Ian McDonald - River of Gods

“Sadhu,” Mr. Nandha says. “What do you know of a company called Odeco?”

It is not the first time the Ministry has called on the Mahavira Compassion Home for Artificial Life. It is an ongoing debate in Jainism whether cyberpets and artificial intelligences are soul or non-soul. But Jashwant is old school, a Digambara. All things that live, move, consume, and reproduce are jiva, and so when the kids have tired of the cyberscoobi and the Faithful Friend cyberguard-dog calls the cops out eighteen times a night, there’s a place other than the rubbish piles of Ramnagar to go. More than the occasional harried aeai finds shelter there, too. Mr. Nandha and his avatars have been here twice in the past three years to carry out mass excommunications.

Jashwant had been waiting outside the scruffy Janpur business district pressed-aluminium warehouse to greet him. Someone or thing had tipped him off. There would be nothing here for Mr. Nandha. As Jashwant walked forward to greet the man from the Ministry, his sweeper, a ten-year-old boy, doggedly brushed insects and crawling things from the holy man’s path with a long-handled besom. A Digambara, Jashwant did not wear clothes. He was a big man, heavy with fat around his middle body and constantly flatulent from his holy high-carb diet.

“Sadhu, I am investigating a fatal incident involving an unlicensed aeai. Our research indicates it was downloaded from a transfer point on these premises.”

“Indeed? I find that hard to believe; but, as you are entitled, feel at liberty to check our system. I think you will find all is in legal order. We are an animal welfare charity, Mr. Nandha, not a sundarban.”

Broom boy led the way. He wore only a very brief dhoti and his skin seemed to shine, as if it had been rubbed over with oil flecked with gold. There had been similar boys on his previous visits. All with those dull eyes and too much skin.

Inside the warehouse, the din was as Mr. Nandha remembered, and then some. The concrete floor heaved with thousands of cyberdogs, constantly circling from charge point to charge point. The metal shell rang to their creaking, yapping, humming, singing.

“More than a thousand in the past month,” Jashwant said. “I think is is fear of a war. In sinful times, people reconsider their values. Much is cast off as worthless encumbrance.”

Mr. Nandha drew his gun and aimed it at a stumpy little lap dog sitting up on its back legs, front paws and tail waving, pink plastic tongue waggling. He shot the dog. Now Indra the Thunderer has the slowly advancing scoobi-pet in his sights.

“Sadhu, did you supply an unlicensed Level One Artificial Intelligence to Pasta-Tikka of Nawada?”

Jashwant twists his head in pain but that is not the correct answer. The em-bolt sends the cartoon dog a metre and a half into the air. It lands on its back, thrashes once, and starts to smoke.

“Bad, evil man!”

The sweeper has his little besom raised, as if he might whisk Mr. Nandha and his sin away. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that there are infected needles among the bristles. Mr. Nandha scares the catamite down.

“Sadhu.”

“Yes!” Jashwant says. “Of course I did, you know that. But it was only resting in our network.”

“Where did it come from, sadhu?” Mr. Nandha says, raising his weapon. He draws aim on a waddling steel dachshund, all smiles and clog-feet, then swings the barrel to bear on a beautiful, top-end cyber-collie, indistinguishable from the flesh right down to the live-plastic coat and fully interactive eyes. Jashwant the Jain lets slip a small squeak of spiritual anguish.

“Sadhu, I must insist.”

Jashwant works his mouth.

Indra targets, aims, and fires in one flick of Mr. Nandha’s intention. The cybercollie lets out a long, shrieking keen that silences every other yap and wuff in the warehouse, snaps head to tail in an arc that would crack any flesh dog’s spine, and spins on its side on the concrete.

“Well, sadhu?”

“Stop it stop it stop it, you will go to hell!” Jashwant shrills.

Mr. Nandha levels the gun and one shot puts the thing out of its misery. He picks a gorgeous tiger-stripe vizla.

“Badrinath!” Jashwant screams. Mr. Nandha clearly hears him fart in fear. “Badrinath sundarban!”

Mr. Nandha slides his gun into his jacket pocket.

“You have been of great assistance. Radhakvishna. Most interesting. Please do not attempt to leave the premises, police officers will arrive shortly.”

As he departs, Mr. Nandha notices that the broom boy is also quite quick with the fire extinguisher.

Ram Sagar Singh, Bharat’s Voice of Cricket, burbles the tail-end batting order on the solar-powered radio. Dozing in the shade of the hibiscus-trellis, Krishan is lulled into memory. All his life, that slow voice has spoken to him, closer and wiser than a god.

It was a school day but his father had woken him before light.

“Naresh Engineer bats today at ul-Huq.”

Neighbour Thakur was taking a load of shoe leather up to his buyer in Patna and had been only too happy to give Kudrati father and son a ride in his pickup. A low-caste lift, but this was in all likelihood the last time Naresh Engineer would ever rake the bat.

The Kudrati land had come from the hands of Gandhi and Nehru; taken from the zamindar and given to the tillers of Biharipur. Its histore was his pride, not just the Kudrati inheritance but the heritage of the nation itself; its name was India , not Bharat, not Awadh or Maratha or States of Bengal. That was why Krishan’s father must see the greatest batsman India had produced in a generation step to the crease; for the honour of a name.

Krishan was eight years old and his first time in a city. The StarAsia sports channels were no preparation for the crowds outside the Moin ul-Huq stadium. He had never seen so many people in one place. His father led him surely through the crowd that swirled, patterns within patterns, like printed fabric.

“Where are we going?” Krishan asked, aware that they were moving against a general gyre towards the turnstiles.

“My cousin Ram Vilas, your grandfather’s nephew, has tickets.”

He remembers looking around at the hive of faces, felt his father’s sure tug on his hand. Then he realised that the crowd was bigger than his father had imagined. Dreaming wide green spaces, stands in the distance, polite applause, he had forgotten to arrange a meeting place with cousin Ram Vilas. Now he was going to spiral his way around the ul-Huq ground, if necessary checking every face.

After an hour in the heat the crowd was thin but Krishan’s father ploughed on. Inside the concrete oval bursts of loudspeaker cackle introduced the players; the Indians greeted them with bursts of applause and cheering. Father and son both knew now that his grandfather’s nephew had never been here. There never were any tickets. In the sloping shadow of the main stand was a nimki seller. Mr. Kudrati seized his son’s hand again and hauled him across the concrete. When they got within smelling distance of the rancid, hot oil, Krishan saw what had galvanised his father. Balanced on the glass display counter was a radio, blatting stupid pop.

“My son, the test match,” his father gibbered at the vendor. He thrust a flutter of rupees at the hot snack seller. “Tune, tune, retune! And some of those pappadi, too.”

The vendor reached in to the hot eats with a cone of newspaper.

“No no no!” Krishan’s father almost screamed with frustration. “First, retune. Then the food. 97.4.” Ram Sagar Singh came through in his BBC Received Pronunciation and Krishan sat down with the paper cone of hot pappadi, back against the warm steel cart to listed to the match. And that is how he remembers Naresh Engineer’s last innings, sitting by a nimki vendor’s cart outside the Moin ul-Huq cricket ground, listening to Ram Sagar Singh and the faint, half-imagined crack of the bat, and then the rising roar of the crowd behind him; all day as the shadows moved across the concrete car park.