It was not surprising that the air-conditioning in the museum always worked. Tourist dollars were irreplaceable. Tourism was not only a business whose benefits were spread among many, it was a comparatively clean industry. In a city like Sagramanda, locked in an eternal and it sometimes seemed eternally losing battle with every imaginable kind of pollution, that was important.
Even more important than ensuring that the air-conditioning functioned properly at major tourist sites, however, was ensuring that the tourists did. Finding murdered ones floating in the Hooghly and gnawed by the fishes was even worse for business than poor climate control.
Among the few effects found on the body of the waterlogged, dead Australian woman was a ticket stub. Though tourist sites had long since advanced beyond the need to issue such antiquated shards of admittance, they continued to do so because visitors insisted on receiving them. They made excellent mementos. To enhance their keepsake value, many years ago government as well as privately operated sites had taken to issuing permanent plastic souvenir tickets.
Though dirty and scratched, the one that had been extracted from a pocket of the dead tourist's pants indicated that she, at least, had visited the museum on a certain day and at a certain time. Ascertaining that several members of the museum staff who had been on duty the day of her visit were on duty today, Keshu had determined to pay a visit to the venerable old mausoleum himself. On this visit he was attended to and assisted by one Corporal Bubaneesaywayti. Americans, at least, would have been amused to know that the dour junior officer was usually referred to by friends and colleagues alike as Corporal Bubba: a regional reference as out of place in Sagramanda as saag bhaji would have been in St. Louis.
The outside of the massive pile of stone and concrete never failed to impress: an elaborate amalgamation of Victorian British design and Indian workmanship. The interior offered more of the same, though recent renovations tended to conceal the least practical aspects of nineteenth-century architectural design.
The museum boasted a wealth of artifacts relating to the history of the country. Glittering howdahs that had once borne magnificently mustachioed maharajahs from affairs of state to elaborate durbar dinners. Ornate costumes of silk and silver, gold thread and strung pearls-some even intended to be worn by women. Ranks of damascened spears, swords, knives, pikes, and other assorted martial cutlery. Armor for men, armor for horses, armor (most impressively of all) for war elephants. Exquisite miniatures of ivory and carved gemstone. The back side of one favored maharani's hand mirror that had been fashioned from a single slice of pale sapphire.
Wandering through the high-ceilinged halls, Keshu found himself more taken with the displays of artifacts from everyday life. Many of these were overlaid with virtuals, much as in the old days painted plastic overlays were used in books to teach everything from human
anatomy to archeology. Nowadays layers of reality were cloaked in virtuals, which were not only more realistic and capable of movement but which could be changed with the touch of a finger on a control or the application of a suitable program.
Inspector and corporal passed by, and through, villagers working the massive brick kilns of ancient Mohenjo- daro. They questioned guides and guards as virtual laborers toiled to build the Taj Mahal beneath the sorrowful gaze of a virtual Shah Jahan. As they queried a ticket-taker for a special exhibition, carefully modulated concealed speakers accompanied the recycling and untiring charge of the invaders from the north who had given rise to the empire of the Mughals. The rampaging imagery was inspiring, though Keshu thought the volume needed to be turned up.
Corporal Bubba was more taken with the display that chronicled the history of Bollywood films; especially the enticing virtuals of famous stars of the past. Many who had never appeared on screen together sang and danced their favorite numbers in tandem. Through the magic of virtuals and programming, famous faces (and figures) from different eras of entertainment were able to interact seamlessly with one another.
So much history, Keshu thought as he and his assistant trudged onward, questioning every employee they encountered, even the temps. A world unto itself, India was. His world.
Once, he had attended a conference of his peers in Tokyo. Another world unto itself. The conference had been held in a hotel built in the shape of two giant half-moons that faced one another and were bound together by a network of stainless steel strands. At night, thousands of LEDs embedded in the cables lit up in a light show unlike anything he had ever seen before.
The hotel and conference center had been constructed on shallow land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay. On his last day, there had been an earthquake. A minor one, hardly strong enough to cause the hotel staff and his Japanese hosts to pause in their work. Boarding the sky
cruiser for the supersonic trip back home, a shaken Keshu had vowed never to leave Sagramanda again. Or, at least, India. Some things that were homegrown simply could not be transplanted, he realized.
'
'What?' His thoughts still on the terrifying moment when the Earth had shuddered beneath him, the inspector had to pull himself back to the moment.
Corporal Bubba leaned close. 'He says he remembers them, sir.'
Keshu refocused on the guard. The man was very old; perhaps as old as some of the static exhibits now relegated to the rear, less-visited corridors of the museum complex. But his memory of matters recent, it developed, was sharp and clear.
He was holding the display spindle Bubba had handed him. A third of a meter long and the thickness of the corporal's thumb, it was currently enveloped in a holoed projection of the two dead tourists. Its operation was simple enough for anyone to operate. Press the button at the top of the spindle to turn on and off, press one of two buttons on the bottom to zoom in or out. Rotating the spindle in one's fingers caused the projected image to rotate with it.
The old man pushed a finger into the face of the dead Australian man. While the images had been enhanced by forensics reconstructors, the pro gram's effectiveness had been undermined by the fact that both bodies had been hauled out of the river in the first stages of decomposition.
'You're sure?' Keshu prompted the guard, all thoughts of distant and unstable Japan now banished from his mind.
The senior nodded. He had a long, somber face lined with more channels than the Brahmaputra, wide eyes that seemed on the verge of weeping, a nose sharp enough to cut nonsense, and a deferential manner. But he was certain of what he had seen.
'I have been a guard's assistant and full guard here for forty years,' he declared formally. 'I have a good eye for people and have caught many thieves.' Once again he pushed an identifying finger into the holo, this time into the face of the dead woman. 'I remember these two as clearly as I remember everyone.'
An energized Keshu nodded approvingly. 'Do you remember any thing else about them? Anything they said, perhaps? Some indication of where the two of them might have been going after they finished here?'
'No.' The guard shook his head. 'I didn't hear what they were saying.' He stiffened slightly. 'I watch the visitors. I don't eavesdrop.'
Keshu was not disappointed. It would have been foolish to hope for anything more, and he had been a cop long enough to learn not to expect it.
'You said 'the two of them.' ' The guard's expression had not changed. 'Don't you mean 'the three of them'?'
Corporal Bubba looked up from his recorder, exchanged a glance with his superior. Restraining himself, Keshu addressed the elderly guard cautiously. 'We only know of the two.' He gestured at the spindle the old man continued to finger. 'You say you saw three? There was a third person with these two?
'Yes.' The oldster was wonderfully positive. 'Another woman. Also a foreigner, I think, though she was dressed like a local. I have seen her here before.' He hesitated. 'This is important?'
Keshu kept calm. 'Yes, it is important. What can you tell us about this third person?' Next to him, Corporal Bubba was busy with his recorder. 'Can you describe her to us? Height, hair length or color, body shape, distinguishing marks: anything you can tell us about her will be most helpful.'
The old man proceeded to provide an account that, given the time that had passed since he had last seen the trio of visitors, would have done proud any officer in the force hoping for promotion to the rank of detective. When he had finished and Keshu was certain Bubba had it all down for entry into the department's reconstructor, the inspector thanked the guard from the bottom of his heart. He did not also have to press the pair of bills into the old
