Xenopath (23 page)

PREMONITIONS

Sukara routed
the scan from her handset to the screen in the lounge and sat,
fascinated, watching her baby.

What amazed her
was the fact of its perfection. From next to nothing, or rather from
microscopically small seeds, the girl had evolved into this—a
pink, almost translucent, miniature human being floating in its
amniotic universe, knees drawn up, hands waving about its head.
Without Jeff, she thought, this wouldn't have been possible. She
tried to think of life without the man she loved, and the thought,
like the thought of death, terrified her. He was so vast a part of
her existence that she would be nothing without him. Everything she
did, her every action and thought, was in some way influenced by Jeff
Vaughan, and far from being restricted by this, she felt liberated.
For so many years she had been alone, with no one dependant on her;
now Jeff loved her, and told her so in so many ways, and he filled
her thoughts with happiness.

And lately,
thanks to Jeff, she had had Li to think of too. It was amazing, but
the child was not yet born and she was already planning the future—or
rather not so much planning, but daydreaming of Li at one year old,
at three, and then five. The other day, over coffee, she had even
found herself thinking ahead to when Li would be sixteen, and going
off to study at university.

With such
pleasant notions, however, came the reverse: the nagging worry every
parent was beset by when thinking of the future. Fear for her child's
welfare, its health, its well-being in a world full of cynical and
grasping people.

For the past few
days Sukara had been visited by vague feelings of despair,
indefinable but real. It was as if some terrible event in her future
was reaching back to inform her, to warn her to be mentally prepared.
She could not tell if this terrible event would befall her—if
she were to die in some awful way: and even then, she was not fearful
for herself, but could only think of Jeff, without her. Or whether
something was going to happen to Li, or to Jeff. She had never had
such feelings in the past, which made these ones all the more
disturbing. Everything in her life was so good, too good: how could
someone be so lucky and not suffer the consequences?

The door that
gave straight onto the outer corridor sighed open, sliding into the
wall, and Jeff stood in the opening, smiling tiredly at her. He
stepped inside and she launched herself into his arms. "Hey,"
he laughed.

And she found
herself weeping against his chest. "I'm so happy," she
said.

He stroked her
hair. "Watching Li again?"

She laughed.
They had sat in the sunken sofa last night, with a bottle of wine,
running the scan of their daughter over and over. She had found
something different to be fascinated with on each run through, some
particular movement, expression, the utter perfection of the unborn
child.

She looked up at
him. "How are you?"

"Tired.
It's been a long day."

"Tell me
about it." She sniffed him. "Heh. You're sweaty!"

He hesitated.
"I'll get a shower, then we'll go for a meal, okay?"

She beamed.
"What's the occasion?"

He hesitated
again, and in that fraction of a second pause, Sukara knew that
something was wrong.

He smiled. "No
occasion. I just thought it might be nice... I'll be back in five
minutes."

She slipped into
the sunken bunker and killed the scan, sitting and staring at the
blank screen and wondering what Jeff was going to tell her.

Something about
the case he was working on, no doubt. Something had gone wrong. The
killer had threatened Jeff and Kapinsky, or had even tried to kill
him. Was that why he was so sweaty, because he'd been trying to evade
the killer?

She told herself
she was being paranoid.

She moved to the
bedroom and changed into a pair of baggy maternity trousers and a
loose-fitting shirt, then returned to the lounge to put her
flip-flops on as Jeff stepped from the shower and changed.

He was his old
self as he came into the lounge and kissed her. "Where would you
like to eat?"

"Silly
question, Jeff!"

"Ruen Thai
it is, then."

They took the
upchute to Level One and walked through Himachal Park. The sun was
going down, and the heat of the day was dying. Couples and families
were taking advantage of the cool early evening to stroll through the
park, and Sukara found it almost impossible to believe that soon she
too would be a mother, with a little girl as beautiful as these
children to look after and to love.

"How's the
case going, Jeff?" she asked.

"We made a
big breakthrough today," he replied.

