Sagramanda, a Novel of Near-Future India

*17*

Finding a restaurant that was open all night was not a problem. In a city the size of Sagramanda, there were hundreds of establishments of every variety that never closed their doors; not for Holi, not for Ramadan, not for Christmas. Finding one that offered privacy booths required a little more searching.

Hesitant to head for any of the dining spots in the neighborhood where he lived in secret with Depahli lest they were being watched, Taneer led his fiancée and his middleman to another busy part of the surging metropolis where they were likely to find what they needed. The Uzbek fast-food eatery met their needs admirably. Furthermore, a restaurant was a good location in which to hold their final meeting, because in addition to being exhausted, fearful, and in a hurry, they were also all ravenously hungry.

Over a meal of vegetables, potatoes, and Uzbek horseburgers, they discussed their final business behind the shimmering privacy screen the booth provided. Looking out through the light-distorting waveforms was like trying to see through melted glass. Not trusting even a restaurant he had never visited before, Taneer used his own portable instrumentation to check out the booth's security before settling down to business.

"Will not that European gentleman and his associates come looking for you?" Sanjay asked him as he sipped his Kanacola.

Taneer worked on the briefcase he had placed on the table between them. Beneath the case, the tabletop displayed a constantly shifting panorama of scenes from Uzbek legends. The display could be tuned for adult, juvenile, or child consumption, but no one was paying any attention to the built-in diversion. All eyes were on the case.

"Why should they?" Taneer ran through the specified sequence required to open, rather than explode, the case. "Our Mr. Karlovy got what he came for." He smiled as a soft beep indicated that he had entered the unlocking sequence correctly. "And we got what we came for."

In an age often defined by its universal use of credit, it was a strange sensation to set eyes on so much actual money. Though little more than stamped-out rectangles of electronically embedded paper and plastic, it still had real presence. Cash still stood for something, which was why it remained in use.

"Got your bag?" Taneer asked the man seated across the table. Next to him, eyes very wide, Depahli was clinging to his left arm with one hand while the delicate but strong fingers of the other were moving along his leg. Though it was difficult, at the moment he would not let anything distract him.

Wordlessly Sanjay placed on the table the takeaway bag he had requested when they had entered the restaurant.

"How would you like your fee?" the scientist inquired politely, his hands resting on the case's implausible contents.

A captivated Sanjay hardly knew how to respond. Even after all the time and effort he had put into this piece of business, even after enduring and surviving all the very real risks, not to mention nearly being shot, and nearly being eaten, he had never really believed, deep down, that he would be faced with something as solid and real as the contents of the case that rested on the table before him. He felt like a character in one of the movies he had so loved as a child, the viewing of which had been such a special treat for himself and the dirt-poor family out of whose unrelenting poverty he had slowly managed to raise himself.

"I… I suppose I will have it just as you wanted yours. A little of each."

Nodding amenably, Taneer began passing large wads of currency across the table, riffling briefly through each bound packet before surrendering it to his middleman. Dazed, Sanjay did not even bother to count the money. Three percent of the total agreed-upon price that Chhote Pandit had negotiated. In return for one standard-size molly-sphere and a small packet of material whose contents, Sanjay realized with a start, he had not even had a chance to see clearly for himself. But he could see the money plainly enough.

When he had finished counting and distributing, Taneer carefully closed and relocked the case. "There you are, Mr. Ghosh. Three million in U.S. dollars, euros, and rupees. Three percent of the total payment due me. I thank you for a job well done and for assistance far beyond what was originally agreed upon."

Sanjay regarded the takeaway bag, with its colorful external designs promoting Uzbek fast food. His gaze shifted back to the case lying in front of the scientist. Without a word, he slipped his right hand inside his bogus hitman-style vest. Alarmed, it abruptly occurred to Taneer that in asking this shopkeeper to emulate a bodyguard, to render the illusion complete the shopkeeper might actually have brought a weapon with him. And neither he nor Depahli had one.

