Bengal Station Omnibus by Eric Brown

Author:Eric Brown
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Bengal Station
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

PREMONITIONS

Sukara routed the scan from her handset to the screen in the lounge and sat, fascinated, watching her baby.

What amazed her was the fact of its perfection. From next to nothing, or rather from microscopically small seeds, the girl had evolved into this—a pink, almost translucent, miniature human being floating in its amniotic universe, knees drawn up, hands waving about its head. Without Jeff, she thought, this wouldn't have been possible. She tried to think of life without the man she loved, and the thought, like the thought of death, terrified her. He was so vast a part of her existence that she would be nothing without him. Everything she did, her every action and thought, was in some way influenced by Jeff Vaughan, and far from being restricted by this, she felt liberated. For so many years she had been alone, with no one dependant on her; now Jeff loved her, and told her so in so many ways, and he filled her thoughts with happiness.

And lately, thanks to Jeff, she had had Li to think of too. It was amazing, but the child was not yet born and she was already planning the future—or rather not so much planning, but daydreaming of Li at one year old, at three, and then five. The other day, over coffee, she had even found herself thinking ahead to when Li would be sixteen, and going off to study at university.

With such pleasant notions, however, came the reverse: the nagging worry every parent was beset by when thinking of the future. Fear for her child's welfare, its health, its well-being in a world full of cynical and grasping people.

For the past few days Sukara had been visited by vague feelings of despair, indefinable but real. It was as if some terrible event in her future was reaching back to inform her, to warn her to be mentally prepared. She could not tell if this terrible event would befall her—if she were to die in some awful way: and even then, she was not fearful for herself, but could only think of Jeff, without her. Or whether something was going to happen to Li, or to Jeff. She had never had such feelings in the past, which made these ones all the more disturbing. Everything in her life was so good, too good: how could someone be so lucky and not suffer the consequences?

The door that gave straight onto the outer corridor sighed open, sliding into the wall, and Jeff stood in the opening, smiling tiredly at her. He stepped inside and she launched herself into his arms. "Hey," he laughed.

And she found herself weeping against his chest. "I'm so happy," she said.

He stroked her hair. "Watching Li again?"

She laughed. They had sat in the sunken sofa last night, with a bottle of wine, running the scan of their daughter over and over. She had found something different to be fascinated with on each run through, some particular movement, expression, the utter perfection of the unborn child.

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