Different Senses (20 page)

“
Such prejudice, and for
no reason. I have many indigenous friends—I should say,
udawatha
friends—and employees. Fine people, all of them, with a
very rich culture. Speaking of which...would you like to show me
what your aunt is offering on the market?”

I gave him the holostick, and
he inserted it into his desk player. Shardul had done a lovely job
with the images, and each had a convincing looking accession card
next to it in his flowing hand. I’d spent the morning boning up
about each item, but Duadi, brimming with enthusiasm, told me about
them before I could.

“Oh, she has an eye for the
detailed beadwork,” he said, cooing over a necklace. “Of course she
would. This is a lovely, lovely piece. What have you been quoted
for it?”

I coughed. “Um, I’m afraid
that’s confidential. I’ll be happy to pass your offer to her, of
course.”

“I understand. I wonder where
she acquired that jug? So few of that style on the market, and I
didn’t realise any had reached Kelon. Vishva, perhaps you could
make more enquiries.”

“Yes, sir.” The man gave me an
evil look, the hostility increasing. I hoped Shardul hadn’t slipped
up, including something so rare. Duadi had already moved onto the
next piece.

When he had run through them
all, his enthusiasm had diminished somewhat. “I’ll have Vishva
prepare some offers and contact you. I’m not sure the cost of
reimporting them is justified. Is that really all you have?”

“My cousin did say there was
some material her mother seemed to have acquired and not known what
to do with. A rather ordinary shirt with a note from a third party
identifying it as ‘getha’ or ‘githa’—she couldn’t really read it.
She thinks it’s a Nihani item but knows nothing about it.”

Vishva sat bolt upright, his
face blank, anger and anxiety pouring off him, but Duadi didn’t
notice or react at all. He was now somewhat bored, my entertainment
value spent. “Means nothing to me. Vishva will be in touch. Thank
you for coming, Sri Ythen. A shame your aunt has to sell her
precious collections.”

“Well, old age can be cruel,
and the family have to look to her future, sad to say. Nice to meet
you.”

Vishva walked me out, and as
soon as we were in the elevator and private, he gripped my arm, and
told the console to halt at a floor above the exit level. “What are
you up to?” I demanded.

“I must speak to you, Sri
Ythen. It’s important.”

The floor was some kind
of relaxation area, with glass doors opening onto spacious
balconies. He led me out onto one, and as the doors hissed shut
behind us, he said, “These items you are selling. They belong to my
people. I know some who would offer to buy them back. Even that
shirt. Anything that might belong to the
udawathei
.”

“You prepared to match Duadi’s
price? I’m acting in my aunt’s interest, not yours. My family’s not
a charity.”

He bit his lip, desperation in
every nerve. “At least let us try to match what he offers. Even for
some of the items. We’ll buy even the less desirable items.”

“Like the shirt.”

“Yes.”

“Something about that I should
know, Sri Vishva?”

“No. I just want my people’s
heritage kept here on Uterden.”

“Does your boss know your
attitude to his hobby?”

“No. And you can’t tell him. He
does a lot of good things for my people. He respects our culture.
Just in this one area, he has...a blind spot.”

“Uh huh. Well, I’ll think about
it. You’ll know what he’s offering. I’ll let you try and match it.
And I’ll pass on your wishes to my cousin for her consideration.
Can’t do more than that.”

His shoulders sagged. “Thank
you. Are you offering the items to anyone else here?”

“I’ve been in touch with Tanmay
Kly.”

He stiffened. “He won’t want to
pay as much as Sri Duadi. You’d be wasting your time.”

“Maybe.”

He grabbed my sleeve. “Please.
We must have those objects back. Everything, however
unappealing.”

I shook him off. “I said I’d
let you bid. Now we’re done, I think. I’ll make my own way out.
Good day, Sri Vishva.”

I called Shardul as soon as I
left the building. “Scratch Duadi off the list. He didn’t even
twitch at the bait, and he’s got a lieutenant actively trying to
block him from acquiring anything culturally sensitive. Guy called
Vishva. Know him?”

