Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys

CHAPTER ONE

THE CAVERNS WERE ENTERING ONE OF THEIR REGULAR PHASESof melancholy, and the Minstrel Boy knew that it was time to move on. The halls and tunnels softly rang with mournful horns, and muffled drums echoed on the stairwells. It was as though the warmth had gone out of the basalt walls and been replaced by the first hint of a stiletto chill that would eventually pierce to the bone. The carvings that lined the walls had changed, too. Where once the frowns of the gargoyles had been sardonic, puzzled, or even amused, the stone eyes had begun to take on a hard, evil glint. In the Caverns such changes of mood followed a pattern that was as regular and predictable as the seasons. The soft, carefree summer of hedonism was cooling to an autumn of perverse cruelty. That, in its turn, would degenerate into a winter of dark ritual, horror, and brutality. For those who survived, spring would come with exhaustion and the final, hollow-eyed knowledge that nothing remained that could be done and that there was nowhere farther to go. Those who went to the edge eventually had to return. It brought the inevitable regeneration that enabled the cycle to turn yet again. The Minstrel Boy was strictly a summer migrant. He had no desire to experience the soul winter of the Caverns.

There were those who claimed that the changing moods of the Caverns were only a reflection of the emotional shifts of the Presence, the amorphous, nonhuman, and never-seen entity that was reputed to live in the bowels of the extinct volcano that also housed the Caverns. Very little was known about the Presence except that it was there — and that it subtly affected the behavior of those who lived within the margins of its environment. There was a theory that the Presence actually generated the stability of the entire volcanic structure, and its proponents pointed tothe fact that the Caverns had no visible stasis generators. There was an even more elaborate scenario in which the Presence derived some strange alien gratification from the agonies and ecstasies of its mortal neighbors and used its influence to ease them toward the greatest possible excesses.

As in most things, there was an opposing school of thought. It maintained that the Presence did not exist at all: It was a collective wish fulfillment. The denizens of the Caverns had invented a sinister, lurking, but wholly fictitious demigod on which they could blame their worst indulgences.

The Minstrel Boy did not know if he believed in the Presence. When he thought about it, he imagined some malevolent liquid being, a flash of poison green reflection on a black sumpwater surface, way down at the bottom of an infinitely deep shaft. If it existed, he was quite prepared to be afraid of it.

The Minstrel Boy crawled from the nest of furs and scarves and silk cushions and lay facedown on the chill, green polished stone of the floor. It felt good. Cyo and Yosee had exhausted him. Every muscle ached, and he was as limp as a wrung-out and discarded rag. Indeed, he had been discarded. The Minstrel Boy had no illusions about the way things were done in the Caverns. The two young girls were now engrossed in each other, vigorously coupling, minds disconnected and lithe bodies quivering and pumping, one skin pearlized and the other rainbow silver. The Minstrel Boy dragged himself a little farther to where cold water splashed into the shallow basin that had been carved in the floor. He dunked his head in it and shuddered, then looked up, trying to focus his eyes. If he did not get out of that place soon, he had no doubt that one way or another it would kill him.

He looked back at his two former companions, half-hidden in the furs and silks, showing just the momentary flash of an outflung arm or leg. He dunked his face in the water again and shook his head. Cyo and Yosee were too driven in their constant quest for the oblivion of sensuality to have any idea what was to come. When the Caverns slid into their season of honor, the gilded pair would undoubtedly become Victims.

Gradually, and with considerable groaning, he pushed himself into a sitting position and then, after a long pause, finally stood up. He stretched wearily and walked back to the cushions. He picked up a silk sheet and wrapped it around his hips, sarongstyle. The girls momentarily stopped what they were doing. It was an unexpected courtesy.

'Are you going?'

He nodded. 'Yeah, going.'

'Where are you going?'

The Minstrel Boy shrugged.

'For a stroll?'

The girls talked in rotation, asking alternating questions.

