Cosmopath (4 page)

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...?â€

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.â€

QUESTIONS

Parveen
lay back on the tubers, watching the farmland pass by. Vaughan was
asleep, and at the rear of the flatbed the alien was curled as if
dozing too. She gazed back at the mountain range they had left
behind, looking for the first sign of their pursuers.

She
could be under no illusions, now, about just what Rab’s
sentiments were towards her. He had her down as the traitor she had
been all along, and wanted her dead - and Vaughan along with her. She
had tried to kid herself, when the firing began, that the spider
drone had been under Singh’s command - but the fact was that
Rab was right there alongside the security chief and the drones. She
had no doubt that he had given the command to fire.

She
supposed it made her dilemma easier, now. She knew where she stood as
regards her feelings towards the tycoon, though when she considered
the weeks when she thought she’d loved him... the pain still
bit deep.

She
looked ahead. She had a goal, no longer clouded by the stirrings of
her heart. She would find out what the colonists had found, this
Vluta place, if Tom’s word was to be taken at face value, and
then try to get through to her country’s starship.

And
Vaughan? He was a bit part player in the scenario now; she’d do
her best to make sure he wasn’t harmed, and try to get him off
the planet with her. But only if he was willing to play the game
according to her rules.

Tom
glanced at her, shyly. He seemed intrigued by the colour of her skin.
She smiled and held up her right hand. “You’ve never seen
anyone from India before, Tom?â€

ULUTA

Vaughan
came awake and struggled into a sitting position.

Das
sat opposite him, head lolling with the motion of the cart. “Welcome
back to the land of the living.â€

THROUGH THE PORTAL

Vaughan
stepped forward until he was a metre from the membrane of the portal,
still struggling to comprehend the consequences of Connor’s
statement. This busy metropolis before him - if he reached out, he
might touch it - was light years distant, an alien city somehow made
reachable by a technology so far in advance of human understanding
that it made the science of voidspace travel seem like stone-age tool
making.

He
made out the tiny figures of aliens going about their business on the
distant planet. They promenaded beside canals, crossed squares, and
passed down boulevards lined with crimson, shock-haired trees. Three
vast moons hung in the sky, and beyond them were the hub stars, an
array so compacted it seemed to glow like a chandelier.

Das
was beside him. “So this is what Chandrasakar wanted,â€

END GAME

Parveen
hurried from the portal towards the cavern’s exit, paused, and
looked back through the membrane to Vluta. Vaughan had disappeared
with the aliens down the broad stairway, gone to learn whatever the
Taoth required of him. The knowledge burned within her. If only she
could have had more time with the Taoth - or at least more time with
an alien willing actually to communicate with her - then she was sure
she could have persuaded them to give the secret of their portals to
her government.

It
was ironic that they had chosen someone as politically apathetic as
Vaughan to go with them to their world. She wondered what they wanted
with him, and if he would be back to tell her. She very much doubted
that.

Beside
her, Connor cleared his throat. “I’m returning to the
vale. Would you care to accompany me?â€

COSMOPATH

Vaughan
followed the twelve robed aliens down the flight of sweeping steps.
They came to a piazza paved in what looked like marble, which
scintillated with a million tiny, multicoloured lights. A round table
of the same substance, surrounded by similar chairs, stood beside a
wide canal. The water was mirror-flat and reflected something vast
and banded - and only then did Vaughan look up and notice, behind the
arching portal through which he had just passed, a huge gas giant
filling half the night sky, encircled by a series of rings canted
towards Vluta.

Vaughan
felt like laughing at the magnificence ofit all.

The
council had seated itself, and the tall, robed alien likewise. The
latter gestured to the only vacant seat, and Vaughan fell into it as
if in a daze.

He
felt the combined attention of a dozen pairs of dark, insectile eyes
on him. I should, he thought, feel something like trepidation. The
fact was that he experienced only a sense of calm, a feeling of
inevitability as if the events of the preceding few days had been
somehow pre-ordained.

“You
must,â€

THE CODE

Sukara
came to her senses in a bare apartment.

She
looked through the window, saw the open sky as grey as pewter with
the unshed monsoon rains. So she wasn’t in Dr Rao’s safe
house on Level Two...

The
only furnishings in the small room were the sofa on which she sat and
a kitchen chair by the window. The heat was merciless. She was
sweating freely, slick rivulets greasing her torso.

She
tried to move, but her ankles were bound together and tied to the
feet of the sofa. She tried to stand, but almost fell forwards. She
slumped down into the cushions and looked around. Her cheek throbbed
where the bastard had hit her, but more than the pain she felt an
overwhelming sense of dread. They wanted something from her,
obviously - but she had no idea what. She recalled the Chink who’d
followed her, and wondered if her captors were aware of his death. If
they were, then they might not be so careful with her.

She
lifted her left arm and began tapping the police code into her
handset.

Shockingly,
someone hit her across the back of her head. She fell forward,
yelling. She heard someone snicker, behind her, and at the same time
someone else moved around the sofa and came into view.

It
was not the Chink who’d caught her, but someone else - a
grinning fish-faced bastard with a pudding-bowl haircut, the latest
fashion among the Chinese on the Station.

The
guy hunkered down before her, just out of arm’s reach. He was
holding a small enabling pin in his right hand. “You don’t
think we’d let you get away with that, do you, Sukara?â€

A NECESSARY
EXECUTION

Vaughan
came to the top of the steps leading down to the deserted alien city.

He
paused, then moved to where the rocks on his left offered some cover.
He crouched, enabled his tele-ability, and probed.

Nothing.
Absolute silence. He had expected to pick up the static of Das’s
mind-shield, but he read nothing.

He
stood and scanned the streets. They appeared empty, eerily silent. He
wondered where Das had gone. Had she been picked up by Chandrasakar
and taken somewhere...? His tele-ability had a range of a little over
500 metres. They could be anywhere beyond that.

He
decided to head for the cover of the city and move systematically
through the streets. He would search for thirty minutes, then return
to the membrane. The thought of being reunited with Sukara filled him
with joy.

He
stood and hurried down the steps, coming at last to the boulevard
that encircled the city. He moved into the shadow of a crumbling,
brown-walled building and probed. He reckoned he had travelled 300
metres from the top of the steps - but there was still no static from
the mind-shields of Das or Chandrasakar and his men.

He
moved from the building and hurried down the wide street towards the
centre of the city, keeping in the shadows of the walls. Part of him
wanted to return now, leave Das to her fate and get back to the
safety of the chamber. Another part wanted to find Das, save her from
Chandrasakar. He wondered if his motivations in wanting this were no
more than the desire to show her that he had overcome the combined
powers of her government and the Chandrasakar Organisation.

He
reckoned he had walked a couple of hundred metres from the edge of
the city when he detected the first faint signal of the mind-shield.
It was a patch of static, very faint, on the edges of his perception.

He
concentrated. It was around 500 metres away, to his right. He came to
a turning and slipped along it, and as he did so the static of the
mind-shield became stronger.

The
static was unmoving, and he rapidly covered the distance towards it.

Then
he stopped, panting, and pressed himself against the rough wall of a
windowless building. He detected another eight mind-shields, a little
way beyond the first. He calculated that they were all within 400
metres of his present position. They, like the first, were unmoving.

He
moved forward with greater care, keeping to the cover of walls and
buildings.