Under the Burning Clouds Page 11

  Passengers were allowed up to Deck 4 if they needed the Bursar but no further, the sole exception being a viewing lounge right at the top of the vessel, which was accessible by a special shaft with exits only at the bottom and the top.

  While they waited, Maliha wondered idly what would become of Mr Scott. She had never had occasion to attempt mesmerism before; she did not consider it ethical and it had certainly been utilised for quite improper purposes in the hands of dishonest people. But she could not fault its effectiveness. Of course, Scott was easily susceptible—the less educated a person the easier it was to impose one’s will upon them.

  She wished she could follow it up, to see how far her suggestion that he had jaundice would take him. She had chosen jaundice because there was a very slight pallor to his skin that might have been the disease. Could the mind impose itself so thoroughly on the body? There was no doubt that certain illnesses were derived from the mind.

  She was not fool enough to deny that the supposedly miraculous cure of her leg, after the Guru had manipulated it, was more to do with the change in her state of mind than any form of magic.

  She sighed and corrected the way Izak was holding his fork. The severe lack of gravity made eating a trial anyway. Food could fly from the plate and across the room if struck too hard. Izak and Lilith had suffered from this at first and Maliha was forced to relocate them as far as possible from the other diners. The meal they were given was mashed potatoes and meat, followed by a gloopy dessert, which had less of a tendency to fly away.

  The menu was fixed regardless of one’s station. Carrying a little over two hundred passengers millions of miles across the Void required some compromises. Choice of menu was one of them and when the meals were eaten was another. There were three sittings for each, though there were usually some spare tables. Maliha’s party was in the first sitting.

  The serving staff cleared away the dessert dishes barely forty-five minutes after Maliha and the children had taken their seats. Clearly it was time to move on.

  She took the children back to the room.

  “I’m going up to the observation deck,” she said. “Will you be all right here?”

  “Can we come?” asked Lilith, using the same plaintive tone Maliha remembered using when she was young. In truth, she desired to be alone—she wanted to think about Valentine, and perhaps let her grief escape the prison in which she held it. But she remembered her mother.

  “Can I come, Momma?”

  “I am going to the temple, Maliha.” She was dressed in her finest clothing, the pallu of her deep blue sari cast over her left shoulder, her eyes and lips emphasised by heavy make-up. She looked as beautiful as a doll.

  “I can go to the temple with you.”

  “You must stay here, little one,” said her mother, leaning over her and smiling. “You must study and learn your words.”

  “I know all the words, Momma.”

  “You know many things, but knowledge is not wisdom.”

  Maliha looked at Lilith. “If you want to, little one.” She turned to Izak, but he shook his head. “I’m going to look at the stars,” she said, as if trying to persuade him.

  “You have to come,” said Lilith to Izak. “You know why.”

  “Why?” said Maliha.

  “Mama Kosi said,” said Lilith.

  They travelled up the shaft. Lilith held tight to Maliha’s skirt instead of climbing up herself. They reached Deck 4 and followed the signs, past the Bursar’s office and the Infirmary, to the observatory shaft. There was only one of these shafts, with one side designated as up and the other down.

  The observatory was a domed area with a number of large potted plants from Earth, along with comfortable-looking sofas and armchairs. Around the edges of the circular area were benches and other sofas that all faced out towards the Void. Lights hung from the ceiling, but at present they were not lit, as the Sun was burning in on them.

  The dome itself comprised at least two layers of glass braced with steel. Beyond it, in spite of the Sun’s brightness, were the stars. The Earth and Moon were not in view, being behind the vessel.

  It was the quiet that struck Maliha. Deep in the ship there were constant small noises—some repeating, others at random moments—and sometimes the distant murmur of voices. But always there was the sound of humanity. There were voices here too, but beyond that was a deeper silence than she had ever experienced. It was unnerving.

  Maliha glanced around; there were a few people here. A group of three men was seated off to one side, the voices that hung above the precipice of silence. There were the sun-haloed heads of several others scattered around the rim. She located the seat that had the fewest people nearby and headed for it.

  Lilith clung to her hand and she could feel Izak’s presence beside her on the other side. She wondered briefly about their secret.

  They sat on the bench. There were straps in each seating position. Maliha wondered about them but did not use them on the children or herself.

  Maliha stared at the stars and attempted to orient herself. The constellations were there, but the dark gaps in between were filled with the glowing dust of a myriad stars unseen on Earth. It made the ancient patterns harder to spot.

  Then she saw Orion. Then Gemini and, following from there, Ursa Major and Minor. She found the Pole Star. The Sun was located in Pisces, and off from it, in Aries, was the bright white half-disk of Venus. She was unsure of the location of Mars and could not see its rust-red glow. It might be behind them.

  Quietly, so as not to disturb the other occupants, she described the constellations and the planet to the children. She pointed them out but did not know if the children were really seeing or understanding. Their lives had been empty of academic education; the only thing of value to them had been the barren facts of how to survive.

  She could have spent hours here contemplating the stars but the children could not. Maliha stood carefully to avoid flying up to bump against the dome.

