《The Amtrak Wars I : Cloud_Warrior》15

A searing wave of heat struck Steve.  With his right arm pinned to his
helmet he could barely move his head.  He arched his body and succeeded
in edging it round a few inches.  A violent stab of pain shot up
through his chest.

Looking to his left through his half-raised visor he saw the flames
begin to consume the corn around the port wing-tip of the Skyhawk.  The
fabric started to smoulder.  Ignoring the pain in both his arms, Steve
clawed frantically at his rifle, trying to pull it near enough to be
able to shoot himself before the flames reached him.  His efforts
proved hopeless.

He could not get a firm enough grip to free the gun from its
mounting.

Steve took several painful breaths and, with increasing desperation,
tried again.  The straight-limbed Mute and two young lumpheads moved
back into his field of vision.

Acting on the command of an inner voice, Cadillac leaned forward and
forced open the dark head shield of the fallen cloud warrior.  The face
beneath was covered in blood.

Cadillac studied it carefully.  It matched the one revealed to him by
the seeing-stone.

Steve's hopes began to rise.  He had not forgotten the horrific tales
of Bad News Logan; he was just clinging, with total illogicality to the
hope that somehow, something would happen to save him.  If he could
just get out of the cornfield...

The straight-limbed Mute stepped back with a grunt.

Steve's hopes plummeted as the Mute turned his attention to the air
rifle.  He tugged, heaved, fiddled with locking devices and finally
managed to wrestle it off its mount.  With blurring vision, Steve
watched'the Mute inspect the weapon cautiously, fingering the trigger,
then looking down the three barrels.  Steve let out a sobbing,
pain-wracked laugh.

Oh, Columbus, what a stupid world!  Brought down by an idiot who's
going to leave me here to burn because he doesn't know how to shoot
me...

The Mute tossed the rifle to the young lumphead on his right.  The kid
clutched it proudly across his chest, trigger guard up, barrels down.

The other two Mutes moved out of sight.  Steve felt someone tugging at
the airframe.  It was being twisted around and dragged away from the
flames.

The movement caused him to flop about like a rag doll.  He let out a
scream of pain.  The straight-limbed Mute returned and leaned over him,
a knife clenched between his teeth.

Oh, jeeze, yes, of course, thought Steve, remembering his talks with
Kazan.  Crossbow bolts are in short supply.  This guy wants his back
and so he's - going to cut my fucking arm off.  Great.  Steve viewed
the prospect with a curious detachment.  Time seemed to have slowed
down.  The pain throbbing through his body was now so intense it had
surpassed his capacity to react to it.  His nerve-endings had become
overloaded.  Nothing mattered anymore...

Cadillac and his helpers had turned the arrowhead around so that the
wings lay between them and the flames but even so, they were
uncomfortably close.  He took the knife from his mouth and slid the
point under the chin-straps of the cloud warrior's helmet.  The warrior
shuddered as the blade touched his throat.  Cadillac cut through the
chin-straps and slowly eased off the helmet and the arm pinned to it.

The warrior's blood-soaked head lolled onto his left shoulder; glazed
eyes wandering under half-open lids.

Cadillac considered the problem of the bolt.  It was stuck firmly
through the helmet in two places.  The helmet itself was crafted from a
strange material, like polished bone, upon which his knife made little
impression.  Cadillac beckoned to Three-Son of T-Rex and told him to
take hold of the cloud warrior's right arm.  Three-Son gripped the arm
on either side of the bolt and braced himself.  Grasping the helmet
firmly with both hands, Cadillac put a knee against the cloud warrior's
chest and yanked hard, pulling the bolt with its sharp stubby fins
through his arm.

It did not come out easily.

Steve's eyes almost popped out of his head.  He bared his teeth, mouth
opening wide, sucking breath into his chest to fuel a tortured
scream.

It never came.  He blacked out instead.

Having climbed beyond the normal range of Mute crossbows, Gus White
switched radio channels and tried to raise Fazetti and Naylor.  The net
result, after several attempts, was a deafening silence.  Circling the
forest area at two and a half thousand feet Gus could see no sign of a
napalm strike on the vast red canopy of leaves below him.

