“Hurry up!” Jean-Pierre commanded.
Everyone moved briskly forward.
“Doctor!” Yulia ran out in front of Jean-Pierre. “We are here! Wait for us!”
The light abruptly changed and blackness began to come over them. Jean-Pierre looked up, trying to understand the size of this unknown danger. They took a few more steps, and through the impenetrable swell Jean-Pierre began to make out the shape of a mountain. Yulia was running in front of him ten or fifteen meters away, shouting something in Russian. Suddenly, she stopped abruptly and fell silent. David looked out from behind Jean-Pierre’s shoulder, checking to see what was there. The porters took a few more steps and saw the doctor standing in front and some man beside him. Their figures were not clearly visible, but the doctor’s posture was recognizable.
Dust and fog still hung in the air, but the wind died down. It became quiet and a little lighter. Everyone approached Dr Capri and the stranger who was standing beside him, talking quietly about something. The hum left behind and there was silence.
“Good day, I want to say,” the stranger said in English.
Everyone began to respond to him with repetitive nods without words. Dr Capri rehabilitated the stranger and said:
“This is Bhrigu. He is a hermit. He says there is a cave to take shelter in.”
Jean-Pierre felt that his hands were stiff, and he could hardly feel them. He looked at the strange-looking man, at the doctor, at the bewildered Yulia.
“Where are the soldiers?”
“I lost them out of sight,” the exhausted doctor shook his head.
David said quietly:
“Debby is hushed, what’s happened to her?”
Dr Capri walked over to the stretcher and leaned over it.
“She lost consciousness; her breathing is even.”
The hermit looked behind Jean-Pierre’s back and glanced at the girl.
“For me follow,” said Bhrigu and walked leisurely toward the mountain.
“We must go,” said Dr Capri. “She needs water and warmth. She is very weak. We can’t find the helicopter now.”
Jean-Pierre was hesitant to go, he turned to the doctor:
“If we turn back now, we won’t be able to find the military today.”
“I ran as fast as I could,” the doctor excused himself, “but they just disappeared in that dust. I screamed.”
The doctor shifted his gaze from the hesitant Jean-Pierre to the hermit in front, who was standing half-turned ten meters away, waiting for them to move.