《The Amtrak Wars I : Cloud_Warrior》06

Steve could have cheerfully strangled her with it.

'Good luck and, uh - good hunting."

'You too."  Brickman established firm eye contact and smiled warmly as
they shook hands.  'And take it easy, okay?

You made the Number One spot.  You don't have to prove it all over
again to the Mutes."

He patted her shoulder as she turned away.  Lundkwist looked back at
him from the doorway with a tightlipped smile.  'You know how to make a
guy feel good, Brickman, but underneath that whiter than white smile
you really are one mean sonofabitch."

Steve eyed her steadily and continued dressing.  'Part of my survival
kit."

'.You know what your trouble is?"  Lundkwist didn't wait for him to
reply.  'You think you're different.  You're so busy working at being
Number One you've got no time to be one of us.  It frightens people.

And that's bad - because one day you may need a friend."

'Anything else?"  asked Steve imperturbably.

'Yeah,' said Lundkwist.  She tapped the Minuteman badge on the breast
pocket of her tunic.  'You and I both worked our asses off to win
this.

I just want you to know that whatever it was you did wrong, in my book
you're still the top gun."

Steve shrugged modestly and zipped up his pants.  'Time will tell
..."

'It will indeed,' said Lundkwist.  She stepped away from the door then
leaned back in.  'Oh, by the way - happy birthday."

FIVE

Two days after his triumph against Shakatak D'Vine, Cadillac went with
Clearwater and Mr Snow deep into the forest.  They found a glade by the
edge of a stream where they squatted crosslegged, facing each other on
a carpet of red leaves.  Behind them, on all sides, the black-brown
trunks of the redwoods stood guard, like giant warriors.

Here and there, rose-coloured shafts of sunlight pierced the thick
canopy of leaves, casting bright pools of light on the sea of ferns
that washed against the gnarled roots of the trees.

Cadillac listened attentively as Clearwater put questions to Mr Snow
about her newly-discovered power which, like Cadillac's prodigious
memory, was a gift of the Sky Voices, sent with the blessing of their
great mother Mo-Town.  Mr Snow explained many things, emphasising that
the effort needed to guide the power and shape it to his, or her, will
drained the life-force from the summoner.  Thus, the greater the force
unleashed, the greater the power needed to control it.  Great power
should only be summoned in extremis because it could, in untrained
hands, result in the death of the one who sought to wield it.

This was why Clearwater had fainted when she had saved Cadillac from
Shakatak; the summoner was left weakened after the power had passed
through their body.  He, or she, had then to wait until their
life-force had been restored before the power could be used again.  It
followed that, in times of danger, the skill of the summoner had to be
employed judiciously otherwise he, or she, might find their powers
depleted when they were needed most.

When it was Cadillac's turn to speak he said, 'I am troubled that I do
not hear the Sky Voices."

Mr Snow smiled.  'You will hear them when you are ready to listen."

'Then teach me how to listen."

Mr Snow shook his head.  'The heads of the young are filled with the
sounds of the world.  The trumpets of vainglory.

The dark murmur of earth-longings.  With age, your tuner ear may learn
to shut out such noises.  Only then will you discover that the great
truths are gifts that come wrapped in silence."

'I have a gift of which I have not yet spoken,' said Cadillac.

'A pupil should not conceal knowledge from his master,' said Mr Snow.

Cadillac laughed.  'Nothing is hidden from you, Old One."

'True,' admitted Mr Snow.  His eyes twinkled.  'Though I do not send my
mind into your hut at the dark of the moon."

Clearwater put her hands over her nose and mouth and eyed Cadillac over
her fingertips.

Cadillac took a deep breath to avoid stammering from embarrassment.  'I
did not speak because I was not sure whether it was a true gift or
nothing more than dream-stuff fashioned by a haft-empty mind."  He
hesitated.  'I see pictures in the stones."

Mr Snow nodded soberly.  Clearwater listened, wide-eyed.

