《The Amtrak Wars I : Cloud_Warrior》01

ONE

Cadillac sat on the ground near Mr Snow and listened with half-closed
eyes as the white-haired, bearded old man told the naked clan-children
the story of the War of a Thousand Suns.

Cadillac knew the story off by heart.  It was the two hundred and
eighth time he had heard it, and it was not new to the sixty young
children of the settlement that squatted in a half-circle before
them.

It did not matter.  The children sat spellbound, hanging on every word,
just as they had the first time.  Most of them didn't remember Mr Snow
telling them the story before.  But then, most of them hardly
remembered anything for very long - and never would.

But Cadillac could.

Cadillac remembered everything.  All he had ever seen and heard, down
to the minutest detail.  That was why he had been chosen by Mr Snow to
learn all that had happened to his people from the beginning of the New
Time.  When Mr Snow left them to go to the High Ground, Cadillac would
take his place as the clan's wordsmith.  It would then be Cadillac's
task to find a young child capable of memorising the series of events
that made up the nine hundred year history of the Plainfolk.

Before that, stretching back beyond the reach of even Mr Snow's memory,
was the uncounted span of years known as the Old Time when the world
trembled before the feats of Heroes with Names of Power.

Mr Snow knew a few tales of the Old Time, when there were as many
people on the earth as there were blades of grass.  When huts were
built on top of one another to form settlements that rose high in the
sky like the distant mountains.  When the crumbling hardways, that once
ran across the land like veins along his arm were choked with a
never-ending stream of giant beetles that carried people from one
place to another so that no one would ever find himself alone.

As Mr Snow rippled his fingers up the length of both arms to describe
how, in the War, the falling Suns had burned the flesh from every
living thing, Cadillac stood up and walked away down the slope towards
the settlement.

The morning sun warmed his bare back and cast a slim, broad-shouldered
shadow in front of him.

Cadillac took a deep breath to fill out his chest, stretched his arms
out sideways then brought them together above his head.

His shadow did the same.

It never failed to fascinate Cadillac.  The shape of his shadow pleased
him.  It was different from the shadows cast by most of the others in
his clan.  It had a sleek, smooth outline, with long straight arms and
legs, and the shadow's hands had only one thumb and four fingers - like
the shadows of the sand-burrowers that Cadillac had never seen but whom
Mr Snow had described.

The hidden enemy far to the south by the Great Water who sent out the
iron snakes and the cloud warriors -' from whom he must always flee.

Cadillac M'CalI, now eighteen years old, belonged to one of the many
clans of She-Kargo Mutes that roamed the Central and Northern Plains.

According to Mr Snow, their ancestors had come from beyond the dawn on
the backs of giant birds whose beating wings made the noise of a mighty
waterfall.

They had landed at a place called O-haya, by the side of a great
lake.

To celebrate their arrival, they had killed and roasted the birds and
feasted on them all summer long then, when winter came, they used the
frozen waters of the lake to build a great settlement full of towering
pillars of ice that glowed with all the colours of the rainbow and
whose tops were lost in the clouds.

In the War of a Thousand Suns, the city had melted and flowed back into
the lake..  Every living thing had perished except for an old man
called She-Kargo and an old woman called Me-Sheegun and their
children.

She-Kargo had fifteen sons, all of them brave warriors, tall and strong
as bears; the old woman had fifteen beautiful daughters.

She-Kargo's sons and Me-Sheegun's daughters crossed wrists and bound
their bodies together with the blood kiss and their children, and their
children's children, grew strong and multiplied, and moved westwards
into the lands of the Minne-Sota, the Io-wa, Da-Kota, and Ne-Braska,
killing all who resisted them, and making soul-brothers of all those
who laid the hand of friendship upon them.

They triumphed because their warriors were braver, their wordsmiths
wiser, and their summoners more powerful.

And thus it was that-the Plainfolk grew strong in number and gave
thanks to their great mother-goddess, Mo-town.

Cadillac went to his chosen place among the rocks at the edge of the
plateau where the M'Call clan had set down their huts to wait out the
growing time.  From the ragged edge of the plateau the ground fell away
steeply, ridged and hollowed as if clawed by the talons of a giant
eagle.  Lower down, the ground evened out, flowing in a gentle curve to
join the rolling, orange grass-covered plain that stretched towards the
rim of the world.  Beyond that lay the hidden door through which the
sun entered each morning.  The pale blue that had quenched the golden
fireclouds of the dawn was deepening as the sun climbed higher; small
widely-spaced clouds, like a distant slow-grazing herd of white
buffalo, were beginning to form over the far edge of the plains.

