Synaptic Manhunt (26 page)

‘I …’

Billy’s head and stomach were still reeling from the sight of the figure on the post. A.A. Catto glanced casually at her victim.

‘It bothers you, does it?’

She snapped her fingers at the guard.

‘Fetch some people to remove that thing.’

The guard swiftly obeyed and left the room. Moments later he returned with two of the helmetless servants. They removed the body from the post and dragged it unceremoniously from the room. A.A. Catto turned her attention back to Billy.

‘Now can we talk?’

Billy wiped beads of sweat from his forehead.

‘I suppose so.’

‘You’re a terrible weakling.’

Billy shrugged.

‘If you say so.’

A.A. Catto stood up very slowly. ‘I don’t like your attitude.’ She began to pace up and down. ‘I’ll be charitable, however. You may well be having trouble adjusting to the new situation.’ Billy was still confused. ‘The new situation?’

‘The situation of my being queen. I have absolute power here. I can do anything. Anything at all.’

Billy had never seen her quite like this. The weight of the gun in his pocket was reassuring, but he still chose his words with great care.

‘May I ask what you intend to do?’

A.A. Catto smiled nastily at him.

‘That’s more what I expect.’

She resumed her pacing.

‘I do not share the previous rulers’ enthusiasm for this dreary primitivism. I have discovered that there is a stuff receiver in that building we saw in the valley. I intend to use the receiver to obtain a supply of the modern necessities. Do you understand?’

Billy nodded.

‘I think so. What about the globes, though, won’t they destroy everything directly it arrives down the beam?’

‘They can be deactivated from the same point.’

‘Aren’t there people in the valley?’

A.A. Catto halted.

‘Yes, why?’

Billy avoided looking directly at her.

‘Won’t they be liable to object to what you want to do?’

A.A. Catto looked surprised.

‘Does that matter?’

‘If they decided to resist your plan.’

‘They won’t.’

‘Why not?’

A.A. Catto looked at Billy as though he was simple-minded.

‘Because I’ve decided to destroy them.’

Billy’s mouth dropped open.

‘Destroy them?’

A.A. Catto’s voice became very brisk and matter of fact.

‘It’s the only solution. It stops them causing trouble, and, in any case, they’re no use to me, no use at all. They are also reputed to have very unpleasant ideas and habits. I think it’s best if they were liquidated before we do anything else.’

Billy’s mind reeled. He could see exactly why Nancy had been so disturbed. A.A. Catto was obviously quite out of control. He looked at her guardedly.

‘You’ll send your horsemen into the valley?’

‘I’ll lead them.’

‘And kill all the people there?’

‘Of course.’

Billy looked at the floor. He couldn’t think exactly what to say. A.A. Catto looked at him impatiently.

‘What’s the matter with you?’

Billy looked round helplessly.

‘I was just wondering why you were telling me all this.’

‘You will be coming with us.’

Billy’s eyebrows shot up.

‘Me?’

‘You have proved quite resourceful in the past. I will keep you as an adviser as long as you prove useful.’

Billy closed his eyes for an instant. It was almost too much to take in. He wished that he was back at the Leader Hotel, or in Pleasant Gap, or almost anywhere.

‘When do we ride for the valley?’

‘Later today. My horsemen are making ready, isn’t it exciting?’

Billy looked at the backs of his hands.

‘I suppose so.’

A.A. Catto smiled sympathetically at him.

‘I expect it’s all a little overwhelming right now. You’ll enjoy it, once the killing starts.’

The build-up to an audience with the blessed Joachim was a planned performance. Jeb Stuart Ho, the Wanderer and the Minstrel Boy had been kept waiting for a couple of hours. They had been fed, given drinks, and, in the case of the Minstrel Boy, entertained soundly by two pink-robed devotees. When all these preliminaries were complete, an escort of yellow-robed priests arrived at their suite of rooms.

‘The blessed one has decided, in his wisdom, that you will be allowed an audience. We have come to escort you to his wondrous presence.’

There were six of them. The Minstrel Boy wondered if it was a guard of honour, or simply a guard. They moved out into the corridor, and the priests formed up around them. Three in front, and three behind. They started walking. It seemed to the Wanderer that it was another stage in the whole process. They seemed to walk for miles along the echoing corridors of black stone. The turns and right angles soon destroyed the travellers’ sense of direction inside the building. The only thing they knew for sure was that they were consistently going up from one level to another. They finally arrived at the foot of a flight of wide, imposing stairs. As far as Jeb Stuart Ho could calculate they were very near the apex of the building.