“
Yes. He’s from a good
family, very devoted to
udawa
. He would never reveal
secrets to a
chuma
.”

“I figured that. So onto the
next.”

“
I’ve sent you the
contact details for my cousin. She does genealogical research as a
part-time business. Sees the occasional
chuma
client, so you won’t
excite any curiosity if you turn up. She charges nearly as much as
you do,” he added sweetly.

“Hey, I’m worth every dolar.
How many cousins do you have?”

“Enough for my needs. Report
when you have news.”

When I checked my
messages, Shardul’s was right above one from Tanmay Kly, inviting
me to come to his house at ten the next morning, with all the
information about the artefacts on offer. Looked like having
high-quality
banis
artefacts was one sure entrée into the company
of the rich and powerful on Uterden. I sent a message to Shardul’s
cousin, asking when she might have time to see me, and another to
Kly, accepting the invitation. Now for more wait and
see.

The investigating
business was still slow, apart from this one case, so I had plenty
of leisure before heading back to the house, to drink chai and play
with my family tree. I had no images, mental or physical, of any of
these people past my grandparents’ parents, and I knew nothing of
their lives. My grandfather had come from Kelon, as had my other
grandparents. Grandma was the only link to Uterden. Had she been a
Scientific Rationalist? Or a Reformed Deist like the early
colonists? Religion had played a big part in the first colonists’
lives, and even in some of the second-comers. I couldn’t imagine an
existence dominated by rituals and superstition, yet it was how
the
banis
—
udawathei
—lived their lives. Not
that I knew anything about their beliefs beyond what Shardul and
his aunt had told me, and a little picked up here and there from
watching kids at school, before Yashi and I were sent to the
exclusive academy intended to groom us for careers in business and
politics. No indigenous scholars there, but we still managed to
disappoint our Dad by rejecting his wishes, and going our own
way.

I read the bare details of my
great-great-great-great-grandparents, Udy and Mallika. Their
parents had all come over from Kelon, so they were the first in
their line to marry on Uterden soil. They’d raised twin girls,
Sudha and Birati. Sudha had married and given birth to my
great-great-grandfather. Birati never married or had children. I
wondered why, since fertility and marriage were highly valued by
early colonists, and indeed still were.

But then I looked at the birth
date of the twins—seven years before Udy and Mallika had married.
Odd. Births outside marriage weren’t unknown but why wait seven
years? And why did they stop having kids? Medical problems?
Separation? I desperately wanted to know, which surprised me. I
loved my immediate, living family, but I’d never been interested in
their history, or history as a subject. I’d studied what I’d needed
to matriculate, and then I concentrated on forensics and policing
methods in my university studies. The pasts of the criminals I
pursued as a cop never interested me either. I figured their sad,
sad lives were for the justice system to consider. I just hauled
them in and charged them.

But Udy and Mallika, Sudha and
Birati intrigued me enough to raise it over dinner with the family.
“Why would someone not marry the mother of his children for seven
years?” I asked. The kids had gone to bed and we ate our adult meal
in peace.

“Because she was married to
someone else?” Tara suggested.

“Or he was,” Yashi said. “Maybe
the kids were adopted?”

“Hmmm, nothing on the records
about that. Would have been a bit of a scandal though, if they did
have kids while married to other people. Can’t see that going down
well in that kind of society.”

“
People have messy
lives,” Tara said. “Look how many Kelon men went off with
banis
women, even though it was frowned on.”

“I wonder what the attraction
was,” Yashi said. “I know every colony ship that left Kelon in
those days was balanced for the sexes, so it wasn’t a shortage of
women.”

“Yeah, but some of the women
might have not have wanted to marry, or maybe the indigenous
religion appealed more to the men. Reformed Deists were pretty
strict back then. Lots of rules.”

“
The
banis
religion has
rules, doesn’t it?” Tara asked.

