They dropped. The trench was deep and it was near a swamp. They fell
into half a foot of water. Overhead, the troops marched away.
[Illustration: They fell into half a foot of water, while overhead,
troops were marching.]
Gowru straightened and looked out. He climbed up and extended his hand,
pulling Rains to the top.
As they stood there, a trail of fire rose over the forest, the tank
image bursting upward and disappearing. It was too soon. The troops
wouldn't find anything though they'd scour around. They'd have to
return. Rains was aching to empty his shoes of cold water.
Together they started out, slinking through the deserted camp. They
hurried, but they didn't have much leeway. Soldiers began straggling
back. There was no time to look for a trail through the swamp, if there
was a trail.
They crashed through a dense fringe of vines and fell into the swamp.
They had been wet, now they became drenched. Mud clung to them,
sticky, foul-smelling slime. Rains could imagine snakes and unspeakable
vermin crawling away from them or toward them as they crashed onward.
Branches slashed at them, mud sucked them down. Gasping, they
floundered away.
Anyone could follow their trail. But no one was likely to associate
such bedraggled men with the phenomenon that had lately puzzled the
best minds of the Indian army....
* * * * *
Rains was awakened by a rhythmical thud nearby. He jumped up and looked
around and then relaxed. It was Gowru pounding clothing on a flat rock
in a pool of brackish water. He had pulverized a native plant and added
it to the water, producing a reasonable imitation of soap.
Rains wrinkled his nose in disgust. The stench still clung to his body
in spite of attempts to wash it off last night before falling asleep.
Silently, Gowru gave him some of the soap plant, and he found another
pool to bathe in. He emerged feeling much cleaner.
The Hindu had spread the clothing to dry in the clearing. Rains lay
down and let the warm sun soak into his bones, pondering. They had no
food and couldn't expect to find much in the swamp. And after last
night there'd be soldiers around, combing the area, looking for an
explanation of the mysterious tank. Now he couldn't expect to enter
the Gommaf building undetected from the rear. They'd have to get back
to the road that led to the city and from there return to the hotel.
Afterwards, they'd have to plan anew. But for the moment, raw survival
was paramount.
The clothing soon dried. Dressed, the Hindu looked presentable, but
that was because his garments were exceedingly simple. The Western
synthetic fabric didn't launder well. Sadly, Rains looked at his
reflection in the water. He was rumpled.
They started in the direction they imagined the road lay, staying
within the cover at the edge of the swamp. On the plain there were
light tanks and armored vehicles, battalions of soldiers, planes
circling overhead.
Weary and hungry they struggled for hours through the swamp. At last
the wilderness ended. They crouched in the underbrush where the trees
stopped and gazed at a building, the front of which faced the road they
sought. It was a queer structure, a small-scale skyscraper with chrome
plated carvings.
If they could get to the building and then to the highway, they should
be safe. To get to the building was hardest. A few hundred yards away
platoons of soldiers wheeled in formation. They'd be spotted if they
tried to cross the open space.
He sighed. The soldiers might go away, but he couldn't plan on it.
What would work--another tank on the plain? It would attract them,
all right, but it would also be a signal to mobilize the entire army
and put it on guard duty in this area. A sovereign nation didn't want
strange tanks inside its borders.
He located the officer in charge of the drill. The sun was hot and
the soldiers were perspiring. The lieutenant was not a full-fledged
sadist, but he was studying to be one and didn't need much urging. The
cadence of command rose sharply. The men turned and began marching out
on the open plain.
Rains jabbed Gowru and, crouching low, they began to run toward the
building. The distance was greater than he had estimated; he was hungry
and short of breath and his mind wandered. He couldn't concentrate and
his control of the officer slipped away.
"About face!" screeched the lieutenant, and a half-hundred men were
staring at the fugitives.
It was too late to reach the road, but in the building lay temporary
safety. Rains dived over the low wall and Gowru followed. He ran across
the garden and, reaching a window, tore it open and climbed inside,
pulling the Hindu up after him.
As he turned to help, he stared in amazement at the soldiers. The
officer was blowing his whistle and shouting into the field radio, but
his men, who had darted after the fugitives, had stopped at the wall.
Gowru nodded and grinned. "Temple," he grunted.
* * * * *
Of course. With so many nationalities and divergent beliefs, the
government had granted immunity from search to those religions, sects
and cults that demanded it. The place was safer than he thought. He
grabbed the Hindu's arm. "Down," he said.
Gowru grabbed his arm. "Up," he said. "We've got to see what they're
doing." It was logical. Rains reversed his direction.
On his way up the dimly lit tower, Rains collided with someone. From
the quality of her robe and jewels and the paint on her face, he placed
her as a high priestess of some sort. She smirked at him and beckoned
mysteriously; then swayed down the hall, apparently expecting him to
follow. Strange behaviour in a temple sanctuary. He shook his head and
went on after Gowru.
The Hindu had settled in a luxurious room at the top of the tower and
was looking out the window. The temple was surrounded. Not a soldier
had entered the grounds, but a solid cordon of armed men hemmed them
in. And dust in the distance down the road foretold of more to come.
The army wanted them for questioning. How they proposed to get them out
of the temple Rains didn't know, but the situation seemed as hopeless
as it could get.
With an effort he made his mind slippery and broke contact. A master
mentalist was at work. He resisted the impulse to leave the temple and
surrender. Tentatively he let his thoughts reach out. No, this was
merely a journeyman--the masters were on their way.
