by Tad Williams
"These people need to get some rest," Annie told him. "Which means that if I hear you bothering them, you'll answer to me. So keep your no-tooth mouth shut."
"I'll be quiet as the grave," he said, eyes wide with mock fear.
"Which is where you'll end up if you cross me," Annie said as she departed.
"You all lie down," Henry told them. "I'm keeping an eye out, and I see better than I chew." He chortled.
"Oh, God," Florimel said as she slumped heavily onto the nearest buffalo hide. "A damned comedian."
Paul didn't care about that or anything else. Even as he lay back he could feel sleep dragging at him, swallowing him as if the very stone beneath him had become liquid and he was sliding downward, downward into its depths.
He woke up with a throbbing head, a dry mouth, and a light but firm pressure against his ribs. The man named Titus was standing over him, high-boned African features betraying nothing.
"Want to get your friends up and come on," he said, giving Paul another gentle shove with his boot toe. "The rest of 'em have come back and the boss man wants to talk to you."
"Boss man?" Paul asked muzzily. "Come back from where?"
"Hunting." Titus leaned against the boulders while he waited for the foursome to rouse themselves. "You don't think we eat those be-damned jackalos, do you?"
Following the tall, lanky Titus, Paul was reminded of his sojourn in the imaginary Ice Age, the excitement that had prevailed at the hunters' return. There was a great deal of activity all across the wide cavern, and several fires were burning where only one had been lit when he and his companions had first arrived—perhaps to make it easier to see what was happening outside the stronghold.
"What time is it?" Paul asked.
"Don't know exactly, but it's morning," Titus told him. "You all slept like you needed it."
"We did."
Titus led them into a second large cavern, the one into which Paul guessed the other inhabitants had withdrawn the night before. Now it was just as busy as the outer chamber, full of the smell of cooking meat, and the smoke was even thicker. Paul was surprised to see three men with long knives dismembering the carcass of a good-sized calf. "They've been out hunting cows?"
"Better we get 'em than leave 'em to the jackalos and the devil-men," Titus said.
"Devil-men?" asked Florimel. "What are those?"
Titus did not reply, but stopped and gestured with his chin toward the calf butchers. "Go on. He's been asking about you."
Paul and the others took a few steps forward. A broad-shouldered, well-built man with a thick mustache and a dusty plug hat rose from his crouch with the casual ease of a lion coming up out of the grass.
"I'd offer my hand," he said, "but as you can see I'm bloody up to the elbows. Nevertheless, you're welcome here. My name is Masterson, but my friends and a few of my more informal enemies call me Bat."
"Bat Masterson?" Paul stared despite himself. It should not be a shock to run into simulacra of famous people, not in this artificial universe, but it was still a surprise when it happened.
"Heard of me, have you? That'll teach me to spend time with newspapermen."
"Most of what's written about him is lies," Annie Ladue said as she climbed to her feet beside him. Paul realized that he had again mistaken her for a man. She gave her paramour an affectionate pat on the rump. "But to be fair, only about half the lies are Bat's."
"Sit down and work, woman," he said. "We've got a half a hundred mouths to feed, which means we'd better be cutting pretty close to the bone." He turned his attention back to Paul and the others, looking them up and down, his interest obviously piqued by the coveralls they had inherited back in Kunohara's bugworld. "So what are you folk? Circus performers? Traveling players? You'd find an eager audience here. The little ones are getting a mite fretful in here after all these days."
"No, we're not . . . performers." Paul had to suppress a bemused smile. If this were a netflick, they'd probably have to pretend they were. What kind of bizarre act could they cobble up between them? See the Amazing Lost Man! Marvel at the World's Most Sullen Teenager! "We're just ordinary people, although we come from a long way away. We were passing through and got lost, then those . . . things attacked us."
