Three
The flight from Pueblo to Santa Fe – a distance of just under two hundred miles – was accomplised without incident and a minimum of dialogue with the rest of the formation. Wyman, the Red Riverman who was flight leader, radioed once to announce that they were crossing the state line dividing Colorado from New Mexico. Steve glanced down but, from three thousand feet, could see nothing of particular interest.
The point to which they were heading – the Roosevelt/Santa Fe interface – was situated approximately halfway between the pre-Holocaust centre of that name and Albuquerque, another sixty miles further south. The actual base, housing a ten thousand strong division of Trackers, lay buried deep within the earthshield. Level One – which was regarded as the ground floor – was over fifteen hundred feet below the surface. Each level was a horizontal slice of space one hundred and fifty feet thick, subdivided into ten floors, or galleries numbered 1-10 from the bottom up. Thus One-I was street level, and Ten-10 was the ramp access floor; the interface with the overground. Tracker bases did not always contain all ten levels. Many of the smaller subdivisions were built on Levels One to Four – known as the Quad. Below Level One were other layers known as the A-Levels containing heat pumps, ventilation units, bio-processing and plant nutrient tanks, garbage disposal and sewage lines. Labelled from the top down in alphabetical order, these were the exclusive province of Service Engineering and Maintainance – Seamsters. Steve had never made a serious effort to find out how far down they extended. Graduates from the top combat academies and other Federation high-flyers regarded the A-Levels as the absolute pits – hence the perjorative term ‘Zed-heads’.
As was customary, the base had been assigned the name of the nearest important pre-Holocaust centre as its overground marker, in this case that of the ancient state capital of New Mexico. Perched five thousand feet up on the high ground east of the Rio Grande, the original Santa Fe was now nothing more than an untidy maze of low, jagged, broken walls overshadowed by a profusion of red bushes and trees. Here and there, where fragments of decaying façades rose ten, sometimes twenty feet into the air, a frameless window gaped hollowly, like the eyeless socket in a shattered, sun-bleached skull. Albuquerque, like so many of the larger urban centres, had suffered a more violent fate. The sprawling site it had once occupied was now cratered like the surface of the moon. The act of obliteration had altered the course of the Rio Grande, which now flowed sideways into a chain of circular lakes before emptying back into the snaking riverbed that ran southwards to the sea.
Despite the fact that he had flown patrols from The Lady for three months before being shot down, Steve had never seen the Roosevelt/Sante Fe interface from the air. As they approached, it gave him a curious feeling. Roosevelt Field – to quote its official designation – was not only the nearest shuttle stop to Pueblo; it also happened to be Steve’s home base and with which he was permanently identified by his middle, divisional name. It was here that he and his younger kin-sister Roz had been reared by his guardians, Jack and Annie Brickman.
Following the usual practice, his given name – Steven – was the name of one of their own guard-fathers – in this case, Annie’s. Roz had been named after Jack’s guard-mother. Annie had been reared at Nixon/Fort Worth. Before pairing off with Jack, her kin-folk name had been Bradlee. The Bradlees were well connected – what was known as ‘being wired in’ – and several, like Annie’s kin-brother Bart, who was State Provost-Marshal for New Mexico, had won promotion to similar positions of power.
Brickman was a less illustrious kin-folk name but both could be traced back through the generations to the Four Hundred; the very first Trackers who, under the leadership of the First Family, had formed the nucleus of the Federation and whose names were now enshrined on the Roll of Honour. The list had, in fact, originally contained five hundred and eighteen names but, like so much of the Federation’s history, such minor details had been glossed over in order not to mar the general presentation. Just as the Old America of the pre-Holocaust era had been created by a group of pioneers known as the First Four Hundred, so would the descendants of the second Four Hundred build the New.
Just before they banked eastwards, Steve took a last look at the chain of circular lakes occupying the point on his map labelled Albuquerque. The sight caused him to reflect on what Mr Snow had told him about the War of a Thousand Suns. What he had learned had shaken his previous unquestioning belief in the Federation’s account of the Holocaust. How could the Mutes who, despite their mysterious powers, were at best untutored savages with a primitive lifestyle, have wrought such changes in the earth? Where could they have gotten such destructive power? Steve was becoming increasingly convinced that the War of a Thousand Suns and the Holocaust were two irreconcilable interpretations of the same event. If so, what had really happened? And who was to blame?