Seeing the sudden shift in their expressions, the perceptive Sanjay divined the reason behind their reactions. He did not have a weapon on him-but they didn't know that. Already this night he had bluffed his way through a much more nerve-racking confrontation. What if he chose to take the whole case, and all the money? They were in a very public place. If they thought he had a gun, would they still try to stop him? Could he not walk out with the entire ten million?

Licking his lips, his right hand still resting inside his vest, he let his gaze shift from scientist to siren. "I have a confession to make." They both tensed. "I am, sometimes to my own detriment and regret, an honest man." Withdrawing his hand, he revealed that it held nothing grasped in his fingers. He had only been scratching an itch.

"I know what you are thinking," he went on. "I can see it. I will not deny that the thought has occurred to me. But I am scrupulous even when I am dealing with such things as certain recreational pharmaceuticals that are frowned upon by society at large." He sat a little straighter on his hard-backed bench seat. "A man may be poor, but he can still be honorable. I am no longer poor. If I were to try and cheat you, I could not look again into the eyes of my beloved wife Chakra and those of my children." Somberness gave way to a wide, engaging grin.

"Then there is the matter of how I would be reincarnated. Thieves and crooks do not, I believe, come back as handsome men or virtuous women, or tall trees or fine-looking animals. It is a measure of mankind's failure that there are so many whose karma causes them to be reincarnated as rats and roaches." His right hand drew the stuffed takeaway bag closer to his side of the table. "Better to be able to live with three million and oneself than with ten million and a stranger."

Obviously and unabashedly relieved, Taneer exhaled sharply. For her part Depahli rose, put both hands on the table, and leaned across to reward the simple shopkeeper's honesty with a kiss. Though he suspected it would be a kiss the likes of which he could no more imagine than he could envision walking away from the restaurant with three million dollars in a takeaway bag, Sanjay drew back and turned his face slightly away from her.

"Please, miss. When I said I was an honorable man, I meant truly in all things. I am well and surely married."

Pausing halfway across the table she smiled, nodded, and sat back down. Taneer eyed his middleman admiringly. "You are more than honorable, Sanjay Ghosh. You are steadfast."

"Perhaps, but I am also not made of clay." With the table once more separating them, he felt safe in smiling at Depahli. "Please do not tempt me again, Miss De. I fear I would not be able to resist a second time."

She laughed amusedly. "Don't worry, Sanjay. You're safe with me."

Smile fading, he nodded, serious once more. "You must have considered many options for this moment, but I have only my shop and my home village. Do you think the police will now be looking for me?"

Taneer shook his head. "I think not. Why should they? You've done nothing wrong. I am the one who skipped out on a company con tract. If anyone should contact you, feel free to tell them the truth." He grinned. "As much or as little of it as you see fit. Your involvement required you to expedite some small business for me, that's all."

"Yes." Sanjay eyed the takeaway bag. "Some small business. I know nothing beyond that."

A smiling Taneer spread his hands. "See? You have nothing to worry about. No one even knows that I paid you. Or if they suspect, how much I paid you. Which does not matter, because the money came from outside the country. You are quite in the clear, my honorable friend." He rose.

"It's been a long as well as eventful night. I am sure you would like to deposit your money in an all-night security box or a bank or two." He put an arm around Depahli and gazed affectionately into her eyes. "We also have much to do, and all of it should be done quickly."

Sanjay stood, making sure the heat-seal rim of his paper bag was locked tight. While on public transport, it would not do to have any of his takeaway spill out. One last time, his eyes met those of the scientist who had been instrumental in transforming the shopkeeper's life. "I suppose that we will never meet again."

Taneer steepled both palms together in front of his lower face and dipped his head. "With luck," he agreed succinctly.

They parted. Heading for transport that would take him to the section of the city where he lived and had his little shop, Sanjay reflected on everything that had befallen him. It all seemed a dream now. There was so much he would never forget. Not least of all the providential tiger, who might as well have been sent by the gods. As someone who had been raised to be logical as well as spiritual, he knew that was unlikely. The tiger had been motivated by hunger, not an intrinsic desire to save him and his employer. If it had chosen to steal up behind them instead of behind the tracker, it would have taken him or Taneer or the scientist's girlfriend. Nature was an opportunist, not a meddler.

