Iron master, p.10
Iron Master, page 10
Unable to make contact with anybody who could help him, Steve had become a scavenger, stealing scraps of food whenever he could. But there were soldiers and officials everywhere checking the movement of goods and people. It was like trying to move around one of the Federation’s underground bases without an ID card. Steve’s basic dilemma was this: he could not move openly without becoming part of the system, but if he did find a way to become part of it as a Mute he risked ending up in a chain gang unable to move at all.
In one of his more successful sorties he had managed to steal a padded cotton blanket to help ward off the bone-chilling hours before the dawn, but on his last two scavenging expeditions he had almost been caught and had only escaped by the skin of his teeth. To evade his pursuers, he had taken refuge deep in the forests and there he had remained, living on whatever wild game he could catch, and moving mostly at night. Steve had discovered that the hours between dusk and dawn were the only time the Iron Masters ceased their relentless round of activity. Even so, it was too dangerous to light a fire; anything edible he managed to catch or steal had to be eaten raw.
The day, now drawing to a close, had been warm and sunny but, for Steve, it had been as tense and frustrating as the day before. And the day before that. The mission that had brought him to the land of the Iron Masters – and which he had entered with hopelessly inadequate preparation – seemed doomed to failure. Steve had come to Ne-Issan to find Clearwater and Cadillac. His only lead was a reported conversation which had mentioned a place called the Heron Pool. With no idea where that might be, he had been working his way across country in a more or less easterly direction in the vague hope that something might turn up. Up to now, his luck had failed him and there was no point in trying to kid himself any longer. He had no idea where he was or in which direction he was supposed to be heading, and the only thing he had to look forward to was another night of fretful sleep on an almost empty stomach.
When darkness fell, Steve curled up under the stolen blanket with his bladed quarterstaff clasped in his arms. His excuse for not being on his feet and on the move was the clouds which, for the second night running, covered the sky; the truth was that his body yearned achingly for a brief respite. One half of his brain agreed; the other half refused to co-operate, keeping one ear open and the alarm bells jangling. For a time it worked, causing Steve to twist and fidget, but finally, when it became clear that he was no longer responding, the obstinate grey cells turned in for the night and whiled away the hours with dreams of food: hot, spicy Mute stews, dried meat twists, new-baked flatbread and juicy yellow-fists. The menu even included a mountainous, mouth-watering pile of soya bean-burgers fresh from a giant microwave.
Steve woke as the new day dawned, springing to his feet with the alertness of a wild animal, all six senses attuned to danger. He slowly relaxed his grip on the quarterstaff. The only sounds that filled the air were the natural sounds of the forest: the cries of birds, some shrill, some harsh, some melodic; an improvised pastorale underscored by the staccato chatter and snuffling grunts of their four-legged neighbours and played to a whispering audience of leaves stirred by the wind. The keen listener could also hear the creaks and groans of trees flexing their sap-filled timbers as they continued their yearly cycle of growth; trunks thickening inch by imperceptible inch to support the upward climb and outward spread of youthful branches; roots forever seeking a firmer foothold, wriggling snakelike through the earth, splitting buried rocks with a primeval power that defied comprehension.
The next move, now part of his daily ritual, was to check the tiny radio transceiver hidden in the handle of his combat knife. Under the wooden side-pieces was a marvel of microcircuitry with an alphanumeric keyboard on which you could enter text or data for high-speed transmission at a pre-set time. Incoming messages were preceded by a signal that switched on the electronic memory. Steve unclipped the tiny stylus and activated the recall button which caused any stored messages to scroll across the fifteen-character liquid crystal display. Eleven familiar letters marched across the screen from right to left and halted. MEMORY CLEAR.
Side-Winder, the undercover agent who had helped him stow away on the wheelboat, had hinted that Karlstrom had been concerned by Steve’s failure to keep in contact. There had been reasons for that, but now he had been given the means to do so he had no excuses – and no wish to increase the nagging doubts about his loyalty to the Federation. Unaware that the device had been rigged to transmit his call-sign at regular intervals, Steve had programmed it to broadcast HGFR in Morse code for ten minutes twice a day so that a fix could be obtained on his position.
