The Quest of the DNA Cowboys (22 page)

A.A. Catto thought she detected a hint of sullenness in the man’s voice. She looked sharply at the screen.

‘You Stewards don’t like plastic temp jobs, do you?’

‘Our preferences are not relevant. We are designed to serve.’

‘Afterwards though, it can be very painful when it grows out, can’t it?’

‘There are after effects for the individual Steward, but those should not concern you, Miss Catto.’

A.A. Catto smiled a particularly nasty smile.

‘That’s right, it doesn’t concern me at all. I want you to look up records. There was once a movie actor called Valentino. Rudolph Valentino. I want you to prepare a special using those old films and pictures. I want a Steward sent up that looks like Valentino.’

‘There will be a time factor involved in the production of this.’

‘How long?’

‘I would estimate it at about half an hour.’

‘I’ll wait, but it better not be much longer.’

‘It’ll be as soon as possible, Miss Catto. Are there any other requirements?’

A.A. Catto smiled.

‘Only the usual ones.’

She cut the connection, and lay on the bed waiting. Would it be more fun to dress up? Make the Steward rip her clothes off? She decided she had had enough violence for one day. In addition, it was too much trouble, dressing only to undress again. It was, after all, only a Steward. She would just lie there naked and let him service her. When she’d had enough, she’d, dismiss him. There was no point in making elaborate arrangements for a Steward-1.

Twenty-five minutes later the door buzzer sounded again. A.A, Catto smiled and pushed the entry button. A young man with slicked-back, patent leather hair, dark, flashing eyes and cruel mouth strode into A.A. Catto’s bedroom.

‘I am here, Miss Catto.’

His appearance was perfect, he was just what A.A. Catto had ordered. She wondered, however, if his voice and gestures were a little too theatrical. She’d report the fact to the Steward service when she was through with him.

The young man posed at the end of her bed while A.A. Catto examined him. After a couple of minutes, he cleared his throat.

‘I was instructed to inform you that I am also programmed to do the tango.’

During his third turn with the paddle, Reave began to bitch. Apart from the strange apparition, nothing had appeared that gave any indication of land. Billy looked up from where he was dozing in the bow of the canoe.

‘What’s the matter with you?’

‘I’m hungry, and I’m tired. I’m sick of this fucking lake, and I’m sick of not getting anywhere.’

Billy yawned.

‘Too bad.’

Reave glared.

‘What do you mean, too bad? If something doesn’t turn up soon we’re going to die out here.’

‘What am I supposed to do? Get excited or something? Before you start handing me the you-got-me-into-this line, just remember that it was me that wanted to stay in Dropville.’

‘You would have died in Dropville.’

‘I’m going to die here, according to you. It strikes me that I’d have been better off dying in Dropville.’

Reave scowled.

‘Is that what you really think?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yeah?’

There was a moment of tension, and then the two of them realized the absurdity of attempting to fight in the small canoe and relaxed.

‘There’s no point in getting on each other’s back. We’re stuck here and there’s nothing we can do about it.’

Reave went on paddling for some time, and then Billy took over. Their changing places was the only thing that gave them any idea of the passage of time. Nothing else changed. There was only the still water and the unchanging sky. Hunger gnawed at their stomachs, and the boredom of their surroundings provided nothing to distract them. Billy felt that his world was totally composed of paddling, sleeping, and waiting for starvation to creep slowly up on them.

Reave was sitting in the bow staring into space, and Billy was mechanically paddling, when Reave suddenly stiffened.

‘There’s something out there.’

Billy looked up.

‘You sure you’re not seeing things?’

Reave pointed.

‘Look for yourself.’

Billy pushed up his dark glasses and shaded his eyes with his hand. He could just about make out a dark smudge on the horizon.

‘Seems like there’s something out there.’

Billy paddled harder and the dark object came nearer.

‘It looks like an island of some sort.’

‘It’s kind of small for an island.’

They paddled nearer. The island turned out to be a floating reed bed, a mat of tangled vegetation that lay sluggishly on the surface of the lake. Billy prodded it with his paddle and oily water oozed up between the fibrous plants. Reave stared at it morosely.

