Sagramanda

by Alan Dean Foster

  His eyes widened, however, as he studied the readouts that were generated in the air before him. Eyeing their backside, Sanjay could make out words and diagrams, charts and numbers. It was doubtful that he would have been able to make sense of the highly technical terminology even if he had been sitting alongside Pandit on the other couch and viewing the display from the front. Though intensely curious, he did not say anything. For one thing, he did not want to break his host's sudden concentration. For another, if he were to view the display he might be asked to comment on its meaning, thus revealing the extent of his ignorance about the contents of the molly.

  “By Mohini's girdle!” Pandit breathed softly as page after page of heads-up information automatically winked in and out of existence in front of him. He took a moment to peer around the display at his patient guest. “Have another cup of tea. Do you know what you have here?”

  Sanjay might not be highly educated, but he was mentally agile. “Something of great value.”

  “Be obscure, then, if it pleases you.” There was no rancor in Pandit's voice as he returned to studying the floating fount of information. Either his guest was truly ignorant of the molly's contents, or else he was playing dumb for commercial reasons. While Pandit might prefer to believe the former, from a business standpoint it was much safer to believe the latter. The older man's reaction rendered Sanjay even more curious about the molly's contents. Just what was it that the furtive Taneer had given him to sell?

  Whatever it was, the mollysphere's sales pitch was having the intended effect. Chhote Pandit was not merely interested: he was entranced.

  Fine tea or no fine tea, Sanjay was beginning to squirm when his host finally shifted to the other end of his couch, leaving the molly activated and the last page of information hanging in the air. As Sanjay waited, the display winked out. Frowning, Pandit spoke again into his command bracelet. Nothing happened.

  “That's odd. The storage sphere you gave me now reads empty.” He studied something out of Sanjay's line of sight. “Not just empty, but as if it had never been written to.”

  His guest was apologetic. “I was told by the person who wishes to sell this information that you would be able to view it one time only. It was quantum secured.”

  “Ah.” Pandit leaned back in his couch and nodded understandingly. “Viewing the information simultaneously destroys it. A sensible precaution. It means that one option open to me, that of holding you against your will and stealing this information, is no longer applicable. Nothing personal, you understand. In business of this nature, one must always consider every available option.”

  “Naturally.” Sanjay maintained his composure. “Then you find my client's merchandise worthy of consideration?” Given the price Taneer was asking, Sanjay would not have been in the least surprised if his host had sneered or even laughed at the query.

  Instead, Chhote Pandit fell to stroking his wispy beard with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. “I admit I was initially more than skeptical. But the presentation provided ample proof that your client can deliver what is promised.”

  Sanjay tried not to hold his breath. “And the proposed fee arrangements?” The reply stunned him.

  “I would only be passing along the indicated materials to the final purchaser, as per your request, but from what little I know of such things, I would count it a bargain.”

  Despite his promise to himself to conceal anything like an emotional reaction for the duration of the meeting, Sanjay found himself startled. He recovered as rapidly as possible.

  “My client will be pleased to hear that.”

  “There is only one problem.” Pandit removed his hand from his beard and gestured absently in the direction of the gleaming console, as if its presence in the room could explain everything. “I am not sure I am equipped to negotiate a transaction of this magnitude.”

  Sanjay frowned. “I was reliably informed that—”

  His host cut him off with a wave of his right hand. “Oh, I did not say I could not do it. It is just that business of this nature comes along once in a man's lifetime, and I want to be sure of the schematics before I can proceed. But I am certainly willing to try! Oh yes, I am certainly willing to try.” The look in his eyes was one Sanjay had come to know well. It was the same whether one saw it in the face of a fellow Indian, or a Chinese, or a European, or an African.

  Greed knows no ethnicity.

  A fresh thought came to his host. Instinctively he looked around, back toward the entrance Sanjay had used. “Did anyone see you come in here? Not just to my office, but to the complex? Do you think there was any possibility you may have been followed?”

  The shopkeeper's muscles tightened. By accepting the proposition of the customer Taneer, Sanjay had known he was going to be operating in territory hitherto unfamiliar to him, but to see the venerable businessman sitting on the couch suddenly tense and look toward his own doorway left him feeling more uneasy than he had anticipated.

  “I do not think so. There was no reason for anyone to follow me.” He offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “My client has been very circumspect in every aspect of his dealings with me, and I with him.”

  Pandit relaxed slightly. “See to it that it remains so. Where something of this importance is involved, civility tends to be the first casualty.” His somberness gave way to a winning smile, missing teeth notwithstanding. “To say our relationship in this matter is to be mutually possible is to speak the mother of all understatements. Provided neither of us ends up dead, of course.”

  “Of course,” Sanjay agreed with a calmness he did not feel.

  “We should conduct future dealings in person as much as we can. These days, it is easier to trace and read an electronic communication than a live person. Provided you do not mind coming back here.” Pandit's eyes were fixed on his guest. The intensity of their gaze and the intelligence behind them both belied the age of their owner.

  “I will do whatever my client thinks best.”

