Empire of Bones Read online

  People have been coming here all day. What do they want?

  “They want to know why you’re here. What your plans are.”

  Ir Yth looked at Jaya as though she had made some casual remark about the weather, and did not reply.

  “Ir Yth…” Jaya sighed.

  I must leave now. I have things to do. We will discuss this later, Ir Yth said, and was abruptly gone.

  2.

  Khokandra Place, Jaipur Province, India

  The man making his way through the marble corridors of the palace did not need the cane which appeared to guide his steps, for he was perfectly able to see. Smell was the only sense that Naran Tokai did not possess. He swung the ivory cane from side to side as he walked; nanofilters embedded within its intricate whorls picked up the odors in the air. It was pleasant to be back in the perfumed air of the palace; the stench of the funeral pyres as he had driven through the villages had been initially overwhelming, penetrating even the air-conditioned atmosphere of the limousine. The aftermath of another outbreak of Selenge, no doubt. Tokai had merely switched off the cane and watched the smoke drift by.

  Amir Anand was here, an hour early, and the old man’s lips pursed in disapproval. The butcher-prince was getting above himself. Perhaps it was a mistake to meet him here… But Tokai dismissed that thought. He wanted to show Anand who was the master of Khokandra Palace, provide a firm demonstration that although this might once have been Anand’s ancestral home, those days were long gone. The gilt and marble halls of Khokhandra belonged to Tokai now, and the place had been relegated to no more than a summer house in the hills, a charming cottage for weekends away whenever Tokai visited India. He already possessed palaces in Delhi and Kerala, and something more rural seemed in order.

  Naran Tokai smiled to himself as he walked. The palace was still run-down, and Tokai planned to have it redecorated as soon as possible—import a little Japanese taste and refinement to replace all that ostentatious opulence. Perhaps he’d have the gardens done as well, and bring in some of the regendered geishas who currently decorated his mansions in Kyoto or Singapore. His smile widened. He did not think Anand would like that at all.

  He could smell the butcher-prince already. The vestigial traces of sweat and food and urine, masked beneath deodorant and an aftershave that Tokai found offensively pungent, were channeled through the sensory units of the cane. It was far more effective than his own senses; Tokai reflected once more that the laboratory accident which had deprived him of his sense of smell had really been a blessing in disguise. As he approached the chamber, the odors grew stronger. He paused in the doorway, the cane extended before him. From within, Anand said, “Shri Tokai?”

  The voice was respectful and cultured, but Tokai could detect something beneath it, like the human smells underneath the artificial ones. He tapped his way into the room, and Amir Anand rose too quickly to greet him, bowing low over the old man’s hand. It must hurt, Tokai reflected, the princeling being forced to sell off the family silver to a Japanese industrialist, to someone in trade. Politely, Tokai said, “Sit down, please. Would you like water, perhaps tea?”

  “A glass of tea, thank you.”

  Tokai rang the bell for the servant and stepped unsteadily to the edge of the couch, then lowered himself.

  “It is so hot.” He sighed. “Really, one can’t venture outside before evening. My late wife used to say that she longed for the rain when the weather became like this… Such a horrible climate.” He rambled on, covertly observing Anand’s irritation with pleasure. The pale blue eyes were expressionless, but something moved with their depths as Tokai’s calculated insults continued. Must remind Anand that being the son of a maharaja amounts to very little these days. Especially if one’s managed to disgrace oneself by failing to prevent the escape of a political prisoner like Jaya Nihalani. Anand was an aristocrat, after all, and one with fanatical ideas about caste purity, but what were such upstarts compared with the Japanese?

  “Well, one must abide by one’s sense of duty, don’t you agree, Amir? I’d much rather be back in Kyoto, but there are all these contracts, and the natives don’t really know what they’re doing. They require guidance, isn’t that so? Of men like ourselves. Civilized men.”

  Warily, Anand agreed. Tokai continued to complain about his workers, spinning fine lines between concepts of caste and race to confuse Anand. The latter, not a stupid man, was clearly unsure as to whether he was being insulted or not. At length, Tokai gave up the game and said, “Now. This most interesting question of these supposed aliens. Who would have thought it? They say there is a vast ship orbiting the world, and that an alien itself is not a hundred miles away in Varanasi.”

