Iron master, p.33
Iron Master, page 33
‘You have my word on that.’ Steve thrust out his hand but she didn’t take it.
‘I gotta go,’ said Jodi. ‘There’s a couple of the guys over there who’ve had their eye on us. Wouldn’t want them to get the wrong idea.’
Steve stood up and backed off. ‘Sure… I understand. One last thing. If you’re still not sure about me, deep down, why get involved? Why don’t you just turn me in?’
Jodi shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s because guys who break the rules are more exciting to be with.’ She gave a dry laugh. ‘Crazy, isn’t it? If I wasn’t any use to you, you wouldn’t give me the time of day. Especially now I’ve only got half a face.’
That’s not true,’ hissed Steve. ‘I told you way back. I care what happens to you.’
Jodi treated him to a penetrating, sideways glance and laughed again. ‘You wanna know something, Brickman? Not that it makes any difference but – l don’t think you’ve ever really cared about anybody in your whole life.’
Steve watched her walk away. His chest felt like an empty, frozen cave. She’s wrong! he told himself. He recalled what Donna Monroe Lundkwist had said to him when they’d put the bomb in the barrel after the passing-out parade. Donna, his classmate and rival at the Air Force Academy, who had asked him to kill her as she lay paralysed by a crossbow bolt buried in her spine. She had been wrong about him too. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t!
And it was not female vanity that caused Jodi to remark upon her disfigurement; she no longer felt whole. The ideal of unblemished physical fitness was inculcated in Trackers from day one. They might vary in size, build and appearance but, seen en masse, they all looked as if they’d come off the same production line. There were no dwarfs or beanpoles. Everybody was strong, healthy, clear-eyed and well proportioned. Heroes like Poppa Jack, Steve’s guard-father, dying gracefully from the inside out from radiation-induced cancer, were paraded in their wheelchairs, but permanent invalidity did not exist. No malformed or brain-damaged infants ever emerged from the delivery rooms of the Life Institute, and it was an accepted fact that Trackers who had the misfortune to be severely disabled or disfigured through an underground accident or while on overground operations never recovered from surgery.
*
The proposal to power the flying-horses using rockets was conveyed to Min-Orota through the usual intermediaries. Two days later, Cadillac received a secret summons to appear before the domain-lord. This was their fifth meeting and, as before, he was conveyed in a sealed carriage-box to the palace at Ba-satana then conducted via the back stairs into a small chamber reserved for private audiences.
From the knowledge he had gained by tapping into the Iron Masters’ psyches, Cadillac knew their relationship was without precedent – and unlikely to be repeated. Face-to-face meetings between slaves and domain-lords were just not possible, and these covert assignations had proved to be the most convenient way of circumventing the restrictive protocols. To Cadillac, the fact that Min-Orota had gone to such lengths was a sign of the esteem in which he was held. His desire for ‘standing’ was so overwhelming, it never occurred to him that this esteem had a built-in time limit and had only been accorded for tactical reasons.
Seated between two of his closest advisers, Min-Orota – who had a good grasp of Basic – listened intently as Cadillac explained his plans with the aid of detailed sketches which Steve had helped him prepare. He then waited with bowed head while the domain-lord discussed the proposal with his advisers in Japanese – unaware that Cadillac had been quietly absorbing the language since his arrival in Ne-Issan and could understand everything they were saying.
When the three Iron Masters had concluded their deliberations, one of the advisers informed ‘Brickman’ that his proposal had been accepted. The necessary authorisations would be issued and the materials he required would be delivered to the Heron Pool. It was, said the adviser, Lord Min-Orota’s desire that he commence work without delay.
Bowing low, Cadillac humbly expressed his deep gratitude – and silently blessed Mo-Town, the Great Sky-Mother.
*
As soon as the materials arrived, Cadillac and Steve set to work with the help of six Trackers who had been assigned to what had been grandly called the ‘power unit’. Cadillac had chosen the candidates personally, unaware that Steve had made sure Jodi and Kelso were among those selected. He’d done this by priming Jodi with the basic facts of solid rocketry, and had told her to share the data with Kelso. So when Cadillac lined up his workforce and asked if anyone knew anything about rocket propulsion systems, they were able to raise their arms and step forward with confidence.
