《The Amtrak Wars I : Cloud_Warrior》07

 Roz pursed her lips then tilted her head to one side as she looked down
at their clasped hands.  'Maybe I need my big brother to look after
me."

Their eyes met and held each other fast.

'That can't happen, Roz,' said Steve quietly.  'I know I'm real bad
about getting in touch but - I do think about you and ..."

'... how it was when we were in high school together?"

'Sometimes.  Things change.  People too."

'I'm people, and'nothing's changed."  Roz leaned forward and gave him a
long tender kiss on the mouth then sat back with a sigh.  'D'you
realise after this week we may never see each other again?"

Steve smiled.  'That's life, Roz.  Crying won't change anything."

'I wasn't about to cry."  Roz took a deep breath.  'There was something
I wanted to tell you."  She paused hesitantly.

'About us."

'Oh, yeah - what about us?"

'You and I are different.  We are, uh - we're not like Jack and
Annie.

Or the others.  I feel close to you in ways I can't explain.  I don't
mean how it was before you went up to the Academy.  I mean in ways I
don't understand.  Haven't you ever felt that?"

Steve felt suddenly apprehensive.  'I'm not sure.  Give me a
for-instance."

Roz tightened her grip on his hands, and drew her teeth over her bottom
lip.  Finally she said, 'D'you remember the day before yesterday when
you finally woke up and I brought you breakfast?"

'How can I forget?"  said Steve.  'It was the first time ever in my
whole life."

'Be serious,' snapped Roz.  'You remember later on telling me about
going up to Level Ten for your solo flight and how you felt when you
saw the overground?"  Roz lowered her voice.  'Those things you felt
inside you?  The fear of coming back in?"  She saw Steve's eyes
widen.

'Don't worry, I won't ever tell anyone about that.  But do you remember
me asking what day and what time it was you made that flight?"

'Yes,' whispered Steve.

'And you told me.  But you never asked why I wanted to know."  Roz
fixed her eyes on his.  'Do you know why I asked?"

Steve gazed back at her.  'Why don't you tell me?"

Roz's answer came in a hesitant whisper.  'Because I - I knew you were
up there.  I felt everything you felt - when it happened.  I felt the
same fear of being buried alive when you hesitated before taxying back
under the ramp door.  I was in the path lab with the rest of my
class.

I suddenly cried out.  I - I thought the ceiling was going to fall in
and crush me.  Everyone thought I'd gone crazy.  I've never had that
kind of feeling in my whole life before."

Steve tried to draw his hands away but Roz held on to him with
unexpected strength.  The words came spilling from her lips.  'I saw it
all, Steve.  The red trees, the mountains, the sun shining on the
water, the clouds, the waves of white sand.  I was up there with
you."

An unknown terror sent Steve's heart pounding.  'Did you try to speak
to me through your mind?  Was ityour voice I heard?"

'It may have been.  There were other voices too."

'Yes,' he whispered.

'Where do they come from?"

'I don't know,' said Steve.

'Why is it happexing to us?"  whispered Roz urgently.

'Why are we different?"

Steve felt giddy.  There was a roaring in his ears.  He felt his lips
moving; heard a far-offvoice saying, 'I don't know.  I don't know.  I
don't know."  But another part of him knew that the wave of terror that
had swept through his body had been generated by the knowledge that the
answer to Roz's questions lay locked within his mind.  Behind a door
that he dared not open.  A door that had been locked by others because
it concealed a secret that could destroy the Amtrak Federation.

Rising early on the following day, Steve went to the Provo office in
New Deal Plaza where - with the help of a video-gram from Bart - he got
his movement orders amended to allow him to accompany his kin-sister to
Grand Central before reporting to the Trail-Blazer depot at Nixon-Fort
Worth.  Annie Brickman brought Jack down to the subway to see them
off.

The shuttle from Phoenix slid to a halt at the platform.  Roz and Steve
put their trailbags aboard then turned and embraced their guardians.

'G'bye, Poppa-Jack,' said Roz.  She planted a kiss on his forehead and
ran a hand gently through his hair.  Jack's lips moved in response, but
no sound came out.