He cut his motor and criss-crossed the area in a series of shallow
glides, losing fifteen hundred feet of altitude before levelling out.

Eventually he spotted a ragged patch of blue.

On closer investigation, Gus saw that it was the tangled wreckage of
two Skyhawks speared on the upper branches of one of the closely packed
tall trees.  He called up The Lady, reported the successful firing of
the cropfields then gave them the bad news; Steve's crash landing and
his sighting of what looked like the wreckage of the Skyhawks flown by
Naylor and Fazetti.

The reply from the wagon train was uncommunicative.

'Roger, Blue Seven.  Return to base.  Out."

terse and

Above the escarpment, where the surviving M'Call Bears had gathered, Mr
Snow saw the black smoke rising from the direction of the cropfields.

High above him, a lone arrowhead glided silently westwards across the
blue.  Mr Snow eyed it with a mixture of caution, envy and cold
hatred.

He would have dearly loved to have been able to scramble the cloud
warior's brain and bring him plummeting.down but he was fresh out of
magic.  It would be several days, perhaps even a week before he could
summon up the powers of the earth again.  He hoped it would be longer
for it was an ordeal he did not relish.

With nearly two hundred and fifty warriors left dead and dying around
the iron snake, plus those killed earlier by the cloud warriors, the
fighting strength of the clan had been cut by over a third.  Although
seriously weakened, the M'Calls were still numerically stronger than
many neighbouring clans but another full-scale assault on the iron
snake was out of the question.  Alliances would have to be
considered.

Mr Snow did not relish the prospect of the endless negotiations
involved.  If only Talisman would come!  In the meantime, however,
there was only one thing to do: head for the hills.

They had to find a secure, sheltered base where they could heal the
wounded and rebuild the shattered confidence of the Bears, and they had
to find new stocks of food to see them through the White Death.

Two She-Wolf messengers reached him in quick succession.  One had been
sent by the small rear guard that had stayed to watch the iron snake.

She reported that the snake had broken into two pieces.  The tail had
become a new head; half its body had crawled out of the river and was
heading towards the escarpment, puffing out clouds of its burning white
breath.  Deep-Purple, the other She-Wolf, sent by Cadillac, brought the
bad news that the cropfields had been almost totally destroyed by
fire.

She also had a second message for Mr Snow from Cadillac.  The cloud
warrior the Sky Voices had spoken of had been delivered into their
hands.

When Gus White reached the Now and Then River, he found that the rear
command and power cars plus nine of the wagons had been freed and were
now parked up on the east bank from where its guns could command the
surrounding area.  Gus buzzed the mobile element of the train - which
included the flat-topped flight section - then turned and made a low
pass back along the river.  He saw Barber's men swarming round the
front five wagons.  They still lay across the river bed but were no
longer tilted over.  A few of the guys in the work party stopped and
waved to him as he flashed past.

Gus called up Flight Control and got the green to land on.

Baxter, the F.O.O met him as he came down on the lift.

Gus pulled himself out of the cockpit of his Skyhawk and saluted.  'Has
the Chief transferred over too, sir?"

'No,' said Baxter.  'He's outside giving the boys a hand."

He led the way to the Ops Room of the rear command car and put Gus
through the normal debriefing procedure.  Gus described the successful
strike on the cropfields and explained how his rifle had jammed at the
crucial moment when Steve was hit and brought down.

'So you left him in the burning cornfield."  Baxter's voice carried no
hint of condemnation.

'I had no choice, sir,' said Gus.  'The place was crawling with
hostiles who were none too pleased with us for roasting t. heir com.

Without my rifle..."

Yes, sure..."

'I figured if I could get Fazetti and Naylor to fly cover for me ' 'But
you couldn't raise them..."

'No, sir."

'Was Brickman alive when you left?"

'Just about.  He didn't sound too chipper."

'Okay.  We'll write him off."  Baxter made an entry on his electronic
notepad against Brickman's name.  PD/ET/ BNR: 'Powered down in enemy
territory.  Body not recovered'.  Baxter added the date and keyed the
fate of Brickman.  S.R. into the pad's memory, leaving the small flat
grey screen clear.

