Dream Thief (42 page)

“Why would anybody homestead a bridge?” he asked as he watched the unusual scene.

“Look around you—where else is there for them to go? Besides, it's close to the water for bathing and drinking—that's why most of them try it. They may even get to stay there a day or two if no one moves them.”

Spence looked down at the buff-colored water and grimaced. “They surely don't try to drink that stuff.” Adjani didn't say anything, but pointed down along the banks below them.

Every square meter of available space was taken up by crude brush lean-tos and cardboard huts right down to the water's edge. The Hooghly river was both sewer and reservoir to the clamoring masses that crowded its bare earth shores. In the murky light of a new day, as far along the shore as he could see, thousands of river dwellers were going about their daily business; men, women, and children stood naked in the shallows and splashed the foul water over themselves to wash away the previous day's filth.

Near a group of bathers, a starving dog worried a floppy, white rubbery object which Spence at first could not identify. Then with a sick, churning feeling he recognized the thing as a human corpse, bleached white by the river and deposited on the shore.

Spence turned away from the scene with a hollowness in his chest. In a short while the journey resumed. He avoided the accusing stares of the displaced bridge settlers as the car passed them along the side of the road.

For a long time after that he did not say anything.

At midday, though only a few kilometers out of the city, they stopped to eat. Fruit sellers materialized with baskets full of produce to sell to the travelers. Spence was not particularly hungry, but bought two bananas from an old man with a stump leg— mostly out of pity.

Adjani and Gita had gone to confer with Gurjara about the route they would take. Spence sat on the ground in the shade of the car and peeled one of the bananas and munched it thoughtfully.

The air was clearer away from the city, and the land green with tropical foliage. Except for the crumbled pavement underfoot they might have been a safari from long ago exploring an uncharted territory—the sense of the new unknown was strong in Spence.

To the north the foothills rose in even steps leading to the high mountains which showed as little more than a faint purplish smudge in the sky behind the hills. Somewhere up ahead in those hills was Darjeeling, jewel of the mountains. Six days, seven, maybe more away. Rangpo was further still.

Spence sighed; perhaps they were on a wild goose chase. Perhaps Ari was nowhere within a million kilometers of those superstition-breeding hills. Thinking of her, wondering about her, worrying over her had made him sick at heart. He kept telling himself, and anyone else who would listen, that he should have done something to help her. Adjani had pointed out time and again that her kidnapping had been carefully arranged and that she was probably out of the building before they had entered the room.

“What about the scream? That was her scream, I know it.”

“How do you know? We both heard what we were meant to hear. We were summoned when our presence was required and not until then. Do you really think that if there had been a struggle we would not have heard it? We were but a few steps from the door and could have rescued her easily if she had been there to rescue. No, they knew where to find her. They were watching her, waiting for a chance to act.”

“But why? What is
she
in all of this? Why didn't they take me?”

Adjani shook his head. “I don't know. But we're doing the right thing. We'll just have to trust God to show us what to do when the time comes.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I don't see that we have any other choice—do you? We were meant to follow. So be it. We follow.”

Spence felt he had betrayed his beloved. It frustrated him to have to sit in the road eating bananas while she waited for him to rescue her.

He finished the banana and tossed the peel away.

At once there was a flurry of motion at the roadside where he had tossed the peel. Two children—a girl about eight years old and wrapped in a ragged, faded sari, and her brother of about five who wore only a man's sleeveless shirt—dived after the banana skin. They had been watching Spence from a distance and when he threw the peeling, they pounced.

The girl brushed the dirt away from the peeling and pulled a small square of frayed cloth from the folds of her sari. She spread out the cloth neatly and she and her brother sat down.

With patience and care she began pulling the long stringy soft portion of the inner peel away from the skin. When she was done she discarded the outer skin and divided the remains with the boy.

They ate them slowly and with deliberation as if they were munching a great delicacy best enjoyed at leisure. Spence was so moved by the sight that he went to the children and held out the other banana.

The girl's eyes grew big and round and the little boy cowered at his sister's shoulder. Spence smiled and offered the banana more insistently; he could tell by the way they looked at it that both wanted it very much. They were simply too shy to accept it.

So, Spence put the banana down on the dirty square of cloth and walked back to the car and sat down. As soon as his back was turned the girl snatched up the banana, peeled it, and broke it in half. Both were slowly chewing the fruit when Spence returned to the car.

Adjani and Gita returned and they began discussing their plans for the immediate future. They heard the soldiers call out and the pop of the jeep firing. As they were climbing back into the car Spence felt a tug at his elbow.

He turned to see the little girl and her brother. He started to gesture to them that he had no more bananas when the girl smiled prettily and with some ceremony presented him with his banana peel.

Spence grinned and gave the peel back. Both looked at each other as if unable to believe their good fortune and then scampered off to devour the rest of their prize.

The happy look in the children's eyes warmed Spence the rest of the day.

“It's just a little thing,” he replied to Adjani's knowing glance. “It's nothing.”

“It's more than you think, my friend.”

Thereafter he always made it a point to buy three bananas.

Y
OU'RE IN A LOT
of trouble, Packer. Care to tell me what this is all about?" Elliot Ramm, Gotham security chief, crossed his long legs and leaned on the edge of his desk. A penitent Olmstead Packer sat facing him with his hands between his knees and his face long and unhappy. There was a note of smoldering indignation in his voice when he spoke.