'Goodbye, sir,' said Steve.  He went down on one knee by the wheelchair
and threw an arm round his guard-father.

Jack's trembling grip on his other hand suddenly became firm and
strong.  It was as if the dying man had summoned every last ounce of
energy in his exhausted body for the last embrace; the one his ward
would remember him by.

'G'bye Annie."  Steve and Roz embraced their guard-mother.

Annie's high cheek-bones filled with colour, and her usually firm jaw
trembled.  'Ok.  ay, you two - take care of yourselves.  And always do
what's right.  You got that?"

'Don't worry, Annie,' said Steve.  'You're going to be real proud of us
before we're through."  He grasped his guard-mother's hand briefly and
stepped aboard the shuttle as the air hissed into the rams that closed
the sliding doors.

Roz bussed Annie hurriedly on the cheek and stepped inside the door of
the compartment.  Annie held onto the doors as they slid dosed, letting
go at the last minute.  Roz shouted through the glass.  'I'll look in
on you tonight!"  Annie nodded tight-lipped, and waved both hands as
the shuttle carried them away.

The compartment for which Steve and Roz had been issued tickets was
only a quarter full.  Most of the other passengers slept, or watched
one of the overhead tv sets, listening to the soundtrack through
earphones plugged into their seats.  Saddling the monorail track, and
driven by powerful linear induction motors, the shuttle sped eastwards
through the close-fitting tunnel whose grey blankness was relieved only
by the regular flash of white as the mile marker bands flipped past.

Even though the nearest passenger was four rows away, and there was no
possibility of being overheard, neither of them referred to the secrets
they had exchanged on the previous day.  Lacking any knowledge of
telepathy and unaware that the word-concept even existed, Steve and Roz
were more than a little frightened of the powers they had unwittingly
unleashed - or become prey to.  To be 'different' in a society whose
structure and values were based on a cloying conformity, co-operative
group action, and monolithic unity of purpose could, if discovered,
lead to undesirable consequences.  Deviant behaviour- the mark of a
potential renegrade - was a Code Two default which could lead to arrest
and extended treatment - known as 'reprogramming'.

Neither of them wanted to risk that.  Steve knew that Roz had her own
plans and dreams for the future; was aware that success lay in jumping,
like well-trained dogs, through the approved pattern of hoops.  As Bart
had said - the system did not make mistakes.  Only people made
mistakes.  It was people who failed, not the system.  Trying to buck it
only led to trouble and, for persistent offenders, could even prove
fatal.  Steve was already a past-master at dissimulation.

Indeed, he had understood at a very early age that, in a society whose
members were constantly encouraged to exhibit in every facet of their
lives the Seven Great Qualities of Trackerdom (Honesty, Loyalty,
Discipline, Dedication, Courage, Intelligence and Skill) possession of
the 8th Quality - Duplicity - was vital for anyone planning to claw
their way to the top.

Roz was different.  For a long time, she had actually believed that the
Seven Great Qualities immortalised by the sacrifice of the Minutemen
and the Foragers, and now said to be enshrined in the First Family,
were the guidelines by which everybody should live; that this, in fact,
was the way everybody did live.  But now even she began to bend the
rules.  She was learning.  Fast.

Steve and Roz spent three days together going round the capital of the
Federation.  Everything was much bigger and grander-looking than at
Roosevelt Field and even though he had now seen the overground, the
sheer size and glittering magnificence of John Wayne Plaza made Steve
gasp in wonder.  The huge deeply-vaulted central dome - a mile across
and half a mile high - opened onto five lofty tunnels, each a mile
long, and known as Vistas.  These ran out from the dome to form the
points of a star - the symbol of Texas, the Inner State, founder member
of the Federation.

The new deeps that were being opened up were different too.  At
Roosevelt Field, where functionalism was still the keynote, the
accommodation units were built round the sides of the shafts but at
Grand Central - at the brand spanking new San Jacinto Deep - a huge
freestanding circular tower with staggered clusters of balconies had
been built in the middle of a vast shaft whose walls had been carved to
form a series of inter-linked, landscaped terraces planted with
evergreen trees, bushes and lush foliage.

