Rajban plunged her hoe into the hard earth of the garden bed, prying up chunks of clay. Grief sat in her stomach like heavy black mud, but it was not grief for her husband. It was for herself. Now she was widowed. She had no home. She would have no sons. Brother-in-Law had sent her away.

So why had Gharia come after her?

She hacked at the earth, and thought about it. Gharia had been a frequent guest at Brother-in-Law's table, where they discussed the foreign issue, and the influence of nonbelievers. At times they would grow very angry, but when the talk lapsed, Gharia's eyes often found their rest on Rajban's backside as she worked in the kitchen with Mother-in-Law.

Mother-in-Law would notice the direction of Gharia's gaze, and her words to Rajban would be angry.

Rajban remembered these things as she crumbled each chunk of clay in her hands. She picked up the hoe again and dug deeper. The soil here was bad. There were no worms in it. No tiny bugs. It looked as sterile as the soil in Brother-in-Law's courtyard. Even the weeds were yellow.

No matter.

She would use the magic soil. With love and prayers, its influence could be worked into the ground.

A winged shadow drifted slowly over Rajban's hands. She paused in her work, squinting against the noon sun. There! She spied it again: A tiny plane the color of the sky. It was very hard to see, yet if she looked long enough, she could always find it floating above the house.

The door latch clicked. "Rajban?"

Rajban smiled shyly when she saw the kind woman, Muthaye, looking out between the glass doors. "Namaste," she murmured softly. "You came back."

"Namaste," Muthaye echoed. "Will you come inside? The sun is high, and it is very hot."

Rajban obeyed. She stood on stiff legs, taking a moment to brush the soil from her sari. Inside, she was startled to discover other women. They were four, sitting in a half-circle on the carpet. They were not fine women, like Muthaye. Their saris were worn and their faces lined. All of them were older than Rajban. She felt sure they were all mothers, and she felt ashamed.

Twice in her first year of marriage she had thought herself pregnant, but her hopes were shattered by a late, painful, and heavy flow of blood—as if a baby had been started and then had died.

Rajban remembered the midwife who had come to visit on the day she arrived in her husband's household. This midwife had not looked like the village health aides Rajban had seen at her father's farm. This one was young and finely dressed, and she wore an eye veil, like Michael. "She will make your womb healthy," Mother-in-Law declared. "So healthy you will bear only sons." Rajban had bit her lips to keep from wailing in pain as cold, gloved hands groped inside her. She had not felt healthy afterwards. Her abdomen and her crotch had ached for days—and she had never conceived a baby. Or maybe … she had conceived only girls?

Muthaye had joined the circle of women. Now she smiled at Rajban. "Please won't you sit?" She patted a spot at her side that would close the circle. Rajban did as she was asked, though she would have been happier to disappear into the kitchen. She sat with her hands folded neatly in her lap while Muthaye told a story that did not sound like it could be true.

"My mother was an illiterate country woman," Muthaye began. Her gaze sought Rajban. "That means she was like you. She could not read or write or speak any language but the one she was born to. At fourteen she was married to a young man only a little more educated than she, the third son of a cruel and selfish family. It was a great struggle for my grandfather to gather the large dowry demanded by her husband's family. Still, he paid it, though he was forced to mortgage his land. Several months later there came a terrible storm. The land was flooded, the household of my mother's husband was destroyed, and along with many others in the village, he died of disease. When afterwards my mother gave birth to a daughter, she was driven out of the family. She returned to her father's house, but he refused to receive her, so she went without food and shelter, and her baby girl died.

"My mother became angry.

"She remembered that in the year of her marriage, she had met an agent from the women's cooperative. She went to that agent now, and was given a job sewing embroidered scarves. She earned enough to feed herself, but she wanted more. With the help of the women's cooperative, she taught herself to read. She received a small loan—only two hundred dollars—but it was enough to buy books and start her own lending library. When the loan was paid back she took out another, and eventually she started a school just for girls. In time she married again—"

There was a murmur of surprise from the circle.