‘This ain’t much use to us.’

‘Maybe not. It could be a sign that we’re getting nearer land. Have you noticed anything about the air?’

Reave looked puzzled.

‘Don’t think so.’

‘There’s a smell. Fish, and, I don’t know, maybe plants, or dead leaves.’

Reave sniffed the air.

‘You could be right. Let’s keep going. At least it’s a sign of something.’

He crawled towards Billy.

‘Here. Give me the paddle. If there’s land out there, let’s get to it.’

Reave paddled with renewed vigour. They passed more of the floating vegetation. The tangled beds became more numerous, and here and there they linked up to form huge areas of matted plant life. Billy and Reave were soon paddling along channels that separated the now vast reed beds. The air was filled with the swamp smell of decaying plant life, and the water became black and stagnant. Mosquitoes and brightly coloured dragonflies danced over the surface of the water, and pale flowers struggled to hold their own among the crawling dark green plants.

The reed beds grew thicker, and Billy and Reave found that they had to force the boat through increasingly narrow spaces, and even hack their way with the paddle through the thinner parts of the beds.

Billy peered down into the black water. It seemed to be getting more shallow. The boat occasionally scraped some hard object and Billy thought he could make out shapes under the water. They looked like the ruins of something man-made.

The canoe stuck fast and wouldn’t move. Billy took off his belt, slipped over the side, and sank up to his waist in the swamp before he found a footing. He put a shoulder to the stern of the boat and heaved. At first nothing happened, then there was a grating, ripping sound and Reave let out a yell.

‘There’s a hole in the fucking boat. Water’s coming in.’

The canoe began to list badly and Reave splashed into the black water beside Billy.

‘We’ve had the canoe.’

‘My porta-pac and gun are still inside.’

Reave leaned over the side of the settling canoe and fished them out. Billy looped them over his shoulder.

‘I guess we better foot it until we reach some firmer ground.’

‘Nothing else we can do.’

They found that each time they moved their feet, sluggish bubbles of foul-smelling gas rose to the surface and burst. Small black insects darted about, and mosquitoes laughed at them. They stumbled and fell often. As Billy had thought, under the layer of liquid mud there were heaps of some kind of jagged rubble on which they stubbed their toes and twisted their ankles. The going was almost impossible, and although they were soaked from the waist down, sweat poured down their faces. Billy stopped, with swamp water up to his knees.

‘Listen, I just had an idea. If we were to turn on our porta-pacs the extra buoyancy might make it easier.’

‘If they still work after the number of times we’ve dropped them in the mud.’

Billy held his up, shook it, and pressed the on button. There was a ripple as the field came on. It proved to be a good deal easier to move. They covered another three hundred yards, and Billy found that here and there patches of dry land covered in coarse spiky grass rose above the level of lie swamp. Billy and Reave staggered up on to one of the dry hummocks and flopped down.

‘Jesus, I’m exhausted.’

‘At least we seem to be getting somewhere. There seems to be more firm ground as you go on.’

The ground beyond them was more solid. There were wide areas of the spiky grass. Further on a few short twisted trees struggled to survive. In the distance they could just see a line of low hills.

After they’d rested for a while, Billy and Reave moved on. Although it was easier to cross the firmer ground, it wasn’t without its hazards. They had to wade through large areas of standing water, and Billy, at one point, sank up to his waist in a trough of thick, sucking mud. Reave struggled for ten minutes before he managed to drag him out. The insects seemed to increase, both in numbers and in daring, and the mud drying on their clothes irritated their skin just as much as the mosquito bites.

Filthy and exhausted they eventually reached the lower slopes of the high ground. It was covered in soft springy turf. Both Billy and Reave fell down and lay panting on the grass. They rested in silence for a while, then Reave noticed something in a slightly longer clump of grass, and crawled towards it. He laughed and called to Billy.

‘Hey, see what I found.’

Billy raised his head.

‘What is it?’

‘Come and take a look.’

Billy crawled to beside Reave, who parted the grass with his hands. In a hidden nest were a clutch of eight pale blue eggs. They were slightly larger than the pigeons’ eggs Billy had stolen in Pleasant Gap when he was a kid. He grinned at Reave.

