《The Amtrak Wars I : Cloud_Warrior》05

Cadillac hurriedly loaded his own crossbow.  'Could those two crows
have flown to more of their brothers?"  he asked anxiously.  From his
experience of Mr Snow's powers he knew that if it left the summoner
exhausted, it did not come quickly again.  If those who now ran towards
them were marauding Lion-Hearts ...

'Make me tall and I shall tell you,' said Clearwater.

Cadillac cupped his hands together so that Clearwater could climb up
and stand upon his shoulders.  He sucked his breath in sharply as her
added weight compressed his slashed ribs.

Clearwater who, like most Mutes, was blessed with remarkably sharp,
almost hawk-like vision, quickly focussed on the tufts of golden
feathers on the side of the runner's head-masks.  'They are Bears -'
She waved vigorously then leapt nimbly to the ground and faced Cadillac
with a smile.

'- come to escort their warrior-wordsmith home in triumph."

The posse of M'Call Bears reached them some fifteen minutes later.

They were led by Motor-Head, the most fearless of cadillac's
clan-brothers.  A powerful young warrior, heavily built like the dead
Shakatak, but who had filled not one, but two head-poles.  With him
were Hawkwind, Chainsaw, Black-Top, Brass-Rail, Steel-Eye, Ten-Four and
Convoy, all of them bearing - as was the custom - Names of Power that
had once belonged to the Heroes of the Old Time.  Each was dressed in
the eccentric fashion of Mute warriors, their leather body plates,
adorned with trophies and emblems attesting to their prowess and
courage, and they arrived carrying the limp bodies of Cannonball and
Freeway slung like ded fast-foot from newly cut saplings.

Motor-Head circled the bodies of Torpedo and Shakatak, gave an
approving nod, then walked over to Cadillac and threw an arm round his
shoulders.  'Good work, little sand-worm."

Motor-Head waved towards the bodies of Cannonball and Freeway.  'You
must have frightened them mightily.

Their running cloud was like a tower in the sky!"  cadillac exchanged a
sideways glance with Clearwater.

She bit back a smile, then said, 'He also brought down the capo."

This news brought grunts of approval from Cadillac's clan-brothers.

Convoy counted the branched horns.  'Ten points!  No one has done
better!"  Motor-Head added his grudging approval.  'So, sand-worm - is
wrestling with words not enough to fill your day?

Would you also fight and hunt and run with the Bears?"

Cadillac faced up to Motor-Head's mocking gaze.  'Does not the
branch-worm become a leaf-wing?  Why should a sand-worm not become a
warrior worthy to bear his Name of Power?"

Motor-Head chuckled and planted himself before Cadillac with folded
arms.  'Your tongue strikes sparks, wordsmith.  And now your hands have
held sharp iron.  You have cut down meat, and you have chewed bone."

He turned towards the other warriors.  'How say you, brothers - is he
worthy to be one of us?"

One by one, Hawkwind, Chainsaw, Black-Top, Brass-Rail, Steel-Eye,
Ten-Four and Convoy solemnly thrust out their right arms towards
Cadillac, the fingers clenched, the thumb raised.

Motor-Head took off his feathered head-mask and placed it on Cadillac's
head.  'Welcome, blood-brother Bear!  May your arm strike hard and
true, may your heart be strong, and your name be honoured in the fire
songs of our people!"  'Hey~YUH!  Hey-YUH!  Hey-YUH!!"  chorussed the
others.  Clearwater's eyes glistened with tears of joy as she joined
with the others, raising her arms as they shouted the traditional
accolade.

It was a sweet moment of triumph - which Cadillac spoilt by fainting
from loss of blood.

FOUR

The joint centenary celebration and graduation ceremony was held in the
Academy's giant Free-Flight Dome.  The bare rock from which it had been
hewn was hung with flags and bunting, and criss-crossed with
computerised coloured laser beams that had been programmed to create
dazzling, ever-changing, patterns of light.

When the five thousand spectators had filed into their allotted seats,
the nine squadrons of cadets and the Academy staff paraded to the
stirring synthesised sounds of brass, LIFE and drum, then lined up with
geometrical precision for inspection by the visiting dignitaries from
Grand Central.