"—the son of a longtime member of the women's cooperative. No dowry was paid—"

Again, a whisper of astonishment arose from the gathered women.

"—for dowry is evil and illegal. She still runs her school, and through it she has earned more money for her family than she might have ever brought as dowry. She is middle-class, Rajban. Yet when she was fifteen, she was just like you."

Rajban stared down at the lines of dirt that lay across her palms, knowing it wasn't true. "She had a baby."

Muthaye's tone became more strict: "It is not unexpected that a husband dying of AIDS gave you his disease instead of a child. That does not mean you will never have a child—or another husband."

"My brother-in-law will not allow it."

"You do not belong to him anymore."

Rajban considered this. She turned it over and over in her mind, wondering if it was true. At the same time, she listened to the other women talk about themselves. These women were all learning to read. Three of them had businesses. One made sandals. Another drove a zip. The last cleaned houses. The fourth member of their group was building a fruit stand. All of them had started their businesses with small loans from Muthaye.

"Not from me," Muthaye corrected. "These are loans from the Southern Banking Association."

The loans were for a few hundred dollars at a time, enough to buy the tools and supplies that would let them work. Together, the women ensured that each one of them made their weekly payments. If any failed to do so, all would lose their credit. This was the "microcredit program" administered by Muthaye. Three of the women in this lending circle had been involved for several years, one for only a few months.

"A lending circle should have five women," Muthaye explained. "The fifth lady of this group has moved away to join her son in Bangalore, so there is a place for you here. I have told you the story of my mother. This can be your story too."

Rajban bowed her head. Her heart fluttered, like a bird, seeking to escape its cage for the peaceful serenity of the sun-seared sky. She stared at her hands and whispered, "I don't know how."

One of the older women patted her mud-stained hand. She asked if Rajban could sew or cook. If she could keep a house clean or carry a heavy weight. Rajban didn't know how to answer. Her mother had raised her to do the things women do. All these things she had done, but surely no one would pay her to do them?

"Is there anything you are so good at?" Muthaye asked. "Is there a kind of work that blossoms like a flower in your hands?"

Rajban caught her breath. She glanced out at the garden. "I have a bag of magic soil that makes a garden strong and happy."

This brought a shower of laughter from the women. But why? Hadn't Rajban believed all their tales? And yet they laughed. Their kindly faces had all become the face of her Mother-in-law, laughing, laughing, and endlessly scolding her, Stupid girl!

She felt a touch on her hand, and the vision vanished, but even Muthaye's warm eyes could not chase away the pain.

"Magic is the comfort of old-fashioned women," Muthaye told her. "A modern woman has no need of it. Think on what we've talked about. Think of a business you might like to do. Think hard, for you must be settled before the AIDS treatment can begin."

Word of the morning's misadventures got around quickly. It was still early when Michael stepped from a zip into the shade of the portico at Global Shear's district headquarters. The five-story office cube was newly built, situated halfway up a shallow, rocky rise dividing two of the original villages. A temple occupied the high ground, while a pig farmer kept his animals in a dusty pen on one side of the landscaped grounds. Laborers' shacks made up the rest of the neighborhood.

A nervous community relations officer greeted Michael even before he entered the building. "Shall we issue a public statement, Mr. Fielding?"

"Not unless someone asks."

"There have been several inquiries about the helicopter."

"Then state the truth. Intruder alarms went off and security responded. Play it down, though, and add that we're reviewing our procedures to see if our response might be tempered in the future."

"Yes sir."

Glass doors slipped open, and Michael stepped into the air-conditioned paradise of the public lobby. The receptionist looked up, and smiled. "An exciting morning, Mr. Fielding! That helicopter raid must have shaken the dust off anyone still doubting our diligence."

"So I hear."

He met more compliments on the elevator ride to the fifth floor, but the tenor changed when heentered his corner office, where Karen Hampton waited for him, her image resident in an active wall screen. "A most interesting report appeared in my queue this morning. Talk to me, Michael. What the hell is going on?"

