by Eric Brown
She was aware of shocked faces as she tore down the central aisle. A waiter laden with a full tray neatly sidestepped her and she raced past, through the beaded curtain and turned left into the storeroom. She almost collided with the elevator door in the far wall, found the command console and stabbed the code. Her age and Pham’s: 27-10.
She wondered if the lift would be at the bottom of the shaft. In that case she would be cornered. All her efforts to escape would be for nothing. She turned, looked around the room for something heavy to throw at her pursuer. A crate of stacked mineral water to her left, a broom to her right. She almost laughed at the thought of attacking the bastard with a broom handle.
A cry from the coffee house, followed by a crash of trays and crockery. The waiter hadn’t been so nimble, this time.
She gripped the needle and was about to reach out for the brush when she heard a scraping sound behind her. She turned. The lift door was slowly opening. She dived inside, hit the descend command. The doors eased shut just as a blur of colour appeared outside. She heard his cry, the zizz of his laser. The door clanked shut and the lift plummeted.
Sukara collapsed against the far wall and choked on a sob. Relief coursed through her like a drug. She was safe, for the time being. She’d call Dr Rao. He had contacts, people who might be able to help her.
She tried to recall the duration of the descent when she’d made it with Rao yesterday. Five minutes, at least.
She heard the distant crump of an explosion, far above. That could only be the doors, blasted by a laser. A second later the carriage swayed, and for a terrible second she thought that the bastard had lasered the pulley cables, that she’d fall to her death half a kilometre below.
But the elevator continued its descent. From time to time it bucked, and she wondered what her pursuer was doing.
Then she had it. He’d launched himself at the cables, was sliding down their length. Soon he’d hit the carriage roof. He had a laser - but it would take time to cut through the steel of the ceiling. Perhaps she’d make it down to the starship before he cut his way through.
She heard a resonating thump as the Chink landed on the roof, and the carriage juddered with the impact.
She cowered in the corner of the lift, as if trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and the Chinese bastard. She looked up. She heard the regular pulse of a laser. He was trying to slice through the ceiling...
She turned on her handset and entered the code Dr Rao had given her the day before. She’d explain the situation, tell him that a lunatic was after her. If Rao were down in the starship, perhaps he could help her, conceal her in his ship.
A second later his wizened face peered out at her. “Sukara, this is a welcome surprise. How is...?”
She said, “Dr Rao! I’m in the lift, coming down. Listen, someone is chasing me.” Then, unaccountably, the tears started and she sobbed, “He’s on top of the lift. He has a laser. He’s cutting his way through. Please, help me!”
Rao was silent for five seconds, assessing the situation. “Sukara, listen to me. Do exactly as I say. When the lift doors open, run out and turn right. There is a girder immediately to the right of the door. Hide behind this, crouch down, and do nothing else. Do you understand?”
“But-”
“Do as I say! I will attend to the matter from there. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “But if he cuts through the ceiling before-”
Dr Rao shook his head. “That will take time, I think. More time than the lift will take to arrive here. Don’t worry, Sukara. I will help you.”
Sukara looked up. She saw a black, smoking line appear on the underside of the steel ceiling, and she gave a mewling cry.
Rao said, “Do you know who is following you, Sukara? Do you know what they want?”
She shook her head, screwing herself further into the corner. “No. I’ve no idea. He’s Chinese. He sprayed something in my face, took me somewhere off Chandi Road in a flier. I stabbed him in the eye and got away. He followed me to the coffee house-”
Dr Rao smiled. She could see that he was moving. His head bobbed as he held his handset up to his face. “You are a brave and amazing woman, Sukara. But then I have always known that.”
“He’s cutting through the ceiling, Dr Rao!”
He looked away from the screen. “You are almost here. Remember, run from the lift and turn right, hide behind the girder. Keep your head low, ah-cha?”
She nodded.
Dr Rao cut the connection and Sukara felt terribly alone.
She looked around the interior of the carriage. There was no lit indicator to tell her how far she had dropped. The blackened line on the ceiling was about half a metre long now. She hoped Rao was right in his assessment of the time it’d take the bastard to cut through the ceiling... But what if he intended only to cut a gap wide enough to insert the barrel of his laser and shoot her?
But why, then, had he not killed her earlier, in the hospital lift? He’d abducted her, and therefore wanted her alive. Even when he’d fired at her in the alley, she guessed that he’d aimed to clip her, stop her flight, rather than kill her.
The descent seemed to take an age. She was convinced that it was slower than the first time. She wondered if her pursuer had done something to retard the elevator’s speed. She looked up. The scorched line was almost a metre long now, and as she watched it turned at right angles, describing a letter L.
It would be only a matter of minutes before he cut the steel enough to bend it down and squirm through...
