Xenopath (34 page)

From his
perspective, looking down into the valley, he was unable to determine
the size of each dwelling. Only when he saw the figure of the human
being, standing beside a mound which barely reached to his shoulder,
was he aware of their scale.

It was as if his
eyes, momentarily tricked, had worked out the optical illusion. The
dwellings were tiny and the human—it could only be the lone
radical, Breitenbach—was like some giant guardian left on to
monitor the safekeeping of the valley. The juxtaposition of the human
and the mounds served also to highlight how alien the buildings were,
with the fluted openings atop every mound, their triangular doorways
and slit windows.

Breitenbach
raised a hand in greeting.

FINDING ABDUL

Pham paused on
the steps of the train station and watched the press of humanity
flowing down the street. The noise was intense, the babble of
conversation never-ending. The occasional roar of fliers obliterated
other sounds for brief seconds before the hubbub resumed.

She was jostled,
carried down the steps and along the street. She fought her way
through with bony elbows, came to the far side of the street, and
looked for the turning that would take her to the hospital. She
slipped onto the sidewalk and dashed through the less tightly packed
pedestrians, then turned right.

She had a lot to
tell Abdul. For the past four days she had been living in a plush
Level Two apartment with a Thai woman who she had come to think of as
the mother she didn't have. Sukara was patient and kind, and seemed
to understand Pham, and their days had been full of fun and laughter.

She could not
help but wonder what might happen when Sukara's husband, Vaughan,
came back.

Khar had been
silent since she had moved in with Sukara. Sometimes, at night, she
had lain awake in her big bed in the spare room and tried to contact
him, calling his name, asking if he were still there. Once, on the
first day, he had reassured her that he was there, but had said
nothing more. Every other time Pham had tried to summon him, Khar had
remained silent.

Sometimes she
wondered if she had dreamed of the voice in her head.

She turned down
the side street to the hospital, looking forward to seeing her friend
again. She hoped his leg had healed by now, and the bruising on his
face.

As she entered
the hospital and approached reception, she realised that she should
have brought Abdul a gift, a comic or some sweets.

"I have
come to see Abdul Mohammed," she told the woman behind the desk.

The receptionist
consulted a screen and said, "Abdul Mohammed was discharged this
morning."

Pham frowned.
"Discharged?"

The woman
smiled. "He left hospital. Went home."

Pham nodded,
thanked the woman and left the building, disappointed. She recalled
her last meeting with Abdul, and how he had warned her from going
back to Chandi Road. He wondered where he might be, now. The chances
were that he would be in none of his old haunts, for fear of the
telepath finding him.

She wondered how
she might begin to find him, and then had an idea.

She found a
phone kiosk and dialled Dr Rao's personal number.

Seconds later he
answered. "Speak. This is Dr Rao. and my time is a commodity in
short supply."

"Dr Rao.
Pham here. I'm trying to find Abdul. Is he at the starship?"

"Abdul is
working—"

"But
where?"

Rao sighed.
"After his contretemps with the Westerner, he has moved his
pitch. You will find him outside Allahabad station."

"Thanks, Dr
Rao!"

"But tell
me—did you locate Vaughan and inform him that it was through my
good offices that..."

The phone began
bleeping at her. "No money left, Dr Rao. Must go!"

Despite his
squawked protests, she hung up and made her way to Chandi Road train
station. She boarded an inbound train and alighted at Allahabad
station, excited at the prospect of meeting her friend.

She pushed her
way through the crowds that filled the street outside the station.
Across the busy road she made out a row of expensive-looking
restaurants. She thought Abdul might be begging there, and ran across
the road dodging motorbikes and auto-rickshaws.

She found a
gaggle of street-kids playing kabadi, but Abdul wasn't among them.
"Has anyone seen Abdul Mohammed?" she asked.

A boy stopped
playing long enough to say, "Abdul was beaten up bad by a suit.
Almost killed."

Pham's heart
lurched. Could Abdul have been beaten up again? "When was this?"
she asked.

