by Eric Brown
“Weiss must have thought of that. The hauliers were Zen cultists, wearing the masks of Denied Identity—or rather they were disguised as cultists. The case could be anywhere by now, even off the Station.”
“Great.” Vaughan tore the graphic from the printer and held it up to Chandra. “It’s the girl I found in the freighter, Jimmy. Elly Jenson. She’s the subject of a Weiss graphic calledThe Adoration of the Chosen One.”
Chandra made a printout of the Jenson pix. Seconds later his handset chimed. He took the call and spoke rapidly in Hindi. He nodded, his expression serious, and cut the connection.
“That was forensic. They know what killed Weiss—a drug called rhapsody.” He looked at Vaughan. “Probably what killed Genevieve and her son, too.”
“The same stuff that Tiger took...” Vaughan began.
Chandra went on, “They’ve traced its point of origin, too. I’ll give you three guesses.”
“Not Verkerk’s World?”
“Right first time,” Chandra said. “How about this: quite apart from whatever Weiss was bringing shielded to Earth, he was also smuggling rhapsody?”
“It’s possible, I suppose.” Vaughan shrugged. “I wonder where the Jenson kid fits in?”
“You tell me. I’ve got alerts out for her. And we’re trying to trace dealers in rhapsody.”
When the Scene of Crime team arrived minutes later, Vaughan and Chandra left the villa and boarded the flier. The cop ferried him to an east-side downchute station, and Vaughan nodded to Chandra and climbed out. He pushed his way through the noisy crowd as the flier took off and climbed into the dawn sky. Clutching the scrolled graphic of the Chosen One, he dropped to Level Four and walked the kilometre home through the still-busy streets, the concentrated mind-noise drumming in his head like a migraine.
Fifteen minutes later he let himself into his apartment. He sat before the window without turning on the light, reached out and fumbled on the table for the vial of chora. He washed it down with a swig of stale beer from a bottle he found wedged down the cushion of the chair.
Quickly the drug took effect, reducing the mind-hum and allowing him to relax. As the sun rose on the other side of the Station, the night turned from navy to grey and pale light flooded the apartment.
He stood up and found half a dozen magnets in a storage unit. He clamped the graphic of Elly onto the wall, then slumped back into his chair and stared at The Adoration of the Chosen One.
Common sense told him to drop the case. Forget about the Chosen One and whatever Weiss had been up to. Then he remembered the kid’s terror back at the ship.
He had a couple of weeks’ leave due—he’d contact the ‘port and tell them he wasn’t coming in for a while. Then he’d concentrate on the Elly Jenson case.
He tapped Dr. Rao’s code into his handset, got through to the Indian, and arranged to meet him at nine that evening.
* * * *
NINE
OSBORNE
It was two in the morning and the Siren Bar was filling up.
The dance floor was a mass of bodies, writhing to the rhythmic thump of the latest pop hit. Fat foreign men sat at tables, half-naked girls squirming on their laps. The girls sucked on bottles of beer, feigning interest and animation, but achieving only a look of boredom.
From time to time couples left the bar and passed Sukara on their way to the cubicles. The girls smirked at her as they clung to their rich customers. Sukara tried to ignore them, but felt herself blush beneath the gaze of the men. She drank her beer, lining up the bottles on the bar before her. Fat Cheng had once told her that she drank too much. “Beer okay, Fat Cheng,” she had replied. “I take plenty yahd.”
He’d shaken his big head. “Not you drunk I worry about, little Monkey. Beer no good for your insides, your liver.”
Sukara had just shrugged. She had more to concern her than what beer might be doing to her insides.
A drunken Indian labourer was arguing with two tall escort girls further along the bar. He kept pawing at their breasts, trying to run a hand up inside their thighs. One girl backed off, screeching at the Indian in machine-gun rapid Thai. The guy pulled out his wallet, staggering with the effort, and waved baht in the face of the first girl. She hissed at him, turning her face away contemptuously. The second girl whispered to the Indian and pointed along the bar at Sukara. He looked up, squinted, then staggered towards her. Behind him, Sukara saw that the girls were laughing.
He slurred something at her in Hindi, waving the cash, a measly fifty-baht note.
Sukara turned away, ignoring him. Her lurched towards her and pincered her arm in a painful grip.
“Let go!”
“I said, come with me!”
For a split second she considered telling him where to go—but something nasty in his eyes told her that that would not be wise. The alternative was to go with him, and pray that the bastard wouldn’t turn violent.
Quickly Sukara grabbed the note and slipped off her stool.
She led the Indian to one of the tiny cubicles, not the room she used for the Ee-tees; she didn’t want the memory of what she did with the Indian tainting her special room. He collapsed against the door, staring at her and unfastening his trousers. Sukara slipped the baht under the mattress and pulled down her skirt, leaving her T-shirt on: she did not like going with human men, and tried to keep as much of herself covered as possible.
