Xenopath (40 page)

"Don't kill
me!" Scheering pleaded.

Vaughan laughed.
"Kill you? I'd like to, but death's too good for you. I came
here with not the slightest intention of killing you."

Scheering
blinked up at him. "Then what?" he said, a pitiful note of
desperation in his voice.

"I want you
to live to regret your actions on Mallory," Vaughan said. "I
want you to see the error of your policy there, and overturn it."

Scheering
blinked. "I... I understand. My life, for promises—"

Vaughan cut in.
"As if I'd trust you to keep promises!"

The millionaire
stammered, "Then how?"

Vaughan smiled.
"Think about it. How can I let you live, and be assured that
things will change on Mallory? You're a greedy man, Scheering. You
have vested interests. Nothing comes between you and profits. Not
even a race of innocent aliens."

"I don't
understand."

"I said
think about it. I'm going to let you live, and you're going to change
your policy on Mallory."

Sudden
understanding flared in Scheering's eyes. "No!"

Vaughan smiled.
"Yes. I have a Hortavan xenopath riding in my head."

He was rewarded,
then, by an expression of total fear on Scheering's overweight face.
"No! You can't!"

Vaughan moved.
He knelt on Scheering's chest, ensuring he hurt the millionaire.
"This is for all those innocent whose lives you've destroyed,
Scheering."

He pulled the
spray from his pocket and gave Scheering a short blast, just enough
to subdue him without knocking him out entirely. He wanted the
bastard awake while he did what he had to do next.

He ripped open
the front of Scheering's silk shirt and located the discreet bulge of
his implanted mind-shield just below the right clavicle. Scheering
stared up at him, terror in his eyes. He looked, Vaughan thought,
like a rat confronted by a cobra about to strike.

The millionaire
slurred, "No, please..."

Vaughan sliced
with the scalpel, making a bloody incision through the man's chest.
Scheering made a low moan of pain and protest, and when Vaughan
looked up he saw that the millionaire was weeping.

He pressed down
on the rectangular bulge beneath Scheering's flabby pectoral, and the
bloody mind-shield slipped out. He tossed it across the room.

His implant
still activated, Vaughan was swamped by a maelstrom of rage and ego,
fear and dread. The millionaire knew what was about to happen, and
Vaughan read a terrible sense of loss as Scheering began to
understand that everything he had worked and schemed for, the power
he had accrued over the decades, was quickly coming to an end.

The ego of the
man sickened him, and he deactivated his implant. The ensuing
mind-silence was an instant relief.

"No,"
Scheering moaned. "You can't do this."

"Think
again, pal."

Khar stirred in
Vaughan's head.
There are no words to thank you enough, my friend.
I will be in touch. Goodbye, Vaughan.

Farewell,
Vaughan thought, and felt a dizzying heat pass through his head as
Khar vacated his mind and lodged itself in Scheering's consciousness.

Vaughan
retrieved the shield and slipped it back under the sliced flesh of
Scheering's chest, then sealed the wound with synthi-flesh. The
millionaire struggled, too enfeebled to get to his feet.

"Vaughan..."

It was
Scheering's voice, but modulated, softened.

"Khar?"

"I am in
control, Vaughan. If you would assist me..."

Vaughan helped
the millionaire to his feet, then eased him onto the chair behind the
desk.

Scheering stared
at him, and Vaughan told himself that he could detect, somewhere
behind the man's eyes, the tempering sensibility of the alien.

Scheering
gestured. "I... I am in full control of Scheering, though to
inhabit the mind responsible for such atrocities..." He fell
silent, then smiled. "To have such power at one's fingertips,"
he said, "such means to effect good in the galaxy..."

Vaughan said,
"What will the world think when Scheering becomes an altruist?"

Khar-in-Scheering
smiled. "That," he said, "will be very interesting."

Vaughan moved
around the desk, found the chu where he'd dropped it and pulled the
mask over his head.

He reached out
and shook the man's hand. "Goodbye, Khar," he said.

"I will be
in contact, Vaughan. Perhaps you and your family would like to visit
Mallory, one day?"

Vaughan nodded.
"I'd like that," he said.

"The
blessings of my kind go with you, my friend."

Vaughan turned
and left the study. He walked along the corridor, towards the front
door. The heavy appeared, grinning. "The Old Man give you a
roasting, huh?"

Vaughan smiled.
"Too right, bud," he said, and stepped through the front
door.

The sunlight
dazzled, warming him. He crossed the garden, affecting nonchalance as
he passed the guards, hurried through the wrought iron gates to the
landing pad.

He slipped into
the back seat of the air-taxi.

Kapinsky peered
at him. "You took your time. I was getting worried."

He pulled off
the chu and passed it to Kapinsky, along with the pistol. "It's
done," he said, and sat back as the flier lifted, turned and
carried him south, towards home.