He slowed, frowning slightly. An autocab had come up alongside him to inquire courteously if the gentleman with the takeout food might be needing a ride. Heading for the nearest west-going public transport it occurred to Sanjay that it would not only be safer to take the cab, it would be faster and easier.

Besides, he could afford it now.

Depahli had never thought she might one day be part of the great Indian Diaspora. As an abused child and later as an exploited adolescent, the likelihood of traveling overseas had seemed as remote to her as voyaging to the moon.

Now as she and Taneer stepped out of the transport and hurried along the street that led to their apartment building, all possibilities seemed open to her.

"Where shall we go first, my love?"

"Anywhere you want, Depa," he told her softly. "Anyplace you've ever seen in the movies, or on the vit, or heard about. Anywhere you've ever dreamed of." He looked back down the modest but neatly landscaped street. This late (or rather, this early) in the day few vehicles were about, and even fewer pedestrians. Off to the east, the sky was just beginning to lighten.

"We'll need to establish a base of operations first, acquire a home. Maybe in the U.S. I hear the Indian community in Los Angeles is very accepting, and the weather is not too cold. Vancouver I think we would both find beautiful, but chilly. The same for the U.K. There is always Trinidad, or Fiji." He slipped his left arm around her. "We'll find a place, a place where we will both be happy." He squeezed her tightly against him, and she did not resist. "A place to raise our children.

"But first, we need to make a short detour and a quick visit. In Switzerland, to a certain banking institution, in the city of Zurich."

Entering their building, they made their way in the empty lift up to their apartment. Though it had been her residence for many months now, Depahli found that she was not going to be sorry to leave it. It had been a refuge, but not a home.

A home. She had not experienced one since childhood, and that offered little worth remembering. She was going to start her own, and with the man she loved. Eyeing Taneer as he began pulling suitcases down from the shelf in the living room closet, she knew that she would follow him anywhere, even if he was dead broke.

"I'll start getting things together in here, my love," she told him. "Grab a case and take what you think we'll need out of the bedroom."

Turning, he nodded to her. What a woman, he found himself thinking as he watched her pack only what was necessary from their temporary existence. Not only beautiful and street-smart, but efficient. They were going to build a life together that would rival the fabled cohabitation of Vishnu and Lakshmi.

In the bedroom, Taneer set the empty travel case down in front of the four-drawered dresser and murmured a command for the lights to turn on. As they did so, he was startled not by the intensifying illumi nation, but by a voice. A voice he recognized and had not expected to hear ever again.

"Namaste. Hello, Taneer-my son."

Anil Buthlahee sat on the bed. The same bed in which his son and his son's Untouchable harlot had doubtless consummated their filthy, unnatural, offensive relationship many times. The vision nauseated him, and he put it out of his head in order to concentrate his attention on his startled offspring. And also to focus his aim.

Taneer stared at the weapon in his father's hand. It was not large, but guns these days did not have to be, often possessing as they did killing power all out of proportion to their size. So tightly was his father's hand gripping the weapon that the skin of his fingers had turned pale.

Looking tired but alert, as if he had come to the end of a long and difficult journey, the senior Buthlahee glanced in the direction of the door into the living room and inquired quietly, as if he had all the time in the world, "Where is the whore?"

"Please, don't do this." Calm in the face of Karlovy's bodyguard Punjab, fleet of foot in reaction to the attack of the tiger, in the presence of his father Taneer found himself shaking uncontrollably. He might have been shaking even if his father had come unarmed.

The fear he felt was not for himself, since he had been prepared to die ever since he had fled the company and absconded with its property, but for Depahli. Depahli, whom he loved more than the money he had been promised. Depahli, who had risen from nothing to devote herself to him, and to them. Depahli, who was trapped in the living room with no way to escape. To try for the front door, she would have to cross in front of the entrance to the bedroom.

"She's not here," he said quickly. Perhaps a bit too quickly. "She's shopping."

