The crackling bolts and sounds of pursuit died away. After a while they came to a dirt road.
Gillenhaal said: "This goes on for about five kilometers, and yoins the Madras Highway. If we went along it until we found Dubin's army, maybe we could do something."
"Good idea," said Brown."We'd best step on it. Those birds back there will report to headquarters and send a posse out after us. Hope your bolt burned out their car's wiring, Ben."
"A posse?" said Kumar vaguely.
"Search party with hostile intentions. It'll take a couple of days for us to walk to Dubin, but maybe we can get a lift."
"If you don't mind," said Kumar, "I'd rather not get any lifts before daylight. I want to know who's offering the ride."
FOUR hours later they were still plod-ding through the dust, and the other two commented sarcastically on Gillenhaal's idea of five kilometers. A spot of light sent them into the bush; it was made by an Asokori sweeping the ground in front of him with a flashlight for snakes as he walked. When they came out of the shrubbery he almost took to his heels, but Kumar assured him that no violence impended."We only wanted a light," said the physicist."We came away without our cigarette-lighters."
The Asokori, still suspicious, produced his lighter, and Kumar, offered him a cigarette and asked him how far it was to the Madras highway.
"Just a few hundred meters—I just came that way. Watch yourself when you get on the road; I was stopped twice by cars full of royalists. My name's Bhasa, Mohandas Bhasa. My cousin and I run a fruit-stand on the highway. I've just been down to my cousin's house listening to the war-news on the radio, but we couldn't hear much because each side was blanketing the other's waves. Those dogs of royal—" He broke off, suddenly fearful again."Which—which side are you on?"
"Same as yours, brother," Brown told him."We're here because those dogs chased us."
"That's fine! I was scared for a minute. But if I didn't have a family I'd enlist in the Parliamentary militia tomorrow. My nephew's going. Yes Sir, the only way we common people can keep their liberties is to fight for them! What's your name, please? You're a foreigner, aren't you? I thought so..."
Brown, when he had a chance, introduced himself and his companions.
"Not the Brown? The Laboratory Director? Sir, this is a great pleasure, and an honor, if I may say so..."
Kumar waited until their new friend stopped for breath, and asked if he could buy the flashlight.
"Well—you'd be welcome to it; I wouldn't think of taking money—but the snakes, you know—my poor aunt's sister-in-law stepped on a krait one night, and she was dead before they got the serum to her—I'll tell you what; walk back to my house with me, and I'll make you a present of the light!"
Brown hated to spend the time, but he didn't want to antagonize the man, who would be only too anxious to tell people about having met them anyway. So they retraced their steps, the garrulous Bhasa pouring out his interminable stream of Urdu. He was so glad to meet the great Director Brown and his co-workers, because he had an idea he'd long wanted to submit them. It was a scheme for exterminating venomous snakes; briefly, it comprised injecting mice with some sort of poison, and releasing them for the snakes to prey upon. It would of course have to be harmless to the mice. No, he didn't know of such a poison, but the great scientists at the laboratories would, no doubt.
Kumar said, gravely, "A very interesting idea, Mr. Bhasa. I'll look into it. It has just one weakness in its present form; it wouldn't spare the harmless snakes, which are economically valuable. However, if we can find a poison that will distinguish between snakes and mice, we ought to be able to fix the other difficulty." (Brown hoped Bhasa wouldn't know he was being kidded. Benoy Kumar took an impish delight in skating on thin ice. )
When they reached Bhasa's bungalow, the Asokori gave them the light with a ten-minute speech of presentation. They broke away finally after swearing him to secrecy."Whew!" said Brown."And I always thought Nick Tukharev was a talker! We'd best find a hideaway to tinker with your gadget."
THEY settled in a clump of trees in the angle between the dirt road and the Madras Highway. After a few minutes of tinkering, Kumar said sadly, "We need two lights, Fernando. When we take the cell out of this one for the projector, we can't use it to see what we're doing."
Brown yawned."It'll be light in a couple of hours. You go ahead and work" on it; I'm going to sleep."
... A rajah as big as an elephant was chasing Brown who was riding a hippopotamus. Now and then the beast rolled an eye back and said in a strong Swedish accent "I vant to lie down yust a minute." Brown was trying to adjust a heat-ray device to blast the rajah who was gaining on him, but to work it he had to wind a long wire into a coil. And every time he got the thing almost wound it would pop out of his fingers. Finally it got altogether out of control and coiled around him and his mount. The hippo tripped and fell, pitching Brown off. He bounced up—up— "If I can only stay up," he said aloud."But no, I'm falling—" The rajah's face rushed up at him, to dissolve into that of his star physicist, grinning foxily.
"Wake up, Fernando!" he said."It's almost daylight; We're going to try the gadget."
Gillenhaal aimed the device at a small bush and clicked the switch. Brown noticed the faint sparkle of burning dust-particles along the path of the beam; the bush went' floomp and exploded into flame.
"If we had some breakfast," said Brown, "we could cook it. We'd better put that fire out."
It was done, and they cautiously walked up to the highway. Up the road a hundred meters was a parked car, and near it were four royalists eating.
They crept half the distance through the edge of the woods, and Gillenhaal aimed at the back of a fat royalist who was just raising a coffee-cup. The man shrieked once from the cloud of flame and smoke that enveloped him. The others stared; then another one of them went up. The remaining two leaped for the car; one of them made it. As the machine started with a roar, Gillenhaal aimed at it. There was another burst of flame as paint and tires oxidized. The car wove out of sight over the next rise.
They ran after it, Brown not enjoying the sight of the three black things beside the road. When they reached the crest they saw the car standing in the road with one door open, its paint still smouldering. There was no driver.
"There he goes!" said Kumar. A receding spot far down the highway dwindled to nothing."Another royalist on a motorcycle came along and picked him up. They'll have a—a reception committee waiting for us."
"And," said Brown, "we'd better find a suitable place to receive their greeting."
THEY settled themselves in the edge of a wood. Below the birds' morning concert and the chatter of monkeys they could hear the faint rumble of battle from the city. Evidently the garrison was holding out.
Brown adjusted a listening-device looted from one of the dead royalists."Quiet, everybody," he said."Damn those birds; they sound like the Ride of the Valkyries. I can hear a line of trucks, I think, coming this way."
"They're stopping," he said."They ought to be just out of sight. I can hear their shoes hitting the asphalt."
They waited. A dozen men, widely spaced, appeared over the rise. The rising sun reddened their brown faces.