‘Bad, isn’t it?’
They walked through a high stone arch and into the lizard stables of Wainscote. Jeb Stuart Ho looked along the row of stalls that housed the huge creatures. Despite his training to expect anything, he couldn’t help being awed by the huge beasts. Their bodies alone were twice as high as a man, and their long necks extended to almost twice that again. As the two men approached them they shifted uneasily, and made deep bleating sounds. One of them swung its head round. It stared at Ho and the Minstrel Boy from dark moist eyes. Its thin reptilian tongue flicked in and out like a whip. Jeb Stuart Ho glanced at the Minstrel Boy.
‘Are you sure you can control these beasts?’
The Minstrel Boy laughed.
‘Sure. Nothing to it. Why? Are you nervous or something?’
‘No, I was just wondering.’
‘Don’t worry. I know all about lizards.’
He walked over to one of the largest, a huge dark green monster, and slapped it hard on the rump.
‘Lizards are no problem.’
He ducked under the heavy chain that closed off the end of the stall. He made a shrill whistling noise between his teeth. The animal inclined its head, and the Minstrel Boy began to scratch it vigorously on the nose.
‘See? No trouble at all. We might as well get saddled up and start moving. There ain’t nothing to hang around here for.’
He pointed to a row of saddles hanging from some short beams that jutted from the opposite wall.
‘Bring over two saddles and two sets of harness, and I’ll get a couple of these monsters hitched up to go.’
Jeb Stuart Ho walked over to the rack and picked up a heavy wooden saddle. The leather girth was attached to the seat with huge decorated silver studs. It must have once looked magnificent, but now it was filthy and covered in dust. He wiped off the worst of it and hefted the saddle over to where the Minstrel Boy was standing, still scratching the big lizard. He put it down, and went back for another one. The Minstrel Boy gestured towards the rack.
‘We’ll need two sets of harness as well.’
The harnesses consisted of a wide leather collar with a single long rein attached to it. Jeb Stuart Ho brought them over to the Minstrel Boy, who took one of them and buckled the collar round the neck of the big green lizard. He led it out of the stall and handed the rein to Ho.
‘Hold this one, while I go and sort you out a mount.’
Jeb Stuart Ho gingerly grasped the lizard’s rein. To his relief the creature showed no inclination to go anywhere. The Minstrel Boy sauntered down the row of stalls, inspecting the other animals. Finally he stopped in front of a smaller lizard, with a yellowish mottled hide. He attached a collar to it and led it towards where Jeb Stuart Ho was standing.
‘This one should suit you. It’s pretty docile and easy to handle.’
Ho and the lizard looked at each other distrustfully. Slowly Ho stretched out his hand and scratched its nose. The lizard bleated gratefully. The Minstrel Boy sniffed.
‘Maybe we’ll turn you into a lizard handler before this trip’s over.’
Jeb Stuart Ho glanced at him sharply.
‘I have more important objectives for this journey.’
The Minstrel Boy shrugged.
‘We’d better get the saddles on, or we won’t reach any kind of objective at all.’
The huge bulk of the creatures made putting the saddles on them an awkward business. A set of stone steps ran up one part of the stable wall. The Minstrel Boy led the first lizard over to them. He got Jeb Stuart Ho to hold it while he picked up one of the saddles, climbed the steps and tossed the saddle over the animal’s back. After that, he had to scramble under its belly and buckle the girth. The whole process was repeated with the second lizard. When they were both saddled, he walked to the far end of the stable and pulled open a pair of high double doors. Sunlight streamed into the dim room, and the lizards shuffled and blinked nervously. Beyond the doors, an inclined ramp led up to ground level.
The Minstrel Boy climbed up into the saddle of the big green lizard, and Jeb Stuart Ho hauled himself on to the smaller yellow one. He watched carefully as the Minstrel Boy dug his heels sharply into the monster’s side. The lizard began to lumber forward towards the open doors. Jeb Stuart Ho tried the same thing with his own mount, and was surprised and pleased when it began following its big green brother.
As they climbed the ramp, Jeb Stuart Ho called out to the Minstrel Boy.
‘Should we not close the door behind us?’
The Minstrel Boy turned and laughed.
‘Why bother? With the doors open, the lizards will get restless and start trying to break out. It might force someone to do something about it.’
They reached the top of the ramp, and pointed their mounts away from Wainscote. Jeb Stuart Ho would have liked to gather more information about the place, but his mission was more pressing. He and the Minstrel Boy vigorously kicked their lizards, and the beasts broke into a ponderous, earth-shaking canter.
***
A.A. Catto stared sourly across the crowded room. The tables of the Venus Flytrap were each enclosed in their own plexiglass dome. If she dimmed the interior light she could see what was going on in the rest of the club; if she turned it up the rest of the club could see her. Right then, she had it set at medium. The other people in the place were reduced to dark murmuring shadows. She was just a dim shape to them inside the bubble. That was the way A.A. Catto wanted it. She didn’t want to see anyone, and she didn’t want to be on display.
A.A. Catto was beginning to hate the Venus Flytrap. She was beginning to hate the entire city of Litz. She was even beginning to hate herself. She looked down at her thirteen-year-old body encased in the brief metal foil dress. She was thoroughly sick of the thin arms and legs and half-formed breasts. The only thing that stopped her leaving off the growth retarder and letting it mature was the possibility that she might regret it afterwards. Once you allowed yourself to age there was no going back. You could halt your growth any time you liked, you could accelerate it if you wanted to. The one thing you couldn’t do was reverse the process. A.A. Catto was sick of living in an age of such incomplete and half-arsed technology.
Way over on the other side of the club she could just make out Reave. His face was illuminated by the rainbow lamp above the four square table. He sat with his back to the curtain of black water that served as one wall of the club. She could see from the anxious, stupid look on his face that he was losing consistently. He was more interested in watching the tits of the topless dealer than in paying attention to his cards. She was beginning to get sick of Reave. She kept him,, she dressed him, chose all his clothes and all his makeup. He looked particularly cute tonight in his black silk suit and purple lipstick. If only he didn’t always behave like a dummy. A.A. Catto expected, if not intelligence, at least some originality. All Reave seemed able to come up with was doglike devotion.
Her hand moved towards the silver ring on her left hand. It was inlaid with a complicated gold pattern. Reave wore a matching collar. The two pieces of jewellery were linked by an energy transfer. A.A. Catto only had to move the ring to push any experience from a soft tingle to unbearable pain straight into Reave’s nervous system. She turned the ring a fraction in the direction of pain. Reave jerked, dropped his cards, then looked in her direction and smiled. A.A. Catto’s lower lip stuck out and her mouth turned down at the corners. He was so predictable. Even when she hurt him, he took it as a sign of affection. There were times when she felt like turning him loose to fend for himself.
Beside her in the bubble, one of the club’s specially cloned entertainers was still going through his mildly obscene monologue. He wore a white suit, black shirt and an archaic white necktie. His right ear was pierced by a plain gold ring and his black hair was slicked back and shining. His face was framed by symmetrical sideburns. A.A. Catto assumed that some pretty, juvenile gangster from the motion picture era had been used as a model for his batch. The big thing in Litz right then was images from the days before break-up. A pale, almost albino girl drifted past the bubble. She wore high, polished boots and the black and red uniform of some ancient, long vanished political/military culture. A.A. Catto wondered if she ought to get an outfit like that. She turned to the clone and cut him off in mid sentence.