Anil Buthlahee grunted disappointedly. "Do you think I am nothing more than a dumb, ignorant merchant? I heard you talking." He gestured with the muzzle of the compact little pistol. "I will do what must be done, to salvage the honor of our family."

Within Taneer, fear was giving way slowly to anger. "Why, Father?" He gestured aimlessly. "Why do this? Why do you think this way? This isn't the seventeenth century. This is Sagramanda; now, today. Enlightened people don't go around committing suttee any more, or honor killings! Caste is no longer what determines the worth of a human being. Things have changed."

"Not all things," Anil replied unyieldingly. "I am my father's son. As such, I must honor him and preserve the reputation of the family, which you have so uncaringly desecrated." He blinked, as if he had something in his eye. "I only wish you were your father's son."

"I am, Father! I am."

"No! No," Anil added more quietly. "My son would not sleep with an Untouchable. That is abomination enough. But to contemplate marrying such a person, living with one…" He shook his head sharply. "Having children with one…"

Desperate, Taneer tried another tack. "If you would only set aside your outdated cultural baggage, Father, long enough to just meet Depahli, I'm sure you would come to-"

Moving the muzzle of the pistol slightly to one side, Anil fired. The muted puff of the silencer was followed by a crashing sound as the vase he had aimed at was blown to bits. It had the intended effect of shutting up his son. Words can be more powerful than bullets-but only when spoken or printed outside the range of the intended target.

The gun's aperture shifted back to point at the stunned scientist. "I will meet her, Taneer. And then I will kill her. Then I will kill you. Afterward, I will walk out of this room and this building and this sin-ridden city. I will go back to my business and the rest of my family, that respects me and our common history, and I will try for the rest of my life to heal the hole in my heart."

Taneer swallowed. "It doesn't have to be this way, Father."

Eyes that had seen those of the other when they had first opened onto the world locked on them. "Yes, it does, Taneer."

In the living room, Depahli had been standing pressed up against the other side of the bedroom wall, listening. Everything had been going so wonderfully well. From standing outside the gates of Nirvana, she had suddenly found herself thrust into the pit of hell.

She could not get across the room to the front door without Taneer's homicidal fanatic of a father seeing her. The communicator she could use to call the police was in the purse lying on the entryway side table. Not that calling the police would be a good idea or a final solution anyway. Even if by some miracle they could arrive in time to keep the senior Buthlahee from killing them both, she knew from experience that police had a habit of asking awkward questions. If they decided to do a quick search of the apartment and found the briefcase containing the equivalent of seven million American dollars, they might ask some that could not properly be answered.

She could not stand there forever, frozen against the wall, paralyzed by indecision. At any moment, the elder Buthlahee might decide it was time to stop talking to his son and walk into the living room. She could not even reach the bathroom to hide in there. Besides, she did not want to hide. As a child, she had tried hiding repeatedly to avoid her uncle. Each time, he had found her. Each time, her unhappy life had been made a little more miserable.

She remembered the tiger that had jumped out of the jungle to kill the enigmatic tracker. The tiger had concealed itself, only to attack with complete surprise when no one was looking at it. Frantically she searched the living room. There was nothing within reach she could use as a weapon; not even a letter opener. All she had were her hands and fists.

She remembered something else. Like the tiger, she was the master of her immediate environment. Maybe she could use that. Sucking in air, she screamed rather than spoke the familiar commands, spewing a steady stream of them into the air. Recognizing her voice, the instrumentation that had been installed in the bedroom responded accordingly.

A pair of naked apsaras appeared at the head of the bed and leaned forward, while two mightily thewed royal attendants whose origin could be traced to a passage from the Mahabharata rose from its mattress and straightened as they moved to engage the apsaras. Typically, she and Taneer would be kneeling on the bed between, awaiting the slightly warm but otherwise noncorporeal arrival. Instead, the apparitions closed on the preoccupied Anil Buthlahee. Startled and surprised, he whirled and fired wildly at the surrounding figures. Gun gas slammed miniature explosive shells into the wall, the headboard. In a moment, even the traditional merchant would recognize the quartet of unexpected visitants for what they were: high-tech, state-of-the-art virtuals.

