Page 122 of The Surviving Sky
Ahilya made no reply. Her arm beneath the cast twinged. Her stomach churned. She thought of the fetus forming in her body. It had no consciousness yet, a mere mass of cells. But Iravan was alive.Hewasalive.
“I see,” Airav said. “And therefore, I must ask you. Are you sure you want to attempt this? You have no obligation toanyone—noteven toIravan—torisk your life in such a manner. You are a citizen, Ahilya-ve, and you are to be protected, not imperiled, least of all in your condition. I must emphasize that there is very little chance of success.”
“As much a chance of success as you have with my information,” she said.
“I suppose so.” Airav turned to Dhruv, as though he had known already his words would have no effect. “If you wouldn’t mind, please get your battery ready. Ahilya-ve, I suggest you say your goodbyes. The elevator will take you to the temple’s terrace. I’ll see you there in half an hour.”
“You’re sending hernow?” Dhruv asked, stunned.
“There’s no reason to wait,” Airav said. He started to walk away, back to the councilors, but Ahilya touched his arm and he looked up, surprised.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Senior Architect Airav tilted his head, studying her from behind his glasses. A weak smile grew on his features. “You know, Ahilyave, I don’t think you are. But you seem to be doing what you think is right. And that’s all any of us can do.”
Ahilya’s hand fell away. She nodded, her throat thick again.
“Now, please,” Airav said, gesturing gently. “Do as I say. It’s time.”
39
AHILYA
Tariya didn’t try to stop her. She only said, her voice very quiet,
“You’re leaving me too.”
Ahilya’s tongue felt heavy. She swallowed, trying to dislodge the pain in her throat, trying to lessen the guilt in her stomach, but she could not lie to her sister, not now, not after everything that had happened. Shewasleaving; she was taking herself away from Tariya the way their parents had, the way Bharavi had been taken away. The despair grew in her sister’s big eyes, hidden behind a veil of indifference and anger. Tariya would not say any more, but she would spiral deeper into her sadness. Ahilya knew this, and the thought choked her now.
“I need to do this,” she whispered. “For Iravan. For myself. Please.”
Tariya said nothing. She simply turned away, her shoulders slumped, her body shuddering, and Ahilya recognized the weakness of her own words. Iravan was likely dead; she had told Tariya what had happened, how he had been snatched away, how low the chances were of finding him. Ahilya could almost hear her sister’s thought, the sick vindication. In the end, everyone had left Tariya, and Ahilya was now going to be one of them, however she justified it. Tariya would not believe anythingelse—andin this moment, Ahilya had no words to refute her.
She kissed a sleeping Arth and Kush, hugged an unmoving Tariya, then walked away from the infirmary floor before her nerve failed her. A satchel filled with some food and water, identical to the bag she took on her expedition, weighed her shoulders down.
Dhruv’s words consumed her mind. Was that what she forced people to do? Enable her own selfishness? Airav must have known she wouldn’t back down. The Senior Architect had barely argued; he had almostexpectedher to do what she had. Ahilya held her cast close, her throat burning with thick shame. The elevator ascended through the silent, dying ashram.
She stepped off at Nakshar’s only rooftop terrace. Wind buffeted her at once, blowing her hair back and chilling her to the bone. Small and circular, the terrace was shaped like a cave, open to the skies on a side but covered everywhere else with hard bark. Thick gray clouds slipped in through the skyward side and cut away. A fading sun glistened behind the mist. Vertigo gripped Ahilya. She swayed on her feet, terrified. For a long second, she was unable to move, her breath panicked. What was she doing? She wasn’t a hero. She was nobody. But then Dhruv waved her over from a corner, and it was too late to change her mind.
The sungineer was tinkering with the forcefield of a solid glass deathbox within which a tiny spiralweed leaf fluttered, green and bulbous. As she approached, Dhruv pointed to a pile of sungineering equipment without looking at her. “Got some things for you.”
Ahilya knelt and sifted through his equipment: a wrist-compass, two twines of rope, folding shovels, machetes, a telescope, a brand-new solarnote,and—shesaw—theduplicate elephant-yaksha tracker in the form of a necklace. Her throat thickened with emotion. The tracker’s surface was like glass. It chimed softly, and a red dot blinked far into the dark east, away from the setting sun. Iravan.
“Thank you,” she whispered as she slipped the necklace around her neck and the equipment into her satchel.
The elevator bark she had come through split open and Airav emerged. He removed some of his rudra bead bracelets and necklaces as he approached her.
“I’m no architect,” she said as he made to hand the beads over.
“These contain emergency permissions,” Airav said. “To navigate your aircraft and to manipulate the plants inside. If everything works well with the battery, these ought to work concurrently with the craft, as though you were in a miniature Nakshar.”
Ahilya accepted the beads, but their weight was uncomfortable, like wearing someone else’s clothes. Not even Iravan’s beads had felt so heavy. She had once been envious of Naila; she had wanted beads like these as a councilor, but she didn’t deserve them. The weight in her stomach grew leaden. Silently, she tucked the jewelry under her kurta, where it was less conspicuous.
Senior Architect Airav nodded, then waved a hand. Blue-green vines grew over his skin as he trajected. A healbranch chair grew over the grass, right next to Dhruv. Airav watched it grow, then pushed his glasses up in a movement of decision. He approached it and sat down abruptly on the chair. Wordlessly, Dhruv connected circuits of optical fibers from the deathbox to Airav’s ankles and wrists and forehead, and back to some unfamiliar equipment. Airav winced but did not ask the sungineer to stop.
“If you please, Ahilya-ve,” he said instead, “could you seat yourself on the battery, facing us?” He pointed toward the edge, where the clouds whipped in to take a bite out of the terrace.
Ahilya noticed only then that a small white box waited a couple of feet from the edge. Thin, glassy optical fibers connected it to the spiralweed deathbox like shining worms.
