Rue could only imagine what she looked like, wearing nothing but a dislodged orange scarf, a reticule that looked like a lily flower, and a monkey charm necklace. Her hair was wild and loose. Her feet were bare and bleeding. Her skin was particularly pale in the moonlight and covered in scratches.
The man did not yell – he merely gaped in surprise and then began to prostrate himself as if she were visiting royalty. Or possibly some religious icon brought to life.
He kept repeating the word “Gauri,” and bowing, then occasionally he would add, “Lakshmi.” In between these, he spewed forth a long string of sentences and cries and possibly small songs or lines of poetry in his own language. His attitude was one of profound reverence. He kept looking from the ground to his own clasped hands to Rue’s face to the reticule about her neck.
I guess I’m a goddess. How is a Hindu goddess in a sky train supposed to act?
Rue smiled beatifically and made a gesture with both hands, a little like swimming, in a crude imitation of the dancers she’d seen at the Cloth Market. Arms like graceful noodles, she instructed herself.
The man gasped at her movement and fell silent.
Rue tried to convince him to rise, fanning her arms up and down in a ridiculous manner, but he seemed disinclined to do anything but kneel and bow.
Unsure what else to do, Rue lifted up her reticule, an object of much fascination. She removed it from about her neck and took out the sparkler.
The man moaned in fear and anticipation, eyes as wide as saucers.
Rue carefully put the flint, tinder, and sparkler aside on the steering column. Those she might need. And then she cast about the cabin for something meaningful.
To one side was the boiler, accompanied by the ubiquitous pile of coal. Rue picked up a small piece of the black and placed it carefully into the reticule, drawing it closed. Making several more of the dancer gestures over the bag with one hand while she held it in the other, feeling like a particularly poor conjuror, she hummed a little ditty. Her mind was so befuddled it latched upon a bawdy favourite of Paw’s pack, “Eat Bertha’s Muscles”. Fortunately, the man kneeling before her was unfamiliar with the tune. Rue twirled three times in place for good measure and then handed the bag of coal to the man, who was kneeling with his hands cupped up in front of him like a beggar.
The man bowed his head, repeating those two words “Gauri” and “Lakshmi” over and over and attempting to hum his own version of “Eat Bertha’s Muscles”.
Rue wished she knew how to say the words “leave me” in Hindustani but, lacking any grasp of the language, she stood completely still with what she hoped was a stern impassive goddess-like expression and pointed to the door.
She didn’t know what she expected. Perhaps for the man to leave by climbing around the elephant cheek the way she had.
Instead, he ran to the door, pushed it open and leapt out.
Rue suppressed an un-goddess-like shriek. She didn’t want to kill the poor man!
She rushed after him, only to see that he had deployed some kind of parachute, which he must have grabbed from near the door. It looked a lot like a large conical parasol. He floated down to land a good distance away, on the other side of the gorge, in the unnamed forest. Rue heard him shout in elation and then the glad tones of “Eat Bertha’s Muscles” wafted up to her. Presumably he was happy with life and the blessings of his holy visitor.
Well, thought Rue, at least I made somebody’s evening.
The sky train Ganesha might look like a creature of Hindu mythology come to awesome mechanical life, but inside the guidance cabin was all classic British engineering. It was actually a rather simple, an old-fashioned steam engine out of the Poedunkle-Boof Manufacturing Company in Bacon End. Rue’s eyebrows arched as she read the plaque – it was a decade or more out of date! It’s been a while since the far reaches of the empire received upgrades. This is nothing compared to Quesnel’s domain back on The Spotted Custard. She stopped that thought before it started. Rue did not want to think about Quesnel. Given the catastrophe that her evening had become, he had not been as far from the truth when he had tried to stop her from starting all this.
The firebox was cold and dead which was odd as, even overnight, most steamers simply banked their coal. Also, the boiler was half full, hardly enough water for much of a journey. Perhaps there was a watering station on the other side of Tungareshwar?
Rue was undaunted. All she had to do was get everything up to temperature and the steam going, make certain all her dials, levers, and settings were configured correctly, keep the firebox stoked, and the elephant head would move. Actually, that’s rather a lot. Fortunately, she had flint and tinder with her.
It took some time to stoke the boiler. The moon had moved a great deal since she started her escapade – the night was near half done. Eventually, she did manage the happy bubbling and steam emission of an operational engine. It was not easy to guide the Ganesha and stoke at the same time. Luckily, the elephant was inclined to stick to the cable although it did rattle a great deal. All steam engines by their nature need at least two people to run efficiently. With only one at the helm and stoking the boiler, the locomotive moved in fits and starts along the cable, an embarrassing stuttering that to any observer would seem as though the elephant god was overcome with occasional malaise. Not to mention that it was merely the head of the creature, with no body following behind.
If her thievery of the front of the sky train had been noted by the crew sleeping in the freight cars, Rue couldn’t hear them shouting over the clanging of the engine. And if they had tried to jump the coupling, they were unsuccessful, for no one came after her. Some distance along, Rue took a moment to open the door and crane her head back to see, and there was no one following.