Xenopath, page 29
I am doing what is necessary to prevent further deaths, said the voice.
She wondered if it said this to lessen her guilt at what she was about to do, and then she wondered if she would feel any remorse at bludgeoning the killer.
The bathroom door opened and the killer stepped into the lounge.
Sukara moved from behind the unit.
She raised the statuette above her head, conscious of its heft, the damage it would do.
At that second, just as she was about to propel the elephant on its downward swing towards the blonde head of the killer, he turned, suddenly aware.
She cried out and swung the statuette.
The blow caught the side of his forehead. The killer dropped to his knees.
For a fraction of a second, Sukara hesitated.
Then the thing in her head took control.
As if watching the actions of her body from a remove, she was aware of launching herself towards the killer, striking him again across the side of the head and then stamping down hard on his wrist as he fell to the floor.
She wrested the pistol from his grip and staggered away across the lounge.
She felt the control of her body return to her as she stood, shaking, facing the killer as he pulled himself upright.
She levelled the pistol.
The killer stared, and understanding came to him. Blood trickled down his face, and Sukara could not bring herself to feel the slightest compassion. He reached out, smiling, almost placatory—as if seeking exoneration for his deeds to date.
Sukara found herself wanting to ask him how he could take innocent lives and live with himself, but at the same time all she wanted to do was to pull the trigger and kill the bastard.
Tell him, the voice said, to deactivate his implant.
Faltering, Sukara said, “Deactivate your implant!”
The killer smiled. “What? And let the alien into my head? I’d rather die.”
He advanced at step, a hand outstretched. “I know I can’t appeal to the alien, but you, Sukara, do you know what it is to take a life?”
Sukara managed a smile. “You tried to kill me, and my baby. You are... evil. Don’t you think you deserve to die?”
“There is no such thing as evil,” the man said. “Merely those who are weak, and those who are strong.”
Sukara stared at him through sudden tears. “And I am strong,” she said.
The killer moved, dived towards her, and at that precise second Sukara blacked out.
TWENTY-NINE
HOMECOMING
VAUGHAN STOOD IN the observation nacelle as The Spirit of Olympus materialised over the Bay of Bengal.
His relief at having escaped Mallory in one piece had soon turned to frustration. For two days he had slept, stared out into the grey of voidspace, or read in a bid to occupy his thoughts.
As soon as he reached the Station he would contact Kapinsky, bring her up to date on events on Mallory, and together they would attempt to locate the street-kid, Pham.
The ship stuttered from voidspace. Ahead, rising from the calm blue waters of the ocean, as solid as an anvil, was Bengal Station. Vaughan felt an odd sense of homecoming.
As the ship approached, he looked along the sheer, kilometre-high western façade of the Station, trying to pinpoint the long viewscreen of his apartment. He thought he saw it—a tiny silver lozenge among thousands of others, and wondered what Sukara would be doing there. It was seven in the morning, Indian time, and Su would be getting up and fixing breakfast. He smiled as he considered the look on her face in an hour or so when he walked through the door.
The ship slowed and came in over the edge of the Station. Down below he made out Himachal Park, reduced to the size of an architect’s model, with early risers out for a morning stroll. The spaceport was as busy as ever, with ships arriving and departing in a constant flow. The Spirit of Olympus decelerated, inching towards a docking ring and finally connecting with a peal that reverberated throughout the length of the ship.
Vaughan shouldered his holdall and made for the exit. As he shuffled from the vessel, a ’port security team boarded, the telepaths amongst them scanning the minds of the alighting passengers.
At customs he made for the Station Nationals channel, showed his ID to a tired officer, and stepped out onto the vast floor of the arrivals terminal. He paused to tap Kapinsky’s code into his handset.
Her sharp face appeared after a long delay. She looked tired. “Vaughan. I was trying to get some sleep.”
“It’s eight in the morning, Kapinsky.”
“I just got back from India. I’m beat.”
