Sagramanda, a Novel of Near-Future India

*3*

It made the news, of course. The next day, free readers drifted among the morning commuters, teasing them to purchase and download the body of the report as well as the rest of the paper. Getting off at the museum, Jena Chalmette took note of the flashing, hovering words as they flicked past her in search of paying downloaders. She did not buy the report, or the paper that contained it. Not because it was potentially too distressing, or too gory. Actually, she was very much interested in death and its many manifestations. She envied the unknown tiger capabilities that were so much greater than her own.

Not that she hadn't done all right with what small talent she had.

Tall and decidedly non-Indian, Jena had been born in France. In the south of France, to be precise, near the Pyrenees and the border with Andorra. She had become interested in India and its rich history and multifarious cultures as a teenager. Unhappily, as a teenager she had also become deeply interested in assorted threads of mysticism. This had been the despair of her quiet mother and the outrage of her loud father. Her mother had reacted to the situation by becoming more and more withdrawn and by making ever more frequent trips to an online pharmacy, from which she drew enervation if not real peace. Her father, considering himself a practical man, had tried to beat the impractical obsession out of his daughter.

Predictably, Jena had reacted by running away, to Outer Mar seilles. There she had met Jean-Paul, who had introduced her to many things seventeen-year-old girls think they know all about but soon come to realize are entirely new to them. Among the delights the lan guorous, swarthy, serpentine Jean-Paul had introduced her to were group sex, wherein she was expected to share herself freely with his acquaintances; pharmaceuticals even her mother had never thought to try; and petty theft to support their respective habits-his that was well developed, and hers that was new and growing.

Eventually she had settled on rapture-4. It sharply enhanced her emotions and heightened her perceptions. She believed it also altered the reality around her, allowing her to see things the sight of which was otherwise denied to mere mortals.

It was while semicomatose in the throes of a particularly deep and spiritual rapture-4-induced mental trip that she found herself face-to-face with Kali.

She knew Kali quite well, from her years of reading. But she had certainly never expected to encounter the goddess in person. Con fronting the wide-eyed, gaping Jena, the goddess held a sword in one hand and the head of a recently slain demon in another while her other two hands beckoned encouragingly to the young woman

kneeling at her feet. A necklace of fifty skulls garlanded her neck, one for each of the fifty letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, and each of her earrings was a dead body. She wore only a girdle comprised of the hands of dead men. Her eyes were red and her breasts and body smeared with blood. She was nigitrna, the ultimate reality, beyond name and form. The bright fire of truth that burns away everything, including clothing.

Her ivory-white teeth symbolized purity, while her red, extended tongue signified her delight in the enjoyment of everything that society considers forbidden. Smiling, she extended a welcoming hand downward. Taking it, Jena rose, utterly entranced.

"Dance with me," the goddess invited her. "The world is created and destroyed in my dancing. Your redemption lies in awareness that you are invited to take part in my dance, to yield yourself to the beat of my dance of life and death."

So Jena danced with the goddess. Entering the squalid fourth-floor walk-up they shared, a startled Jean-Paul nearly swallowed his Galois before trying his best to bring her out of her daze. He'd seen people on bad trips before, had partaken of a few himself. All he had to do was take one look at Jena's enraptured, glowing, thoroughly stoned expres sion to know that his girlfriend of the moment was way, way gone. But it was only when he saw the empty capsule box and realized just how much rapture-4 she'd taken this time, without him present to keep an eye on and moderate her consumption, that he realized the seriousness of the situation.

If he couldn't bring her down, she might never come out of it. Without her feet ever leaving the ground, she would just keep on floating, floating-until the life floated right out of her.

"Jena! Wake up! Merde, you stupid girl, stop stumbling around and listen to me!" Grabbing her by both arms, he began to shake her violently. When that didn't work, he started slapping her. Methodi cally, hard, back and forth right across the face. It had no effect. Jena fought weakly to pull away from him so she could continue dancing with the goddess, her smile blissful, her eyes focused on something he could not see.