Cadillac lay back against the warm rock face and let his eyes roam
across the unbroken stretch of blue, searching for the tell-tale flash
of silver light that he had been told would signal the presence of a
cloud warrior.  As Mr Snow's chosen successor, Cadillac had no need to
act as a sentinel.  Over a hundred of his clan-brothers were perched on
the hilltops that lay around the settlement; young warriors - known as
Bears - were on guard, day and night; some watching the sky for cloud
warriors; others, the ground, for any marauding bands from rival Mute
clans seeking to invade the M'Call's summer turf.  Some manned hidden
look-out posts on the high ground, others patrolled the area around the
settlement in small mobile packs that doubled as hunting parties.

Cadillac continued his search of the sky.  Not because he felt
threatened but because he was consumed with curiosity.

As a Mute, he had every reason to fear the sand-burrowers; the
mysterious people who lived beneath the earth and killed everything
upon it whenever they emerged from the darkness; yet in spite of their
awesome reputation - or perhaps because of it - he yearned to confront
them; to challenge them.

So far, they had not ventured into the lands of the Plainfolk.  But the
Sky Voices had told Mr Snow that the time of their coming was near.

The first sign would be arrowheads in the sky; the birdwings that
carried the cloud warriors on their journeys.  They were the far-seeing
eyes of the iron snake which followed, bearing more sand-burrowers in
its belly.  When they came, there would be a great dying.  The world
would weep but all the tears in the sky would not wash the blood of the
Plainfolk from the earth.

When Mr Snow had finished telling his story to the children, he walked
down to where Cadillac sat with his face turned up to the sky and
squatted cross-legged on an adjoining rock.  His long white hair was
drawn up into atop-knot, tied and threaded with ribbon; the aging skin
covering his lean, hard body was patterned with random swirls, patches
and spots of black, three shades of brown - from dark to light and an
even lighter olive-pink.

Mr Snow had said that the bodies of the sand-burrowers were the same
colour all over.  Olive-pink from the top of their heads to the soles
of their feet.  Like worms.

Cadillac's body was marked with a similar random pattern but his skin
was as smooth as a raven's wing.  Some of Mr Snow's skin was smooth too
but in other places, such as his forehead, shoulders and forearms, the
skin was lumpy as if it had pebbles stuffed underneath, or it was
shrivelled up like a dead leaf or the gnarled bark of a tree, That was
the way most Mutes were born.  And many were different to Cadillac in
other ways too.  As a young child, when Cadillac finally became aware
that his body was different from those of his clan-brothers, he had
felt ashamed; a grotesque outcast.  Some of the other children taunted
him, saying he had a body like a sand-burrower.  He became alienated
from his peer group; ran away; was brought back; fell sick, refused to
eat.

Black-Wing, his mother, had taken him to Mr Snow who explained that the
things he hated about himself were precious differences that would, in
the years to come, enable him to perform great feats of valour.  That
was why he had been made straight and strong as the Heroes of the Old
Time, and had been given a Name of Power.  Cadillac, then four years
old, had sat listening wide-eyed as, in the flickering firelight under
a dark sky heavy with shimmering stars, Mr Snow had revealed to him the
Talisman Prophecy.

F. from that moment, Cadillac knew, with a childlike certainty he had
never lost, that everything that happened to him had a meaning, and
that his destiny was bound up with the greater destiny of the
Plainfoak.

Cadillac gave up his search of the sky and turned to Mr Snow.  He had
no need to tell the old man what he had been looking for.  Mr Snow, his
teacher and guide since early childhood, who spoke to the Sky Voices,
knew these things; knew everything.

'Is this the year of the Great Dying?"  asked Cadillac.

'This is the year it begins,' said Mr Snow.

'When will the iron snakes come?"

Mr Snow closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and turned his face
towards the sun.  The sky had now turned a deep blue.  Cadillac waited
patiently.

Eventually, the answer came.  'When the moon's face has turned away
three times."

