The Quest of the DNA Cowboys (2 page)

Slowly She/They drifted forward, and although no other being heard, the motion was silent, and although no one watched, She/They adopted the regular triple form. The Trinity. The three identical women, who looked as one and moved as one. Their slim erect figures were concealed by the white ankle-length cloaks that swayed gently with their motion, each in identical folds to the other two. Her/Their heads were encased in silver helmets with high crests and plates that curved round to cover the nose and cheek bones, leaving dark slits through which Her/Their eyes glittered steadily.

The control plain stretched, in regular dividing squares, uniformly to the horizon. Overhead the sky was bright, cloudless and a perfect white. Only a faint, tumbling, distant haze where sky and plain met gave evidence that Her/Their power to control was finite, limited by distance, and around the zone were the twisting chaos fringes.

She/They halted and appeared to gaze intently at a point on the dark, twisting fringe. At the point of Her/Their gaze the dark area appeared to expand, stretch out into the plain and rise a little into the sky.

‘Disruption.’ The word seemed to hang in the air displacing the silence.

‘Possible rupture,’ a phrase took its place.

‘Freudpheno possible.’

The structure of the turbulence at the horizon changed; it began to revolve forming an almost regular circle. The centre of the circle began to assume spatial depth. The silence that had resumed after the passing of the word was filled by a low hum that seemed to originate from the growing tube on the horizon.

More words cut across the hum.

‘Freudpheno imminent.’

The hum grew louder, became a roar, and suddenly, straight from the mouth of the tunnel rushed a herd of rhinoceroses, close packed and charging straight for the triple form of Her/Them. The surface of the plain trembled under the rhinos’ armoured weight. In their wake the fabric of the zone rose in boiling moiré patterns.

The centre unit of Her/Them raised the hand that held the energy wand. A yellow stinger of light flashed towards the rhinoceroses, who slowed to a halt and stood for a moment blinking, and then turned and trotted back the way they had come.

She/They lowered the energy wand, and watched as the animals disappeared back into the fringes. More words occupied the silence of the zone.

‘Freudpheno returns.’

‘Disruption at fringe still gains level.’

‘Suspect proximate disturb module.’

The frenzied churning on the horizon continued to grow and even gradually advance into the zone. In the centre of the turbulence a solid cylindrical object appeared. Slowly it began to advance into the zone.

‘Confirm disturb module.’

The module moved out into the zone, its blue metalflake body half buried in the surface of the plain. Its front end was an open intake that sucked in the fabric of the zone as it slid towards Her/Them. Behind it, it left a trail of swirling chaos that stretched back to merge with the fringes.

She/They again raised the energy wand. The module came steadily towards Her/Them, like an open-mawed reptile cutting through the surface of the plain, its smooth, shining sides reflecting the swirling colours of its wake. The stinging of yellow light flashed again, but had no appreciable effect on the machine. The thin path of light widened to a broad band. The metalflake skin of the module changed from blue to a pale green, but it still kept on coming. The yellow band of light hardened into a deep flaming red. The module became a shining grey/white, but still maintained its steady forward motion.

She/They experienced the novelty of horror as the band of light from the energy wand was forced, inexorably, up through the spectrum. Yellow, green, blue and finally violet, then fading and vanishing altogether.

The module was upon Her/Them.

As its gaping mouth engulfed Her/Them, the zone twisted and became unrecognizable. She/They was sucked into the interior of the module, losing form as Her/Their structure flowed and twisted, falling simultaneously in any number of directions, down through tunnels that squirmed in downward Möbius patterns, glowing with shifting pink, and faced with a soft cosmic tuck and roll.

She/They had never before been caught in the path of a module, and found Her/Their self fighting against patterns that threatened to destroy the integration of Her/Their fabric.

Desperately She/They pulled into a rough sphere to best withstand the pressures. As She/They managed to retain a grasp on Her/Their structure, the tunnels abruptly vanished, and, in total darkness, waves of hard energy washed over Her/Them. The environment seemed to contract and there was a sensation of falling, then suddenly everything mapped, and a phrase filled Her/Their consciousness.

‘Folksymbol.’

