Necropath (16 page)

She had been brought to Rao’s voidship kingdom by a gaggle of his street kids. She’d been found wandering the lowest level of the Station, lost and in tears. Gradually, Rao had prised from her the events that had brought her to Bengal Station. She had fled Thailand aboard a raft with a dozen other street kids, heading for who knew where, and fetched up on the Station ten days later, starving and dehydrated. She had begged food and water, largely unsuccessfully, until a scavenging gang of Rao’s kids had spotted her and tempted her to come with them, with tales of shelter, food, and warmth.

Vaughan relived the scene as if it were his own memory. Rao had questioned her about her past, her life in Thailand. Grudgingly, shyly, Tiger had told Rao that she had worked for a man who gave her a bed and food, in return for what she did for other men.

Vaughan was privy to Rao’s excitement as she told him this, his thoughts as to the possibilities offered by such a pretty and experienced little thing.

He had said, “Would you like to continue that life here, on the Station, working for me? I would ensure you safety, and guarantee that you would come to no harm.”

Tiger had just hung her head.

“Or perhaps...” Rao had considered selling her to an acquaintance who made films and holo-vids, but then rejected the idea. He had heard bad stories from children who had fled from the pornographer.

“Of course, there is always begging. Look at my children. Go and talk to them. See how happy they are.” And Tiger had lifted her head, considered the gallery of pinched faces of the children watching her.

Tiger had whispered, so softly that Rao could hardly make out the words, that she did not wish to go with men again, that she would rather beg.

And a week later Dr. Rao had amputated her right leg.

Vaughan ejected the pin. He could not look up, across the table, into the eyes of Dr. Rao.

“I trust that all is satisfactory?” Rao said.

Vaughan nodded. He pulled his wallet from his jacket and counted out the agreed four thousand five hundred baht.

Rao smiled. “My children will be most grateful, Mr. Vaughan,” he said, pocketing the notes and rising to leave. “Thank you.”

Vaughan watched Rao hurry from the restaurant, surprised at the fact that, for all the man’s mean-spirited greed and arrogance, for all his deeds that many would consider barbarous, in his heart of hearts Rao did feel something for the children in his charge. He had, after all, given Tiger a home.

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.

* * * *

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.