  With Izak and Lilith in tow she headed back towards the shaft, but her attention was caught by two people she had not noticed before, slumped on a settee. The woman was leaning in towards the man, but he had slid from his chair and was poised half on and half off it. As she watched he slipped a little more.

  It was not that there were two dead people here that shocked her. It was the fact she recognised them.

  They were Valerie and Maxwell Spencer.

  ii

  “She’s been stabbed,” said Dr Leeming, noting the blood that had oozed from Valerie’s middle section and soaked into her dress. “And he’s been shot in the head. He still has the gun, so it’s probably suicide.”

  “I think most people would have been able to work that out,” said the captain. “How long have they been here?”

  Maliha stood nearby. A steward had been fetched to take the children to the room and stay with them. They had protested considerably more than Maliha would have expected. They only agreed to go quietly when they had extracted a promise, from Captain Beauchamp himself no less, that he would be personally responsible for Maliha’s safety.

  She stared at the two of them.

  “What was she stabbed with?” asked Maliha. She already knew the answer without seeing the nature of the wound. Her blood was running cold in her veins. This was a warning. Or perhaps a game played by someone with a very sick mind.

  “I couldn’t say,” said the doctor, examining Valerie’s midriff.

  “Did you know the Spencers, Miss Ganapathy?”

  She stared at him. Why would these two be using the same name, and pretending to be married, as they had on the RMS Macedonia? If she had thought this was a coincidence before, she now knew as a certainty that it had been planned and aimed directly at her.

  This must be a message from Timmons. A message for her, planned in the event that she came aboard after the warning from Scott. She had ignored it and now two people were dead. She had no idea what to do.

  “Miss Ganapath
y?”

  Her thigh hurt. It had no reason to do that. It was not under any strain or pressure.

  She stared at the bodies. She could not reveal herself; she must stay hidden.

  But she was not hidden—Timmons knew who she was and his men knew. She should not have brought the children. But she needed to have Lilith with her; it was important.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I am tangled in my own web.”

  “Perhaps you should sit down,” said the doctor, coming towards her with a sympathetic smile on his face.

  Maliha jerked her head up. Anyone could have done it. Passenger, crew, it could even be the captain or the doctor. The Atacama Sea was one of Timmons’ official fleet. Everyone aboard was in his pay, quite literally.

  “Don’t touch me,” she hissed and held up her hand to fend him off. “Stay away.”

  He stopped and glanced at the captain, who gave a slight shake of his head. The doctor returned to the bodies and proceeded to check Maxwell Spencer.

  “Perhaps you should go back to your room, Miss,” said the captain. “This must have been a terrible shock for you. I will need your statement about these two, but there’s no hurry.”

  “Ah, found it,” the doctor said triumphantly. He stepped back and showed the captain something metallic that glinted with reflected red.

  Maliha stared at the scissors in the doctor’s hand. She felt the strength go from her right thigh and collapsed slowly under the weak gravity. She felt lightheaded. The dome and stars swam as she passed from sunlight into the black.

  * * *

  “Don’t touch me!” she screamed and shook off the hand that crept along her left arm.

  “Goddess?” came Lilith’s voice, from the right.

  Maliha turned her head in that direction and opened her eyes. Lilith stood beside the bed, barely tall enough to see over it. Izak stood behind her with a hand on her shoulder. They both looked scared.

  The antiseptic smell invaded Maliha’s nose and mouth as she took in a deep breath. There was something wrapped around her arm, getting tighter.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said again.

  “I am taking your blood pressure, Alice.”

  Maliha shivered. Every girl who ended up in the school infirmary suffered Dr Jenkins’ extensive and unwarranted examination. And no one would believe them. With her leg in a cast from ankle almost to hip, she could not defend herself. “Just giving you a proper examination, dear child.”

  She blinked. There was a black strap around her arm just above the elbow. It was not Jenkins. It was Leeming, with a stethoscope in his ears and holding a rubber bladder in the other. She recognised the modern sphygmomanometer.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and lay back. The cold metal of the stethoscope was pressed against the inner part of her elbow joint. The bladder puffed as he pressed it. The cuff around her arm tightened, cutting off the blood flow. Then it hissed as he let out the pressure.

  He made notes in a small book.

  She turned towards the children and forced a smile onto her face. “It’s all right,” she said. “He’s making sure I’m not ill.” They did not look reassured; modern medicine was not within the realms of their experience.

  I can’t be ill, she thought, there’s no time for illness.

  The doctor went through the procedure again and then loosened the cuff so that it could be removed.

  “Blood pressure is a little high, Miss Ganapathy,” he said.

  She turned to him. “Really?”

  He shrugged. “Not entirely unusual when one has not travelled in the Void before. It can be a particular problem for the fairer sex.”

  He smiled with sickly sweet condescension. If anything was likely to increase her blood pressure, she thought, it would be that. But he hadn’t finished. “And finding those people just put the cherry on the cake, as it were.”

