Xenopath (15 page)

He left the
shuttle on Level Five and dropped to Level Ten, taking the same
'chute he had used every day on his way back from the spaceport.
Strap-hanging in a press of tired Indian factory workers, he
considered his apartment on Level Two, and Sukara's manifest joy at
no longer being buried in the Level Ten coffin. The thought of
bringing up a child down here had worried him for months: what had
Rao said about Pham, that she had never in all of her seven years
seen the light of day?

At least Li
would have the opportunity of seeing the sun every day of her life.

At Level Ten, he
made the short walk to the dropchute station and fell to Level
Thirteen.

He had read that
each level possessed its own unique character; its own identifiable
atmosphere, much as land-based cities even within the same country
varied in character and appearance. Certainly in his experience of
the various levels he had visited and lived on, he knew this to be
true. Levels One and Two were obviously affluent and, as a rule, less
congested; Levels Three to Five were spacious but crowded, boasting
parks and gardens created when the Station's architects had assumed
that the levels would rise no further. All these levels had about
them a liberal, cosmopolitan air, an atmosphere of privilege, which
manifested itself in the confident demeanour of the residents.

From Levels Five
to Ten, the standard of living corresponded to the appearance of the
various areas. For one thing, the space between floor and ceiling was
a mere six metres, far less than that of the levels higher up. The
tunnels were narrower too, forever thronged with a noisy, elbowing
press of humanity, and the individual buildings more cramped. The
lighting this far down was poorer: although the halogen bulbs in the
ceiling were spaced at the compulsory five-metre intervals, they
radiated a paler light than those on the upper levels. Vaughan
suspected that some cut-price company had greased palms for the
commission to light the lower levels, and had done so with third-rate
materials.

He could only
assume that the levels below Ten were even more impoverished, even
more at the mercy of unscrupulous councils and maintenance
departments: the citizens down here were, after all, by definition
poor and therefore lacking in political influence.

He squeezed from
the cramped dropchute cage in a press of surging humanity, carried
along involuntarily before elbowing his way free of the flow and
gaining his bearings. The tunnels were amazingly confined down here—a
mere four metres from wall to wall. The air of claustrophobia was not
helped by stallholders who had set up shop along the length of the
main thoroughfare to the next dropchute station. Vaughan passed a
mixture of Thai and Indian entrepreneurs selling everything from
miracie cures to outdated artificial limbs, their microprocessors
long since worn out so that the limbs were no more useful than wooden
legs or arms.

As if the
physical press of humanity was not daunting enough, the noise and
stench was over powering. Every stallholder yelled in a bid to out-do
his neighbour, and the sickly sweet miasma of incense and dhoop
filled the air, masking other, more noisome aromas: the waft of human
excrement, sweat, and the gagging reek of bad meat peddled by illicit
market traders.

Vaughan made the
dropchute station five minutes later and stepped into the cage with
relief.

He descended to
Level Twenty, wondering what horrors of human endurance might greet
him there. The cage itself, if a microcosm of the degradation below,
was bad enough. A woman and three near-naked children were squatting
in the corner; she had set up a gas-stove and was cooking puri on a
griddle. While good sense told him that the cage could not be her
home, he feared otherwise. Fellow travellers in the cage included a
gaggle of holy men in loincloths and group of mendicants missing
various limbs, returning home from a day's begging on the rich upper
levels.

The cage came to
a sudden, jarring halt. The gate clanked open and the travellers
poured out. Vaughan eased himself from the crush and stood to one
side of the exit, staring about him in appalled fascination.

His initial
impression was that he had strayed into the inspiration for a canvas
by Bosch. Certainly the low, roseate lighting was appropriate—the
furnaces of hell replaced here by the open fires of food-vendors and
blacksmiths—as was the press of humanity going about their
arcane and mysterious business; while tableaux of torture were
absent, butchered beggars and citizens supported by crude crutches
and wooden legs could easily have passed for models of the damned.

Vaughan was
assailed by a dozen varied scents, from cooking food to woodsmoke,
hair oil to joss sticks. If the runnels down here were not congested
enough, the congestion was not helped by the occasional meandering,
khaki-coloured cow, holy and sacrosanct and thus given the freedom of
the level— where in the upper levels their freedom had been
proscribed long ago.

