Empire of Bones (36 page)

A few moments of excitement came when Kharishma was in-terviewed by both Bharati and UN

authorities. But though she tried to explain that she was the important one, and Jaya Nihalani no more than an upstart
dalit
, they didn't seem to be listening. In her saner moments, during the resdess darkness just before dawn, she remembered the look that had appeared in a German journalist's eyes after a few minutes of talking to her: a kind of wary, watchful amusement, the sort of expression that one might assume when conversing with the mad. When Kharishma would remember this look, she'd fling herself from her bed and begin to pace the echoing precincts of the Khokandra Palace.

The
raksasa
had chosen not to be seen by anyone except Tokai, Anand, and Kharishma herself. Ir Yth seemed able to flicker in and out of view, predictably but annoyingly at the least convenient moments.

Kharishma had intended Ir Yth to be her piece de resistance during interviews, given the infuriating absence of the second alien, but the
raksasa
had suddenly assumed an unbecoming modesty.

She was weary of dealing with the
desqusai
, the humans, she told Kharishma. Tokai was different. He understood her; he was sympathetic. When in Varanasi, Ir Yth went into seclusion in the isolation lab; here, in Khokandra Palace, she kept to the little shrine. She seemed to require neither food nor water, and Kharishma's attempts to gain access to her had proved unsuccessful. Indeed, entering the shrine in a rage a few nights ago, Kharishma had found it quite empty. She re-membered looking around, baffled, for the
raksasa
had not been seen to leave. Then, in a corner of the room, she saw a pair of cold golden eyes staring unblinkingly at her, and noth-ing else.

Kharishma, unnerved, had fled the shrine and had not been back since, but she was determined to face the
raksasa
again. After all, she told herself self-righteously, it had been Ir Yth who had first sought her out and whispered promises of glory in her ear. Wasn't she supposed to be the savior of the world? She had risked everything and nothing had happened: no plaudits, no congratulations, no alien villain served up to the authorities. Kharishma smacked her fist against the warm stone of the garden wall in frustration.

She couldn't help feel-ing that the action was going on elsewhere, without her, and that she could not bear. It was center stage or nothing.

"
Wait
," a voice whispered inside her mind. It wasn't like the silent voice with which Ir Yth communicated; it felt as though someone had lodged deep in her bone and blood and was whispering to her.

"What?" Kharishma murmured, startled.

/Came back from the market this morning and I said
—/—
what is happening to me? My head
hurts
—/—/
want a glass of water
—/

The voices were all different: male and female, young and old. Kharishma did not recognize any of them.

She looked wildly around, suspecting a trick, but the garden was sunlit and empty. She sank down the garden wall among the overblown roses, her arms wound tightly about her knees, and began cautiously to listen.

3. Ixkaikurriye

Anarres and Nowhere One traveled slowly, relying on smell and touch to make their way through the tangled root system. It seemed to go on forever, and Anarres had no idea where they were heading, or even if they would ever be able to make their way up and out. But every time she faltered, she remem-bered the
irHazh
and the touch of EsRavesh, and the memory was enough to spur her on. She clambered grimly over roots, beneath trailing lines of fungus, and the earth was thick and clammy under her feet. Anything, she thought, would be bet-ter than death at the claws of an
irHazh
, even a stifling end be-low ground. And almost anything would be better than die punishments EsRavesh might devise, if he ever caught up with her.

"Have you noticed," Nowhere One said cheerfully, some-where off to her left, "that there's enough air down here to breathe? So it must be coming from somewhere."

"But where?" Anarres froze as something skittered along the root below her. "What was that?"

"I don't know," Nowhere One hissed. "Stay still."

Anarres complied, then yelped as something ran across her hand. She felt a prickling of myriad legs.

"There's some kind of creature down here!"

"Probably lots of them," the Natural said, which did not re-assure Anarres at all. Then, to her immediate right, some-thing started to rustle. Anarres' hands shook on the hard, curved surface of the root.

