The Amtrak Wars - Ironmaster Part 13

As he came to that decision, the young Shogun had no inkling that the wild card he sought lay hidden in a forest on the western flank of the Ari-geni Mountains, above a road that had once been known as the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

It took the shape of a hungry, dirt-stained fugitive armed with a knife and a primitive halberd. His body bore the swirling patterns that identified him as a Plainfolk Mute. But he was no ordinary lumphead.

His bones were well formed, the skin covering his young hard body was as smooth as saddle leather and he had not been ringed or branded. The hard blue eyes were those of a warrior at bay, not a hunted slave, and a keen observer would have noticed that his dark brown hair had turned blond at the roots to match the growth around his mouth and along the line of his jaw.

His name was Steve Brickman but, unlike the industrious long-dog at the Heron Pool who answered to the same name, he was the genuine article: 2102-8902.

Brickman, S.R. from Roosevelt/Santa Fe, New Mexico: graduate of Lindbergh Field Air Force Academy, Cla.s.s of 2989.

Trained as a wingman, Steve was now a 'mexican', one of a select group of undercover agents controlled by AMEXICO, an ultra-top-secret unit working directly for the President-General of the Amtrak Federation.

Officially he was dead, killed in action over Wyoming Territory. The fiction was not all that far removed from the truth. He had been shot down during a combat mission over Wyoming and, since hitting the ground, had come close to death on more than one occasion. In an action-packed year, Steve had found himself in some tight corners and, once again, he was in all kinds of trouble.

CHAPTER FIVE.

For the past two weeks, Steve Brickman had been living dangerously as an illegal immigrant in a foreign country whose people spoke an incomprehensible language and acted with extreme hostility towards strangers. It had quickly become obvious that he could not have chosen a worse disguise. The Iron Masters treated Mute journeymen as slaves who, when not working under the whips of overseers, were herded into prison compounds; the groups he had seen moving along roads had been chained together and closely guarded. He had not come across any renegade Trackers but, on the evidence so far, they were probably getting a rough ride too.

Unable to make contact with anybody who could help him, Steve had become a scavenger, stealing sc.r.a.ps of food whenever he could. But there were soldiers and officials everywhere checking the movement of goods and people. It was like trying to move around one of the Federation's underground bases without an ID card.

Steve's basic dilemma was this: he could not move openly without becoming part of the system, but if he did find a way to become part of it as a Mute he risked ending up in a chain gang unable to move at all.

In one of his more successful sorties he had managed to steal a padded cotton blanket to help ward off the bone-chilling hours before the dawn, but on his last two scavenging expeditions he had almost been caught and had only escaped by the skin of his teeth. To evade his pursuers, he had taken refuge deep in the forests and there he had remained, living on whatever wild game he could catch, and moving mostly at night. Steve had discovered that the hours between dusk and dawn were the only time the Iron Masters ceased their relentless round of activity. Even so, it was too dangerous to light a fire; anything edible he managed to catch or steal had to be eaten raw.

The day, now drawing to a close, had been warm and sunny but, for Steve, it had been as tense and frustrating as the day before. And the day before that. The mission that had brought him to the land of the Iron Masters and which he had entered with hopelessly inadequate preparation - seemed doomed to failure. Steve had come to Ne-Issan to find Clearwater and Cadillac. His only lead was a reported conversation which had mentioned a place called the Heron Pool. With no idea where that might be, he had been working his way across country in a more or less easterly direction in the vague hope that something might turn up. Up to now, his luck had failed him and there was no point in trying to kid himself any longer. He had no idea where he was or in which direction he was supposed to be heading, and the only thing he had to look forward to was another night of fretful sleep on an almost empty stomach.

When darkness fell, Steve curled up under the stolen blanket with his bladed quarterstaff clasped in his arms.

His excuse for not being on his feet and on the move was the clouds which, for the second night running, covered the sky; the truth was that his body yearned achingly for a brief respite. One half of his brain agreed; the other half refused to co-operate, keeping one ear open and the alarm bells jangling. For a time it worked, causing Steve to twist and fidget, but finally, when it became clear that he was no longer responding, the obstinate grey cells turned in for the night and whiled away the hours with dreams of food: hot, spicy Mute stews, dried meat twists, new-baked flatbread and juicy yellow-fists. The menu even included a mountainous, mouth-watering pile of soya bean-burgers fresh from a giant microwave.

