Empire of Bones (27 page)

But then she opened them again. She had to start thinking ahead; she was long since past the point where she could pretend that things weren't happening. She had to take responsibility for her ac-tions. She stared out into the darkness as the raft surged up-ward. It was not long before it docked.

Anarres and Nowhere One waited impatiently in line as the maintenance workers moved off. As Anarres stepped in front of the
hessirei
at the gate, it looked up sharply.

"Madam! I have seen you before."

"That is correct," Anarres told him with dignity, trying to overcome a flutter of panic. "You remember me from my last visit, when I came to see the orbital's overseer, Uassi SiMethiKhajhat."

"Must see your pass once more," the
hessirei
mumbled, low-ering its head. Anarres reached out an imperious hand and stiffened her fingers to activate the implant. There was an electric pause.

"Most acceptable," the
hessirei
said. Anarres leaned across, murmuring into the whorl of its ear and sending out the aura of her allure. When she straightened up, Nowhere One was gone.

Gliding swiftly past the entranced
hessirei
, Anarres found herself once more in the corridor that led to the translation vaults. Nowhere One stepped from behind an arching, chiti-nous pillar.

"Where are the vaults?" he whispered.

"Through here."

Anarres and the Natural hastened along the corridor, ducking out of view whenever a maintenance person ap-peared.

"SiMethiKhajhat must have quite a reputation," Nowhere One murmured. "The
hessirei's
terrified of him."

Anarres agreed. She hoped she would never meet the over-seer. EsRavesh's implant would baffle the sensors to some de-gree, but there was no point in taking chances. They reached the vaults, and Nowhere One halted.

"There must be thousands of them," Anarres said. "Last time I had Sirru's coordinates, but now…"

"There are a lot of administrative personnel offworld, that's why. The storage units of their First Bodies should be logged according to sector."

"And which sector are we looking for?"

"It's called Eslttikh."

"Where's that?"

"It's one of the more recently charted areas of space, out on the galactic edge. There's not a lot in it—a few suns, a few dead systems. And a little world called Arakrahali."

15. v&ranasi

Rajira Jahan, courtesan of Varanasi, was glued to her im-ported Mitsubishi DVD, seeking news of her departed alien lover. The previous night seemed an eternity away, and she found herself wondering whether the whole event had been nothing more than a dream. It was, indeed, similar to some of the visions that Rajira had experienced in her brief and cau-tious flirtations with opium. But as soon as she saw the fleeting glimpse of Sirru, standing in the courtyard of the Temple of Durga behind the shoulder of Jaya Nihalani, she knew that it had been real.

Rajira, adept at noting opportunities for power, had no in-tention of letting this one slip by. Summoning her latest maid, who also acted as her secretary, she ran a finger down the list of the day's bookings.

"
Skri
Matondkar—the elderly gentleman, you remember? He's been a client for years. You can reschedule him for next week; he won't mind—usually just wants a chat these days, anyway.
Shri
Khan—better keep him on the list: he's wealthy. A banker.
Shri
Sharma—definitely keep him: a politician, from the Punjab. He comes here for conferences." She re-flected for a moment. "Not precisely blessed with the looks of Krishna, that one, but stamina—my God! They say he's got a positive
harem
back home." She reached the end of the list and frowned. "Who is this? He's down as a question mark."

"He wouldn't give his name," the maid said. "He phoned."

Rajira felt a small shiver of anticipation. Was there any chance that this could be the alien? With the prospect of the day's activities before her, she found herself dwelling on stranger flesh with a sensation that was close to nostalgia. The alien might have been anatomically challenging, but at least he knew how to treat a girl. "Mr. X, eh? Did he sound local?"

"He spoke excellent Hindi. And he says he knows you. He said:
Remember the hibiscus tree
." Puzzled, the maid frowned, but Rajira Was immediately transported fifteen years into the past.

