Rock of Ages (30 page)

Maijstral looked up just in time to see the cart careening toward him at top speed. His heart lurched. He dropped his face into the foam as the cart, supported by its a-grav repellers, passed harmlessly over his head.

He looked up again. Dimly visible through a haze of purple mist, he saw Hood and Roman locked in combat. Hood’s wig was badly askew. Roman aimed a kick at Hood, slipped in the foam, and crashed to the ground. Hood tried to stomp Roman while Roman was prone, but his support leg slid out from under him and he crashed to the ground as well. Both combatants rose, dripping foam, lunged for one another again, grappled, and fell.

“What’s going on?” the Admiral shouted. “What’s happening?”

Song rose from the foam, looking frantic, but promptly slipped and dropped into the purple with a mighty splash.

It looked as if Maijstral’s side was winning. And winning, to Maijstral, had always meant getting while the getting was good.

“Follow the coffins!” Maijstral ordered, forgetting to subvocalize, and then he triggered his own flying harness and zoomed into the air after the retreating cart, flying backward and navigating through his enhanced, expanded vision. As he passed, Roberta and Conchita triggered their repellers and rose out of the foam themselves.

From behind the curtain of mist came roars and meaty thwacks as Roman and Hood pummeled each other. Major Song staggered upward and gaped after her disappearing grandfather. Her two henchmen likewise rose unsteadily to their feet.

“They’re getting away!” she said. “After them!” But as they started to run they tripped over the bust of Admiral Song, hidden deep in the foam, and they tangled and crashed heavily to the ground.

Kuusinen’s cart reached the end of the row and he tried frantically to make the abrupt right-angle turn demanded by the room’s configuration. He failed and ran both coffins straight into the wall. Maijstral hadn’t anticipated Kuusinen’s abrupt stop and he sailed backward into the cart, sweeping Kuusinen off and slamming him against the far wall.

“
Ouch!
” said Maijstral’s dad. “
What just happened?
”

Maijstral came to a halt, the breath hammered from his lungs by the collision, stars flashing in his eyes. He looked up dazedly just in time to see Roberta flying straight for him.

The impact bent a few ribs. And then Conchita crashed into the pile, making a surprising impact for someone her size.

“I believe we were supposed to turn,” Roberta remarked.

Major Song and her henchmen slowly rose from the pile again. “They’re helpless!” she called, pointing. “Get them!”

They began loping toward the stalled cart, foam splashing at every step. Maijstral and his group tried to get untangled. As the pack loosened, Kuusinen fell unconscious into the foam. Maijstral wondered where his spitfire had got to. If it was in the froth, he’d never find it.

And then Roman, who had finally choked Commander Hood into submission, rose from the foam and took flight, arms outstretched.

He rammed Major Song with his head, and his extended arms clipped the others as he passed. All three dropped, landing hard. Roman floated to where Maijstral’s party were still trying to sort themselves out, picked up the unconscious Kuusinen, and set him at the cart’s controls.

“Shall I drive, sir?” Roman said.

“By all means,” Maijstral mumbled.

“Don’t take the elevator,” Conchita said. “Guards will be responding to the alarms by now.”

They took the stairs, the cart thudding down the risers on its repellers. Turning the cart on the landings took time, and Ruth Song and her henchmen were closing on them by the time the cart crashed through some door and began moving down a long tunnel.

“Where does this go?” Roberta asked.

“I don’t know,” Maijstral said. “Kuusinen has the maps, and he’s out of action.”

“What’s that
noise?
” Conchita wondered. There was a distant, powerful sound, a roaring like a distant ocean. It was coming from dead ahead.

The cart smashed through another pair of doors into a large, dark place, and the noise was suddenly much louder. Startled people darted from out of the way of the cart. And then the darkness fell away, and to Maijstral’s horror he realized what was making the roaring sound.

Thousands of people
. . .

*

Garvikh really had them rocking. He had the audience in the palm of his furry hand.

