Penumbra

6

Ezekiel Klien stood before the wraparound screen of the security tower and stared out across the simmering expanse of Calcutta spaceport.

As the chief of security at the port, and king of his domain, Klien felt invincible. He had been at the port for thirteen years now, thirteen lucky years, working his way up from lowly security officer to his present lofty position.

His communicator buzzed. “The captain of the freighter is in the interrogation room, sir.”

“I told you I wanted his name and the name of his ship, Frazer.”

“Yes, sir!”

For the past five years, as chief of security, he had ruled with absolute and unwavering authority. He knew that his team hated him, but this only served to assure him that he was doing his job with clinical efficiency. His orders had to be obeyed to the letter and anyone who showed less than one hundred per cent dedication to Klien and his objectives would find themselves out of work.

“Ah…” Frazer said, “he’s Vitaly Kozinsky and his ship is the…’ Klien could almost sense Frazer’s panic as he checked his com-board. “The Petrograd.”

“Very good. I’ll be down immediately.”

He cut the connection and stared through the viewscreen at the squat, toad-like shape of the Russian freighter sitting on the tarmac. The ship had violated Indian airspace, phasing in without warning or clearance and claiming main drive failure. Klien had authorised landing and scrambled his team. In all likelihood the captain’s claim was genuine and the ship was damaged, but Klien was taking no risks.

He stepped into the elevator and rode to the ground floor. He smiled at his reflection in the polished steel door. Physically and facially he bore little resemblance to the young man who had left the world of Homefall almost fourteen years ago. He had lived indulgently over the years, dined well and overfed himself with the express purpose of gaining weight and radically changing his appearance. His face was padded with fat and he wore his hair in black, shoulder-length ringlets. He had taken bromides for the past ten years, both to suppress his sexual urges and so allow ultimate concentration on what was important in his life, and to change his appearance further. His team called him the Eunuch. He knew this because he had planted surveillance devices in their changing rooms. There was very little that happened at the port of which Ezekiel Klien was not aware.

Frazer was waiting for him outside the interrogation room.

“Have you got the crew out of the ship?”

Frazer nodded. “They’re waiting in quarantine, sir.”

“Good. Keep them there until I say so. And get the team aboard the Petrograd. I want the ship stripped and a full report in my terminal in one hour. Also, I want the flight program examined and relayed to me. That will be all.”

“Yes, sir.” Frazer saluted, something like fear and hatred in his eyes.

Klien’s draconian regime had paid dividends over the years. Security at the port was the envy of business organisations and governments. National and even colonial concerns had tried to lure him away from the job, tempting him with talk of fabulous wealth, but he had refused all offers. He had joined the port security staff with one aim in mind, and he did not intend to be distracted from that aim.

He touched the sensor on the door and stepped into the interrogation room.

Kozinsky was a big man in scarred radiation silvers. His hair was dishevelled and his face unshaven, and he stank. It was the peculiar body odour of men in a failing ship, the rank stench of fear and unwashed flesh.

“Klien, chief of security.”

Kozinsky stood quickly and held out a hand. “Vitaly Kozinsky, captain of the Petrograd.”

Klien ignored the hand. “Sit down, Captain.”

Kozinsky nodded, sat down uncomfortably. He was fidgety after too long in space. Klien could tell that he wanted to stand and stride about. Intuition told him that the man was almost certainly genuine, and not the ringleader of some anti-Indian faction out to bomb the port.

But Klien was not about to trust intuition. He remained standing, maintaining a psychological advantage over the seated spacer, and for the next hour fired a barrage of questions at the bemused Russian.

Kozinsky was a freelance spacer who would take any in-system job between the planets if the price was right; he was paid well to fly tubs that no other self-respecting spacer would go anywhere near. The Petrograd was an Earth-Mars cargo freighter of the Cosmoflot Line, on the return leg to Kazakhstan from Mars with a hold full of iron ore.

“Why did you choose to come down here, Captain? Surely you could have made it to Kazakhstan?”

“I tried, but there was no way we could have lasted.”

