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

Maybe it was the bookish look that drew the young couple to her. They appeared to be about her age, certainly no older. The man smiled hopefully and addressed her in English. When she had first arrived in Sagramanda, Jena had spoken only a few words of that language. Now she was as fluent as the stockbroker from New York she had encountered several months earlier.

"Yes, I think I can help you," she told the man in response to his questions. He and his wife were Australian, but their accent was not impenetrable.

She ended up giving them a tour of the museum, whose contents were intimately familiar to her. By the end of the afternoon, the three of them were chatting together like old friends.

"I'll tell you what you should do," she told them over iced coffee in the museum's cafe. "Everyone sees Sagramanda from the land. But to really appreciate it, you need to see it from the water. From the river." Her hands traced architecture in the air between them. "From a boat you get an unobstructed view of everything: new buildings, old warehouses, ghats, the itinerant sadhus trolling for contributions along the riverfront walkway."

The young woman eyed her husband. "Sounds romantic as well as educational. Where do we find a tour boat?"

Jena smiled knowingly, as if conveying some intimate secret. "That's why so few people see the city from the water. Believe it or not, there aren't any tour boats. But you can rent small electric watercraft by the hour."

The husband looked unsure. "We're from Newcastle, and pretty much at home on the water. But taking a boat out here, with all this commercial river traffic-I don't know…"

"Tell you what." Jena leaned forward. "You pay for it, and a take away dinner, and I'll give you the tour. Even the small boats have collision-avoidance electronics built into them. At least, the one we'll use will."

They were delighted by the suggestion and immediately agreed to her offer. At minimal cost they were acquiring a boat driver and a knowledgeable guide all in one.

"Meet me at the Hooghly South private slips, number twenty-four. Seven o'clock. Any taxi driver will know where it is."

Though they arrived before the scheduled departure time, Jena was earlier still. The small, slightly tubby craft's batteries were fully charged and waiting for them. The sheila was surprised to see Jena wearing a veil.

"As the sun goes down, the men here grow bolder," she explained to the other woman as she removed the face covering, folded it neatly, and placed it inside a long shoulder bag resting on a bench seat. With a nod in the husband's direction she added, "I don't have a mate to shoo away the obnoxious. They're worse than flies." Seeing a troubled look cross the woman's face in response to her suddenly threatening tone, Jena added serenely, "I won't need one now. We have your man to protect us." The Aussie had the grace to blush.

Under her practiced hands the boat backed out of the slip and spun away from the docks, humming smoothly upriver as its driver accelerated. Along the way she pointed out one sight of interest after another. Ensconced in the padded double seat situated forward of the wheel, husband and wife relaxed in each other's arms, content to let Jena do all the driving and most of the talking.

They stopped in midriver to enjoy a late supper, unpacking the takeaway meals just before nine o'clock. Around them, river traffic had slowed out of respect for the darkness. The Hooghly was still a highway for traditional boatmen who could not afford running lights, not even solar-powered LEDs, and who were reluctant to venture out into the busy watercourse after the sun went to sleep. It was also much cooler out in the middle of the river, a partial respite from the day's heat if not from the omnipresent humidity.

"So, what do you do?" Completely relaxed, utterly contented, the woman peered over at Jena. Their guide was busying herself with the contents of an open storage container beneath the driver's chair. "Are you a professional guide?"

Jena had to laugh. It was a musical sound, but one with a hard edge. "I'm the one who needs a guide. I can't find what I'm looking for."

"What might that be?" the husband asked casually, cold brew in hand.

"Enlightenment. Release from the cycle of karma. I have been promised that."

The woman was unsure whether to smile or frown. Having consumed several beers, she decided on the former. "I'm not even bloody sure what that is, but anyway, who promised it?"

"The Mother Goddess. Kali." Reaching up with her right hand, Jena pressed a sequence of small buttons that rimmed the device concealed beneath her blouse. Instantly responsive, the braceletlike pressure syringe resting there obediently slammed a stream of rapture-4 directly into her bloodstream. It was very clean, very pure, very clear stuff. Full-on Shakti. For all that she was used to it, it never failed to have the desired effect. She welcomed the dreamlike contentment that rolled over her mind and surged through her body, lowering her blood pressure, elevating her spirits, and lifting her soul. Exactly as Mother Kali would have approved.

Maybe if he'd had a beer or two fewer, maybe if he'd been a little less relaxed, the husband might have found the sudden shift in their new friend's choice of conversation off-putting. Maybe he would have thought the way she now began to sway slightly from side to side unsettling. But the open boat was drifting lazily downstream on autopilot, they were heading back, and in an hour or so he and his wife would be back in the familiar confines of their comfortable mid-price range-hotel. Tomorrow would see them off to Mumbai. Meanwhile, their charming if suddenly sloe-eyed hostess was doing nothing to generate suspicion. Anyway, she was alone, and he was much bigger than she was.

Or at least he was until she cut him in half.

In a single flowing, almost dancelike movement, she drew the sword from its place of concealment among the boat's tools and equip ment and struck with it, making sure to guide it with her left hand. Honed to extreme sharpness and wielded with both hands, it cut through flesh and bone in equal measure, only slowing to a halt somewhere in the vicinity of the man's spleen. The look on his face rendered shock passe. Never wavering, his eyes were still locked on her as he fell over sideways in his seat, the beer falling from his hands, the bottle rolling across the deck of the small boat, blood gushing everywhere.

There was just enough time for the dead man's wife to let out a single scream. It went on and on, until Jena cut off her head. The head flew into the river, which was dangerous, but Jena did not want to take the time to look for it. Anyway, there were voracious fish in the depths of the great waterway that would make short work of the unexpected bounty.

Hands upraised, head back, she chanted over the two bodies as blood filled the bottom of the boat, until the deck was awash with red. Regrettably, none of the four still, limp hands she inspected boasted a finger that might serve to replace the one Mother Kali was missing. But she knew that the goddess would be pleased by the sacrifice. When she had finished her prayers, she weighted the two bodies with what she could find and wrestled them over the gunwale, a gift to the fish and the crocodiles. Then she opened the appropriate valves. As the rental craft began to sink, she inflated the small lifeboat and pushed it over the side. By the time the boat went down, she was paddling toward the near shore.

While serving Mother Kali was an endless pleasure, finding the goddess's missing finger was a task difficult enough to take even a dedicated servant a lifetime. Jena felt certain she was up to the challenge. It was only a matter of time.

Rapture-4 coursed through her body, filling her with chemicals as well as visions. Tickling her neurons and inflaming her thoughts. In the course of her searching and servitude there would be more such sacrifices, she knew.