'Are you tired of us?'

The Minstrel Boy allowed himself a tired grin. 'You look like you can handle things on your own.'

'Are you coming back?'

'Maybe. Later.'

'We'll probably go to the Grand Hall later for the masque.'

'I don't think I could cope with the Grand Hall.'

'Are you getting ready to leave us, Minstrel Boy?'

Again he shrugged. 'Right now I'm just going for a walk.'

'The Presence doesn't like people leaving. It makes him sad.'

'I haven't said I'm leaving.'

'I think you're going to leave us.'

Cyo was the last one to speak. The Minstrel Boy found that he did not want to look her directly in the eye.

'If I do, I'm sure the Presence won't miss me.'

They were in a small side arbor just off the Curved Stairs, a romantic trysting place in a forest where the trees were carved from the living rock and a trompe l'oeil stream fed water into an artificial pool. Muted blue light filtered down through a canopy of basalt leaves and branches. It appeared to have been expressly designed for sexual liaison and very little else.

The Minstrel Boy, still wearing the silk sheet, stepped out into the brighter light of the stairs. The Curved Stairs were an awe-inspiring helix of wide stone steps that dropped through some hundred vertical feet, spiraling around the outside of the volcano's central shaft. It was one of the main human thoroughfares in the Presence's domain. There was a certain amount of debate as to the exact nature of the Presence's volcano. More than a few maintained that the mountain had no true exterior, that the nothings simply started at a set average rock depth beyond the interior surface. Certainly the Minstrel Boy had never met anyone who claimed to have been on the outside. The onlyroute he knew about by which travelers could come in and out of the Caverns was on a submarine shuttle, along the sea tunnels that ran through the roots of the volcano and down to a stasis-generated disjointed sea. The counterargument was a fairly primitive one: What had an inside had, by definition, to have an outside. The Minstrel Boy could not accept that. He knew for a fact that such axioms had no validity in a universe where logic had been replaced by kinetic paradox. It was one of a long list of things he did his best not to think about.

The outside of the volcano might have been the subject of debate, but the inside was absolute in its extravagant reality. There was no question that it was unique in its baroque magnificence. Every surface in the miles of tunnels, stairways, caverns, and bridges was shaped, polished, and carved into an infinity of patterns that ranged from sweeping abstracts to lunging, prancing reliefs of huge mythical beasts. Massive stalagmites were fashioned into three-dimensional depictions of the gargantuan congress of giant pornographic demons. Flying bridges arched like the wings of eagles across apparently bottomless caverns, while the smooth curves of lava flows became the stomachs and thighs of nude basalt sirens. The overwhelming impact of the endless carvings was enhanced, if indeed that was possible, by shifting beams of lights that zigzagged from polished surface to polished surface. Eruptions of natural steam were reminders of a wild volcanic past, and a system of constantly running water that punctuated the relentless stone with fountains, waterfalls, deep cisterns, and mirror-smooth pools provided a constant liquid counterpoint to the man-made music of the place.

The Minstrel Boy started up the wide expanse of the Curved Stairs. His private chamber, where he kept the few possessions he had brought with him when he had fled the outside and where he went when he wanted to think or sleep alone, was high in the upper levels of the Caverns. He took the climb slowly. The steps of the Curved Stairs were not particularly steep, but there were a great many of them. He passed a young man, emaciated body covered with a patina of grime, sitting motionless with his back against the outer wall. He was staring vacantly at a point somewhere about three feet in front of him. He was either discorporate or completely mindless — to the observer there was very little difference — and it was quite possible that he had beenin the same position for days. It was also possible that he would remain as he was until he simply faded into death. In recent days, the Minstrel Boy had seen a number of similar motionless figures.

A young couple was walking down the stairs toward him, arm in arm; they were both exceptionally fair. Their straight blond hair hung almost to their waists, and they were naked except for the dense garlands of roses that were woven around their necks. He could see flecks of blood where the thorns had pierced their chalk-white skin. They were another typical indication of the changing season. Even sensuality was becoming a matter of solemnity and pain.

