Not even for you, little sister …
Over the next few days, as the talks between the delegations continued, Mr Snow gradually recovered some of his strength. He could not sit up unaided, and he was far too weak to walk, but his spirit had returned from that twilight zone between this world and the next and was once more anchored firmly in his physical body. His face was still pale and haggard but the colour and some of the sparkle had come back into his eyes, and the famous smile, though tired, occasionally contained a hint of its old mischief.
His voice now seemed to be set in a husky whisper and he spoke only when necessary using as few words as possible, but as time passed, his powers of concentration increased, and from what little he said it was clear that the brain inside the wizened, white-haired skull was as sharp as a razor.
During these longer periods of wakefulness, Steve related in greater detail his adventures in Ne-Issan with the ronin, his high-risk, heart-stopping involvement with the Herald Hase-Gawa, the conspiracy against the Shogun, and the final battle and escape from the Heron Pool.
‘I’m not surprised the Yama-Shita … went … for the throat,’ husked Mr Snow.
‘Yeah, but it’s not entirely my fault,’ protested Steve. ‘The Heron Pool was blown apart because the Shogun wanted to crush the conspiracy against him. And the reason we got mixed up in it was because of your deal with Lord Yama-Shita. If you hadn’t sent Cadillac and Clearwater over there none of this would have happened!’
‘Just doing what I was told …’
‘You mean by the Sky Voices? Talisman?’
‘The Path is drawn, Brickman. Someone once said: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”.’
‘Yeah …’ Steve was unaware of the immense legacy of dramatic art and literature that had been buried by the Holocaust so the quotation made little sense.
‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘Cadillac fell on his feet, but for a while she had a really bad time. So when we blew up the Heron Pool, she took the opportunity to even the score – saving our necks in the process. Do you blame her?’
‘No.’ Mr Snow gave a breathy laugh. ‘Life isn’t fair is it? Poor old Prime-Cut –’
‘The big-noise from the D’Troit?’
‘Yes. Apart from us having done a deal with the Federation, every charge he levelled against us was true.’
‘And in spite of that you ran rings round him.’
‘So everyone says. But I didn’t lie.’
‘Well, except for that bit about The Chosen.’
‘That wasn’t a lie. You are one of The Chosen.’
Steve frowned. ‘But I’m not a Mute.’
‘No.’ Mr Snow closed his eyes and let his head fall onto the furs that covered the sloping back-rest.
Not yet, Brickman. Not yet …
Having reached a measure of agreement, the delegations spent the sixth and seventh day trading amongst themselves. In addition to preserving most of the goods they had brought with them to trade with the Iron Masters, everyone who was not engaged in deciding the future of the Plainfolk had been busily scouring the battlefield for whatever they could find: crossbows, bolts, knives, items of clothing, Iron Master swords, helmets and body armour, ship’s cannon – the list was endless. The dead – even their own – were too numerous to cope with. Unable to give them the usual burial rites or collect them in heaps for burning, the corpses were stripped and left for the circling death-birds.
Those who decided they had too many crossbows and not enough bolts, or preferred to exchange both for samurai long-swords, set up an impromptu arms bazaar. Their initiative was quickly followed by their rivals and it was not long before each delegation set out its other wares – food, furs, dried fish and buffalo meat, dream-cap and rainbow-grass.
It proved to be a novel and rewarding experience, and everyone promised to bring similar goods to the proposed meeting of the Plainfolk Council at Sioux Falls. Why, they asked each other, had no one ever thought of this before? Nobody suggested trading the surviving journey-men. The idea that males and females from one clan might take partners from another was so radical it simply never entered anyone’s head.
Laden with their booty, the clan delegations bade each other farewell and went their various ways. The happiest were the journey-men and -women who had been chosen to make the journey down the Great River and were going home instead. But their joy at returning to their families was muted by the loss of their clan-brothers and sisters. The general mood was one of sombre optimism. There could be no going back, and no one looked back as another wheeling flock of death-birds, drawn in from all corners of the sky, swooped down to join those already gorging themselves on the fallen.
When Mr Snow woke up and looked around him, he saw the surviving members of the M’Call delegation preparing to join the general exodus. Steve, sitting cross-legged by his side did not appear to have moved an inch.
Their eyes met. ‘You still here?’
‘I’ve got a problem I need to talk to you about.’
Mr Snow sighed. ‘Who hasn’t? Okay.. shoot.’
Steve explained the set-up on board Red River, and how Cadillac and Malone were working on a plan to free Roz and Clearwater.
‘The thing is … Malone is an undercover agent – a mexican, like me. We’re supposed to be working together to capture you and Cadillac’
‘Helped by your kin-sister …’
‘Yeah. Roz smart-talked the Federation into thinking she was their secret weapon. An anti-summoner device. She’s managed to get this far but until she and Clearwater are free and clear, I have to pretend I’m still a one hundred per cent solid, dependable soldier-citizen. Otherwise …’
‘Yes, yes, I’ve got the picture …’
‘Good. The people on board Red River think they’ve got the drop on us, but of course with your help we’ll have the drop on them. I still have to work out the way we’re gonna swing it but if we all put our heads together we should be able to come up with something.’
