第2节

ed when he was

twice passed over in the annual round of promotions, putting an end to

his hopes of reaching the top echelons.

His despair, however, had been short-lived. Summoned to the palace at

Sara-kusa, Izo Wantanabe had been met by an official of Lord

Yama-Shita's court who offered him the post of Resident Agent to the

Outlands.

He would, explained the trade-captain, be one of a trial batch of five

appointees - the first to be stationed beyond the borders of

Ne-Issan.

Aware that this was a heaven-sent opportunity to get in on the ground

floor of a pioneering enterprise and escape from the veiled but

vengeful discrimination that continued to shadow his marriage and

career, Izo accepted the offer without hesitation.

The wheelboats of the Yama-Shita had visited the two established

trading posts at Bei-sita and Du-aruta once a year for several decades,

but in the summer of 2990

Domain-Lord Hiro Yama-Shita had decided to set up a chain of resident

commercial agents to develop regular contacts with the Mute clans in

the hinterland.

Izo and the other four appointees were to be the first links in this

chain which - if positive results were obtained - would eventually

extend right around the southern shores of the four, interconnected

lakes which formed the Western Sea; the vast body of water the Mutes

called 'The Great River'.

Each resident would live with his family aboard a house-boat, smaller

cousins of the three-storied steam-powered monsters that made the

annual journey to Du-aruta. It was envisaged that the house-boats

would be permanently moored to purpose-built jetties but, if the need

arose, they could always cast off and put to sea.

Domestic servants would be provided and the boats would be maintained

and, if need be, protected, by a small detachment of sea-soldiers.

For Izo, it meant assuming the leadership of an enclosed community of

thirty-five souls. Food and other stores would be delivered by sea

until adequate supplies could be obtained locally.

Yumiko had not been overjoyed at the prospect of an isolated existence

in the back of beyond, but the chance to make a fresh start plus the

generous lump sum payable on completion of a nine-year term and the

promise of three months' paid home leave for every thirty-six served in

the outlands had softened her protests.

The possibility that she and her family might not even survive three

years, let alone nine, did not appear to have occurred to her and Izo

had wisely kept silent about the possible dangers of living amongst a

horde of unwashed, unfettered savages.

The first four residents were posted to Detroit, Saginaw Bay,

Cheboygan, and Ludington. Izo Wantanabe, the last far-flung link in

the chain, was anchored at a place once known as Benton Harbour, twenty

miles north of the point where, on pre-Holocaust maps, the Indiana

state line met the eastern shore of Lake Michigan.

Their primary task was to forge closer trade links, including the

recruitment of more 'guest-workers'. They were to achieve this by

commercial and cultural 'counselling', the purpose of which was to

change the Mutes' perception of the Iron Masters as cold and forbidding

into something more. paternal. Firm (the grass-monkeys despised

weakness) yet benign.

That, in itself, was a job and a half but the residents had also been

entrusted with an equally important, parallel assignment; the gathering

of intelligence.

Following the first incursions by the Federation wagon-trains into

Plainfolk territory in 2989, the conflict between Tracker and Mute had

been drawing ever closer to the borders of Ne-Issan. Lord Yama-Shita

had hit upon the idea of using the residents - Wantanabe in particular

- as forward listening-posts. Their genuine effort to improve trade

relations would provide both the cover and the opportunity to gather

information about the Federation's war machine and its northward and

eastward advance towards the Running Red Buffalo Hills - the