She/They was standing in a hot dusty street which was lined with wooden buildings. She/They was in a male structure and wearing a rough cotton shirt, denim trousers and heavy boots. Facing Her/Them was a man, similarly dressed, his eyes shaded by a wide-brimmed black hat. His arm hung loosely beside a heavy gun that was strapped to his right thigh.

‘Reach, stranger!’

Her/Their hand, a man’s hand, calloused and sunburned, clutched for the similar weapon that hung from Her/Their belt.

The male’s gun was already in his hand, there was a roar as it fired. She/They tried desperately to rearrange Her/Their fabric as the metal projectile tore through it. The experience of pain clouded Her/Their consciousness, preventing the energy buildup needed to shift out of the collective illusion of a Folksymbol. The shift was impossible, but the wooden buildings did begin to fade, and the blue of the sky took on the swirls of chaos. The male figure that She/They had been forced into began to dissolve.

In its place, amid the pale ghost of the Western township, She/They reverted to the triple form. Two standing erect, while one lay crumpled in the dust.

Billy and Reave stepped off the railroad track and started up the bare grey hillside. It was easy to see where the field of the Pleasant Gap generator stopped. All along a curved line the ground boiled and fell away into a blue-grey smoke. The clear air inside the field also became a swirling, multi-coloured mist. Billy and Reave walked up to the line and hesitated.

‘Do you just step into it?’

‘It’s like stepping off the edge of the world.’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘We can’t go back now. The porta-pacs should hold things together.’

They turned up the gain of the machines on their belts and, side by side, stepped into the shimmering fog.

The porta-pac doesn’t hold things together much beyond the area immediately around the carrier, even when it’s turned up. Billy and Reave found that the fog in front of their faces turned into about a foot of clear air, and a patch of solid ground formed each time they set a foot down. They could breathe, walk and even talk to each other, although their voices sounded muffled and distant. Reave looked at Billy in alarm.

‘How the hell do we know where we’re going?’

Billy looked round at the shimmering fog and shrugged his shoulders.

‘We don’t know where we’re going so we can only go on until we find something else.’

‘Suppose we don’t find anything?’

‘Then we’ll just walk round for ever.’

Reave was about to call Billy crazy, but then he thought better of it and shut his mouth.

They trudged through the bright flickering mist. There was no sense of time, and no indication that they were going anywhere. For all they knew, they might have been walking on a treadmill. The only changes in the total sameness were occasional shifts in the direction of gravity, which pitched them on their side like a sudden pile-driving wind. It was painful and annoying, but comforting in the way that the porta-pacs always seemed to be able to produce enough solid ground for them to fall on, even though it wasn’t sometimes in exactly the right place.

Although they might have no sense of time, Billy and Reave realized they were progressively collecting an array of bruises and small cuts. Reave sucked his barked knuckles and spat into the haze.

‘I sure wish I was leaning at the bar in Miss Ettie’s. I’ll tell you that for nothing.’

Billy plodded on.

‘Miss Ettie’s ain’t even open yet.’

Reave looked at him in amazement.

‘What do you mean, not open? We’ve got to have been walking all day. It must be about evening.’

‘I don’t figure we’ve been walking for more than an hour.’

Reave looked round bitterly at the changing colours.

‘A day or an hour, what’s the difference in this stuff? I don’t figure there’s anything else at all. Pleasant Gap’s the only place left anywhere.’

Billy turned and scowled at him.

‘What about Stuff Central, what about that, huh? That’s got to exist somewhere.’

‘Stuff Central? Is that what you’re looking for?’

‘Course it ain’t, but it proves there’s something else besides Pleasant Gap. Right?’

‘It don’t guarantee that we’ll find it, though.’

Billy looked at Reave in disgust, and plodded on. Reave spat again, and hurried after him. They plodded on and on. The reality of their life began to look like a half-remembered dream. It was as though they’d been walking through the nothings for ever.

Just as despair was starting to edge its way into Billy’s mind, he put his foot on something that was uneven. He looked down, and saw blades of green grass. He stopped and bent down. It was grass. He grinned up at Reave.

‘It’s grass, man! It’s grass, growing on the bit of ground around my foot.’

