Lessing felt a presence beside him. It was Liese. “Get back,” he insisted. “Get back in the car!”
She shook her head. Some of the onlookers murmured.
“Sahib, you take this!” An elderly, dignified-looking Muslim gentleman picked one of the transistor sets off the display, twisted the dial, and thrust it at Lessing. “English, sahib, English.”
The radio sputtered. Lessing adjusted it, and they heard an announcer’s voice speaking that elegant British English only educated Indians seem able to achieve:
“…Communications from some areas are disrupted, and only shortwave emergency bands are operating from cities in the interior. The Soviet Union has mobilized its military forces, its police forces, and all available medical services to combat the epidemic. Neighboring countries, particularly Poland and Czechoslovakia, are affected to a lesser degree. The Austrians, Germans, and Chinese have closed their borders. The United States, the United Kingdom, and others have promised epidemiologists and other needed aid as soon as the situation clears.”
There was a pause followed by static; then: “American eye-in- the-sky satellites report seeing bodies… lifeless bodies… lying all over, in the streets… columns of medical lorries and ambulances… earth-moving machines digging mass graves outside Leningrad.” The announcer began to stammer; (here could be no script for this.) “Dead, dying… a tragedy of unknown proportions… no one can tell who or how many. No… no warning.” The voice stuttered to a halt.
The radio hissed in empty, eery silence. Someone had deemed it politic to take the station off the air. From the other sets in the background they heard the Urdu announcer still speaking excitedly. Then he, too, broke off. The first strains of the Indian national anthem came on.
“What is it, sahib?” the shopkeeper touched Lessing’s sleeve. “What happens?”
Pacov.
Only Pacov could do this.
He, Alan Lessing, had handed Death the scythe with which to harvest the human race.
“Home,” he choked. “We’ve got to get home. Oh, God in Heaven!” At that moment he wished, devoutly and sincerely, that he believed in God… and God in him.
Pacifism will remain an ideal, Jf^rriS race decides to wage it no longer, the dark ones will, and win become the masters of the world.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sunday, November 30, 2042
It was a night of shadows, of women weeping, of whispers, of voices, of lips that mouthed meaningless words. Later Lessing remembered lamp light, automobile headlights, the bare, hissing blue-white bulbs of the factory, Jimeela’s worried questions, Wrench and the others arguing on and on, and Mrs. Mulder’s brittle, near-hysterical giggle. Later he recalled dark-skinned men in loose flapping, bone-hued clothing hastening to and fro on what errands no one could say. It was indeed a night of shadows— and of fear. Later he remembered mostly the fear.
Sunday dawned like any other day, cool and bright and smoke-fragrant, as was expected in India at this time of year. Indoco’s American and European staff teetered uneasily on Mrs. Mulder s spindly-legged dining-room chairs on the mansion’s spacious screened verandah. Before them Inspector G. N. Subramaniam of the Indian C.I.D. paraded back and forth with the air of a man who has just seen an adversary fall flat on his face, but who doesn’t dare laugh. Not yet. Outside, squatting on the steps in the wintry sunshine, two squads of Indian army sipahis awaited the command to take possession of the foreigners’ property.
“Still we have no firm reports,” Subramamam was replying to Mrs. Satherly, the plump lady who ran Indoco’s accounts payable department. He spoke English with only a trace of the retroflexed consonants of his native Tamil, as different from the Hindi-Urdu of northern India as Zulu is from Hungarian. The inspector was small, dapper, and very dark, like most South Indians. He said. Everything is a shambles. We hear that much of Russia is devastated by this plague. Then a Soviet Politburo member came on the air from their defense headquarters in the Urals and accused you Americans of a sneak attack. Your people denied it, of course. Last night some Russian madman f.red seven missiles down from their satellites. They were promptly annihilated by particle beams from your A.S.A.T. space platforms. Preparations for war are in progress along the East-West frontiers in Europe. Today we have a news blackout! Chaos, madam, chaos!”
“War in Europe? My God!” Poor Mrs. Satherly mumbled dazedly “What about the United States?”
“It is still all right. No attack upon your country yet, so tar as New Delhi has deigned to inform us. But the world is stunned, paralyzed. Russians, Poles, Czechs… most of the people of the Eastern Bloc… are abandoning their homes and fleeing west, away from the plague. The situation is confused. Who can say what is happening?” Subramaniam took another turn around the polished concrete-chip floor. Mrs. Mulder fluttered in the doorway to the drawing room; behind her Lessing glimpsed Jameela’s turquoise qameez. The C.I.D. officer noticed her too and raked her up and down with a single, dark glance. He returned to stand in front of Herman Mulder.
“Which brings me to you people,” he said. “Our government has imposed an emergency powers act as of 0600 hours this morning. In order not to become involved with what we perceive as a Great Powers confrontation… and for humanitarian reasons… we are repatriating all foreign nationals. This is for your own safety. You will be flown to Delhi and thence to whatever destination your embassies deem appropriate. There is a forty-eight hour deadline.” He sounded as though he were reciting a catechism by rote.
“The Russians in India?” Wrench inquired sweetly. “You gonna just drop ‘em off at Moscow Airport?”
Subramaniam bristled. “Nationals of other countries are not your affair! Your evacuation is an act of mercy; we are helping you rejoin your families and countrymen at this difficult time. The government of India is providing the aircraft and dispensing with such formalities as exit permits and income-tax clearances!”
“And handing out tea and stale cookies in the Delhi airport departure lounge!” Wrench grumbled.
If the inspector heard he ignored him. He faced Mulder. “Arrangements have been made for the custody of foreign property.” He indicated the waiting soldiers outside. “Indoco will remain in good hands until matters become clear.”
Which, Lessing suspected, probably meant never. This was Prime Minister Ramanujan’s chance to rid India of alien corruption — and acquire heaps of foreign loot, cancel repayments of foreign loans, and do away with unwelcome foreign trade treaties, all for very understandable reasons. Let the pardesis argue and complain and file claims and hold hearings and whine to the United Nations or the World Court, if those august bodies still existed! The lacily intricate convolutions of Indian bureaucracy would keep things tied up for years, and even then foreign investors would likely receive only partial compensation. The grandchildren of the people in this room might not live to see Indoco returned to its original owners. So much for Mulder’s belief that Third World countries were safer for his SS corporations than the West.
“What of us?” Mrs. Delacroix asked from the far end of the verandah. “Two of my companions and I hold South African passports.”
Subramaniam shrugged. “India has no relations with South Africa. You will have to return on a commercial aircraft — when and if available.”
“Our own plane and pilot are waiting for us in Delhi.”
“Then we shall fly you there. After that it is the government’s decision.” The inspector gestured to show that the assembly was dismissed.