Astrid and I sat on the rolled up mats and bundles that had been tied to the back of Shana-Kali. I'd given up on convincing the mahouts to give Subject Seventeen another, less intimidating name. Now it was left for me to make her name an asset.

We rode through the tall grass and scrub trees at the end of a line formed by the five other elephants. Somewhere ahead we expected to find two newborn rhino calves who were neither on our census nor fitted with the customary tracking implants. I was pleased at the way Shana-Kali used her trunk to move the grass aside in the thick parts, the way she settled each foot in before moving another. The on-site programming had gone well, once I'd convinced the mahout Gyan that no harm would come to his precious Chanchal.

A few days before, I'd slipped a series of subcutaneous sensors into the skin of the lead elephant's legs, head and trunk. Two other, more sophisticated, sensors I inserted into key ganglia at either end of Chanchal's spine. All the field data so collected I'd downloaded into Shana-Kali's microprocessor. The resident software had refined the movements, deciding which opposing muscle groups would need to be called into play to make the responses smooth and natural.

I sat with my legs on either side of Shana-Kali's neck. On either side of me were Astrid's long tanned legs. My mother had always claimed a tan was an invitation to early tissue damage. She'd used sunblock religiously, the same way she'd kept her diet free from preservatives and taken Nu-Hormone shots every five years. All my life she'd so much energy for that, and so little for me. And what did it finally get her?

I could smell Astrid's clean detergent-washed clothes over the wild citrus smell of the Murraya shrub. She'd been the only volunteer assistant for this field test of the reanimated elephant. While I wished for more acceptance by the other researchers, I wasn't unhappy with this arrangement. Astrid and I had stayed up talking several nights after the others had gone to bed. Astrid had a great mind. And great legs.

I pulled from my pocket a flat pod-shaped stone about the size of my palm and handed it to her.

"Why do you have this?" she said. She peered at the rough carving, which was a many-armed figure with a ferocious skull's head, long tongue and a necklace of human bones. From between the widespread legs issued all manner of animals and plants.

"I was hoping you could tell me. I asked Dr. Chandra and he just laughed so hard he couldn't speak. I mean, I'm sure it's the goddess Kali, but why did I find it in Subject Seventeen's stall? It was smeared with blood when I picked it up, too." I could still almost feel the moist stickiness on my fingers.

"These are old Hindu stones, meant to represent a woman's... private parts. Hindus put them around various places to ask favor from the Black Mother Kali. In the old days, she demanded blood sacrifices. This one looks pretty new, though." She shrugged and handed it back. "Only superstitions."

A few hours later, the calves still not found, we halted for a mid-day meal in a clearing in the grass. The trees around us were bent and spare, and steam rose up out of the ground. I brought Shana-Kali alongside the other elephants, ignoring the mutters and rolling eyes of the trainers. "Cul," I said, and she put out her foot so we could scramble off. We left her standing motionless on all four legs as the other animals grazed, rumbling happily like motorboats deep in their throats the way elephants do. Dr. Chandra whispered to the mahouts as I walked away. One of them spit in the direction of Shana-Kali.

We'd barely sat down to our meal of rice and lentils when one of the live elephants began to trumpet, and all of the others joined in. We heard thumps as they began to bang the ground with their trunks.

"They see a tiger!" cried a mahout. We ran toward the animals. I understood the situation in a instant. There was no tiger.

The live elephants had completely surrounded Shana-Kali. They alternated between trumpeting, thumping the ground, and slapping at her with their trunks. Chanchal, the largest, kept shoving Shana-Kali in the side with her head. The trumpeting grew more threatening.

"Chiii! Chiii!" I cried, running closer to slap the elephant nearest us. She ignored me. "Help me drive them away," I called. I thwacked another elephant on the flank. She lumbered sideways toward me, forcing me into the circle of animals. All around me the elephants were throwing their heads back, slinging their trunks around, stomping the ground with their great horny feet. I felt the ground shake, and looked for a way to escape. "Make them stop! Make them stop!" I was almost screaming.

The elephants didn't stop until the mahouts got involved, slapping them in the side and prodding them with goads to move them away.

"Bad judgment, running into the middle of enraged elephants. They take their cue from their trainers. Ah, these backwards Nepalese," said Chandra. He called over to the mahouts. "You see? I told you your beasts were too sensitive for this."

"Yes! They know this one is dead, Pandu," Gyan told me. "And having her nearby will call in demons. Take her away! Take her away!" The other Nepalese stood with their backs to me, coaxing and calming their elephants. Even the researchers wouldn't meet my eyes.

I stood there on the steamy soil of the Terai and felt years of work turn to shit. It was all I could do not to scream.