Dream Thief (41 page)

“No, I can wait.” Olmstead turned to leave. “I only wish he'd have let me know. That's all.”

“Accept my apologies. He sometimes forgets these things.” The way he said it gave the impression that Wermeyer was used to covering up for the director. With a shrug Packer walked out of the office.

This is strange,
he thought as he walked along Gotham's trafficways. First Adjani and Spence disappearing and now the director. A strong hunch told him the two incidents were connected, but how? As he walked along he became more and more determined to get to the bottom of things as he saw them.

“And I know just where to start,” Packer said to himself, making an abrupt about-face in the center of the trafficway. “Kalnikov.”

He arrived at the infirmary and stood tapping his fingers on the spotless white counter until the young woman looked up.

“Yes, may I help you?”

“I'd like to see Captain Kalnikov, please. I understand he's still here.”

“Yes, of course.” The white-clad nurse disappeared into another room behind the nurse's station. She was back in a moment looking at a chart of some sort. “I'm sorry"—she smiled up at Packer—"but your friend cannot receive visitors at this time.”

“When, then? Can I come back later?”

“I'm sorry. We don't discuss our patients' cases with outsiders,” she said. Packer felt a touch of frost in the air. “You'll have to ask the doctor.”

“Bring the doctor,” said Packer flatly. He was starting to resent the woman's tone.

“I'm sorry, he's not in at the moment.” She gave him an icy smile. “Was there anything else?”

Packer increased his drumming on the counter. “No, you've been a world of help,” he said and stepped away from the station. He walked to the door and then paused. His hand reached out for the access plate, but he suddenly grabbed his side and moaned.

“Oh, no!” Packer groaned. “Help!” He toppled to the floor in a heap

“What's wrong?” cried the nurse, rushing out from behind the counter. “Are you having an attack?”

“It's my stomach,” wheezed Packer. He squeezed his eyes up and contorted his face. “Oww! Help me!”

“We'll have to get you off the floor,” said the nurse. “Can you get up?”

“I think so,” panted Packer. “Oww!” He grabbed his middle and rolled on the floor.

“There, there. Easy now. We'll get you into bed and get some tests started. You'll be all right.” She laid a hand on his forehead.

“You're not feverish; that's a good sign. Shall we try it again?” She put her hands under his shoulders and rolled him up into a sitting position.

With some effort they got him back up on his feet where he swayed precariously and moaned at intervals like a wounded bull moose. She led him into the next room containing three beds, and Packer dropped into the first one.

“Don't move. I'll be right back,” the nurse told him and ran out of the room.

Packer waited until the door slid shut again and jumped up out of the bed. He approached the figure laying in the last bed.

“Kalnikov?” His voice was a harsh whisper. “Can you hear me?”

The man rolled over and opened his eyes slowly. His stare was dull and glassy. “You're not Kalnikov,” he told the man.

Fearing he would be discovered Packer jumped back into his own bed and waited for the nurse to return. She came back in an instant and brought with her another nurse who carried a flat, triangular object which she placed on his chest. “Here, put this under your tongue,” the second nurse instructed, pulling a small probe from the instrument.

Packer did as he was told and sighed now and again to add to the effect—as if he did not expect to tarry much longer in this world and did not greatly mind leaving.

“Normal, just as I thought.”

Next he felt a prick on the inside of his arm just above the wrist. The nurse studied the machine on his chest and fiddled with a few knobs. “No trace of salmonella. How do you feel now?”

“A little weak,” he said weakly. “But the pain is gone.”

“Probably it was gas,” replied the first nurse. “I'll bring the doctor in when he returns.”

“Thank you, you're both kind. If I could just rest here for a moment I'm sure I'll be feeling better in a little while.”

“Of course.” The nurse packed up her instrument. “I'll check back shortly.” She nodded to the first nurse. “She will stay with you for a few minutes.”

