The Quest of the DNA Cowboys (13 page)

‘All right, all right.’

She hit the off button. The directorate meeting would wipe out anything happening for most of the day. She might as well sleep right through it. She was reaching for the dormax when a thought struck her. Maybe it would be fun to go to a meeting once. If Valdo was there to back her up, between them they might throw some shocks into those old fools. She punched Valdo’s combination, and another pink-clad Hostess-l appeared.

‘Mr. Catto’s residence.’

‘Is Valdo conscious?’

‘If you’ll wait one moment, please, Miss Catto, I’ll find out.’

The screen dissolved into a pattern of neutral colours. It stayed that way for almost a minute, and A.A. Catto tapped her silver nails impatiently on the console. Finally Valdo’s image appeared on the screen.

A.A. Catto had often thought that the reason she liked her brother so much was that he resembled her so closely. He had the same straight nose and large blue eyes. He even had the same full mouth. It was something that didn’t quite fit on a male. Valdo revelled in the fact that he was definitely borderline.

The image on the screen was far from Valdo at his best.

He still had on the pale blue wig that he had worn the night before, and his makeup was smudged and streaked.

‘What do you want, sister? I thought you’d be dormaxed out by now.’

‘You look awful, brother. What do you plan to do this morning?’

‘Sleep. There’s nothing happening except a directorate meeting.’

A.A. Catto pretended to be scandalized.

‘You mean you’re going to miss a directorate meeting?’

Valdo scowled.

‘What are you talking about? We always miss directorate meetings.’

‘I thought we ought to go to this one.’

‘You’re joking?’

‘I thought it would be a good idea if we went to the meeting.’

‘Have you gone mad, sister? Directorate meetings are boring, tedious, and, very positively, no place to be.’

‘Think about it, brother. If we took on maybe three pay-loads of altacaine, and then went along and caused trouble for the parents, I thought it would be fun.’

‘Aren’t you rather scraping the barrel?’

‘I thought if we worked on it, we might be able to force through some dictates that could make life more amusing.’

Valdo looked unconvinced.

‘Like what, sister?’

‘Maybe we could have a war.’

‘There’s no one worth having a war with.’

A.A. Carto waved his objections aside.

‘I only just thought of it. We can work out details later. Say you’ll come.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Listen, sister, I’d rather sleep than spend the day with those boring old farts.’

‘But we could take it over, brother. We could really put them through.’

‘It still seems like a waste of time. A whole day spent in pursuit of the tiresome. It almost seems an insult to good drugs to take on a load and then sit with awful, OLD people.’

‘It’s because we never go to meetings that these old awful people have it their own way. That’s the reason that the entertainments are so wretched.’

‘My dear sister. Is it that you’ve become a concerned citizen?’

A.A. Catto’s eyes flashed with anger.

‘Don’t be disgusting.’

‘It does rather sound like it. I never thought I’d see my dear sister wanting to go to a meeting. Perhaps you’re getting old.’

‘You can be very insulting when you try.’

‘That kind of remark isn’t going to persuade me to come with you.’

‘Then will you come?’

‘I’ll consider it. You haven’t tried to bribe me yet.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I don’t know. There’s very little that you have that I want.’

A.A. Catto’s mouth twisted.

‘You didn’t say that four hours ago, brother.’

‘I was simply accommodating you, sister dear.’

‘Then accommodate me now.’

‘Will you promise to come back here and allow me to use you in a cruel and original manner for a whole hour if this meeting’s as boring and loathsome as I fear it will be?’

A.A. Catto nodded quickly.

‘Yes, yes, anything you like. Say you’ll come?’

‘I’ll come.’

‘Wonderful. I’ll see you at 10.00 outside the Boardroom.’

Valdo grimaced.

‘Oh god, sister, don’t say you want to be punctual.’

‘Sorry, make it 10.45.’

‘That’s a little better.’

‘Thank you, brother. You won’t be disappointed.’

Valdo yawned.

‘Anything to amuse my little sister.’

Like a wave of coarse flesh the Shirik poured out from trenches and dugouts and charged howling towards the Harodin lines. The enemy immediately opened a withering fire and dead Shirik fell one on top of another. Some dropped like stones while others fell twisting and snarling, clawing at their wounds. Although they died in their hundreds, still more came on, clambering over the bodies to get at the enemy.

