The Quest of the DNA Cowboys (11 page)

‘We can get out of here?’

‘Sure, right now.’

‘That’s great. Where do we go?’

The Minstrel Boy frowned.

‘That’s one of the problems, but I’ll tell you about it when we’re out of here.’

Billy shrugged.

‘Just as long as we’re out of this filthy cell.’

Again surrounded by guards, they walked out of the cell, along the corridor, and up the stairs. Groans and snarls came from the other cells as they walked past. The release of a prisoner seemed a great novelty.

They were again pushed into the stone-flagged room where the Uruk sat behind his high desk. Billy, Reave and the Rainman were lined up in front of him, and he scowled at them with distaste.

‘Release orders? Release orders? You scum have friends in high places. They won’t help you if I ever get my hands on your filthy bodies again.’

Two of their guards were dispatched to fetch their clothes, and the three of them hastily dressed. Their bags, porta-pacs, and even their guns were returned to them, and then the Minstrel Boy initialled a sheaf of forms. Finally they were released, and they followed, the Minstrel Boy out into the street. Once outside, Billy caught up with him.

‘Where are we going now?’

‘To the barracks.’

‘Barracks? What barracks?’

The Minstrel Boy avoided Billy’s eyes.

‘That was one of the things I had to do to get you out. In order to get the release papers, I had to enlist you in the Free Corps.’

‘The Free Corps? What in hell is that?’

‘It’s … uh … part of the army.’

Billy stopped dead in the street.

‘The army? Are you trying to tell us that we’ve joined the goddamn army in this place?’

He swung round to Reave and the Rainman.

‘This idiot’s gone and got us into the army.’

The Minstrel Boy took Billy by the arm.

‘Keep moving, you don’t want to get arrested again. There was no other way, Billy. It was a case of jail or the Free Corps.’

They walked on, Billy shaking his head.

‘I don’t understand any of this. You better start from the beginning.’

‘Okay, listen. This is Dur Shanzag, and it’s a long way from Graveyard or Dogbreath.’

She/They rose slowly through the threatening mists. Her/Their mind was not required to continue the upward motion, and She/They allowed it to retreat into the memories of the almost infinite past. It drifted back to Her/Their hardly remembered birth, the fusion of shapes and colours that had condensed and blended and produced Her/Their triple form. She/They could go back no further than the triple form. Before that there had been something, an order that had enabled Her/Them to transcend and escape the chaos that had overtaken everything else.

The achievement of the triple form had been followed by centuries of contemplation while She/They had ordered and stabilized the space that She/They occupied. It was a long period of calm that had been savagely brought to an end by the arrival of the first disruptors.

The arrival of the disruptors had started the long battle that She/They had waged against the encroaching mists of the twisting chaos.

It was the start of a hateful, searching period in which She/They had moved across the fabric, attempting to stabilize the sectors She/They covered.

She/They had become the continual prey of the disruptors, and, for a very long time, She/They had directed Her/Their intelligence at the problem of what they were, and where they originated. It had never been possible to come in close proximity of the thing without Her/Their objectivity being damaged by the disruption process. All Her/Their observations led towards the assumption that the disruptors were some strange halfway point between animal and machine.

She/They had never solved the problem of their coming. Before the disruptors Her/Their triple form had not existed. There had been form and there had been consciousness, but beyond that, all memory was hazy and tattered. Her/Their creation was inexorably linked with their arrival. It was almost as though they had given Her/Them birth as they first tore into the fabric of reality.

She/They was produced out of the disruption. The logical opposite to disrupters and the wake of chaos. By the same logic it should follow that She/They was their equal. That would only be disproved either when they shattered Her/Them and diffused Her/Their form into the clouds of unstable fabric, or when She/They extended a state of unchanging order throughout Her/Their entire area of experience.

She/They, over the millennia of Her/Their struggle, had watched the behaviour of the disrupters, and the pattern that seemed to lie behind their attacks. She/They had, at times, entertained the proposition that an intelligence was directing the disruptors. For a few long periods, the movements of the disruptors had seemed regular as though they moved according to a directing logic. During other periods, their actions had become completely random, and the idea of an overall intelligence had been rejected by Her/Them as a product of chaos-induced paranoia.