Baxter then listened as Gus reported, in greater detail, his sighting
of the tangled wreckage of two Skyhawks in the forest.  'Must be
Fazetti and Naylor,' he observed, when Gus concluded his account.

Gus looked bewildered.  'What happened?"

'We're not quite sure,' said Baxter slowly.  'All we know is we got a
Mayday call from Naylor saying that Fazetti had flipped his lid and
started shooting at him.  The Chief told Naylor to shoot back."

'Columbus I' breathed Gus.  'And?"

Baxter shrugged.  'Who knows?  Naylor must have been slow on the
trigger."

Gus gave him a stunned look.  'But - I mean - why would - ?"

'Good question,' replied Baxter.  'All I can tell you is that little
item won't be reported to Grand Central.  It'll just be a straight
PD/ET entry like Brickman's."

'Wow ..."  breathed Gus.  'Nine Skyhawks down in one day.  If the
Federation's going to lick these Plainfolk Mutes into shape we're going
to have to do better than this."

'Damn right we are."  Baxter stood up from the table.  Gus leapt to his
feet.  The F.O.O. eyed him.  'I should warn you that if that jam in
your rifle turns out to have been caused by faulty rounds you could
draw a spell in the tank.

"Negligence while on active duty"."

Gus stiffened to attention.  'Yes, sir, I'm aware of that, sir.

It would mean that you'd be the only one aboard capable of flying
forward air patrols."

Baxter's expression did not change.  'I'll bear that in mind when I
receive the armourer's report.  Dismiss."

Gus saluted smartly, turned on his heel and left.

In the forest, Clearwater watched with hated breath as a group of
She-Wolves clambered up through the branches to the wrecked
arrowheads.

The bodies of the cloud warriors were cut free from their retaining
straps and dropped unceremoniously to the ground.  An attempt was made
to dismantle bits of the aircraft.  Various wires and control leads
were ripped out but the larger items proved difficult to dislodge.

Most of the scavenging Mutes contented themselves with pieces of the
metallic blue solar cell fabric.

Returning to earth with their trophies they gathered round the two dead
cloud warriors and watched as their visored helmets and clothes were
removed.  The pale, olive-pink bodies were almost hairless.  A jostling
crowd of spectators gathered to view the bodies then the heads of the
sand-burrowers were hacked off and mounted on stakes outside the hut
which Clearwater shared with three of her clan-sisters.

Ultra-Vox, the leader of the tree-climbing expedition, gravely
presented one of the cloud warrior's helmets to Clearwater.  It was a
tribute, in recognition of the powers she had summoned forth to bring
them tumbling from the sky.

Clearwater squatted outside her hut between the heads of the cloud
warriors with the prized helmet cradled in her lap.

She felt drained by the power that had passed through her but, this
time, she had not been weakened to the point of collapse.  Even though
Mr Snow had said that the Sky Voices had chosen her to receive this
priceless gift she was still afraid of the mysterious strength that now
lurked within her.  She was also troubled by the striking resemblance
between her own body, and Cadillac's, and those of the
sand-burrowers.

Their young faces which now stared sightlessly from the stakes on
either side of the doorway had the same even teeth; the same slim
jaw.

It was as if they had been cast from the same mould.  She knew she
should have felt elated by this victory but she did not.  She felt
saddened and confused.  It was as if, with their deaths, part of
herself had died.  And the fact that she had fallen prey to such
thoughts disturbed her even more.

Buck McDonnell, the Trail Boss, led the cheers as the front wagons of
The Lady rolled up the now-dry mud slope onto the bank of the Now and
Then River.  Fifteen minutes later, the two sections were hitched
together and she was ready to roll.  With only one wingman to provide
cover, over sixty wounded linemen and another thirty-seven lying under
the floor in body-bags, Hartmann decided to head back to one of the
main way-stations to seek assistance and await reinforcements.  He
ordered Captain Ryder, the Navigation Exec to set course for Kansas.

When Roz Brickman recovered consciousness some ten minutes after
hitting the floor she found herself undergoing a detailed examination
by the Assistant Chief Pathologist at Inner State U. Both wounds had
ceased to bleed and the agonising pain had beenreduced to a dull
ache.