  “Spoken like an honest broker. I promise that I will be no less.” Pandit paused a moment, thoughtful, then asked, “You really do not have any idea what you have gotten yourself into, do you?”

  “I am focused on making a profit, so that I can bring my family out of the village where I was born,” Sanjay replied, a little stiffly. “Besides, I gave my client my word.”

  Rather than being put off by the response, Pandit appeared greatly pleased. “A child of the soil, come to this. Who says there is no opportunity in Mother India for upward mobility?” He rose from his couch, prompting Sanjay to do likewise. The two men shook hands.

  “I will go to work on this immediately. Given what is at stake for both sides, I am sure your client will understand it will take a little time to put the necessary arrangements and precautions in place.”

  Sanjay thought back to what Taneer had told him. “Speed is of the essence for my client.”

  “I can imagine.” Pandit chuckled. “I know that I wouldn't want to be in his position, given the nature of the information that storage unit contained.” He shook a cautionary finger at the younger man. “Watch your step, and your back, Mr. Ghosh. This is not a game for children. But then, you are clearly aware of that, or you would not be involved to the extent that you are.”

  Pandit's words hung in Sanjay's memory as he exited the office, departed the complex, and made his way out of the great market. It was too late to back out now. Anyway, he didn't want to back out. He wanted his three percent. Presumably, Pandit's cut was among the information disseminated by the mollysphere he had brought to the office. Sanjay was understandably curious to know what it was. He did not expect “Mr. Mohan” to tell him. That would be bad business. Whatever else he was, Sanjay suspected that his unusual client was anything but a bad businessman.

  Especially when the business at hand was exceptional enough to involve such very real tangibles as life and death.

  It was late evening when Taneer left the little gift sh
op in a state of measured euphoria. The storekeeper, Sanjay Ghosh, had struggled to contain his own excitement as he related the details of his meeting with the counterpart he had chosen. Taneer was not surprised that this person, whom Ghosh quite properly left unnamed, had been overwhelmed by the offer: the researcher knew perfectly well the value of what he had to sell. But to have already struck a deal to move forward to the next stage, that of having the second merchant agree to put the merchandise on the open market and handle the resultant bids, was more than Taneer could have hoped for.

  He had never doubted for a moment that from the instant of his abdication from his former employer, the hounds would be set loose on his trail. Thankfully, he had been able to make Depahli understand this. Therefore and obviously (as his uncle Dilip liked to say), the sooner a deal could be consummated, the better it would be for all concerned. He was under no illusions as to what would happen to him if the minions deployed (during the Raj one might have said “sepoyed,” he reflected with a small smile) by his company found him first. In that event, his beloved Depahli would find herself attending not to the details of a marriage but to those of a funeral.

  As he turned down a side street whose brand-new sidewalk fronted an empty lot littered with garbage and slabs of upturned concrete from which twisted rebars protruded like tormented brown snakes, he reflected on how right he had been in his selection of an intermediary. The shopkeeper Sanjay Ghosh was clever enough to follow instructions but not clever enough to think of a way to outsmart his client. Recognition of his own shortcomings would help to keep him honest. It also did not hurt that the two men had established something of a personal rapport. Though he would not trust the shopkeeper any more than he would anyone else except the final buyer with the full particulars of what he had to sell, Taneer found himself liking the immigrant from the countryside more and more each time they met. He could only hope it was not all a polite, businesslike sham, and that his feelings, as well as his instincts, were reciprocated.

  If all went well, the entire risky business could be concluded in a few days. Sanjay had assured him that the contact he had made had sufficient status to engage interested buyers on the appropriate scale. That contact had promised to get back to the shopkeeper with firm offers and a high bid before the end of the week. Sanjay could not keep a touch of awe from his voice as he reported this.

  “We're both going to be rich, my friend,” Taneer had assured him.

  Sanjay had nodded. “You are going to be much richer—but I have no problem with that. I am only taking a commission.”

  “Some ‘commission,’” the scientist had responded, whereupon both men shared a laugh.

  Was that a shadow behind him?

  Without thinking, he looked back sharply. He was not the only one using the sidewalk on this side of the busy street. There was no such thing as an empty sidewalk in Sagramanda. If not thick with pedestrians, it was occupied by the homeless. Any open space greater than a meter square was considered fair game for squatters.

  A particularly tall man had halted by a makeshift lunch counter and was buying what at a distance appeared to be patra ni machhi—fish in banana leaf. That was a Parsi dish, not a specialty of the state where Sagramanda lay. Food from Mumbai—and originally from Persia. Could the man be Iranian? Certainly his height caused him to stand out among the average city dweller. You are being paranoid, Taneer accused himself.

  Paranoia is healthy, his brain reminded him. He resumed walking. But instead of following his usual path toward the nearest subway station, he turned left at the next corner instead of right. Using the excuse of crossing the street, he managed a surreptitious glance back the way he had come.

  Munching on his fish, the tall man was still behind him. The distance separating them had not changed.

  Don't panic, he told himself. It is not impossible that you are both heading in a similar direction. It may be nothing more than coincidence. He kept walking long after he would normally have been aboard the first subway car heading for the next station in his carefully worked-out roundabout route home. And it was getting dark.

