by Eric Brown
He felt someone turning him over so that he lay on his back, and a cold sensation on his inner arm, and then a warm smothering sensation as the sedative took hold.
* * * *
Two hours later he slumped in the padded nacelle of the observation lounge. Chandrasakar perched opposite him, flanked by Singh and Pavelescu. Vaughan sipped his coffee and stared out at the slowly shifting terrain, biding his time until he was good and ready to recount what had happened to the crew of the Mussoree.
Like depression or an insistent migraine, Patti Yuan’s death had lodged itself in his head and would not depart. He had known it would be like this, though he had forgotten the severity, the degree of his identification with the dead subject. It was as if a part of him had died, and he knew that this feeling was a reminder of how it would be to face his own death, one day.
And in the forefront of his mind was what he had discovered about the Mussoree’s attackers: they had spoken English. They had been human.
Chandrasakar said, “I can appreciate how traumatic it must have been...”
Vaughan interrupted, dragging his gaze away from the landscape and focusing on the tycoon. “You can’t. You might have an inkling, an intellectual hunch. But unless you’ve gone through it, you’ve absolutely no idea.”
At least Chandrasakar was man enough not to argue the point. He merely spread his hands in a gesture of concession.
“Were you able to...?”
“Find out what happened? Of course. I was with her through it all, right up to her death.”
He stopped there and gazed through the viewscreen again. Perhaps it was petty of him, but he was relishing having this power over Chandrasakar. Until now he had been in the tycoon’s control, at his beck and call; it was refreshing to be able to call the shots.
He finished his coffee and called the waiter for another. He took three or four sips, paused, then began outlining the final hour aboard the Mussoree.
He recounted the initial exploration made by Henderson and Gonzalez. He described the attack on the pair, the subsequent raid on the ship, and Grendle and Yuan’s futile defence. He stripped the account of all the pain he’d experienced, and omitted to mention that the pair had been lovers. He kept it as factual as possible, not wanting to trigger the woman’s memories that rode alongside his own.
He paused when he’d recounted the drone’s actions in getting the engineer into coldsleep. Singh said to Chandrasakar, “That ties in with the drones’ limited report, sir. Grendle was beyond their aid, but they stowed Yuan in the mortuary.”
Pavelescu said, “But we’re none the wiser why they attacked in the first place-”
Vaughan sipped his coffee and said, “They wanted the Mussoree.”
“What makes you think...?” Singh began.
“The last thing Patti Yuan heard before she lost consciousness was a cry from one of the attackers. It was in English.” He repeated the phrase. “We’ve got the ship!’
Pavelescu stared at him. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’m as sure about it as Patti Yuan was,” Vaughan said.
Pavelescu said, “But if they wanted the ship, and killed the crew, then why didn’t they-”
Singh interrupted, “Why didn’t they take the ship? Think about it, Pavelescu. They might have killed the crew, thought they’d got the ship, but the combat drones fought them off.”
Chandrasakar questioned Vaughan, going over his account and asking for details. Vaughan found himself repeating what he’d said, going over the same old ground and growing resentful.
The tycoon picked up on this and said, “I appreciate what you’ve been able to tell me, Jeff. I know I cannot hope to understand the pain, but you have my gratitude.”
He gestured at Pavelescu and Singh. The three men stood.
Vaughan looked up. “And the green men? The humans...?”
Chandrasakar seemed to hesitate before saying, “That remains the big mystery, Jeff. I don’t know.”
You lying bastard, Vaughan thought.
The tycoon made to leave the lounge.
“I think you’ve forgotten something,” Vaughan said.
He ejected the necropath program from his handset and held it out to Chandrasakar. The tycoon nodded, accepted the pin, and strode from the observation lounge with Singh and Pavelescu.
Vaughan sat and a stared at the dregs in his cup. He realised that what he had feared for some time was over, and the relief was immense. But now, along with the residual pain of Patti Yuan’s passing, was the mystery of the green men - and a suspicion was beginning to form in his mind.
He recalled how, earlier, Chandrasakar had quizzed him about whether he’d read the minds of the green men while searching for Namura. Vaughan had claimed he’d probed and read nothing. The look Chandrasakar had given him then - either doubtful or suspicious - now made sense.
Chandrasakar had known all along that the green men were not aliens.
He looked through the viewscreen. Chandrasakar had exited the ship and stood on the plain, deep in conversation with Singh. As Vaughan watched, he dismissed the head of security and walked over to the drilling rig where a team of scientists, David McIntosh among them, were still working.
On impulse Vaughan pushed himself from the seat and strode from the lounge. He took the elevator and hurried down the ramp and across to where Chandrasakar was in conversation with the scientists.
