Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Minstrel Boywaved a hand at the glowing sphere that dominated the display on the pseudosurface. 'That's Krystaleit.'

'Are you sure?'

'Sure as you can be of anything.'

'So we're going in?'

'That's the general idea.'

Billy leaned back in his berth and folded his arms behind his head. 'It's been a long time since I was in Krystaleit.'

Reave glanced up from cleaning his pistol. 'Are you sure you're not wanted there?'

Billy shook his head. 'I already told you. Not that I know of.'

Reave turned to the Minstrel Boy. 'What about you?'

'Clean, to my knowledge.'

'Renatta?'

'Nobody wants me anywhere.'

Reave grinned. 'I'm sure that's not true.'

Renatta giggled throatily, and the Minstrel Boy cocked an eyebrow. He was starting to wonder if there was something going on between Reave and Renatta. The trip from Santa Freska had been tediously decorous. Renatta had left him strictly alone, but he could not shake the feeling that she and Reave had engaged in some covert coupling while he and Billy had been asleep. He caught Renatta's eye, and she beamed at him with the same flash of promise that there had been when they had first left the Caverns in the gold submarine. He was now totally confused, but he knew that it was no time to have his concentration disturbed by romantic complexities.

'Going into Krystaleit can be a bit weird,' he said. 'It's just so big. Where most stasis settlements are built traditionally, from the ground up, with at least the illusion of land and sky, Krystaleit occupies all of its stabilized space. It's basically a vast sphere hanging in the nothings that's honeycombed with constructions on a dozen or more levels. You come in onto one of these huge ring platforms that circle the main sphere. At times of peak traffic these platforms get real crowded, and accidents do happen.

'Can you handle it?'

The Minstrel Boy shrugged. 'All I can do is try.

'Do your best there, boy. We don't want no accidents.' The decision to make for Krystaleit had come only after a good deal of discussion. There had been general agreement that the small backcountry settlements were becoming far too strange. The DNA Cowboys wanted no repeats of Santa Freska and no more psychos like Vlad Baptiste or, at the other extreme, lunatics like Jet Ace. It became a little more difficult when it was time to select one particular city as an ultimate destination. Even the little that Billy remembered about his criminal record seem to exclude him from two-thirds of the major cities in the Damaged World. Finally, Krystaleit had been chosen after Billy had assured the others that he would not be arrested the moment they rolled out of the nothings.

They came out into the middle of a funeral. The Minstrel Boy had to stand on the Saab's brakes, locking the treads, to stop them from plowing into the main procession. Angry heads turned as the Minstrel Boy backed the tank out of the way. The hundred or more mourners were dressed in flowing creations of pure spotless white. Krystaleit was one of the places where white was the accepted color of death. It was considered to be the symbol of completion, of all things made one. The mourners wore elaborate and immensely expensive costumes — high diaphanous headdresses with sweeps of muslin and lace that flowed and floated. Surprisingly, there was a lot of exposure of bare flesh, and a high proportion of the mourners were tall, long-legged, and extremely handsome women. The Minstrel Boy wondered who had died. The corpse, wrapped in a white lace shroud and wearing a gold crown on its head, was sitting upright in a litter, borne on the muscular shoulders of six identical young men in white loincloths and body paint.

As the procession wound its way to the edge of the nothings, the mourners sang a high, wordless chant that steadily grew in intensity. When they finally halted at the very edge of the non-matter, the song had reached the level of coordinated screaming. The Minstrel Boy had expected that after due ceremony, the corpse would be ejected into the nothings and the funeral party would return to the business of the living. Thus, it came as something of a surprise when nothing of the kind happened. The young men carrying the litter simply walked into the nothings without the slightest hesitation. Two by two, they smoked and vanished and became one with the non. There was a sustained sigh as the corpse itself and the last pair of bearers disappeared. Then the voices picked up a theme that was more jaunty and rhythmic, and the procession started back the way it had come. The Minstrel Boy wondered what had been done to the six young men to make them sacrifice themselves in such a seemingly pointless manner. Brainwashed or drugged or in the throes of some metaphysical madness? It was possible that they had been specifically created for nothing more than the funeral — mere products of the stuff receiver — and that nobody looked on their deaths as a loss. He was reminded that human behavior in Krystaleit could be exceedingly perverse at times.