  Was the tall man closing the distance between them? Without constantly looking back over his shoulder it was impossible to tell. And if he gave in to that impulse to repeatedly check on the other man's location, it would signal to the other that his purpose had been discovered. What would happen then? Taneer lengthened his stride and increased his speed. When he finally decided to risk another glance backward, he found that he had opened up some distance between himself and his shadow. Deliberately, he maintained the new, faster pace.

  Another half an hour passed before he felt reasonably confident he had either lost his pursuer or else had sloughed off someone who had not been tracking him in the first place. Ten minutes’ additional walking at a much slower pace served to confirm his hopes. He was not upset. Far better to burn a little time and be sure than to rush and commit a fatal mistake. There was only one problem.

  It was dark, and he was lost.

  So focused had he been on trying to lose a possible tail without giving himself away that he had neglected to properly keep track of his surroundings. Always a fast walker anyway, he had covered a respectable number of kilometers in less than an hour. A glance up at a street sign's softly glowing luminescent letters indicated that he had arrived at the intersection of Saranad and Aberdeen. The intersection was notable for several things: an alarming lack of light, either from passing vehicles or storefronts; an absence of purposeful pedestrian traffic; and the feeling of complete disorientation that had come over him.

  No matter. Better to be momentarily lost and unnoticed than in familiar surroundings and hunted. He would seek directions from a shopkeeper.

  But of the few shops that were not gutted and abandoned, all were shut tight. None were boarded up, of course, because the homeless would steal the boards to fashion makeshift homes of their own. From the vicinity of their wretched residences of clapboard, scavenged metal, and plastic, the hollow eyes of the enduringly destitute eyed him with curiosity. The dominant scent in the night air was one of urine and human waste thickened to a lugubrious miasma by the unrelenting humidity. It struck him that he must be by far the most well-dressed and most prosperous-looking individual on the street, perhaps in the entire neighborhood. That was not necessarily a good thing. Not on a moonless night in a zone devoid of busy shops and cafes.

  Then, quite without warning, the attention that had been increasingly focused on him shifted. Figures standing or sitting in alleys melted back into the narrow slot canyons of concrete and stone from whence they had initially emerged. Synthetic sheeting was unrolled to drape disheveled families in plastic shrouds. Those who were healthy enough began to walk faster, then to run. They all seemed to be looking in the same direction, back up the street down which Taneer had come. Could it be the tall man? If so, what had he done, what reputation preceded him, to inspire such fright in so many with nothing to lose?

  Turning to gaze in the same direction, he saw not one but several figures coming toward him. Bunched tightly together, they advanced slowly, in several lines. He did not know whether to be relieved or afraid. On the one hand there was no sign of a tall man among them. In fact, as they drew nearer he saw that there was no sign of a man of any height among them. The methodically advancing group was composed entirely of women.

  He seemed frozen to the spot. Not knowing where he was, entirely ignorant of his immediate surroundings, he had no idea which way to run. Could he stare these women down? Or would they simply ignore him and walk on by? Surely they couldn't be robbers. Not because there was no such thing as female bandits. From Phoolan Devi on down, the country had a rich tradition of notorious dacoits of both sexes. It was just that from what he had already seen there was nothing in this neighborhood worth stealing. A chill ran down his back. Body parts, perhaps. There was a nasty underground market in body parts harvested largely, though not exclusively, for export.

  He was almost
right.

  One thing was made clear immediately. As they drew near enough for him to meet their eyes, it was evident that their attention was focused on him and him alone. None were looking elsewhere. With a start, he realized that they might have been following him for some time. Intent on monitoring the whereabouts of the tall man, who an uneasy Taneer now realized had probably been nothing more than another wandering citizen engaged in perfectly ordinary everyday business, he had neglected to note if he was being trailed by anyone else. He had allowed himself to become preoccupied with one person to the exclusion of all others. The wrong person.

  Were the members of this group among the many who had been engaged by his furious former employer to find him? He kicked himself mentally. He should have known better than to be watchful only of men. But if that was the case, why were there so many? He counted a dozen of them. An excessive number of professional trackers to run down one lone scientist, surely. And if that was not the case, if they were not bounty hunters or company security personnel or independent investigators, then what did they want with him? Thoughts of organlegging returned. But as a well-read, well-informed citizen, he had never encountered a report or heard tell of an all-female gang of organ thieves.

  Was he misinterpreting the hunger in their eyes, and they were not after him at all? A case of mistaken identity, perhaps. Bands of women, especially poor women, often organized themselves to mete out vigilante justice in vast swathes of the immense city where law enforcement was lax and the sight of a policeman infrequent. The hunger in their eyes…The hunger.

  Oh God, he thought abruptly as he started to back up. Oh Vishnu. Depahli, I love you. He knew what they were now, these relentlessly advancing poor women with their burning, intent eyes. The knives were coming out now, emerging from the depths of cheap, ragged saris and puffy blouses. Cheap but razor-sharp, the blades glittered as brightly as the eyes of those who gripped them. They were after his body, but not just his transplantable organs, and not to sell. They wanted all of him.