"Confront death, my child," the goddess was urging her. "Accepting the eventuality of death will free you. I am your true mother. Accept me, and I will release you to act fully and freely, release you from the nasty, restraining constraints of pretense, practicality, and rationality." One of two left hands rose. It was missing its little finger. This reminded Jena of something, but she was too far gone to make the connection. "Accept me, serve me, and find my finger. I will be your mother, as I am mother to all. I will protect you."

"Yes," Jena murmured. "Yes, Mother. I will do it."

"Do what? You stupid bitch, do you want to OD? Wake up. Come out of it! I'm not taking you to the hospital! I can't risk getting arrested again."

An angry Jean-Paul smacked her again, harder than ever. Crimson began to trickle from one corner of her mouth. Reaching up, she touched the flow and gazed down at her red-stained fingertip with childlike wonder. Blood. Mother Kali would be pleased.

"I-I'm sorry, Jean-Paul." She shook her head, blinked, finally looked up at him and smiled faintly. "I'm all right now. It's moder ating."

"Damn good thing, too." Roughly, he let go of her. "I thought I was going to lose you. Do you know how hard it is to get rid of a dead body in this town?"

"No." She put a reassuring hand on his arm. "Tell me. How is it done?"

Sudden uncertainty colored his expression as he looked back at her. "You really want to know?" Her eagerness seemed genuine, guileless. So he told her. It gave him yet another opportunity to play the big man, the knowledgeable one.

Later, they made love on the old mattress on the floor that served for a bed. Later, she killed him, wielding a kitchen knife with all her weight behind it, plunging it so deeply into his chest that the tip passed between two ribs to emerge from his back. She dedicated the slaying, the first of what she hoped would be many such sacrifices, to Mother Kali, who had finally shown her the Way. The next day she made arrangements for the disposal of his corpse, scrupulously fol lowing the directions he himself had described to her the previous afternoon. Then she sold what she could, packed a single suitcase, and bought a one-way ticket to India. To Sagramanda, where the most prominent temple of Kali in the entire country was located. It seemed the logical place to begin looking for the missing finger of a goddess.

She considered placing a farewell call to her parents. She had not spoken to her father for years, to her mother in months. But there was really no need, she assured herself. She was no longer part of their world.

Besides, she had a new mother now. One who would look after and protect her in ways she had never imagined.

She shook the last of the old thoughts out of her mind as she approached the museum. She had visited here many times before, searching the corridors, the less-visited rooms, for signs of the Mother's missing digit. Always without success. The ticket-taker recognized her as a regular and did not even ask to see the annual pass she had bought. Neatly, even primly, dressed, she attracted no more than the usual attention. Years living beneath Sagramanda's sun had turned her skin the color of weak tea. Youth kept it free of blemishes. In her lean, tall, almost model-like slenderness, she was moderately attractive without being eye-catching. Her height alone was enough to draw the atten tion of those local men brave enough to approach her. Whenever she felt too many native eyes on her, she would don large, ugly glasses.

Maybe it was the bookish look that drew the young couple to her. They appeared to be about her age, certainly no older. The man smiled hopefully and addressed her in English. When she had first arrived in Sagramanda, Jena had spoken only a few words of that language. Now she was as fluent as the stockbroker from New York she had encountered several months earlier.

"Yes, I think I can help you," she told the man in response to his questions. He and his wife were Australian, but their accent was not impenetrable.

She ended up giving them a tour of the museum, whose contents were intimately familiar to her. By the end of the afternoon, the three of them were chatting together like old friends.

"I'll tell you what you should do," she told them over iced coffee in the museum's cafe. "Everyone sees Sagramanda from the land. But to really appreciate it, you need to see it from the water. From the river." Her hands traced architecture in the air between them. "From a boat you get an unobstructed view of everything: new buildings, old warehouses, ghats, the itinerant sadhus trolling for contributions along the riverfront walkway."

