or open his eyes for several minutes.
'That is not a question I can answer,' he said finally. 'I conceal
nothing. I do not know. There have been many times when I have felt
the finger of the Sky Voices pointing at you but I now know that my
thoughts were coloured by my desire to see Talisman enter the world
before I go to the High Ground and -' Mr Snow chuckled,' - the unworthy
notion that I had been chosen to be his Teacher." He sighed.
'You may be." He indicated Clearwater. 'She may be ' 'But she is not
a wordsmith!" cried Cadillac. 'Does it not say that the Thrice-Gifted
One shall be wordsmith, summoner and seer?"
'That is indeed the prophecy,' admitted Mr Snow. 'But six days ago,
which of us knew of the powers that Clearwater possessed? And how long
ago did you find your first seeing stone?"
'Two or three years,' replied Cadillac grumpily.
'Let me remind you of the prophecy,' said Mr Snow.
'Man-child, or woman-child the One may be. And none will know who is
the Thrice-Gifted One until the earth gives the sign."
Cadillac eyed Mr Snow disappointedly. His voice was tinged with
resentment. 'Are you sure the Sky Voices have not spoken of this more
directly?"
Mr Snow threw up his hands in mock despair and gave them both a
long-suffering look.
Clearwater smiled sympathetically.
'They have spoken but the meaning of their words is clouded,' replied
Mr Snow. 'I cannot put your mind at rest."
'Let me be the judge of that,' said Cadillac.
Very well,' said Mr Snow. 'They have told me that Talisman will be
someone known to you."
Cadillac exchanged a look of surprise with Clearwater then turned back
to Mr Snow. 'Someone known to me now - or someone I will come to
know?"
Mr Snow uncrossed his legs.
'Wait!" cried Cadillac. 'Does that also include me?"
Mr Snow shrugged and got to his feet. 'It means what it says. You are
a wordsmith. Work it out."
SIX
Within minutes of arriving at his kinfolk's quarters, Steve fell into
bed and slept for two whole days and nights. The relentless pace of
his last year at the Flight Academy, plus the extra adrenalin that had
been pumped into his system during the final run-up to the exams and
his overground solo had put his mind and body into permanent
overdrive.
It was only when he finally slipped under the quilt with the knowledge
that he would not be awakened by an electronic trumpet blast that the
months of pent-up fatigue were released. As he lay back, he felt the
aching tiredness flood out of his bones and into the surrounding flesh,
spreading out in every direction like a slow-burning fire until his
body was suffused with a dull, prickly pain that penetrated every
fibre; oozed out of every pore. At the point when it became
unbearable, darkness enveloped him.
Roosevelt Field - the place where Steve had been reared and schooled
and with which he was identified by his middle name - was the
operational headquarters and home base of a ten thousand-strong
division of Trackers.
Compared to Grand Central, it had the no-frills homespun atmosphere of
a frontier town but it was nothing like anything ever built in the
pioneer West. Roosevelt Field was a self-contained multi-level
mini-city. An air-conditioned colony of human termites with tv in
every burrow, situated fifteen hundred feet down in the bedrock under
the pre-Holocaust city of Santa Fe. Like all the other once great
cities of the Southern United States this was now nothing more than a
dot on the map of the overground but its name had remained in use
because it marked the geographical location of the Federation base in
the earthshield below.
The layout of Roosevelt/Santa Fe followed the standard concentric
ground plan developed by Grand Central engineers in the eighth
century.
Basically, it consisted of a central plaza surrounded by two circular
transit tunnels (Ringways) at a radius of one and two miles. Eight
more transit tunnels (Radials) arranged like the spokes of a wheel
linked the plaza with the 1st and 2nd Ringway. At each intersection
there were huge vertical shafts (2-Level Rises or