by Eric Brown
Three minutes later he eased the limo onto the landing deck of the Hindustan building and cut the turbos.
The woman said, “Great. What do I owe?”
“This one’s on the company, okay?”
“Say, thanks.” She dazzled a smile, slipped from the car and ran across the apron.
Vaughan lifted the Benz into the air and headed across the Station, towards the imposing monolith of the Mitsubishi pile. He wondered how Kapinsky might react when he turned up without the golden goose.
He saw her as he banked sharply and came in to land on the marked rank, a small figure in a white suit.
She yanked open the passenger door, her face a picture of dismay. “Where the fuck is he, Vaughan?”
“Change of plan, Kapinsky.” He told her what had happened.
“So what now? We delay a day, go through with it tomorrow?”
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said as he took off again, heading south through a canyon of sun-reflecting skyscrapers.
“Go on.”
“We go to Denning’s place. I get out; you take the limo to the end of the street and wait. I ring his bell, wait till he answers, then hit him with this.” He lifted the canister. “After that I just drag him inside and cut the shield.”
“I’m not sure...”
“What?” Vaughan glanced at her. “Look, if anything, it’ll work better than our original plan. I’ll get inside his pad, take a look around—”
“I wanted to read him too, Vaughan.”
He shrugged. “Tell you what, when I’m through and you pick me up, you can read what I read, yeah?”
“After what I read in there yesterday?” she asked. She stared at him. “You sure this’ll work?”
“For Chrissake, what can go wrong?”
She nodded. “Okay, let’s do it.”
He smiled, adrenalin pumping through him as he eased the flier down towards Mizrabad.
He landed in the street. “I’ll be ten, maybe fifteen minutes, okay?”
“Any trouble and you call me, got that?”
He took the carry-case containing the scalpel, the synthi-flesh spray, and a deactivated mind-shield and climbed from the flier. As Kapinsky shuffled into the driver’s seat and powered up, he turned and looked towards the house, set atop a long, sloping lawn. He took a breath and walked up the drive.
He slipped the case under his arm and the canister of anaesthetic into his jacket pocket.
He stopped before the side door, found the bell and rang.
The seconds ticked by, demarcated by the thump of his heart. His face sweated, but the chu allowed the perspiration to bead naturally on its surface. He mopped the sweat and rang the bell again.
What if Denning was so immersed in his work that he decided to ignore the bell?
He was looking for a way to break into the house when he heard a sound beyond the door and it opened quickly, as if Denning was intent on showing his annoyance at being disturbed.
“Yes?” the exec snapped, staring at Vaughan.
He acted, pulling the canister from his pocket and letting Denning have a blast in the face at close range.
The exec didn’t even have time to register surprise before he crumpled. Vaughan stepped over Denning and hauled him into the villa.
He left him slumped in the hall, did a quick reconnaissance of the place, then dragged the unconscious body into the kitchen. The room was marble-floored, and any spilled blood would be easy to clean up.
He laid the carry-case beside the body, opened the lid, and took out the scalpel. Next he carefully unfastened the executive’s shirt. The mind-shield was located just below his left clavicle, raised like an old-fashioned pacemaker. He took a wad of tissues from the carry-case and held them below Denning’s implant as he made a quick, lateral slice through the skin and squeezed out the silver oval of the mind-shield. He mopped the blood, cleaned the shield, and slipped it into the carry-case.
He took out the deactivated shield and, surprised at how easily it slipped into place, inserted it into the slit on the exec’s chest and sealed the incision with a strip of synthi-flesh spray. Seconds later there was not the slightest sign of a wound to indicate the operation.
Then, taking a breath to prepare himself for the onslaught of the executive’s mind, he activated his implant.
Denning’s recent memories hit him in a dizzying rush: breakfast with his wife, Celia, dinner with her last night, and their lovemaking hours later. Vaughan experienced the heady wonder of Denning’s love for his wife, the underlying regret that they could never have children. He also read the man’s overwhelming ambition to succeed at his job, his ruthlessness in pursuit of that goal.
He dived deeper, pushing past emotions—love and hate and petty jealousies—and looking for thoughts and recollections of Mallory.
He found them, in abundance. As head of the Mallory department, Anton Denning’s mind was like a massive com file packed with information about the colony world, from the arcane minutiae of governmental legislation to reports from scientists in the field.
Vaughan sifted through tangled memories of meetings with government officials, scientists, colony workers, and members of Denning’s own department here on Earth. The exec visited the planet half a dozen times a year and reported back to Gustave Scheering after every trip.
