Rock of Ages

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Looking for this?” Maijstral said, and produced the pistol he had just snaked from Drexler’s holster.

  Maijstral’s next line would have been, “Roman, secure this traitor!”, but he never got it out.

  Roman had anticipated him. Drexler barely had time for a yelp of dismay before Roman had seized him by his crotch and throat, upended him, and dashed him skull-first to the floor.

  There was a horrible crunch as vertebrae compacted. Drexler collapsed, his limbs atwitch. Maijstral frowned down at him.

  “Roman,” he said, “I wanted him in a condition to answer questions,”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Well.” He shrugged. “As long as he’s unconscious, search him for further weapons and any communications or flight devices. Then—” He turned to Tvar. “If Miss Tvar will provide us with the room in the house most resembling a jail cell?”

  Tvar’s tongue cheerfully lolled from her muzzle. “Lightless?” she asked. “Airless, dark? With stone walls to prevent any escape by burrowing?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “I believe I have a place suitable to the purpose. It’s the room in which Savage Simon used to confine his victims—I bought it entire and had it shipped here from Kualu.” Her expression brightened. “I also have a number of his original instruments. For atmosphere.”

  Maijstral turned back to Roman. “Secure Drexler and put him there. We’ll talk to him when he’s conscious.”

  “Very, good, sir.” Roman took a detector and began patting Drexler down. Finding nothing suspicious, he picked the other Khosalikh up by the collar and dangled him like a child’s doll.

  Maijstral turned to Tvar. “Miss, if you could show Roman to the dungeon?”

  “Delighted.”

  “Roman, after you’ve secured the prisoner, I will require you to take me and Conchita Sparrow to Graceland.”

  Roman paused in the act of carrying Drexler from the room. “Miss Sparrow, sir?”

  “We’re going to need a tech,” Maijstral said, “and she’s available.”

  “Hrrrr,” Roman growled meditatively. Then, “Very good, sir.”

  “Carry on.”

  Maijstral, busy though he was, paused for a moment to enjoy the sight of Roman carrying away the unconscious Drexler.

  Though he could not realistically consider himself the captain of his fate once more, Maijstral thought, he’d at least managed a self-promotion. To warrant officer, perhaps, or maybe even lieutenant.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  You were a spy for the Empire, Dornier!

  A spy? Oh don’t be silly. What do you take me for, a member of the Secret Dragoons?

  You belonged to the Imperial Circuit. The High Custom Association. The Nostalgia Party. The Imperial Armed Forces Relief and Reunion Society. The Empire Party. The Old Nobles’ Association.

  Oh yes, the Old Nobles. What a splendid bunch of fellows they all were.

  You conspired with them! Conspired against the Constellation!

  We had such splendid plans for when the Emperor returns . . .

  You admit it!

  Of course. None of it was secret. You can read our minutes in our publications. . . .

  It’s the secret parts I want you to confess. Who gathered the information? Who were the spies?

  I don’t know what you’re blithering about . . .

  The Old Nobles’ Association! Who were the spies?

  The Old Nobles . . . so jolly. So jolly.

  What were their names?

  You aren’t Bertie, are you?

  Bertie? Who’s Bertie?

  Such chums we were. We went to school together, you know.

  I’m not Bertie!

  Such a fellow for pranks he was. This is just like one of Bertie’s jolly games, you know.

  This is no game, Dornier!

  He’d sneak up on you at night and shout ‘Boo.’ What laughs we had. You’re just like him, you know.

  I’m your inquisitor, and this is Hell!

  Oh yes. I forgot

  This is going to last forever, Dornier. Forever!

  Oh, surely not. I’m sure I’ve got an appointment somewhere.

  Dornier! Listen to me!

  …Now was it on Earth, or someplace else? I wish I could remember.

  *

  The two Graceland security guards, making their rounds, quailed visibly as Roman loomed out of the darkness. “Halt!” one of them squeaked.

  In Roman’s shadow was Conchita Sparrow, dressed in a hooded cloak against the night air, and carrying a tray on which rested some pieces of fine porcelain. Roman approached the guards, growling ominously.

