Necropath [Bengal Station 01]

by Eric Brown

  Last night, lying in bed in his arms, it had occurred to her in a second of frightening awareness that Osborne knew her wholly and comprehensively, knew every last detail as to who and what she was, knew her every secret—and yet she knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about him.

  She showered, washing the tears from her face beneath the jet of hot water. Then she stood beneath the drier, turning her body and avoiding the sight of it in the mirror. She returned to the bedroom and selected a dress, slipped it over her new silk underwear. When she examined herself in the mirror, tilting it so that the reflection showed only her body, she realised that the fancy dress made her look ridiculous, like a chimpanzee dressed up to mimic a girl. She pulled it off and dug a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from her backpack.

  She moved to the window, sat on the cushioned seat, and stared out across the garden of the hotel. She considered what Dr. Rao had told her yesterday, about Pakara’s special friend, Vaughan. Perhaps later today she would take the train down to the Himachal sector and go to Nazruddin’s, where Rao had said Vaughan might be found. She wanted to know more about how her sister had died, reassure herself that Rao was telling the truth when he said that she had died in peace and without pain. Also, she was curious about the man called Vaughan. Pakara’s special friend, Rao had called him. She wondered if her curiosity did not contain just a tinge of jealousy that Pakara had had someone long before Sukara had found Osborne.

  “You’re up, Su.” Osborne entered the bedroom, startling her. He came up behind her, held her shoulders, and kissed the crown of her head. Then he slipped his case from his pocket and inserted the pin into the back of his head. Sukara blushed with shame at her earlier thoughts.

  He shook his head. “Su... trust me. I can’t tell you about myself. I... there are secrets, information, that my government—”

  “I don’t want know government secrets!” she cried. “Just about you. Personal things. You tell me nothing!”

  “The past... my past, I don’t like to talk about, Su. The memories are painful—can’t you understand that there are things that people can’t dwell on, much less tell other people, even those they love?”

  “Why you love me! I ugly, no brain! Nothing!” She moved away from him and sat on the bed, staring through a blur of tears. “Why!”

  He winced with the severity of her thoughts. “I love you because you’re you, Su. As simple as that. You can’t explain love; it’s something you can’t analyse. It just happens between people. You just feel it, and there’s no explanation.”

  “I no understand.” She shook her head. “I understand nothing.”

  He sat down beside her on the bed, stroked her cheek with his strong fingers. “Su, please listen to me. Last week, in Bangkok, I read your cerebral signature a hundred metres away. I read your mind, Su. Your purity, your goodness. You can’t begin to imagine what effect it had on me. You stood out from the evil and filth all around you. And I had to have that. I had to find you. I followed the signal of your mind all the way to the Siren Bar. And there you were...”

  She looked up at him, saw the tears in his eyes. She recalled the night he had entered the bar, remembered the way he had looked at her, straight at her, as if he had been searching for her all along.

  “Please, Su, don’t doubt the love I feel for you. Trust me, please. Just trust me.”

  He kissed her gently, then withdrew his pin and returned it to its case. He moved to the next room, leaving Sukara feeling drained and empty. She stared at the pattern of the carpet, tried to work out if his words explained anything, if they made any sense.

  What had been so terrible about his past that he could not speak about? She wished, then, that she could be made telepathic. She felt that that would make everything understandable. If only she could just look into his mind for ten seconds, as he looked into hers, and read the truth.

  He returned to the bedroom, paused by the connecting door. “I’m going out for a few hours, Su. I’ll see you at five, okay? We’ll go out for a meal, I’ll show you the sights.”

  He smiled and moved to the lounge, and seconds later she heard the door open and close as he left the suite.

  She moved to the window and stared out. She would leave the hotel, catch the train south to Himachal, and seek out Pakara’s friend, Vaughan. It would be reassuring to talk to someone who had been close to her sister. She checked that she had dollars in the pockets of her shorts, and was about to leave the room when she saw Osborne. He was sitting at a table in the outdoor café on the lawn of the hotel, drinking something. She wondered why he hadn’t invited her to join him, and felt obscurely betrayed. It occurred to her that he didn’t want to be seen with her—then she told herself not to be so silly.

  She would go down and buy a comic for the train ride south, then join him over breakfast. She left the room and took the elevator to the ground floor, bought a romance comic from a kiosk, and folded the plastic sheets into a square that fitted neatly into the back pocket of her shorts.

  By the time she reached the café, Osborne was no longer there. She halted, forlorn, on the edge of the grass—then she saw him walking towards the hotel gates, and decided to follow him. Only when she reached the gates, and saw him merge with the crowd outside the train station, did she wonder if what she was doing was wise. How might he react to her turning up at his side, uninvited? She decided that she did not want to provoke his displeasure, or anger—and yet at the same time she was overcome with a sense of curiosity. He was trying to locate someone, a traitor to his country, but had been unwilling to tell her any more. She realised that she had no proof that this was his reason for being on the Station.