  Immediately, Anand made a gesture of negation. “Nonsense. Nothing more than rumors and tricks.”

  “Are you quite sure about that?”

  “What else could it be?”

  Tokai was not particularly interested in Anand’s opinions, but he was intrigued to note that Anand did not like the idea of aliens at all. The prince’s discomfort, relayed into pheromonal outlay, was being transmitted along the cane with some force. Perhaps it had something to do with Anand’s outraged hierarchical certainties. Whatever the case, Tokai thought, it might prove useful.

  To Amir Anand he said, “Oh, but I think it is more than tricks and rumors. My old friend Vikram Singh, minister of the interior, has seen the alien with his own eyes. In the Temple of Durga, in Varanasi. It resembles a god, he tells me. It has four arms…and who do you think was with it?” The question was entirely rhetorical. Unless Anand had spent the previous week in a darkened room with his head in a box, he could hardly have failed to take note of the multiple news announcements, which though confusing had managed to focus on one important fact.

  Anand scowled, as if in preparation for hearing the name.

  “Jayachanda Nihalani.” Tokai rolled the syllables on his tongue with some relish, as though they were a Cuban cigar. “The little caste revolutionary. And not long after your failure to capture her at the hospital. What a pity, Anand. History, I’ve often thought, depends on so little—a chance meeting, a missed opportunity. If you’d taken Nihalani into custody as planned, who knows who’d be in receipt of otherworldly favors now?” He smiled. Anand gave him a wary glance, evidently sensing where the conversation was heading. “Tell me again what happened at the hospital. There is a very big gap between being a fugitive lying sick in a bed one moment and becoming the favored representative of an alien people the next. I would like to know what happened in the day or so that Nihalani went missing.”

  He listened carefully as Anand began to speak. The man was brutal, but brittle, and there were still alarming areas of weakness which would have to be corrected. Anand recounted his last confrontation with Jaya Nihalani with as much measured objectivity as he could muster, but Tokai could sense the rage beneath the words. It was hardly surprising. The whole Nihalani affair had been a chronicle of ineptitude: first a bloodbath at the ashram all those years ago, leaving Nihalani free to rally the masses and instigate a caste-based revolt; then redemption when Anand finally captured her a full ten years later, only to lose her again in a prison breakout…

  The government of Bharat was fortunate that Tokai had offered his services in solving the problem, and even more fortunate that he specialized in ingenious solutions. The thought of the Selenge virus drifted into his mind, and Tokai smiled to himself: that had been an inspired solution, for example, in response to a much earlier crisis. Not without its drawbacks, of course—no biological weapon was perfect—but really Selenge had exceeded expectations.

  Tokai said, lightly, “So you would have no objections to… retrieving Nihalani? Privately, this time, and without the hindrances placed in your way by unsympathetic government departments? A chance to redeem yourself?”

  There was an electric pause, then Anand said, “You mean I’d be working for you?”

  After a very long time, during which he could smell the grow
ing odor of Anand’s sweat, Tokai answered, “That’s right. You’d be working for me. The thought bothers you, perhaps?”

  “No, no, of course not,” Anand said hastily. “Why should it?”

  “No reason. Ironically, Nihalani is under the protection of the security forces at the moment, but I’ll have a word with Vikram Singh. I’m sure I can convince him where his best interests lie. We’re very old friends. After all”—Tokai smiled benevolently—“it really is for the best, Anand. A treasured alien visitor in the hands of a terrorist? No, no, no. We’ll be doing everyone a favor if we secure Nihalani and invite the alien to make full use of our resources. And if the being proves hostile, then I’m sure all concerned will agree that it is better off under my control than Nihalani’s. And the powers of the Japanese axis would much rather involve India than the West.”