The young woman eyed her husband. "Sounds romantic as well as educational. Where do we find a tour boat?"

Jena smiled knowingly, as if conveying some intimate secret. "That's why so few people see the city from the water. Believe it or not, there aren't any tour boats. But you can rent small electric watercraft by the hour."

The husband looked unsure. "We're from Newcastle, and pretty much at home on the water. But taking a boat out here, with all this commercial river traffic-I don't know…"

"Tell you what." Jena leaned forward. "You pay for it, and a take away dinner, and I'll give you the tour. Even the small boats have collision-avoidance electronics built into them. At least, the one we'll use will."

They were delighted by the suggestion and immediately agreed to her offer. At minimal cost they were acquiring a boat driver and a knowledgeable guide all in one.

"Meet me at the Hooghly South private slips, number twenty-four. Seven o'clock. Any taxi driver will know where it is."

Though they arrived before the scheduled departure time, Jena was earlier still. The small, slightly tubby craft's batteries were fully charged and waiting for them. The sheila was surprised to see Jena wearing a veil.

"As the sun goes down, the men here grow bolder," she explained to the other woman as she removed the face covering, folded it neatly, and placed it inside a long shoulder bag resting on a bench seat. With a nod in the husband's direction she added, "I don't have a mate to shoo away the obnoxious. They're worse than flies." Seeing a troubled look cross the woman's face in response to her suddenly threatening tone, Jena added serenely, "I won't need one now. We have your man to protect us." The Aussie had the grace to blush.

Under her practiced hands the boat backed out of the slip and spun away from the docks, humming smoothly upriver as its driver accelerated. Along the way she pointed out one sight of interest after another. Ensconced in the padded double seat situated forward of the wheel, husband and wife relaxed in each other's arms, content to let Jena do all the driving and most of the talking.

They stopped in midriver to enjoy a late supper, unpacking the takeaway meals just before nine o'clock. Around them, river traffic had slowed out of respect for the darkness. The Hooghly was still a highway for traditional boatmen who could not afford running lights, not even solar-powered LEDs, and who were reluctant to venture out into the busy watercourse after the sun went to sleep. It was also much cooler out in the middle of the river, a partial respite from the day's heat if not from the omnipresent humidity.

"So, what do you do?" Completely relaxed, utterly contented, the woman peered over at Jena. Their guide was busying herself with the contents of an open storage container beneath the driver's chair. "Are you a professional guide?"

Jena had to laugh. It was a musical sound, but one with a hard edge. "I'm the one who needs a guide. I can't find what I'm looking for."

"What might that be?" the husband asked casually, cold brew in hand.

"Enlightenment. Release from the cycle of karma. I have been promised that."

The woman was unsure whether to smile or frown. Having consumed several beers, she decided on the former. "I'm not even bloody sure what that is, but anyway, who promised it?"

"The Mother Goddess. Kali." Reaching up with her right hand, Jena pressed a sequence of small buttons that rimmed the device concealed beneath her blouse. Instantly responsive, the braceletlike pressure syringe resting there obediently slammed a stream of rapture-4 directly into her bloodstream. It was very clean, very pure, very clear stuff. Full-on Shakti. For all that she was used to it, it never failed to have the desired effect. She welcomed the dreamlike contentment that rolled over her mind and surged through her body, lowering her blood pressure, elevating her spirits, and lifting her soul. Exactly as Mother Kali would have approved.

Maybe if he'd had a beer or two fewer, maybe if he'd been a little less relaxed, the husband might have found the sudden shift in their new friend's choice of conversation off-putting. Maybe he would have thought the way she now began to sway slightly from side to side unsettling. But the open boat was drifting lazily downstream on autopilot, they were heading back, and in an hour or so he and his wife would be back in the familiar confines of their comfortable mid-price range-hotel. Tomorrow would see them off to Mumbai. Meanwhile, their charming if suddenly sloe-eyed hostess was doing nothing to generate suspicion. Anyway, she was alone, and he was much bigger than she was.

