Sagramanda

by Alan Dean Foster

  What a job, he told himself. What a life. He wouldn't have traded it for anything.

  Better to have a wife ragging on you than a serial killer, he told himself. Using a curt voice command to halt the heads-up readout from the box, he slipped the fingers of his right hand into the controller glove and dove physically as well as mentally into the morning's work.

  Chalcedony Schneemann hated Sagramanda. For that matter, he hated India, even though he was half Indian. His mother had been born in Belgaum, in the southwest, and had grown up working in the tourist hotspot of Goa. That was where she had met his father, a German-American executive on holiday. They had fallen in love, she had become instantly pregnant, and he had taken her back with him to New York. But his mother had never forgotten her heritage. Growing up, he had been compelled to learn Hindi and Marathi as well as English and German.

  For a corporate fixer whose job category supposedly did not exist, and who was paid in cash and under the table, Chal Schneemann was very well spoken.

  Everyone who knew him called him Chal. He preferred it, and it worked out well, since nobody could pronounce his full first name properly anyway (he had been named after his mother's favorite semi-precious gemstone). He had been in Sagramanda for six months now and was no closer to finding his quarry than he was to developing a fondness for the gigantic, seething, steaming metropolis. He missed New York badly; its comparative cleanliness, its museums and concerts, its cultured women who could converse intelligently even when they were being screwed into the floor. Even the Indian food was better there, he grumbled to himself, and you didn't have to conduct a minute inspection of the restaurant's toilet before voiding your bowels.

  An impartial observer might have commented gently that Chal was not permitting himself to be open to the experience, was not allowing the charms of the great city to infuse and inform him with its multifarious delights. By way of response, Chal most likely would have beat the crap out of said impartial observer, if not for the fact that it was critical to his work that he pass everywhere unnoticed. Officially, he was in Sagramanda to advise one executive at one branch of the well-known multinational company that paid him handsomely (and under the table) to travel around the world (though most often to the subcontinent) to solve otherwise intractable corporate problems.

  Less officially, he was there to find another man. A renegade employee who had disappeared in the possession of valuable company property but who was believed to still be hiding somewhere in the city. A researcher who had stumbled across a discovery potentially worth billions, if not trillions. Of dollars, not rupees. An imprudent local employee who needed to be brought back into the corporate fold before he might misguidedly pass the sensitive information he had absconded with on to another competing multinational.

  How Chal went about his business was not of particular concern to his corporate masters. Were he to be caught or challenged while performing his duty, any knowledge of him would be disowned by the same people who saw to it that he was so well compensated. They were interested only in results, not in methodology. Chal had complete freedom to do what was necessary. The cutthroat world of global competition demanded it, even encouraged it.

  Personally, Chal had nothing against the researcher who had gone astray. He would prefer not to have to kill him, or torture him to reveal the whereabouts of what he had taken. Chal was perfectly prepared to do either, or both, as the occasion demanded. What he really wanted was to get back to New York. As always, he would do anything that would expedite his departure from the homeland of his mother. His life would have been easier had he simply based himself in Delhi or Mumbai. He categorically refused, preferring to endure the occasional monumental commute. New York was his home, America and Europe his playground. Not India.

  Thus far he had been reduced to little more than following blind leads and asking endless questions. No, that was not quite true. One coworker of the missing researcher had been obstinate and had refused to answer any questions at all. Chal, who was of more than average height and weight and physically intimidating, had been forced to administer encouragement. Informing the pigheaded one that he was only doing his job, he had proceeded accordingly. Then he had been compelled to wait until the dazed, chastised coworker, remorselessly hammered down to the corridor floor, finished spitting out blood and teeth and struggled to talk again.

  Yes, the bloodied, sobbing, and now fully compliant worker knew Taneer Buthlahee. No, she hadn't seen, heard from, or had any contact with the absent researcher in something like five months. No, she had no idea where he had gone, what he was doing, or what his immediate plans were.

  Chal had thanked her calmly, turned to depart down the office corridor that was empty save for the two of them, then by way of farewell and a final object lesson kicked her in her already ruined mouth one last time, breaking her lower jaw. It ensured she would keep quiet until he was out of the building. In the course of his work he had been forced to beat on many people. He had never discriminated between subjects. He knew he had a bad habit of giving in to impatience, but when he required answers, he wanted answers. His life was not a movie, and he had neither the time nor the inclination to coddle the recalcitrant among those with whom he dealt.

  Certainly he liked his job, though not every aspect of it. Take the travel, for example. When the company sent him to fix problems in places like London or Frankfurt, he delighted in the opportunity. Because of his background and his specialized knowledge of his mother's homeland, however, the majority of overseas assignments tended to see him working the streets and byways of Bangalore and Mangalore more often than Berlin or Milan.

  He was very good at his work and prided himself on never having failed to successfully complete an assignment. The company paid him well, albeit surreptitiously. He stayed in the best hotels, always under a fictitious name that matched one of the several fictitious passports he always carried with him. Multinational corporations were even more skillful at obtaining such useful documents than were international terrorists.

