Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys

CHAPTER TEN

There was someone beating on the door. The Minstrel boy struggled out of an ocean of deep sleep and dreams that were filled with unfocused rushing. The beating on the door continued. He was suddenly very awake. His hand was under the pillow, snakelike, closing around the Colt. He deliberately kept his voice slurred and blurred. 'Who is it? What do you want?'

'Will you please open this door — right now!'

Goddamn it to hell. It was official. The Minstrel Boy threw back the covers. Had that bastard Buzznoose lodged a complaint? He swung his legs over the side of the bed with a groan. Officialdom was beating on the door again.

'Open this door or we'll break it down.'

The Minstrel Boy stood up, fighting off what had the makings of a blinding headache. 'Okay, okay, I'm coming, I'm coming. Don't go nuts.'

The suite was a disaster area. Some hours earlier it had seen the final throes of a very bizarre celebration of Renatta de Luxe's regained freedom, so bizarre, in fact, that he still could not really believe a lot of what had happened. It had started with Renatta demanding, after a few drinks, to know why they had not rescued at least two of the duplicates that the slaver had made of her. 'Then you could have had one of me each.' That had produced the obvious comment that one of her was quite enough. From then on, through the rest of the night, things had escalated as Renatta had determinedly sought to prove that one of her was indeed quite enough for all three of them. The affair had culminated with the ingestion of a gourmet pyschedelic with the fanciful name Infamy. That had been followed by a prolonged bout of erotic contortions that spanned most of the spectrum of what could be achieved by three men and one woman acting in harmony. It appeared to be a new phase or at least a new interlude in the already complicated relationship between Renatta and the DNA Cowboys. As far as the Minstrel Boy was concerned, it was a development that only deepened the mystery of what exactly it was she wanted from them.

Fresh pounding on the door brought him forcibly back to the present.

'Give me a break, will you?'

The Minstrel Boy placed the gun out of sight but within easy reach; then he unlocked and opened the door. Three militiamen and a purple-robed bureaucrat were standing there. The militiamen were armed with lightweight bolt throwers and looked hair-trigger nervous. The Minstrel Boy was certain that they were there to arrest him.

'What do you want? I was sleeping.'

The bureaucrat looked past him at the wreckage of the suite with disapprovingly pursed lips. 'Are you the one who goes by the name of Billy Oblivion?'

'No.'

The bureaucrat frowned. 'Are you the one they call the Minstrel Boy?'

'Do you have a warrant?'

'Why should I have a warrant? I'm here to serve a Notice of Demand.'

'What in hell is a Notice of Demand?'

'A Notice of Demand for Contracted Services.'

'What does that mean?'

'Are you the Minstrel Boy?'

The Minstrel Boy was suddenly impatient with all the fencing. 'Yeah, yeah, that's me. Now, tell me what's going on.'

'By the powers that are vested in me by the Ruling Elite of the city of Krystaleit I formally serve notice that your contractual services are demanded herewith.'

'And what does all that mean?'

'The city's defense forces have gone to readiness. You are under contract as a master warrior, and you will report to your unit within the next twenty-four hours.'

'I don't have a unit. All I have is a contract.'

The bureaucrat looked worried. 'You should have been assigned a unit when you entered contracts.'

'I wasn't assigned a damn thing.'

The bureaucrat took an ornate ivory showdata from his sleeve. What he saw did not appear to please him. 'You're right, there's no assigned unit filed on your chart.'

The Minstrel Boy started to close the door. 'So let me know when you sort it out.'

'I'll have to do that. You should still hold yourself in readiness, though.'

'I will, don't worry.'

'Can you tell me where I can find Billy Oblivion?'

'I've never heard of him.'

The Minstrel Boy leaned against the closed door. Even with the reprieve of an administrative screw up, it was very bad news. The defense forces being put on readiness had to tie in with what Reave had heard from his old raiding partner, the one he had met in the toilet of the Victory Cafe. Someone in the city government must have received warning of the approach of the overwhelming force of raiders.

The Minstrel Boy knew that he had to talk to Billy and Reave straightaway. The last thing they needed was to become involved in a war, particularly a war in which they were on what was sure to be the losing side. Once again he quickly cleaned himself and dressed. He could not remember when he had last enjoyed the luxury of idling over breakfast. Twenty minutes saw the three of them, plus an exhausted-looking Renatta, gathered in Reave's suite.

Billy tackled the problem head on.

'If you ask me, I think it's high time to desert.'

Reave wasn't so sure.

'We'll never make a reputation by running away.'

The Mistrel Boy laughed.

'We always did before.'