Reacting as quickly and with as much presence of mind as he ever had in his life, Taneer scooped up the finely carved reconstituted stone statue of Ganesh from its alcove, rushed forward, and brought it down on his father's head just as the old man realized the deception and started to turn back to him. The blow was not hard enough to knock the merchant unconscious, but it was sufficient to stun him. Dazed, he fell to his knees.

"Depahli!" Still holding the statue, Taneer sprinted toward the doorway.

She met him there, slamming into him and wrapping her arms around her beloved tightly enough to squeeze the wind out of him. He forced himself to break the embrace. Both of them regarded the figure of the old man on the floor, who was moaning and struggling to rise. The muzzle of the gun he held wavered dangerously, like a drunken asp.

"Taneer…" Anil grunted. "No good, Taneer, no good. I'm… coming…"

"Run!" Pushing Depahli into the next room, the scientist fol lowed. A wild shot flared through the space he had just been occupying to blow a dark hole in the living room ceiling. Behind them, Anil Buthlahee could be heard cursing and stumbling into furniture as he fought to recover his equilibrium and reload.

As he set Ganesh aside to grab the case and its precious contents, Depahli snatched up her bag, which contained their passports and other critical documentation. Breathing hard, Taneer followed her out the door and into the hallway. Disdaining the elevator and ignoring the probing stares of the recently awakened, they raced down the fire stairs. The building lobby was deserted when they reached it, as was the street outside. Off to the east, the sun was now showing itself over the nearest structures.

As they started running up the road, a third figure emerged from the entrance to the apartment building. Shouting and screaming threats and imprecations, it waved in the air a small, deadly object.

To their great good fortune, the infuriated, raging Anil Buthlahee chose to first look down the street instead of up it, to the north. It gave them just enough time to frantically hail the passing rickshaw, climb in, and deliver instructions to the confused but willing driver. Behind them, Anil Buthlahee finally turned, just in time to see his son climb into the vehicle. As it accelerated up the road, the old man broke into a run, gesturing threateningly with the gun in his hand. He might have fired once; neither Taneer nor Depahli could be sure. But the determined merchant was still dizzy from the blow to his head and could not take proper aim.

Standing behind counters and sitting at a desk had not prepared him for trying to run down a public vehicle. He slowed, staggering, and stopped. Bending forward at the waist, hands resting on his knees, he gasped for air as the silent rickshaw sped on out of sight.

"There's nowhere you can go, you and your slut!" he wheezed loudly. "Wherever you go, wherever you run to, I will find you! On my honor, I will find you!"

Scientist and dacoit did not hear him. The unpretentious, unadorned interior of the electric rickshaw enveloped them, shutting out the outside world, blocking out the last, ineffective threats of Taneer's hidebound father. Once again there were only the two of them. Soon it would be that way forever.

Then the scientist started laughing. The rickshaw's owner glanced back briefly, eyeing him through the window of the passenger compartment before returning to his driving.

Alternately smiling and confused, one hand on her beloved's shoulder, Depahli looked at him with some concern. "Taneer- Taneer, my darling, my sweet man-are you all right?"

Choking back tears, he took her other hand in his and looked into her beautiful face, perfect down to the single red jewel that glistened on her forehead. "I was just thinking, Depahli. Though I have great respect for all the traditions of my family as well as those of my ancestors, I'm not really what you would call a religious person. But after all the prayers of my childhood, and all that were never answered, I have to admit that Lord Ganesh finally came through with some help."

"Very substantial help, I should say." Her smile grew suddenly uncertain. "Do you think that your father will ever be able to find us and make trouble for us again?"

He shook his head. He was confident now, sure of himself and his future. Of their future. "My father is a smart and clever man, but only within the world he knows. That is the world of eastern India, from Sagramanda south to Puri and onward as far as Visakhapatnam. He knows nothing of the world beyond except what he has seen in movies and on the vit, and that will not be enough to enable him to find us-even if he can find the will and the money." He smiled at her. "Besides, he knows nothing about skiing."

