Pegasus in Space (11 page)

“Peter, let’s launch this. I’ve promised Greene a full report on its performance and comfort in long-distance hauling.”

“Peter’s not supposed to
work,
” Tirla protested, casually giving Lance Baden another of her scrutinies.

“For Peter this is play, fun, and cream tea with scones,” Lance said, gesturing to Peter to proceed.

Abruptly they were not in the warehouse anymore but in very bright sun, planted on one leg of the telepad H. Safely outside the circumference of the painted circle around the telepad, Kayankira was seated at the wheel of a battered four-wheel-drive ground vehicle.

She dismounted immediately, a slender woman, a thick braid of black hair down her back, dressed in traditional Bengali garb. She ran toward them, her face beaming with delight.

You have arrived. Scarcely have I stopped the engine and you are here. How many minutes, seconds does such a journey take?
Then the Delhi Center chief was shaking hands as the passengers emerged into dry and dehydrating heat.
I know you, Carmen Stein. Your mind is unmistakable. Lance, it is good to see your face, no longer contorted with the anxieties with which that appalling Barchenka burdened you. And has she not had her just deserts! And who is this?
She took a short step backward, throwing her arms wide in a surprise welcome, as Tirla emerged, looking about her in total amazement at the sun-washed plain of Zia Airport.

She’s frightened
, Carmen said, and smiled reassuringly, holding out her hand to Tirla.
She’s never been anyplace this open or uninhabited
.

Ooh, but she looks like one of us
. Kayankira touched her chest with both hands. She brought them together in the formal salute of her part of the world. Almost dazed, Tirla hesitated. In another second, she evidently recovered from culture shock. She folded her hands in front of her chest.

“
Namaskar ji,
” she said in flawless Hindi.

Kayankira’s expressive face registered total amazement.

Did you tell her everything about me?

We told her nothing, Kayan
, Lance replied with a broad grin.

She gets your language right from your head, ma’am
, Peter explained quickly so that the Delhi Center chief would not think badly of his good friend.
She doesn’t know she does it but it’s what she does best
.

Ah, the little one I have heard about
.

“
Namaskar, kya hal he?
” Kayankira replied.

“Stick to English, please, Tirla,” Lance said. “We all understand that.”

Tirla cocked an eyebrow in his direction. “I am fine, thank you,” she said to Kayankira very, very politely.

Ah, when she is old enough to be employed, I have first dibs
.

Get in line
, Carmen said. “Lord but it’s roasting out here.” She fanned herself with her hand. “I need some shade where I can concentrate on locating. What is the child’s name?”

“To the vehicle,” Kayankira said, pointing to it and gathering her passengers in the circle of her free arm to herd them toward it. Peter and Lance
began shucking their jackets and rolling up their sleeves. Though Tirla was dressed for Jerhattan, too, she strode as if mere climate was not affecting her.

She was glad enough to reach the shade, drink thick sweet coffee, and munch her way through European-style breakfast breads in the Zia passenger terminal. She had eyes only for the fascinating promenade of passersby and their sometimes exotic-looking burdens. Peter was trying to emulate Tirla’s composed manner but then she was more accustomed to Neesters from her years in Linear G.

“So, what
is
the child’s name, Lance?” Carmen repeated when she had had a restorative sip of the coffee.

“I don’t know. Wasn’t it mentioned in the journal?”

“I didn’t read it. When I realized that the father was dead, I used the photograph of the child as a focus.”

Tirla paused long enough in her surveillance of the terminal to extract Lance’s rectangle from her pack and hand it to the finder. Carmen passed it over to Lance who quickly riffled through pages, trying to find personal references.

“Ah, Amariyah?” He stumbled over his pronunciation of the written word, putting the accent on the second syllable.

“AmaREEyah, I would say,” Kayankira replied. “Though it is not a common Indian name, neither Muslim or Hindu.”

“Nor does it sound Russian, which was the mother’s nationality,” Lance said.

Peter groaned.
Not another
shelkoonchik?

“A nutcracker?” Tirla asked, frowning at Peter.

Kayankira’s eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets.
Russian, too?

Carmen gave a shrug.
She can do it with any language
.

How
does
she do it?
the Delhi Center chief asked.

As well ask how Peter heaves space shuttles about
, Lance said with an equally bemused lift of his shoulders.