Reave must have also been remembering. 'You have to watch your ass here in the big city. Krystaleit can be a lot of fun, but it can also get deeply weird. You have to be ready for it.'

The Minstrel Boy engaged the Saab's drive and slowly followed in the wake of the returning funeral. The platform, despite its size, was more crowded than the Minstrel Boy ever remembered seeing it before. Hundreds of people and all manner of vehicles came out of the nothings in a constant stream. A high proportion of the incoming travelers looked scared and exhausted, as though they were on the move not for the fun or adventure of it but from force of circumstance.

'What the hell are all these folks? Refugees, or what?' Reave asked.

They were passing a ragged family of four with pinched, depressed faces who appeared to be lugging all their worldly goods with them.

Billy peered through the port. 'Refugees for sure. There have got to be a lot more of these raider warlords causing trouble out there, more than just the two we've happened across.'

'I suppose you could call us refugees. I mean, we're avoiding the raiders just like everyone else.'

'Yeah, but we've got class.'

'Let's hope we've got enough class. All these refugees may make it hard to get into the city.'

The Minstrel Boy grunted. 'Looks like we're going to find out soon enough.'

The nearest way off the platform was through a high hexagonal arch. The funeral party was heading that way, and the Minstrel Boy saw no reason why they should not do the same. The only snag was that the entrance was guarded. It was flanked by two giant figures in ancient suits of powered battle armor that must have dated back to the Thousand Years War. The suits were scarred and battered, with crude welded patches and areas discolored by old, old blast wounds. The MEWs built into their right forearms were more than capable of vaporizing the Saab without leaving a trace. Any weapon with that kind of capability had to date back to before Stuff Central.

The Minstrel Boy frowned.

'This is looking kind of serious,' the Minstrel Boy commented.

The hulking metal troopers only stood and intimidated, watching the shuffling lines through impassive visor slits. The real business of vetting the new arrivals was conducted by a half dozen militia men in drab gray uniforms toting much more modest sidearms. A movable barrier restricted the free flow of vehicles and pedestrians through the arch and into the city itself. As the funeral party approached, the barrier was raised and the people in white were quickly waved through. Once they were inside, though, the barrier came down again, warning lights flashed, and the laborious process of questioning every arrival resumed. A long line immediately formed, and inside the Saab everyone settled down for a long wait.

'Okay, listen up.' Reave seemed to be falling more and more into the leadership role. Since he did it so well, Billy and the Minstrel Boy were content to let him. 'There are a couple things we all ought to remember about Krystaleit. The most important thing is their credit system. Everything here is based on that.'

Renatta frowned.

'Credit? Why do they need credit when everything comes from Stuff Central?'

'Control. Always someone who wants to control everyone else.'

'So we don't have any credit. What's going to happen to us?'

Billy took up the story. 'In normal times, credit was granted to most new arrivals. You were assessed on the value of your vehicle and whatever you might have brought with you, credited accordingly, and issued with a temporary crys.' He glanced out the port. 'Unfortunately, they seem to have raised the basic qualification level.'

Outside, almost half the people who approached the barrier were being turned away.

'There's one other kicker in the system. Something called the Personal Value Minimum. When they first figure out your credit, you're given what's known as a base number. It's like your real bottom-line value, calculated on your age, skills, physical condition, sexual utility, how smart you are, all that sort of thing. A biode can work that stuff out real fast. The trouble starts if you ever run through that last line of credit and hit the zero. That makes you an indigent, and indigents become property of the city. They literally own your ass.'

