Different Senses (74 page)

“No, that’s the worst thing to
do,” Shardul yelled. “Just run...and pray.”

“Funny man!” I shouted back,
even as we picked ourselves up and tried to put some speed on. We
caught up to Sanjeev and grabbed his arm, because fear had
paralysed the man and he couldn’t seem to comprehend the danger we
were in.

Another lightning strike, a
little further away. Did that mean the storm was passing? I cursed
my ignorance of natural phenomena and clung tightly to Shardul and
Sanjeev, for protection as much as to protect.

Great. Now another flood
blocked the path. “Hold onto him,” I shouted to Shardul. “I’ll see
how deep it goes.”

I grabbed the torch from
Sanjeev’s hand, and edged carefully into the black pool. I slipped
but managed to keep my feet. I reached midpoint, where the water
only came to mid-calf. “Looks okay! Let me get to the other side,
and you can come over!”

Shardul waved to show he’d
heard. I pressed on and reached the other side of the flood without
incident. “It’s fine. Just slippery.”

I held the torch to try and
give the two of them some light, though the torch was pathetically
weak and the driving gusts of wind and rain meant the beam did
little good. What I wouldn’t have given for my service flashlight
right now.

Thunder cracked, and more
lightning flashed way too close. “Hurry!” I yelled.

They were nearly clear of the
water when a sound like a thousand gunshots went off in my left
ear, and I threw my arm over my eyes to protect them against the
flare. Lightning had struck a tree about ten metres from me. I was
just thinking, “Good thing it was too wet to cause a forest fire,”
when Shardul bellowed, “Watch out! Ja...Gafur! It’s falling!”

I twisted, looked up, and too
late realised what he’d seen. I ran, but the damn mud and
treacherous stones sent me sprawling. “Run!” Shardul screamed, but
before I could get up, a giant’s fist smacked me across the head,
and drove me into the dark.

Chapter 8

I came to in pain and highly
confused as to why I was wet and being pelted with water. Someone
shone a light in my face and I yelped. “Thank the Spirit,” the
someone said. “He’s awake.”

“Sh-Shardul?”

“Yes, it’s me. Lie still. You
have a head injury.”

“’Kay.” I closed my eyes, in
too much pain to prod my uncertain memories, or to ask what in the
name of reason was going on.

I passed out again while
Shardul and Sanjeev carried me clumsily, hands under my armpits and
ankles. I woke again on a jolting, hard surface, Shardul clutching
my hand. “Shhh, it’s a cart. Not long now,” he soothed.

It felt like forever, but the
painful jolting did stop, and more hands helped me out of the cart.
Strangers’ voices spoke orders in Nihani, and Shardul dried me off
before setting me, wrapped in a rough blanket, on a chair before a
fire. I huddled there in misery, eyes closed against the fire’s
glare, too dazed and in pain to care what was going on. Shardul was
there, and while he was, I could let him take charge.

A little while later, a woman
spoke to him and then Shardul urged me to stand and get out of my
wet things. He manhandled me into dry underwear the woman must have
given him, and urged me with Sanjeev’s help into another room,
where at last I could lie down on a real bed, under real
covers.

I felt I should
do
something, but honestly, I couldn’t make myself. My limbs
were leaden, frozen, and my thoughts too fuzzy to make them work.
All I could do was shiver. I heard Shardul speaking in Nihani with
someone at the door of the room, then the quiet click of the door
closing.

“I have their medical kit. Let
me check your injuries.”

“Kn-know what you’re doing?” I
mumbled, eyes still closed.

“Enough, and do you really want
them poking around your face? Your cheek is torn, perhaps
fractured.” I lifted a hand to touch it, but he pushed it away.
“Don’t. I can patch it up until we return to Hegal. I’m more
concerned about your concussion, but unless we could call for air
transport, there’s no way we can get you to a hospital tonight.
And, er, I think it’s better that didn’t happen here.”

“Where?”

He started to gently clean the
injuries. It hurt, but I could tell he was being as careful as
possible, and like he said, better him than the strangers. “I don’t
know. North, somewhere. I’m being as friendly and unthreatening as
possible. Sanjeev told the family we’re lovers, so this is our
room. I have clean, dry clothes for us, and Nadira is bringing a
hot brick for you. We're safe here, I think. For tonight, at
least.”