The A.C.P.

obse?ved that the upper right cranium had been scored by a fibbed metal
object and, by means of a probe, was able to establish that her right
biceps brachii and the surrounding epidermis had been pierced
laterally.  Close inspection of the entry and exit points revealed that
the wound had probably been caused by the passage of a pointed metal
rod approximately one centimetre in diameter with four small vanes at
the tip.  A similar object could have caused the scalp wound.

Despite a thorough search of Unit 18 and a body check of the students
and staff present when the accident occurred, no such object was found,
nor was anything else that might have caused a similar injury.  The
right sleeve of Brickman's lab coat was also found to be intact.

Neither the Assistant Chief Pathologist, nor anyone else associated
with the preliminary investigation was able to explain how any object
could have passed through Roz Brickman's arm without first passing
through the woven fabric of the surrounding sleeve.

Eight hours after collapsing, no trace of either injury could be
discerned.  Roz was hospitalised and kept under observation for
twenty-four hours and a Confidential report on the incident was
transmitted to the White House.  The Amtrak Executive responded
immediately by despatching two special investigators, one male, one
female.  Despite skilful and outwardly sympathetic interrogation Roz
did not reveal the terrifying visions that had assailed her, especially
the last one in which she felt herself falling out of the sky.

After a final examination of her now-healed arm and head, the two
investigators returned to the White House.

On the following day, Roz learned that the incident file had been
closed.  She was formally discharged from the intensive care unit and
told to resume her course studies.

When she rejoined her class, she found that - apart from asking how she
felt - her fellow students were unwilling to discuss the incident.  Roz
didn't mind.  She didn't want to talk about it either.  It was too
dangerous.  Who would believe that she knew, with utter certainty, that
her kin-brother had been hit by a crossbow bolt?  Had crashed.  Been
injured, and was now in the hands of the Plainfolk ...

THIRTEEN

When Steve recovered consciousness, he found himself lying in
semi-darkness, wearing only his underpants, on a layer of furry animal
skins.  His air-conditioned sense of smell was immediately overwhelmed
by the strange odours.

He tried to close his nostrils to filter out the foulness that hung on
the air but could not prevent it entering his lungs.

He gagged silently; felt nauseated.

A small, lean-bodied Mute with long, braided white hair knelt over him,
tending the wound in his scalp.  Still woozy, Steve raised his head far
enough to glance down at his body.

His chest, both shoulders and his upper arms were bandaged; his left
leg was held, from thigh to heel, in a rudimentary splint.  Beyond it,
sitting crosslegged on a buffalo skin, was the straight-limbed Mute who
had pulled the bolt out through his arm.  He met Steve's eyes with the
same impassive expression he had worn when rescuing him from the
burning cropfield.

Steve laid his head back on the furs.  He let out a long sigh and
coughed, trying to clear the rising bile from his throat.

The environmental stink hung so thick on the air it seemed to have
coated his tongue; filled every pore.

'Welcome back,' said the old Mute.

The shock of hearing the Mute speak the same language in a clear,
comprehensible voice brought Steve's senses back in a rush.  Stung by
the sudden realisation of what was happening to him, he jerked his head
away from the old Mute's ministering hands.  It was an automatic
reflex.  All Trackers knew that Mutes had diseased skin which, if
touched even briefly, caused your own body to rot.

The old Mute sat back on his heels with a patient sigh.

'Don't you want me to fix your head?"

'There's no point,' muttered Steve.  'If you touch me, I'll die
anyway."

The old Mute's weathered face creased into a smile.  He chuckled into
his beard then jerked his head at the straight-limbed Mute.  'Hold this
nit-wit down, will you?"

Cadillac uncrossed his legs and knelt on the opposite side of Mr Snow's
patient.  He placed one hand firmly on the cloud warrior's chin, and
the other on the crown of his head.

The warrior's lack of self-control had been a great surprise.

He seemed terrified, his eyes rolled wildly, but he was unable to put
up much of a struggle because of his injuries.

