Different Senses (75 page)

“Fine. And then we can get out
of here?”

“Tomorrow morning. The road’s
clear, but Sanjeev doesn’t want to drive tonight.”

When I asked, he told me it was
nearly nightfall. I’d slept right through the day. I felt a little
better, but far from normal.

“Help me dress? Wait, I need a
piss.”

I used the horrible bucket
again, and then he helped me into my salwar, expression studiedly
neutral. His feelings felt...absent “Why can’t I sense you any
more? You’re doing something to my talent.”

“Yes. Now’s not the time—”

I held his wrist, and forced
him to look at me. “You can’t hide behind that forever, Shardul. I
want the truth.”

“You shall have it, I swear by
the Spirit.” His eyes usually gave so much away of his real
thoughts, but even they were silent, opaque to me. “But not now.
Here’s your shirt.”

He produced a borrowed brush
for my hair, and a basin and jug on the side held water for me to
splash my face. I still felt like reheated shit, but maybe my
pathetic appearance would count in my favour. Shardul took my arm
and supported me a little more than I needed, but I recognised what
he was doing, and let him.

The room he led me into was
dimly lit, dull dusk coming through the windows, with only a single
lamp on a table throwing the faces of four men into shadow.
Sanjeev, and three strangers. “Dandak, this is Gafur Kawildin.
Gafur, this is Chakshu and Ojas.”

I pressed my hands
together in greeting. “
Jiagan
fulti.
”

“Please sit,” Dandak said, and
Shardul helped me to a chair. “We were sorry to hear of your
accident. How do you feel?” Words of concern, but his main emotion
was wariness. He was assessing me, and his acceptance was far from
assured.

“Rough,” I said, giving him a
smile. “Could have been worse.”

“Yes, indeed. Chai?”

“Please.” Sanjeev stood to
pour, Dandak watching me carefully. “So, you wanted to meet me.
Tell me what you want to know.”

Dandak leaned forward, and
lowered his voice. The farmer couple weren’t there, and he didn’t
want them knowing his business. Maybe the farmers were innocent
bystanders after all. It made me feel a little better about the
situation, and a little worse, for dragging them into the mess.

“You’ve passed on some warnings
which have helped honest Nihan to escape the unjust Kelon police,
Gafur. Are you happy to continue to do so?”

“Yes. I have to be careful, but
so long as I am, I can do this for our people.”

“Good. But...what if we wanted
something which might require more direct action?”

I pretended to be a little
nervous. “People know my face. I can’t...well, set devices. Not
that I’m accusing you of that.”

“We wouldn’t ask that of you,
but let’s be blunt here. A few Kelons might have to be hurt to
achieve what must be achieved. People who have won their
comfortable lives from the backs of our kind. Parasites, like the
Ythen family.”

“For what he did to the man I
love, I would kill Javen Ythen myself,” I said.

“Don’t blame you,” Dandak said,
sounding pleased. “No, the direct action would be in the nature of
misinformation. Planting files in their systems, giving false data.
Perhaps deleting or altering files on our people. Could you do
that?”

“I think so.”

“And if we asked for, say, the
itinerary of certain events or transport routes to meetings, you
could get that?”

“The chief gets just about
everything the governor does,” I lied. “And if he gets it, I can
give it to you.”

“Wonderful. You would be doing
the cause of freedom a great service, Gafur. Our people will honour
you.”

And that was all he wanted,
apparently. People relaxed, and I risked a smile at Shardul, who
returned it in a strained manner. Sanjeev was positively jovial,
grinning at Dandak who indulged him, though his real feelings
weren’t as comfortable as he wanted them to appear. Dandak trusted
Sanjeev, I suspected, but didn’t rate him highly. He saw Sanjeev as
a means to an end, not a friend. Useful information? Maybe, maybe
not. Finding out Dandak’s real identity would be much more
useful.

“Perhaps we could get some more
chai, and something to eat,” Sanjeev said. “Gafur, you must be
hungry.”

“A little, but I don’t want to
put anyone out.”

“You aren’t. Nadira said she
could bring refreshments in as soon as we were finished. We are,
aren’t we? Excellent.” He went off, I presumed, in search of Nadira
and food.

