The Amtrak Wars - Ironmaster Part 47

'That was the situation up to the moment he fell into the hands of samurai-captain Naka-Jima. The device has been in my possession since then."

The Shogun accepted this with a nod. 'Did you manage to find out what the "mexican" had been sent here to do?"

'He was only too eager to tell me, sire. His orders were twofold: kidnap or kill the renegade long-dog directing the work at the Heron Pool and, if possible, destroy the entire setup."

'Singlehanded? Extraordinary..."

'Sire, I hate to admit it, but he is an extraordinary individual. His martial skills earned him the grudging admiration of samurai-captain Naka-Jima, he is quick-witted, imprudently courageous, insufferably confident about the superiority of the system he represents and utterly unconcerned as to whether he lives or dies."

'And there might be others like him?"

'It's a possibility we have to consider,' admitted Tos.h.i.+ro.

'Did he say why he'd been sent to do this?"

'Yes, sire. The Federation view the decision by us to build flying-horses as a threat to the status quo. By kidnapping or killing the renegade who is pa.s.sing their secrets to us they hoped to wreck the project. Were the mexican to fail, the Federation would be obliged to bring greater forces to bear, making a ma.s.sive pre-emptive strike which, in turn, could trigger a wider conflict."

The prospect of war with an enemy armed with weapons whose power came from the Dark Light destroyed the inner calm which the Shogun had achieved during his precious hour of contemplation in the stone garden.

The veins under his temples became visible as his pulse rate soared.

'So... what action did you take?"

'I offered to a.s.sist him."

The Shogun's eyes hardened. 'I trust you had a good reason for doing so."

Tos.h.i.+ro bowed his head. He had thought long and hard before deciding to reveal Brickman's presence, and had carefully worked out each move.

'I believed it to be in your best interests, sire."

The Herald went on to describe how he had arranged for the mexican to work as a roadrunner in order to have him a.s.signed to the Consul-General's residence, from where, at the appropriate moment, he could - if the Shogun so desired it - be transferred to the Heron Pool.

'By placing this individual within the system, we now have him under our control. And he cannot change his present ident.i.ty unless we allow him to do so." Tos.h.i.+ro opened up the bag of pink leaves he had taken from Steve and explained their purpose to the Shogun.

'By agreeing to a.s.sist him, I have been able to learn his intentions, and can aid or hinder them depending on what suits us best. Knowing who he is and where he is means he can be kept under surveillance and his contacts investigated. And he can be eliminated the instant you so command.

'On the other hand, should you for any reason decide to take out one or more of your . . . "opponents", or halt work at the Heron Pool, you may find that this particular long-dog could be used to achieve the desired result - and then be set up as the fall-guy."

Yoritomo placed an elbow on the lacquered armrest standing next to his left thigh and pulled throughtfully at his lower lip. 'Mmmmm.

Interesting idea."

'it would be seen as intervention by a foreign power.

And if Yama-s.h.i.+ta wasn't the target, he couldn't miss being hurt by the fall-out. Let's face it, it is his family who've been importing all these outlanders. And if, for instance, there was some "incident"

which resulted in the death of, let's say ... the Consul-General of Ro-diren and Masachusa..."

'It could be interpreted as an attack upon the Shogunate ' 'Which, at the very least, would require from those involved - however unwittingly - a major act of rest.i.tution."

'Right..."

There was a lengthy silence while the Shogun mentally reviewed various scenarios. Tos.h.i.+ro kept his eyes averted in the customary fas.h.i.+on until the Shogun spoke.

'I feel bound to tell you that when this conversation began I had serious doubts about your career prospects. And when you started to tell me about the deal you'd struck with this "mexican" I really thought you'd gone over the edge. But I can now see this has a lot of possibilities. Well done."

Tos.h.i.+ro bowed gratefully and sat back feeling extremely pleased with himself. His reading of the situation had been faultless. Even though the long-dogs were armed with the Dark Light, the samurai-warriors of

Ne-Issan might find ways to repulse an attack by the Federation. But victory could still result in a defeat for the Shogunate. The debilitating effects of an all-out war would upset the present delicate balance of forces, creating a turbulent situation where the Toh-Yota family could find itself displaced by the Yama-s.h.i.+ta - the apostles of progress.

Faced with that stark prospect, Tos.h.i.+ro knew the Shogun would choose to sacrifice the Heron Pool project - settling a few scores in the process. And that suited the Herald very well indeed.

After four days of running mail back and forth between the numerous houses of the Min-Orota family and the Consul-General's residence, Steve learned he had been a.s.signed to the route which included the Heron Pool. No explanation was given, but he suspected that his masked benefactor had been pulling a few strings.