'Not all stones,' explained Cadillac.  'Only those which are ..."  He
groped for the right word.

'... seeing stones,' said Mr Snow.

'Yes."  Cadillac reached towards the bank of the stream and picked up a
smooth rock the size of a large apple.  'This one says nothing."  He
ran a finger round its circumference.

'The seeing stones have a ring of soft golden light.  I cannot always
see it but if I hold one of these stones in my hand and take its
essence into my mind, I see pictures.  Whether they are in the stone or
in my mind I cannot tell but -' Cadillac shook his head and sighed
regretfully, 'I do not understand them."

Mr Snow nodded again.  'The power is difficult to master.

The pictures you saw could have been from the past, or from the
future.

They are of the place where the stone lies.  Stored memories, visions
of things yet to come, sealed like reflections of the cloud-filled sky
on the surface of the endless River of Time."

'Can you teach me to make sense of these things?"

Mr Snow shook his head.  'No.  The art of seer-ship cannot be taught.

He who has the gift must learn to use it himself."

'So,' said Cadillac.  'I am wordsmith and seer.  Might not the power of
the summoner enter me in the days to come - as it has been given to
Clearwater?"

'It might,' said Mr Snow.

Cadillac weighed up the old man and squared his shoulders.  'The shadow
of Talisman is upon me,' he said boldly.  'Am I to be the Thrice-Gifted
One?"

Mr Snow closed his eyes as if seeking guidance.

Clearwater reached out silently and took hold of Cadillac's hand.

Their eyes met briefly then returned to Mr Snow but he did not reply,
or open his eyes for several minutes.

'That is not a question I can answer,' he said finally.  'I conceal
nothing.  I do not know.  There have been many times when I have felt
the finger of the Sky Voices pointing at you but I now know that my
thoughts were coloured by my desire to see Talisman enter the world
before I go to the High Ground and -' Mr Snow chuckled,' - the unworthy
notion that I had been chosen to be his Teacher."  He sighed.

'You may be."  He indicated Clearwater.  'She may be ' 'But she is not
a wordsmith!"  cried Cadillac.  'Does it not say that the Thrice-Gifted
One shall be wordsmith, summoner and seer?"

'That is indeed the prophecy,' admitted Mr Snow.  'But six days ago,
which of us knew of the powers that Clearwater possessed?  And how long
ago did you find your first seeing stone?"

'Two or three years,' replied Cadillac grumpily.

'Let me remind you of the prophecy,' said Mr Snow.

'Man-child, or woman-child the One may be.  And none will know who is
the Thrice-Gifted One until the earth gives the sign."

Cadillac eyed Mr Snow disappointedly.  His voice was tinged with
resentment.  'Are you sure the Sky Voices have not spoken of this more
directly?"

Mr Snow threw up his hands in mock despair and gave them both a
long-suffering look.

Clearwater smiled sympathetically.

'They have spoken but the meaning of their words is clouded,' replied
Mr Snow.  'I cannot put your mind at rest."

'Let me be the judge of that,' said Cadillac.

Very well,' said Mr Snow.  'They have told me that Talisman will be
someone known to you."

Cadillac exchanged a look of surprise with Clearwater then turned back
to Mr Snow.  'Someone known to me now - or someone I will come to
know?"

Mr Snow uncrossed his legs.

'Wait!"  cried Cadillac.  'Does that also include me?"

Mr Snow shrugged and got to his feet.  'It means what it says.  You are
a wordsmith.  Work it out."

SIX

Within minutes of arriving at his kinfolk's quarters, Steve fell into
bed and slept for two whole days and nights.  The relentless pace of
his last year at the Flight Academy, plus the extra adrenalin that had
been pumped into his system during the final run-up to the exams and
his overground solo had put his mind and body into permanent
overdrive.