  This area of the Station was not as heavily populated as the street outside Nazruddin’s, where she had felt claustrophobic in the press of humanity. The crowds here were no worse than in Bangkok. She moved along a wide boulevard, ignoring the cries and tugs of the street kids and keeping Osborne in her sights.

  He was walking at medium pace in the shade of the trees that lined the street, the only Westerner in sight. Beggars approached him from time to time, then fell away as he snapped something at them. Sukara found it difficult to reconcile this severe farang, the very image of a high-powered businessman, with the kindly lover who had soothed her in her hour of need.

  She watched him turn right, into a public garden, and seconds later reached the gates herself. The gravel paths that cut through the lawns and raised flowerbeds were relatively quiet, and she waited until Osborne was a couple of hundred metres distant before- she too entered the gardens. She didn’t want to get too close, in case he had inserted his pin and read her presence. She adopted a casual stroll, admiring the flowers and trees, from time to time looking ahead to ensure that he was still in sight.

  She began to feel guilty at following him like this—there was no way she would be able to keep it secret, when he returned tonight and read her mind. She decided that she would join him, tell him that she wanted to be with him, which anyway was the truth. She was about to call his name and run after him, when she saw that he had stopped and was talking to a slim Thai woman.

  She moved into the cover of a tree, watching him. His attitude seemed easy, even affable. Sukara felt sick. The woman was a working girl; she knew it from the way she confronted Osborne.

  She prayed he would dismiss the prostitute, walk on.

  Then Osborne reached out and touched the woman’s wrist, and the tableau seemed to freeze— or it might only have been Sukara’s shocked perceptions refusing to acknowledge that this was the same gesture of care and concern that he had used with her. Her heart banged in her chest and she wanted to scream at Osborne that she would never, ever trust him again.

  The woman smiled at Osborne, gestured towards the park’s exit. They walked around the park, towards the gates. Sukara, a heavy sensation in her chest, followed at a distance. Osborne and the woman left the park and moved along the road, turning into a side street. Sukara hurried across the road, paus
ed, and peered around the corner. The alley was packed with cheap hotels. Osborne and the whore were chatting away; they might have appeared, to a casual observer, to be lovers.

  As Sukara watched, they paused outside the entrance of a run-down hotel, and then disappeared inside.

  She leaned against the wall of the building, her legs weak. He had said trust me, trust me, and she had trusted him. And he had betrayed her, not had the simple honesty to admit that he found her unattractive, that he preferred slim Thai prostitutes, perfect and white.

  Slowly, her mind confused with anger and self-pity, she retraced her steps back towards the hotel. Crying quietly to herself, she pulled out the bulky wad of her folded comic, stared at the familiar characters on the front page. Now the comic assumed an immense importance—a treasured possession that was hers and only hers—her only ally against a harsh, cruel world.

  As she passed the train station, she remembered why she had bought the comic—to occupy her on the journey south. She halted, staring up at the entrance to the station. She would take the next train to the Himachal sector.

  Ten minutes later, as she tried to shut Osborne and his betrayal from her mind, the Himachal Express carried Sukara towards Jeff Vaughan.

  * * * *

  TWENTY-FOUR

  A CRUEL ILLUSION

  Vaughan stood in the cool shade of a cedar tree, staring out across the ocean. Behind him, Himachal Park was almost deserted in the extreme noonday heat. A kilometre below, alone on the blue marble surface of the ocean, a dhow with a shark’s-fin sail tacked towards the Station.

  It was hard to believe that Tiger had died so recently, and that soon after Jimmy Chandra had called with information about Director Weiss. He looked back and realised that that had been the beginning.

  He had the strange feeling, now, that today was yet another beginning—the beginning of the end, when the events of the past week would be resolved for good, one way or the other. He felt the weight of responsibility settle heavily upon him. If he acted with care and vigilance, he could eradicate the threat that hung over the Station. If he did not, and failed, then it would surely mean the deaths of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people around the Expansion.

  For the first time in years, Vaughan felt that his existence had purpose and meaning.

  He glanced at his watch. It was almost noon. He stepped from the shade of the tree into the glare and heat of the sunlight. He had bought a fresh supply of chora last night, to drive away the demon mind-hum that had assailed him ever since arriving back at the Station, but he had resisted the urge to take a dose this morning: he wanted his ability unimpaired during the next few hours. In consequence, the collective noise of the massed citizens beyond the park pressed upon his head like a migraine.

  He hurried through the gardens and paused outside the main gates. Chandi Road was not as busy as usual, the crowds thinned by the heat. He checked his watch again. It was twelve exactly— and, right on time, a police flier appeared overhead, descending slowly. It put down in a blast of hot jet engines and dust. Vaughan backed away, coughing, and watched Commander Sinton climb from the passenger seat.

