'I thought that I might hook up with his army. I'm something of a one-man air force.'
The Minstrel Boy nodded thoughtfully. 'I can imagine that.' He looked pointedly around at the carnage that had once been Santa Freska. 'From the way he left this place, it doesn't seem that this Taraquin is very pleasant person. Probably a psychopath. Hardly a suitable companion for a hero.'
Jet Ace slowly turned, shuffling his enormous boots. He took in the ravaged town. 'I see what you mean. Perhaps it would be a better idea if I was to kill him.'
'That would be one way of making a name for yourself.'
'I have this lizardbrain implant, and I sometimes become a little confused regarding my ultimate goals.'
'That's understandable.'
The Minstrel Boy leaned close to Reave and whispered in his ear. 'This guy's loaded out of his mind on cyclatrol.'
'You think so?'
'Sure, look at the way he's sweating. He's been finding hisown way through the nothings for too long. He's crazy. He's in worse shape than Billy.'
'He's also built like a human fighter plane.'
'That should make life interesting for someone. Let's hope it's not us.'
Jet Ace had moved off and was looking at the bodies under the palms. 'The more I think about this, the more I believe that it would be a very good idea to kill Ravaj Taraquin.'
'A lot of people might be real grateful.'
'You think so?'
'I tell you what. If it's any help to you, we heard where Taraquin was heading.'
Jet Ace clumped toward them. 'You did?'
'He's supposed to be linking up with another warlord called Vlad Baptiste. They intend to storm the town of Idleberg.'
Jet Ace was already replacing his helmet. The electronics came back on, and his voice regained its previous heroic quality. 'I must make all speed to Idleberg.' He paused. 'You think I should kill this Vlad Baptiste as well?'
The Minstrel Boy nodded solemnly.
'Definitely.'
'Then I shall slay the pair of them.'
He bent his knees. The rocket cut in, and he rose swiftly into the air. When he was at treetop level, he turned his body to a horizontal position, stretched his arms in front of him, and sped away to the east. The Minstrel Boy, Reave, and Renatta watched him go.
Renatta shaded her eyes against the sun. 'You think he has a sex life?'
Reave laughed. 'I'd sure like to see that.'
The Minstrel Boy was peering into the distance. 'Is it a bird? Is it a plane?'
Reave looked at him blankly. 'Huh?'
Renatta smiled. 'Another arcane cultural reference.'
One of the unique aspects of the Damaged World era was the fanciful, almost childlike attitude to technology. Much of this was clearly a reaction to the fearful advances of the Thousand Years War, when the capacity for mechanized destruction outstripped all finite limits. With the coming of the nothings, technical progress completely ceased, and dependence on the Stuff Catalogue became all but total. The use of adapted templates made it possible to tailor hardware and create strange hybrids that fitted with any cultural fantasy. It was far from uncommon to find stasis settlements that had devised social orders that were based on bizarre combinations of very separated periods in history. One such was the famous preserved site at Conderecto, where archaeologists discovered the now-famous artifacts that were such a strange blend of the fourteenth and seventy-second centuries.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Minstrel Boywaved a hand at the glowing sphere that dominated the display on the pseudosurface. 'That's Krystaleit.'
'Are you sure?'
'Sure as you can be of anything.'
'So we're going in?'
'That's the general idea.'
Billy leaned back in his berth and folded his arms behind his head. 'It's been a long time since I was in Krystaleit.'
Reave glanced up from cleaning his pistol. 'Are you sure you're not wanted there?'
Billy shook his head. 'I already told you. Not that I know of.'
Reave turned to the Minstrel Boy. 'What about you?'
'Clean, to my knowledge.'
'Renatta?'
'Nobody wants me anywhere.'
Reave grinned. 'I'm sure that's not true.'
Renatta giggled throatily, and the Minstrel Boy cocked an eyebrow. He was starting to wonder if there was something going on between Reave and Renatta. The trip from Santa Freska had been tediously decorous. Renatta had left him strictly alone, but he could not shake the feeling that she and Reave had engaged in some covert coupling while he and Billy had been asleep. He caught Renatta's eye, and she beamed at him with the same flash of promise that there had been when they had first left the Caverns in the gold submarine. He was now totally confused, but he knew that it was no time to have his concentration disturbed by romantic complexities.
'Going into Krystaleit can be a bit weird,' he said. 'It's just so big. Where most stasis settlements are built traditionally, from the ground up, with at least the illusion of land and sky, Krystaleit occupies all of its stabilized space. It's basically a vast sphere hanging in the nothings that's honeycombed with constructions on a dozen or more levels. You come in onto one of these huge ring platforms that circle the main sphere. At times of peak traffic these platforms get real crowded, and accidents do happen.
'Can you handle it?'
The Minstrel Boy shrugged. 'All I can do is try.
'Do your best there, boy. We don't want no accidents.' The decision to make for Krystaleit had come only after a good deal of discussion. There had been general agreement that the small backcountry settlements were becoming far too strange. The DNA Cowboys wanted no repeats of Santa Freska and no more psychos like Vlad Baptiste or, at the other extreme, lunatics like Jet Ace. It became a little more difficult when it was time to select one particular city as an ultimate destination. Even the little that Billy remembered about his criminal record seem to exclude him from two-thirds of the major cities in the Damaged World. Finally, Krystaleit had been chosen after Billy had assured the others that he would not be arrested the moment they rolled out of the nothings.
They came out into the middle of a funeral. The Minstrel Boy had to stand on the Saab's brakes, locking the treads, to stop them from plowing into the main procession. Angry heads turned as the Minstrel Boy backed the tank out of the way. The hundred or more mourners were dressed in flowing creations of pure spotless white. Krystaleit was one of the places where white was the accepted color of death. It was considered to be the symbol of completion, of all things made one. The mourners wore elaborate and immensely expensive costumes — high diaphanous headdresses with sweeps of muslin and lace that flowed and floated. Surprisingly, there was a lot of
