The Amtrak Wars - Ironmaster Part 41

'Right. All that thing needs is an engine and you and I could be on our way out of here.".

Jodi smiled. 'Don't get too excited, Dave. If they're aiming to let us near those things then you can bet your sweet a.s.s they've already got that angle covered. These guys aren't idiots, y'know."

'Neither are we,' said Kelso. 'Neither are we..."

By one of those coincidences with which both life and fiction abound, Steve had also been watching the glider's descent. Approaching from the west with a sack of mail on his back, he had picked up the old Highway 20 at Awo-seisa and was, at that very moment, about three-quarters of a mile behind Jodi and Kelso. Steve's heart quickened as he saw the swept-wing craft drift lazily across the cloudless sky, then dip towards the ground. This was it. The Heron Pool. He was within reach of his first objective.

Steve saw a small party ahead of him on the road. By the time he pa.s.sed the compound, the marchers had turned in through the open gates.

Shortening his stride to a slow jog, he took a look at the courtyard beyond.

There were a number of buildings, some people moving round, but nothing of any interest and no clue, apart from the fact that the glider had landed close by, to indicate what was going on there. Never mind, he'd be back...

In the meantime, he had mail to deliver to Consul-General Nakane Toh-Shiba, whose official residence lay a few miles down the road.

This was to be his new base until the Man in Black came out from behind the woodwork and fixed him up with the promised job at the Heron Pool.

At that point he would cease to be a roadrunner. With the aid of the precious bundle of pink leaves he would lose his stripes and become the newest recruit to the small team of Tracker renegades led by Cadillac.

And then things would start to happen . . .

Pa.s.sing beneath a tile-roofed timber lintel that kept the rain off the ten-foot-high gates, Jodi and Kelso found themselves in a walled compound containing two brand-spanking-new single-storey accommodation units.

Like most Iron Master dwellings, they were built clear of the ground and used a modular system of rectangular frames, lattice screens and paper panels. The roof was made of overlapping wooden shingles, suggesting that they might not be intended as permanent structures.

There were also the usual support facilities they'd observed at the various post-house inns along the way: bathhouse, cookhouse, laundry, et cetera, plus several older structures.

The two new arrivals were relieved of their 'yellow cards' and booked in with the usual flurry of paperwork.

The ink and paper had a pleasing odour, and from the wide-eyed way the d.i.n.ks went to work it was clear they got a big buzz out of handling the material. Once they were officially 'on strength', the armlets which the Trackers had been fitted with at the trading post were prised loose and replaced by a metal ident.i.ty disc, fastened round their neck with a loop of thin wire. The pint-sized chief clerk, faced with the choice of looking up their noses or remaining on his perch behind the high desk, stayed put and wagged a warning finger. 'You wear a-disc all-uh time. Remove this an' we-uh remove head.

Hob-kay?"

Jodi and Kelso swallowed hard and hung their heads meekly.

A female Mute was summoned to take them to the bathhouse, where the sight of hot water triggered a yell of delight. Casting aside the straw cape, bedding roll and bag of eating utensils issued to them at Pi-saba, they peeled off the threadbare remnants of their Tracker uniforms and leaped into the steaming tub. After the cold water sluices they had had to make do with since Columbus knew when, it was an undreamt-of luxury.

Wallowing up to their ears, they ducked each other playfully, then got down to the serious business of scrubbing the acc.u.mulated grime off their bodies and off each other's backs. The sand-gla.s.s which measured the time they were allowed emptied all too quickly. Just as well: had they been left to soak much longer, the all-embracing warmth would have lulled them off to sleep. To make sure they stayed alert, the Mute who remained silent and detached throughout - gave them the standard cold-water treatment, then handed over big, sweet-smelling towels. Oh, boy! The pain and discomfort they had suffered during the past weeks was temporarily obliterated by the sheer joy of being squeaky clean again.

At the adjacent clothing store - also staffed by female Mutes - they were issued with two sets of clean clothes of the type worn by the lower orders: drawstring bikini-type briefs, loose V-neck work shirt and baggy trousers, a padded jacket fastened with toggles and loops, and rope-soled canvas sandals to cover their bare feet.

The sandals were dark brown, everything else was a smoky blue. An eight-petalled flower symbol enclosed in a circle was printed in the same dark brown on the back of the padded jacket and the shirt. The white-stripes who had collected them from the boat had carried the same design on their headbands, likewise the brush-boys in the admin block.

Jodi guessed it was the equivalent of a divisional sign, and she was not far wrong. The brown flower was the emblem of the Min-Orota family, their new masters.

The next stop was the bedding store. Armed with a mattress and a new padded quilt, Jodi and Kelso followed their guide across the compound and into one of the accommodation units, where she gestured towards a couple of empty places to the right of the entrance.

'Thanks,' said Jodi. 'What happens next?"

The Mute eyed her with a mixture of resentment and resignation and left without saying a word.

Jodi and Kelso exchanged a raised-eyebrow look, then folded and positioned their mattress and quilt to match the others ranged at regular intervals down the length of the room, and placed the spare set of clothes and their eating utensils on the shelves above their bed s.p.a.ce.

In essence, it was the same procedure they had' followed during their years of training in the Federation.

No matter how tired you were you didn't just breeze into a new base, toss your gear in a corner, then take it easy on the mess desk until the guy in charge of your section came and winkled you out. If he wasn't on your back already, you stowed everything shipshape and went looking for him.

A Tracker wearing the same blue work clothes appeared in the doorway.

He had a lean, haggard look and the eyes of a man who had seen hard times. 'Hi. Are you all there is?"

'As far as we know,' said Jodi.

The Tracker stretched out a hand. 'Welcome to the Heron Pool. I'm Ray Simons. Reagan/Lubbock."

'Jodi Kazan. Nixon/Fort Worth. This here is Dave Kelso."

'Houston/G.C." The two men shook hands. 'You the honcho?"

Simons gave a dry laugh. 'Some chance. One of the hired hands. You just get off the boat?"

'Yeah, how about you?"

Simons grimaced. 'Into my third year."

'At this place?"

The Tracker responded with a bitter laugh. 'No... I was drafted here in March. Before that it was the Pits."

'Pits?" queried Jodi.

'The Fire-Pits of Beth-Lem." Simons shook his head.

'Acre upon acre of brick blast furnaces. It's where they melt down ore to make iron and steel. For the first year I was a stoker, then they put me in charge of a gang of Mutes tapping the molten metal.

We'd run it out into shallow ditches cut in beds of wet sand - arranged like a tree with a thin trunk and short fat branches.

'When it solidifies you have to cut off the branches which are still red hot - and long 'em over to the rolling mill. Making sure you don't b.u.mp into the guys doing the same thing on each side of you - and for as far as you can see. Twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.

'The heat blisters your skin and the smoke rips out the inside of your lungs. Run the melt out too fast and she'll jump the mould and torch your feet off. Dump her in sand that's too wet and the steam'Il blow half of it up in the air like golden rain. Looks real pretty but it can burn a hole right through you ' Kelso cut across the well-rehea.r.s.ed tale. 'No s.h.i.t. You must tell us about it sometime."

'Is that where most breakers end up?" asked Jodi, trying to compensate for her companion's withering disinterest.

'Either there or in the mines."

'Sounds like you were lucky to get here,' said Kelso.

'Not as lucky as you." Simons sounded a mite aggrieved.