stopped, he almost believed that he had died. With absolutely no feeling of deceleration, all noise and motion ceased. There was nothing but the ticking of the clock, their own still-labored breathing, and the small internal sounds of the submarine.
'The nothings,' the Minstrel Boy announced.
'That was something.'
The Minstrel Boy unstrapped. 'You liked that?'
'One way to work up an appetite.'
The Minstrel Boy blinked. 'You're hungry?'
'Threats to my life take me that way.'
'I think we should find a destination before we do anything else. I don't like to
'It'll be better than the last one?'
'I'll merge with the biode and watch while the lizardbrain takes a look around.'
He grasped the control levers and settled into the intelligence cushion. Almost immediately there was an image. A building stood on its own isolated, mist-shrouded hill. It was a strange, uneven asymmetrical structure that looked as if it had been built in relays without a coherent plan. There were buttresses and turrets and sloping batwing roofs. Spires rose from the granite complexity like seedlings desperately reaching for a light that had failed. The place might just as well have grown there. It had that older-than-the-rocks-on-which-it-sat permanence. The most applicable word was 'pile.' The overall effect was brooding Gothic, but style was joined to style with total abandon. Although there was something very forbidding about its towering bulk, the bright lights shining from its irregular doors, windows, and terraces were warm and welcoming.
'The Voice in the Wilderness.'
'What?' Renatta asked.
'I suppose you could call it an inn. A lot of travelers passthrough there, and you can get pretty much anything you might want. It's the domain of an individual called Ramilles Diamenti, who's as old as God.'
'What's he like, this Ramilles Diamenti?'
'He's about as big as God, too. A huge man, and he rules his kingdom with a rod of iron. You can get rowdy at the Voice in the Wilderness, but if you step over the line and cause real trouble, Ramilles Diamenti will break you in half.'
'You've been there.'
'Sure, I've been through there a dozen times.'
'You think it's the place for us?'
'If it's still the way it used to be, it'd be a good start. There is one small snag, though.'
'There is?'
'It works on a money system, and you don't have any.'
'Why should anybody bother with money when everything comes from Stuff Central?'
'Some places just like to do it that way. Nostalgia, maybe. It's also a matter of control. Diamenti's nothing if not a control freak.'
Renatta looked at the Minstrel Boy with calculating eyes. She clearly had her own sense of nostalgia where money was concerned. 'Do you have any money?'
'I've got some gold coins that I can use in an emergency. I was also planning on selling the submarine.'
Renatta treated him to a dazzling smile. 'Maybe you could help me get started. I mean, if you're selling the submarine, we did both come from the Caverns in it.'
The Minstrel Boy hesitated, then shrugged. 'Maybe.'
Renatta waved a hand, dismissing the subject. 'Money's no problem.'
The gold submarine surfaced in a small lagoon in the outer roots of the structure. It was almost like suddenly coming up into a large swimming pool, except that the quays enclosing it were constructed from huge blocks of rough-hewn stone. It was only up close that the newcomers were treated to the full impact of just how big the Voice in the Wilderness really was. From the bottom, it was more like a fortress than an inn. It had been constructed on a truly monumental scale. There was a mist on the water and a strange metallic smell in the air. Three other craft were tied up at the steel jetty that extended from the quay almost to the center of the lagoon. Two were small submarines similar to the one from the Caverns. The third was a power bathyscaphe of a type the Minstrel Boy had never seen before.
As they walked down the jetty, Renatta hugged her arms around her breasts. 'It's cold here.'
'They don't dress as scanty at the Voice in the Wilderness as they do in the Caverns.'
'I have to get some clothes.'
The Minstrel Boy grinned and hitched the strap of his veetar case to a more comfortable position on his shoulder. 'That shouldn't be a problem.'
At the end of the jetty a flight of stone steps lit by green-yellow gas flames led up to a broad terrace that overlooked the lagoon. The Minstrel Boy pointed. 'If we go up there and along, we'll come to the entrance to the Great Hall. That's the first place to hit. It's where everything goes on.'
Renatta raised an eyebrow. 'Everything?'
'If it don't go on, it at least gets started there.'
There were a number of ground vehicles parked along one side of the terrace. It was an exotic and impressive selection. A Concorde-Napier six-wheeler with hand-assembled coachwork and polished brass trim stood beside a Fragg Crusher with multiple treads and animal pelts hanging from its mast and roll bars. A K7 Road Rocket with extended fins and a black kahee symbol painted on the side was parked by itself. A Zinn walker knelt on immobilized legs. The prize for sheer formidable size went to a fully armored Saab battlewagon with full gun ports and a heat ray. The Minstrel Boy stopped and stared at it.
'There's going to be some hard cases in the old saloon tonight.'
Beyond the ground cars the unmistakable warm, rank smell of marma lizards came from a wide, arched entrance that had to be the mouth of a tunnel to the underground stables.
Renatta glanced back toward the lagoon. 'I'm not sure I like this place.'
The Minstrel Boy put an arm around her shoulders. 'You'll get to like it fine. It could have been made for you.'
She brightened considerably as she got her first sight of the entrance to the Great Hall. They had passed from the terrace, through a short tunnel, and into a wide courtyard where a twice-life-size and extremely lewd hologram cooze dancer undulated on a pedestal.
'That's an actual print of the legendary Desdemona Princess,' the Minstrel Boy explained.
'No kidding.'
'Diamenti's a great collector.'
Music and noise, along with the smells of food, drink, and humanity, wafted from a wide doorway at the far end of the courtyard. There was a loud burst of the electric, nasal music of the ancients.
Memories that linger in my heart,
Memories that make my heart grow cold,
Until the day we love again, sweetheart,
And my blue moon again will turn to gold.
The Great Hall of the Voice in the Wilderness was part bazaar, part saloon, and part marketplace; it was a dance hall and a gambling joint and a public promenade. A dozen different entertainments were going on under its high, hammer-beam roof. The crowds swirled, the pitchmen hollered, and the musicians leaned into their instruments, trying to compete with the noise. Jugglers played with fire and knives, Indian clubs, and bowling balls; dancers twisted and sweated while myriad lights were reflected from oiled bodies. Dice rolled, slick hands dealt the cards, and the wheel of fortune spun. Hands, eyes, mouths, and gestures made offers and suggested exchanges that were as old as time. It all went on under the hard, watchful eyes of Diamenti's keepers, big men with guns on their hips and stun wands hanging from their wrists.
Renatta seemed to have completely reversed her opinion of the place. She looked around delightedly and, in her near nudity, was looked at plenty in return. 'It's like the whole world was here.'