Then, she had surely rivaled Lakshmi for loveliness, even if it might be heresy to think so. That's what they'd called her in those days, only partly joking:
the Goddess of Love
. People had compared her to her most famous predecessor, Sushma the Beautiful, heroine of a hundred stories. Just as Sushma had done three hundred years before, Rajira had gone one day to the market and met a prince. However, she had been shop-ping not for rare silks, as Sushma had, but for the latest Western videos. And it was while she was standing in the shade of a hibiscus tree, clutching a copy of
Dreamville II
and fanning herself against the heat, that her prince had appeared. True, he'd been driving an army jeep radier than riding atop the white horse tliat had been
the
conveyance of the prince in the legend, but otherwise it was exactly the same. They had been lovers for a year, until tlie prince's mother had found out that her son was seeing a courtesan.

Now, Rajira could smile at the memory. That had been a scene and a half, and no mistake. Her prince had been abruptly recalled to an army base in the north, but had sworn to return one day. For a while, Rajira really believed it, but then she had realized the truth and concentrated instead on investing the large sum that her beloved's mother had given her to ensure a dignified retreat. She had followed his career, of course, and had read the rumors of military brutality with some dismay. He hadn't been like that witli her, but then who knew what men were capable of?

And now here he was making an appointment, only fifteen years too late. She sat down at her dressing table and began to apply her makeup with more than usual care.

Toward the end of the afternoon, Rajira ushered die Punjabi politician firmly out of her boudoir and waited nerv-ously for the arrival of the visitor. The door opened, and a man stepped through.

"Rajira! You haven't changed a bit."

Apart from an additional twenty pounds
, Rajira thought. Still, it was nice of him to say so.

"Neither have you, Amir." She stepped forward and took his hands, stood looking up into the cold blue gaze that had made her weak at the knees fifteen years before. But too much time had gone by, and she knew it. She said, "Well, I didn't expect to see you ever again. I thought you were getting married?"

Amir Anand gave her a rather hangdog look in response.

J

Rajira knew that look: it was guilt. She had seen it a hundred times; men loved to use it to exert control over someone whom they felt might be slipping away from them. All her clients that day had been married men, though she knew for a fact that the banker's wife was cheating on him. And she'd heard rumors about what die politician's lady got up to when he was out of town, too. But diat was just the way of the world. At least no one had to worry about AIDS anymore; though as soon as they found an in-oculation for one disease, another seemed to erupt in its place.

"How is the dear girl?" Rajira asked, just to rub it in. Anand let go of her hands and sat heavily down on the bed.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said.

"Then let me bring you some tea," Rajira replied. "Or would you prefer whisky?"

"Whisky," said Anand morosely. After that, it didn't take long to get the whole story out of him: how Kharishma was becoming more and more obsessed with power, how she was trying to wangle her way into politics, how she'd changed. Rajira noted that he studiously avoided using the term "un-balanced,"

but it was clear that this was the root of it.

"But do you love her, Amir?" she said at last. She was sur-prised to find that her voice was so steady, and more amazed still when the image of the alien slid into her mind, eclipsing the old pain. She even managed to look Anand in the eye when he said miserably, "Yes. Yes, I do." Then he groped for her hand and added, "Rajira? You know that you—you were—"

"Hush," she said. "Don't say anything more."

16. 't4ranast/ lemple 01 Du^a

"
Moksha
," Satyajit Rakh said, gloomily.

"What?" Jaya looked up from the Web reports and the headset that connected her to the Net. Her head was beginning to pound. She blinked in the dimmer light, the memory of the screen still scrolling across her retinas. Rakh's face was filled with a sour sadness. He repeated, "
Mo'tsha
. If you die in Varanasi by the sacred river, it means liberation from the wheel of life. That's why that man killed himself last night—there are rumors that the aliens are gods, that they've come to take us all to Heaven. Apparently the suicide decided he couldn't wait. They've already put up a shrine to him across the square. People have been visiting it all morning— Shiv says it's got your photo in it. You could be becoming the center of another cult, Jaya."

"I'm starting to get used to that." Jaya sighed. "What hap-pened to Kharishma?"

"She's set up camp across the square. With a pavilion. I've issued a complaint to the minister, as you instructed, but the troops all adore her. You saw the elephant?"

Jaya gave a sardonic nod. "Almost as difficult to miss as Kharishma herself. Was it an elephant, though?"

