Last Stand of the DNA Cowboys

'I can't accept that.'

'You'd better accept it, man. You'd better wise up to the facts, or you're going to find your city burning around your ears.'

The beloved Master turned puce and half rose from the throne. 'I will not be spoken to like that.'

He was about to order his guard to arrest Reave, but then he thought better of it. Despite all of Dass-el-Hame's protests, Reave was wearing his pistols openly displayed in his belt. Even Parshew-a-Thar was not going to risk bloodshed in his own throne room. Reave, who had figured that out from the start, made one final attempt to get the beloved Master to see sense.

'There is only one way to save your city, and that's to repeal this moronic prohibition on advanced weapons. You have a comparatively large army, and properly equipped, their numbers could make up for their inexperience, but they have to be armed.'

The beloved Master was shaking his head. He looked like a fat, frightened baby bird. Finally he clapped his hands over his ears. He was losing what small cool he had left.

'I won't listen to this. I've already told you how that subject is not open to discussion. General Zeum will take care of the defense of the city. I trust General Zeum. He doesn't upset me. You have upset me, and this audience is at an end.'

Reave finally lost his temper. 'You're a fatuous idiot.'

Parshew-a-Thar still had his hands over his ears.'I can't hear you.'

Reave gestured to the Minstrel Boy. 'Let's get out of this insanity.'

They turned on their heels and marched stiffly out of the throne room. The beloved Master was out of his throne and shouting at his guards.

'Stop them! Arrest them!'

Two of the guards approached Reave, who stopped them with a furious glare.

'I wouldn't try it if I were you.'

They didn't. Outside, in the first antechamber, Renatta, Blaisdell, and a somewhat groggy Billy Oblivion were waiting. They had heard a good part of the proceedings.

'I take it it didn't go well.'

'It's goddamn lunacy.'

Reave rounded on Billy. 'Where the hell have you been?'

Billy shook his head. 'Damned if I know.'

Dass-el-Hame came hurrying out of the throne room. 'You've done a terrible thing. The beloved Master is beside himself with rage.'

Reave snarled angrily at him. 'Terrible? You think that's terrible? When Baptiste gets here, you're all going to have to revise your definition of the word "terrible."

Renatta interrupted the exchange before it could go any further. Reave was starting to look as though he might hit the courtier.

'More to the point, what are we going to do now?'

Reave calmed down a little. 'We're going to see Showcross Gee. If nothing else, he can release us from our contracts. We can't be ordered into a situation that is plainly suicidal.'

Showcross Gee appeared to be expecting them. It was the first time any of them had been in the section of the Great Pyramid that had been taken over by the metaphysicians. It was another shiftspace, an internal area that was much larger than the external dimensions would logically allow, much like the one Reave had seen in the ziggurat in the little settlement that had been the target of his final raid with Baptiste. It had the same pyramid-shaped space, with a square floor and triangular sides that leaned in to a central apex point. A larger but otherwise identical pyramid-shaped block hung in the air with no visible means of support. Unlike the starkly bare chamber inside the ziggurat, this one seemed to be undergoing some kind of highly technological construction. Cables and glowing plasma conduits snaked across the floor, and a towering rack system housed a complexly sophisticated biode. A large disk-shaped object some thirty feet across was being assembled in sections directly beneath the floating pyramid.

Showcross Gee's only companion in the chamber was Stent. It was starting to look as though the metaphysician was using the metal man as a permanent bodyguard. Reave was curious to know what the man thought he had to fear. There was no sign of any of the other metaphysicians, and it had to be assumed that this chamber was not the only space they occupied in the Great Pyramid.

'I understand that you have seen the enemy.'

Reave looked slowly around the chamber and nodded.'That's right. We went to their camp.'

'And I also understand that the beloved Master is having a little trouble discarding his illusions.'

Renatta regarded the metaphysician with deep suspicion. 'You seem very well informed.'

'We loosed a few snoopers into the environment of this pyramid. These people have no means of detecting them, although why they should even bother is debatable. They are incapable of keeping secrets.'

'So you only use the snoopers for a little electronic early warning?'

Showcross Gee nodded. 'Exactly.'

'Then you most probably heard what we were discussing in the anteroom.'

'We cannot release you from your contracts at this time.'

Blaisdell gave him a hard look. 'You can't expect us to simply stay here and die.'

Reave glanced at Lister Stent. 'Where do you stand in all this? Still just carrying out orders?'

The metal man inclined his head slightly. 'Quite the reverse. I'm with you in this. I cannot see how we can legitimately be ordered to remain here under the current situation. We have the right to protect our own lives in a set of circumstances that are quite beyond our control.'

Showcross Gee looked from one contract warrior to the next. 'Your lives will be preserved. You have my guarantee.'

Reave did not look as if he believed a word of it. 'You seem to be hanging on to a few illusions of your own. That's Vlad Baptiste up at the other end of the settlement. He's pathological about you people, and he isn't going to stop until you're all dead. We have no way of protecting either you or ourselves unless the Palanaquii wise up.'

Showcross Gee waited a full ten seconds before he spoke. He slowly extended a hand in the direction of the half-completed disk. 'All we need here is another forty-eight hours to finish our work.'

Billy Oblivion swayed. 'What the hell is that? An old-time flying saucer?'

Showcross Gee ignored him. 'When our work is done, there will be a unique escape route for all of us.'

Reave was unbending. 'This city won't hold for forty-eight hours. There's a chance that Baptiste may have a couple of aircraft.'

That was obviously news to the metaphysician. He was silent and thoughtful. 'It would be a mistake to leave here at this time.'

'It'd be suicide not to.'

'I've already told you that we can take control of the Great Pyramid and seal ourselves in.'

Reave was shaking his head. 'I don't know.'

'Consider this. There is one thing that could make Baptiste negotiate with the beloved Master.'

'What's that?'

'Us.'

Reave knew that he should have thought of that himself. It was glaringly obvious.

'You think that Parshew-a-Thar would ask Baptiste to spare the city if he turned over the metaphysicians?'

Showcross Gee half smiled. 'The metaphysicians and their seven mercenaries.'

'Okay, everyone's ass is on the line.'

Having made his point, Showcross Gee went on. 'I think it's almost a certainty. The court of Palanaque may be blinkered and stupid, but they're clutching at straws. It's bound to occur to them. It they don't think of it, Baptiste certainly will. You've described how his men are close to exhaustion. He may see it as a way to avoid an immediate direct assault on the city himself.'

'He'll never keep his word.'

'Of course he won't, but the Palanaquii will want to believe him so badly that they'll go along with any nonsense. Once he's disposed of us, he can destroy the city and its population at his leisure.'