From the top of this vertical rock garden, water cascaded down over
rocks, was gathered in pools, ran in streams, rivulets and
mini-cataracts between mossy banks, splashing and dashing its way down
through the greenery into a small horseshoe lake wrapped around the
cobblestone base of the tower.  Access to the building on Levels Two
and Three was via slim arched walkways.

Steve gazed in open-mouthed wonder at the falling plumes of water that
spilled over the cleverly arranged ledges, filling the rock pools which
in turn overflowed into others below before making the final plunge
over a smooth wall of stone into the foaming edge of the lake at his
feet.

Roz started back from the water's edge as she saw several dark drifting
shapes make a sudden movement under the surface.  'Steve - look!

There's something in there!"  'Yes,' said Steve.  'Fish."

'Fish?  Really?  That's fantastic."  Roz stared into the water as if
mesmerised.  'Oh, Steve, look at that big dark brown oe!"  'Yes,' said
Steve.  'That's a good one to eat."

Roz shuddered.  'llggh!  Christopher Columbus!  That is really and
truly gross, Steve.  Makes me feel quite sick."

'I was kidding,' said Steve.  He took her arm and led her off the
bridge.  As they walked back along the throughway towards John Wayne
Plaza, Steve puzzled over what had prompted him to make such an
outlandish remark.  Like Roz, he had never eaten, or ever thought of
eating a fish before.  In fact, he had only known what the moving
shapes were from having seen pictures of fish during an Academy lecture
dealing with the main types of overground flora and fauna.  Fish had
only merited a passing reference, the main point of the lecture had
been a review of the dangerous snakes, and the various other beasts of
prey that might be encountered on a Trail-Blazer expedition.  Yet as
they had stood looking down into the water, he had had the distinct
impression that somewhere at the back of his mind was the name of that
particular fish, plus the knowledge that under the dark spotted skin,
the flesh was pink and tender - and remarkably tasty when roasted over
a wood fire.

Since their minds had not joined on this particular occasion, Steve
decided not to say anything to Roz.  She was still troubled by the
shared sensations of his overground flight for which neither had any
explanation.  With the start of the gruelling three-year Medical
Doctorate course now less than a week away, his fifteen-year-old
kin-sister had enough to worry about.

SEVEN

When you finally come face to face with a wagon train, the thing that
hits you first of all is its size.  They're enormous.

They make the rail-based MX missile trains that provided shelter and
transport for the founders of the Amtrak Federation look like those
narrow gauge miniatures that the kids used to ride on in pre-Holocaust
amusement parks.

The Lady from Louisiana - which Steve stood gazing up at - was a
space-age, multi-section, articulated vehicle over six hundred feet
long!  It was believed to be another example of the genius of First
Family design engineers but it was not, in fact, an original concept.

It was a direct development of the US Army's experimental overland
train prototypes built in the 1960s.  The technical specifications and
design details had survived the Holocaust because they were stored in
the prodigious memory of COLUMBUS, the giant computer that was the
guiding intelligence of the Federation; the inexhaustible well-spring
of 20th century science and technology from which the First Family drew
their inspiration.

The Lady consisted of two command/fire control cars standing some
thirty-five feet high to the roof of their raised cabs and situated at
the head and tail of the wagon train, two power cars, and twelve
weapon, cargo and accommodation cars - all connected by flexible
passways.  Each forty foot-long section was mounted on four huge low
pressure tyres, twelve feet in diameter and twelve feet wide, capable
of traversing most types of terrain.  Hydrogen-fuelled turbines mounted
in the power cars produced electricity for the drive ?motors attached
to each of the sixty-four wheels.

Camouflaged in black, brown and two shades of red, the wagon train's
moulded SuperCon shell was lined with lead to provide protection
against radiation.  Each car had several small shielded periscope ports
fitted with armoured glass that could be uncovered in an emergency but
under normal conditions external vision was via clusters of remotely
controlled tv cameras.  Long-range surveillance was provided by a
section of ten Skyhawks flown by wingmen like Steve.  The train was
also equipped with air guns, laser weapons plus a variety of other
electronic devices and - for close-quarter defence - invisible
superheated steam jets that could blast human flesh straight off the
bone in seconds.

