The buckets, with their aromatic contents, were part of his disguise.

Many Mutes in Ne-Issan were permanently employed on what captive Trackers termed 'the s.h.i.t detail'. With a full load, he was unlikely to arouse the suspicions of any guards, but even if he was stopped he would only be subjected to the most cursory examination. That was what he was counting on. During one of the earlier nightshifts, before they had been outnumbered by the present crowd of d.i.n.ks, Steve had fashioned two planked circles that fitted inside the buckets, creating a false bottom. Hidden underneath, wrapped in transparent plasfilm, was a hefty charge of plastic explosive plus two gas grenades. Both packages were primed with one of AMEXICO's special detonators, and they were guaranteed to spoil the day of anyone unlucky enough to be c.r.a.pping into either bucket when it exploded.

Steve had reckoned that most of the resident Iron Masters would be on the field in front of the hangars at the far end of the workshops, or seated in the grandstand, leaving only a skeleton staff inside the compound. Apart from a handful of Mutes working on various ch.o.r.es, the place looked deserted. But Steve knew the guard-house would still be fully manned. In order to stand a chance of seizing the three aircraft needed to make their getaway, they had to eliminate as much of the opposition as possible. That meant taking out those who were closest to the action first, and using that blast to draw in others to where they could be caught in the second strike.

Approaching the rotting dungheap, he emptied both buckets and rinsed them out in the stone trough. The false bottoms had now been in place for a week and were indistinguishable from the real thing. Provided n.o.body compared their weight with the genuine article, no one would guess they'd been rigged.

Okay. Here goes . . .

Steve skirted the gravel punishment area and carried the buckets up the path fronting the Tracker bunkhouses, then turned left along the edge of the parade ground. As expected, some of the guards were loitering by the gate, and he saw some others on the veranda of the cantina.

They were all dressed up for the big day but, like all soldiers throughout the age, they knew precisely when they could relax and just how far they could go.

It wasn't hard to imagine what they were laughing and joking about. On a day like this, when the top bra.s.s were busy enjoying themselves, those who had been relegated to guard duty could afford to take it easy. Unlike those poor fools from the palace who had had to march all the way from Ba-satana in parade order and now had to stand in line, under the gaze of their officers, watching a bunch of even bigger fools shoot across the sky in all directions like dragonflies with their tails on fire.

At the rear of the guard-house, under an overhang of the roof, was a screened four-hole privy. The Iron Masters had a relaxed approach to bodily functions. On his journeys as a roadrunner, Steve had often pa.s.sed people of both s.e.xes cheerfully urinating in public sometimes without interrupting their conversation.

Faeces, on the other hand, be they horse droppings, cattle t.u.r.ds or the human variety, were a collector's item, and this, again according to Cadillac, had led to the communal bench and bucket system.

Higher-ranking Iron Masters made use of private indoor closets in which the wooden bucket was replaced by a similar container made of glazed porcelain. Besides its more elegant shape, it had the added advantage of not smelling after it had been washed. Fortunately, this luxury had not percolated down to the lower ranks - otherwise Steve would have been well and truly shafted.

Having made sure that the privy was empty, Steve entered and replaced the buckets at each end with those he was carrying. He then emptied and rinsed the middle ?air, picked up his load and left. As he started to walk away, someone behind him shouted out the j.a.panese command to halt - a sound all slaves soon learned to react to. Instantly.

Steve froze, then turned back, a bucket gripped in each hand. Two soldiers, with a plump, giggling farm-girl between them, had just turned the corner of the guard-house and were walking towards him. As far 'as Steve could tell they were unarmed. He was packing enough ordnance to kill them ten times over, but he could not risk cutting them down. The girl hung back as the two soldiers approached. Their cheeks were flushed and they were bright-eyed - a sign they'd knocked back a cup or two of sake. Steve put down the buckets and knelt between them, head bowed. He couldn't understand what the d.i.n.ks were saying to each other or the girl, but they were clearly having a joke at his expense. And so it proved. After swaggering round him, both soldiers stuck a fumbling hand into their trousers, pulled out their hairless dongs and proceeded to pee into the buckets.

The real joke came halfway through when they changed aim and widdled over him.