'And what of the cloud warrior the Sky Voices have chosen?"

Mr Snow let the air out of his body with a long sigh and dropped his
head onto his chest.  His eyes fluttered open.

'His journey towards us begins.  He dreams the dreams of young men.  Of
feats of valour, of triumph, of power, of greatness."  Mr Snow raised
his eyes and looked at Cadillac.

'But like all young men, he thinks these things are gifts.  He does not
yet know how much the world pays for such dreams."

TWO

The one hundred members of Eagle Squadron jerked back their shoulders
and sat bolt upright in their desks as the Flight Adjudicator entered
the briefing room.  The Adjudicator surveyed them briefly with grey
expressionless eyes then scanned the list displayed on his video-pad.

'Avery - ?"

Mel Avery leapt out of her seat and snapped to attention, thumbs
aligned with the side seams of her blue jumpsuit.

'Sir!"  'Flightline Three."

Avery grabbed her visored helmet, saluted swiftly and headed for the
door at the double.

The Flight Adjudicator keyed in a box co& against Avery's name and
looked up.  'Ayers - ?"

Ayers stood up, jaw squared, back ram-rod straight.  'Sir!"

'Flightline Five."

Ayers saluted and ran.

'Brickman - ?"

Steve Brickman shot to his feet, stamped his right heel into line with
his left and braced his shoulderblades together.  'Sir!"  'Flightline
Six."

The Snake Pit.

Despite his tensed neck and jaw muscles, Bricknmn let slip a brief
involuntary gasp of dismay.

The Adjudicator's grey eyes fastened on him.  'Anything wrong?"

'No, sirr!"  'Okay, get moving."

Brickman picked up his helmet from the desk top and saluted smartly.

The Flight Adjudicator's attention was already elsewhere.

'Bridges - ?"

'Sir!"  Brickman cursed his luck as he ran along the corridor which led
to the simulators and free-flight rigs.  The end-of-course exam
consisted of eight segments.  Like all the other candidates, he had
been hoping to warm up on one of the easier rigs.  Instead, his first
test was to be over the toughest hurdle.

The Snake Pit - as it had been christened by a long-&ad generation of
flight cadets - was described officially in the Academy's training
manual as the Double Helix, and listed in Daily Or&rs as Flightline
Six.

The rig consisted of two circular ramps wrapped around massive central
pillars housed side-by-side in a sausage-shaped shaft.  In elevation,
they looked like two giant corkscrews with opposing threads; the
left-hand ramp descending eleven full turns in a clockwise direction;
the right-hand one, anticlockwise.

As each ramp wound down the shaft around its central pillar, it created
a rectangular tunnel of air space one hundred and thirty feet wide and
ninety feet high.  In the centre of the shaft the two ramps touched rim
to rim enabling a pupil pilot aboard one of the Academy's Skyhawks to
fly from one to the other, weaving his way up and down the shaft in an
almost infinitely variable series of ascending or descending
figure-eights and tight right- or left-hand turns around the two
pillars.

Runways for take-off and landing were situated in flight access tunnels
at the top and bottom of the rig and these were linked by express
elevators able to carry two Skyhawks with their wings folded.

The overall height of the Snake Pit was some twelve hundred feet.  The
shaft containing the spiral ramps measured seven hundred by three
hundred and fifty feet.

Each flight access tunnel was one hundred and fifty feet wide, one
hundred feet high, and a quarter of a mile long.

And the whole colossal structure, together with the other rigs and the
rest of the Flight Academy had been drilled, hammered and blasted out
of the bedrock several hundred feet beneath the desert sands of New
Mexico near the ruins of a city that, in the prehistory of the
Federation, had been known as Alamogordo.

Already rated above-average, Brickman knew every twist and turn of the
Snake Pit.  He knew he would make it through to the finish line,
out-performing the rest of the senior year in the process.  But that
wasn't enough.

Brickman was intent on gaining the maximum possible points.

That was the difficult part.  It meant his performance had to be
faultless.  Not only on the Snake Pit but on all the other rigs and
flight simulators too.  For Brickman was not only aiming to finish top
of his class; he wanted to rack up a perfect score.  Something no
wingman had ever achieved in the hundred year history of the Academy.