Pure relief drove his good
mood. Now he could stop worrying about things going wrong, the way
he had since we’d met at the service stop. What exactly worried
him, I wondered? What did he have at stake, that Dandak could
threaten? Until this ill-fated trip, Sanjeev had come off as an
alpha male type, but Dandak was the real top dog. It was his trust
I needed to win. I’d made a good start, I felt, but I’d need to do
more. I had to feed him the information he wanted, in quality and
quantity.

Shardul wanted out of here, I
could tell, and I didn’t blame him. Dandak gave me the creeps and
it didn’t take a genius to figure out what he planned to do with
the information he wanted. I couldn’t be sure whether Dandak had
asked for what he really wanted, or what he thought would test my
commitment. Fortunately it wasn’t up to me or my aching head to
figure it out. All I had to do was pass what I’d heard and learned
over to Captain Largosen and he and his clever guys could analyse
it to their little hearts’ content, while I got medical attention
back in civilisation.

I blamed the head injury for
what happened next, but I should have been on alert. Sanjeev
returned bearing the chai pot, and behind him, a tiny Nihani woman
who was surely older than my grandfather, carrying a tray of
sweets. Nadira, I assumed. She set the tray before me, smiling
nervously, but then her smile grew brighter just as I felt the
tell-tale tingle at the back of my head.

Oh shit.

My face froze in shock, but
even if I’d been able to fake it, no way could I fool her talent.
Her smile slipped and she straightened up, confused at my reaction.
Dandak snapped at her in Nihani, and she answered.

I felt Shardul’s anxiety spike,
his hand on my arm gripping me, but we had no chance to get out of
here even if I wasn’t sluggish and stupid. Chakshu grabbed Shardul
and pulled him back from me. Dandak pulled out a small but entirely
lethal Mahul automatic, and pointed it at my head. Sanjeev jumped
in fright, babbling in Nihani. I didn’t need to speak his language
to know he was saying “what the fucking fuck, and by the way I had
nothing to do with it!”

I put my hands up. “Now, calm
down, guys. What’s the problem?” I hoped against hope he hadn’t
figured out, but Dandak was as smart as I feared.

“
You’re
matos
. You
can’t have been a cop.” He took the safety off. “Who are
you?”

I opened my mouth to make an
implausible denial, but he didn’t wait, barking a command at Ojas,
who pulled a device out of his coat, and moved towards me. “Whoa!
What’s—”

“
Shut up or I kill
him
,”
Dandak snapped, pointing his weapon at Shardul. “Do it,” he ordered
Ojas.

Ojas shoved me to my feet,
running the device over my body. A scanner, I figured. Sanjeev
stared at me in horror, as if I’d split open and revealed a monster
hidden in my skin. I suppose I had.

A chilly calm came over me. I
felt Shardul’s fear, the hate and suspicion of the three men, the
miserable confusion of the old woman, and Sanjeev’s crippling
terror. I knew we couldn’t escape. I couldn’t save myself. My only
hope was saving Shardul. “Let him go,” I said, my voice sounding
oddly flat and even to my ears. “He knows nothing. I tricked him
like I tricked Sanjeev.”

Dandak’s blue eyes remained
cold, and his emotions, like his aim, flickered not at all. Ojas
continued his scanning. To my surprise he stopped, shaking his
head, and spoke to Dandak. Had he really not found the
implants?

Ojas pushed me back down to the
chair. Dandak leaned forward, assessing me. “Who are you?”

“Gafur Kawildin from Hegal.
You’re right. I’m not a cop. I...I’ve been lying. I wanted to meet
you, do something for our people. I really do work for the police
though. Ask Sanjeev. The information I gave him was accurate. I
want to help.”

His eyes narrowed, and a sliver
of uncertainty entered his emotions. Could it work? Would he
believe me?

He stood, and held his hand out
for Ojas’s device. “Who knows you’re here?”

“
No one but Shardul, I
swear. I’m not stupid. The
chuma
cops are looking for you.
I’ve got access to their system. I can pull out whatever you need
to know. I thought if you believed I was a cop too, you’d trust me.
I’m sorry, okay? It was a dumb thing to do.”

Please let
him believe me.
It was the only hope I
had of saving Shardul, if not myself.

He stood in front of me,
staring down. No one moved, or made a sound. Waiting, like I was,
for his next move.

He raised his hand to my face,
and I jerked in reflex. “Careful. I think my cheek’s broken.”

