第43节

sand-burrowers were hacked off and mounted on stakes outside the hut

which Clearwater shared with three of her clan-sisters.

Ultra-Vox, the leader of the tree-climbing expedition, gravely

presented one of the cloud warrior's helmets to Clearwater. It was a

tribute, in recognition of the powers she had summoned forth to bring

them tumbling from the sky.

Clearwater squatted outside her hut between the heads of the cloud

warriors with the prized helmet cradled in her lap.

She felt drained by the power that had passed through her but, this

time, she had not been weakened to the point of collapse. Even though

Mr Snow had said that the Sky Voices had chosen her to receive this

priceless gift she was still afraid of the mysterious strength that now

lurked within her. She was also troubled by the striking resemblance

between her own body, and Cadillac's, and those of the

sand-burrowers.

Their young faces which now stared sightlessly from the stakes on

either side of the doorway had the same even teeth; the same slim

jaw.

It was as if they had been cast from the same mould. She knew she

should have felt elated by this victory but she did not. She felt

saddened and confused. It was as if, with their deaths, part of

herself had died. And the fact that she had fallen prey to such

thoughts disturbed her even more.

Buck McDonnell, the Trail Boss, led the cheers as the front wagons of

The Lady rolled up the now-dry mud slope onto the bank of the Now and

Then River. Fifteen minutes later, the two sections were hitched

together and she was ready to roll. With only one wingman to provide

cover, over sixty wounded linemen and another thirty-seven lying under

the floor in body-bags, Hartmann decided to head back to one of the

main way-stations to seek assistance and await reinforcements. He

ordered Captain Ryder, the Navigation Exec to set course for Kansas.

When Roz Brickman recovered consciousness some ten minutes after

hitting the floor she found herself undergoing a detailed examination

by the Assistant Chief Pathologist at Inner State U. Both wounds had

ceased to bleed and the agonising pain had beenreduced to a dull

ache.

The A.C.P.

obse?ved that the upper right cranium had been scored by a fibbed metal

object and, by means of a probe, was able to establish that her right

biceps brachii and the surrounding epidermis had been pierced

laterally. Close inspection of the entry and exit points revealed that

the wound had probably been caused by the passage of a pointed metal

rod approximately one centimetre in diameter with four small vanes at

the tip. A similar object could have caused the scalp wound.

Despite a thorough search of Unit 18 and a body check of the students

and staff present when the accident occurred, no such object was found,

nor was anything else that might have caused a similar injury. The

right sleeve of Brickman's lab coat was also found to be intact.

Neither the Assistant Chief Pathologist, nor anyone else associated

with the preliminary investigation was able to explain how any object

could have passed through Roz Brickman's arm without first passing

through the woven fabric of the surrounding sleeve.

Eight hours after collapsing, no trace of either injury could be

discerned. Roz was hospitalised and kept under observation for

twenty-four hours and a Confidential report on the incident was

transmitted to the White House. The Amtrak Executive responded

immediately by despatching two special investigators, one male, one

female. Despite skilful and outwardly sympathetic interrogation Roz

did not reveal the terrifying visions that had assailed her, especially

the last one in which she felt herself falling out of the sky.

After a final examination of her now-healed arm and head, the two

investigators returned to the White House.

On the following day, Roz learned that the incident file had been

closed. She was formally discharged from the intensive care unit and

told to resume her course studies.

When she rejoined her class, she found that - apart from asking how she

felt - her fellow students were unwilling to discuss the incident. Roz

didn't mind. She didn't want to talk about it either. It was too

dangerous. Who would believe that she knew, with utter certainty, that

her kin-brother had been hit by a crossbow bolt? Had crashed. Been

injured, and was now in the hands of the Plainfolk ...

THIRTEEN

When Steve recovered consciousness, he found himself lying in

semi-darkness, wearing only his underpants, on a layer