Cloud Warrior

by Patrick Tilley

  Mr Snow visited him from time to time to inspect and dress his wounds. Sometimes Cadillac came with him; at other times, the straight-limbed Mute would enter alone and squat silently by his side. Occasionally, Steve would engage them in desultory conversation; desultory because he was given regular small doses of Dream Cap which kept him in a state of drowsy euphoria. Twice, or maybe three times, Steve was vaguely aware of being lifted onto a stretcher of wood and skins which was then carried through the darkness. He half-remembered feeling the cool night air on his face; seeing the wondrous twinkling brilliance of countless points of light scattered across a black velvet sky. From the overheard snatches of conversation that entered his fudged brain, he understood that his Mute captors were moving camp under cover of darkness and lying concealed by day to avoid discovery by the arrowheads that now regularly crossed the sky.

  Once, as he lay under a loose covering of branches, he saw, through a ragged gap in the leaves, two of the graceful Skyhawks dip and wheel across the sky; saw the white wingtip panels and recognised them as coming from The Lady. Steve realised that she must have returned re-equipped with a new section of wingmen to continue her thrust into Plainfolk territory. He wondered if Gus White was one of the pair now above him and whether they were looking for him, or whether they were just hunting Mute. He felt a sudden pang of regret at being grounded then consoled himself with the thought that, against all odds, he was still alive and in one piece, being fed and cared for. If he could manage to stay alive, if his body mended, he could begin to plan his escape – always provided his captors didn’t find themselves on the receiving end of another napalm strike. Despite the fudging effects of the Dream Cap, this thought was a salutary reminder that he, Brickman, S.R. was now one of the hunted. His fate was bound up with that of his captors.

  After about a month, Mr Snow stopped feeding Steve threads of Dream Cap. Steve found he was able to sit up without too much discomfort from his mending ribs. His left shoulder was still painfully stiff but he was able to make limited use of his left arm. His right arm was still in a sling but the livid, gaping wound had closed.

  Mr Snow pronounced himself satisfied with Steve’s general progress. ‘You should soon be ready to start moving around on that leg. I’ll see if we can knock you up something to walk with.’

  ‘You mean a pair of crutches?’

  ‘Yes, crutches,’ said Mr Snow. ‘We must talk some more. You must know a whole lot of forgotten words.’

  ‘You must know a lot I’ve never heard of,’ replied Steve. ‘If you’ve got time, uhh – maybe we can learn each other’s language.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Mr Snow, noncommittally. ‘A lot of the words I use won’t mean anything to you. You live in a different world; see things in a different way.’

  Steve shrugged. ‘You could teach me to see things your way.’

  Mr Snow smiled. ‘I doubt it. What, for instance, do you mean by the word “understanding”?’

  ‘“Understanding”?’ Steve reflected for a moment. ‘Uhh, knowing what someone means when they give you an order. Knowing how something works, or what to do if anything goes wrong.’

  Mr Snow nodded. ‘How about “Love”?’

  Steve hesitated. ‘Is that a Mute word?’

  ‘No, it’s from the Old Time. It was a word that was constantly on people’s lips. Not that it changed anything.’

  Steve shook his head. ‘Couldn’t have been very important. If it was, we’d use it in the Federation. What is it – some kind of swear-word?’

  Mr Snow let out a throaty chuckle. ‘I can see you’ve got a lot to learn.’

  Steve grinned. ‘Listen – Cadillac hadn’t heard of “television sets”, you hadn’t come across “crutches”, and I didn’t know about “love”. Maybe we can make a trade. Think about it.’

  Mr Snow’s eyes twinkled. ‘I will.’ He patted Steve on the shoulder and ducked out of the hut.

