Different Senses (18 page)

“I’ll allow you to give me a
lift to my office. I’ll give you the information on the way.”

I snorted at his cheek,
and stood. Roshni-ji turned her blind gaze up to me. “Javen,
matos
is a
talent in which you should be trained. Should you wish it, I’d be
happy to give you that training.”

“
Muor
, why waste your time on this
guko?”

“Shardul, it’s my time to
waste.”

I ignored Shardul’s glare as I
answered his aunt. “Roshni-ji, I’d be honoured to be trained by
you. And to listen to you speak more about your beliefs, if you
feel you wish to.”

“I’d like that, Javen. Very
much.”

Shardul muttered
“
Guko
” under his breath. “I need to go. Ythen?”

I expected him to call a taxi
once we were outside but instead he indicated with a jerk of his
head that we were to walk. “Nice act you put on for her, but you
don’t fool me.”

“
Your aunt’s an
empath,
beto
. She can tell if anyone’s
trying to kid her, and I wasn’t.”

“
Oh, you probably believe
you’ve suddenly become this enlightened pro-indigenous
chuma
, but
I know your kind. I’ll be waiting for you to trip up and show your
true colours. Your type always do. Hear this, Ythen. There is more
to
udawa
than symbols and rituals and teachings. There is more to
the people of the Spirit than the belief, and the history. You’ll
never understand us, unless you live with us, work with us, suffer
with us, and you can’t suffer with us because you are Kelon and you
look Kelon. This is an amusing pastime for you. My aunt has given
her whole life to the service of our people and the Spirit, as have
I. There is no point of commonality between us, no
comparison.”

I sucked in my teeth. “So, no
chance of a shag, then?”

“Not if you were the last man
in the universe.”

I grinned. I’d caught him off
guard and he didn’t like that at all. “So what about this
list?”

“In my office.”

“
Aren’t you worried about
being seen with a
chuma
?”

“My job requires me to consort
with low lives from time to time.”

“You never give up, do
you?”

He turned to me and sneered.
“No, I do not. And I do not change my mind about people either.
You’ve been tagged, bagged and shelved, Ythen.”

“Good to know.”

His office was a good
kilometre from his aunt’s house, right on the edge of the
banis
neighbourhood. Not that far from the central courthouse,
which made sense. “You live upstairs?”

“Yes. And that’s as much as
you’ll ever know. I don’t date outside my species.”

“Whoa. Your aunt got all the
decency in your family, didn’t she?”

“Yes, pretty much. Come
in.”

I’d been in a few
lawyers’ offices over the years, so I don’t know why it surprised
me that Shardul’s wasn’t that different from the others I’d seen.
He spoke to two of his clerks on the way through, collecting what
were clearly messages, and beckoned me towards an inner door.
His
banis
staff discreetly checked me out, but were either too well
trained or too intimidated to stare openly. I couldn’t blame them
for their suspicion, even a little anxiety. I smiled brightly and
tried not to look too scary.

“Sri Ythen, if you don’t
mind.”

Shardul held his office door
open with barely disguised disdain. I slipped through and took a
seat without waiting for him to offer it. “You the only lawyer
here?”

“No. I asked you here because I
have to breach a sacred trust, and the least I owe my aunt is not
to involve her in that.”

“
You’re going to tell me
what the
monuwel
is.”

“
Yes.” And boy, did it
make him unhappy to do so. “If you
ever
reveal what I tell you to
another living soul, I will hunt you down, cut out your liver, and
make you eat it. Do you understand?”

“Oooh, you make me all hot when
you talk dirty like that.”

He rolled his eyes. “This is
just a joke to you.”

“
No, it’s not, but you’re
being deliberately insulting. My job is about secrets. I know stuff
that would curl those pretty braids. I bet I hear more shit than
even you do. I don’t talk, ever. I don’t understand your religion
and I’d be lying if I said I take any of that stuff seriously, but
I respect its importance to your people. I like Roshni-ji and I’d
never hurt her. Besides, I know about six
udawathei
all up. Who the
hell would I tell?”