He stopped by the group, and his brooding presence must have made itself apparent to Chandrasakar. The tycoon turned impatiently and said, “Can I help you, Jeff?”
“We need to talk. About who killed Yuan.”
Chandrasakar opened his mouth, as if to remonstrate, then nodded. “Okay, Jeff...” He moved from the scientists and gestured up the incline, to the tall mushroom under which Vaughan had sat first thing that morning. They climbed towards it.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Vaughan said, “How long have you known the green men were human?”
Chandrasakar looked at him as they walked. “My team briefed me about your perspicacity before we hired you, Jeff. They told me that half a life-time of reading minds had given you acute perceptions, that you could tell when someone was lying, or telling the truth, even when you weren’t reading.”
Vaughan dismissed this with an impatient wave. “What the hell’s going on here?”
They reached the tall mushroom, and Chandrasakar gestured in invitation for Vaughan to be seated, as if he owned the planet.
Chandrasakar hunkered down beside Vaughan, the pose oddly democratic and out of keeping with the paunchy tycoon. “I’ll come clean with you, Jeff. I’ll tell you what the situation is here if you’ll keep it to yourself, okay? No one knows why we’re here other than my head of security, Singh. I want to keep it that way. Deal?”
Vaughan nodded, wary. “Go ahead.”
“Twenty-five years ago, just as voidspace was opening up, the Federated Northern States of America sent out a colony ship on a long haul to what was then beyond the edge of the Expansion in search of a habitable planet; I think they wanted to set up a far-flung frontier, a kind of marker as to their vaunted ambitions. Anyway, the ship, theCincinnati, made landfall here on Delta Cephei VII.”
Chandrasakar paused, and Vaughan thought of the early colonists and the difficulty of existing on such an inimical planet with its long, harsh winter and short, fiery summers.
“And then?”
“And then, earlier this year, one of my exploration ships flying about a hundred light years from here picked up a weak signal from the colonists, meant for Earth.”
Vaughan looked at the tycoon. “Earlierthis year? They didn’t try to communicate with Earth before now?”
Chandrasakar shrugged. “They might have done; it’s impossible to tell-”
“Do you know if the FNSA sent out a follow-up mission?”
The tycoon shook his head. “The FNSA was undergoing something of a recession around that time, remember - the last thing
they wanted to spend money on was expensive follow-up missions.”
“So...” Vaughan said, “this communiqué?”
“The colonists reported that they’d established a settlement here, despite the conditions. They also reported that they’d found something of a... revelation beneath the surface of the planet.”
Vaughan eyed the tycoon. “A revelation?”
“That was the word they used-”
“What was it?”
Chandrasakar smiled. “That’s what we came here to find out, Jeff. The message was so scrambled it was hard to decipher - and my scientists suspected that it was cut off purposefully before it was completed, as if there were two competing opinions among the colonists about whether to broadcast what they’d found.”
“Do you think the communiqué made it through to the FNSA?”
“We suspect that either the communiqué did get through, or my security was compromised and factions on Earth found out that I was equipping a mission to Delta Cephei VII.”
“What makes you think...?”
“Forces opposed to what I was doing were determined to stop me. They disabled the original ship I had ready for the mission - with a pretty effective bit of industrial sabotage - and then targeted the telepaths I’d shortlisted to accompany me.”
“The assassin...” Vaughan said.
“I think it was their little game to let me know that I wasn’t alone in my knowledge of the importance of Delta Cephei VII, that they were onto me. And to slow me down.” Chandrasakar paused. “I pride myself on the high levels of security in my organisation, Jeff, but there was clearly a breach. And the fact that either the FNSA or some other organisation or government knows about Delta Cephei VII makes it even more vital that we get to the bottom of the mystery, sooner rather than later.”
Vaughan wondered what else Chandrasakar was failing to tell him.
The nature of the revelation the colonists had discovered?
The identity of those who had hired the Korth assassin?
Not for the first time, he wished he could probe the tycoon’s wily mind for just five seconds.
Then he considered Parveen Das, and wondered if the Indian government had its sticky fingers in the affair... Was it possible, even, that Das’s paymasters had been behind the assassination of the telepaths?
He wanted suddenly to be a thousand light years from Delta Cephei VII and everything it represented about the tawdry affairs of humankind.
His thoughts were interrupted by a cry from down below.
McIntosh had left the drilling rig and the other scientists and was running up the incline towards Vaughan and Chandrasakar. He was accessing his handset as he ran, and then looking up and waving madly. “Jeez, it’s Kiki!” he called out.
He came to them panting and held out his handset. Kiki Namura’s high, shrill tones filled the air. “David! I’m okay; they’re treating me well. I have a message. They wish to negotiate. But first, they want the telepath - Vaughan - to come out into the open with his hands in their air.”