Most of Denning’s dealings with the colonists were mind-numbingly routine; he was responsible for trade quotas, the industrial development on the planet, the facilitation of business links between Earth and the colony. Vaughan searched for any trace of a Scheering-Lassiter cover-up concerning matters ecological, but found none.
He did come across a series of interesting memories, however. On Denning’s last trip to Mallory, some three months ago, he had been taken by a group of archaeological engineers to visit the crash site of an extraterrestrial starship.
Vaughan accessed the memories, vicariously sharing in Denning’s wonder at the sight of the beached leviathan.
It had come down on a remote upland plain between a range of mountains in the south of the colony’s main continent. The area was uninhabited, and largely inaccessible, and the scientists had flown Denning to the site by air-car.
Not a lot of the kilometre-long alien starship remained, other than its gothic superstructure and its nose-cone, which had ploughed up a tumulus, long since grassed over, of the alpine meadow’s rich soil. The ship was vast and otherworldly, its becalming made all the more poignant by the state of its once magnificent tegument: much of its outer shell had disintegrated, leaving only spars and struts like the skeleton of some ancient, burned-out cathedral.
Denning recalled certain facts relayed to him by the scientists.
It had crash-landed on Mallory in the region of a hundred thousand years ago; no trace of survivors had been discovered, either in the immediate vicinity of the ship, or in the extant life forms of the planet. Also, no record of the appearance of the extraterrestrial beings had been discovered: nothing remained within the ship to suggest the creatures’ shape, height, much less their physical appearance.
The scientists told Denning that they assumed the aliens had died shortly after arriving on Mallory, perhaps due to what they termed as the “non-sustainable living conditions” of the planet.
Fascinating though the scenic tour of the crashed alien starship was, Vaughan forced himself away from these recollections, sifting Denning’s thoughts tor any sign of discord between his employers and the environmental watchdog organisation Eco-Col.
Here, he found something of interest. Denning, in the normal course of his duties, had little to do with the ecological side of Mallory’s development—this vas handled by another executive of the Scheering-Lassiter organisation.
However, Vaughan learned that in two days Denning was due to leave for Mallory. Denning knew nothing about what was expected of him on the colony world—but he was soon to find out.
Vaughan placed his knuckles against the marble floor to stea
dy himself, like a sprinter in the starting blocks, as he pushed aside the din of Denning’s emotional life and concentrated on a call Denning had received yesterday.
The call had been from the head of the organisation, none other than Gustave Scheering himself, to inform Denning that he would leave for Mallory in three days on a mission vital for the security of not only the organisation but the planet itself.
Scheering would call again, giving more information about the trip: Denning’s duties while on Mallory, the team he would take, and the contacts he would make on arrival.
The time Scheering had arranged to call Denning was today, at 11am precisely.
Vaughan quickly swept through Denning’s more recent dealings with Scheering, his last committee meeting, but found nothing of interest.
He withdrew his probe, discovered that he was sweating—and then realised why. He had been submerged in Denning’s psyche for almost twenty minutes.
He looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to eleven.
Scheering was due to call Denning at eleven, by which time Denning would be conscious, but groggy, recovering from the effects of the assault and assessing the extent of the break in.
He thought through the options. Scheering was in the habit of calling Denning on a secure line, which could be neither intercepted, recorded, nor traced. Denning was in the habit of deleting all record of his calls from Scheering, retaining pertinent details only in his memory.
Vaughan stood. With only minutes to go before Denning regained consciousness, he had to act fast.
He moved to the bedroom and ripped open drawers and cupboards, strewing their contents in a passable imitation of the work of a desperate burglar. Behind him, in the kitchen, Denning’s mind was a glow set against the concerted mind-noise of other nearby citizens.
Vaughan found a holdall in one cupboard and a hoard of expensive-looking jewellery in another, and tipped the jewellery into the bag. He moved to the lounge, opening wall-units, then found Denning’s study. He would have liked more time to go through his com files, but that was impossible now.
The com, he noted, was against the far wall—an outer wall. He tipped a plastic filing unit, messed up the desk, and left the study.
He tapped Kapinsky’s code into his handset. “Vaughan, what the hell’s going on? You okay?”
“I think I’m onto something, but don’t wait for me. I might be another five, ten minutes. It might look suspicious if you’re seen hanging around in the vicinity of a break-in, okay?”
“Check. I’m outta here.”
“See you back at the office in an hour,” he said, and cut the connection.
He returned to the kitchen, found a washcloth and cleaned the blood from the marble floor, then looked around to ensure he’d left no telltale traces of his presence.
Then he fastened Denning’s shirt and hauled the unconscious body from the kitchen, through the hall and into the study.
