《The Amtrak Wars I : Cloud_Warrior》08

McDonnell turned smartly towards Hartmarm and brought his right arm up
with jack-knife precision to the brim of his stetson.  Hartmann's
acknowledgement had a touch of CFI Carrol's famous fly-swipe about
it.

Steve felt reassured.  He didn't mind drills and the attendant bullshit
as long as it was backed up by brains.  It was hard to be sure at this
distance but the grey-haired Hartmann exuded an aura of thoughtful
intelligence.  He was a couple of inches taller than McDonnell, with a
lean, square-jawed face whose most arresting feature was a large white
mustache.  Standing alone, one would have judged him to be well-built
but juxtaposed with McDonnell's bull-necked bulk he looked positively
anaemic.

McDonnell turned to face the crew of The Lady.  'Wagon train... EASY?

The men sat down, backs upright, their faces turned towards Hartmann.

His execs formed two staggered lines behind him.

Gus leaned into Steve.  'They call him Buffalo Bill,' he whispered.

Hartmann laid his peaked cap on the lectern, placed a pocket video memo
pad next to it, ran a hand through his silver grey hair and smoothed
his mustache.  'Good morning, gentlemen."  He paused and weighed up his
audience.  'I see we have what looks like a full house so it's obvious
we gave you more than enough home leave.  I don't know about you, but
after two weeks I start to get the TrailBlazer blues, after three I'm
almost ready to volunteer for PD, and by the end of the fourth week I
feel like calling in the bagmen."

There was a murmur of agreement from the audience.

'Fortunately, that's when I usually get the green line from the
Tactical Plans Board.  Once I get that roll-out date I'm as happy as a
wet-foot with a head in each hand.  But then -' Hartmann paused and ran
his eyes over the first few rows, '- you trail-hands have heard all
this before.  It's the new generation who must be wondering just what
the hell I'm talking about."

Hartmann glanced down at his video memo pad then aimed his voice
towards the back half of the room.  'I understand we have fifty
replacement linemen and four new wingmen shipping out with us on this
trip.  I will have an opportunity to meet you individually later so,
for the moment, I'll just say to you all - "Welcome aboard".  Even
though you've all undergone familiarisation training on simulators you
will probably find things a little strange at first.  You may know how
it all works and where everything's supposed to be but somehow even the
best mock-ups can't duplicate the feel of a real wagon train.  They can
never recreate the atmosphere for a start."  The Commander's face
creased into a smile.  'Three hundred horny trail-hands generate a lot
of static - and it's not the kind that can be simulated
electronically."

This got a big laugh from the old 'Blazers.

Hartmann held up his hand.  'The same goes for combat drills.  You'll
find it feels a lot different when you're actually faced with killing
and being killed - for the first time."

'I can't wait,' muttered Gus.  Steve, too, felt a sense of
anticipation.  Sitting there surrounded by the rest of the three
hundred-strong crew he could feel an undercurrent of excitement flowing
through the room; an electric force passing through their bodies,
linking them together.

Something that, in older times, had been known as 'esprit de corps'.

'I can see from your faces,' continued Hartmarm, 'that you'd like to
know where we're going.  So here's the broad outline.  The Lady will
load and make fast in the next five days and roil-out on six, making a
couple of supply runs to way-stations in Kansas and Colorado.  These
first two sorties - which will be load-out load-back - will provide the
new crew-men with ample opportunity to shape up under operational
conditions.  The second phase of our mission is where it gets
interesting."

The whole room held its breath as Hartmann paused.

Everybody was on the edge of their seats.

'The Lady has been selected to make the first deep-penetration raid
into Plainfoik territory.  We're going hunting, gentlemen - northwards
into Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota -' 'Yeee-hhohaaa!  I' The old
rebel yell came simultaneously from three hundred throats as the crew
of The Lady leapt to their feet, faces glowing.  Steve, Gus, Fazetti
and Webber stood up with them, their hearts pounding.

Buck McDonnell stepped to the edge of the platform.

'Who's for The Lady??  he boomed.

'We are - HOW roared the crew.  Three hundred right hands punched the
air.

'Are we ready and able?!"  boomed McDonnell.