One small group actually made it across no man’s land and reached the opposite trenches. They discharged their single shot scrap guns and then fell on the remaining defenders, clubbing, hacking and biting. They were shot down, but the Harodin line was breached and more Shirik poured into the gap. A horrible slaughter began in the narrow confines of the Harodin trenches.

Billy wiped the sweat from his face. It was their first time in action. They had hung round the dugout for five days, and then, along with two other machines, they had been ordered to back up and consolidate the Shirik assault.

As he watched, a handful of Harodin leaped from, the forward trenches and tried to run away. They had only gone a few yards when they were cut down by blasts of scrap metal from Shirik guns. The men who had run seemed indistinguishable from the mercenaries. Duck had been right when he’d described them as being regular guys.

From the driver’s seat, the Rainman grunted.

‘Looks like we’ll be moving up soon.’

Billy swivelled the turret a little to look at the other two fighting machines. Sure enough, a red flag appeared through the turret hatch of the lead machine. Billy glanced at the Rainman.

‘Okay, here we go, roll it.’

The Rainman eased the machine into gear and it began to move forward in formation with the either two. Billy licked his dry lips and glanced down at Reave, who crouched in the standby position, ready to move if anything happened to either of the other two. Billy grinned tensely at him.

‘This is it, kid.’

Reave shook his head.

‘How the fuck did we get ourselves into this?’

‘Don’t ask, man. Just don’t ask.’

The fighting machines crossed the Shirik trenches and started across no man’s land, towards the huge gap the apemen had carved in the Harodin defences. The wheels crunched over the thickly littered Shirik bodies, crushing them into the dust. Billy fought to keep himself from being sick. He dropped a burst of bolts on a section of the forward trench, but saw that it was already in Shirik hands and stopped firing. There seemed to be nothing left for them to do.

A Harodin machine gun opened up on them from an isolated foxhole, and bullets clanged against the machine’s armour. Billy swung the flamer round. As he fired he saw the gun was manned by two haggard, bearded men in dirty blue tunics. They looked surprised as the tongue of flame lanced towards them. It was the same look of surprise that had crossed the face of the man he’d shot in Dogbreath. The next instant the flame caught them, and they turned into blazing inhuman things. Billy lost sight of them as the machine dipped and lurched across the first enemy trench. His stomach twisted but he managed not to be sick.

The formation stopped just beyond the Harodin advance trench and took up a defensive position. The Shirik mopped up the last of the defenders. Once the trench was cleared it was their job to guard against a possible counter attack, while Uruk engineers reconstructed the newly won fortifications.

No counter attack came, and at nightfall the mercenaries dismounted from their machines and made a temporary camp. The killing was too strong in Billy’s mind to allow him to sit and relax with the other crews. He wandered along the trench, until he came to a group of Shirik huddled round a small fire. Without going too close he watched the strange subhuman creatures and listened to their grunted conversation. The Shirik seemed to have been issued with fresh meat, possibly as a reward for their victory. They snuffled and grunted over large bones.

‘Fight huh? Fight?’

‘Some fight. Some fight.’

‘Plenty kill huh?’

‘Listen …’

‘Huh?’

‘Listen … I fight.’

‘I fight, I fight.’

‘I fight, I hit ‘em, I kick ‘em an’ bit ‘em. I had t’ fight huh?’

‘They get on top of you?’

‘Nah … I fight. I kill ‘em.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yeah.’

‘All fight.’

‘All attack.’

‘Hey.’

‘Wha’?’

‘I … fight.’

‘Sure, all fight.’

‘No, no, I remember …’

‘Wha’?’

‘I remember.’

‘Wha’?’

‘I … I don’t remember.’

‘You forget.’

‘It was before, before.’

‘Didn’t we surround ‘em?’

‘Kill ‘em.’

‘Plenty good killing, huh?’

One of the Shirik waved his bone in the air.

‘Good killing, good eating.’