When giving him the knife, Side-Winder had said, ‘The Family always keep one ear close to the ground.’ Steve, ever curious, had been trying to figure out how. The maximum range of the radio knife was fifty miles. But he was now, at the very least, more than a thousand miles from the nearest way-station or wagon-train. If the First Family were able to track him, they must have installed some kind of secret network on Iron Master territory which allowed them to pick up and relay the signals he was pushing out. So far, he had drawn no response. Okay. Maybe that was because he had not filed any progress reports or asked for help. Even so, they could have let him know that somebody was on the other end of the line.
Despite his years of training at the Flight Academy, Steve’s knowledge of radios – like that of most Trackers – was limited to their performance specifications, how to operate them and how to replace faulty circuit boards. Elementary stuff. All you needed was to be able to read. The communications equipment issued to Trackers contained diagnostic displays which told you which bits needed replacing. You got a requisition order, drew them from the stores, and plugged ’em in. It was with the circuit boards that the mystery began. The knowledge, skills and processes that had led to their design and manufacture, and the fundamental scientific principles on which it was all based remained the exclusive preserve of the First Family.
Steve closed up the handle of his knife and replaced the strip of rag that had been wrapped around it. He knew his transceiver was operational but was the network? The only sure way to find out was to send a mayday call – the one thing he dared not do. He was in urgent need of a map of Ne-Issan with a large ‘X’ marking the location of the Heron Pool, and a videotape containing an instant course in Japanese. But AMEXICO could supply him with neither. Even if Karlstrom condescended to bail him out, a skyhook – MX slang for an airborne rescue – would serve no useful purpose, and the arrival of a back-up squad would only make things more complicated than they were already. No. He was responsible for the present situation and the only way to come out looking good was to solve it on his own.
Steve made a long roll of the blanket, tied the ends together so that he could carry it looped over his shoulder, and set off in search of a stream. In these hills they weren’t hard to find. He filled his small drinking-skin, then slapped water on his face and arms and attempted to rub off some of the accumulated grime. The black and brown markings on his body remained intact. Once applied, the paste-like dye, first concocted by a long-lost generation of Mutes, was impervious to sweat, did not stain or fade, and resisted normal wear and tear. Mr Snow had told him it could only be removed with the aid of special five-fingered pink leaves. When scrubbed vigorously against the skin, the crushed fibres released a chemical substance that changed the nature of the dye so that it was no longer waterproof. Steve had not had time to check out the removal process himself, but he knew it worked and had brought a bundle of the leaves with him in case he needed to make a quick identity switch.
He thought back to the memorable day he had secretly watched Clearwater and Cadillac ‘come clean’ and re-ran the subsequent events across the screen inside his head. Connecting with her eyes on the night he had bitten the arrow had been a fantastic sensation, but the discovery of her unflawed beauty was the moment when his life had changed; had taken on new meaning. Events had conspired to force them apart but on his return to the Plainfolk, Mr Snow had revealed they were destined to come together. Knowing what he had been sent to do, Steve had tried to push her from the forefront of his mind, but whenever he saw sparks of sunlight trapped in the ripples of a crystal-clear stream her name sprang to his lips. When he knelt to drink in its coolness, the reflection that rose to touch his lips was hers, not his own. She was everywhere. The unbroken blue of a cloudless sky recalled her calm, unwavering gaze; the slim-legged deer carried themselves with the same, lithe, sure-footed grace, the scent of wild flowers recalled the garlands in her hair. Nothing had changed. His feelings now were just as strong, just as overwhelming as on their last night together when she had slid her naked body between his sleeping-furs…
Hard-edged reality staged a comeback, bringing the curtain down on his soft-focus reverie. The unfulfilled longings aroused by such thoughts were better buried. Rising from the stream, Steve fastened his combat knife to the inside of his left forearm, then wound a second grimy strip of rag around it, making it look like a rudimentary splint. By the time an assailant got close enough to see what it really was, the blade would be at their throat.
