Vimana

TWELVE

A sudden explosion of light nearly blinded Aaditya. They had been traveling in absolute darkness for what seemed to be an eternity when the darkness suddenly gave way to bright light.

'Home sweet home.' Aaditya heard Maya mutter. He lowered his hands to see that they had had emerged from what appeared to be a tunnel into the light. What he saw beneath took his breath away. As far as the eye could see, the surface was covered in rolling, green fields. He could see corn, wheat, rice and other crops arrayed in neatly arranged farms. Even though they must have been more than a hundred feet above the surface, he could see unmistakably human figures tending to some of the crops. Maya must have guessed what was going through his mind.

'You didn't really buy the cock and bull story about us being servants of the devil condemned to a hell of fire and brimstone, did you?'

'Who are those people?'

Maya smiled as he looked at Aaditya. 'Humans who know their place.'

Looming over the horizon was a gigantic pyramid, covered entirely in what seemed to be gold, gleaming from the reflection of countless lights that were on the roof of whatever base they were inside. Maya continued his guided tour.

'Down here, night or day doesn't really matter, but we all spent so much time up there, that we like to pretend it is daylight. Plus, one day we will return.'

If this was hell, it certainly didn't look anything like what Aaditya had imagined. As they came closer to the pyramid, a panel slid open near the middle and Maya guided his vimana into it. The inside of the pyramid was a stark contrast of the outside. If the land outside resembled some bizarre underwater rural idyll, inside it resembled the fortress of an army. Heavily armed daityas milled around the vimana, as if they expected Aaditya to single- handedly destroy their base. Arrayed around the hangar were several other Asura vimanas and countless drones shaped like Su-30s, F-22s and other top-of-the-line fighter aircraft.

When Aaditya stepped out of the vimana, two daityas pushed him roughly to the ground, while another frisked him, a bit too roughly, as if on purpose. Another ran some scanner over his body. When Aaditya got up, he saw Maya smiling broadly, as if enjoying his discomfort.

'Now strip.'

Aaditya stared at Maya.

'You heard me. Strip. We can't be sure what you're carrying. Then put these on.'

He handed Aaditya some plain loose-fitting white clothes of the sort he had seen the people working on the farms outside wearing. He slipped them on, feeling the coarse cloth bite into his bare skin.

Before he could say or do anything, a daitya slipped handcuffs around his hands. He was asked to walk into one of the corridors leading out of the hangar, and at all times, he had two armed daityas ringing him, while Maya stayed a few feet behind. As menacing as they looked, he thought he saw nervousness in the daityas' eyes. They walked for what seemed to be several minutes and finally, unable to contain his curiosity, Aaditya turned around to talk to Maya.

'Look, I'm alone, unarmed and now your prisoner. Do you really need all this security and for me to be handcuffed like this?'

Maya leaned close, his rancid breath on Aaditya's face. 'My puny little cripple, we are not afraid of you, but we are all afraid of Kalki. Terrified, in fact. He has commanded that you be delivered to him without a scratch, and if you try something stupid and get hurt, all of us will get roasted alive. Get it?'

Aaditya just nodded and continued, now even more nervous about what lay in store for him. The corridor ended when it intersected another, this one lined with doors. Maya swiped a card in front of one of the doors and it slid open.

'Rest here till I come to get you.'

Maya unlocked Aaditya's handcuffs and as he entered the room, lights on the ceiling turned on. He tried opening the door but could see no way of doing it. He was truly a prisoner now. As he turned to look around the room, he saw that it was not too uncomfortable. The room itself was quite large, perhaps almost as large as his apartment back home in Delhi, with a thin wall partitioning the living and sleeping areas. There was a large bed in a corner of the sleeping area, with a comfortable looking mattress and pillows and a sofa set against the wall. There was an attached bathroom and a writing desk in the sleeping area with a lamp. Not having anything else to do, Aaditya sat down on the bed, wondering what he had got himself into. Now there was no going back at all-for all his planning and thinking, he realized that now he was going to be entirely at Kalki's mercy. He only hoped that he could bluff Kalki into thinking that he did indeed have something to bargain with, at least long enough to learn how the Asura base worked. As for getting away, Narada had installed the beacon, but first Aaditya would need to get back to the surface, or at least out of the base. It struck him that being sent on such a mission, which even he could see had gaping holes, told him just how desperate the Devas really were. If he had been asked to volunteer for such a mission in any other circumstances, he doubted he would have had the suicidal courage to go through with it.

But he was here not only for the Devas or indeed only to help foil Kalki's plans. It was much more personal than that. If only he learnt what had really happened to his father, even this crazy mission would be worth it.

Aaditya lay down on the bed, and despite all his anxieties, dozed off for a few minutes. He woke up with a start, his throat dry with thirst. There was a jug of water and a glass on the table. He had poured himself a glass when he saw a photograph lying face down on the table. He picked it up, and turned it around to have a look, and dropped his glass in shock.

The photograph was one of him and his father. He remembered it being taken on one of his birthdays and showed the two of them standing before a MiG-29 fighter. His birthday gift that year had been a new watch, but what he had cherished most was getting an hour-long briefing on how the fighter's weapons worked, from his father and the chief maintenance officer at the base. Those fond memories were now replaced with a knot in his stomach-what was this photo doing here?

He opened the drawer of the study table and found a thin writing pad. The first page had a doodle of a fighter plane. He did not need anyone to tell him who had drawn it. His father had been a gifted artist, and he had seen numerous such doodles around the house.

Now Aaditya's mind was in utter turmoil. Was his father still alive? Had he been put in this room to share it with his father? His pulse pounding, he looked around to see what other signs of his father he could find. He rummaged through the bedside table and the living area but could find nothing else that would show that his father still lived in this room. He then saw a sliding panel in the sleeping area. With no visible controls to open it with, he stuck his fingers to push it open, but as he did so, the panel slid aside with a soft hiss.

It was a wardrobe. On a hanger was his father's old flight suit and helmet. The suit was torn in a couple of places and the helmet looked dented in several places, but it was unmistakably his father's flight suit, with the name 'Ghosh' embroidered on a patch at the chest.

Aaditya took a couple of steps back, his mind churning out the possibilities. Could it be true that his father had indeed survived the crash, and had worked for Kalki? Was it possible that his father was still alive?

Just then he heard a voice boom over some unseen speakers in the room. It was Kalki.

'Welcome to our humble home. I think now it's time I finally met you.'

***

Ten minutes later, Aaditya was standing in some sort of control room. It was full of screens that covered the wall. Some of them showed what appeared to be radar displays while others showed grainy black and white videos that seemed to be real time visuals from drones or vimanas on reconnaissance missions. There was a large padded chair in the middle of the room with its back to Aaditya. He could not see who was sitting in it, though he had a fairly good idea of who it must be.

Maya, who had accompanied him to the room, seemed to have transformed. Whenever Aaditya has seen him previously, he had been aggressive, even cocky. But now he had his eyes lowered and spoke in a submissive