'YAY!!"  roared the crew, punching their right arms up again.  'Lets
GO-GO-GO!!"  Hartmann and his execs responded to the men's cheers with
the same exultant clenched fist salute.

The next five days passed quickly, night blurring into day as the
entire crew of The Lady worked round the clock shifts; switching weapon
cars for unarmed cargo containers; loading them with material, stores
and bulk food concentrates for the way-stations; filling the overhead
and underfloor storage bays of the other cars with ration-packs,
equipment, ammunition and other supplies needed by the wagon train;
checking and re-checking the range of onboard functions communications,
environmental, weapon, power, control and emergency back-up systems.

Apart from their normal role in the above, the particular task of
Steve's section was to check the twelve Skyhawks two.

of which were reserve airframes - before folding their wings and
stowing them in the flight car of The Lady.  In addition to the nine
wingmen under her command, Jodi Kazan was also in charge often
ground-crew whose primary task was to help erect, launch, retrieve,
stow and maintain the aircraft.

Like the other graduates from the Academy, Steve had been trained as a
ground crew-man and flight engineer.  He could service, repair or, if
necessary, rebuild an aircraft.  In the event of an emergency, he could
also function in a number of other categories including ground-combat
duties as a lineman.

Some of the specialist lineman grades also had this multi-role
capability.  And given a relatively simple aircraft such as the
Skyhawk, many more Trackers could have been trained as pilots.  But
learning to fly was not the problem.  There was another reason why
wingmen rightly regarded themselves as CFI Carrol had said - as the
lite force of the Federation.

The thing that separated wingmen from other Trackers was their ability
to act independently at long range, for days at a time if necessary.

The wingmen were the highly disciplined lone wolves; the sole permitted
aberration in a tightly regimented society which placed unceasing
emphasis on group identity, group effort.

Linemen on Trail-Blazer expeditions were able to function beyond the
reassuring confines of the wagon train as members of a combat-group but
it should be understood that many of them had a residual fear of the
sheer vastness of the overground.  Isolated from his unit, or
companions, an ordinary lineman started to come apart in a matter of
hours.

He would undergo progressive disorientation and, if isolated for
twenty-four hours or more, his movements would become increasingly
lethargic.  He would seek cover, in a cave, or by digging a hole under
a rock, and stay there unable to move further.  Linemen had been found
after several days in a completely comatose condition.  If not found,
they simply died - from exhaustion or starvation.

Trail-Blazer records contained reports of men having been found dead
from thirst under rocks on the banks of rivers.

In other instances, when no cover was available, it had been known for
Trackers to bury themselves alive.

The work during the pre-embarkation period was organised on a four-hour
on, four-hour off basis, with each section divided into two work squads
to allow specialist maintenance tasks and equipment tests to continue
without interruption.  The four off-duty hours were known as
'Stand-Down'; the all-too fleeting moment when crewmen caught up with
their personal chores and grabbed some sleep.

It was also the time when Steve and the other 'wet-feet' questioned the
old trail-hands about what it was like 'up top'.  Depending on your
attitude to things military, it may be sad, or reassuring, to learn
that, despite the Holocaust, soldiers have not changed since time
immemorial.  Steve and the other young wingmen were treated to the
traditional blood-curdling tales of hand-to-hand combat and the
primitive savagery of their wily enemy - the half-idiot, half-magical
Mute.

'D'you know what those lump-heads sometimes do if they catch you?"

said one grizzled trail-hand, concluding a particularly hair-raising
catalogue of Mute atrocities.

The eight wet-feet who sat round him, most of them with open mouths,
shook their heads silently.

'They carry you on a pole back to their village, strip you off and peg
you out with your arms and legs apart, then they set this bunch of
beavers onto you."

'What's a beaver?"  asked Steve.

'A female Mute,'.  said the trail-hand.  'You never heard talk of
bouncin' beaver?"

'No,' said Steve.  The others silently shook their heads.

The trail-hand eyed them all and nodded soberly.  'I can see you guys
have got a lot to learn.  Anyway - five or six of these dick-eaters set
themselves around you - right?  And you're lyin' there lookin' up at
these big jaws and big teeth some of 'em have got and you're prayin'
that one of 'em's going' to do you a favour and tear your throat out.