Despite the jokes and despite an afterglow of devil-may-care that lingered from the minor victory of the street fight, they knew that their predicament was serious. It took Reave to voice what everyone else was thinking.

'There's no two ways about it. We're going to have to sneak away from this fight. If Baptiste and the other warlords really do have over seven thousand troops in the field, plus a fifth column inside the city, the defense forces are going to becreamed. I certainly don't intend to be creamed along with them. This is definitely not our fight.'

Sneaking away required no strategy or finesse. They simply packed the belongings they wanted to take with them, checked out of the Leader Hotel, and started off in a direction that would take them to the platforms leading to the nothings. As they walked, it became all too clear that Krystaleit had gone on military alert. The whole tone of the city had changed. It was somber. The lights seemed dimmer, and there was a tension in the air as though the very structures themselves were waiting for the coming of a terrifying unknown. Everywhere there were people on the move. Squads of militia, in their forage caps and drab gray uniforms, bolt throwers slung over their shoulders, marched through the streets and rode the ribbon escalators up and down. Hastily mustered civilians drilled in the open spaces They had no uniforms, and each man and woman was decked out in his or her own idea of what a fighting yeoman should wear. For the most part, the outfits, heavy on plumes and swirling capes, were hopelessly impractical for actual combat. The only things that identified them as an even marginally unified military force were the blue scarves they wore around their necks, the rifles and electroguns they carried, and the bandoliers; of spare bolts and power slugs across their chests. Someone in authority appeared to have taken it into his head to equip one section of the militia with bronze body armor and crested helmets. As far as Reave could tell, the armor was foil-thin and quite useless for anything but ceremonial display.

'One whiff of a heat ray and that shit will burn on their backs.'

Reave continued to shake his head at each example of defensive preparation that they passed.

'This is worse than I imagined. These people don't have a clue. They're just playing at soldiers. Baptiste's going to walk all over them.'

The few small knots of hard-faced mercenaries they saw were a little more encouraging. Most sat cleaning their weapons and ignoring all attempts by officers of the militia to get them drilling or to indulge otherwise in the irrelevancies of military discipline. They, at least, seemed to grasp the seriousness of the threat they were facing, and they looked far from happy about it. Reave was also well aware that any number of them mightchange sides the moment the raiders reached the outer limits of the city.

A team of sweating epsilons struggled to manhandle some incredibly ancient energy cannon onto a peoplemover. Reave strolled over to it and, while the others waited, ran a hand over the discolored and pitted steel. 'The Draan could have made this. It ought to be in a museum.'

The militia captain in charge warned him off. 'Either help us push the sucker or get the hell away from it.'

Reave walked away. 'I'm glad I'm not going to be here when they fire that monster. It'll probably vaporize everything for a mile around.'

The one thing that remained uncertain was transportation. They had no solid plans for a means to get away from Krystaleit and on to whatever their next port of call might be. It was the subject of conversation as they crossed the city.

'I suppose there's no con that we can run that might get us the tank back,' Reave mused.

Billy shook his head. 'I've been thinking about it. I can't come up with anything that isn't going to draw attention to the fact that we've got contracts on us.'

Reave grimaced. 'I guess we have to play it by ear and hope we can hitch ourselves a ride.'

Renatta was hung over, and her previous euphoria was rapidly disintegrating. 'And what happens if we can't?'

Billy and Reave both looked at the Minstrel Boy, who stopped in his tracks and vehemently shook his head. 'Not a chance in hell. Don't even think about it.'

Billy and Reave were among the few who knew about the Minstrel Boy's lizardbrain implant and his ability to find his way though the nothings with more accuracy than routinely medicated humans and even to set courses for far-distant points of reality when treated with the right drugs. They also knew how much pain the effort caused him.

The Minstrel Boy continued to shake his head. 'There is no way in the world that you are going to fill me up with cyclatrol and get me to lead you through the nothings.'

Renatta looked from one to the other of them. 'What's going on here? What's he getting so bent out of shape about?'

Reave gave her half a glance. 'Don't worry your pretty little head about it.'

Renatta snarled at him. 'Don't give me that shit. I want to know what's going on.'

Billy answered. 'The Minstrel Boy has an implant. If it came down to it, he could get us through the nothings.'

Renatta looked suspicious. 'I thought anyone could find their way through the nothings if they shot themselves full of enough cyclatrol.'

Billy shook his head. 'It's real hit-and-miss crazy even if you don't go mad first. I should know. I've tried it enough times.' He nodded at the Minstrel Boy. 'Him, he's different. He can really do it.'

