by Jack Yeovil
Krokodil didn’t understand.
“Mr Seth. He don’t look no different now than he did back then.”
“Back when?”
Elvis was preoccupied. “The crazy days. The music days. Him and Colonel Parker ran me like a greyhound.”
“This is the same man? Elder Nguyen Seth.”
“Now you mention it, I suppose they are the same man. That ain’t possible, is it?”
Krokodil remembered the memories that had bled into her mind from the Elder’s.
“He’d have to be near a hundred years old.”
“He’s been around for a lot longer than that.”
“Lady, what are you in to?”
She shrugged. “You don’t really want to know, Colonel Presley. Just get me to the Cape.”
“I’ll try.”
There was a small powerboat in a shack by the diner, gassed up and ready to go. They loaded scavved weapons and ammo into its storage compartments, and Elvis insisted on bringing along some of the more obviously pre-packaged foods.
“There ain’t no charts,” he said. “We’ll have to steer by the stars when it’s night. Still, if we cut across the peninsula until we come to the sea and turn South we’ll have to find the Cape.”
Krokodil didn’t doubt that they would get there without getting lost. It was what would happen afterwards that worried her.
“This will slow us down some. Put a couple of days on the journey. And I don’t know if there’s enough gas in the extra cans to get us there.”
“We’ll deal with that when it becomes a problem.”
“We surely will.”
Elvis cast off, and the boat puttered out onto the waters, which rippled thickly as it cut across them.
It was late afternoon, and the insects were thick in the air. The Op was sweating heavily, even with his jacket off, and had to bat the bugs away from his face. They grew them big in this country. Even she was bothered by them. Doc Threadneedle had made her invulnerable to almost everything short of a direct hit with a nuclear weapon, but she could still be bitten by nuisance-value creepy-crawlies. That was science for you. They’d find a cure for cancer before they got around to licking the headcold.
He was humming under his breath. Krokodil wondered if he realized he had that habit.
It was an obscure American folk song, composed by someone called Alligator John Fogarty. She had only heard of it because Petya Tcherkassoff had done a cover version, with a bizarre Russian-accented twist to the English language lyrics, on his A Cry for Help album.
It was called “Born on the Bayou.”
IX
Sister Addams summoned him down to the control bunker. It was good news. Fonvielle had established contact with Keystone, the communications link of the Needlepoint Ring. If the satellite could be made to respond, then the whole chain would fall in line. And the Church of Joseph would wield unparallelled power over the nations of the Earth. His first impulse had been to order someone to report the good news to Elder Seth, but he held back. There was no harm in verifying the situation for himself.
Simone trailed along after him. He rather liked the obvious disapproval the Brothers and Sisters had to choke back whenever she was around. They were prudish fanatics mostly, even the ones who hadn’t gone Donny-and-Marie yet. Given free rein, they’d like to stone Simone Scarlet, the Scarlet Woman, to death. They did that sort of thing all the time in Salt Lake, and Seth encouraged it. Spilling blood was all part of the ritual.
She didn’t ask questions, but she was learning more and more. She wasn’t much like the nervous indentee hooker she had been back in New Orleans. With Commander Fonvielle, she was only too willing to play the role of First Lady. The creature in the sea had unnerved her, but she had put up with all the other horrors without a murmur. The sacrifices were still baking on the tarmac as they strolled across the launchpad. Two were Josephites who had fallen beside the wayside and succumbed to doubt, but the one with a tail was a Suitcase Person. Duroc had ordered that the perimeter guards round a few of the monsters up for study. They had obviously been human once.
Bethany Addams was waiting outside the bunker, her best black dress and poke bonnet on. She had been with NASA before she joined the church, and knew what she was doing. She even remembered Fonvielle from the old days. She was of that generation of Americans that had wanted to be astronauts when it grew up, and been sorely disappointed when the ruinously expensive and dangerous space programme was dismantled.
Duroc looked up into the sky. It seemed close enough to touch. The Needlepoint satellites were up there somewhere. They had been frigidly unyielding for years, but the Frenchman knew they were just waiting to be seduced by the right touch.
