Empire of Bones (15 page)

Sirru followed. He made no attempt to interfere with her exploration, only seemed curious to know what she was do-ing. It could not really be called exploring, though, for how-ever hard Jaya tried, she was unable to keep track of her wanderings. The ship changed constantly, its fluid interior shifting and altering.

Somehow, she seemed to know where her own little cell was located, as though she had gained some sixth sense: the labyrinth leading Ariadne. The ship also smelled strange, emitting odors, as though each cell was coded, but her sense of smell—though sharper than it had been before—still wasn't good enough for her to be able to find her way.

After a while, the murmur in her head returned. The ship began to guide her, steering her through the maze of passages with a sequence of strong, strange impressions—a mixture of hallucination and deja vu.

She tried to speak to the ship, to ask about Rakh and the others, but the ship merely sang to itself inside her mind: a contented refrain. They had been apart and now they were together. She was where she belonged, and nothing else was of importance.

No matter how hard she tried, Jaya was unable to convince it to contact the world below, to find out what had become of her men, and the worry was starting to eat away at her like a sore. Sirru trailed behind her, smiling benevolently and saying noth-ing that she could discern. Eventually, she found herself back at the cell. The ship was concerned, and wanted her to rest. Reluctantly, she settled herself against the wall, within the cradle of the sleeping mesh. When she awoke, the wall remained open.

A day after her arrival on the ship, Jaya's menstrual cycle began again. It had been absent for years, and she greeted its troublesome appearance with annoyance and relief. Despite her condescending stance, the
raksasa
seemed to know rela-tively little about human biology, a fact which Jaya stored carefully away. Ir Yth, after much explanation on Jaya's part, supplied water to wash with.

It did not take long for her to realize that her courses could also be useful. On her next foray into the ship, she marked the walls that she passed with a thin smear of blood, starting with the wall of her own cell and moving out from there. She planned to make an inventory of the ship, to locate its central point of function, but when she got back to her cell, she found to her frustration that the blood was gone, as though the wall had absorbed it. She smacked the wall in fury, but her hand simply glanced off its smooth, warm surface as the air around her became soothing and bland. This only annoyed Jaya more.

She came across nothing that resembled instrument panels or flight mechanisms, though on the second day she found an area the size of an aircraft hangar, filled witli tanks which were themselves made out of some kind of organic material. These contained the translucent nutrient, plus something that looked like a mass of spiny black seeds. Jaya investigated the tanks, but she couldn't make any sense of the contents.

Food was not proving to be a problem. She took in nutrients from the wall, but although she was used to the often unsavory quality of life in Varanasi, she could not bring herself to put her mouth to the nutrient drip. She was not entirely sure why; per-haps because the ship had a disturbing likeness to flesh. Instead, she held her hand beneath the drip as though it were a tap and licked the sweet-salty nutrient from her palm. Her re-productive functions might be working again, but her diges-tive system had closed down; she did not become hungry, and generated no waste. Although this was an advantage where hygiene was concerned, it was a further annoyance. She could

1 UO

JU.1Z. Vf iLLintvia have used her shit to mark the walls; the ship might not have rejected that. Plus, it made her feel unreal, smooth and sealed like a plastic doll.

The situation still seemed like a dream. Ir Yth and Sirru seemed to be keeping to themselves. She was unable to locate them, and the ship would not tell her where they might be. It was too peaceful for someone who had spent her life sur-rounded by millions of other souls: the crowded, desperate, sick, and dying. It did not take long for Jaya to feel anxious and bored, but whenever the edge of stress appeared she was suddenly filled with peace, prana rising up her spine and bringing a lightness in its wake. This was so far from her usual edgy mood that she quickly realized it was the ship that was doing this; solicitous, attentive, it was taking care of her every emotion.

"Ship! Don't
do
that. I can take care of myself. I'd rather feel things."

Unhappy with your distress. Before, too far away to help. In-formation only. Now you are present

—
can help
.