This was followed by squadron displays of marching and countermarching,
weapon handling, assault training demonstrations, gymnastics and
quarterstave combat drills.

The ground events, interwoven with highlights from the video-record of
the Flight Academy's history and achievements projected on a giant
screen, were climaxed by a flying display in which Steve Brickman took
a leading part.

After the ceremonial presentation of wings, prizes, a video-address by
George Washington Jefferson the 31st, the President-General of the
Federation, and seemingly interminable speeches by members of the
Amtrak Executive who had shuttled from Houston, the amplifiers boomed
out the opening chords of 'The Wild Blue Yonder', the Academy's
historic battle-hymn.  Five thousand spectators rose to their feet and,
with one voice, joined the two hundred-strong choir in the verses and
chorus that accompanied the final march past.  Tears flowed ashamedly
down the cheeks of veteran Trail-Blazers in the stands as the voices
and music soared to fill the huge circular arena; the sound merging, as
if by magic, with the rhythmic pulsing of the lasers, to create a
heart, mind and gut= gripping audio-visual experience; the crowning
moment of a triumphantly successful anniversary parade.

As the last words of the last ringing chorus faded, and the tears were
wiped away, the hymn was reprised in voiceless diminuendo.  The First
and Second Year cadets marched out of the arena to the sound of
retreating drumbeats, and the three Senior squadrons, now proudly
bearing their newly-won wings on their tunics, were halted and
dismissed in front of the packed reviewing stand.  After nearly four
hours on the parade ground, the Third Year cadets broke ranks with
broad smiles of relief as their guardians and kinfolk - some of whom
had travelled from the farthest reaches of the Federation - left their
seats and streamed down the steps to greet their wards with hugs and
handshakes, and shoot off more videotape for the unit album.

'How ya doing, Wonder-Boy?"

Steve ducked out from under the enthusiastic embrace of his kin-sister
and smoothed his uniform.  'Hey, Roz, come on - grow up will you?"

'I am grown up.  I was fifteen last February, remember?"

'Sure, I remember."

'Could have looked in on me.  Or at least sent a vee-gee."

'I forgot, Worm.  Happy Birthday whenever.  Okay?"

'And not a bleep from you when I passed my Inter-Med."

'Steve hardly ever looks in.  You should know that,' said Annie
Brickman.  Her voice was entirely devoid of malice or reproach.  It was
just a plain statement of fact.  Annie, Steve's guard-mother, stepped
aside as her kin-brother Bart Bradlee eased Jack Brickman's wheelchair
through the crowd.

'I was gonna send a vee-gee, but it got kind of busy."

'We know that, boy."  In the three years since leaving home his
guard-father's voice had faded to a husky whisper.

Steve lifted his guard-father's hands from the arms of his chair and
squeezed them gently.  Jack Brickman's fingers responded to the contact
like palsied chicken claws.  It was hard to believe that these hands,
and the wasted body they were attached to, had once been packed with
lean hard flesh and enough muscle power to knock many bigger men clear
across a room.

'Good to see you, sir.  I really appreciate you taking the trouble to
make the trip."

'If we hadn't brought him, he'd have got someone to tie him to the
chair and had himself shipped out as freight,' said Bart.  He patted
Jack Brickman's shoulder.  'Ain't that so, old timer?"

The 'old timer' answered with a wry, gasping laugh.

Steve's guard-father was thirty-four years old.  Jack knew he would be
dead from radiation sickness within a year.  They all knew.  But no one
felt sad about it, or thought of it as tragic.  His tenacious survival
thus far was little short of miraculous.  Very few Trail-Blazers made
it past thirty.

Indeed, most Trackers assigned to overground operations were dead long
before that; killed in action or through pulling a trick or, more
regrettably, executed before the tv cameras for a Code One default.

