Empire of Bones (10 page)

Even for Bharat, it was mayhem. Opposite the temple, on-lookers hung out of the upper story of the Krishna laundry, which, Jaya reflected, had to be making a fortune in viewing fees. All traffic had been stopped, with the exception of the bike rickshaws, who had latched onto the presence of foreign journalists on expense accounts with the avidity of vultures. Jaya grinned. Not even the most hard-bitten hack stood a chance against the average Varanasi businessman. Everyone in this town had the confidence bestowed by three thousand years of practice in fleecing the faithful.

Up here, she could hear the cries of vendors, flogging charms and garlands and plastic UFOs and God knew what else. Maybe she could persuade Ir Yth to take a break from impersonating deities and go souvenir shopping.

As she took a careful step down onto the gallery, the mon-keys, who had been chattering and yelping and throwing or-ange rinds at the men below, fell suddenly silent and watched her with bright, anxious eyes. At the end of the gallery, Ir Yth turned to greet her. The
raksasa
was indistinct; she seemed to fade in and out of view. Jaya thought that this must have something to do with the orbit of the ship, where the
raksasa's
real body was located. Jaya made her way along the roof to where Ir Yth was standing.

What are those people doing
? the
raksasa
asked.

Jaya looked over the edge of the roof at the crowd gathered below. Soldiers lined the outskirts of the temple, giving cre-dence to rumor. Every media network on the planet seemed to have sent a representative, and Jaya had already imposed a caste system of her own upon them: the local networks at the front, CNN at the back. She was mindful of Singh's con-cerns—keep the Americans out of this, for as long as possible. Added to these were pilgrims of a multiplicity of religious persuasions; scientists; tourists; lunatics. It reminded Jaya un-easily of the old days at the ashram. She was doomed to be the center of attention.

One of these days
, she told herself,
I'm going to become a nor-mal person, neither invisible nor the
focus of everyone's gaze
. But the only person who had ever seen her as ordinary—as a girl who liked parakeets and hibiscus flowers and green tea, who got sick and scared that she couldn't cope—had been Kamal. And Kamal was dead. For the thousandth time, Jaya thrust the memory away.

I asked you a question, the raksasa
said.

"Which people in particular do you mean?" Jaya replied.

A permanent small group of Brahmin students were wav-ing placards, protesting Jaya's appointment.

Yesterday there had been a riot in Delhi, and there were likely to be more. The
ra^sasa
pointed a rudimentary finger at the students.

"Oh, those. They're objecting to me."

The
raksasas
mouth pursed and curled in a gesture that possibly indicated surprise.
Please explain
.

Jaya sighed. "I've told you that I am of a certain caste, that there are hierarchies in this society."

The
raksasa
gave a careful movement of her head, a gesture she had learned from Jaya.

Yes. Hierarchies are something that I understand very well.

"I have told you that there are certain things I am allowed to do, and others that I am
not
allowed to do."

What is permitted to you
? Ir Yth asked.

Jaya swallowed an old shame. She had avoided the particulars of her position up until now. She said, carefully, "To handle corpses, excrement, leather, earth. It used to be different; there was a period back last century when almost all work was open to us. We were organized—a self-empowerment movement called the Dalit Panthers emerged, based on an earlier struggle in an-other country. Then the government changed." She thought back to her conversation with the minister. "It started closing off our privileges.

There was protest—a lot of people objected to the government's attempts to restore the caste system.

But then a great many of my caste became ill, with a virus they call Selenge. It mainly affected us—no one knew why—which led to my caste's being persecuted," She held out her scarred wrist. "We were branded again as untouchables, as disease carriers, even if we weren't even suffering from the illness. If it were left to some of my fellow citizens, I would probably be one of the last people on Earth to be chosen as any kind of representative."

It is not a question of choice
, the
raksasa
said irritably.
That is what you
are.
Caste must be
accordingly revised. Please instruct your hierarchical regulators of this fact
.

"I'll point it out to them," Jaya replied, smiling. Ir Yth made it all sound so simple.

People have been coming here all day. What do they want?

"They want to know why you're here. What your plans are.

Ir Yth looked at Jaya as though she had made some casual remark about the weather, and did not reply.

