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

"Do you have an old-style, free-standing calculator? One with a simple built-in readout and no integrated projection unit?"

Removing the requested device from a drawer, Sanjay pushed it across the countertop. His visitor tapped on it briefly, then slid it back. "The information I have for sale will be sold by single bid, one chance only. No negotiations, no auction. The bids are to be submitted in a format and at a time I will specify later." He tapped the calculator's faded readout screen. "This is the figure I expect to sell at. Your com mission, if all goes as well as I hope, will be one percent."

Sanjay almost rose angrily from his chair. What a waste of time this had been! he thought. An imposition on his hospitality and his good nature! Then he saw the figure the man had entered.

It nearly did not fit on the calculator's readout.

He sat back down, scowled at the figure. "There is a mistake. Your finger must have weighed too long on the zero."

"No." Taneer spoke quietly, folding his arms in front of him. "There is no mistake. That is the correct figure. In U.S. dollars."

Now Sanjay knew it had to be a mistake. Either that, or his visitor was an exceptionally well-dressed escapee from one of the city's many asylums. The smile he had been wearing ever since the other man had entered was in danger of disappearing permanently. "You are most unkindly playing some kind of game with me. This is a joke."

Taneer shook his head slowly from side to side. His expression was completely sober, dead serious. "Am I smiling? Have I been acting like someone with nothing better to do than spend my afternoons playing bad jokes on people I've never met before? Do you think I have spent as much time in this shop as I have already in order to leave with nothing more than a smile?"

Sanjay's mind was racing furiously. Though he was good with fig ures, he knew he was not a fast thinker, or a deep one. He was smart enough to know his limitations. What this stranger was proposing, if it indeed was not all part of some elaborate joke being played on him by a friend or acquaintance, or a reality vit show being recorded by a hidden camera, was so far beyond anything he had dealt with previously, even in his business with Bindar, as to border on the inconceivable.

So, in his usual direct manner, he said as much.

"That's why I'm here, presenting this proposition to you now," his visitor explained. "There are others who were recommended to me that I could have gone to; more sophisticated, more knowledgeable, with access to more extensive resources than you and your little business." San jay took no offense at these words. He had never regarded the truth as insulting. "But they are also much more likely to be watched, to be under observation."

No fool, Sanjay asked, "Watched by who?"

Having not come to an agreement, Taneer continued to hold back everything that was not necessary. "Those who would rather steal than purchase. I'm sure even in your business you've had to deal with such people."

Glad of the commonality, however tenuous, Sanjay nodded knowingly. "Truly, the world is full of thieves. People who make it difficult for someone to make an honest living." He did not add that he was still very much unsure as to which of those two groups his visitor belonged. That, however, need not prevent the doing of business. "There is some possible danger attached to this dealing, then?"

Taneer nodded brusquely. "With this kind of money involved, how could it be otherwise? I assure you that I'm running a much bigger risk than you, though. It's this they're after." He rolled the small, spherical storage device around in his palm. "And me. Are you still interested?"

Sanjay had already made up his mind. The risks in agreeing to deal with this stranger were unknown. The reward, if his visitor was being truthful, was potentially enormous. He could have everything he had ever dreamed of. Everyone he knew could have everything they had ever dreamed of. Silently, he converted the figure his guest had entered into the calculator from American dollars to Indian rupees. The number was so high he did not even have a proper name for it.

His one percent commission would not be so insignificant after all.

"Five percent," he replied gruffly. He could not help it. It was in his blood.

For the first time since he had entered the shop, Taneer chuckled. "Two."

"Four," Sanjay countered.

"Two." Taneer started to rise.

"Three," Sanjay countered again, perhaps a bit too anxiously.

Shaking his head with amusement, Taneer resumed his seat. "All right, my friend. I don't want to appear greedy."

Sanjay smiled back. He was starting to like this fellow. He would have to watch that. "Then why not give me five?"

"Three percent. Say yes now, or I walk out that door and you'll never see me again."

"I think if that happens, my life will become dull once more. Three percent."

They shook hands on it. Then Sanjay settled back in his chair and asked, "It might be useful for me to know what it is that I am selling." He indicated the mollysphere shifting back and forth in Sanjay's hand. "Information, that much you have confirmed. But information about what?"

Taneer's smile evaporated faster than vodka at a Russian wedding. "Better that you don't know. You wouldn't understand the particulars.

There are not many people in the world who will. But there are enough." Ceremoniously, he placed the storage device on the desktop. "This is not a complete rendering of what it is I have to sell. But there is more than enough here to convince anyone sufficiently knowledge able who delves into the details to prove to them that I can deliver what is promised. The rest of the relevant material can and will be sup plied when the final details of the sale are worked out." His eyes met those of the shopkeeper. "I am telling the truth when I say to you that the less you know of it, the better. For both of us."

Sanjay shrugged as if he dealt with this level of commerce every day. "I am only to be your middleman. I must accept your instructions. You strike me as a truthful person."

Taneer rose from his seat. "I have ninety-seven percent of that figure at risk. I can afford to be." He nodded in the direction of the remote that controlled the shopkeeper's box. "May I access that?"

Sanjay hesitated. He disliked the idea of anyone else poking around in his personal system. Of course, if he was looking over the visitor's shoulder while the man worked…

"Certainly," he said graciously, as if it had never crossed his mind to refuse the request.

It was an education to watch his guest manipulate the familiar multiple floating projections. The man had the skill of a technician and the technique of an artist. Images and figures, schematics and solids appeared and dissolved within the hovering tunnel above his modest counter in a dizzying succession of colors and forms. When his visitor was finished, Sanjay was not even entirely sure what had been done, even though every bit of it had transpired before his eyes, on his own equipment.

Taneer explained it to him. "I've entered the necessary information into your secure database."

Eyeing him in disbelief, the shopkeeper checked the relevant file. The new material was there, just as his visitor claimed. It should not have been, but it was.

"How did you do that? Those files are personal, protected, and guarded."

Taneer just smiled. "Maybe one day I'll explain it to you, though it's not something you need to know. When our business together is finished, you won't need to know such things because you'll be able to hire someone like myself to do them for you."

"That is so," Sanjay realized. He studied the readout floating in the air before him. "When do you want me to start making inquiries?"