Iron master, p.32
Iron Master, page 32
Despite his bulk, Toh-Shiba was light on his feet and moved with regal assurance – as well he might. Like all of the high ranking Japs, he wore a wig of Mute hair with the usual samurai top-knot, and he had a small funny-looking hat perched on the front of his head. Since Steve had never seen one like it during his travels he concluded it must signify Toh-Shiba’s rank – which it did.
The Consul-General’s party turned towards the line of kneeling roadrunners.
This is it! thought Steve. But it wasn’t. He waited until the last moment before putting his nose on the mat, but Toh-Shiba strode past followed by his samurai-bodyguard and the post-master.
Shrill, simultaneous commands from the senior clerks sent the staff scurrying away to their posts – a move that had already been rehearsed several times. Steve and the other roadrunners formed their usual line along the veranda to the left of the post-house door. Thanks to his position near the end of the line in the yard, this move put Steve close to the entrance. But once again, in deference to their visitor, they were required to kneel and touch the floor with their noses as the Consul-General’s party went inside to view the postal clerks going about their work.
With Toh-Shiba’s disappearance, the roadrunners were allowed to sit on the log bench. Shit! Steve cursed his luck and vented his frustration by slamming a fist against his open palm. Once again, the fat-fingered dink had walked past without giving the line of Mutes a second glance. So much for Mute magic. If Clearwater had failed to do something as simple as this, she might not be able to deliver when the real crunch came. What a pill! And just when he needed to show the Man in Black he could manage without him!
*
Within fifteen minutes of entering the post-house, Toh-Shiba – who had begun to wonder what he was doing there in the first place – had seen and heard more than enough about the receipt and onward transmission of private and official documents. The Consul-General did not believe in cluttering his head with knowledge of procedures that his staff were expected to know about and deal with.
As a nobleman, Toh-Shiba had never once in his life concerned himself with the problems of laundering; he merely expected to find a clean set of clothes laid out for his use whenever they might be required. It was the same with letters: you ordered them written, applied your seal, and they were delivered. What happened to them between leaving your hand and reaching that of the recipient was the concern of lesser mortals – such as the obsequious, tiresome pip-squeak now hovering at his elbow.
Toh-Shiba, who had been languidly fanning himself to alleviate the late summer heat, snapped the fan shut against his left palm; a signal to his aide-de-camp that he wished to leave – without delay. The samurai silenced the post-master with a raised hand and announced that the visit had been most instructive. His master was extremely pleased with the alertness and dedication of the postal-staff. Et cetera, et cetera…
The post-master and his clerks hurried on to the veranda, and bowed Toh-Shiba’s party out of the post-house. In doing so, they blocked his view of the roadrunners, but, as he descended the steps and moved towards his waiting horse, the Consul-General was aware of something niggling away inside his brain. It was something he had intended to do – connected with his visit to the post-house – but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what it was.
The mental pressure to perform some action built up rapidly and was translated into a stabbing pain. Toh-Shiba shook his head in an effort to clear it, then mounted his horse. His samurai guards followed suit, forming up around him with their colleagues.
Steve’s heart sank.
Toh-Shiba gathered the reins and wheeled his horse. The pain inside his skull reached a new crescendo, causing one hand to fly to his forehead. An image of a golden-haired Mute appeared before his inner eye and, as he recalled the real reason for his visit, the stabbing pains eased a little. With a cry of exasperation, he pulled his horse’s head round and urged it back towards the veranda.
The post-master and his senior clerks wavered uncertainly as they tried to divine the reason for the Consul-General’s sudden change of mood and direction. The roadrunners, who’d been on their knees since his exit from the post-house, hurriedly got their heads down as the horse stopped with its nose almost touching the rail.
Toh-Shiba, the pain in his head now fading fast, cast his eyes along the line of Mutes then pointed his baton at Steve and shouted rapidly in Japanese. That grass-monkey, third from the door! I want him dismissed from the postal service! Immediately! Is that understood?’