It was only when he finally slipped under the quilt with the knowledge
that he would not be awakened by an electronic trumpet blast that the
months of pent-up fatigue were released.  As he lay back, he felt the
aching tiredness flood out of his bones and into the surrounding flesh,
spreading out in every direction like a slow-burning fire until his
body was suffused with a dull, prickly pain that penetrated every
fibre; oozed out of every pore.  At the point when it became
unbearable, darkness enveloped him.

Roosevelt Field - the place where Steve had been reared and schooled
and with which he was identified by his middle name - was the
operational headquarters and home base of a ten thousand-strong
division of Trackers.

Compared to Grand Central, it had the no-frills homespun atmosphere of
a frontier town but it was nothing like anything ever built in the
pioneer West.  Roosevelt Field was a self-contained multi-level
mini-city.  An air-conditioned colony of human termites with tv in
every burrow, situated fifteen hundred feet down in the bedrock under
the pre-Holocaust city of Santa Fe.  Like all the other once great
cities of the Southern United States this was now nothing more than a
dot on the map of the overground but its name had remained in use
because it marked the geographical location of the Federation base in
the earthshield below.

The layout of Roosevelt/Santa Fe followed the standard concentric
ground plan developed by Grand Central engineers in the eighth
century.

Basically, it consisted of a central plaza surrounded by two circular
transit tunnels (Ringways) at a radius of one and two miles.  Eight
more transit tunnels (Radials) arranged like the spokes of a wheel
linked the plaza with the 1st and 2nd Ringway.  At each intersection
there were huge vertical shafts (2-Level Rises or 4-Level Deeps) with
accommodation units, workshops and community areas built into the sides
- rather like skyscrapers turned inside out.  The domed hub of
Roosevelt Field was known as New Deal Plaza; Annie and Jack Brickman's
quarters were on Level Three-8 at N.E. and 2nd - the shaft known as
Tennessee Valley Deep.

Steve woke on the morning of the third day.  The aching tiredness had
vanished but, in the process, his bones had turned to jelly.  He felt
drained of all energy and did not need much persuasion from Annie to
stay in bed.  Roz, his kin-sister, brought him a breakfast tray from
the Level Three mess deck, and put the remote control handset for the
tv within easy reach.

The Federation provided Trackers with nine tv channels.

1 and 2 gave access to the Archive/Data Bank; 3, 4, 5, 6 provided Study
Programmes covering a wide range of subjects; 7 offered Vocational
skills; 8 was a Recreation channel offering a variety of combative
video games, such as the popular 'Shoot-A-Mute'.  Feeling he had earned
a break from studying, and having trained for the last three years to
kill Mutes, Steve selected Channel 9 - the Public Service Channel
something he rarely watched.  PSC broadcasts were composed almost
exclusively of inspirational programmes, banal blue sky balladeers, and
the networked news from GC, interspersed with mind-deadening 'local
interest' items from the home-base station.

One such item was on the screen now.  An on-the-spot report about Young
Pioneer work teams.  An earnest stringer from Roosevelt Field who
insisted on being called Ron, put the next of a series of penetrating
questions to a sweat-stained, dusty, politely attentive
thirteen-year-old Group Leader.  'So, how many yards of rock do you
think your team of boys and girls has dug out today, Doug?"

Thank you, and goodnight.  Click.  Steve ate the rest of his breakfast
facing a blank, grey-faced screen.

After four days of virtual inactivity, Steve's natural energy level was
restored and he began to feel restless.  He would have liked to talk
more with his guard-father but Jack was unable to sustain a meaningful
conversation.  After two or three exchanges his voice would become
faint with exhaustion and he would lose track of the subject under
discussion.

Annie Brickman, in between looking after Jack, was working behind the
counter on the Level Three South mess deck.  With the exception of
senior staff officers - like Bart everybody on a Tracker base,
regardless of their qualifications, had to put in a fixed number of
Public Duty hours every month.  In theory, PD entailed anything and
everything to do with the running of the base; in practice, it usually
meant one hundred hours on a work squad assigned to repetitive
low-grade tasks ranging from food preparation and laundry work to
road-sweeping and garbage disposal.