  Another employee might have spent as much time as possible at the five-star hotel he had chosen for his base of operations, availing himself of its programmable air-conditioning, fine restaurants, box connections, swimming pool, bakery, and direct-dial call girl service. Chal was far too conscientious for that. He would enjoy himself on his free time. There would be no idle idylls until he had completed his assignment.

  His employers preferably wanted Mr. Taneer Buthlahee returned to the fold alive, or at the very least in sufficient condition to converse. At least for a few days. After that…If matters grew strained, Chal had been instructed to secure only the information that had been illegally appropriated by the wayward Mr. Buthlahee, and his employers would manage without questioning him. It was important this be accomplished as swiftly as possible, lest the missing researcher have the opportunity to solicit a large monetary offer from one or more of their mutual employer's rapacious competitors.

  In addition to the considerable resources the company placed at his disposal, Chal had his own, private network of connections and informers. If such an offer as the company was worried about were to be floated, Chal was as likely as the vagrant researcher to hear about any legitimate response. This would put him in position to intercept both the errant scientist and the offer. It was likely that those putting forth such an offer would object to the visiting Mr. Schneemann's intrusion. That would present a problem. Chal did not worry about such a possibility. He had handled “problems” before. Some of them were even still alive.

  If the pressures of work, or simply of dealing with Sagramanda, became too much for him, Chal knew where to go to simmer down for a day or two. Kanha National Park was a short charter flight from the city but a world away from the urban chaos of the enormous metropolis. It was where Kipling had found the inspiration for his Jungle Book stories. A hilly, ferociously protected segment of old India, it was home to leopards and tigers, sambar and the rare barasingha. There was a l
ittle lodge where one would not be noticed, away from the more popular tourist venues, where he could relax and drink tea and nibble homemade pakoras….

  He dragged himself back to the moment. The verdant tranquility of Kanha was far away.

  As he stepped out of the air-conditioned taxi, the heat and humidity smacked him in the face like the hot towels thrown by the attendant who worked in the hotel sauna. It had always amused him that the posh hotel boasted a sauna, when often it seemed no less hot and humid right outside that establishment's climate-sealed front door. He had less than a block to walk. In that time he encountered perhaps forty people making their home on the older street. A few had raised the crudest of lean-tos of found cardboard and wood against the stone and concrete walls of the permanent buildings. They were well-off compared to the families that were living in the gutter. Hands and voices were raised in his direction as he approached. Both fell quickly when those doing the imploring got a good look at the face of the well-dressed, comparatively light-skinned pedestrian. Poor does not necessarily mean ignorant, much less stupid.

  Chal entered the building, cleared security, and took a lift to the twenty-first floor. At the end of the surprisingly clean and neat hallway was a wall and door of transparent polycarbonate. Glowing letters floating about a centimeter in front of the unshatterable material declared that the rooms beyond housed the offices of Purkhasee Financial, Ltd.

  He announced himself to the door. Someone within cleared him, a hidden buzzer sounded, and he pushed his way through. Ignoring the receptionist before she could so much as open her mouth, he turned to his left and walked all the way down to the last office. He had been here before.

  Mushtaq was waiting for him. A man perhaps too fond of the worldly pleasures that had left him resembling a dissolute Buddha, the advisor was sitting in an elevated pool of warm saltwater, naked except for the briefest of swimsuits. Outside such pools his great weight combined with his weakened heart and circulatory system to place him in grave danger. Floating, he was able to function more or less normally. Both the temperature and saline content of the pool water were rigorously monitored. The view from the pool of the sweltering cityscape outside was impressive.

  “Namaste, Chal! How are you? It has been some long time.” Drifting over to the side of the pool, Mushtaq extended a hand from which protruded fingers that resembled the sausages Chal saw in butcher shop windows during his sojourns in Germany. He shook hands firmly with his host. The moist fingers seemed to envelop his own, as if he had dipped his hand into a mass of damp, clinging gelatin.

  “The same,” Chal replied noncommittally. He did not especially like Mushtaq, but he respected the man's business acumen. A devoted Muslim, his host had one corner of the pool decked out for prayer, complete to a small but priceless antique rug where he could touch his head while inclining toward Mecca. “How are things in the savings and loan business?”

  Mushtaq shrugged. The shrug rippled through his upper body as if his head were a stone that had just been cast into a flesh-colored pool. “Collections are down. You know how it is. People are happy to take your money but not to give it back. Then there are those who do not understand that I am not charging interest, but merely asking for some expression of gratefulness in return for my assistance.”

  Chal helped himself to one of several available chairs, sitting down with his back neither to the wide, sweeping windows nor to the door, but facing a solid wall. “You don't look like you're suffering.”

  Water sloshed out onto the overflow ditch that rimmed the pool as its occupant let loose with a rolling, heaving guffaw. “I suffer every day, my friend, but since it is my own choice, I can only complain to visitors who are sympathetic enough to lend a kind ear to my miseries. I don't expect that from such as you.”

  Chal was not offended by the scarcely veiled affront. He was never offended by the truth. “I need your help.”

