Sagramanda, a Novel of Near-Future India

*8*

Originally founded by a rich merchant family from Jaipur, Shrinahji Market mixed both the bazaar and the bizarre with disingenuous equanimity. Having shopped there before, seeking unusual stock for his store, Sanjay knew his way around the enormous, multi-acrylic-domed complex. You could buy anything in Shrinahji: fruits and vegetables; consumer electronics; illegal electronics; sex in any size, shape, color, or preferred fetish; furniture; real estate; bootleg implants; the occasional human organ; spices and condiments; automobiles-even ancient locally manufactured Ambas sador sedans that had been converted to standard fuel-cell power and were as revered as they were clunky.

One entire rambling building that had, in the American vernacular, just growed, resembled a misshapen collection of giant child's blocks. The multiplicity of huge acrylic domes that protected the market quarter sheltered the architectural amalgam from the elements, enabling its dealers and customers to set up and do business outside. The entire complex was devoted to books. Real books, printed on paper made from pulped tree mass. Like the wheezy, aerodynamically challenged Ambassador, such relics possessed much in the way of nostalgia value.

Far more upscale, and never set out on the hundreds of tables that backed up to storefronts, were ancient handwritten manuscripts boasting richly hued artwork and elaborate calligraphy. Some had been decorated with liquid gold and silver. There were maps for sale, and jewels of the Nizams that had escaped the attention of museums and collectors, and robotic astrologers that claimed to be more accurate than any human forecaster, not least because they were completely unbiased.

A city within a city, Shrinahji seethed with activity. Shrines and other religious facilities catered to the needs of Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Animists, and Zoroastrians. Political parties and groups had their own meeting places, the market accommodating the vocal needs of everyone from the BJP to the Dalit Army, from Shiv Sena to the Militant Vegans. In their ubiquity busy personal communicators approached plague level. Their ringing and calling had been banned, lest their conjoined cacophony make the conducting of normal business impossible. Other means of announcing incoming calls had to be adopted. The reigning joke was that there were more vibrating units in Shrinahji than in all the brothels in Southeast Asia.

Sanjay's unit remained in his pocket, quiescent and unmoving. Not wishing to be distracted by casual conversation, he had turned it off prior to entering the market. Now he strolled purposefully down Bagwan Street. A late-afternoon monsoon rain was washing the air outside. Half a dozen stories above his head he could just see the drops splattering on the curving, smoky acrylic that formed the roof over this part of the market.

A tax on all sales concluded inside a covered market paid for the aircon that made Shrinahji and its less famous, less well-established siblings so popular with merchants and customers alike. Entrance was restricted to those who could prove they had legitimate business to conduct inside. Without such controls the market would be overrun with tens of thousands of street dwellers desperately seeking shelter and surcease from the city's relentless heat. Unrestrained by the special laws that protected pedestrians pounding the pavements outside, drifting bouquets of fanciful advertisements assailed him like flurries of electronic snow, badgering him to visit this shop, eat at this restaurant, patronize this clothing store, seek out this sly seller of secrets. Such unrestrained, unsupervised capitalism was restricted to enclosed places like the market, where it would not upset the delicate sensibilities of those who were easily offended by rampant commercialism.

Sanjay reveled in it all-the noise, the pushing crowds, the vocal hawking, even the inescapable adverts. He was not so many years removed from the simple life of the village to have become jaded to such things. As he walked, it seemed to him that his left shoe, the one with the hidden compartment containing the tiny mollysphere, was slightly heavier than his right. It was all in his mind, he told himself. If anything, the unhollowed-out right shoe should be heavier.

Despite the best efforts of the most powerful atmospheric scrubbers the market ownership could install, the enormous complex was still fragrant with the stink of the thousands of merchants and customers who plied its multiple levels and hundreds of narrow accessways. At least there were no vehicles to contend with, Sanjay thought gratefully as he turned a corner. All deliveries and services entered the market via specially designated underground corridors. The only way to get around Shrinahji was to walk, or utilize an approved personal transport mechanism. Being small and silent, the latter were no impediment to the foot traffic they complemented. Like everything else that came into the market, you needed a permit to use one.