“Auxiliary engine failure?”

Kozinsky looked up. “No—main drive dysfunction.”

Klien smiled to himself. “And you came down on the auxiliaries?”

The captain nodded. “But we had trouble with those, too. I decided to land at the first port.”

Klien stared at the man, considering. “What we’ll do, Captain,” he said at last, “is contact Cosmoflot and arrange payment for repairs to the ship. You’ll be accommodated here in the meantime at your employer’s expense.”

He nodded briefly and left the room.

From time to time he liked to take a look around the ships himself, less to check the diligence of his team than to reacquaint himself with the interior of a void-going vessel. He left the tower and walked across the tarmac to the damaged Petrograd. A ramp gave access to a foul-smelling interior. More than just the drive had failed: the air system and ventilation had laboured to keep the atmosphere clean and breathable.

He made his way to the flight-deck and watched Frazer and the team at work, sensing their unease at his presence. He touched the back of the worn command couch, his gaze moving over the control console. Technology had moved on a lot over the years, since he had piloted the scout ship away from Homefall to Madrigal. He would be unable to pilot these more modern vessels, though he daily dreamed of returning to the planet of his birth, of appropriating a void-ship and heading away from the corruption and filth that was the Expansion.

He smiled to himself. A man needed his dreams.

“Frazer?”

The officer turned from examining the ship’s flight program, saluted. “Sir.”

“Your findings?”

“The system shows a routine Earth-Mars run, sir. Nothing untoward at all. There was a main drive dysfunction picked up by the on-board computers on initial orbital approach. The main drive shut down and they came in on the auxiliary system.”

Klien nodded. “Contact Cosmoflot for credit rating and have the crew transferred to temporary lodging.”

Klien left his team and crossed the tarmac to the security tower. Once back in his office he went through the flight programs of the many other ships occupying the holding berths and blast-pads across the port. Shortly after his appointment as chief of security, he had ordered the installation of a computer system that would enable him to check on the flight programs of every ship that used the port; he had also arranged a reciprocal facility with Security at Los Angeles spaceport, so that he could check on their ships too.

There was always the chance that his home planet had sent another ship after his own. He had to be ready for his fellow colonists in the event of their arrival, either to eliminate the crew should they be from the opposition, or to greet fellow members of the Council of Elders.

He had been waiting for such a long time now that he had almost given up hope. He had come to accept that he was stranded on Earth, an Earth corrupt beyond his ability to accept or to change.

For the rest of the afternoon, Klien processed routine security matters and studied Frazer’s report on thePetrograd. The ship was given a clean status and engineers were assigned to make the repairs. He filed a report to the director of the spaceport and considered his meeting with Ali Bhakor that night.

At four he got through to Bhakor, using the voice-only facility on his com-screen.

“Smith here,” Klien said. “I’m calling to finalise the arrangements.”

The screen showed Bhakor’s big face, beaded with perspiration in the heat of the day. “Why can’t I see you?” he rapped.

“I’m calling from a public kiosk,” Klien said. “It’s been vandalised.”

He had only ever met Bhakor once in the flesh, to give him the sample of the drug called slash in the hope that the dealer would want more. Then Klien had been effectively disguised.

Bhakor said, “Have you got the stuff?”

“A kilo of prime grade,” Klien assured him.

“Ah-cha. Where and when?”

“Tonight at eight. I’ve booked a room in your name at the Hindustan Plaza hotel. I’ll see you then.”

Bhakor nodded. “Ah-cha, Smith. I’ll be there.”

Klien cut the connection and sat back, exhaling with relief. He realised that his hands were shaking. His mouth was dry. He poured himself a glass of iced water and worked to control his breathing.

Days like today—and there had been many others in the past—were what made his life on Earth worthwhile—along with opera, of course. This evening, after he had dealt with Bhakor, he would take his box at the National Indian Opera Company and lose himself in the sublimity of Puccini. It would be his reward for making the world a safer place.