The Minstrel Boy scowled. 'But I'm damned if I'm going to.'

Renatta faced the Minstrel Boy. 'What's your problem? Why won't you lead us through the nothings? You must have done it before.'

'Yeah, I've done it before. That's why I'm not going to do it again.'

'What's wrong with it?'

The Minstrel Boy looked at her coldly. 'You try it.'

'He's says it's traumatic.'

'Traumatic isn't the half of it. I don't think my sanity would take it.'

Reave temporarily put a stop to the conversation. 'Maybe the question won't arise.'

They reached the nearest of the tunnels that led to the exterior platforms and discovered that leaving the city would not be as simple as they had thought. The tunnel had been sealed and iron bulkheads had been swung into place like massive metal plugs. It would take a nukeling to move them, and even then the result would not be guaranteed. A sign informed them in the dour Gothic script of official Krystaleit that there were just two tunnels open to the platforms and the nothings and that even then, access both in and out was severely limited and subject to the approval of the defense forces.

Billy voiced everyone's misgiving.'This isn't looking good.'

Renatta looked frightened. 'Suppose they don't let us out?'

'Then I guess we stay. There's always a chance to desert once the actual fighting gets started.'

'That's hardly a consolation.'

The closest of the open tunnels was guarded by a squad ofmilitia, some in field gray and some in the fatuous bronze armor. There was also one of the troopers, a tall, metallic figure in his arcane battle armor. No officers appeared to be around, and the four would-be deserters walked boldly through. They must have exhibited sufficient confidence for the militiamen to assume that they were on legitimate business. It was only when they were some yards into the tunnel, fingers crossed that their bluff would not be called, that the armored trooper slowly turned with soft shrieks of metal against metal and shouted after them in a deep, electronically enhanced bellow.

'You there! Halt! Stand where you are or lethal force will be used.'

The four of them stopped dead in their tracks. The metal figure crunched forward down the tunnel on steel boots.

'You have been scanned and identified by the Datron. You are under contract to the city. If you go any farther, I shall treat it as a breach meriting capital foreclosure.'

The DNA Cowboys and Renatta glumly turned and walked back toward Krystaleit and its war. Reave halted in front of the trooper.

'So what happens to us now?'

'I'll overlook this attempted breach if you immediately report to your units.'

The Minstrel Boy folded his arms. 'It's like I already told the bureaucrat, we don't have a unit. We were never assigned to one.'

'So you elected to leave the city?'

'Something like that.'

'If you don't have a unit, you should report to the Master of Free-Lancers.'

Reave nodded resignedly. 'Where do we find him?'

'A temporary headquarters for unattached contract warriors has been set up at the Victory Cafe'. You know where that is?'

Reave nodded. 'We know where that is.'

Billy shook his head as though he could not believe what he was hearing. 'A headquarters in a tavern?'

The armored trooper inclined his head slightly. The Minstrel Boy got the impression that he was smiling behind the blank mask of his helmet.

'It seems apt. Besides, the space was donated to the defense effort.'

The Victory Cafe, and indeed the whole of the Bluecat, had changed in the short time since Reave and the Minstrel Boy had been there. All but the most dogged of the prostitutes had left the plaza around the cat idol, and the streets had emptied of the usual pleasure seekers. Martial music had replaced the usual boom-boom from the clubs and gin joints. Armed patrols tramped the lanes and alleys on watch for possible fifth column attacks, and a long line of prospective purchasers waited outside Churchill's Weapons. Reave was certain that he recognized some of the girls from the Rising Sun among them. All the people in the city were taking the threat of the raiders very seriously and were arming themselves rather than just relying on the organized militia to protect them. The Minstrel Boy noticed that, unlike a lot of places, the soothbooth he had visited after the munchkin attack was still open for business, although it did not have any customers. As they passed by, Reave nudged him in the ribs.

'If she was so smart, how come she didn't see all this coming?'

The Minstrel Boy shrugged. 'Maybe she knows something that we don't know.'

'You really think so?'

The Minstrel Boy shook his head. 'No, not really.'