And whenever they ran into a problem that couldn’t be solved on the spot, Steve promised to think about it overnight. The next morning, he always had the answer. Cadillac, who was able to absorb this new information as fast as Steve acquired it, couldn’t figure out how Steve always managed to keep one step ahead.
The reasons were complex but the answer was simple. Cadillac was only able to gain access to certain parts of Steve’s brain; he could not read his mind. As with the Iron Masters, the areas he could tap into were concerned with acquired knowledge: specialist education and training, language skills, behavioural patterns, social mores and information about people Steve had met – but not how he felt about them. It meant, for instance, that Cadillac knew about radio-knives but didn’t know that Steve had one in his possession – and was putting it to good use.
From the moment Steve had begun to keep in regular touch with AMEXICO, Karlstrom had arranged for one of his highflying signals aircraft to orbit the Heron Pool daily, between 2200 and midnight.
Tucked away in his little shack, Steve was able to send a stream of queries to AMEXICO while Cadillac lay dead to the world, wiped out by another skinful of sake. After acknowledging the transmission with the instruction ‘STAND BY/IMMEDIATE RESPONSE’, the pilot automatically relayed Steve’s messages at high speed to Rio Lobo, AMEXICO’s headquarters in Houston/GC. From there they were keyed directly into COLUMBUS. A few seconds later, the required information was being bounced off the radio antenna of the orbiting signals aircraft and down into the memory bank of Steve’s radio-knife.
The same information was fed simultaneously into Karlstrom’s personal video-communications network, and a message announcing its presence was flashed on the screen nearest to wherever he happened to be. This was done solely to keep him informed of what was going on. Karlstrom had no need to vet the questions and answers before they were relayed to Steve. COLUMBUS, whose virtually limitless memory also contained the records of every Tracker from the First Family down to the humblest zed-head, knew exactly what areas and levels of information 8902 Brickman, S.R. was allowed to access.
To Steve – who still knew nothing about the air link – the rapidity and efficiency of the service was a constant source of amazement. It was also a timely reminder of the power possessed by the First Family. There was no escaping them. No matter how far you ran, they would always have some way to reach you.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Since the licence to build flying-horses had been granted to the Min-Orota family on the understanding that the Shogun’s representatives were to be granted unhindered access to the Heron Pool, the Consul-General was duly informed of the decision to develop a system of rocket propulsion.
Consul-General Nakane Toh-Shiba, whose interests were centred round the pleasures of the field and the flesh, reacted with only perfunctory interest as the news was read out to him, but when his letter reached Yoritomo’s summer palace, the young Shogun was quick to spot the military potential of such a device.
Black powder had been manufactured for centuries, but up to now it had only been used for blasting in the mines and quarries, in rifle cartridges, and in the cannon that were employed – mainly by the Shogunate – to reduce the fortresses of rebellious domain-lords.
Designed for use in siege warfare, these large pieces were extremely difficult to manoeuvre, and in the decades of peace under the Toh-Yota, their use had been confined to delivering ceremonial salutes. Smaller cannon, such as those on Lord Yama-Shita’s wheelboats, did exist, but in general artillery pieces were not favoured by the Iron Masters because of their limited mobility.
As might be expected of warriors imbued with the samurai ethos, they were temperamentally unsuited to long-range engagements with heavy-calibre weapons. The clash of arms in close-quarter combat was viewed as the ideal type of warfare and, as a result, the outcome of most battles depended on the martial skills of fast-moving formations of mounted swordsmen and archers, and lightly armed foot-soldiers.
Rockets filled with black powder were employed by military formations as signalling devices, but their primary use was as harmless entertainment. Vast quantities of these, along with other types of firework, were used to enliven private and public celebrations and religious festivals, filling the night sky with bursts of coloured rain.
But if a rocket could be made powerful enough to hurl a flying-horse and its rider into the sky, it could also hurl an explosive charge into the heart of enemy formations encamped, say, on a steep hillside – or even beyond it. And if such a rocket could be carried on the back of a foot-soldier, then hundreds could be launched in a single volley, delivering a murderous hammer blow that would leave the enemy dazed and demoralised. At which point…
Yes… This matter would have to be watched closely.
