Different Senses (53 page)

My nephew eyed me suspiciously.
“Promise?”

“Promise. Deal?”

“Deal! Yay!”

Tara covered her ears. “Quiet
minutes! Quiet!”

“
I think that
is
quiet
by little boy standards,” I said and she rolled her eyes. “I’m
going to get cleaned up, and then listen to the bedtime
story.”

An hour later, peace reigned,
and Yashi and I ate a late supper while Tara relaxed over a mug of
chai. “Everyone was talking about Tushar at school, and wondering
why you hadn’t gone with him. I said I hadn’t had a chance to talk
to you. Bought me some time. What do you want me to tell them?”

“Whatever you like. Tell them
we broke up and he left to soothe his sorrow. Or that he left me
for another man. I don’t care.”

“But the truth is?”

“I didn’t know they planned to
leave, they lied to me, and it’s over, done, dead and gone.”

“You don’t seem too upset,”
Yashi said as he cut his meat.

“Trust me, three hours ago,
you’d had thought differently. A good friend and copious amounts of
beer made a lot of difference. Now I just want to get on with my
life and find my new house, so you guys can get on with
redecorating.”

They exchanged looks. “What?” I
asked.

“Um, Tara, do you want to go
get the thing?”

“Sure.”

I frowned at Yashi. “What
thing?”

“Hold on and we’ll show you.
Eat your dinner, you’re losing weight.”

“Yes, Mum.”

“I don’t wear enough jewellery
to be Mum.”

I grinned and forked some more
food into my mouth.

Tara returned but refused to
show me what was in the rolled up paper she hid behind her back.
“Finish eating and then we can look.”

“Everyone’s a nag today.”

“Maybe you need it,” Yashi
said.

“Like I need a second
arsehole.”

“Javen, don’t use words like
that. What will your niece think?”

“That her uncle is crude and
rude and nothing like her lovely mother.”

She gave me a look. “You Ythen
boys don’t lack for a certain rough and ready charm, do you?”

“Nope.” I pushed my plate away
and wiped my hands. “So, what’s the big secret? Don’t tell
me—you’re having twins after all.”

“Please don’t even joke about
that,” she said with a shudder. “Yashi?”

She cleared part of the table
and Yashi unrolled what turned out to be a set of building plans.
“Er, I appreciate the thought but I’d like to design my own house,
guys.”

Yashi cuffed my head.
“This is
our
house, idiot.”

“Oh yeah. Uh, but it’s already
built.”

“See, I told you he was smart,”
Yashi said to his wife, who grinned. “Yes, it’s already built,
except for this. Which is the bit of importance to you.”

I peered at the lines and
minute writing and all the measurements. “You're building another
room?”

“A studio apartment. For you.
With your own entrance, parking and everything. And we’ll have a
deck on top.”

“But it’ll take up half the
yard.”

“Not quite half. We’ll
sacrifice a little space from the garage, but gain the deck.”

“But why?”

“
Not so smart,” Tara
said. “Because we don’t
want
you to move, Javen. We’ve
been trying to tell you but you wouldn’t listen. We
like
you
here. We
love
you being here. We love
you
. So we want you to have
your own place, at our place.”

I stared at the plans, and then
at my brother and sister’s smiling faces. “You’d do this for me?
Really?”

“Yeah. Really. Because the idea
of you moving out makes me want to cry,” she said. “I haven’t dared
to tell the boys you might leave. Please stay?”

“Only if you let me pay rent or
pay for the extension or something.”

“We’ll sort something out,”
Yashi said. “Joint ownership suits us, if it suits you. I don’t
care what we do, so long as you agree. Say yes, or Tara really will
cry.”

“In that case...yes. Though
you’re both quite mad and I’m sure you’ll regret it.”

“I know we won’t,” Tara said
firmly, as Yashi put his arm around her.

“All I’ve ever wanted was a
home for my family, all of my family,” he said. “And you’re my
family. Always will be, Javen. Maybe one day you’ll genuinely want
to get your own house, maybe have your own kids. But while the only
reason to leave is a bit of privacy and our new baby, then I want
you here. Understood?”

“Completely.”

