Laldasa (17 page)

She sat in one of the chairs that flanked the hearth, watching him, seeming to mark his less than lordly appearance. If she thought it odd that his hair was lying unbound on his shoulders and his clothing was common and plain, she didn't remark on it.

“How do we get them to Avasa?”

Jaya sat down opposite her, ignoring the question. “Ana, do you trust Taffik Pritam?”

Her eyes pinned him to the back of his chair. “With my life. He's family. Married to my cousin, Rafeen. They live in our compound.”

“Then he'd be a good person to deliver a message to your father?”

“Yes! He's here, then? Taffik is here on Mehtar?”

Jaya nodded. “He's acting as chief negotiator for AGIM.”

“Father ... ?”

“Your father is fine. Apparently he's in hiding.”

Ana was on her feet, heading for the writing table under its now darkened skylight. “I'll write a note.” She stopped at the table and turned, frowning. “What do I tell him?”

“Tell him anything you want, but start with the fact that you're safe. After the threats on your family he's bound to be worried about you.”

Her gaze became more intent. “So you believe there were threats.”

“Yes. And I believe there was sabotage. I'm just not sure the Consortium is guilty of it.”

“Who else could it be?”

Jaya changed the subject. “How were you supposed to have contacted your family when you got here?”

Ana let the subject of the Consortium's culpability go. “I was to check into the Voyager hospice as Agni Kedara as soon as I got into Kasi. That's where I was headed when the thieves attacked. Father planned to trans-chat the Hospice and ask if Agni Kedara had checked in.”

“Why didn't you say something, Ana? If I'd known, I could have checked somebody into the Voyager under that name.”

She shook her head. “By the time you found me, it was already too late. There was a prearranged time window for the transchat. I wasn't there. Now, with no id, chatting back is out of the question.”

“Not for me.”

Ana tilted her head and gave him a look that questioned his sanity. “Lord Sarojin of the Vrinda Varma is going to trans-chat Rokh Nadim's compound? The Inner Circle will be interested to know why. So will the Consortium. No, mahesa, you were right the first time. A note to Taffik is the best channel. He's expected to contact my father.”

“I'll get this done tomorrow. Your father is probably frantic by now.”

“He won't be the only one. Hadas's visit here was not taken for pleasure. It seems his elder sister, Belia, has gone missing. She came to Mehtar almost three weeks ago to purchase some furnishings for their family inn, and disappeared. I think we may have a good idea of what happened to her.”

The universe inside Jaya's head became suddenly still and hushed, and it occurred to him to wonder why he had never before considered—really considered—the minute and individual implications of the caste system that had having been dismantled in ages past on the mother world, had re-emerged, on Mehtar. Somewhere, long ago in the dimly recalled past of that other world this had been the way of things—but this way had perished as the words of newer Avatars prevailed and cultural values and views changed.

The first people to come to Mehtar had not been a race of masters and slaves, and Jaya realized with dim shame that, though his father had spoken to him of how caste had crept back into the culture, he could not recall it. He had not been inclined to listen. A boy has other things to fill his head than history, and a man can tell himself with comfort that to simply eschew owning another human being is a righteous enough protest.

Now Jaya struggled to remember his father's words. Mehtar, Bhaktasu Sarojin had said, was a world in need of an Avatar. Jaya could not help but agree, if only metaphorically. Perhaps Ram-ji had lost track of his people in their travels. If no Avatar arose, was that excuse for inaction?

Eons ago, on another world, the Avatar Krishna had stood above a battlefield and told His Lord Prince Arjuna that one could not merely let oneself out of the battle. Inaction and wrong action were the same; in deciding not to choose, one yet made a choice.

Jaya raised his head above the flood of epiphany and looked at Ana, forcing himself to imagine what her fate might have been had he not gotten to her before the Sarngin. Here, she was desired by one man who could, legally, force himself upon her, but would not. Elsewhere, any number of men would have already bedded her. That, he supposed, had been the fate of Belia Gupta, and would have been her brother's fate as well, were it not for Ana's impulsiveness.

