第5节

ment to try and

explain how or why. 'A short time before we picked her up,' she

said.

'When the three of you were in the hands of Malone's renegades. Did,

uh they...?"

'No! No . . ." Cadillac cast his mind back over their period of

'captivity' and realised he'd lain in a drunken stupor and watched it

happen. It wasn't supposed to hurt any more but for a brief moment it

did. He wiped the picture from his mind and cleared his brow. Looking

up he found Roz eyeing him intently.

'It must be Steve. But how? From what he told me I thought the

President-General was - ' 'The Father of All Life? He is,' said Roz.

'But Steve's not a Tracker. He was only brought up as one. If he's a

Mute, like you, he carries the seeds of life within him." And maybe I

do too ....

'The point is,' she continued,' what are we going to do about it? I

mean, we just can't leave them there."

'No, I suppose not." Cadillac hauled himself out of the water and

began to towel himself dry. The towel, soap and the friction-glove

he'd been using were some of the items he'd purloined from the

wagon-train and stuffed into the Skyhawk before leaving. Not

everything produced by the sand-burrowers was bad. 'What have you got

in mind? Going into the Federation and bringing her out?"

'Not just Clearwater. All three of them."

Cadillac wrapped the towel round his waist and started pacing up and

down. 'Have you any idea what you're asking? Where would we start? I

don't know my way around - or how anything works down there?

'But I do." roz caught hold of his hand as he strode past and pulled

him round to face her. 'And you can drop the pretence. If you can get

inside Steve's head, you know enough to get by."

Cadillac went to turn away but she didn't let go of his hand. 'It

won't be just the two of us. Steve and Clearwater will help too. It's

an unbeatable combination."

'Hah! Yes!" said Cadillac bitterly. 'You, me, an invalid, and a -'

He was going to say 'a blood-brother I dare not turn my back on' but he

caught himself in time. He knew he had to take his share of the blame

for the injuries Clearwater had suffered; knew also that Steve, in

putting her aboard Red River, had saved her life. But the old wounds

ran deep, and even though Roz's loving presence was a healing balm it

could not make them disappear overnight.

Looking at her, Cadillac saw that she knew exactly what had been going

through his mind. But her sympathetic expression had a firm edge to

it. The message in her eyes read: 'I know what's bugging you, I

understand totally, but from here on in, neither of us have time to

waste on this self-indulgent, recriminatory shit."

Had she put it into words, Roz might have used a less abrasive form of

language but Cadillac had seized the essence exactly. And it brought

him back on a even keel.

'You're right,' he said. 'But we can't make a move until she's back on

her feet and has given birth to her child."

Roz used her grip on his hand to pull herself upright and stepped in

close so that their thighs touched. 'Good."

She gave him a placatory kiss. 'That means you'll have plenty of time

to work out exactly how we're going to do it."

There was another reason why Cadillac was unable to put the rescue of

Clearwater at the top of his list of things to do. The first Council

of all the Plainfolk was due to be held at Big White Running Water

(Sioux Falls, South Dakota) in less than eight weeks. As the successor

to Mr Snow and as one of The Chosen, he had to attend.

And Roz would have to come with him.