'Yes, she does."

'How about Cadillac? Has Steven pinpointed his location?"

'Not exactly. But he knows the. general area."

'Show me."

Roz's fingers trembled over the map, but the information failed to come through. 'Near the Eastern Sea. He must take the road to the east to the place where the birds are..."

Birds ... the feathered or the man-made variety?

wondered Karlstrom. He looked at the map. The road that caught his eye was the old Ma.s.sachusetts Turnpike that met the Hudson south of Albany and ran east through Springfield and Worcester to Boston and the Atlantic Ocean. Hmmmm... 'Does he have his radio or any weapons?"

'No. They were taken from him."

'Does he think of you? Does he . . . want to come back home - to the Federation?"

After a long pause, Roz said, 'His thoughts are only for what he must do. I see images of death and destruction. They- ' She broke off and tried to shake them from her mind. 'They frighten me."

As she spoke, Karlstrom saw her eyes come back into focus. She stared at him with surprise, then looked nervously round the room as if trying to work out what she was doing there. A moment later, Karlstrom saw her relax as the part of her mind that had reached out to her kin-brother returned and settled into place.

'Uhh, have I... did I?"

'Don't you remember?"

'I know I made contact with Steve, but - did I say anything that made sense?"

Karlstrom laid his hand on her shoulder. 'A great deal. I'm very impressed." He motioned her to rise and ushered her over to the turnstile. 'You will, of course, speak to no one about this meeting."

'No, sir. But, uhh . . . the thing is, I don't want for anybody to get into trouble over this. John Chisum said -' Karlstrom cut her short. 'Your friend Chisum has been very foolish and should know better. Still, I'm sure we all do things we shouldn't from time to time. That doesn't mean to say I approve of what has been going on at Santanna Deep. I don't. But -' Roz opened her mouth, searching for the words to lift the blame from Chisum and excuse her actions.

Karlstrom motioned her to remain silent. 'The important thing is to do whatever has to be done for the Federation and the First Family when the call comes.

Like the way you have helped me this evening. That won't be forgotten.

Indeed, I may ask for your help again. Steven is a very resourceful young man, but he may not be able to make it back here in one piece without our a.s.sistance. So remember, I'm counting on you."

'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I'll do whatever I can."

'I'm sure you will. The people outside will give you a special number to call if you should "hear anything" from Steven." He patted her on the back and guided her into the turnstile. 'Now off you go back to college. Oh, and, uhh ... congratulations on those good grades you've been getting. Keep up the good work!" Karlstrom pressed the b.u.t.ton which caused the cylindrical compartment to rotate, carrying Roz back into the adjoining office suite. The two execs rose from their chairs to meet her.

CHAPTER NINE.

'Roz?"

Steve woke with his kin-sister's name on his lips and his nostrils filled with the soap-scented smell of her hair.

For a split second or so he was convinced she was in the darkened room with him. Or had been, and had just left.

Slowly that certainty faded. It had been a dream, nothing more. He shivered, quickly retrieved the padded quilt that had slipped off his naked body and snuggled down beneath it.

It was amazing how the brain could create a mental landscape as real as anything you could see with your eyes open, right down to the smallest detail. It could bring you face to face with images of people you could speak with, reach out and touch, draw to you and embrace. Not only that, the dream state allowed you to savour the same emotions, the same sensations as when you were wide awake: the taste and the moist softness of their lips, the electric tingle of their skin under your fingertips, the delicious all-enveloping warmth generated as your body joined with theirs.

Did their sleeping minds, he wondered, share the same dream? Did they merge with yours on one of the invisible planes of existence Mr Snow had often referred to? In his dream, Steve had been with Clearwater.

They were back in the hut where she had visited him only hours before he had made his escape from the M'Calls the Mute clan that had held him captive during the summer of 2989. Clearwater's naked body had been locked round his, but as she drew his mouth down on to hers he found himself embracing Roz. And they were no longer in Cadillac's hut. He and his kin-sister were lying naked under a quilt in his bunk-s.p.a.ce in the quarters allotted to the Brickman family at Roosevelt Field. The room seemed much bigger than he remembered it, and so did the bunk. It was then he realised that his kin-sister's b.r.e.a.s.t.s had shrunk back into her body. Her skin was patterned like a Mute's and she was now no more than ten years old.

As he drew back from her with mixed feelings of guilt and surprise he became aware that Karlstrom, the head of AMEXICO, was sitting on the end of the bed watching them with an amused smile. A man and woman dressed in black and silver-blue jumpsuits suddenly appeared. The man pulled the quilt from the bed. Steve tried to hold on to it but his fingers wouldn't grip properly. His hands had become weak and boneless. The woman exec picked up Roz, only now his kin-sister had become a five-year-old.