She counted the seconds, willing the lift to arrive at the starship. She reached two minutes and looked at the ceiling. The second scorched line was as long as the first now. As she watched, the bastard began the third, creating a neat hatch...
She took ragged breaths, telling herself to be calm. Soon she would reach the starship. She’d do exactly as Dr Rao had told her, and hoped he’d be equal to the threat.
A thud resounded in the carriage, Startled, she looked up. The bastard had cut a neat U-shape in the ceiling, and now he was stamping on the metal, bending it inwards. With each thump of his boot the steel flange gave a couple of centimetres. Soon he’d drop through. She sobbed, gripping the needle and vowing not to give in without a fight.
Then the lift clanked, bobbed, and halted. She jumped to her feet with a cry and stabbed the door button. It eased open with agonising slowness and she squeezed out, stumbled free and staggered to the right. She saw the girder, a vast diagonal beam twice her width. She dived behind it, ducked and clamped her mouth shut to stifle her sobs.
She heard the desperate thudding from within the carriage, then a cry and a thump as the bastard landed. Sukara saw movement to her right. Someone was crouching behind the girder across the catwalk from her. Before she could work out who it was, she saw the Chinese bastard as he sprang from the elevator.
She heard the shots, six of them one after the other, echoing in the cavern. Sukara closed her eyes. The Chinaman gave an abbreviated cry. She opened her eyes. Her pursuer was writhing on the catwalk, his torso a pulpy mass of blood and disorganised bone. Another shot, and something seemed to erupt from his head, skull shrapnel and a beautifully parabolic spurt of blood.
Then silence...
Sukara crouched where she was, unable to move.
The figure across from her stood up and shuffled out from behind the girder. Dr Rao was holding an antique pistol. She looked down at the Chinaman’s body and nodded in satisfaction. Wobbly, Sukara climbed to her feet and hurried across to him, avoiding the mess on the catwalk.
She found herself in the old man’s arms, sobbing.
“Sukara, all will be well. Do not fear.”
She turned her head, stared at the bloodied body. “How...?” she began.
Dr Rao smiled and held up the pistol. “It might be old, Sukara, but there is much to commend the simple projectile weapon.” He frowned. “Though bullets are a rare commodity these days. I wonder if I
should have been more sparing...”
Sukara couldn’t help laughing, almost hysterically, as it entered her head that she might get the bill for the bullets when all this was over. She wouldn’t put it past the mercenary doctor.
She was still gripping the communications pin. She wiped the congealing liquid on her sleeve and inserted the pin into her handset.
“Come,” Rao said, taking her arm. He eased her along the catwalk.
“What about...?” she said, gesturing at the corpse.
“I will deal with the disposal,” he said. “One less thug on Bengal Station will not be missed.”
They came to the starship and he sat her down on an engine cowling. “I will arrange protection, Sukara. I think it best if you leave here. I will assign a boy to take you to Level Three, where I have a safe house. You will take a posterior exit.”
“But what about Pham, Li...?”
He nodded. “Worry not. I will contact a security company I have used before. These people are impeccable. They will escort you to and from the hospital, and ensure your safety at all times.” He looked at her. “Do you have any idea what this was all about?”
She shook her head. “They knew about Li.” She told him of the bastard’s deception, how she guessed that he wanted her alive. “It might have something to do with the murder of the telepaths... or maybe Jeff’s mission.”
Rao licked his reptilian lips. “That is a possibility, but one that need not concern us overly at this juncture. One moment.” He moved into the starship, and emerged a minute later with a tiny one-armed Indian boy.
“Ajay will take you to Level Three. Do you know Bhindi Road?”
She nodded.
“Take the first right turn after the park. There you will find apartment number 10 on Nehru Street. The security code on the door is...” She activated her handset and took down the code and the safe haven’s address.
“And as soon as you go, I will arrange for your continued security. Please do not worry, ah-cha?”
She embraced him, kissed his leathery cheek, and whispered, “Thank you, Dr Rao.”
“Now go. Chalo!”
The boy trotted off and she followed him on a tortuous course through a forest of girders and across a walkway to the far bulkhead. Here he undogged a hatch and revealed a dark access column, with staple-shaped rungs welded to its interior. The boy ducked inside and climbed, and Sukara followed.
If the descent in the elevator had seemed to take aeons, then the climb to Level Three took even longer. It became a repetition of identical movements, which soon had her arms and legs throbbing with pain. Mentally, too, she was undergoing torture. She might have fled the bastard, but she knew she was far from safe. They knew who she was, knew about Li, and presumably knew about Pham, too. She decided that, when Dr Rao’s security men ferried her from the safe house, she would pick up Pham from school and go to the hospital, where she would stay without venturing out until Jeff got back.