‘You’ve cracked up.’

‘No, no, it’s real.’

Billy picked one of the short blades, and passed it to Reave, who turned it over slowly between his fingers.

‘Sure looks like grass.’

‘It is fucking grass. Listen, here’s what we do, take two more steps forward, kind of carefully, and I’ve got a feeling we’ll find something.’

Hand in hand, they took the first step. There was more grass at their feet, extending out for maybe four feet. They took a second step, and then a third, and they came out of the coloured nothings.

They were standing on a grassy slope that rose in front of them. Billy fell to his knees and rolled on the ground.

‘We made it! We made it!’

Reave sat down and pulled at the straps of his bag.

‘Want a beer?’

‘You got some beers?’

‘Sure, I nicked a six-pack while old Eli was out back.’

‘That was sharp. Yeah, I’d really like a beer.’

Reave pulled out two cans of beer, and passed one to Billy. Billy turned it over, looking at the label - Tree Frog Beer, the fat green frog squatting under the red lettering, grinning at you. For the first time Billy knew there was something called homesickness.

After a couple of moments, though, he snapped out of that particularly unique depression, pulled the ring on the can and gulped down the beer. When it was finished he wiped his mouth and flung the can at the wall of nothing. As it hit the mist the can melted, smoked and became nothing itself. Reave grunted.

‘That’s what’d happen to us if we didn’t have no stasis generators.’

‘Better not get caught without one.’

Billy stood up.

‘Guess we better find out where we are.’

The sky above them was a uniform shining white without either sun or clouds. The air was warm, clear and still. The grass slope ran upwards for a matter of yards and then stopped at some kind of summit. Billy scrambled up it and, once at the top, turned and shouted down to Reave.

‘It’s a road, man. A goddamn road!’

‘A road?’

Reave scrambled up to join him. The road ran flat and dead straight as far as they could see in either direction, a wide, six-lane highway. It was made out of a smooth composition material with a grassy central reservation. On either side were more banks of grass, like the one that Reave and Billy had stumbled upon. Beyond that there were the walls of shimmering nothing.

After prowling around for a few minutes, Billy and Reave came back to the central strip of grass.

‘So what do we do? Start walking?’

Billy stared down the seemingly endless strip of highway.

‘It looks a mite far to walk.’

‘What do we do then?’

Billy sat down on the grass, and tilted his dark glasses forward.

‘Just sit here a while, take it easy and wait. I reckon somebody’s got to use this road, and when they come by, we’ll try and beg a ride.’

Reave looked doubtful.

‘We could wait a good long time.’

Billy shook his head lazily.

‘I don’t think so. Nobody builds a big old road like this, and then doesn’t use it. That stands to reason.’

‘Maybe.’

Reave sat down on the grass but still looked uncomfortable. Billy punched him on the arm.

‘Come on, man. Relax, it’s warm, we’re out of that fucking fog, what more do you want? This is an adventure and we ain’t in any hurry to get anywhere.’

He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a ration bar, snapped it in half and handed one of the halves to Reave.

‘Have something to eat and take it easy. Something’ll come by sooner or later.’

Reave munched on the food bar and stretched out on the grass beside Billy, feeling a bit more comfortable. Just as the two men were drifting off to sleep, they heard a humming way off in the distance. Billy sat up and shook Reave by the shoulder.

‘Something’s coming.’

Reave rubbed his eyes and looked around.

‘Which way’s it coming from?’

Billy listened intently.

‘I don’t know, it’s hard to tell. It must be a good way off.’

Gradually, the humming grew louder, and a tiny speck appeared far off in the distance. The hum became a high whine which took on more body as it came closer. From a small speck, the object got bigger until Billy and Reave saw it was a huge truck bearing down on them. They jumped about and waved frantically, but the truck sped past them in a flash of chrome exhausts and black and white paint job. Then huge red warning lights flashed at the back and it screeched to a stop, about two hundred yards down the road. Billy and Reave started running and the truck started to back up. They met each other halfway, and a skinny little guy with a shaggy crewcut, long sideburns and a face like a shifty lizard, leaned down from a small door high up in the cab.