Fate had ordained that the graduation date of Brickman's class
COincided with his seventeenth birthday and the one hundredth
anniversary of the Academy.  The traditional passing out parade in
which the senior third-year cadets were awarded their wings was
scheduled to be part of the celebrations.  When he had learned of this
providential conjunction upon his enrolment as a Freshman, Brickman had
determined to provide the Academy and his guardians with something
extra to celebrate.

Steven Roosevelt Brickman.  The first double century wingman.  Leader
of the class of 2989 with a ground-flight test score of two hundred and
winner of the COveted Minuteman Trophy - awarded on graduation for the
best all-round performance while under training.

Brickman paused as he reached the access door to the Snake Pit, took
several deep, calming breaths, checked the alignment of the creases in
his blue flight fatigues, then stepped through into the Rig
Supervisor's Office and logged his arrival by feeding his ID sensor
card into the checkpoint console at the door.

As soon as he was cleared to enter the flight area, Brickman ran at the
double towards the ramp where two Skyhawk microlites were.  being
readied by six of the Academy's ground staff.  Bob Carrol, the Chief
Flying Instructor, stood at the edge of the runway talking to another
of the ten Adjudicators who had been sent down from Grand Central to
conduct the flight tests and award the marks.

Brickman thudded to a halt with perfect timing, cocked his elbow into
line with his shoulder and saluted, his arm folding like a well-oiled
jack-knife, fingers, hand and wrist rigidly aligned, the tip of his
black glove exactly one inch from the bar and star badge on his forage
cap."  Senior Cadet 8902 Brickman reporting for flight test, sir!"  The
Adjudicator gave Brickman a dry, appraising glance then lifted the
cover of his video-pad and scanned the text displayed on the
centimetre-thick screen beneath ... He pursed his lips at whatever was
written there, then nodded at Carrol, 'Ah, yes - your star
performer."

Then to Brickman he said, 'Okay.  Hear this.  Take-off and landing will
be from this runway.  Your first turn will be to the left.  The rest of
your flight pattern on the downward and return leg will be indicated by
course markers on each level.  Lead time will be fifteen degrees of
arc.  Points will be deducted for course and altitude deviations, and
-' the Adjudicator paused, '- you'll be flying against the clock.

Overall flight time will be counted in the final pass mark.  Have you
got that?"

'Loud and clear, sir!"  'Okay.  You roll on the green in fifteen."  The
Adjudicator returned Brickman's salute and walked away towards the
Flight Control Room.

CFI Carrol, a sandy-haired thirty-year-old leatherneck, eyed Brickman
sympathetically.  Like all the Academy staff, Carrol was a tough,
demanding instructor but if he had allowed himself to show favour to a
cadet, Brickman would have been the recipient.  'I had a hunch you
might draw the short straw.  How do you feel?"

Brickman, now standing at ease, allowed himself a brief non-regulation
shrug.  He knew Carrol; he knew he wouldn't pick up on it.  'Someone
has to be first."

CFI Carrol greeted Brickman's reply with an ironic smile.  'Yes, I
guess they have.  Okay - you'd better get moving."

Brickman sprang to attention and threw another faultless salute.

Carrol acknowledged it with what looked like a half' hearted swipe at
a fly on his forehead.  Discipline was one thing; saluting another.

Confronted daily for the last five years by zealous cadets his right
arm had often felt as if it was coming off its hinges.  'Good luck."

'Thank you, sir."

'And Brickman -' Brickman froze halfway through a left turn.  'Sir?"

'This is a cruel world.  Good guys don't always finish first."

'I'll try and remember that."

'Do,' said Carrol.  'But don't let it stop you trying."  He lowered his
voice.  'Take Number Two The controls are smoother."  He dismissed
Brickman with a nod and watched him as he ran towards the parked
aircraft.

The Skyhawk - the only aircraft built by the Federation consisted of a
small three-wheeled cockpit and power pod, with a cowled propellor and
rudder at the rear, slung under a wire and strut braced arrow-head wing
measuring forty-five feet from tip to tip.  The wing covering was of
fabric with a plastic lining that could be inflated like a bicycle tyre
to give it an aerofoil section.  The motor ran on batteries.  For
underground training flights - none of which lasted more than thirty
minutes - the static charge in the power pod was enough; when used
overground, the Skyhawk's wing was covered with solar-cell fabric that,
under optimum conditions, gave it virtually unlimited range..