At six thirty he took the elevator down to the suite of rooms he used when he had to work a double shift. He showered and changed, wearing as always on these occasions the black suit he had bought on Madrigal fifteen years ago. It was tailored from sabline, the most expensive and exclusive suiting material in the entire Expansion, and looked as stylish now as it had on the day of its purchase. He had worn it at his confrontation with Quineau, all those years ago, and on every special occasion since.

He unlocked the wall-safe and collected the equipment he would be needing tonight, then left the tower and climbed into his Mercedes two-seater. He drove along the northern sector of the great Calcutta ring road with care and consideration for his fellow road users. That day’s monsoon downpour had been and gone, leaving the roads slick and shimmering. The sun was going down over the distant bay and the lights of the city were coming on. The great ad-screens moved across the dusk sky like aerial cinemas.

Just after seven he braked in the car-park of the Hindustan Plaza and met the manager and head of security in the foyer. They were courteous to the point of servility; it was not every day that Ezekiel Klien consented to advise a hotel on the maintenance of its security systems.

“Has the equipment been delivered?” he asked as he rode the elevator up to the third-floor conference room.

The manager nodded. “It’s set up and ready,” he said. “I can’t begin to tell you how delighted I am that you agreed—”

Klien turned him out. He might refuse commissions from world governments to advise them on security matters, but if an offer came along which he might turn to his own advantage, then he would graciously agree to lecture, even going so far as to donate his usual fee to charity.

The security and communications company Inter-Tech had offered him fabulous sums to promote their latest range of computer communication devices. Klien had initially turned down their offer, and then had seen a way he might benefit from the deal.

The hotel’s security team had followed his instructions to the letter. In a small room next to the conference room, accessible by a door which could be locked, a com-screen had been set up. The other was in the conference room itself.

Klien watched the room fill up with about thirty men and women from various companies in the city, along with the hotel’s own security staff. He smiled to himself. As well as supplying himself with a foolproof alibi tonight, he could be assured that the security team was otherwise engaged.

He was introduced by the manager and stood as applause filled the room.

“Thank you… please… As you know, I don’t usually accept invitations to endorse company products, but Inter-Tech’s latest range is in my opinion something very special… and I’d heard it rumoured that the hotel has one of the finest cellars in the sub-continent. To your good health.”

He raised his glass and sipped as polite laughter greeted his quip.

“Tonight I’d like to talk about the Inter-Tech Arrow 200 com-screen.”

For the next thirty minutes he sang the praises of the Arrow 200’s design features and technical specifications, the screen’s reliability and range, peppering the advertisement with anecdotes and personal accounts of his experience with other screens over the years. The audience listened with genuine interest.

At one point he glanced at his watch. It was just after eight. Ali Bhakor would be waiting for him on the fourth floor, room 180. It was time he was moving.

“But enough of the talk,” he said now. “I think it’s time for me actually to show the Arrow 200 in action. If you’ll bear with me for one moment…”

He left the stage and moved into the adjoining room, quietly locking the door behind him. He approached the com-screen and loaded the recording he had made the day before. He switched on the screen. In the conference room, he could hear his relayed voice saying: “Thank you for your patience. Now, I think you will agree with me that the clarity of both sound and vision…”

Heart hammering with the thrill of the risk, Klien pulled the fine net of fibre-optic capillaries from the inside pocket of his suit and drew the device over his head. In the same pocket was the activator. He fingered the touch-pad. Instantly he was aware of a haze of light in his vision. Seconds later his eyes adjusted, and he quickly slipped through the door to the corridor. To any casual observer he would no longer resemble Ezekiel Klien, but a man in his sixties with a hatchet-thin face and silver hair. The capillary net was, officially, still in its design stage. As chief of security at the spaceport, he had contacted a local software company and sponsored its manufacture. It was making his work a lot easier.

He hurried along the corridor to the elevator and ascended to the fourth floor. His heart was pounding at a rate he only ever experienced on nights such as these. He tried to calculate the risk. The only possible danger was if the recording on the com-screen developed a hitch—and what an irony that would be! The pre-recorded disc would last fifteen minutes, allowing him what he considered to be more than enough time to get to the fourth floor, deal with Bhakor, and return.

