Free Cosmopath by Eric Brown Page A

illnesses,
staff intent on their duties, but Sukara felt as if she were locked
into a wrap-around holodrama that meant nothing to her.
    Dr
Chang, a fat Chinese man in his sixties, had told Sukara his findings
after examining Li. He had gone over the facts, and then again,
accustomed to having to repeat himself to patients and loved ones in
shock. Li had leukaemia, Dr Chang had told Sukara; but with the
latest medical techniques available there was a seventy per cent
chance of Li making a full recovery in a matter of weeks.
    Then
Dr Chang had handed her on to an admin clerk, who had gone through a
lot of facts and figures about the various treatments and their
respective costs. What it boiled down to, though the clerk had not
said this in so many words, was that the higher the grade of hospital
care Sukara’s insurance cover could pay for, the greater Li’s
chance of survival. Her daughter’s life would only be assured
if she had the requisite funds to pay for her treatment.
    Numbed,
Sukara had allowed the clerk to download all the literature into her
handset, and told the woman that she’d contact the health
authorities when she’d discussed things with her husband.
    The
first thing she’d done on leaving the specialist’s office
had been to contact Jeff, but she’d been able only to blurt a
few words before breaking down and cutting the connection. Now she
wished she hadn’t bothered him. He was working on a murder
case, and for all she knew he might have been scanning when she
called. She wondered if that might be why he hadn’t called back
yet.
    Li
tugged her hand. “Pet shop now?â€

FOUR
    AN IRRESISTIBLE
OFFER
    That
morning, Vaughan had a lucid dream. It was a replay of the chase the
day before, and its aftermath. He was sitting in the bar, thinking
he’d shaken the Korth, when Sukara called him with the news
about Li. Then the jade-green alien was standing on the threshold and
this time, with the arbitrary revisionism of dreams, Vaughan watched
as the Korth killed the security woman with a single burst of its
pistol and turned to face him...
    He
cried out and sat up in bed, overwhelmed by the fact that had Sukara
not called him last night then the Korth would undoubtedly have
killed him.
    He
stared around the luxury hotel room, momentarily confused. The
floor-to-ceiling window looked out over stepped gardens, and beyond
them the vast expanse of the Bay of Bengal shimmered in the early
morning sun.
    Sukara
stirred beside him. She rubbed her eyes and smiled, and Vaughan
reached out and cupped her head. Even first thing in the morning,
even with the scar that bisected her face, she was beautiful. They
kissed.
    â€œJeff,â€

FIVE
    GUT FEAR
    Every
month Sukara took the girls to the Extraterrestrial Zoo on Level Two,
watching them as they moved in wonder from one alien habitat to the
next. Usually she was as excited as the girls, but today she was
unable to summon the enthusiasm as the girls shrieked and pointed at
one bizarre creature after another. She thought of Jeff, somewhere
above her at the spaceport, meeting with the big-shot billionaire
voidline owner. No doubt the tycoon could help them out financially,
but what might the man want from Jeff that he was willing to pay to
save the life of a girl he had never met?
    The
reappearance of Dr Rao after so many years had brought back a slew of
painful memories. Six years ago Sukara had arrived on the Station
looking for her sister, Tiger, who had left Thailand hoping to make a
new life for herself. Instead she had fallen into the clutches of Dr
Rao, who had amputated her left leg and sent her onto the streets to
beg for a living. Rao lived with 200 kids on a crashed starship
welded into position between Levels Twelve and Thirteen, and he liked
to think of himself as an altruist, the benefactor without whom the
streets kids would be subject to the jungle laws of the streets.
Sukara still