“I suppose. Don’t know for
sure. Maybe the men just thought the women were prettier.
Exotic.”

“More willing,” Tara said. I
gave her a look. “What? Everyone says they are.”

They did say that. “Maybe more
willing than highly religious colonist women anyway.”

“They didn’t care about being
married either.”

“What makes you think
that?”

“I learned that in school,” she
said, in a tone suggesting I should have known that. “There were no
marriages among the indigenous people until the Kelon arrived.”

“
No, they were married
but the Kelon government refused to register them. Even if one of
the partners was Kelon. Wouldn’t register the births either.
The
banis
weren’t very happy about that.”

She stared at me. “Why wouldn’t
they register the marriages?”

“At a guess, because they
weren’t carried out under a Kelon religion. Or maybe because of
concern about racial purity. Did you really not know that?”

“No.” Her mouth snapped shut,
and she picked up our plates with jerky, irritated movements to
match what I sensed from her. But then she turned to me. “Are you
sure?”

“Absolutely sure. Our people
even denied the automatic right of indigenous and biracial children
to inherit from their parents if they weren’t married under Kelon
law—even though Kelon law made that impossible.”

“I didn’t know,” she murmured.
“There must have been a reason, though.”

“Prejudice doesn’t need a
reason,” Yashi pointed out, and I was glad he did since it was
better coming from him than me. “So maybe their women aren’t as
slutty as you think.”

“Don’t use words like that,
Yashi.” She went into the kitchen. My twin just shrugged at me.

I didn’t know if I was grateful
for this case opening up my eyes to what I should have already
known. But now they were open, I had to learn more.

~~~~~~~~

As I drove to my appointment
with Tanmay Kly, a message came through from Shardul’s cousin
saying a cancellation had opened a slot for me at twelve if I could
make it so soon. I figured I should be done with Kly by then, and
accepted.

Everyone knew where Tanmay Kly
lived. His house was on easily the biggest estate in Hegal, and the
regular venue for glittering parties for this and that product
launch or charity fundraiser. Parts of it were even open to the
public on certain days of the year, when his impressive art
collection was on display. I’d never been inside. Now I’d see what
I’d been missing.

It seemed to take nearly as
long to drive from the heavily guarded gate to the front of the
house as it had to get to the place from Yashi’s. I guessed Sri Kly
didn’t have to trot down to his own mailbox to pick up his post,
but if he did, he’d need a packed lunch.

All the staff at the gate
and now at the house were
banis
. Didn’t surprise me after
Duadi, but it didn’t strike me as a very
‘pro-indigenous
’
act to employ them exclusively as domestic
servants. That could be my prejudices talking though. I’d always
disliked the idea of other people doing what I could do perfectly
well myself. For all I knew, the
banis
working here were happy
with their lot. I’d detected nothing to make me think otherwise.
Not yet, anyway.

The house was an architectural
masterpiece, discussed as such in media spreads even as far as
Kelon, which had little interest in colonial affairs. Like all
Kelon buildings in Medele, it strongly featured windows, terraces
and balconies to catch as much sun as possible. Unusually, it was
half hidden by colourful climbing plants, so it blended into the
landscape. Most Kelon houses made a virtue of their separateness
from the terrain, as if quarantining themselves from a foreign
land. The effect of this house was rather restful on the eye.

But I had little time to
admire it, for a dark-suited
banis
woman came to greet me, and
led me without delay into a spacious, open-to-the-sky living area.
Sri Kly, instantly recognisable, was there already. Another man sat
beside him. I didn’t know his face.

“Sri Ythen, welcome. Please do
take a seat. Tell me, how is Rajan? I haven’t seen him since last
year at the governors’ end of session dinner.”

“He’s well, sir.” Of course Kly
would know my father, and all the other regional governors.

“I must ask him and your
beautiful mother over for dinner soon. But it’s another relative I
hear you’re acting for this time. Tell me about it.”