Necropath [Bengal Station 01]

by Eric Brown

  His handset chimed. It was Jimmy Chandra, his boyish face filling the tiny screen. Vaughan unstrapped his handset and propped it against the bottle of beer while he scooped rice into his mouth.

  “Jeff, I’m having a party at my place later tonight. Why don’t you come along? There’ll be a few interesting people, a few single women.”

  Vaughan smiled. “Think I’ll take a rain check, Jimmy.”

  “Well, if you change your mind... I’ve been telling Sumita about you. She’d really like to talk to you.”

  Vaughan cringed inwardly. Chandra’s wife was a psychotherapist.

  Chandra was peering up at him. “You don’t look too well, Jeff. I hope you don’t mind my saying.”

  “I’m okay.” He told Chandra about his purchase of the augmentation-pin and his plans to follow up the few leads he had so far.

  “Jeff, you don’t think you’re overdoing it a bit? I’m as eager to find this kid as you are—”

  “Are you?” Vaughan said. “You don’t even know for sure that she exists. You’ve only got my word for it.”

  “I believe you, Jeff.” Chandra hesitated. “I just thought, maybe you should leave me and my team to it sort out. We’ll come across the girl eventually. Look, I don’t want you to become obsessed.”

  Vaughan paused, halted a handful of rice before his mouth. “What do you mean, obsessed?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that, so soon after Tiger’s death...” Chandra paused, choosing his words. “Look at it this way; Elly Jenson’s the focal point of their Church. I’m sure she won’t come to any harm.”

  “I don’t know. I just want to get to the bottom of this, get the kid home.”

  “And then you can get on with your life?”

  Vaughan sensed something censorious in Chandra’s tone. “What do you mean?”

  Chandra sighed. “I mean... So we solve the case, get the girl home, find out what Weiss was doing with those illegal shipments... what then? What sort of life are you going to go back to?” He paused, then said, “You look like you could do with a year in a sanatorium to get your system scoured.”

  Vaughan took a long draught of beer. “What makes you think—?”

  Chandra hesitated, then said, “You’re on a police register of users, Jeff. Okay, so it’s only chora. No big deal. But prolonged use of the stuff does nasty things to the system.”

  Vaughan stared at the vial of blue powder on the table before him. “Do you know why I take it?”

  “I’ve read up on psi-related problems, yes. Look, I’m not censuring you. I’d probably take the first thing that came along if I read what you read every day.” Chandra paused, his lips forming a dissatisfied frown. “What I’m trying to say is, get yourself sorted out, okay? When all this is over, go for a long holiday. Have you ever thought of getting rid of the implant?”

  From time to time it had crossed Vaughan’s mind to have the console removed, to rid himself of the chattering demons that rode in his backbrain. But fear had prevented him from turning the thought into positive action. He might not have liked what he learned when delving into the minds of his fellow men, but to be without his ability, to be without that supplementary sense which over the years he had grown reliant upon... Even unaugmented, he knew he used his ability to judge moods, assess character.

  Perhaps, he admitted, he used his psi-ability so that he didn’t have to form close bonds, even with people whose minds he found congenial, like Chandra. Because of his ability, he knew individuals well enough, and therefore did not have to work to get to know them any better—and in the process allow them to get to know him. He did not have to give anything of himself.

  If he did not give of himself, then no one could take from him. No one could hurt him again.

  “I don’t think I could afford to get the console removed,” he muttered.

  “Okay, Jeff.” Chandra nodded, letting the matter drop. “Hey, don’t forget about tonight. We’d really love to see you.”

  “Yeah, right.” Vaughan cut the connection, ordered another beer, and reached for the chora.

  * * * *

  THIRTEEN

  A CLEAN BALANCE SHEET

  It was after one by the time the last guest left,

  Jimmy Chandra helped Sumita carry the last of the dirty dishes from the dining room to the kitchen, then wandered through the lounge and stepped onto the balcony. The apartment was on the fifth floor of a twenty-storey towerpile situated in the pleasant district of Vallore, a couple of kilometres south of the police headquarters. The balcony overlooked a tree-enclosed park: the area was relatively quiet, and the neighbours were solid, hard-working professional types. At quiet times like this, when he could relax and forget about work, Chandra realised how lucky he was. He had a beautiful, intelligent wife, a comfortable apartment, and a good job.

  The dinner party had gone well, with friends old and new blending in a perfect mix; conversation had bubbled along amiably. As he stood by the balcony rail and stared out over the park, he told himself that it was perhaps just as well that Vaughan had not accepted his invitation and turned up.

  Since they had last met, Vaughan had changed. While still recognisably the cynic of old, he was now less caustic and personally bitter in his attitude to Chandra. He seemed less inclined to openly mock Chandra’s religious views, his optimism. His meetings with Vaughan over the past couple of days had not been as bad as he might have expected.