Or at least he was until she cut him in half.

In a single flowing, almost dancelike movement, she drew the sword from its place of concealment among the boat's tools and equip ment and struck with it, making sure to guide it with her left hand. Honed to extreme sharpness and wielded with both hands, it cut through flesh and bone in equal measure, only slowing to a halt somewhere in the vicinity of the man's spleen. The look on his face rendered shock passe. Never wavering, his eyes were still locked on her as he fell over sideways in his seat, the beer falling from his hands, the bottle rolling across the deck of the small boat, blood gushing everywhere.

There was just enough time for the dead man's wife to let out a single scream. It went on and on, until Jena cut off her head. The head flew into the river, which was dangerous, but Jena did not want to take the time to look for it. Anyway, there were voracious fish in the depths of the great waterway that would make short work of the unexpected bounty.

Hands upraised, head back, she chanted over the two bodies as blood filled the bottom of the boat, until the deck was awash with red. Regrettably, none of the four still, limp hands she inspected boasted a finger that might serve to replace the one Mother Kali was missing. But she knew that the goddess would be pleased by the sacrifice. When she had finished her prayers, she weighted the two bodies with what she could find and wrestled them over the gunwale, a gift to the fish and the crocodiles. Then she opened the appropriate valves. As the rental craft began to sink, she inflated the small lifeboat and pushed it over the side. By the time the boat went down, she was paddling toward the near shore.

While serving Mother Kali was an endless pleasure, finding the goddess's missing finger was a task difficult enough to take even a dedicated servant a lifetime. Jena felt certain she was up to the challenge. It was only a matter of time.

Rapture-4 coursed through her body, filling her with chemicals as well as visions. Tickling her neurons and inflaming her thoughts. In the course of her searching and servitude there would be more such sacrifices, she knew.

There had already been many.

Today was Friday. Fridays were always difficult, he knew. There were families trying to get out of the city for the weekend, businesspeople fighting to finalize deals, couples arguing over how they were going to relax. He usually chose to work through the weekend. For one thing, it endeared him to his colleagues. For another, crimes committed on weekends often tended to differ from those committed during the week. Having been a cop for thirty years, Keshu Jamail Singh had learned to seek variety wherever he could.

He was a senior investigator, head of a department-but not the head of the department. In a city of a hundred million, there could be no single heads of anything. Oh, there was Commander-in-Chief Mukherjee, but his was largely a ceremonial position. Mukherjee was the public voice of the Sagramanda police force. With his Bollywood-star looks and sonorous voice, he was the perfect choice to intercede between the city government and the public. And, more importantly, the media. He quite fancied himself the knowledgeable investigator. Keshu and his hundred fellow senior investigators kept their opinions of Chief Mukherjee's abilities to themselves. They recognized his value to the department, and his uses, and knew that none of them could have smiled so fatuously at so many politicians, or presented requests for budgetary overrides with such oratorical skill. They needed Chief Mukherjee to facilitate actual police work. But not one of them would trust him to find his ass with his own hands in a darkened room.

Keshu Singh was responsible for supervising the investigation of the most serious crimes in the district known as Parganas Southeast. Six million people, more or less, fell under his jurisdiction. More or less, because it was impossible to maintain an accurate count of the surging, swelling, shifting population of Sagramanda. And that six million didn't even try to take into account the vast number of illegals who swarmed into the city seeking work: impoverished Bangladeshis, hopeful Burmese, resolute Nepalis, displaced Tibetans -all sought the promise of success in Sagramanda. For all but a very few, it remained nothing more tangible than a promise.

It was Keshu's job, and that of his fellow senior investigators, to keep citizens and supplicants from each other's throats and, failing that, to punish those who stormed egregiously over the top of what was deemed legal.

