by Eric Brown
He laughed, but without the slightest humour.
Das looked at him. “What?”
“You might have got here first, Das,” he said. “But Chandrasakar’s not far behind. How do you fancy your chances against him?”
Instinctively she raised her right arm.
Vaughan shook his head. “I think the Taoth thought of that,” he said. It gave him small comfort that she was unable to get through to her country’s starship.
Das was staring through the portal. She pointed. “Look.”
On Vluta, the portal stood at the top of a long flight of steps leading down to the canal-crossed city. As he stared, a dozen robed Taoth were making their way slowly up the wide stairway. Something lurched in his gut, for he knew that this delegation was meant for Das and himself.
A tall alien led the party, and when they reached the top of the steps the others paused and it approached. It seemed in every particular identical to Rath, except for the iridescent robe that clothed its bulbous torso and spindly limbs.
For five seconds it stared through the membrane at Vaughan and Das. Its bulbous eyes were unblinking, its expression unreadable. Then it stepped casually through the membrane, as if moving from one room to the next - a single step taking it 30,000 light years across space.
It spoke with Rath in their high, piccolo language.
Seconds later it turned to Vaughan and Das.
An age seemed to elapse. Vaughan counted his heartbeats. Ten, fifteen... He felt that the alien was about to say something, the significance of which he couldn’t begin to guess at.
“Vaughan,” the creature said at last in halting English, “will you please accompany me through the portal to Vluta?”
He felt suddenly dizzy. As if in reaction to the situation, he craved familiarity: he wanted Sukara, her embrace.
“To Vluta?” he echoed.
“There, we would like to speak to you of the way of things...”
He could not help himself smile at the alien’s quaint phraseology.
Das stepped forward. “And me?” she asked.
The robed alien turned its impassive gaze to the Indian. “My Council...” and here the alien turned and gestured to the assembly of aliens beyond the portal, “have assessed your suitability and found you wanting.”
Instead of being gratified at Das’s summary dismissal by the Taoth, Vaughan felt a cold apprehension at the corollary of the alien’s words: if Das had been found wanting, then he had not. He was, therefore, suitable... but for what?
Das waved a hand. “Wanting?” she said. “But I represent the Communist Government of India. If you know anything about my people, you’ll know that we stand for the egalitarian principles.”
The robed alien cut her short. “Please,” it said with an air of courteous forbearance. “We know all about you people. We have made our decision.” It turned to Vaughan. “If you would care to accompany me...”
It turned and walked towards the membrane, paused before the interface and awaited him.
Vaughan hesitated. Something more than the impossible fact of stepping across light years halted his progress. What, beyond the portal on Vluta, might await him?
Das said, “I’d be careful, Vaughan. You can’t trust these people.”
That, oddly enough, decided him. He turned to her and said, “For some reason, Das, I think I can.”
He looked at the robed alien and nodded. The alien passed through the membrane and, heart racing, Vaughan stepped after it.
He was aware of a split second of dizziness, a rush of heat passing across his body, and then he was on a planet near the centre of the galaxy, bathed in the light of three alien moons. It was warm, sultry, and the air was spiced with a mixture of sweet and indescribable scents. The gravity was less than that of Delta Cephei VII and Earth: he felt buoyant, as if he might jump and leave the ground for seconds at a time.
He turned. Through the portal he made out the cavern, and the figures of Rath, Connor, and Das, staring at him. Das stepped forward, her mouth moving, though no sound travelled the light years. She was clearly remonstrating with Connor, who stepped forward and tried to restrain her as she reached out to touch the membrane.
Her hand seemed to halt in the air halfway towards Vaughan, as if brought up short by a pane of glass. She frowned, applied more pressure and grimaced in frustration. She turned to Rath and spoke angrily to him, but the alien heard her out and decided against gracing her tirade with a reply.
Instead, it turned from her and moved through the membrane, walking on past Vaughan and the robed alien and moving away down the steps. This had the effect of renewing Das’s attempts to break through; she applied her shoulder and pushed, to no avail. Vaughan felt a touch on his arm. It was the robed alien, suggesting they leave her to her futile attempts.
“Please,” it said, “this way.”
The council of aliens was making its way down the steps, and the robed alien and Vaughan followed. At one point he turned back. Das had ceased her shoulder charges and had drawn her laser. For a terrible second he thought she was about to use it on the portal, but evidently she had second thoughts. She slipped the weapon into her jacket, moved away from the membrane and hurried across the chamber towards the far entrance. He wondered if she had decided to confront Chandrasakar when and if he arrived.
Taking a deep breath, Vaughan followed the robed alien down the steps.