No sooner had he
emerged from the dropchute station than he was jumped by half a dozen
street-kids, tugging his sleeves and trousers and demanding either
baksheesh or the right to furnish him with hotel rooms, drugs, or
girls.

Vaughan selected
a scrawny boy in shorts and a soiled vest and pointed at him. "You,"
he said in poor Hindi. "You others,
challo.
Go!"

The boy
advanced, hissing at the other kids to retreat.

Vaughan said,
"Can you take me to the Prakesh Quality Plastic Company?"

The boy rocked
his head from side to side. "Ah-cha. No problem, Babu. You come
this way. Follow me."

Without waiting
for Vaughan to follow, the street-kid set off at a trot. Vaughan
pushed his way through the crowd in pursuit, helped by his greater
physical stature than those around him. It was, he thought, an alien
world down here; culturally Indian, it had developed its own unique
atmosphere away from the sunlight and open spaces of the
subcontinent: poverty ruled, and fatalism prevailed, creating a
jungle culture where the ethos of the survival of the fittest was a
given.

He followed the
boy through a maze of badly lit corridors. The odd thing was that,
while Vaughan had expected the tunnels and thoroughfares down here to
be even meaner and maze-like than those above, the reverse was true:
the corridors were wide, even spacious. However, the enterprising
mercantile mind of the Hindu had utilised the space to good effect:
just as nature abhorred a vacuum, so businessmen down here abhorred
the waste of valuable space. The margins of the byways were filled
with the kiosks and stalls of food-vendors, restaurateurs, and even
makeshift shacks housing destitute families, all piled two or three
storeys high and accessed by precarious plastic ladders.

He caught up
with the boy, who gestured him along.

At one point the
kid saw Vaughan's expression, and guessed right. He grinned. "Much
space down here, no? You see, this Level One. First level, yes? So
the builders, many years ago, they need space to store all material,
you see? All the things they use to build up, up!"

Ten minutes
later they came to a polycarbon wall scabbed over with a rash of
Hindi holo-movie posters. Among them, almost indiscernible amid the
gallery of overweight action heroes, was the legend: R.J. Prakesh
Quality Plastics Pty, Ltd— and below the ill-painted lettering
a narrow doorway.

The boy was
beaming up at Vaughan and holding out his hand. "Ten baht,
friend!"

Vaughan slipped
him a twenty baht note and the kid dashed off in delight.

A buzzer was set
into the wall, above a speaker. Over the door, staring at him, was
the lens of a security camera.

Vaughan thumbed
the buzzer. Seconds later a querulous voice said, "Yes?"

He leaned
towards the speaker. "Vaughan, Kapinsky Investigations. I want
to see R.J. Prakesh." He hung his ID before the camera and
waited.

The door clicked
and he pushed it open.

He was hit by
the adenoid-crunching stench of hot plastics and concentrated body
odour. Gagging, he stepped inside, peering into the gloom.

He was in a
narrow corridor lit by a flickering fluorescent above the door. At
the far end of the corridor, a door opened and a skinny barefoot
Indian in his twenties, wearing a dhoti and a vest, peered out at
him. "Mr Prakesh, he very busy man," he said. "But he
will see you. Come this way, please."

Vaughan followed
him through the door, into a longer corridor just as badly lighted.
The door at the end of this corridor, however, opened onto a factory
floor packed with machinery—plastic extrusion devices, Vaughan
guessed—worked by a sweating army of boys and girls. If the
stench was bad back at the entrance, it was overbearing here, and
made worse by the incredible heat of the place. Most of the kids
worked in their underpants, their thin brown bodies slick with sweat.
No wonder Pham had elected to escape this hell for the uncertainties
of the upper decks.

The youth
trotted between the hissing machines, zigzagging across the factory
floor towards a raised, glassed-in gallery area. Metal steps climbed
to the entrance, marked with the factory owner's self-important
title: Ranjit Jamal Prakesh, Director, Manager.

His guide
indicated the steps and departed.

