Xenopath (22 page)

Then, taking a
breath to prepare himself for the onslaught of the executive's mind,
he activated his implant.

Denning's recent
memories hit him in a dizzying rush: breakfast with his wife, Celia,
dinner with her last night, and their lovemaking hours later. Vaughan
experienced the heady wonder of Denning's love for his wife, the
underlying regret that they could never have children. He also read
the man's overwhelming ambition to succeed at his job, his
ruthlessness in pursuit of that goal.

He dived deeper,
pushing past emotions—love and hate and petty jealousies—and
looking for thoughts and recollections of Mallory.

He found them,
in abundance. As head of the Mallory department, Anton Denning's mind
was like a massive com file packed with information about the colony
world, from the arcane minutiae of governmental legislation to
reports from scientists in the field.

Vaughan sifted
through tangled memories of meetings with government officials,
scientists, colony workers, and members of Denning's own department
here on Earth. The exec visited the planet half a dozen times a year
and reported back to Gustave Scheering after every trip.

Most of
Denning's dealings with the colonists were mind-numbingly routine; he
was responsible for trade quotas, the industrial development on the
planet, the facilitation of business links between Earth and the
colony. Vaughan searched for any trace of a Scheering-Lassiter
cover-up concerning matters ecological, but found none.

He did come
across a series of interesting memories, however. On Denning's last
trip to Mallory, some three months ago, he had been taken by a group
of archaeological engineers to visit the crash site of an
extraterrestrial starship.

Vaughan accessed
the memories, vicariously sharing in Denning's wonder at the sight of
the beached leviathan.

It had come down
on a remote upland plain between a range of mountains in the south of
the colony's main continent. The area was uninhabited, and largely
inaccessible, and the scientists had flown Denning to the site by
air-car.

Not a lot of the
kilometre-long alien starship remained, other than its gothic
superstructure and its nose-cone, which had ploughed up a tumulus,
long since grassed over, of the alpine meadow's rich soil. The ship
was vast and otherworldly, its becalming made ail the more poignant
by the state of its once magnificent tegument: much of its outer
shell had disintegrated, leaving only spars and struts like the
skeleton of some ancient, burned-out cathedral.

Denning recalled
certain facts relayed to him by the scientists.

It had
crash-landed on Mallory in the region of a hundred thousand years
ago; no trace of survivors had been discovered, either in the
immediate vicinity of the ship, or in the extant life forms of the
planet. Also, no record of the appearance of the extraterrestrial
beings had been discovered: nothing remained within the ship to
suggest the creatures' shape, height, much less their physical
appearance.

The scientists
told Denning that they assumed the aliens had died shortly after
arriving on Mallory, perhaps due to what they termed as the
"non-sustainable living conditions" of the planet.

Fascinating
though the scenic tour of the crashed alien starship was, Vaughan
forced himself away from these recollections, sifting Denning's
thoughts for any sign of discord between his employers and the
environmental watchdog organisation Eco-Col.

Here, he found
something of interest. Denning, in the normal course of his duties,
had little to do with the ecological side of Mallory's
development—this was handled by another executive of the
Scheering-

Lassiter
organisation.

However, Vaughan
learned that in two days Denning was due to leave for Mallory.
Denning knew nothing about what was expected of him on the colony
world—but he was soon to find out.

Vaughan placed
his knuckles against the marble floor to steady himself, like a
sprinter in the starting blocks, as he pushed aside the din of
Denning's emotional life and concentrated on a call Denning had
received yesterday.

The call had
been from the head of the organisation, none other than Gustave
Scheering himself, to inform Denning that he would leave for Mallory
in three days on a mission vital for the security of not only the
organisation but the planet itself.

Scheering would
call again, giving more information about the trip: Denning's duties
while on Mallory, the team he would take, and the contacts he would
make on arrival.

The time
Scheering had arranged to call Denning was today, at 11am precisely.

