In the bedroom, the unit on my side, top drawer.”
He was gone two minutes while Sukara rounded up Pham and Li. They were sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, munching sopping toast, clown’s smiles of tomato soup expanding their mouths.
“Come on, you two. Eat up. We’re going on holiday.”
They crammed toast into their mouths and jumped from the high stools.
Jeff called from the bedroom, “There’s a flier waiting. Let’s get a move on.”
“Hear that, girls? We’re going in a flier.”
Jeff emerged from the bedroom, tucking the insurance policy pin into the breast pocket of his imitation leather jacket. Li yelled when she saw him and launched herself. He picked her up, hugged her to him and kissed the top of her head. Pham nuzzled against his legs.
Sukara leaned against the kitchen door, watching them. She felt a hit of emotion in her chest, swelling. She wanted to cry out loud that she loved them so much.
Jeff smiled across at her. “C’mon, let’s get a shuffle on, girls.”
He led the way from the apartment, Li on his hip and Pham clutching his hand. Sukara hurried after them.
They took the upchute to Level One. A flier was waiting outside the chute station, from the taxi firm Sukara knew the Kapinsky Agency used. They climbed aboard and the driver took off and banked south-west without waiting for instructions.
Li bounced about on Jeff’s knee, peering out excitedly. Pham looked up at Sukara and smiled uncertainly. She wondered if the girl had picked up on her uneasiness: she had an almost preternatural ability to second-guess her mother’s feelings in times of stress.
Sukara glanced across at Jeff; he was staring out of the side window. He saw her watching him, smiled and squeezed her hand.
She knew, then, that something was wrong - more than just Li’s illness. It wasn’t like Jeff to suggest taking off like this. She wanted to ask him what was happening; but now, with the girls so excited, was not the right time.
On cue, with an empathy that came from so long together, Jeff caught her eye and mimed a shushing gesture.
Heart thudding, she gazed forwards as the flier decelerated, banked swiftly, and came down with amazing delicacy on the cantilevered landing-pad of the Ashok Hilton, a ziggurat of reflective silver glass overlooking the Bay of Bengal.
Jeff grabbed the cases while Sukara took the girls, and they rode an elevator to the penthouse suite. “The penthouse?” Sukara said, amazed.
“I’ll tell you when we’re settled, Su.”
The suite consisted of two big bedrooms, a bathroom the size of a skyball court, and a lounge as big as their apartment; the lounge had floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, with spectacular views over the hotel’s stepped gardens and the open sea.
The girls screamed in delight and ran around the suite. Jeff took Sukara’s hand and pulled her out onto the balcony. They stood side by side, watching a distant starship phase in from the void.
“Jeff, will you please tell me what’s going on?”
He licked his lips, gazing out to sea. “Su, there’s no danger, but Lin decided on this merely as a precaution-”
“Jeff!”
He ran a strong hand down her spine. “Three telepaths have been killed in the past week. The cops don’t have a clue. There seems to be no connection between the dead men, other than they’re telepaths. Anyway, Lin’s taking no chances. She’s paying for her staff to lie low for a week or so.”
She looked up at him. “Jeff, is that all? Tell me truthfully. You don’t seem...”
“Su, I’ve just found out Li has a serious illness. Of course I don’t seem myself.”
She looked at him. “There’s more, Jeff. Tell me.”
He hesitated. “Okay. When you called yesterday... an assassin was coming after me-”
She stared. “What? What happened?”
“Security got him before he reached me.”
She shook her head. “And you’ve no idea why this assassin...?” She thought about it. “Were you all working on the same case?”
He smiled. “You’d make a good cop. That’s the first thing we thought of. But no. There’s no seeming connection at all.”
She stroked his hand. “But will you be okay here? Others won’t come after you?”
“Su, chances are I’d be fine back at the apartment. But you know Lin. She covers every angle.”
They held each other for a while, then Sukara said, “I’ll get them to bed, then we can talk, okay?”
He helped with the ritual of washing faces and cleaning teeth, and gave them each a goodnight kiss before Sukara whisked them to bed, told them a made-up story, and promised a trip to the zoo in the morning.
When she returned to the lounge, Jeff had opened a couple of beers from the bar. “I’ll order food from room service. Thai or Indian?”
“I don’t feel that hungry.” She saw his expression. “Okay, then. Indian.”
He dialled two meals, carried them from the service unit, and sat down beside her on the squishy divan. They ate in silence, then read the details of their daughter’s disease.
“Okay, let’s look on the bright side,” he said. “At least the disease can be treated.”
She stroked his thigh, feeling bulky muscle beneath the material. Unshed tears made her eyes ache. “But... but look at the cost, Jeff!”
He whistled. “For the full treatment... two hundred thousand dollars, US. Okay, that’s a lot. But we can do it.”
She looked at him. “You sure?”
He smiled, grimly. “I’m not going for second best, Su.”
“I know,” she said. “But how...?”
He slipped the insurance data-pin into his handset and scrolled through the details. He frowned.
“What?” Sukara said.
“We’ll be lucky if it covers thirty per cent of the cost.”
“So that means... we have to find around a hundred and forty thousand dollars, right?”
He nodded. “In the region of.”
She felt close to despair, then. “But how, Jeff? How the hell can we...”
He pulled her to him and kissed her head. “We have around thirty thousand saved from the Breitenbach case, yes?”
She sniffed and nodded. “Okay, thirty thousand. That still leaves over a hundred to find.”
“Su, there’s no problem. Listen, Lin’s been going on at me for a long time to work more shifts. I do... what... three days a week at the moment? And I’m taking scut work. There are some big cases I’m passing up.”
“So if you worked more hours, on bigger cases...” She felt guilty saying it: how would she feel if she had to read criminal minds all day long, week after week? It was bad enough Jeff having to work three days a week.
He laughed and shook her. “Hey, why so glum? Do you know how much I’ll rake in a week if I do six days on some of the big cases Lin’s been trying to offload?”
She shook her head, watching him.
“Around five thousand a week. US. With that kind of earning power I can get a loan for a hundred thousand no problem.�
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“But six days a week, Jeff? And you’ll be working murder cases, won’t you?” She looked at him, and realised how much she loved this man, and that made her feel even more guilty. The fact was, she wanted him to do all that work, read all those evil minds, even though it’d be painful for him to do so.
But she felt she had to put in a token protest. She knew it. And he knew it... and that made her feel even more guilt-stricken.