"Tell me
about it."

"Over
dinner, okay?" he said, and something in his tone alarmed her.

They left
Himachal Park and crossed the busy Chandi Road, moving down a
tree-lined street to the three-storey building that housed the Ruen
Thai.

It was early,
and they selected a window table overlooking the quiet street.

"Jeff, is
everything okay?"

He reached
across the table and smiled. "You're amazing, you know that? I
couldn't keep a secret from you."

"I knew
something was wrong," she whispered.

"You sure
you're not telepathic?"

She smiled.
"What is it?"

They were
interrupted by the waitress. They ordered, Sukara her usual extra hot
gaeng panang and Jeff a green Thai curry with rice and noodles.

Jeff said.
"You've got the mind-shield on you?"

"Of
course." She tapped her shirt pocket. "You were saying?"

"The case
was officially closed today."

She stared,
wide-eyed. "You solved it? You got the killer?"

"If only.
No. the police think they got the killer, think he killed himself.
But it's a cover-up. Someone high up in the force has been bribed to
look the other way. dose the case and pay off Kapinsky and me."

Sukara slowly
shook her head.

Jeff went on.
"The Scheering-Lassiter people are behind the killings. They're
trying to cover up something that's happening on one of their colony
worlds."

"Do you
know what?"

"If we knew
that. Su. we'd be close to closing the case."

Sukara shrugged.
"So that's it. You've been paid off. "What now? You work on
another case?" She hoped so, fervently she hoped that would be
the end of trying to track down the laser killer.

Jeff was
watching her. He shook his head. "We're not going to let it lie.
We're not going to be bought off."

His words sank
like weights in her gut. She felt sick. "But..." she
managed at last, "isn't that dangerous? I mean, if someone high
up in the Scheering company wants the case closed, and if you ignore
that and try to find out the real killer..." She shrugged.
"Won't that be dangerous, Jeff?" Now she knew the reason
for his earlier hesitation, his reluctance to talk about the case
until now.

He nodded. "Yes,
it's dangerous."

Their food
arrived. It looked great, but Sukara had never felt less like eating.

"So..."
she said in a small voice, "so why can't you just ignore this
one, work on something else?"

"You sound
just like Kapinsky," he said. He reached across the table and
took her hands. "Su, two years ago, you remember Osborne?"

"How could
I forget the bastard?"

"Well, the
laser killer working for Scheering is probably even more dangerous
than him. He's a hired killer. He'll go on killing, taking life after
innocent life, as long as Scheering pays him."

She looked into
his eyes. "So it's Jeff Vaughan's job to stop him?" she
said, and then wished she hadn't sounded so mocking.

He squeezed her
fingers. "Su, not only is it my job to nail the killer, I've got
to find out what Scheering's trying to cover up on the colony world."

The lead weight
in her stomach turned to ice. She wanted to shout at Vaughan, hit
him, ask him how he could be so cruel. She wanted to tell him to
think of her, to think of their unborn daughter. How could he go off
to another planet, venture into enemy territory, and leave her behind
to worry herself sick about him?

She shook her
head. "What do you mean?"

"Su, I'm
taking a voidship to Mallory tomorrow. It's the only way. I'll be
gone about six days."

She was weeping.
She couldn't help it. "Six days? Six fucking days? Jeff, we've
never had a day apart—and now you're going off for nearly a
week!"

"I won't
exactly be enjoying myself."

She slammed down
her knife and fork. "That's not the point! You'll be in danger!
I'll be worried sick!"

"So, Su.
Listen. I can look after myself. I'll be fine. And someone has to
stop what's going on there."

"What is
going on?" she asked through her tears.

"I... I don
t know, it's something big enough to have Scheering hire killers to
silence people working for his organisation."

"And
silence investigators trying to get at the truth!"

He was silent
for a time, shaking his head. "I've got to go, Su. I couldn't
live with myself if I just sat back and let Scheering get on with it.
Look at it this way, if I crack the case, no more innocent people
will be lasered to death."