Tara hugged me, and Yashi
ruffled my hair. “Completely bonkers,” I muttered, though I
couldn’t stop grinning. “Have I told you lately I love you guys a
lot?”

“Not lately, but we took it as
read. Celebratory glasses of...er, mugs of chai all round. Sorry,
love.”

Tara patted her stomach. “A few
months without alcohol won’t kill me, and chai or wine, who cares?
This is the best news I could have.”

“This was a lousy day, and now
it’s not. Thank you.”

She kissed my cheek. “Always
welcome. Never forget who your friends and family are.”

I thought of Shardul, and
smiled. “Nope, not ever again.”

The glass office door crashed
open, the late afternoon sun behind the intruder, hiding their
face. I had my hand on my gun and was half out of my seat, before I
registered the idiot bellowing “We did it! We won!” wasn’t some
crazed random attacker, but one Shardul Hema Rishabh, a respectable
and normally sensible lawyer who knew better than to burst
screaming like a lunatic into an office full of investigators and
ex-cops carrying weapons.

“The...High Court case?” Vik
asked quietly, as if he didn’t dare believe it to be true.

“The High Court case. On every
single point. We won. All of it.”

Vik and Prachi whooped and ran
over to hug Shardul, who hugged them back, grinning maniacally at
me over their heads. Madan shook my hand, then clasped Shardul’s to
pump it enthusiastically. “Well done, Shardul. Well done.”

“Damn right,” I said. “Every
point? That’s more than I hoped. Incredible.”

I couldn’t remember seeing so
many teeth in Shardul’s smile before. “Yes it is. So the drinks are
on me, everyone. Come on, close up. I need a beer!”

I wondered if he’d already
started, or whether he was just high on sheer happiness. His arms
still around my assistants, Shardul led the way out to wherever the
celebrations were. Madan and I hastily closed up, even though it
was an hour early, and raced after them.

The news was out, and as we
came closer to the Nihani neighbourhood, the streets were full of
cheering indigenous, some weeping as they yelled their victory. It
had been a long time coming, and no one had worked harder or
sacrificed more than Shardul and his team.

It looked like every Nihan in
Hegal was trying to force their way into the little bar near
Shardul’s office. I figured we’d be doing our celebrating out on
the street along with almost everyone else, but I’d reckoned
without Shardul. Shouting “Let me through, I’m a lawyer!” he
elbowed a path for us through the crowd and into the bar. As soon
as he appeared, he was grabbed and hoisted aloft, carried over the
heads of the patrons and up to the bar itself where he stood like a
conquering general. Which he was, in a way.

“We won! Praise the Spirit!”
He’d shouted in Nihani, but I knew enough of the language to
understand it, and the roared appreciation of the sentiment.

“Fuck the Kelons!” someone
yelled, in Kelon.

Shardul caught my eye, then
pointed at me. “Present company excepted, of course.”

The bar fell silent. My
position as the sole interloper was suddenly a little too
conspicuous, but I just grinned. “Hey, I appreciate the offer,
guys, but I’m saving myself.” The silence grew more...intense. “For
Shardul,” I added, and the crowd exploded with laughter. Shardul
shook his head at me, smiling. I shrugged and yelled for a
beer.

The Nihani are a sober,
industrious and usually pretty orderly people as a group, but man,
do they know how to party. Whether Shardul really was paying for
everyone’s drinks, or the bar owner had given up in despair of
trying to keep up with all the demands for booze, I didn’t know,
but the beer was free, and freely flowing that night. When the
Nihan get drunk, they dance a lot too. And sing. I even discovered
an unsuspected tendency to warble a little myself. I was still
moping after the disastrous relationship with Tushar, and this was
just what I needed to snap me out of my funk.

Under the influence, Shardul
danced and sang too—perfectly, of course—and had a charming
tendency to cuddle and hug anyone in reach. Including me. A lot.
Fortunately he was too intoxicated and happy to notice my physical
reaction, and in this crowd, no one was checking me out.

“Oh!” he bellowed in my right
ear after we’d been at it for a couple of hours. He had to bellow
because nothing else could cut through the sheer volume of noise
generated by hundreds of happy, intoxicated people. “Forgot!” He
had his arm slung over my shoulder like this was his normal way of
talking to me. I sure wasn’t about to remind him it wasn’t.

