Mindship v1 0, p.7
Mindship (v1.0), page 7
“Sorry,” the Cook said quietly.
Pul shuffled over to clean up the glass. “Forget it. Breaks all the time.”
Kilgarin looked into his own glass and smiled. “If you can read me, Cook, then you already know what I’ve decided to do.”
“It’s a mistake.”
“Can you tell me where the Captain could get a mind-block?”
“No.”
’Then I have to find out for myself,” Kilgarin said. He swung off the bar stool and stood up; his smile was empty and mechanical this time, as he added, “I want to know why he killed my brother, and that’s why I’m signing aboard.”
The Cook said nothing. He shook his head once, and then, limping, he followed Kilgarin out the tavern door.
Raymond was on the third floor of the brothel, in a room opening off the main hallway, sprawled over one of the suite’s large beds, arm draped across the bosom of a thick-waisted girl whose gray hair had been tinted a delicate blue. Kilgarin left the Cook outside and entered the room, catching the eye of the waking girl and gesturing for her to leave. She did so, hurriedly. He took her place on the bed beside Raymond and poked the sleeping Physical in the ribs. The young man stirred, opened his eyes, closed them, opened them again. Kilgarin said hello. Raymond jerked to a sitting position, wide awake. “Where is she?”
“I sent her downstairs,” Kilgarin told him.
“Oh.” Raymond relaxed, closing his eyes again. “Did you need to do that?”
“Send her away? “I’m afraid so. I wanted to speak to you privately.”
“I hate waking up alone,” Raymond said. He kept his eyes closed. “That always happens. 1 hate it.” One eye opened. “What did you want to talk about? Did I do anything wrong? Hey, if you want me to pay for the girl—”
“No, don’t worry about that,” Kilgarin answered. He got up and bent over the bedside console. “Breakfast?” Raymond nodded and Kilgarin selected items, punching out their coordinates on the keyboard. “I just wanted to tell you I’m signing up again. Taking another Contract.” Raymond swung his legs off the bed and reached for the container of hot coffee that had appeared in the food slot “You’re not serious. You said it’d be suicide for you. Didn’t you?”
“Things have changed since last night.” Kilgarin sat down beside the Physical and picked up the tray of food he’d ordered.
“Your brother?”
Kilgarin nodded.
“But if it’s so dangerous for you—”
“Maybe I overestimated the danger,” Kilgarin said, “I’m not a weak man. I’ve always been proud of that.”
“Still. You’re lucky you’re alive, after being a Cork as long as you have. That is what you said, isn’t it?” Raymond peered at him over the piece of toast he was nibbling.
“That’s what I said. I hope I’m wrong. But that’s really not what matters. I wanted you to know, because I want you to take care of this place for me while I’m gone.”
The Physical shook his head. “No. Sorry. I can’t do it.”
“If that’s the way you feel,” Kilgarin said, standing, stopping in mid-turn when Raymond’s hand caught his arm.
“You don’t understand,” the young man said. “It’s not because 1 don’t want to. It’s because I’m coming with you.”
“I just want her to know,” Kilgarin said. “That’s all.”
“You don’t have to explain. I understand. I’ll wait here; you go upstairs.”
Kilgarin left the Cook at the doorway to the tenement and walked up the two flights of slick plastisteel stairs. The building was not in disrepair, not physically. It was a good building, and would remain a good building for decades: when the Company built these tract apartments they’d built them to last. Yet the building was in decay: a spiritual decay, Kilgarin thought. The building and its occupants had been abandoned by the colony in favor of a new look, one preferred by the port’s new Independence government. The older buildings of the Company’s construction, though useful, were treated with contempt. They were now the slums, and the people within them, the derelicts. Though the people survived, they didn’t live. People like Raymond, fortunate to have a job. People like Marka. Who didn’t She opened the door and blinked at him, her face puffy with sleep. She gazed at him a moment and then stepped back, holding onto the door as he entered the cluttered room.
“I expected you earlier,” she said.