"But it's
not
helping." Frustrated at being so manipulated, and reluctant to let go of an instinct which had helped her sur-vive all the years of her life, Jaya sent the fear deep within, where it lodged like a seed in her waiting heart. She tried to protect and nurture this fear; it was the only thing that had kept her alive.

On what she estimated to be her third day on the ship, she finally found her way back to the viewing port, which oblig-ingly unscrolled before her, as if the ship knew that she needed to see her home. She spent the next few hours there, sitting in the lotus position on the warm soft skin of the ship, watching day pass to night and back again while lightning burned high in the storms of the world, flashing against the backdrop of atmosphere. Bharat narrowed down into the sea, lights spread across the nightside like a spiderweb over the Ganges plain.

Where was Rakh now? Where was Shiv? And, most im-portant of all, where was Amir Anand? Perhaps closing like a wolf on her men, while she sat passive and helpless thousands of feet above the world. She stared at the marbled face of the planet for so long that her eyes watered.
Time to go home
. She rose lithely to her feet and called, "Sirru! Where are you? Can you hear me?"

She called again, and then searched for another hour, but there was no reply and no sign of either alien.

Angrily she went back to her chamber, but she was unable to sleep.

Instead, her past ran before her in a kind of waking dream. As she had done in the hospital, she watched the events of her childhood swim by: a set of tiny, distant images. She watched as the ashram burned.

She watched her flight with Kamal and Satyajit; the journey to the mountains; the guerrilla encamp-ments.

She saw herself walking out on a cold morning, clouds wreathing the peaks and the mist boiling up from the Nandaram valley. She was wearing combat fatigues and there was an MK.16 slung over her shoulder. She walked with com-parative ease, the illness in temporary remission and the voice silent.

Jaya watched as her younger self walked down the val-ley, past the carrion crows that gathered hopefully around the camp, down to the swift-flowing river where she washed her face. It had taken a while to persuade her comrades to treat her as one of them, allowing her to walk where she pleased, but she knew that someone was always keeping an eye on her from the fortress. She was their talisman, after all.

Around the bend of the river, crouching by the cold water, she found her husband. Kamal's round face was very serious.

"Jaya," he said, frowning. "I've found something strange. Look at this." He pointed to the river.

Curious, she came to kneel by him. He scooped up a hand-ful of water and flipped it at her. Her hair dripping, she shrieked in mock fury, but before she could retaliate, he was already running up the slope.

"Coward!" She caught up with him at the top of the slope, both of them breathless with laughter.

That had been a good day, but then in her mind's eye she saw the night before the troops moved in.

Staring into the alien darkness, she remembered exactly how it felt: the fear tightening her throat, the haunting knowledge that none of them would be there if it were not for her. Responsibility coated her soul like lead. The emotions of that day flooded back, and as they did, the ship's presence closed around her.

Solicitous, oppressive, it began to dampen her feelings like a sponge soaking up spilled blood.

Leave me alone
, Jaya willed;
go away
. Resentment surged through her:
You tricked me, all those
years ago. You made me believe in something beyond all the lies; you gave me faith
. Yet somehow she felt that she was being unfair. It did not seem probable that the ship had singled her out. If she understood Ir Yth correctly, she was no more than a particular type of per-son, one whose genetic structure enabled her to act as Receiver to the ship's transmitter. She had long since grown tired of the lie that she was special. She was simply the product of long-ago alien tinkering, and now she was cured.

Rising, she made her way back to the viewing port, the walls unpeeling before her until she stood staring down at the circle of the world. She had to get back, to find out what these otherworldly people could do for her, but she was beginning to feel like nothing more than a pawn in an ancient game.

The wall peeled back, and Jaya started. Sirru stepped serenely through the gap, Ir Yth trailing in his wake like a short stout tug.

"I looked all over the place for you. Where were you?" Jaya asked.

The
ra'tsasa
said, apparently on Sirru's behalf,
The mediator hopes you are well. He apologizes that
we have left you alone for so long. We have had much to do. Documentation for a reactivated
colony requires much time
.

Wonderful
, Jaya thought. She'd been left alone all this time whilst they got on with the paperwork.