“What has a nutcracker to do with Amariyah?” and the name flowed prettily from Tirla’s lips.

“Nothing, I believe. But Amariyah is the child we have come to find. Now if you will all be quiet.” Carmen put a finger on the face of the child sitting so solemnly between her parents and closed her eyes.

Tirla closed her eyes, too, so she wouldn’t inadvertently distract the finder. That was one parapsychic courtesy that she always observed. She was also fond of Carmen, now that she saw the great benefits that had come of Carmen finding her in the first place.

“She’s quite a ways from here,” Carmen finally said.

“I
can
not
understand what you could have been thinking!” Sister Kathleen was saying, shaking with frustration and anger. She was holding a dusty Amariyah away from her and the girl, usually so self-effacing and gentle, was trying to twist free, flailing her arms. To go right back to tearing more hair off the scalp of the hysterically weeping Lila, curled up in the wreckage of what everyone in the orphanage knew was Amariyah’s garden. All the other girls were ringed about the little tableau, well out of range of either Amariyah’s or Sister Kathleen’s retribution, staring in round-eyed, openmouthed fascination.

“I was thinking she has killed my garden,” Amariyah cried. “She is still rolling in it. You are surely seeing that much!” Too tightly held in Sister Kathleen’s capable firm grip to pull more of Lila’s luxuriant tresses from her head, the furious little girl now kicked dust at her victim with her bare feet.

From the corner of the main building, Sister Epiphania came rushing to discover the cause of Lila’s continuous shrieks. Epiphania paused a moment, taking in the incredible scene of the prostrate Lila and her colleague holding the struggling Amariyah.

“Oh, dear Lord, oh dear Lord, save us,” Sister Epiphania chanted as she rushed forward to succor Lila, who screamed in terror when ’Phania touched her. She had her eyes tightly closed, as much against the dust Amariyah was kicking at her, as because she knew she had been caught doing something wicked. “Lila, dear Lila, it is I.”

The voice reassuring her, Lila opened her eyes enough to see that she was safe. She clung to Sister Epiphania, shrieking out that she would never be married now, with all the hair pulled from her head.

“Nonsense,” Sister Kathleen said, coping with Amariyah’s flailing. “Do take that …” Kathleen firmly closed her lips on the adjective she was going to apply to the malicious Lila, paused, and rephrased her sentence, “that
child and bathe her scalp. She’s by no means badly hurt. Certainly not enough to keep caterwauling.” Although, she thought candidly to herself, who would marry such a mean-spirited creature was moot.

Soothingly, Sister Epiphania managed to get Lila to her feet and led her away through the circle of watching children.

“Now, Amariyah, let us deal with you,” Sister Kathleen said in her firmest no-nonsense voice. “I cannot believe that you, of all the children here, would display a vicious streak!”

“She ruined my garden!”Amariyah suddenly collapsed, sinking into a pathetic bundle, tears streaming down her dusty face as she picked up first this clump of greenery and then that. She held them to her mouth, in the age-old gesture of grief, completely bereft. She did not scream, she did not sob, but the tears kept pouring out of her sorrowful blue eyes in a manner that totally unnerved Sister Kathleen.

“Oh, my dear child, do not take on so.” The nun pulled the little girl up, broken plants and all, stroking the tangled hair, rocking the slender body in her arms. “You can replant the garden,” she said encouragingly.

“It is the dry season,”Amariyah wailed, though she surrendered to the motion of Sister Kathleen’s body. “Nothing will bud or bloom in the dry season. Surely you are knowing this.”

“Go about your tasks,” Sister Kathleen said, realizing that the entire orphanage was avid witness to the scene. She raised one arm to scatter the audience. “Tula, Rabiah, take the washing down before the sun bleaches all the color away. Soma, Lota, take the little ones to the banyan tree and finish telling them their story. Sakti, Reva, you were supposed to be drawing water. Be sure to put the jars in the shade to cool for our supper. Habibah, Risha, Uma … all of you big girls, you have not finished hoeing the potatoes.” She shooed them all about their sundry tasks, rocking Amariyah in time to her orders.

“Now, little one, what shall I do with you?” She held the child away from her and was unutterably affected by the tears still rolling down the woebegone little face. “Never in all the time you have been with us, have you misbehaved!”