"Ir Yth…" Jaya sighed.

/
must leave now. I have things to do. We will discuss this later
, Ir Yth said, and was abruptly gone.

£. Ixhokanara lalace/ Jaipur lrovince/ India

The man making his way through the marble corridors of the palace did not need the cane which appeared to guide his steps, for he was perfectly able to see. Smell was the only sense that Naran Tokai did not possess. He swung the ivory cane from side to side as he walked; nanofilters embedded within its intricate whorls picked up the odors in the air. It was pleas-ant to be back in the perfumed air of the palace; the stench of the funeral pyres as he had driven through the villages had been initially overwhelming, penetrating even the air-conditioned atmosphere of the limousine. The aftermath of another outbreak of Selenge, no doubt. Tokai had merely switched off the cane and watched the smoke drift by.

Amir Anand was here, an hour early, and the old man's lips pursed in disapproval. The butcher-prince was getting above himself. Perhaps it was a mistake to meet him here… But Tokai dismissed that thought. He wanted to show Anand who was the master of Khokandra Palace, provide a firm demonstration that although this might once have been Anand's ancestral home, those days were long gone. The gilt and marble halls of Khokhandra belonged to Tokai now, and the place had been relegated to no more than a summer house in the hills, a charming cottage for weekends away whenever Tokai visited India. He already possessed palaces in Delhi and Kerala, and something more rural seemed in order.

Naran Tokai smiled to himself as he walked. The palace was still run-down, and Tokai planned to have it redecorated as soon as possible—import a little Japanese taste and refine-ment to replace all that ostentatious opulence. Perhaps he'd have the gardens done as well, and bring in some of the regen-dered geishas who currently decorated his mansions in Kyoto or Singapore. His smile widened. He did not think Anand would like that at
all
.

He could smell the butcher-prince already. The vestigial traces of sweat and food and urine, masked beneath deodor-ant and an aftershave that Tokai found offensively pungent, were channeled through the sensory units of the cane. It was far more effective than his own senses; Tokai reflected once more that the laboratory accident which had deprived him of his sense of smell had really been a blessing in disguise. As he approached the chamber, the odors grew stronger. He paused in the doorway, the cane extended before him. From widün, Anand said, "
Shri
Tokai?"

The voice was respectful and cultured, but Tokai could de-tect something beneath it, like the human smells underneath the artificial ones. He tapped his way into the room, and Amir Anand rose too quickly to greet him, bowing low over the old man's hand. It must hurt, Tokai reflected, the princeling being forced to sell off the family silver to a Japanese industrialist, to someone in trade. Politely, Tokai said, "Sit down, please. Would you like water, perhaps tea?"

"A glass of tea, thank you."

Tokai rang the bell for the servant and stepped unsteadily to the edge of the couch, then lowered himself.

"It is so hot." He sighed. "Really, one can't venture outside before evening. My late wife used to say that she longed for the rain when the weather became like this… Such a horrible climate." He rambled on, covertly observing Anand's irrita-tion with pleasure. The pale blue eyes were expressionless, but something moved with their depths as Tokai's calculated in-sults continued.
Must remind Anand that
being the son of a ma-haraja amounts to very little these days. Especially if one's managed to
disgrace oneself by failing to prevent the escape of a political prisoner like Jaya Nihalani
. Anand was an aristocrat, after all, and one with fanatical ideas about caste purity, but what were such upstarts compared with the Japanese?

"Well, one must abide by one's sense of duty, don't you agree, Amir? I'd much rather be back in Kyoto, but there are all these contracts, and the natives don't really know what they're doing. They require guidance, isn't that so? Of men like ourselves.
Civilized
men."

Warily, Anand agreed. Tokai continued to complain about his workers, spinning fine lines between concepts of caste and race to confuse Anand. The latter, not a stupid man, was clearly unsure as to whether he was being insulted or not. At length, Tokai gave up the game and said, "Now. This most in-teresting question of these supposed aliens. Who would have thought it? They say there is a vast ship orbiting the world, and that an alien itself is not a hundred miles away in Varanasi."

Immediately, Anand made a gesture of negation. "Non-sense. Nothing more than rumors and tricks."