‘H-H-H-Has his conduct d-d-displeased my n-n-noble lord in any way?’ stammered the trembling post-master. ‘If so, I will p-p-per-personally ensure he is s-s-severely punished.’
‘Not necessary,’ barked Toh-Shiba. ‘I just don’t like the colour of his hair. Get him out of here.’
Steve didn’t have a clue what was going on until he was hauled to his feet and hustled away as the post-master, who was now bowing at two-second intervals, launched into a breast-beating apology for his inexcusable carelessness in the selection of ancillary staff.
Toh-Shiba surveyed the remaining roadrunners, all of whom had dark brown or black hair. ‘That looks much better.’ The pain in his head was almost gone. ‘The individual you have just removed is to be sent to the Heron Pool as house-slave to the cloud warrior. See to it and send me written confirmation.’
The post-master assured him, via his aide-de-camp, that his order would be complied with instantly.
Toh-Shiba nodded with satisfaction and rode off towards the gate feeling strangely elated.
The post-master and his senior clerks kept their heads down until the last foot-soldier had disappeared, then broke ranks with sighs of relief. No one could fathom why the Consul-General had acted in such a bizarre fashion. A brainstorm perhaps; theirs was not to reason why. The roadrunner unit could easily be brought back to full strength. Meanwhile, there was a small score to be settled. The post-master instructed a clerk to bring him a whipping-cane. The Consul-General had dismissed his offer to punish severely the yellow-haired Mute. His wishes would be obeyed. The Mute would only be punished moderately – for being the cause of such unwarranted anxiety.
Steve contrived to look suitably downcast as he stripped and handed in his uniform, mailbag and roadrunner’s gorget. A slave-tag was attached to his arm and a ‘yellow card’ to cover his move down the road was hung round his neck. The clothes he was given consisted of a worn, loose grey tunic and trousers, an old pair of sandals with wafer-thin soles and a straw hat. The jute poncho and cotton quilt issued to Mute slaves were rolled into a bundle for him to carry under his arm. In terms of status and appearance he had slipped back to the bottom rung of the ladder, but it didn’t matter. Clearwater had shown that her skills as a summoner were as potent as ever. And thanks to her, he was on his way.
What he hadn’t bargained for was his going-away present from the post-master. As Steve bowed himself out backwards through the door, trying hard not to smile, he was seized by several pairs of hands, held down over the rail of the veranda and given a salutary thrashing that left him shaking and breathless but stopped short of drawing blood.
*
‘Rockets,’ said Steve.
Cadillac, who was seated at the drafting table, stared down at him with a puzzled frown.
Steve, who had been on his hands and knees sweeping the straw-matted floor, laid his brush and pan aside and adopted a cross-legged position. ‘You’ve been to the trading post, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, last year.’
‘Didn’t the wheelboats launch any? Mr Snow told me they do it every time they set sail.’
‘They sent up burning arrows which burst, and showered down coloured fire,’ admitted Cadillac.
‘They’re called rockets – and they used green ones that didn’t burst to signal where you had to land when you flew to Ne-Issan…’
‘How did you know about that?’
‘Clearwater told me. When we were being held by the ronin.’
’I still don’t see what you’re getting at.’
‘What you saw was a firework display. Pyrotechnics. Behind those pretty coloured lights is a combination of chemistry and physics. A force exerted in one direction produces an equal and opposite force in the other direction. It’s called "thrust".’
‘I know about that,’ interjected Cadillac, ‘it’s what the engines of your Skyhawks generate.’
‘Exactly,’ said Steve. ‘Well, the same propellant charge that pushes up those rockets can be used to put your flying-horses into the air. All we need is a bigger rocket that packs more punch.’
‘Yeah… I see what you mean.’ Cadillac mulled the idea over, then eyed Steve. ‘How come I didn’t think of that?’
‘You just did. I only sweep the floors around here.’ Steve waited for a more positive reaction. If someone had handed him an idea like that on a plate he’d have been turning cartwheels. But Cadillac just sat there. ‘You don’t look convinced.’