“Okay, but we need to meet. I’ve learned a lot. I’m seeing Sukara for an hour or two, but I’ll be at the office around midday, okay?”
Kapinsky nodded. “I need my beauty sleep, Vaughan. But okay, I’ll see you then.”
He decided to walk home. It would take about ten minutes. The alternative, a train to the nearest ’chute station, would take longer at this time of day.
He shouldered his holdall and set off for the exit. Later he’d try to work out with Kapinsky how to go about locating the street-kid, Pham. Of course, there was always the possibility that the killer had found her while he’d been away, in which case they would face the almost impossible task of trying to work out where the Hortavan might have transmitted itself to—always supposing that there had been an unshielded mind in the vicinity when its host was killed.
Vaughan tried not to think about that.
He was about to step through the exit when he heard a small voice behind him.
“Mr Vaughan! Mr Vaughan!”
He turned.
A skinny Thai waif in a Tigers’ T-shirt and baggy red shorts smiled timorously at him. “Mr Vaughan! Khar said that I had to find you. He said that he would help you.”
“Pham?” he said, incredulous.
She nodded, her big eyes wide beneath her jet fringe. “Khar said I shouldn’t go back to your apartment. He said I’d be in danger. I had to come here, find you.”
Vaughan shook his head, trying to take in her words. “Khar is...?” he began, then tapped the code into his handset and activated his implant.
Her small mind flared, along with the background mind-noise of a thousand other citizens, and Vaughan concentrated. The Hortavan xenopath, Khar, had ridden her mind until a day ago. After that, she’d had no contact with it.
Yesterday the Hortavan had warned her against entering the apartment, where for the past five days she’d lived with Sukara.
Alarm hit him with a sickening rush. He took her hand. “Come with me!”
“Ah-cha.”
He hurried from the ’port, the little girl running at his side in order to keep up. The contents of her mind filled his, her thoughts and emotions, dreams and desires. Dominant in her mind was how wonderful the past few days had been, living in the plush apartment with Sukara. Vaughan found himself holding back tears. He scanned for the alien in her mind, but found nothing.
He shut down his implant as they headed for the nearest ’chute station.
“The alien in your mind, Pham—has it left?”
She looked up at him as she jogged along. “Khar has gone?”
“You didn’t know?”
“I thought he was being quiet.”
“Do you know when it might have left you?” he asked as they boarded a downchute cage with a couple of businessmen and dropped to Level Two.
She shook her head.
But why had Khar warned her against entering the apartment, Vaughan thought as they exited the ’chute cage and hurried along the boulevard towards Chittapuram. What if the killer had traced Pham there, had forced entry and...
Sukara!
Fear exploded through him. He ran, then remembered Pham. She was stumbling after him. He scooped her up, slung her onto his back and jogged along the corridor towards his apartment.
It seemed farther away than he recalled from his leisurely strolls with Sukara, and for some reason the corridors were crowded this morning. The journey seemed to take an age.
Five minutes later he approached the last observation viewscreen before their door, and paused. He lowered Pham to the floor and stood her against the viewscreen. “Stay there until I call you, okay?”
She nodded, once. “Ah-cha,” she said obediently.
He took a deep breath, trying to control his heartbeat as he hurried along the corridor. He stopped outside the sliding door to his apartment, wishing that he had never given Sukara the mind-shield so that he might read her now, reassure himself that she was okay.
His hand shaking uncontrollably, he fumbled with his key-card and swiped the door open.
He stepped inside, a solid block of incipient grief frozen in his chest.
He saw the dead Westerner first. He lay on the floor on his back, a hole the size of a fist in his chest.
And then he saw Sukara. She lay in the sunken sofa, her eyes closed. In the middle of her forehead was the small, round entry point of a laser. Grief ripped painfully through him—followed, instantly, by a voice in his head.
Do not worry, Vaughan. Sukara is well. The assassin killed her, but I healed her.