  Sinton strode towards the gates, nodded tersely. “Vaughan.”

  Vaughan gestured to the path that led through the park towards the rail by the cedar tree. Sinton fell into step alongside him, his mind-shield blocking his every thought.

  “I hope I’m not wasting my time here,” Sinton said, direct as ever.

  “I’m sure you’re not.”

  Sinton nodded. “Chandra regarded you very highly, Vaughan. I don’t know why you don’t agree to come and work for the Agency.”

  “I don’t actually like being a telepath. It wasn’t my choice in the first place, and I’ve resented the ability ever since.”

  “I should have thought the talent to look into the minds of one’s fellow humans would be eminently rewarding.”

  Vaughan kept his smile to himself. “There’s an old adage among telepaths—we never read what we want to read, but what we don’t want to.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, we read the truth, and the truth is often vile.”

  Sinton glanced sidewise at him, scowling. “You don’t like your fellow man, do you?”

  “As a rule, no, I don’t.”

  Sinton’s next question surprised him. “Are you religious, Vaughan?”

  “No—are you?”

  He watched for Sinton’s reaction: the Commander never even blinked. “I have certain... beliefs, Vaughan, which I suppose could be described as religious. Haven’t you read the religious impulse in your fellows, and been momentarily swayed?”

  Vaughan shook his head. “The impulse is strong, but it proves nothing other than man’s need to believe in something to counter the fear of death.”

  Sinton slowed his pace, staring across the park, eyes narrowed. “You might have something there. But that doesn’t disprove the existence of something transcendent towards which we are all moving. Humanity might be vile, as you claim, but I believe in redemption.” He looked at Vaughan. “Don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure I believe in anything, commander.”

  They arrived at the western-most edge of the park. Vaughan moved into the shade of the cedar, Sinton beside him, and leaned against the rail. From here, the entrance to the park was obscured by shrubbery.

  “Enough philosophy,” Sinton said. “You said you had information.”

  “I’ve been going over my time on Verkerk’s World,” Vaughan said. “Piecing together the incidents, trying to get certain things clear in my mind. I felt I owed it to Jimmy Chandra, to the other people who lost their lives to the Vaith.”

  Sinton appeared impatient. “You aren’t still harping on that old theme?”

  “Why not? It’s a tune I find particularly fascinating. Even if I’m the only person who can hear it.”

  “You’re not wrong there,” Sinton snapped.

  “You see, I know what I experienced. I know that I’m not wrong. I suppose we all have our beliefs, but I happen to know that mine are factual.”

  “We’ve been through all this yesterday. If you haven’t got information more substantial than what you presented to me then, I don’t see...”

  “I told you—I have more information. I went over the events on Verkerk’s. It struck me as odd that Lars Jenson was equipped with a mind-shield when I arrived to talk to him. You see, augmentation-pins were forbidden on Verkerk’s World under the old regime, and that statute still hasn’t been amended.”

  Sinton nodded. “Interesting. Go on.”

  “So, I reasoned that he must have known I was on my way to Verkerk’s, and taken precautions. Later, Jenson and the Disciples followed us and threw us into the pit.”

  “I suppose it is possible,” he began.

  “It’s the only scenario that makes any sense, Commander. The next question was, who was his informant on Earth? I thought back to Gerhard Weiss, a native of Verkerk’s World.”

  “But—”

  “Please, hear me out. Five or six years ago he came to Earth, assumed a new identity, facilitated either by himself or by members of the Church already set up on Earth. He infiltrated the command structure at the ‘port, rose through the ranks, and when he was high enough to influence things, the plan went ahead.”

  “But Weiss died well before you even knew you were going to Verkerk’s World.”

  Vaughan said, “I know. It wasn’t Weiss. But I thought that if a Disciple could infiltrate one organisation, someone else could just as well infiltrate another—get themselves into a high up position—”

  “We’re back in the realm of wild speculation again.”

  Vaughan nodded. “Indulge that speculation just a little longer, Commander. So here we have a very efficient organisation, capable of great duplicity and ingenuity to achieve their ends. They’d infiltrated one important organisation on the Station, so it occurred to me that it would be quite within their means to infiltrat
e another.”

  Sinton pursed his lips in a speculative frown. “That organisation being?”

  “The Law Enforcement Agency, of course.”

  “You aren’t trying to tell me that one of my men...?” He stared at Vaughan. “You don’t mean that Chandra...?”

  “Of course not, Commander. Chandra was a relatively lowly investigator. The infiltration went much higher than that.”

  “I must say that I find this most preposterous—” Sinton began.

  Vaughan stared at him. “Do you really, Commander?”

  In an instant, he drew his knife and looped his arm around Sinton’s neck, pulling tight and choking the commander. With his free hand he drew Sinton’s pistol from his holster and worked the barrel into his back. Sinton gasped in pain.