Disappearing Act

by Margaret Ball

  "I do believe I've just been insulted," Evert said. He grinned at Nunzia and she returned his smile more warmly than her words would have suggested. Annemari began to see a solution to one of her long-standing problems. Not exactly one of the most urgent ones, still . . . But the possibility of Evert and Nunzia getting together was pleasant enough, and surprising enough, to divert her for a moment from everything else.

  "Anyway," Nunzia said when she finally broke eye contact with Evert and dove into her pappardelle al cinghale, "cutting holes in the skull is hardly cutting-edge surgery. They've been doing it since the Stone Age to treat everything from epilepsy to osteomyelitis." She gestured largely with her fork. "Difference is, we know what we're doing and why it works. They just drilled a hole and hoped it would let the demons out."

  "Whereas modern surgeons," Evert said with exquisite politeness, "do just the opposite—drill a hole and poke a demon in. Or am I behind the times? Does modern neuroscience have an explanation for exactly how the bacteriomats of Kalapriya work their wonders?"

  "One point to you," Nunzia said without malice. "No, we don't know exactly how they work, and yes, before you say it, surgeons of the forty-first century probably will look pityingly upon us poor ignoramuses of the Plastic Age. What they do know is that they're a major advance on primitive stem-cell therapy. Back in the twenty-first century surgeons had found that stem cells injected into an adult brain would somehow figure out what kinds of cells were missing or damaged and grow themselves into replacements. That took care of a lot of problems."

  "So what do Kalapriyan bacteriomats have over stem cells?"

  "One word. Structure!" Nunzia jabbed her fork at the plate and pushed her food around into an undifferentiated mess. "Nobody ever did succeed in persuading stem cells to grow long enough axons to repair severely damaged spinal cords. But biofilms, like the 'mats, aren't just one species but a collection of microbial species working together. So when you get a biofilm that likes to live in human brains and nerves, it doesn't need to grow single supercells; it can create a whole community of linked, cooperating cells to bridge the gap." She pushed individual bits of pasta into a line across her plate. "And the 'mats mimic whole structures in the brain, the way stem cells mimic individual cells—which allows them to do repairs far beyond what was accomplished with stem-cell therapy. Bottom line, your chances of surviving demyelinizing infections, brain tumors, or latent Fournier Syndrome—not only surviving, but walking away—are better than ever before."

  "Only if you can get on the list," Annemari murmured, blinking rapidly.

  "Gods. I'm a tactless idiot," Nunzia said, putting her fork down. "Anni, can you forgive—"

  "Annemari, I'm so sorry—" Evert began.

  Annemari managed a smile, and a moment later had command of her voice. "Help me check out the Cassilis Clinic, and you're both off the hook. Otherwise, I'll make you feel guilty and miserable forever. Deal?"

  Chapter Nine

  Udara on Kalapriya

  Chulayen couldn't remember how he'd reached the fortresslike building at the top of the mountain that housed the Ministry for Loyalty. He must have been running, because his throat burned for breath and his chest was heaving and there was blackness swirling at the edges of his vision, but he could remember nothing of the streets he must have passed through to get here, nor of what he'd been shouting as he ran. The only things clear in his mind were the shattered, empty rooms he'd left behind and the locked gate before him, and the guard who refused to pass him through.

  "Dung burner! Ghay fodder! I am Chulayen Vajjadara, son of Minister Vajjadara, and I have urgent business with the Minister for Loyalty!"

  The turbanned man behind the gate, smart and secure in the bright red uniform of the Ministry for Loyalty, scratched his nose and studied something on the guardhouse wall, beyond Chulayen's line of vision. "Don't see no Minister Varadajja on this list."

  "Vajjadara, you half-wit! And of course you won't see his name on the list. He's dead!"

  "Well, then," the guard said with a sly grin, "he won't be issuing no orders to let you in, will he?"

  "You must let me in. Please. I must see the Minister for Loyalty at once. It's—" Chulayen groped for words. "It's a matter of national security."

  The guard's look of smug certainty faded just a little, giving Chulayen renewed hope. He felt in the inner pocket of his sash and brought out a thousand-tulai note. "To show my appreciation of your understanding?"

