Necropath (29 page)

He fell silent, then said, “They have someone, a telepath called Osborne. A bastard. A bounty hunter, a trained killer. Whenever a telehead has had enough and gets the hell out, they send him out to track down and kill those strays.”

“You’ve evaded him for years, Jeff...”

Vaughan grunted a laugh. “Yeah. I moved from city to city around the world, frightened, paranoid. I saw Osborne everywhere. Then I cooled down. I knew I was seeing shadows. I thought, where am I least likely to be discovered? I’d heard about the Station. I thought I’d give it a go. When I got to the Station, I made contacts, bought a new identity and became Jeff Vaughan. Then I applied to the ‘port for a job as a ‘head, even though a part of me knew I was placing myself in danger.” He paused, considering. “I don’t know. Maybe I’d had enough. Maybe I wanted to be found. It’d be quick and painless.”

He could see Chandra, watching him, his eyes highlighted in the illumination of the stars.

“You were married?” Chandra asked.

Vaughan released a breath. “No, but there was someone. Didn’t work out.”

Chandra asked, “Kids?”

Vaughan tipped his head back and stared at the silent stars. He shook his head. “No,” he said, “no kids.”

He closed his eyes and hoped that Chandra would ask no more questions. He buried his head between his knees, willing an end to the cold. He knew that if he slept, he would die. He tried to sleep, but the cold bit at his face, gnawing like a hungry rat.

Perhaps an hour passed; Vaughan could not see his watch to check. Chandra began his chanting again, unconvinced by Vaughan’s testimony of the void that followed life. Faith, Vaughan thought to himself. He wished he had faith, wished the bastards at Ottawa Psionics had not discovered him. He had often wondered how things might have turned out, if he had not undergone the operation.

He must have drifted off to sleep. He awoke, startled, sometime later. Chandra was shaking him. There was a note of desperation in his voice. “Jeff. Jeff, for pity’s sake.”

Vaughan looked up. His whole body felt frozen. He had never felt so cold, never realised that the cold could be this painful. “What?”

“Jeff, we can’t give in. We can’t die down here.”

He stared at Chandra in the meagre light of the stars. “Why not?”

Chandra gestured in exasperation. “We’re the only ones who know,” he said. “If we die, who’ll be left to stop what they’re doing?”

Vaughan’s initial response was to find some wisecracking rejoinder to Chandra’s concern. Then he considered the man, and what he’d said. In extremis, facing death, Chandra had thought beyond himself, considered the fate of the victims of the Vaith.

He nearly said, “Does it matter?” but stopped himself. It mattered, obviously, to Chandra.

“Jeff.” Chandra’s voice sounded small, far away. “Look, why don’t we hold each other, share our warmth? Then in the morning... maybe then we can find a way out.”

Vaughan heard the words, felt a sudden despair at the futility of Chandra’s suggestion. But he stopped himself from commenting. Instead he said, “Okay, Jimmy. Okay, we’ll do that.”

He held out his arms, and Jimmy came to him. They hugged each other. For a minute, Chandra’s body heat warmed Vaughan, lessened the pain of the cold. Then, as he became accustomed to the added warmth, the all-encompassing iciness invaded again, creeping up his arms and legs like an army of biting insects intent upon devouring his very heart. He felt Chandra, in his arms, weeping and shivering uncontrollably. He caught the scent-of the Indian’s hair oil, the garlic on his breath, and almost laughed aloud at the stupidity of their situation. If only he’d been more aware while scanning, if only he’d thought to suggest they change into their thermal gear.

He felt Chandra relax, his breathing become even.

“No!” Vaughan yelled, shaking Chandra. “Don’t sleep! If you... if you sleep, you’ll die.”

“I’m so... so cold, Jeff. I’m so tired.”

“Hang on in there, Jimmy. A few hours. That’s all. Hang on for another few hours, okay?”

He tightened his embrace around the little Indian, crushing Chandra to him. He felt himself slipping, growing ever more tired with every passing second as the cold registered no more as cold but as a scalding heat, a perverse warmth that permeated his every cell, calling to him to relax, submit, close his eyes and sleep.

At one point, Chandra said, “Thanks, Jeff.”

“For what?”

The Indian gave a quiet laugh. “Saving my skin all those years ago, at the ‘port.”

Vaughan smiled. “Don’t mention it.”

They lapsed into silence.

He lost all concept of duration. He nodded off, shook himself awake, stared up at the stars, as if by concentrating on the scintillating points of brightness he might stave off the siren of sleep.