Sanjay preferred to walk. A personal transport would only have hindered his progress, since pedestrians always had the right of way. The noiseless electric transports were more useful for the aged, the crippled, and the lazy. He was none of these.

Halting at an intersection, people flowing around him, he frowned at suddenly having three choices, three directions from which to choose. At a touch of his communications bracelet a glowing, three-dimensional map of the market materialized in front of his face.

Responding to voice commands directed at the bracelet, the map zoomed in response to the GPS built into the instrument until it fixed on his current position. Verbally, he entered an address. Shifting to an angled view, a green line appeared in the air, connecting the red dot that marked his position at the intersection with a building two blocks away. Satisfied, he deactivated the map, turned up the street that led off to his right, and resumed walking.

The building was old, but Sanjay was not put off by its appearance. Many historic structures near the center of the old city had been saved as part of Sagramanda's diverse and energetic preservation projects. As long as the building was of no special historical value, modern con struction techniques allowed the interiors of buildings that sat on valuable property to be gutted and updated while preserving their original appearance from the street. Many sleek modern enterprises boasted compelling nineteenth- and twentieth-century facades.

The four-story structure that rose before him was a mixture of both. Announcing himself to Security at the main entrance, he waited while his ident was checked and his appointment confirmed. Granted entry, he saw at once that the building originally had been a haveli, or house of a wealthy merchant. It had been taken apart somewhere in Mandawa, transported across India, and reassembled inside Shrinahji. In purpose it was perfectly appropriate to its present address and location within the market, as well as his reason for coming here.

A central rectangular courtyard opened to the sky-or rather, to one of the multiple acrylic domes that roofed the market complex.

Unlike those that still stood in distant Rajasthan, subject to the whims and weather of the harsh Thar Desert, the interior of this magnificent old residence had been well preserved. The upper portion of one exposed courtyard wall, where it met the overhang of the second-floor walkway, was covered with decorative old paintings; triptychs of Indian life from a century and a half ago.

Elephants with howdahs, camel caravans, Europeans in black hats, dancing girls; all followed one another around the wall in a procession of bright hues and lost innocence. Similar depictions graced the upper portions of the other three walls, with two exceptions. The decorations there were of recent vintage, and they moved.

A virtual of the highly endangered Indian lion preyed upon and brought down electronically terrified sambar deer. Elegant water birds, from egrets to spoonbills, frolicked in shallow lakes. Apsaras gave les sons to their descendants the nautch dancers while merchants in rich robes presented their wares to turbaned and bejeweled warlords who flaunted bejeweled knives and ferocious black beards. It was moving history, devoid only of noise. Adding accompanying sound might have been distracting to business. It was all very well and good, Sanjay mused as he moved through the courtyard, to honor one's past, but not at the expense of commerce.

The lift was located within a four-story-tall precast statue of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. The voluptuous sculpture was mildly sexist, without a doubt, but undeniably beckoning. Any business woman who objected could take her trade elsewhere. Such thoughts did not trouble Sanjay as he stepped into the lift. He came from a small village, and was a traditionalist. Supplying aesthetic balance, an abun dance of virile, scantily dressed warriors pranced and fought mock bat tles as part of the wall decor. Fair was fair.

The office he sought was on the top, fourth floor, at the rear of the complex. Standing out front was the owner's symbol: a richly garbed camel. Not a real camel, of course. It was an excellent simulacrum, complete to the methodical, metronomic chewing of its cud. Sanjay studied it purposefully, striving to identify the breed on which the effigy had been based. Bikaneri, Jaisalmeri, or Gujarati? The superbly rendered hairy ears were a giveaway. Bikaneri, he decided. He had never been to Bikaner, but he had heard of its perfectly preserved palace and other wonders from the Rat. Bikaner was the nearest large city to the temple of the rats in Deshnok.

As for being able to recognize the differences between kinds of camels, Sanjay could because it was one of many things every poor Indian child learned. One never knew when the opportunity to own one of the wonderful beasts might present itself. Back in the days when most vehicles had been powered by ever more highly priced gasoline, camel cart drivers had looked down on frustrated vehicle owners and smirked, secure in the knowledge that their venerable means of transportation required neither petrol, nor lubrication, nor insurance, was unlikely to incur speeding tickets, used no imported parts, and in the absence of onboard computers or auto AIs was quite capable of parking itself.