"Oh, last
week. His leg was broken."

Pham breathed a
sigh of relief, thanked the boy and hurried on. She stopped outside
an Indian sweet shop, staring in at the piled barfi. She would buy
some as a gift for Sukara. She jumped when a familiar voice called
her name.

She turned.
"Abdul!"

She took his
hand, stared at his beaming face.

"No
bruises," she said.

"And look.
The leg is as good as new!"

She looked back
at the window. "Would you like some chai and barfi?"

"Here? It's
expensive."

She laughed and
pulled him into the old-fashioned, air-conditioned shop. Wooden
stalls were set around the tiled floor, and Brahmin customers sipped
chai from small china cups and picked at plates of barfi.

They found a
booth at the back of the shop and ordered chai and a selection of
sweets from a uniformed waiter.

"You'll
never guess where I'm living," Pham said around a mouthful of
gulab jamon.

"The Ritz?
The Ashok-Hilton?"

"Even
better! A big apartment in Chittapuram, Level Two!"

Abdul goggled,
and Pham laughed at his expression and told him all about going to
Vaughan's apartment and meeting Sukara, and staying with her while
Vaughan was away. "And that was thanks to you, Abdul."

"It was?"

"You told
me about Vaughan, after all," she said. "You told me he was
a good man."

Abdul took a big
gulp of chai. "But what will you do when Vaughan gets back?"

Pham frowned.
She knew what she would like to happen—but that was impossible.
Sukara was having a little girl in two months; she would not want the
bother of looking after Pham as well.

She shook her
head. "I don't know. Maybe Vaughan can find me a job, and I can
rent an apartment somewhere."

Abdul smiled. "I
hope that happens, Pham."

She told him
about the skyball match Sukara was taking her to see later that day.
"We might be going next week, too. If you like, I'll ask if you
can come too, ah-cha?"

"Really?
I'd love to see the Tigers play!"

For the next
hour she told him all about life on Level Two, the size of the rooms
in the apartment, all the luxuries like a bathroom with a real bath,
the kitchen with dozens of strange appliances. Most of all she wanted
to tell him how happy she was to have someone who liked her, but she
didn't want to brag about this to Abdul, or remind herself that one
day soon it would end.

The big clock on
the wall read two o'clock, and Pham drained her glass of chai. "I'd
better be going, Abdul. I'll ask Sukara about the next Tigers' match,
ah-cha?"

"Will I see
you before then?"

"I'll meet
you outside here tomorrow."

"I'll be
here from eight till six, Pham."

They slipped
from the shop, and Pham turned and waved before squeezing herself
back into the scrimmage of pedestrians moving towards the station.

She caught a
train back to Chandi Road, then walked to Chittapuram. It was only a
kilometre, and she was feeling great. In fact, she could not remember
a time in her life when she felt better. In Abdul she had a good
friend, and she was sure that whatever happened in the future, she
and Sukara would remain friends. Pham could even baby-sit for her
when she wanted to go out with Vaughan.

She took the
dropchute and strolled along the quiet corridor to Chittapuram. From
time to time she stopped at an observation gallery and stared through
the viewscreen at the vast ocean and the voidships approaching the
Station.

She looked ahead
to the rest of the day, the Tigers' game with Sukara, and the Indian
meal afterwards.

She came round
the slight bend and approached the door to Sukara's apartment.

The voice in her
head commanded:
Stop!

"Khar! So
you're still there?"

Stop, Pham!
Do not enter the apartment!

She laughed.
"Why not? I don't understand. I'm going to—"

She tried to
take a step, move towards the door, but it was as if she were frozen
to the spot.

Pham, you are
in grave danger if you enter the apartment!

"But what
about Sukara?" Pham cried.

Khar was silent
for a second, then said,
Do as I say, do you understand? Do
exactly as I say, and all will be well.

She nodded.
"Ah-cha."

Pham, go to
the spaceport. Vaughan will return soon. If you go to terminal two,
Colonial Arrivals, you can sleep on the loungers until he gets back.
Look out for ships from Mallory, understood?