  Chandra had no illusions that Vaughan had been cured of his world-weary outlook—in fact, he guessed that Vaughan’s views were even more entrenched now. He seemed even more personally unhappy. The difference now was that Vaughan was apathetic, past caring. He no longer ridiculed Chandra’s belief system because he no longer gave a damn what people thought. He would not have got on well tonight with Chandra’s friends, each of whom had a view and a desire to express that view. Chandra would have retreated into silence, drinking himself melancholy and insensate.

  Chandra wondered if the last straw for Vaughan was losing the street kid, Tiger. He wondered if his obsession with tracking down Elly Jenson, the Chosen One, was a means by which he might compensate for the loss of the child.

  But what might it mean for his sanity if he failed to find the Chosen One?

  Sumita joined him on the balcony, the moonlight catching the silver filigree of her sari. “What do you think happened to your friend?”

  “Vaughan? I don’t know. Social gatherings aren’t his thing.”

  “I would have thought, being a telepath, he’d be good at socialising—”

  Chandra laughed. “Vaughan? I’ve never met a more antisocial being in my life. It’s precisely because of his ability that he shuns gatherings.”

  “Is he reading all the time?”

  “No. Only when he’s augmented, which he is as little as possible. But even unaugmented he can pick up noise from minds, people’s moods. He takes a drug to lessen the effects, but it’s only partly successful.”

  “Do you know, Jim, of all your friends, I think you’ve talked about Vaughan the least.”

  “That’s understandable. Of all my friends, he’s the most complex, the person I feel most ambivalent towards.”

  “When did you meet him?”

  Chandra hesitated. He had never talked about the incident to anyone.

  He could feel Sumita’s gaze on him: she always knew, by some incredible intuition that constantly amazed him, when he was holding something back. There had not been many occasions when Chandra had felt the need to lie to her, or to hedge the truth. But occasionally Sumita had preempted his words with a look, a sidewise glance, that had said, just you dare... There had been times when he wondered if his wife were herself telepathic.

  “We met when I was working at the ‘port,” Chandra began.

  Four years ago he had spent a stint with ‘port security, as part of his training towards eventual promotion to the post of investigator. For the most part, the job had been routine and
monotonous, enlivened—as was police work in general—by the occasional bout of intense action. There had been nothing to indicate that that night would be any different from the others that had preceded it—long, boring shifts vetting incoming immigrants or checking security at the ‘port perimeter. Perhaps the lack of action before that night had lulled Chandra into a state of complacency, or perhaps he had been unlucky. The alternative, that he was just plain incompetent, also occurred to him after the event, and might have crossed the minds of his superiors had it not been for Jeff Vaughan’s intervention.

  He was due to arrest a colonist from Mahogany—a terrorist wanted for political killings on that planet—due in on a voidship from Mars. The woman’s description was downloaded into his handset, and Chandra had studied it until he was confident he could spot the woman in a crowd. He had boarded the ship with Vaughan and stationed himself in the disembarkation foyer, while Vaughan had gone on ahead to mix with the travellers. He would single out the woman and walk out of the ship behind her. Chandra would join him and acting together they would overpower and arrest the terrorist.

  It should have been so simple, but Chandra had messed it up.

  He saw the woman—or who he thought was the woman—with Vaughan separated from her by a couple of pushy tourists and unable to force his way through. As the travellers flowed down the ramp, Chandra had jockeyed himself into position beside the woman. They exited the ship, crossed the deck towards the terminal.

  At the exact second that Chandra pulled the woman to the ground, drawing his pistol and shouting at her to freeze, Vaughan screamed: “What the hell!”

  Chandra had rolled, the terrified woman in his grip, and looked back at Vaughan. A woman—the woman, Chandra now realised—had sprinted away from Vaughan and drawn a weapon, aiming at Chandra as he sprawled on the deck. She had fired, but Vaughan had leapt at her and knocked her off balance. Her shot hit the deck beside Chandra, ricocheting off with a dying whine. Vaughan wrestled the terrorist to the ground, disarming her and beating her across the head with the butt of her own weapon.

  “What the fuck were you playing at, Chandra?” Vaughan screamed at him with a venom more shocking than the woman’s shot. “You could have got us both killed!”

  Chandra had expected a reprimand from his commanding officer, at least—at worst, temporary suspension pending an official enquiry. Amazingly, Vaughan chose not to report the incident.

  “It could have happened to anyone,” Vaughan said when Chandra brought the subject up later.

  “Everyone deserves just one fuck up. That was yours.”

  And Vaughan had never again mentioned the incident.

  “I got to know Vaughan a little better after that,” Chandra told Sumita now. “But never very well. I can’t remember the number of times I thanked him. It must have been pathetic. I was young and naive.” Chandra smiled. “The strange thing was, Vaughan refused to acknowledge that he’d saved my life. It was as if he didn’t want me owing him anything. I came to realise later that in his personal dealings with his fellow man, Vaughan likes to keep a clean balance sheet.”

  Sumita tapped her lips with an oval fingernail. “There are some people like that,” she said. “They don’t like people getting too close. They do everything they can to distance themselves.”