Steve wandered into his kin-sister's room.  Roz was packing her
trail-bag, glancing every now and then at the tv set on the table by
her bunk bed.  She was running a videotaped Inter-Med lecture on
genetics.

Steve stacked up the pillows and made himself comfortable with his feet
up on the bed.  'When do you plan to pull out?"

'Tomorrow,' said Roz.  'Enrolment at Inner State U doesn't start for
another week but I want to take a look around Grand Central while I've
got some free time."

'Yeah... they say it's really something."  Steve gazed idly at the
coloured diagram on the tv screen.  The soundtrack was pure
gobbledygook.  'Is that what you're going to specialise in genetics?"

Roz nodded.  'It's the only area where there's still a chance to come
up with an amazing discovery that could change the future.  Can you
imagine what it would be like if we all lived twice as long - till we
were eighty - wouldn't that be something?"

'Yughh - it would be terrible."

Roz smiled.  'Actually, I've chosen genetics because the Life Institute
is the only medical centre with unlimited research facilities.  Who
knows?  I just might make a name for myself."

'You just might,' agreed Steve.

'Always provided I qualify, of course.  The bottom third of each
graduate year are automatically wiped out.  That's it."  Roz drew a
hand across her throat.  'No retreads."

Steve shrugged.  'So what.  You still have your Inter-Med.

If you don't want to tap chests and prescribe pills in a base clinic,
you can always join a front-line surgical team on one of the wagon
trains."

'And end up like Poppa-Jack?"  Roz wrinkled her nose.

'Maybe,' said Steve.  'But in the process, you might save your big
brother, or some other guys like him."

Roz smiled.  'You'll survive.  From what I've heard, those Trail-Blazer
expeditions are a cake-walk.  Okay, maybe the air burns you up, the way
it did Poppa-Jack, but don't start telling me how dangerous it is to be
out there fighting Mutes.  You know what?  When I see those pictures of
'em on the history programmes and hear about the way they live, I feel
sorry for 'em.  They're as ugly as bugs and we crush 'em out of
existence as if they were bugs -' 'They're no better than,' interjected
Steve.

'Okay, I accept that,' said Roz.  'And I step on bugs the way you do.

But as my heel goes down, I sometimes ask myself if bugs ain't got the
right to live the same as we do.  If not - why are they running around
in the first place?  Maybe whoever it was who created the First Family
made the bugs too.  And maybe they made the Mutes along with 'em."

Steve studied his kin-sister.  'You know something?

Since we've been raised together you've come out with some pretty weird
ideas but that has to be the weirdest yet."

'But it could be so, couldn't it?"  insisted Roz.

'It could be,' replied Steve.  'But I'm not going to let it worry me.

I've been training for the last three years to go out there and kill
Mutes and that's what I intend to do."

'Go ahead,' said Roz.  'I know it takes courage to face the
overground.

The Federation needs people to push out its frontiers and put down
way-stations.  There's danger in that - in just being out there - and
I respect you for putting your life on the line.  But just as I
wouldn't feel sorry if you were to break your toe stomping on a bug, I
am not going to treat you like a hero for killing a bunch of
defenceless Mutes ' 'What d'you mean "defenceless"?"  said Steve
hotly.

'Those lump-heads kill people.  Everybody knows what they do to dead
Trail-Blazers.  They cut their hands and feet off.

Plus all the other odds and ends too.  And if you're captured, they
skin you alive, smoke you over a fire to keep you nice and sweet then
eat you slice by slice through the winter.

"Defenceless" ... huh!  They got weapons, Roz.  And they know how to
use them."

Roz gave a quick laugh.  'Come on, Steve.  You know that's just
Trail-Blazer pep-talk.  Those lump-heads - as you call 'em - don't even
know what day it is."