She cocked her head sideways at him, one golden earring dangling. "Skiing? You know nothing about skiing either, Taneer."

"I know. But I will, and soon. You will, too."

Turning, pressing her back into the single bench seat of the rickshaw, she snuggled close, his hand still holding hers. "I have never seen snow, my love, except on the tops of the Himalayas, from a distance. In the movies, everyone is always talking about how cold it is."

"They're right." He let his cheek rest gently against the top of her head. "It is cold. But we won't be."

Forensics had largely finished their work, and the morgue detail was cleaning up. Even for those who dealt daily with the violent con sequences of the seemingly endless conflicts that characterized Sagramanda's merciless underbelly, the remains of the bodies of Jena Chalmette and the tall assassin were sufficiently grisly to make a strong man blanch. It was what they were paid to do, however, and the crew went about its gruesome work enveloped in a respectful professional silence.

Keshu and his people were able to readily identify the foreign woman not only by matching her image to that of the carefully crafted computer composite, but through the false identification papers she carried in her large shoulder bag. The assassin proved more problem atical. He had no individual ident on his person, and they could not attempt a visual match because, due to the tiger's brief but ferocious intercession, the dead man's face had largely gone missing. The chief inspector was not concerned. Subrata and his resourceful colleagues would work their magic with research and reconstruction to produce an identification.

He knew that not only had they found the mystifying, secretive serial killer they had sought, but that the government of India and the municipality of Greater Sagramanda were to be spared the expense of incarcerating and trying her. It was not the resolution he had sought, but it was one he was content to live with. Of course, there remained the mystery of what the three, and subsequently five, people she had been stalking had been doing in the middle of the night in a restricted area of the Sundarbans Preserve, but that was not a problem for him to puzzle out. Others should, and would, attempt to follow up on that.

Then what was he still doing here? he suddenly asked himself. The sun was up, the temperature was doing likewise, he had been awake all night, and he ought not only to be on his way home-he should be home by now, snug and asleep in bed beside his wife. If she was awake, she would be concerned at his absence, but not frantic. Time and experience had taught her years ago that her husband's profession was not one that was respectful of regular hours.

Morning was always the most beautiful time of day. The ambrosial time was even more enchanting in the forest preserve. As a city cop, except for formal vacations and the occasional case that took him into Sagramanda's municipal parks, the only greenery he encountered was in the form of vegetarian meals in the departmental cafeteria.

The team from the morgue was wrapping up its macabre labors, their exertions chilling even on an increasingly hot morning. Lieu tenant Johar and several of his colleagues were compacting the crime scene, recording the last bits of environment and evidence for official records. They were taking extra care because a foreign national had been at the crux of the investigation, and details would have to be pro vided to Interpol, the EEU, and the French government. That left him free to take a walk: something else he rarely had time for.

Two trails lined with brush that had been snapped and broken by those who had fled the tiger led off into the undergrowth. Given all the intensive human activity, including the presence of choppers, the chief inspector felt confident that the big cat was now nowhere in the imme diate vicinity. Informing Johar of his intentions, Keshu struck off into the bush.

It was marvelous in the forest. Still cool enough to stroll, with the nocturnal biting insects having clocked out and their diurnal counter parts not yet having clocked in, he was able to wend his way through the tall trees in comparative comfort. Monkeys gamboled in the branches, occasionally pausing to inspect the perambulating inspector. Rollers and other birds sang songs of awakening. Ants, the true masters of the planet, scurried everywhere, busy at the same work they had performed for the forest since time immemorial. He was enveloped by green and brown, with not a machine in sight. He wandered through surroundings that were scenic, stunning, picturesque.

After ten minutes of it, he found himself starting to grow irritable.

City boy, he chided himself lamentingly. Who are you kidding here? Better stick to what you're familiar with, with what you know. Concrete and rubberized walkways are your real paths, nanocarbon pillars and glass sheathing your jungle. He started to turn to retrace his steps.