'And what can they do with your ass once they own it?'

Billy smiled grimly. 'Anything they like. Anything from impressed servitude to dumping you straight into the nothings without an SG. Of course, they have to catch you first, and there are a lot of places to hide in Krystaleit.'

'You sound like you know this from firsthand experience.'

Billy laughed. 'I came close, but I never quite hit the zero.'

Renatta was not convinced. 'Why the hell did we come here? I don't want to become property of the city.'

'There's drawbacks to every deal. It's a good place to be if you don't screw up. Always something going on.'

The line to the barrier was moving at a snail's pace. The Minstrel Boy remembered the other times he had come into Krystaleit when there had been no lines or barriers or armored men who looked like the incarnation of sudden death. The first time had been with Old Gridghast. The old man had taken some trouble to explain the city to him:

'You don't come here looking for logic or any real social organization. It's got some of the names that go with social organization, but that's about all. It's much easier to get along in the city if you think about it as one huge organism, and a pretty unhealthy organism at that. Take the credit system. It's a perfect example. On an economic level it's a joke. There's no need for it except that it maintains the Ruling Elite like the organism's atrophied brain.'

The Minstrel Boy remembered how he had protested. 'Surely the Great Biode has to be the city's brain?'

Old Gridghast had laughed. 'More like some alien implant.'

'So what about all the cops and militia that you see every where? Isn't that social organization?'

'I find them much easier to handle if I think about them as the organism's immune system, the antibodies that attempt to protect it against destructive parasites. All you have to do is keep your head down and don't look like a disease.'

The Minstrel Boy decided not to share those particular memories with the others. Old Gridghast would be hard to follow for someone who had not been there.

They were just two cars away from the checkpoint. Reave cautioned them all. 'Here we go. Let the Minstrel Boy do the talking.'

The Minstrel Boy raised his eyebrows. 'Why me?'

'Because you're glib, and you're also in the driver's seat.'

Then they were at the head of the line. The Minstrel Boy eased the Saab up to the barrier and popped the port beside him. The armored troopers had turned to face the tank. They clearly were not taking any chances with such a heavily armored unit. Up close, the battle armor looked as old as the hills. The Minstrel Boy wondered what kind of men were inside the metal suits. The legends claimed that back in the olden days, the armored troopers had been virtual cyborgs, tank-grown semimen who were grafted into their armor for the entirety of their lives. He supposed that if someone was prepared to have the kind of surgery that had created Jet Ace, there surely could be individuals willing to be throwbacks to the war with the Draan.

Back in Litz the Minstrel Boy had watched tapes of that conflict. At the siege of Bergman's Asteroid, wave after wave of those hulking troopers, maybe a hundred thousand in all, had been thrown at the Draan emplacements, but each time they had been driven back by the batteries of huge particle cannons the methane-based invertebrates had built into the bedrock of the planetoid. The scope of the carnage had been so vast that even as he had watched the ancient images of what looked like some hell for aliens flicker across the screen, he had found it nearly impossible to believe.

The face of a militiaman appeared at the port. He was unshaven and had the look of a man who had been on duty much too long. The standard questions came out like a tired rote.

'What is the purpose of your visit to Krystaleit?'

'We just came to see the big city.'

'You always travel in a fighting vehicle?'

'Things have been getting a little hairy out in the boonies.'

'How many passengers are aboard this vehicle?'

'Four, including myself.'

'We are going to have to examine your vehicle.'

The Minstrel Boy nodded. 'Sure, no problem.'

The militiaman pointed at an area just beyond the barrier, where the road surface was painted with a yellow grid. 'You see that yellow marked section?'

'Right.'

'Pull your vehicle over there and await inspection.'

'Anything you say.'

The barrier was raised, and the Minstrel Boy moved the Saab forward.

Reave crouched beside him. 'You think this means trouble?'

'I don't know. It could just be a routine check. Not everyone turns up in a fully armed battlewagon.'

