第16节

'Okay, move it!" Someone struck him across the small of the back with

a rubber truncheon. Not hard enough to break any bones or rupture any

vital organs. Just hard enough to let him know he was in the hands of

people who were not about to fool around.

Steve's calculated guess as to his location turned out to be right on

the nose. After a couple of right and left turns down various

corridors and through a number of doors Steve was halted on the

east-bound platform of the subway station under New Deal Plaza. He

recognised, from his previous trip on the same line with Roz, the faint

echo-effect added to the voices and footsteps of people moving about

and his nostrils picked up the same antiseptic odour through the two

light-proof breathing filters of his black hood.

Running from Johnson/Phoenix, Arizona in the west, to Le May/Jackson,

Mississippi in the east and with direct connections to Houston/Grand

Central, the Trans-Am shuttle ranked as the major engineering

achievement of the Federation, rivalled only by GC's spectacular John

Wayne Plaza. The system of tunnels, driven through the earthshield

over the last three hundred years by generations of fourteen-year-old

Trackers during their twelvemonth stint with the Young Pioneers housed

a single monorail track straddled by a string of cars propelled at high

speed by a linear induction motor. Passing loops at erich subway

station and at intervals along the line enabled a twice-daily service

to be run in each direction. The shuttle was usually loaded to the

roof with freight but there were always plenty of spare seats.

Trackers from the bases along the line did not travel just for fun,

only when required to do so. Everybody in the Federation got to make

at least one trip as part of an organised group to visit the memorial

shrine of George Washington I at Grand Central, but anyone 'riding the

rail' had to have a movement order issued by their local

Provost-Marshal's office. To deter potential code-breakers the subway

was regularly patrolled by pairs of the dreaded meat-loaves who often

boarded the shuttle to run checks on passengers in transit.

A two-tone electronic chime and a recorded announcement signalled the

imminent arrival of the eastbound Central Liner for Reagan/Lubbock,

Nixon/Fort Worth, and Houston/GC. Steve felt a sudden draught swirl

round him as the incoming shuttle rammed a column of air down the

tunnel ahead of it. A tunnel he himself had helped build during his

time with the Young Pioneers. He wondered what it was like in

Arizona.

Around him, his unseen escort chatted in a desultory fashion, mainly

about what they might do in the short time they would be spending at

Grand Central. Steve had the impression that there were four of them

but he couldn't be sure. He heard the faint hum of the shuttle as it

drew nearer.

'Where's this one gonna ride - in the hot box?" asked a voice.

'No, with us,' said a second voice.

It was the first time Steve had ever heard the term 'hot box'. He

wondered what it could mean and decided that it must be Provo slang for

a cramped, poorly-ventilated punishment cell.

'Which of you has that disk with the medical report from the

way-station?" asked a third voice.

'I have,' said the second voice.

'Okay. Don't forget to hand it over. And Gazzara forget any ideas you

got about jack-assing the local yippies. I've keyed you in for a

two-hour furlough to take a look at the Plaza and then it's back here

on the first west-bound out'of GC. Comprendo?"

'Yes, sir!" said Gazzara - now identified as the second voice.

Steve committed his name to memory.

'You forgot the shrine, Sergeant,' said the first voice.

'Fuck the shrine,' replied the third voice.

'Yeah,' said Gazzara. 'We'll be standing in line all fucking day."

'Even so, we ought to pay our respects."

The noise from the approaching shuttle grew louder.

The Provo-Sergeant raised his voice. 'Delaney - you got two hours. If

you want to spend it waiting to see a fifteen foot high face carved out

of white marble, that's okay by me."

Steve filed Delaney along with Gazzara for future reference.

The shuttle, banded along its lengt