He had heard it said that he was the finest Elvis ever to be born Khosalikh. Certainly he was among the best Elvises now alive. As part of his apprenticeship he had mastered the difficult, antique Earth dialect, a dead language no longer spoken anywhere, in which the King had recorded his masterpieces. Garvikh had devoted thousands of hours to a series of special exercises designed to limber his sturdy Khosali hips and torso, never intended to move with the fluidity more natural to the human form, so that he could perform the demanding, difficult hip thrusts, the stilted, pigeon-toed walking style, the sudden knee drops and whirling assaults on the microphone that characterized the rigidly defined Elvis repertoire. This was High Custom, and High Custom performances, required the utmost in precision. Each step, each gesture, each twitch of the hips or twist of the upper lip, was performed with the utmost classical perfection, the most rigid attention to form. There was no room for accident, for spontaneity. All was performed with utmost care to assure that every nuance was subtly shaded and subtly controlled, in the tradition of the great Elvis Masters of the past.

And now all the work, all the dedication was paying off. Garvikh was performing live in front of an audience of thousands, and he was wowing them. A Memphis audience was said to be the most knowledgeable, the most demanding; but if you could win them to your side, you .had a place in their hearts forever.

He had opened with “All Shook Up” and “Jailhouse Rock” to get the audience on its feet. He’d made them swoon with "Surrender" and "One Broken Heart for Sale." Then he’d jumped into “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” to which he had choreographed jets ofwater from the fountains in the ornamental pond at the foot of the stage, the leaping water turned into a fantasy of color by spotlights. Now he was ready to wail on his best song, “Heartbreak Hotel.” He had worked on the refrain for months, to get precisely the right tone to the mumble of the “I’ll be so lonely” section.

But before he started, he wanted to drive the audience into a frenzy of anticipation. He carefully assumed the Sixth Posture of Elvis, cocking his head at a precise sixteen-degree angle and looking at the audience slightly sidelong. “
Well
. . .” he drawled, and the audience roared. He shifted to the Seventh Posture, the provocative “Undereyed Stance,” difficult for a Khosalikh to pull off because it required him to look at the audience in a challenging way, as if from under his brows—but of course the Khosali have no projecting forehead the way humans do, and the whole movement had to depend on careful effect and illusion.

“
Well
. . .” he said again, and seven thousand hypercritical Elvis fanatics roared with approval.

He waited the prescribed six seconds for suspense to build. “Well . . .” he began again, and then perceived a movement off to his right. Not daring to change his posture, he turned his eyes in that direction, and almost immediately wished he hadn’t.

Three flying holographic Elvises, trailing purple foam, were zooming onto the stage at high speed, accompanied by a hovercart that carried two long metal boxes covered with purple goo. A fifth Elvis lolled on the cart, drunk or unconscious, while a sixth figure—a preposterous red-haired giant with a fixed grin—sat behind the controls.

Ronnie Romper?
Garvikh thought, but discipline demanded he not move a muscle, that he stand in the “Undereyed Stance” for the five to eight seconds necessary to provoke the audience to an ecstasy of anticipation.

The cart bore down on him, showing no sign of stopping. Garvikh was struck with the full horror of his dilemma. If he stepped out of the cart’s path he would be making an unscripted move, defying thousands of years of performing tradition and probably ending his career on the spot. And if he didn’t move out of the way, he would be run over by the cart, its cargo, and its redheaded occupant.

Garvikh decided to tough it out. He held the Seventh Posture, clenching his teeth in a snarl. The audience held its breath. Then the impact came, and Garvikh felt himself cartwheeling across the stage . . . and as stars exploded before his eyes and the stage came up to meet him, he heard the roar of audience approval.

Garvikh had not trained all his life in order to cave in easily to misfortune. He staggered upright, his hand still triumphantly clutching the microphone, and automatically assumed the Eleventh Posture, the one called “The King in Glory.”

“I—” he began, the world swimming around him, and then through his confusion observed that three more Elvises—and wasn’t one of them Ruth Song?—had just charged onto the stage and were engaging the first set of Elvises in battle. Fists flew. One of the first group of Elvises was knocked down.

The fans could hardly blame him for
this
, he concluded. Trying not to break character, he stalked forward and tapped one of the Elvises on the shoulder. “What’s going on here?” he demanded, unconsciously speaking in the dead language he’d been performing all night.

The other Elvis whirled, punched him on the muzzle, and dropped him to the stage. The audience roared.

