The General led Tracker towards the one building larger than any of the others. Several smaller buildings lay scattered around the grounds, including at least two observation towers. Rhythmic shouts came through the open double doors, and Tracker realized that it housed a gymnasium where some of the General’s men were being trained in martial arts.
”As you were,” the General called with a wave of his hand as they entered.
A few of the men continued their exercises, but most of them stopped to stare at Tracker despite exclamations from their oriental instructor to focus.
Tracker looked around the gym. Rubber mats filled the center of the huge room. Three walls were occupied with weight and exercise machines of all types. Mounted on the fourth wall was a large wooden rack holding almost every kind of hand-held weapon imaginable, both modern and ancient.
Centered beneath the display stood a small shrine. It held only two weapons, a Japanese katana and its associated short sword, the wakazashi. The weapons immediately caught Tracker’s attention. Above the shrine, several wooden versions of the katana hung in the larger rack, showing almost no wear.
Tracker approached the swords, admiring the carefully handcrafted hilts and scabbards, careful to keep his hands behind him, in plain view of the guards. To his eye, the two weapons were of genuine fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Japanese manufacture, of inestimable value both for the quality of the steel, not duplicated in modern times, and for their age as collector’s items.
The instructor, noting the object of his attention, came over and, after a short, whispered conversation with the General, stepped up to the rack and took down one of the practice swords, motioning Tracker to one of the mats covering the exercise floor. Tracker glanced at the General for instruction, ears erect.
”Go ahead, Redd. Show us what you can do with it,” the General prompted.
Gingerly, he took the wooden sword, bowing deeply to the oriental man, and raised it, his right hand against the guard and his left at the butt above his right shoulder, the blade pointing almost straight up. The katana was very similar to the valtan he’d been trained on. His knees bent in a deep crouch, his digitigrade feet spread wide apart and his tail poised almost straight out behind him, twitching occasionally as he maintained a stable stance. The instructor circled him slowly with a critical eye, seeking some flaw in his stance and grip. At one point he reached out and poked Tracker’s shoulder sharply to check his balance. Tracker corrected with a sharp jerk of his tail, slapping the mat with a muted thump. The instructor returned to his position in front of Tracker and bowed, then backed off, gesturing for Tracker to begin his exercises.
For the next five minutes Tracker glided through the motions of a very complex sword exercise. At first he moved slowly, as he tried to make the moves perfectly, very self-conscious about working out in front of strangers. Gradually though, the concentration required for the exercise bled the nervousness from him and his moves started speeding up, until the sword whistled through the air in elaborate moves, the tip almost vanishing between one pause and the next. He finished, panting heavily as he handed the sword back to the instructor and bowed.
The onlookers applauded his demonstration modestly and looked to the oriental for his reaction. The instructor watched Tracker as he returned to the General’s side, then returned the wooden sword to its place. He reverently took the real katana from its place on the shrine. He drew the gleaming blade from the lacquered ebony scabbard and walked back to the mat, resting the flat of the blade lightly on the back of his left hand.
Reaching the center of the mat, he exploded into a wild series of gyrations. It looked like he was going to cut off a limb as the blade zipped by his face, arms, and legs in a show of control and speed that rivaled Tracker’s. When he finished, he stood stiffly and bowed sharply to the General, and then to Tracker while the others applauded the show.
As they left the gym, Tracker looked around the grounds, then turned to the General. “Do you have a jungle gym here?”
”No, I don’t. Why?”
”I need to get back into shape. Working out in a jungle gym the best way I know of. Without the benefit of my power supply, I ran out of energy pretty quickly in that sword kata I just finished.”
”All right. What will you need to build one?”
Tracker thought for a few minutes and then replied, “I’ll need about one thousand feet of two-inch pipe and about one hundred and fifty to two hundred pipe clamps of the sort used to make warehouse racks. If possible, I’d like the pipe cut into ten foot lengths.”
”All right. I’ll have the materials delivered tomorrow and you can build it.”
”Thank you, General.”
”Good. You will return to your cell for today, but I don’t see any problem with letting you have the run of the base starting tomorrow, as long as you have at least two guards with you at all times. Is that clear?”
”Yes, General.”
”Good. You’re dismissed.” The General executed a sharp about-face and marched towards the administration building, leaving Tracker to return to his new quarters in the company of his four escorts.
Tracker sat on the bed in his cell and thought. Castile had found him and brought him back. Escape dominated his thoughts.
He needed to make a plan.
First, find out where I am, he thought. I know I’m farther north than the Base in Chattanooga, but that still leaves a lot of country.
Second, find a way to get this drainbox off me. I’ll have to break out on my own and get to a comm unit and call in and if I have this thing on I won’t survive long enough to do either. I have to get the drainbox off.
Third, if I can, I need to take Castile down. If the General is left in control of Castile, he’ll know the first escape was no fluke and probably try to kill me after that. I can try to call in FORCE, but I need to ensure that the General doesn’t survive!.
He tried, surreptitiously, to pull the plug of the drainbox out of the socket at the base of his tail, but the belt was too tight, and the plug too long to do so. He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, letting himself drift off to sleep.
Tracker awoke to the sound of the cell door’s latch the next morning. As he raised up, an obese young man wearing fatigues – the same one as the day before – entered, carrying his breakfast of raw meat and blood. Two burly guards held their rifles at the ready just outside the door.
”Your breakfast,” he said. “Also, the pipe and other supplies you requested have arrived. The General says for you to get to work if you want the thing built. Whatever it is.”
”Right.”
He lay there waiting for the fat soldier to leave and the guards to shut the door, then sat back against the wall. He pushed the sheets down and looked at himself. For some reason, he felt more tired after the night’s hard sleep than when he went to bed. As far as he could tell, nothing seemed to be wrong with him. But he was far more tired than he should have been, even with the drain-box in place.
A soft breeze came through the window of his cell, so he lay back and let it blow across him. Shutting his eyes, he tried to recall his broken dream. The only thing he remembered clearly was a tearing into the side of a cow he’d brought down with his bare hands and jaws. The raw meat in the dream reminded him of the hot meat on the table beside him. He reached for it grimly. He needed to eat what he was given; he wouldn’t get anything else.
He ate and drank mechanically, dressed, then knocked on the door of the cell. A guard opened the door while another stood across the hallway with his rifle ready. He looked at the two guards for a moment, noticing the radios each of them wore.
“Ask the General if I may have access to proper bathing materials sometime today. I can’t do him any good if people can smell me anytime I’m in the area.” He then turned and walked down the hall to the outside door, challenging his guards to keep up.
As he walked between the buildings, he looked around at the layout of the base. The well manicured perimeter stood clear of all but the largest trees. A large aircar with ambulance markings stopped at the door of the administration building and let off two passengers dressed in civilian attire. He paused to look, but the muzzle of a rifle pressed to his back told him to keep moving. The one thing he did see gave him his first clue to his location. The markings on the side of the ambulance said, “Adams, Oregon”
