Alan Foster - Sagramanda, a Novel of Near-Future India

Mushtaq was waiting for him. A man perhaps too fond of the worldly pleasures that had left him resembling a dissolute Buddha, the advisor was sitting in an elevated pool of warm saltwater, naked except for the briefest of swimsuits. Outside such pools his great weight combined with his weakened heart and circulatory system to place him in grave danger. Floating, he was able to function more or less normally. Both the temperature and saline content of the pool water were rigorously monitored. The view from the pool of the sweltering cityscape outside was impressive.

"Namaste, Chal! How are you? It has been some long time." Drifting over to the side of the pool, Mushtaq extended a hand from which protruded fingers that resembled the sausages Chal saw in butcher shop windows during his sojourns in Germany. He shook hands firmly with his host. The moist fingers seemed to envelop his own, as if he had dipped his hand into a mass of damp, clinging gelatin.

"The same," Chal replied noncommittally. He did not especially like Mushtaq, but he respected the man's business acumen. A devote Muslim, his host had one corner of the pool decked out for prayer, complete to a small but priceless antique rug where he could touch his head while inclining toward Mecca. "How are things in the savings and loan business?"

Mushtaq shrugged. The shrug rippled through his upper body as if his head were a stone that had just been cast into a flesh-colored pool. "Collections are down. You know how it is. People are happy to take your money but not to give it back. Then there are those who do not understand that I am not charging interest, but merely asking for some expression of gratefulness in return for my assistance."

Chal helped himself to one of several available chairs, sitting down with his back neither to the wide, sweeping windows nor to the door, but facing a solid wall. "You don't look like you're suffering."

Water sloshed out onto the overflow ditch that rimmed the pool as its occupant let loose with a rolling, heaving guffaw. "I suffer every day, my friend, but since it is my own choice, I can only complain to visitors who are sympathetic enough to lend a kind ear to my miseries. I don't expect that from such as you."

Chal was not offended by the scarcely veiled affront. He was never offended by the truth. "I need your help."

"Of course you do." Easing over to a platter heaped high with fruits and chocolates, Mushtaq settled on an El Rey mango bar and began peeling off the chilling, enclosing foil. "Nobody ever comes here just to visit." A sonorous belch escaped the loan shark's corpulent depths, rumbling up from regions even understanding doctors did not like to visit. "Someone has not paid a debt? I wouldn't think you'd need my help to deal with that."

"True enough." A glint of light beyond the window caught Chal's eye. It was only a reflection of the sun off the antenna on the roof of the building opposite. He relaxed again. "I'm looking for a man who quit his job without notice. When he left, he took something that was of value to the company he had been working for."

"Nothing so simple as a box terminal, I will wager." Chocolate smeared Mushtaq's face like misapplied dark brown lipstick.

"Information. Formulae. You don't need to know more than that."

"No, I don't." His host grunted. "What can I do?"

"Pass the word along your fingers, of which I know you have many more than ten, with many of them in this disreputable curry or the other." Chal leaned forward in the chair. "It is highly likely the man will try to sell the information he has stolen to the highest bidder."

Pausing with chocolate halfway to gaping mouth, Mushtaq looked slightly alarmed. "This doesn't involve anything lethal, does it? Ever since the Americans dove wholeheartedly into the business of anti-terrorism, I have found it an area of commerce fiscally irresponsible to be involved with."

"I am told that the stolen information is scientifically explosive, but not inherently so. You can be assured of that. It involves a practical matter the discovery of which the missing researcher was intimately involved with." He smiled thinly. "Something to do with vegetables, I believe."

Mushtaq stared at him, saw his guest was not joking, started to laugh anyway, then thought better of it. Anything serious enough to require the personal attention of Chalcedony Schneemann was no laughing matter.

"You want to find this person before he can hold his private little auction."

Chal nodded. "As quickly as possible. My employers are most anxious. You have access to and utilize financial resources that do not operate through recognized banking channels. I know you. If an exceptionally large amount of money is about to change hands under less than suitably regulated circumstances, you will know about it." Rising from the chair, he removed a small mollysphere from his shirt pocket and placed it on the platter among his host's endless parade of snacks.

"Everything you need to know is there. The usual retainer for your services will be deposited into the appropriate account." He met the other man's deep-set eyes squarely. "If information supplied by you leads to the successful recovery of the absent gentleman, I believe even you will be startled by the size of the finder's fee you will receive."

Sliding over along the edge of the pool, pushing faintly perfumed saltwater out of his way, Mushtaq dried his fingers and picked up the molly. Pinched between fat thumb and forefinger, it gleamed like a silver pearl.

"Vegetables," he murmured as he stared at it. His gaze nicked sharply back to scan his visitor's face. It was, as usual, impassive. "I can supply all manner of fruits and vegetables, but I suspect not the kind your employers seek."

"No," Chal agreed. "Apparently only one man can do that, and he doesn't want to be found."

"He will be." Carefully setting the mollysphere aside, Mushtaq pushed away from the pool wall and drifted out into the middle of the twenty-first-floor raised pool, his bulbous body an outre silhouette against the floor-to-ceiling window behind him. "Alive?" he queried.

"Preferably." Chal prepared to take his leave. "At least long enough for me to have a chat with him."

Anil Buthlahee had come to Sagramanda to kill his son. Also the slut who had not merely seduced him, which was bad enough, but who had somehow managed to corrupt his mind.

The senior Buthlahee was a traditionalist in the best and worst sense. To him, for a male relative to sleep with a Dalit girl was bad enough. For it to have been his firstborn son was horrific. That Taneer thought so little of his family to even contemplate marrying the woman, whose name shall not be mentioned, was so far beyond any affront Anil had ever experienced that even now he could scarce believe it. Just as he could hardly accept the presence of the gun resting in his pants' pocket, its compact, unyielding shape bumping and grinding against the outer part of his right thigh like some obscene cold blooded parasite. It held only four small-caliber bullets, each equipped with an explosive head.

That was twice as many as he would need, he felt.

Wandering the busy shopping street, Anil found it difficult to concentrate. How could Taneer have done such a thing? He had always been such a good boy. A good boy who had turned into a fine young man. The pride of his family, he had been the first not only to go to university, but to graduate. And then, to be hired by such an important company, and to rise so rapidly within.

And for what? To throw it all away on some stupid twat? If a man was in desperate need, one who belonged to the venerable VyMohans caste rented such creatures. One did not marry them. One did not bring them into a respectable family such as the Buthlahees.

Taneer would not do so. It would not be permitted. He, Anil Buthlahee, would not allow it. He had worked too hard. Next year he would turn fifty. Half a century of striving, of seven-day weeks and endless long hours and hard work, and for what? To preside over the wedding of a son to an Untouchable? Was that what his own sainted father and mother had worked so hard for, building up their one small store in Puri, slaving from before sunrise until late into the night to give him, Anil, the base from which to finally obtain a proper loan so he could begin to expand the family business?