“You're too kind,” said Packer benignly

“Nonsense.” The nurse smiled prettily. “That's what we're here for.”

Packer lay back and closed his eyes. The nurse sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him.
This will never do,
thought Packer.
I've got to get rid of her.

He belched loudly and allowed his eyelids to flutter open. “Could I have an antacid?” he asked. “I think it
was
gas.”

“Just as I thought. Sometimes it can be very painful.”

“Yes, I have a little heartburn now.”

“I'll go get you something. I'll be right back.”

As soon as the nurse left, he was out of bed and heading for the door to the next ward. The wards were clustered around the central nurse's station and could be entered by interconnecting doors without going through the station. The next ward was empty, and the next contained three young women who stopped talking and giggled when he tiptoed through. The third ward he looked into appeared empty at first, too. Then he saw a lone figure in the far bed, wrapped head to toe in a white sheet.

Packer, fearing the worst, crept up to the bed and pulled back the sheet. Kalnikov lay flat on his back, his face the color of putty.

“Kalnikov.” He shook the man by the shoulder. There was no response. He reached out a hand and placed it against the side of the pilot's neck. The body was warm and a pulse beat regularly in the throat. He jostled the man again.

“Kalnikov, can you hear me?”

There was a slight murmur.

“Wake up! Kalnikov, I have to talk to you. Wake up. Please!” Packer glanced around quickly and went on trying to rouse the Russian. When he looked back Kalnikov's eyes were half open and bore the glazed expression of one heavily, sedated.

“Listen,” whispered Packer, “I know you can hear me. Don't try to talk. Just blink your eyes if you understand me. Okay?”

The pilot raised and lowered his eyelids slowly and heavily, like the curtain at a Russian opera.

“All right, here we go. One blink for yes, no blinks for no. Got it?”

There came a slow blink; Packer thought he had never seen a slower one. He wasted no time in getting right to the heart of his interrogation.

“Kalnikov, now listen carefully. Rumor has it that you were jumped by Reston and Rajwandhi—is that true?”

No blink.

“Were you trying to help them?”

One blink.

“Hmm. Were you injured in the fight?”

No blink.

“What? Did you understand my question?” One blink.

“Then why are you here? To keep you quiet?” One blink.

Suddenly a voice called out behind Packer. A man's voice, and he was angry. “Just what do you think you're doing? Stop!”

Packer turned to see Dr. Williams striding toward him. Behind him were two security guards with tasers in their hands. The guards were frowning and the tasers were aimed at him.

T
HEY STARTED OUT AT
first light. Spence had not slept at all well. If not because of the hungry dogs that roamed in packs barking through the night, it was the sudden chilling expectation that Rikki the rat-catching python would mistake him for a rodent and strangle him. He was up and ready to be off as soon as dawn broke over the iron-blue, smoky skyline of Calcutta.

Gita had been up long before dawn making arrangements and seeing to last-minute details. He returned huffing excitedly and talking in gibberish, his round, dark moon face glowing with pride and good cheer.

“I have secured our passage,” he announced. It sounded as if they were attempting a hazardous ocean crossing.

“How long will it take to reach Darjeeling?” Spence asked.

“A week. Maybe two if it rains.” To Spence's look of amazement he hurriedly added, “You do not understand our roads. In the rain they dissolve and run away. They become rivers. It would take you a long time to swim to Darjeeling, and all uphill.”

Gita scampered around his apartment throwing provisions and personal belongings into sacks and bundling them together. “One bundle for each,” he explained. “That way if we must walk part of the way it will not cause too much strain.”

Gita looked like a man who had lived most of his life investing in strain-avoidance schemes, and had become wealthy collecting the dividends.

“Is it really as bad as all that?” Spence asked, hardly keeping the naive bumpkin out of his voice.

“Traveling to Darjeeling will be like traveling back in time,” Gita warned.

