第99节

ark, sun-streaked hair hanging loose about her neck

and shoulders.

The Iron Masters had banned him from the display, but they could not

rob him of his moment of triumph. He had made this happen and he felt

happy that Clearwater was here to witness it. If in the past he had

been less in her eyes than he felt he should have been, here - at

lastwas proof of his abilities, his vision. His eyes met hers and she

answered the unspoken question by hugging his arm tightly. He would

have preferred a more wholehearted embrace, but her gestures had always

been restrained in public or - as in this case - under the watchful

gaze of Kazan and Kelso.

Cadillac knew from his penetration of the Iron Masters' minds that his

flying machines appealed to their aesthetic sensibilities. Like the

proud horses of the samurai, they were lithe and graceful, and the

echoing thunder that marked their passage through the sky conveyed the

same feeling of irresistible power as the hoofbeats of their galloping

steeds.

He was not ungrateful for the few, paltry privileges they had granted

him, but he had earned them. He merited even better treatment, should

have been given greater power, more responsibility. Today was to have

been just the beginning: the best was yet to come. But no. The

short-sighted fools had allowed themselves to be blinded by their

mistrust of outlanders- no matter how gifted they were. Trusting their

honeyed words, he had placed his future in their hands and they had

shattered his bright hopes. But the failure was not his. They had

failed him. So be it. This goose would fly away and lay his golden

eggs elsewhere.

After burning up the second rocket with a couple more variations on the

basic loop, the five samurai pilots used the third to execute

individual slow, flick and hesitation rolls, corkscrewing upwards to

gain height for the manoeuvre that had proved the most difficult to

master in the time available: a formation barrel-roll.

Whereas ordinary rolls are rotations round an imaginary line drawn

between the nose and tail of an aircraft, a barrel-roll, as its name

suggests, requires the same 360-degree rotation whilst tracing a

spiralling line around the surface of an imaginary barrel. A competent

trainee pilot can quickly master the basic control movements required,

but to perform the same manoeuvre as one of a group of five aircraft

requires a much higher degree of coordination.

After several hair-raising near-collisions, Jodi and Kelso had urged

Cadillac to drop it from the programme. Not wanting the display to be

anything less than a triumphant success, he had been tempted to do so,

but their five star pupils had insisted on its inclusion.

Their socially inferior instructors were in no position to argue, but

managed to persuade the glory-seekers to keep well apart going in, and

on the upward half of the roll, then draw closer together on the

round-out. The final practice sessions had still been

heart-inthe-mouth experiences, but they had managed to avoid sliding

into one another. With luck, they would do as well today.

Gliding across the sky, the five machines reassembled into an arrowhead

formation like white geese heading south for the winter. They were now

high in the air beyond the pond on the north side of the field, and to

the right of Lord Yama-Shita's troops, ready to begin the manoeuvre

which would carry them in a left-hand spiral round an invisible barrel

hanging in the sky in front of the grandstand.

From a height of some 2,000 feet, they dropped their right wingtips as

the fourth rocket flamed into life, flew down the curve of the

'barrel', then rolled over on to their left wingtips as they climbed up

the other side. The arrowhead formation was now almost completely

upside-down, approaching the high-point of the roll directly in front

of the seated domain-lords. Both men gazed up with rapt attention as

the five machines curved towards them.

Hidden in a clump of bushes to the west of the workshops where he had a

clear view of the field, Steve pressed the first five buttons on a

powerful handheld transmitter that AMEXICO had sent him. The signals,

each on a precisely defined wavelength, triggered the radio-controlled