Michael sat down in the chair behind his desk, swiveling to face her. Nothing to do but tell the truth. He explained the situation, but she did not look relieved.

"Michael. I can't believe you've involved yourself with this girl. Do I have to remind you that trust is the most important asset we are building in Four Villages? I don't give a damn how innocent your actions are, stop for a minute and ask yourself how this must look to those people whom you are there to serve—not to exploit. If you can't find her a shelter, then buy her one. For the sake of your reputation and the company's good name, rent this young woman her own house and then stay far away from her."

"What if Gharia comes after her?"

"This isn't our business—"

"Karen, it might be. I've checked the census figures, and there's a growing imbalance in the sex ratio here. There are far fewer young women than men. Rajban may be a widow, and she may be ill, but Gharia's not exactly a kid. She could still be the best prospect he has."

"If that's so, why did her family get rid of her instead of marrying her off?"

"I don't know. Maybe they didn't want to pay a dowry. Maybe they don't give a damn. Maybe they're strict Hindus and don't believe in remarriage for women."

"Listen to yourself! There are cultural complexities here that you haven't begun to grasp. This is not why you're in Four Villages."

"We're here to build a stable, diverse, and functional economy, and that can't exist where there is slavery. I won't send Rajban back into slavery."

"I'm not asking you to do that. Just get her out of your house. I want you in this job, Michael. I really do. Show me my confidence is not misplaced."

"We don't want that. Do what you can."

The day failed to improve. Near noon, Michael looked up from his desk to see Pallava Sen, his second in command, coming through the open doorway, a half-page of neon yellow paper in his hand. "Michael, we have a problem."

Leaning back in his chair, Michael slipped off his shades, laying them carefully on the desk. "How bad a problem?"

Pallava rolled his eyes, as if casting a quick prayer up to the gods. With his portly figure and balding head, he looked like a youthful version of the little buddhas sold in Japanese tourist markets. "Not so bad at the moment, but with significant potential to get much worse."

"Wonderful."

Pallava handed him the yellow paper. "These have appeared all over the town. They are being read aloud, too, so the illiterate will be informed."

Michael scowled at the notice. It was written in Hindi.

Pallava settled into the guest chair, a grim smile on his face. "It is written as a news report, by the Traditional Council of Elders. You've heard of them?"

"No."

"Neither has anyone else. They do not say whose elders they are, but they do tell us some interesting things. Here"—he leaned forward, pointing at the headline—"they say that Global Shear has poisoned the people of this district."

Michael had been so fully set to hear how he had kidnapped and raped a good Hindu woman, that it took him a moment to shift modes. "… Poisoned?"

"The argument follows. It says that independent testing of well water throughout the district has revealed severe pesticide contamination. The wells have been regularly tested, and for many years they have produced only clean, unpolluted water. Now they are suddenly contaminated? The only plausible explanation is that the groundwater was deliberately poisoned."

"That's ridiculous."

"Oh, there's more." He leaned back, lacing his fingers together in a nervous, unsettled bridge. "The notice does not name specific chemicals, but it claims those present will suppress the birth rate of the district's women, and in many cases will cause monstrous birth defects leading to early miscarriage. This may be one reason so few girls have been born this past year. Girls are weaker than boys. They die more easily."

He said this last in a deadpan voice that made Michael's eyes narrow. "The notice says that?" he asked cautiously. "Or is that your interpretation?"

Pallava's face hardened. In the same low, flat voice, he answered, "I would not say that. I have a wife who, I am proud to say, is stronger and smarter than I am. I have two brilliant daughters, a sister, a mother, a grandmother. We are not all that way, Michael."

Michael felt his cheeks heat. "I know. I'm sorry."

Pallava shrugged. "You understand the implication? That Global Shear is using cheap birth control?"

Michael nodded.

"The article is also circulating as an Internet message."

"Christ."

"And Shiva. It has not, mercifully, appeared yet on cable TV."

"We need to dispatch crews to field-sample some wells."

"I have already sent them."