Were all sand-burrowers like this?  Maybe, thought Cadillac, their
courage has been swallowed up by their powerful sharp iron.  If so, the
Plainfolk had nothing to fear.

'I'll give him five threads of Dream Cap,' muttered Mr Snow.  'That
should quieten him down a bit."  He addressed the cloud warrior.

'You're a very mixed-up young man."

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw the white-haired Mute rummage
amongst various bags and baskets, finally producing a small skin pouch
from which he extracted a few short strands of a greyish-brown
substance between thumb and forefinger.  He held them out to Steve.

'Chew this."

Cadillac forced the cloud warrior's mouth wide open.  Mr Snow inserted
the shredded dose of Dream Cap, then Cadillac clamped the warrior's jaw
shut.

'Okay, don't chew it,' grumped Mr Snow.  'It makes no difference.

You'll have to swallow it eventually."

Steve held out for about a minute then relented.  He chewed the strands
briefly then steeled himself to swallow them.  The taste was strange,
but not unpleasant.  Ahhgh, what does it matter?  he thought
bitterly.

He was going to die anyway.  The idea that he might somehow escape
death, his confused appeal for help in the cornfield, had been part of
a pain-filled fantasy.  Someone, probably the old Mute, had tended his
injuries with unsuspected medical skills but it didn't make sense.

unless they were saving him for the big event.  The Annual Torture
Stakes - which he was no doubt destined to win by a head.

Terrific...

In spite of such dire prospects Steve began to find that his anxiety
was fading.  The pain from the broken parts of his body was also
gradually easing.  He felt agreeably lightheaded; weightless; could no
longer feel the ground beneath him.  He didn't feel like struggling any
more.  He just lay back and let himself float.

Cadillac let go of the cloud-warrior's head.  He sat back on his heels
and watched Mr Snow carefully unwrap the bandage on his patient's right
arm.  He peeled off a mash of red leaves and examined the raw, gaping
wound.  'Hmmphh ... he's lucky it was one of your bolts.  If it hadn't
been clean..."

'Is it bad?"  asked Steve, in a faraway voice.

'It'll take a while to heal, but it's clean.  Whether or not you'll
recover the full use of your arm is up to you but at least you'll have
something to hang your right hand on.  Okay...

hold still."  Mr Snow used a sliver of wood to poke a fresh mash made
from pulped herbs into both ends of the hole and bound up the wound.

Steve eyed the straight-limbed Mute.  His attention was fixed on what
the old guy was doing.  Steve looked back over his head and saw, to his
right, a yellow flame flickering in a small hollowed-out stone.  He
took closer stock of his surroundings.  The three of them were in a low
eight-sided hut made out of wood and what he presumed were animal
skins.  The light poles that edged each panel curved over some five
feet off the ground and sloped inwards to meet its neighbours in the
centre of the shallow pitched roof.  The poles fitted into a wooden
ring which was open in the centre and was evidently some type of flue;
no doubt to provide badly-needed ventilation.  There were a number of
untidy bundles and baskets piled round the inside edge but nothing that
Steve could recognise as furniture.  Compared with the ordered,
antiseptic layout of his shack on the quarterdeck of the Academy the
hut was, frankly, a mess.

Steve could hear voices and sounds of activity coming from outside the
hut.  And music of a kind he had never heard before but which recalled
the wind whips used in the attack on The Lady.  It had a strange,
haunting quality that reached deep into his psyche, evoking a troubling
response.

He turned his attention back onto the young Mute kneeling by his left
side and noticed that he only had four fingers and one thumb on each
hand.  Steve's mood was too detached to ponder deeply on the
significance of this discovery but it occurred to him that, apart from
his long hair, the only physical feature that distinguished the Mute
from himself-or any other Tracker - was the random pattern of black,
brown, dark-cream and olive-pink that covered his skin.

The old, white-haired, bearded Mute was a true six-fingered lumphead
with an uneven row oftumour-like bone growths across his forehead.  His
vari-coloured skin was further disfigured by strange knotted patches on
his arms and cheekbones but, contrary to what Steve had been led to
expect, the old Mute's eyes sparkled with intelligence - as did those
of his young companion.