* * * *
TWENTY-SIX
END GAME
Parveen hurried from the portal towards the cavern’s exit, paused, and looked back through the membrane to Vluta. Vaughan had disappeared with the aliens down the broad stairway, gone to learn whatever the Taoth required of him. The knowledge burned within her. If only she could have had more time with the Taoth - or at least more time with an alien willing actually to communicate with her - then she was sure she could have persuaded them to give the secret of their portals to her government.
It was ironic that they had chosen someone as politically apathetic as Vaughan to go with them to their world. She wondered what they wanted with him, and if he would be back to tell her. She very much doubted that.
Beside her, Connor cleared his throat. “I’m returning to the vale. Would you care to accompany me?”
She thought about what she should do next, then shook her head. “No. I should stay here. My... my acquaintances should be here pretty soon now.”
He bowed his head in understanding. “If you need anything...” he began.
She raised her left arm. “Do you know how I might get rid of this?”
He smiled. “I’m afraid not. It’s a phenomenon beyond our understanding. My guess is that the Taoth will remove it when they see fit.”
He moved to step through the exit and descend the stairs to his air-car. “One thing,” she said, stepping forward.
He paused. “Yes?”
She gestured back at the portal. “What do you think about... about that, about what the Taoth did to you, their proscription on technology, progress...?”
He smiled, placidly. “The Taoth helped us, Parveen. Without them, we would very likely have perished on this planet.”
“But they could have allowed you to contact Earth, tell them about-”
He was shaking his head. “They discouraged our use of technology because we do not need it down here. And they didn’t want Earth to know of the portal for obvious reasons.”
That was it, she thought. The Taoth feared humanity. They feared what the spread of humankind might mean for the stability of their future - and perhaps, she acknowledged, they were right to do so.
She said, “But not allowing you to develop, to retain and use your technology... isn’t that unacceptable social engineering?”
He smiled at this. “We accepted it,” Connor said, “and anyway, are not your people guilty - if that’s the word - of similar social engineering?”
Before she could reply, he smiled his farewell and moved down the stairs. He eased
himself into the air-car, started it up, and moved off down the long boulevard. She stood and watched him go, and soon the vehicle was a small speck flying low over the deserted city.
She sat down in the entrance of the cavern, staring out across the alien city, and considered her options.
Soon Rab would be here, eager to claim the secret of the Taoth. She smiled to herself. What the tycoon didn’t know was that the alien race, outwardly so unprepossessing - they looked like nothing more than tree frogs, after all - were advanced in many ways beyond human comprehension. Even if they allowed the portal to remain in situ, which she doubted, Rab and his team would be unable to fathom how it worked. They would be as frustrated as she was, which was the only satisfying aspect of the situation.
But what to do now?
She couldn’t contact her ship because of the damned crimson scab, and she couldn’t rely on Rab’s charity for a ride back home aboard the Kali.
She could always claim that she had left the party under duress - that Vaughan had forced her away at gunpoint. Or, better, what about the simple truth? That she’d been taken by the alien... Would he believe her, though?
She considered her feelings for the tycoon, and smiled at her naivety in thinking, not so long ago, that she had loved him.
What she had loved, she realised, was the thought of being loved. Rab had used her as he had used everyone else with whom he came into contact. Or had he, she wondered. He had used her to monitor Vaughan... but that did not preclude the possibility that Rab might, at the same time, have felt something for her.
She stood. She could not rely on the Taoth to allow her the use of her handset again, and therefore her only means of escape from the planet was aboard the Kali. When Rab appeared, she would play the innocent, claim abduction, even lead him to the wonder of the portal...
She was about to move down the steps when she saw a flash of movement to her left. She turned, and stopped dead in alarm.
Three metres from her, a scintillating spider drone appeared from behind a flange of rock. It regarded her with its swivelling optics. It raised a leg - one of its forward limbs, she saw - and aimed a laser at her.
She remained very still, then glanced towards the deserted city. There was no sign of Rab and his men. She knew she couldn’t outgun the drone, but she wondered why it hadn’t killed her immediately. Perhaps, she thought, for the same reason the drones had not killed her and Vaughan earlier...
They wanted her alive.
She said, “What do you want?” She was surprised at how calm her voice sounded.
From a grille on its underside, a transistorised voice said, “You will remove your weapon, place it on the ground, and kick it across to me.”
She nodded. Very carefully she eased the laser from inside her jacket, laid it before her, and with the toe of her boot prodded it towards the drone.
It reached out with a dainty limb, picked up the weapon in a claw and squeezed. The laser buckled, twisted, and snapped. The drone dropped the debris to the ground.