Lundkwist’s voice interrupted his train of thought. ‘Gonna have to black you out. We’ll be landing in a few minutes.’ She banked the Skyrider over to port and began to lose altitude. As they dropped down towards the final approach and landing, Steve drank in one last deep draft of the overground through his eyes, drawing its image hungrily down into his memory like a defaulter gulping in his last breath as he stands against the wall. Below, the great sweep of the earth, its hills and hollows, peaks and plains filled with vivid colour; countless shades of red, orange, yellow and brown, overlaid by a changing cloud-cast pattern of sunlight and shadow; above, the glorious blue vastness that stretched away unseen beyond the curtain of haze that veiled the outline of the distant mountains.
Lundkwist picked up the hood. ‘Okay, lean your head over this way…’ Their eyes met. ‘Good luck, Brickman. Hope we meet again sometime in, uh – more promising circumstances.’
‘We will,’ said Steve – and was plunged into darkness.
The Santa Fe interface was a whopping great flat-topped slab of concrete similar in its general appearance to the bunker at Pueblo. The main difference was the 150 yard concrete landing strip that had been laid down alongside. Lundkwist put the plump-bodied Sky-Rider down on the white centre-line. Wyman, and the two other Red Rivermen touched down a fraction of a second later to make a perfect formation landing. Rolling forward, Lundkwist saw several work-parties of Mutes alongside the strip, toiling under the guns of masked helmeted Trackers. One of the guards waved to them as they went by. The Mutes, the nearest of whom looked ragged, grubby and unkempt and who all wore knee and wrist shackles, appeared to be involved in extending both the width and the length of the landing strip. Lundkwist wondered why. Depending how they were loaded, the take-off run of a Skyhawk was between fifty and seventy-five yards and it could land in less than half that distance. Was the First Family paving the way for an even bigger and more powerful machine than the new Mark Two?
Shepherded by the three Skyhawks, Lundkwist made a right-angled turn off the strip onto the fan-shaped area that sloped down to the ramp access doors. At Lindbergh Field, the site of the underground Flight Academy in southeastern New Mexico, the interface had four such ramps, arranged in the form of a huge cross. Here, as there, the ramp was bordered by converging walls that increased in height as they ran in towards the massive reinforced concrete doors, cutting her view of the overground down to a wedge-shaped slab of sky.
Although Steve could see nothing, he sensed the walls hemming him in; could feel the deadening weight of the huge doors that were about to engulf them. Once again, as on his first solo, he was swept by a wave of apprehension but this time, he was firmly in control; there was no panic. The two days and three nights he had spent inside the Pueblo way-station had helped him begin what was clearly going to be a long and difficult readjustment. The first few hours of his solitary confinement in the cell block had been unbearably oppressive. He’d felt as if he was about to suffocate but, somehow, he had managed to talk himself through the worst moments. After a while he had been able to isolate himself mentally from his surroundings. Squatting cross-legged in the ma
nner of his Mute captors, Steve had sought the calmness he had observed in Mr Snow and Cadillac, his principal guardians and guides to the ways of the Plainfolk. Gradually, his thoughts had turned inwards, dwelling first on the Talisman Prophecy that had been revealed to him by Mr Snow, and then on his possible role in the events it foretold. His life had been spared because his captors believed he had been chosen to play an important part in the future of the Plainfolk. But they had not told him whether it would be as their friend or their enemy…
The bond of friendship and understanding he had forged with Mr Snow and Cadillac, the two wordsmiths, still held; his feelings for Clearwater would, he was sure, never alter. But even with her image burning bright in his mind, older, deep-rooted emotions had begun to stir. His flight in the Skyrider, the sight of the sleek new Skyhawks had reawakened his fascination with hardware; the instruments of war. This was where the real power lay – in the technological superiority of the Federation. He could not ignore the forces Mr Snow had unleashed upon The Lady from Louisiana. Forces that had almost wrecked the wagon-train and which he himself had seen Clearwater summon inexplicably out of thin air. But had not the old wordsmith confessed that a single bullet from a Skyhawk had almost killed him before the clan’s attack on the wagon-train had gotten underway?
