One day, begging on the streets, she had caught sight of her mother through the window of an expensive restaurant, and this vision of a rich, sophisticated woman inhabiting another world had made her realise how right she had been to get away.
Now, Rana sat up, dislodging Vandita, and stared out into the darkness. That day her mother had been with another man, not her husband. The man had seemed to be comforting her. Her mother had been weeping, and he had reached out and touched her hand.
The man, Rana thought now, looked very much like the computer-generated image of the killer from Madrigal—but then so did many other handsome, dark-haired Westerners. She knew that the similarity in this case had to be a coincidence. She lay back and closed her eyes.
She had lived with the street-kids for four years—the last year spent under this very bridge—until begging for food became more difficult: people were reluctant to give money to older children, who they thought should be working for a living. Some of her friends had drifted into prostitution, but Rana had seen how abused these kids were, how their pimps took most of their money and their customers beat them.
One day Rana had read an advertisement requesting students to sit a police academy examination. Thinking only of the rupees she might one day earn, Rana had bought forged high-school certificates and enrolled. To her amazement she had passed the examination, and one year later began working as Calcutta’s only Child Welfare officer. For eight years she had worked to improve the conditions of the kids who made the streets their home, give them skills, in some cases professions, so that when they reached puberty they might find other means than prostitution to earn a wage.
Rana lay on the mattress beside Vandita. She was ten again, and living on the streets… She wondered where those kids were now, her friends for brief months or years. They had all grown up and drifted apart, in adulthood. She considered these children her friends, now.
Rana smiled to herself and wondered what some casual observer might make of the tableau, as she drifted to sleep beside Vandita and the other kids in the fading glow of the brazier.
11
Bennett and Ten Lee loaded the transporter with provisions and scientific equipment, Mackendrick supervising. He seemed to have gained strength since landfall, after the rigours of suspension. He was moving more easily, restored to his old ebullient self, as if looking forward to the exploration of Penumbra.
Bennett packed the containers of food on the flat-bed. Ten Lee fastened the inflatable dome with polycarbon ties and Mackendrick checked that the water canisters were full. At last they stood beside the cab of the vehicle, preparatory to driving from the Cobra’s hold. Bennett let out a breath; the gravity of Penumbra was slightly higher than on Earth, and the effort of loading the transporter had tired him. He felt the tug of the planet’s gravity pull on his entrails, making his limbs heavy and sluggish.
“We’ll need these as a precaution,” Mackendrick said, handing out facial masks. “The air’s breathable, but we won’t know about any possible dangerous microorganisms until the tests come in.”
Bennett took his mask and slipped it over his nose and mouth, feeling it seal itself to his skin like something alive. Mackendrick and Ten Lee did likewise.
Mackendrick opened a container on the side of the truck and passed a short, bulky rifle to Bennett. “Pulsers, for our protection.” His voice was muffled by the mask.
Ten Lee regarded Mackendrick, declining to take the rifle he held towards her. “Why do we need weapons?”
Mackendrick sighed. “We don’t know what’s out there, Ten. It’s merely a precaution.”
She shook her head, her eyes watching Mackendrick above her mask. “I could not bring myself to kill.”
Bennett said, “They’re pulsers, Ten. You can turn down the charge to stun. Look.” He adjusted the slide on his own weapon.
Her eyes pulled into a dubious frown, Ten Lee took the rifle from Mackendrick and pushed the slide down to its lowest setting.
“We’ll take it in turns to drive,” Mackendrick said. “Anybody for first shift?”
Bennett volunteered and climbed into the driving seat. Mackendrick sat beside him, plugging a com-board into the console on the dash. On a command from Mackendrick, the hatch of the cargo hold slowly lowered, forming a ramp.
A plain of purple grass stretched away from the ship, bejewelled with the result of the storm: diadems of captured rain-water scintillated in the half-light of Tenebrae, the gas giant, turning the grass into a shimmering, sequinned haze.
Bennett fired the engine and edged the vehicle forward, down the ramp and across the purple plain. The atmosphere of Penumbra invaded the cab, increasing the temperature with its cloying, sticky humidity.
The mountains on either side came into view, and Bennett made out the monstrous bulk of Tenebrae. It had risen since his first glimpse of it at landfall, and he had to tip his head back to stare through the clear roof of the transporter at the great bulging underbelly of the giant. There was something almost impossible about its vastness, like an optical illusion the brain knows to be a fact and yet cannot visually accommodate.
Mackendrick tapped the com-board with a gnarled finger. “This is our present position, this the location of the possible settlement, and the red line is our intended route.” The com-board showed a computer-simulated aerial view of the mountains and the central plain, and the flashing points denoted the transporter and the settlement. All Bennett had to do was keep the first flashing light on the red line. “It’s merely a case of following the lie of the valley plain,” Mackendrick said.
Their destination was just under three hundred kilometres distant. The com-board told them that at their present speed of thirty kilometres an hour, they would reach the settlement in approximately ten hours.
“But that doesn’t take into account stops we might make,” Mackendrick added. “I want to get out from time to time, see if there’s any evidence of habitation. Also, it’ll be getting dark in five hours. We’ll stop and pitch camp, prepare a meal and grab a night’s sleep.”
Shortly after landfall, Bennett had studied the original probe’s astronomical report on the characteristics of Penumbra. The planet was unique. It turned on its. axis in just sixteen hours, creating two fairly regular periods of night and day. The main source of light was that provided by Tenebrae, both the steady glow of its superheated gas and a more fitful illumination created by the electrical storms which raged in its upper atmosphere. The system was part of a stellar binary; the light of the major sun never reached Penumbra, hidden as it was behind the bulk of Tenebrae. A distant sun provided Penumbra with a secondary source of light, so that even during the night, when the planet turned away from Tenebrae, the minor sun would ensure that Penumbra was not in total darkness.
From time to time, as the belly of the gas giant overhead coruscated with storms, light pulsed across the surface of land around the transporter. The purple plain brightened perceptibly, and the shadows of rocks and plants fell in darker relief.
At one point Ten Lee pointed at something. “Look…”