This too had been stripped but a close inspection provided some useful

clues. Smears of dried blood on the jagged ends of metal stringers and

formers in the crumpled cockpit section testified to the force of the

impact and the likelihood that one of the five people they were looking

for had been either killed or seriously injured on landing.

Beneath the broken starboard wing, Vickers found like Izo before him

the remains of a fire. The pine branches that Steve's party had woven

together to form the walls of the shelter had been thrown aside and

scattered but several remained intertwined giving a clue to their

use.

The fire-cans and food tins - which might have told him a great deal

more than they told Izo - had been carried away as trophies but the

scattered circle of ashes and a solitary ring pull-tab from a

standard-issue ration can suggested that the surviving crewmen had

spent some time under shelter before vanishing into the snow-covered

wastes.

Whether they had vanished of their own accord or had been overwhelmed

by the same force of Mutes who had descended on the two aircraft in

search of booty could not be established. Backing clear of the tree

under which the wreckage lay, Vickers gave his section-leader a status

report and his views on what had happened.

'Roger, Blue Two. Well done. Put some sky under your wheels."

They were the words Vickers had been waiting for. He hurried back

across the highway and waded up the other side to where he'd parked his

Skyhawk facing into wind.

He didn't waste time brushing off the snow or strapping himself in. He

just rammed the throttle wide open and held his breath until he had

regained the comparative safety of the air. The audible sigh of relief

came as the altimeter showed the Skyhawk at five hundred feet and

climbing.

Made it... YeeeeHAAAHH!

Fresh snowfalls and cloudy skies limited the air search during The

Lady's third day on station. The flight-section were stood down but

the rest of the crew plus the Pueblo contingent found themselves with

plenty to do.

Following the discovery of the two Skyriders, Hartmann had decided to

press forward to Davenport. The move, when completed, would extend the

Skyhawks' range by another one hundred and forty miles, allowing them

more time in the air east of the Mississippi.

Several squads of heavily armed line-men, dressed in the white

coveralls that had been airlifted to the Kansas City rendezvous with

the tanker-train, were sent out to reconnoitre a twenty-mile stretch of

the Cedar River.

When a suitable crossing point had been found, The Lady moved forward

and unloaded the two bulldozers she carried. Under the direction of

Buck McDonnell, they began the task of cutting an access ramp down to

the water. It. Commander Moore, the senior Field Officer had already

put two combat squads onto the east bank to form a bridgehead and the

usual perimeter defence that was always deployed when the crew were

'shifting dirt' was set up around the wagon-train.

The river at this point was only six to eight feet deep over a finn

gravel bed which meant The Lady could roll across without even getting

her belly wet. The crossing was delayed when the engineers decided

they would have to use explosives to blast loose the rocks buried in

the escarpment on the far side but just after dawn on the fourth day,

the 'dozers had cut the required exit ramp and The Lady was on her way

to Davenport.

The increasing numbers of arrowheads criss-crossing the sky did not go

unnoticed by Cadillac's hosts. The settlement had not come under

attack, but having watched several blue and white Skyhawks pass almost

directly overhead, Carnegie-Hall, the Kojak wordsmith, became

sufficiently concerned to ask his honoured guests if the appearance of

the cloud-warriors and the attendant iron snake was linked to their own

descent from the skies.

Cadillac who, from the outset, had been anxious to leave Carnegie and

the Kojak elders in no doubt that he and Clearwater were the stars of

the