The Quest of the DNA Cowboys (19 page)

A.A. Catto tugged against the manacles but found that they wouldn’t move.

‘Yes, yes. I suppose altacaine will make the experience more interesting.’

Valdo turned to a Hostess-1.

Give Miss Cato a single-dose shot.’

The Hostess-1 pressed the injector against one of A.A. Catto’s buttocks and pressed the release. A.A. Catto tingled as the boost rushed through her system. Valdo gestured to the two other hostesses.

‘Now, rub Miss Catto’s body with sensitol.’

A.A. Catto was outraged.

‘Sensitol? I never agreed to sensitol.’

‘I think it’s perfectly legitimate. I wouldn’t want you to miss the slightest nuance of the tactile experience.’

The two hostesses rubbed the cream all over A.A. Catto’s shoulders, back, buttocks and legs. Her flesh began to come alive, and her skin was sensitive to the slightest movement of the air. She felt pinned down, vulnerable and exposed. She was ultimately receptive to anything that her brother might want to do to her. In the total passiveness and total abasement there was a novel excitement. Valdo’s voice came from somewhere behind her.

‘I think we’re about ready.’

There was a swish and A.A. Catto tensed herself, but it was only Valdo testing the whip again. She turned her head.

‘For god’s sake get on with it. Stop hanging it out.’

Valdo laughed.

‘I didn’t know you were so eager, sister.’

‘Just get on with it.’

‘Why? I’m in no hurry.’

‘Valdo, please.’

He giggled.

‘Come on, beg.’

‘Valdo!’

He slowly raised the whip. There was a frozen moment of stillness and silence.

Then the whip came down and A.A. Catto gasped, squirmed, and finally screamed as loud as she could.

The Minstrel Boy dropped his gun back into a small shoulder holster and stepped into the cabin. He was a little more soberly dressed than he’d been in Dur Shanzag. He still had the green lizard frock coat, but it was now cracked and worn. His hair was back to its natural colour, and his dark glasses were again the aviator kind. He wore a double-breasted calfskin waistcoat and a black gambler’s tie with a white shirt. His black pants covered scuffed cowboy boots.

Reave and Billy stood up in amazement.

‘How the fuck did you get here? What happened?’

The Minstrel Boy shrugged.

‘I saw you coming aboard, and then I saw those two.’

He gestured to the bodies on the floor.

‘I figured what might be going on, and came down here to check it out. You saw the rest.’

‘But what are you doing on this boat?’

‘You sure ask a lot of questions for somebody who just got their life saved.’

‘Sorry, it was just such a surprise.’

‘Yeah, okay, life seems to be one big surprise for you boys. You got anything to drink?’

Billy and Reave shook their heads.

‘We were just going up to the saloon when these guys came bursting in.’

‘Okay then, let’s go up there. You can buy me a drink, and meet my partner on this trip.’

Reave gestured at the dead agents.

‘What do we do with them?’

The Minstrel Boy glanced casually at the bodies.

‘You got twenty crowns?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Gimme.’

Reave handed the coins to the Minstrel Boy, who pocketed them.

‘I’ll drop this on the steward, and he’ll take care of them. Once they’re in the river, the alligators will do the rest.’

They left the cabin and climbed the steps to the saloon. The first-class saloon was a floating casino that seemed to be made from mirrors and cut glass. Two huge crystal chandeliers hung overhead. A steward on the door looked distastefully at Billy’s and Reave’s clothes.

‘Are you gentlemen sure that you’re first-class passengers?’

‘Sure.’

Billy flashed their tickets, and the steward had to content himself with asking them to leave their guns with the hat-check girl.

The Minstrel Boy led them across the saloon to a green baize table where a game of nine-card sidewinder was in progress. As they approached, a man in a black velvet coat, with long dark hair, looked up and grinned at the Minstrel Boy.

‘We’re going okay, partner.’

‘That’s good. Hey, Frankie, I’d like you to meet two friends of mine, Billy and Reave. This is Frankie Lee, he’s a gambler.’

Frankie Lee stretched out his hand.

‘Pleased to meet you boys. You want to join our game?’

Billy shook his head.

‘I think we’ll just sit and drink, thanks. We’ve had a busy day.’

‘Okay, suit yourselves.’