  Now that he was no longer being fed Dream Cap, Steve began to think more clearly and was quick to realise that his conversations with Mr Snow and Cadillac could be his lifeline. He had been told about wordsmiths in the Field Intelligence briefing the crew had attended before their departure from Nixon-Fort Worth. In a race of idiots, the wordsmiths were the bright guys. Rare, gifted individuals who acted as the communal brains for the Mute clans which harboured them. It was known that Mutes could not read or write and since most were dum-dums who didn’t know what day it was they were totally reliant on the memories of their wordsmiths. According to the three-man FINTEL team who gave the briefing, the cleverest of these guys carried up to nine hundred years of history around in their heads. They also possessed the ability to put chunks of it to music – what were known as ‘fire songs’ – plus a mental compendium of general knowledge that enabled Mutes to survive!

  In the decimation of the Southern Mutes in the centuries after the Break-Out many wordsmiths were believed to have perished. Those who escaped death during pacification and resettlement of the New Territories had either moved north or were keeping an extremely low profile. Figures were not available but it was believed that wordsmiths were more numerous among the Plainfolk but not every clan had one and those that did guarded them well. Apart from the obvious advantages of owning a walking encyclopedia, it had become apparent that possession of a wordsmith gave a clan a vital edge over their rivals in other ways; ways which were still not fully understood. One thing, however, was clear: a definite correlation had been established: the more gifted the wordsmith, the more powerful the clan.

  Having been told repeatedly from the age of three that Mutes did not take prisoners, Steve could not understand why his life had been spared. He longed to know the answer but it was the one question he studiously avoided asking his captors. At the back of his mind was a lurking fear he might learn that their calendar might include some bizarre festival at which the entire M’Call clan solemnly dined off roast cloud warrior. If that was what was waiting at the end of the road he preferred not to know about it. Steve contented himself with expressing his appreciation to all the Mutes who helped nurse him back to health and congratulated himself on his luck at being shot down by Cadillac. Apart from being intelligent and good-humoured, he and Mr Snow were insatiably curious. Great. Couldn’t be better. Steve was prepared to assuage their thirst for learning. He would feed them the entire Tracker vocabulary one word at a time, plus everything they wanted to know about the Federation in the minutest detail. And what he didn’t know, he would make up. He would spin out the material by getting them to tell him everything they knew. As long as they felt they were onto a good deal they would keep him alive. After all – who else did they have to talk to?

  In the long periods when he was left alone, Steve dwelt on the possibility of escape. He wondered if the wreckage of his Skyhawk had been abandoned or whether any bits of the airframe or equipment had been kept as trophies. It had not escaped his notice that one of the female lumpheads assigned to bring him food had blue and red electric cable threaded through her plaited hair. Maybe someone had ripped out the radio. Although normally powered by the motor, it carried its own battery pack for use in an emergency. There was also the survival equipment he had been carrying: air pistol, combat knife, map, food concentrates, flares, and a portable pocket-sized emergency radio beacon that enabled the wagon train to home in on a downed wingman. Steve had been stripped of everything except his underpants but he had seen Cadillac wearing the top half of his flight fatigues. The pockets had been empty. That meant the goodies they held were probably stashed away somewhere. If so…

  Steve spent many happy hours devising elaborately detailed escape scenarios – all of which ended in triumph with a suitably thunderous welcome at Grand Central. It was an agreeable fantasy. No Tracker who had fallen into the hands of the Mutes had ever lived to tell the tale. As the days passed and the strength gradually returned to his body, Steve became convinced that he was going to make it. He would be the first. His skill and daring would more t
han make up for his failure to gain top marks and the coveted Minuteman Trophy. His master plan would be back on course.

  Set down outside Cadillac’s hut for the first time in daylight, Steve discovered the source of one of the smells that had plagued him. The decaying heads of two Mute warriors were stuck on six-foot stakes set in the ground on either side of the doorway. Steve studied them with morbid fascination noting the wide, powerful necks and lower jaws, the primitive helmets with their pattern of pierced stones, and the way the point of each stake, roasted iron-hard over a fire, had been hammered through the top of the skulls. Steve looked towards the other huts scattered under the nearby trees and saw that several of them had stakes outside the doors loaded with similar grisly trophies.

  Around noon, Cadillac appeared carrying two freshly-caught salmon trout. He used his flame-pot to kindle a fire, gutted the fish, threaded them on his knifestick and proceeded to roast them over the flames.