Steve woke as the new day dawned, springing to his feet with the alertness of a wild animal, all six senses attuned to danger. He slowly relaxed his grip on the quarterstaff. The only sounds that filled the air were the natural sounds of the forest: the cries of birds, some shrill, some harsh, some melodic; an improvised pastorale underscored by the staccato chatter and snuffling grunts of their four-legged neighbours and played to a whispering audience of leaves stirred by the wind. The keen listener could also hear the creaks and groans of trees flexing their sap-filled timbers as they continued their yearly cycle of growth; trunks thickening inch by imperceptible inch to support the upward climb and outward spread of youthful branches; roots forever seeking a firmer foothold, wriggling snakelike through the earth, splitting buried rocks with a primeval power that defied comprehension.

The next move, now part of his daily ritual, was to check the tiny radio transceiver hidden in the handle of his combat knife. Under the wooden side-pieces was a marvel of microcircuitry with an alphanumeric keyboard on which you could enter text or data for high-speed transmission at a pre-set time. Incoming messages were preceded by a signal that switched on the electronic memory. Steve unclipped the tiny stylus and activated the recall b.u.t.ton which caused any stored messages to scroll across the fifteen-character liquid crystal display.

Eleven familiar letters marched across the screen from right to left and halted. MEMORY CLEAR.

Side-Winder, the undercover agent who had helped him stow away on the wheelboat, had hinted that Karlstrom had been concerned by Steve's failure to keep in contact. There had been reasons for that, but now he had been given the means to do so he had no excuses and no wish to increase the nagging doubts about his loyalty to the Federation.

Unaware that the device had been rigged to transmit his call-sign at regular intervals, Steve had programmed it to broadcast HGFR in Morse code for ten minutes twice a day so that a fix could be obtained on his position.

When giving him the knife, Side-Winder had said, 'The Family always keep one ear close to the ground."

Steve, ever curious, had been trying to figure out how.

The maximum range of the radio knife was fifty miles.

But he was now, at the very least, more than a thousand miles from the nearest way-station or wagon-train. If the First Family were able to track him, they must have installed some kind of secret network on Iron Master territory which allowed them to pick up and relay the signals he was pushing out. So far, he had drawn no response. Okay. Maybe that was because he had not filed any progress reports or asked for help.

Even so, they could have let him know that somebody was on the other end of the line.

Despite his years of training at the Flight Academy, Steve's knowledge of radios - like that of most Trackers - was limited to their performance specifications, how to operate them and how to replace faulty circuit boards.

Elementary stuff. All you needed was to be able to read.

The communications equipment issued to Trackers contained diagnostic displays which told you which bits needed replacing. You got a requisition order, drew them from the stores, and plugged 'em in. It was with the circuit boards that the mystery began. The knowledge, skills and processes that had led to their design and manufacture, and the fundamental scientific principles on which it was all based remained the exclusive preserve of the First Family.

Steve closed up the handle of his knife and replaced the strip of rag that had been wrapped around it. He knew his transceiver was operational but was the network? The only sure way to find out was to send a mayday call - the one thing he dared not do. He was in urgent need of a map of Ne-Issan with a large 'X' marking the location of the Heron Pool, and a videotape containing an instant course in j.a.panese.

But AMEXICO could supply him with neither. Even if Karlstrom condescended to bail him out, a skyhook - MX slang for an airborne rescue - would serve no useful purpose, and the arrival of a backup squad would only make things more complicated than they were already.

No. He was responsible for the present situation and the only way to come out looking good was to solve it on his own.

Steve made a long roll of the blanket, tied the ends together so that he could carry it looped over his shoulder, and set off in search of a stream. In these hills they weren't hard to find. He filled his small drinking-skin, then slapped water on his face and arms and attempted to rub off some of the acc.u.mulated grime.

The black and brown markings on his body remained intact. Once applied, the paste-like dye, first concocted by a long-lost generation of Mutes, was impervious to sweat, did not stain or fade, and resisted normal wear and tear. Mr Snow had told him it could only be removed with the aid of special five-fingered pink leaves.

When scrubbed vigorously against the skin, the crushed fibres released a chemical substance that changed the nature of the dye so that it was no longer waterproof.

Steve had not had time to check out the removal process himself, but he knew it worked and had brought a bundle of the leaves with him in case he needed to make a quick ident.i.ty switch.

He thought back to the memorable day he had secretly watched Clearwater and Cadillac 'come clean' and re-ran the subsequent events across the screen inside his head. Connecting with her eyes on the night he had bitten the arrow had been a fantastic sensation, but the discovery of her unflawed beauty was the moment when his life had changed; had taken on new meaning. Events had conspired to force them apart but on his return to the Plainfolk, Mr Snow had revealed they were destined to come together. Knowing what he had been sent to do, Steve had tried to push her from the forefront of his mind, but whenever he saw sparks of sunlight trapped in the ripples of a crystal-clear stream her name sprang to his lips. When he knelt to drink in its coolness, the reflection that rose to touch his lips was hers, not his own. She was everywhere. The unbroken blue of a cloudless sky recalled her calm, unwavering gaze; the slim-legged deer carried themselves with the same, lithe, sure-footed grace, the scent of wild flowers recalled the garlands in her hair. Nothing had changed. His feelings now were just as strong, just as overwhelming as on their last night together when she had slid her naked body between his sleeping-furs...

