第42节

but he was prepared

to risk that if...

A searing wave of heat struck Steve. With his right arm pinned to his

helmet he could barely move his head. He arched his body and succeeded

in edging it round a few inches. A violent stab of pain shot up

through his chest.

Looking to his left through his half-raised visor he saw the flames

begin to consume the corn around the port wing-tip of the Skyhawk. The

fabric started to smoulder. Ignoring the pain in both his arms, Steve

clawed frantically at his rifle, trying to pull it near enough to be

able to shoot himself before the flames reached him. His efforts

proved hopeless.

He could not get a firm enough grip to free the gun from its

mounting.

Steve took several painful breaths and, with increasing desperation,

tried again. The straight-limbed Mute and two young lumpheads moved

back into his field of vision.

Acting on the command of an inner voice, Cadillac leaned forward and

forced open the dark head shield of the fallen cloud warrior. The face

beneath was covered in blood.

Cadillac studied it carefully. It matched the one revealed to him by

the seeing-stone.

Steve's hopes began to rise. He had not forgotten the horrific tales

of Bad News Logan; he was just clinging, with total illogicality to the

hope that somehow, something would happen to save him. If he could

just get out of the cornfield...

The straight-limbed Mute stepped back with a grunt.

Steve's hopes plummeted as the Mute turned his attention to the air

rifle. He tugged, heaved, fiddled with locking devices and finally

managed to wrestle it off its mount. With blurring vision, Steve

watched'the Mute inspect the weapon cautiously, fingering the trigger,

then looking down the three barrels. Steve let out a sobbing,

pain-wracked laugh.

Oh, Columbus, what a stupid world! Brought down by an idiot who's

going to leave me here to burn because he doesn't know how to shoot

me...

The Mute tossed the rifle to the young lumphead on his right. The kid

clutched it proudly across his chest, trigger guard up, barrels down.

The other two Mutes moved out of sight. Steve felt someone tugging at

the airframe. It was being twisted around and dragged away from the

flames.

The movement caused him to flop about like a rag doll. He let out a

scream of pain. The straight-limbed Mute returned and leaned over him,

a knife clenched between his teeth.

Oh, jeeze, yes, of course, thought Steve, remembering his talks with

Kazan. Crossbow bolts are in short supply. This guy wants his back

and so he's - going to cut my fucking arm off. Great. Steve viewed

the prospect with a curious detachment. Time seemed to have slowed

down. The pain throbbing through his body was now so intense it had

surpassed his capacity to react to it. His nerve-endings had become

overloaded. Nothing mattered anymore...

Cadillac and his helpers had turned the arrowhead around so that the

wings lay between them and the flames but even so, they were

uncomfortably close. He took the knife from his mouth and slid the

point under the chin-straps of the cloud warrior's helmet. The warrior

shuddered as the blade touched his throat. Cadillac cut through the

chin-straps and slowly eased off the helmet and the arm pinned to it.

The warrior's blood-soaked head lolled onto his left shoulder; glazed

eyes wandering under half-open lids.

Cadillac considered the problem of the bolt. It was stuck firmly

through the helmet in two places. The helmet itself was crafted from a

strange material, like polished bone, upon which his knife made little

impression. Cadillac beckoned to Three-Son of T-Rex and told him to

take hold of the cloud warrior's right arm. Three-Son gripped the arm

on either side of the bolt and braced himself. Grasping the helmet

firmly with both hands, Cadillac put a knee against the cloud warrior's

chest and yanked hard, pulling the bolt with its sharp stubby fins

through his arm.

It did not come out easily.

Steve's eyes almost popped out of his head. He bared his teeth, mouth