The Minstrel Boy sat down at the table and resumed his place in the game. Billy called over a waiter and ordered drinks.

They drank their way through the rest of the day, watching Frankie Lee and the Minstrel Boy clip close on a thousand crowns from two Port Judas merchants out on a spree. Then, towards midnight, they staggered drunkenly off to their cabins where, as the Minstrel Boy had predicted, the bodies had been removed and even the stains on the carpet had vanished. They fell into their beds, and slept soundly until well into the next morning.

They were awakened by a bright, cheerful Minstrel Boy.

‘You boys planning on going ashore?’

‘Ashore? Where are we?’

‘Tied up at the Dropville jetty.’

‘Yeah? How long for?’

‘Till tomorrow morning.’

Billy sat up in bed and lit a cigar.

‘Maybe. What’s Dropville like?’

‘It’s okay for a party, but I wouldn’t like to live there.’

‘You can have a good time though?’

‘Sure. It ain’t like Port Judas.’

‘Say listen, where’s your partner? Is he going ashore?’

The Minstrel Boy shook his head.

‘He’s sleeping. He stayed up all night to finish off those two merchants. Me and him have got to make some money on this voyage. Are you coming, then?’

Billy nodded.

‘Yeah, we’ll come. Why not?’

The Minstrel Boy opened the door.

‘I’ll see you in the saloon when you’re dressed.’

‘For sure.’

The Minstrel Boy closed the door behind him. Billy and Reave climbed out of bed and struggled into their clothes. Inside fifteen minutes they were walking along the deck with the Minstrel Boy in the direction of the gangway. As they were about to leave the ship, a steward stopped them.

‘Have you got your porta-pacs?’

Billy and Reave patted the chrome units on their belts and the Minstrel Boy held up his guitar.

‘We got them. Why?’

‘You never can tell in Dropville. Now and then something comes unstuck.’

They thanked him, and walked down the gangplank. The pier at Dropville was a humble affair compared with Port Judas. It was little more than a rickety wooden jetty, a shed or the bank, and a track that led out into what appeared to be dense, luxuriant jungle. Billy turned to the Minstrel Boy, ‘What happened to the town?’

The Minstrel Boy pointed up the track.

‘It’s about ten minutes’ walk. There’s too many mosquitoes and things to live right on the river.’

They started up the track. The trees formed a solid canopy of green above their heads, and troops of monkeys crashed through the branches as they approached. Other unseen things slid away through the undergrowth, and brightly coloured birds screeched a raucous warning.

Billy noticed that here and there among the trees were the ruins of buildings. Low structures that had once made exciting use of steel and concrete, but were now overgrown by vines and creepers. Walls and roofs had fallen in, as the jungle lightened its grip on them. Billy pointed one of the derelicts out to the Minstrel Boy.

‘This must have been a much bigger town once upon a time?’

The Minstrel Boy nodded.

‘Sure. There was a time when Dropville was one of the richest, most beautiful towns anywhere.’

‘What happened to it?’

The Minstrel Boy paused before he answered. The track had led them into a wide clearing. Here and there patches of marble paving still remained, but most of it had been broken up by the relentless pressure of the encroaching jungle. Four or five of the low buildings with their patios and wide expanses of glass stood in fairly good condition, while others, nearer the edge of the jungle, had fallen into total disrepair. Even the ones that were still in use had undergone makeshift patch-up jobs, and received crude, garish redecoration. They walked around the shattered remains of an abstract statue and along the side of an empty overgrown swimming pool. On the bottom of the pool a number of brightly dressed teenagers sat crosslegged in a circle staring vacantly straight ahead. The Minstrel Boy began his story.

‘I guess it must have been easily two hundred years ago, Dropville, it was called Laurel Bay in those days, was, like I said, one of the richest and most beautiful towns you could hope to find anywhere. The story even goes that Solomon Bonaparte, the guy who invented the stuff system, retired here after he’d made his pile. The city got richer and richer, and life for the citizens got as close to idyllic as anyone could hope to get Laurel Bay was a paradise on earth.’

Billy looked around at the ruins and semi-ruins that fought a losing battle with the creepers and undergrowth. They skirted a decorative stainless-steel fountain, filled with generations of dead leaves.

‘So what went wrong?’