He knocked on the door of room 180, and seconds later it opened fractionally. A sliver of Bhakor’s dark face appeared. A blood-shot eye blinked at him. “Smith. Ah-cha. You have the slash?”

“Don’t worry,” Klien said, slipping into the room. He crossed the lounge and sat down.

Bhakor returned from closing the door and lowered himself into the opposite armchair.

Klien watched the man as he leaned forward nervously. It was always his main regret that he could not, before he despatched his victims, lecture them on the error of their ways, explain to them just why they had to die.

Bhakor was impatient. “You have the slash?”

Klien nodded. “Have you had a good life, Bhakor?” he said.

Bhakor blinked. “What? What do you—”

“Are you ready to meet the judgement of your god?”

Before Bhakor could react, Klien pulled the laser pistol from his inside pocket and fired at point-black range, the blast charcoaling the right side of the drug dealer’s head. He slumped back into the chair with a posthumous grunt. The flesh of his cheek was blackened and cracked and the stench of singed hair and pomade filled the room.

Klien stood and pulled a razor from his pocket. Carefully, with almost loving exactitude, he sliced a crucifix in the plump flesh of the dead man’s left cheek. Then he hurried from the room, filled with an exultation and joy at the knowledge that he was doing God’s duty and sanitising this terrible world.

Two minutes later he entered the small room on the third floor, pulled off his capillary net and waited five minutes for the recording to finish. He heard his voice from the next room: “…as I think you’ll agree. Thank you.”

He pocketed the disc, unlocked the door and stepped through to stirring applause. He took his place on the stage, faced the audience and smiled.

“Thank you. I can honestly say that I think that little display went very well. I, at least, am very pleased with the performance.”

He wound down the talk, replying to a few predictable questions and thanking all present for being a knowledgeable and appreciative audience.

He stayed behind briefly for drinks with the security team and selected guests. He made an appointment to visit the team and go through a few of the latest systems. He had to suppress a smile as he arranged a date with the head of security. He would certainly enjoy telling them what they should do in future to ensure that their guests were not murdered in their rooms. Surveillance cameras would, he thought, be a good start.

Thirty minutes later Klien excused himself, left the hotel and drove into Calcutta city centre. He parked outside the opera house five minutes before the performance was due to begin, ordered a drink from the bar and slipped into the comfortable seat of his private box high above the stage.

For the next two hours he put aside his consideration of the state of the planet and enjoyed the music. He had often wondered if his love of opera and his ability to kill were somehow linked. He thought that they might be. He was, after all, doing God’s bidding here on Earth, and it was as if his appreciation of the beauty of classical music was a gift from God, a reward, as it were, for services rendered.

As the music swelled, Klien smiled to himself.

Later that night, at home, he suffered another episode of his recurrent nightmare. He was back in a cavern far below ground and tall, grotesque aliens were performing their terrible ritual. This time, they were accompanied by the strains of Puccini’s La Bohème.

Klien sat up with a startled cry and fumbled for the light pad. The images vanished, along with the terrible sense of evil that always accompanied the dream, and his breathing gradually returned to normal.

Unable to sleep, he dressed and moved to his study. On the desk was the pile of pix he had left out the night before. He picked them up and stepped out on to the balcony. Spotlights in the garden illuminated the white cladding of his dwelling. Five years ago he had moved to one of the most exclusive areas of the city and bought a luxurious polycarbon house on Allahabad Marg—a scaled-down version of the Sydney Opera House. Kitsch, he knew, but at the same time appealing.

He sat on the lounger and shuffled through the pix. The first three showed a young Indian girl in a blue dress. She was perhaps eight or nine years old. The other three pix were computer-generated images, showing Sita Mackendrick as she might appear today, aged twenty-three.

He laid the pix aside with a sigh. He had come to Earth from Homefall almost fourteen years ago on a mission more important to him than his own existence, and so far he had failed.

His one hope, now, was if he could find the woman who was Sita Mackendrick.