Once again, the system's ability to absorb anomalies moved them smoothly past an impediment; their odd garments were not mentioned again. "I heard about that," Bat said. "I heard you fought your way out, too—which, if the ladies will pardon my language, is pretty damn impressive. How did you manage?"
"I . . . I found a gun," Paul said, pulling it carefully out of his pocket. "It had enough cartridges in it for us to shoot our way out, but just barely. We would have been killed if your people hadn't been there."
"We have a lot of trouble with that nest so close," said Bat casually, but his gaze had not left Paul's pistol. "But this is the best place to defend for miles, so we chose the lesser of two evils."
"How did you wind up in this situation. . . ?" Paul began.
"I hate to interrupt," Bat said, "and you may take this amiss, but I hope not. Would you extend me the courtesy of letting me have a look at that shooting iron of yours?"
Paul paused for a moment, confused by the strange tension in Masterson's tone.
"Don't," said T4b in a too-loud whisper, then grunted as Florimel stepped hard on his foot.
"Of course." Paul proffered it butt-first, but Masterson would not take it until he had found a handkerchief in his vest pocket so he could hold it without smearing blood on it. He lifted it up to catch light leaking in from a high chink in the cavern wall.
"You say you found this in the nest?" His voice was casual, but there was still something in it that made Paul nervous.
"I swear. In the muck, down with all the bones of animals and . . . and people. It was in a holster."
Bat sighed. "I'd almost rather you were lying. This is Ben Thompson's gun, and a better man and a better shot would be hard to name. I haven't seen him since all hell broke loose, but I was hopeful he was still alive out there somewhere, maybe at one of the other camps up on the ridgetop. But if you found it in the bottom of one of them godforsaken nests. . . ." He shook his head. "Dead is the only way Ben would be to let someone take his iron off him." He offered the gun back to Paul. "It's yours by right of spoils, I guess."
"To tell the truth," Paul said, "I've hardly ever fired a pistol before this and I'll be happy if I never fire one again. If it belonged to a friend of yours, you keep it."
One of Bat Masterson's dark eyebrows crept upward. "I'd like to think you might get your pacifistic wish, sir, but it doesn't seem likely. We'll run out of bullets long before we run out of trouble."
"What kind of trouble is this?" demanded Florimel. She had been impatiently quiet for too long. "Why are there mountains? We've never heard of anything like that. And what are these monsters?"
"More importantly," said Martine, "how do we get into Dodge City? Can we reach it from here?"
Paul was puzzled by her question for a moment, until he remembered what she had said about finding the gate that could lead into Egypt.
Masterson, Annie, and Titus were far more surprised than Paul, and regarded her with something like astonishment, although Bat, when he spoke, was almost courtly. "My dear lady, no offense, but where in creation have you greenhorns come from? Get into Dodge City? You might as well ask to be let into Hell's own saloon bar! You'd be better off stripping yourself naked—begging your pardon for the crudeness—and running into the nearest Comanche camp screaming 'All Indians are liars and fools!' "
Titus snickered. "That's a good one."
Annie was less amused. "They just don't know, Bat. They're from somewhere else, that's all. We should find out, though, because maybe that somewhere else is a better place to be than here."
Bat smiled. "The lady has more sense than I do, and more manners. Perhaps we should share information. . . ." Before he could finish his sentence, long-haired Billy Dixon appeared. "Prisoner
's cutting up somethin' fierce," he announced.
"Damn. Maybe you could lend a hand here, Billy—I've been a bit distracted."
Bat offered him the knife, but Dixon plucked one out of a sheath on his leg so quickly that it seemed to jump into his hand from thin air. "Got my own."
"If you just come and set your eyes on the little charmer we brought back with us," Bat said, beckoning to Paul and the rest, "it will save me a fair piece of explaining." He led them toward the back of the cavern, well away from the fire. A few more hard-faced men looked up at their approach; Paul guessed they were the ones who had accompanied Masterson on his hunting trip.
