'Federico,' she said, 'no more messing about, take him down.'
The car took out the Preachermobile's treads first, exploding an armour-piercing shell in its side. Now, the thng could only go round in circles. Then, it located the weapons guidance computer, inadvisably placed at the rear under a flap for easy manual reprogramming. A surgical lase burn put it out of commission, and the cannonades stopped.
Chantal drove back to the crippled hulk.
'ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS ARE ACCEPTED EN HEAVEN, SISTER! THY WORLDLY RICHES MUST BE PASSED INTO THE HANDS OF THE LOWWW-UD!
MAKE THY GENEROUS DONATIONS, LEST THE GODFEARING CHRISTIANS OF THE WORLD VANISH UNDER A TIDE OF HEATHEN PAPISTS, RAGHEAD MUSSULMEN…GODLESS COMMONISTS, INSCRUTABLE ORIENTALS… GRASPING JEWS…MELON-EATING…NIGRAS…AND…'
The voicebox was running down.
'Intolerant bigots,' she suggested.
'REPPPPPPPPR…ent…rep…'
She got out, and walked over to the Preachermobile. It was quiet. The lases had opened it up like a tin-can, and the jerrybuilt robo-innards were spilling out. It was constructed like a centaur, with a robotic torso and head protruding from a conning tower. Its arms were still waving. The head was a sculptured, stylised representation of a handsome Nazi, with blue eyes and a blonde helmet of hair. She didn't recognize it. The face was cracked, and biofluid was dribbling from one cheek.
'Are you in there?' she asked.
'Rep…ent?'
'So long, preacher.'
'REPENT! THOU ART ACCURSED OF THE LOWWW-UD, JEZEBEL OF THE INTERSTATE! THOU SHALT BE BURNED ALIVE FOR A THOUWWW-SUND YEARS! THY CHILDREN AND THY CHILDREN'S CHILDREN SHALT BE AFFLICTED BY A PLAGUE OF MUTANT BOILS!”
She got back in Federico and drove round the thing in the road. It continued to shout. The voicebox would be the one thing unaffected by their showdown.
Within half an hour, the predators emerged from the desert with their spanners and minilases, and, while it raved against them, the Preachermobile was stripped for parts. Then, the coyotes, alerted by the whiff of biofluid, came for the brain.
VI
Tiger Behr's wasn't the worst place Stack had seen in his days on the road. The Roach Motel outside of Austin, where fee US Cav had busted The Cannibal Cookpots, was several degrees seedier, and he still sometimes had nightmares about the dead and dusty things they had found in the fruit cellar of the Bide-a-Wee Nook in Medicine Bend. Great. That made Tiger Behr's the third grungiest, most disgusting, least comfortable, most infested deathhole in the South-Western States.
The former gangcultist—did he think of himself as a fallen Angel?—gave Stack the pick of the chalets, and raised an eyebrow—his only remaining eyebrow—when he asked for a place with a shower. 'You must be a wealthy dude, Trooper,' he had said.
'The State pays,' Stack had replied, pretending not to be uncertain about it.
'You understand,' Behr had told him, 'that the management is not responsible for any loss of personal property, life and limb or mental stability you might sustain while on the premises.' That told Stack all he needed to know about Tiger Behr's.
There was piped-in Mexican porno on the teevee, but the central dish was skewed and the participants in the current orgy were stuttering visually. Pornovideo was the Gideon Bible of the '90s. No hotel or motel room came without one. He looked at it for a few minutes, trying to figure out the plot. From the clothes on the floor, he guessed it was a period piece, but they had modern leather underwear. A wrestler in a full-head mask and nothing else was trying out some interesting holds on a wild-haired vampire woman whose plastic teeth kept coming out of her mouth, while a creature with huge breasts and male genitalia sang of the Revolution. This must be an Art Movie, Stack figured. Occasionally, a pirate station would cut in with foggy black and white picture of an endless sermon from a man in combat fatigues and a dog collar who called himself a Survivalist Preacher, tapped his Bible with a Magnum .44 and called upon the Faithful to a) give all their money to him and b) skin a commie for Jesus. The Survivalist Preacher's backing group knew only two tunes, 'Gimme Dat Ole Time Religion' and 'The Horst Wessel Song,' and sometimes got them confused. The offswitch was gone, and so Stack had to turn the set's sound down and picture to the wall before he could get any sleep.
He dreamed about Leona. How she had been when they had been Troopers together at Fort Valens, how they had been together on their trip to Nicaragua, how they had broken up, how he had watched her die…
Waking up, sweaty and disoriented, he found it was after nightfall. The ju-ju he had popped earlier had completely worn off. His chest ached where the cruiser had electroshocked him, and the crinkled, red patches on his legs and forearms from the explosion at Slim's were still raw. Someone had been in while he was crashed out, of course, and gone through his things. They hadn't gone for the gun, knife, cashplastic and medkit he had laid under his pillow, but they had taken the kish, the dead cykeman's stash and the walletful of assorted business cards and receipts he had left out on the bureau for the Tooth Fairies. If he hadn't made some kind of offering they would have tried to cut his throat and he'd have had to kill them. Right now, he didn't need the paperwork.
Stepping carefully around the dead bugs on the floor, he made his way to the en-suite bathroom. He didn't know whether Behr used some extra-strength poison or whether life in this place was so damn unhealthy even scorpions couldn't stick it, but there were plenty of chitinous little corpses on the carpet. In the bathroom, water dripped steadily from the showerhead and discoloured the enamel tub. Cigbutts floated in the John. There was no soap, no towels, no toilet paper and the mirror had bullet holes. He put his key into the wallhole and turned on the shower, tested the water—some places out here had an intolerably high radiation level—and stepped under quickly. It was over in thirty seconds, and would cost him more than a week's stay in this dump, but it helped a little. He rubbed the water that clung to him into his body, paying especial attention to his wounds. The red badges of courage smarted. He took a tube of salve, and smeared the worst of the burns and abrasions. There were a few morph-plus poppers, but he resisted the temptation. He might need them later, and he might need a clear head soon.
He checked his watch. It was nearly eight. His priority now must be to find a phone or a radio and call his position in to Fort Apache. He didn't want to risk his Overdue turning into an AWOL. Also, he still hadn't got round to sampling Armindariz' chilli.
He pulled on his thermal union suit, and climbed into his uniform. In the wonky mirror, he looked like he had taken a walk through an active volcano.
He shifted the bed over, skinned back the carpet and pulled up the loose floorboards he had prised free earlier. In the cavity under the floor, he had stashed the two pump shotguns from the motorsickle and his US Cav tracer. He hoped someone was homing in on him, but he was taking no chances.
He left the chalet, and found the cyke chained to a post. He had rigged the battery to give a nasty shock to anybody who tried the chain. There were blackened fingerprints on the durium links.
Score one for caution.
He deactivated the joy buzzer, holstered the pumpguns, and straddled the hog.
Then he headed back to the Silver Byte Saloon.
VII
