Vimana

Guessing what Kartik was planning, Aaditya had slowed his own craft down drastically, so that when Kartik stopped, he easily stayed behind him.

Before they could continue their games, Indra spoke through their headsets. 'I know you must be enjoying yourselves, but I had sent you to do some work. Now please get back if you're done.'

Suitably chastened, Aaditya and Kartik flew straight back to Kongka La.

When they got out of their cockpits, Aaditya saw a new expression on Kartik's face, one he had not seen before. When Kartik asked him a bit stiffly to go and check what Ganesha was up to, he wondered if he had done something wrong. He was on the way when Narada caught up with him.

'Terrible business this. First the quake and then I heard about the Asuras you tracked. By the way, don't worry about Kartik, he'll be fine.'

'What's with him?'

Narada smiled.

'He's a fine pilot but a poor loser. We all were watching on our displays how you flew circles around him today. I guess this is what happens when the teacher realizes for the first time that the student has caught up.'

Aaditya found Ganesha as usual propped up in front of his screens, eating something. Lakshmi was sitting next to him, staring at some data. She nudged Ganesha and spoke in hushed tones, 'He never loses a chance to make a buck, does he?'

When they saw Aaditya enter, she explained, 'I keep tracking which shell companies Kalki may be using to fund his activities and also pay his human cronies. Guess what? Just before this quake, one of his firms had invested heavily in shares of firms that supply water purifiers, emergency rescue equipment and also some housing firms in Japan that have traditionally got reconstruction contracts. As you can imagine, their stocks will climb sky high now, and he'll make a killing.'

Aaditya sat down, fascinated at the various levels at which this battle was waged, but he had other, more immediate concerns on his mind.

'Ganesha, everyone here seems to think Kalki has something to do with this quake, and Kartik said that some godforsaken place called Hong Island would give me clues. What's that about?'

Ganesha laughed, struggling to keep himself from spitting out the food that was in his mouth.

'Kartik will always be up to his tricks. I tell you, that brother of mine can never give a straight answer when he can have some fun making you work to get it. I need you to Google something.'

Aaditya inserted one of the control plugs in his ear and brought up a holographic display in front of him with a web browser open.

'Now Google "Hong Island UFO" and tell me what you see.'

Aaditya did as he was told and read through the first couple of search results. Then he turned to Ganesha, half smiling. 'Is this a joke? I got some trashy tabloid articles about how a UFO washed up on Hong Island after the 2004 Tsunami. But it's garbage. The articles claim there were two dead aliens inside.'

Ganesha raised an eyebrow in mock anger. 'And what's garbage about so-called aliens? After all, your alien could be my cousin.'

'Ganesha, come on, you must have seen this crap. Along with those alien bodies, they supposedly found a naked American woman whom they had been performing sexual experiments on, a McDonald's Happy Meal and some porn. Who would believe this stuff?'

'Nobody would. That was the whole idea, and these tabloids printed exactly what we fed them.'

'What?'

Ganesha turned towards Aaditya, offering him a sweet.

'You see, that evening, a craft did wash up on the beach at Hong Island. A few local fishermen saw it, and called some clueless local cops. But before any other authorities could get there, we had taken a look at it and destroyed it. But since word had gotten out, Narada and Tanya did their usual masterly PR and fed the tabloids such junk that nobody would believe it.'

'What craft was it?'

'The usual Asura vimana, with a dead Asura inside. It must have been caught up in the tsunami somehow. But the point is what the hell was it doing so close to the water in the first place?'

Aaditya thought back to the Asura vimanas he had encountered earlier in the day and wondered the same thing as Ganesha continued, 'The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake measured 9.3 on the Richter scale, and you well know the catastrophic damage the resulting tsunami caused. In early 2010, there were two more major quakes-near Chile and Haiti, the latter resulting in almost as many deaths as in 2004. In 2011, we had the 8.9 quake off Japan, and now you have yesterday's Japan tsunami. The Japanese are well prepared and have much better infrastructure, but still several thousand souls have perished. What's common to all these events?'

Aaditya thought about it and answered that the obvious linkage was that they were all underwater quakes resulting in tsunamis. Ganesha nodded. 'That's not all. Every one of these events was accompanied by a huge spike in UFO sightings, and as we know from Hong Island and your mission today, the Asuras were indeed up and about in the same place and same time as these events.'

It suddenly struck Aaditya.

'Do you think Kalki is behind these quakes?'

'Of that we have no doubt now. The big question is what the hell his plan is.'

***

Aaditya was soon to realize what many men before him have-that hell indeed has no fury like a woman scorned. He had left in the morning when Tanya had been asleep and by the time he got back, it was already close to midnight and she was again asleep in her room. Normally, they went in and out of each other's rooms freely, but when he knocked there was no answer, and when he commanded the door to open, it stayed shut. When he woke up in the morning and sought Tanya out, he found her in a sullen mood. She would answer him with no more than monosyllabic responses and would not even look at him.

'Tanya, what's wrong?'

'Nothing.'

Aaditya sat down next to her on her bed and reached out to touch her arm, but she pulled it away.

'Sweetheart, are you mad about something?'

She turned briefly to look at him, and though she didn't say anything, her eyes told him just how angry she was.

'Hey, if I've done or said something, I really am sorry. Look, I screw up all the time, but the last thing I'd do is to hurt you on purpose. At least tell me what's wrong.'

'I have work to do as well. See you later.'

With those words, she disappeared, leaving Aaditya feeling really puzzled. He never got much of a chance to think about it during the day. All morning was spent sitting with the senior Devas who were poring over both the aftermath of the quakes and also the action in the Middle East. Thanks to Aaditya and Kartik, a major war in the Middle East had been averted, but what was bothering most of the Devas was why Kalki had suddenly stepped up his operations to such an extent.

Seeing Kartik nowhere around, Aaditya asked Indra who was sitting next to him where he was.

'He's flying over Japan again, trying to see if he can get a glimpse of the Asuras.'

Aaditya wondered why he had not taken him along.

'Why don't we just attack Kalki's home base, or don't we know where that is?'

Vishnu brought up a holographic map, and highlighted an area in the North Atlantic Ocean.

'Aadi, it's time for a history refresher. In March 1918, the US Navy suffered its worst peacetime loss ever when the submarine USS Cyclops sank under unknown circumstances with 302 sailors on board. There were no survivors, and to this date, nobody knows what happened.'

A red dot appeared in the highlighted area.

'December 1945, Flight 19, a group of five US bombers disappeared in the same area. Again, no wreckage found, no survivors and no explanation for what happened. Over the years, dozens of ships and planes have gone missing in this area.'

As Vishnu spoke, more and more red dots appeared. Vishnu motioned with his hand and a rough triangle was drawn on the map, enclosing all the red dots.