Reminding herself to try and remain polite, she said, "I get tired. Otherwise, I'm well. Thank you."

She was impatient to find out what their plans were, but held back the question. Ir Yth had proved so evasive in the past that Jaya did not believe a direct interrogation would get anything resembling a straight answer.

The mediator wishes to know if you require anything
, Ir Yth said.

"Thank you both for your concern. Yes, I would like some-thing. I'd like to go back."

Back?

Jaya pointed through the viewport. "To my world. I've been here long enough, and you don't seem to have much need of me. Take me home, please." Her voice sounded impe-rious, and too edgy.

Sirru leaned forward to murmur in the
raksasa's
fluted ear. The mediator's mood had changed. Jaya caught a sense of frustration, annoyance, and bewilderment, which moved over her skin like a cold, trailing hand.

The mediator asks: What are your impressions of the ship?

Jaya thought for a moment. "It's very strange. I've never been anywhere like this before. It's like being inside a vast creature… half plant, half animal… but it's not really either, is it? It's something completely different." She glanced at Ir Yth for confirmation, but the
raksasa's
face was bland and blank. "Look, about going back to Earth—"

Sirru spoke; Ir Yth translated:
Why such haste? Is it not preferable here? But perhaps you are
overwhelmed by such luxury, coming as you do from that primitive, uncouth environment
—

"I've been in worse places than this," Jaya snapped. The ship sent an anxious pulse, willing her to calmness, but it slid over her skin like oil and was gone. Jaya did not stop to think. In another second, she was across the floor and had seized Ir Yth by a lower arm. Her fingers sank into the alien flesh like steel wire.

The
raksasa
rocked back on her heels; her lips pulsed in and out. A bolt of raw pain shot through Jaya's hand, throwing her against the wall. Her arm hurt as far as her shoulder, with a sick neural ache. Her stomach churned. Sirru hovered solici-tously at her side.

That is a small warning only. Never touch me again
! the
rak-sasa
commanded.

Not unless it's from behind, with an iron bar
, Jaya thought, numbly. She had wondered what defenses the physically pecu-liar, unimpressive Ir Yth might employ. Well, now she knew. The
raksasa
spun to face Sirru, chittering. Sirru looked down at the floor, as if embarrassed. He said something that sounded conciliatory, and touched Jaya on the shoulder. She was flooded with reassurance and puzzlement, but her limbs still felt shaky and hot. She looked mutely at Sirru. After a moment, Ir Yth turned and walked away, and Sirru followed.

Distress settled in Jaya's stomach, and for once die ship did nothing to help. The mottled walls of
the
ship were more like a prison than ever, and she thought with longing of the filth and familiarity of Varanasi.
It
might not be much of a life any-more, but at least it's human. At least it's mine
. She could feel the cold control that the ship was trying to exert over her emo-tions start to fracture and crack, like a fragile shell.

She stumbled blindly through the cells of the ship, de-scending through the labyrinth of odors until she reached a small antechamber that opened onto the nutrient baths. She pushed the walls out of her way so quickly that they did not have time to part, and they folded back on her in waves of queasy, liquid flesh.

Her hoarse breath echoed in her ears. She turned and struck the wall, and the ship yielded like a rubber punching bag. In sudden murderous fury, Jaya lashed out at the wall, raking it with her nails, and a long, slimy strip tore away and fell wetly to the floor.

Appalled, Jaya stood, panting, and stared at it. The scored surface of the wall was seeping, oozing a translucent, reddish fluid. On the floor, the fleshy strip pulsed once, and then was still. In fascinated revulsion she reached out and touched the tip of a finger to the gash, and the wall itself flinched. Awful farcical thoughts raced through her mind, of trying to stick the strip back on. The wall was starting to smell, like some-thing rotten that had lain in the sun. Jaya backed away until she was leaning against the opposite wall. Slowly, the wound flushed, a deep, dark crimson flecked with green. In sudden involuntary motion, Jaya stepped back, and the wall parted to let her through. Her chamber beckoned, and she stumbled toward it, filled with horror and guilt. This time, the ship did nothing to belay her mood.