'I hope you're right.'

The Minstrel Boy maneuvered the Saab onto the yellow grid and shut down the drive. One of the armored troopers had crunched along behind them and stood covering them with his MEW.

The militiaman reappeared at the port. 'Will you all please step down from your vehicle?'

At a slight nod from Reave the Minstrel Boy opened the hatch. As they clambered out, they found that in addition to the armored trooper who was covering the Saab, there were also a half dozen militiamen pointing their sidearms at them.

'You will now please follow the flashing red line to the door indicated. Once inside, you will surrender all weapons you may be carrying to the desk officer and await questioning.'

At their feet there was a set of color-coded guide brights setin the floor. They followed the red flashing strip as instructed and were in turn followed by the militiaman and his squad. The designated door led to a nondescript room with all the worn grime that inevitably accompanies the downside of authority. The gray steel walls were plastered with routinely ugly warning notices printed in the dour Gothic script that was used exclusively by officialdom in the city. The desk officer sat behind a transparent plasteel shield. There was a small heat cannon close to his right hand, its purpose clearly to ensure full and fast cooperation in the surrender of weapons. With great reluctance the DNA Cowboys passed their guns through a security slit in the plasteel. When that was done, the desk officer glanced down at a mass/density scanner. He did not look pleased.

'The one in black has a needler concealed in his sleeve.'

Two militiamen moved in on Billy and relieved him of it. He made a helpless gesture.

'I swear to God, I clean forgot it was there.'

The one who had originally presented himself at the port looked wearily reproachful. 'This isn't a good start.'

'I'm telling you, I'd forgotten I had it.'

A tall man in a purple robe trimmed with black fur walked into the room. The militiamen came to halfhearted attention, and the desk officer acknowledged him with a limp salute. The Minstrel Boy did not know what rank of title went with the robe, but it was clear that he was from the middle levels of the civil bureaucracy.

'Are these the ones from the tank?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Let's have the Datron take a look at them before we go any further.'

The four of them were moved to a smaller, dimly blue-lit chamber that was almost completely filled with a tangle of very old hardware. Plasma conduits and thick ropes of power cables hung in dangling festoons; the pulsing and crackling vacuum columns that were the source of blue light took up an entire wall. They looked as if they were as old as time. Only the biomass, in its soft, shapeless dermal, looked as though it might have been made by contemporary technology. And in the center of it all was the tiny human in the saline tank — the Datron itself. It looked like a huge child, with an oversized, deformed head and sad, pale saucer eyes. Much of its body was obscured bythe mass of contacts that were grafted to it. Just one arm was free of leads and webbing. The hand was raised, and the stunted baby fingers fluttered ceaselessly in what seemed to be an unconscious spasm. The Minstrel Boy shuddered. He did not want to think about what went on in that mind. By normal standards, the Datron had to be insane, although normal standards hardly applied. It was a living cognizant, jacked into nearly infinite banks of data. In that, the Datron was as much a throwback as were the armored troopers outside. Both had their origins in the long-dead age when the giant starships had gone out to do battle with the Draan, except in those days the Datron would have found its way between galaxies and dimensions, whereas now it merely maintained the personal records of the city's population. Old Gridghast, in his introduction to Krystaleit, had told the Minstrel Boy how most of the equipment that he was now facing had actually, long ago, even before the founding of the city, been cannibalized from the navigation systems of one of the last two surviving starships. Krystaleit was famous for its continuing, if greatly scaled down, use of ancient artifacts. But the Datron in particular seemed an absurd corruption of its original grandeur.

The bureaucrat spoke directly to the Datron. 'Please scan these people.'

The Datron blinked and regarded each of the three in turn. Its eyes seemed to water continuously. In a fraction of a second it had analyzed the form and contour of their faces and located the corresponding records. Where once it had been one with the stars, it was now nothing more than a vast collection of mug shots. The Minstrel Boy wondered if the being was aware of how mightily it had fallen.