Then a greater wave of tiredness overcame him, and he told himself that it would be okay if he slept for just a few minutes—he would be woken by the cold, anyway, just as all the other times. But even as he thought this, he told himself that he could not submit. He admitted that he did not want to die, even though to fight against it was an exercise in futility: he did not want to experience the terrible oblivion he had so often shared vicariously in the past.

Despite himself, against his will, he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness.

* * * *

Much later, something made him open his eyes.

He blinked, stared in disbelief.

The night had come to an end; a new day had arrived on the mountain. It was light in the pit. He held Jimmy Chandra to him, almost laughing tears of delight at their survival.

For the first time he could look about him and see his prison. He scanned the rock walls that contained them. He made out possible foot- and hand holds in the sheer face. The sun struck a beam down into the pit, as warm and welcome as a flame.

Perhaps, after all, they would be able to escape.

A few minutes later Vaughan heard the faraway sound of a helicopter’s rotor blades, and hope turned to despair. The rhythmic
blatt-blatt
of rotors grew louder, nearer, and Vaughan almost laughed at the irony of surviving the night only to fall victim to the Disciples’ bullets this morning.

He held the sleeping Chandra to him, steeling himself for the end.

The sound of the chopper became deafening, then cut out on landing. The only sound then was the pounding of his heart, as he waited. Brief seconds later he heard footfalls on the rock above, muffled shouts. He held on to Chandra, willing the Indian to remain sleeping rather than wake and be aware of his end.

He scanned, and at first he did not believe what he was reading.

He heard something being thrown into the pit. A length of black fibre hung from the opening. Instantly it changed shape, became a ladder: memory carbon.

Someone was climbing into the pit. Dark shapes appeared in the patch of sky above, peering down.

“In here! We’ve found them!”

A young man in the uniform of the Vanderlaan police jumped from the ladder and hurried across to him. The officer stared, then turned and yelled for medical assistance.

Vaughan began laughing, a mad sound that echoed eerily in the confines of the pit. He shook Chandra, trying to wake him. “Jimmy! Jimmy, we’re safe!”

Someone was climbing into the pit, someone familiar. She turned and hurried across to where Vaughan huddled with Chandra in his arms.

He stared up at Lieutenant Laerhaven. “How...?”

Her mind exploded with delight at finding them alive, and he read how she’d found them even before she spoke.

“The watches I gave you are tracking devices, Vaughan. I wasn’t altogether sure we needed to keep tabs on you, but as things worked out...”

The pit was full of people now, kneeling beside him, examining him. Their mind-noise was becoming painful. Quickly he withdrew his pin.

“Vaughan,” Laerhaven squatted before him, her expression solicitous. “Vaughan, you can let go of Chandra, now. There’s nothing you can do, I’m sorry.”

He stared at the cold bundle in his arms. With his eyes closed, his face set in a peaceful expression, Jimmy Chandra might have been sleeping.

“Jimmy...”

“Vaughan, there’s nothing you can do.”

“No!” he yelled. He had the absurd idea that if he were to hold Chandra all the tighter, never let him go, then he might imbue the Indian with some of his own vitality.

The officers were all around him, pulling at Chandra, trying to part Vaughan from the frozen corpse. For the first time, Vaughan realised that he was shivering, though whether with cold or shock he was unable to tell.

“Let him be!” he screamed at the officers. “Please...”

Then he felt the blast of a hypo-ject in his neck, and no more.

* * * *

He came to his senses in a hospital room. He felt weak, feverish. Lieutenant Laerhaven sat on a chair beside the bed. She spoke to him—at least, he saw her lips move, but heard no words. He lapsed into unconsciousness.

When he next awoke he was in a different room, this one flooded with bright morning sunlight, and he no longer felt ill. He pushed himself into a sitting position and called out.

Laerhaven hurried into the room.

“Jeff... You’ve been through a hell of an ordeal. Lie down. You need to rest.”

He recalled what he had scanned in the minds of the Disciples. The Vaith were on Bengal Station, elsewhere in the Expansion. He needed get out of here, back to Earth to warn the authorities.

“When’s the next ship to Earth?”

“Tonight. But you’re in no fit state to be on it. You had a close escape. We’re not going to endanger you further by releasing you ahead of time.”

“Jimmy...?”

“His body will be travelling back on the same ship as yourself.”

“I need... Do you have a screader? I need to make a report for the Enforcement Agency on the Station. It must go on tonight’s flight, okay?”

Laerhaven looked at him dubiously. “If you’re sure you’re up to the mental strain of reliving what—”

“Just get me a damned screader!” he yelled, and fell back on the bed.

Later, alone in the room, Vaughan stared at the blank screen of the screader and wondered where to begin.

* * * *

A VERY CRUEL PLACE

Sukara decided to take each day as it came.