At the head of the stairs there were a pair of polished steel doors. An emblem of a strange impossible bird was worked in dramatic relief on the metal. The small procession started up the stairs. As they reached the halfway mark, the doors began to swing slowly open. They reached the threshold of the blessed Joachim’s inner sanctum. The priests fell to their knees and touched their foreheads on the floor. Jeb Stuart Ho inclined his head slightly, but the Minstrel Boy and the Wanderer just stood and looked around.

The room was lavish. It was long and narrow, almost like a giant corridor with a high vaulted ceiling. The black stone walls had been polished to the smoothness of glass and flowing designs of weird composite animals were inlaid in them in white metal. Odd wing-shaped devices hung from the ceiling supporting hundreds of candles. Their polished steel facets reflected the light on to the mirrored walls. There seemed to be tiny points of light everywhere they looked. Two long lines of silent yellow-robed priests formed an avenue all the way down the room. At the end of the avenue was another flight of steps. They were covered with a white, thick-piled carpet. A flock of the pink-robed acolytes were arranged decoratively around the foot of them. At the top of the steps was a throne made of the same black stone as the walls. It was piled deep in white cushions. Behind it was a huge peacock fan of hammered steel. The blessed Joachim sat among the cushions.

The three travellers couldn’t see the blessed one too well from the far end of the room. The Minstrel Boy looked down at the priests. They still had their foreheads pressed against the floor. He turned to Jeb Stuart Ho.

‘Are we going to stand here for ever, or are we going to walk up there and get ourselves an audience?’

‘I suppose we should speak to him.’

He glanced at the Wanderer.

‘What do you think?’

The Wanderer shrugged.

‘Shit, let’s go up there.’

They stepped over the kneeling priests, and began slowly towards the throne. There was a strange tension growing in the room. Three hard-bitten warriors had marched into a world of flimsy fantasy. The contrast created a charge in the air. Even Jeb Stuart Ho swaggered a little as they walked between the rows of priests.

They came closer to the throne. They started to be able to make out the features of the blessed Joachim. He sat among the cushions like a flabby buddha. He was fat to the point of obesity, with pale pink baby-like flesh. He was totally bald. His features were soft and indistinct, as though they were scarcely formed. His eyes were small, and of a pale watery blue.

‘Are you the thtwangerth?’

He also lisped. The Minstrel Boy suppressed a grin. The giant production for this fat, lisping, overgrown child. He could hardly believe it. Jeb Stuart Ho, however, seemed to take the whole thing a little more seriously. He bowed formally.

‘I am Jeb Stuart Ho, an executive of the brotherhood.’

The blessed Joachim nodded gravely.

‘The bwotherhood, I thee.’

He waved a limp, pudgy hand towards the Minstrel Boy and the Wanderer.

‘And who are thethe two?’

The Minstrel Boy grinned and nodded with uncouth friendliness.

‘People call me the Minstrel Boy and him …’

He jerked his thumb at the Wanderer.

‘They call him the Wanderer.’

‘The Minthtwel Boy, the Wandewer. What kind of nameth are thethe?’

The Minstrel Boy put his foot on the second step and rested his elbow on his knee. He seemed set on acting out a kind of country boy charade for the fat little pseudo-deity.

‘Well, blessed Joachim, sir. I don’t rightly know what kind of names those are, but they’re the only ones we got.’

The blessed Joachim took some time to digest this information. He gestured to the nearest of the pink-robed devout. The man quickly scampered to his side and began mopping his bald head with a piece of silk.

‘What do you people want here? Thith ith no plathe for thtwangerth.’

The Minstrel Boy’s grin broadened.

‘Well, blessed Joachim, sir. I’ll tell you. Him, that one …’

He nodded at Jeb Stuart Ho.

‘… he came here looking for a woman, and me and the other one, we’re just looking for a way out.’

Joachim looked scandalized.

‘A woman? A way out?’

‘That’s all.’

‘There are no women here, and thertainly no way to leave Quahal.’

