by Eric Brown
It was odd to be on the receiving end of a probe, to know that everything within his head, his innermost secrets and most private memories, were private no longer, that Das was reading him as he had these very thoughts.
Despite himself, he said, “I don’t believe it.”
She smiled. “You miss Sukara, Jeff. You miss her like hell. Even after six years, you’re very much in love. And the sex is still great-”
“Don’t-”
“She likes it best on her back, with you kneeling before her, gripping her ankles and spreading her...”
It was petty of him, but he couldn’t stop himself. He threw the remains of her beer in her face and watched her splutter.
“Turn it off!”
Slowly, glaring at him, she complied. “Happy now?” She mopped her face with a napkin, smiling to herself.
He said, “There is a thing called honour, even among telepaths.”
“You said you didn’t believe me.”
“So you’ve made your point.”
She pulled her hair back and knotted the tresses behind her head. He looked for the jacks and ports in her occipital region with which all telepaths were implanted; oddly, she wasn’t.
She saw him looking. “It’d be too obvious if I had the usual rig.” She indicated her handset. “So everything is in here, routed sub-dermally up to my cerebellum.”
He took a mouthful of beer, thinking things through. “Will you reciprocate,” he said, “and turn off your shield? I’ll promise not to read what you and Chandrasakar get up to in the sack.”
She shook her head. “I can’t let you in. I can’t compromise my security. However, I’ll keep my side of the bargain. I know all you know, so I’ll come clean with you, okay?”
He nodded, opened his second bottle and said, “Okay. You’re working for the Indian government, right?”
She inclined her head. “They recruited me while I was a post-grad at Kolkata. I was a willing convert. I’ve travelled the Expansion, feeding things back to them for the past ten years. Then... well, believe it or not I got involved with Rab before this mission came up.”
“Do you know what’s going on down there?”
“As far as I know the original colonists have split into two factions. The majority were against the dissemination of what they discovered beneath the surface of the planet; the minority - the green men - wanted nothing more than to get word back to the FNSA government on Earth.”
“How do you know this?”
“I’ve only just found out about the colonists. I probed one of them out there.”
“But your government knew about Chandrasakar’s mission, right?”
She smiled. “Why do you think I’m here, Jeff?”
He considered this, then asked, “Do you think Chandrasakar knows what the colonists found?”
“I suspect so, which is why he’s so focused on getting down there. He doesn’t know if any other power bloc intercepted the signal, but he’s taking no chances. He wants to get at whatever it is before the opposition sends out a ship.”
He looked at her, a thought forming. “But do you think the FNSA are on to it? Did they ever receive the communiqué?”
“I suspect so, yes.” She hesitated, then said, “I also suspect it was the FNSA who sent the assassins to kill the telepaths. The FNSA don’t have ships anywhere near the capability of Chandrasakar’s. They wanted to slow him down, and so hired the assassins.”
“Why didn’t they just do what your people did, and plant someone aboard the Kali?”
She gave a grim smile. “They did.”
He stared at her. “Don’t tell me...”
She nodded. “I corrupted Namura’s shield. She and McIntosh were working for the FNSA.”
“So you went and told Chandrasakar, and he took the opportunity to wipe them out?”
“Of course not.” She glared at him. “I didn’t say a word to Rab. I decided to keep an eye on Namura and McIntosh myself.” She paused. “For what it’s worth, Rab swore that he didn’t have them killed. He claimed they were killed in the crossfire.”
Vaughan recalled what Chandrasakar had told him immediately after the killing. “And you’ve read him, verified this?”
She shook her head. “No, Rab is shielded.”
“So am I, but that didn’t stop you.”
“I...” She hesitated, then went on, “I’ve held off trying to probe him.”
He watched her, wondering at her reluctance to read the tycoon. He tried to keep the sarcasm from his tone as he asked, “So... he told you he had nothing to do with the death of two enemy agents down there, and you believe him?”
She looked genuinely pained, as if battling with conflicting desires. “Jeff... I want to believe him. I can’t accept that he’s the kind of person who’d-”
He interrupted. “Get real. You’re a telepath. You’ve read minds, you know how things work. You don’t get where Chandrasakar is without being ruthless and looking after your own interests.”
She avoided his eyes and stared down at her beer. She looked abject, slouched there with her raw eyes and bitter expression.
“There is one more thing I’d like to know,” he said. “Why are you levelling with me like this?”
She considered the question, staring through the viewscreen. After perhaps a minute, during which he thought she wasn’t going to reply, she looked up and said, “I’ve been reading you, Jeff, on and off during the journey here.”
“And getting off on my sex-life?”
She ignored that. “I wanted to know who you were, who you were working for, what you knew... and where your allegiances lay.”