Armed men and women lounged around the entrance of the Victory Cafe. A few looked up as Renatta and the DNA Cowboys approached, but nobody challenged their right to be there. The interior of the saloon was crowded. Hard-faced men and women with cold eyes that were constantly on the move had every imaginable type of weapon hanging from belts and shoulder harnesses or stacked within easy reach. They were waiting for something to happen with the patience and economy of energy of experienced fighters. Reave would never have imagined that there were quite so many or such a variety of mercenaries and freebooters in the city. Neoprimitives leaned on their power spears and watched the comings and goings with unfathomable eyes. Others needed more solid diversions. Bandidos from the section, with oiled hair and drooping mustaches, compared weapons and bragged about past campaigns and conquests that probably had never happened, or at least not the way they were telling it. A knot of nomad yahoos, a long way from their normal stomping grounds in the Lanfranc Margins, were down on their knees shooting the bones, seven come eleven. Four farii sat on the edge of the deserted stage silently sharing a pipe. A half dozen Nulites with their veils in place were seated around a single table, fingering their prayer cylinders, while everyone else gave them a wide berth. The bar was closed, but there were bottles being passed around, and the air was filled with noise and smoke and a certain strange controlled anticipation. Reave knew from experience that if the waiting went on too long, fights would start breaking out among the defenders as the strain started to tell. A bunch like that would quickly become impossible to control.

There were a number of familiar faces among the mob in the Victory Cafe. One of the first the Minstrel Boy spotted was that of Clay Blaisdell. He was drinking whiskey with a group of cronies, and he was already close to staggering drunk. He spotted the DNA Cowboys at the same lime they spotted him.

'No shit, will you look who's here! The DNA Cowboys have come to save us all. I would have thought that you guys would have been long gone to the nothings by now.'

The Minstrel Boy, who was already pissed off enough at being stuck inside Krystaleit, stalked up to Blaisdell with dark anger flashing in his eyes. His voice was quiet and dangerous. 'You want to say that again, Clay?'

Clay Blaisdell laughed. 'Hell, no. I don't want to say that again. I wouldn't be here myself if the tunnels hadn't been sealed.'

Billy and Reave had come up behind the Minstrel Boy, who was thinking about how good it might feel to take out his frustration on the swaying Blaisdell. He still had not forgotten the needling that the other had put him through the last time he had been in the Victory Cafe.

Blaisdell was saved by a commotion over by the stage. Two militia officers and a short thickset man in a buffalo jacket and high, buckled boots had climbed up and were shouting for quiet.

'Okay, okay, let's all settle down. Shut up and listen up. My name is Reft Zill, and I've been put in charge of deploying this rabble. I'm your Master of Free-Lancers, and you follow my orders until somebody tells you otherwise.'

Reave let out a groan. 'I don't believe it.'

The Minstrel Boy glanced around. 'What's the problem?'

Reave pointed to the stage. 'That little fat bastard, that's the problem. Reft Zill is an overweight blowhard who shouldn't to put in command of a kids' picnic.'

Reave was not the only one complaining. There were boos and shouts and catcalls from all over the room, but Zill homed straight in on Reave.

'You got some objection to my command, Reave Mekonta?'

Suddenly Reave was the center of attention. Fully aware of that fact, he took his time answering. He allowed his face to split slowly into a wide, shit-eating grin. 'Hell, no, Reft, everything else around here is fucked up. Why should this be any different?'

There was a general roar of laughter.

Zill had small, resentful piggy eyes, which regarded the room with something close to loathing. 'You may all think that you're hotshots, but as far as I'm concerned you're nothing more than a flea-bitten rabble.'

'You can call us scum, Reft,' Reave retorted, 'but there are a few of us here who remember you at Menute Falls and your noble advance to the rear.'

There was more laughter. Zill became red in the face.

'Make the most of it, Reave Mekonta. Have your fun and get it over with. After this, I'm quite prepared to hang you if you get in my way.'

Reave did not respond to the threat, but others did. Shouts of 'Oh, yeah?' and 'Just try it!' clearly indicated that Zill's command was not going to be an easy one. Everyone in the room knew that despite Zill's bluster, a force of mercenaries like this had to be handled with kid gloves. They would fight like maniacs, but if authority pushed them too hard, they would simply up and mutiny. The rancor went on for a while longer, but bit by bit things settled down, and eventually they were all paying attention as Zill outlined how they would be used in the defense of the city. Everyone in the room also knew that their collective back was against the wall and that it was no time to be screwing around, even if they disliked the setup.

The plan was anything but deep. Hampered by the fact that nobody would know from which direction the raiders' attack might come until they actually emerged from the nothings, the mercenaries would play a flexible, mobile role. They would be held in first-line reserve, ready to reinforce the militia and the volunteers wherever necessary. That at least met with the room'sapproval. Any merc worth his or her salt bitterly resented being used as cannon fodder. They were specialists and expected to be treated as such. The citizens of Krystaleit could break the first fury of the raiders' assault with their own bodies.

Zill finally wound up his address by taking questions from the crowd. Billy Oblivion was one of the first to raise his hand. When Zill pointed to him, he did not mince words. He had as much cause to dislike Reft Zill as Reave did: He had also been at the fight at Menute Falls.