  Of course they would, Tokai thought, watching Anand narrowly. Heavy investment on the part of the Japanese axis entailed a degree of control over the subcontinent, whereas influencing America and the European Union would be an entirely different story. “In recompense, I might be prepared to restore some of your fortunes to you.” He glanced around the shabbily ornate room, leaving no doubt as to his meaning. “You’ll want to marry that charming actress of yours, no doubt, and this really would be a delightful place to raise a family… Go back to Varanasi, Anand. Find out what you can and get back to me. And then we will consider our options.”

  He watched as the tall figure made its way through the overgrown gardens, pushing aside the roses. The butcher-prince left a drift of petals in his wake, red as spilled blood. Tokai watched until he was out of sight, then crossed to the phone and called Tokyo.

  3.

  Rasasatran system

  Sirru was still ruffled by the time he reached the sprawl of black-domed buildings that was the Moyshekhali temenos. It seemed that the témenos already had some idea of what had happened. Everyone was in the central chamber, all talking at once, and the house itself could be heard beneath the hubbub, trying ineffectually to calm down its inhabitants.

  Sirru stepped through into a morass of protest doubt/ fulfillment/ speculation/. Bad as Naturals, he thought. He clapped his hands around his throat and said plaintively, “Quiet! Please! I can’t feel myself think.”

  “A new colony? Is it possible?”—this from Issari, his clade-sister, always careful with epistemological niceties.

  “Yes. More than possible; fact. We have a new desqusai colony, a planet named Tekhei. I am to go there, to manage it.”

  “Tekhei has become active, then?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “This can only be a good thing,” Issari exulted, but a wave of doubt rustled around the chamber.

  “More problems, you mean.”

  “The desqusai are always the poor relations. Tekhei is worthless, surely. There’s nothing there—a handful of minerals, a couple of seas…”

  “Its people are desqusai,” Issari bristled. “They are kin. We have an obligation to them, as to all our colonies. This is the way it has always been done.”

  “We need to consolidate here in the inner systems, not out on the shores of the galaxy! And besides, look what happened to Sirru’s poor friend. What about Arakrahali?”

  That was the last thing Sirru wanted to discuss. “We can debate the matter all we like,” he said, before the argument could get under way. “But the khaithoi have decided that I go, and that is that. We’ll just have to make the best of the matter and see how we can turn it to our advantage.”

  “Why should the khaithoi be the ones who decide?” a small, young voice cried from the back. The thought twinged painfully inside Sirru’s neural cortex; his epistemic suppressants clamped down.

  “Don’t hurt us with heresy,” Issari snapped. “Have you been missing your suppressants? Do you want the Prescriptors to pay you a visit and cost us a fortune?”

  Sirru wondered, fleetingly, whether Tekhei might actually turn out to be more restful than home. The clade grumbled, but more as a matter of course than from any deep sense of violation. Tekhei was a desqusai world, after all, and project development was what the EsMoyshekhali had been designed to do. The family saw his new role as an honor; Sirru did not want to talk about Anarres, and he certainly did not want to mention the possibility that he was being dispatched to Tekhei to get him out of the way.

  Once more, his thoughts returned to the tragedy of the Arakrahali colony. What had really happened? He leaned his head against the warm, pulsing wall of the témenos and closed his eyes. The irony was that he had learned very little about Arakrahali, despite all his investigations. On the face of it, EsRavesh had been entirely right: IrEthiverris had fouled things up. The denizens of Arakrahali had succumbed to a virulent and fatal disease, apparently spread through the new communications network. Most of IrEthiverris’ own records had been lost, but his khaith administrator’s dispatches had survived. Sirru had read them through a dozen times, and he still couldn’t decide why they felt so wrong. The khaith had written clear, succinct accounts, and her increasing frustration with IrEthiverris’ mismanagement was palpable. Yet there was something that just didn’t ring true about those reports…

  It occurred to him then that perhaps the khaith had lied outright—but that thought hurt Sirru so much that he gasped. His head rang like a bell, and his neural distress triggered a surge of implanted suppressants. Then his serotonin levels balanced out, and he relaxed. It was nearly time for his next implant, but he wouldn’t have time to see to that before he left. There would be facilities on the Tekhei depth ship; he’d just have to do it when he got there.