‘No, it’s not that. I can see it has possibilities, but… won’t it be dangerous?’
‘Not as dangerous as sitting here on the ground. You said yourself that Min-Orota was showing signs of impatience. If he decides to pull the plug – ‘Steve swept a hand round the study – ‘you can kiss goodbye to all this.’
‘Don’t remind me…’
‘There are risks, obviously. We just have to make sure we get the mixture right. We bench-test small batches of it first, then find a lightweight container that’ll hold several pounds of the stuff. Some kind of tube, sealed at one end. And it must be fireproof, otherwise we could find ourselves with flames coming out of our ass.
‘We then attach the tube – we’ll probably need several – to one of your ground trolleys. We load the trolley with stones to represent the weight of aircraft and pilot, light the blue touch paper and, uhh… see what happens. What we want is a fast even burn. But not too fast. We don’t want to rip the wings off.’
‘No…’
‘It’s an ideal solution. It’ll require a little ingenuity on our part, but it uses available materials, basic engineering skills and – best of all – won’t require any major alterations to your existing airframe. We can just attach them to the underside of the fuselage pod and use a booster on the launching trolley.’
‘Launching trolley?’
‘The ground trolley you use for wheeling the planes into the hangar. We just strengthen it a little.’
‘But this propellant charge–’
Steve tapped his forehead. COLUMBUS had come up with the data he needed. ‘Don’t worry, it’s all up here. Ingredients, proportions, mixing procedures, binding agents…’ He paused as he saw Cadillac’s expression. ‘I’ll need your help, of course.’
The Mute responded with a huffy laugh. ‘Looks like you’ve got it all worked out.’ He clearly didn’t like being upstaged.
Steve threw in a large dollop of soft-soap. ‘Sure. I know what needs to be done. But at the moment, it’s just words. Hot air. Nothing can happen unless Min-Orota agrees to provide us with the materials we need. And you are the only one who can arrange that.’
‘Yes,’ said Cadillac. ‘And I can also arrange to have you shipped out of here. So watch your step.’
Steve acknowledged this with a mocking bow and went back to sweeping the floor.
*
As Steve had anticipated, Cadillac had been unable to resist this opportunity to cut him down to size. Now that he was clear-skinned he had the upper hand, and he was not going to let Steve forget it. But in any case, the rules concerning the treatment of Mutes were already well established. Steve was obliged to sleep outside the house in a small, low wooden shack and, since he had no means with which to prepare his own food, his meals were placed outside the kitchen door by Cadillac’s Thai domestic staff.
Thais, who ranked below Vietnamese and just above the slave population, came perilously close in the eyes of their Japanese overlords to being non-persons themselves. They were, nevertheless, notionally superior to captive Trackers, but, for the eight working in the house, they were at Cadillac’s beck and call just as Steve was. The Thais were able to cope with this because, first, they did not have a lot of ‘face’ to lose and, second, they were not really serving Cadillac but Lord Min-Orota. And Steve didn’t mind being treated like dirt, because things were working out just fine. Cadillac had a long way to fall. Oh, yes. When he hit the ground, they’d hear the thud in Houston/GC…
Rising at cock-crow – a feathered alarm-system widely used in Ne-Issan to rouse the lower orders – Steve was required to perform several menial tasks before being given breakfast. The list of chores included splitting a set quantity of kindling wood and stacking it neatly by the bath-house, carrying away the previous day’s ashes, and disposing of what was politely known as ‘night-soil’ – buckets containing urine and assorted faeces.
In Ne-Issan, nothing was wasted. All the kitchen refuse went on to the dung heap along with the crap, to rot down before being dug back into the soil – just as the effluent produced by the Federation was processed and fed into the acres of shallow tanks that the Trackers used to grow soya beans and other vegetables.