Hard-edged reality staged a comeback, bringing the curtain down on his soft-focus reverie. The unfulfilled longings aroused by such thoughts were better buried.

Rising from the stream, Steve fastened his combat knife to the inside of his left forearm, then wound a second grimy strip of rag around it, making it look like a rudimentary splint. By the time an a.s.sailant got close enough to see what it really was, the blade would be at their throat.

.The rising sun had not yet cleared the crest of the hill in front of him. There was still enough time to find a safe vantage-point from where he could observe the lie of the land and spend the rest of the day plotting out his next moves. As he set off through the trees, Steve made a conscious effort to clear his mind. Dwelling on the past did nothing to resolve his present predicament. The rescue of Clearwater and Cadillac was only one part of the problem. When that had been accomplished a stark choice awaited him. If he made good his promise to Mr Snow then Roz, his kin-sister, might end up dead. The alternative was to do what the Federation had demanded and risk losing Clearwater for ever. The situation was made worse by the fact that he was equally bound, for differing reasons, to both women. The prospect of losing either was something he steadfastly refused to contemplate.

He would find a way to save both.

Or a way would be found for him...

Since graduating a year last April from the Air Force Academy under the sands of New Mexico, Steve had seen and heard enough to convince him that his life was being shaped by forces that neither he nor the Federation had the power to control. According to Mr Snow, he had been born in the shadow of Talisman, the Thrice-Gifted One; the all-conquering hero who, according to Mute prophecy, would enter the world as the Saviour of the Plainfolk. The Federation did not believe in prophecy; the Mutes did. For them, the Path was already drawn. The Wheel turned. The Federation also had a dream of the future, but Trackers used computer modelling and critical-path a.n.a.lysis to make it happen. Mutes had faith in invisible spirit beings; Trackers had faith in themselves, in the system. For them, the physical world had finite dimensions and properties which could be quantified, potential resources that could be exploited. For the Mutes, the world of nature was like a walled garden with a door, beyond which lay a vast cloud-rimmed land offering everchanging vistas of unparalleled splendour: snowcapped mountains with swift-running streams, tree-lined valleys heavy with fruit, carpeted with sweet-smelling earth and tall bread-gra.s.s, rolling plains rich with game. Their cosmos stretched beyond the ceiling of the stars, beyond time and s.p.a.ce, to encompa.s.s spiritual realms of immeasurable dimensions. Trackers might agree that earthly life was as a spark rising from a fire, flaring briefly as it spirals heavenwards to be snuffed out an instant later, but the Mutes believed the sparks were constantly reborn in the leaping flames.

Birth, death, rebirth - the cycle was endless: the ocean of being at the end of the river of time revolved around an eternal sun, whose fiery radiance was at the heart of all creation.

In the past few months, and especially during the last few weeks, Steve had had few opportunities to ponder these mysteries. Everything he had been taught as a Tracker ran counter to such ideas. The Federation dealt in facts, not abstractions. But his conversations with Mr Snow still echoed through his mind. Despite past and present dangers, they had triggered something within him, sympathetic vibrations which had brought his body into tune with the overground. The alien world which he felt instinctively was his real home.

As he continued his upward journey through the woods, Steve saw a small furry animal with a bushy tail clinging to the trunk of a tree a few yards ahead of him.

He froze in his tracks and slowly drew his hidden knife.

Raising his arm with the stealth of a praying mantis, he took aim and thwokk! The knife hit the exact spot vacated by his breakfast in the previous millisecond with the speed of greased lightning. A few minutes later Mo-Town, the great Sky-Mother, offered him a new target of opportunity. His roving eye glimpsed the tail end of a snake sliding away under a layer of rotting leaves. Steve took a firm grip of his quarterstaff, swept it round at shoulder height and - wrap!

Although the snake had vanished between the leaves, the blade struck the head off cleanly. Once again the quarterstaff moved with a speed that surprised him - he'd first noticed it in the fight with the doomed back-up squad. It had vibrated in his hands and seemed to be pulling the wooden shaft after it - almost as if it had a mind of its own.

Trembling with excitement, Steve quickly skinned and gutted the snake and sank his teeth into the flesh along its spine, oblivious to anything but the sensation of filling his mouth and gullet with something he could chew and swallow. He gasped with pleasure, and nearly choked.