The Tomb (Repairman Jack)

would be released from the vow. Tomorrow he would set the wheels in motion to secure the last of Albert Westphalen's line. Then he would set sail for India.

He keyed the lock and opened the door. Kolabati sat facing him from a living room chair, her arms and legs crossed, her face impassive. As he smiled and stepped forward, something crunched under his foot. He looked down and saw the shattered rakosh egg. A thousand thoughts hurtled through his shocked mind, but the one that leaped to the forefront was: How much does she know?

'So,' he said as he closed the door behind him. 'You know.'

'Yes, brother. I know.'

'How—?'

'That's what I want to know,' she snapped.

She was being so oblique! She knew the egg had hatched. What else did she know? Not wanting to give anything away, he decided to proceed on the assumption that she knew only of the empty egg and nothing more.

'I didn't want to tell you about the egg,' he said finally. 'I was too ashamed. After all, it was in my care when it broke, and—'

'Kusum!' Kolabati leaped to her feet, her face livid. 'Don't lie to me! I know about the ship and I know about the Westphalen women!'

Kusum felt as if he had been struck by lightning. She knew everything!

'How...?' was all he could manage.

'I followed you yesterday.'

'You followed me?' He was sure he had eluded her. She had to be bluffing. 'Didn't you learn your lesson last time?”

'Forget the last time. I followed you to your ship last night. '

'Impossible! '

'So you thought. But I watched and waited all last night. I saw the rakoshi leave. I saw them return with their captive. And I learned from Jack today that Nellie Paton, a Westphalen, disappeared last night. That was all I needed to know.' She glared at him. 'No more lies, Kusum. It's my turn to ask, 'how?' '

Stunned, Kusum stepped down into the living room and sank into a chair. He would have to bring her into it now...tell her everything. Almost everything. There was one part he could never tell—he could barely think about that himself. But he could tell her the rest. Maybe she could see his side.

He began his tale.

8

Kolabati scrutinized her brother closely as he spoke, watching for lies. His voice was clear and cool, his expression calm with just a hint of guilt, like a husband confessing a minor dalliance with another woman.

'I felt adrift after you left India. It was as if I had lost my other arm. Despite all my followers clustered around me, I spent much time alone—too much time, you might say. I began to review my life and all I had done and not done with it. Despite my growing influence, I felt unworthy of the trust so many were placing in me. What had I truly accomplished except to filthy my karma to the level of the lowest caste? I confess that for a time I wallowed in self-pity. Finally I decided to journey back to Bharangpur, to the hills there, to the temple ruins that are now the tomb of our parents and heritage.'

He paused and looked directly at her. 'The foundation is still there, you know. The ashes of the rest are gone, washed into the sand or blown away, but the stone foundation remains, and the rakoshi caves beneath are intact. The hills are still uninhabited. Despite all the crowding at home, people still avoid those hills. I stayed there for days in an effort to renew myself. I prayed, I fasted, I wandered the caves...yet nothing happened. I felt as empty and as worthless as before. And then I found it!'

Kolabati saw a light begin to glow in her brother's eyes, growing steadily, as if someone were stoking a fire within his brain.

'A male egg, intact, just beneath the surface of the sand in a tiny alcove in the caves! At first I did not know what to make of it, or what to do with it. Then it struck me: I was being given a second chance. There before me lay the means to accomplish all that I should have with my life, the means to cleanse my karma and make it worthy of one of our caste. I saw it then as my destiny. I was to start a nest of rakoshi and use them to fulfill the vow.'

A male egg. Kusum continued to talk about how he manipulated the Foreign Service and managed to have himself assigned to the London embassy. Kolabati barely heard him. A male egg...she remembered hunting through the ruins of the Temple and the caves beneath as a child, searching everywhere. In their youth they both had felt it their duty to start a new nest and they had desperately wanted a male egg.

'After I established myself at the embassy,' Kusum was saying, 'I searched for Captain Westphalen's descendants. I learned that only four of his bloodline remained. They were not a prolific family and a number of them were killed off in the World Wars. To my dismay, I learned that only one, Richard Westphalen, was still in Britain. The other three were in America. But that did not deter me. I hatched the eggs, mated them, and started the nest. I have since disposed of three of the four Westphalens. There is only one left. '

Kolabati was relieved to hear that only one remained—perhaps she could prevail upon Kusum to give it up.

'Aren't three lives enough? Innocent lives, Kusum?'

'The vow, Bati,' he said as if intoning the name of a deity. 'The vrata. They carry the blood of that murderer, defiler, and thief in their veins. And that blood must be wiped from the face of the earth.'

'I can't let you, Kusum. It's wrong.'

'It's right!' He leapt to his feet. 'There has never been anything so right!'

'No!'