Vaughan stared at McIntosh’s handset, hardly believing what he’d heard.
Chandrasakar accessed the signal on his own handset and said, “How do they know about Jeff, Kiki?”
Namura sobbed. “They asked me. I had to tell them.”
“Why do they want him?”
“They... They want him separated. Down there in the hollow, beside the Kali.”
“And then?” Chandrasakar wanted to know.
“And then they want to negotiate for the use of the Mussoree,” Namura said.
Chandrasakar looked at Vaughan. “You were right, again, Jeff.”
McIntosh spoke into his own handset. “Negotiate?” he asked, his expression grim.
Her reply must have confirmed his fears. “For me, David.”
Vaughan said, “Tell them I’m going-”
Namura said, “They say you must walk to the side of the Kali with your hands in the air. If you try to enable your psi-ability, they say they’ll kill me. They’re watching you. They’re out of probing range now, but when they come for the ship...”
“I’m on my way,” Vaughan said, glancing at Chandrasakar.
As he raised his hands into the air and strode down the incline towards the flank of the Kali, he looked about him for some sign of where the green men - the colonists - might be secreted. At least, now, he knew why they had signalled him out. Not to be shot, as he’d first feared - though that was still a distinct possibility - but so that he’d be out of probing range if and when they boarded the Mussoree.
He came to the ship, turned, and stood with his hands in the air, feeling like a bull’s eye on a firing range.
He considered what it might be that the colonists didn’t want him to read, and wondered if it could be what they’d discovered beneath the surface of Delta Cephei VII.
* * * *
FOURTEEN
SLAUGHTER
He stood at the foot of the Kali’s ramp, hands in the air. Delta Cephei was climbing into the bright blue sky, a fulminating fireball. Sweat trickled from his hairline and dribbled down his neck.
Five minutes had elapsed since the communiqué from the colonists. A stasis had overtaken the scene, with the drilling halted and the scientists and techs standing beside the rig like a redundant Greek chorus. Chandrasakar and McIntosh stood beneath the wide parasol of the mushroom high on the incline. As Vaughan watched, looking for the first sign of the colonists, Chandrasakar moved off down the incline towards the Kali, followed by McIntosh. The former was speaking surreptitiously into his handset.
They came to a halt five metres from Vaughan, and Chandrasakar lowered his handset and stared across the plain towards the Mussoree. From the ship emerged half a dozen drones, mincing on silver scissoring legs across the fungal terrain to take up positions on the perimeter of the cordoned area. Next came a scientist and a technician, who crossed to the Kali and climbed the ramp.
Vaughan looked at Chandrasakar. “You’re not going to give them the ship?” he asked incredulously.
Chandrasakar kept his gaze on the surrounding fungal outgrowths. “What do you think? Of course I’m not.”
McIntosh was watching Chandrasakar, concern etched on his face. “We can’t do anything to endanger Kiki.”
“The welfare of all my staff is a priority,” the tycoon answered shortly.
Vaughan saw movement to his left. He turned his head in time to see a quicksilver glint: a spider drone taking cover behind a stand of fungus. Once he’d seen the first, he quickly saw others, perhaps a dozen taking up positions on the perimeter of the valley where the two ships lay.
Then he saw members of Chandrasakar’s security team; they were moving through the fungal stands like snipers, then settling themselves so that they had the area covered.
He wondered where the colonists might emerge; they had, after all, twenty-five years to familiarise themselves with the nature of the metamorphosing landscape. They had taken Namura and disappeared with stealth and cunning: he wondered if they would be equal to the tactics of Chandrasakar’s security team and drones.
Chandrasakar’s handset chimed. He answered with a barked, “Yes?”
It wasn’t Namura this time, but a man’s voice, high and accentless. “We’re coming out. If any of you make a move - and that includes your drones - the girl is dead, understood?”
“Perfectly.”
“We want free passage to theMussoree-”
“And then...?” Chandrasakar said.
“We have technical experts, scientists and pilots. We’re taking it back to Earth.”
“Where you’ll sell your secret to the FNSA?”
A hesitation. Then, “We are the FNSA. We’re only doing what anyone else would do in the circumstances - consolidating our power.”
Chandrasakar said, “TheCincinnati, I take it, is no longer spaceworthy?”
The colonist hesitated. “If it were, why the hell do you think we’d want the Musso
ree?”
Vaughan thought the tycoon was stringing the colonist along, playing for time. No doubt security, or the drones, were pinpointing the source of the call.
“You were supposed to be a self-sufficient colony,” Chandrasakar said. “Why couldn’t you repair your ship? Let me guess... You’re not the main body of colonists, right? You’re a breakaway group, rebels. The others are opposed to what you’re...”