![Cosmopath - [Bengal Station 03]](/res/aob/book1.jpg)
flier and entered the reception lounge.
There were perhaps fifty people milling about inside. Drone waiters and humans circulated with trays bearing drinks and snacks. People stood in small groups, chatting casually. Most of them wore the Organisation uniform, green denoting Chandrasakar’s scientific staff, blue security, and red the ship’s crew - the various pilots, co-pilots, engineers and catering staff. Parveen noted very little colour mix: each specialism preferring the company of their own.
“Come, I’ll introduce you.”
He led her across to the far side of the lounge where three groups of scientists were talking shop; when Chandrasakar arrived, they turned as one and merged to form a larger group, smiling at the tycoon and conferring the same, though tempered by curiosity, on Parveen.
Rab introduced her as one of the world’s leading xenologists as they moved around the group. The scientists were unfailingly polite, but behind the amity, the smiles and witticisms, she noted a few raised eyebrows at the pairing of the world’s richest businessman and a scientist from communist India.
She returned their pleasantries; she wanted to access her tele-ability and read what these people were really thinking about her. They would be shielded - being employees of the Chandrasakar Organisation - but she suspected that her viral software would be sufficient to overcome their guards. She decided that there would be plenty of time to probe during the coming days.
Chandrasakar introduced her to a loud, rangy Australian with a mop of red hair, David McIntosh, and a diminutive Japanese woman who could have passed as a twelve-year-old schoolgirl, Kiki Namura. Her interest piqued, Parveen fell into conversation with the pair. They were, if her controller Anish Lahore was correct, FNSA plants. She would probe them later, to see what their friendly, open personas were concealing.
She talked to them about their specialisms - McIntosh was a geologist, Namura a biologist - and guessed that they were more than just friends; something about their body language, the mirror gestures and the looks they gave each other when the other was talking, suggested recent intimacy. She wondered if she and Rab were so transparent.
“What are you hoping to find on Delta Cephei VII, Dr Das?” Namura asked, with the odd breathless intonation of her race. “According to the reports, the planet is uninhabited.”
She nodded. “I’m along for the ride,” she said. “More as an... observer, let’s say. And you never know-” she twinkled a smile at the minuscule Japanese woman, “we might come across some little green men.”
McIntosh boomed a laugh and raised his beer at her.
Chandrasakar took her elbow and moved her on.
A group of a dozen blue-uniformed men and women moved to accommodate her and Rab into their midst. They were abstaining from alcohol and sipped juices instead.
Rab singled out a giant Sikh and introduced him. “Anil Singh, my head of security.”
Singh was tall and proportionally broad, with shoulders like yokes and pectorals almost obscenely defined by his shrink-wrapped uniform.
He enclosed her hand in his, and she thought that the slightest pressure would crunch her metacarpal bones. He smiled and inclined his turbaned head, but his brown eyes lacked the slightest civility.
I don’t like this man, she thought; and something told her that the sentiment was mutual. She wondered at his reserve, though it wasn’t that difficult to work out. He suspected her, firstly, for her political affiliations and, secondly, for her intimacy with his boss: Chandrasakar had said on more than one occasion that Singh was his most loyal employee, who’d served the organisation for more than twenty years.
“I trust you won’t have a lot on your hands during this mission, Mr Singh,” she smiled.
He replied coldly, “We must be most vigilant at times when
There were perhaps fifty people milling about inside. Drone waiters and humans circulated with trays bearing drinks and snacks. People stood in small groups, chatting casually. Most of them wore the Organisation uniform, green denoting Chandrasakar’s scientific staff, blue security, and red the ship’s crew - the various pilots, co-pilots, engineers and catering staff. Parveen noted very little colour mix: each specialism preferring the company of their own.
“Come, I’ll introduce you.”
He led her across to the far side of the lounge where three groups of scientists were talking shop; when Chandrasakar arrived, they turned as one and merged to form a larger group, smiling at the tycoon and conferring the same, though tempered by curiosity, on Parveen.
Rab introduced her as one of the world’s leading xenologists as they moved around the group. The scientists were unfailingly polite, but behind the amity, the smiles and witticisms, she noted a few raised eyebrows at the pairing of the world’s richest businessman and a scientist from communist India.
She returned their pleasantries; she wanted to access her tele-ability and read what these people were really thinking about her. They would be shielded - being employees of the Chandrasakar Organisation - but she suspected that her viral software would be sufficient to overcome their guards. She decided that there would be plenty of time to probe during the coming days.
Chandrasakar introduced her to a loud, rangy Australian with a mop of red hair, David McIntosh, and a diminutive Japanese woman who could have passed as a twelve-year-old schoolgirl, Kiki Namura. Her interest piqued, Parveen fell into conversation with the pair. They were, if her controller Anish Lahore was correct, FNSA plants. She would probe them later, to see what their friendly, open personas were concealing.
She talked to them about their specialisms - McIntosh was a geologist, Namura a biologist - and guessed that they were more than just friends; something about their body language, the mirror gestures and the looks they gave each other when the other was talking, suggested recent intimacy. She wondered if she and Rab were so transparent.
“What are you hoping to find on Delta Cephei VII, Dr Das?” Namura asked, with the odd breathless intonation of her race. “According to the reports, the planet is uninhabited.”
She nodded. “I’m along for the ride,” she said. “More as an... observer, let’s say. And you never know-” she twinkled a smile at the minuscule Japanese woman, “we might come across some little green men.”
McIntosh boomed a laugh and raised his beer at her.
Chandrasakar took her elbow and moved her on.
A group of a dozen blue-uniformed men and women moved to accommodate her and Rab into their midst. They were abstaining from alcohol and sipped juices instead.
Rab singled out a giant Sikh and introduced him. “Anil Singh, my head of security.”
Singh was tall and proportionally broad, with shoulders like yokes and pectorals almost obscenely defined by his shrink-wrapped uniform.
He enclosed her hand in his, and she thought that the slightest pressure would crunch her metacarpal bones. He smiled and inclined his turbaned head, but his brown eyes lacked the slightest civility.
I don’t like this man, she thought; and something told her that the sentiment was mutual. She wondered at his reserve, though it wasn’t that difficult to work out. He suspected her, firstly, for her political affiliations and, secondly, for her intimacy with his boss: Chandrasakar had said on more than one occasion that Singh was his most loyal employee, who’d served the organisation for more than twenty years.
“I trust you won’t have a lot on your hands during this mission, Mr Singh,” she smiled.
He replied coldly, “We must be most vigilant at times when
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