Garvikh decided to crawl to safety, but this proved more difficult than he anticipated, because first one, then another of the Elvises tripped over him and crashed to the stage.

Garvikh shook the stars from his head and rose cautiously to his feet again. Someone new had joined the fray—a ghastly-looking human in a clanking mechanical suit, trailing water as he climbed to the stage. Apparently he had crossed the ornamental pond in front of the stage. “Ruth!” the human shouted. Despite his apparent desperation, his face bore an odd, unfocused grin.

“Milo!” cried one of the Elvises. “Help!” It
was
Ruth Song, Garvikh saw, being held down and pummeled by a pair of Elvises.

Garvikh concluded that he should come to her aid—at least she was an Elvis he recognized. But as he ran to Ruth Song’s assistance, Milo seized him from behind by his standing collar.

“
Rat!
” Milo yelled. Garvikh’s teeth rattled as Milo shook him back and forth. Hydraulics hissed as Garvikh was flung across the stage.

The lights went out for Garvikh for a while, but when he cleared the cobwebs from his head the battle was still going on. Elvises were battling back and forth, but Milo held center stage engaged with Ronnie Romper. Roars, thumps, hydraulic hisses, and clangs marked the blows of fists, feet, stage equipment, and Milo’s armored shell.

One of the Elvises hit another Elvis so hard that he knocked his wig off. Another Elvis smashed an Elvis with the microphone stands. Yet another Elvis was trying to strangle a different Elvis.

A youngish human female with rocklike hair dashed across the stage, artfully weaving among the battling Elvises. Media globes orbited her head. Then a group of short, copper-skinned humans ran across the stage as well, scattering Elvises but exiting after the female.

The short humans were followed by an elderly human, who hit several of the Elvises with his cane as he made his way across the stage.

The audience was going mad.

Milo’s forearm thudded into Ronnie Romper, knocking him back into the cart. But Ronnie was undeterred—roaring like a demon, he picked up one of the boxes from the cart—was it a
coffin?
—and then used it as a ram to smash Milo in the chest. Milo staggered back. Ronnie pursued his advantage, hammering Milo again and again. Milo’s arms windmilled as his heels stopped at the edge of the stage.

“Kill them all!” screamed one of the coffins. Roaring, Ronnie apparently intended to do just that. He thrust one last time, and Milo gave a despairing wail as he went off the stage. A giant splash rose as the man struck the ornamental pond. And then Ronnie raised the box above his head, roared once more, a terrible sound, and flung the box down after Milo. There was a horrid clanging noise followed by a bright flare, as if some electronics had just short-circuited, and then Ronnie stepped back, his posture one of satisfaction.

Four Elvises were sprawled on stage, incapacitated. One of them, Garvikh perceived, was Ruth Song.

The Elvis still on his feet, plus Ronnie Romper, picked up two of the unconscious Elvises, then flew from the stage, followed by Ronnie Romper and, the cart. Three wounded Elvises were left behind. The audience screamed for more.

Dimly, Garvikh realized that this was his cue. He dragged himself to his feet, staggered downstage, and found the microphone. He picked it up and assumed the Seventh Posture again.

“
Wellllll
. . .” he repeated, and the crowd went wild. He held his pose for ten seconds, then for another six, then for another six. The audience’s excitement knew no bounds. Garvikh thought he had probably achieved some sort of record. Finally he waved his arm, signaling the downbeat for “Heartbreak Hotel,” then stepped back into the powerful “Wailing Stance” to cry the opening lines. Unfortunately his foot landed on a pile of the purple foam that seemed, unaccountably, to have been smeared around the stage.

While the opening bars to “Heartbreak Hotel” rang out. Garvikh performed a crazed, whirling dance for a few brief seconds, then fell to the stage.

From his prone position, he heard the roaring sound of audience approval.
Immortality at last
, he thought, and then he surrendered his hold on consciousness.

*

Maijstral and his party made their way to the stage door, which parted automatically for Maijstral’s coded-badge. As the doors rolled open, Maijstral gazed out into the combat-ready eyes of a platoon of well-armed guards, led by the same officer who had admitted them to the Heart of Graceland.

Oh dear
, he thought, and prepared to surrender.

In his imagination, dungeon gates yawned.