It was still pitch dark as the chopper began to descend toward the lights of the city. It was an hour before dawn; the ambrosial time when it was appropriate for one of his faith to rise. He had already been up for two hours; recited the Japji, the Jaapu, and the Ten Sawayyyas; had breakfast; read all of the morning news and relevant reports on the Net; and bade farewell to his wife. After slightly adjusting the dastar, or turban, that covered his head, he absently fingered the kara that encircled his wrist. It was steel, of course. Next to it was a second bracelet. Similar in design to the first, its composition and function were completely different and decidedly untraditional. It allowed him to communicate directly with his headquarters, to receive as well as send information, and generally to bypass the need for a full-service commu nicator. It was also quite decorative, even if it was not true steel.

Though of average height, Keshu was powerfully built. As both Sikh and one-time university wrestler, he looked more like a squat, bearded, turbaned bear than the average cop. His colleagues had a way of mitigating their superior's sometimes intimidating appearance. On introducing him, someone would invariably add "gesundheit" or the Hindi, or Bengali, or English equivalent. By now, the joke was old enough to have become fossilized. But it still had its intended effect on those who had not met the inspector previously.

Keshu still wrestled on an amateur level, though there were not many competitors in his age group. Too much chance of tearing a muscle or breaking a bone. Such risks seemed minor in comparison to the everyday dangers faced by someone in his position, but not to those who were businessmen, or teachers, or doctors. There were no politicians in his gym group. Politicians tended to shy away from any kind of rough physical contact. He knew. In the course of his career he had been called upon to arrest a number of them.

A government shuttle chopper was the favored means of transportation for senior officials. While the underground and the maglev were fast and reasonably efficient, nothing beat flying over the traffic to be dropped off on the roof of your office. Dozens of the compact, silent, fuel-efficient craft plied the skies above cities like Sagramanda like so many worker bees, ably shedding themselves every morning of bureaucrats, technocrats, plutocrats, elected officials, and the occasional very wealthy housewife. Larger lifters served as express delivery vehicles, while a few even transported the offspring of the especially privileged to their gated, guarded, exclusive private schools.

Keshu was well aware of the status he had acquired as he stepped out of the chopper and grunted a good-bye to its pilot. There had been some outcry when the shuttle service had first been proposed, until the rice-counters had shown that the increase in efficiency in terms of man-hours worked more than compensated for the cost of the transport. All Keshu knew was that it saved him from having to deal twice daily with city streets. It was a perk for which he had worked hard, and was appropriately grateful.

His cubicle was on the fifth floor of the Haradna East headquarters building. As senior inspector, he was entitled to a corner office. The room responded to his arrival by lowering the air-conditioning setting and darkening the windows. Settling himself into his chair, which promptly molded itself to his stout frame, he pursed his lower lip at the projection unit built into the desk. Before switching it on to con template the morning's litany of outrages, he swiveled in his seat to eye the right-angled intersection of Chittragout and Sabhagar streets.

This early in the morning the flow of traffic was slow but steady. Looking out his windows, he could see five centuries. Modern Marutis vied for lane space with imported cars and small delivery trucks. They kept to their lanes lest they encounter one of the millions of dischargers that had been placed in the city's sidewalks over the past fifty years. Prior to the installation of the dischargers, frustrated drivers had simply used the sidewalks to try and drive around traffic jams. The installation of the dischargers put an end to that practice. Drive over one, and it would fry a vehicle's electrical system, simultaneously setting off an alarm. The immobilized driver could only wait for the traffic police to arrive, issue a fine on the spot, and impound the disabled vehicle. Initially, the number of immobilized vehicles slowed traffic until they could be removed. But word about the efficiency of the dischargers spread quickly. People stopped trying to turn the sidewalks of Sagramanda into extra driving lanes, and the flow of foot traffic improved markedly. Drivers caught with illegally installed discharger shields had their fines quintupled and their vehicles confiscated.

Of course, the absence of vehicles on the sidewalks only opened them up to more residents and immigrants as potential dwelling sites and places of business, but at least feet and bodies were easier on the pavement than tires.

