He got through to Control at Calcutta spaceport. “Ah, Bennett here. Mackendrick/Cobra/7-55.”
A tinny voice replied in the ear-piece of his flight helmet. “Ah-cha, Mackendrick/Cobra. You are cleared to land. Please copy these co-ordinates…”
For the next five minutes, as the Cobra roared over northern India, Bennett programmed the approach flight-path in the Cobra, then lay back and closed his eyes. His effective involvement in the process of bringing the Cobra to Earth was over.
Twelve hours ago he had awoken for the second time from suspension and climbed from the unit, shaking off images of bloated gas giants, alien statues and militia racing across the purple plain towards him. He had showered and eaten, bringing his body slowly back to life. When the ship phased from the void he had been greeted by a distant vision of Redwood Station, the dozen industrial orbitals winking silver in the sunlight, and he had to smile to himself. It seemed a long time since he had worked there; in real time it was over eight months ago, subjectively something like a week, though to Bennett it felt like years.
He had instructed the ship’s navigation system to program itself a return trajectory, from Earth to Penumbra, ready for indefinite inception.
He considered Penumbra and the people he had left behind. Hopefully by now Ten Lee’s leg wound would have healed and she would be up and walking. And Mackendrick? He had seemed well when Bennett left him with the rebels, but he had an amazing ability to hide the extent of his illness. Nearly four months had elapsed, and it would be at least another four months before he returned. Mackendrick had been given just one year to live, but that had been ten or eleven months ago, now.
He contemplated what Quineau had told Mackendrick, all those years ago. Was it possible that the Ancients had survived in an underground chamber, that they were in possession of some arcane healing lore? It sounded, he admitted to himself, like the stuff of legend. Only when he located the softscreen, and the rebels traced the underground chamber for themselves, would the truth be known.
The ship began the long deceleration burn as it came in on an oblique trajectory towards Calcutta spaceport. In a matter of hours he would be in the city, attempting to locate the softscreen with the help of Hupcka’s receiver. Of course, the screen might be anywhere on Earth, and even if he did locate it, it might not be so easily recoverable.
A voice sounded in his ear: “Mackendrick/Cobra receiving.”
“Ah-cha. Landing clearance, check. Mechanical maintenance and resupply authorised by Mackendrick Foundation, check. We will ready Cobra for immediate turn-around as requested. Ah, security will need to board ship for routine inspection. Also, they will need to interview you immediately after touchdown.”
“Fine by me, Control.”
“Ah-cha. Safe landing, Mackendrick/Cobra.”
Through the sidescreen Bennett looked down on the vast sprawling conurbation of outer Calcutta, sunlit beneath wisps of low-lying cloud. He seemed to take long minutes to fly over the city, a vast inland spread of crowded grey concrete. The Cobra banked north, tilting Bennett for a better view of the Ganges delta and the shimmering Bay of Bengal beyond.
The spaceport came into sight, the small shapes of other craft climbing slowly into space. The ship rattled as it decelerated and dropped steeply, giving Bennett a fullscreen view of the wide tarmac apron pocked with blast-rings and stationary ships.
The Cobra levelled out and slowed dramatically, hovering for seconds on its vertical boosters. Bennett watched the control tower and terminal building rise around the ship as it came in to land with a loud impact of stanchions, a diminuendo of engines, and then a sudden and startling silence.
He pulled off his helmet and unstrapped himself from the couch, feeling the tug of the Earth’s gravity as he walked from the flight-deck. He collected the holdall containing his scant possessions and palmed the sensor to lower the ramp and open the exit hatch.
He was greeted with the stench of India: dust and dung, the waft of spices. Strange, alien cries reached him from port workers, the engineers and grease monkeys swarming over the ship like parasites. A squad of blue-uniformed security officials was already striding up the ramp, pushing past him without greeting or acknowledgement before the hatch was fully open.
At the foot of the ramp stood a tall, overweight man in a similar blue uniform, his arms crossed over his chest. He wore his black hair in ringlets, tied back from a plump face glistening with sweat in the heat of the Indian sun.
“Bennett, isn’t it? Welcome to India. Please excuse the haste of my team—pressure of work, as I’m sure you’ll understand. I’m the chief of security here at the port. If you could spare ten minutes of your time, I’d like to ask a few routine questions. This is purely a formality I go through with all unscheduled landings. If you’d care to come this way.”
Touching the warm oval of the receiver in the pocket of his flight-suit, Bennett followed the perspiring security chief across the tarmac to the control tower. A ten-minute formality he hoped was all it would be; he was more than a little impatient to begin his search.
They entered a small room looking out over the port, furnished with comfortable sofas and chairs. The security chief gestured Bennett to sit, and he sank back into a ridiculously padded sofa. The officer himself elected to perch on the arm of a nearby chair, establishing a positional superiority. He glanced down at the com-board in his right hand. With his free hand he mopped his face with a red bandanna.
“You’ve come a long way, Mr Bennett.” He indicated his screen. “All the way from the Rim. Do you mind describing the nature of your flight?”
Bennett wanted nothing more than to get away from here. He would answer the questions quickly—and lie, of course.
“Exploration,” he said. “I work for the Mackendrick Foundation and I was prospecting a number of outlying systems for the usual mineral deposits.”
“Alone? Without even a co-pilot?”
“The Cobra’s a good ship,” Bennett said, and added, “and I’m a good pilot. I didn’t need a co-pilot.”
“No doubt. But you would agree with me, wouldn’t you, that solo flights so far out are a little unusual?”
Bennett shook his head. There was something about the chief of security that he didn’t like, a presumed familiarity beyond the call of duty. “I see nothing unusual in it at all. Many ships these days are flown solo.”
“Then perhaps I’m behind the times. Tell me, which systems were you prospecting on the Rim?”
“I looked at three systems in the G5 sector.”
“And you found?”
Bennett returned his stare, considering his reply. “That information is confidential and between myself and my employers.”
“Of course.” The officer waved a feigned apology. “You discovered no habitable planets?” His smile showed that the question was intended as his little joke.
Bennett played along. “Unfortunately not.”
“And you have returned to Earth for what reasons?”
“To report to my employers with my findings.”
The officer nodded, stood and moved to a com-screen on a desk in the corner of the room. He considered the screen for a minute, lips pursed.
He looked up. “My team informs me that the Cobra is programmed for a return flight to the G5 sector.”