He felt,
suddenly, very light-headed. He thought ahead, to life with Sukara
and their daughter. He would throw himself with pleasure into such
small scale domesticity, while on a distant colony world an alien
race enjoyed a secure future. It was a dichotomy too wondrous to
comprehend.

He stared out
through the side window at the Station passing far below, and
something in him wanted to laugh out loud in delight.

FAMILY LIFE

Pham couldn't
stop herself from crying when Sukara passed her the baby.

They were
sitting in the sofa bunker in the Level Two apartment. Sukara had
arrived home from hospital just an hour earlier.

"Like to
hold her, Pham?" Sukara asked.

Pham stared at
the tiny, scrunched up baby in the crook of Sukara's arm. She looked
up at Jeff, as if asking his permission. He smiled and gestured for
her to go ahead.

Sukara eased the
tiny bundle into her arms, and Pham stared at little Li's tiny face,
touched her minuscule fingers, and she wept. Sukara leaned over and
kissed the top of her head.

"So
beautiful," Pham murmured.

Jeff's handset
chimed and he accessed the call.

The screen
showed the thin face of Lin Kapinsky, Jeff's business partner. "Hey,
Jeff—you heard the news?"

"What?"

"Switch on
to Channel Ten."

Sukara grabbed
the controls and zapped the wallscreen across the room. The screen
flared, showing an overweight Westerner in a silver-grey suit. He was
standing at a dais, flanked by other important-looking men and women,
and reading from a softscreen.

"Hey,"
Jeff said. "That's Scheering."

He looked at
Pham and smiled. Scheering was the man who Khar now lived in, she
knew. She watched the screen as the man made his speech.

"And
therefore the scaled withdrawal of the human population on the former
colony world of Mallory will begin at midnight tonight, and from
today forward the rights of the sentient beings known as the
Hortavans will be recognised as sovereign..." He went on,
detailing the exodus.

On Jeff's
screen, Lin Kapinsky said, "Scheering contacted me an hour ago,
Jeff. He's finalised payment for the work you did on Mallory. How
does fifty thousand baht sound?"

Jeff smiled.
"Should keep the wolf from the door for a while."

"Of course,
I'll be taking my cut."

"And me
with my growing family," Jeff smiled.

Lin said, "Oh,
I almost forgot about that—congratulations, Jeff. What does it
feel like to have a daughter?"

Jeff reached out
and stroked Li's cheek. Then he lifted Pham onto his knee. "Two
daughters, Lin. We officially adopted Pham a couple of days ago."

"Hell,
Jeff, you'll be so busy housekeeping you won't have time to work for
me. Speaking of which..."

"I'm on
holiday, Lin."

The face on the
screen smiled. "Sure you are, Jeff. But back next week, okay? We
have work to do!"

Jeff laughed and
cut the connection.

Pham looked up
at him and stroked his unshaven chin. "Fifty thousand baht,
Jeff? Ice creams all round?"

Sukara laughed
and ruffled Pham's hair.

"Hey,"
Jeff said. "Why not? Let's find an expensive cafe up top and
celebrate, okay?"

His handset
chimed again. Pham made out a small, wrinkled face staring out of the
screen.

She looked up at
Jeff. He seemed amazed. "Breitenbach? Christ, where the hell are
you?"

The old man
laughed. "Where else?" he said. "Bengal Station."

"When did
you get in?"

"This
morning," Breitenbach said. "It appears I've been evicted
from Mallory."

"I've just
heard the news."

"You know
something? I think I'll miss those mountains." The old man
laughed. "Anyway, I was hoping we might meet. I want to hear all
about what happened."

"That'll be
great."

Breitenbach
smiled, then said, "I have a lot to thank you for, Mr Vaughan."

Jeff arranged to
meet the old man later that day, and cut the connection.

"Who's
Breitenbach, Jeff?" Pham asked.

"Tell you
all about him over ice cream," he said. He reached out and
stroked Sukara's cheek.

Pham looked down
at the tiny baby in her lap. My little sister, she thought. And it
came to her with amazement, not for the first time, that she was part
of a real and loving family.

The girl who,
three months ago, had left Level Twenty would never have believed it
possible.

Later, with Li
swaddled in a papoose on Sukara's chest and Pham riding on Jeff's
shoulders, they left the apartment and rose into the sunlight.

Eric Brown's
first short story was published in
Interzone
in 1987, and he
sold his first novel,
Meridian Days,
in 1992. He has won the
British Science Fiction Award twice for his short stories and has
published thirty books: SF novels, collections, books for teenagers
and younger children, and he writes a monthly SF review column for
The Guardian.
His latest books include the novella,
Starship
Summer,
and the novel
Kethani.
He is married to the writer
and mediaevalist Finn Sinclair and they have a daughter, Freya.

His website can
be found at:
www.ericbrown.co.uk