He wined his mouth with a strip of blue uniform, and in a flash Billy realized. The fresh meat was human. The Shirik were eating the bodies of the Harodin. He backed away in silent panic, and as soon as he was well away from the Shirik, he bolted along the trench towards where the machine crews were camped. He stumbled across a figure lying in the darkness.

‘Fuck off, I’m trying to sleep.’

It was Reave.

‘It’s me, it’s Billy. Listen, I just saw …’

The words stuck in his throat.

‘I … I …’

Reave looked at him in alarm.

‘What’s wrong, man? You look like you seen a ghost.’

‘It’s worse than that, man. Much worse.’

‘What is it, Billy? You look terrible.’

‘You remember how Duck told us about the guys who went kill crazy. How they always attacked the Shirik?’

Reave nodded.

‘Sure, I remember.’

‘Reave …’

Billy’s hysteria was holding off by only a fraction.

‘… I found out why. The Shirik, man. Those fucking animals eat the dead! They’re out there, eating the men they killed today!’

Reave closed his eyes.

‘Jesus! You saw this? You saw it happening?’

‘I saw it, Reave. I saw it and heard them talking. It was horrible. We got to get out of here.’

He clutched at Reave and sobbed into his jacket. Reave put an arm out and stroked Billy’s hair.

‘It’s all right, kid. We’ll get away from this place. We did in Dogbreath, and we can do it here.’

Billy said nothing, and for a long time they clung together in silence. A figure emerged out of the darkness.

‘What’s the matter with you two? Never had you tagged as queers.’

Reave looked up, and saw Axmann standing over him. Axmann had been in command of the lead tank.

‘My partner cracked up when he saw the Shirik eating the dead.’

‘Didn’t Duck warn you what it was like?’

‘He didn’t tell us they were cannibals.’

Axmann scratched the stubble on his chin.

‘That’s too bad. It must have been a shock to just stumble on to it. We all stay close to camp after a victory. Nobody wants to get close to the Shirik,’

Billy looked up at him.

‘It’s okay for you to talk. You’ve got used to it.’

Axmann put a hand on Billy’s shoulder.

‘Nobody gets used to that. I’ve been here for five years, and I never got used to it. The best you can hope for is to be able to close off your mind to it.’

He fumbled in the pocket of his combat coat, produced a small bottle and shook some of the contents into his hand. He handed Reave two flat white pills.

‘Give him these, they’ll put him out for the rest of the night.’

Axmann turned and walked away. Reave gave Billy the pills and some water to wash them down with. A few minutes after Billy had swallowed them, he fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

The next thing that Billy remembered was being shaken awake by Reave.

‘Come on, man, move. We’re under attack.’

There was an explosion close by, and Billy shook his head to make his brain work.

‘What’s going on?’

‘The Harodin are counter attacking. There’s thousands of them. I guess they want to get their own back on the Shirik.’

There was another explosion, and Billy scrambled to his feet.

‘Get inside the machine. It’ll be safer than out here in the open.’

Billy and Reave climbed out of the trench and sprinted towards the parked machines. Bullets spattered around their feet. Bearing down on the Dur Shanzag lines was a wall of blue uniforms. The air was filled with snarls and howls as the Shirik prepared to meet the enemy.

They reached the fighting machine, and Reave tugged open the door.

‘Quick, inside.’

They dived inside.

‘Where’s the Rainman?’

‘Dunno, I ain’t seen him.’

Reave pointed out through the observation slit.

‘There. There he is. He’s coming.’

The Rainman was ducking and weaving towards the machine, attempting to dodge the crossfire from the Shirik and the Harodin. He was only ten yards from the machine when he stumbled, spun round and hit the ground. Reave looked at Billy in alarm.

‘He’s been hit. He’s gone down.’

The Rainman was on his hands and knees, slowly crawling towards the machine. Reave reached for the door.

‘I’m going out to get him.’

There was the clang of bullets hitting the side of the machine. Billy grabbed Reave by the arm.

‘Don’t be a fool. You’ll get killed out there.’

‘I can’t leave him lying out there wounded.’

As he spoke, more bullets hit the Rainman, he jerked convulsively and lay still. Reave pulled away from Billy and began opening the door.

‘I can’t leave him out there.’

Billy pushed Reave hard into his seat.

‘There’s nothing you can do. He’s dead.’