They rode the freight elevator down to the bunker. Two goats were tethered in one corner. Ezekiel Astor, a dour Brother in shirtsleeves with a butcher’s knife in his waistband, tended them. He was the Officer of the Sacrifice.
Sacrifice was the key to the whole thing. The Needlepoint Ring was lost to scientific endeavour. That had been proven in the ’70s. But the Church of Joseph had other avenues of communication with the machine minds that controlled the heavy lases.
Duroc stepped off the elevator platform and strolled into the control room. Fonvielle saluted his president, and he returned the respect. The commander looked like Ben Gunn, but at least 75% of his brain cells were still firing.
Astor led the goats towards the console that had been opened up. The plastic casing was cast aside, and someone had carefully scraped away the jacketing of most of the wires. Astor gently picked up one of the goats and placed it in the nest of wires. He cut its throat and held its mouth shut as it bled into the machine’s insides. There were sparks as the contacts were made.
Simone took it all as a normal rite. She was from the swamps. She knew voodoo when she saw it.
Sister Addams chanted softly as she engaged the monitors. The dying goat kicked feebly, and lay still, its life seeping into the workings.
The big board lit up.
“Contact,” Fonvielle said.
There was some discreet cheering from the technicians.
“Keystone, Keystone,” Fonvielle said into his throatmike, “do you read?”
The Satellite beeped its response. Later, they would engage its voicebox simulator, and converse in English. For now, mathematical signals would do.
Addams turned round, smiling beautifully. “On line, Elder Duroc.”
Duroc quietly punched the air. There was another cheer. It was a shame the Josephites abjured champagne. This was one of those Moet et Chandon occasions.
“You have a subject?” Addams asked.
This had been one of Duroc’s odd little tasks, the selection of a test subject. He had run his mind through a long list of people he had met and whom he thought the world would not be the poorer for the lack of. But then he realized they were so close to the End of All Things that settling one petty score among so many accounts due and soon to be paid was small-minded of him. Spontaneous human combustion had always been random in its nature, and so he decided on a genuinely random form of selection.
He had used the ZeeBeeCee Blotto Lotto RaLPPH, the most finely-tuned random-person selection machine in the world. The station claimed that it picked its winners without regard to any social, racial, sexual, economic, psychological, numerical, alphabetical, moral or sociological consideration. So, smiling a little at the thought of such ill-fortune following on the good, Duroc had picked Gavin Mantle of Springfield PeeZee, Massachusetts.
Gavin had been until recently a salesman for Kitchenmaster appliances. He was 32; married to the former Clodagh Hanrahan; father of little Tish and Reggie; a keen follower of the My Pal, the Biosurgeon soap; the star of his works bowling team; the sometime backstreet lover of Erik Kartalian, a bleached blond muscle builder; still a suspect in the embezzlement of five thousand dollars from the Kitchenmaster slush fund; and just on the point of graduating from zooper-blast and ju-ju pills to smacks
ynth and Method–1. Duroc supposed Gavin was a typical American. ZeeBeeCee had just given him one hundred million dollars in cash and a lifetime supply of GenTech medical care. His face had rarely been offscreen during the past week, as Lola Stechkin and the news team reported how Gavin was disposing of his fortune.
Duroc fed in the co-ordinates of the walled estate Gavin had moved into—without taking Clodagh, Tish and Reggie or Erik—and also gave the machine a map of the lucky winner’s body-heat patterns.
“Keystone is accurate to the half-centimetre,” Fonvielle claimed. In the past accuracy had been the problem. The curvature of the Earth and the distortion of the atmosphere got in the way. But now, with the charm of blood seeping through the works, they should have that problem licked.
The monitors showed the satellite extending its lase arm, and making minute adjustments in its orbit.
A map appeared on the big screen, with a red dot over Springfield. The map was magnified as the aiming became more precise.
Sister Addams was praying.
Duroc imagined Gavin in his new-won palace. He hoped he was alone. For some reason, Duroc felt it would not be fair to singe a GenTech supplied sexclone.