"Good. Get me the results as soon as possible." He drummed his desk. "Better test some crop samples too. The harvest is just coming in on the demonstration farm. Check that, especially. Dammit! We have to counter these accusations today—and on cable TV, too."

Pallava didn't speak right away. He frowned, his brow wrinkling in lines that made him look old.

"How bad is it now?" Michael asked.

Pallava's sigh was long and heartfelt. "Mega-bad. Giga-bad. It seems the slander was at least partly right. We've fast-tested a sample of wells from across the district and everyone of them shows extensive pesticide contamination." He shook his head. "This is not something that could have happened overnight, not even if it was deliberately done, which I don't believe. We are looking at the results of years—probably decades—of seepage into the water table. It's quite obvious the water quality reports we've been using have been falsified. Deliberately falsified."

Michael breathed slowly, trying to calm the fierce pounding of his heart. Don't panic, but don't hide from the truth either. The first thing to do is get a handle on the problem. "Let's be specific here. We're talking drinking water?"

"Drinking, agricultural." Pallava spread his hands helplessly. "It's all the same thing, and judging from the spot samples, we have to assume there is pesticide contamination in every well in the district." His hands laced together as he stared at a spot beyond Michael's shoulder. "The Ikeda rice crop is contaminated too. The sample we tested came out so bad the stuff can't be legally used even for animal feed."

"Christ."

"And Shiva too."

No pesticides had been used on the Ikeda rice. That was, after all, a major benefit of genetically engineered crops—natural insect and disease resistance could be spliced in—but Ikeda rice had not been designed to flush itself free of chemical contamination.

No more assumptions, Michael swore. "Tell me now if Global Shear had anything to do with developing the phony reports."

Pallava straightened, his eyes wide with surprise. He had been in on the operation here from the opening day. "No! No, of course not. Global Shear had nothing to do with preparing the reports. Water quality monitoring has been a government function. Our mistake was relying on the test results we received."

"Why would anybody want to fake these reports?"

Pallava shrugged. "There are many possible reasons. The wells were a government project. To find fault with them would not be patriotic. To find them dirty must mean the money spent to build them was wasted, or that those who built them didn't do sufficient background work, or that more money would be needed to clean the water, and where is that supposed to come from? And will those who built the wells be punished? Those who built the wells also report on their functions, so you see, it's not so hard to understand how it could happen. It's not the first time."

"And still, it's our mistake for trusting the data without testing it."

"Yes. Ultimately, it will come back to that."

It was Jaya's voice, issuing from the shades he'd left lying on the desk. She spoke softly, as if he were a sleeping child and she reluctant to wake him. Her priority link let her open a line at any time.

Michael grabbed the shades and slipped them on. "Jaya! How are you? How's the baby?" He transferred the link to his portal screen, and Jaya's image replaced the document he'd been working on. She was as lovely as any magazine model and, not for the first time, Michael thought of Sheo with a twinge of envy.

"We're all fine," Jaya assured him. Then she hesitated. "Michael, I've been talking to Ryan."

He grunted, sinking back into his chair. "You've heard about Rajban, then."

"Yes. I think it's sweet, what you're trying to do for her." Jaya touched her ruby-red lips. What a perfect alliance she had made with the colorful, symbiotic bacteria living in her cells—yet most people, upon hearing the source of the color, would respond in revulsion: Yuck. I would never do that.

It took practice to keep the mind open to new possibilities.

"Sheo told me about the reaction of the nurses to Ela's birth," Jaya said. "I didn't notice, really. They were very kind to me. The older woman, though, was concerned that I have a son next time. She told me she had been trained in these things."

Michael scowled. "What things?"

"That's what I asked. It seems there is a uterine implant on the market, which can be used to selectively abort female embryos. It isn't legal, but the nurse was quite casual about it. She offered to set me up with one before I left the hospital, for a small fee of course. Sheo thought you might like to know this."

Michael grimaced. "Sheo was right."