As he did so, sunlight reflecting off something on the ground caught his eye. Squatting, he reached down to pick up the piece of folded glassine. Its torn edges showed that it had been part of a larger packet. Now it was empty, except for what looked like a clutch of small seeds. Frowning, he turned the fragment of see-through envelope over in his fingers. Definitely seeds. Rising, he looked up the trail, then down. Dropped by someone, probably, in their headlong flight from the tiger.

Even ordinary seeds deserved a chance at life. Almost absently, he shoved the piece of transparent wrapping into his shirt pocket, making sure to fold it double to keep its humble contents from spilling out. Plants were just like visiting relatives, he reflected. He might not be comfortable completely surrounded by them, but in moderation and kept at a reasonable distance they could make for pleasant company.

When they finally sprouted in the self-watering window box he kept in his office, he was mildly disappointed. Hoping for something exotic, he found himself caring instead for a dense fresh growth of jugla. A common roadside weed, jugla at least had somewhat attractive, small yellow flowers. The upside was that they wouldn't require much attention to thrive. That quality would help them survive in the office of a man who very often was not there.

He had spent the morning dealing with the inevitable endless flow of paperwork, a river of reports as long and wide as the Ganges. Now it was time to go out into the field and try to follow up on half a dozen ongoing cases, not to mention the usual riots, political protests, and preholiday confrontations. His driver today was a Corporal Abuya; young, attractive, and puppy-dog eager. He smiled thinly to himself. A few days tramping through the underbelly of Sagramanda would put a damper on that just-out-of-the-academy enthusiasm. Seasoning, it was called. He wondered at what point he had stopped being seasoned and had started being aged.

As soon as he seated himself in the cruiser, pleasantries were exchanged and the corporal efficiently guided the fuel-cell-powered patrol car out of the underground motor pool garage and up into the barely controlled chaos of the city streets. Its clean-burning hydrogen-fueled engine emitted no pollutants into Sagramanda's brown but increasingly tolerable atmosphere while pushing the car along at more-than-adequate speeds.

High above the street, a miniature forest of unassuming roadside weed prospered in its window box. Looking just like any other batch of unpretentious jugla, the plants growing outside the window of Chief Inspector Keshu Jamail Singh's office were in fact slightly different from their commonplace country cousins. The end product of decades of research that had in its most recent stage been supervised by a brilliant and now-vanished biochemist, this particular variety of jugla had been genetically engineered so that, without any extra effort or special nutrients or additional attention, it emitted not one but two gaseous by-products. The usual oxygen, and most unusually and remarkably, free hydrogen.

In secret fields somewhere in central Asia, tens of thousands of acres of cotton and wheat had been plowed under to allow for the planting of a new cash crop. Much to the puzzlement and amusement of the local farmers whose lands had been bought out for the new project, the disciplined agriculturalists who had been brought in to take their place had sown neither of those traditional crops, nor millet, nor sorghum. No, the newcomers had spent a minimal amount of money and had put in place the most simple, basic farming equipment to raise-weeds!

Over tobacco and strong, heavily sugared tea, this outlandish development was much discussed on the streets and in the bazaars of neighboring towns. What did the investors expect to get out of such a planting? How could they possibly hope to recoup their investment from dirty, worthless weeds?

The investors were not worried. In fact, they were much pleased when their first crop came in. Requiring virtually no water and practically no fertilizer, the visitors gazed proudly at the sight of the billions of little yellow flowers that soon covered their extensive fields, the slender green stems erupting from even the poorest soil. With the success of the project speedily proven, plans were already in the works to greatly expand the plantation and to export it elsewhere. Multiple crops of such hearty, naturally disease- and insect-resistant plants could be raised all year beneath the specially treated impermeable plastics that protected them from the weather.

Protected them, while also channeling to collection reservoirs the millions upon millions of cubic meters of virtually free hydrogen fuel being generated by the weeds whose natural photosynthetic process had been genetically modified to emit the precious gas.

At the cost of a hundred million dollars, the consortium of investors reckoned the purchase of the jugla's genetic code to be some thing of a bargain.

Khatm karma