She knelt on the edge of the bed and held on to the rail on the wall, letting him have her from behind. She heard him belch, smelled the beery fumes in the air. She felt him thrusting between her legs, his first few attempts missing and sliding up and across her back. She felt his fingers forcing apart her legs, felt him try again, this time entering her brutally. He was so big that she feared he might tear her. She closed her eyes and cried out in pain as he thrust repeatedly. She pulled forward so that he slid out before he came, and her relief was immediate.
The first blow struck her across the back of her head, so painful that she thought he must have picked something up, or pulled a cosh from somewhere. The blow rang through her skull. She fell face down on the bed, protecting her head from his punches. She would not cry out, would not give him the satisfaction of knowing that he was hurting her. She curled into a ball, covering her face with her forearms. He pulled her towards him, prized her arms away from her face, and backhanded her across the jaw. Now she knew why his blows hurt so much: his fingers were studded with big, square-faced, imitation-gold rings. Behind his flailing hands, Sukara stared at the ludicrous sight of his huge cock bobbing up and down in time to the blows. She leapt forward, snatched at his scrotum and twisted with all her strength. He yelled out in rage and pain and fell to the floor, curled protectively around his injury. Sukara grabbed her skirt and skittered from the cubicle down the corridor and into her Ee-tee room. She locked the door behind her and collapsed onto the bed.
Minutes later she heard the Indian barge from the cubicle and hurry out into the bar, cursing. If he complained to Fat Cheng, then Sukara would tell him that he had hit her, and Fat Cheng would throw the bastard out.
She sat up and felt her head for bumps, then tested the tender area around her chin. As the pain receded, she smiled in pained satisfaction at the thought of the expression on his face when she’d grabbed his balls. It was the last thing they expected, men who hit working girls—that the girls might turn and fight back.
She went with men only rarely now; Ee-tees paid Fat Cheng well for her, and he allowed her to turn down men when she wanted. She wished she hadn’t been so greedy tonight, and had told the Indian to get lost.
Three years ago, before the attack that left her scarred, aliens came rarely to the Siren Bar. Then, she had gone with humans; some men had treated her well, were gentle and considerate, but they were rare. Most men were rough and selfish, others brutal. She could count on a beating every other night. She became accustomed to the rough treatment in time, might even have accepted it if not for the fact that always, at t
he back of her mind, was the fear that the aggression would turn to something more: again and again she’d heard of customers killing girls in the supposed safety of bars and clubs.
Then she had been attacked, and as she lay recovering in hospital she thought that this must be the end. In fact, it had turned out to be the beginning of a new phase of her life.
Fat Cheng had taken her back, and for a couple of months she had gone with strange men fascinated with her scar, many of whom did nothing but caress the puckered ridge that bisected her face.
In time the interest in her scarred face fell away— the perverts no longer visited her; perhaps they had found other, more mutilated girls—and the regular customers preferred the beautiful, unscarred girls. For many days, Sukara had attracted no customers, and she feared then that Fat Cheng might tell her to go.
Then he arrived at the bar one night in the company of a tall, thin man—obviously alien—and introduced him, or it, to his prettiest escort girls. They had simpered to the alien, tried all the tricks. Sukara, watching, had felt a surge of jealousy. She’d heard from working girls at other clubs that aliens were gentle lovers and paid well.
The alien had whispered something to Fat Cheng, and Cheng had dismissed the beautiful girls and waved forward others, Sukara among them. She had sat beside the alien on a high stool, while the other girls fawned over the elongated, blue-skinned being from Barnard’s Star.
He had spoken to each of the girls in turn, asking them personal questions with a formality at once novel and disturbing. Trivial small talk was not the alien’s way—he wanted to know the age of each girl, something of her background. Some of the-girls tapped their temples and drifted away; others, intrigued, stayed and tried to win the Ee-tee’s patronage.
Then he had turned to Sukara. “You are quiet,” he said in his strangely modulated English. His eyes, slit vertically, stared at her. “What is the marking on your face, Sukara—a sign of beauty with your people?”
And for the first time she had realised how truly alien aliens were.
When she explained how she had received the injury, and that far from being a sign of beauty it was just the opposite, the Ee-tee became fascinated. For the first time in years, Sukara talked with a potential customer about something other than how far she would go for the least possible payment.
The Ee-tee had taken her to a cubicle and made love to her in the way of his people, with her seated face-to-face on his lap, his many-tentacled member tickling her vagina while his hands caressed her neck and face. He had not hurt her; in fact, the experience had been almost enjoyable. He had even paid her well.
Two days later, another Ee-tee turned up, an alien from another distant star, and he too had chosen to go with Sukara. Within a week, she had two or three customers a night from all points of the galaxy. Fat Cheng had even given her a room in which to entertain her guests. When the other girls, jealous of her new-found popularity, had started taunting her, Fat Cheng had called them into his office before work one evening. Listening at the door, Sukara heard Fat Cheng say, “Sukara, she bring in many baht— more than you, Koruna, or you, Suki. No more bad tricks, okay? I see you treat her badly, you go, quick smart.”
