It seemed as if every TV and satellite station in India, and beyond, was gathered at the foot of the shimmering light, along with crowds of curious Indians and even a few Westerners. In many places the crowd stood five deep, attempting to see what lay beyond the veil.
“What now?” Prakesh asked.
She looked around at her group. “Now we go to the light,” she said. “Follow me closely.”
She gripped Prakesh’s hand and led her band towards the noisy crowd. The hubbub of chatter increased as they drew nearer. Food vendors had set up stalls around the light’s perimeter, and big pantechnicons belonging to the satellite companies blocked the road. Ana led the way around the truck, and past reporters holding microphones and talking about the wondrous extraterrestrial visitation.
The crowd was thick before them, eager pilgrims pressing up to the white light and peering through. Ana watched as the occasional daring individual reached out and touched the light, then turned and excitedly reported that it felt solid…
Ana recalled what the golden figure aboard the starships had told her.
She looked back at her gaggle of rag-tag street kids, clad in torn shirts and shorts, most barefoot, some with flip-flops. “Now everyone hold hands so that we’re all linked together,” she instructed.
Like this they moved around the circumference of the light, Ana attempting to find an area where the crowd was not so thick. Their passage aroused much comment and the occasional insult. “What are these little animals doing here?” one fat Brahmin called out. “Cannot the police do their job for once?”
“Get back to the slums, harijans. There is nothing out here for you.”
Ana ignored the shouts, heartened that the name-callers were often shouted down by their fellows: “Show the children some respect, ah-cha? We are living in a time of peace.”
At last the crowd thinned before the wall of light, and Ana led her children towards an area where a line of citizens only three deep stood gazing through the light.
She stopped, turned and addressed her friends. “Make sure that we are all together and holding hands. Follow me, and do not stop walking as we approach the light…”
Prakesh stared at her. “We’re going through the light, Ana?”
She grinned. “Wait and see.”
“But someone said that the light was solid!”
“Just trust me, ah-cha?”
She stepped forward and tried to ease her way past the cordon of curious individuals. “Excuse me, please. Can we come through…?”
The crowd parted with reluctance, one or two people muttering at the kids.
Ana paused before the wall of light and looked up. It rose high into the sky, and to the left and right. She stared through the light and made out a rising stretch of green, like the brightest lawn she had seen on the softscreens in the restaurants along Station Road.
She turned to her children and said. “Remember, hold hands, and do not let go. Now follow me!”
People laughed. “And where do you think you’re going, slum-girl? Do you think you and your kind will be allowed into paradise?”
Hardly daring to hope that the next few seconds might make these people eat their words, she closed her eyes and stepped forward, into the light.
She heard gasps from behind her, then startled cries. She walked through the light and felt the ground beneath her feet change from sandy soil to soft, springy grass.
She opened her eyes and stared around her. The rest of the children had passed through the light with her, hand in hand, and stood about in mute startlement. Ana looked back through the light and made out faces pressed up against the barrier, staring at the street kids with envy and incredulity.
Before them, a great town spread out to the horizon, bright green grass and silver domes, tubular silver towers and other, similar-shaped buildings, but these ones laid out flat along the land.
She looked up and gasped. High above was the great conjoined disc, like a shield in the sky, of the Serene starships.
Ana led her children up the gentle incline towards the nearest dome.
THEY WERE MET by a tall Westerner who called himself Greg and led them further into the town to a building which, he said, they could call home. The low, brick-built dwelling was divided into several rooms, with a communal dining room, a lounge overlooking a vast garden, and bedrooms to the rear.
Greg introduced Ana and the children to an Indian woman called Varma, who called herself a supervisor and said that over the next few days she would instruct the children on life in the new town. First, they were to rest in their rooms, and in three hours meet in the dining room for a communal meal.
Ana selected a room, between Gopal’s and Prakesh’s, stepped over the threshold and moved to close the door behind her. She found that she was unable to complete the action, and something caught in her throat. She had lived for years with no idea of privacy, had slept every night packed tight with the other street kids — and now she could not bring herself to shut out her friends and family.
There was a narrow bed in the room, and a bedside table and a chair, and a window that looked out over the rolling green land.
She moved to the bed and sat down, bouncing a little to test its springiness.
She had shared a bed with her brother many years ago, at the age of five, when she had lived with her aunt and uncle, but she had forgotten quite how soft they were.
For the first time in sixteen years she had a room and a bed of her own.
The comfort would take some getting used to.
She lay down on the bed, rested her head on the pillow, and tried to relax. She opened her eyes and sat up. There was something wrong. She felt alone. She moved to the open door, stepped out and almost collided with Prakesh, who laughed and jumped back.
They grinned at each other.
“What do you think, Ana?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She took his hand on impulse and drew him into the room.
Lying on the bed, side by side, they began giggling uncontrollably and suddenly she no longer felt alone.
They ate at a big communal table at five o’clock, a simple meal of dal and chapatis, followed by bananas.
It was the best meal Ana had eaten in years.
Later, as the sun went down, Varma took the children on a tour of the garden, and explained, “We are self sufficient here at Fandrabad, or soon will be. You will be given a plot of land on which to grow the food you will consume, and every morning you will attend school classes.”
A buzz passed around the group.
Varma said, “How many of you can read?”
Of the twenty-four children, only Ana and Gopal raised their hands.
Varma smiled. “In a year from now, all of you will be able to read and write.”
Later the children sat around a patio area before the garden, staring up at the starships directly overhead. A circle of blue light marked the centre of the eightfold arrangement where the starship’s nose-cones came together. From the centre of the light, a broad, blue beam fell to Earth, connecting the land on the horizon with the joined starships.
Ana saw Varma in the garden, picking beans, and stepped from the patio to join her.
She gestured to the starships and they both stared upwards. “The light,” Ana asked. “What is it?”
Varma smiled. “Energy,” she said. “The concentrated energy from other stars. It is being beamed to Earth to supply the planet’s needs in the years to come.”
Ana smiled, not sure that she fully understood Varma’s words.