  He was having a hard time controlling his growl reflex.

  One of the guards cleared her throat. “What is your business?”

  “I am bringing a pot of restorative tea to the Prince-Bishop of Nana in the Jungle Meditation Room.”

  The guards both looked relieved that Roman’s answer hadn’t been something to the effect of, “I am here to yank your spines out through your necks.”

  “Pass,” one of them said.

  Roman passed, growling.

  Their wide eyes fixed on Roman, neither guard noticed the slight distortion in the air over their heads that marked the passage of a well-known thief in a darksuit.

  *

  Maijstral entered the Jungle Meditation Room and paused for a moment to let his eyes, and his staggered sanity adjust. He had known that Graceland was renowned for the extravagance of its decor—all the minarets and domes made that clear enough—but he had never seen anything like this.

  The ferns and the full-sized palm trees that reached toward the domed ceiling, the dome itself covered with an allegorical fresco of Elvis Vanquishing the Blues, its principal figure glittering with sequins, crowned with stars, and with its feet planted on a sunset pink cloud. The animal skins, most with heads attached, that covered the floor in layers. The fall that poured silver water, like a stream of mercury, into a pool lined with lava rocks. The shields, spears, and more exotic weapons that massed on the walls, enough to outfit a barbarian army. The stuffed rhinoceros—at least Maijstral assumed it was stuffed. The elephant tusks planted in rows. The furniture covered with hide.

  The most normal thing in Maijstral’s view was the sight of himself, Drake Maijstral, dressed in ecclesiastical robes and snoring on one of the hide-covered couches.

  Maijstral floated toward the couch, dropped to his feet, and turned off the darksuit’s holographic camouflage.

  “Martin.”

  The snoring Maijstral awoke with a start.

  “Sir!” He jumped to his feet and turned off the hologram that made him look like Maijstral, revealing himself as a smallish human with a shock of blond hair. “I hadn’t expected you.”

  “Has anything occurred, Martin?”

  “Just after I got here one of the Elvii—Elvis XXIII— called to offer you a personal tour of Graceland tomorrow. I thanked him for his kindness but explained that I was not certain my schedule would permit.”

  “That was well said, Martin. Thank you.”

  Martin smiled. “It was interesting being a celebrity for a few hours, at least.”

  “I’m afraid your moment of fame must come to an end.” He gestured toward Conchita and Roman, who had silently entered behind him. “I need you to don Miss Sparrow’s cloak and leave with Roman.”

  Martin bowed gracefully. “Very good, sir. Would you like me to instruct you in the workings of the sound effects and video?”

  This statement was sufficiently intriguing that Maijstral, though pressed for time, agreed. Martin led Maijstral to a service plate and touched the ideogram for “sound.” Immediately the dome began to echo with howling monkeys, birdcalls, and the distant roars of hunting beasts.

  “A bit overwhelming, I’m afraid,” Martin explained. “They were interfering with my, ah, meditations, so I shut them off.”

  “Please do so again.”

  “Yes, s
ir.”

  “And the video?”

  “There are a great many projectors under the dome, so you can watch several videos at once.”

  “What videos are they?”

  “Oh—a wide selection, sir. You reach the catalogue by touching this ideogram. There are several of Elvis himself—gathered from primitive media, I believe—but I’m afraid I’m somewhat Elvis-deaf, if I may coin a phrase, so I haven’t sampled them.”

  “Very good. Thank you, Martin.”

  Maijstral passed Martin the agreed-upon sum, plus a bonus. Martin smiled, pocketed the cash, and offered, first, his thanks, and second, his congé.

  Maijstral turned to Roman. “Return Martin to Miss Tvar’s, then stand by with the vehicle. If I find my father, I’ll probably need help in getting him away.”

  “Yes, sir,” Roman said.

  Martin and Roman took their leave, Martin looking nervously over his shoulder at the continual sound of Roman’s growling. Maijstral looked at Conchita.

  “Are we ready?”

  She grinned. Beneath-the cloak she’d been wearing a silver-grey darksuit, and now she triggered the holographic camouflage.

