The main gates opened, and Dr Blaikley walked in at the head of a crew of indentees. They had poles slung between them, and drugged alligators were hanging in nets from the poles, their pop-eyes glazed over, surplus teeth poking out from their snouts. Blaikley wore a safari hat, thigh-high wading boots and a multi-pouched waistcoat over a green lurex skinsuit. She saluted Shiba with a trace of mockery.
"We'll get that jolly bridge up ouever the Kwai in neau taime at h'all, commandant," she said with an exaggerated British accent.
"More test subjects?"
"We need 'em if we're to stay on schedule, Hiroshi. We're losing 'em faster than we can bag 'em."
Shiba was exasperated. "You know about last night's incident?"
"What, did I wake you up? I'm a screamer, you know, and that GOB Martens has a truncheon on him like a German sausage. He's a regular Rod Rambone. I was strapping him on all night. You know how it gets, I'm still raw and itchy."
In some obscure way, Shiba mought she was needling him. She was promiscuous, he knew, but Martens was barely intelligent enough to scrape through even the GOB's feeble IQ requirement. Dr Blaikley would never consider bedding him. She thought she could shock the Japanese by acting like a vulgar harlot. She didn't understand. She was not slim like Imiko, his GenTech-appointed geisha. She did not conduct herself in a seemly manner. And yet…
"No, I mean…"
"The break-in? Sure. Reuben told me."'
The indentees stood stock still, their burdens grumbling in their sleep.
"Why did you not bring the information to me? You know I make my report at eleven sharp. I was not able to include a record of the incident. It is a breach of good business practice. Even if we only lost chickens, we should be scrupulous in noting it down. As a scientist, you should know that."
Dr Blaikley took off her hat, and shook out her golden hair.
"Hold on there, Hiroshi. Don't jump on my bones for this. Visser's the security honcho. Break-ins and -outs are his bailiwick, not mine. Besides, you've got all your facts in a twist…"
Shiba tried hard not to stamp his feet. "Please explain."
Dr Blaikley turned to the indentees, and addressed them in the patois they had developed since their transportation to this area. Blaikley was the only non-indentee to have mastered this evolving language. They scuttled off to the animal pens.
"Well?"
"Hiroshi, please stop yanking my nipples, will you? I've been bitten badly enough. We didn't just lose chickens."
She slipped a hand into her waistcoat and, with deliberate provocation, massaged her breast. Her eyes went to the disappearing indentees and their reptiles. "Did those babies look like Foghorn Leghorn?"
"Alligators?"
"Yeah, 'gators. Luggage lizards. We needed two, so I went out and got 'em." She wet her glossed lips and pouted. "Just call me Trader Horny."
"Something broke in and freed the alligators?"
"No, not freed the beasts. Ate 'em."
Even in the swamp heat, Shiba felt a sudden chill.
X
Nick rolled up the streetshutter, and the big pink Cadillac eased out onto the road, its engine purring like a big, happy cat. Behind the wheel, which was padded with pink real-leather to match the seat covers, Elvis felt the thrill in his bones. Only three things gave him this sensation; starting up his car, slipping into a willing lover, or, long ago, hitting that first note as his vocal cut in over the guitar. It was a feeling he needed to convince himself he was still alive. Thanks to the incredible suspension, the automobile seemed to float like a hovercraft down the bumpy ramp and onto the hardtop. It was a bright, early summer day. Elvis turned on the air conditioning. It was not uncomfortable inside the car now, but it would be in an hour or two if he didn't take precautions.
He keyed off the engine and slipped out of the Cadillac. It sat at the kerb gracefully, longer than a powerboat, attracting wolf whistles from passing motorists. It was as beautiful now as it had ever been. Elvis wished his Mama could have got more pleasure out of the perfect machine. Nick emerged blinking into the light, and sighed as he ran his eyes over the car's perfect lines. Gandy stood next to him, a shoulder for the mechanic to cry on when he lamented his unrequited love for the Cadillac. Some cars are curved, like a beautiful ass, and make a man want to seduce them. Elvis could understand that, but didn't want to drive around in a Playboy centrefold. The Cadillac was long and gleaming and clean, but its beauty was manly, like a Greek discus thrower or a gloss-coated stallion. Under the hood, this automobile was packing a pair of testicles the size of basketballs, and he wanted passersby to hear them clacking as he ate up the highway. Have you heard the news, the machine shouted silently, there's good rockin' tonight.
The Cadillac was gassed up good for a thousand miles, and all the weapons systems were primed. The motto of Elvis' old army unit was "Hell on Wheels." He wasn't one of those car queers who gave their machines fancy names—anything that was called Lightning Streak, Road Warrior or Tiger Tornado usually wound up crumpled in a ditch while the anonymous, functional machines were still roaring along the tarmac—but if he had been, "Hell on Wheels" is what he would have chosen. This machine was like the man inside it: you didn't cross it if you wanted to stay healthy, and if it was on your side you didn't have to worry about covering your back.
"Where's yo lady, Elvis?" asked Gandy.
"The ma'am said she'd be 'long round about noontime."
Elvis wasn't sure how much he was looking forward to a few days in the seat next to Krokodil. She looked like an angel, sure, but…Well, Krokodil didn't sound like the sort of handle a nice girl would pick. And there were those panzergirl words that kept cropping up in her otherwise impeccable speech. He had run a check on her, but found nothing under the "Krokodil" alias. The Indian had called her something else—Jessamyn—and that beat some distant drums. There was something about the way Krokodil carried herself that reminded him of Redd, and Elvis had seen Ms Harvest take down five or more Maniax in a solo engagement. Still, for this trip, he'd rather have a combat cutie with him than a Sunday school teacher.
Gandy had one of those GenTech miniradios clipped to his sunglasses, and Elvis could hear the tinny sounds of Petya Tcherkassoff singing "A Cry for Help." The vocal tricks were his, straight off the "Blue Moon of Kentucky" he had done at Sun for Sam Phillips in 1954. "Fine, man!" Sam had shouted, loud enough to get on the master tape, "that's different. That's a pop song now, nearabouts."
"Shut that Sove crap off, Gandy," he snapped. He immediately regretted it. He didn't usually let the stuff get to him.
"Sure, Elvis," Gandy said. "Sorry, man. I wasn't thinking."
Gandy was a late '70s baby. His parents might have remembered who the old Op he hung out with had been, and he had never concealed the fact that he had been a musician before he went in the army. But Gandy's parents were long-term smacksynth mainliners the kid didn't like to be around, and he imagined that Elvis had been in some high school band like the Memphis Cossacks, the imitation Sove group Gandy and Big Bill had messed around with for a while. It was known that he wasn't enthusiastic about Russian musickies, but no one pressed him on it. Once, he had recommended that the kid track down some Carl Perkins if he wanted to listen to real music, but Gandy had never taken him up on it Gandy was more interested in securing a bootleg musichip of Tasha's "Concert for Uzbekhistan."
He found himself humming "Blue Moon of Kentucky" under his breath. Recently, the old songs had been coming back to him. Something would remind him of a line of lyric, or a piece of music would contain a string of similar notes, and he'd find himself half-way through "Heartbreak Hotel," "Jailhouse Rock" or "Blue Moon." He was getting old, he guessed.