After breakfast, and for the rest of the day, Steve became Cadillac’s ‘go-fer’. Bathed and wearing a clean set of brown clothes, he was obliged to follow the Mute everywhere he went like a dog on a short lead. When they were alone, working together in the study, Cadillac treated Steve as an equal. He was polite, friendly, willing to listen and eager to learn. But when they were with Jodi, Kelso and the other Trackers, or in the presence of Iron Masters, he became haughty and dismissive.
On these occasions, Steve stayed in the background and kept his mouth firmly shut. He knew Cadillac was enjoying every minute of it, but it was also necessary for him to act that way to avoid arousing the suspicions of the thirty-odd dinks who acted as overseers. They did not participate in the production process, they just looked over people’s shoulders and generally kept a beady eye on what was going on. A group of clerks took care of the paperwork involved in the procuring of the raw materials – timber, mild steel and woven silk – needed to construct the flying-horses. Some of the accessories, such as trolley wheels and axles and woven cane seats, were built by local craftsmen and delivered complete.
After a week of running errands for Cadillac, Steve became a familiar figure around the Heron Pool. The area in which the Iron Masters were housed was off-limits, but apart from that he was able to move around with almost total freedom. Within days of his arrival he was able to build up a detailed picture of the operation and the overall layout of the site – knowledge that would come in handy when the time came to make their escape.
He also contrived to meet up with Jodi. There was no danger in being seen together in off-duty hours, provided it didn’t happen too often and they kept their conversations short and sweet. Steve also had to be careful to keep his distance. Kelso was the only other person who had seen him coloured up as a Mute. As far as the rest of Jodi’s male colleagues were concerned he was the real thing. If they observed him getting too friendly, it could lead to trouble.
‘You amaze me, Brickman,’ said Jodi, when they met. ‘You come in as an illegal, row yourself into one of the best jobs going and now here you are working for the head man. How d’you always end up on the inside track?’
‘Listen, I start the day emptying shit buckets. Is that what you call being on the inside track?’
‘You know what I mean.’
Steve smiled. ‘I got friends in high places.’ There was no harm in telling her the truth. It was clear she didn’t believe him. There were moments when he could hardly believe it himself. ‘I had to get here. I meant what I said about escaping. Things are starting to come together. If it works, I’m taking off with those two Mutes I told you about. You still with me?’
‘Yeah. Count me in.’
‘Have you had a chance to sound out Kelso?’
‘Not yet. I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity.’ Jodi gave a quick laugh. ‘Seeing you again has ruined his digestion.’
‘Maybe I’d better speak to him myself. Put him right about a few things.’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said Jodi. ‘From the noises he’s been making I think he’d still like to get you down a dark alley. But he can’t risk it because you’re working with the honcho. If he queered things, the other guys would take him apart.’
‘Has he told the others I’m one of you?’
‘No. And I haven’t told him you’re an undercover Fed-’
‘Jodi! How many times do I have to tell you?! I’m not a-’
‘Yeah, I know. You were forced into this because they’re threatening your kin-sister. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. It doesn’t matter. I’m not stupid, Brickman. You’re never going to admit you’re an undercover Fed because, officially, there ain’t no such thing – right? That’s how it works, don’t it? Nobody knows for sure, so nobody sticks their neck out. They’re too busy looking over their shoulder. But you and I know exactly what you are. So from here on in, don’t give me any more of the wide-eyed innocent shit.’
Steve studied her as he weighed his reply. ‘You’re right. I am on the payroll. But it’s true about Roz. They used her to force me into this.’
Jodi gave a wry smile. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t blow your cover. You were right about me too. I am a True Blue. We’ve flown together and been bunk-mates aboard the Lady. You asked for my help and I agreed to do whatever I can. Try and remember if we ever get out of here.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean…’
‘It’s very simple. I’m willing to go back – but not if they’re gonna send me to the wall.’
‘That’s not going to happen.’
‘Sure. But if the wrong signals start coming down the line, give me a chance to get away. That’s all I’m asking. If I’m gonna die I’d rather do it up here where the sun shines. Okay?’