On his journeys to and from Ba-satana and down to Nyo-poro, Steve had kept his eyes peeled but had seen no aerial activity - an indication that the range of the glider Cadillac had constructed was fairly limited.

From his own knowledge of aeronautics - and he had been the best in his cla.s.s - it seemed to Steve that without the aid of helium gas you needed an entirely different wing form to provide the lift for sustained soaring flight. If the young wordsmith had, as Mr Snow claimed, filched all the theoretical and practical knowledge Steve had worked so hard to acquire, then he must be aware of that too. The fact that Cadillac hadn't acted upon it suggested he was intending to add a power-plant at some stage. In which case, the swept-back wing design Steve had seen on his way past the Heron Pool made sense. Cadillac was obviously testing the stability of the basic airframe while he figured out how to build an efficient engine using whatever materials and tools were available.

Terrific. Couldn't be better. Had things progressed faster Steve might have found himself surplus to requirements. As it was, he still had a chance to make a useful input. There might be some initial hesitation but, providing Cadillac could be a.s.sured that he would get the sole credit for any bright ideas the two of them came up with, Steve was confident he would be able to persuade the Mute to take him on board. Cadillac might have picked his brains but he didn't think the same way.

The flaws in his psyche prevented him from using the stolen information to gain an insight into Steve's thought processes. The knowledge he had gained was a valuable a.s.set; knowing how to use it was a different matter entirely.

As Cadillac had already discovered.

This comforting realisation put an extra bounce into Steve's stride as he headed west along the highway towards Mara-bara and the Heron Pool.

Drawing closer to the small hamlet, he caught sight of something that gave him an even bigger kick. Three white-winged gliders flying in tight arrowhead formation broke out into the blue from behind a fluffy mound of low-lying c.u.mulus.

Steve judged their alt.i.tude to be around 2,000 feet. It was a hot day, so there were plenty of thermals rising from the surrounding cropfields, and once at cloud level a Federation wingman knew how to use the updrafts within to get a further lift.

lying in perfect unison, the three gliders pulled round to the right in a vertical bank, then slid nose-down as their leader took them into a steep dive. Realising they were going for a loop, Steve stopped to watch, holding his breath as he waited to see if they had enough speed to make it all the way over the top. With an engine behind you there was never any worry about being able to power your way round, but these guys could stall before they went over the top and - being so close together could find themselves in all kinds of trouble. Steve doubted whether the craft had airspeed indicators and wondered if Cadillac had made sure the airframes were stressed for aerobatics.

Steve's fears proved groundless. The gliders stayed in one piece and n.o.body fell out of the sky. They went over the top in the same tight formation as if they were glued together, then banked out of the ensuing dive, crossing overhead towards his left.

Steve moved off again, settling down into the long, easy stride he'd picked up from running with the M'Call Bears. The three gliders had lost about 1,000 feet in that last manoeuvre. If they kept to their present curving course it would bring them back towards the road on the far side of Mara-bara, where the Heron Pool was situated. Provided he didn't have to stop and kowtow to a pa.s.sing samurai, he might just manage to arrive in time to watch the landing - and maybe see more of the general setup.

The roofs of the buildings cl.u.s.tered along the left side of the road momentarily blocked his view of the formation, but as he cleared the hamlet he saw it was heading in the direction he'd expected. As he rounded a bend in the road, the Heron Pool came into sight way down over on the right.

Looking across at the approaching formation, he saw the glider on the left of the leader rock wildly and then break away, diving under the tails of the other two aircraft. There was something trailing from its port wing.

Steve leapt over the irrigation ditch and ran across the cropfield as the glider wobbled drunkenly towards him, losing height rapidly.

The something trailing from the port wing was the shredded outer third of the fabric covering. There was still enough in place to generate some lift, but the glider was slipping and sliding all over the place.

The pilot, who had to keep dropping the undamaged starboard wing to correct the imbalance, was obviously in a hurry to put the plane down before more of the fabric came adrift. If that happened the glider might flip over and go in nose-first.

In his instinctive haste to help a fellow-pilot, Steve had rushed forward blindly, only to find himself in danger of being mown down as the glider, now some fifty feet up, suddenly swerved towards him and came down steeply, one wing low. Unable to decide which way to run, Steve stood there, open-mouthed. For one gut-wrenching moment, it looked as if the whole caboodle was going to land on his toes, but it turned out to be further away than he thought. At the last instant, the pilot managed to bring the wings level. The glider hit the ground with a sickening crunch less than ten yards away from where he stood, then bounced back into the air, skimming over his head as he threw himself out of the way.

She-eh! Jack me! Breaking his fall with outstretched hands, Steve got a worm's eye view of the glider as it dropped back to earth. It cut a wide swath through the standing grain and came to rest sideways on, with its right wingtip only inches from the banked edge of the field.