Vaughan climbed,
already sweating and exhausted by the intolerable heat. He knocked
and opened the door without waiting to be invited in, the conditions
on the factory floor imbuing him with indignation.

He expected the
office to be air-conditioned, but only an ancient ceiling fan
laboured vainly against the humidity.

A fat.
moustachioed Indian in his fifties lolled in a swivel chair, his huge
bare feet propped next to a flickering computer screen at least ten
years out of dare.

Vaughan sat down
and showed his ID. ''Prakesh? I'm Vaughan. Kapinsky Investigations.
I'm working on a police case and I think you can help me."

Wide-eyed,
Prakesh pulled his feet from the desk and sat up, buttoning his
shirt, which had been open to reveal a bulging Buddha belly.

"Mr
Vaughan. Of course, of course. You will find R.J. Prakesh always
willing to aid the forces of law and order." He beamed
betel-stained teeth and said, "How can I be of assistance, Mr
Vaughan?"

Vaughan flipped
a pix of Pham across the desk. "I'm trying to locate this kid. I
know her first name. Pham. I understand she worked here?"

Prakesh studied
the picture. Vaughan considered activating his implant and quickly
reading what Prakesh knew about the kid, but held off. He'd see what
he could get verbally, first.

Prakesh returned
the pix. "Indeed, Mr Vaughan. Phamtrat Kuttrasan. She was one of
my favourites, a very good worker. No trouble. Quiet and respectful.
Very good girl."

"When did
she go missing?"

"Three days
ago, after a night shift. Very distressing, Mr Vaughan. I run a fair
factory here. I treat my boys and girls well. Good pay and hours. I
have many orphan children work for me, Mr Vaughan. Street-kids with
no home and no prospects, other than R.J.

Prakesh. I give
them shelter, work and food." He leaned forward. "Please
tell me, she is in trouble?"

Vaughan shook
his head. "She witnessed a crime. I need to question her about
what she saw." He glanced at the pix of Pham before returning it
to his wallet. "What can you tell me about Pham? Did she have a
family, relatives?"

"Sad story,
Mr Vaughan. Her mother and father, they were killed in dropchute
accident three years ago, when Pham was four. Her uncle, he could not
look after her, so she came here begging for work. Mr Vaughan, I'm a
successful businessman, but I also have a heart. I am not an
exploiting monster. I took her in, trained her how to use the
Siemman's press. For three years she worked with no problem. Then—"
Prakesh opened fat fingers in an exploding gesture. "Then
phooff\
She disappears."

"This
uncle. Do you have his address?"

"I do not,
Mr Vaughan. The truth to tell, I did not know that she had an uncle
until yesterday."

Vaughan leaned
forward. "Yesterday?"

"At noon
yesterday, the uncle comes looking for Pham. He is most upset when I
tell him that Pham left her dorm and has not come back."

Vaughan nodded,
sensing that he was onto something. Pham had told Abdul that she had
no family, had no one in the world. "Can you describe the man,
Mr Prakesh?"

"Most
certainly. It was strange you see, although he was a Thai, like Pham,
he was not at all like a Thai, if you understand me."

"I'm not
sure that I do."

"He was
big, Mr Vaughan. Tall and broad, like a Westerner."

"What did
he say?"

"Simply
that he was looking for his niece, Phamtrat Kuttrasan. He too had a
picture of her. He was most concerned about her safety."

"He didn't
leave you an address, a contact number?"

Prakesh shook
his head, "I suggested that he should do this, but he told me
that he would be in touch if he needed to ask further questions. I
must say, Mr Vaughan, that he struck me as very odd."

Vaughan recalled
the surveillance cam above the door to the factory. "Do you
still have yesterday's surveillance recording? I take it he entered
the factory from the front?"

Prakesh said,
"Indeed, Mr Vaughan. We keep recordings for a week." He
propelled his bulk in the swivel chair across the room and accessed a
comscreen.

Seconds later he
had called up a grainy image of a tall, smooth-faced Thai.

"Can you
print out a copy of the image of his face?" Vaughan asked.

"No sooner
said than done'" Prakesh obliged.