*
The message summoning the Herald Toshiro to appear before the Shogun reached him in the middle of a jovial dinner with Guard-Captain Kamakura. The good captain’s wife and her five daughters had received Toshiro with their customary warmth and hospitality, lavishing their attentions on him from the moment he stepped through the door, and the news that he had to depart without even completing the meal – the best of which was yet to come – threw the women of the family into disarray. Tearful and downcast, they lined up to bend at the knee, bowing over his hand as they bade him farewell. Toshiro responded with the customary expressions of gratitude, then apologised extravagantly for being unable to stay long enough to sample the delicacies they had prepared. Had he known of the nightcap that had been due to follow the dessert he might have felt a genuine twinge of regret. The second youngest and prettiest of the Kamakura girls had been chosen by her ambitious mother to grace the Herald’s bed. But once again her attempt to snare him had been frustrated by pressing affairs of state. And time was passing! Another year was on the wane. If the Herald eluded them much longer, the two eldest girls might have to be married off to low-born soldiers like her own well-meaning but slow-brained husband!
*
The news that field tests of the rockets were about to take place reached Toshiro soon after his return, at the Shogun’s behest, to the domain of Lord Min-Orota. Because Heralds acted as the confidential link between the Shogun and his regional officials, a suite of rooms in the Consul-General’s residence was kept at their disposal. The estate, which to all intents and purposes was government territory, served Toshiro as a base from which he would often emerge in disguise to meet with agents or to mingle with the lower orders. But the residence was also a home in which he had been made welcome by Her Highness, the Lady Mishiko Toh-Shiba, Nakane’s long-suffering wife, and her three children.
Despite her husband’s outrageous and insulting behaviour, she had never once uttered a word of complaint to her all-powerful brother, and maintained the same discreet, dignified silence amid those who were closest to her, concealing her distress behind a calm, serene manner.
Many took this as a studied indifference to her fate, but over the years Toshiro had discovered this was not so. The Lady Mishiko was desperately unhappy, and the Herald could not understand how anyone – even an insensitive oaf like the Consul-General – could neglect and abuse a woman who, besides being extremely intelligent, artistic and of the highest rank, was also tender-hearted, sweet-natured and beautiful.
It was a pity, reflected Toshiro, that the Consul-General would die without realising how blind he had been. It would have added a bittersweet edge to his fall. No matter. As the saying went: ‘One man’s loss…’
From one of his informants, Toshiro learned of the Consul-General’s curious behaviour while inspecting the main post-house. The Herald could not fathom why the odious buffoon should suddenly have taken it into his head to move the ‘mexican’, but he was relieved the matter had been taken out of his hands. Toshiro was tied into an efficient network of informers but he did not, as he had boasted to Steve, have eyes and ears everywhere, and he was not able to move people around like pawns on a chessboard. He had been able to get Steve registered as a roadrunner because he appeared to all and sundry to be a Mute, and because the registration had taken place in the domain of the Mitsu-Bishi, firm allies of the Shogun.
Things were different here. Masa-chusa and Ro-diren were, in a sense, hostile territory, where the Herald was publicly received with the appropriate pomp and ceremony and privately viewed as a spy-master and agent provocateur. This was why he had to exercise extreme caution to avoid compromising himself and, by extension, the Shogun. Switching identities from grass-monkey to long-dog was not quite as simple as Brickman seemed to think. Only one person could have provided forged papers – Ieyasu, the Court Chamberlain: the one person Toshiro dared not turn to. Life was already difficult enough without becoming enmeshed in that spider’s web.
Without realising it, Nakane Toh-Shiba had saved him a great deal of time and trouble and, unwittingly, had signed and sealed his own death warrant. If rocket power proved to be the answer, then the Consul-General would be among the first Iron Masters to take to the air. The letter ordering him to do so had already been written and was in Toshiro’s possession – and he was burning with impatience to hand it over.
