The Amtrack Wars - Earth Thunder Part 12

'S-Sir...?" It was the best he could manage.

Jefferson seemed to find Steve's momentary discomfiture mildly amusing.

He spelt it out once again. 'Commander Franklynn will be going with you."

Steve's brain snapped back into gear. 'Yes-sir! I understand, sir!

The thing is ... there is no s.e.xual equality in Ne-Issan. The j.a.ps treat women as second-cla.s.s citizens."

'That's why you're going to be acting as front man,' explained Karlstrom.

'But you'll be taking your orders from me .... ' Fran loosened her grip on Steve's shoulders and moved to the right of his chair. He glanced up and found a different Fran looking down at him. This wasn't his bed-mate, it was the President of the Board of a.s.sessors who had sentenced him to three years in the A-Levels ....

'Any problems with that?" asked the President-General?

."None at all, sir!" None at all....

CHAPTER THREE.

Over the same time interval which ended with Steve getting his marching orders, Cadillac and Roz had also been preparing themselves for a journey into the Eastern Lands. Among the items Cadillac had recovered from the burnt-out ruins of the settlement were two of the three flags made from green and gold Iron Master fabric, and his own set of body colours - waterproof dyes in the form of a thick paste contained in small clay pots.

There was just enough for one coat each. After bathing in the rock-pool, Roz knelt on a talking-mat in front of the hut, closed her eyes and offered up her face. Beginning a little way inside the hairline, Cadillac slowly covered Roz's body from head to toe using four different skin colours plus her own golden UV-tan.

Once a year over the last five years, he and Clearwater had renewed each other's skin markings - markings that other Mutes were born with and the random pattern of swirls and patches that began on Roz's forehead and slowly spread to cover her whole body was a close copy of that same design.

When the last touch had been applied and rubbed into her feet and ankles, Cadillac stepped back to admire his handiwork. Roz turned around for his benefit then examined her arms and the front of her body.

'Can I touch it?"

'Yes. But you have to rub some wood-ash over yourself to take the raw edge off the dye. I'll do the bits you can't reach." He walked with her to the shaded rock pool and watched her peer closely at her reflection. 'Does it feel strange?"

'No. The strange thing is, it doesn't. I think I prefer myself this way." She got up off her knees and faced him. 'It's funny, here I am with no clothes on but...

somehow I don't feel naked. I feel..." she spread her arms, searching for the word '... complete. Except for one thing." esponding to her unspoken invitation, Cadillac gathered her into his arms. 'What's that?"

'I need a Name of Power,' she whispered.

Bestowing names was one of the tasks performed by Mute wordsmiths.

Cadillac planted a kiss on the flowing dark brown stripe that now divided her forehead. 'I have one for you. I have seen you turn your face to the clouds, have seen the happiness with which you greet the falling waters. Your name shall be Rain-Dancer."

Roz hugged him, then stepped away and leapt joyfully into the air, turning full circle before landing gracefully with arms outstretched.

'It is done! I have shed my other self like the snake emerging from its old skin. I am finally free of the Federation!" 'Don't celebrate too soon,' said Cadillac. 'They can still reach you."

'Through Steve?" Roz shook her head. 'Not now that we've tricked them into thinking I'm dead." The state of the telepathic link between herself and Steve was the one secret she kept from Cadillac. The last contact had confirmed that she and Steve were free of suspicion, but since then she had felt his mind slip away each time she tried to make contact - just as it had when, at the age of eleven, he had announced his intention to compete for one of the coveted places at the Flight Academy.

Roz knew that Steve was perfectly capable of looking after himself, but in closing the mind-bridge, he had also shut her off from Clearwater.

She and Roz could communicate without the need for words, but it was not telepathy, it was empathy; a deep common bond of soul-sisterhood which allowed them to understand each other's emotional state, and to divine what the other was thinking.

But for this to take place, they needed to be in each other's presence. Steve was the link; the key connection that allowed her to speak to her soul-sister from afar. She could only enter Clearwater's mind if it was engaged with Steve's- as she had when Steve had cradled her wounded body while waiting for the Red River medics to arrive.

Roz guessed that Clearwater was probably being held in the Life Inst.i.tute, but with Steve's mind drifting out of reach she no longer knew if she was safe and well.

Roz's close physical and growing mental relationship with Cadillac had allowed him to study her closely. He had detected a certain evasiveness whenever he had broached the subject of Steve and Clearwater- especially in respect of Brickman's intentions. Whatever he said was bound to get him into trouble, but it needed to be brought out in the open. 'He's gone off the air, hasn't he?"

'If he has, I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason."

'Yes. He's sold out,' said Cadillac. 'He's got Clearwater.

He knows you're with me. He knows what you can do. And now that you've got him off the hook, he figures he's safer where he is."

Roz's face darkened. 'Why must you always think the worst?!" 'Because I've been inside his head!" cried Cadillac.

'And part of him is in me now! I know how his mind works!" 'You have no right to judge him!" Roz thrust him away and walked towards the hut. Cadillac followed her. s.n.a.t.c.hing her skirt off the ground with an angry gesture, she wrapped it around her waist and fastened the ties with trembling fingers. Thrusting her arms into the fringed sleeves of the leather tunic, she pulled it on and turned to face him, eyes blazing. 'I am the only one who knows the pressure he's under! It's something you have never experienced! And I pray to Mo-Town you never will!'

'I bear heavy responsibilities? protested Cadillac.

'And you've got me to help you! It's not the same thing. Here, you've got room to think!" Roz pointed to the ground. 'Down there is a different world. I know Steve is still with us. And he's going to do his very best to get Clearwater and her child out of the Federation the same way he got you out of Ne-Issan."

'With a great deal of outside help,' said Cadillac sourly.

'And you may like to know that I built the aircraft which enabled us to reach the Hudson River! He didn't carry me. I played an active part in that escape!" 'Oh, really? That's not what Clearwater told me.

She said you were the one who didn't want to leave! Go on!

Admit it! You were having too good a time!" 'I was until your kin-brother came along!" The words tumbled out before Cadillac could stop himself.

'Exactly!" cried Roz. 'You had sold out to the Iron Masters!"

'That's not true!" shouted Cadillac. 'That's not how it was!" 'All right, I believe you. You had your reasons- just as Steve has equally valid reasons for what he's doing now.

I know he hasn't sold out. And deep down, so do you, don't you?"

Cadillac didn't reply.

Roz tried again. 'Why can't you bring yourself to trust him?"

It took a while, but when his anger had subsided, the answer came: 'Because he seeks to know everything, but he does not use that knowledge to change himself- only to gain power over those around him."

'Give him time." Roz's voice was also calmer now. 'I did not see things clearly at first, even though a voice deep within told me I did not belong to the underground world. Knowing is not the same as Understanding. How much have you changed since our life-streams were drawn together?"

'Whose side are you on?!" cried Cadillac, his new spirit of reasonableness wearing thin.

'Yours!" said Roz. 'But this jealousy, this rivalry between you must end! The four of us are bound together by ties far deeper and stronger than mere blood and friendship! The resentment and distrust you harbour gnaws at that bond like a cancer. Cut them out swiftly and cleanly, like a surgeon wielding a knife!

Act like the warrior you're supposed to be!" She saw her words strike home and laughed at his crestfallen expression. 'Do you realise we've just had our first quarrel?"