Carrol lingered by the runway as Brickman carried out his own quick
pre-flight check of the Skyhawk then strapped himself into the cockpit
frame and started up.  There had been many able cadets who had passed
through his hands in the last five years, but Brickman was in a class
by himself.

Watching his progress on the rigs, Carrol had concluded that the young
Tracker had more than a feel for flying.  He had - well, there was only
one way to describe it - some strange sixth sense that told him what
was going to happen.

Carrol was sure of it.  When flying in the Snake Pit, for example,
Brickman seemed to know which way the course marker lights would go
before Flight Control flipped the switches.  There was no other
explanation for the fact that he was always correctly positioned for
the required turn.  And after only a few hours on the rig, almost
always flying a perfect course.  Right down the wire.

It was uncanny.  But marvelous to behold.

Carrol had not confided this feeling about Brickman to anyone.  The
concept of a 'sixth sense' did not form part of the official Tracker
philosophy.  Indeed, the term had not formed part of Carrol's
vocabulary until he had been assigned to one of the Trail-Blazer
expeditions charged with pacification of the overground.

Many veteran Trail-Blazers believed that the Mutes - the perpetual
enemies of the Amtrak Federation - possessed a 'sixth sense', but very
few were prepared to discuss it.  In fact, to do so publicly was a
punishable offence.  Trackers had no need to dwell upon such dubious
intangibles.  It was their physical and technological skills that had
made them masters of both the earthshield and the overground.  It was
the visible power of the Federation which sprang from the genius of the
First Family that had ensured their survival, and had brought the dream
of an eventual return to a blue sky world to the edge of reality.

That was what it said in the Manual of the Federation; a comprehensive
information/data bank known colloquially as 'The Book'.  Video page
after video page of reference and archive material, rules and
regulations governing every aspect of Tracker life plus the collective
wisdom of the First Family: inspirational insights for every
occasion.

What 'The Book' didn't mention was that, as a wingman, you also needed
a generous amount of good luck to survive the required minimum of three
operational tours - each of which lasted a year.  Fortunately, luck was
one of the few permissible abstractions that Trackers could dwell upon
during a short life dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in a world
where the practical application of brawn and brain took precedence over
everything else.

Brickman, strapped in his seat, with the nose wheel of the Skyhawk
poised on the centre of the start line, was oblivious of Carrol's
presence on the edge of the runway behind his port wing.  Brickman's
eyes were fixed on the runway control light mounted in the left-hand
wall of the flight access tunnel, his hand on the brake lever as the
motor behind him revved at full power.

All his senses were attuned to the flight ahead.  And the extra one,
ascribed to him by Carrol, had already hinted that the first course
marker would probably indicate another tight left-hand turn around the
pillar.

A lead time of fifteen degrees of arc meant that, when the right- or
left-hand arrow lit up, a pilot had a little under two seconds in which
to react and make the appropriate course correction.  If he left it too
late, he would swerve off the centre line.  When that happened, lines
of photoelectric cells in the ramp ceiling recorded the deviation.  A
similar arrangement of cells in the shaft wall also recorded variations
in altitude.  To score the maximum number of points, a pilot had to fly
within extremely tight limits down the middle of the flight tunnel from
start to finish.  To do so demanded a high degree of airmanship,
intense concentration and hair-trigger responses.

Brickman possessed all these qualities, plus an inexplicable ability to
predict random events several seconds before they happened.  As he sat
there waiting, with total concentration, for the green light, he was
confident that he would 'see' the course marker lights one or two
seconds before they were illuminated by Flight Control.  This sixth
sense only seemed to operate in moments of stress - as now.

A fortuitous gift he put to good use without speculating on its
provenance; without the slightest trace of fear or wonder, He just
accepted it.  In the same way as he accepted, without question, the
fact that he, Steven Roosevelt Brickman, was destined to succeed.

Forewarned that the green light was about to come on, Brickman released
the wheel brakes as the current reached the lamp filament.  The Skyhawk
surged forward and was airborne in thirty yards.  By the time he had
reached the end of the flight access tunnel and gone into his first
turn Carrol, who had moved to the centre of the runway, sensed that
Brickman was on his way to establishing an unbeatable lead.