“Target: lock-on!”
Fonvielle was standing over the console.
“We have manual control, Mr President.”
He lifted a little cover and revealed an unobtrusive red button.
“Simone,” Duroc said, “do the honours, would you?”
With a satisfied smile, Simone walked across the bunker. Even Josephites who had abjured carnal relations couldn’t stop themselves staring at her body. She was wearing something white and clinging and silky that set off her skin colour perfectly.
“Goodbye, Gavin,” Duroc said.
Simone casually pressed the button, and the red dot on the map flashed.
“Firing sequence initiated,” Fonvielle snapped.
There was a rising whine. Brother Astor sacrificed the other goat, almost unnoticed. Duroc was pleased with the man. He liked the way he did his part in the operation without being asked or demanding an acknowledgement.
Sister Addams had her thumbnail between her teeth.
“Firing…”
The big screen suddenly scrambled, and the map was gone. Lights flared.
“… now!”
It was unspectacular. The big screen just shut down. Astor’s goat kicked and shrieked, clinging to life.
Fonvielle slumped in his chair. Simone stood away from the console.
“What happened?” Duroc asked.
The commander ripped out a fistful of his beard and chewed it like tobacco.
“Malfunction, Mr Prezz.”
“The lase doesn’t work?”
Fonvielle spat a hairball on the floor. “Nope. That’s fine and dandy. Well up to scratch, in fact.”
“So?”
“It’s the targeting system we have to get the bugs out of. We don’t seem to have reestablished control over the Keystone mapmaster programme.”
A read-out chattered. The big screen came back on.
“Ah,” said Fonvielle. “Does anyone know where Taabazimbi is?”
“It’s in the Transvaal,” Duroc said, “in Greater Rhodesia. Why?”
Fonvielle looked sheepish. “Ah, well, because Keystone seems to have urn…”
“Out with it, commander!”
“… obliterated it.”
X
It was getting dark. The boat was going to need gas soon, or they would be down to using the paddles. Elvis told Krokodil. “Well, there are people nearby…”
Elvis looked at her. “You can tell that from some cyborg sense?”
“No, I can tell that from simple observation. Wherever there’s garbage, there are people, and look…”
There was a mud lagoon clogged with food wrappers and other disposables, sinking slowly.
“That’s someone’s dump.”
“Yeah.” Elvis reached for his Moulinex.
“Paranoid.”
“It’s the only way to get to be my age, ma’am.”
Nevertheless, he left the gun where it was.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”
“We’ll try silent running from here on in.”
He cut the motor, and took the paddles from the stern locker. He handed her one.
They eased the boat forwards. The swamp was thick here, more mud than water, and it was easy to get clogged with the swampgrass. They’d had to stop several times to unwind long tangles from the propellor.
Elvis could hear noises up ahead. Human noises.
“Sounds like a party,” Krokodil said.
There was music. Cooking smells reached them.
“I sure hope the natives are friendly round here.”
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
They could see lights through the hanging cypresses. Elvis felt very hungry again.
“’Old eet raight zere, mon ami,” said a harsh, loud voice. The accent was backwoods French.
Elvis pulled his paddle out of the water, and raised his hands.
“We’re friends,” he said.
“Easy to say, ’ard to preuve.”
The Frenchman leaned out of the shadows. He was lying in the branches of a cypress, camouflaged among the leaves. He wore a patchwork of oilskins and small pelts, and had long, tangled hair. He was carrying a Grand Guignol shotgun, four barrels welded together in a square. One of those things could blast a hole clear through a bull elephant.
“We’re just passing through. My name is Presley, and this is… ”
He couldn’t think of a way of making “Krokodil” sound like a friendly name.
“Jessamyn,” she said.
“Enchante, mam’selle. Je suis Zhille.”
“Where is this place?”
“It ’as no name. We float.”
Zhille put up his shotgun.
“Can a feller get some gas around here? Or maybe some food?”
Zhille smiled and kissed his fingers. “If a felleau ’as ze price of ze services.”
“We can pay,” said Krokodil.