But no.

You know what they do?  They take turns to stick their tongue in your
belly button.  True as I'm sittin' here, that's what they do.  Then bit
by bit, two of 'em start working their way up to your shoulders and
along your arms and two more work down to your feet.  A lick here, a
little nibble there.  By the time the bottom two are kissin' your
kneecaps you start thinking - "Hey, what the hell?  This ain't so bad
after all."  and maybe you start to jack up a little."

By this time, his audience was leaning forward with rapt expressions,
hanging on every word.

The trail-hand ran his tongue round his lips and continued, his voice
becoming softer.  'That's what they've been waiting for.  One of 'em
sits on your chest with her ass in your face, and brings you up real
good.  "Oh, mother!"  you say to yourself.  "How come this ain't in The
Book?"

That's when the four of'em grab a hand and a foot and start bitin' off
your fingers and toes.  And you holler, boy.  Oh, Columbus!  You hit
high C. It hurts, believe me."

The trail-hand raised his hand and extended the fingers.

Both the middle fingers had been severed at the second joint and the
tips were missing on the third.  'That's for openers.

Just when you think you can't stand the pain, the one on your chest
bares those big teeth and chews your jack off the way a mountain lion
tears the leg off a buffalo.  And while she's doing that, another
beaver sneaks up behind your head, grabs you by the ears and sucks your
goddam eyeballs out!"  Steve felt a cold shiver pierce his loins.  Gus
White, who had been sitting between Fazetti and Webber, went green
about the gills, leapt to his feet and was sick in the corridor
outside.  The story-teller, a Lucky Six known as Bad News Logan,
turned to Steve with a contented grin.  'You sure your friend is up to
this trip?"

Thinking it over afterwards, Steve was inclined to dismiss a large
proportion of what he had heard but he was intrigued by the sotto-voce
tales of Mute magic.  Encountering Jodi Kazan when they were both stood
down a couple of days later, Steve decided to risk asking for her
opinion on the subject.  To his surprise, he discovered that, when off
duty, Kazan's belligerence dropped below boiling point and while she
could not be described as friendly she was, at least, approachable; her
manner dry, her conversation laconic.

She admitted that 'some strange things have been known to happen' but
was clearly unwilling to discuss the subject further.  When Steve
pressed her for details she held out her hand.  'Gimme your ID."  She
got up from the table where they had been drinking java and, using his
sensor card, called up the Public Archives on the nearest VDU.

Steve walked over and looked over her shoulder as she scrolled through
the index of the Historical Section.  'I've read everything in that,'
he said.

'Not everything,' said Kazan.  'There are different levels of access
depending on where you are - and who you are.

Didn't you know that?"  She looked up at him.  'Obviously not."

'You mean - there's data in there that we don't know about?"  said
Steve, thinking back to what Roz, his sister, had said.  The
possibility that more information existed had never occurred to him.  A
store of hidden knowledge!

Kazan's casual announcement of the fact came as a startling
revelation.

'That's - incredible."

Kazan shrugged.  'What you don't know you don't miss.  You get access
to another level when someone in the White House defides y皍're ready
for it.  When they do, they mark your card.  Upgrade it."  She keyed in
a seven-digit call-code and brought up the reference she was looking
for.  She got out of the chair.  'Make yourself comfortable."

Steve sat down and studied the printed extract on the screen.  It was
headed '922-854-6/MUTE MAGIC'.

'There are a couple of words I haven't come across before."

'Never mind,' snapped Kazan.  She sat with one leg up on the edge of
the table.  'Just read it out loud."

Steve took a deep breath and began.  'Mute magic.  From time to time it
is rumoured that Mutes possess paranormal - ?"

'Keep going,' said Kazan.

'- para-normal powers of communication and the ability to control the
forces of nature.  This claim can be confidently discounted.  Repeated
investigations have proved that the temporary tactical successes gained
by Mute clans in attacks on wagon trains and way-stations are, without
exception, due to the incompetence, of the failure of will, of wagon
masters and their crews.  In every case examined by the Assessors, the
attribution of - mystical - powers to the Mutes has been found to be a
device employed by defaulters to rationalise their own failure in the
vain hope of avoiding punishment."  Steve swivelled round to face
Kazan.  'The only force to be feared is that of the Federation."

