第20节

Chisum shrugged. 'That wouldn't surprise me either."

'So what you're suggesting is that we let him go before the Assessors

as planned, and if he proves a tough nut to crack we put him together

with his kin-sister then - once she's involved - use her to apply

leverage?"

'Exactly,' said Chisum. 'Meanwhile, I'll keep playing the good guy.

And, of course, my position would be enhanced if I could be

instrumental in arranging for them to see each other..."

Fran nodded. 'I like it. Well done, John. I'll clear things this end

and get back to you. Stay tuned."

'I will." Chisum got to his feet.

'Good night, john."

'Good night, Fran."

Her image was replaced by the Amtrak logo - a blue circle enclosing

within its circumference a white, five-pointed star. Set on either

side of the circle were two rectangular white panels each split

horizontally by an outward-pointing red arrow. The circle and the

panels were surrounded by a border of the same colour and thickness.

According to the Manual, the white star symbolised Texas, the Lone Star

State, the Inner State where the Amtrak Federation was born; the blue

background represented the blue sky world to which it would return.

The red border around the star and bars symbolised the overground

frontier being pushed ever outwards by the arrows - red like the blood

that was being spilt in the process. The two white rectangles

traversed by the red arrows represented the Outer States that had been

won back from the Mutes - the cleansed overground.

As Chisum carefully repositioned the chair, he reflected upon the

realisation that the true genius of the First Family lay in its

infinite capacity to deceive. At some time in the distant past, the

Jeffersons - a self-perpetuating dynasty whose interrelated members

were currently believed to number around five thousand - had succeeded

in placing itself at the apex of a pyramid of cunningly woven lies and

deceit that, over the centuries, had gradually assumed the authority of

received truth; had slowly hardened like the rock of ages within the

earth-shield, providing them with the solid foundation upon which they

had constructed their present unassailable position of power.

Brickman was a special case, but everyone else had been conditioned

too. Even Chisum could not bring himself to fully believe that what he

had discovered was the truth. That was one of the curses of being an

undercover agent. Truth and untruth quickly become indistinguishable;

assumed identities merged with the underlying self leaving you, in the

end, with only one touchstone of reality - the fact that you were

alive. And even that fact could quickly become obsolete. One big

black mark was all it took.

Chisum left the conference room and headed back towards the quarters

he shared with three other medics.

Yeah . . . it was a hard world, sure enough. The only thing the First

Family didn't control was the state of after-death. They could kill

you a dozen different ways and at infinitely variable speed but once

that old heart stopped pumping, you were - metaphorically speaking out

from under. Up and running.

Yes, sir . . .

Always assuming, of course, that there was some part of you left, and

some place to run to. Chisum hoped there was. He had been thinking

about the idea for years, ever since a Tracker - one of a gang of

cee-bees he'd tracked down in a warren of pre-Holocaust tunnels below

an overground site called Dallas - had shown him a book.

Not The Book; not the Manual; not electronic pages from the

video-archive but lines of words on yellowing, tattered rectangular

leaves of a thin, fabric-type substance.

The old guy had told him it was paper. The nearest thing to it that

Chisum had seen was plasfilm - the stuff maps of the overground were

printed on. The book, which was called the Old and New Testament,

contained a string of stories about what was supposed to have happened

way, way back before even the blue-sky world had taken shape. Chisum,

whose task had been to infiltrate the group, took time out to read

great chunks of it. It hadn't been easy. Most of the pages which were

supposed to be fixed together down one side had come loose, some were

missing, or were torn. It was not surpr