A uterine implant was better than infanticide—Michael even found himself admiring the ingenuity of such a device—but what of the imbalance it would generate? He remembered Gharia, and the look of wrath on his face. "How long do you suppose this has been going on?"

Jaya shrugged. "In one form or another, for hundreds of years."

"Though it's gotten easier now."

"Yes."

But who would bear the cost?

Tensions in Four Villages were not readily visible, yet Michael had sensed them anyway, in the whispering of the nurses on the maternity ward, in the heat of Rajban's fever, in Kanwal's cheerful lament over dowry and women and net access. The people here were experiencing a strange, sideways tearing of their culture, like raw cotton being combed apart, the pieces on their way to a new order, while still clinging helplessly to the old.

"This fellow Gharia is supposed to be a religious activist," Michael said. "I'm starting to wonder if it's only coincidence that this attack on Global Shear followed so closely on his visit this morning."

"Rajban is just one little girl," Jaya reminded him.

True, but a fuse was small compared to the explosives it ignited.

Jaya might have read his mind. "Michael, please be careful. These things have a way of getting out of hand."

After a day spent researching a bid on the Victoria Glen project, Cody found she could not sleep. So at 3 A.M. she pulled on her VR helmet and joined her mother on a stroll in the Paris sunshine. That is, Annette strolled, through tourist crowds along a riverwalk, beneath a grove of ancient trees. Cody felt as if she were floating, a balloon gliding at her mother's side.

"Of all the uses of VR, I like this best," Cody said. "Being able to step out of the awful three A.M. hour, when everything's so dark and cold and hopeless—step right out into gorgeous sunshine. It's like slipping free of your fate, flipping a finger at the cosmos. Ha!"

Annette laughed. Cody was looking out of her shades, and so she couldn't see her mother's face, but she could feel her presence. It was a strange, tickling feeling, as if she might see her after all if she turned just a little bit more.…

Cody had not lived with her mother since leaving Victoria Glen for boarding school, and still Annette had been an indefatigable presence in her life, through phone calls and e-mail and brief visits several times a year as they both worked toward their degrees. It had been so hard. Cody felt scared even now when she remembered the loneliness, the resentment she had felt for so many years living on the charity of a corporate scholarship, in a private school where almost everyone else had money and a home and a real family. But even at her worst moments, Cody had never doubted Annette's love.

Now Annette was forty-nine, a data analyst on vacation in Paris with her husband of many years. She had helped him raise his son and one of their own. "Doing it right this time," she'd joked with Cody. It had only hurt a little.

"So, girl. You've been up to something, haven't you? Hurry up and tell me before Jim gets back."

"Up to something?" Cody echoed, disquiet stirring near her heart.

"Something's put you in a mood," Annette said. Up ahead, Jim was waiting by a flower stand. Annette waved to him. "Are you working yourself up for a fight?"

"Oh." Cody had promised herself she would not mention Victoria Glen. Her mother didn't like to think about those days. She didn't even like to acknowledge that time had ever been real. And still, Cody found herself confessing. "I went back to Victoria Glen—"

"Cody!"

"In VR," she added, hoping to appease her mother's scathing tone. "I'm bidding on a job there. I spent all day developing the proposal. I guess I'm wound a little tight."

"Why there, Cody?" Annette sighed. "I know you're doing well. You're not desperate for the job. Are you?"

"No."

"Then why go back there?"

"I don't know. Or … maybe I do know. I—"

Annette stepped into a bookstore, leaving Jim waiting beside the flowers. Cody watched her hands touch the spines of a row of English-language guidebooks. They were strong, long-fingered hands, golden as teak, each nail painted in milk-chocolate-brown. "Cody, do you know the greatest difference between you and me?"

Cody laughed. It was the only reaction she could think of. "Oh, you're smarter than I am."

"No. I'm more ruthless. I have never let the past own me. If I don't like it, I cut it out. I throw it away. It's not an easy thing to do, but it's needful. I don't think about Victoria Glen, and I don't muse over the boy who was your father, and I don't apologize to anybody for letting Prescott Academy take you away. Holding on to all that would have made my soul so heavy I couldn't get up in the morning. I have to live lightly. I have to do all that I can with what I have in my hands right now." She looked up at the bookstore door. Jim had just come in.

