Different Senses (21 page)

I recited the now easily told
lie while I discreetly examined Kly. He was in his mid-sixties, but
looked older, and in poor health, though his straight-backed
bearing tended to disguise it. I wondered just how sick he was.

The other man was younger. He
listened to all that was said with an avid, almost manic gleam in
his eyes, radiating an unfocused excitement and protectiveness
towards Kly, which I thought a bit odd. As with the assistant who’d
remained standing near the door, no one introduced him.

Kly listened patiently to my
fabricated yarn, and then politely asked to see the artefact
images. His assistant rushed up silently with a holoplayer, set it
up, and just as quietly and quickly returned to her position near
the door.

Kly was far less impressed by
my collection than Duadi had been, flicking swiftly through the
images without any excited commentary. The other man leaned forward
to look too, but didn’t comment, though Kly glanced at him from
time to time as if to confirm they were in agreement.

“Very nice, but nothing that I
haven’t already seen. She had some excellent advice, I must say.
Unusual for a collection on Kelon to be so well planned. A shame
she won’t be continuing with it. However, I can’t really say I’m
moved to bid for it. I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right. I’ve had
some interest from Sri Duadi.” Kly smiled politely at the name, but
I sensed the sneer behind it. From the stranger, much greater
hostility, well concealed behind a benign expression. “There was
one thing I wondered if you could shed some light on. My cousin
says there’s a shirt with a rather odd label.”

I gave him the guff I’d given
Duadi—with very different results. This time the intense interest
of all three was piqued, though Kly did his best to hide it. “You
know what it could be?” The stranger was bug-eyed with excitement.
Who was this guy?

“
It sounds like the shirt
is claimed to be one of the three
gatha
,” Kly said. “But I regret
to say it must be a fake. They turn up from time to time. No one
outside the indigenous community would ever have seen or had access
to such an item.”

“‘
Gatha’
?”

The stranger answered.
“Three sacred relics—a shirt, a cup and a pouch. Probably the most
valuable and revered items in the
udawa
religion.”

Kly smiled, but he wasn’t
pleased at the interruption. “Ah, excuse my manners. Sri Gagan is
my one of my advisors on my collection.”

Gagan gave a little bow.
“Kly-ji is my superior in knowledge. I add a little expertise here
and there. You have no idea where this shirt was obtained?”

“No idea. You think it could be
real then?”

He looked at Kly who shook his
head slowly. “It’s certainly a fake. I don’t suppose your cousin
sent you an image?” Kly was an actor of some skill, but he couldn’t
stop his hands shaking in excitement. They were both lying. They
wanted the shirt, and badly.

“Yes, she did, last night when
I told her I would be meeting you.” I adjusted the player display.
“Sorry it’s not clearer. I think she was in a hurry.”

Kly began to cough, his face
turning alarmingly red. His assistant moved over smoothly and
poured him a glass of water, and handed him a pill. “Excuse me. I
have to take this medication at strict times. Most tiresome.” His
breathing eased, but the avarice did not. “Yes, the shirt is very
obviously a fake.”

“How can you be sure if no
Kelon has seen it?”

“Well...it’s too modern. See
that detail there? That’s almost second-wave. Little more than a
tourist item, in fact.”

“Ah. I’ll have my cousin
dispose of it then.”

A spike of alarm from both men,
but Kly said smoothly, “Yes, probably wise. But actually, I have a
friend at the university who’s making a study of such material,
would you believe? Fakes aimed at the unsuspecting Kelon collector.
There’s an exhibition of such fraudulent items to be held at the
museum later this year. I don’t suppose your cousin would care to
donate it for study? I’d pay the costs, of course.”

I pretended dubiousness. “I
suppose I could ask her. She might not be too happy for the family
to be associated with something like this.”

“It’s entirely respectable. I
could ask my friend to write to her.”

“Okay,” I said, exuding a
polite lack of interest in the whole matter. “No harm in that.”