"Nowhere One?" Abrupdy, the Natural was at her side. He clasped her as the mulch beneath their feet came alive witli a thousand writJüng forms. Anarres shrieked and buried her face in Nowhere One's shoulder. A carpet of moving life swarmed up her spine, wriggling amongst her quills. A moment later it was gone, and then Anarres heard a sharp, decisive crunch.

"I know what these are," Nowhere One said indistinctly, through a mouthful of something. "House lice.

Want some?"

"No!"

"Suit yourself."

THE house lice had disappeared, for which Anarres re-mained profoundly grateful, but climbing over the slippery roots was a nightmare task. The roots were wet, and coated with some kind of film that Nowhere One said was a protec-tive measure against decay.

Anarres, standing high above Nowhere One's head, called down, "I can't feel where it ends. It goes higher than I can reach."

"Can you climb any farther?" the Natural's voice floated up from far below.

"I don't think so. The roots seem to curve back on themselves."

She thought she heard him curse.

"It's the end wall of the Marginals. Its own root system is sealed off from the rest of the city, in case anyone tries to infil-trate it."

"What can we do?"

"Stay here for the rest of our lives and grow pale on house lice, or think of a plan."

"I'm coming down." It felt suddenly lonely up there in the stuffy darkness by the end wall. Anarres slithered along the roots to the floor.

"The trouble is, I've no idea how to break the barrier. You'd need a heavy-duty meme to get through this.

Or a large axe."

"Could we convince it to spit us out?" Anarres asked.

"That would be hard. This is the wall of the Marginals, not a,carnivore."

"I wonder what parameters they've set," Anarres said. Something was tugging at her memory. Her own house had gone through a period when it didn't want to let anyone else in; she was sure now that EsRavesh had done something to it. But Sirru had managed to get in, by lying to the house. She told this to Nowhere One.

He reached out in the darkness and grasped her arm.

"How did he lie? Did he tell you?"

"Yes," Anarres answered. "Later that night. A friend of his had modified the scale so that when you gave it the right in-structions, it broadcast an emergency code. And the house opened up."

"Scale modification needs a lot of work, and we don't have the tools," Nowhere One said. "But we might still be able to lie…You still have EsRavesh' implant, that you used to get into the translation storage area; you have
'thaith
codes."

"But they were keyed into the orbital itself. Surely they wouldn't work here?"

"The codes will retain an impression of EsRavesh. If you can activate the implant, and enhance it so that the wall thinks a
khaith
is standing before it, trapped in its root system, it might open up."

"Enhance it? How?"

"Anarres, you do it all the time. You are constantly manip-ulating your own presence—your own pheromonal signature. This time, you'll have to do it with someone else's. I don't think you realize how powerful you can be."

"I'll try," Anarres said, doubtfully. "But I've never done this kind of thing before." Even as she spoke, however, she thought,
Maybe that is what an
apsara
in fact does: reflects a lover bac't upon himself
enhancing him in his own eyes. I'm like a mirror. My lovers look at me> and (hey see their own
prowess and allure
.

She touched the implant, and thought about EsRavesh. She conjured up the image of his stumpy hands and thick-petaled mouth. She recalled the musty odor, and wove it expertly into her own pheromonal array. She overcame her revulsion, feed-ing sexual arousal back upon itself to generate a fantasy of the
khaith
, conjuring the impression that it was he who was stand-ing before the wall of the Marginals. She could sense Nowhere One off to the side, and, slowly, the presence of another. Gradually, with a corner of her mind, she became aware that it was the dome to which the end wall belonged. She could feel the sunlight on its arch, high above ground; the wet depths of the earth beneath her feet. Chlorophyll seeped through its veins. It was like her house, but larger and more complex.

It sent, inside her mind,
What are you doing down here? /Astonishment/alarm/1 must alert
someone!/

That will not be necessary
, Anarres sent hastily, her modula-tions laced with overtones of EsRavesh. /

was undertaking an inspection, and became trapped. I require access
.

There is another with you. It feels wrong; it is not a clade mem-ber. I will alert clade.

