Coral nodded ruefully. "Voice-activated bomb, coded to your voice only," she said. "Sir, I failed you. I did not anticipate that."
"Fortunately Hopie did," I said, putting my arm around my daughter's heaving shoulders. I squeezed her. "I think you saved my life, cutesy."
"Oh, Daddy," she said, sobbing and turning into me.
In due course Mrs. Burton rigged another mike, one not booby-trapped, and I gave my address from the shambled chamber. I kept Hopie with me, holding her left hand with my right. "Someone tried to assassinate me," I told my audience firmly. "Don't worry; it wasn't anyone from Phis. My daughter anticipated it and saved my life; but for her I would have had trouble addressing you now. I think she deserves to participate." And I lifted her hand in a kind of victory gesture.
The crowd cheered so hard that the train vibrated, and Hopie blushed. No one had ever cheered her before.
My first presidential campaign address was a great success.
Chapter 16 — VISION
We moved back out on the track, resuming our scheduled route. Our group was somewhat sobered, for that last trap had been a close thing. No one had thought to check the public address system for bombs; Mrs. Burton had tested it routinely and found it in good working order, so had let it be. I could not blame either her or Coral for the oversight; it had been a fiendishly subtle trap. The explosive had been plastic, not registering on the metal detector, and the current that detonated it had been part of the regular mike system. Only if someone had delved into the console would the explosive have been evident, and since there had been no malfunction, there had been no reason to do that. But both Coral and Mrs. Burton blamed themselves.
Megan, distraught, refused to take any more tranquilizers. "If you are in danger, Hope," she said nervously, "I don't want to ignore it, when perhaps I could do something—"
Here she broke down, and I could not completely comfort her. I saw that I was inadvertently leading her into a life that was not to her liking. She had retired from the stress of politics and now was back in it—with the added element of personal, physical danger. This campaign had become akin to a military operation; it was too much for her.
"If my campaign hurts you I will give it up," I told her. Indeed, my love for her was such that this was true. I had started to tune out my daughter in the press of preparations; I did not want to do worse to my wife.
She patted my hand. "No, Hope. You must follow your destiny. You are of sterner stuff than I. It is not my prerogative to interfere."
That was the way it stood. She was afraid for me, desperately so, and this fear was taking its toll on her, but she would not let me deviate from my chosen course. She was a great woman, and it showed in ways like this.
Coral and Mrs. Burton restricted me to the "safe" sections of the train while they checked out everything else they could think of, armed with electronic detectors and recordings of my voice. I doubted they would find anything; three traps seemed to be enough. But during those long hours we had to have a distraction, as much for Megan's and Hopie's benefit as mine, so we played cards. There were all manner of computerized games available, of course, but none of us had any present taste for these. They had been checked safe, but it was too easy to imagine a unit blowing up when a certain configuration was achieved, such as the code word Hubris. And, despite all the advances in game-craft, the old-fashioned physical cards still represented an excellent all-around repertoire of diversion. We taught Hopie how to play partnership canasta, and she and I tromped Megan and Spirit. But after a few hours the adults tired of this, leaving only Hopie and me. Shelia and Ebony were busy assisting in the booby-trap search, so we could draft no further foursome. We played Old Maid, War, and Concentration, but even these palled in time, perhaps because Hopie, with the wit and luck of the young, kept beating me. In the afternoon we were at the point of staring out into the Jupiter atmosphere, watching the cloud formations just above us, as they were augmented by the drifting column of train smoke. We fancied we saw shapes and pictures there—goblin heads, potatoes, dragons' tails, and such. Imagination is wonderful stuff, and Hopie's was akin to mine.
Then Casey passed through. "Them dames is tearing up the whole damn train," he grumbled.
"Women are like that," I agreed, skillfully moving my leg before Hopie could kick it. She identified with women the moment they were criticized. "Happens every spring and sometimes in the fall. Are you off-duty now? Sit down and watch clouds with us."
"Don't mind if I do," he agreed, taking a seat. "But why watch clouds when you can see the real scenery going by?"