  Steve’s sense of smell had, by this time, adjusted itself to accommodate the appetising aroma. His saliva glands began to work overtime. He noticed that Cadillac was wearing his digital watch. A calendar alarm model – strapped upside down on his left wrist. Steve twisted his head round in an effort to read the date, failed, thought about asking for the watch back and decided to wait for a more appropriate moment. He drew Cadillac’s attention to the head impaled on the stake to his right. Shakatak. ‘A friend of yours?’

  Cadillac dropped his eyes onto the roasting fish, turning the knife-stick so that they cooked evenly. ‘He tried to invade our turf.’

  ‘So you killed him?’

  ‘Both of them,’ said Cadillac. It wasn’t strictly true but to tell the whole story would mean explaining Clearwater’s contribution. Mr Snow had told him that the cloud warrior must not learn of her powers or her presence in the settlement.

  ‘And if you kill somebody else, will his head end up on a pole too?’

  ‘It will join these,’ answered Cadillac. He broke up some more branches and fed them into the fire. ‘Each pole holds ten heads. A full head-pole is the sign of a mighty warrior.’

  ‘I see…’ Steve glanced at Shakatak’s sightless head. ‘I guess that means you’ve got some way to go.’

  Cadillac responded with a quiet smile. ‘I am forbidden to run with the Bears. But in their eyes I have standing. I have chewed bone.’

  ‘Chewed bone?’

  ‘Killed in single combat. Taken the head and eaten of the knife arm.’

  Steve felt queasy. ‘Jeez – you mean you ate the arm of this poor sonofabitch?’

  ‘No,’ said Cadillac. ‘Our forefathers did many long years ago. The arm and the leg. Now, Plainfolk custom demands that, on the first kill, a warrior bite the fore part of the arm that wields the sharp iron through to the bone.’

  ‘Columbus…’ Steve shuddered and lapsed into silence.

  When the fish were cooked, Cadillac slid them off his knife-stick onto a flat stone, cut off their heads, wrapped them in large red leaves and handed one to Steve.

  ‘Thanks…’ Steve took it in his left hand and edged his right hand up to help hold it. A sharp stab of pain pierced his torn biceps. He gasped, then inhaled the aroma of the roast trout and forgot about his sore arm and the artless savagery of his companion and concentrated on assuaging his hunger. He brought his lips gingerly onto the fish. It was still too hot to eat. ‘Smells good. Did you catch these?’

  ‘Yes.’ Once again, it was not strictly true. Cadillac had gone fishing with Clearwater and it was she who had gently stroked them into immobility and lifted them triumphantly by the gills from the rock pool.

  Steve gave a quiet laugh. ‘It’s crazy, you know. I’ve seen fish like this in the Federation. Swimming around in pools. But they’re just decoration. No one would think of eating one any more than –,’ he hesitated, ‘– than they’d think of eating someone’s arm.’

  ‘A warrior who chews bone takes the strength of his enemy into his own body.’ Cadillac blew on the charred scales of his fish and bit into the pale steaming flesh.

  Steve replied with a hollow smile. ‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’ He shook his head. ‘I really can’t work you guys out. You go to the trouble of pulling me out of the cornfield, and putting me back in one piece and at the same time, you –,’ he gestured towards Shakatak’s impaled head, ‘– you do this kind of thing and–’

  Cadillac cut in. ‘The sand-burrowers have taken many heads from our Southern brothers.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s true,’ admitted Steve. ‘But it’s not done all the time. It’s a kind of initiation thing for wet-feet, linemen on their first trip – warriors who have not chewed bone – and the only reason it’s done is because you started it.’

  Cadillac nibbled at his trout. ‘Do you not kill?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ replied Steve. ‘We have to. We’re trying to win back what belongs to us. The blue-sky world. But you guys kill each other.’ He gestured at the heads of Shakatak and Torpedo. ‘These fellas are Mutes, like you!’