A camel cart was making its way down the street, its pair of huge wheels fashioned of plastic instead of wood. Plastic wore much better and did not suffer ill effects from the rain and the sun. The camel needed no fuel and in much of the densely packed city made as good time as a truck. Gazing out his own private portal onto India, Keshu also saw overburdened Tata trucks and buses, heavily laden donkeys, and a plethora of powered tri-wheeled rickshaws. The last of the latter had been converted to battery or fuel-cell power about twelve years ago, with concomitant improvements to the quality of the city's atmosphere both in terms of breathability and noise pollution.

What a country, Keshu mused. What a city. His city. Nobody paid much attention to population projections anymore. Not since the municipality's population count had passed seventy million. They were invariably inaccurate, anyway. With a sigh, he activated the desk and watched as the built-in box generated images and statistics in the air before him. There were no surprises.

With a hundred million human beings crammed into one corner of the planet, there were bound to be quite a few who were desperate, despairing, or just plain bad.

There was a riot of some significance starting up off to the south, centered on the Mayapur roundabout. Preliminary reports suggested a protest against the granting of a major commercial concession to a large Chinese consortium. Harsh words were being bandied about con cerning runaway production and lost jobs. The usual anarchic, oppor tunistic elements had appeared out of nowhere to join in and send the original demonstration spiraling out of control. Shops were being looted, pedestrians assaulted, vehicles overturned and burned.

Nothing out of the ordinary. A minor episode. His presence would not be required.

Before diving back into the interminable scroll of ongoing unsolved cases he skimmed through the litany of the previous twelve hours. Only nine murders, including one domestic dispute that by itself had resulted in four dead. Suspects already picked up in half the cases, not counting the family fight in which all the protagonists died. A good night, in that respect. He read on. To an outsider the long list of dreadful happenings would have bordered on the monstrous. In contrast, Keshu was not depressed. He had seen worse. Much worse.

As he was reading, the electricity failed in half of Haradna East. His readout did not die. Essential city services such as police, fire, and traffic stations were equipped with their own proprietary backup power, as were hospitals, most major businesses, and the better hotels. The system of interlocking power grids and cables was so complex that it required thousands of gigabytes of storage space just to monitor the important junctions.

Four major fires were burning across the city. Two substantial riots were in progress. It gave him much pleasure to note that none of these were taking place in his district. Within the past hour the city had recorded fifteen rapes, twenty-two robberies, eight cases of arson, and forty-four of serious vandalism. Those were the major crimes. He had no time to read about, much less deal with, the hundreds of minor ones. One hour, one crime at a time, he told himself imperturbably.

Especially at the start of such a calm day in the city.

His desk brewed tea. He contemplated spending the day doing a follow-up on the kidnapping of Bira Gumbadi. Mr. Gumbadi, senior vice president of the Bank of Bengal, Sagramanda section, had been kid napped three weeks ago by a gang of dacoits who had disabled his limousine as it was whisking him home from an important speaking engagement. Using a small laser, they had proceeded to crack the sealed, airtight vehicle and whisk the protesting Mr. Gumbadi away before the car's automatic alarm and location system could draw private security to his aid. It had been very embarrassing for the security firm in question. Keshu felt bad for the company management, not least because it was comprised largely of ex-cops. That was one advantage to his job. Maybe he did not make as much as he would have in private practice, but on the other hand, when there was a major cock-up, he didn't find his picture plastered all over the evening news, either.

The kidnappers wanted fifty million rupees to free Mr. Gumbadi. Not an outrageous sum for one in his position, but substantial enough to give his family pause. Bargaining was ongoing. If, in the meantime, the inspector and his people could find and free the banker, gratitude would be liberally forthcoming, like dung spread across a newly planted field.

The darkened, bullet-proof transparency that was the door to his office changed color, attracting his attention. Issuing an oral command, he bade it rise into the ceiling.