“And you no doubt found out all about me,” he said.
She shrugged. “I read what happened back in Toronto, how the FNSA cut you, made you a necropath, how you did a runner and have been running ever since. I know you’ve no love for the FNSA-”
“Or, for that matter, for any other big organisation, government, company, you name it. They’re all corrupt.”
“But some,” she said, “are more corrupt than others.”
“You don’t say? And who might the relatively squeaky-clean guys be? Let me guess. Your lot, by any chance?”
She smiled. “Jeff, don’t try to deny it. If you were to come down on any side in this, it’d be with us. You have... let’s say... leanings.”
“So what if I think what’s happening in India is a little less corrupt and self-serving than what the FNSA and the rest are doing?”
“I think, when it comes down to it, you’d rather the Indians got their hands on whatever’s down there.”
“There’s another option,” he pointed out. “I might think that the original colonists got it right - that whatever is down there should remain hidden, secret.”
“That, Jeff, surely depends on the exact nature of the secret, doesn’t it?”
“That remains to be seen.” He shrugged. “But you haven’t answered my question. Why so open with me all of a sudden?”
She stared through the viewscreen at the plain between the two starships. He followed her gaze. The spider drones, having taken part in the slaughter, had done their bit in clearing it up; all that remained on the fungal plain were stark slicks of crimson.
“I’ve been thinking things through... since what Rab told me, after what I saw down there. The fact is, I don’t know who to trust. I... I love Rab. I thought at first he wanted me along as a...” She faltered and smiled. “I know this might sound naive of me, but I thought he wanted me along as a companion, a lover.”
“And now?”
“Well, I am a xenologist, after all.”
“Meaning?”
She shrugged. “It would explain why he wanted me along on this trip, if the colonists had found an alien race down there.”
“But he hasn’t told you as much?”
“That’s another thing he’s keeping close to his chest.” She looked up from her bottle. “Anyway, when I read you... Look
, I read that I can trust you, okay? The fact is, I want to trust Rab as well, but... I must face the possibility that he’s using me for no other reason than I’m his tame telepath.”
He thought about it. He had to be cautious. He wasn’t a hundred per cent sure he could trust the woman. “So... what do you suggest?”
“We stick together, look out for each other; pool information - and be very, very wary.”
“Of Chandrasakar?”
Her expression was pained. “Perhaps. But also of his security personnel. Singh in particular has it in for me.”
He regarded the dregs of his beer, lips pursed.
“Well, what do you say?”
He thought he had nothing to lose. He would play along with Das until he knew exactly where he stood with the woman. “Okay, but we’ve got to be careful. And you do hold one hell of an advantage over me. I’d trust you more if you’d drop your shield.”
She shook her head. “Can’t do that, Jeff.”
Through the viewscreen he saw a flier bank in from the left and land between the two ships. He recognised the vehicle as the one that had set off earlier that morning, though now only one blue-uniformed security man occupied the vehicle. A single silver spider drone, like an old-fashioned hubcap, barnacled its flank.
Das’s handset chimed and she accepted the call. Vaughan saw Chandrasakar’s cherubic face fill the tiny screen.
He looked out, down onto the plain. Chandrasakar was standing beside the flier, speaking with the pilot.
“Parveen,” Chandrasakar said. “There have been developments. My men have found an entrance leading underground, close by what’s left of the Cincinnati in the mountains north of here. We’re packing up and making our way there.”
Das glanced at Vaughan and raised her eyebrows.
Chandrasakar continued, “Will you find Vaughan and tell him to gather his belongings? We’ll be heading north in an hour.”
Vaughan finished his beer, curious about why the tycoon might want him along.
Das cut the connection and looked across at him. “Well, you heard the man. I’ve got a feeling that the next few days might prove interesting.”
* * * *
SEVENTEEN
DESCENT
He sat in the rear of the flier and stared down at the land passing far below.
It was late in the day and the fungal landscape had taken on a burnt orange hue; as he watched, vast sections of land moved slowly, hunched itself, or sprouted new shoots and tendrils. It was, he thought, like looking down on a cooking pot full of some bizarre algae simmering in slow motion.
The colony ship, according to Chandrasakar, was a thousand kilometres north of where the Kali had come down, and Vaughan judged that they had flown most of that distance by now. They had passed actual mountain ranges on their flight, great ragged razors of grey rock cutting up through the ubiquitous fungus, and at one point they overflew a lake nestling in what looked like a high volcanic caldera, its neat circlet of crimson water a stark contrast to the surrounding grey rock formations.