The thought helped to settle her nerves.
They came to a hatch, which Ajay opened and squeezed through. It was an even tighter squeeze for Sukara. Then they were in a service conduit between the levels. Ajay pointed to another set of welded rungs.
“Nearly there now, ah-cha? This Level Four. Short climb only now.”
He led the way and Sukara followed. They emerged minutes later inside a small room full of electrical generators and fuse boxes. Ajay moved to a door, cracked it an inch, and peered out. “You go, now, ah-cha? This Level Three!”
She smiled at him and slipped through the door.
It banged shut behind her.
She recognised where she was - a wide corridor not far from the food market. The address Rao had given her was perhaps half a kilometre away.
She eased herself into the crowds flowing towards the market, feeling safe within the faceless anonymity of the thousand busy citizens. She turned down Bhindi Road and hurried past the park.
As soon as the security team arrived, she told herself, she would go for Pham. That was her priority now.
She turned right, off the busy avenue, and almost ran down the quiet street. Not far to go now. The crowds and the noise were far behind her. This area was affluent, a series of plush apartments overlooking a central reservation of palm trees.
She found number ten and was about to enter the code when a voice behind her said, “Sukara?”
She turned, disbelieving. A Chinese face - for all she knew the brother of the bastard she’d stabbed - grinned at her. She wondered how he’d found her, and even had time to consider the possibility that the first Chink had tagged her with something.
“This time, bitch, you won’t get away so easily.”
He jabbed her viciously in the belly and she gasped with the pain and dropped to her knees. Then he punched her face. She fell, the back of her head striking the ground. He stood over her, smiling, enjoying himself.
Sukara lay on her back, and the last thing she saw before passing out was the close-up view of a spray-can.
* * * *
TWENTY-TWO
THE UNDERLANDS
They walked on.
Vaughan judged they’d been travelling for perhaps three hours since waking that ‘morning’. How long he’d slept, after eating the soporific bud, was another guess, but he felt refreshed and relaxed as if he’d managed a full night’s sleep. They’d breakfasted on the same grapefruit-sized fruit as earlier, and drunk the watery contents of a horn-shaped gourd the alien had dug up too. The alien, as was its wont, had uttered not a sound all day.
Vaughan reckoned that approximately twenty-four hours had elapsed since they’d started underground, way past the time he should have called Sukara. She would be expecting to hear from him imminently, and would only worry when he failed to call. He tried to push the thought to the back of his mind.
At least now the mountain range they were approaching was closer than the cliff-face they had left. To their rear, the wall of rock they’d passed through was a hazy grey curtain, indistinct where it phased into the cavern ceiling. Ahead, the range had resolved itself, and Vaughan saw that it was indeed an enfilade of jagged mountains. Each one terminated in a peak, like so many lofted scimitars, and there was a space between their summits and the crystal-encrusted ceiling far above. The sheer enormity of the subterranean cavern system was beyond his comprehension; perhaps Das was right in speculating that there might be thousands of such pockets within the planet.
They’d come across more wildlife down here: not just the insects and birds they’d seen on the surface, but hopping rodent-like creatures, green-scaled and darting, and larger, long-nosed quadrupeds like hybrid tapir-pigs. All had been docile, running off into the savannah when they’d happened upon the unlikely trio.
Das said, “I reckon another couple of hours and we’ll reach the foothills.”
“And then?”
“What then?” Das called to their alien guide. “Where are you taking us? It’d make things easier if you’d communicate.”
“You’re wasting your time.”
The creature didn’t deviate one iota from its steady bobbing gait.
Beside him, Das turned and squinted back the way they’d come. “Hey, am I seeing things?”
“What?”
She had stopped and was pointing at the cliff-face far behind them.
Vaughan joined her and peered. A third of the way up the cliff-face, on the threshold of a diagonal rip in the rock, Vaughan made out eight tiny figures: Chandrasakar, Singh, and the six security personnel; they were accompanied by half a dozen glinting points of light, the spider drones. As he watched, the party made their tortuous way down the cliff-face towards the savannah.
Vaughan said, “I don’t see any aliens with them.”
She fitted a hand to her brow and watched the distant humans. “They’re alone. Come on. Let’s not hang around.”
They hurried after the bobbing alien.
“They’ll think it strange that
we haven’t tried to contact them,” Vaughan said. “They don’t know our handsets have been disabled.”
She nodded. “You’re right. Rab would think it suspicious.”
“As far as he’s concerned, we’re running away from him.”
She glanced at him. “That presupposes he can see us.”
He gestured to the give-away circles of orange discoloration that kept pace with them through the savannah. “I think the chances are that he has.”
She increased her pace. “The sooner we get to the foothills,” she pointed out, “the safer we’ll be.”