He gritted his teeth. He
wasn’t exaggerating how hard it was to trust me. “There are three
objects of profound significance to
udawa
. All of them are believed
to have been made by the Seeker of the Spirit himself when he was
last incarnated. We believe that one of the ways we’ll recognise
the Seeker when he is reincarnated once more, as he inevitably will
be, is that he will ask for these objects, the
gatha
, by name. One,
the
monuwel
, is his drinking cup. The second is the
sawret
,
his shirt. The third is the
guzmei
, his pouch. My aunt is one
of the three keepers of the
gatha
. The role is passed from
incarnation of each keeper to incarnation, and the stigmata of the
reincarnated keeper is—”

“Blindness.”

“Yes. Not just blindness, but
blindness in that form. It’s very rare, and considered a mark of
the Spirit.”

“Is that why you don’t get the
disability cured? Not because you can’t afford the prostheses?”

His lip curled in disdain. “We
don’t consider it a disability. The keepers can have prostheses
implanted or not, as they choose. Some choose not to, as my aunt
did not. They consider the blindness bestows other benefits.”

Wow. Very crazy. “Okay, so that
explains why none of your people would rob your aunt.”

“
Yes. She couldn’t tell
you because even talking to close relatives about it is frowned on,
though often inevitable for many reasons. Telling an unbeliever
about it is unthinkable. I’m only telling
you
because retrieving
the
monuwel
is more important than keeping this
secret.”

“I won’t tell anyone, I swear.
But still—you know, Sohan knows. What if relatives of previous
keepers were a bit careless with private knowledge? It’s possible,
right?”

He wrinkled his elegant
nose. “Unfortunately, yes. I’ve been able to find no trace of this,
but I can’t deny it could have happened. The interest in the
udawathei’s
‘magical’ powers has been intense since the second wave of
colonisation. The first colonists, having their own religion,
scorned such ideas.”

“
Okay. Well, at least I
know what I’m looking for, and what to use as a hook. The
other
gatha
are safe?”

“Yes.”

“But if I were to say I had
access to one or other....”

“You could hook your fish. But
they’re very big fish, Ythen.”

He opened a drawer in his desk
and drew out a folded sheet of paper, which he handed over. It was
handwritten, in a surprisingly beautiful script too. I scanned the
list. “Whoa. You’re not joking.”

“I never am. If you wave bait
under the noses of people like this, you had better be prepared to
reel them in fast. People are often prepared to commit violence to
obtain objects of value to them. I have reason to believe these men
are definitely not exceptions to the rule. If you use your
relative’s name...you could be exposing her to danger.”

“Even on Kelon?”

“Especially on Kelon.”

Cursed
insanity.
“Thanks for the warning.
Surprised you care about a
chuma
you’ll never
meet.”

“
Even though your people
are ignorant of the Seeker’s teachings, the Spirit created you and
all that you see around you, though I wish it had been seen fit to
make you all
udawatha
.”

“Bit of a theological conundrum
for you, isn’t it? Spend a lot of time thinking about them?”

“Hardly any. I’ve done what I
asked you here for. Now leave. I expect regular reports.”

“
Sure. But one thing—if
someone outside your community knows about the
gatha
, and your
aunt
was
targeted, then the other keepers could be at risk.
Especially since they’ve all got that handy identification.” I
pointed to my eyes. “You can move the objects to safer places, but
I guess you don’t want to risk the people either.”

“Indeed not. A good point,” he
allowed grudgingly. “Is that all?”

“
Yeah, and I’m going.” I
stood and went to the door, and turned. “Oh Shardul? If
you
were
the last man on the planet?”

He gave me the dead fish stare.
“Yes?”

“You’d be in with a
chance.”