‘I see … so what’s the problem?’
‘How do I tell Cadillac that Malone’s a phoney without him blowing his top? When he finds out I’ve been stringing him along he’s gonna go apeshit. We’ve already crossed knives over Roz and I don’t want to get into that again.
‘But more important still I don’t want him sending a bunch of Bears out to collect Malone’s head. We need him alive and working with us because he’s the key to getting on board the wagon-train.’
Steve paused then said: ‘It’d made things a lot easier all round if you told him. I mean – you are his teacher.’
‘Yes …’
‘I’m sorry. What exactly is it you’re saying? “Yes” you are his teacher, or “Yes” you’ll tell him?’
Mr Snow’s left hand waved feebly. ‘You’re throwing too much at me, Brickman. Give me some … some time … to think about it.’
Steve cursed silently as the wordsmith closed his eyes. Time! That was the one thing they didn’t have!
Mr Snow’s hand slipped off the stretcher. Steve took hold of it and laid it across the old man’s chest.
The wasted flesh felt cold. Too cold …
Seven hundred miles south and to the west of the now-ruined trading post, another pawn moved a stage further towards its final position in the game as The Lady from Louisiana rolled into the loading bay of the way-station above the almost completed divisional base at Monroe/Wichita. The fuel hoppers that fed the power-cars were topped up, and vital electronic components that had been shuttled northwards in response to an urgent radio message were installed and tested in an effort to get the trouble-prone communications system back into full working order.
The Lady also took on some other unexpected items of freight: a large sealed cargo skip whose contents were not listed on the external manifest docket, and sixty hooded defaulters wearing wrist and foot shackles and the usual black fatigues with the yellow diagonal cross stripes on the chest and back.
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br /> But that was not the end of the surprises. A major from the White House, dressed in the same red combat fatigues, came on board with a diskette sealed with an “EYES ONLY” label bearing Hartmann’s name.
CINC-TRAIN usually sent top secret instructions by radio in coded blocks that were converted by The Lady’s communications unit into a video signal and fed into the work-station in Hartmann’s private quarters. Only Hartmann himself, using his ID card and a special key sequence could screen the blocks and turn them back into the original message.
Sealed diskettes delivered by high-ranking couriers from the White House usually contained ultra-secret material; orders so sensitive they could not even be transmitted in code through the normal channels. Hartmann used his ID card to ‘sign’ for the diskette and considered it at some length, holding the small, slim square silver package by his fingertips as he turned it this way and that. This had to be hot stuff …
It was.
After locking his door, Hartmann broke the seal, slipped the diskette into the drive slot of his PC, unlocked the system with his ID card and hit the keys to screen and decode the signal from the White-House. The jumble of digits and letters rearranged themselves into lines of clear text. Scrolling carefully through the secret signal the wagon-master discovered why he had been given custody of sixty defaulters – all of whom were under sentence of death. He also learned what was in the cargo skip, when it had to be opened and the reason why a tight-lipped group of service engineers were making certain external modifications to his wagon-train.
The diskette contained precise instructions on when he was to brief his executive officers and crew on the nature of their mission, and ended by informing him that the flight section of The Lady was to be re-equipped with Skyhawk Mark Two’s.
In order to allow his wing-men to familiarize themselves with this new machine in the field, Hartmann was ordered to fly off five of his present complement of ten Mark One’s to Red River who would replace them with five Mark Two’s and their pilots. Half of the flight-deck crew riding on buddy-frames would also be exchanged, allowing the necessary training of air and ground personnel to proceed simultaneously on both wagon-trains.
To Hartmann, the prospect of receiving a new batch of aircraft combined with The Lady’s involvement in a secret mission was a sure sign that he and the surviving members of his original crew were on their way to complete rehabilitation. This time at least, the outcome would not be affected by the baleful influence of a Mute summoner. This time, the crewmen who had lost their lives in the past two near-catastrophic encounters would be avenged. The Lady would emerge with her head high.
Third time lucky. Wasn’t that what they said …?
* * *
About the same time that Hartmann was reflecting on his good fortune, a soldier-citizen of the Federation by the name of Jake Olsen was taking stock of his surroundings and wondering whether he was dreaming or if, in some mysterious way, his luck had taken a turn for the better.
It could hardly get much worse. Arrested and charged under Code One, Olsen had been sentenced to death for the illegal recording and trafficking of blackjack tapes. The severity of the sentence reflected the scale and success of the operation. Olsen and his partners had set up a Federation-wide network of dealers and had avoided detection for over seven years by buying off provost-marshals with bagfuls of top-quality rainbow-grass supplied by overground contacts in the Mines & Mills Division.
The same techniques had been used to secure the cooperation of AmExecs in the Black Tower and low-ranking members of the First Family. They had helped stall and side-track investigations, and had secured plush apartments in the new luxury tower-deeps for the ringleaders.