Dandak sneered. “Hold them,” he
told the men restraining us. “I’m going to call someone.”

Nadira had fled as soon
as the shouting started. Shardul was looking for a way to get out
of this by force, I sensed, and I wished I could signal to him not
to risk his life. We had a better chance of arguing our way out.
Not a very
big
chance, but fighting these brutes in my
condition was hopeless. Sanjeev might not help them but he wasn’t
going to help us either.

Dandak was back in very little
time, and he shouted in Nihani at Sanjeev who leapt to his feet.
Shardul shouted back, but his captor had him firmly under control.
“Let him go!” I yelled up at Dandak. “He’s done nothing.”

“Only bring a spy into our
midst. There’s something interesting about Shardul, Sanjeev. His
best friend until a few months ago was the governor’s son, Javen
Ythen, a former cop.”

“Yes, but he—”

Dandak sliced impatiently
through the air to silence Sanjeev, who cowered and shut up. “Then
Javen Ythen apparently goes back to Kelon, good riddance, and who
should Sri Shardul start to be seen associating with? Another
dark-haired man who bears a superficial resemblance to Ythen, is
exactly the same height and build, and also a former cop. Who, we
discover, is
matos
—just like Javen Ythen. And
who has some kind of cheek implant.”

Fuck.

Dandak crouched before me, and
suddenly ripped the dressing off my skin. I yelped in pain, but he
stopped me clapping my hand over the injury with a brutally strong
hand on my wrist. He raised the scanner and held it against my
face. It beeped softly, and he smiled nastily. He did something
with the device. Blazing agony shot through my skull, and I yelled,
pulling away from his attack. He yanked me hard, dragging me close,
running the scanner over my forehead and jaw. Another jab of pain,
blinding me. I collapsed off the chair, holding my face, the fiery
pain easing only slightly.

A kick to my side made me cry
out and curl around the hurt. “Someone’s tracking you. Not any
more.” His automatic clicked quietly as he readied a shot. I
couldn’t see him for the pain tears. I waited for the bullet,
hoping he believed me about Shardul.

“Shardul doesn’t know anything,
I swear. He’s nothing to me. Just a pawn. Let him go and you can do
what you want with me.”

“I can do that anyway.” Dandak
grabbed my collar, hauled me up, and jabbed a hypospray at my neck.
I barely registered that he wasn’t going to shoot me, before
everything went away.

~~~~~~~~

Waking was about as unpleasant
an experience as I’d ever had in my life. My head pounded with
every beat of my heart, and my vision sparkled in rhythm. My mouth
tasted like someone had taken a piss in it, and my body was a mass
of aches and tortured muscles.

I panted through the worst of
the pain, trying to figure out my situation and location. My hands
and feet were tied with rope, tightly with no give. I was on my
back. I rolled onto my side, and saw another person lying still and
bound about a metre from me. Shardul. I held my breath while I
listened for his. When I heard it, saw his chest rise and fall
slowly, the tight worry in my own eased a little. But only a
little, because we were both prisoners, and who knew where?

I looked around. We were
indoors, in a small dark room with the dim shapes of boxes and
sacks just visible in the gloom. A storeroom, for food, I guessed,
going by the smell. No helpful tools or sharp edges to cut our
bonds, and when I squinted, I saw the light under a rough wooden
door intermittently interrupted, as if someone stood guard
outside.

First things first. We were
both alive, though I had no idea why. I had no idea where we were,
but I figured we’d been taken some way from the farm. If Dandak had
disabled my implants, then Captain Largosen couldn’t track me, and
presumably Dandak wanted us well away from our last known position.
But why not just shoot me? Both of us?

I couldn’t guess and my head
hurt too much for prolonged concentration. Shardul. I needed him
awake, because he was smarter than me, and two of us had a better
chance of escape than one alone.

Painfully I wriggled my clumsy
way over to Shardul, coming up to lie behind him. “Shardul, wake
up.”

No reaction. He weighed less
than me, so the drugs would have taken more hold on him if we’d had
an equivalent dose. My fear was that he’d been injured on top of
it. I had no way of knowing what had happened to him after I’d lost
consciousness, and he could have been roughed up, questioned under
duress. Dandak had shown no interest in my protestations of
Shardul’s innocence, and he might have thought Shardul was a softer
touch to having the truth beaten out of him.