by Mick Farren
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 nume
rical 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.