'That's official,' she said.

Steve wiped the text, retrieved his ID-Sensor card and put it back in
its protective wallet.  'Yeah, but - is it true?"

Kazan's eyes narrowed.  'I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

On the sixth day, the depot was crowded with the kin-folk of crew-men
from nearby Nixon Field.  Harried by Provos, they streamed in orderly
fashion across the roads - the long, pillared bays where the wagon
trains were housed - and pressed three deep against the crush barrier
to watch the crew form up, section by section, alongside The Lady under
the gaze of Hartmann and his ten execs.

On the booming command of Buck McDonnell, the crew snapped to attention
and the flag-waving crowd fell silent as the familiar, heart-stirring
Fanfare for the First Family echoed through the depot's loudspeakers.

The face of George Washington Jefferson the 31st appeared on the
ubiquitous television screens and delivered a short, inspirational
address in a firm, well-modulated voice - to which the crew of The Lady
and the crowd responded with a thunderous 'HO!  I'.

On the command 'MOUNT WAGONS!"  the crew climbed quickly aboard and
took up their stations.  The airtight hatches were locked down; the
waving crowd became an electronic image on the train's visicomm
system.

Up in the saddle - the control centre of the lead command car Hartmann
settled in the Commander's chair, called a systems read-out and spoke
the eagerly awaited words into the mike.  'Wagons ROLL!"  The clusters
of jumbo-sized turbines whined shrilly up to full revs.  Power flowed
through the drive motors.  The giant steel-clad tyres began to turn,
easing the camouflaged, serpentine bulk of the wagon train out of its
parking bay, and past the crowd of flag-waving spectators.

On the screen above him, Steve saw the crowd break up and run
alongside; heard them cheering; felt the glow of excitement as the
music flooded through the depot and the wagon train; joined in the
singing as The Lady from Louisiana began the long haul up the
one-in-twelve gradient towards the overground to the echoing strains of
the Trail-Blazer anthem, 'The Yellow Rose of Texas'.

EIGHT

Within a few days of the time predicted by Mr Snow, a posse of Bears
returned to the settlement and announced breathlessly that they had
seen arrowheads in the sky.  They pointed to the south; to that part of
the sky where the dark rainclouds and the thunder were stored beyond
the rim of the world.

'How far away were you when you saw them?"  asked Mr Snow, when the
Bears faced the hastily gathered clan-elders.

'Two days running,' said Mack-Truck, the leader of the hunting party.

'Does this mean that the iron snake comes?"  said Cadillac.

He sat in his appointed place, beside the silver-haired wordsmith.

With the exception of those Bears manning the outlying guard posts of
the settlement, the rest of the clan was gathered round them.

Mr Snow nodded.  'Yes, this is the one predicted by the Sky Voices.

The cloud warriors seek the best path for the snake.  He paused, then
added grimly, 'They also seek us."

An awed murmur came from the squatting crowd of Mutes.

'Should we not run?"  asked Long-Tooth, a clan-elder.

Mr Snow shook his head.  'We cannot outrun the cloud warriors.  They
can soar over mountains like eagles, and can see as far.  But we should
hide our huts from the sky.  We must move the settlement into the
forest that lies four bolts north of where we stand."

Plainfolk Mutes did not like forests.  They preferred to sleep under
open skies.  'It will be dark,' said a warrior called Hershey-Bar.  'I
have seen this place.  The trees are set close one upon the other and
the branches press heavy on our heads.  We will not be able to
breathe."

'The darkness will hide us,' said Mr Snow.  'And it is good that the
trees stand close.  The iron snake will not be able to enter.  It is
the fear of the forest voices that puts a tight band round your
chest.

You must master that fear.  Make the green spirits your friends and the
forest will shelter and protect you.  And you will soon find you can
breathe as easily as on a clear mountain peak."