"Real scenery?" Hopie asked alertly.
"Sure. See, we're passing through Centennial now, near the great Continental Divide. We been rising for hours, having to make the grade, so's to get over the Rockies."
Hopie exchanged a glance with me. "The rocks?" she asked.
"The Rockies. The Rocky Mountains, greatest range of the west. Got fourteen-thousand-foot peaks hereabouts—quite a change from them flat marshes down in your country. Headwaters of the Rio Grande and the Arkansas and the Colorado Rivers are hereabout, girl; you know the Colorado, don't you? Ever see the Grand Canyon?"
"I..." Hopie said hesitantly. "Uh, not yet."
"Well, you won't see it this time, neither; we're too far north. But they're sights enough on this track. You like mountains—well, look at 'em! Fir trees thick like a carpet right up to the snowline."
We looked where he pointed, and as I concentrated on the jagged fringe of a cloud formation, color developed, and the white became snow, the gray was rock, and below was the green line of fir trees.
"You can still see the old molybdenum mine, there by the cattle herd; it's reclaimed land now, converted to pasture."
"Brown cows," Hopie said. "With white faces."
I saw them now, grazing on the slope near the railroad tracks that wound up and up, tracks that were striving to cross the high ridge of the Divide: the place where one drop of water flows forever east, the other west.
"Oh, see the flowers!" Hopie exclaimed. "Pretty yellow—"
"Yeah, they got golden pea here, Indian paintbrush—wild flowers galore, in summer. We'll be passing nigh Enver real soon now; see, we're crossing the South Platte River now; got to follow the river channels to find the best passes."
Indeed, I saw the river now; the tracks paralleled it for a while, then crossed on a trestle bridge, winding on into the mountain range. I saw the old Earth that Casey described; I had, in fact, slipped into a vision.
"I wish I could get out and splash in that water!" Hopie exclaimed.
"Naw—it's ice-cold, even in summer," Casey said knowledgeably.
I realized that Hopie was seeing the same scenery I was, guided by Casey's nostalgic description. She was sharing my vision. Did that mean that she truly had the same capacity I did? How gratifying that would be!
Hopie peered ahead. "Those mountains look awful tall," she said. "Can we really get over them?"
"Don't have to," Casey said grandly. "Got us a bridge—and a tunnel."
"A bridge and tunnel?" she asked.
"There's a chasm just before the face of the last peak," he explained. "Train has to go level, or at least stay within a three percent grade. Can't yo-yo up and down the jagged edges. So the track bridges across the valley and bores right through the peak. You'll see."
And we did see. The train rounded a turn, and there before us was a phenomenal cleft of a valley, dropping away from the mountain we were on, and the much higher mountain beyond. The tracks were mounted on a bridge that seemed to have no support; it was, in fact, a "hanging bridge" anchored in the rock at either side, and it looked precarious. Beyond it was the mouth of the tunnel through the mountain, seeming too small to hold the train, but, of course, that was just perspective.
We moved out on the bridge. Hopie peered down, made a little moan, and grabbed my hand tightly. Indeed, as the ground dropped precipitously away from us, it seemed we were flying. We fea
red the weight of the train would snap the cords of the bridge and send us hurtling to doom below. But the bridge held, and soon we were steaming into the tunnel, which expanded to take us in.
Inside, lights showed not the smooth, rounded walls I had anticipated, but rough-hewn rock—what remained after the tunnel had been irregularly blasted from the layers of the mountain. It was, in fact, a cave—a man-made cave without stalactites, crudely rounded at top and sides, just wide enough for the train. It seemed delightfully interminable, the spaced lights going by in blurs of brilliance. I was fascinated, and so was Hopie, who continued to squeeze my hand tightly. "I hope we don't run out of steam here," she whispered.
At last we shot out into the light again, and into a wooden tunnel. The beams rose vertically above the height of the train, then across the top, braced by substantial corner boards set at a forty-five-degree angle. "What—" Hopie asked, startled.