“I had business at the port.”
“Of course.” She walked across the room, skirting the ragged bedding in one corner. The bones of her rib cage were visible under her olive skin, her breasts rising and falling as she limped. “I’d offer you something if I had anything to offer,” she said. She stepped into the fresher by the kitchen. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
When she came out again, the paleness in her cheeks was gone, her eyes were less bloodshot, and she looked almost young. “Well?”
“I’m taking up Marc’s Contract,” he said.
Something moved behind her eyes. “Why?”
“I have to know why he died.”
“He died because you weren’t here to stop him,” she said. “Isn’t that obvious?”
“I’m not here for lectures, Marka.”
“I know that.”
“I won’t ask you to come along. I can’t.”
“I know that too.”
Kilgarin nodded. “That’s all, then. Maybe we’ll get together before I leave.”
“When does the ship lift?” she asked him.
“Three days. We’ll be taking a cargo run along the western Arm, to most of the Outworlds. Charting.”
“That’s where the rebels are,” she said. Then, about the ship: “Can you handle it?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
At the door there was a brief moment when her breast touched his arm; he wondered if he should ask her about the night before, but decided against it. He didn’t want to know. She stepped back and thumbed the lock for him.
The door slid open. He left. A moment later the door slid shut behind him.
Kilgarin wasn’t prepared for the Charter‘s mess to be crowded that evening. It was usual for a mindship’s crew to take leave as soon as the vessel cleared port, but for some reason the Cook couldn’t or wouldn’t explain, the Charter’s, crew was different. When Kilgarin arrived at the ship in company with the Cook, he found the halls busy with crew members, intense-looking men and women hurrying from cabin to cabin, pulling on jump suits as they walked, tabbing jackets and brushing back hair. The Cook left Kilgarin in the recreation room and went off to prepare the evening’s menu, and after the small gray man had left, the Cork collared a passing Physical and asked him what was happening.
The boy gave him a brusque once-over, apparently decided that Kilgarin belonged on the ship, and answered. “The Captain just released the route, Fellow. From Barron to Rylon, first off. Then down the Outworld Belt.” Kilgarin released him with a deeply felt thank you, and the Physical rushed off.
Rylon. No wonder the crew had gathered for mess. There’d be an hour or more of excited speculation, Kilgarin knew. Rylon was one of the three major Company ports, Endrim being one of the lesser stopovers. Kilgarin had never been there himself, though he’d heard rumors about the planet, stories from Sensitives who’d experienced some of the exotic thrills the port had to offer. If Endrim was an industrial port, with all the economic and social gestalts such a designation implied, then Rylon was a pleasure center. According to the more elaborate tales, the Company had bribed the Federation Colonial Office to write it an unlimited charter for the planet, in much the same way they’d managed to receive full exploitation rights for Endrim’s native wormwood industry.
It was going to be an interesting voyage, Kilgarin decided. In more ways than one.
The Cook reappeared twenty minutes after Kilgarin had settled in the rec room. Returning with the Cook to the cafeteria lounge, Kilgarin received a tray and took his place on line. Most of the crew had been served already and were scattered about the room in groups of five and ten, talking loudly between mouthfuls of soup and bread. Against one wall the ship’s Sensitives were gathered, twelve men and women on one long bench, supporting their trays on their laps and speaking softly, their hands moving in both broad and subtle gestures. Kilgarin filled his plate and mug, processed his credit chit—though he’d signed aboard that afternoon, he wouldn’t officially be a member of the crew until 0100 the next day—and crossed the room to join his fellow Sensitives.
There was room at the end of the bench. One of the women slid over to make room for him. A moment later the Cook arrived and proceeded to make introductions. Kilgarin nodded to each of the Sensitives in turn. He was particularly struck by the Engineer, Wells, and the chief Technician, a Centaurian named Ty’ger. The Communications agent, Ryork, was the most cordial, pausing to shift her pet—a small anthropoid with large silver eyes—to her shoulder before shaking Kilgarin’s hand.