The Minstrel Boy's chamber was off a corridor, the entrance to which was the gaping maw of a multieyed dragon that seemed to be screaming either in rage or in some unimaginable agony. At the far end there were flights of Escher stairs that appeared to defy both reason and gravity. It was an out-of-the-way part of the Caverns, and he rarely saw anyone on the impossible stairs. On this day, however, he spotted four other figures, their shoulders hunched into long back cloaks that gave them a decidedly sinister look. On each cloak, over the heart, was an insignia of a golden sword. The Minstrel Boy immediately recognized the emblem; it was a very bad sign. The Society of Hunters should not have been active quite so soon in the Caverns' emotional autumn.

There were no doors in the Caverns. Only transients like the Minstrel Boy had individual possessions. Those who had made the black volcano their permanent home shared everything with an uncaring and uncomplicated innocence. If a person did not want anyone entering his private chamber while he was out, he simply placed a thin copper baton in the floor of the entrance. The symbol was always respected.

With a sigh the Minstrel Boy sat down on the chamber's narrow bed. He was disgusted with himself. He had been seduced so completely, sinking like a drowning lemming into mat loose lotus world where past and future, will or manifest destiny, meant nothing. Tactile gratification was all. For far too long he had been absolutely content to drift in a dreaming present on the slow tide of wine and roses.

He could not say that he particularly missed past, future, will, or manifest destiny, but if he was truthful, he had to admit thatfor a while he had been feeling the kind of immobilizing lethargy that was the first watchtower warning of boredom. It had been easy to ignore the distress signals when the present had been an unending opium chaos of warm, indolent bodies, but now that he could feel the future's cold breath, he had to read the writing. Reluctantly he stood up, crossed the chamber, and peered into the small mirror that was mounted on the far wall. 'You look a mess, boy. You really look a mess.' The kohl around his eyes had run, emphasizing the dark circles of dissolute exhaustion. Even his hair looked dead, and the dyed streaks in the dark curls simply looked ridiculous. He pointed an accusing finger at his own reflection.

'Time was, you were a hard man, boy. Freebooter musician poet — a DNA Cowboy, no less. Remember all the stories? All those rough, tough tales of stomping moonshine madness? Hell, boy, people stepped aside when you came strutting by.' He sighed. 'Now look at you; you're shot to shit.'

It was the truth. Once-hard eyes were filmed over from too much Dreamsleep. His cheeks were sunken, his mouth had gone slack and soft, and even his chin seemed to have weakened and receded.

'You're turning into some raddled old funboy.'

He knew that he could not delay any longer. The time had come to make the break. He knew himself well enough to realize that even though he had not been consciously admitting it, he had come up to his chambers to wash off the makeup, pack his belongings, and dress for the outside. Mercifully, he had so few things that packing was a short and simple process. His changes of clothing and other odds and ends were swept into the battered Samtron foldaway that, when activated, would render them weightless and virtually without mass by parking them on a tether in some nearby subdimension. The Crom Magnum veetar was placed carefully in its armored case, and the antitheft system was put on-line. With a private solemnity, the Minstrel Boy pulled on his travel-stained leathers. He suddenly felt older, larger, and infinitely more tired but, in a sense, relieved. He inspected the transformation in the mirror. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. What the hell? This was what he was supposed to be. He was not cut out to be an Eloi, and anyway, the Morlocks were coming. At least he had the consolation of knowing that he was doing what he had to do.

'Let's get the hell out of here.'

There were just two items left on the bed — his gun and his stasis generator. He picked up the nickel-plated, custom-channeled Colt.45 auto with the butt-mounted laser. It felt strange to hold a gun after so long. Even the thought of its compact totality was out of place in the lotus world. It was a confirmation that he was going to places where the dangers were different. The Colt was the best piece he had ever owned. Back in Dogbreath, he had paid old Abu Christmas a small fortune for the template. He eased it into the back waistband of his old leather pants and dropped the two spare clips of C-Face explodables into the pocket of his jacket.

