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Sheesh Mahal restaurant. The dining room was only sparsely occupied as it was too early for the regular clientele to finish their pre-dinner drinking at the bar. It was thus easy for Navin to locate the person he had come to meet—a short, stout man in a blue safari suit.
    ‘Welcome, Navinbhai … punctual as usual! So what will be the order of the day—drinks, dinner, or discussion? What comes first?’ The man was smiling, but Navin knew what lay beneath that urbane exterior.
    ‘Dinner, discussion—but no drinks’, he replied in an even tone.
    ‘Well, you have changed! But we shall see about the last part later.’
    Navin quietly moved to the buffet table. He was ravenously hungry. His companion, who had to follow a strict diet, watched enviously as Navin tucked into the food. It was half an hour before Navin felt the need to talk. Looking up from a plate containing four different sweet delicacies, he turned to the business of the day.
    ‘Pyarelalji, how is your electronics business?’
    ‘Pyarelal was moodlily stirring his black coffee. ‘It is so-so … but I came to ask you how things are at your end. What is new? … Or rather, what is old? That would be more correct in your case.’
    ‘Nothing exceptional’, was Navin’s non-committal reply.
    ‘But surely, you are understating, Navin? You know how great the demand is. I need hardly remind you of the rewards … how about an AC and a stereo system for that red car of yours?’
    Pyarelal knew Navin’s weaknesses. In fact, he knew the weaknesses of all his contacts, which was why he had been so successful in life.
    ‘I have to be careful, Pyarelalji’, Navin replied, dealing with an eclair. ‘You know how I was nearly nabbed after that incident on Vikramaditya . Somebody followed me from Palam to my home—I am sure of it.’
    ‘Nonsense! You are becoming nervous without reason. These CBI fellows are absolute fools—otherwise they would have got us long ago. No, my clients abroad have long waited for some really major stuff from you. Not since those Madhya Pradesh relics …’
    ‘I will try. Perhaps something from the Gupta period will turn up in Bihar. But I don’t think that would fetch much’, Navin broke in.
    ‘You need not worry about prices—that’s my concern. Look at this list now.’
    Pyarelal produced a typed list and the two were soon engrossed in deep discussion.
    At about ten o’clock Navin got up. ‘Well I’ll see what I can do. Meanwhile, goodbye.’
    ‘What! No drinks? Come on, let’s have one to seal our agreement.’
    ‘Not now, I am driving.’ Navin turned round and moved towards the exit.
    ‘The fellow has changed!’ muttered Pyarelal as he, too, followed Navin.
    Neither of them saw the man with a military bearing get up from a neighbouring table.
    4 The News Hounds
    ‘Raghavan, this takes the whole matter beyond our jurisdiction, damn it.’ Arul was naturally peeved at this further interruption in his project. Raghavan nodded and looked at his watch.
    It was three-thirty in the morning. Though it was dark, arrangements had been made to continue digging under floodlights. Round the clock work was necessary to catch up with the schedule of the gravity experiment, but tonight no work had been done. The floodlights nevertheless operated to keep the mysterious cube under scrutiny.
    ‘Neither you nor I can claim to be an archaeologist’, Arul continued, ‘but even we can see that this is not from recent times. The script is totally alien. What is more, the alloy—it probably contains iron—is unknown to our technology. Look how brightly it reflects light even after heaven knows how many centuries.’
    ‘How many, do you reckon?’ Raghavan was gradually leading to an issue that he did not want to mention directly. He hoped Arul would come round to it himself.
    ‘Can’t say! But I think—no, I am pretty sure, this alloy does not belong to our post-industrial revolution times. In fact, I can safely bet that the