sometimes I truly believe that the world is coming to an end. You know there are seven thousand of us now. Seven thousand mounted or mechanized guns, plus God knows how many moon-baying neoprimitives with bones in their hair. We had to give them a separate camp where they can cook dogs and do all the other grustuff they get up to.'
Reave flicked off the lightslicer. The stall was suddenly dark.
'Seven thousand? You've got to be putting me on.'
'I kid you not, old friend. We're the downfall of civilization.'
'How do you stick with this madness?'
Menlo shrugged. 'What did civilization ever do for me?'
'So who's leading this horde from hell?'
'At the moment it's what's called the Council of Four. There's Baptiste, Taraquin, Redrim Protexus, and a newcomer, calls himself Max Zero. He rode in with nine hundred tailored replicas. Big ugly green mothers, over nine feet tall and homicidal crazy. Must have found himself some hellaciious template writer to create those bastards. They do kind of fall apart under stress, but when you're nine foot four and green, sporting four-inch fangs, how much stress do you get?'
Reave looked thoughtful. 'How long can this Council of Four last? The suckers got to be at each other's throats all the time.'
'Sure. It'll get whittled down to one in the end.'
'Maybe their falling out is Krystaleit's only hope.'
Menlo shook his head with great finality. 'Krystaleit doesn't have any hope. It's the big prize. Even if the four of them wiped each other out the army would still come here. It's the jewel in the crown in this section. I wouldn't make any long-term commitments in this burg.'
'How long have we got?'
'There are a hundred or more of us in the city already.'
'You're the fifth column?'
'Fifth, sixth, and seventh. There could be as many as a thousand of us in the city by the time the main force gets here. All ready to hit them from behind. Those local militia boys don't stand a chance.'
Reave watched Menlo as he talked. The mercenary had changed. A real madness, something dark and deep, was riding herd on him.
'So when do they hit us?'
'It'll be a while. This new army moves very slowly. You wouldn't recognize it from the old days. They're actually dragging a big SG with them, so now the army marches through the nothings on its own continuous environment. They cannibalized the primary generator out of Idleberg. It must weigh twenty tons. They've got it mounted up on these huge plastic rollers, and there're a couple hundred slaves hauling it along on ropes. A dozen or more drop dead every day. Baptiste has to keep on going out raiding for replacements.'
Reave could hardly believe what he was hearing. How could things possibly have escalated so swiftly? It was starting to look as though all of reality was caught up in one vast destructive momentum that, like a mountain avalanche, was rapidly gathering speed.
Menlo derailed Reave's train of thought before it could go any further. 'We'd better get out of here. My partners will think I've fallen in a blowhole. I wouldn't like to have to explain you to them.'
As they stepped out of the stall, a man who could only just manage to piss against the wall looked at them and sneered. 'Stinking can fuckers!'
Without a word Reave and Menlo grabbed him, an arm and a leg each, and dumped him in the nearest blowhole.
'Nobody calls us names, right?'
'Right.'
The two men laughed. For a moment, the old sense of camaraderie was back. Then Menlo glanced up the stairs.
'I've got to go.'
Reave did not immediately tell the Minstrel Boy what he had learned from Menlo Welker. The Minstrel Boy seemed preoccupied, even depressed, after his conversation with Clay Blaisdell. Reave could tell that there was something very messed up about the Minstrel Boy and his attitude to his music, but he had no idea what the problem was. Blaisdell's trio took the stage again, but after a couple of pieces, the Minstrel Boy started to get restless and he and Reave left the Victory Cafe'. They walked deeper into the Bluecat in glum silence, each man completely absorbed in his own thoughts, seemingly oblivious to the antics of all those around them. They, however, were certainly noticed. It was hard to miss the Minstrel Boy with his brand-new belt of knives and Reave with his brace of prominently displayed pistols. People stepped out of their way, and the night had yet to take the rowdy path that they had originally planned for it. Their only encounter was with a mimic in a skin-tight spectra- stocking and reflective makeup, who dogged their footsteps for the distance between two intersections. At first he tossed color shimmers after them; then, getting bored with that, he had himself glow an angry orange and stalked behind them, aping their grim stride. Finally Reave noticed him and turned and glared. The mimic paled to blue and white and scuttled away.
After two more intersections the Minstrel Boy pointed ahead. 'Oysters.'
'Oysters?'
'There's an oyster bar up on the corner.'
A short, plump, red-armed woman wearing a white sarong was splitting oysters and serving them on the half-shell with lemon, hot sauce, and glass mugs of black porter. Reave and the Minstrel Boy walked toward her.
'Did you ever think about the first man to eat an oyster?' the Minstrel Boy mused. 'Now, there was an innovative thinker. Just imagine, he goes to all the trouble of smashing open something that looks like a rock and then eats the slime that he finds inside.'
Reave looked at the Minstrel Boy as though he were nuts. 'As far as I'm concerned, he needn't have bothered. I hate oysters. I got to tell you, I find them disgusting.'
'I love them. I haven't had an oyster since I don't know when.'
'I would have thought they'd have needed oysters in the Caverns.'
'The lack of them was a bad oversight.'
The Minstrel Boy ordered himself a dozen while Reave got by on a couple of mugs of porter.
'So what do we do next?'
The Minstrel Boy slurped down his second oyster and began to prime a third.
'Hell, I don't know. We ain't having too much fun yet. Maybe we should go over and see the girls at the Rising Sun.'
'If that doesn't work, nothing will.'
The Minstrel Boy was on his ninth oyster when he noticed some thing out of the corner of his eye. At first he thought it was a child I coming through the crowd, but as it came closer, he saw the incredibly wizened face. The diminutive figure was either a true dwarf or a munchkin treatment that had gone wrong. Suddenly it darted forward. It was coming straight at the Minstrel Boy, wielding a weird ceramic razor with a mythological beast carved in the blade. The creature swung at the Minstrel Boy's throat.
Reave was looking in the other direction and had not even noticed the tiny killer. The Minstrel Boy jerked back from the arc of the razor. It missed him by a bare inch. His hand went to the knives at his belt. The wrinkled munchkin had turned. He switched the razor to the other hand and slashed again. The Minstrel Boy threw underhand. His old training held good. The flat blade caught the attacker in the throat. It staggered back gagging, ripped the knife out, and hurled it to the ground; then it turned and sprinted to where a platform projected out into empty space. It vaulted the rail and vanished.
The Minstrel Boy ran to the edge and looked over. The body had been caught by a gravity spiral and had dropped heavily to the hard stone of the level below. A crowd started to gather around the small, still figure. The Minstrel Boy stepped back from the railing. Reave was beside him, pistol in hand. His mug of porter was smashed on the ground.
'What was that all about?'
'Another total stranger took a crack at me.' The Minstrel Boy stooped down and picked up the razor. 'What do