Terrific. There was nothing Steve could do but play the part of the abject slave. Enjoy it while you can, fellas, 'cause, believe me, in a short while you ain't gonna find much to laugh about...

When Steve had been well watered, the two soldiers waved him away and strutted back to the giggling farm-girl. Steve got to his feet and stood with his head bowed until the trio had disappeared through the back door of the guardhouse.

Time for Phase Two. Steve hurried back down the path past the Tracker bunk-houses towards the arch in the rear wall. He kept his head down, hiding his face under the brim of the straw hat. If any of the Trackers inside happened to look out of one of the windows and recognise him, the more sharp-witted amongst them would know he was up to something. Given the way they felt about him, they might try to summon the attention of the guard. And that would really throw a spanner in the works.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

To a burst of applause from the dignitaries in the stand and the cheers of the lesser spectators, five flying-horses rose clear of their launching trolleys and thundered skywards, one after the other, trailing blue ribbons of smoke. Levelling off at 1,000 feet, the five craft drew together into an arrowhead formation as they circled the fiel'd, then dived to build up speed before pulling up into a loop.

Rolling upright as they came down off the top - a manoeuvre once known, after its creator, as an Immelman turn - they hauled their noses up and round for a second loop.

Their formation flying was not immaculate, but it was still impressive.

It had been made possible by the fitting of a crude retro-thrust device which could be cranked down over the business end of the rocket tubes.

A row of curved metal plates like miniature double ploughshares deflected the exhaust gases sideways and downwards, reducing the forward thrust. It was primitive, but it gave each pilot a measure of control over his forward speed -all-important when they were trying to keep their place in the formation.

There was a gasp from the watching crowd when the lines of blue smoke were suddenly severed from the aircraft as they hung upside down. The first rocket had reached the end of its brief life. Time for the second burn. Amid growing apprehension, the five flying-horses continued their downward plunge, then, with a rea.s.suring explosion of sound, a stabbing, white-hot finger of flame appeared beneath the fuselage pod of the lead aircraft. Two, three, four- five!

The watching Iron Masters responded with a deep-throated roar of approval.

Cadillac heard their reaction as he stood on the rear veranda of the pavilion and watched the machines he had created weave smoke trails across the sky.

Clearwater, now dressed in one of his white worksuits, came and stood by his side, her dark, sun-streaked hair hanging loose about her neck and shoulders.

The Iron Masters had banned him from the display, but they could not rob him of his moment of triumph. He had made this happen and he felt happy that Clearwater was here to witness it. If in the past he had been less in her eyes than he felt he should have been, here - at lastwas proof of his abilities, his vision. His eyes met hers and she answered the unspoken question by hugging his arm tightly. He would have preferred a more wholehearted embrace, but her gestures had always been restrained in public or - as in this case - under the watchful gaze of Kazan and Kelso.

Cadillac knew from his penetration of the Iron Masters' minds that his flying machines appealed to their aesthetic sensibilities. Like the proud horses of the samurai, they were lithe and graceful, and the echoing thunder that marked their pa.s.sage through the sky conveyed the same feeling of irresistible power as the hoofbeats of their galloping steeds.

He was not ungrateful for the few, paltry privileges they had granted him, but he had earned them. He merited even better treatment, should have been given greater power, more responsibility. Today was to have been just the beginning: the best was yet to come. But no. The short-sighted fools had allowed themselves to be blinded by their mistrust of outlanders- no matter how gifted they were. Trusting their honeyed words, he had placed his future in their hands and they had shattered his bright hopes. But the failure was not his. They had failed him. So be it. This goose would fly away and lay his golden eggs elsewhere.

After burning up the second rocket with a couple more variations on the basic loop, the five samurai pilots used the third to execute individual slow, flick and hesitation rolls, corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g upwards to gain height for the manoeuvre that had proved the most difficult to master in the time available: a formation barrel-roll.

Whereas ordinary rolls are rotations round an imaginary line drawn between the nose and tail of an aircraft, a barrel-roll, as its name suggests, requires the same 360-degree rotation whilst tracing a spiralling line around the surface of an imaginary barrel. A competent trainee pilot can quickly master the basic control movements required, but to perform the same manoeuvre as one of a group of five aircraft requires a much higher degree of coordination.