  The man's hand moved quickly to snatch the note through the bars of the gate, then slowly toward the great keys hanging from his gold-braided sash. Chulayen babbled in his relief. "So kind, yes, you understand, I would not be so importunate, but there has been a terrible mistake, my Anusha and the children, no reason to take them, no reason at all—"

  The guard's hand stopped just short of the keys. "The wife and kiddies, is it?" His tone was kindly, but the back of Chulayen's neck prickled with unreasonable fear.

  "It's all a mistake. I must see the Minister at once," he repeated, not knowing what else to say.

  "That's what they all say," the guard told him.

  "All?"

  "The families. If there are any left. It's always a mistake, no reason for the Ministry to take their people away." The guard folded his hands over the gold sash and Chulayen's heart sank. "Go home. The Ministry for Loyalty doesn't make mistakes. By rights I ought to call the Arm of the Bashir on you now, for shouting treason in the street, but in view of your gen'rosity I'll let you go this once. Get along now, quick! There's nothing you can do here."

  "No!" Chulayen grabbed the wrought-iron grille and shook it. He could feel the mortar crumbling around the ends of the bars. "No, you don't understand, it's a mistake!"

  "Ministry for Loyalty doesn't make mistakes," the guard repeated.

  "Doesn't make mistakes!" a high mocking voice behind Chulayen repeated. "Doesn't make mistakes! Let's hear it for the Ministry!" A clod of dirt hit Chulayen on the shoulder, crumbled before it hit the ground. He half turned and saw that the street behind him was full of onlookers, mostly low-class street sweepers and water carriers and servants, the scum of the Rohini slums down-mountain. How did they come to be in this part of town? Had they followed him? He shook his head, disoriented, and a rain of clods and small stones went past him. Mostly past him. They were trying to stone the Ministry, but their aim wasn't so good; if he didn't get out of the way something worse than a handful of dirt would hit him soon, they were prying stones out of the rain gutters now.

  "Let me in!" He shook the grille again. "I'm not part of that mob. I have business with the Minister!"

  "Stand aside," the guard warned. He whistled and more men in red uniforms with gold sashes poured into the courtyard behind him. They were armed only with old-fashioned muskets, but muskets were enough at this range. The guard made a strange throwing motion with one hand; it seemed as though a net of light fell over the crowd. A moment later, the line of muskets came up, leveled; there was a crashing roar and Chulayen's head exploded into darkness.

  * * *

  "He should be told what happens to the 'disappeared,' " Sonchai argued. "As soon as he comes round. It's not right, making him do our work under false pretenses."

  "Nobody's making him do anything," said Madee wearily. "We'll tell him what he needs to know, and ask for his help. That's all." She drew the end of her shalin over her head and huddled within the thin fabric. The cellar was a cold, clammy place for an old woman with old bones to sit; even all the injured people lying on the floor or leaning against the damp walls couldn't warm it up enough for her. She was shaking with fatigue after an hour of working to stop bleeding, set bones in makeshift splints, give whatever rough-and-ready first aid she could to those injured in the riot. The room smelled of blood and madira: every Rohini midwife knew to rinse her hands in the clear, rough hill-distilled liquor, and Madee had a superstitious belief that it was better than water for cleansing most wounds. After all, few Rohini mothers died of the
childbed fever—far fewer than the Rudhrani women who could afford the best physicians with the strongest charms.

  And most Rohini women learned what they could of healing, because Rohini didn't go to one of the Bashir's "public" hospitals. Especially, Madee thought grimly, especially not Rohini who sported suspicious-looking injuries after a riot in front of the Ministry for Loyalty; might as well walk up to the slightly damaged front grille of the Ministry and ask to be shot then and there.

  If you could be so lucky.

  She'd even extracted a musket ball from the chest of a boy not much younger than Chulen . . . not that it had done him much good; he'd died coughing out blood. Well, better dead in a Puvaathi cellar than taken prisoner by the Arm of the Bashir; they all knew where those prisoners went. The legendary saint Puran Bhagat, he who was thrown into a deep well after the wicked Emperor Salbahan cut off his hands and feet, had had a better chance than the "disappeared" of Udara.

