Billy grinned.
‘Sounds pretty good.’
The Minstrel Boy shrugged.
‘Maybe. I don’t like to judge. Dropville’s got its problems.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well, I suppose the main problem’s that while, okay, the people will last for ever, the city won’t. This is the other side of the river to Port Judas. It ain’t part of the static zone. Under this clearing is the biggest generator you ever seen. One day it’ll break down and the whole town’ll just blink out. There’s the odd fault showing up already. I tell you one thing though, it’s a good place to party.’
Without saying anything, a girl had come and sat down on the fountain beside Billy. She looked about seventeen, with long blond hair and a deep tan. She smiled when Billy spoke to her. Then she pulled a pack of Northern Lights out of her faded dungarees and offered them around. Billy took one of the slim, white, plastic tubes, and inhaled deeply. He felt himself filled with an overpowering sense of lightness, and objects that he looked at were surrounded by a fine aura of colour.
The girl looked amazingly beautiful to Billy’s enhanced sight. He touched her hand and smiled at her. He felt that it was unnecessary to say anything. She smiled back.
After a few minutes the effect wore off, but Billy found that it returned each time he took another drag. For the next hour the three men and the girl sat on the broken fountain and smiled at everything in sight. The tubes were finally used up and they dropped the plastic cylinders into the fountain. Reave turned to Billy.
‘Those things were certainly something.’
Billy nodded, with a look of awe on his face.
‘They certainly are.’
The Minstrel Boy glanced at him.
‘You’ve never had Northern Lights before?’
Billy and Reave both shook their heads.
‘No, never.’
‘Good, huh?’
‘Good’s hardly the word for it.’
They were all sitting on the fountain thinking about how good the Northern Lights were, when the girl tapped Billy on the shoulder and pointed towards one of the larger buildings that were still standing. A bunch of boys had moved some amplification equipment on to the patio and were plugging in electric instruments. A small crowd was starting to gather. The Minstrel Boy stood up.
‘Let’s go and watch this.’
Reave stared across the clearing.
‘Are those kids going to play some music?’
‘Those kids have been playing music for maybe a hundred years. They are the best. Wait till you hear them.’
The four of them strolled across the clearing. The girl seemed to have attached herself to Billy in her strange, silent way. They settled themselves on the grass as the group of musicians started to play. The Minstrel Boy had been right. They were unnaturally good. The girl handed round the Northern Lights, and for another hour they all sat very still, completely sucked in by the beautiful, free, interweaving music. The first piece lasted for nearly an hour and a half, and when it was finished, one of the group, a tall boy of something like nineteen with a first growth of beard, walked to the front of the patio. He appeared to be the leader of the group, and he gestured towards the Minstrel Boy.
‘You want to come up and join us?’
The Minstrel Boy picked up his guitar.
‘I don’t know if I’ll be good enough.’
The leader grinned.
‘Don’t worry about it. Try and fit in where you can. Maybe we should play some of your songs.’
The Minstrel Boy stood up and made his way to the patio. The silver guitar was hooked into the amplification gear, and the band started again, with the Minstrel Boy tentatively fitting himself in. Billy and Reave sat and watched as the music rolled over them. Another girl came and sat down beside them. She was almost the twin of the first girl. She smiled in the same way, but she also spoke.
‘You have come from the river boat?’
Billy nodded.
‘That’s right.’
‘Are you going to stay with us?’
‘Only until the boat moves on.’
‘That’s a pity.’
‘You’d like us to stay?’
‘We’re pleased when anybody stays.’
The first girl turned her head and smiled at Billy and Reave. Billy stretched out on the grass and stared up at the canopy of leaves overhead. The music wound in and out of itself. Billy sighed. It was the best part of the trip so far. Dropville seemed to have been made for him. He glanced at Reave.
‘This is the way to live, huh?’
Reave frowned.
‘It’s very nice. It’s a bit spooky, though. I mean, all these people staying young for ever, and the way they killed off all the old people.’
He waved his hand at the luxuriant vegetation and the huge bright flowers that covered the jungle floor.
‘It’s like the whole place was rooted in death.’
Billy closed his eyes.
‘That was years ago. It’s long gone. This place is like fucking paradise. Listen to that music, Reave. Look at the women.’
He patted the hand of the mute girl. She smiled and. stroked his hair. Reave looked at Billy doubtfully.
‘Are you thinking of staying here, Billy?’
Billy shook his head.
‘No. But it sure is tempting.’
***
She/They was everything.
She/They was the only thing that Her/Their senses, even at full stretch, could detect. The only source of energy was She/They. The only thing that existed was She/They.
She/They continued to expend energy, and She/They assumed that a forward motion was maintained. There was no edge, no boundary on the negative zone. There was nothing at all. Only the strange vision that had flown past Her/Them convinced Her/Them of the possibility of anything else existing.
She/They knew that at some point in time She/They would start to grow weak. She/They needed to expend energy just in order to maintain Her/Their existence. There was nothing in the zone to draw on. All Her/Their energy was being drawn from inside Her/Them. Her/Their energy reserves were finite. There would come a time when Her/Their resources would be exhausted and Her/Their existence would just flicker out.
She/They shut down all Her/Their functions except that which concentrated on motion. Her/Their shape flickered, wavered and ceased to be. She/They was reduced to a formless point of light that moved across empty blackness.
With nothing to relate it to, time had no meaning. She/They continued, and She/They moved. There was nothing else. Then something appeared.
The peripheral sensors that She/They had maintained during the shutdown roused the other functions and She/They grew back into the triple form. There was an object away in the distance. She/They could ascertain that the object was spherical, but beyond that it was too far away to determine any details. Gradually She/They and the object came closer together. Tentatively, She/They probed the nature of the object.
‘Uniformly dense spherical body.’
‘Uniform composition’
‘Large body of water contained in spherical form by its own surface tension.’
The sphere floated towards Her/Them like a small planet. It appeared to Her/Their sensors like a huge blue-green ball. Faint ripples passed across the surface. As the sphere drew closer, She/They felt Her/Their self being drawn towards it. She was expending no energy. The mass of water was sucking Her/Them in.
Waves circled outwards as She/They struck the surface of the sphere. She/They felt Her/Their self drawn into the watery interior. She/They kicked with a furious jolt of energy, and began to move upwards. The sphere couldn’t contain such a violent motion. The sphere broke apart and a column of water began to rush upwards carrying Her/Them with it, bouncing and buffeting Her/Them as it rushed past.