Penumbra (26 page)

He turned in time to receive the full force of a rifle butt on the side of his head. The assault was so sudden that he had no time to dodge the blow or catch sight of his attacker. His head seemed to explode with pain and he fell to the ground. He tried to gather himself, get up and fight, but after the initial anger at being caught, he thought again. The man was armed and there might be more than one of them by now. He should stay down and bide his time.

He felt hands grasp his body, lifting him. He was carried, perhaps by two or three people. He opened his eyes to see where he was being taken, but he was face down and could make out only the shadowy gravel of the pathway. He closed his eyes as his head throbbed painfully.

Bennett heard a door opening, then closing, footsteps on timber. He was dropped without ceremony to the floor. He was aware of people in the room, perhaps two or three others; small movements and whispers gave them away. He kept his eyes shut, feigning unconsciousness.

He heard two people conduct a hurried conversation. He tried to appreciate the melodrama of the situation. If this was not actually happening to him, he would have found it hard to believe. He told himself that things like this only happened in holodramas . . . then the pain in his head informed him otherwise.

‘They’re not terrorists as we first thought, sir, they’re off-worlders.’

A pause, then: ‘But how did they find out?’

Another voice answered, deep and richly textured. Bennett imagined a silver-haired patriarch. He tried to work out the meaning of their dialogue.

‘Perhaps Quineau did reach Earth, after all?’

‘But Klien was confident of stopping him.’

‘Then perhaps their arrival here is purely accidental. They know nothing - they’re explorers, prospectors.’ A pause. ‘I want them questioned. Subtly, of course.’

A brief silence. Bennett felt himself drifting, the pain in his skull almost too much to bear. He tried to concentrate.

The first colonist said, ‘We can’t let them go back, sir.’

‘What are you suggesting,’ the deep-voiced patriarch replied, ‘that we kill them?’

‘Precisely. Then they’re out of the way. Alive, they’re dangerous.’

‘If they are scientists and have nothing to do with Quineau, then they might prove a benefit to the colony. They might be just the type of people we need.’

‘But if they find out?’

The patriarch replied, ‘We will have to ensure that they
don’t
find out - as simple as that.’

‘How do we keep them here? What about their ship?’

‘Have someone question them as to where they landed. Then send out a team to destroy it. When they find out, we’ll blame it on the terrorists.’

‘I don’t know . . .’ The first colonist sounded uneasy. ‘It would be far easier if we just killed them.’

‘You worry too much,’ said the patriarch. ‘Trust me.’

Bennett felt himself losing his grip on consciousness. He tried to concentrate on the voices, but they faded, became no more than background noise.

At last, mercifully floating free of pain, Bennett passed out.

* * * *

14

Klien stood before the full-length mirror and dressed with care. Tonight was to be a killing night, when he would do his microscopic bit to make this corner of the Expansion a better place. As ever on these special occasions, he wore his sabline suit.

He moved to the lounge with its sunken sofa bunkers, its
objets d’art,
an aria by Verdi playing softly. He stood for a long time, staring at the room until he no longer saw it as a physical location, but as an abstract idea - the one locus of the universe where he was safe, his refuge from all the corruption and the evil out there. He steadied his breathing, tried to control the crazy thudding of his heart. He knew that he had to leave now, to walk off his nervous excitement. He ensured that he had his capillary net and laser pistol and then walked from the house and through the quiet streets.

The monsoon rain had refreshed the trees and shrubs in the gardens and parks. The rising moon and the lights of the high orbitals reflected in rain droplets on leaves and flowers. It was like, he thought, the garden of Eden. It was hard to believe that this idyllic corner of Calcutta, the meanest city on the meanest planet of all, was surrounded by so much evil. He thought back to his time on Homefall; it had been a period of innocence, or perhaps ignorance. He had been privileged to live on such a haven, without knowledge of what existed outside. And people like Quineau, they wanted to open up the planet, allow the evil of the Expansion to inundate paradise.

He walked quickly past the overblown residences of millionaires, many of the houses, like his own, styled upon the grand buildings of history. He was often sickened by the profligacy of wealth, and nowhere was such excess more evident than the country where abject poverty was still a fact of life for many. Oh, dear God, how he missed Homefall. He told himself to concentrate, to think only of the job ahead. If he were to allow his mind to stray, his thoughts to dwell on anything other than his mission, then disaster would befall him.

He stopped when he came to a com-screen kiosk, stepped inside and pulled on the capillary net. A silver-haired stranger regarded him in the blank screen. Satisfied, he left the kiosk, a new man.

He wondered, as he strode through the gathering darkness, if the officers of the Homicide Division had worked out the pattern of his killings yet. It had come about quite accidentally, eight years ago after his third killing. A newspaper report carried a map of the district, with stars to locate the positions of the murders; they happened, he noticed, to form a straight line running approximately north to south. Into his head came the sudden and blinding vision of a crucifix, and he was struck by the notion of how appropriate, how fitting, the symbol would be. The brand of God, eradicating evil, upon the face of the city.