Undergrounders had a greater life-expectancy but even they didn't live
for ever.  Annie, who was also thirty-four, and her kin-brother Bart, a
twenty-nine-year-old staff-officer, had never been posted overground or
suffered a day's illness, yet both would die soon after their
forty-second birthday.  For despite the spectacular advances in the
life sciences over the last three centuries, the secret of longevity
still remained to be discovered.

The oldest Tracker on record had died at the ripe old age of
forty-five.

The oldest ordinary Tracker that is.

The current President-General of the Federation was - to judge from his
video appearances - a vigorous sixty-five, and his predecessor had
lived into his eighties.  No one had ever given Steve a satisfactory
explanation of why this should be so.  That was the way it was.  The
Jeffersons were the First Family because they lived longer than
everybody else.  And they lived longer than everybody else because they
had been born to rule the Federation.

That was what it said in the Manual.

Steve embraced .his guard-mother.  'I really did work hard, Annie.  Can
you forgive me?"

Annie laughed.  'For what - coming fourth?"

'I should have been first."

'Fourth sounds pretty good to me,' said Annie.  'Jack wasn't even in
the top twenty."

'The Eagles took three out of the top four places,' said Bart.  'Never
been a squadron that has done that before."

Steve turned to Bart.  'You don't understand, sir.  I should have been
first.  I should have been Honour Cadet.  I was shafted."

Bart's face muscles hardened a little around his good-natured smile.

'Now that's a real bad thought for you to have, Stevie.  The system
doesn't make mistakes like that."

'No harm in the boy wanting to be best,' said Annie.  'We trained him
to think that way before he could even walk.  Roz tOO.".

Bart shook his head.  'Wanting to be, and being, is different sure
enough.  But that's not what a girl and boy should set their mind to.

Trying to do their best, that's something else.  That's what's expected
of each and everyone of us.  Just like it says in The Book."

Steve nodded respectfully.  Bart held the powerful post of
Provost-Marshal for the territory of New Mexico.  Young men planning to
make their way up in the world did not argue with Provost-Marshals.

Even if they were kinfolk.

'I tried, sir."

Bart patted him on the shoulder.  'That's all a man can do.

It's all been worked out, boy.  The Family's had their eye on you from
the day you were born.  Same way as they look after all of us.  A
Tracker doesn't need to question the order he's given, or the place
he's been assigned to.  The only thing he has to ask himself is - "Am I
trying hard enough?  Am I doing the best I can?"' 'Amen to that,' said
Annie.

Jack Brickman waved a frail hand.  'You passed.  That's the important
thing.  The marks don't matter a damn.

Combat is the only way a wingman can prove himself."

'Exactly."  Roz linked arms with Steve and her guard-mother.

'Now will somebody please shoot a picture before my brother gets too
famous to talk to me?"

The rest of the afternoon was spent sight-seeing.  As with every annual
passing-out parade, the Flight Academy complex was thrown open for
inspection by the kinfolk of the senior classmen.  Food and drink were
freely available in the mess halls, where the first year Squabs were on
duty as waiters.  Second year cadets provided conducted tours of the
classrooms and other training areas, giving practical demonstrations on
the flight rigs, simulators and weapon ranges.  Steve took over control
of his guard-father's wheelchair but, an hour into the tour, Jack
Brickman's face clouded over as the sharp-toothed serpent within him
crept out of its secret lair and began to gnaw away at another part of
his body.  Annie gave Jack a couple of Cloud-Nines and cradled his head
until the drawn sinews on his scrawny neck slackened and he fell into a
drugged sleep.

Seeing what had happened, Chuck Waters, a buddie from B-flight invited
Steve's kinfolk to join his own ten-strong bunch of Okies.  Steve took
Jack Brickman up in the elevator to the quarterdeck and wheeled him
into his shack.  Putting a pillow on the chair back, he gently eased
the gaunt openmouthed skull onto it, crossed the limp wizened hands,
then sat down on the stripped bunk and gazed impassively at the man who
had raised him.  The only sign of life was a thin gasping sigh as air
passed in and out of his guard-father's throat.  Sometime next year,
the sighing would stop.  The bag-men would call, his body would go down
the gaspipe and his name would go up on the Flight Academy's wall.

Another good man gone.