Gus White joined Steve by the side of The Lady.  He was still as mad as
hell at not having been assigned to Big Red One but he was doing his
best not to show it.  'What do you think?"

Steve shook his head in wonderment.  'Even though we trained all year
on a full-sized mock-up of the launch car and lived inside that
simulator for a week, when you finally see it all in one piece it's
..."  Words failed him.

'... big,' said Gus.

'You can say that again,' agreed Steve.  'No wonder the goddam Mutes
head for the hills when they see one of these things coming."

'Yeah,' grinned Gus.  'They call 'em "iron snakes".  I can't wait to
see their faces when this little o" snake starts breathing on them with
some of that superheated steam."

Side by side, they wandered along the length of the train, noting the
multi-barrelled weapon turrets mounted on the sides and the roofs of
the cars.  Squads of engineers were checking out the motors on the huge
wheels, and testing the movement of power controls.

Gus edged under the wagon train and glanced warily at the evil-looking
jets on the sloping underside of the car which blasted out the
super-heated steam.  'What a way to go,' he muttered.  He rejoined
Steve and together they walked around one of the huge wheels,
inspecting the interlinked slabs of tungsten steel that made up the
tread on the massive tyre.

'Can't be much fun getting run over, either,' observed Steve.

'Hey, you two!"  said a flat, hard voice.

Steve and Gus turned to fred themselves looking down at a stocky,
tight-lipped girl in a blue wingman's jumpsuit.

She had dark, close-cut hair, a smooth, oval, not unattractive, face;
the peak of her cap was pulled down over deep set grey eyes that looked
half closed but missed nothing.  She wore the triple red stripes of a
section leader on her sleeve.  Above her left breast pocket was a pair
of golden wings with five gold stars underneath; the printed tag over
her right breast pocket identified her as 7571

KAZAN.J.

'Finished your tour of inspection?"  asked KAZAN J. in a voice that
meant business.

'Yess-surr!"  chorussed Gus and Steve.  They snapped rigidly to
attention and saluted with synchronised movements.

Kazan's return salute rivalled theirs for zeal and correctness.

As they stared blankly into the middle-distance, Kazan read off their
name tags and eyed them in turn.  'White and Brickman ... Ahh, yes
...

the smart ones."  She walked a slow circle of inspection round them but
could not fault their turnout.  'Where's Fazetti and Webber?"

'We haven't seen them, sir,' said Steve."They weren't around when we
booked in,' said Gus.

'I'll tell you where they are,' said Kazan.  'They're in the briefing
room where the wagon master is about to deliver his pre-embarkation
address!"  'B-But sir,' stammered Gus.  'That's scheduled for ten
fifteen hours."

'It's been moved forward thirty minutes,' snapped Kazan.  'Don't either
of you watch the screens?"  She pointed to the nearest overhead tv
monitor.  An announcement about the revised time was being flashed on
the screen in sync with the usual red prompt light beneath the
console.

Ordinarily, there was no way either of them should have missed it.

Steve and Gus stared at the monitor with embarrassment.

'No, obviously not,' concluded Kazan.  She adopted an air of bitter
resignation and shook her head.  'Three years at the Academy and all
you can do is behave like kids on a junior school tour."

'It won't happen again, sir,' said Steve.  He allowed himself a brief
smile.  'I guess we were both kinda bowled over by The Lady."

'Save that pretty boy charm for barrelling squabs, Brickman,' snapped
Kazan.  'And you can put away those teeth.  If I see 'em again, you'll
be picking 'em up off the floor.  Got that?"

Steve's face became a mask of stone.  'Loud and clear, sir!"  'Good."

Kazan drew their attention to the diagonal rank stripes on her arm.

'See these?  They're to remind you of three things."  She laid a finger
on the top stripe.  'First, that I'm your section leader.  Second, when
I shout, you jump.

Third, I don't take any shit - especially from wet-feet.

Comprendo?"

'Yess-SURR!!"  chorussed the two wingmen.

Kazan dismissed them with a jerk of the head.  'Okay.  Get your asses
over to Block Eighteen."

Steve and Gus gave Kazan another precisely synchronised salute and
doubled away.  'One of those,' muttered Gus, as they ran.