She/They returned Her/Their mind to the present. The mist had taken on a more even quality, and was starting to glow a deep electric blue. Her/Their upward motion ceased. Her/Their two heads turned slowly. Deep in the blue mist something solid seemed to be moving.

‘Dur Shanzag is the city of the Presence. Nobody seems to know any more exactly where the Presence came from. Seems as though he or it has been around for thousands of years.’

‘He or it?’

Billy walked along with the Minstrel Boy, a confused look on his face.

‘They say he was a man once, but, by all accounts, he’s not any more. He’s … well, he’s the Presence. They say he’s burned up with the idea of being the master. The lord of everything. They say he’s had four or five empires, way back over hundreds of thousands of years.’

Billy shook his head.

‘How does one man get to live a hundred thousand years? It just isn’t possible.’

The Minstrel Boy shrugged.

‘I’m just telling the story. I don’t have to account for inconsistencies. The story goes that he ain’t a man any more. It could be that he ain’t the original one who built those empires, maybe he’s just another crazy living out some fantasy that he got from some old book. I don’t know, there’s a whole lot of things that it doesn’t pay to look too closely at. When it comes down to it, all I know is that there’s a thing called the Presence, and this is his city.’

‘What about those things that threw us in jail? This Presence was like one of those once?’

The Minstrel Boy shook his head.

‘The Presence wasn’t ever an apeman. Those things are his slaves. He created them. He bred them down through the centuries to serve him. The Shirik, they’re the workers, soldiers and watchdogs of his citadel. The smarter ones are Uruks. They boss the Shirik, and pass on his orders.’

‘What about the Ghâshnákh? What are they?’

‘The Ghâshnákh? They’re the next level of power after the Uruks. They’re men, but slaves just the same. They’re his officers, civil servants and secret police. They hate and fear him but are all loyal to him. I suppose each, in his own way, shares the same desire for power and conquest. His whole massive bureaucracy runs on a balance of greed and fear. It’s not efficient, but I don’t think he cares. It seems like he gets a kind of twisted pleasure out of watching it fuck up.’

‘But surely that’s not going to help him conquer the world?’

‘I don’t think he cares. The rumours say that all his concentration is fixed on the disrupters, He thinks that the way to power lies in the control of the disrupters. That was why I had so much trouble getting you out. You told the Uruk that you’d been hit by a disrupter, and disrupter cases are always interrogated by the Ghâshnákh. That’s why I had to sign you into the Free Corps, in order to get your release papers. You’ll still get questioned by the Ghâshnákh, but it’ll only be a stage three. The Uruk would have handed you over for a stage one. There ain’t too many who live through a stage one.’

‘What’s the Free Corps, then? What have you gotten us into?’

‘Don’t be like that about it. I did the best I could.’

Billy nodded.

‘Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m sorry. Tell me about this Free Corps.’

‘The Presence is at war. He’s always at war. This time it’s with the Regency of Harod. It’s been going on for years. The Harodin will lose in the end, the neighbouring cities have all lost in the end.’

‘I thought the Shirik did all the Presence’s fighting. I don’t see what he needs us for.’

‘The Shirik make killer infantry, but they’re too dumb to operate anything complicated. He needs mercenaries to man his fighting machines, and operate the big guns. That’s the Free Corps. They’re the crew of mercenaries who do the Presence’s dirty work for him.’

‘How does he treat them?’

‘It ain’t too bad. The Ghâshnákh make sure they have enough women and enough booze. They’re the elite troops and they get treated that way. They’re a rough mean bunch, though.’

‘How long have you signed us on for?’

‘Two years.’

‘Jesus.’

‘That’s the minimum period, nothing else I could do.’

‘What happens then?’

‘You get paid off, and a free passage to the limits of the zone. Of course, they put the arm on you to re-enlist, but in the end, they let you go.’

‘What about escaping?’

‘Should be quite easy once you get to the front. It’s up to you. I’ve done all I can.’

The Minstrel Boy halted, and pointed at a huge granite block, larger, but otherwise identical to the Shirik House.

‘That’s the barracks. Go in and tell the guard that you’re the new recruits. I’ll see you later, okay?’