“Why tonight?” I wanted to ask,
but then I remembered. The people we were supposed to meet. How
would we do that now? I decided to worry about that later.

He put something cold which
stung on my cheek. “Is it bad?”

“Bad enough,” he admitted.
“Your cheek is crushed, but I think it’s the implant, not your
bone.”

He shone the lamp in my eyes. I
knocked his hand away. “Stop it.”

“I have to check your
pupils.”

I muttered something rude about
“Doctor Shardul” but let him do what he wanted.

“They seem okay. If you do have
a brain haemorrhage going, there’s nothing much I can do for
you.”

I screwed up my nose at him,
which hurt. “Thanks.”

“I don’t really think you’re
dying.” He found that entirely too amusing, I thought.

Having the cuts, bumps and
abrasions cleaned and dressed took a long time, and I enjoyed none
of it. But by the end, I was a little warmer, and with the stone
the farmers had heated for me in their stove and wrapped in a
towel, tucked against my side, I felt almost comfortable. Their
herbal painkiller did nothing for the headache or the pain in my
back and shoulder.

Shardul pulled a pair of loose
sleeping pants onto me, handling me as dispassionately as he would
a mannequin, and dressed out of my sight in the same manner. He
climbed into the bed beside me, and though in other circumstances
this would be a dream come true, all I could think was how warm he
was. “You’re like ice,” he murmured. “Still feel rotten?”

“Mmmm. Better. Thanks.”

“I’ll try and put them off
tomorrow, give you time to recover. Should I try and cancel this
meeting, get you back to the city?”

“No. Not yet. Think
tomorrow.”

“Understood. Rest well.”

