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

Jena was enjoying herself. Though the heat of excitement burned steadily within, it was late enough so that her surroundings had cooled down. The appearance of the two men and one woman had gone a long way toward mitigating her disappointment at having to abandon her intention to set free the two students and their guide. Three take the place of three, she mused. Obviously, these were the innocents who had been intended for her all along.

Something was itching her ankle. Glancing down and pulling up her left pants' leg slightly, she saw that something thin, black, glistening, and about six centimeters long had attached itself to her flesh. It looked like a tiny, wet sausage. She eyed the lively leech for a long moment, then let the fabric fall back into place. It was an omen. Someone else would have declared it was just an opportunistic parasite, but Jena knew better. Give blood, take blood. It would be churlish of her to deny the small creature its due. Ignoring the itching, which was barely noticeable, she moved on.

She was careful to keep her distance, sometimes utilizing the trail behind the trio, at other times ducking back into the brush. Only very rarely did one of the three bright beams being carried by her quarry aim backward in her direction. Those she was trailing were clearly concerned with what lay ahead, not behind. What were they doing out here, in the forest preserve, in the middle of the night? They did not look like students. One of them was exceptionally well dressed in a manner suggesting that he was in possession of unpleasant knowledge. She would have to watch him carefully. The other two concerned her not at all.

She felt that she could make her move at any time. But that would terminate the delicious sense of anticipation she always felt, a kind of lubricious homicidal foreplay. Besides, the more distance they put between themselves and the fence line, the less likelihood there was of anyone in the apartment complex on the other side overhearing any sounds. It would be a pleasant change to be able to conduct her liberating activities at leisure, without having to worry about the noise that all too often attended her ministrations. She continued to follow, and to anticipate, and to watch.

Keshu studied the readout on his spinner. The video was being for warded to him from sensors mounted on the silent police drone currently hovering above the forest floor. Though the highly sensitive infrared detectors were picking up multiple targets, the unit's scopes and sensors had been programmed to emphasize anything that fit the human profile. It was left to those viewing the information to distinguish between night-loving monkeys and humans, a task that size comparison alone made relatively easy.

Next to him, Lieutenant Johar looked up from his own spinner. Half a dozen special police wearing night camouflage clustered not far behind them, while a pair of noise-negating stealth choppers hovered off to the west, above the nearest public housing. Each carried an additional complement of cops patiently awaiting orders for deployment.

Keshu was tired. Having covered many kilometers via chopper, he and his hastily assembled team had been tracking Chalmette ever since she had stepped off the commuter train at the end of its line. Fairly quickly they ascertained that she, in turn, was indeed following a pair of students. From a distance, the chief inspector had watched with grudging admiration as the foreign woman had used her own quarry to enable her to slip inside the restricted area of the preserve.

From then on it had been a matter of staying patient: tracking, tailing the foreigner as she trailed the field station 4x4 that had picked up the unknowing students. Not daring to risk losing her but still loath to pick her up without irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing on her part, he had reluctantly issued the order to start moving in when their target paused and turned away from the field station. But when she had surprisingly chosen to continue onward, paralleling the fence line instead of returning to the station, he had hastily countermanded his own order. Maybe, just maybe, an opportunity might yet present itself to catch her engaging in something prosecutable.

The process of tiresomely tracking her through the forest continued. Despite their hopes, he and Johar were starting to believe they were going to have to give up and decide whether or not to let the woman return to her apartment or pick her up on some pretext. That was when the three newcomers had put in their unexpected appearance. Their illegal entry into the preserve provided sufficient grounds for their arrest, but the thought of issuing the necessary order never entered Keshu's head. Especially not when the real object of his interest abandoned her trike and began to stalk the newly arrived trio.

He was not surprised. Her rapid and effortless switch from one set of potential prey to another fit the modus that the department psychs had put together for her. To a random killer unconcerned with the background or personalities of her quarry, one set of victims was as good as another. How cold she must be inside, he thought. How ethically bankrupt. He had dealt with, had helped to bring to justice, and had seen numerous murderers slain, but none quite like this implacable, unfathomable foreign woman.

Cheese, he thought absently as he studied the moving readout on his spinner, was a far more amenable French export.

From the moment she had pushed her trike into the bushes, there was no doubt to anyone observing her subsequent actions that her intent was to follow the trio of unanticipated forest visitors. Focused on his likely serial killer, Keshu wasted no mental capital trying to divine the newcomers' motivation. They might be researchers, or illegal lepidopterist collectors, or rare plant thieves. They might be friends out for an evening's excitement, or in the process of settling a bet. He doubted they were poachers because the starlight sensor on the drone

did not show them carrying anything that might be poaching equipment. They might constitute a bizarre menage a trois searching for a suitably exotic location in which to consummate their particular sexual needs.

It mattered to him only in the most cursory manner. Of the four ambulatory heat images visible on his spinner's readout, he had eyes only for one.

"Want me to signal some of the boys to move in more closely, sir?" Johar whispered even though they were well out of hearing range of both the naive trio and the deadly female shadow that was stalking them.

"No." Keshu knew that the lieutenant was worried that if and when the foreign woman attacked, his people might be too far away to get there in time to put a halt to her intended mayhem. There was a risk, certainly, in continuing to keep their distance, but he felt it worth it to acquire the conclusive proof of guilt a court would demand. Even if they were seconds too late to intervene physically, each officer had been instructed that when given orders to move in, they were to make as much noise as possible. From experience, Keshu knew that might well be enough to halt the woman in her tracks.

But there was still an element of threat to the intended victims. He was helped in making his decision from the knowledge that by reason of their illegal entry they had already broken the law.

"We have to wait until the last possible moment," he rumbled tersely. The look on the lieutenant's face was visible even in the dark ness. "All right then-the moment before the last possible moment. But we have to hold back until the foreign woman commits. At least until she draws a weapon. Otherwise, even if she is carrying, we cannot prove intent."

Johar nodded to show that he understood. What he did not show was how thankful he was that it was the chief inspector and not him who would have to decide how long to wait before giving the order to move in and save the three trespassers.