“You’re from Wellington, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Kilgarin said.
“So is Wells. You too should have much to talk about.”
After this she was quiet, her attention returned to her pet, which she fed with scraps from her plate as Kilgarin watched her, absorbed.
“Have you heard?” the Cook asked him, breaking the spell.
“About Rylon? I have, yes. Your first time there?”
“Once,” the Cook said. “But not about that I’m talking about the Outworlds.”
“You’re not going to let what Pul said worry you, are you? Don’t. He’s just a broken old man trying for a little attention.”
“Still,” the Cook said. His muscles remained fixed along his jaw, taut with worry.
“Still,” Kilgarin said. “It’s nothing to be concerned about.”
“What about you, Fellow? Have you ever been to Rylon?”
The voice belonged to Wells, the Engineer. Kilgarin turned to him. “No. The last ship I crewed mostly did charting work. We ran the western Arm.”
“What ship was that, Fellow?”
“The Drowner, out of Centauri.”
’The Drowner?
“This time it was the wiry Centaurian, Ty’ger. His bleak eyes rose to meet Kilgarin’s. “You said the Drowner?”
“That’s right,” Kilgarin answered. He lifted his beer. “You know her?”
“Someone who crewed her once. Perhaps he still does.”
“What’s his name? I know most of the crew.”
“Orion,” Ty’ger said slowly. “J’kar Orion.”
Kilgarin felt something tighten between him and the other Sensitive. Like a physical presence something had come into the lounge and gathered around them, dark and cold. Against his will Kilgarin felt the alien emotion invading him, thrusting through the defenses he’d erected months before and which he’d only recently begun to relax. He clamped down tightly, shutting off his Sensitivity. There was a flicker in the dark eyes of the Centaurian. It faded and was replaced by emptiness.
“I know him,” Kilgarin said. “He’s had some trouble lately.”
“That’s too bad. I would have liked to see him. We could have talked.” Ty’ger smiled vacantly. He seemed to have lost interest. “It’s been a long time,” he added.
Kilgarin said nothing. The other man made him nervous; he seemed to be drawn to a wire tightness. His movements were strained as he turned back to his meal; Kilgarin was disturbed by that appearance of tension, and watched the other man for several minutes before looking away.
Wells brought up the subject of their mutual homeworld and the two men spent the remainder of the mess hour talking about Wellington. Wells (whose name was the last remaining indication, he said, of a distant connection to the planet’s founder) came from the southern hemisphere, where the temperature was more earth normal, but as the traditions of the colony were planetwide, he and Kilgarin had much to talk about. They traded stories about the colonial schools, discovered that they’d both spent a month at the same correctional facility for adolescents, and learned that aside from this accident of birthplace, neither had much in common with the other. Kilgarin found the conversation diverting, however, which was more or less what he needed. The pain of his brother’s death was receding, though slowly. As he had many times since the incident aboard the Drowner, Kilgarin wished for the intercession of a Cork—something he could never experience. At best, he could distract himself, but only for a short while and only superficially, as be was doing with hh dialogue with Wells.
The pain would always remain. There were no Cork hands for him—no other soul to take the guilt away.
Chapter Three
Eighth month, fifth day, anno Domini 3146
It was a cool midnight. Kilgarin took the boardwalk path along the Endrim shore, listening to the clap and pad of his footsteps and watching the line of lights pointing out into the harbor channel in the distance, and smelling the fresh early-morning air. (Salt, dammit. There was salt in that air!)
His middle felt warm and full. There was something about ship food—though usually tasteless, there was always enough of it, served in a style that made it, if not spectacular, at least appetizing. He paused for a moment and leaned on the boardwalk railing. The waves rolled in toward the shore, driven by the milky, strangely smooth moon overhead, in lazy parody of the waves he’d seen on earth. There was no sound to this ocean. Kilgarin listened, but he could bear nothing more than a faint whisper that rose and fell with his breathing.