'If we're going to be so damn mobile, can we get our tank back?'

'What tank?'

'My partners and I arrived in an old Saab battlewagon. The city impounded it for the duration of our stay. It had a full weapons system, including a heat ray, and it would seem like a good idea if we got it back.'

Zill held a whispered conversation with the two militia officers. After a few seconds he turned back to Billy.

'The vehicle has already been requisitioned. It's deployed in another part of the city.'

'Is that legal?'

'Practically anything's legal under the state of emergency.'

'What about our heavy weapons? They were in the tank. I don't intend to go into combat with just a needler.'

Zill again consulted with the militia officers.

'The weapons from the vehicle have already been distributed. If you go to the militia armory, you will be issued bolt throwers.'

Billy was outraged. 'What am I supposed to do with a bolt thrower, goddamn it? I'm a technician. I work with sophisticated weapons. Bolt throwers are for bozos.'

'So go round to Churchill's and get what you want.'

'Will the city pay for it?'

Zill wearily glanced at one of the militiamen. The officer nodded. 'Yes, you can obtain suitable weapons on city credit.'

The Minstrel Boy turned and looked at Reave to see how he was reacting. Reave was quiet and thoughtful, in total contrast to his previous mood. The Minstrel Boy did not know that Reave had spotted another familiar face in the crowd. Menlo Welker was over in the shadows at the back of the bar. They had seen each other and exchanged brief, covert nods. The presence of Menlo in the Victory Cafe was a warning that when the attack came, any number of the mercs in the room could turn on the others, attacking them from behind in a deadly surprise as the raiders came over the barricades. Reave could only hope that old times would prevail upon Menlo to tip him before the fifth column attacked.

The days that followed the excitement of the alert and the mobilization sank into a lull of anticlimactic waiting. Billy, the Minstrel Boy, and Renatta went to Churchill's and, after jumping the line with a display of swaggering, overbearing macho, selected weapons. Billy came out with a huge nine-function Questar multiplex, remarking that if he had to go into combat, he might as well have the most radical edge possible. Renatta picked out a pair of Doh-Bien wrist lasers in black steel with silver inlay. As they were walking back to the Victory Cafe, the Minstrel Boy questioned her choice.

'You know those things need weeks of practice before you stop being as much a menace to yourself as to the enemy?'

Renatta looked at him as though he were a total idiot and flexed her hands like a Balinese dancer.'You think I don't know how to play wrist lasers? You think I don't know anything?'

'Sometimes I wonder what you do know.'

'Well, pardon me for not being properly menued.'

The Minstrel Boy, after a lot of thought, had opted for a reproduction AK 5000 that had been converted to fire x-pando slugs in ultrarapid bursts. It was the model with the wooden stock, drum clip, and retractable twelve-inch bayonet. The way things were shaping up, the bayonet might prove useful.

The weapons were the last real diversion. They had spent a day practicing with them out by the nothings, but after that there was little to do but settle in and wait. The mercenaries were billeted in commandeered rooms in the Bluecat as close as possible to the Victory Cafe. Although Zill constantly attempted to create makework for the men and women under his command, the bulk of the waiting time was spent getting drunk, fighting, and engaging in last-ditch sexual encounters. Zill had, at least, managed to organize the fights into staged competitions rather than freestyle brawls. Reave and a giant yahoo called Gorshon Mass Goh held the house record for gambling receipts after a vicious fifteen rounds of contact wandweking, but by far the most memorable and crowd-pleasing bout was the no-limit, feral-feline hair-tearing confrontation between Su Wu Lu and Brawny Helda. That bout started some related but rather different confrontations. The sexual undertow was never below a dull roar, and the constant couplings and partings had a desperate quality that Billy had summed up the most aptly: 'We who are about to die tend to get horny.'

Although she still behaved like part of the team, Renatta had transferred her after-hours affections from the DNA Cowboys altogether, first to Goshon Mass Goh after he had narrowly beaten Reave at the wandweking and then to, of all people, Clay Blaisdell. After that Billy, Reave, and the Minstrel Boy felt more than entitled to pass the bottle and call her a whore when she was not around.

Tired of puzzling over Renatta's methods of operating, the Minstrel Boy had taken up with an exotic dancer called Mai Last Tango; in fact, she was stark naked and vigorously straddling his hips when the sirens sounded.

As they echoed eerily through the instantly silent city, the Minstrel Boy eased away from her. He was suddenly very frightened.

'The enemy's been detected. The bad guys are almost here.'