The rising sun had not yet cleared the crest of the hill in front of him. There was still enough time to find a safe vantage-point from where he could observe the lie of the land and spend the rest of the day plotting out his next moves. As he set off through the trees, Steve made a conscious effort to clear his mind. Dwelling on the past did nothing to resolve his present predicament. The rescue of Clearwater and Cadillac was only one part of the problem. When that had been accomplished a stark choice awaited him. If he made good his promise to Mr Snow then Roz, his kin-sister, might end up dead. The alternative was to do what the Federation had demanded and risk losing Clearwater for ever. The situation was made worse by the fact that he was equally bound, for differing reasons, to both women. The prospect of losing either was something he steadfastly refused to contemplate. He would find a way to save both.
Or a way would be found for him…
Since graduating a year last April from the Air Force Academy under the sands of New Mexico, Steve had seen and heard enough to convince him that his life was being shaped by forces that neither he nor the Federation had the power to control. According to Mr Snow, he had been born in the shadow of Talisman, the Thrice-Gifted One; the all-conquering hero who, according to Mute prophecy, would enter the world as the Saviour of the Plainfolk. The Federation did not believe in prophecy; the Mutes did. For them, the Path was already drawn. The Wheel turned. The Federation also had a dream of the future, but Trackers used computer modelling and critical-path analysis to make it happen. Mutes had faith in invisible spirit beings; Trackers had faith in themselves, in the system. For them, the physical world had finite dimensions and properties which could be quantified, potential resources that could be exploited. For the Mutes, the world of nature was like a walled garden with a door, beyond which lay a vast cloud-rimmed land offering everchanging vistas of unparalleled splendour: snowcapped mountains with swift-running streams, tree-lined valleys heavy with fruit, carpeted with sweet-smelling earth and tall bread-grass, rolling plains rich with game. Their cosmos stretched beyond the ceiling of the stars, beyond time and space, to encompass spiritual realms of immeasurable dimensions. Trackers might agree that earthly life was as a spark rising from a fire, flaring briefly as it spirals heavenwards to be snuffed out an instant later, but the Mutes believed the sparks were constantly reborn in the leaping flames. Birth, death, rebirth – the cycle was endless: the ocean of being at the end of the river of time revolved around an eternal sun, whose fiery radiance was at the heart of all creation.
In the past few months, and especially during the last few weeks, Steve had had few opportunities to ponder these mysteries. Everything he had been taught as a Tracker ran counter to such ideas. The Federation dealt in facts, not abstractions. But his conversations with Mr Snow still echoed through his mind. Despite past and present dangers, they had triggered something within him, sympathetic vibrations which had brought his body into tune with the overground. The alien world which he felt instinctively was his real home.
As he continued his upward journey through the woods, Steve saw a small furry animal with a bushy tail clinging to the trunk of a tree a few yards ahead of him. He froze in his tracks and slowly drew his hidden knife. Raising his arm with the stealth of a praying mantis, he took aim and – thwokk! The knife hit the exact spot vacated by his breakfast in the previous millisecond with the speed of greased lightning. A few minutes later Mo-Town, the great Sky-Mother, offered him a new target of opportunity. His roving eye glimpsed the tail end of a snake sliding away under a layer of rotting leaves. Steve took a firm grip of his quarterstaff, swept it round at shoulder height and – whap! Although the snake had vanished between the leaves, the blade struck the head off cleanly. Once again the quarterstaff moved with a speed that surprised him – he’d first noticed it in the fight with the doomed back-up squad. It had vibrated in his hands and seemed to be pulling the wooden shaft after it – almost as if it had a mind of its own.
Trembling with excitement, Steve quickly skinned and gutted the snake and sank his teeth into the flesh along its spine, oblivious to anything but the sensation of filling his mouth and gullet with something he could chew and swallow. He gasped with pleasure, and nearly choked. Oh, bliss! Slinging his quarterstaff across his back, he moved on, gnawing his way out from the middle of the snake towards both ends.
Reaching the crest, Steve climbed into the upper branches of the tallest tree he could find and took stock of his surroundings. The sun now hung above a tree-covered ocean. Wave after wave of forested hills stretched away towards the eastern horizon, their undulating crests running north and south as far as the eye could see. Along the floor and lower slopes of the adjacent valley were scattered clearings, some with dwelling places; others enclosing square ponds and terraced cropfields.
