Jani and the Greater Game (The Multiplicity Series Book 1) (17 page)

“So you admit that you know about the creature’s crimes?”

She smiled. “Of course I do – you just told me what he did.”

She detected a very brief flicker of irritation in the eyes of the dark-haired Russian and allowed herself to feel a scintilla of satisfaction.

“Our informant also told us that you were given something by the creature, something which you mistakenly assumed at the time to be a coin. Now, what did you do with this object?”

Her mind raced. She had spoken to one person only about the coin – her father, that morning, as he lay dying...

She opened her mouth in sudden realisation.

She knew, then, the identity of their informant. There had been only one other person with them in the room – her father’s nurse, Mr Vikram, beyond the concealing curtain, listening to every word that passed between her and her father.

She stared at the young Russian. “Now it is you who are prattling childishly,” she said. “I was not given a coin, because I had no contact with any such creature.”

At this, Kaspar raised a hand to silence the young man’s next question. He reached into a pocket of his surgeon’s gown and held up his right hand. Something filigree and silver twinkled in the weak sunlight falling through the skylights.

“Do you recognise this, Miss Chatterjee?” Kaspar said.

She shook her head. “No. No, I don’t.”

He smiled, his expression smug. “It’s a rather clever British invention,” he said, “which has recently fallen into our hands. It is what your oppressors have termed a Cognitive Wave Amplification Device. Or CWAD, as the British call it.”

“It means,” Jani said, “nothing to me.”

“Then allow me to explain. A CWAD is an ingenious device which allows the operator – in this case myself – to read the very thoughts of the subject – in this case yourself. The process of having this implanted is exquisitely painful. Indeed some subjects have suffered agonising deaths during the implantation of the nexus and the subsequent retrieval of their thoughts.”

Kaspar gestured to the autopsy table. “Now, we will not hesitate to fit this device to your pretty little head in order to learn what we need to know. In fact, my colleague here is relishing the experience. However, you might wish to forego the operation, and save yourself a lot of pain, by simply telling us what we want to know. What did you do with the object given to you by the creature?”

She allowed the seconds to elapse, each one marked by the loud thumping of her heart. She had little doubt that they would carry out their threats and affix the device... but even if she gave in and told them about the coin, would they believe that she had accepted the ‘gift’ from Jelch and then, somewhere aboard the train to Delhi, lost it?

She shook her head, slowly, and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and... and even if I did, I would tell you nothing.”

She looked from one man to the other, hoping they might see the hatred in her eyes.

Kaspar stood and approached the cage. Jani held her ground, though she felt the impulse to back off.

“We will give you a short while in which to reconsider your reply, Miss Chatterjee. After that we will return and perform the operation.”

She watched the men as they turned and strode from the chamber. They passed through the door and slammed it resoundingly behind them.

A silence descended. At least, she thought, she was not destined to suffer the fate of these unfortunate creatures... though she had little doubt that the Russians would have no qualms about killing her if they did not get what they wanted... or even if they did.

She lowered herself to the floor, and the image of her father, smiling at her, filled her mind’s eye, and she held onto it as if it were a treasure.

She looked around the chamber, searching for something she might use as a weapon. She might have known that they would have catered for that eventuality and cleared the area around her prison. On the autopsy table, however, she made out a collection of knives and scalpels – but would she be able to use them when the time came? It was the uncertainty of the situation that was so unsettling.

She crouched in the corner of the cage and shut her eyes. She wondered if Anand and Mr Rai had become concerned and called the police: but she had been gone no more than two hours, and they would not have the slightest concern that she had not yet returned.

She heard a voice saying her name, opened her eyes and stared in disbelief.

“How...” she managed at last in a whisper, “how did you get in here?”

It was as if the creature had not heard the question. He sat on his haunches, staring in at her. She took in his ragged breeches, his bare, elongated torso which she was sure, now, possessed more ribs than was the norm. Was she dreaming, she wondered? Was this yet another manifestation of her wishful thinking? “Jelch?”

“Janisha Chatterjee.” Again his voice was barely a croak. “You have suffered much of late, and you will suffer much more before your journey is over.”

“I only wish to be away from this place! Please, can you help me?”

He stared at her with eyes more fishlike than human, flat and grey and glaucous. “I cannot physically help you. That is beyond my present powers. However, I will advise you now, and again later, when you might be in need of my help.”

She choked with something like despair. “I don’t understand. How did you get in here? Surely you can get me out.” She stared at the lock on the cage. “The cage!” she said, understanding. “You cannot open the lock!”

“I am, in one way, as helpless as yourself. You see, I am not really here, Janisha.”

She managed a short laugh. “So I
am
hallucinating you!” she said. “There really is no hope...”