  They knew, but Chulen didn't. And Madee didn't think it was necessary to tell him just yet. He would have enough to assimilate as it was. He'd be no use to them—or to himself—if he couldn't remain calm enough to play his part. Besides, there was nothing they could do for his woman and children—she couldn't do this if she thought of them by name—until the next prison convoy left Puvaathi for the brainfarms. Whether they could do anything then might well depend on whether Chulen was able to get back into the good graces of the Ministers and what he could learn from his official position.

  "He'll try harder if he knows there's a chance of saving them," Sonchai argued as if he had read her thoughts.

  "He may be too demoralized to try successfully if he knows what he's trying to save them from," Madee said evenly.

  "Don't you even care one way or another? Can you really think about it as if you're moving pieces in a game of chaupur? They're your—"

  "I know what they are," Madee cut him off. "And I say we do not tell him yet. I have the right." She stared at Sonchai until he dropped his eyes.

  "You have the right," he conceded sulkily. "But you are playing with dice made from the bones of the dead, Madee." Every child knew the story of how Rusala played at chaupur with the all-powerful Bashir Sarkap, and won back first his horse, then his armor, and finally his life.

  "As Rusala learned," Madee replied, "such is the only way to win against the dice of the Bashir. And if I am Rusala in the story, what are you? The wise horse Bhaunr, who warned Rusala? Or the rat Dhol Raja who upset the pieces whenever Sarkap was losing?"

  A groan from the inner room came most opportunely. "Go and see if any of the other wounded need water," she ordered him. Chulen's eyelids were fluttering; it was time to tell him—as much as he must know, for now.

  "So many injured to save one man from the Arm of the Bashir," Sonchai grumbled as he left. That was Sonchai, forever arguing about something—if you shut him up about a future decision, he'd go back and argue about a past one. Such a pretty boy he had been, with those full lips and long dark lashes, but he had grown into a perpetually angry and discontented young man. Beauties—of either sex—didn't age well, Madee had noticed. She herself had never been a beauty.

  * * *

  The first thing Chulayen knew for sure was that the back of his head hurt. A lot.

  Slowly his consciousness of other aches and pains returned, none of them much to compare with the ongoing explosion behind his right ear. He was stiff, and cold, and lying on damp ground in a darkness sprinkled with flickering lights. But not dead. When he saw the muskets pointing at him—

  Then it came back to him in an unbearable rush, his attempt to get into the Ministry for Loyalty, the grille, the guard, the shattered empty rooms down the hill and everybody gone. This must be one of those prison rooms beneath the Ministry. "Anusha? Anusha!" He pushed himself up on one elbow; the small flames swirled about him and became stars, falling stars, the earth turning under him and acid bile coming up in his throat as his stomach also spun and swooped.

  "Lie still, Chulen, lie still." A damp rag wiped his mouth, a hand steadied his shoulder. "You will be sick if you try to sit up too fast."

  "You don't understand," he whispered. "Anusha—the children?"

  "They are not here." It was a woman's voice, sad and caring. Not what he would have expected to find in a Ministry prison; was it a trap? "Drink this, it will make you feel better."

  Obediently Chulayen sipped from the rough-edged cup held to his lips. Something cold, a little bitter, but it awakened a raging thirst he hadn't been aware of. He tried to gulp down the rest, but the cup was taken away and the hand supporting his shoulders lowered him back down.

  "Not too much at once, or you will be sick again."

  "Nothing—to be sick with," he managed, remembering more of the long afternoon and evening he'd spent going from office to office. Worrying about some distant crystal caves, while the Arm of the Bashir was taking away Neena and Neeta and the baby. "Fool," he said. "I was a fool."

  "You should have taken one of my yai pao when they were hot," said the voice. One of the flickering lamps came closer, and the face of the old pancake vendor swam out of the darkness.

  "Old mother! Did they take you too? Were you there? Tell them it was a mistake, you were not part of it—"

  "The Ministry for Loyalty does not make mistakes," mocked a voice in the darkness. Chulayen started, then groaned as his head exploded in another shower of throbbing pains.