“To tell you the truth, Chief Ramm, I don't know myself” He jerked a thumb toward the two guards who stood watching him with cool disinterest. “Maybe you should ask your men. I was just talking to a friend when they came in and grabbed me.”

The security chief nodded to his men, dismissing them. “I have your report. You can return to duty.” He turned to Packer. “I also have a statement from Dr. Williams. He says that you obtained entrance to his infirmary under false pretenses after you were told you could not see the patient Kalnikov. He claims you were endangering the life of his patient.”

Packer grinned sheepishly. “I guess I may have overdramatized a bit.”

“Hmph.” Chief Ramm picked up a white folder from his desk. “He's pressing charges against you.”

“He's
what?”
Packer suddenly became very red. “He's nuts! This is all crazy. Let me talk to him. I didn't mean any harm. It was that nurse of his—she acted too snippy and fresh; I just decided to take matters into my own hands.”

A faint smile crossed Ramm's lips; he nodded and shoved a lock of his black hair away from his forehead. “All right, I believe you. You scientists hate to be told 'no' to anything.”

“Then I can go?” Packer asked hopefully. He had been in detention for over three hours, and was getting tired.

“I'm afraid it's not that simple. Whether I believe you or not doesn't really make a lot of difference. You see, Williams has filed a formal complaint. It's up to the director to review it and decide what to do.”

“Director Zanderson's gone. No telling when he'll be back.”

“I'm sorry. You'll have to stay here until he gets back, or—”

“Or what? If there's another way to settle this I'm all for it.”

“Or Dr. Williams could agree to drop the charges.”

“Then let's talk to him by all means. I'm sure he'll listen to reason.”

Ramm held up a hand. “Not so fast! He was pretty steamed up over this. I'd let him cool off a little first.”

“But I've got to get out of here. I'm a busy man; I've got an experiment running.”

“It'll just have to run without you for a while. You should have thought of that before your performance of Swan Lake in the sick bay.”

“All right, I guess I had that coming.”

“I'll talk to Williams after a bit and see what I can do.”

“I'd appreciate it, Chief Ramm.” Packer rose and shuffled to the portal. “You know, there's something funny about this whole thing. I never knew anyone to have to be sedated after getting buzzed by a taser. I thought those things were fairly safe, if you know what I mean.”

“I'm sure there's an explanation. I'll check into it. In the meantime you can wait in the outer office until I get this cleared up. I won't put you in the tank.”

Packer nodded and left. Security Chief Ramm returned to the chair behind his desk and picked up his officers' report and glanced over it. He tossed it down on the desk, laced his hands behind his head, and leaned back in his chair. He frowned as if deep in thought and then shoved his chair back, rose, put on his red and black cap with its gold emblem, and went in search of the physician.

ARI HAD NEVER SEEN
her father so shaken. He sat slumped in the seat beside her, face white as the pale sliver of moon that shone in the jet's small oval window. His eyes were closed, though she knew he was not asleep. He was shutting out the reality of what was happening around him.

The plane was not large; their captors sat all around them and watched them incessantly. Although they had not forbidden them to talk to one another, their close proximity tended to limit the exchanges between father and daughter to mere whispers and nods.

She knew there was more to what was happening than she had as yet been told, more than their kidnapping and the trouble with Spence, though he was certainly central to the whole escapade. Her father seemed to know more than he let on, and the way it had affected him was not explainable in terms of his normal behavior. Ari was seeing a new side of her father and it scared her.

She went to sleep wondering what it was that he knew and would not, or could not, tell her.

The plane flew on through the night, stopping only once for refueling at a hoverport in Germany. Ari roused herself and peered sleepily out the window. She saw a golden-gray dawn sky and a ground crew of men in blue overalls wheeling orange machines around the wings of the jet. Across the field she saw a building with signs on the roof in German and guessed they were somewhere in the middle of Europe at least.

When she woke again the blue sky held a fierce white sun above a lumpy landscape of gray and white clouds. She could not see the earth below and had no idea where they were or which direction they were heading. Not that it mattered at all.

Shortly after that she and her father were given a simple breakfast: orange juice and a dry roll. No one else seemed to be eating, so Ari thought they were at least being shown some small courtesy. She hadn't eaten in almost a day, and wolfed down the food in several large bites, then turned to her father.

“Daddy, you're not eating.”

“I'm not very hungry, dear. You may have my roll if you like.”

“No; you eat something and drink your juice. You have to keep your strength up. No telling when we might eat again, and anyway we want to be alert for any chance of escape.”

Her father did not say anything, but his expression gave her to know that he considered any thought of escape pure foolishness.

The jet dropped down through the clouds and landed on a square of concrete hear a small town on the edge of a desert. Ari could see brown desolate hills in the distance and the white stucco buildings of the town like bleached bones in the sun. Squat, bushy-topped palm trees and low dusty shrubs stood off away from the landing field like forlorn travelers awaiting transportation that never arrives. There were no human passengers or greeting committee that Ari could see on her side of the plane.

Someone popped the hatch and the cool interior of the craft was assaulted by warm dry air from the desert. Then, one by one, all of the occupants disembarked. Ari and her father stayed in their seats until Tickler came back and told them to get out. They emerged from the plane and walked a few paces along the concrete landing pad.

“Stay in sight!” Tickler called. But other than that admonition no one seemed to pay the least attention to them.

Hocking and his assistants withdrew to the far side of the pad to confer with a group of five or six men in black and white kaftans, fuel smugglers, no doubt. Ari thought she saw a camel's head moving among the shrubbery a little way off.