The Quest of the DNA Cowboys (9 page)

‘Sure sounds like a good life.’

The Rainman nodded.

‘It is. ‘Cept most towns get tired of weather after a few days and begin to hanker after everything getting back to normal. That’s when they pay me off and I shut off Wilbur, that’s the pet name I call the disruptor, and it’s time to move on. Like you say, though, it ain’t a bad life.’

Billy started to take an interest in the conversation. He looked at the Rainman.

‘You sound as though you don’t have too much regard for these stasis towns.’

The Rainman shook his head.

‘I don’t, and I must have seen a hundred of them since I got hold of old Wilbur.’

‘What’s wrong with them?’

‘Oh, nothing really. It’s just that they’re so goddamn self-satisfied. You know, they sit there, inside the field of their generator, everything they need coming in on a stuff beam. After a while they seem to fold in on themselves, refuse to believe there’s anything different from their little world. They start to get so fucking narrow, some then really turn weird.’

‘Weird?’

‘Yeah, these little towns all get caught up on some stupid detail and build their whole lives round it.’

Billy looked interested.

‘Is Galilee like that?’

‘Yeah, they’re all crazy.’

‘Crazy?’

‘Yeah, they have this thing about work. I mean, everything they need comes in on a stuff beam, but they have this kind of religion thing about work. They work all the time at these pointless jobs, hard physical work for maybe ten hours, a day. They have this mad priesthood which keeps everybody hard at it. It’s a terrible place to get busted for vagrancy. They’ll have you breaking up rocks with a goddamn hammer. You wouldn’t believe the way they carry on around Galilee.’

Reave looked alarmed.

‘And this is the place we’re heading for?’

The Rainman nodded sombrely.

‘If I was you, I’d get the hell out of it as quick as possible. It’s no place for freewheelers and ramblers.’

They rode on in silence for a while. All of them were lost in their own thoughts. Outside the coach, the glowing plain seemed to go on for ever. After about two hours, the driver leaned down and yelled.

‘We’re hitting the nothings, better switch on your generators.

Billy punched the on button on his porta-pac and glanced at the Rainman.

‘Doesn’t this coach have its own generator?’

‘Sure it does, it’s under that canvas sheet at the back, but it’s an old beat-up bunch of junk and it ain’t too reliable.’

‘Why are we going into the nothings at all?’

The Rainman looked at him as though he was an imbecile.

‘If you don’t go into the nothings, how the fuck do you get anywhere?’

‘But how does the driver know where he’s going?’

‘He don’t.’

Billy and Reave were beginning to get confused.

‘Then how do we get anywhere?’

‘The lizards.’

‘The lizards?’

‘Sure, them old lizards seem to know where to head when they get into the nothings. Leastways, they usually come out where they’re supposed to.’

‘Usually?’

Billy thought about his life being in the hands of the huge lumbering green monsters that had sat scratching themselves in the street at Dogbreath. The Rainman shrugged.

‘A few stages don’t turn up. That’s why people don’t move around much.’

Billy stared out of the window at the swirling colours that flashed and blended and faded back into the ever-present grey. Apart from the occasional lurch, there was no indication that the coach was moving in any direction at all. Looking out into the nothings Billy was filled with a deep depression that he could find no logical reason for. He began thinking about what the Rainman had told him about Galilee. It seemed as though they’d really made a mess of things by losing the Minstrel Boy. Billy didn’t want to wind up on some religious nut’s chain gang.

Then they were out of the nothings and running on a strip of barren dusty desert. The only things that grew under the hot red sky were twisted thorns and stunted cacti. In the distance Billy could make out what looked like a walled city.

As they drew near, the city revealed itself to be a grim, forbidding place. It had high white walls, behind which Billy could make out the pointed tops of dark buildings. The coach seemed to be heading towards a pair of sinister gates made of some kind of embossed black metal. It was then that Billy saw something that made his stomach twist.

Outside the walls and a few yards from the gate was an enormous gibbet. It stood like a huge angular tree, or the mast of an ancient sailing ship that had sunk into the sand. There must have been a full fifty bodies hanging from it, men, women and children. Evil-looking crows circled the ghastly structure, picking choice titbits from the dead.