With each execution, he realised, he ran the increased risk of the pattern being discovered. One day, he knew, some observant officer in Homicide would notice the partly formed crucifix, and stake out the areas where he had yet to commit a killing. He admitted to himself that the chance of being apprehended added a certain
frisson
of risk to his self-appointed mission of cleansing the city. He wondered if, on some subconscious level, his decision to commit the murders in the design of a great cross was a desire to be apprehended and punished? Perhaps, in lieu of returning to his planet of birth, to paradise, he would rather die the death of a martyr on Earth? Whatever, he hoped that his day of judgement would be suspended for a short while yet. He had three more killings to accomplish before the crucifix would be finished: one at the very end of the right crossbar, and one beneath each crossbar, to represent the moons of Phobos and Deimos.

Klien smiled to himself. They would be puzzled by the location of tonight’s killing, no doubt. This one would represent Phobos, for the crucifix he was carving across the city was the cross of the Church of Phobos and Deimos, formerly of Mars, but no longer existing anywhere but on his birthplace of Homefall.

He was safe for a while yet, at least.

And after that, when the crucifix was completed? What then? Then, he would sit back and consider his options.

He crossed a quiet residential street and cut down a tree-lined footpath. At last he came to a small square of grass, an area of parkland where during the day the children of the rich played, watched over by their nannies and bodyguards. Tonight the park was quiet.

He paused at the end of the pathway. He looked at his watch in the light of the moon. It was almost eight o’clock. He realised that his hands were shaking, his heartbeat thumping. At times like this, when he was about to end the life of another, he felt most alive himself.

He looked out for the arrival of Raja Khan. He scanned the area for any sign that Khan had disobeyed his instructions and brought along accomplices - but Khan knew that if he did so, Klien would cancel the deal. It was in Khan’s interests to follow Klien’s instructions to the letter.

Seconds later he saw a shadowy figure at the far end of the park. Khan, his great bulk eclipsing the coachlight of a house done in the style of an English Tudor mansion, moved across the park towards Klien. The man was alone.

‘Where are we?’ Khan asked. ‘Where’s your warehouse, Smith?’

Klien gestured in the half-light. ‘Down here. A hundred metres to the left.’

Khan sounded unsure. ‘In this neighbourhood? Are you sure?’

‘What are you frightened of, my friend?’ Klien said. ‘You want the money, don’t you?’

This shut him up. ‘Ah-cha,’ he said at last. ‘We go.’

Klien led the way back down the footpath. He judged that the nearest residence was perhaps fifty metres away. The crack of a laser charge would go unnoticed. He reached into the jacket of his sabline suit and caressed the butt of his laser pistol.

He paused in the silver illumination of a streetlight, and half turned. He wanted to look upon the face of the criminal as Khan realised that he was about to die, see the surprise in his eyes.

‘What?’ Khan said. ‘I don’t see—’

Klien withdrew his pistol, took aim and fired. By some fluke, Khan anticipated the shot and ducked to one side. The charge missed the man’s head by a fraction and, screaming in panic and pain, he turned and staggered off along the footpath. Klien gave chase, his stomach churning. Khan fell to his knees, then slumped on to his side. Klien stood over him, kicked the giant on to his back. Khan stared up at him with terrified eyes, the flesh of his forehead and a great chunk of hair burned away.

‘Why?’ Khan managed in a whisper.

Klien knelt, aware of the overwhelming feeling of exultation coursing through him. He was being presented, on this occasion, with the opportunity always denied him: to inform his victims why they were about to die, to make them face the ultimate consequence of their ways.

‘Do you repent?’ Klien almost spat, his face inches from the dying man’s. ‘Do you recognise your sins and are you truly sorry?’

‘I . . .’

‘What? Say it! Say you repent!’

‘You’re . . . you are mad.’

‘Verily I am angry, Khan. I am angry on behalf of God. You’ - he pointed the pistol, almost firing then - ‘and people like you deserve no more than summary execution. Criminals, drug dealers, pimps and murderers, you bring misery to the innocent, the blight of evil into the lives of those who have done you no harm! Do you repent?’

‘I . . .’ Khan spluttered, a mere gasp of pain. ‘I was doing what I had to do to survive.’

Klien almost wept with rage. ‘You brought pain and misery to the innocent,’ he said, ‘and for this you must die!’

‘No!’

Klien fired, the charge frying the right side of Khan’s face, causing instant death by massive neural dysfunction. Kneeling over the body, crying quietly to himself, Klien reached out with his razor and sliced the sign of the cross into the ample flesh of Raja Khan’s left cheek.

He stood and hurried from the body, enraged still by Khan’s defiance in the face of death. Perhaps, he thought, as great an evil as one’s original crime was the inability to see it as such and admit to one’s sins.

He heard a noise to his right, movement in the garden beyond the hedge. He stopped and listened intently, but no further sounds came. Perhaps it had been an animal, or in his anger he was becoming paranoid. He hurried on, almost running in his haste to gain the sanctuary of his home.

Ten minutes later he locked his front door on the world. He put his pistol and capillary net in the safe behind the Vermeer print, moved to the bathroom and showered. As the hot water massaged his tired skin, he felt the tension drain from him. It was a mistake, he realised, to have tried to extract some admission of sin from Khan. Evil men would never admit to the errors of their ways. He would not make the same mistake in future. He would merely carry out the killing and rest assured in the knowledge that the world was then a little safer.