“And now?” she asked.
“Now you will follow me.”
She nodded. “Ah-cha, fine. Where are we going?”
“Follow me.”
She nodded again. “Ah-cha. Lead the way.”
The spider drone kept its weapon trained on her midriff. Its bottom half swivelled, and seven long, silver legs negotiated the steps. It tapped down the stairway and Parveen followed at a distance. She controlled her breathing. Rab wanted her alive. She would tell him about the alien abduction and just hope he believed her.
The spider drone came to the arching outer boulevard, crossed it, and moved down a long, wide avenue. Parveen followed, going through the words she would use to convince Rab, and more importantly trying to work out how she would play the reunion.
They came to a T-junction and turned right. The drone clicked ahead, something about its nimble tiptoe gait almost balletic. Its laser sighted her every centimetre of the way.
She looked past the drone. They were approaching a central plaza of some kind, a circular arrangement of stone which years ago might have been a fountain. The water was long gone, though, and the statue of a robed alien at its raised centre appeared helplessly isolated. It looked, she thought, exactly how she felt.
Then she saw Rab, and the sight at him, despite herself, sent a stab of pain through her chest.
He was standing with his back to her, one foot lodged on the edge of the fountain, gazing up at the alien statue. Beyond him, standing around the central statue, she made out his security team, Singh among them.
At the ticking arrival of the spider drone, Rab turned and stared at her. His expression remained steadfastly neutral, giving nothing away.
She smiled, attempting to flood her face with relief. “Rab! You don’t know how relieved-”
She stopped. His face was unmoving, stone-like. “So you thought you’d leave us stranded, try to find out whatever was down here before us? Why, Parveen? Who are you working for?”
She blustered a laugh. “Rab? It wasn’t like that... Listen, we were taken by the aliens, the Taoth. They-” she raised her left arm, as evidence, “-they disabled my handset. They brought us here-”
“Why just the two of you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know... I thought, maybe because we were telepathic. Listen, I didn’t want to go with them, please believe that. And as for...” she shook her head, getting into her role... “How could you believe I’m working for anyone but you, Rab?”
Someone moved at the edge of her vision. Singh stepped towards Rab, spoke quietly to him in Punjabi.
Rab said to her, “What did the aliens want with you? Where’s Vaughan?”
She licked her lips, nodded. “They took him, Rab. They showed us their secret and then they took him.”
Singh said, staring at her with eyes as cold as ice, “Took him where?”
She remained smiling at Rab. It was him she had to convince, win over to her side. “That’s the secret of the Taoth, Rab. They have... portals, gateways through space. They don’t need starships.”
A light came on in Chandrasakar’s brown eyes. “Where is it, Parveen?” he said.
“I’ll take you, Rab. If...” She was taking a risk, she knew, but it might get him on her side.
“Yes?”
“If only you’ll believe me. That I didn’t cut out and try to find the secret myself-”
He nodded. He even smiled, and something of the old Rab brought back a slew of memories. Perhaps, she allowed, she was wrong to mistrust him. Her actions must have appeared more than a little suspicious, after all; he was quite within his rights to suspect her.
“Where is the portal, Parveen?” he asked.
Relief swamped her. She was going to get away from this with her life; she had almost won her passage back to home and safety.
She pointed beyond Rab and the buildings at his back, towards the distant rockface. Across it, like a splash of midnight ink, was the crack that gave access to the chamber housing the portal.
“It’s through there,” she said. “I’ll take you.”
She stepped forward, reaching out, and Rab smiled. She found herself wanting to touch him again, to feel his skin...
She knew, then, that she still felt something for the tycoon.
At that second, when she had allowed herself to think that everything would work out fine, Singh moved.
He raised his laser, and Parveen knew that he was going to shoot her.
Instead, the Sikh turned and blasted Rab.
She screamed and backed away as her lover slipped to the floor, his hand still outstretched, his head and a diagonal section of his shoulder slid from his torso and hit the marble slabs with a horrible, bloody slap.
The back of her legs came up against the edge of the fountain and she almost tripped. She sat down quickly, her back against the cold stone, fingers to her lips in shock.
A split second after Singh killed Rab, confirming all
her worst fears, he turned and lasered the shocked security personnel behind him. She heard the hiss of his laser, then the incredulous, pained screams of the security men as they attempted to flee.
The spider drone stood before her, three metres away, weapon still levelled. She looked at Singh. The Sikh spoke to the drone in Punjabi, then turned to regard her.
She said, “Who... who are you working for?”
Singh smiled. “That hardly matters, Das.”
“The Europeans, right?” If she could keep him talking, perhaps promise to lead him to the portal...