The Datron's voice was a piping castrate. 'The three males are known to me. From left to right they are Billy Oblivion, Reave Mekonta, and the one who is simply called the Minstrel Boy. All three have extensive criminal records, although no charges have ever been brought against them in this jurisdiction. Collectively they have been called the DNA Cowboys, and inflated stories still circulate about their alleged exploits. I have no data regarding the female.'

The Datron blinked again. The bureaucrat inspected the four of them himself.

'So you're the famous DNA Cowboys. You don't look like much to me.'

Nobody took up the challenge. They were all well aware of the precariousness of their position.

The bureaucrat paced in front of them. 'So what are you doing now? Taking the pay of one of the warlords? We have methods of dealing with hostile infiltrators.'

The Minstrel Boy was genuinely outraged. 'What are you talking about? We're not hired on with anyone.'

'You deny that you're all in the pay of Protexus, or maybe Taraquin and Baptiste?'

'Taraquin and Baptiste are the reason that we're here.'

'So you admit it?'

The Minstrel Boy was becoming aware that the bureaucrat was dogged but not terribly bright. He did not know what to think about the Datron. If it knew that Reave had ridden with Baptiste, it was not volunteering the information. Perhaps it only answered direct questions, like some cybernetic oracle.

'No, we don't admit it. What I'm saying is that we're here because the raids on the stasis towns have made life out then intolerable.'

The bureaucrat's mouth twisted into a sneer. 'Are you telling me that the notorious DNA Cowboys are refugees?'

The Minstrel Boy regarded him coldly. If they were going to have to put up with so much nonsense about the 'notorious DNA Cowboys,' they might as well make use of it. He drew himself up to his full height, assumed the expression of a big time desperado, and started to enunciate very carefully.

'Of course we're not refugees. We're moving on, and we decided that we'd pass through Krystaleit. We like it in Krystaleit. We have friends here. We've always kept our noses clean and we're far from indigent, so are you going to let us pass, or do we have to move on and find a place that may not be quite so celebrated but does know how to extend its hospitality to travelers?'

As he stared at the bureaucrat, the man started to wilt just a little. Perhaps it had occurred to him that if these guys were carrying such a heavyweight reputation around with them, they might just have done one or two things to deserve it. He was not, however, about to cave in completely.

'I have to be assured that you are not fifth columnists working for some warlord. There are all kinds of potential hostiles streaming into the city, and it's my job to keep down those numbers. God knows that it's difficult enough in normal times, what with Nulites blowing things up and these fools discorporating all over the place. In a situation like this it becomes impossible. These damn raiders are becoming organized, and if they attack us with half an army already inside the city, we'd be hard pressed to defend ourselves.'

The bureaucrat was almost defending himself. The Minstrel Boy sensed that they had him on the ropes. Reave came in with his own argument.

'Perhaps we could do a deal that would set your mind at rest.'

'A deal?'

Reave laughed. 'Sure, a deal. Why not? Isn't this Krystaleit? Aren't you guys the masters of deal cutting?'

What Reave had said was perfectly true. The people of Krystaleit prided themselves on their powers of negotiation. The bureaucrat appeared to be no exception. He stroked his chin. 'What kind of deal did you have in mind?'

'Suppose you structured something like this. We agree, say, under penalty of personal foreclosure, that in the event of an attack by any combination of warlords, we will enlist as irregulars in the defense of the city. In return for this, we'd be credited as a triad of master warriors and given free access.'

The bureaucrat thought about the proposal. 'What you're saying is that the city should buy your loyalty.'

'Not buy it, only take out a credit future on our skills. The problem only arises if there's an attack. Seems to me that you could use a few of the likes of us around.'

'It's still a matter of us trusting you.'

Reave started to get a little impatient. 'Look, the worst that you've accused us of is being mercenaries, and if we do this deal, you'd have a contractual lien on us. We'd be fools to renege on that.'