  He went to a cabinet and, using a key from his pocket to unlock it, took out a small pill bottle. She sat up on the brown leather examination couch and put her legs over the side. She rubbed her thigh; it seemed to be back to normal. He counted out several tablets into a pillbox and came back.

  “These should calm you,” he said. “A cocaine preparation of my own. Very good for the nerves. Just take one with water before you go to sleep.” He held out the small tin box.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” she said, taking it. “Can I return to my room now?”

  He beamed with bonhomie. “Be my guest,” he said. “If you have any other problems, don’t hesitate to drop by.”

  Maliha nodded her thanks. With a slight push from her hand she moved up off the couch and gently came down to the floor. Her shoes had been removed.

  “Will you carry my shoes, Lilith?”

  The girl moved round the bed, using it as an anchor, and collected them.

  “Thank you again, Doctor,” she said and left the room.

  iii

  Back in the room, Maliha stowed the pillbox in her luggage. She would not be taking the pills, but she might require them.

  It was possible her faint had been the result of the low gravity and the over-excitement. The helplessness she had felt was a very new experience and one she was not comfortable with. She needed a plan.

  She looked at her watch; it was late evening. The children went to bed. It had not been easy for them to become accustomed to doing as an adult instructed, or being forced to keep regular hours when they normally did as they pleased. They tried not to sleep even though they obeyed like any child. And, like any child, they eventually slept.

  Maliha stood at the porthole, which was more of a window.

  Apart from its constant yet low acceleration, the ship also rotated, again very slowly so there was barely a hint of any force moving things towards the hull. It meant that the view changed, though it was always stars. And from time to time the Sun slanted in.

  There was nothing to be done.

  She could not investigate the deaths of the Spencers—the Rileys, in fact: Margaret and Clement Riley, brother and sister fraudsters and thieves. Idly she wondered whether, after all these years of travelling as man and wife, they had enjoyed carnal relations. Irrelevant. She did not need to investigate their murders because she knew who had ordered their deaths.

  But to go to this much trouble?

  The Rileys must have been employed to join the ship she was on—once that was known—without the knowledge they would be killed. The murderer had gone to the trouble of staging it as a murder–suicide, exactly the way Lochana Modi and the General had died.

  She needed to get away from the idea that everyone on the ship was her enemy; that was simply paranoia. Probably the result of her temporary condition. She would not be caught out that way again.

  But why go to this much trouble? The question kept going round in her mind.

  It was a demonstration of power. Timmons was showing her what he was capable of, how he was the one who held the power of life and death over her.

  Lilith whined in her sleep. Maliha went over to her and stroked her hair, humming an Indian lullaby her mother had sung to her. The child quieted.

  Then something further occurred to her: The Rileys had been in prison. She was very sure their period of detention was more than eighteen months. That meant Timmons had the power to have them released as well. He was able to manipulate the justice system, assuming they had not simply been broken out—though she would have noticed that in the newspapers.

  Very well, she thought as she wiped a bead of sweat from Lilith’s brow. Let us say that it was a warning, what am I expected to do to show that I understand? Or is it too late for that?

  Perhaps if she were to book passage back to Earth immediately? She could do this with the Bursar. She did not imagine she would be the first person to take fright at their situation and want to go home as soon as possible.

  She turned away from the stars. When they were always visible they lost their allure. They were me
rely burning balls of gas, like humanity’s own sun. She leaned back against the wall and pressed the back of her head against the glass.

  In the world of trade, Timmons was a man with considerable influence. He clearly possessed far more of it in the shadow world of his illicit dealings. A man who was used to getting his own way, to doing exactly as he desired with no one to gainsay it.

  He was also in his late fifties, which made him a product of the best period of the British Empire’s industrial growth, and the worst in terms of its social attitudes.

  And here was she. A woman—worse, an Indian woman—who had thwarted him twice. She had removed the Guru, whom he had used to gain stock market knowledge, and she had exposed his scientists for killing children.

  She had made him look weak.

  And now he was getting his revenge, a concept she understood. He did not want to recruit her, nor did he want to send her running. She was precisely where he desired her to be, trapped aboard one of his own vessels and powerless.

  He was wreaking a prolonged revenge upon her. He had killed Valentine and ensured that she knew about it. The purpose of the interview with Scott was not to warn her off, it was to bring her in, to ensure she boarded the vessel.

  Once she was within their power he began his true revenge: killing the Rileys the way Lochana and the General had died. Making it look as if Clement had killed Margaret and then committed suicide was clever.

  There were two conclusions that could be made from that. The first was a comfort: the need to hide the existence of the murderer from the crew suggested that they were not part of the conspiracy against her.

  The second conclusion was more worrying and sinister. If he was wreaking his revenge on her, there would be more murders. No doubt in the style of her other ‘cases’.

  She took a bottle of water from the cabinet. All the drinks had drinking straws; in the extreme lack of gravity, liquids would not pour at all, preferring to cling to their containers with their surface tension. Sucking through straws was the only practicable solution.

  She sat on the edge of the bed beside Lilith, who was now quiet.