Steve sat there a while longer then got up and began packing his
clothing and personal equipment into a big blue trail-bag.

'Okay if I come in?"

Steve looked over his shoulder.  Donna Monroe Lundkwist, a slim,
fair-haired wingman who had, in Steve's calculations, been his only
serious rival for first place stood at the door.  The blue and white
tasselled Honour Cadet lanyard was looped over her right shoulder; the
big metallic-thread Minuteman badge was sewn on her left breast pocket
under the silver wings.

Steve folded the last of his shirts into the trail-bag.  'What can I do
for you?"

'Nothing special."  Lundkwist sat down casually on the bunk next to
Steve's trail bag.  'Just dropped in to say "goodbye"."  She nodded
towards Jack Brickman.  'Your guard-father?"

'Yeah..."

Lundkwist registered the two gold, double triangles on Jack Brickman's
sleeve and gave a low whistle.  'A double-six!

Twelve tours and two White House lunches with the President-General.

How come you never told anybody your guardian was an ace wingman?"

Steve shrugged.  'That kind of information is dispensed on a strictly
"need-to-know" basis."  He zipped up the side pockets of his trail-bag
and wedged some more of his gear into the middle section.  'How was
your lunch?"

'Oh - you mean with the Academy-General?  Interesting.

He gave me the inside track on my first assignment.  I'm being posted
to Big Red One."

'That's good,' said Brickman, flatly.

Big Red One was the popular name for the Red River wagon train.  It was
known throughout the Federation for the spectacular success of its many
expeditions against the Mutes; its Trail-Blazer crew had an unrivalled
combat record and as a result of their renown, the Red River wagon
master was able to cream off the top layer of graduates from the combat
academies and specialist schools.  For the last twenty years, the top
three cadets from the Academy had joined the Trail-Blazer team aboard
Red River.  Steve had planned to be one of them this year.

'I asked about you."

'And ... ?"

'You've been assigned to The Lady from Louisiana -she's based at Fort
Worth."  Lundkwist paused.  'Gus White too."

'That should make his day,' grunted Steve.  Service aboard Big Red One
was traditionally regarded as the all-important first rung on the
promotion ladder.  He turned to face her, 'Does he know yet?"

Lundkwist shook her head.  'I thought you'd enjoy telling him."

'I will."  Steve closed the long zip on the middle section of his trail
bag.  As he moved the zip tag towards Lundkwist she laid a finger on
the back of his hand and drew a slow,

exploratory circle.  Their eyes met.

'How about putting the bomb in the barrel?"

Steve ran the zip tag the rest of the way while he thought about it.

'You mean here?  Now?"

Don Lundkwist's eyes flickered towards the sleeping figure of Jack
Brickman.  'You worried about him waking up?"

'Not really.  He's on Cloud-Nine."

'So ... ?"  Lundkwist looked at him expectantly.

'So - maybe some other time."

Lundkwist pointed to the sleeping Jack Brickman.

'Listen.  You are not going to be upsetting this guy.  In twelve years
on the wagons he must have walked past some heavy traffic.  Right?"

Steve mulled the situation over.

Lundkwist tugged at Steve's parade suit, forcing him to take a step
towards her.  She closed her trousered thighs against his legs.  'Come
on, Brickman, I never made it with you.  And after today, I may never
see you again."

'Nothing I can do about that."

'Oh, yes there is."  Lundkwist stood up, slipped her arms round his
waist and gently ground his genitals with the point of her pelvis.

'Five weeks from now I could be on a wagon train heading into Mute
territory.  Six weeks from now I could cease to exist.  Eight weeks
before my seventeenth birthday.  If I'm going to go into the meat
business I want the satisfaction of knowing I've been with the best."

Without waiting for Steve's answer she lifted his trail-bag clear of
the bed, closed the sliding door to the shack, unzipped his tunic then
swiftly peeled off her own uniform and climbed onto the bunk.