"Ah-cha,
but why—?"

Just do it!
Khar commanded with such urgency that Pham set off at a run towards
the 'chute station.

This is what
Vaughan looks like
, Khar said, and a sudden image of the
detective appeared in her head.

"Ah-cha,"
she said.

Tell him,
when he gets back, that I will do everything I can to help him.

She felt a
sudden heat in her head, and a quick dizziness followed by a strange
sensation of absence. "Khar?" she asked as she ran. "
Khar?
"

But there was no
answering voice in her head as she sprinted along the corridor
towards the 'chute station and the spaceport.

THE HORTAVANS

Vaughan stood
beside his flier and stared down at the radical.

Breitenbach was
tall and thin, as if years of privation in this mountain redoubt had
taken its toll; he wore a tattered thermal suit and scuffed boots.
From this distance, perhaps fifty metres, he would have passed for a
beggar on any street corner on Earth.

Vaughan raised a
hand in greeting, then slipped back into the flier. He gunned the
turbos, then activated his implant. As he'd expected, Breitenbach was
shielded. The mind-silence continued.

He eased the
flier from the mouth of the opening and hopped it down into the
valley, coming to rest on an avenue of the miniature mounds ten
metres from where Breitenbach stood, watching him.

He climbed out
and stepped forward. Something stopped him perhaps halfway towards
the hermit radical: the sense that he was in the presence of someone
whose appearance indicated nothing at all about his true being.
Vaughan felt disconcerted, and at the same time overawed.

Breitenbach's
face was thin and pale, his eyes watery and lips down-turned, and yet
there was something scholarly in the lineaments, the ghost of the man
he had once been.

Vaughan found
himself saying, "I have the crystals."

Breitenbach
smiled, the gesture patrician, bestowing beneficence on a minion.

"I'm—"
he began, but a gesture from Breitenbach stopped him.

"No names,
my friend. The less we know about each other..." It was said
with a smile, in an accent Vaughan thought English.

He was about to
tell Breitenbach that he was not part of the radical network on
Mallory, but the man gestured and said, "If you could help me
get them into position, that would be most kind. Then, perhaps, you
might care to join me in a meal?"

Vaughan smiled.
"That would be good."

"I'm afraid
I can't offer you anything but a selection of vegetables and
pulses—but they're home-grown," Breitenbach said with a
smile, gesturing towards a long vegetable patch beyond the dwellings.
"I manage to grow enough to sustain me, despite the inclement
climate."

Vaughan stared
around. "How long have you lived here?" he asked.

"A little
over five years," Breitenbach said. "I am a wanted man on
Mallory. I'd done as much as I could, and it was only a matter of
time before Scheering apprehended me. Then," he paused, his eyes
brightening as he remembered something, "then events conspired
to bring me here." He gestured around the valley, as if showing
off Shangri-La. "And what more fitting venue for the role I now
find myself playing?"

Vaughan gestured
towards the mounds. "You didn't build these yourself?"

Breitenbach
smiled. "They are the work of the Hortavans," he said, then
gestured towards the flier. "But come, we have work to do, and
the light fades."

The Hortavans,
Vaughan repeated to himself as he opened the rear door of the flier
and hauled out the crystals. Were they the extraterrestrials?

He set the racks
on the grass, and Breitenbach knelt and caressed the elongated stones
with reverence.

When he looked
up, Vaughan saw tears in the old man's eyes.

Breitenbach
stood and pointed to a path that wound up the side of the valley, to
an opening in the rock opposite that through which Vaughan had
entered. "We will carry them up there," the radical
instructed.

He picked up one
rack and, with difficulty, Vaughan carried two. He followed
Breitenbach along the path, up the hillside and into a narrow cutting
in the rock. This one, unlike the wider corridor down which he'd
arrived, had the appearance of being hewn from the rock: the corridor
was squared off, finished, though obviously built for the passage of
beings smaller than themselves. They were forced to stoop as they
struggled with the weight of the racks.