He turned in panic to Gowru, who was opening cabinets. Row after row of
expensive liquor glittered within. There was little resemblance to a
monk's bare cell; the place was more nearly a sybarite's palace. It was
a peculiar religion.
Gowru tilted back his head and gurgled. "Want a fog?" he asked. "I've
got the raw materials."
A fog wasn't satisfactory. They could elude the soldiers and slip away
in the confusion, but they couldn't hope to escape the mentalists.
On the other hand, yesterday the tank surface had repelled his own
thoughts. It should work.
"Can you put an impenetrable surface around us?"
"Won't work," said Gowru, wiping his lips. "It has to be a closed
surface, and if it's strong enough to stop anything it's also strong
enough to shear through any material in the way. Up here we'd topple to
the ground as soon as a gust of wind came along."
That was an aspect of the shield he hadn't guessed at. He fought
frantically for control of his mind. "Then put it around the whole
temple, grounds and all. Exclude the soldiers."
Gowru nodded. "I can do that. Within reasonable limits size doesn't
mean much, it's the principle that counts. I'll make it a big spherical
shield."
Instantly the room became gray, as light from the outside diminished;
but most important, the mental tension lessened. Rains looked out. It
was difficult to see through the shield, but he could make out dim
shapes. The journeyman mentalist tried to get through.
The shield was good, but a new force arrived; the masters were here and
added their mental force to that of the journeyman. Rains reeled under
the impact. "Make it more intense!" he shouted. "Give it all you've
got!"
Gowru grabbed at another bottle and gave it everything. The grayness
became blackness and the intruding thoughts of the mentalists, masters
and journeyman, disappeared altogether.
He relaxed. Temporarily, they were safe. He felt giddy and his stomach
squirmed around. There was no reason for this last effect--none that he
could think of....
Rains counted the bottles. It was not an accurate way to determine the
passage of time, but there was no electricity and none of the clocks
were running. He snapped on the flashlight. How many bottles equalled
one day?
He was getting hungry. He'd managed to scrounge some food in the
darkness, aided by the flashlight, but it hadn't been enough. On his
forays his contacts with the other humans in the temple had been
disconcerting. Giggles in the distance and then squeals, but he'd never
been able to come upon the source. He didn't blame them for being so
wary; the darkness and isolation must seem like something supernatural.
* * * * *
Water was getting low too; only trickles came from the faucet. The
shield had severed all contact with the outside world, including
plumbing connections, and only a tank and a pressure system inside the
temple had kept them going this long.
He'd have to risk a look, perhaps the vigilance outside had been
relaxed. He shook the guide. Gowru grunted and stretched out his hand.
Rains shoved a half empty bottle in it; he had to conserve. The supply
of liquor was getting low, at least in this room. "Can you put a hole
in the shield, a small one?"
Gowru raised the bottle and later set it down. "Nope. Takes too much
thinking. How about a transparent area?"
"That will do."
Gowru staggered to the window, leaned on the sill and stared out. He
stared longer than Rains expected him to. "So that's what happened to
it," he muttered. He groped for a chair and sat down, shaking with
laughter.
It couldn't be that funny, decided Rains, going to the window. He
peered out and it was dark. Gowru had neglected to clear an area to see
through. No, there were dots of light outside--it was night, that's all.
That was not all. Very near, as astronomical distances go, and headed
toward them, was a comet. Not a comet, _the_ comet.
Rains sat down before he grew dizzy. What was the comet doing so close,
unless they were out in space? He opened his eyes and looked again.
That's where they were. Unless he was mistaken, that was Mars over
there.
He tried to fit the facts together. It made sense, but offered no hope.
He had proof that the shield was adjustable--stronger or weaker. As
it was made progressively stronger, it shut out light, bullets, and
thoughts. Could it be made strong enough to shut out gravity?
He looked outside. It could.
Gowru had exerted himself and the shield had sliced through earth,
water and sewer connections. Centrifugal force and the motion of the
solar system through space accounted for their present position. The
temple had whizzed away from the face of Earth before the astonished
eyes of the Indian Army.
Gowru was still laughing. He clapped Rains heartily on the back. "So
that's where it went," he said.
"Where what went?" asked Rains. They were doomed to be flung into outer
space and nothing could save them.
"The Benares cremation barge. It floated to the comet."
Float was hardly the word for the intricate process that had taken
place. Rains could see the comet, and he had known all along that the
barge was on it.
"What do you know about the cremation barge?" he asked.
Gowru fondled the bottle. "One day I was swimming in the Ganges and an
alligator--"
"There are no alligators in India."
Gowru Chandit gestured in defeat. "If you must know, I didn't have a
job and each night I swam out to the barge to sleep. I slept late one
morning and the crew found me and tossed me off. I had to swim in."
"But you always swam in anyway."
"Makes no difference," said Gowru. "So, when they left that night,
I projected a shield around the barge. Come to think of it, it was
probably like the one I've got around the temple. Anyway, in the
morning the barge had disappeared and no one, including me, knew where
it went--until now. The city had to buy another one to replace it."
Rains looked at him dazedly. That's what he'd seen in the
psiscope--the barge--and it was for this reason he'd come to Benares.
But it wasn't a teleport that was responsible; it was his own guide,
Gowru Chandit. Gowru hadn't known because he hadn't told him.
* * * * *