Read Cosmopath - [Bengal Station 03] for Free Online

couple of days ago Chandrasakar had zipped a message to her handset: That trip to the stars, Parveen... are you still interested?
     
    She said now, “He suggested I come along.”
     
    “And will you take up this most generous invitation?”
     
    She smiled. “What do you think?”
     
    He beamed. “Wonderful. I’m sure the trip will be more than worthwhile, on many levels.”
     
    She laughed at her controller’s lack of tact. “What do you want, Anish?”
     
    “Mr Chandrasakar is embarking upon an expedition to Delta Cephei VII,” he said. “It isn’t an established colony.” He produced a data-pin from his desk. “There’s more about the background of the planet in here. Digest and destroy, Parveen. Among his team, so far, are a pair called...” He leaned forwards and peered at the screen on his desk. “Dr Kiki Namura and Dr David McIntosh, a biologist and a geologist respectively. Now, Mr Chandrasakar doesn’t know this - his security is shamefully lax - but they’re both embedded spies, working for the Federated Northern States of America. I’d like you to keep an eye on them - you know the routine. Also, Chandrasakar is in the process of hiring the services of another telepath, one Jeff Vaughan. He has no affiliations. He is what they call in the business a loose cannon, and they can be dangerous, Parveen. If you could ascertain his loyalties and the like...” he beamed, “that would be splen-did.”
     
    She nodded. “I’ll do my best, Anish,” she said.
     
    He went on, “We have a cloaked voidship in the vicinity. I want you to report to the ship with whatever you find on Delta Cephei VII. Also, if things become difficult down there, and your cover is compromised, then the same ship will be on hand to effect your evacuation. The data-pin contains the ship’s code.”
     
    She took the pin and slipped it into an inner pocket.
     
    “And,” he finished, “I wish you every enjoyment in your... assignations with your bourgeois paramour. I can rely on you not to allow your heart to overrule that considerable intellect, can’t I?”
     
    “Anish, how long have I been working for the party?”
     
    “Ex-cellent!” He clapped his hands before his bulging belly and beamed at her as she rose.
     
    “I shall be in touch, my dear,” he said. “Bon voyage, as they say.”
     
    She smiled and took her leave, dropped to the street and decided to walk home rather than hail a taxi.
     
    On the way through avenues crowded with street-vendors and performers - snake charmers with extraterrestrial eels, the latest fad - she considered Anish, and how she might handle the mission he’d handed her. For years she’d managed to walk the tightrope between party loyalty and her own interests, and she didn’t want to fall off the high-wire now. She knew what she felt for the party, and for Chandrasakar... and recently she’d woken in the early hours, sweating, caught on the horns of what she considered an ethical dilemma.
     
    So far, she’d let her heart rule her head - pushing aside her objections to her lover’s politics - but how long might that be able to continue before she allowed her position to be compromised?
     
    She felt sick at the thought and pushed it to the back of her mind.
     
    * * * *
     
    Later, she would come to the realisation that she owed her life to the fact that her handset pinged as she was passing her favourite restaurant, the Montaz. She subscribed to a channel that filtered news stories dealing with telepaths to her handset. She glanced at the screen - read that a third telepath had been murdered on Bengal Station - saw that she was passing the Montaz and decided rather than go to the bother of cooking for herself she’d have an aloo dhal and a beer while reading about the latest killing.
     
    She found a table beside the window, ordered, and called up the story on her screen.
     
    A telepath called Patel had been killed while investigating a murder case for the