How many Belias were there in Kasi at this moment, or scattered among dalalis and kaladans and private houses throughout the Seven Provinces? Jaya's desire quailed before his awakened conscience.

Ana had picked up a stylus and was rummaging about the desktop for a vellum. “You know, Taffik-sama could get the drill bits sent back, too. That way no one from this House has to have their seal on any transport paperwork.”

Jaya nodded and rose to go. “That's a relief. My brain has gone lame trying to figure out how I was going to get that stuff off-world without someone tracing it back to me ... and to you.”

“You won't be doing anything unethical, will you? By passing the note to Taffik, I mean.”

“Unethical? What could be unethical about letting your family know you're not lying in a charnel house?”

She paled at the reference. “If anyone saw you pass the message, they might think it had something to do with the AGIM petition. You're neutrality could be questioned ... your honor.”

Honor again. “I am capable of being discreet—even sly.”

Ana's face suffused with sudden color. “I'm certain,” she murmured, staring at the intricate pattern in the carpet beneath her bare feet.

Jaya moved automatically toward the door.

“Thank you, Nathu Rai.”

He stopped and turned to look at her. She was still studying the carpet, curling her toes in its plush weave.

“Are we back to that nonsense, Nadim-sa?”

Her eyes met his, sending a wave of static down his spine. It lodged in his groin.

“Jaya,” she said and the static sparked a fire.

He felt part of himself being sucked toward her like a leaf caught, unresisting, in a whirlpool. His body stayed rooted to the polished wooden floor—giving the appearance of solidity. Inside him, there was nothing at all solid. Rita had dispossessed his segment of the cosmos and left it in chaos.

He watched her stare at him and wondered what she felt. Did she feel this current arcing back and forth between them like a static tide? Or was it only arcing forth?

He opened his mouth (he thought), and said (he heard himself say it), “Ana, there's something ... I feel ... ” He extended a hand toward her, groping in the current for words. “Sakti. Something. Here. Around us, between us, in us.” He'd never sounded so incoherent in his entire life.

She lowered her eyes and murmured, “Something cold and hot and moving and still. Something creeping and soaring and whispering and raging.”

“You feel it, too. Tell me you feel it.”

Her eyes rose again. “Yes,” she said.

Witch, he thought. Deva. “I want you,” he said.

“Yes.” She lowered her eyes and waited.

He stared at her for a moment, feeling every inch of himself—cold/hot, moving/still, creeping/soaring, whispering/ raging—mostly raging. He could taste her, feel her, almost divine her thoughts.

“If I asked you to come to my bed ... ”

“I would refuse, Jaya Rai.”

“If I commanded you-“

“I would come, Nathu Rai.” Her head dipped in a gesture of submission.

Anger swept upward from his groin and burned itself suddenly out, leaving ashy defeat. He nodded. “Because of a legality.”

“Yes.”

“If you were free?”

She raised her head. “No doubt I would find the most valuable object in this room and hurl it at you. Breaking it, if possible.”

He chuckled, relaxing slightly. “No doubt you would,” he said, and turned to leave. At the door, he stopped. “Remind me, in the morning, to tell you about Pidar Rel.”

“Who?”

“Your thief. That's another of his aliases.”

Ana nearly leapt at him. “How do you know that? What have you found out?”

“In the morning,” he said, and closed the door between them.

He did not sleep right away. Instead, he went down to the study, loaded the AGIM and KNC petitions onto a reading tablet and carried it upstairs to his bed. After a moment of thought, he added a volume of history.

Hours later, when he'd read through both court documents—some parts twice—he set the reader aside. He closed his eyes, but his mind refused to rest. How, he wondered, had the Avasan mining community become so completely indentured to the KasiNawahr Consortium? Was it some cosmic echo of the caste system? He realized his knowledge of the history of Avasan settlement was as sketchy as his knowledge of history in general. He resolved to educate himself.