Kazan's voice floated after them.  'Yeah!  One of those!"  The two
young wingmen reached Block 18 with one minute to spare.  They paused
outside the door to recover their breath, then walked in to join the
crowd of nearly three hundred men and women that were settling down on
the rows of chairs.  Rick Fazetti leapt up and waved them over to where
he and fellow graduate Webber had saved two seats for them.

'We just met our section leader,' muttered Gus.  He roiled his eyes as
he edged past them.

'Did you see she had five stars?"  hissed Fazetti.

'Yeah,' said Steve.  'One for each guy she's eaten alive."

Each star, in fact, represented one twelve-month operational tour.  One
more would earn her a Lucky Six - a double golden triangle on her lower
sleeve - a call from the White House, and lunch with the
President-General.

As Steve sat down, Kazan walked in casually and took her place with the
other section leaders in the front row.

'How old do you think she is?"  said Webber.

Gus White shrugged.  'Five tours ... she must be at least
twenty-two."

Steve stared through the rows of crew-cut heads to where Kazan sat with
her back to them.  'Anyone know what the "J" stands for?"

'Jodi,' hissed Fazetti.  'Jodi Kazan."

Okay, Jodi, thought Steve.  You want to play it tough.

We'll see how tough you are ...

There was no doubt about the physical strength of the man who stepped
up onto the platform at the front of the briefing room.  He was a big,
barrel-chested guy with hands big enough to squeeze your head like a
lemon.  He had a deeply tanned, aggressive face set on a powerful neck,
yellow hair cropped close to the scalp, and he was dressed in olive
drab fatigues with one broad diagonal red stripe on each sleeve, and a
stetson bearing the star and bar badge.

The crewmen fell silent as the man positioned himself beside the
lectern with his feet apart, and his fingers round the ends of a short
gold-topped switchstick.  It looked like a deluxe version of the sticks
carried by DI's at the combat academies.

The man surveyed the room.  'So ... we meet again.

Mostly the same, tired old faces I see."  He pointed his stick at a
nearly bald-headed man sitting a few rows from the front.

'Tino's back again without getting his haircut ' There was a ripple of
laughter from the veteran TrailBlazers in the room.

'- and the rest of you are still laughing at my tired, old jokes.  Keep
at it.  Flattery'Il get you nowhere but there's no harm in tryin'.

However - since we have a batch of wet-feet shipping out with us for
the first time, maybe I'd better introduce myself."  He cast his eyes
towards the back of the room and upped the volume a little.  'The name
is Buck McDonnell - sometimes referred to in the dead of night as Big
D. I'm the Trail Boss on The Lady.  The guy you come to when you've got
problems.  That's why I've got such wide shoulders.  I've had so many
people cryin' on 'em."

His speech was punctuated by a hollow laugh from the veteran crewmen.

'Play it by The Book and you'll find me a very understanding guy.  Get
on the wrong side of me -' He tapped his rank stripe with his
switch-stick.  '- and you're liable to end up with a backful of
these."  McDonnell paused briefly to allow this threat to sink home.

'My main job is to make sure that the orders of the wagon master and
his execs are carried out - to the letter.  And aided by your section
leaders, I am also responsible for on-board discipline.  Any wet-foot
who thinks he can relax because he's not shipping out on Big Red One
had better think again.  You won't find a tighter train than The Lady,
so keep your noses clean and your wagons trim -' McDonnell caught a
signal from a lineman standing by the door.  He snapped his feet
together, swept his switch-stick under his left arm and grasped the
gold top between the thumb and palm of his left hand, fingers extended
rigidly along the axis of the stick.  'Wagon-train... READY!"  he
boomed.

Everybody jumped to their feet and braced their shoulders as Commander
Bill Hartmann, the wagon master, entered the briefing room followed by
his ten executive officers.  All of them wore chrome yellow,
long-peaked command caps and, with the exception of the Flight
Operations Officer, olive drab fatigues.

As they mounted the platform and Hartmann reached the lectern,
McDonnell's voice boomed out again, 'Wagon traa-i-nn..."

'HO I I' chorussed the crew.  The ground shook as the three hundred men
and women thundered to attention and punched their right arm upwards in
a clenched fist salute.