It had all gone well. Too well. As an electronics expert, it had been Olsen’s task to assemble the necessary equipment and oversee the recording and duplication of the illegal music tapes. There had been a lot of work cleaning up the sound quality because his raw material consisted of nth generation copies of the original pre-Holocaust masters. He had even re-recorded entire sequences, matching the originals as faithfully as possible using a synthesizer built from components filched from the First Family’s own music workshops.
Yeah, that had been sweet. The mistake had been to branch out into the manufacture of alcohol. In a society where almost everything is controlled by computer, illegal electronic items are easy to hide. Hook ’em into some official circuitry and they’re hard to distinguish from the real thing. Crates of plastic containers full of straw-coloured liquid with a distinctive aroma proved to be a whole new ball game and the problem was not eased by some bright spark who labelled a consignment destined for the junior medical staff at the Life Institute as ‘urine samples’.
Looking back, it was clear the operation had been penetrated by undercover Feds for some time, but it was after that particular consignment was intercepted that everything started to unravel at the speed of light. Nation-wide, over three hundred people were arrested, charged and tried. But after six televised executions by firing squad, the judicial process had suddenly been put on hold.
For the last five weeks, Olsen had been sitting in his cell on death row, wondering what had caused the delay. Despite his sudden downfall, Olsen was as cheerful as might be expected in the circumstances but he was also a realist. A reprieve was out of the question. The operation in which he’d been involved had caused the high-wires too much embarrassment but in the seven years before his arrest, Olsen had discovered that the First Family was running its own illegal operations – scams to trap potential subversives and budding law-breakers. The possibility that the Family might have decided to recruit him into their own ‘bad-hat’ brigade was the only plausible explanation for the unexpected stay of execution.
If so, there was several questions to be answered. His brain felt muzzy and seemed to working at half-speed but the last thing Olsen remembered was going to sleep in his small over-warm nine foot by six foot cell in his black T-shirt and underpants, on a narrow bunk with a thin coverlet on top of him, and with the light behind the grille in the ceiling cut to a third – the level of night-time illumination known to Trackers as “twilight”.
Now, the biggest and brightest light he had ever seen was beaming down on him from a blue ceiling whose height was beyond computation. And the narrow confines of his cell had been replaced by vast, seemingly limitless horizons. John Wayne Plaza was big and brightly lit but what now met his eyes on all sides was … something else.
Yessirrr …
Olsen knew that if he was still asleep, this was a dream. On the other hand, if he was awake (and despite the utter impossibility of him being where he was, he had an alarming feeling that he was fully conscious) then he had been plunged into a nightmare from which he knew, with mind-numbing certainty, he would never escape.
Despite his intelligence, technical skill and flair for organization, Jake Olsen had never been overground. Indeed he had used that same intelligence to arrange ‘soft postings’ within the earth-shield, to the units which provided him with the contacts he needed to gain access to the equipment that interested him, and the most rewarding ‘career opportunities’.
Now, on a day whose date he was unable to determine, he was sitting supported by his hands with his feet out in front of him in a clearing on a forested hillside which afforded a view over a vast panoramic landscape which stretched away to the east, south and west. Olsen was able to determine this because he had seen video-pictures of the overground and knew the difference between a rising and setting sun.
Behind him, was an upward slope with more red pine trees and rocks peeking out of the tangled undergrowth. He was on a hill, or some kind of mountain. The air had a strange smell and a sharp cold, but not unpleasant, cutting edge to it when he drew it down into his lungs. Where the hell was he? And what the fuck was going on?!
Olsen looked down at his feet and saw that the lower half of his body was inside a camouflage sleeping bag. A further inspection revealed that
he was dressed in a set of the standard red, pink, orange and brown camouflaged fatigues issued to overground units and on his right shoulder was a woven fabric badge.
SIG-INT … What was he doing wearing a uniform of some guy in the 5th Signals Intelligence Squadron?!
Olsen pulled out his tunic and peered down at the name tag above the right breast pocket. 693 OLSEN J.E … Shit … This wasn’t someone else’s uniform, it had his name on it! There was a carbine lying alongside his sleeping bag and a visored helmet. That had his name on it too. He rubbed his forehead and swallowed, trying to rid himself of a sudden dizzying wave of nausea.
Focusing his attention on his immediate surroundings, Olsen was comforted by the fact that he was not alone. Scattered around the clearing and under the trees beyond were a considerable number of recumbent figures in hooded sleeping bags. Too many to count. And there were small heaps of equipment, ration packs, the burnt-out remains of several campfires, and the lower section of some kind of tower made out of slim, red-painted aluminium girders and mounted on a small concrete base. More half-assembled sections lay nearby.
It looked like a UHF radio beacon. That would explain the SIG-INT shoulder badge on his arm. But why did he have no recollection of being transferred from death row into an overground signals outfit? He checked the digital watch someone had strapped on his left wrist: it was nearly 11.00 hours. Why hadn’t he and the other sleepers been rousted from their beds? Why was no one awake and on guard? Gripped by rising panic, Olsen tried to get up. It was more difficult than he expected. His legs felt leaden. Stooping down to pick up the carbine and helmet made his head swim. He dropped to one knee to steady himself and had to wait a while for the giddiness to clear then tried again, using the carbine as a prop to haul himself upright.
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