After several hair-raising near-collisions, Jodi and Kelso had urged Cadillac to drop it from the programme. Not wanting the display to be anything less than a triumphant success, he had been tempted to do so, but their five star pupils had insisted on its inclusion.

Their socially inferior instructors were in no position to argue, but managed to persuade the glory-seekers to keep well apart going in, and on the upward half of the roll, then draw closer together on the round-out. The final practice sessions had still been heart-inthe-mouth experiences, but they had managed to avoid sliding into one another. With luck, they would do as well today.

Gliding across the sky, the five machines rea.s.sembled into an arrowhead formation like white geese heading south for the winter. They were now high in the air beyond the pond on the north side of the field, and to the right of Lord Yama-s.h.i.ta's troops, ready to begin the manoeuvre which would carry them in a left-hand spiral round an invisible barrel hanging in the sky in front of the grandstand.

From a height of some 2,000 feet, they dropped their right wingtips as the fourth rocket flamed into life, flew down the curve of the 'barrel', then rolled over on to their left wingtips as they climbed up the other side. The arrowhead formation was now almost completely upside-down, approaching the high-point of the roll directly in front of the seated domain-lords. Both men gazed up with rapt attention as the five machines curved towards them.

Hidden in a clump of bushes to the west of the workshops where he had a clear view of the field, Steve pressed the first five b.u.t.tons on a powerful handheld transmitter that AMEXICO had sent him. The signals, each on a precisely defined wavelength, triggered the radio-controlled detonators now attached to the plastic explosive he had concealed aboard the aircraft in the formation.

BooOOMM.t Boo-boo-BOOMMM.t BooOOOMMM!

Lords Yama-s.h.i.ta and Min-Orota froze in their seats with speechless horror as each of the five flying-horses was engulfed in a ball of flame. The slender silk-covered wings and bodies, crumpled, were ripped to pieces then rapidly consumed by orange tongues of fire.

High-ranking guests and a.s.sembled troops were thrown into confusion as the shower of burning debris spiralled down towards the packed stand preceded by the rag-doll bodies of the pilots and observers.

As the first machine exploded, Kelso rushed out onto the veranda and tossed the tote-bag and cloth bundle into the arms of Cadillac and Clearwater. 'Okay!

Go-Go-GO!" Jodi was already in position by the bath-house on the west side of the yard. She pulled the pin on a gas grenade and hurled it towards the servants lined up along the wall. A gush of white smoke mushroomed out as the grenade detonated, filling the air with disabling nerve gas. Kelso followed it up with another as he raced across the yard behind Cadillac and Clearwater.

Like everybody else, the servants had been temporarily stunned by the aerial conflagration, but the dull report of the first gas grenade coincided with the protective reaction of two of the female servants.

As they gathered up their children and turned to flee from the scene, they saw the burst of white smoke, saw their ex-master running across the yard, and watched as the red-haired slave behind him threw what looked like a stone in their direction.

Running along the path towards the workshops, Jodi and Kelso heard the women scream shrilly as they gave the alarm. It didn't matter. A lot of other people were screaming and shouting too. By the time the nearest soldiers reached the garden wall, none of the servants would be in a fit state to tell them anything - and the soldiers would soon find they were short of breath too.

As Steve was about to press the first of the b.u.t.tons that would destroy the acrobatic formation, the plane carrying Consul-General Nakane Toh-Shiba returned from its overflight of Ba-satana and began to circle above his official residence and the government-owned estate which surrounded it. The Consul had not changed his views about flying but, having overcome his initial terror, he had become fascinated by this new view of the world, and his eyes were fixed on the larger of the two islands in the lake which now lay almost directly below.

Everything looked so small! But it was down there, in the summerhouse surrounded by,trees and a rock garden, that he had spent the most memorable hours of his life in the arms of his secret paramour; the beautiful alien creature who possessed that rarest of gifts l.u.s.trous, sweet-smelling body hair. The thought of his next visit to her filled him with pleasurable antic.i.p.ation; the realisation that it-would probably be their last moment together made the feeling bitter-sweet.

He had no inkling that it was not her death that was drawing ever closer, but his own.

His craft, gliding silently in a V-formation with its two escorts, was banking round in the direction of the Heron Pool when Steve blew the first five planes out of the air.