The clan elders accepted Mr Snow's advice.  Drawing in the M'Call
warriors from the hilltop guard posts, the clan quickly folded their
small hide and timber huts, wrapped their pots and other possessions
into mats made from plaited grass and loaded everything on trucking
poles - a contraption made of saplings and carried on the shoulders of
four people like a palanquin.  Within a couple of hours, the two
thousand strong M'Call clan was assembled in two long files with Bears
stationed at the head, middle and tail of the column.  Rolling-Stone,
the once-great warrior who was now the aging but alert chief eider gave
the order to move; the clan broke into a jog-trot, then opened their
stride to assume the loping gait of Mutes on the move.  At the rear of
the column, Bears dragged branches to cover the tracks made by the two
lines of runners.

When the M'Call settlement had been reestablished around a small
clearing several hundred yards in from the southern edge of the forest,
the clan reassembled, squatting around the clan elders in their various
groups; the warrior Bears, the males over fourteen years old; the
She-Wolves, female warriors of the same age group who in times of
extreme danger could fight alongside the Bears but whose main role was
defence of the settlement; the Cubs, children of both sexes aged from
six to fourteen, with their pack leaders; the Den Mothers,
child-bearing women whose offspring were five or under; and the Clan
Elders - all those over fifty years old.  Everybody - except the
youngest children, who were carried - moved under their own steam, on
their own two feet.  Anyone over fifty unable to do so was left to
die.

In Mute parlance, to refer to someone as 'legless' meant they were
dead, or near death.

Mr Snow sat to one side of the clan-elders, in case they should wish to
consult him.  Cadillac sat close behind him.

His eyes sought out Clearwater, sitting with her clan-sisters among the
She-Wolves.

The subject under discussion was how the clan should react to the
imminent arrival of the iron snake on their turf.

Iron-Maiden, a clan-elder, was speaking - and advocating a hasty
retreat.  'It is said that the snake's breath turns men to bone.  That
sharp iron cannot pielce its skin.  That it has eyes in its head and
tail that can see in the dark and -' Motor-Head snorted and leapt to
his feet.  'Why do you fill our ears with the tales of faint-hearts,
old woman?!

Those in the south are not Plainfolk.  They live under the heel of the
sand-burrowers.  Let us have no more of their yellow words.  The names
of their clans are dirt in our mouths I' He spat on the ground; the
ritual gesture of defiance.

Mr Snow held up his hand, staying Iron-Maiden's angry reply.  'We
should not condemn them.  Even though they are not of the Plainfolk,
many of our Southern brothers fought long and hard with sharp iron and
died with the name of their clan on their lips."

Motor-Head planted his legs astride and folded his heavily muscled
arms.  'They do not fight as we fight."

'Hey-yah!"  chorussed the massed warriors.

Mr Snow smiled.  'No one fights like the M'Calls.  That is a truth
carved on the heart of the world.  But those in the south who chose
life know the darkness ofdishonour.  Their hands and feet are tied with
iron ropes and they work under whips from sunrise to sundown like the
tame buffalo of the Old Time."

'Oyy-yehhh ..."  The clan groaned in unison, rocking from side to side
in the traditional response to bad news.

Rolling-Stone, the chief elder turned to Mr Snow.  'What do the Sky
Voices say?"

Mr Snow closed his eyes briefly as the gaze of the clan fell upon
him.

'They say there are two ways to go.  We can withdraw into the high
hills where the iron snake cannot pursue us - or we can stay and fight
on ground of our own choosing.  If we head for the hills, we will have
to abandon our bread stalks and the other earth food we have planted.

For if the iron snake reaches this place unchallenged you can be sure
that all we have sown will be destroyed before the Gathering."

'We cannot give up the growing places,' said Buffalo Head.  'We need
ripe seed to plant in the New Earth."

'Have we none in store?"  asked Cadillac.

'A handful,' she replied.  'The rest has been fouled by the grey
dust."

Buffalo-Head was the chief among the women charged with organising the
M'Call's food supply.

'Oyy-yehh ..."  groaned the clan.

'But if we stay and fight,' said Sting-Ray, another elder, 'many of our
clan-brothers will die."

'That is certain,' agreed Mr Snow.

'But if we move to the hills,' said Buffalo-Head, 'there will be
nothing in our huts when the White Death comes.