He sat next to Das, while two security personnel occupied the front seats. In the leading flier, Chandrasakar was accompanied by Singh and Pavelescu. Three further fliers were following, carrying the scientists, more security men, and spider drones.
Das touched his arm. “There.”
He looked down at where she was pointing and saw the remains of the Cincinnati. The ship had come to rest in a deep valley bottom, its superstructure patched by a voracious fungal growth and blackened by fire.
“Looks as if it crash-landed,” he said.
“I don’t think so. I suspect it was cannibalised in the early days.”
“And the fire damage?”
She frowned. “Pass. Perhaps something to do with the conflict between the colonists and the rebels?”
He wondered at the thoughts of the colonists on first seeing this unique landscape; to think that this would be home, to be made the best of, for the rest of their lives... At journey’s end, colonists desired something similar to what they had left behind on Earth, some Eden-analogue to help them forget how far away they were from home. This landscape was about as alien as it was possible to be, and yet still be habitable.
They flew on for about a kilometre to where the foothills of the mountain range rose above the encroaching fungus, buckling higher and higher. Minutes later they came down in a mesa free of fungal growth. A hundred metres away an angled crack, fifty metres high, split the mountainside.
Vaughan climbed from the flier, stretching tired limbs, and walked over to where Chandrasakar was addressing his security personnel and the half dozen scientists. The tycoon indicated the rent in the rock behind him.
“My team found steps chiselled into the cliff-face beneath the opening, and more inside,” he was saying. “The colonists, we suspect, live underground. It’s our mission to locate them and establish friendly relations. It’s unfortunate that our initial meeting was with a group of - we suspect - rebels who wanted to get away from the planet.” He looked around the gathering. “Any questions?”
A scientist asked, “If the FNSA has settled Delta Cephei VII, then where does the Chandrasakar Organisation stand in the scheme of things?”
“The precise status of the colony has yet to be determined, hence this sortie,” Chandrasakar said. “It might be that the colonists wish for independence, in which case we might find ourselves with room for... negotiations.”
The meeting broke up, and Chandrasakar crossed to Vaughan. “A word about why I wanted you to accompany us, Jeff.”
Vaughan said, “As I recall, the agreement was that I’d read the engineer.”
The Indian smiled and gestured with a placatory hand. “Rest assured that hers is the last dead mind I’ll ask you to probe.”
“But live minds is another question?”
“You will be invaluable in locating the colonists down there, Jeff. It’s a big place, and the old needle in a haystack metaphor applies here. I’ll ensure that your work is amply rewarded when we return to Earth.”
Vaughan nodded, playing along with the tycoon. He suspected that Chandrasakar wanted him along so that he could keep an eye on him. He had one other telepath on his team, after all. Unless, of course, Chandrasakar didn’t trust Das.
“And Das?” Vaughan asked.
Chandrasakar looked at him. “What about her?”
“She’s a xenologist. What’s her role in all of this?”
The tycoon gestured to the world at large. “This is an alien planet, Jeff. I need someone with us with her expertise on the off chance we happen across a sentient extraterrestrial species.” He glanced up at Vaughan, as if wondering whether he’d buy it.
Vaughan nodded. “Do you think that likely?”
“In my experience, Jeff, it’s wise to be ready for all eventualities, however unlikely.”
The tycoon crossed to where the scientists were unloading their packs from the fliers. Vaughan found a rock and sat down. He would call Sukara and tell her about the starship, and that soon they would be venturing underground; he would omit mention of the slaughter and the sickening political intrigue.
He tapped in the code and anticipated seeing Sukara; he felt a tightness in his chest at the thought of Li and how her treatment might be progressing.
He judged the time on Bengal Station would be around eight in the evening, but Sukara failed to answer his call. He told himself not to worry; he’d try again later, when they were underground. The rock would provide no barrier to the voidspace communication program.
Despite himself, he worried.
He looked up and saw Das watching him, an expression of pity on her face. Ignoring her, he crossed to the fliers and collected his backpack containing food and water rations.
Chandrasakar and Singh set off up the hillside, followed by a dozen security personnel and the six scientists; Das and Vaughan brought up the rear. A dozen prancing spider drones, their foot-pads rattling on the stone
, went fore and aft.
It was a short climb to the cliff-face, and then a longer one up the twisting flight of a hundred or so steps to the opening. Five minutes later they stepped under an over-arching cowl of grey rock, moving from the full glare of the sun to a disconcerting half-light. Vaughan blinked; it was ten seconds before his vision adjusted and he made out the enclosing walls. The opening widened out, becoming a high cave, which narrowed again into blackness. They were equipped with flashlights, which illuminated a narrow pathway leading, at the back of the cave, to a square opening, cut with geometric precision. Steps led down into the bowels of the planet.