“My flowers (sob), my vege(sob)tables (sob) are all dead,” and the murmured words were bitter. “Nothing I can do will bring them back to life.” She opened her hands and displayed the limp and wilted remains of
her once thriving plants. “Why? Why did Lila kill them? They had done her no harm. She is an assassin!”

Sister Kathleen pressed her lips together, wondering why she wanted to cry, too. Crying was not an effective answer to any problem that she knew of. She was flummoxed by the fact that this was the first time Amariyah had wept. She was such a self-contained little body, diligent with her assigned tasks, willing to do anything required of her. She had been so good with the little ones when the fever struck, even deserting her garden during the emergency. Whatever had possessed Lila? Of course, the girl was older, starting her menses when, as every woman knew, females were more likely to be perverse. Especially the Bengali girls, who matured far too young, Sister Kathleen thought. Lila would soon be thirteen and all her thoughts were on marriage. The girl refused to even consider the alternatives now available to the young women of Bangladesh. Well, Kathleen thought philosophically, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

“Now, child, we will wash your face and hands and dry your tears.” She rose, trying to lift Amariyah to her feet, but the girl writhed out of her grasp.

Amariyah hunkered down and began tenderly gathering up the dead stalks and stems. “You must be going into the compost. You will be going with my love because you were rewarding me with your beauty and your strength. After death there can be life in another form. It is written.”

Sister Kathleen stared in surprise and watched as Amariyah finished collecting the remains and walked toward the efficient composting tank, the very welcome gift of some Ladies Group in England. Kathleen did not remember where, but the gift was much appreciated.

“When you are done, Amariyah, I will wash your face and hands.”

She heard a murmured response and rather thought it had to do with being able to wash her own self without help.

Sister Kathleen shook her head, wondering if, perhaps, she should have reminded the child of her manners. A reprimand right now was inappropriate. And, besides, Amariyah was one of the few girls who could be counted on for scrupulous courtesy. Father Salih and the Bahadur had both commented on her deportment. She watched a moment longer as Amariyah returned for another load of damaged plants, her expression
still woeful, but the amazing tears had stopped. Sister Kathleen turned toward the infirmary where little shrieks suggested that Sister Epiphania was anointing Lila’s torn scalp. Sister Kathleen caught herself smiling. Lila deserved, at least in this small measure, physical and mental discomfort for such a random act of senseless destruction.

As the cool of evening settled in, Sister Kathleen had occasion to pass the spot where Amariyah’s garden had flourished. She halted, staring at the place that had been raked clean of pebbles: not even so much as one of the twigs that had provided a little fence remained.

“Oh, dear,” and Kathleen was truly and devastatingly appalled at the sight. “Oh, poor dear Amariyah!” She looked about the little clumps of girls playing games. She couldn’t spot Amariyah. Of course, Amariyah was
always
gardening at this hour. She looked again toward the wide-spreading limbs of the banyan tree where the girls were gathered. That is when she saw the dust cloud rising in the distance. She thought little of it, since this was the hour when people did undertake journeys, when the fierce sun was setting.

She was astonished when twenty minutes later the sturdy ground vehicle came to a discreet halt at the orphanage gate. The driver descended and came to the gate, a Hindu to judge by her clothes and indubitably high-caste. She scolded herself briefly for adding that to her first impression. The visitor saw her and folded her hands politely, smiling such a warm greeting that Kathleen smiled back.

“Is this the Orphanage of the Holy Innocents?” the visitor asked.

“Yes, it is.” Kathleen paused for the visitor to identify herself.

“I am known as Kayankira, and I am Chief of the Delhi Bureau.”

Kathleen noticed that she did not explain
which
bureau, but the stranger’s manners and deference to her were so charming that she could not feel any harm in her.

“I am Sister Kathleen Rose. I am in charge here. My colleague is Sister Epiphania Gibson.”

“Ah, Sister Kathleen,” the Bureau Chief said with another polite bow, “allow me to present my companions?” She turned to a woman of at least forty years, with the most serene face the Sister had ever seen on a layperson. “This is Carmen Stein, an old friend of mine. Here is also her young friend, Tirla Tunnelle, who is traveling just now in Bangladesh. Also Peter Reidinger. And last but never least is my old friend, Lance Baden.”