Steve glanced at his guard-father.  Jack Brickman's head was slumped
sideways on the pillow, his open mouth accentuating the hollowness of
his cheeks.  He lifted his guard-father's hand a few inches then let it
go.  It fell back limply onto his lap with the lifelessness that
characterized deep sleep.  Steve turned back to Don Lundkwist and
undressed in his own good time.  He ran his eyes casually over her
naked body.  Neat.  A strong neck and good square shoulders,
well-defined muscles without that bunchy look that some of the guys
went for.  He lay down beside her.

Lundkwist ran an appraising hand along his shoulder, then down the side
of his chest onto his hips.  'I really get off on you, Brickman.  How
come we had to wait three years for this?"

Steve shrugged.  'Busy, I guess.  Okay, how do you want it?"

Don teased his mouth with her tongue.  'Every which way.

The works."  She turned around and backed into him.

Underneath the deep UV-tan, her shoulders were covered with freckles.

Even though they had often been under the showers at the same time it
was something Steve had never noticed before.  He snaked one arm
underneath her and up over her slim breasts.  Don grabbed his other
hand before he had decided what to do with it, and slid it down between
her legs.  'Oh, yes,' she murmured.  'Oh, yes!"  She arched her neck
and rubbed her face against his.

Steve closed his eyes and pictured her making it with that creep Gus
White.  And the other guys.  Saying the same thing, reacting the same
way.  It was an accepted fact that by the end of the course almost
everybody had made it with everybody else.  It was no big deal.  If you
were that way inclined - and most guys were - you just went the rounds
on a regular basis.

Brickman was not so inclined.  But don't get the wrong idea about this
young man.  He was not lacking any vital parts, suffering from
dimensional deficiency, or bereft of the normal urges that come upon
young people of his age.

His voluntary celibacy merely reflected his pragmatic approach to
life.

Brickman had not gone the rounds for the simple reason that - while it
might afford some welcome relief- it was not part of the curriculum.

There were no marks awarded for jacking up, or bombing, one's fellow
cadets.  It was not even regarded as a reliable way to make friends and
influence people.  Consequently, it figured lower than nowhere on his
list of priorities.  On the other hand, being Brickman, he could not
bear the thought of doing anything badly and now that he had allowed
Don to get to him, Steve wanted to do it right.

He held on like a limpet as Don ground her rump into his belly.  It
felt like someone had lit a fire in his lap.  It wasn't the first time
but it was the first time in years.  He had buried the memory of how it
had felt at the back of his mind.  Now it came flooding back, warming
his body and for a while, he forgot that his guard-father's wheelchair
was parked less than two feet away and that at any minute, the rest of
his kinfolk might walk in through the door.

Haft an hour, or maybe an hour later, after they'd done everything but
bounce off the walls, they lay alongside each other breathing deep and
hard.  Where their bodies touched the skin was tacked together by a
thin film of sweat.

Lundkwist caught her breath and put her mouth against Steve's ear.

'D'you wanna drop another one in?"

'llh-uh,' said Steve.  'This is where I bail out."

'Okay."  Lundkwist sat up and dropped her legs over the side of the
bunk.  'That was good.  Right on the button."  She ran a hand down her
throat, between her slim breasts and onto her flat hard stomach.  'Need
a shower but, uh, somehow I think I'm gonna have to leave that till I
get home."

Steve nodded.  'Long ride to Wichita,' he observed.

Lundkwist came from the northernmost Federation base -Monroe Field in
Kansas, opened up in 2886.  Which also made it the newest.  'Your
kinfolk here?"

'Are you kidding?"  said Lundkwist.  'They brought the whole base
along."  She began to dress.

As Steve put his clothes on he studied Lundkwist and thought about what
they had done.  It had set his brain and body fizzing with feelings and
desires he had long since put a cap on.  Putting the bomb in the barrel
with her had provided an undeniable moment of pleasure but that was
something he could live without.  Allowing yourself to need other
people in that way - to let them get that close was a dangerous
luxury.

It made you vulnerable.

'So ..."  said Steve, 'It's "goodbye" then."

'Yeah ... we're booked out on the four o'clock shuttle."

Lundkwist checked her watch then zipped up her parade tunic and
adjusted the tasselled Honour Cadet lanyard.