All that had changed considerably with the advent of the hydrogen-driven, fuel-cell-powered car. But a camel was still cheaper to run.

Not this one, though. It was too sophisticated. As if to prove the point, the android dromedary looked down at him and said, in a no-nonsense preprogrammed voice, "State your business."

"I am Sanjay Ghosh." He checked his chronometer. "I have a ten o'clock appointment with Mr. Chhote Pandit."

The camel looked him up and down, the gleaming lens of one eye recording his outward appearance, the lens of the other probing deeper to check him for weapons. It detected, among other things, the mollysphere packed carefully in the secret compartment of his left shoe, but did not remark on it.

"Go on in," the camel directed him. Its business concluded, it resumed chewing its nonexistent cud. As he walked past, Sanjay couldn't keep from examining the robot's flanks. No doubt there were other, far more lethal devices buried within that faux furred body.

Pandit was not what Sanjay expected. Anticipating someone youngish, bright, and with an advanced degree from Bangalore or somewhere else in the southern Silicon Triangle, he instead found him self in a room more like an audience chamber or den than a modern office, facing a man considerably older but otherwise not unlike him self. As they shook hands and exchanged steepled fingers and head bows, it was all he could do to forebear from asking his host the name of the village he hailed from.

Taking a seat on a couch opposite another, Pandit gestured for his guest to sit. There was no table between them; only a fine rug predominantly woven of blue and red thread whose pattern Sanjay did not recognize. On the walls were delicate paintings of incredibly fine detail that hailed from the school of Rajasthan miniatures. Some of them looked old, though Sanjay was hardly an expert in such things.

"Persian," his host told him. "The rug," he added when his guest did not respond. "Royal Sarouk. Two hundred years old."

Suitably impressed, Sanjay made sure his feet rested lightly on the dense fibers. "It looks almost new."

Pandit smiled and nodded. "The hallmark of a good rug." He was a small old man, shorter even than Sanjay, with a wispy white beard and prominent sideburns like steel wool. His prominent ears stuck out from the sides of his head like those of a baby elephant, he was missing several teeth that could easily have been regenerated or replaced with synthetics, and he wore a plainly embroidered sherwani coat of ivory-hued cotton over an equally basic, pajama-like chundar. The only sign of modernity on his body-indeed, in the entire room-was the gold-tinged control bracelet encircling his left wrist and the chronometer on his right. Absently, Sanjay wondered what the former could summon. He suspected he might have the opportunity to find out. He did not have to wait long.

"Tea?" asked his host. When Sanjay nodded affirmatively, Pandit whispered to his bracelet.

Through some mechanism Sanjay could not discern, the priceless rug rolled itself up and off to one side. A portion of the wooden floor slid silently aside to reveal an exquisite low table cut from a single block of white marble. In full pietra dura style, the marble was inlaid with flowers, leaves, and birds fashioned from shards of precious

and semiprecious stone: lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, carnelian, turquoise from Iran, jasper, agate, malachite from Africa, tiger eye, mother-of-pearl, and more. Built into the center of the table was a heating unit atop which sat a silver pot damascened in gold. Steam issued from the pot's curved spigot. Cups rested nearby, together with containers of milk, cream, and several kinds of sugar.

"Please." Pandit gestured for his guest to help himself. Sanjay fixed a cup, sat back on the comfortable couch, and sipped. He eyed the cup as he gestured with it. "Not marble?"

Pandit smiled back as he poured for himself. "Too easily stained by tea, as I'm sure you know." Adding sugar and milk, he sat back on the other couch and stirred slowly, regarding his visitor out of narrowed eyes. "You are a walking contradiction, Mr. Ghosh."

Sanjay maintained his poker face; his business face. "How is that to be, Mr. Pandit, sir?"

"You do not look in the least like the sort of person to be demanding the kind of money that is being asked. You look, and please do not feel slighted when I say this, like a dirt farmer."

Somehow Sanjay managed not to flush. He certainly would not have thought of responding with something like, "That's funny-so do you." Instead, he replied, "I am only a poor servant of another, who wishes to remain anonymous."