“What?”

“High Court ruled thingy. Um,
empathy thingy.”

“What? Shardul, what empathy
thingy?”

He stared into my eyes with his
brilliant blue ones. “The ban on empathy was ruled illegal. You can
be a cop again.”

The bottom fell out of my
stomach. “What? For real?”

“Completely.”

I blinked for a few seconds in
utter shock. I hadn’t even known a challenge to the professional
ban on empaths was part of the lawsuit.

“Javen? Are you all right?”

I hugged him. “Yeah. Thank
you.”

He didn’t push me away like I
thought he would, so I shamelessly wallowed in his happiness. “Will
you go back?”

“Hell, how do I know? But now I
can.”

He leaned back to grin at
me. “Yes you can. We can do whatever the
hell
we want,
right?”

“Right!”

A reveller grabbed his arm, and
I let the hero of the moment go off to enjoy his well-deserved
adulation. I needed a few minutes alone to adjust to the new world
order anyway.

I could be a cop again. In my
head, I’d never stopped, but my life and career had moved on a lot
in four years. I had a business, partners, employees. I worked with
the Nihan in a way that wouldn’t be possible on the force, now I
wasn’t so tightly constrained by regulations.

But I missed being in uniform.
I missed the excitement, the authority, my fellow cops. I missed
being the one people turned to in trouble, and being able to make
their worlds a little better, even if I was also often the one
bringing bad news. And damn I missed chasing bad guys.

Hell, maybe they wouldn’t want
me back. I was pretty old now. My peers would have already climbed
the promotions ladder and as only a former sergeant, I might even
be below people I used to order around.

“Javen, what’s up? Run out of
beer already?”

I grinned at Madan holding two
mugs in his big hands, clearly taking precautions against a
shortage. “Yeah, so share the bounty.”

He passed one of the mugs over,
and I put my empty one into a crate, one of many scattered around
to collect the mugs. I took a long swig then wiped my mouth.
“Shardul just told me. The ban on empathy has been ruled
illegal.”

He gave a low whistle. “By the
Spirit. You can go back to the force?”

“Can. Not necessarily
‘will’.”

Madan’s intelligent brown eyes
bored into me. Superficially, he looked Kelon, but he was Nihani
through and through. Being set up with me was a big break for him,
and I knew it. Same for Prachi and Vik.

I answered his unasked
question. “Look, it’ll take a while before I can do anything. The
regs’ll have to be changed, all that. Probably the best I can hope
for is being in the reserve. Whatever, I won’t make any decision
that hurts any of you. And if I do go back, the business won’t be
closed down. That, I promise.”

“Appreciate it. But you must do
what is best for you. Remember this though—you can’t cross the same
river twice.”

“Yeah. It’s the wrong night to
think about it. Tonight is all for you guys.”

“And you. You’ve worked hard
for our people, Javen. None of us who know you will forget
that.”

I lifted my mug. “To us,
then.”

“To all of us.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Six months later

~~~~~~~~~~~

I couldn’t claim to have got to
know the late Tanmay Kly well in my brief encounters with him so I
couldn’t guess what he would have thought about the ceremony about
to be held on his old estate this morning. His widow’s feelings on
the subject were very clear.

“Induma looks about to burst
with pride,” I murmured to Shardul, pointing discreetly over to
where the widow Kly was talking to my father and the other guests
of honour. A naturally solemn woman, Induma hadn’t stopped grinning
in the half hour we’d been waiting in the hall.

“As well she might. This is a
wonderful day for our people. One I never thought to see.”

“
No, no. You’re doing it
all wrong, Shardul. You’re supposed to be cynical and mutter darkly
about
chuma
fat cats using the indigenous people to put a
gloss on their greed, and how things haven’t really changed at
all.”

He smiled serenely. “Another
day perhaps. And you’ve said it for me. Denge Consortium is
undoubtedly milking this for all it’s worth. But at the end of it,
there will still be thirty engineering scholarships given to Nihani
students, and another hundred for other specialties. That’s no
small achievement, and Induma deserves every gram of pride she
feels.”