After that, the taunts and cruel tricks had been carefully concealed from Fat Cheng—but were all the more cruel because of that—and no one had admitted to putting things in her bed.
Fat Cheng had taken her to one side. “You no listen to other girls, little Monkey, you hear me? They only jealous. You know why Ee-tees like you, little Monkey? They like what in here—” and he had tapped her head. “To aliens, matters more what in here than what you look like, okay?”
Now Sukara opened the door of the cubicle and peered out. There was no sign of the drunken Indian. She ran down the corridor to the other cubicle, slipped inside, and lifted the mattress. She felt underneath, then stared in disbelief.
The Indian had taken her money.
Sukara showered, easing her battered head in the hot jet of water. While she was drying herself, she accidentally caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror. She was surprised, as ever, by the extent that the scar ridge divided her face into two equal halves, each as plain as the other. Her most remarkable feature, she had to admit, was the scar.
She touched the swelling on her chin, where the flesh was becoming discoloured.
She dressed and returned to the bar, sat on a stool, and drank another cold beer. In the half-light, no one noticed her bruised jaw.
It was almost four and the Siren Bar was emptying. Even the flashing lights and the beat of the music had slowed. Fat Cheng had vacated his stool and dragged himself to his hammock in the office. A few desultory couples still traipsed around the dance floor, supporting each other more in drunkenness than through any desire to dance. Girls sat around the tables, their bare legs crossed, smoking cigarettes and staring blankly into space. Sukara had two hours to kill before she could go home. In that time, if approached by a human, she would flatly refuse him, even if he offered two hundred baht, three hundred. If an Ee-tee turned up, she would go with it.
She finished her beer and counted the empty bottles. Eight. She signalled for another from the yawning barman. The yahd was beginning to wear off, the alcohol taking its chance to affect her. She felt tired, and found herself clock-watching, which was always a mistake. The minutes seemed to last forever.
Around five, a handsome human man in a sharp suit walked in and ordered a beer. He stood by the bar, turning to take in the girls with an intensity that suggested he was looking for someone. A girl moved from her table, swaying across the room towards him. She placed a hand on his sleeve, stood on tiptoe to whisper into his ear.
It was then, with the girl trying her best, that Sukara noticed that the man was staring at her.
There was something disconcerting in his gaze, almost as if he recognised her, was surprised at finding her here. She looked away, flustered, and raised her bottle to her mouth. When she looked back at him, the man was brushing aside the startled girl and making his way along the bar.
She had decided to tell him to fuck off when she saw the look in his eyes. He had warm, brown eyes that smiled at her. They were not the eyes of someone who could hurt her, she told herself. The man was Western, perhaps forty, with dark receding hair and a wide, pleasant smile. Everything about him said that she should trust him, and yet the very fact that he had approached her, instead of one of the many other working girls still in the bar, told her to be careful.
“Can I get you a...” he began, then saw the row of bottles before her. He smiled. “Silly question.” He hitched himself onto a high stool beside her. “Don’t tell me,” he went on, gesturing to the regiment of bottles, “yahd, right?”
She looked at him, suspicious. “How you know, mister?”
He shrugged and smiled easily. “Calculated guess. You don’t look drunk. Yet eight bottles of beer would be enough to put you under the table. Ergo: yahd.”
She smiled despite herself. Some of his phrases didn’t make sense to her, though she understood his general meaning. She glanced quickly at him. He wore an expensive-looking pendant on a chain around his neck, a golden oval that glinted in the Light from the overhead fluorescent.
“Where you come from, mister? You European?”
“Canadian.”
“You here on big business?”
“You could say that. I move about, here and there.” He mentioned a few of the cities he’d visited recently.
She noticed that, when he thought she wasn’t watching him, his gaze would linger on her face, not her body—and specifically on her eyes, as if trying to see inside her. He made a brilliant show of not noticing her scar.
She lifted her beer and drank. “So, mister, what your name?”
“Osborne. And yours?”
“Guess.” She folded her tongue and poked it into the neck of the bottle, staring at him.
“Okay. Let me see... You look like a... a Su.”
Sukara
blinked, sat bolt upright on her stool. “Hey, how you know that?”
Osborne smiled, shrugged casually. “I guessed, how else?”
She squinted at him, suspicious. “You guessed right. But millions of names. Lucky guess, mister. You always that lucky?”
He shrugged again, finished his beer and ordered another. He paid from a thick wad of baht. While he was busy with the barman, Sukara took in his clothing: the expensive suit, the stylish silk shirt.
He swivelled his stool to face her, drinking from his new beer.
“So, Mr. Osborne, you want come with me?”
He frowned in playful consideration, shook his head. “No. I’m fine here. I’m enjoying our little chat.”
He reached out, laid a hand on her knee, and squeezed. The touch affected her like an electric jolt. She ran a ridiculous fantasy—this man was different: not a customer, but someone who wanted her for what she was, not for how good she was in bed.