第30节
them. It was best suited to long-range, high-altitude patrols. When
you were contour-flying, hugging every rise and fall in the ground,
shooting from the hip, you needed maximum revs and then some. What was
known to wingmen as 'melting the wires'.
As Jodi circled over the northern edge of the pancake cloud covering
The Lady, Booker and Yates angled in towards her, the metallic blue
solar cell fabric atop their wings glinting in the sun. They closed up
on her, Booker tucking himself just under her port wing-tip, Yates to
starboard. They wheeled silently in arrowhead formation, keeping the
same precise distance; close enough for Jodi to recognise the smiling
faces under the raised visors of their red and white lightning-striped
crash helmets - the mark of wingmen from The Lady. Both sat strapped
into blue cockpit pods slung from rigid struts under Skyhawk's wing.
On the nose of each pod was the red, white and blue star and bar
insignia of the Federation, followed by a white aircraft number.
Flying like this in tight formation, banking through the cool, clear
air above the clouds was something that Jodi never tired of. It gave
her a constant charge; awakened feelings inside her that she savoured
without attempting to analyse them, or put them into words. Like Steve
on his first flight, Jodi did not know that she was responding to the
beauty of the skyscape, the overground world; an overwhelming sense of
freedom. She only knew it felt good.
Almost as good as killing Mutes.
TEN
With Jodi in the lead, the three Skyhawks flew in a silent descending
curve that took them over the line of the Laramie mountains. Jodi's
intention was to come round behind the advancing Mutes, firing a lethal
burst into their unuspecting backs before slamming the throttle
forward and jinking away under full power, returning from different
directions at low level to pick off the remainder. In previous actions
against the Southern Mutes she had found that they were as terrified
of'cloud warriors' as they were of the 'iron snake' and, if subjected
to a determined, vigorous attack, usually turned tail and fled for
cover.
Like the execs to whom she had reported, Jodi had not allowed the idea
that Mutes might possess magical powers to take root in her mind. The
interaction of earth-forces; ground and air temperature, humidity,
atmospheric electricity, the movement of air masses over differing
terrain were part of a logically constructed system of cause and effect
which could be recorded, analysed and understood.
Like Hartmann and his officers, Jodi had found it strange and slightly
unnerving - that the mist and low cloud that had formed overnight
around and above the train should still persist several hours after
sunrise. And not only persist; actually appear to move with the wagon
train when it had begun its advance. Jodi was not an expert but she
preferred to think that there was a simple, rational,
meteorologically-sound explanation for what had occurred.
Back in Nixon-Fort Worth, she had been irritated by Steve Brickman's
probing questions about the rumours of so-called Mute 'magic'. Odd
things had happened in the past but when the facts were considered
carefully and coolly - as in the incidents investigated by the
Assessors - it was clear that most of the things people claimed had
happened either didn't happen at all, or were nothing more than a
strange coincidence. A haphazard conjunction of events which, in the
heat of battle, had seemed extraordinary.
What everyone carefully ignored was the fact that many hardened
trail-hands stoked up on illicit caches of Mute 'rainbow grass'. It
was a Code One offence but that did not appear to deter the users from
getting blocked out of their skulls - usually before making an
overground sortie from the wagon train. Given the hallucinogenic
effects of the grass it was not surprising that some trail-hands had
weird experiences. And since they could not own up to smoking it, what
better than to claim they had been victims of Mute 'magic'? The idea,