As they sat waiting for the concrete curtain in front of them to rise on its battery of huge hydraulic rams, each as thick as a man’s body, the thought now uppermost in Steve’s mind was to get through the inevitable interrogation as quickly and cleanly as possible and be reassigned to overground duty aboard The Lady. He did not yet know how he would react if he were sent into action against the Plainfolk clan who had held him prisoner but it was not something that Steve saw any need to lose sleep over. The dilemma, insofar as one existed, would eventually be resolved, as always, to his best advantage…
With the inner ramp door closed safely behind them, the Red Rivermen deplaned and while Wyman logged their arrival with the ramp control office, Lundkwist, Minelli and Reardon hauled Steve out of the Skyrider and checked he was still securely hooded and chained. Lundkwist saw a group of six Deputy Provost-Marshals walking towards them from the far end of the ramp access bay. They wore the usual dark blue jump-suits and white helmets similar to a wingman’s bone-dome but the visor – of mirrored silver – had a curved bottom edge like a pair of sunglasses. The helmets had ‘PM’ painted on the front in big red letters and a band of the same colour going right around it. This white-red-white sandwich had led to a Deputy Provo being known as a ‘meat-loaf; a derisive title bestowed by certain groups of Trackers who, despite the constant exhortations, were less responsive to the laws of the Federation than they might be.
Emerging from the ramp control office, Wyman hurried over to where Lundkwist and the others were waiting with Steve. ‘Good news, guys, they’re rustling up a cup of java for us in the ramp control office. I’ve been in touch with Big Red One. We’ve got permission to cancel out for an hour before the return trip.’
‘Great,’ chorussed, Lundkwist, Reardon and Minelli.
‘Okay, this way, mister.’ Steve felt two people take hold of his arms and march him forward. He knew Lundkwist was on his left from the supportive squeeze she gave him.
Rick Wyman led the way towards the DPs, handed over the hooded defaulter with the minimum of ceremony then turned his back and walked away, followed by the other Red Rivermen. Nobody looked back in case the gesture was misinterpreted. Provos were bad news.
Steve felt the sudden hostile atmosphere just as surely as he had felt the enveloping concrete. Bodies closed in on either side and behind him. Someone kicked at his heels, forcing him to almost lose his balance. Several hands slammed into him, pushing him back upright and he was simultaneously assaulted by a chorus of hard-edged voices.
‘Stand up straight, you cee-bee bastard!’
‘What are you – a sack of lumpshit?!’
‘Beaver-lickin’ Mute-sucker!’
‘Get your gammy ass into gear!’
‘Okay, move it!’ He was seized roughly by both arms. The tip of a Provost rubber truncheon was rammed sharply into the base of his spine just above his ass sending a sickening wave of pain flooding through his back. Steve stumbled forwards.
‘Pick it up, pick it up!’ yelled a harsh voice. ‘Head up, get those shoulders back!’ The jabbing tip of the truncheon began to beat time on his kidneys. ‘Left-right-left-right-left-right-left!’
When the hood was pulled off, Steve was still standing, but only just. His back was on fire and his thighs felt rubbery. He looked over his shoulder and saw the door closing behind him. Glancing down, Steve saw that an additional chain had been looped over the one linking his knee shackles. He was now padlocked to an anchor point in the floor of a small office, facing an empty desk with a swivel chair behind it. Apart from the usual ventilation grilles, the fawn-coloured walls were completely bare. There was nothing to indicate where he was or what the function of the room might be. His ears and stomach told him he had come a long way down in an elevator and then been hustled on board a wheelie. He had recognised the characteristic whine of its electric motor. Near the end of the trip he had felt the wheelie tip forward and run down a slope. The only one he knew of at Roosevelt Field was the freight ramp coming up out of the Trans-Am station under New Deal Plaza. Since he was due to ride the shuttle from there to Grand Central, it seemed the most logical place to have taken him to.