He picked up the portable stasis generator and carefully checked the function lights. The SG, just slightly larger than a paper book, was what made it possible to travel at all in the Damaged World. He attached it to the clips on his belt. The unit produced a limited stasis field that extended just a few inches beyond the wearer's body and enabled him or her to survive deep in the nonmatter of the nothings. Without an SG, or if one suddenly malfunctioned in the middle of the nothings, the human body, and any other solid object, for that matter, went through a process that looked like high-speed evaporation and instantly became one with the non.

The Minstrel Boy felt strange walking down the staircases of the Caverns in full outside dress, veetar case over his back and the foldaway floating at his heel. Stares followed him as he descended into the depths of the volcano, but no one spoke to him or tried to stop him. The others seemed to accept his leaving as his own business, act of a lunatic though it may have been. At least, that was how it seemed until he was walking past the Starfex Fountain and was almost to the head of the shaft that led down to the sea tunnels.

'You, Minstrel Boy!'

The authoritative female voice rang around the vaulted, marble-faced dome that housed the fountain. The Minstrel Boy stopped in his tracks. One rarely heard voices like that in the Caverns. The foldaway obediently halted beside him. He slowly turned. There were three of them, all in the black cloaks with the golden sword emblem over the heart. In the center was the woman who had spoken. She was tall and handsome, with slightly grayed hair. He had seen her quite recently, holding her own at orgies. Now she looked like the fanatic agent of some dark, fierce god. The hood of her cloak was thrown back, and her eyes flashed with a dangerous madness. Her companions were both male. Their faces were covered by their cowls, and the one to her left had a small opalsnake coiled around his wrist. The Minstrel Boy did not like it at all.

'You're talking to me?'

Her voice was formal. 'You have been chosen by the Society of Hunters. You have been designated a Victim in the Games.'

So the discontent had started. The black-cloaked Hunters advanced on him. The woman was holding out a wafer of transparent crystal. The Minstrel Boy stood his ground.

'You're wasting your time. I'm history. I'm long gone. I'm no longer part of your Games or anything else.'

'Accept your plaque.'

'I've already told you, I'm out of here.'

'Accept your plaque.'

'Goddamn it!' In a flash of anger he snatched the thing and hurled it to the ground, where it shattered into tiny jagged shards. For an instant he thought about pulling out the Colt and blasting all three of them. It would probably make the Caverns a better place. His anger was rusty, however, and swiftly cooled. 'I'm leaving, you understand?'

'We cannot stop you leaving — that would infringe the Articles. But you have accepted the plaque, and you will eventually be found.'

The Minstrel Boy pointed to the shards on the ground. 'I've smashed your damned plaque.'

'That makes no difference. You will eventually be found.'

'Eventually can be a long time.'

He turned on his heel and marched to the head of the shaft. Yeah, sure. A bunch of crazies in cloaks were going to reach out across the nothings and get him. He would not hold his breath. Behind him, the foldaway accelerated to catch up. Very much later he would bitterly regret that he had not killed those three when he had first thought of it. It would have saved a great deal of trouble.

The shaft opened on the smell of salt air and ozone. In a cathedral of a rough-hewn cavern, granite quays jutted into a dark tossing swell that lapped over their worn sides. Saint Elmo's fire glowed on the walls as if to suggest that somewhere deep in the bowels of the volcano there was a major interface of opposing forces. Six submarines rode at their mooring lines. There was one large, sleek passenger shuttle and five much smaller five-seaters with their much more ornate custom designs. There were no people in evidence. There was little traffic to and from the domain of the Presence, and the docks of the sea tunnels were not a place where lovers cared to linger. Technically, he was about to steal a submarine, but theft had little meaning in a culture where people were so apathetic about property concepts.