Before the Minstrel Boy could answer, a figure darted from behind the fountain.

‘Wanna see me do my sword swallowing?’

It was a boy who looked about fourteen. He was barefoot and wore white cotton trousers and a silk vest covered in hundreds of tiny mirrors. In his hand he held a short dress sword. The Minstrel Boy shook his head.

‘Not right now.’

The boy looked disappointed.

‘You sure?’

‘Sure we’re sure.’

A hopeful look came over his face.

‘Maybe later?’

‘Maybe.’

‘See you then.’

‘Okay.’

He scampered off and the Minstrel Boy sat down on the edge of the derelict fountain.

‘Like I was telling you, things got better and better until, one day, the ultimate happened. Somebody invented immortality.’

Billy’s and Reave’s eyes widened.

‘Immortality.’

The Minstrel Boy nodded.

‘That’s right. They actually achieved the final goal Somebody, some say it was old Solly Bonaparte, came up with a pill or a shot or something that once you’d had it, barring accidents, you’d live for ever. Of course the secret’s lost now.’

Reave frowned.

‘I still don’t see how immortality could have caused all this ’

The Minstrel Boy lit one of Billy’s cigars and went on.

‘What happened was this. Directly they had this eternal life dose, everyone in town queued up and got one, and there they all were, set for infinity, provided they didn’t drown in the river or fall out of a tree. The only problem was that the immortality deal, stopped the ageing process, and all the people stayed whatever age they were when they got the dose. The old folks kept right on being old folks and the young folks kept on being young folks. The only drawback to the treatment was that it made everyone sterile, and so the population remained absolutely the same. Just like time had stopped.’

Reave chewed his lip.

‘Pretty weird, huh?’

The Minstrel Boy nodded.

‘Pretty weird. The first thing that went wrong was that the old folks, who’d been pretty much running things until immortality came along, wanted to go right on running things after. They couldn’t stop treating the young folks like they were kids, and gradually the situation grew up where a guy might be, say, sixty years old, but because he looked fifteen, he was treated like he was fifteen. This, coupled with the fact that the old folks got mightily hung up on their eternal life and began bringing in all these heavy public safety laws, created a pretty bad generation gap.’

Billy interrupted him.

‘You mean that kid, the one who wanted to show us his sword swallowing, wasn’t a kid at all?’

The Minstrel Boy laughed.

‘He was certainly a hundred, if not more.’

‘Jesus.’

‘That was the trouble, you see. The old folks wouldn’t listen to the young folks and relations between them, got worse and worse. I don’t know the details, but one night the shit hit the fan, and the young folks up and slaughtered every one of the oldsters. Nobody escaped. With the old folks out of the way, they gave up bothering about the fancy houses and all that kind of thing. They didn’t have to worry, you see. Stuff Central beamed in everything they needed. They changed the town’s name to Dropville and settled down to having the eternal good time. Bit by bit, the jungle crept in and things got the way they are today.’

Billy grinned.

‘Sounds pretty good.’

The Minstrel Boy shrugged.

‘Maybe. I don’t like to judge. Dropville’s got its problems.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, I suppose the main problem’s that while, okay, the people will last for ever, the city won’t. This is the other side of the river to Port Judas. It ain’t part of the static zone. Under this clearing is the biggest generator you ever seen. One day it’ll break down and the whole town’ll just blink out. There’s the odd fault showing up already. I tell you one thing though, it’s a good place to party.’

Without saying anything, a girl had come and sat down on the fountain beside Billy. She looked about seventeen, with long blond hair and a deep tan. She smiled when Billy spoke to her. Then she pulled a pack of Northern Lights out of her faded dungarees and offered them around. Billy took one of the slim, white, plastic tubes, and inhaled deeply. He felt himself filled with an overpowering sense of lightness, and objects that he looked at were surrounded by a fine aura of colour.

The girl looked amazingly beautiful to Billy’s enhanced sight. He touched her hand and smiled at her. He felt that it was unnecessary to say anything. She smiled back.

After a few minutes the effect wore off, but Billy found that it returned each time he took another drag. For the next hour the three men and the girl sat on the broken fountain and smiled at everything in sight. The tubes were finally used up and they dropped the plastic cylinders into the fountain. Reave turned to Billy.