The bureaucrat looked at the Datron. 'Please evaluate.'

The Datron blinked twice. Its eyes still streamed with tears. 'The logic of the transaction is sound.'

'Would you codify it for us, please?'

'Gladly.'

The sorting out of the details took close to an hour. The Datron spelled out the specifics, and Reave, the Minstrel Boy, and the bureaucrat argued about them. Apart from the numbers, the only real sticking point was the insistence by the bureaucrat and the Datron that the Saab be impounded by the city for the DNA Cowboys' stay. Reave finally had to give in.

The bureaucrat looked to the Datron for the final figures. 'Please give their agreed credit levels.'

'The triad known as the DNA Cowboys have a level 0-34789-0. The woman calling herself Renatta de Luxe has a level of 0-211-0.'

The Krystaleit numerical system was a little strange.

The bureaucrat handed them their crys. They were microthin crystal disks in ceramic cases that carried the constantly updated record of their owners' financial status. They could be used in the transaction units throughout the city and totally superseded money. The DNA Cowboys reclaimed their weapons and then headed out for the interior of the city. Reave and the Minstrel Boy were jubilant.

'I think we actually stuck it to them.'

'It's a great credit base.'

'Pity about the battlewagon, though.'

'That couldn't be helped.'

Billy was a lot less happy. 'We also enlisted in their goddamn army. Is that sticking it to them?'

The Minstrel Boy dismissed his complaints with a wave. 'Only if the city's attacked. Do you really see even a bunch of warlords trying to tackle a place this size?'

Reave grinned. 'If they do, we can always desert. We've done that before.'

The Minstrel Boy looked around at Billy. 'Besides, you almost stuck us with that trick with the needler. Did you think they wouldn't have an m/d scanner?'

Billy glared and said nothing.

Renatta also had a beef. 'How come my credit is so much smaller than yours?'

'You're an unknown quantity with no declared skills. You've only been given a minimum flesh value.'

'Oh, great. That's wonderful. I'm minimum flesh.'

The Minstrel Boy put an arm around her. 'Don't worry about it. We'll push you some credit across so you don't hit the zero.'

'What am I, a charity case?'

The bickering stopped immediately as they came out of the access tube and had their first look at the heart of the city. Even Billy could not help but be awed by its shining grandeur.

'Just look at those lights.'

It was almost as though the city had been created from light and the levels of the physical structure were only a subordinate afterthought. Night and day were history, replaced by a ballet of massed luminance. There appeared to be a million of them, and optical tricks made it seem as if they went on to black infinity. Some pulsed, others shone steadily, and more danced in a complexity of designs. Projected images appeared on the facets of glittering diamonds. There was free leaping static, and an enclosed, cold fury of tall plasma towers soared through dozens of levels. To the Minstrel Boy, the splendor of Krystaleit was an energy net that he could easily imagine having some purpose of its own, way beyond just the visual gratification of mere mortals. Indeed, that could even have been the truth. At a number of points throughout the city, there were big and incredibly ancient power devices. Although their true function was lost in the mist of time, they still ran and were maintained solely for the silent sheets of contorted radiance that leaked from their interiors and cascaded through the spaces between levels. Many of them must have contained their own intelligences, unimaginable, deathless entities that passed the centuries contemplating chill abstractions and keeping vigil for god masters who had been slaughtered in the voids between distant stars.

To the newcomer, the most alien thing about Krystaleit was the way it so absolutely occupied three-dimensional space. Genetic memory balked at its sheer drops and the yawning chasms between structures. Even the old hands had to remind their ingrained fear of falling that gravity spirals in the open spaces would slide them to a safe, if bone-jarring, landing. Billy Oblivion pointed up the feeling by leaning over the unrailed side of the platform on which the four of them were standing and peering down at the apparently endless drop.

'I swear this place was built for birds.'

'Do you ever stop complaining?'