"These fellows came down on us the day after the earth started moving," Bat said. "There was so much dust in the air we didn't even see them until they were almost on top of us. Then someone came riding down past the Long Branch screaming that a Cheyenne war party was coming up fast. We got all the women and children and old folks into the church, rest of us saddled up and got our guns. Didn't do us much good. For one thing, these aren't any Cheyenne like I've ever seen. . . ." He stopped. "I hear he's getting twitchy, Dave," he said as one of the men stood up.
The man, lean and with most of the bottom half of his face hidden by an immense whiskbroom mustache, shrugged. "I say ventilate him. He won't tell us nothin' but his name—at least I think it's his name. Keeps saying, 'Me Dread,' over and over. . . ."
"Oh great God!" said Florimel, staggering a step backward. "How can this be?"
"Bastard shot me!" snarled T4b.
"It is Dread," Martine whispered. She had gone deathly pale. "Although he no longer wears Quan Li's body, I could not be mistaken."
Paul stared at his companions, then at the slender, nearly naked man in a breechclout lying on the ground before them, bound tightly hand and foot, covered in bruises and dried blood. The prisoner looked up at them with no sign of recognition. His teeth were bared in a grin of exertion as he writhed in his bonds like a snake. His dark skin and Asian eyes gave him a little of the American Indian look, but Paul could not doubt Martine's senses. He had never met the much-feared Dread, but he had heard more man enough: despite the prisoner's obvious helplessness, he took a step back as well.
The prisoner laughed at Paul's retreat. "Hah! Me kill you all."
Bat Masterson crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, if you folks dislike this one so much, you might want to reconsider your travel plans. You see, this fellow's got himself about a thousand identical cousins, and right now they're all having themselves a hell of a wingding on Front Street down in Dodge."
CHAPTER 21
Handling Snakes
NETFEED/ART: Bigger X—Dead Genius, or Just Dead?
(visual: Coxwell Avenue death scene, Toronto)
VO: The art world is talking about the death of forced-involvement artist Bigger X, killed in a hit and run accident in Toronto, Canada. Already several camps have formed. Many believe X was responding to a "suicide challenge" by another artist known as No-1, and may have arranged his own fatal "accident" both as an acceptance of No-1's challenge and a further homage to a favorite artist of X's, TT Jensen. Others suggest that TT Jensen himself may have arranged the death, either out of irritation at Bigger X's constant citation of him, or (an even stranger alternative) as a symbol of gratitude for Bigger X's praise. Yet another group suggests that No-1 may have engineered the death out of frustration that Bigger X did not publicly respond to his "suicide challenge." There is even one brave group who suggest that X's death is just what it seems—something that happens to people who walk into a busy street without looking. . . .
She had been staring at the wallscreen so long that she had fallen into a kind of dream. When the shouting began, she sat up so quickly she almost fell off her chair.
Dulcie darted a reflexive glance at the coma bed, but Dread had not moved. He had been back online for most of a day. She was beginning to feel like she was keeping a deathwatch.
Someone screamed in the street below, a shrill but still masculine cry of pain and outrage. Dulcie walked across the loft, legs tingling because she had been in one place too long, and lifted the corner of the blackout curtain on one of the windows.
It was dark outside, which startled her almost as much as the noises had—how had it become night again so quickly? People were moving in the alley below, shadowed bodies performing an aggressive posture-dance. It was a fight of sorts, three or four young men strutting and shoving, but there seemed to be more arguing than actual attacking. Dulcie had spent too many years in Manhattan to be either surprised or concerned, and she certainly wasn't going to waste any time worrying that they might hurt each other.
Men. They're programmed for it, aren't they? Like those little builder robots. Just walk forward until you bump into something, then shove it until it does what you want—unless it shoves harder than you do.