“I tell you what. As a gesture
of goodwill, and to compensate your cousin for her trouble, I could
put a bid in on the rest of the collection—sight unseen—and
guarantee to offer ten percent more than the best price she’s been
quoted. The artefacts would make a handsome donation to the museum,
though I don’t want them myself. Good for tax purposes, and it
would be a mere pittance to me.”

“
That’s very generous.
I’ll certainly put that to her. I was wondering though—the
real
gatha
. Would they be valuable?”

Kly was suddenly wary,
though his smile never altered. “Yes and no. The rarity would make
them desirable. But I collect for beauty and by all accounts, the
three
gatha
are extremely plain, even rather ugly pieces.
I’d acquire them if I thought they were genuine, but then I’d offer
them back to the Nihan anyway. I don’t believe we should plunder
such intimate items from a culture.”

“It’s a wonder no one’s tried
to steal them, if they’re so valuable.”

“
I’m sure they have, but
the
udawathei
guard their treasures very well.”

A blast of pure loathing
came from the woman at the door, at odds with the smugness I sensed
from him and Gagan both. What did that mean? “Well, I wouldn’t want
to encourage anyone to steal from the
banis
,” I said. “I’ll ask my
cousin about the shirt, and your offer.”

“Yes, do. Thank you for your
time, and please, mention me to your father. Tell him I’ll be in
touch soon.”

“Certainly. Thanks for seeing
me, Sri Kly. Good day, Sri Gagan.”

His assistant came to see me
out to the front of the house. After her reaction indoors, I
expected another plea not to sell more of her heritage, but she
simply signalled to another servant to bring my auto around, and
left me there without another word.

What to make of it? Kly
wanted the
gatha
, no doubt about it. Did
that mean he’d stolen the
monuwel
? Did his assistant know
the truth, or was she simply reacting to her boss’s hypocrisy? And
who was this Gagan? I sent a message to Shardul, asking him to call
me after my meeting with his cousin. I also sent my own cousin a
note to prepare her for some signs of interest, and possible
attempts to seize the non-existent shirt. I needed her to be
guarded but not to reject overtures outright. If Kly turned out to
be honest, I’d have to come up with some artefacts and a fake
shirt, or a damn good excuse as to why he couldn’t have
them.

Shardul’s cousin, Rupa
Ela Nirav, lived in a semi-rural district on the other side of
Hegal where many
banis
owned small farms producing meat, eggs and
vegetables for sale within their community. I couldn’t recall ever
going there on duty. It was as crime-free an area as a cop could
dream of.

Her house was on a
vegetable farm, though I heard the squeals of
kolija
as I parked up.
A slender, heavily pregnant young woman answered the door. I
assumed this was Rupa’s daughter. “Javen Ythen for Sushri
Rupa?”

“Come in, Sri Ythen, I’ve been
expecting you.”

“
You’re
Rupa?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

“No. I just thought a
genealogist would be...older.”

She laughed. “I will be one
day. Come through to my office.”

There were other people in the
building, but I saw no one else as she led me through to a large,
open room spread with charts and pictures. “Now, did Shardul tell
you what I charge?”

“A lot.”

She grinned. “Yes, sadly. A
hundred an hour, two hundred minimum up front. So here are my
details, if you would like to transfer the funds?”

Fortunately I’d prepared for
this, and the transaction was completed in a couple of minutes.
“Excellent,” she said. “So, tell me your story, and let me know
what you have.”

She listened intently to my
tale of how I’d learned of my heritage, and the family reaction,
then examined the family tree I’d put together. She homed in
immediately on the anomalous birthdates of my
great-great-great-great-great-grandparents’ twin daughters. “That
could be a sign of a previous intermarriage with our people.”

“On her side or his?”

“Definitely his. There are no
records at all of any indigenous men marrying Kelon women from the
first colonisation. Several stories of our men being killed or
beaten for the presumption of loving them, though.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s nice to hear you say
that, Sri Ythen. Pity more of your people don’t feel that way.”