  "Sonchai, don't tease the boy. He is confused," the old woman said sharply. She turned back to Chulayen. "It is all right, Chulen—at least—this much is all right; this is not a Ministry prison."

  "But I thought . . . Where are we, then?"

  "It does not matter," the woman soothed him. "We are where the Arm of the Bashir will not look for us. Now lie quiet, Chulen! We cannot risk too much noise."

  "We have risked too much already for this one, Madee," said the voice that had mocked him before. Its owner came nearer the lamp, and Chulayen saw a young man with full lips and a sulky look on his face. The vending woman kept one hand on his shoulder, as if to urge him to lie still.

  "It's true, Sonchai, but we would have done the same for you."

  "I would never have been such a fool as to challenge the Ministry for Loyalty before their own gates!"

  "I hope not, but then you have the advantage of Chulen: you know who and what you are."

  This whole exchange mystified Chulayen so that he was happy enough to lie still, eyes closed against the flickering lights that still tended to whirl in dizzying patterns if he tried to concentrate. So he was not a prisoner of the Ministry for Loyalty. That was good, probably. But it meant he had no chance of finding Anusha and the children in this place. "I have to leave," he told the old woman.

  "Not yet," she said sharply.

  "I'm well enough." He had to be, for the children, for any chance of saving the children.

  "You don't know enough. We have to explain—" She sighed, settled back on her heels and pushed the folds of the faded, threadbare shalin away from her face. "I don't even know where to begin. Chulen, what do you remember of your childhood?"

  "Are you holding me prisoner because of my parents? It won't do you any good. They are dead. They can't pay you any ransom—and I doubt their friends would, either. Not now," he said bitterly, remembering the bland, vague responses he'd had all day, and the crushing blow that had ended it. "I am not exactly in favor with the Bashir's present ministers. Or didn't you understand why I was at the Ministry for Loyalty?"

  "Oh, yes," she said. "We understood. That was why we were there too."

  Chulayen tried to laugh. "What, a bunch of ragged Rohini came to save my Anusha?"

  "To save you," she said, "because you are one of us."

  Chulayen shook his head. A mistake; the pain woke and sank claws into the back of his skull. "I don't know what you mean."

  "Oh, yes, you do," she said urgently. "You were not so young when your parents were taken, you must remember s
omething."

  "I don't know what you are talking about. My father died two years since; he was ill with the winter fever, nobody took him anywhere. And my mother has been dead for some years." He sat up in his agitation. Better; his head still hurt, but the dizziness was receding.

  "Vajjadara, the Minister for Trade, died two winters ago," the old woman agreed. "But Chulen, do you remember nothing of your first years? Before you played in the Vajjadara gardens?"

  Wisps of dreams and nightmares floated through his muzzy brain. "There was a woman, a Rohini woman, who sang to me at night," he said at last. A dim memory of indescribable warmth and comfort, a sense of safety he'd never known since, that he sometimes returned to in dreams. "A nurse?"

  "Your mother, Chulen."

  "But—she was Rohini!"

  "So are you. Your mother and father were brave people, Chulen, the bravest. They spoke out against the Bashir's growing power when Udara was still a small state, when the people still had a voice in the council—all the people, not just the high-born Rudhrani—and they were taken by the Ministry for Loyalty when you were not four years old."

  "But my father, my mother—" Chulayen struggled for words to describe the parents he had been taught to honor above all else. "They never spoke of this. Why should I believe you?"

  "The Minister for Trade and his wife had prayed for years for a son," Madee told him. "You were too young to have a part in what they called your parents' treason, and in those days the Ministry for Loyalty had not learned what profitable use it could make of prisoners. After your true parents were taken away, Minister Vajjadara's wife asked for you."

  "No! My mother—"

  "Was Sunanda Talap, a brave Rohini woman who died in a Ministry prison, Chulen." There were tears in Madee's eyes.

  "Why would Minister Vajjadara agree to raise a Rohini boy as his own son?"

  "It is said that he loved his wife very much. And her heart yearned for a child."

  That much, at least, Chulayen knew was true.