He had arranged for them to join a group of merchants camped about half a mile from his house. These men banded together to travel under the protection of armed soldiers, hired to defend them against the
goondas
and
dakoos
—bandits and outlaws living in the hill country. They would be moving at a snail's pace in rusty old gas-burning cars over once-smooth roads that had crumbled into little more than cattle tracks.

Spence and the others set out walking the few blocks to the caravan in the early morning light, tinged an oily brown from the smoke of ten million cooking fires throughout the city. They stepped carefully over the sleeping bodies of Calcutta's homeless who lined the streets like human pavement. Mange-ridden dogs ran yapping, poking here and there among mounds of putrefying garbage for morsels to eat. A hump-backed cow stood gazing at them with deep melancholy over a dead body where two crows perched on a stiffened arm, clucking their beaks in anticipation. Small children, already awake and crying, clung to their still-sleeping mothers, becoming quiet as the men passed.

The buildings lining the streets wore iron bars at windows and doors, though it seemed on the whole a useless gesture since, by Spence's estimation, anyone with little more than a strong resolve could have toppled them, they looked so tentative.

The three rounded a corner a few blocks away from Gita's house and saw the caravan. Their convoy consisted of five clanking sedans, a small bus loaded with objects of trade, and a jeep carrying three soldiers with old-fashioned M-16s leading the procession. It was already lined up, and the various merchants involved in the enterprise darted here and there to store their goods and pack just one more item on the bus. The soldiers came strolling down the street at a leisurely pace eating their breakfasts wrapped in paper with their fingers. Their rifles were slung on their backs and they laughed heartily among themselves.

This is our protection?
Spence wondered.

The whole troop would have been comical if not for the fear Spence saw in the faces of the merchants. To them it was a life-or-death proposition with death an all-too-possible outcome. He found it hard to believe such conditions still existed in a world that was quickly hurtling itself toward the stars. He himself had walked on Mars, and these frightened merchants could not even conceive of such a thing. His world was as far from theirs as— well, as far as Kyr's was from his.

When they had walked the length of the caravan a tall, gaunt Indian with the pursed expression of a man perpetually sucking lemons hailed Gita and met them.

“This is Gurjara Marjumdar, leader of the merchants making this trip.” The man bowed low, placing his hands together in the classic greeting.

“Your presence among us strengthens our purpose.” He smiled a puckery smile. Later, Gita told Spence that with the money they had paid Gurjara to join the convoy the merchant had already made a profit.

“I have arranged for you to travel in my car,” Gurjara said with some pride. “I hope you will be very comfortable.”

It was all Spence could do to keep from remarking that perhaps they would be more comfortable if the car had springs. He could already see that the junker rode low to the ground, and as yet no passengers were aboard.

After a few more minutes of frenzied packing and tearful, heart-rending good-byes among the merchants and their families, the caravan, asthmatic engines gasping and sputtering, rumbled off. Gawking street sleepers staggered out of the way as the odd train of vehicles rattled past. Children and dogs ran beside as they wound through the streets, hoping for trinkets and shouting at the drivers to honk their horns—a request the drivers obliged with childlike persistence.

Spence marked their passage through the decaying city with numbed wonder. It was repulsive, and yet somehow fascinating in its lazy, sprawling decadence. He had never experienced anything like it.

Behind the train a small army of ragged wayfarers walked or rode bicycles. They too were making the trip to Darjeeling; though lacking the money to hire a car or other transportation, they were nevertheless anxious to benefit from the presence of the soldiers.

At the outskirts of Calcutta they came to a greasy, noisome river where they stopped, though Spence could not determine why. He and Adjani got out to give their legs a last stretch before the train headed into open country. Walking to the head of the convoy they saw the reason for the delay. A family had set up housekeeping on the bridge during the night—not only one family, but several—and were having to be removed in order to let the cars pass by. The people repacked their baggage and belongings—which seemed to Spence to consist mostly of broken bamboo chairs, rags, and hacked-up oil drums—with a sullen slowness under the urgings of the soldiers.