Xenopath (2 page)

"I did some
investigating," Kapinsky went on, "found out you quit the
'port, nearly got yourself zeroed by a serial killer. But some Thai
street-kid saved your skin and, happy ever after like in some fairy
story, you married her."

He nodded.
"Sounds something like what happened," he said, not liking
the sneer in her tone.

"Tell me,
Jeff. Why did you stop reading? It got too much, right?"

"I didn't
intend to stop reading. I could live with it. I didn't like it, but I
reckoned I'd done it for so long, why stop?"

"What
happened?"

"The killer
who nearly did for me... he ripped out my implant so he could read my
suffering as I died. Only the street-kid, as you called her, Sukara,
she shot him and got me to hospital."

Kapinsky
narrowed her eyes. "And you elected not to have the implant
replaced?"

Vaughan nodded.
"When I came round, I experienced mind-silence. Absolute calm,
serenity. No voices, no subliminal mind-noise. Bliss. How could I go
back to reading, after that?" He shook his head and stared at
her. "But you must've known what it was like, when you had your
implant removed?"

She nodded. "Oh,
I knew. And you're right. It was bliss."

"Yet you
had it put back. You chose to return to what drove you mad?"

She was watching
him, and he didn't like something in her expression, something
calculating.

"Six months
ago I opened an investigative agency," she said. "I started
small, just me and a secretary, working from the seventh level. I did
okay, kept in work. Then I hit lucky. I was hired to find the killer
of the holo-star, Ravi Begum."

"I heard
about it."

"His wife
wasn't happy with how the police were handling the case. She hired
me. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I got the killer way ahead of
the cops."

"Good for
you."

"Too right,
Jeff. The Police Commissioner was impressed. On the strength of my
work on the Begum case, he said he'd put work my way. And he has—so
much work I can't handle it all myself."

Vaughan didn't
care for the way this was heading. He smiled; spread his hands. "I
drive a fuel tanker," he said. "Detective work isn't my
line."

"No? Not
even for a flat seven thousand baht a month, and a ten per cent bonus
on every successful case?"

"You forget
one thing, Lin—" he tapped the back of his head. "I'm
no longer implanted."

She had the
peculiar ability of flashing an ironic smile from nowhere, like a
flick-knife. "And you've no desire to be, ever again?"

He pointed at
her. "You've got it in one."

She sighed
theatrically. "I was like that, Jeff, back when I was in the
Level Fifteen bin. I had mind-silence, no more chattering voices, and
I loved it."

"And?"

"And I met
this guy, a friend of a friend. He worked for the United India
Corporation. He was a telepath; only he wasn't equipped with the
second-rate implants and augmentation-pins 'port security palmed off
on us. He had the latest neo-cortical rig, just in from Rio."

Vaughan
shrugged. "How did it differ from what we used?"

"In a few
ways," Kapinsky said. "Like, it was more powerful.
Amplified thoughts approximately fifty per cent more efficiently than
our implants."

Vaughan winced.
"I don't like the idea of that. So okay, you might be able to
read more effectively— but what about when you take the pin
out?"

"You don't.
The pin is integral to the implant."

"But the
mind-noise!" he protested.

That blade-thin
smile again, laughing at him. "There's no mind-noise, Jeff. No
subliminal white noise, no background hum to drive you schizo."

"How?"

She raised a
forearm, indicating the handset that encompassed her wrist like a
splint. She tapped a key on the set. "When I want to read, I
simply turn the implant on from here. There. I'm reading." She
cocked her head. "I'm picking up Lazlo's thoughts out there. The
bastard's wondering if he stands a chance with me. Thinks I'm not
bad, for a geriatric. You... you're shielded."

She stabbed the
button, silencing her secretary's fantasies. "Enough of that."

Vaughan stared
at her. "And now you're getting no mind-noise? Not the slightest
hum?"

"Nothing.
Nada. Silence." She slipped from the edge of the desk and
reseated herself in the swivel chair, staring at him over laced
fingers. "So once I read up about the latest implants, I decided
I wanted one. I mean, the only line of work I knew was security, and
who'd employ an ex-telehead? A deadhead?"'