Do not be concerned
, Anarres sent, as forcefully as she could.
Please let me through
. She took a risk.

You know I dislike disobe-dience
!

The dome cringed. She had never felt a dome experience fear before, but this one was positively flinching with remem-bered pain. The part of Anarres' mind that was not preoccu-pied with simulating EsRavesh gave way to outrage, that the
khaith
should so mistreat a dwelling. But then a small crack opened in the wall, and there was no time to waste on pity. Anarres pushed Nowhere One swiftly through, and dived into the sanctuary of the root system beyond the Marginals.

SHE had felt sunlight on the dome of the Marginals, but when they eventually resurfaced, it was dark. It took some time to get their bearings, and when they did, Anarres real-ized that they were nowhere near the Naturals' Quarter. They had come up through a seedpod in a park. It had spored in the night, and the air was filled with flying pollen. Choking, Anarres and Nowhere One stumbled down to a nearby pool where the air was clearer.

"It doesn't really matter," the Natural said, batting away a night-bee. "We'd have to come out sooner or later. We don't have the technology to reanimate IrEthiverris."

"What are we going to do?" Anarres asked. "Could we steal something?"

"We're going to have to be very careful where we go and who we speak to," Nowhere One said. "I'm hoping that EsRavesh will assume we've been devoured by his plant, but if he finds out that we've escaped… He'll already have put a watch on your family."

Anarres sat up straighten "But I know who
will
help us. They're probably under surveillance too, but if we can get a message to them and arrange to meet—"

"Who?" Nowhere One asked, but she could see the realiza-tion in his eyes.

"The EsMoyshekhali. Sirru's family."

4. )4munotri/ Himalaya

The network was starting to function. Sirru sat cross-legged by the small black pool and listened to what it had to tell him. He was lost in other people's lives: images, sensations, thoughts. Occasionally he tested the taste of a word on his tongue. Much of what he learned surprised him, and much of it saddened. Pain lanced down the viral lines like lightning down a kite string: he rerouted it into his own nerves, learning what it was to hurt in the manner of these new kindred. It was too soon for the embryonic network to summon a depth ship; he did not want to impose too great a strain upon his new communications system.

Instead he sent his single message of instruction:
Wait. Listen to what I tell you. The time is nearly
here
.

A mosquito hummed in from the bushes and setded on his hand, but he did not notice. It penetrated the thin skin on the inside of his wrist, sipped alien blood for a moment before re-alizing its mistake, then whirred away. Part of Sirru went with it. Distinctions which separated him from the world ceased to be meaningful. There was no
t'inside
v'
outside
a'any-more, only the network of virally transformed consciousness which was slowly beginning to grow.

He reviewed his nexi. There were now over four hundred: the virus was spreading fast, finding willing recipients and donors every hour. By and large, the nexi were all adult; the very young and the very old, being largely if not entirely free from sexual activity, remained untouched. And this was just as well, for Sirru did not yet know how fragile these new
desqusai
would prove. Generally, the infants of his own people bore such communication best when they were very young: babies who did not yet have the interference of language standing in tlieir way and whose needs and desires might be easily met.

From the symptoms he had observed of those around him, it would not be too long before the first infected nexi passed into the initial stages of coma, and then it would be down to himself and Jaya—also a nexus, but sufficiently revised during her sojourn on the ship—to coordinate the network. At some point, Sirru supposed, he was going to have to explain this to her. He told himself that it would be better to wait to do this until he had a greater linguistic grasp, but he knew, deep down in the wells of his conscience, that he was afraid of what Jaya might say at being so used.

The thought that it might not be acceptable to employ peo-ple involuntarily in this manner was also a new concept to

Sirru. He had been created for certain tasks, he reminded himself uncomfortably, like all the
desqusai
, but he had been accustomed to the idea from his Making, whereas these people had not. Only the thought that he might, ultimately, be able to save their lives and his own prevented the voice of his con-science from becoming overwhelming.

He blinked. A new voice had entered the fray, cutting through the melange of sounds and impressions like ice water.