'Okay, I admit they're not too smart.  But they aren't as dumb as you
make out either.  I don't get it.  What are you trying to prove?  And
what the heck!  I mean - whose side are you on, anyway?"

Roz sat down on the bunk-bed and fisted Steve's shoulder.  'Yours
dummy.  It's just that -' Roz grimaced sadly.  'I don't know.  It's
just that when you get into this business of genetics and you get right
down to whatever it is that creates life, you start to think about
things.  Ask questions.  And when you realise just how little we know
about how life is created, and the incredible complexity of even the
simplest type of cell - just one of billions that go to make up the
human body - you can't help feeling that maybe we ought to ask
ourselves if we're doing the right thing to send guys like you out to
kill off more Mutes."

'But Mutes aren't people, Roz.  That's not something I dreamed up.

Jack spent years out there.  Have you forgotten the stories he used to
tell us?"

Roz shook her head and smiled.  'Some of them still keep me awake at
nights."  She got up, closed the door, switched on the tv with the aid
of the handset, upped the volume then sat down on the bunk-bed.

Steve frowned and pointed to the tv.  'Do we have to have that on?"

'Yeah."  Roz moved closer to her brother.  'Do you wanna hear some
music?"

Steve leaned back cautiously into the stacked pillows.

'What kind?"

'The kind that gives you a real buzz.  Blackjack - what else?"

'Are you crazy?"  hissed Steve.  'I wouldn't go within a mile of that
junk.  Shaft it, Roz.  Get rid of it - fast."  An alarming thought
struck him.  He sat up straight.  'Where is it?  Have you got it with
you?"

'Of course not."  Roz pushed him back against the pillow.

'Relax.  There's this guy -' Steve put his hand to her lips.  'I don't
want to know about him, or it, or anything.  Don't get involved, Roz.

You know what the score is.  Anyone caught tuning into that garbage is
in big trouble."

Roz smiled.  'You could be' right.  The word is this guy only handles
Code One material."

'Keep your voice down,' said Steve.  'And stop kidding around.  It's no
joke."

'Have you ever plugged any blackjack?"

'No.  And I'm not going to."

Roz smiled.  'Because it's against the rules?"

Steve eyed her silently then looked away.

'Have you ever asked yourself why it's against the rules?"

Roz pulled his chin round, forcing.  Steve to meet her challenging
look.

'You know why we have rules,' replied Steve.  'It's the only way people
can live together."  His mouth tightened as she sighed wearily.  'Come
on - that's Page One stuff."

'I know what the Manual says.  But it's not the only way,' insisted
Roz.  'If people are given a set of rules to live by limits they
mustn't overstep - it means there must be a whole different way of
living on the other side of the line."

'Sure,' said Steve.  'People tried it a thousand years ago.

And what happened?  Anarchy, disorder, chaos.  The cities burned.  The
blue-sky world be'came one great poisonous hell-fire that spawned the
Mutes."

'Yeah, I know how the history programme runs,' whispered Roz.

'Something bad must have happened, but none of us know what - or how
bad it really was.  We only know what the First Family's seen fit to
tell us.  Maybe,' she hesitated - 'maybe, in some ways, life was better
than it is now."

Steve snorted.  'Are you crazy?  Without the Jeffersons there would be
no life!  If the First Family hadn't laid down the rules for everyone
to follow, the Federation wouldn't exist."

'Yes, but, Steve ' 'Drop it, Roz,' hissed Steve.  'I don't want to hear
any more of this shit."

'Okay, forget it,' replied Roz with a sniffy laugh.  'Don't worry, I
won't do anything to damage your career prospects."

'I was thinking about yours,' snapped Steve.

Roz looked unconvinced.

'I'm not kidding,' said Steve angrily.  And to be fair, at least twenty
per cent of his concern was temporarily directed towards his sister.

He took hold of her hands.

'These wild ideas - this renegade talk.  You can't go jumping the rails
like this once you get to Grand Central.  What's got into you?"