  “Of course you do.” Easing over to a platter heaped high with fruits and chocolates, Mushtaq settled on an El Rey mango bar and began peeling off the chilling, enclosing foil. “Nobody ever comes here just to visit.” A sonorous belch escaped the loan shark's corpulent depths, rumbling up from regions even understanding doctors did not like to visit. “Someone has not paid a debt? I wouldn't think you'd need my help to deal with that.”

  “True enough.” A glint of light beyond the window caught Chal's eye. It was only a reflection of the sun off the antenna on the roof of the building opposite. He relaxed again. “I'm looking for a man who quit his job without notice. When he left, he took something that was of value to the company he had been working for.”

  “Nothing so simple as a box terminal, I will wager.” Chocolate smeared Mushtaq's face like misapplied dark brown lipstick.

  “Information. Formulae. You don't need to know more than that.”

  “No, I don't.” His host grunted. “What can I do?”

  “Pass the word along your fingers, of which I know you have many more than ten, with many of them in this disreputable curry or the other.” Chal leaned forward in the chair. “It is highly likely the man will try to sell the information he has stolen to the highest bidder.”

  Pausing with chocolate halfway to gaping mouth, Mushtaq looked slightly alarmed. “This doesn't involve anything lethal, does it? Ever since the Americans dove wholeheartedly into the business of anti-terrorism, I have found it an area of commerce fiscally irresponsible to be involved with.”

  “I am told that the stolen information is scientifically explosive, but not inherently so. You can be assured of that. It involves a practical matter the discovery of which the missing researcher was intimately involved with.” He smiled thinly. “Something to do with vegetables, I believe.”

  Mushtaq stared at him, saw his guest was not joking, started to laugh anyway, then thought better of it. Anything serious enough to require the personal attention of Chalcedony Schneemann was no laughing matter.

  “You want to find this person before he can hold his private little auction.”

  Chal nodded. “As quickly as possible. My employers are most anxious. You have access to and utilize financial resources that do not operate through recognized banking channels. I know you. If an exceptionally large amount of money is about to change hands under less than suitably regulated circumstances, you will know about it.” Rising from the chair, he removed a small mollysphere from his shirt pocket and placed it on the platter among his host's endless parade of snacks.

  “Everything you need to know is there. The usual retainer for your services will be deposited into the appropriate account.” He met the other man's deep-set eyes squarely. “If information supplied by you leads to the successful recovery of the absent gentleman, I believe even you will be startled by the size of the finder's fee you will receive.”

  Sliding over along the edge of the pool, pushing faintly perfumed saltwater out of his way, Mushtaq dried his fingers and picked up the molly. Pinched between fat thumb and forefinger, it gleamed like a silver pearl.

  “Vegetables,” he murmured as he stared at it. His gaze flicked sharply back to scan his visitor's face. It was, as usual, impassive. “I can supply all manner of fruits and vegetables, but I suspect not the kind your employers seek.”

  “No,” Chal agreed. “Apparently only one man can do that, and he doesn't want to be found.”

  “He will be.” Carefully setting the mollysphere aside, Mushtaq pushed away from the pool wall and drifted out into the middle of the twenty-first-floor raised pool, his bulbous body an outré silhouette against the floor-to-ceiling window behind him. “Alive?” he queried.

  “Preferably.” Chal prepared to take his leave. “At least long enough for me to have a chat with him.”

  Anil Buthlahee had come to Sagramanda to kill his son. Also the slut who had not merely seduced him, which was bad enough, but who had somehow managed to corrupt his mind.

  The senior Buthlahee was a traditionalist in the best and worst sense. To him, fo
r a male relative to sleep with a Dalit girl was bad enough. For it to have been his firstborn son was horrific. That Taneer thought so little of his family to even contemplate marrying the woman, whose name shall not be mentioned, was so far beyond any affront Anil had ever experienced that even now he could scarce believe it. Just as he could hardly accept the presence of the gun resting in his pants' pocket, its compact, unyielding shape bumping and grinding against the outer part of his right thigh like some obscene cold-blooded parasite. It held only four small-caliber bullets, each equipped with an explosive head.

  That was twice as many as he would need, he felt.

  Wandering the busy shopping street, Anil found it difficult to concentrate. How could Taneer have done such a thing? He had always been such a good boy. A good boy who had turned into a fine young man. The pride of his family, he had been the first not only to go to university, but to graduate. And then, to be hired by such an important company, and to rise so rapidly within.

  And for what? To throw it all away on some stupid twat? If a man was in desperate need, one who belonged to the venerable VyMohans caste rented such creatures. One did not marry them. One did not bring them into a respectable family such as the Buthlahees.

  Taneer would not do so. It would not be permitted. He, Anil Buthlahee, would not allow it. He had worked too hard. Next year he would turn fifty. Half a century of striving, of seven-day weeks and endless long hours and hard work, and for what? To preside over the wedding of a son to an Untouchable? Was that what his own sainted father and mother had worked so hard for, building up their one small store in Puri, slaving from before sunrise until late into the night to give him, Anil, the base from which to finally obtain a proper loan so he could begin to expand the family business?