Thus it came as something of a surprise when, while he was standing on the dock inspecting a gold five-seater with a satyr figurehead and a fish-scale design on its ceramic hull, he heard a voice calling out to him.

'Hey, you!'

After his brush with the Society of Hunters, he was wary of people yelling after him. He swung around to see a woman running toward him, moving awkwardly on high-heeled sandals. Her skin was very white, and her hair was a very black and tangled mane. The black lace shift that was her only garment scarcely qualified her as dressed.

'Will you take me with you?'

'I'm not going on any joyride.'

Up close, he could see that she had a narrow, pretty face with very large, bright green eyes and otherwise small even features. Her expression was determined.

She gave him an impatient look. 'I can see that. You're getting out of here, right?'

The Minstrel Boy was cautious. His old instinct of self-preservation, which had slept all through the wine and roses, was coming awake again. 'I'm leaving, yes.'

'I want to leave, too. I'd take a sub myself, but I don't know how to navigate to somewhere else. You know how to navigate?'

The Minstrel Boy nodded. 'Yeah, I can navigate.'

'So let me come along for the ride.'

The Minstrel Boy looked her up and down. 'You're hardly dressed for traveling.'

She planted her hands on her hips. Her body was full and magnificent. 'Hey, boy, as you well know, the Hunters are running around up above designating Victims for the upcomingfestivities and handing out the crystal tickets. I didn't bother to pack. I figure that I can take care of a wardrobe when we get wherever you're going.'

'There's no way of knowing what we might run into out there. The shit changes all the time.'

The woman sniffed. 'I know my way around.'

The Minstrel Boy looked a little sad at her display of machismo. 'Lady, nobody knows their way around these days.'

She faced him with the defiance of one who was truly desperate. 'So I'll fake it and be just like everybody else.'

The Minstrel Boy grinned. She sure as hell had the glands. He could not see any valid reason why he should not have a traveling companion. She was certainly very attractive, and she might even develop a sense of gratitude along the way. He made a mock-defeated gesture. 'It'd be a pleasure to ride with you. Which boat do you fancy? I was thinking about taking this gold one.'

The woman shrugged. 'It doesn't make any difference to me.'

He hand-cranked the hatch and climbed into the well of the submarine. He offered his hand to the woman. 'Welcome aboard, milady. Do you have a name?'

'Renatta de Luxe.'

He winced. 'Really?'

'Of course not, but it'll do for the duration. I mean, what kind of name is the Minstrel Boy?'

'You know me?'

'I've seen you around. I even saw you play once, back when you still bothered to play.'

The vessel rolled with the swell, and for a moment they were thrown against each other. Then it rolled the other way, and they were apart again. The Minstrel Boy smiled and indicated that she should precede him into the cabin. The interior of the craft was cramped but comfortable. It was finished in walnut paneling, and the passenger seats were swivel armchairs covered in deep plush. On one wall there was a small compact bar and supply locker that he intended to investigate once the vessel was on autopilot. He eased into the transparent bow blister and settled into the pilot chair. The submarine was powered down, and he started the preembarkation by stroking his hand over the plasma control sphere to bring the ship to life. Lights softlyglowed, and there was a comforting hum from the engine compartment in the stern. A ready image from the boatmind rose to his eye level. He ran a fast cockpit check. The five-seat submarine was not a particularly complicated piece of machinery. The most important thing was to locate the lizardbrain navigator. To his relief, he spotted the silicate cube that contained the microscopic sliver of tissue from the primary brain of the female marma lizard.

'We're in business. We have lizardbrain.'

Renatta de Luxe had settled into a passenger chair directly behind him and strapped in, her manner indicating that she wanted him to be aware that she knew what she was doing.

'How does that work?' she asked.

'Don't even think about it.'