Pandit coughed slightly into his tea, availed himself of a longer swallow. "As am I, as am I. Both of us being middlemen, then, it should be easy for us to reach an understanding. I am sure you are being paid a commensurate fee. As I will be." Sanjay, properly, said nothing.

Abruptly, Pandit looked bored. "Well, let's get it over with. This should not take long. It cannot, because despite what you may think from appearances, I am a busy man. You have only been allotted this brief bit of my time on the personal recommendation of another whose information I value highly. Otherwise you would not have gotten past the entrance to this complex, much less into my ante office."

"I know that, Mr. Pandit, and I am grateful." Sanjay's response rang of honesty because it was just that. "I have only one thing to show you. It represents what my client has to offer for sale. I don't pretend to understand it. The details are unfamiliar to me personally. But I was assured by my client that when it was presented to you, you would know how to read between the lines it will make available to you to such an extent that you will be able to bring my client in contact with an appropriate buyer for what he is offering to sell."

"Yes, yes." Pandit checked his own chronometer impatiently. "Well, drink your tea and get on with it. Let's see this wonderful thing- whatever it is."

Without further comment Sanjay lifted his left leg and crossed it over his right, the better to access the hidden safety compartment in the sole of his shoe. Pandit paid hardly any attention to the process, as if such low-tech subterfuges were old news to him. Extracting the packet holding the small molly, the shopkeeper slid it across the inlaid tabletop to his host.

Pandit opened it and removed the contents. "Standard information storage device." Sharp eyes focused on his guest. "Is there anything special I should know before I try to access it?"

Sanjay looked appropriately innocent. "All I was told was that removing it from my shoe would allow it to be activated. I am not sophisticated in such things."

His host studied both mollysphere and merchant for a moment before addressing his command bracelet once more. Mimicking the ascension of the beautiful coffee table, a small pedestal console rose out of the floor in front of the couch. Pandit popped the molly into one of its available receptacles and waited for the precision internal alignment of magnetic field and variable focal-length lasers to lock in. He was mildly disappointed when the box unit generated only two-dimensional information.

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

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

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

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

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

Fine tea or no fine tea, Sanjay was beginning to squirm when his host finally shifted to the other end of his couch, leaving the molly activated and the last page of information hanging in the air. As

Sanjay waited, the display winked out. Frowning, Pandit spoke again into his command bracelet. Nothing happened.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Despite his promise to himself to conceal anything like an emotional reaction for the duration of the meeting, Sanjay found himself startled. He recovered as rapidly as possible. "My client will be pleased to hear that."

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

Sanjay frowned. "I was reliably informed that-

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

Greed knows no ethnicity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I will do whatever my client thinks best."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Some 'commission,' " the scientist had responded, whereupon both men shared a laugh.

Was that a shadow behind him?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was dark, and he was lost.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was almost right.

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

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

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

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

Admikhana. Man-eaters. Cannibals.

As the lowest of the low, the poorest of the poor, society expected them to eke out a pitiful existence until disease and especially starvation overtook them. Except that some years ago, no one could say exactly when, three such women had impertinently refused to remain complicit in their own quiet, courteous demise. All had children. No matter what their mothers consumed and no matter how it affected them in this life or the next, these women had determined that their children would thrive and survive on a diet of normal mother's milk.

The foundation of that milk was immaterial. It was the survival of the children that mattered. It justified everything. Anything.

Though never boasting many formal adherents, the cult the triumvirate of poor women had founded had grown large enough to alarm the authorities. Despite repeated efforts, they had never been able to completely stamp it out. There were too many poor women, too many starving children. The moral rationalizations offered by the cult were sufficient to sustain its always fluctuating membership. Besides, it was only one of hundreds of cults old and new that boasted believers scattered throughout the city's vastness.

They weren't going to sell him, a terrified Taneer realized as he backed up. They were going to gut and eat him. Horrific servants of a noble purpose, they began to spread out, to cut off any possible retreat. Before that could happen, he turned and bolted into the night.

Upraised dirks and dirty kitchen knives flashing, hems of silk and cotton rising and flapping about their legs like the wings of ascending bats, the Admikhana broke into a run behind him. The piercing ululation that rose from their throats as if from a chorus of stoned banshees was bloodthirsty in every sense of the word, and not merely a metaphor.