Into the room came a small, dark man deferential in manner and afflicted with a pair of glasses that ought to be put out of their misery by a vision-correcting laser. After said instrument had corrected the style-blind owner's deficient eyesight, of course. That this procedure had not yet been performed was most likely due to an insufficiency of funds rather than an unawareness of the relevant medical technique.

Keshu made it a point not to stare. The financial compensation, or lack thereof, of others who worked in the department was not his concern.

"Excuse me, Inspector," the man said by way of introduction, "but might I have a moment of your time? I am Subrata, from downstairs."

Sitting up straight, Keshu beckoned for the man to enter. "Some thing I can do for you, my friend?"

The much smaller man placed a hardcopy on the chief inspector's desk. "I would not bother you, sir, if I did not think this a matter of some importance."

"I'm sure you wouldn't," Keshu concurred. No one would, who knew the chief inspector's reputation. Keshu Jamail Singh could tolerate the wasting of most anything but time.

"You know how we are all trained to search for patterns in columns of crimes. Robberies, rapes, extortion, kidnappings-everything and anything." Keshu saw no reason to comment. He was impatient to get back to his reading. "I have been working homicide, and I think I have found something that should be brought to your attention."

The chief inspector's beard rose and fell as he nodded. "Don't keep me in suspense, Mr. Subrata."

"No sir." The smaller man continued hastily, gesturing at the printout as he proceeded. "I have been working on this with several people down in Forensics, and we are all agreed on the conclusions. As you know, the most common method of committing murder in our wonderful city is by knife, which is cheap and easy. Even if unrecovered, the type of knife employed in a killing can frequently be determined by analyzing the nature of the inflicted wound or wounds: their depth, width, angle of penetration, and so on." Adjusting his glasses, he scanned a duplicate copy of the printout he had passed to his superior.

"The past year has seen many dozens of such killings. However, research and follow-up by myself and those people in Forensics seem to indicate that a small number exhibit enough unusual similarities so as to mark them as distinct."

Keshu was still not intrigued, but neither did the level rise on his built-in irritation meter. "Unusual in what way?"

"The blade utilized in these particular killings appears to be unusually large. The lethal wounds were much greater in extent than would have been caused by even a fairly large kitchen knife. A number of the killings included full decapitations, suggesting either an extremely sharp blade, a most powerful assailant, or a combination of both. Addi tional study ruled out the use, in these particular instances, of axes. Though a large machete remains a possibility, it is the consensus of myself and the people in Forensics that at least twenty-four of these studied murders were committed by someone wielding a sword."

Now Keshu was involved. "A sword? You say you are all reason ably sure of this?"

The smaller man was nodding vigorously. "Not just 'a' sword, sir. The same sword. Detailed analysis of the lacerations point to the same weapon being utilized in each instance. The killings were committed by a large, sharp blade with a smooth, unserrated edge. We feel confi dent that we have a forensics match for twenty-four."

He shrugged dif fidently. "There may, of course, be more. The bodies of a number of the victims studied were found in various stages of decomposition."

"Possible serial killer." Keshu was perusing the printout with his full faculties. "Why wasn't this brought to my attention before now?"

Again, Subrata shrugged. "Those of us who have been working on this wanted to be certain, knowing that the consequences would inevitably lead to certain conclusions."

From beneath bushy eyebrows the chief inspector's gaze rose, unblinking. "And you are certain?"

"Sufficient for prosecution, should the perpetrator be found," the other man replied. "It was decided to bring this to you now because of the most recent instances. Two people, a man and a woman, who were fished out of the Hooghly only two days ago. Both bodies came up entangled in a fisherman's net. Before the crocodiles could get to them. Their wounds proved quite consistent with the other twenty-two unsolved cases." He added, almost apologetically, "Australian tourists."

Now his visitor really had the chief inspector's attention. "That's very bad. I don't recall seeing anything about it in yesterday's news, or this morning's."