The idea flitted through the Wanderer’s mind that maybe the reason the place was called Quahal was that the name could be pronounced correctly even with a lisp. He was about to speak, when Jeb Stuart Ho moved forward.

‘If I might explain …’

The blessed Joachim was beginning to look petulant.

‘Pleathe do. I do not like what I’ve heard tho far

‘I am here on a mission of vital importance for the brotherhood. I am searching for one particular woman. The men with me have helped me track her to Quahal. We know the woman is somewhere in Quahal. It is my desire to find her, and theirs to return to where they came from.’

The Minstrel Boy glanced at Jeb Stuart Ho and grinned at Joachim.

‘He talks really concise and pretty, don’t he?’

The blessed Joachim was silent. As Jeb Stuart Ho had been speaking, he’d appeared to sink down into his cushions. He sat staring at the executive in his black fighting suit and his array of weapons. He seemed almost to slip into a trance, but at the last moment he pulled out of it, and spoke.

‘Thewe are no women in thith part of Quahal.’

Jeb Stuart Ho spread his hands.

‘Then I must go to the mountain and find her.’

‘If she went to the mountain she ith almotht thertainly dead. My thithter Alamada will have killed her.’

‘I must still go and look for sure.’

Joachim beckoned to one of the yellow-robed priests, who approached the throne with lowered eyes. He and the blessed one muttered together for a while, and then he returned to his place in the line. Joachim turned his attention back to Jeb Stuart Ho.

‘I have thome information that might help you. I keep the dwelling of my thithter under conthtant obthervation. She hath thome dithguthting habith. It would appear that a woman hath awived at the village, and a fight hath taken not know if it wath my thithter or the woman you theek who pwevailed.’

Jeb Stuart Ho nodded. At last it seemed as though the end of his quest was in sight. He did his best to conceal his eagerness.

‘If that is the case, I must go there at once.’

The blessed Joachim showed signs of relief.

‘Go. I will pwovide you with a guide. You have my blething.’

Jeb Stuart Ho bowed, and turned on his heel. A priest joined him. Their exit from the room proved to be a little absurd. It appeared that the priests were forbidden to turn their backs on the blessed one. Ho observed no such niceties. He strode quickly towards the steel doors with the priest attempting to keep up with him walking backwards in a half crouch.

When Jeb Stuart Ho had gone, a pink-robed acolyte once more mopped Joachim’s head with a silken cloth. The Minstrel Boy and the Wanderer looked at each other, and then at him.

‘What about us?’

Joachim remained silent for almost a minute. Finally he shook his head.

‘Thewe ith no way by which you can leave Quahal.’

The Minstrel Boy exploded.

‘That’s bullshit!’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘With respect, that’s bullshit.’

‘I fail to underthtand.’

The Wanderer stepped in.

‘There is a stuff receiver in the ziggurat. It would be very simple to order transport and stasis generators for us.’

As the Wanderer spoke, the entire room became noticeably agitated. Joachim made weak nervous gestures.

‘No! No! Thethe thingth do not egthitht.’

The Wanderer began to get angry.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course they do. There’s got to be a giant system of generators keeping the whole of Quahal stable.’

Joachim’s voice rose to a high-pitched shriek.

‘Thith ith hewethy.’

The Wanderer shrugged.

‘Suit yourself. You’ve still got to make up your mind what to do with us.’

‘You will go back to your quarterth. I will conphider the pwoblem.’

The Minstrel Boy pushed back his coat, and planted his hands on his hips. His belt of knives was in full view of the blessed Joachim.

‘Don’t take too long about it, will you?’

Before they moved out for the attack on the valley, A.A. Catto insisted on reviewing her troops like a warrior queen in an ancient movie. It was an uncomfortable performance as far as Billy, Reave and Nancy were concerned. By the late morning, the mountain mist had turned to a heavy drizzle and the ground around the village was rapidly being churned to mud under the horses’ hooves. Billy sat uncomfortably on a large black horse. He had never ridden a horse before, and the experience unnerved him. The damp was slowly soaking into the heavy fur poncho that was wrapped around him. Under it he still wore the pimp suit from Litz. He could have changed into the same garb as the horsemen wore, but he was reluctant to go that native. He felt it identified him too strongly as A.A. Catto’s subject and property.