  “Fingo all right, boss,” she said.

  As he flew off into the darkness, Maijstral made a note to himself to find an opportunity to ask Conchita just what that piece of cant actually meant.

  *

  “Pardon me, sir,” said the Baron Sancho Sandoval Cabeza de Vaca, “but is there a Mangula Arish here?”

  Graceland glowed on the near horizon, astonishing, fabulous, and perfectly at one with itself. Outside the gates clustered the vigilant and faithful media, hoping for a glimpse of Maijstral, though an earthquake or a bloody riot would have worked just as well. One of the reporters nodded.

  “The lady over there,” he said, pointing. “With the high-impact hairstyle.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Baron Sancho squared his shoulders and marched toward his target. Mangula was preoccupied with controlling the media globes she’d deployed around the Graceland perimeter, and paid little attention to the approach of the erect, elderly figure until the Baron, who was too gentlemanly to use his cane on a woman, slapped her neatly across the face with a silk-lined glove.

  “Call me a coward, will you?” he demanded. “I demand satisfaction!”

  Mangula stared at him for a moment, and then, both to his surprise and hers, turned and fled into the night.

  *

  No luck. No luck at all.

  There was no sign of Maijstral’s father in the apartment that Major Song kept here, and no sign of Major Song either. There was no apartment assigned to Alice Manderley; but she could have been hiding or using a pseudonym, or hiding Maijstral’s father, in the apartment of an unknown confederate, so Maijstral and Conchita were faced with, the tedious prospect of checking every single apartment in the blocks assigned to visitors. And with the Memphis Olympiad coming up in a few days, the greatest orgy of Elvis impersonation in all civilization, the apartments were almost all full.

  “Did Elvis actually live amid all this?” Maijstral asked. “Legend would have us believe he was a simple country lad.”

  “Oh no,” Conchita said. “The original Graceland wasn’t very large—well, it was small compared to Tvar’s place anyway—but it was destroyed in the New Madrid Earthquake centuries ago. Since then Elvis’s admirers have built what I believe are termed ‘creative reinterpretations’ of the original.”

  “I wish they had been less lavish,” Maijstral said.

  Conchita looked glum. “I wish they had been less numerous.”

  Fortunately there were few places in any given apartment where something the size of a cold-coffin could be hidden, so each apartment could be checked fairly quickly. But even so the eastern horizon had turned pale by the time Maijstral and Conchita had finished.

  “There’s only one set of apartments we haven’t checked,” Maijstral said, speaking over their coded communications link. “The Elvii themselves.”

  “Oh no.” Behind her holographic camouflage, Conchita sounded shocked. “They wouldn’t, would they?”

  “All it takes is one fanatic.”

  “I suppose.” She sighed. “But the place is so huge.”

  “Let’s do it quick, the sun will be up in a minute.”

  “Right.”

  They soared off to the extravagant Pavilion of the Elvii, the nerve center of Graceland, where the Clones of Elvis, all reconstituted from the original’s remains and genetically identical to the King Himself, administered the huge empire that was in their charge.

  There was the cult center, with its priests and temples. (Elvis had not yet been added to the official Khosali pantheon, but there were hopes.) There was the vast acreage of Graceland itself, a giant center for tourism. There were concert halls and auditoriums. There was the Memphis Olympiad, where Elvis impersonators from all over the galaxy competed for the prize of the Championship Belt. And there were royalties to collect, licenses to grant, and concessions to administer.

  No one in Graceland was in danger of going broke.

  The security was formidable around the area: guards marching in pairs, and the place was studded with detectors that required the full complement of Conchita’s black boxes to overcome. Peering in the windows with their detectors deployed, Maijstral and Conchita observed the Elvii—old Elvii, young Elvii, fat Elvii, and thin Elvii, Elvii sleeping and Elvii meditating, Elvii eating and Elvii fasting . . . Elvii, Elvii everywhere . . . but no coffin could be found.

  “Thagger,” Maijstral swore. “I’ve had it. The sun’s up, let’s get out of here.”