They wrapped her in the quilt and took her away. By the time they reached the door Roz was a little snub-nosed baby, eyes screwed up tight, her toothless mouth wide open - screaming...

Had Roz been trying to get in touch with him? Was she trying to tell him something, or was this another message from the furtive stranger who haunted the dark recesses of his own brain?

Jumbled fragments of his dream drifted through his mind as he began to doze off again. The world outside the shuttered log cabin lay quiet and still. Inside, the only sound to break the silence was the sonorous breathing of his sleeping companions- fourteen Mutes who lay head to head on two neat rows of mattresses.

The cabin in which Steve was pa.s.sing the night lay near the post-house at All-bani, and he was here as a result of the deal he had struck with the man in black - or someone who sounded very like him. Within four days of leaving the post-house where he had met Clearwater, Steve had acquired the papers and ID plaque of a roadrunner.

These were foot-messengers, the first her in the centrally-controlled postal system which had been set up by the Toh-Yota Shogunate to keep the endless stream of paperwork flowing smoothly round the country.

The job of roadrunner was now the exclusive preserve of Mutes selected for their ability to run tirelessly mile after mile, hour after hour.

It was the best job a Mute journeyman could aspire to, and a much coveted position. Provided you didn't get lost or lose the precious satchel of mail and arrived within the time allowed, you were clothed and fed, and while you were out on the road you tasted the nearest thing in Ne-Issan to the freedom that was the birthright of the Plainfolk. But if you fell sick, or committed some minor infraction, they took away your badge and sent you back down the road to work on the nearest dung-heap.

Since they were government employees, roadrunners were based at the Consul-General's residence - where they were housed in a special compound - and at small depots attached to certain post-houses on the major highways, which acted as distribution points. The post-house had become synonymous with the wayside inn, because the more enterprising owners had set up their establishments next door in the hope of attracting the pa.s.sing trade. The arrangement proved mutually beneficial and, as a result, post-houses and inns moved progressively closer together. Now, three-quarters of a century later, the majority had ended up sharing the same roof.

Roadrunners acted as two-footed packhorses. They delivered the bulk mail, which was then collected by local residents. Official doc.u.ments for district functionaries were relayed to the addressee by couriers a job usually awarded to a 'mainlander' of Korean or Vietnamese descent.

Top-level communications were carried by a kind of 'pony express'

staffed by samurai.

Alongside this, the ruling families in each domain had their own messenger service to ensure that 'sensitive' private communications to relatives and friends did not pa.s.s through the hands of government agents.

Taken together, the system comprised a veritable army of mailmen, from the lowly roadrunner to the mounted samurai, and above them flew the courier pigeons bearing cryptically worded ribbons of rice-paPer from government spies to the Shogun.

Steve was unaware of this last her of communication, but the sheer size of the system and the volume of traffic caused him to wonder why they had not opted to go for a hi-tech solution. Iron Master society seemed to be suffering from arrested development. They had raised their craft and mechanical skills to an impressive level but seemed unwilling - or incapable - of making the next leap forward. He was sorely tempted to show them how, but that would only make it harder for the Federation to win the battle for the Blue-Sky World. Better to leave them with their Stone Age way of doing things. And to make sure they stayed there by putting an end to this 'flying-horse' project which - according to the man in black - Cadillac had succeeded in getting off the ground...

In coming to an arrangement with the cloud warrior, Toshiro Hase-Gawa was acutely aware that he had put his whole future on the line and he had done what he had wrongly accused Lord Yama-s.h.i.ta of doing - making a deal with the long-dogs. Nevertheless he felt justified in doing so, for the basic charge against Yama-s.h.i.ta still stood. He and Min-Orota had conspired together to subvert the Shogun's brother-in-law, and Toshiro still hoped that he would soon be able to produce some hard evidence to back up the rumours that Yama-s.h.i.ta was making preparations to recapture the Dark Light.

In his own mind, Toshiro did not see himself as acting on behalf of the Shogun, and he did not view Brickman as representing the Federation.

The deal with the cloud warrior was a private contract between two individuals: a purely tactical manoeuvre to get himself out of an awkward corner. He had let it be understood that if Brickman did all that was asked of him, he and his two Mute prisoners would be granted safe pa.s.sage out of the country. Brickman had accepted this with suitable expressions of grat.i.tude, then had the effrontery to demand safe pa.s.sage for another long-dog!

Once again, Toshiro had swallowed his anger, agreeing without demur.

Four, fourteen, forty - the number was academic. Toshiro had not hesitated to kill n.o.buro and his two red-stripes in order to conceal his previous error of judgement; these three troublesome outlanders would meet the same fate. Once they were disposed of, there would be nothing to weaken his case.

The conspirators would be either dead or fatally compromised, his own position in relation to the Shogun would be strengthened and he would be one step nearer to achieving that which he most desired.