"Tell me
about it."

"The Rio
implants don't come cheap, Jeff. I had to pay nearly fifty thousand
dollars for this gadget... but it allowed me to set up the agency,
got me where I am today."

He watched her.

She said, "You
know what I'm asking?"

He nodded. His
gaze slid through the viewscreen. He watched the passing underbelly
of a void-freighter rumble overhead, perhaps a hundred metres from
the edge of the Station.

"And?"
she pressed.

He made a
decision. "I'm not interested, Lin. Thanks, but I can't do it."

"No
mind-noise," she said. "You finish reading, turn off the
implant, and silence."

He shook his
head. "It's not that... I just don't want to read again, period.
I don't want to get into heads I'd rather have nothing to do with."

"You'd
rather bury your head in the sand, Jeff?"

"If that's
what you want to call it."

"Know what
I think?"

"What do
you think?"

"I think,"
she said, "that you're so wrapped up in marital harmony, so in
love, so happy with the tiny life you've managed to eke out with your
cute Thai ex-call-girl, that you're frightened of reading again."

"Bullshit!"

"You're
frightened of all the uncertainty out there. Frightened that it might
make you question the certainty of everything you've got."

He was shaking
his head in denial, but Kapinsky was clever.

Lately, he'd
looked at his life, his happiness, circumscribed by so little—a
woman he loved, the prospect of the baby—and he'd experienced
an obscure feeling of guilt. He was so damned happy, and the world
out there was such a cesspool, but he'd turned his back on it and
satisfied himself with his small, personal world, Sukara and a few
friends, holo-movies and the occasional restaurant meal... and
thoughts of his unborn daughter.

Maybe Kapinsky
was right.

The fact
remained, he'd turned his back on the old life, and he was happy.
There was no way he was going to sacrifice that.

Kapinsky said,
"Seven thousand baht a month, guaranteed, Jeff. Know what that'd
get you? A two-room apartment on the outer edge, Level Two, with a
couple of kay left over for bills and a good lifestyle." She
accosted him with her flick-knife smile. "Where you living now,
Jeff?"

He held her
gaze. "Trat, Level Ten."

"Ten? Jesus
Christ, Jeff. Level Ten? Come on, pal, that's the pits. Don't tell
me, Harijan beggars and Tata factory workers, no?"

"I'm
happy."

She let the
silence stretch, watching him. "Something I haven't told you,
Jeff. Think about this. That seven thousand, that's basic. You know
what the cops are paying me, per successful case?"

"Surprise
me."

"Twenty
thousand baht. I get roughly six jobs a month from the department,
and my success rate is running at five out of six right now. We'd
work cases together, and you'd get ten per cent of all solved crimes.
Work it out."

He nodded. "Some
carrot. Ten thousand baht a month?" His pulse, despite himself,
quickened at the thought.

"Ten kay on
top of your seven basic. You could live like a Brahmin, Jeff."

He was pulling
in two thousand baht a month at the moment, working long shifts
refuelling at the 'port.

"One
question," he said.

"Sure. Fire
away."

"Why me?"

"Because,
Jeff, I know you. I know you're good. Dependable. And it looks to me,
pal, like you could use the break."

"Lin
Kapinsky, the altruist? Why does that sound phoney?"

She shrugged.
"I'm no altruist. I work hard for number one. I get what I want.
You'd be an asset to the agency." She stopped, regarding him.
"Look, I've made my offer. Go home, to your tenth level dive
among all the Indian dregs, talk it over with wifey, and see what she
says to an upper level suite, okay?"

Vaughan stood
and moved to the door. "Thanks for calling me, Lin. Sorry to
have wasted your time."

Her ironic smile
was out again, sharpening itself on his denial, as he stepped through
the door with a feeling of relief.

He walked the
relatively uncongested corridors to the nearest dropchute station,
then descended to Level Ten. He caught a shuttle into the very heart
of the Station, the train passing street after street thronged with a
continually moving press of humanity. Twenty-five million citizens
lived on Bengal Station, more than a million to a level, swarming
like ants in a formicary.