Two days later, Samurai-Major Ryoshi – one of the top military men in Min-Orota’s household – called at the residence to escort Toshiro to the Heron Pool. The Herald had no qualms about visiting the site in his official capacity. Unless he chose to make contact, there was no way Brickman could recognise him. Even if their paths crossed they were unlikely to come face to face; the mexican would have his nose in the dirt like all the other Mute slaves who worked there. And since Brickman did not speak a word of Japanese, he could not learn of his identity through any conversation he might happen to overhear.
Shigamitsu, the samurai-captain in charge of the Heron Pool, greeted the two men deferentially and, after a brief ceremony of welcome, led them past the workshops to where the first of three weighted launching trolleys stood at the edge of the flying-field.
A fifteen-foot section of wing and a beam carrying a crude tail assembly had been mounted on timber struts to simulate the aircraft the trolley would later hold. The front axle had been widened to give greater stability. The vehicle was driven by four rockets encased in reusable tubes made of rolled brass with soldered and riveted joints. The tubes – about two feet long and three inches in diameter – were arranged in pairs, one above the other, and linked together by a short length of safety-fuse.
Toshiro, Ryoshi and the other Japs from Ba-satana inspected the vehicle closely. Its creator, a dark-haired long-dog who knelt submissively near by, did not rate a second glance. When Shigamitsu had dealt with their questions, the long-dog sought his permission to proceed with the tests. Shigamitsu referred the question to the Herald and Ryoshi with the usual elaborate courtesy, then, upon receiving their assent, invited them to watch the proceedings from a safe distance.
The dark-haired long-dog applied a burning taper to the fuse. Two more slaves seized the sides of the trolley and ran it forward. The first pair of rockets flared into life. Shwaahh-pa-POWW! Long searing tongues of flame erupted from the necked ends of the tubes. The stub-winged trolley went racing across the field, leaving two thin plumes of smoke in its wake.
Ppa-ppPOWW! The second pair of rockets ignited. The speed of the trolley increased. A cry went up from the long-dogs gathered at the doors of the workshops as it hit a bump and became momentarily airborne, quickly followed by a groan as it dropped at an awkward angle, tore off the left front wheel, then cartwheeled several times before finally collapsing in a mangled heap.
Toshiro and Ryoshi brushed aside the Heron Pool commander’s abject apologies. The demonstration had shown that the propulsion system worked. A second trolley, rigged with the same rudimentary wing and tail, was wheeled out. Several more dressed stones were added to increase the weight, and the test was repeated. This time, the trolley veered wildly from side to side but stayed in contact with the ground. When the rockets burned out, the trolley thundered on across the grass and – to the great delight of the watching Iron Masters – exploded into matchwood as it hit the low stone wall at the far side of the field.
‘Was that all?’ enquired the Herald.
No. ‘Brickman’ still had a card to play. A third trolley was produced from the workshops, but this one was manned. In addition to the stub-wing and the tail perched on two struts at the rear, there were more struts at the front; a triangular cage in which a Mute slave was seated on a basket-weave chair. On closer inspection, Toshiro saw it was his co-conspirator – the disguised ‘mexican’.
Hhhawww!
Via Shigamitsu, ‘Brickman’ explained that by means of a simple steering device controlled by the passenger’s feet, the tail could be pivoted to the left and right. This third trolley only had one front wheel and this could be turned in the same direction as the tail when the Mute pushed the bar with his feet. The rear edge of the wing could also be pivoted up and down by moving the vertical stick set between the passenger’s knees. This deflected the air passing over the wing and kept the vehicle on the ground.
Ahh-so . . !
The Iron Masters retired once more, the fuse was lit and the trolley was sent on its way. Toshiro watched anxiously as the first two rockets ignited. He did not want the ‘mexican’ to come to an untimely end demonstrating something that had already been shown to work. He had much more important things to do – such as disposing of the Consul-General. His Japanese colleagues, unaware of his private concerns, watched avidly. All Iron Masters were fascinated with the aesthetics of savagery. In peacetime this was expressed through their pursuit of bloodsports – from cock-fighting to hunting with spear and bow. For them, the climactic kill was an essential part of life, and they now waited with gleeful anticipation for the trolley and its rider to self-destruct against the stone wall.