It was 10:55. Scheering would be calling in five minutes.
He dropped the executive into a genuine leather recliner. The guy was moaning, struggling against the effects of the anaesthetic. He would be awake in less than a minute.
Vaughan hurried into the hall with the holdall containing the jewellery, picked up the carry-case from where he’d left it, then slipped from the villa.
He moved around the building, towards where the study was situated. Out of sight of passers-by, and hidden from neighbours by a stand of bougainvillea, he squatted down and leaned against the wall, sending out a probe towards Denning.
He glanced at his watch.
It was one minute to eleven.
He hoped Scheering was a punctual man.
He hoped, also, that Denning did not decide to call in the cops before he was distracted by Scheering’s communiqué.
He scanned. Denning came around groggily, reliving the sudden flare of panic at the sight of the blonde stranger raising the canister of...
Then Vaughan experienced a vicarious surge of rage that the sanctity of Denning’s personal safety, his very home, had been abused.
He was oblivious of the fact that his mind-shield had been removed.
Denning staggered to his feet, gripping the desk for support. He looked around at the mess Vaughan had left, then through the hall to the bedroom and the strewn possessions there. Denning assumed that he’d been the victim of an opportunist thief, no more.
Then Denning moved to call in the cops. He was reaching towards the com on the desk when it chimed with an incoming.
Instantly, Denning recalled Scheering’s promise to call him.
Conflicting emotions chased themselves through his mind. He wanted to call in the law, catch the bastard who did this, but at the same time he knew he had to access this call, and present a calm, unruffled exterior to his boss. The last thing he wanted was to let Scheering know that he’d allowed himself to be knocked out and burgled like some dumb pleb.
Sixty per cent of his job was all about performance. The rest was appearance.
He tapped the accept key and slipped into the swivel chair, arranging a smile of greeting.
Vaughan, perhaps two metres from where Denning sat, held himself in a tight, foetal ball and concentrated.
Denning watched Scheering materialise on his screen, his big face florid with good living and excess. Vaughan recognised the man from the flattering portrait he’d seen in the S-L headquarters the other day. His ego, Vaughan read now in Denning’s mind, was as vast as his colonial empire.
“Denning,” Scheering said with his accustomed gruffness. “You all set for Mallory?”
Denning expanded his smile. “All set, sir.”
“Good man. This is a big job, Denning. I won’t accept anything other than success.”
“You can rely on me.”
“I know this link is secure, but take the usual precaution, understood?”
“I’ll delete all record of the call, sir.”
Vaughan screwed his eyes shut, something about Denning’s obsequiousness turning his stomach.
Scheering was saying, “You’re going to Mallory on The Queen of Kandalay, the day after tomorrow, and you’re taking with you a crack team of investigators. You’re also taking Indira Javinder, the necropath.”
Curiosity flared in Denning’s mind. “Yes, sir.”
“Your mission, Denning, is to flush out a cell of environmental radicals, though to grace them with the term ‘cell’ is perhaps overdoing it. They are dangerous to the security of Scheering-Lassiter and to Mallory.”
“Understood, sir.”
“I want them,” Scheering went on, “alive or dead. That is why the necropath is going along with you. The radicals have information, and I want that information.”
“Sir.”
Scheering smiled. “Intelligence on Mallory has pinpointed the exact whereabouts of the radicals, Jenna Larsen and Johan Weiss.” He paused. “Are you ready, Denning—I’m sending this information through a scrambler. Use the usual program to decode it, and then destroy all trace of this communication.”
“Understood, sir.”
Denning downloaded the coded information, routed it through a decoding program, and immediately ran a scouring program to erase all record of it from his com system.
He committed the information to memory, and nodded to his superior.
Vaughan read that Larsen and Weiss were, according to Scheering’s intelligence sources, holed up in a mountain retreat twenty kilometres from the alien starship, in a deserted settlement known as Campbell’s End.
Scheering had the radicals under observation: a security team had made itself at home in a shack on the approach road to the settlement, awaiting Denning.
“Very good, Denning,” Scheering smiled. “I’ll see you on your return.”
Denning felt a surge of smug pride, like a pupil commended by his headmaster. “Thank you, sir.”
Scheering cut the connection, and Denning thought twice about calling in the cops for a sim
ple case of burglary: if word of his lapse got back to Scheering...
By this time Vaughan was hurrying down the drive, the carry-case in one hand and the holdall in another. He killed his implant, and the ensuing mind-silence was like a balm.
He paused at the end of the street, accessed his handset and called up the schedule of voidliner flights from Bengal Station to Mallory. The next direct link lifted off at eight in the morning.