"Protective snowshed," Casey explained nonchalantly. "Set up where the drifts get bad. Without those, the trains could not move in winter, 'cause the pile-up gets too heavy for the snowplows."
"Gee..." Hopie said, staring raptly out.
We chugged on across the state line into Equality, seeing the sheep grazing the slopes. "You can still see some of the old ruts where the wagons of the Oregon trail passed," Casey said. It was evident that he knew every bit of scenery along this track. "Further along we'll see Grant Teton National Park, about as pretty a spot as exists, and then Yellowstone. You ever see a geyser, girl?"
"Daddy, can we stop and see a geyser?" she demanded immediately of me. She was really excited.
I was about to answer when Shelia rolled up. The vision extended only to the exterior view; inside remained mundane. "Train approaching, boss," she said.
"Passing from the other direction? We've seen those before."
"Overtaking us from behind," she said grimly.
"Hey, there's no train scheduled now," Casey said.
"We know," she said. "That's why we're suspicious."
"Notify Coral," I said. Then, to Casey: "Can this train take evasive action?"
"She can leave the tracks, sure," he said. "But she's liable to get lost if she does. If that other train means trouble, she can follow us, anyway."
"Can we outrun her?"
"We're already doing max; the Spirit's a tourist train, not a racer. That other's got a heavier engine or a lighter load, or she wouldn't be overhauling us. You figure trouble?"
"It's a distinct possibility," I said. "Our enemy knew he had failed to kill me when the Phis blast missed me. It seems logical that he would try something more direct."
"I never heard of no train robbery from another train," he said, scratching his head. "Usually it's horse-mounted men who board and—"
"My enemy didn't happen to have any horses handy in this area," I said, smiling briefly. "It must have been easier to rent a spare train in Yenne, hustle some thugs aboard with their weapons, and take out after us in this isolated stretch where help will be slow arriving. It may be a jury-rigged effort, but we can be sure they believe they can do the job. Let's assume the worst and plan our defense accordingly. Suppose we turn up the gee-shields and rise quickly?"
"They can do the same," he said. "Can't get away that way."
"Suppose we drop lower?"
He shook his head. "I wouldn't, sir. We're at five bars now; this old train was built to take as high as eight, but I wouldn't trust her beyond seven now, and I'd feel nervous much beyond six. You'd be asking for implosion."
"So we could escape then but die in the process?"
"Yes, sir."
"I regret getting you folk of the train crew into this," I said.
"Just you figure out how to get us out of it!"
I held a quick council of war with Spirit and Coral. Spirit and I had both had battle training and experience in the Navy, and Coral was generally knowledgeable about in-close violence. Together we decided on our strategy for defense. We knew we didn't have much time, but we thought we could manage it.
There was a lot of work for Mrs. Burton to do in a hurry. First she had to go over the nether restaurant of the dining car, borrowing the train's supply of emergency sealant to shore up the car's interior doors, rendering it into a kind of space capsule. Then she rigged a temporary remote control system for the engine; it was crude, but it would enable a person inside the restaurant to trigger an unusual event. Then she went to the engine to set up that event, while the rest of us retreated to the restaurant. The windows were limited here, but we had an in-train video system that enabled us to view the rest of it or to peer out the dome windows of the restaurant above. We were all there, with the remaining personnel of the train, united by the common threat.
Hopie and Casey and I peered back, and now as the track curved we saw the pursuing train, steaming up the grade, definitely closing on us. "We'll pick up speed as we start down the other side of the Divide," Casey said. "But so will she. The grade don't make no difference for this. She'll catch us, sure."
"Grade?" Shelia asked.
Hopie glanced at me and winked. "Come here, Shel," she said. "Look out the window. See the mountains out there? The snow? We're crossing the Great Divide, and it's been an awful climb, but now we're almost at the top, about to start down the other side. We old railroad hands call the slope the grade."
"Oh," Shelia said, nonplussed. It was evident that she did not see the mountains or the snow outside.