The Minstrel Boy started to walk away, but Billy called him back.

‘Just one question, Minstrel Boy. How did you get here? And the way you’re dressed up?’

The Minstrel Boy shook his head sadly.

‘Don’t ask, Billy. Just don’t ask.’

‘But …’

‘We all got to survive, Billy. Remember that.’

The Minstrel Boy turned on his heel and walked away. His boots echoed hollowly on the paving stones of the deserted street. Billy watched him go, and then followed the others inside the cold, forbidding building.

A huge man with a full black curly beard lounged behind a desk similar to the Uruk’s. He wore an olive green combat suit and a peaked fatigue cap. A cigar was clenched between his teeth, and a huge pair of combat boots were propped on the desk. The peak of his cap hung down over his eyes, and when Billy, Reave and the Rainman walked in, he raised it lazily with his forefinger. He stared at them for a while, and then lazily shifted the cigar to the side of his mouth.

‘Whatcha want?’

‘Recruits.’

‘Recruits? Where the hell did you come from?’

‘Our friend got us out of jail on the promise that we’d enlist.’

Billy thought it was best to keep quiet about the disrupter.

‘Get lost in the nothings and wind up here?’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’

‘That’s how most of them get here. No one comes here from choice.’

‘It’s bad?’

‘You’ll see.’

He swung his legs off the desk, and his boots hit the floor with a crash. He stood up, and yelled towards a door behind him.

‘Hey Skipper, there’s three recruits out here. Wanna take a look at them?’

A man emerged from the doorway. He was a little wiry man with a clipped moustache. He wore a sheepskin jacket and dark blue trousers tucked into scuffed riding boots. On his head, he had a light blue cap with the same eye and flames badge that the Shirik wore. He looked the three of them up and down.

‘Recruits?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Just got out of jail?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You better get signed in.’

He walked over to the desk and picked up a clipboard.

‘Okay.’

He pointed at Reave.

‘You, come over here.’

Reave sauntered over to him and stood in front of him with his hands in his pockets.

‘I’m Sperry, kid. Master of Warriors. You train with me and I get to choose whether you train easy, or you train hard. You got that?’

Reave straightened his back and took his hands out of his pockets.

‘I got it.’

‘I got it, sir.’

‘I got it, sir.’

‘Okay, name?’

‘Reave.’

‘Place of origin?’

‘Pleasant Gap.’

‘Do-you-solemnly-swear-to-serve-in-the-Army-of-the-Sovereign-State-of-Dur-Shanzag-for-a-period-of-not-less-than-seven-hundred-days-in-accordance-with-the-Code-and-military-regulations-of-that-said-state? Say “I do”.’

‘I do.’

Sperry handed Reave the clipboard and pen.

‘Make your mark here.’

Reave scrawled his name and handed them back. Sperry looked towards Billy.

‘Next.’

Billy stepped up.

‘Name?’

‘Billy Oblivion.’

‘Place of origin?’

‘Pleasant Gap.’

‘Do you solemnly swear what he just did?’

‘I do.’

‘Okay, make your mark and stand over there with him..’

Billy made his mark and stood by Reave.

‘Next.’

The Rainman stood in front of Sperry.

‘Name?’

‘People call me the Rainman.’

‘Ain’t you got a proper name?’

‘It’s the only one people use.’

‘Okay, Rainman. Place of origin?’

‘Hell, how should I know? That’s a helluva question to ask a travelling man.’

‘Where was the last place you stopped? You remember that?’

‘Why, sure I do, it was Dogbreath.’

‘Okay, Dogbreath. I gotta put something. Do you swear too?’

‘Sure, I ain’t got no choice.’

‘You should remember that. Make your mark and get over with the others.’

Once the Rainman was in line with Billy and Reave, Sperry came over and inspected them.

‘You got any weapons?’

Billy nodded.

‘We all got handguns.’

‘Okay, fetch ‘em out.’

He looked at Billy’s and Reave’s reproduction Colts and sniffed.

‘They’ll have to do.’

He seemed more impressed with the Rainman’s spiral needler on .75 frame.

‘Yeah, okay, put them away again. Your clothes are all right too.’