As I made my escape, his fury
was the wind beneath my wings.

~~~~~~~~

I need to lay down a
solid cover, so even though I had Shardul’s list and some images of
objects I’d been assured would get collectors drooling, I spent a
day visiting small dealers, telling them the story of my eccentric
aunt and her somewhat baffling interest in indigenous culture. I
hoped word would filter up to the big guys of my interest. I didn’t
mention the
monuwel
or the other
gatha
. Instead, I let the traders
entice me with tempting bids, for me to supposedly send back to my
aunt for approval.

It would take time for
the cover to take, and if the object was somewhere else on Medele,
I could be wasting my time. Hegal was the capital but there were
other cities, other places with wealthy people who collected
artefacts. There was also a risk the
monuwel
might be sent off world,
but it might already have gone. I didn’t have a choice. There was
too much danger of alerting the thief to my real motives. If he or
she was on Shardul’s list, then we were talking about someone rich,
powerful and smart. My main weapon was their greed. I had to play
my line very carefully.

I pretended to myself that
visiting my grandfather up in the Tudon Hills was all part of
building the cover, but it wasn’t really. To tell the truth, I felt
horribly guilty for avoiding him since the argument between him and
my parents two years ago, while I was still recovering from gunshot
wounds and trying to take in the news that my injuries meant I had
to leave the job I loved, for reasons I’d never anticipated. I’d
never held it against Grandma, and certainly not against Granddad,
but things were tense enough with my parents at the best of times
without me stirring the pot.

But it was time for me to deal
with what had been left in such a mess, and hopefully learn a bit
more about the woman who’d had such an impact on my life. I thought
I’d surprise my grandfather, fully prepared to have to spend the
night in a hotel if he was away, but his auto was in his garage,
and I found him working in the little flower garden at the front of
his neat house. A home he’d built after his wife died, one he could
manage on his own. My parents owned his old place, and rented it
out. I liked this one better.

He stood, cricked his back,
then saw me. A huge grin split his aged face. “Javen? Sainted
reason, I was just thinking of you, boy.”

I hugged him, enjoying his
familiar smell and his unalloyed pleasure at my arrival. “Hi,
Granddad. Been thinking of you a lot too, lately. Missed you.”

“Thought you were mad at me,
Javen. No one visits from the family any more. Rajan and Lochana
have never forgiven me.”

“Which makes no sense at all.
Want to talk out here? I can help you weed.”

He grinned. “Just like old
times. Sure. I see you came dressed for it.”

No city clothes around
Granddad. He’d once been a family doctor, but had retired ten years
ago. I couldn’t remember him in anything but kurtas and salwars,
even when he was seeing patients.

We soaked in the welcome rays
of the sun as we worked. I brought him up to speed on what I’d been
doing since I left the force. “Private detective, eh? Your parents
must be thrilled.”

“You know they’re not. After
all the grief I got for joining the police force, now they’re
saying at least that’s a respectable career. Mum offered to pay me
to give it up.”

“Sounds like Lochana. Rajan
wasn’t like that as a boy. Proud, I mean. I don’t think he’d have
minded your empathy half as much if your mother wasn’t so bothered
by it. No offence intended. She’s a fine woman, always said
so.”

“Did you know Grandma was
biracial when you married her?”

He paused, staring down at a
red and orange flower as if trying to decide whether to let it live
or pull it up. “She didn’t know, not then. Wouldn’t have made a bit
of difference to me if she had. All this stuff about pure breeding
is a crock, excuse my language. It’s not like empathy’s a disease.
Pure ignorance, if you ask me.”

“When did she find out?”

“Same way you did. She came
down with nukerlian flu—there was an outbreak in the forties,
before your dad was born. Very severe, killed a lot of older
people, babies. She pulled through okay, but then she started
complaining about mood swings, feeling angry or happy for no
reason. One day we worked out it was connected to my emotions, or
those of my clinic employees, and we figured what had
happened.”