第58节

to squatting for hours on end outside

his hut.

Since, in terms of looks, Steve rated her near the bottom of an

unprepossessing heap, her thinly concealed desires were an unwelcome

development which, added to the lurking danger of an equally unwelcome

attack upon his person by Motor-Head, should have prompted him to put

his plan for building a hang-glider to Cadillac, but he did nothing.

He drifted, gripped by a kind of mental languor, mesmerised by the

luminous eyes that had met his across the clearing; his waking hours

and his dreams haunted by evanescent images of the face he had glimpsed

in the firelight; images that aroused feelings which he was unable to

put into words because - like 'freedom' - they had been deliberately

omitted from the Federation dictionary.

Escape was still Steve's ultimate objective but all his plans and his

byzantine schemes to manipulate his captors had been put on the back

burner. His primary task now was to find out who that face belonged

to. He was plagued by an urgent need to assuage the feelings its

mysterious beauty had inspired. Steve had, quite simply, fallen in

love but, as he had not heard the word mentioned until his conversation

with Mr Snow and still did not properly comprehend what it meant in

practical human terms, he was fated to remain in the words of a song

from the Old Time - bewitched, bothered and bewildered.

Who was she? And where was she? Steve was pretty sure he had explored

the whole area in and around the settlement and encountered, at one

time or another, virtually the whole clan but, since the night he had

bitten the arrow, he had not caught even a glimpse of his elusive

quarry. Since being captured he had learned enough about the Plainfolk

society to know that she was not a visitor. The fact that she was

being kept apart from the other M'Calls must mean that she was either

regarded as something special by the clan or she was being kept hidden

because of him.

Or both.

What was it the M'Calls did not want him to discover?

As he had promised, Cadillac duly furnished Steve with a long-bladed

hunting knife. Not the usual Mute sharp iron, but standard

Trail-Blazer issue. At first Steve thought it was his own but, when he

took a closer look, he found the initials 'L.K.N." etched on the

handle: Lou Kennedy Naylor, who had been inexplicably attacked by

Fazetti and brought down over the forest. Steve's hopes that the

M'Calls might also have kept bits of Naylor's Skyhawk and possibly his

own received a fresh boost. 'Thanks." He hefted the blade.

'Aren't you worried I might kill somebody?"

Cadillac pursed his lips and shrugged. 'llnless you killed in single

combat your death would be inevitable, slow and terrible. A wasted

gesture. Where would be the profit in that?"

'When you put it that way, none, but -' Steve hesitated.

'Didn't Mr Snow tell everybody that Talisman's shadow was upon me?

Doesn't that mean I'm under his protection?"

'Yes, it does,' admitted Cadillac.

'Then if he really exists and is as powerful as you guys say he is,

nothing can happen to me." Steve flipped the knife jauntily into the

air and caught it again by the handle. 'He saved me from death in the

cropfields, and from Motor-Head's hammer, so -' Cadillac's eyes gleamed

as he grasped the thrust of Steve's argument. 'He may save you again

but only if you conduct yourself like a warrior."

Steve watched Cadillac walk away. There was no doubt about it, the

two mouthpieces for the M'Calls had a whole bagful of great exit

lines.

They probably sat around rehearsing them in Mr Snow's hut. He

reflected on Cadillac's veiled warning. These guys and their gods.