Casey smiled. "Most folks are mundane," he murmured. "That's their curse. They don't even know what they're missing. You and your little girl're the first real folk I've met in a long time, Gov'nor."
"We're very rare species," I agreed.
"She sure favors you. I'd a known she was your kid right away, even if you hid her in a crowd. Bloodlines run true."
"That must be so," I agreed. I decided it would not be politic to inform him that Hopie was adopted.
The enemy train heaved within a train length of us. "Mrs. Burton," I said into the com, "is it ready yet?"
"Not yet, boss," she replied, sounding harried. "This monster's safety-cocked every which way, and I don't have the tools for a simple bypass. It'll be chancy."
"Do what you can. How much time do you need?"
"A good half-hour yet, boss, and then it's not sure."
"Very well. We'll try to get you that half-hour. Engineer?"
"Sir?" the other engineer responded. His name, naturally, was Jones.
"Start putting out that smoke—all you have left—in the next half-hour."
"Gotcha, sir," he agreed. Mrs. Burton had explained the reason to him.
We peered forward and watched the smoke. It started pouring out thickly, the volume seeming much greater than before. Because it was merely a coloring agent it could be intensified at will, but there was only so much color available. Jones was now dumping it in, expending the trip's supply in a short time. The cloud of smoke thinned as it carried to the rear but was now so thick at the start that this merely expanded it. Soon it was larger than the train, drifting just above us and slightly to the side.
"Okay, Casey," I said. "Put us in it."
Casey got on the com. "Okay, mate; damp her down and up the nulls; guide her in steady."
"I wisht someone was watching this," Jones muttered back.
"Someone is," I pointed out. "The enemy train."
"Hang on," Casey said. "Reality's 'bout to take a beating."
Hopie and I smiled and took firm hold on the anchored furniture, as did the others in the chamber.
The big propulsion-wheel fans damped down. The train slowed immediately and began to fall, as it depended on forward velocity to maintain its elevation. Then the gee-shields increased their effect, and we lost weight. Soon we were in free-fall, dead in the atmosphere and moving up toward our own voluminous cloud of smoke. It was a perfectly simple maneuver in the atmosphere of Jupiter, but to those of us who were watching it through the vision of old Earth, it was fanta
stic.
First our train slowed on the track, and the enemy train overhauled us rapidly. Then, just as the other was drawing up beside us, its passenger cars illuminated from inside so that we could see the armed men peering out at us, aiming their lasers, we left the track and floated into the sky. Hopie gave a little sigh of amazement, locked into the vision, and I was startled myself though I had known exactly what to expect. As it was, one laser beam angled in through the window, but after passing through the thick, glassy panes of each car, it lacked its originally punishing force. Glass may pass a laser beam through, but it tends to diffuse and deregister it, causing it to become more like ordinary light. Which is not to say a person can't be hurt by a laser through a window, just that he will be hurt less.
We left the other train below. We maneuvered on the small wheel fans of the cars, angling them down to provide propulsion. Slowly we ascended into our great cloud of smoke. I took a last look at the snowy mountains beneath, bidding adieu to the remnant of my vision. I saw the enemy train blundering on ahead, caught by surprise by our maneuver. It had no special equipment, such as a flatcar-mounted cannon, fortunately. Such weapons existed, and they could be devastating, but they were hardly available to illicit assassination squads on short notice in the outlying districts. So this enemy could not simply blast us out of the atmosphere, and, in fact, could not fire any solid projectile at us, because any attempt to do so through the windows would cause the cars of that train to leak and perhaps implode. The men inside were confined to lasers which, as we had seen, were relatively ineffective in this situation.
Then the cloud enveloped us, and darkness reigned outside. We had disappeared into our smoke.
"We got away from them!" Hopie exclaimed happily.
"Not exactly," I said. "We have smoke for only half an hour, and when it dissipates, we'll still be out here, and so will they."
"What will they do then?" she asked, worried.
"They'll board us. We're like spaceships; the locks can be mated and used anytime the pressure is equal on both sides."
Anthony, Piers - Tyrant 3 - Politician Page 30