Groggily, Sukara opened her eyes, stared up at him, and smiled. She reached into her pocket, pulled something from it, and tossed it across the room.
“Activate your implant, Jeff, for me.”
He almost fell into the bunker and pulled her into his arms.
He had sworn he would never read her mind, but now he activated his handset. The alien in her head withdrew, as if curling itself up, and instantly her mind flared, and Vaughan was rocked by the force of her emotions. He read her love for him as she wrapped her arms around his neck and sobbed.
Later he fetched a blanket from the bedroom and draped it over the killer’s corpse, then stepped from the apartment and looked along the corridor. He called Pham’s name, and her head peeped around the corner of the observation gallery. He signalled for her to join him.
She ran along the corridor. “Is Sukara...?” she began.
Vaughan smiled and gestured through the door, and Pham sped in and launched herself at Sukara. Vaughan followed her and closed the door behind him.
He held Sukara and the street-kid while they cried tears of relief and Vaughan marvelled at the purity of his wife’s mind.
“He killed me, Jeff! The killer killed me, but the alien brought me back to life. And then...” She shook her head. “I have no memory of how the killer died.”
Vaughan experienced, through her memories, the events of the previous day.
Khar spoke in her mind: I took control, Sukara. You were weakening, and anyway I did not want you to live with the memory of what I did then.
“You shot the killer?”
I took control of you and did the only thing possible, to save you. I have kept you unconscious until now, to aid the healing process.
He said to the alien, “I’ve been to Mallory, and experienced what Scheering is doing to your race. I’ve returned to Earth to help you.”
The alien said to him, There is only one way our salvation might be achieved, Vaughan. If you will allow me into your mind, I will tell you...
“Please,” Vaughan murmured, and wondered what it might feel like to share his head with an alien being.
He deactivated his mind-shield.
“Goodbye, Khar,” Sukara said.
Seconds later he felt a moment of dizziness, a quick heat in his head, and then a voice, There. I am one with you.
To Vaughan’s surprise, it was not dissimilar to reading a human mind. He was not physically aware of the presence in his head, but could detect its thoughts and emotions, alien and largely unreadable as they were.
Vaughan said, “I’ll contact Kapinsky, get her to bring her cam and chu over, okay?”
You are one step ahead of me, my friend, said the voice in his head.
Vaughan entered Kapinsky’s code into his handset. She appeared on the screen, scowling at having been pulled from sleep. “Vaughan? What now?”
“I have the killer, Kapinsky,” he said. “He’s dead.”
“What?”
“I’m at my apartment. Get over here and bring your chu and the digiCam, okay? I’ll explain when you get here.” He cut the connection.
Sukara and Pham were holding each other and staring at him. “Jeff,” Sukara said, “will you please tell me what’s happening?”
He took Sukara’s hand and led her into the sunken sofa. She sat down next to him, Pham perched beyond her, staring at Vaughan with big eyes as he ordered his thoughts and explained what had happened to him on Mallory.
THIRTY
SCHEERING
WHILE SUKARA AND Pham were in the kitchen, fixing coffee, Kapinsky knelt beside the killer’s corpse and peeled off his chu to reveal a balding European in his forties. She photographed the man’s true face and downloaded the image into the memory of her own chu.
Vaughan went through the killer’s jacket, found his ID card, and slipped it into his pocket.
Two minutes later Kapinsky held up the mesh mask of the chu and conjured the dead man’s face.
“How’s that, Vaughan?” The killer’s head hung from Kapinsky’s right hand, as if she’d beheaded the guy and was parading the trophy in triumph.
“It looks good enough to convince Scheering,” he said.
“What does the alien in your head think about it?” Kapinsky asked.
Khar said, The likeness is perfect. Your build, Vaughan, is superficially similar to the assassin’s. If you wear the man’s jacket, then Scheering will have no intimation of our deception, until too late.
Vaughan said to Kapinsky, “Khar’s satisfied.”