The door opened and closed. Someone paused behind him, placed a hand briefly on his shoulder then walked past and went behind the desk. Steve took one look at him and closed his eyes with a feeling of relief. It was Bart Bradlee, State Provost-Marshal of New Mexico, dressed in his spotless white uniform – the antithesis of Steve’s black cee-bee fatigues – decked out with gold braid and dark blue rank insignia. Good old Uncle Bart. Twenty-nine years old, his close-cropped hair already going grey. Not a soft, or lenient man, and certainly not a barrel of laughs. No… Bart was a hard, humourless, gold-braided piece of lumpshit who did everything by The Book.
But he was still kin.
Bart laid his plaited, leather-covered swagger stick on the desk, made sure it was parallel with the edge, then laid down his white stetson in front of it with the badge facing him. ‘How do you feel, boy?’ Bart’s eyes were fixed on the stetson, making sure that its fore and aft axis was at right-angles to the swagger stick.
‘A lot better for seeing you, sir.’
Bart looked up and eyed him severely. He was obviously upset by Steve’s dishevelled shoulder-length hair. ‘Wish I could say the same…’
Steve gave it the old ‘down-home’ touch. ‘I’m not a cee-bee, sir. I keep telling people that, but no one seems to want to listen and I can’t figure out why. I mean, you know me better than that! The way Annie raised me and all! What the heck! I think too much of my kin-folk to ever turn renegade.’
Bart nodded but looked unconvinced. ‘The report says you were taken prisoner. Five months… that’s a long time to be in the hands of those animals, boy.’ Bart came out from behind the desk and circled Steve slowly, his hands clasped behind his back.
Steve held his head up high, braced his aching back, and hoped that Uncle Bart wasn’t going to lay into him. What with the pudgy-faced lieutenant at Pueblo, and the Deputy Provos, there weren’t many parts of his body left to bruise.
‘Time for them to raise up a lot of bad thoughts inside you. The kind of thoughts that mixes a man up so that, pretty soon, he doesn’t know right from wrong.’ Bart paused and brought his mouth close to Steve’s ear. ‘You know what The Book says about the Mutes, boy?’
‘Yes, sir! They are creatures of darkness–’
‘That’s right. Creatures of darkness… that can poison your body and infect your mind. Not my words, Stevie. Those words are from the lips of the First Family – whose wisdom has protected us down the ages.’ Bart circled round in front of him, his piercing, pale blue eyes fixed on Steve’s face. ‘Have they poiso
ned your body, Stevie?’
Steve tried to keep his eyes focused on an imaginary point behind the State Provost-Marshal’s head. ‘I don’t think so, sir. The surgeon-captain at Pueblo examined me. I don’t know what he found but I, uh – feel pretty good.’
Bart didn’t seem to be listening. He moved to Steve’s left and again brought his mouth close to his ear. ‘Have they infected your mind?’
‘No sir!’ There’s no way they could ever do that, I swear! The whole time I was out there my mind was busy with one thing, and one thing only – and that was figuring out ways to get back here where I belong!’
As Steve spoke, Bart moved behind him and stopped once again, this time behind his right shoulder. Steve shot a quick glance in that direction and found the Provost-Marshal’s face about an inch from his own, chin thrust forward, teeth clenched and bared, eyes open so wide there was white all around the pupils. Steve whipped his head to the front and stared hard at the fawn-coloured wall. In the past, in their more private moments, he and his kin-sister Roz had viewed Bart’s fanatical loyalty and his pious mouthings from the Manual with amused irreverence. But now, as he stood there chained to the floor, Steve was suddenly struck by the realisation that good old Uncle Bart had popped his rivets; jumped the buffers; had flipped his trolley. Christopher Columbus! A crazy State Provost-Marshal… the head of law enforcement for the whole of New Mexico, with the power to arrest, imprison, interrogate, pass sentence – even send people to the wall! Steve found himself trembling at the thought. It was frightening. But what was even more frightening was the fact that he suddenly felt an equally crazy desire to burst out laughing.
Bart emerged from behind Steve’s shoulder, leant back against the front edge of the desk with folded arms, and ran his eyes over Steve from the feet up. Steve’s face muscles ached but, somehow, he managed to keep a straight face.
First Family Page 6
