Jani and the Greater Game (The Multiplicity Series Book 1) by Eric Brown

The wooden blades began to turn sluggishly, creating a pleasant cooling downdraught.
    She lay on the overstuffed featherbed and looked around the room. The nursery wallpaper, the child’s drawings on the wall, the rocking horse and wooden building blocks in the corner, all belonged to the little girl she had been before being whisked away to England and boarding school. She felt less of a connection to this room, oddly enough, than to the rest of the house. It was as if it had belonged to another little girl, not herself.
    She drifted off, inhabiting that strange hinterland between wakefulness and true sleep in which dream images seem startlingly vivid and real. She was with her father and they were on the flight deck of an airship, laughing together at their adventure as the ship sped through the cloud cover.
    Then these pleasant images were replaced by others, far less pleasant. She was running through the wreckage of an airship crash, following a strange creature she knew was Jelch, and Russian soldiers were chasing her.
    She screamed as Jelch fell, his torso riddled with bullets...

CHAPTER
    SIX
     

     
    The summons – At her father’s bedside –
    Mr Chatterjee breathes his last –
    “You must find Jani and warn her...”
     
     
    “J ANI ! J ANI, QUICKLY. You must come!”
    She sat upright, rubbing her eyes. “What time is it?” She saw that darkness had descended outside and that the bedside lamp was glowing.
    “Almost midnight, Jani. Your father has fallen ill again. They took him to hospital in an ambulance five minutes ago. Mr Rai is waiting in the car. He will take us now, Jani!”
    His words had the instant effect of banishing whatever sleep still lingered. She slipped her bare feet into her sandals and stood up. “Midnight? I was due to dine with my father at seven.” She had a sudden sense of a terrible injustice done to her. “But why wasn’t I summoned?”
    Anand rocked his head from side to side. “Your father was not feeling too well at seven, Jani, and when I came for you, you were sleeping soundly. Your father said that you were not to be disturbed.”
    “Ah-cha. Very well.”
    They hurried through the silent, darkened house, and Jani had the bleak thought that if her father was not to survive the night, then she would forever regret not dining with him one last time. As they stepped out into the humid night and crossed to the waiting car, she banished the thought. She was being maudlin and ridiculous; her father would rally and pull through and she would enjoy many more fine meals with him.
    “Papa-ji felt unwell just before dinner, Jani!” Mr Rai said as he steered the car onto the quiet street and headed north. “He said he would eat nothing. I was a little worried and summoned Vikram, as your father has maintained a healthy appetite of late. Vikram was with papa-ji all evening, when just thirty minutes ago he took a turn for the worse and an ambulance was summoned.”
    “Do you know exactly what was wrong...?” she began.
    “He was all hot and cold and then he was sick, Jani. That is all I know.”
    From the back seat, Anand said, “He was complaining of bad stomach pains at seven, Jani. But he has had these pains before, and once he was rushed to hospital and was kept in for one day, after which he was allowed home. The same will happen again, Jani, believe me.”
    “I hope so,” she said as she watched the illuminated blur of traffic swing around Connaught Circus like the rides of a carousel.
    Ten minutes later they came to the monolithic white block of the Queen Victoria Hospital set in acres of green lawn. Mr Rai left the car and guided Jani and Anand into the building, through a busy reception area and along interminable corridors crowded with shawled figures sitting on chairs or lying on the floor. They stepped from the building and crossed a lawn to a second, smaller building. Jani moved as if still in a dream, her senses muffled, the reality of the situation seemingly