  Cadillac considered Steve’s words. ‘In our world, all those who are not blood-brothers and blood-sisters of the clan M’Call are rivals. We must defend our turf. The M’Calls are descended from the ninth daughter of Me-Sheegun and the ninth son of She-Kargo. Many of the Plainfolk clans accept our greatness for our seed goes back to the Heroes of the Old Time. But there are those who envy our greatness and wish to take it from us. If we are challenged then we must fight to the death or lose our standing. Without standing we are less than dust.’

  ‘Why? What’s wrong in running away, then sneaking back later and nailing the other guy while he’s asleep?’

  Cadillac did not understand the question. He shrugged. ‘This is not the way of a Warrior. If he is of the She-Kargo, he must follow the path laid down by Mo-Town, our great Mother.’

  That’s your tough luck, thought Steve. ‘And where do we, uhh – “sand-burrowers” – fit into all this?’

  Cadillac eyed him solemnly. ‘You are known by many names. The Beasts from the Bowels of the Earth, the Creatures of the Dark Cities, the Smooth-Skulled Worms that ride in the belly of the Iron Snake, the Death-Bringers, the Slave-Masters, the Evil Ones, the Servants of Pent-Agon, Lord of Chaos and Scourge of the World.’

  Steve did his best to keep a serious face. ‘Fascinating. Back in the Federation we think we are the good guys. You are the ones who brought about the Holocaust that wrecked the blue-sky world.’

  ‘I know nothing about this Holocaust or the blue-sky world of which you speak.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ insisted Steve. He swept an arm across the landscape. ‘This is the blue-sky world! You burned the cities and laid waste the land. That’s what we call the Holocaust. It was you, the Mutes who poisoned the air and drove us to take shelter within the earth-shield!’

  ‘No, you are wrong,’ said Cadillac. ‘It was Pent-Agon who unleashed the War of a Thousand Suns through you, his servants. That war destroyed the Earth and almost every living thing upon it. We, the She-Kargo and our soul-brothers and sisters now known as the Plainfolk, were spared. We were chosen by Mo-Town to grow strong in body and great in number, to guard the Earth until the coming of Talisman.’

  ‘Look,’ reasoned Steve, ‘we both can’t be right. I know what happened. It’s all recorded in our archives. What proof have you got that what you say is the truth?’

  ‘The proof is on the tongues of our wordsmiths. The history of the clan M’Call is sealed forever in the fire songs of our people.’

  Steve laughed. ‘I don’t believe it. I don’t care if Mr Snow is the greatest wordsmith of all time. Nobody can remember everything that’s happened in the last nine hundred years! It’s impossible. The Amtrak Federation deals in facts – billions of bits of verifiable data stored on silicon chips – not a collection of stories made up out of a mish-mash of old folks memories.’

  ‘You use many strange words,’ said Cadillac, ‘but my mind begins to grasp their meaning. Because o
f the war, many of our people are born without pockets in their heads. Their minds cannot hold the past or the knowledge needed for the high crafts but to some, whom we call wordsmiths, Mo-Town gave the power of a hundred minds and a thousand tongues.’ Cadillac squared his shoulders and lifted his chin proudly. ‘I too have been given this power. I know of the valiant deeds of the M’Calls, the history of the Plainfolk from their beginnings, and the workings of the world. I have learned these things from Mr Snow who speaks with the Sky Voices. You say you have this Columbus – a thing made with the High Craft which hold the past of your people–’

  ‘Yes, computer archives,’ interjected Steve.

  ‘The words have a dead sound,’ said Cadillac. ‘No matter. If you remember nothing how can you be sure of what these – computer archives – tell you?’

  ‘That’s easy,’ replied Steve. ‘Computers like Columbus don’t forget, and they don’t make things up. A computer is a machine–’ Steve paused. ‘You know what a machine is?’

  Cadillac shook his head.

  Steve searched their surroundings for something which might explain the concept. He pointed at Cadillac’s crossbow. ‘You see that? That’s a machine. It throws bolts. You could use your hand and arm to throw a bolt but the crossbow throws it further and faster. That’s why we build machines. To do things better and faster than people can do them. Computers are machines that think. Mechanical brains that store information. “Mechanical” means machine-like. You feed in the facts and they remember them. They also do all kinds of other things which you wouldn’t understand.’