Annette's voice grew softer. "Brace yourself for a mother lecture," she warned. "Cody, you need to learn to live lightly too. You don't have anything to make up for. Let the past go. Let it slip away, and find your joy here, today."

When had that come on?

She tapped her glove, calling up a link ID.

Confirmed identity: Michael Fielding.

"Oh God." She felt as if a heat lance had plunged through her, diving in a beam between heart and stomach and out the middle of her back. Michael. "Why now, baby?" she whispered. All the lines of force that guided her life seemed to be intersecting tonight.

She laid her palm against her flat belly. Was there a baby there? Still a single cell, moving toward her womb, and the judgment she had built-in. She'd blamed herself for the loss of that first pregnancy, but had it been her fault? Or had she been poisoned oh so long ago, in Victoria Glen?

She bowed her head, laughing, crying—some strange mix of the two, her guts feeling like jelly. "Baby, why are you calling tonight?"

Easy to find out.

She wiped her eyes on the hem of her shirt. She drew a deep breath to steady herself. Where did he live now, anyway? Hong Kong, wasn't it? She'd gotten a card from him last Christmas.

Her finger curled. She tapped her data glove.

Link.

Just like that, he was there, his head and shoulders drifting in an ill-defined space only an arm's reach in front of her. He looked surprised to see her. "Cody?"

She smiled. "Come on, baby, I don't look that old."

He blushed. Bless him. "Old? Not at all. Hey, it's been a while. And I know its an outrageous hour. I meant to leave a message, but then I thought I'd query your status, and you were awake—"

"How are you, Michael?" she asked. He had always talked too much when he was nervous.

"Oh, I'm good. The job, though … I've got a situation here. I'm working in southern India. Did I tell you that?"

"No."

That flustered him further. A rosy blush heated his bronze complexion. He looked down at his desk a moment, then grinned. "I sound like I've got a few too many crosslinks in the old wetware, don't I?"

"It happens to the best of us."

It was on her lips to tell him what she'd remembered in the VR last night, yet she couldn't do it. It had been her decision to end their marriage. In the long, dark months after the abortion she had watched their union rot, until she could kick it over with one cold clutch of words: There's nothing left. I'm leaving.

How could she tell him now, "Oops. Sorry. I made a mistake"?

"How's your schedule?" he asked. "Are you busy right now?"

"At three A.M.?"

His brows rose over a crooked smile. "Well, yeah. Sorry. I wouldn't be bothering you, but we've just stumbled over a critical groundwater problem—and a possible political stew, to make things exciting." Quickly, he explained the details. "I called you first. You're the best. And, basically, you're a pushover."

Don't smile at me like that, she thought. And breathe, girl.

Thank God this wasn't a full-sensory link. She didn't want to smell him, or feel the heat off his body. That smile was like a light shining into her soul.…

She asked, "Are you looking for a professional reference?"

"If you think that's what I need. I was wondering, though, if you could handle it?"

"An operation that size?" She shook her head, uncomfortable with the idea. "Green Stomp has only done domestic work. It would take time for us to hire the extra personnel and mobilize." And besides, there's another job I need to do. "You'd be better off with a local outfit. I could ask around for recommendations."

He nodded, but he looked tense and unhappy. "I really need a favor, Cody. Could you do a VR consultation now? I mean right now. This afternoon … oh hell. This morning, where you are. I need a specialist to survey the wells. I need solid answers for the people who live here. It's a bad situation, and it could get out of hand so easily, especially …"

She didn't like the awkward guilt lurking in his eyes. "What, Michael?"

He told her about Rajban. Cody listened, unable to completely suppress a dark spear of suspicion, of jealousy, but when he finished, she shook her head at her own tumbled existence, knowing she had thrown away something precious for all the wrong reasons. It was all she could do not to cry.

Concluded next week.