I thought it was a bad time to
bring up what my brother had said. “Mallika is listed as the mother
of the twins.”

“Yes, but that sometimes
happened in adoptions. I see Birati never married. ‘Birati’ is the
Kelon version of the indigenous name, ‘Bharati’, which tends to
support the idea of adoption. If she really was biracial, it would
be most unusual for her not to have married.”

“You think she did and it’s
another unregistered marriage?”

She smiled. “Unregistered by
the Kelon, perhaps. Let me look. You have time for me to do this
now, or would you prefer to come back?”

“No, please, carry on. I’d
really like to know.”

She fairly glowed with energy
as she looked through her records, both digital and paper. I itched
to leaf through the books on her shelves, just because they looked
so old they had to be interesting. Only they were in Nihani, which
I couldn’t read, and I doubted she wanted a Kelon trawling through
her people’s records. My people? Shardul said not. Why did I care
about it anyway?

She suddenly gave a crow of
triumph. “Found it. Just as I thought. Come and look.”

Her screen was full of
Nihani words, but her notes were in Kelon. “Your ancestor Udy
married a indigenous woman a year before his twin daughters were
born. His name’s recorded in the
Nihani
form, ‘Uday Thrishna
Dhiren’, naming his parents. His wife was Kala Lekha Tejas. She
died four years later. A fire, the record says.”

“Wow.” I tried to imagine
losing a wife in a tragic accident, left with three year old twins
to raise. “So he married a Kelon woman, and she adopted the
children?”

“Yes. But here’s the
interesting bit. Twenty years later, there’s another marriage
record for Udy, this time to a Trupti Veena Kanha.”

“But there’s no divorce noted
in the Kelon records.”

“
No. But there
is
a bill
of separation filed with Udy’s putative clan head—the one he would
have sworn allegiance to at the time of his first marriage. And the
interesting thing is that it’s with the consent of his Kelon wife.
I’ve never seen that before. She also gave her consent to his
remarriage, which is unusual even for us.”

“What does it mean, do you
think?”

“I can only guess at this
stage, though I might find some more evidence by digging, but I
think the marriage to Mallika was one of convenience. Maybe she was
homosexual, or had a lover, or just wanted her family off her back.
Then he fell in love again, and she let him go. I think he probably
kept strong ties to the indigenous community, and she was a cover
to give himself a bit of respectability with the Kelons. I’ve seen
something similar before, though not with the wife’s consent to
remarry.”

“
And the
banis
—I
mean, indigenous—wouldn’t mind he was already married?”

“Since the Kelon ignored our
marriages, we thought it only right to ignore yours when it
suited.”

“And Birati?”

“
I was right—she married
under her
Nihani
name, Bharati Kala Uday. Had five children, twin boys.
Twins run in your family?”

“They certainly do. This is
incredible. Thank you.”

“Not every Kelon client is
happy to find the connection.”

“No, this is great. My
grandfather will be so pleased.”

“Want me to keep digging?” Her
fingers hovered over the screen—itching, I could tell, to keep
going.

“Sure. Um, up to another two
hours? See how far it gets you?”

“Done. I’ll send you a proper
report, certificates if you’d like. All printed so you can show
people. Or not.”

“Or not. I didn’t expect to get
results so fast.”

“We have always kept detailed
genealogical records. We have offered to merge them with the Kelon
system many times, but they always refuse, saying amateur records
would ‘contaminate’ theirs.” She shrugged. “Their loss.”

“Insulting to you.”

“
Yes, but we’re used to
it from the
guko
.”

I blinked, shocked at her using
the term. “Er, isn’t that a rude word?”

She raised an eyebrow.
“‘Guko’? It’s an insult to one of us, but it shouldn’t offend you.
It simply means those who are ignorant of the teachings of the
Seeker. It applies to non-
udawatha
Nihani as much as
Kelons.”

It figured Shardul’s worst
insult would be about religion. “This is all pretty confusing.”