I wanted to say the same, but
exhaustion and brain fog tugged me under.

~~~~~~~~

When I woke next, there was
light through the windows, and the rain had stopped.

I’d been knocked out—and
about—before so I expected the next morning to be lousy, and I was
right. But with Shardul a deceptively peaceful, warm presence next
to me, all I wanted to do was curl around him and pretend I could
wake up with him every morning. But he wasn’t Kirin or my lover at
all, and this situation was the last thing I’d have engineered, so
I had to keep my pleasure to myself, and not let it colour my
reactions.

Trying not to disturb him, I
tested my body the way I’d learned to do after the shooting four
years ago, stretching carefully, listening to the pings and pains.
Nothing broken. All the aches concentrated on my head, neck and
shoulders, and for the first time, I realised I’d had the most
incredible escape. It had to have been a branch, not the trunk,
that hit me or I’d be a soggy smear on that damn path.

My head was the worst of it,
throbbing madly, and when I finally stood, I knew I’d be nauseous.
The longer I could rest, the better I’d be, but how long I’d be
allowed depended on the people who wanted to meet me. Part of me
wanted to accept Shardul’s suggestion and slink back to Hegal—but
then we’d just have to go through this again, and soon.

No, better to stick with the
plan. At least any oddities on my part could be explained by the
head injury.

But right now, I didn’t want to
move. Shardul’s handsome face in sleep was a picture of serenity. I
would have happily lain there for hours, watching, relishing the
illicit luxury of being close to him. It hurt, of course. I wanted
him so much, and here he was, actually thigh to thigh with me. It
was nothing but an illusion, I knew that, but the last few weeks
had had precious few moments of pleasure, or of beauty—or peace—and
I was weak enough to take what I could get, while I could.

I dozed again, for how long, I
didn’t know, and when I woke again, Shardul was up, sitting in a
chair, a shawl over his bare shoulders, his braids as sleek and
neat as always. He looked surprisingly neatly groomed, considering
he’d been as wet and dirty as I had last night. “Ah, there you are.
How do you feel?”

“Like I had too many beers and
landed face first on the pavement afterwards. How do I look?”

“Like a man who had a fight
with the ground and lost, indeed. But you’re coherent, at
least.”

“Don’t put too much faith in
that. I need a leak, and where are my clothes? The boots, I
need.”

He raised an eyebrow at me.
“Thank you, Shardul, for looking after me last night.”

I made a disgusted sound.
“Yeah, thanks. Sorry. My head’s killing me. Talking hurts.
My
teeth
hurt.”

“I’m sure. I’ll go ask about
various things. Stay in bed.”

I didn’t need to be told, and
pulled the covers over my head until the door closed. I peeked out
then to examine my surroundings. I’d stayed in a rural Nihani home
exactly once, and this sturdy farmhouse bore little physical
resemblance to that building on stilts belonging to Jyoti’s aunt
and uncle in the Demultan Flats. But both had the same
old-fashioned feel—no electrical lights, no gadgets, the furniture
old and worn, the rug and bedclothes handmade and probably at least
a generation old. Whose room was this? An aged parent’s, deceased
not that long ago? Not the farmer couple’s own bedroom, I thought.
It felt unused, kept clean and neat out of respect.

Did this family know what their
friends were up to? Were they involved? This room, the feeling of
family and history, didn’t fit with my image of terrorists, or what
had been done to Yashi and his home. Was there such a difference
between these people and mine, that they couldn’t imagine the pain
they had caused—or care?

I was making my head ache . My
job was to find out the ‘who’, and Captain Largosen could work out
the ‘why’ later. Motives didn’t matter. Stopping the bad guys was
all that counted.

Shardul returned and caught me
dozing. “Javen,” he whispered.

“Don’t,” I mumbled, twisting
and wincing. “Not even here. Someone might be listening.”

“All right. Everyone’s eating
breakfast. Here.”

He held a thing like a huge
chai cup with a lid. “What the hell’s that?”

“
For now, your latrine.
Sorry. Their outhouse is...well, out. We
are
in the middle of
nowhere.”

“I have to piss into a bucket?
Shoot me.”

“If I have to.” He found it too
amusing, bastard. “Nadira washed our clothes, and dried them. Our
shoes are dry too. She made us a tray so we can eat in here.
They’re lovely people.”

“Hmmm.” I climbed awkwardly out
of bed, and clung to the bedpost as the room whirled around me and
my stomach roiled. He started towards me to help, but I held my
hand up to stop him, signalled for him to turn around, and then
used the horrible bucket cup thing to relieve my aching bladder. I
shoved it under the bed, hoping I wouldn’t need it again. “Please
tell me we can get out of here today?”

“The road’s still cut, but the
rain has stopped and the forecast is for fair weather the rest of
the weekend. Sanjeev contacted his friends. They’re on their
way.”

“Damn. I’m not exactly at my
best.”

He turned, his expression
telling me he’d understood what I’d really meant to say. “Drink
some chai, go back to bed. I’ll take care of things.”

Meaning he’d run interference
with the Nihani family and Sanjeev. It felt so good to have him at
my back again. Almost like nothing had changed.

The sweetened chai helped a
little but not as much as lying down again. My cheek throbbed as
bad as my head did, and worried me more. Had the electronics been
damaged? Was the bone underneath the implant crushed? For the first
time in my very privileged life, I was nowhere near excellent
medical care, and it scared me. One of the props I’d taken for
granted in my existence was gone. Had I been more seriously hurt
last night, the lack of quick attention could have been fatal. This
was what it was like for Ekanga’s people, for many Nihani—even for
Jyoti’s cousins in the Demultan Flats. It was so primitive. Why did
anyone have to live like this these days? Maybe this was the true
breeding ground of terrorism—not the cities and the thousand daily
insults to the minority, but here, where outdoor toilets, lousy
healthcare and limited electricity were the norm.

I didn’t have the data or the
brain power right now to figure it out. I needed to rest so my head
would be clear enough to deal with Sanjeev’s friends. I’d have
given a kidney for an effective painkiller or even an icepack. The
best I could do was lie still with the covers over my face to cut
out as much light through my eyelids as possible, and hope I would
sleep again.

I got my wish, because the next
thing I knew, Shardul was shaking me gently by the shoulder. “Wake
up, they’re here.”

“Who?” I tried to lift myself
up, and fell back with a groan as all the aches and pains in my
upper body made nuisances of themselves again.

He helped me sit. “Sanjeev’s
friends. Can you face it?”

I swung my legs out of the bed
and grimaced. “Yeah, if I take it slow.”

“There’s fresh chai to have. I
made it clear to everyone that you’re really not well, and I don’t
think they expect much. I’ve spoken to them, been cooperative and
friendly—if you can show your face, answer a couple of questions,
that should be enough.”