He thought about his brother. How much did he really know about Marc Kilgarin? Enough to justify his commitment to this “quest”? Not really. Then why was he determined to join the Charter? To find the reason for his brother’s death, or—?
He sighed and turned from the water. He didn’t know, and he didn’t truly care.
A shape moved at him out of the darkness. Kilgarin had time to push from the railing, take a step out onto the boardwalk, and then the shape was upon him.
They fell to the boardwalk, Kilgarin landing on bottom, feeling the weight of a man on his chest, feeling arms tightening into a lock around his neck, feeling knees digging into his hip and abdomen. He tried to jerk free, but the man holding him began to apply pressure to his grip. Blood pounded in Kilgarin’s cars. With a grunt he twisted onto bis back and slammed his elbow and knee into his assailant’s chest and groin.
The man gasped and relaxed his leg grip. Kilgarin gained leverage, shoved, pulled free, and lunged away. Hands caught at him, tripped him. He skidded along the planking, sensing the motion of the man behind him as his attacker dived. The man hit him squarely in the small of the back and carried him over the edge of the boardwalk, under the railing, and onto the sand below.
Turning, Kilgarin snapped the heels of his hands hard against the jaw of the man struggling to get on top of him. The man spun back and sprayed to a stop in a gray dune. Kilgarin got to his feet, staggered, and sat down. His heart was racing. With an effort he forced his breathing into a regular pattern. He closed his eyes and opened them again, and glanced at the man lying next to him, stunned It was Ty’ger.
“Well?” Kilgarin asked.
Ty’ger glared at him. Two flushed patches marked his jaw where the Cork’s palms had caught him, promising nasty bruises by morning. Edging himself up on one elbow, the Centaurian worked a hand along the back of his neck. “You know how to fight,” he said.
“It’s something you pick up when you like to visit unknown ports,” Kilgarin told him. He waited.
“They told me you’re a friend of J’kar.”
“That’s right. You’re not, I gather?”
“I wanted to make you take me to him,” Ty’ger said. His voice was husky, and he paused to clear his throat. “I have things I want to talk to him about.”
“Like you talked to me?”
“You wouldn’t take me if I didn’t force you. Not when you found out what I want.”
“How do you know?” Kilgarin asked.
“I know.” The Centaurian got to his feet with difficulty. Kilgarin followed him to the stairs leading up to the boardwalk.
’Try me,” he said. ’Tra willing to listen. It’s my job; I’ve had enough practice.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I can tell. 1 know what it’s like. I know what you’re thinking and how you feel. You think there’s something wrong with me, and you want to know what it is so you can warn your friend. I can hear you. You think I can’t, but I can, Kilgarin. I can.” The other man’s voice went low and the Cork strained to make out the last few words.
“You don’t want to believe me,” Ty’ger whispered, “but you know you have to. You know what I am. It’s something you can’t help thinking about; you keep worrying it’s happening to you. It’s why you quit Corking. I can tell, Kilgarin.
“I can hear you.”
He walked away, his footsteps a soft clap and pad on the boardwalk planking. Watching him, Kilgarin felt a brief chill. He didn’t need a Sensitive’s training to understand what was wrong with the Centaurian—but only a Sensitive could sympathize.
Ty’ger was one of the growing number of Sensitives who were constantly “on,” whose minds were in perpetual reception of the thoughts and emotions of people around them. It was obvious now that Kilgarin knew what to look for. The man was abnormally thin, and there was a haunted look in his eyes. And the way he moved: the strained quality Kilgarin had noticed earlier, like someone moving in a room filled with glass figurines…all too aware of the boundaries of privacy around him. A part of Kilgarin’s mind had recognized it earlier, he realized, without his conscious mind understanding. Kilgarin realized something more. Ty’ger was right. It was something he feared at times was happening to him. It was something he feared more than breaking.
And perhaps because it frightened him, it fascinated him too.
Sighing, he started off after the Centaurian’s receding form. His footsteps echoed on the planking—clap, pad, clap, pad—and then faded as he turned down the street which led into the city.