She wandered back across the loft toward the cabinet where, in a fit of bored domesticity while waiting for some of her security-cracking gear to work, she had set a chair and arranged all the squeeze packs, sweeteners, and other related objects into a sort of coffee-break area. As the argument raged on in the alley below she became conscious for the first time that she had no idea what kind of security Dread had in this place. She couldn't imagine him leaving himself open to robbery or assault, especially in a neighborhood as troubled as this one, but she also knew he was highly unlikely to have any of the more common deterrents like an alarm system connected to the private-subscription police lines: Dread was obviously not the kind of man who would be calling the police. She couldn't picture him waiting for a private security firm to come save him either, or even men he had personally assembled, like the ones from the Isla de Santuario invasion. In fact, she just couldn't imagine him waiting for anyone. Dread was the type who would want to handle everything himself.
Yeah, and fat lot of good that will do me if he's off in Never-Never Land somewhere when the rude boys come through the window.
Another shout, a sputtering curse that seemed to come from right under the window, made her flinch. By the time you could wake him up, she thought, someone might have already stuck a knife in you, Anwin. She put down her coffee and walked to the room Dread had given her, then dropped to her knees and pulled her suitcase and attache out from under the bed.
As she located and removed the various plastic components, some molded to blend into the corners and roller-wheels of the suitcase, others disguised as ordinary pieces of executive traveling equipment—a set of pens, an alarm clock for those exotic locales where you were occasionally denied net access, a purse-size curling iron—she considered her strange up-and-down relationship with her employer. He had made it pretty clear now that he was physically interested in her, and she had to admit that he in turn was pretty interesting himself. He had come up from his last session in the network bubbling with delight, and she had been surprised to find herself feeding off his mood, hurrying to tell him of her successes with Jongleur's personal files. He had praised her, laughing at her excitement, almost vibrating with that strange hyperactive glee that filled him sometimes, and for a moment she had wanted to have him right then, quick and nasty as something out of one of the paper-book potboilers her mother had left lying around the house in lieu of discussing the boring details of sex and love with her only child.
But although they had moved around the huge room in a kind of hyperkinetic dance, Dread shouting questions at her as he made himself coffee and banged in and out of the shower, her timing was bad: at that moment he seemed completely uninterested in her, at least sexually, sharing the joy of her success and his own upbeat mood, but only as her collaborator.
He had been pleased, though, and that was certainly something. For the first time since she had come to Sydney she had made her value unmistakable. He had told her as he stood with his black hair lank and gleaming from the shower, his robe carelessly open down to his tight stomach muscles, that Dulcie's work would give him the last tools he needed for
his big strike.
She paused, absently contemplating the scatter of small plastic parts now lying on the discount-store rug beside The bed. What was his big strike, anyway? He seemed to have gained control of his employer's VR network, which was certainly impressive, and might even be in and of itself enough to make him wealthy, although it was hard to imagine quite how that would work. Would he continue the Grail Project, selling the prospect of immortality to wealthy people, but with himself taking the tolls instead of Felix Jongleur? Or, more likely, was he planning to sell his employer's secrets off to the highest bidder? Where was Jongleur, anyway? Had Dread arranged the same fate for him that he had for Bolivar Atasco? Then why hadn't anyone heard about it? Surely if one of the world's richest, most influential men had died at least a rumor of it would have made the newsnets by now.
Dulcie took the tube from the curling iron and screwed it into the case of the travel clock, working slowly through the unfamiliar design. She almost hadn't brought a gun with her—the dreams about Cartagena were still strong—but the ingrained habits of a professional woman, especially in her particular profession, were hard to shake. The gun she had used on the gearhead in Colombia had never left that country, of course: Dread had volunteered to dispose of it for her, but she had read and watched enough thrillers to know she wasn't going to give anyone incriminating evidence against herself. She had disassembled it, wiped it as forensically clean as she could with nail-polish remover, and dropped the pieces in a dozen different trash cans across downtown Cartagena.
So you wouldn't trust him not to blackmail you with a murder weapon, but you'd sleep with him? Interesting selection process, Anwin.
