第33节

underneath the wheels, held in place by the

unbroken branches of the trapped trees. Startled trail-hands in the

lead cars picked themselves up off the floor. Buck McDonnell's voice

boomed through the train telling everyone to hold fast and stay at

their stations.

Up in the saddle, Hartmann hauled himself upright. The execs around

him balanced awkwardly on the sloping floor and ran through the

well-rehearsed damage control procedure. Conditions were verging on

the chaotic but nobody lost their cool.

'We're jammed fast,' yelled Barber, the First Engineer.

'All wheels are underwater, rear end has only ten per cent traction and

we've got a ruptured passway between cars five and six!" 'Is that

where we've angled over?" asked Hartmann.

'Yes sir!'

'Any radiation inflow?"

'Not enough to show on the dial,' said Barber. 'The hatches on both

sides close automatically when the air seal is broken."

Hartmann nodded and put himself on the visicomm circuit to address the

crew. 'Now hear this. A course error caused by the thick mist we woke

up has put us in a dry river bed. What began as bad weather has got

worse and we've been caught in a flash-flood. The Lady has taken some

superficial damage and we have lost traction due to a buildup of flood

debris. But the worst is over. This storm will soon blow itself out

and then we'll get The Lady back on the road. So sit tight and look

chipper." He grinned?'This command has never had a wagon train sink

under it yet."

His words brought a smile to Steve's face. He looked around him and

saw that the tight, strained faces of the other crewmen had also

cracked open.

Just as Hartmann finished speaking, the NavComTech picked up a low

strength call from Jodi Kazan sandwiched between several bad bursts of

static. 'Have attacked Mute ?. broken up ... Booker and Yates have

gone down ... hit by . .. Request ..." There followed the warbling

tone of the automatic Mayday distress signal.

The NavComTech responded by switching on the fore and aft Navigation

lasers. He left the red beam on the lead car pointing vertically

upwards and put the green on what was known as 'sweep and creep'. This

caused the beam to rock back and forth, quartering the sky, North,

South, East and West, from horizon to horizon, then repeating the same

pattern, 'creeping' round in a clockwise direction at five degree

intervals. The laser was, in effect, performing a similar function to

the rotating beam of a pre-Holocaust lighthouse. And if Kazan picked

it up - as she was bound to if she was within range - all she had to do

was fly down the beam towards the source of the light.

Baxter, the F.O.O sounded the alert in the flight-car, told the crewmen

of Kazan's imminent arrival, and ordered them to prepare for

landing-on. Buck McDonnell, who had wriggled through the emergency

hatches on either side of the broken passway passed through the flight

car to check that the weapon turrets in the rear cars were correctly

manned. He buttonholed Steve and the other wingmen and told them to

take their rifles up top to cover the ground-crew waiting to receive

the incoming Skyhawk. 'It's blowing a storm out there so it may take

all of you to hold her down.

The guns are in case some Mutes decide to hitch a ride." He passed

through to Car Nine.

Steve hurriedly donned his helmet, took his air carbine out of the

rack, checked the magazine and the compressed air bottle under the

barrel, packed a couple more mags into his breast pockets and went out

through one of the starboard hatches. Inside the cars the sound of the

storm had been muffled. Now he faced its full fury. The wind tore at

his clothes, made him gag as he tried to draw breath, and pinned him to

the balcony rail. Below, the flood waters swirled past at breakneck

speed, sweeping broken trees and bushes downstream. Ahead, he could

see the lead cars of The Lady curved across the torrent, twisted over

like the broken wall of a dam. She rocked violently in a burst of

spray every time she was struck by another uprooted tree.

Gus tugged at his sleeve. 'Here she comes!" he yelled. He pointed

across the flight deck.