"Two bars," Priya said. She dialled before the words were fully out. It rang. Then cut. She dialled again. Cut again. "Not enough."
Aryan stopped the vehicle on the elevated stretch and got out. He stood at the edge of the plateau and looked down at the ravines and tried to think with the methodical clarity that he used for production planning, which was the only kind of clarity currently available to him.
Facts: Vikram had vanished from a section of ravine in a gap of twenty seconds. The keys and bag were still in the vehicle. A signal mark had appeared on the ravine wall while they were inside, in a location they had passed twenty minutes before. Someone had been standing at the ravine entrance.
Interpretations: Vikram had gone voluntarily for a reason they didn't understand. Vikram had been taken by someone. The signal mark was old and they had missed it on the way in. The mark was new and made by Vikram or by someone else.
The honest hierarchy of these interpretations, when arranged by probability, did not produce a comfortable order.
"We go back," he said.
"No," Tanya said. Very flat.
"Vikram could be injured. He could be in the ravine right now needing help."
"Or he could be bait," she said. She had found her voice again, and it was different from her usual voice — stripped of the performance layer, just the person underneath it. "Don't look at me like that. You know what I mean."
Kabir was already on his phone, reviewing his notes. He had the expression of someone who wants very badly for an academic solution to present itself and is looking very hard for one.
"The road we came in on," he said. "The track. It only goes to the clearing. Is there another way out of the ravine system by vehicle?"
"Vikram would know," Priya said.
"Yes." A pause. "There's a secondary access point marked on my notes — a government forestry road that enters the ravines from the north, near a place called Bargawa. It should meet the main ravine network if you go in deep enough. Twelve kilometres north by road."
"We know this how?" Aryan said.