“And you say the alien knows where Scheering’ll be?”
He nodded. “When Khar was in Kormier’s head, he tried to access Scheering. Kormier knew Scheering, his itinerary.”
“So where’s Scheering now?” Kapinsky asked.
Khar said, He is in his villa until twelve every day, when he heads by air-car to the Scheering-Lassiter headquarters. I will direct you to the villa. Though security is tight, you will have no trouble entering his residence with the killer’s ID.
Vaughan reported this to Kapinsky. She indicated the killer. “What about the stiff?”
“We’ll wait till we’ve got Scheering, then call in the cops.” He looked at his watch. It was ten. “We’ve plenty of time to get to Scheering’s place before midday.”
They had coffee in the kitchen while Vaughan explained to Sukara what they were doing.
She looked alarmed. “I don’t want you to go, Jeff!”
“Su, I’ll be fine. There’s nothing to worry about, okay?”
“I’ll look after him, kid,” Kapinsky said.
Vaughan kissed Sukara and pulled the chu over his head, the elastic nexus clamping his face. She winced. “Jeff!” She shook her head. “You don’t know how much that looks like him.”
“Stay here until I get back.” He chucked Pham under the chin. “See you later, Pham.”
Sukara followed him to the door, her eyes avoiding the covered corpse, and embraced him.
He pulled on the killer’s jacket, waved at Sukara, and stepped into the corridor. It was midday, and the corridors were crowded with citizens going about their business. Vaughan felt a tightness in his chest, an apprehension. At the same time he was aware of Khar in his head, soothing him.
Five minutes later they took the upchute to Level One and boarded an air-taxi to Scheering’s villa on the north side of the Station.
As the flier screamed over the sunlit Station, Khar said, You experienced the slaughter of my kind on Mallory. Your memories are painful.
It is painful, he thought in reply, to witness what my fellow humans are capable of in the name of exploration, colonisation—in the name of making money.
I have experienced much goodness in your race, Khar said. Kormier, Pham, Sukara, and yourself.
Vaughan smiled. Bit-part players, he thought back at the alien.
A human, many years ago, said that power corrupts.
That’s a frightening thought, Khar—the idea that we are all potential evildoers given the attainment of power.
Khar smiled in his head. There is a flaw in your argument, Vaughan. In my experience, truly good humans do not crave power.
Is it not power I crave now to end Scheering’s genocide of your race? Vaughan thought.
Not so much power, the alien told him, as the temporary ability to right a wrong.
I just hope it works, Vaughan thought.
It will, my friend. Thanks to you, my people will survive.
Vaughan thought about that. The fact was overwhelming, so much so that he could not take it in. Through the simple actions he was taking now, he would ensure the continued existence of an alien race on a planet light years from Earth.
He glanced through the side window. They were banking over the edge of the ’port, coming down in a wide area of designer grassland dotted with expensive villas. Scheering’s residence overlooked the ocean, a sprawling split-level mansion surrounded by a high fence and accessed through a wrought iron gate.
The taxi settled on an adjacent landing pad and Kapinsky instructed the driver to wait. “I’ll stay here,” she said to Vaughan. She passed him a small automatic, along with the anaesthetic spray, synthi-flesh, and a scalpel. He concealed them in his jacket.
Kapinsky punched his shoulder. “Good luck, Vaughan.”
“Back in ten minutes,” he said confidently and slipped from the flier.
He took a breath, aware of Khar in his head, steadying his nerves, and walked across the landing pad to the gate in the high perimeter fence. He activated his implant and scanned the mansion. As he suspected, there was not the slightest sign of mental activity from the building: Scheering and his employees were shielded.
He thumbed the intercom and hung the killer’s ID card before a staring camera lens. “I’ve come to see Scheering. Priority.”
A voice spoke from the grille. “Where you been, Keilor? The Old Man’s been waiting. Okay, get yourself in here.”
