Arthur Clarke - The Last Theorem

Neither did their mother, not for several days, at least, and then when he stopped off for the kids one morning, he didn’t get them.

Dot Kanakaratnam was seated at the table, putting clothes and household goods into sacks, and all four of the children were packing little bundles of their own. When she saw the question in Ranjit’s eyes, she gave him a great smile. “I have wonderful news, Ranjit! Some old friends have found me a job! It’s right here in Trinco, too, although down by the port. I’m not sure what the work is, exactly, but they say it will pay well and an apartment of our own comes with it!”

She gave Ranjit an expectant look. “That’s—wonderful,” he said, doing his best to supply what she wanted. He found himself wondering how she couldn’t know what job she was taking, but he realized she was desperate, so he didn’t pursue it. “When would you start?”

“Almost immediately. There is one thing, though, Ranjit. You still have your father’s van, don’t you? And taxis are so expensive. Could you give us a lift to the port?”

He did have the van, because his father had told him to keep it for commuting to work, so he could drive them. At least he could as soon as he had notified the foreman that his brother-in-law could have his payday a little longer. By the time he got back to Dot’s house, everything was ready. Twenty minutes later he had the children, squealing with excitement in the back of the van, while Dot sat beside him, studying the harbor as they approached.

The port was not a sight Ranjit had seen much of since Sri Lanka had attained peace. True, there were reminders of the unruly outside world. On the far side of the harbor he could make out the shark shapes of a couple of nuclear submarines, probably Indian, and so much else! There were fishing vessels, of course, and not of the four-or five-man kind that were pulled up on every beach around the island. These were the deepwater craft that would sail a hundred kilometers or more from land for the commercially valuable schools. There were freighters of all kinds and sizes, being relieved of their containers or bulk cargoes or having new ones loaded. And Ranjit saw with astonishment that there were several ships of a different kind entirely—painted brilliant white, festooned with lifeboats hanging in their davits, lined with rows of portholes. Why, the cruise ships were back! Ranjit couldn’t help pulling over to let the children get a look. He expected childish whoops of excitement and was puzzled when what he got instead was the children’s endless whispering in each other’s ears.

Dot, however, was having no delays. “Settle down,” she ordered the children. Then to Ranjit, “I’d like to get there as soon as I can. Do you see the souvenir shop next to where those white ships are docked? I think that’s the place.”

It was a fairly shabby little kiosk, not particularly busy, either. A few elderly tourists in bright-colored shorts and imitation Hawaiian shirts were desultorily studying its picture postcards and plastic elephant figurines. But it was where Dot Kanakaratnam insisted on going, children and all. She reassured him. “Yes, this is the place. Our friends will come for us, and now, Ranjit, you must go. And,” she added, suddenly flinging her arms around him, “the children will miss you, and so will I!” One after another the children gave him their own hugs. And, as Ranjit drove away, he could see that they were all crying.

Of course Ranjit didn’t cry. He was a grown man. Anyway, people were looking at him.

Ranjit was in no hurry to get back to his job on the beach, no longer with any small children there to amuse him. Four or five little restaurants and snack shops were nearby, ready for the custom of the cruise ship passengers. He parked near the least unattractive of them for a cup of tea and sat for a time musing over how rapidly little children could win over a heart.

It was odd, he thought, that Dot should know details such as, for instance, that she was going to get an apartment with the job but not seem to know what the job itself was going to be. It almost made Ranjit wonder if Dot was being less than truthful with him.

But that was a thought easy to dismiss. What reason could the woman have to keep secrets from him? When he left the shop he cast a quick glance at where he had left them.

They were gone.

Ranjit wished them a silent good-bye and good luck, and drove unhurriedly along the bay front. He passed a sweet-smelling little freighter being loaded with cinnamon for export, next to a container ship from Singapore now unloading (it was safe to assume) cars, computers, and domestic appliances from the factories of China. Next was the cluster of cruise ships, a good deal more bedraggled at close range than they had at first seemed. A few passengers who apparently had had no interest in the ground tours to Swami Rock or his father’s temple lounged around the railings of the upper decks. One was a little girl who was waving joyously in his direction….

No! It wasn’t just any little girl. It was tiny Betsy Kanakaratnam! And running rapidly toward her, apparently with the intention to scold her, was her big sister, Tiffany, and a few meters away was the one boy in the family, holding the hand of a squat, dark man.

Could that be Kirthis Kanakaratnam? It could hardly be anyone else. Tiffany was already calling to the man, dragging her baby sister toward him.

The man nodded consideringly. Then he turned toward Ranjit, who was leaning out of the van window below. Grinning broadly, the man gestured to him.

What he was trying to say was not hard to understand: He was waving Ranjit to come aboard the ship, pointing to a parking space not far away, pointing to himself and then to the gangway that linked the ship to the dock. Ranjit didn’t hesitate. He turned toward the indicated parking space, shut off the engine, slammed the van door, and trotted up the gangway.

As he climbed, he saw that this ship was clearly not one of the fifty-thousand-ton behemoths that cruised the Caribbean and the Greek islands. It was a lot smaller, a lot dirtier, and had a lot more places in its paint job where chipping indicated the need for a new coat. At the head of the gangway a large black-bearded man in a white ship’s uniform stood before a badge reader and a little gate. Next to him, however, stood the presumed George Kanakaratnam, who said something in the man’s ear and then spoke welcomingly to Ranjit. “Come aboard, come aboard! It’s grand to meet you, Mr. Subramanian. The kids have had so much to say about you! Now—this way, please—we’ll go down and have a word with Dot, and you can see what a nice stateroom the children have, all their own! And I’m getting good pay, and it looks like they’ll find a job for Dot, too. It’s just the luckiest break we ever had!”

“Well,” Ranjit said, “I guess you were pretty lucky—”

Kanakaratnam wasn’t slowing down for interruptions, especially ambiguous ones that could refer to a jailbreak. “You bet,” he said. “Good pay, too! Now we just go down these steps—”

They did, and walked through another passage, and down more steps, with Kirthis (or George) Kanakaratnam never stopping his recital of how lucky his family was and how fond his children were of Ranjit Subramanian. They passed through seven or eight doors, all of the kind that would spring irrevocably closed in an emergency, and most marked NO ADMITTANCE. Until at last they came to a door of a quite different kind, a kind that Kanakaratnam stopped before and knocked on. It was opened by a large bearded man. “He’s Somalian,” Kanakaratnam told Ranjit. “They all look like that, pretty much.”

And he gave the bearded man a nod, and the man nodded back. Then, in a quite different tone, Kanakaratnam said, “Now sit down. You’re going to have to stay here for a day or two. You don’t want to make any loud noises or try to leave, because if you do, he’ll kill you.”