Jani and the Greater Game (The Multiplicity Series Book 1) by Eric Brown Page A

her hand. “The Morn. We were bringing him from Greece to Delhi, where we would question him.”
    “But he was imprisoned like an animal!”
    “Jani-ji,” her father said in barely a whisper, “he was locked up as he was for his own safety, as well as that of the troops transporting him. He was insane when we found him; God knows what the Russians had done to the poor creature. He had to be restrained until we had him here and could sedate him, reassure him of our honourable intentions.”
    “He told me that he had come here in peace, though no one would believe him.” She gripped her father’s hand. “But do you know why the creature came here, and from where?”
    He regarded her for a long time, his weak gaze steady. “He came here many years ago, accompanied by another of his kind. One fell into the hands of the Russians – the creature you happened upon. The other we discovered in London, in such a mentally parlous state that we could not decipher the truth of what he told us.”
    “There was a second creature?” she asked. “And where is it now?”
    “The poor thing is insane, and kept locked up for its own safety.”
    She wondered at the relationship between the two – lovers, or family, or mere comrades – separated now by over four thousand miles. “Tell me, papa-ji, why did they come here?”
    He licked his lips, and his breathing became laboured again. “The creature in London told us terrible stories, stories that we could not bring ourselves to believe, of vast invading armies bent on taking over the world...” His eyes grew large. “But Jani-ji, these were the rantings of an insane creature, who could not be held accountable for his words.” He stopped and gripped her hand. “Tell me, Jani-ji – you saw what the creature did to the Russians?”
    She bent her head and said, “I saw what he did. At least, I saw him kill the three Russian soldiers.”
    He said in a whisper, “And it killed, single-handedly, the remaining fifty-odd. It is truly a creature to be feared.”
    She recalled the creature and said, “But I felt no fear in its company, papa-ji, only compassion at what it had suffered. I... I tried to help it, to give it painkillers, but it refused. In return it gave me something.”
    “Gave you... what?”
    “A coin. Or at least that’s what I thought it was.”
    “You have it now?”
    She looked at him. “No. I assume Cartwright or his men found it amongst my possessions, or that it was stolen or lost.”
    He shook his head. “He mentioned nothing of it to me,” he said. “But then it was merely a courtesy call to a dying old man, to tell him that his daughter was fit and well following her ordeal. I wonder...”
    “Yes?”
    “I wonder why the creature gave you a coin?”
    She said in a small voice, “A simple gift to thank me for my offer of help – perhaps it was the only thing of worth that it possessed.”
    “Perhaps,” he said. “Oh, I implore you to be careful, my darling...” His words were less than whispers and his eyes fluttered shut and, within seconds, he was asleep.
    Later, despite the furious thoughts crowding her head, despite the image of Jelch suffering torture at the hands of the Russians, she found herself giving in to exhaustion.
    When she awoke, it was to find the room a melee of confusion. Dr Hammond was speaking hurriedly to a nurse while Vikram was slipping a hypodermic into her father’s arm.
    The tiny, frail figure of her father ceased its pained writhing, and the doctor and nurses fell silent and stepped away from the bed. Dr Hammond took her hand. “We have done all we can, Miss Chatterjee. Your father is no longer suffering.”
    One by one they slipped from the room, leaving her alone with her father.
    She gripped his hand, and he turned his head and smiled at her. His lips moved, and Jani leaned even closer to make out his words. But she heard nothing, merely felt his warm breath on her cheek, and then not even that.
    She pulled away