‘Breakfast!’

‘Or lunch.’

‘Or supper, who can tell in this fucked-up place?’

‘It’s food, anyway. What do you think we should do with them?’

Billy looked around.

‘I don’t know. I guess we’re going to have to eat them raw.’

‘We could build a fire and try to cook them.’

Billy laughed.

‘With what, man? We don’t have any pans or anything.’

‘We could build a fire and fry them on a hot rock.’

‘We don’t have any grease.’

Reave shrugged.

‘There are times when you have to improvise.’

Reave scrambled to his feet and hurried down the slope. A few minutes later he returned with an armful of twigs and a round flat stone. After a couple of false starts, he got a fire going. Reave laid the rock on top of the hot embers. He spat on it to make sure it was hot enough, and when he was satisfied he cracked all the eggs on to the top of the rock. They were chalky and full of pieces of grit. Billy and Reave burned their fingers picking the food from the hot rock. When they’d finished, however, Billy lay back on the grass with a grunt of satisfaction.

‘I could eat that three times over.’

‘It sure was welcome.’

They slept for a while, and woke up stiff, aching, but a good deal more hopeful than they’d been earlier. They began to climb the hill. About halfway from the top they came across a well-used dirt road that appeared to wind to the other side of the line of hills.

They’d been following the road for perhaps half an hour, although they both still had trouble judging how time passed. They heard a sound from somewhere. It started as a high-pitched whine, but seemed to get fuller as it came towards them. It grew to a full-throated roar, and a figure on a motorcycle came over the hill and down the road towards them. The motorcyclist bounced past them, but slewed to a halt, and came back. Both Billy and Reave had caught the flash of a guitar on the rider’s back. They looked at each other.

‘It can’t be.’

‘It’s not possible.’

The Minstrel Boy kicked the big elaborate machine, with its long forks and high bars, on to its stand and walked towards Billy and Reave. Pulling off his leather flying helmet, he brushed the dust from his long suede coat.

‘Hey fellas, fancy seeing you boys around here.’

‘We never thought we’d see you again.’

‘No?’

‘How did you get out of that fault in the river?’

The Minstrel Boy frowned.

‘The river? That was a whole long time ago.’

It was Billy’s and Reave’s turn to frown.

‘Huh? It was only a couple of days ago.’

The Minstrel Boy shrugged.

‘Suit yourselves. You know best. Where are you headed?’

Billy spread his hands.

‘No idea. We just pulled ourselves out of the swamp. We were going up this hill to see what was on the other side. Are there any towns near here?’

The Minstrel Boy nodded wearily.

‘Sure, there’s a city on the other side of the hill. I wouldn’t care to say whether you’d like it or not.’

‘You mean there’s something wrong with it?’

‘There’s something wrong with most cities. You don’t need me to tell you that.’

‘But is this one okay?’

The Minstrel Boy scratched his ear.

‘I’m a minstrel, not a tourist guide. If you mean will you come to harm, there’s a chance of that anywhere. If you wanted to avoid harm you would have stayed in that hick town that you came from. If you mean is the city where you’ll find what you’re looking for, you got the wrong person. I can’t tell you something that you don’t even know yourselves.’

After the Minstrel Boy’s outburst, there was an awkward silence. Billy looked at the ground and spoke tentatively.

‘Where are you headed?’

‘Some other place.’

‘How would it be if we came with you?’

The Minstrel Boy pointed at the motorcycle.

‘It don’t take but one.’

‘That’s a pity.’

‘Not really, I’m headed for one place, and you’re on the road to that city over the hill. We just met in passing. It doesn’t call for anyone to change their plans. You go your way, and I’ll carry on along mine.’

‘Sure. I guess we’ll be seeing each other.’

The Minstrel Boy nodded.

‘That’s possible. So long.’

He was walking back to the bike, pulling on his helmet, when Reave called him back.

‘You wouldn’t have anything to eat, would you? I mean, something you could spare.’

‘You run out of food?’

‘Yeah.’

He fumbled in one of the big patch pockets and pulled out a small package.

‘Have a cookie.’