The shuttle was
packed with factory workers, tiny Indians rocking with the motion of
the carriage, tired after a long day's shift. Vaughan thought of the
mind-noise he'd be picking up from them, if he were still implanted.

But an implant
that could be switched off, together with an opportunity to earn
seventeen thousand baht a month?

His apartment
was situated down a dark corridor patrolled by beggars and the halt
and lame waiting to be admitted to the nearby hospital. Vaughan ran
the gauntlet of proffered hands—and a few ill-carpentered
stumps—before making it home.

Home... The
amazing thing was that, over the year they'd lived here, they had
made it home, or rather Sukara had. She'd bought gaily coloured Thai
wall hangings and, in pride of place on the far wall, a massive
holo-scene. It showed a Thai beach: a stretch of sand and a lapis
lazuli lagoon, with people strolling along the sands. The holo was
randomly programmed with near infinite variation. It gave the
cubby-hole the illusion of space; he felt he could step through the
wall and onto the sundrenched island.

Sukara was in
the kitchen, fixing coffee, when he slipped in and embraced her, his
hands finding the prominent bulge of her belly. As if in response,
his daughter-to-be turned, sending a ripple across the distended
skin.

Sukara laughed
and turned to kiss him.

"Love you,"
he whispered into her hair. "Done much?"

"Paid
bills. Seen my health worker. Everything A-okay, Jeff."

She carried two
mugs of South Indian coffee into the cramped lounge and sat beside
him on the settee. She lodged her bare feet on his thighs and sipped
her coffee, staring at him with her massive eyes over the rim.

He could sense
the unspoken question on her hidden lips.

He looked around
the room. It was grim. Despite Su's best efforts—or perhaps
because of them—the basic run-down state of the place was
apparent: cracks in the plastic walls, a fungal stain on the ceiling.
Every time the shuttle drew into the station a hundred metres away,
the room rattled like the command module of a phasing voidship.
Between times, the Choudris next door kept up a running commentary on
the state of their disintegrating marriage.

Sukara said,
"You?"

"Highlight
of the day was filling a ship in from Vega," he smiled.

"So...
nothing came of the job offer?"

He hesitated.
She'd understand, if he explained to her. She wasn't materialistic.
She was stoic, and never complained. She had him, and the baby, which
was more than she'd ever had before.

But, he told
himself, she could have a hell of a lot more.

"Su, I've
been offered a job bringing in around seventeen thousand a month.
It's mine if I say yes."

She watched him,
silent, blowing on her coffee. At last she said, "But you don't
want the job, right?"

"Hell...
It'd mean being implanted, Su. I'd be reading again, working for an
investigative agency."

She lowered her
cup. "I don't want you to live with all that noise," she
said, "not even for seventeen thousand a month."

"That's
just it," he said. "There'd be no mind-noise." He told
her about the latest Rio implants.

A long silence
stretched when he'd finished speaking. Sukara was nodding slowly,
saying nothing. He felt a sudden, almost overwhelming surge of love
for her, this woman who loved him, who put no pressure on him to do
what he didn't want to do. She would reconcile herself to an
existence of near poverty, shut out thoughts of a life topside, all
for him.

How could he
deny her a little luxury, merely because he feared reading corrupt
and jaded minds again?

He said, "So,
there'd be no mind-noise. Hey presto, I'd just switch off the
implant, come home, forget the case I'm working on."

She was staring
at him, hardly daring to smile. "You mean you're going to...?"

"What do
you think?"

"Jeff!"
She put her coffee aside and pressed her palms to her cheeks.
"Seventeen thousand baht a month?"

"We'd get a
place on Level One or Two. You'd be able to take Li for walks in
Himachal Park."

"We'd be
able to leave this place!"

He smiled at her
glee. "So... should I go for it?"

She stared at
him. "Jeff, can you take ail that pain again, reading all those
minds?"

He smiled. "Sure
I can."

She looked at
him, wide-eyed.

He hugged her.
"Get changed," he said. "Let's go out for a meal.
Somewhere exclusive and expensive where we haven't been before."

She clapped her
hands. "Ruen Thai, Level One?"