He slept, finally, only to dream of frozen deserts and mine cave-ins and blasted sandcats. It was a sleep that did anything but refresh.

The message sat heavily in the inner pocket of his coat. He felt it there all during the invocation, barely remembering to murmur “Ya, Ramji” at the appropriate times. He listened drowsily to the opening comments of the Dandin, Sri Elui, rousing himself only when the Deva Radha raised the Branch of Oration.

She lifted the Branch from her console and turned it absently between her fingers as she spoke. “We have had several days to look over the petitions brought before us by the Kasi-Nawahr Consortium and the Avasan Guild of Independent Miners. You have no doubt begun to form opinions about the ethics of this situation and the spiritual and moral issues involved. Now is the time to voice those opinions.”

She glanced around the chamber, finally singling out Jaya. She held out the Branch. “Nathu Rai Sarojin, what principles do you see involved?”

Jaya was struck by swift dread. Why had she come to him first? Did she intuit something about his manner; had she heard something of Ana? He shook himself free of the paranoia. That line of thought was pointless. He had, in any event, done much thinking in anticipation of that question. It was necessary to answer honestly, but without bias. Necessary and difficult.

He took the Branch from the courier who brought it to him and folded his hands around the stem, ordering his thoughts. Two seats to his right, Bel Adivaram snickered, and Jaya could only assume it was because this new sober mien did not at all suit him in the Vadin's eyes. It was also difficult, the Lord Prince of Kasi found, to feel truly and fully mature in the presence of peers who had the advantage of age and experience. He was nearly thirty years of age and they still looked at him and saw a frivolous youth.

Jaya marshaled his thoughts. “Dignity,” he said. “Freedom, independence of thought, the right to pursue a livelihood. The right to ... an identity. These are the principles I see that must inform this discussion. Honesty is at issue here, as well. Trust and trustworthiness, generosity, simple courtesy. Balance and moderation.”

At the Deva's nod, Jaya passed the Branch of Oration to his right. The Dandin beside him spoke of justice and equity and greed before passing it on to Bel Adivaram.

“Greed is certainly a factor,” Adivaram said. “And ingratitude. Equity and justice must be the guiding factors in our adjudication.”

So it went—each of the twenty-seven members of the Vrinda Varma speaking in turn. Once the Principles of Justice had been compiled, consultation began, the order of oration now being reversed. The eldest Dandin, Sri Elui, began by expressing his disappointment that the Consortium thought so little of human rights that they would try to bind their fellow men and women to economic stagnation.

A senior Lord, Vivekand, expressed similar sentiments, adding that the situation transcended politics or economics.

“I feel it is critical that we bear the human values at stake here constantly in mind,” he concluded.

The first of the Vadin to orate was old Narudin, who spoke, as was worthy of a Vadin, of due process and protocols and legal precedent. He suggested the KNC's current policies for dealing with AGIM be reviewed.

The sentiments expressed by the next Dandin speaker, a young Deva, though framed in more metaphysical terms, were the same, as were those of the next series of Varmana—Lord, Vadin and Holy Ones alike. Many only nodded or murmured “I concur” when the Branch passed into their hands. Two young Vadin abstained from comment.

So it was that Kreti Twapar's oration came as a complete surprise to the entire assemblage. He took up the Branch and held it for a moment, watching it tremble in his hands. He cleared his throat no less than four times and finally managed to raise his eyes to the assembled Varmana. Clearing his throat a fifth time, he said, “I agree with this Council about the principles here involved, but I don't—I mean, that is, I have to ... I'm forced to disagree with their application. I do not see the Consortium's demands—that is, their requests—as excessive. No, I quite agree with their attempts to protect the Mehtaran economy. I empathize with-with their concern for their own resources. I don't feel it unreasonable for the KNC to wish to control the flow of goods to and from the Avasan mines. Nor do I feel it is unreasonable to expect that the Guild should ... should show special consideration to the Consortium. It is by the largesse of the Consortium that they have flourished on Avasa in the first place.”