Vaughan quickly
swept through Denning's more recent dealings with Scheering, his last
committee meeting, but found nothing of interest.

He withdrew his
probe, discovered that he was sweating—and then realised why.
He had been submerged in Denning's psyche for almost twenty minutes.

He looked at his
watch. It was ten minutes to eleven.

Scheering was
due to call Denning at eleven, by which time Denning would be
conscious, but groggy, recovering from the effects of the assault and
assessing the extent of the break in.

He thought
through the options. Scheering was in the habit of calling Denning on
a secure line, which could be neither intercepted, recorded, nor
traced. Denning was in the habit of deleting ail record of his calls
from Scheering, retaining pertinent details only in his memory.

Vaughan stood.
With only minutes to go before Denning regained consciousness, he had
to act fast.

He moved to the
bedroom and ripped open drawers and cupboards, strewing their
contents in a passable imitation of the work of a desperate burglar.
Behind him, in the kitchen, Denning's mind was a glow set against the
concerted mind-noise of other nearby citizens.

Vaughan found a
holdall in one cupboard and a hoard of expensive-looking jewellery in
another, and tipped the jewellery into the bag. He moved to the
lounge, opening wall-units, then found Denning's study. He would have
liked more time to go through his com files, but that was impossible
now.

The com, he
noted, was against the far wall—an outer wall. He tipped a
plastic filing unit, messed up the desk, and left the study.

He tapped
Kapinsky's code into his handset. "Vaughan, what the hell's
going on? You okay?"

"I think
I'm onto something, but don't wait for me. I might be another five,
ten minutes. It might look suspicious if you're seen hanging around
in the vicinity of a break-in, okay?"

"Check. I'm
outta here."'

"See you
back at the office in an hour," he said, and cut the connection.

He returned to
the kitchen, found a washcloth and cleaned the blood from the marble
floor, then looked around to ensure he'd left no telltale traces of
his presence.

Then he fastened
Denning's shirt and hauled the unconscious body from the kitchen,
through the hall and into the study.

It was 10:55.
Scheering would be calling in five minutes.

He dropped the
executive into a genuine leather recliner. The guy was moaning,
struggling against the effects of the anaesthetic. He would be awake
in less than a minute.

Vaughan hurried
into the hall with the holdall containing the jewellery, picked up
the carry-case from where he'd left it, then slipped from the villa.

He moved around
the building, towards where the study was situated. Out of sight of
passers-by, and hidden from neighbours by a stand of bougainvillea,
he squatted down and leaned against the wall, sending out a probe
towards Denning.

He glanced at
his watch.

It was one
minute to eleven.

He hoped
Scheering was a punctual man.

He hoped, also,
that Denning did not decide to call in the cops before he was
distracted by Scheering's communique.

He scanned.
Denning came around groggily, reliving the sudden flare of panic at
the sight of the blonde stranger raising the canister of...

Then Vaughan
experienced a vicarious surge of rage that the sanctity of Denning's
personal safety, his very home, had been abused.

He was oblivious
of the fact that his mind-shield had been removed.

Denning
staggered to his feet, gripping the desk for support. He looked
around at the mess Vaughan had left, then through the hall to the
bedroom and the strewn possessions there. Denning assumed that he'd
been the victim of an opportunist thief, no more.

Then Denning
moved to call in the cops. He was reaching towards the com on the
desk when it chimed with an incoming.

Instantly,
Denning recalled Scheering's promise to call him.

Conflicting
emotions chased themselves through his mind. He wanted to call in the
law, catch the bastard who did this, but at the same time he knew he
had to access this call, and present a calm, unruffled exterior to
his boss. The last thing he wanted was to let Scheering know that
he'd allowed himself to be knocked out and burgled like some dumb
pleb.

Sixty per cent
of his job was all about performance. The rest was appearance.

He tapped the
accept key and slipped into the swivel chair, arranging a smile of
greeting.