Smoke climbed from the chimneys of the dwellings, reminding Steve that others, more fortunate than himself, were preparing to face the day fortified by something more appetising than raw snake meat. If he decided to traverse the valley he would have to take great care to keep out of sight. Safer to wait till dark and hope for a clear sky. The moon was a thinning crescent and would soon disappear altogether, but that didn’t matter. If the stars were out, he could use the roads. Provided he kept clear of dwelling-places and the guard-posts that controlled access to bridges and ferry crossings, it was not as dangerous as it sounded. And it was a lot faster than blundering through a pitch-black forest. The Iron Masters rarely moved along the roads at night. When they did, the travellers were always accompanied by several dozen foot-soldiers and everyone carried lanterns on the end of long poles. They also made a surprising amount of noise, banging sticks and small drums, blowing on horns and talking at the top of their voices. The din they created could not have endeared them to the people living along the route who were trying to grab some hard-earned shut-eye, but it meant that Steve always had plenty of warning of their approach.
From his perch at the top of the tree, Steve saw a stretch of the winding highway that cut through the mountains. Its western end met the Allegheny River, running on, via the ferry, towards navref Pittsburgh – the Fire Pits of Beth-Lem. Since it was wider than the other roads he had encountered and surfaced with tightly packed stones, Steve had concluded, not unreasonably, that it must lead to other places of similar importance. Persuaded – for want of a better idea – that the Heron Pool might be located at or near one of them, Steve had steered a course roughly parallel to the highway, dividing his attention between the landscape and the sky. Cadillac and Clearwater had been here for a good six months. If the Mute had picked his brains he ought to have something airborne by now. Something that he, Steve, could get a bearing on. So far, there had been nothing up there but the birds – and today’s dawn patrol wore feathers too. He drank in the fresh breeze sweeping through the treetops, and headed for the ground.
Since beginning his eastward journey, Steve had made a point of spending part of each day noting the type and level of traffic along the highway and the behaviour patterns of the people at work in the fields and around their dwelling places. What he saw confirmed the impression he had formed of the Iron Masters back at the trading post. They ran a tight ship – afloat and ashore – and they were highly organised. Perhaps over-organised. And it had occurred to Steve that he might have discovered their weak spot. Field-work and domestic activities were dovetailed into a strictly daily routine, but their schedule also included rest periods when people gathered in groups to chew the fat and – to judge from the faint sounds of laughter that reached him – generally have a good time. Whether their Mute slaves found anything to laugh at was another matter.
Having now walked and run nearly 200 miles – much of it over difficult terrain – Steve had begun toying with the idea of waylaying one of the lone horsemen who sometimes passed by. If he found himself unable to ride the beast, he could always eat it. It was an agreeable fantasy but nothing more. The handsomely dressed warriors who rode back and forth – sometimes singly but more frequently in groups – were a superior kind of Iron Master whose appearance caused local pedestrians to hit, the dirt. To take one of them out would cause the shit to hit the fan in triplicate.
Steve had seen video pictures of horses, but the discovery of their continued existence had been the biggest surprise to date. The Federation archives listed them as one of the many species that had become extinct during the Holocaust. But it was not true. In the past three weeks he’d seen close to fifty – always with samurai in the saddle. Horses were clearly a status symbol, reserved for the privileged classes. Everyone else walked, or rode on pushcarts or on larger four-wheeled vehicles drawn by smooth-skinned buffalo. Really important people – to judge by the accompanying procession – were carried shoulder-high in lavishly decorated palanquins. Iron Master society obviously had a pecking order just like the Amtrak Federation, running down through the ranks from their version of the First Family and the high-wire Execs in the Black Tower to the greaseballs in the A-levels. Despite the vast cultural and technological gap, Trackers and the Sons of Ne-Issan were cast from the same mould. The arms and accoutrements of the samurai showed they were gripped by the same unbridled passion for hardware: they also subscribed to the idea of a master race – and thought they were it. But despite this potential source of conflict it was not beyond the bounds of possibility that, at some point in the future, the Iron Masters might decide to cut out the middleman and deal directly with the Federation. If they did, Talisman and the Plainfolk would have to get their act together. Fast.
