Martin grinned. “Suit yourselves.”
Keeping him in front of them, they headed back toward the room where they had spoken with the twin Priest. They passed a number of tribesmen on their way, but Martin didn’t try anything, and they kept their heads down to keep from being recognized.
“So far, so good,” said Andre.
“So far it’s too easy,” Finn said.
“You complaining?”
“No, but where are all the soldiers we saw before?”
“I don’t much care, to tell you the truth,” said Andre. “Long as they’re not here.”
They reached the room they were seeking and shoved Martin inside ahead of them. There was no one there. Finn pushed Martin into a chair and gave Andre the laser to cover him while he searched the room.
“What’s going on, Martin?” he said. “Where is everyone?”
“Maybe they all went on leave,” said Martin.
“We’re not going to get anything out of him,” said Andre. “He’s no different from our Martin in that respect.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” said the soldier from the alternate timeline.
“Shut up,” said Delaney, searching the gear in the storage cabinets at the far end of the room. “Where the hell did they put them?”
“Are these what you’re looking for?”
A pair of warp discs landed on the table in front of Martin. Finn spun around. Captain Bryant stood in the entrance with four soldiers behind him. He had a laser trained on Finn.”Go ahead,” he said, with a half smile. “Do you feel lucky?”
Gunga Din perched precariously on a rocky ledge above the balcony. He had managed to climb perhaps twenty feet. To his left, about fifty feet away, was a large hollow in the rock wall where part of the temple stood, surrounded by the cliffs. He could see the walled enclosure of an open space, a large balcony with several carved statues of Kali between pillars supporting the rock overhead, and farther in, another part of the temple. A number of Chazis had come out onto that balcony and shot at him with their jezails, but he scuttled around to the far side of the small ledge, out of their line of fire. They kept shooting for a short while, laughing, but soon wearied of the game and went away. They could not get at him, but neither could he go anywhere. There was no place left to go. He could not climb any higher, there was no place that would afford him adequate hand or footholds to the right or to the left, and he could not go back down. He was trapped.
He sat there, miserable, shivering from the wind which lashed at him. He had no idea what to do. There was nothing he could do. He had failed. The soldiers had counted on him, and he had failed. He would sit on that ledge, unable to go anywhere, until he became weak or desperate and could bear it no longer, and then he would die. He could see no point to prolonging the inevitable. He closed his eyes and muttered a brief prayer to Brahma the Creator, giving thanks for the life he had led and asking his blessings in the next one. Then he said a prayer to Vishnu the Preserver, to redeem the karma of his soul as the sun redeems the earth from darkness. He said a prayer to Shiva the Destroyer, asking that the end be swift, and at the last, he prayed to the avatar of Vishnu, the hero-god Krishna, asking that his karma lead him to a better existence in the next life. Then he raised his battered bugle to his lips, determined to die not as the regimental bhisti he had been, but as the bugler he dreamed of being. He shut his eyes and inhaled deeply, preparing to sound Retreat.
“What in heaven’s name are you doing?”
Din jerked so forcibly he almost fell off the ledge. Just before he lost his balance completely, a hand reached out to steady him. He looked up, wide-eyed, at the tall dark figure standing on the ledge beside him. He was dressed entirely in black. The coal-black eyes seemed to burn into him.
Din shut his eyes. Shiva! He had to be dead. The Destroyer had come to escort his soul to the next plane. He bent his head down low, touching the rock at Shiva’s feet and praying out loud, praising the Destroyer.
“Stop that! I can’t understand a word. Can’t you speak English?”
Din stopped praying. English? The great god Shiva wanted him to speak in English? Come to think of it, the great god Shiva had spoken to him in English. Perhaps it was because he was wearing the English khaki uniform and served as a regimental bhisti. Perhaps that was now the language of his soul. Who was he to question Shiva?
“Oh, Mahadeva!” Din said, keeping his face pressed close to the rock. “Oh, great god! You who are Great Destroyer; you whose presence is felt in falling of a leaf; you who are bringer of swift and terrible death; you who—“
“I’ll bring you a clout on the head if you don’t stop spouting that nonsense,” said Darkness. “Who are you? What are you doing up here?”
“Your humble and worthless servant, Gunga Din, oh, Mahadeva!”
“Well, fine. That settles who you are. Now what are you doing here? How the devil did you get up here anyway? Look at me.”
Din slowly raised his face up to stare in terror at the avatar. Something was wrong. Perhaps he wasn’t dead yet after all.
“Din try to escape, help soldiers, O Great One.”
“Soldiers? What soldiers?”
“The Sahibs Finn, Learoyd, O’tris, and Mulvaney. And the Memsahib Cross, O Great One.”