Vaughan, perhaps
two metres from where Denning sat, held himself in a tight, foetal
ball and concentrated.

Denning watched
Scheering materialise on his screen, his big face florid with good
living and excess. Vaughan recognised the man from the flattering
portrait he'd seen in the S-L headquarters the other day. His ego.
Vaughan read now in Denning's mind, was as vast as his colonial
empire.

"Denning,"
Scheering said with his accustomed gruffness. "You all set for
Mallory?"

Denning expanded
his smile. "All set, sir."

"Good man.
This is a big job, Denning. 1 won't accept anything other than
success."

"You can
rely on me."

"I know
this link is secure, but take the usual precaution, understood?"

"I'll
delete all record of the call, sir."

Vaughan screwed
his eyes shut, something about Denning's obsequiousness turning his
stomach.

Scheering was
saying, "You're going to Mallory on
The Queen of Kandalay,
the day after tomorrow, and you're taking with you a crack team of
investigators. You're also taking Indira Javinder, the necropath."

Curiosity flared
in Denning's mind. "Yes, sir."

"Your
mission, Denning, is to flush out a cell of environmental radicals,
though to grace them with the term 'cell' is perhaps overdoing it.
They are dangerous to the security of Scheering-Lassiter and to
Mallory."

"Understood,
sir."

"I want
them," Scheering went on, "alive or dead. That is why the
necropath is going along with you. The radicals have information, and
I want that information."

"Sir."

Scheering
smiled. "Intelligence on Mallory has pinpointed the exact
whereabouts of the radicals, Jenna Larsen and Johan Weiss." He
paused. "Are you ready. Denning—I'm sending this
information through a scrambler. Use the usual program to decode it.
and then destroy all trace of this communication."

"Understood,
sir."

Denning
downloaded the coded information, routed it through a decoding
program, and immediately ran a scouring program to erase all record
of it from his com system.

He committed the
information to memory, and nodded to his superior.

Vaughan read
that Larsen and Weiss were, according to Scheering's intelligence
sources, holed up in a mountain retreat twenty kilometres from the
alien starship, in a deserted settlement known as Campbell's End.

Scheering had
the radicals under observation: a security team had made itself at
home in a shack on the approach road to the settlement, awaiting
Denning.

"Very good.
Denning," Scheering smiled. "I'll see you on your return."

Denning felt a
surge of smug pride, like a pupil commended by his headmaster. "Thank
you, sir."

Scheering cut
the connection, and Denning thought twice about calling in the cops
for a simple case of burglary: if word of his lapse got back to
Scheering...

By this time
Vaughan was hurrying down the drive, the carry-case in one hand and
the holdall in another. He killed his implant, and the ensuing
mind-silence was like a balm.

He paused at the
end of the street, accessed his handset and called up the schedule of
voidliner flights from Bengal Station to Mallory. The next direct
link lifted off at eight in the morning.

He made his way
to the nearest 'chute station and dropped to the second level, then
took the northbound shuttle ten stops. When he had the carriage to
himself, he reached into his pocket and altered the controls of the
chu. From the window beside him, a blonde Scandinavian stared back
with an expression of ill-concealed triumph.

He alighted at
the 'chute station beneath Chandi Road, then caught the upchute to
Level One and found a public lavatory. In a cubicle he removed the
chu, slung his jacket over his arm, then made his way to Nazruddin's.
He felt he deserved a beer or two.

On the way, he
stopped at a stall and ordered a plate of pakora, surrounded by a
noisy gaggle of street-kids. As he left, he forgot to pick up the
holdall. When he glanced back, the kids had found the bag and were
retreating in delight to divide the spoils. Vaughan smiled. They'd
get a fraction of the cost of the jewels when they sold them on to a
fence, but they'd still be able to keep themselves in dhal and rice
for a year.

He reached
Nazruddin's and ordered a Blue Mountain beer, and only then thought
about how to tell Sukara that he would be away from Earth for almost
a week.