  Patiently, Sirru sorted out the logistics of his absence and delegated tasks to various members of the clade. After some thought, he left the encoded documents relating to his Arakrahali investigation with his clade-sister Issari, with instructions that they were only to be opened if anything went wrong.

  “You must have more confidence, Sirru,” Issari admonished him. “What could possibly go wrong?”

  “That’s what IrEthiverris said—and look what happened to him. Kezep the encoding in a safe place, and don’t let anyone else near it.” He patted Issari on the shoulder. “I’m relying on you.”

  “I’ll keep it safe,” she promised.

  By the time Sirru had finished his preparations, the afternoon was already well advanced. He hurried up through the city, heading for the heights and Anarres.

  It seemed that the apsara’s house had been reinstructed for his presence, for it admitted him with only a ripple of protest. Anarres was once more sitting out on the balcony, overlooking the expanse of Khaikurriyë. Reinforced by the previous night’s activities, her effect on Sirru was immediate and distracting.

  “Anarres…” he whispered, trying to retain control of himself. “Please… Not now.” The apsara’s arms were already around his neck; he nuzzled her throat. “Listen to me: I’m leaving. I—”

  But she murmured in his ear, “I know. Word travels fast from the Core. Sirru’ei. I don’t want you to go. Or I want to go with you.”

  “I couldn’t afford to take you, even if they let me,” Sirru said, mentally cursing the khaithoi. “It’s EsRavesh, isn’t it?” He could smell the sour odor of her sudden distaste.

  “EsRavesh has peculiar desires. And I told you—he wants exclusivity, to prove how powerful he is. I’m not going to give him that.” She undulated against Sirru until he was close to losing control.

  “Anarres. Listen to me for a minute,” he managed to say. “The posting will allow me to enhance my locative. I’ll buy up my status once I get back from Tekhei. I’ll help you dissolve your affiliations.” If EsRavesh didn’t manage to sabotage his life first, he thought. He couldn’t help adding, on every level: “I really like you”—and could have bitten his tongue. It sounded so juvenile.

  “I like you too,” Anarres whispered. Then her hand slid beneath his robe, down to the ridges at the base of his stomach, and Sirru abandoned all at
tempts at rational analysis.

  When he left her, Rasasatra’s crimson sun was already sinking below the edge of the city and the air was filled with incense, pollen, and dust. The red wind was blowing, bringing the scent of the distant desert with it. Sirru tried not to look back. He caught a transport barge at the EsKhattuyë dock and sat staring into solidifying air as the barge glided down through the ribbed seed-walls of the city, descending through the locks until they reached the quay for the landing ledge. From here, Sirru took a second barge to the ledge, then waited for the raft to float down like a hot coal.

  He stepped on board. The raft checked the verification that he had been given by EsRavesh, and allowed Sirru to strap himself in. He was not the only passenger. The raft was full of outworkers returning to the depth ships: khaithoi and hessira, folding their manifold limbs awkwardly into their mesh; rhakin disdainful of anyone who wasn’t of their own caste. Sirru glanced around and saw that he was the only desqusai on board. The thought of being solitary, of leaving the temenos, was suddenly a frightening one, and he pushed it aside. He thought that he would rather not see his world fall away, so he closed his eyes, but just as the raft was about to break atmosphere he relented. Gazing through the transparent vane, he could see the whole of the city of Khaikurriyë, a continent wide, spreading below him. Lights spanned the world, defining the city, and the line of the coast showed him where the témenos lay. The protection of the scale prevented him from spreading dismay and loss throughout the raft, but he watched until Rasasatra fell behind, a dark sphere against the oceans of night.

  Once Rasasatra had slipped away, however, the movement of the raft sent Sirru mercifully to sleep. He rocked in the mesh, listening to the raft murmuring to itself. The sound reminded him of the vine’s singing outside Anarres’ window, and he smiled, before he remembered that it was likely to be a very long time before he heard that particular song again. He knew he should be preparing himself for translation, marshaling his emotional firewalls and trying to puzzle out exactly why he was being sent to Tekhei, but all he could think about was Anarres.