"Are you quite sure about that?"

"What else could it be?"

Tokai was not particularly interested in Anand's opinions, but he was intrigued to note that Anand did not like the idea of aliens at all. The prince's discomfort, relayed into pheromonal ouday, was being transmitted along the cane with some force. Perhaps it had something to do with Anand's out-raged hierarchical certainties. Whatever the case, Tokai thought, it might prove useful.

To Amir Anand he said, "Oh, but I think it is more than tricks and rumors. My old friend Vikram Singh, minister of the interior, has seen the alien with his own eyes. In the Temple of Durga, in Varanasi. It resembles a god, he tells me. It has four arms… and who do you think was with it?" The question was entirely rhetorical. Unless Anand had spent the previous week in a darkened room with his head in a box, he could hardly have failed to take note of the multiple news an-nouncements, which though confusing had managed to focus on one important fact.

Anand scowled, as if in preparation for hearing the name.

"Jayachanda Nihalani." Tokai rolled the syllables on his tongue with some relish, as though they were a Cuban cigar. "The little caste revolutionary. And not long after your failure to capture her at the hospital.

What a pity, Anand. History, I've often thought, depends on so little—a chance meeting, a missed opportunity. If you'd taken Nihalani into custody as planned, who knows who'd be in receipt of otherworldly fa-vors now?" He smiled. Anand gave him a wary glance, evi-dently sensing where the conversation was heading. "Tell me again what happened at the hospital. There is a very big gap between being a fugitive lying sick in a bed one moment and becoming die favored representative of an alien people the next. I would like to know what happened in the day or so that Nihalani went missing."

He listened carefully as Anand began to speak. The man was brutal, but brittle, and there were still alarming areas of weakness which would have to be corrected. Anand re-counted his last confrontation with Jaya Nihalani with as much measured objectivity as he could muster, but Tokai could sense the rage beneath the words. It was hardly surpris-ing. The whole Nihalani affair had been a chronicle of inepti-tude: first a bloodbath at the ashram all tüose years ago, leaving Nihalani free to rally the masses and instigate a caste-based revolt; then redemption when Anand finally captured her a full ten years later, only to lose her again in a prison breakout…

The government of Bharat was fortunate that Tokai had offered his services in solving the problem, and even more for-tunate that he specialized in ingenious solutions. The thought of the Selenge virus drifted into his mind, and Tokai smiled to himself:
that
had been an inspired solution, for example, in response to a much earlier crisis. Not without its drawbacks, of course—no biological weapon was perfect—but really Selenge had exceeded expectations.

Tokai said, lightly, "So you would have no objections to… retrieving Nihalani? Privately, this time, and without the hin-drances placed in your way by unsympathetic government de-partments? A chance to redeem yourself?"

There was an electric pause, then Anand said, "You mean I'd be working for you?"

After a very long time, during which he could smell the growing odor of Anand's sweat, Tokai answered,

"That's right. You'd be working for me. The thought bothers you, perhaps?"

"No, no, of course not," Anand said hastily. "Why should it?"

"No reason. Ironically, Nihalani is under the protection of the security forces at the moment, but I'll have a word with Vikram Singh. I'm sure I can convince him where his best in-terests lie. We're
very
old friends. After all"—Tokai smiled benevolently—"it really is for the best, Anand. A treasured alien visitor in the hands of a terrorist? No, no, no. We'll be doing everyone a favor if we secure Nihalani and invite the alien to make full use of our resources. And if the being proves hostile, then I'm sure all concerned will agree that it is better off under my control than Nihalani's. And the powers of the Japanese axis would much rather involve India than the West."

Of course they would, Tokai thought, watching Anand narrowly. Heavy investment on the part of the Japanese axis entailed a degree of control over the subcontinent, whereas influencing America and the European Union would be an entirely different story. "In recompense, I might be prepared to restore some of your fortunes to you." He glanced around the shabbily ornate room, leaving no doubt as to his meaning. "You'll want to marry that charming actress of yours, no doubt, and this really would be a delightful place to raise a family… Go back to Varanasi, Anand. Find out what you can and get back to me. And then we will consider our op-tions."