“Zen, come on een, get warm and get fed…”
Zhille held aside a curtain of cypress, and they paddled past his tree.
There was an island ahead, with a bonfire built on it. Elvis realized that it was not a true island, but rather a large raft built on a network of empty oildrums layered over with soil and vegetation. There were shacks and storehouses. And a group of maybe twenty or thirty people, clustered around the fire. A spitted ’gator was turning over the flames, roasting nicely, and big-bellied iron cookpots were heating up gallons of gumbo.
“You laike Cajun cookeeng?” Zhille asked, appearing to tether the boat.
“Yes, sir,” Elvis replied politely.
“You laike plenty of ’ot spices, n’est-ce pas?”
“I surely do.”
“Zen zis ees ze plaice for yiu.”
“The natives,” Krokodil whispered, “seem friendly.”
Still, Elvis saw her slinging something from Donny Walton’s gun collection around her waist. You could never be too careful.
There was a small band by the fire, playing fast, raucous zydeco. A serious, thin-cheeked woman with a derby hat and a long skirt sawed away at a fiddle. The rest were okay, but she was good. A few barefoot children were dancing, but most of the crowd were more interested in eating just now.
Zhille introduced them to the community headman, DuFrezne, and his wife Jeanne, and to others. Places were found for them near the fire, in the food line.
Elvis watched the ’gator turning. He had never eaten ’gator before, but knew people who swore by it.
“At least they’ve taken its eyes out,” Krokodil said.
“They’re in the gumbo.”
“Oh well, I’ve eaten raw lizard in my time. This looks appetizing by comparison.”
“You need to eat?”
She shook her head. “B
ut I should, here. We don’t want anyone thinking there’s anything odd about me, do we?”
The fire made strange shapes on her face. Elvis wondered just how odd Krokodil really was. He knew she was packed full of bio-amendments. But there was something else weird about the woman. Sometimes, someone else seemed to be looking out through her eyes.
The music stopped, and the eating started.
Elvis was fortunate enough to get an unidentifiable hunk of tasty, highly-spiced meat. After a day’s fast, it was wonderful. And the swamp-brewed moonshine that came with it burned all the tastes out of his mouth anyway. He wondered if his tastebuds had sustained any lasting damage from the liquid fire.
They talked about themselves, but were vague about their reasons for being in the swamplands. Krokodil told DuFrezne her name was Jessamyn Bonney, and that she had been wilder as a teenager. Elvis remembered the name. She had been a War Chief with the Psychopomps, a Western gangcult, four or five years ago. It was hard to imagine the calm woman in glitter make-up and ragged tights. Elvis just said he had been in the army most of his life.
As they talked, Elvis was aware of dark eyes fixed on hem. It was the fiddle-player.
As the fires died down, the woman got up, and began a long recital in incomprehensible Cajun French, punctuating her sentences with unearthly melodies.
“Zat ees Ti-Mouche,” said Zhille, “she ees un p’tit crazy, but she ’as ze saight…”
“The Sight?”
Zhille made an expressive gesture. Elvis gathered ’Ti-Mouche was a wise woman, a white witch.
“She talks about yiu,” Zhille said.
’Ti-Mouche was playing a drawn-out but spirited tune, a Devil’s Trill.
“What’s she saying?”
Zhille wasn’t sure whether to pass it on. “She says zat yiu ’ave… uh, eet ’ard to explain… ze talent?”
“Talent?”
“Eet ees witch stoff. She says yiu a powerful sorciere, only yiu do not know eet. Yiu put aside your magic, turn your back on eel, but ze magic, eet weel not be put aside. Eet come back soon.”
Elvis felt the music creep into his spine. ’Ti-Mouche seemed to be playing incredibly complex variations on “Heartbreak Hotel.” She couldn’t know…
The music got darker, wilder, and ’Ti-Mouche’s recital became a rant. Zhille stopped trying to explain, but Elvis could tell he was unnerved. The climate of the gathering chilled, and a few of the children crossed themselves. DuFrezne looked serious, and nodded.