  Chandra nodded. “That sounds like Vaughan.”

  “Subconsciously, they don’t want people becoming too close for fear of losing these people. Having no one at all is a preferable state. Often, these people have lost people close to them in the past. Do you know if Vaughan has lost a loved one?”

  He told her about Tiger.

  “Interesting fellow,” Sumita said.

  Chandra smiled. He was about to tell Sumita about Vaughan’s quest for the Chosen One when his handset chimed. Sumita raised her eyes to the stars.

  “Chandra here,” he said.

  Commander Sinton’s face appeared on the screen. “Chandra, I want you on duty in ten minutes.”

  Chandra glanced at his watch. “At two in the morning, sir?”

  “You heard what I said. There’s been another shooting. It bears many similarities to the Bhindra case.”

  Sumita was looking at him, lips pursed in an attempt not to smile. He covered his handset. “I’m sorry, Sum.”

  “Am I saying anything?” she smiled.

  “Where is it, sir?” Chandra asked.

  “Lieutenant Vishwanath’s already there. Ship Seven, on the Boulevard of Voidships. Report to me with the details before dawn, will you?”

  Chandra cut the connection.

  Sumita draped her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips. “Take care.”

  * * * *

  The Boulevard of Voidships had been a money-spinning venture developed by the director in charge of the ‘port before Weiss. Instead of having the old decommissioned ships towed off and scrapped, he came up with the idea of utilising them as accommodations for wealthy citizens willing to pay exorbitant rates for something a little different. A cantilevered shelf was added to the southern margin of the ‘port and two-dozen voidships were welded into position overlooking the ocean. The old, three-man voidships were transformed into single accommodation units, while the larger freighters were subdivided into individual apartments.

  Ship Seven, a squat, three-man explorer dating back to the turn of the century, sat in a well-manicured lawn, its silver carapace gleaming in the light of the moon. It looked to Chandra, as he climbed from his flier on the boulevard, as if the explorer had just touched down in paradise.

  The homicide scientists were filing down the ship’s ramp, their work done at this particular crime scene. The clean-up boys were kicking their heels on the lawn, waiting to be given the all-clear to go in and remove the corpse. Vishi met Chandra at the foot of the ramp.

  “I don’t know if Sinton told you, sir, but it looks like the same killer shot both Bhindra and this victim, Marquez.”

  “He mentioned there were similarities.”

  Vishi ushered Chandra up the ramp, through the carpeted foyer of the ship, and into a spacious lounge that had once been the bridge. A long, curved viewscreen looked out over the ocean.

  Vishi crossed to a red velvet Chesterfield and knelt behind it. Chandra stood behind him, staring at the dead man for longer than was wise. He was suddenly aware of the meal he’d consumed earlier.

  Like Bhindra, Marquez had suffered the fate of having had his head blown away with the impact of the shot. The messy decapitation robbed the corpse of character and dignity; it might have been a shop mannequin lying face down on the thick pile carpet, up-flung arms parenthesising the puddle that had been its skull.

  “Who was Marquez, Vishi?”

  “Miguel Jose Marquez—a spacer with ESA, the European Space Agency, from the age of twenty-five until his retirement at fifty. The last twenty years he’s lived on the Station, first in New Mumbai and then here. It’s the ship he flew on his first exploration mission.”

  Chandra glanced at him. “Which Agency did Bhindra work for?”

  “The Asiatic Space Corporation.”

  “So what are those similarities?”

  Vishi proffered the screader. “These are the findings of the scientists, cross-related to those in the Bhindra case.”

  Chandra accessed the screader. Vishi kept up a running commentary. “The projectiles in both cases were fired from the same rifle, a high-calibre Steiger repeater, a weapon favoured by assassins.”

  Chandra nodded. “Very good, Vishi.”

  “There’s more, sir. We have a witness to the arrival of a black Ferrari flier outside the ship two hours ago, minutes before Marquez was shot. The witness reported seeing an indistinct male, probably Indian, climb from the flier and enter the ship. The same witness saw the man leave a couple of minutes later and take off. The flier had a tail light malfunction, causing it to flicker. I’ve put the description out Station-wide.”

  “Excellent.”

  “As regards the
Bhindra case, sir, witnesses also reported seeing a black Ferrari flier passing the apartment at the time Bhindra was shot. It looks like we’re looking for the same man in both cases.”

  Lost in thought, Chandra walked around the lounge. On walls, shelves, and desks were the mementoes of a lifetime: graphics of ships, crews, landscapes of wonderful and exotic planets, a haphazard collection of extraterrestrial rocks. Like Bhindra, Marquez collected model spaceships—a touchingly juvenile hobby for grown men to indulge in after a lifetime among the stars.

  He paused before a writing desk, the centrepiece of which was a signed photograph of three uniformed spacers, arms about each other’s shoulders. He stared at the man in the centre of the pix, then read the names of Bhindra, Marquez, and a spacer called Essex.