She had a memory of something bigger, with huge sweeping tusks and a white mane, and an even vaguer memory of an ex-lover of Kharishma's being the director of a wildlife park in northern Uttar Pradesh.

"Looked like one of those purported cloned mammoths to me."

Rakh shook his head, unsure. "What do you think Kharishma wants?"

"She wants to be famous," Jaya snapped. "What else?"

She pointed to the computer screen, where Shiv was down-loading a clip from the forthcoming movie. In the absence of more concrete information, this clip was causing a great deal of attention throughout the media. Jaya, Shiv, and Rakh watched it in silence, and some bewilderment. In the clip, Jaya was portrayed as aristocratic, victorious, vengeful, and mag-nificent. It seemed to be a typical over-the-top Bollywood pro-duction, complete with songs.

"Not going for realism, are they?" Shiv remarked.

Jaya snorted. "I don't see too many allusions to mud and dysentery, no. Look at that," she said as Kharishma battled her way across a crocodile-infested river. "She's still got her lipstick on!"

"I know," Shiv said artlessly. "And you were such a mess most of the time."

Jaya gave him a chilly look. "I'd like you to keep your eye on Kharishma."

"All right. Are we still planning to leave tonight?"

Jaya sighed. "Yes. I think so. If we kill the aliens, more will come, and besides, they're the last bargaining chip we have left. But if they're planning genocide… Oh, I don't know, Rakh. I don't know what to do.

We'll keep to the original plan and go north. I'm going to get some rest." She slapped Rakh on the shoulder with an old affection on her way through the door. "Guard us well, Rakhi. As you always have."

Later, however, she was deep in some uneasy dream when Rakh shook her awake. The sun slanted in through the win-dows, suggesting that it was already past noon,

"Commander? Excuse me. You have a visitor."

"What, another one? Goddess… Who is it this time?"

Rakh's teeth flashed white in a grin.

"Someone you might be pleased to see. For a change."

Jaya sat up. There was a small figure at Rakh's elbow, who stepped awkwardly forward. The Selenge had taken so great a hold that it was hard to recognize him at first.

"Halil?"

The last time she had seen the boy was in the sewers be-neath Varanasi General, on the day of her escape from the hospital. She reached out and hugged the boy. Halil felt slight and frail in her arms, bird-boned. He gave a wide, shy grin.

"I wanted to come before, but I couldn't. I was ill," he ex-plained, unnecessarily.

"We found him inside the courtyard," Rakh said, with an unmistakable note of warning in his voice.

"Halil?" She drew the boy beside her. "Sit down. Tell me. How did you get in?"

The child readily replied, "Through the passages under-neath the temple. They lead into the sewers, end up out on the river."

"Rakhi, I thought you had people posted down there."

"Who do you think caught him?"

"Halil, why did you come here? To see me, or—?"

"I heard there are some people here. From another world. I wanted to see them. And you, too," he added loyally. "No one sent me, if that's what you're thinking. I'm not a spy."

Jaya was not sure that she believed this, but whatever the truth of the matter, she did not think that Halil had very long left to live. And maybe he was not the only one. All the hopes she had that the aliens might be able to heal her people settled in a knot in her stomach. As a tight anger constricted her throat, she took the child by the hand.

"Come on. You want to see the aliens, do you? Well, let's go and see them, then. Rakh, go back to the gate."

She found Sirru crouching by the main entrance of the great hall. He was running his fingertips across the stone step, his hands twisting in a complex pattern. She had no idea what he was doing, but it seemed to her that there was a trace of furtiveness in the golden eyes. He glanced indifferently at the child.

"Sirru? I want you to meet someone. This is Halil."

She gave the child a little push between his thin shoulder blades, propelling him forward. Halil dug his feet in for a mo-ment, then stepped toward Sirru. He was almost eye to eye with the crouching alien. They regarded each other gravely for a moment, then Sirru reached out and turned the child's face to the lamplight. He moved the boy's jaw this way and that, considering the striations of Selenge, like snail tracks across the skin. Soon, when the disease entered its last leprotic stages, Jaya knew, the flesh along those striations would be eaten away, and then would come liver failure. Halil's joints had stiffened, too.