"Would that I were," he said with a faraway look in his eyes. "It seemed so right at the time. After nearly a century of living, my sister seemed to be the only person on earth worth knowing… certainly the only one left with whom I had anything in common."
"You're crazier than I thought you were!" Jack said.
Kusum smiled sadly. "Ah! Something else my dear sister neglected to mention. She probably told you our parents were killed in 1948 in a train wreck during the chaos following the end of British colonial rule. It's a good story—we cooked it up together. But it's a lie. I was born in 1846. Yes, I said 7546. Bati was born in 1850. Our parents, whose names adorn the stern of this ship, were killed by Sir Albert Westphalen and his men when they raided the temple of Kali in the hills of northwestern Bengal in 1857. I nearly killed Westphalen then myself, but he was bigger and stronger than the puny eleven-year-old boy I was, and nearly severed my left arm from my body. Only the necklace saved me."
Jack's mouth had gone dry while Kusum spoke. The man spoke his madness so casually, so matter-of-factly, with the utter conviction of truth. No doubt because he believed it was truth. What an intricate web of madness he had woven for himself.
"The necklace?" Jack said.
He had to keep him talking. Perhaps he would find an opening, a chance to get Vicky free of his grasp. But he had to keep the rakoshi in mind, too—they kept drawing closer by imperceptible degrees.
"It does more than hide one from rakoshi. It heals… and preserves. It slows aging. It does not make one invulnerable —Westphalen's men put bullets through my parents' hearts while they were wearing their necklaces and left them just as dead as they would have been without them. But the necklace I wear, the one I removed from my father's corpse after I vowed to avenge him, helped mend my wound. I lost my arm, true, but without the aid of the necklace I would have died. Look at your own wounds. You've been injured before, I am sure. Do they hurt as much as you would expect? Do they bleed as much as they should?"
Warily, Jack glanced down at his arms and legs. They were bloody and they hurt—but nowhere near as much as they should have. And then he remembered how his back and left shoulder had started feeling better soon after he had put on the necklace. He hadn't made the connection until now.
"You now wear one of the two existing necklaces of the Keepers of the Rakoshi. While you wear it, it heals you and slows your aging to a crawl. But take it off, and all those years come tumbling back upon you."
Jack leaped upon an inconsistency. "You said 'two existing necklaces.' What about your grandmother's? The one I returned?"
Kusum laughed. "Haven't you guessed yet? There is no grandmother! That was Kolabati herself! She was the assault victim! She had been following me to learn where I went at night and got—How do you Americans so eloquently put it?—'Rolled.' She 'got rolled' in the process. That old woman you saw in the hospital was Kolabati, dying of old age without her necklace. Once it was replaced about her neck, she quickly returned to the same state of youth she was in when the necklace was stolen from her." He laughed again. "Even as we speak, she grows older and uglier and more feeble by the minute!"
Jack's mind whirled. He tried to ignore what he had been told. It couldn't be true. Kusum was simply trying to distract him, confuse him, and he couldn't allow that. He had to concentrate on Vicky and on getting her to safety. She was looking at him with those big blue eyes of hers, begging him to get her out of here.
"You're only wasting time, Kusum. Those bombs go off in twenty-five minutes."
"True," the Indian said. "And I too grow older with every minute."
Jack noticed then that Kusum's throat was bare. He did look considerably older than Jack remembered him. "Your necklace…?"
"I take it off when I address them," he said, gesturing to the rakoshi. "Otherwise they wouldn't be able to see their master."
"You mean 'father,' don't you? Kolabati told me what kaka-ji means."
Kusum's gaze faltered, and for an instant Jack thought this might be his chance. But then it leveled at him again. "What one had once thought unspeakable becomes a duty when the Goddess commands."
"Give me the child!" Jack shouted. This was getting him nowhere. And time was passing on those bomb timers. He could almost hear them ticking away.
"You'll have to earn her, Repairman Jack. A trial by combat… hand-to-hand combat. I shall prove to you that a rapidly aging, one-armed Bengali is more than a match for a two-armed American."
Jack stared at him in mute disbelief.
"I'm quite serious," Kusum continued. "You've defiled my sister, invaded my ship, killed my rakoshi. I demand a contest. No weapons—man to man. With the child as prize."
Trial by combat! It was insane! This man was living in the dark ages. How could Jack face Kusum and risk losing the contest—he remembered what one of the Indian's kicks had done to the door in the pilot's quarters—when Vicky's life rode on the outcome? And yet how could he refuse? At least Vicky had a chance if he accepted Kusum's challenge. Jack saw no hope at all for her if he refused.
"You're no match for me," he told Kusum. "It wouldn't be fair. And besides, we don't have time."
"The fairness is my concern. And do not worry about the time—it will be a brief contest. Do you accept?"
Jack studied him. Kusum was very confident—sure, no doubt, that Jack was ignorant of the fact that he fought savate-style. He probably figured a kick to the solar plexus, a kick to the face, and it would be all over. Jack could take advantage of that over-confidence.
"Let me get this straight: If I win, Vicky and I can leave unmolested. And if I lose… ?"
"If you lose, you agree to disarm all the bombs you have set and leave the child with me."
Insane… yet as much as he loathed to admit it, the idea of hand-to-hand combat with Kusum held a certain perverse appeal. Jack could not still the thrill of anticipation that leaped through him. He wanted to get his hands on this man, wanted to hurt him, damage him. A bullet, a flamethrower, even a knife—all were much too impersonal to repay Kusum for the horrors he had put Vicky through.
"All right," he said in as close to a normal voice as he could manage. "But how do I know you won't sic your pets on me if I win—or as soon as I take this off?" he said, pointing to the flamethrower tanks on his back.
"That would be dishonorable," Kusum said with a frown. "You insult me by even suggesting it. But to ease your suspicions, we will fight on this platform after it has been raised beyond the reach of the rakoshi."
Jack could think of no more objections. He lowered the discharge tube and stepped toward the platform.
Kusum smiled the smile of a cat who has just seen a mouse walk into its dinner dish.
"Vicky stays on the platform with us, right?" Jack said, loosening the straps on his harness.
"Of course. And to show my good will, I'll even let her hold onto my necklace during the contest." He shifted his grip from Vicky's throat to her arm. "It's there on the floor, child. Pick it up."
Hesitantly, Vicky stretched out and picked up the necklace. She held it as if it were a snake.
"I don't want this!" she wailed.
"Just hold onto it, Vicks," Jack told her. "It'll protect you."
Kusum started to pull her back toward him. As he went to return his grip from her arm to her throat, Vicky moved— without warning she cried out and lunged away from him. Kusum snatched for her but she had fear and desperation as allies. Five frantic steps, a flying leap, and she crashed against Jack's chest, clutching at him, screaming:
"Don't let him get me, Jack! Don't let him! Don't let him!"
Got her!
Jack's vision blurred and his voice became lost in the surge of emotion that filled him as he held Vicky's trembling little body against him. He couldn't think—so he reacted. In a single move he raised the discharge tube with his right hand and swung his left arm around behind Vicky to grasp the forward grip, holding her to him while he steadied the tube. He pointed it directly at Kusum.