Xenopath - [Bengal Station 02] Read Online Free PDF Page A

just like that? And an apartment?”
     
    “Why not? I can work hard and save money.”
     
    He was shaking his head. “Things are hard up here,” he said. “It isn’t like in the movies. Kids can’t get good jobs, only begging.” He paused, thinking, then said, “Where will you sleep tonight?”
     
    She’d already decided that rather than spend money on a hotel room, she would sleep in a park on Level Two. “Ketsuwan Park,” she told him.
     
    He was shaking his head like a wise old man. “Dangerous. Bad men go to the parks, looking for kids.”
     
    She peered at him through her fringe. “They do?”
     
    “Murder them for baht, sometimes do other things. Look,” he went on, “why don’t you come with me? I’ll show you the ship, introduce you to Dr Rao. He’ll let you stay for a couple of nights.”
     
    “He won’t try to make me beg for him?” she asked.
     
    The boy looked away, shrugging. “Well, he might ask. But you can always say you’ve got a job.”
     
    “I don’t know...”
     
    “So come with me and look at the ship, ah-cha? It really is amazing.”
     
    She still didn’t believe him, but she nodded anyway.
     
    “Great!” He held out his right hand. “I’m Abdul.”
     
    “Pham,” she told him, shaking his hand very formally and laughing. Abdul might be a big liar, but there was something about him which she liked.
     
    “Follow me! We’ll cut across the upper deck and I’ll show you a few things on the way!”
     
    He scooted into the crowd, pushing aside bodies, and Pham gave chase.
     
    They crossed the crowded street and came to a crossroads, and Pham found herself holding Abdul’s hand, frightened of losing him in the crush.
     
    “Tell you what,” he shouted in her ear as an air-car screamed low overhead. “We’ll go to Kandalay by train. We’ll see the spaceport then. You ever seen the spaceport?”
     
    “No.” She shook her head. “Only on holo-vision. Where’s Kandalay?”
     
    “Central Station. There’s a big amusement park there, only it’s closed down now. From Kandalay we’ll take a ladder right down to the spaceship.”
     
    The spaceship, again. He really was trying to make her believe that he lived in a crash-landed spaceship!
     
    He dragged her across the street towards the Chandi Road railway station and bought two tickets at the kiosk. A minute later Pham found herself sucked aboard a carriage with what seemed like a million other citizens.
     
    Abdul pulled her along the corridor to a window. They pressed their faces against the glass and stared out as the train pulled from the station.
     
    The sun was going down, making a big red sky in the west. “Look!” Abdul cried with excitement.
     
    Pham gasped. A massive voidliner was coming in over the sea, a dark shape against the sunset, its lighted viewscreens showing the crew going about their business inside. Pham wondered what it must be like to be a spacer, to see all the wonderful alien worlds out there.
     
    The train rattled past the spaceport, and Pham stared down across the apron at the dozens of ships lined up in neat rows. They were all shapes and sizes and colours, and Pham decided that when she earned her first wage on the upper level she would find a shop that sold model spaceships and buy one.
     
    The train pulled away from the spaceport and passed a massive park, with acres and acres of grass and big trees, and families walking back and forth in the twilight. Pham saw a girl of about her age, holding hands with her mother and father, and she felt a moment of sadness and a swift stab of jealousy.
     
    “Himachal Park,” Abdul was saying. “It’s the biggest park on the Station. Two square kilometres!”
     
    Pham just nodded.
     
    “Are you okay?” Abdul looked at her, concerned.
     
    “I’m fine. Do you really live on a spaceship?”
     
    Abdul slapped his cheek. “I swear, Pham! You’ll see... Okay, we get off at the next stop.”
     
    They squirmed their way