Subrata allowed himself a thin smile. "Public Relations has been working overtime to keep this one in-house for as long as possible."

Keshu nodded to himself. "Sword-wielding Serial Killer on the Loose in Sagramanda!" was not a headline the municipal authorities would be likely to look forward to seeing splashed all over the front of their morning news report. How long his department could keep such a revelation quiet depended on the reaction of the Australian consulate. Clearly, they were not yet fully in the know. Perhaps his people could keep them in the dark a while longer yet. At least until the unfortunate tourists' friends and relations began to wonder about why they were not hearing from their vacationing friends, and started to make inquiries.

The disclosure prompted another, obvious follow-up question. "And the other twenty-two killings this is related to? Not all tourists, I presume?"

"Only three others. One elderly German gentleman, and an Indonesian couple from Sulawesi. Also two Bangladeshis and a Bhutanese who were not tourists, but illegal workers. The rest all Indian." Subrata gestured with the printout. "There is no pattern to it, sir. Men and women, a number of teenagers, but no children under the age of fifteen. There are victims from every caste, and every walk of life. Rich, poor, middle-class. Dark, light, long and short hair. Nothing to link them except the methodology behind their murders."

"Not just a serial killer, then," Keshu brooded. "One content to choose victims apparently at random. Unless we can establish some additional connection between victims, it suggests our quarry holds no specific grudge against any class or kind of people; only against humanity in general. A nondiscriminatory fanatic."

"That was our conclusion, too, sir." Subrata waited patiently.

Keshu was silent for several moments before he looked up anew. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Mr. Subrata. Please keep on it, give it all the attention it needs, and relay that request to your coworkers in Forensics. I want to be informed the moment anything relevant, including possible additional victims of this person or per sons, is discovered. Use my personal contact number."

"Yes sir." The researcher turned to go, hesitated. "Will there be anything else, sir?"

"Just two things." The chief inspector stared at the other man through the space between them. "Hope that this individual or indi viduals makes a mistake. Otherwise they are going to be very hard to catch. And-pray that he or they do not kill any more foreign tourists, or there will be hell to pay for all of us."

"I assure you that my friends and I have already ascertained that possibility, sir." Subrata waited for the door to reascend, then exited through the open portal.

Keshu returned to the study of the morning's readouts, the subor dinate's printout looming ominously on his desk. The Mayapur riot was winding down as a pair of rapid-response tactical squads squeezed it from two sides. Another disturbance threatened to flare up farther to the east. Near the zoo, of all places. He allowed himself a slight smile. Perhaps the city monkeys were trying to liberate their caged cousins. Or one of a number of international and/or local animal rights groups might be involved.

Six rape reports had come in since his arrival. Two arson attempts, one successful, the other quenched in the bud by automatic snuffers built into the infrastructure of the attacked building. One attempted bank holdup, unsuccessful, with both would-be robbers stunned by automated security and their getaway vehicle successfully immobi lized. Violent confrontation at a private college campus between sit-in demonstrators and campus security guards. Assorted muggings, purse-snatchings, and pickpocketings. Child-beatings, wife-beatings, hus band-beatings, beatings of household pets. Vandalism and car break-ins. Arrests for graffiti, extortion, theft of utilities, public defecation.

A normal morning.

Except for the efficient Mr. Subrata's report.

With a sigh, the chief inspector rested his elbows on his desk and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of both hands. On top of everything, his wife had been nagging him mercilessly for the past week about the vacation they were supposed to have taken last month that he continued to put off. She would wave the reservation forms for the Maldives resort in his face at every opportunity.

Smiling encouragingly, touching him affectionately while doing so, but it still counted as nagging.

What a job, he told himself. What a life. He wouldn't have traded it for anything.

Better to have a wife ragging on you than a serial killer, he told him self. Using a curt voice command to halt the heads-up readout from the box, he slipped the fingers of his right hand into the controller glove and dove physically as well as mentally into the morning's work.