第11节

resident-General - who he'd met

ran the greatest show on earth. You could bet your last meal credit he

didn't give a damn about anybody lower down the wire.

Including Steven Roosevelt Brickman. You could see it in the eyes.

Jefferson was the kind of guy who could walk you all the way to the

revolving door to his office, a smile on his lips, fatherly hand on

your shoulder - knowing that the hit-squad he'd ordered was waiting for

you to step out of the turnstile.

Pure naked power ... At the level the P-G was operating on, it must

give you a real buzz . . .

As the two planes lost height, the grey wall of cloud began to tower

over them like a giant tidal wave that threatened to swallow them

without trace. The strong north-westerly wind that provided its motive

power was driving the snowflakes forward from its leading edge as they

fell in their countless millions.

Steve glanced at the gyro compass. He was currently tailing Kelso on a

heading of two zero zero. They had lost altitude steadily and were now

down to nine hundred feet. It was clear that Kelso wanted to maintain

visual contact with the ground; a wise decision in the circumstances

but if they were to avoid being engulfed they would soon have to swing

onto a more southerly heading.

He consulted his map and tried to find a matching feature on the lake

shore beneath. And then it happened. As his left index finger edged

over the folded sheet of plasfilm towards navref Benton Harbour, map

and ground coincided and he glimpsed the squat, rectangular outlines of

a boat moored to a wooden jetty.

It was not one of the massive wheelboats that visited the trading post,

but it was still of appreciable size, with a paddle wheel running

across the full width of the stern.

Colour and detail faded rapidly beneath the first wash of snow. In

perfect visibility, Steve might have seen the upturned face of the

figure standing on the bow deck as a pale dot set against the dark

wooden planks but not today. Izo Wantanabe saw the two Skyriders pass

overhead but those aboard did not see him.

Steve didn't need to. There was only one place the boat could have

come from - Ne-Issan. The Iron Masters had put it there, and had built

the square jetty to which it was moored. Its positioning far beyond

the present borders of Ne-Issan must have taken place several weeks, if

not months, ago. The boat and its invisible crew could only.belong to

domain-lord Yama-Shita; it was his family who held the exclusive

licence to trade with the Mutes. But Yama-Shita had been dead for a

week - killed by Clearwater during the break-out. Did his minions down

there know that? Or know that his assassins had escaped?

Steve thought it unlikely, even though the Iron Masters used carrier

pigeons for urgent long-distance communication. The Yama-Shita family

were probably still reeling from the shock and were more likely to be

concerned with fighting off bids from envious rivals anxious to grab a

slice of their trading empire than alerting their front men in the

outlands. For the moment, anyway.

No. The real question was more basic: Why would a boatload of Japs be

moored near the southern end of Lake Michigan in the second week of

November? Had Hiro Yama-Shita got some kind of extended operation

going with the Plainfolk Mutes in this area?

The need to press onwards, ahead of the advancing snow made detailed

observation impossible but Steve had not seen any on-shore

installations out of his side of the cockpit, and neither had

Clearwater. The boat's occupants might be armed but they were sitting

ducks.

Steve toyed momentarily with the agreeable notion of capturing it and

making a slow but stately progress to the trading post at Du-aruta.

They would be assured of absolute safety at sea, coming ashore only for

timber to feed the boiler - the source of power and warmth. The

problem of what to eat could be solved by catching fish like the Iron

Masters did.

Winter would give way to the time of the New Earth.

Freed from the grip of its icy fingers the soil would burst open as the

buried seeds awoke. New pink grass would put a warm blush on the face

of the world and as the air softened with the approach of spring they

would linger off Du-aruta until the M'Call delegation joined the other

Plainfolk emissaries near the end of May for the annual round of

trading with the Iron Masters. Then, before the massive three-storeyed

wheelboats steamed into view, they would beach their stolen vessel in