“There is always hope.”

She stared at him; he seemed real enough. “So, if you are not here, then where are you?”

“I am running from the British, in the hills north of Delhi.”

“But...” she began.

“I fear they will imprison me, ignore my warnings as they ignored those of my compatriot. Time is of the essence, Janisha, and I cannot risk being apprehended.”

She recalled her father telling her about the Morn in London, its warning... She shook her head, close to tears. “I’m sorry... I just don’t understand any of this.”

“Be brave, Janisha. You will escape from here, be assured of that. Luck will be on your side. And when you do flee this terrible place, you must head east. Take the train from Delhi to the hill station of Rishi Tal.”

“I ‘must’ head east? But I want nothing more than to return home, to attend my father’s funeral.”

“Please believe me when I say that you are in danger. Not only the Russians desire to apprehend you. Under no circumstances must you return home. You
must
go to Rishi Tal.”

She shook her head, bewildered. “And there?”

“At Rishi Tal, with luck, I will meet you, and then guide you onwards to Nepal.”

“Nepal? But that is restricted territory!”

“With my help, you will make your way to the foothills of the Himalayas.”

She stared at him, incredulous. “And... and why
must
I do this?”

Jelch smiled, and it was as if his thin lips were not accustomed to performing the expression. “For the ultimate benefit of your planet, Janisha, and all who live upon it.”

She blinked, but the creature remained squatting before her, as seemingly real as the bars of her cage.

“And where will I meet you in Rishi Tal?” she asked.

“You will know the place,” he said cryptically.

She felt tears fill her eyes at the enormity of his words, at the hopelessness of her plight.

I have yet to escape from this prison, she thought to herself.

She started at the sound of bolts being shot, and stared across the chamber to the timber door. She turned back to Jelch, intending to exhort him to hide – but the creature had disappeared as if, all along, he had been no more than a figment of her optimistic imagination.

CHAPTER

NINE

The Russians return – Jani fights for her life –

The Mech-Man intervenes –

“The only pilot in India...”

S
HE JUMPED TO
her feet as Kaspar and his cohort entered the chamber. She did not want to be seen crouching, subservient, when they approached. She would face them foursquare, proudly.

They came to a halt before the cage and Kaspar, staring in at her with his piggy eyes, said, “Well?”

She took a breath. “I cannot change the facts. I met no creature; I was given no coin.”

The young man was carrying something; it looked to Jani like the interior of an old wireless, stripped of its casing. Two wires looped from the device and were connected to the filigree nexus of the CWAD, which Kaspar held with odd daintiness in his sausage-thick fingers.

The latter smiled, and both men turned and placed the CWAD and its accompanying wireless device at one end of the autopsy table. When Kaspar returned to the cage, he was holding something in his right hand. At first Jani thought it was a long cigarette holder, and she wondered if he was about to enjoy a leisurely smoke while he toyed with her again. She glanced at the young Russian; he was standing beside the autopsy table, examining the scalpels with evident anticipation.

Kaspar said, “You have had time to reconsider your lies. It would be much easier for you if you simply told the truth. All I want to know is the whereabouts of the device the creature gave to you, and then we will release you.”

She stared at him. “How can I be sure of that? How can I be sure that you won’t kill me to ensure my silence?”

“You have my word.”

“Your word? The word of a Russian, whose soldiers were responsible for the deaths of a thousand innocent people?”

Kaspar merely shrugged. “In war, Miss Chatterjee, there are always innocent victims, on both sides. The British are not guiltless.”

From the autopsy table, the young man snapped something in Russian. Kaspar replied, then turned to Jani. “Enough prevarication, Miss Chatterjee. Time is pressing. What did you do with the device?”

For a fleeting second she considered playing for time and admitting that Jelch did indeed give her something that looked like a coin, but that she had mislaid it. Then she abandoned the notion: it would gain her only minutes, if that, and would be met with disbelief.

She gripped the bars and looked Kaspar in the eye. “I was given no device,” she said.

When they dragged her from the cage, she decided, she would be acquiescent until she reached the table – and then she would surprise them with her ferocity as she grabbed a scalpel and set about the pair.

Her heart sank as Kaspar raised the cigarette holder to his lips, and Jani realised that it was not a cigarette holder but a blow-pipe.

His cheeks inflated – two ridiculous little red apples – and he spat a dart through the bars at her.

She jumped back, shocked. The dart pierced the material of her dress, but, instead of pain, all she felt was a dull pressure. She stared down, and realised what had happened. The feathered tail of the dart protruded from the centre of her sternum, embedded not in her flesh but in the wooden frame of the tiny picture of her mother that her father had given her before her voyage to England...