Ian McDonald - River of Gods

He has a desk big enough to land a fighter on. He has a top-level wood and glass office. He has an executive elevator and an executive washroom. He has fifteen suits made to the same design and fabric as the one he wore when he inherited his empire, with matching hand-tooled shoes. And he has for his personal assistant Inder who has the disconcerting ability to be physically in front of him and at the same time manifesting herself on his desk-top organiser and as a ghost in his visual cortex. He’s heard about these corporate PA systems who are part human, part aeai. It’s modern office management.

Vishram Ray also has a raging Strega hangover and an oval of sunburn around his eyes where he looked too deep and too long into another universe.

“Who are these people?” asks Vishram Ray.

“The Siggurdson-Arthurs-Clementi Group,” says Inder-on-the-carpet while Inder-in-the-desk opens her lotus-hands to show him a schedule and Inder-in-the-head dissolves into mugshots of well-fed white men with good suits and better dentistry. Inder-on-the-carpet has a surprisingly deep voice for someone so very Audrey Hepburn. “Ms. Fusco will brief you further in the car. And Energy Secretary Patel has requested a meeting, as has the Shivaji’s energy spokeswoman. They both want to know your plans for the company.”

“I don’t even know them myself, but the Honourable Secretary will be the first to find out.” Vishram pauses at the door. All three Inders wait inquiringly. “Inder, would it be possible to move this whole office right out of Ray Tower, to the Research Facility?”

“Certainly, Mr. Ray. Is it not to your satisfaction?”

“No, it’s a lovely office. Very. businesslike. I just feel a bit. close to the family. My brothers. And while we’re at it, I’d like to move out of the house. I find it a bit. oppressive. Can you find me a nice hotel, good room service?”

“Certainly, Mr. Ray.”

As he leaves Inder’s alters are already pricing corporate removal firms and hotel penthouse suites. In the Ray Power Merc, Vishram savours Marianna Fusco’s Chanel 27. He can also sense that she is pissed at him.

“She’s a physicist.”

“Who’s a physicist?”

“The woman I had dinner with last night. A physicist. I’m telling you this because you seem a little. snippy.”

“Snippy?”

“Short. Annoyed. You know. Snippy.”

“Oh. I see. And this is because you had dinner with a physicist?”

“Married physicist. Married Hindu physicist.”

“I’m interested why you felt you had to tell me that she was married.”

“Married Hindu physicist. Called Sonia. Whose pay-cheques I sign.”

“As if that makes any difference.”

“Of course. We’re professional. I took her to dinner and then she took me back to hers and showed me her universe. It’s small, but perfectly formed.”

“I was wondering how you were going to explain the panda eyes. Is this a universe of sunbeds?”

“Zero-point energy, actually. And you have very elegant ankles.”

He thinks he sees a shadow of a smile.

“Okay, these people, how do I deal with them?”

“You don’t,” says Marianna Fusco. “You shake hands and you smile politely and you listen to what they have to say and you do absolutely nothing. Then you report back to me.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

“You’re on your own on this one, funny man. But be prepared for Govind to make Ramesh an offer this afternoon.”

By the time he gets to the airport, Vishram’s forehead is starting to flake. The car drives past the drop-off zones and the white zones and picking-up zones and tow-away zones to the bizjet zone through the double barrier security gate on to the field up to a private executive tilt-jet perched on its engines and tail pods like a mantis. An Assamese hostess, immaculate in traditional costume, opens the doors, namastes like a flower budding, and takes Vishram to his seat. He raises a hand to Marianna Fusco as the Merc pulls away. Flying solo.

The hostess’s hand lingers as she checks Vishram’s seat belt but he doesn’t notice for then Vishram feels his belly and balls sag as the tilt-jet leaps into the air, puts its nose down, and takes him up over the brassy towers of Varanasi. An ineluctable part of Vishram Ray registers the close presence of an attractive woman next to him but he keeps his face pressed to the window as the tilt-jet swoops in over the river temples and ghats and the palaces and havelis onto a course following Ganga Devi. The shikara of the Vishwanath temple dazzles gold. The hand on his thigh finally draws his attention as the engines swivel into horizontal flight and the pilot takes the aircraft up to cruising altitude.

“I can get you some ointment for your forehead, sahb,” says the perfect, round face full in front of his like a moon.

“I’ll survive, thank you,” says Vishram Ray. The first of the champagne arrives. Vishram assumes it’s the first. He’ll make that first last, although he’s supposed to abuse the hospitality. It is cold and very very good and drinking airborne has always made Vishram Ray feel like a god. The bastis spread under him, multicoloured plastic roofs so tight together they look like a cloth spread on the ground for a feast. The tilt-jet follows the line of the river to the edge of Patna airspace, then swings south. Vishram should read his briefing but Bharat bedazzles him. The titanic conurbation of slums breaks up in a weave of fields and villages that rapidly turns from tired yellow to drought white as the river’s influence diminishes. It would have looked little different two thousand years ago and were Vishram Ray indeed a god passing across holy Bharat to battle the rakshasas of the black south. Then his eyes catch on a power line and a stand of wind-turbines turning sluggishly in the heavy dry air. Ray Power turbines. His brother’s turbines. He looks out at the yellow haze of the horizon. Does he imagine a line of shadow in the brown high-atmospheric smog, the skirmish line of an advance of clouds? The monsoon, at last? The burned stone of the plain deepens to beige, to yellow, to outcrops of green trees as the land rises. The tilt-jet rises with the edge of a plateau and Vishram is over high forest. To the west rises a line of smoke, drifting northward on the wind. The green is a lie, this high forest is dry, fire-hungry after three years of drought. Vishram finishes his champagne—flat and hand-warm now—as the seat belt sign lights.

“Shall I take that?” the hostess says, too close again. Vishram imagines a tic of irritation on that perfect, made-up face. I resisted your seductions. The tilt-jet leans into a landing spiral. A change in turbine pitch tells him the engines are swivelling into landing mode but looking down Vishram can see nothing that appears like an airport. The tilt-jet drifts across the forest canopy, so low its jet wash sends the leaves raving and storming. Then the engine roar peaks, Vishram drops into the canopy, birds scatter on every side in a silent explosion of wings, and he is down with a gentle bounce. The engines ebb to a whine. Assam girl is doing the thing with the door. Heat floods in. She beckons. “Mr. Ray.” At the foot of the steps is an old Rajput with a great white moustache and a turban so tight Vishram feels himself developing a sympathetic migraine. Ranked behind him are a dozen men in khaki with bush hats bent severely up at one side and heavy assault rifles at the slope.

“Mr. Ray, you are most welcome to Palamau Tiger Sanctuary,” says the Rajput with a bow.

Assam girl stays with the tilt-jet. The hats carrying rifles spread out on all sides as the Rajput guides Vishram away from the ’plane. The ship has come down in a circle of bare dirt in a dense stand of bamboo and scrub. A sandy path leads into the trees. The path is lined with what seems to Vishram an excessive number of solidly built wood shelters. None is more than a panicked sprint away.