The marma lizard was the only creature that had the natural power to sense routes through the nothings from one point of stability to the next. In the early days of travel through the nothings, in the time of the great arks, numbers of the large lizards had had to be taken on any voyage. Travel through nonmatter had been greatly facilitated by the discovery that cognizance could be achieved by any vessel's basic biode if a few cells of one of the lizards' brains were grafted into its code.

The Minstrel Boy had a secret that he tried never to reveal to anyone. He could achieve cognizance himself — he, too, knew his way through the nothings. Years ago he had received the now largely outlawed lizardbrain implant. But using it was not an experience he had ever relished. The sense of knowing where he was or where he was headed came only after massive doses of the drug cyclatrol and was accompanied by agonizing pain. Although there had been incidents when ruthless individuals had forced the secret out of him and compelled him to navigate for them at gunpoint or worse, he tried to limit its use to the most dire emergencies only.

'So where are we going?'

He glanced back at Renatta de Luxe as he brought down the periscope and slipped the moorings. 'I don't know yet. I have to get beyond the stasis wash of this place and then see what I can tune to. This little boat doesn't have unlimited range. It'd be good if you didn't talk to me for a bit. I'm going to go into the biode until we're out of the sea tunnels.'

The power levers were in front of him. The grips were polished copper, lubed for a nearly perfect contact. He grasped them, and his nervous system performed a tiny sashay as it was accepted into the biode's intelligence cushion. His vision changed. The walls of the cavern and the sea tunnel glowed with a soft phosphor, as did the underwater contours, all clearly visible through the craft's now seemingly transparent hull. He leaned into the levers, and the craft moved forward. Speed, attitude, power consumption — all the figures were in his head. He willed the boat to go where he wanted, and it went. He willed quite sedately at first, submerging as soon as the bottom dropped away from the dock and then easing the nose into the mouth of the sea tunnel. The first narrow tube, however, quickly opened out into a network of interconnecting undersea chambers. He could guide the submarine and still take in the view. Giant stone arrows carved in the rock wall indicated the way to the open sea. The Minstrel Boy could not shake the feeling that he was passing through a vast aquarium. The sea tunnels of the Presence teemed with marine life that was as bizarre and exotic as the human life up in the Caverns, and in his biode-enhanced vision each creature glowed with its own eerie light. Fat, well-fed sharks glided with lazy menace. Strange life-forms with trailing fronds and eyes that protruded on stalks peered into the bubble canopy. The Minstrel Boy realized that Renatta de Luxe, without the biode-enhanced vision, could not see any of it.

He flicked on the external lights. 'Take a look through the porthole.'

'What are these things?'

'Who the hell knows.'

'Can I talk to you again?'

'Not yet.'

The submarine moved silently on with its lights blazing. The walls of the cavern outside continued to open out until they were no longer there. The Minstrel Boy took his hands off the power levers.

'We're in the open sea.'

'What happens next?'

'We'll drift into the nothings.'

'Will we feel the transition?'

The Minstrel Boy shook his head. 'I doubt it. Not unless the stasis generator goes down. I doubt we'd feel anything even then.'

As if to emphasize his point, lights on the control panel flashed and a warning appeared in the air:

IT IS TIME TO MANUALLY ACTIVATE THE STASIS GENERATOR.

It was a tradition: Human beings activated the stasis generator. One did not leave it to biodes or hard control systems or anything else. Of course, those things could provide backup if the human screwed up, but a man was the master of his own means of survival. The Minstrel Boy hit the twin toggles. The warning changed to a status display:

STASIS FIELD UP.

The nothings came at them like a wall of fog beneath the sea. They glittered with a bright and very alien light. They seemed to swirl with a thousand colors, but it was impossible to focus on an individual color or a single movement. There was something about them that resisted the grasp of the human senses. The gold submarine slid into them. The nonmatter closed over the bubble canopy and the portholes. There was a sheen on the outside of the craft from the thin layer of water that the stasis generator maintained around the craft. The lights continued to blaze, but the beams went nowhere.