Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys (16 page)

He flopped back onto the bed. He still was not sure how he felt about the strange reunion of the DNA Cowboys. Reave he could take, but he was not too comfortable about Billy. Although Billy was more like his old self than he had been when
he had staggered into the Voice in the Wilderness, there still seemed to be bits of him missing. It was as if the Masters of the Sanctuary had burned out a good portion of his brain. If it had not been for the smooth pro way he had gone into the cantina in Santa Freska Town, the Minstrel Boy would have assumed that much of the old Billy was gone for good. And then there was the matter of Renatta. She was still tagging along with them, but he was far from clear about what she wanted. Although she was worldly-wise in many respects, she seemed painfull inexperienced in the necessities of adventuring. Her reaction to the float egg had been silly in the extreme and unworthy of anyone who wanted to be an adventuress. It had definitely lowered her in his esteem.

The final and most perplexing problem was the course that the new incarnation of the DNA Cowboys was going to take. The world had certainly become too grim and serious to support their old fantasy ways. Even though he did not voice it to the others anymore, he was still haunted by the idea that there were somehow remote powers controlling their destinies. He sat up with a sigh. If he had learned anything in his travels, it was that the future stubbornly refused to reveal itself and that brooding about what was going to be only made him depressed. The unfortunate part was that dreaming about it also made him depressed.

The veetar was on the bed beside him. He stretched out a hand to open the case but stopped halfway. It was pointless. But to his surprise he found that his hand was still working on the snaps. He swung his feet onto the floor and carefully lifted out the gleaming handmade instrument. He positioned it on his knee. His fingers flexed, and shimmering notes flowed from it. He ran slowly through the introduction to "Speeding through Nowhere," then lowered his head slightly. If it had been a public performance, the mannerism would have indicated to an audience that he was going to sing. He stopped abruptly with an impatient discordant clang. He still had nothing to say. He put the instrument back into the case and shut the lid, then rolled back onto the bed and closed his eyes. Within seconds he was fast asleep.

Speeding through nowhere

At the velocity of dreams

Bowed by memories of shame

But streamlined

By the fear that follows

I'd look around if I could

But I'm afraid that I'd lose my grip

I know that you're back there

And that only makes it twice as hard

Do we go on to infinity?

To the points where all things meet?

In infinity, will we be together,

Or does infinity just mean never?

(In infinity do we break down and show ourselves?)

Speeding through nowhere

At the velocity of dreams.

A fragment of "Speeding through Nowhere"

by the Minstrel Boy

— Pressdra Vishnaria

Fourth Appendix to
The Human Comedy

CHAPTER EIGHT

'I THINK WE'LL BE GOING UP TO OUR . . . ROOMS.'

Billy and Renatta had their arms around each other, but at least they had the decency to look a little sheepish. The Minstrel Boy glanced at Reave. It was a whole new development that appeared to have come into being while he was asleep. Reave gave the slightest of shrugs, as though he was also at a loss to explain the new blossoming of romance.

By the time the Minstrel Boy had finally come down to the Grand Lounge of the Leader Hotel, the others had already been there for some time, and the entwining of Billy and Renatta was well under way. The Minstrel Boy had not said anything, although he was aware that he must have looked a little surprised when he had first walked in. He had settled himself on one of the low reclining couches and let the gold-clad serving women pamper him. He had at one point, however, caught Renatta's glance and she had responded to his slightly raised eyebrow with a look of defiance.

The Minstrel Boy raised a hand in a confused gesture. 'Uh . . . yeah. Good night.'

He sipped his drink and watched them walk away. Renatta was certainly turning out to be something else. 'So how did that get started?'

Reave spread his hands. 'I really wasn't paying attention. I was too busy drinking and looking at the waitresses.'

'Come on.'

'Does it bother you?'

The Minstrel Boy thought fora moment. 'I'm not sure.'

'If you're not sure, you ain't hurting.'

'I was curious how it came about.'

'How do these things ever come about? First of all they were
drinking together, and then they were whispering together, and finally they were pawing at each other like they couldn't wait to be off on their own.' Reave's eyes twinkled. 'It did seem that they waited for you to show up before they left.'

'That was nice of them.'

Reave peered at the Minstrel Boy with narrowed eyes. 'You don't like this, do you?'

The Minstrel Boy grimaced. 'It ain't that I don't like it. It's just that it's . . .'

Reave filled in for him. 'It's just that it's Billy.'

'Damn right it's Billy. I don't know what to make of him anymore. He's like a zombie half the time. I didn't even know he was interested in women anymore. We've got to do something about him before he gets to be a menace.'

'What do you suggest we do with him? Drum him out of the regiment?'

The Minstrel Boy knew that the conversation was going to be pointless. Whatever they said, they were stuck with Billy. 'I don't know.'

Reave pursed his lips. 'You've always considered yourself superior to Billy, haven't you?'

The Minstrel Boy blinked. 'Haven't
you
?
He's a cyclatrol fuck. He isn't called Billy Oblivion for nothing.'

Reave stroked his chin. 'I'm not sure that partners should feel superior to each other.'

'I'm not sure that partners should put the make on your girl.'

'Maybe she just wanted to screw all three of us.'

There was a long silence while the Minstrel Boy stared at Reave. Finally he sighed. 'In the tank?'

Reave nodded. There was another silence.

Suddenly the Minstrel Boy laughed. 'Well, if you're right — and it looks like you are — it's one hell of an ambition.'

Reave finished his drink and set down the glass. 'The fact does remain that she's gone with Billy and we're the cast-off rejects. And what's more, we don't seem to be exactly cutting a swath in this place.'

