第49节
body." Cadillac blew on the charred scales of his fish and bit into
the pale steaming flesh.
Steve replied with a hollow smile. 'You don't really believe that, do
you?" He shook his head. 'I really can't work you guys out. You go
to the trouble of pulling me out of the cornfield, and putting me back
in one piece and at the same time, you - ,' he gestured towards
Shakatak's impaled head, '- you do this kind of thing and -' Cadillac
cut in. 'The sand-burrowers have taken many heads from our Southern
brothers." ?'Yeah, that's true,' admitted Steve. 'But it's not done
all the time. It's a kind of initiation thing for wet-feet, linemen on
their first trip - warriors who have not chewed bone - and the only
reason it's done is because you started it."
Cadillac nibbled at his trout. 'Do you not kill?"
'Yeah, sure,' replied Steve. 'We have to. We're trying to win back
what belongs to us. The blue-sky world. But you guys kill each
other." He gestured at the heads of Shakatak and Torpedo. 'These
fellas are Mutes, like you!" Cadillac considered Steve's words. 'In
our world, all those who are not blood-brothers and blood-sisters of
the clan M'Call are rivals. We must defend our turf. The M'Calls are
descended from the ninth daughter of Me-Sheegun and the ninth son of
She-Kargo. Many of the Plainfolk clans accept our greatness for our
seed goes back to the Heroes of the Old Time. But there are those who
envy our greatness and wish to take it from us. If we are challenged
then we must fight to the death or lose our standing. Without standing
we are less than dust."
'Why? What's wrong in running away, then sneaking back later and
nailing the other guy while he's asleep?"
Cadillac did not understand the question. He shrugged.
'This is not the way of a Warrior. If he is of the She-Kargo, he must
follow the path laid down by Mo-Town, our great Mother."
That's your tough 'luck, thought Steve. 'And where do we, uhh
"sand-burrowers" - fit into all this?"
Cadillac eyed him solemnly. 'You are known by many names. The Beasts
from the Bowels of the Earth, the Creatures of the Dark Cities, the
Smooth-Skulled Worms that ride in the belly of the Iron Snake, the
Death-Bringers, the Slave-Masters, the Evil Ones, the Servants of
PentAgon, Lord of Chaos and Scourge of the World."
Steve did his best to keep a serious face. 'Fascinating.
Back in the Federation we think we are the good guys. You are the ones
who brought about the Holocaust that wrecked the blue-sky world."
'I know nothing about this Holocaust or the blue-sky world of which you
speak."
'Oh, come on,' insisted Steve. He swept an arm across the landscape.
'This is the blue-sky world! You burned the cities and laid waste the
land. That's what we call the Holocaust. It was you, the Mutes who
poisoned the air 'and drove us to take shelter within the
earth-shield!" 'No, you are wrong,' said Cadillac. 'It was PentAgon
who unleashed the War of a Thousand Suns through you, his servants.
That war destroyed the Earth and almost every living thing upon it.
We, the She-Kargo and our soul-brothers and sisters now known as the
Plainfolk, were spared. We were chosen by Mo-Town to grow strong in
body and great in number, to guard the Earth until the coming of
Talisman."
'Look,' reasoned Steve, 'we both can't be right. I know what
happened.
It's all recorded in our archives. What proof have you got that what
you say is the truth?"
'The proof is on the tongues of our wordsmiths. The history of the
clan M'Call is sealed forever in the fire songs of our people."
Steve laughed. 'I don't believe it. I don't care if Mr Snow is the
greatest wordsmith of all time. Nobody can remember everything that's
happened in the last nine hundred years] It's impossible. The Amtrak
Federation deals in facts billions of bits of verifiable data stored on
silicon chips not a collection of stories made up out of a mish-mash of
old folks memories."
'You use many strange words,' said Cadillac, 'but my mind begins to
grasp their meaning. Because of the war, many of our people are born
without pockets in their head