She nearly said,
"And if you don't crack the case, you'll be lasered to death."
But she held her tongue. Jeff was determined, and she told herself
that she was being selfish. She hated her husband for what he was
putting her though, but at the same time a small, odd part of her
felt a certain pride that he would risk himself to save the lives of
others.

She nodded,
wordlessly, returning the pressure of his fingers. "I love you
so much, Jeff, I just can't imagine life without out you."

Pain passed
across his eyes. "I'm sorry, Su," he said.

They finished
the meal in silence, Sukara unable to appreciate her dish. They left
the restaurant as the sun was sinking into the sea, and they lingered
a while in Himachal Park to watch the last pink filaments of cirrus
fade over India.

They made love
that night, slowly, on their sides, Jeff holding her to his stomach,
cupping her swollen belly in his right arm, and afterwards they clung
to each other in silence like the survivors of some natural
catastrophe.

In the morning
she helped him pack, and then went with him by flier to the
spaceport.

He held back
passing through the boarding check until the last call, and then
hugged Sukara to him. She found his lips. "Be careful, Jeff,"
she whispered, steeling herself against the tears she wanted to shed.

"Love you,"
he said, turned and strode through the barrier and disappeared from
sight.

A vast cold
weight of depression settled over her. She had never felt as alone as
she did now, not even when Tiger had left her in Bangkok all those
years ago.

She made her way
to the observation lounge and stood by the rail, staring through the
great viewscreen across the apron of the spaceport to the mammoth,
streamlined shape of the voidship, connected to the terminal building
by boarding umbilicals.

It was strange
to think of her husband taking his place aboard the ship, strange to
think that in less than two days he would set foot on an alien
planet, nearly seventy light years away.

Thirty minutes
later the connecting corridors and tubes retracted, and the voidliner
powered up with a deafening crescendo of engines. It rose, ever so
slowly, and despite herself Sukara felt a strange thrilling sensation
in her chest as the colossal vessel inched slowly across the
spaceport, out over the sea, beautiful in its vastness and power.

When the
voidship was beyond the edge of the Station, hanging over the ocean
like some vast fish surreally translated into the air, it began to
phase from this reality. It shimmered, losing substance, then
flickered in and out of existence briefly before vanishing in an
instant.

Sukara found
herself crying, wondering where Jeff was now.

Slowly, rubbing
at her tears with her fingertips, she left the spaceport and made her
way home. She knew now the reason for the premonitions of tragedy she
had experienced for the past few days.

She knew, with a
terrible and inevitable certainty, that she would never see her
husband again.

WELCOME TO
MALLORY

"Welcome to
Mallory, Mr Lacey," the customs officer said, handing back the
ID card. "Here on business?"

"Pleasure,"
Vaughan said. "Sightseeing in the southern mountains."

"Have a
great stay."

Vaughan stepped
through the customs barrier and collected his luggage, a single
holdall, then made his way out into the arrival lounge. The slightly
lighter gravity of the colony planet gave his gait an odd buoyancy.

Kapinsky had
issued him with a false ID card and, should he need to use it, a chu
which he'd concealed inside his musiCom. He was unarmed—weapons
of ail types were not allowed to be brought into Mallory—but
with luck he would neither need to defend himself, nor to attack.

The spaceport at
Mackintyre, Mallory's capital city, was smaller than many
international airports on Earth, and a tenth of the size of the 'port
on Bengal Station. Just three ships a week arrived on Mallory from
Earth, plus a couple from other nearby colony worlds. The place had a
quaint backwater feel about it, and this impression was heightened
when he stepped through the sliding glass doors and looked out over
Mackintyre.

The 'port was
situated on a rise of land above a plain across which the large town
sprawled, a series of timber buildings built on a grid-pattern of
streets. Vaughan felt an immediate wave of nostalgia: the capital had
the look and feel of a remote settlement in his native Canada, the
same type of weatherboard dwellings in spacious gardens pressed flat
by a seemingly limitless expanse of blue sky.