The Minstrel Boy raised his head and looked around. 'Are you suggesting that we do our drinking somewhere where they might appreciate us a little more?'

'That's exactly what I'm suggesting.'

The Minstrel Boy studied the Grand Lounge of the Leader
Hotel. It was reputed to be an accurate reconstruction of the ballroom of the starcruiser
Bel Air,
the civilian luxury transport that had been vaporized by the Draan back at the very start of the war. It was a vision of white and gold magnificence, but it was decidedly sedate. Although the people all around them looked handsome and chic, a lot of the faces betrayed the unique tension that came only with centuries of longlife and youth treatments. A muted n'yesh quartet was playing slow and formal dance music on the other side of the room, and a number of couples were dancing with a notable absence of passion or enthusiasm. The only genuinely youthful energy was possessed by the clutch of very young women who were there in the company of much older men.

The Minstrel Boy nodded and swung his legs off the couch. 'Yeah, we don't belong here. This is an exhibition of embalming. A bunch of credit doesn't turn a rowdy into a patrician.'

'So why don't us old rowdies go out over to Bluecat Plaza where we belong?'

The Minstrel Boy stood up. 'Why the hell don't we?'

As they were walking out, Reave grinned at the Minstrel Boy. 'Tell me something.'

'What?'

'You think you're superior to me?'

The Minstrel Boy smiled slyly. 'Hell, I always treated you equal.'

Bluecat Plaza, just below the main core of Krystaleit, was the undisputed epicenter of the city's underworld, a haven for the uncouth, the unorthodox, and the just plain criminal. The plaza itself was an open space at the convergence of a maze of twisting lanes and alleys that wound in and out between the downward sweep of the massive power conduits running out of the core. It was named for the Bluecat Artifact, one of the mysterious remnants of the long-gone age of advanced technology. The artifact was a dark metal monolith, some forty feet high with a pair of equilateral cones projecting from the top. The cones, plus me two large, side-by-side ovoid ports like great slit eyes radiating an even, pale blue luminescence, gave the thing a resemblance to a giant stylized feline. It was not the most magnificent of the artifacts, but it was sufficiently dramatic to preside
over Krystaleit's delinquent heart like the enigmatic idol of some forgotten technocat god.

Reave and the Minstrel Boy approached the less than savory section of the inner city by the steep peoplemover that ran around the outer armor that shielded the city's central biode and the primary stasis generator. They could see the blue glow of the cat's eyes while they were still two levels up. When they stepped off the moving belt, the bare, bright plaza was comparatively deserted. That did not surprise them — the majority of that area's denizens preferred the dark, enclosed labyrinth of the alleys. The main human presence was the men and women, boys and girls, who displayed themselves from the shadows at the periphery. A strange tradition had grown up among the prostitutes of the Bluecat: There were tall, shallow, depressed flutes around the energy stacks where they passed through the floor of the plaza level. Those who wished to ply their trade positioned themselves one per flute and made their pitch from there. The come-on was contained in a single word.

'Me!'

'Meeee . . . meeee . . .'

'Choose me.'

'See me, feel me.'

'Me.'

Reave and the Minstrel Boy crossed the plaza with the sound sighing around them like a human breeze. One of the strange unwritten rules of the plaza was that the whores must not leave the flutes unless hired by a client. An authoritarian voice snapped through the general whisper.

'You! You there! You will come over to me!'

Reave and the Minstrel Boy did not falter. They were not in the mood for transactional love games.

Their goal for the moment was to become drunk, noisy, and aggressive, in general to act like the heros they were supposed to be. They walked straight toward the mouth of Mildweedallee, the arterial lane that led into the nameless delights of the Bluecat proper.

Where the plaza was blue, the surrounding labyrinth was a deep carnal red. Scarlet banners floated on the air, and a cacophony of music and voices spilled out from the doorways of a hundred nightclubs and gin mills, houses of ill repute and less that announced their names in everything from mist optics to electric
globes. The Balrog, the Club Adolf, the King Snake, the Casa Celine, the Hive, and the Red and Black all vied for the pair's attention and credit. They passed the dark doorway of a Nulite mosque sealed with the symbol of the Explosion of the Primal Birth. The Minstrel Boy halted in front of the display glass of a retailer with a modest sign that read 'Churchill's Weapons.'

'Will you look at that?'

In the center of the window was a set of flat chromium throwing knives, individually sheathed in a black leather apron belt with silver fittings. The Minstrel Boy was transfixed.

'I want them.'

Reave nodded. The knives looked impressive. 'I was wondering what happened to your old set.'

'It's going to stretch the credit if I buy them.'

'So buy them. We'll only piss it away if you don't. Weapons are weapons.'

The Minstrel Boy went inside. Reave chuckled to himself. 'The DNA Cowboys go shopping.'

After a number of minutes bargaining, the Minstrel Boy came out of the store strapping on the knives and looking exceedingly pleased with himself. He and Reave walked on. A busker was playing a droned wanglejangle so excruciatingly badly that the Minstrel Boy, as a music lover, had an urge to go over and kick him. A wino sat in a doorway, delivering a monologue to a gray discorporate who sagged beside him. When they reached the point where the Mildweedallee crossed Creed Passage, they heard a very different kind of music: the high, spine-chilling harmonies of a chromacon that was being played by a master. The Minstrel Boy stopped again.

'I swear to God . . .'

Reave was immediately alert. 'What is it?'

The Minstrel Boy listened intently. 'I know that tone.'

Reave relaxed. 'You know who's playing?'

'I think I've got a very good idea.' He cast around, trying to figure out which place was the source of the sound. 'I think it's coming from the Victory Café.'

Reave grinned. 'So let's go.'