'I'll get around to it one day.'

Krystaleit offered a variety of methods for transporting humans and their goods from one level to the next. The crudest was the blowtube, which could shoot an individual or containerthrough many levels in a matter of seconds. The filament escalators and the more substantial peoplemovers, which angled between the buildings and platforms, offered a more sedate ride. The daring strapped on tiny dorsal rockets, miniature versions of Jet Ace's big thruster, while the wealthy owned their own flying cars, anything from a four- to twenty-eight-seater. By far the most comfortable means, open to everyone, was the float egg. The float egg was exactly what it sounded like, a large ceramic egg, three feet long, housing an elementary biode and a small koja engine that was hooked into the city's magnetic field. It was mounted with a saddle and handgrips. There were thousands of them throughout the city, and they operated on a simple but neatly effective system. When a person found one that was not in use, it was free for the taking. When it was no longer needed, it was left for the next user. There was a natural tendency for them to concentrate in the outer areas of the city, but a built-in homing instinct brought them back to the busy central areas if they remained idle for an extended period. At first Renatta and the three men were content to stroll. They stepped onto the wide surface strip of a peoplemover that spiraled upwards between two monolithic blocktowers. Like tourists, they were happy to stand and gape while regular citizens, inured to the spectacle all around them, hurried past, going about their business. The Minstrel Boy took a deep breath of air that was heavy with a cocktail of multiple scents. It was good to be in a place that was so big and cosmopolitan and sophisticated. He noticed Renatta studying the passersby. Her face showed a childlike delight. He suspected that she had been looking for a place like Krystaleit all her life. In the crowds around them there was an almost limitless variety of the styles and cultures of the Damaged World. On the peoplemover alone there were neoprimitives with gaudy peacock hair and spirit poles, flexing and strutting to the polyrhythrns coming from their sinujacks. At the other extreme a covey of stooped brain dwellers, with their stunted bodies and enlarged, hyperencephalic heads, were lost in the private tranceland of theii dreamhelms. Even with the help of insectoid servoskeletons, they moved at a painful snail's pace. A pair of perfectoz, a man and a woman, stepped around them with looks of bleak contempt. The couple had immaculately maintained bodies that were naked apart from rainbow body lube and implanted powerjewelry. The Minstrel Boy noted Reriatta's look of delight when a large gang of children came racing down the moving strip, whooping and yelling and dodging in and out among the adults. He did not want to be the one to tell her that quite likely at least half of them were arrestives who had probably been taking munchkin treatments since before she was born.

There was also a darker side to Krystaleit. The practical results of the city's economy that legitimized the seizure and ownership of people were all around them. A grossly fat, turbaned and robed slaver waddled down the strip in front of his own personal baggage train, a string of identical red-haired teens yoked at the neck, joined by lengths of chain, and guarded by burly minders. Two city epsilons with mindlocks clamped across their shaved heads loaded garbage bubbles onto a floatflat. Farther up the spiral, a diminutive lowlife in dark glasses and a flowershirt was trying to recruit a buyer for a glazed-out young woman who might have been his sister.

The four really displayed their tourist status when the bomb went off. It was only a small bomb as urban bombs went, and it probably did only minimal damage. It was also two levels away, but Renatta and the three men all ducked. To their embarrassment, no one else did. The citizens around them hardly gave a second glance to the column of smoke that billowed up. They just went on with whatever they were doing.

'What in hell was that?'

Reave watched the smoke cloud slowly dissipate. 'Probably Nulites at their devotions.'

A woman in high boots and a plastic bodyhug nodded as she walked by. 'Sure, mister, that was Nulites. Something ought to be done about those bastards. They're a menace.'

The explosion shocked them out of the holiday mood and tipped them into an examination of their situation.

'We really ought to get ourselves a place to stay.'

The Minstrel Boy opted for a touch of class.

'So, we've got credit. Let's stay at some decent place. Heaven knows, we could all use a little luxury.'