The driver didn’t take the coach into the city, however. Before the trail reached the gate, it crossed another that ran parallel with the walls. At the intersection a figure was waiting. It had a broad black hat that flopped to hide its face, and a black cloak that concealed its body. The driver halted the coach beside it and hollered out.

‘Sade.’

The figure opened the door of the coach and climbed inside. Billy had a brief flash of a deathly white hand with purple nails and heavy silver rings. Then it vanished beneath the cloak. The figure seated itself in the corner, as far as possible from Billy, Reave and the Rainman.

The Rainman held out his hand as he’d done to Billy and Reave.

‘Howdy stranger. People call me the Rainman, maybe we should get acquainted seeing as how it’s a long ride to Hollow City.’

The stranger gave a sharp hiss, and moved even further into the corner. The Rainman shrugged.

‘Suit yourself, just trying to be sociable.’

He settled back into his seat and stared out of the window. The coach was still rushing through the same parched landscape with its baleful red sky.

It was about then that the stage hit a rock or something and was jolted a foot into the air. The Rainman’s bag crashed to the floor. As he reached down to pick it up, it began to smoke and dissolve. He looked at Billy and Reave in alarm.

‘Wilbur’s woken up, and he’s mad. Grab hold of me, there’s no knowing what can happen - and you, stranger.’

He reached out towards the figure in black, but it twisted violently away from him. The sudden movement tipped its hat, and for an instant showed the pale face of a beautiful but incredibly evil woman.

Then Wilbur started to move and everything shimmered and dissolved.

A.A. Catto walked at a suitably stately speed down the moving corridor that led to the Velvet Rooms. She looked at herself in a small pocket mirror. Her features were perfect, the straight aristocratic nose, the large pale blue eyes and the sensuous mouth with its trace of cruelty.

A.A. Catto was extremely satisfied with herself.

The Velvet Rooms were an ideal place for a party. Their floor, walls and ceiling were covered in purple velvet, and the main floor was hydroelastic and sections could be made soft or rigid by the touch of a control. Jutting out of the main floor was a broad terrace of pure white marble, with a baroque balustrade and a wide staircase that swept down to the floor.

It was on the terrace that A.A. Catto made her entrance. Directly she stepped inside the Velvet Rooms, the familiar atmosphere of opium smoke, incense and chatter swirled around her, and she looked across the party. Bruno Mudstrap and his yahoo friends already had the floor at soft and were rolling round, pawing each other. A.A. Catto decided to stay on the terrace. A Hostess-1 came up behind her with a tray of drinks and A.A. Catto took one. She took a careful sip. She was always careful with drinks at Juno Meltzer’s parties. There was no knowing what pleasant concoctions Juno might serve to her guests.

A.A. Catto was attempting to guess the ingredients of the drink when she heard a languid voice from behind her.

‘A.A. Catto, you came. How nice. I believe your brother’s here somewhere.’

Juno Meltzer had spared no effort to be the most noticed person at her party. She was completely naked apart from her jewellery, and her body had been treated so the flesh had become transparent. It was as though she was made of clear plastic, inside which was the red and blue tracery of veins and arteries, the white moving muscles and pink candy-stick bones. Her hair had been dressed so it looked like spun glass. A.A. Catto regarded her with frank admiration.

‘You look very impressive, Juno.’

Juno Meltzer smiled.

‘I thought I ought to make an effort for my own party.’

‘Isn’t it awfully dangerous?’

‘I don’t really care. What are a few cells, one way or another? And anyway, it’s so exciting. Whoever I have tonight will be able to watch what happens inside me. That ought to do something for them.’

A frowned creased A.A. Catto’s smooth forehead.

‘It could be a little undignified.’

Juno Meltzer waved her hand in rejection of the idea.

‘My lovers have seen me in every kind of position, darling, but I think I have enough breeding never to be undignified.’

Both women allowed themselves a brittle laugh, and then Juno Meltzer steered A.A. Catto to a long buffet table.

‘Perhaps you’d like to eat something?’