  He was sweating, but not as a result of heat from the rising sun. The distortion caused by their darksuits was much more apparent in full daylight than at night, and there were more people about to observe them. Detection was an ever-increasing possibility.

  “There’s an Elvis coming,” Conchita warned. “Better wait.”

  The Elvis in question was an elderly one, with thinning white hair. He was mounted on an imitation panhead Harley (training wheels extended) that gave a gentle electric whirr as it coasted up to the gate of the Residence. The Elvis parked the bike, then walked to the gates (ornamented with old human-style musical notes covered in gold leaf) which parted silently in his path.

  Maijstral’s mind snapped to attention.

  “Wait a moment,” he said. “How did the gates know to let him in?”

  The elderly Elvis ambled up the path (huge slabs of emerald and ruby cut from asteroid material) and toward the doors (trefoil wood from Canther, carved with reliefs of Elvis Healing the Deaf), which likewise parted without a challenge.

  “He’s got to have some kind of identification that takes him through security,” Conchita said.

  “If we can get one, we can enter anywhere.”

  “Especially if we look like Elvis.”

  “Let’s steal one.”

  “Right, boss.”

  As they reached this decision, the elderly Elvis became visible again, rising to the top of one of the Pavilion’s towers (sheathed in green jade and carved with dragons) in one of the Pavilion’s exterior glass elevators (in the boxy form of an antique microphone). Maijstral and Conchita flew to the top of the tower (carved in the shape of a giant lotus), where they watched through window glass, (inscribed with an image of Elvis Negotiating a Peace with the Aborigine Geronimo) as the Elvis yawned, removed his vestments, and headed for the shower. Maijstral swiftly neutralized the tower room’s various alarms—easily spotted because they were in the shape of grimacing demon masks—opened a window, and flew in to pass his detectors over the Elvis’s discarded clothing. A diamond-studded pin in the shape of an ancient Cadillac ground vehicle responded with a complicated energy pattern, and Maijstral removed it.

  “Are you certain that’s it?” Conchita asked, as he closed the window behind him.

  “No. We’d better test it.”

  He flew down to one of the Pav
ilion’s doors and dropped the pin onto the stoop. No alarms rang. The doors silently opened. Maijstral dropped to retrieve the pin and then made a careful, zigzag flight back to the Jungle Meditation Room.

  “I want you to analyze this pin and duplicate it,” he instructed as he pulled on his clerical vestments over his darksuit. “If that Elvis has the seniority I suspect he does, it should get us in anywhere.”

  “We’d have to move fast, boss,” Conchita said. “Once the Elvii find out this pin is missing, they’ll reprogram their computers to call security instead of open doors.”

  “I suspect the old fellow just got off duty and is heading for bed. So we’ll have some hours, anyway.”

  “I hope he’s due for a long rest.” She took the pin, looked at it for a moment, and then put it in a pocket. “Well,” she said, “I’ll fly out of here.”

  “Thank you, Conchita. You’ve done very well.”

  “Yeah.” She grinned. “I usually create a catastrophe by this point, but I haven’t embarrassed myself yet, have I?”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “I’ll try to keep it up, then.”

  She turned on her camouflage and flew toward the doors, which opened at her touch. She gave a yelp, and then the doors closed and Conchita reappeared.

  “Guards, boss! Hundreds of them!”

  Maijstral’s heart crashed in his chest as he hastened to the doors. He opened them a crack and peered out. Uniformed guards were, in fact, pouring into the open square outside. But they were forming ranks and facing to Maijstral’s right, not assuming assault positions, and they were dressed in fatigue uniforms, not armed and armored for battle. He’ closed the doors and turned to Conchita.

  “It looks like a morning formation,” he said. “They’ll probably disperse after receiving their instructions.”

  Relief flooded Conchita’s face. “For a minute I thought I’d done something horribly wrong again.”

  “Wait until they disperse before you leave. All it takes is for one of them to look in your direction as you fly out, and the jig’s up.”

  “Right, boss.”

  He sat oh the meditation couch and looked at the tea that Conchita had brought earlier. “Is there real tea in here?”