Nobody put up an argument. It was decided that they should head for one of the city's better hotels, the Leader, on the Krystalcolumn.

'I doubt we want to be taking the walks all that way.'

'We can take float eggs,' Billy said. 'There's a half dozen vacant on a rack just up the way.'

Sure enough, six float eggs rested on a plasticformed rack. The three men moved toward them as though it were the most natural thing in the world, but Renatta hesitated nervously.

'I don't know how to ride one of those things. I'm not even sure that I want to.'

Billy laughed. 'Don't worry about it — it's real easy.' Billy had become a good deal more cheerful since they had entered the city. It was beginning to look as though he was going to make a full recovery.

The Minstrel Boy started to explain. 'All you have to do in sit on it.'

Renatta gave him a withering look. 'Why don't you sit on it?'

'No, seriously. The egg is equipped with a single-function biode. All you have to do is sit on the saddle and grab the handgrips and think about where you want to go. The biode does the rest. The egg will take you there. It's as simple as that. The biode can read you through your contact with the saddle and your palms on the grip. The only thing you have to worry about is a single twist grip that regulates the speed.'

Renatta pulled a face. 'It can read you through your clothes?'

'Sure. You don't have to have actual flesh contact.'

'I've heard the phrase flying by the seat of your pants, but this is ridiculous. I'm not sure I want a biode looking up my ass. Can't we rent a car or something?'

'Cars are at a premium here. And anyway, you don't have to worry about the biode. All it knows is how to find its way around.'

Reave and Billy were already easing a pair of eggs out of their mounts.

'Come on and try it. You'll like it when you get used to it.'

The Minstrel Boy turned and started walking toward the other two. Renatta reluctantly followed. He humped an egg out of its stand and swung his leg over it. He took hold of the handgrips and the machine slowly rose until it was about nine inches from the ground. Renatta gingerly did the same.

Reave gestured to her. 'Fasten the straps across your thighs.'

Slowly at first but rapidly gathering speed, the four eggs lifted from the platform and swung out into empty air. Billy took to flying like a duck to water. Opening the grip to maximum speed, he ran wide, fast circles around the others. And despite herself, Renatta actually started to enjoy the experience.

Although the Leader Hotel was not the best in Krystaleit, it was definitely up there. As the DNA Cowboys walked through the mirror dome of the foyer, all three were reminded of just how good things could be in the big cities. The four rooms took up even more of their credit than they had expected, but they decided it was still worth it. It was a crash course in civilization that was more than welcome after their wandering in the extremities. The only thing that slightly marred the Minstrel Boy's pleasure was the fact that Renatta insisted on a room of her own. He could only assume that it was a signal. Their affair, if it still existed at all, had become decidedly nonexclusive.

The rooms were as lavish as the foyer. The Minstrel Boy's was up on the twelfth circle and was decorated in the manner of the Dyrian Empire with murals modeled after the classic Estarzo Temple paintings. The fittings were gilt, and the furniture was reproduction Jason XIII blueglass. The only unfortunate touch was that the body-fitted cleanse-and-massage machine looked too much like an ornate instrument of torture. As he broke down the foldaway and stashed his belongings, he realized that for the first time in almost as long as he could remember, he was alone with time to think. He lay back on the bed and stared up at the reflective ceiling. At least here he was beyond the reach of any fanatical would-be murderer. He could finally relax. There was, however, a nagging question.

'So what the hell do I do next?'

The ceiling replied with a soft feminine voice. 'I am not capable of advising you, sir, but the Leader Hotel does have a very efficient soothsay circuit on the seventeenth circle.'

The Minstrel Boy jumped out of his skin. After he had finished twitching, he snapped angrily at his own reflection. 'I didn't know you were on. Please deactivate.'

The voice of the room sounded a little miffed. 'I'm sorry I took you by surprise. I will deactivate now. If you need me, call me.'

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 whenhe 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.