The table was full of the rarest and most exotic delicacies, arranged in elaborate constructions. The centre piece of the whole buffet was a huge dish of chilled and crushed strawberries, upon which a beautiful young L-4 girl, she couldn’t have been more than fourteen, lay perfectly still, her body providing a unique receptacle for all manner of sweetmeats. A.A. Catto picked up a silver spoon and took some chocolate ants that were heaped where the girl’s pubic hair should have been. Then she put down the spoon and with her fingers took a morello cherry from one of the girl’s nipples and pepped it into her mouth. She turned to Juno Meltzer.

‘Is the girl dead?’

It was hard to read Juno Meltzer’s transparent face, but A.A. Catto thought she detected a trace of disappointment.

‘Of course not. She’s fully conscious. All we did was to have her pre-frontals radiated out. She does exactly what she is told without a thought. Bruno and his gang will have a great time with her once all the food’s been consumed.’

The two women parted and began to circulate, making the small talk with people they really didn’t want to know that was the traditional preliminary to every party. A Hostess-1 presented A.A. Catto with a blue glass opium pipe, and when she finished it she felt ready to move into second gear. She sought out Juno Meltzer.

‘When does the fun begin, darling? I hope the human plate wasn’t the big surprise.’

Juno Meltzer shook her head most mysteriously.

‘Any moment now the entertainment will start.’

The end section of the floor became rigid, and formed a low semi-circular stage. Some Hostess-1s politely persuaded Bruno Mudstrap and his cohorts that maybe they’d like to move back and watch the show.

A.A. Catto slowly descended the marble staircase and sank into a reclining position on the soft part of the velvet floor. De Roulet Glick spotted her, and hurried to her side.

‘A.A. Catto, it’s so wonderful to see you. I wonder …’

‘Get lost, Glick. I find you loathsome.’

‘But …’

‘Loathsome, Glick.’

De Roulet Glick slunk away like a whipped puppy.

Hostesses moved among the guests with drinks and opium, and then the music faded and the lights dimmed. A troup of tiny people appeared from a concealed door and the lights focused on the impromptu stage.

They were L-4s who had been reduced to a height of not more than sixty centimetres by some kind of DNA adjustments. They played miniature instruments, sang and did acrobatics. A.A. Catto yawned. What kind of cornball idea was this? The transparency treatment must have damaged Juno Meltzer’s brain.

The Hostess-1s moved among the guests again and, along with the others, A.A. Catto found herself handed an ornate, leaf-blade knife. The midgets continued with their absurd pantomime.

Gradually A.A. Catto found her mood was changing, she was becoming irritable. The irritability turned to anger, and the anger to a cold hate. She realized that there was a wideband alphaset being used. Juno Meltzer’s surprise was about to be sprung. It was the midgets that cracked first. One of them, a comparatively tall male, cried out in a high trilling voice.

‘Now, brothers and sisters! Slay the oppressor!’

Squeaking, they rushed at their audience. Before A.A. Catto could get to her feet a tiny woman had struck at her with a small sword. As the blow fell it became clear that the sword was only painted balsa wood. It snapped and A. A. Catto swung her own inlaid steel blade at the L-4 and cut her practically in two. Leaping to her feet she hacked at the little people, cutting off heads and limbs in a savage fury. The rest of the guests were joining in with relish. In five minutes it was all over. The L-4s had all been slaughtered.

A.A. Catto felt her emotions change. Someone had adjusted the alphaset, and a feeling of wellbeing crept through the Velvet Rooms. A team of Hostess-2s cleared away the tiny corpses and removed the blood. A.A. Catto sank back to the floor.

She felt positively good. So good, in fact, that she was actively pleased when her brother Valdo pushed up her black skirt and began to caress her thighs.

Reave, Billy and the Rainman clung desperately together. There were no words to describe what they were going through. Disruption patterns filled the sky, and glowing things flashed past them.

Their sense of down kept shifting, and in their minds they seemed to be falling in constantly changing directions. In a similar way to when they had walked through the nothings, the idea of time became warped and twisted. One moment they floated through a curving, ribbed pink tube, and the next they were dropping past glowing perspective lines. The paradox was that although they seemed to slip rapidly from one plane to the next, while they were actually experiencing a phenomenon it was as though it had been going on for ever.

After what seemed like both an eternity and a few moments, they hit something. Billy fell heavily and twisted his shoulder. Painfully, he picked himself up and looked for the others. Reave and the Rainman were sprawled beside him, but there was no sign of the strange woman in black.