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compound, they would elect to stay under his protection. Reuben, a full-jawed
Suitcase Person, was their representative, liaising with Shiba and Marcus. The
compound was being run more efficiently now that Blaikley and Visser were
deposed.
There was a new factor in the area. A group had moved into the abandoned
launching site at Cape Canaveral, and Marcus's people had had several clashes
with them. Shiba was shown a black-clad corpse. It had been one of a party
from the Cape who had ventured inland to hunt down Suitcase People. The
clothes had been unusual, with pegs instead of buttons, no pockets, large
stitches. Certain fundamentalist American sects favoured such clothing. Marcus
had suggested fortifying the compound against a possible mass attack, and
Shiba had authorized the work. He had also organized patrols and sent them out
on reconnaissance sweeps through the swampland. He wanted to know the
disposition of any hypothetical enemy.
Few of the scientists had survived the attack on the compound. Old scores had
been bloodily settled. Shiba had interviewed a lab assistant and a specialist
with a tunnel vision knowledge of recombinant DNA and an incredible ignorance
about everything else. He had tried to understand Dr Blaikley's idiosyncratic
experiment log, written in her own peculiar and profane shorthand, but it was
beyond him. Clearly, the death of the scientist did not curtail the
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experiment. Shiba felt a duty to his employers and to science, not to mention
the memory of Mary Louise Blaikley, to continue the collection of data. Any
findings would be named after her, he had decided. The Blaikley Effect. The
Mary Louise Syndrome.
He would have liked to contact Kyoto and give a full report, but the
satellite link radio had been destroyed by an explosion and was beyond repair.
He could have used the GenTech intelligence nets to fill him in on the Cape
Canaveral situation. But the Suitcase People were on their own until Dr
Zarathustra or someone noticed the compound had not been heard from. Then,
Shiba would decide whether he owed loyalty to the corp or to his new race.
Again, he recited his Blood Banner Oath.
He came to a decision. It would be best all round if Visser were quietly
killed without ceremony.
He lashed the intercom buzzer with his tail.
"Marielle," he said to his green-faced secretary, "rustle me up a firing
squad, would you?"
He felt hungry.
XII
Elvis felt different this morning. He had woken up with the music in his head
again. It was as strong as it had been in the early days. Before Parker and
Seth turned it all bad with B-movies and pep pills.
The Cajuns had listened to him play for over an hour. The words of the songs
all came back as if he had sung them the day before, rather than forty years
ago. "Blue Suede Shoes," "I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine," "Love Me
Tender," "Long Tall Sally," "Blue Moon," "Guitar Man," "Good Rockin' Tonight,"
"Baby, Let's Play House," "Mystery Train," "Remember to Forget," "Lawdy, Miss
Clawdy," "Don't Be Cruel," "Poor Boy," "When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold
Again," "Blueberry Hill," "Mean Woman Blues," "Jailhouse Rock," "Crawfish,"
"Fever," "Are You Lonesome Tonight?," "Love is Strange."
He tried the songs he'd never sung before, just heard over the years. He
approximated a few Petya Tcherkassoff numbers, strangled his voice around
"Don't Stop the Carnival"mdashthe one Ken Dodd song he could standmdashriffed
jokily through Lesley Gore's "It's My Party," taken a shot at the Mothers of
Violence's "Tas" and wound up croaking, banging his bleeding fingers against
the silver strings as he went through the other Mississippi singer's
repertoire. "Crossroads," 'Terraplane," "Walking Blues," "Me and the Devil."
The elation that had had the Cajuns dancing now evaporated, leaving only the
chill of the encroaching night Elvis had imagined Robert Johnson himself
standing outside the circle of the light, knowing the hellhound was on his
trail, listening to the white boy sing his songs, too bone-weary to react.
When he sang "Me and the Devil," Elvis remembered Mr Seth. He had been a
sharp-suited, well-spoken huckster. Now, he was an all-in-black preacher.
Elder Nguyen Seth.
It was creepy. That Krokodil and he should have the same Devil. 'Ti-Mouche
said he had magic and she had a demon. Something had brought them together.
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They had slept in the boat, huddled together under a blanket. At least, he
thought Krokodil had slept. He could never be sure.
Once, fighting a dream, he had found himself struggling with her. He had been
running through the darkness, trying to keep up with Jesse Garon. She had
soothed him like his Mama used to, and quieted him down.
Now, as direct sunlight woke him up, he was alone. His throat was sore, but
the real pain was in his fingers. The strings had worn grooves, opened the old
wounds.
A hand shot out of the water and grabbed the side of the boat. He made a grab
for the Moulinex machine pistol.
A head broke the surface, and Krokodil pulled herself out, naked but not
shivering. She towelled herself on the blanket, getting the algae out of her
hair.
"You can swim in that muck?"
"1 wouldn't advise it for everybody."
"Ain't that the truth."
Dry, she dressed herself. Again, Elvis looked at her body. She looked real.
Marie Walton had looked like a cyborg. But Krokodil seemed like a real woman.
"We've got to be on our way. We've waited too long."
Elvis took a hit from the canteen, and swilled the distilled water around his
mouth, licking his teeth clean. His tongue was still burned.
Krokodil was checking their weapons. She paused in her task.
"Elvis?"
"Yes?"
She looked at him. "I just wanted to say you sing very well."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"No, I mean it. Your old records don't do you justice. You could have made
something of yourself."
"Maybe, maybe not"
There was an early morning fog. It was going to be a hot day. Now, it was
pleasantly cool.
"No, really. Why didn't you stay with it?"
He'd been asked that before, but he'd never answered as truly as he did now.
"I don't know. Maybe, I wanted to keep a piece of my soul for myself."
"I think I know what you mean. I wasn't always like this. My father... well,
you don't want to know about him... it's all ancient history. I'm not even the
same person. Not even physically."
She held up her hand, as if trying to look through the skin.
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"Durium-laced bones, you know," she said. "And the whole catalogue of
doodads. I've got a sponge in my heart that can change the pattern of the
beat."
"There's something else, though. Last night, the witch, she said..."
"That I was possessed? Look around you, who isn't?"
"Your soul is all you own, Krokodil. It's worth more than the Devil's hundred
dollars."
She smiled. "Is that the going rate?"
"It was for Robert Johnson, they say. A hundred dollars and all the music."
"That sounds like a better deal. All the music."
It really was surprisingly cold. The blanket had been heavy with dew. "Not
really."
"But you could have changed the world. You could have been Petya
Tcherkassoff."
"Petya Tcherkassoff? Ma'am, you are showing your youth."
"How do you mean?"
"You ain't hardly heard of me, have you?"
"You were very highly recommended. Not many Ops..."
"No, not for the Op Agency, for the music. I don't mean any more to you than,
uh, Glenn Miller or Al Jolson?"
"Who?"
"That's what I mean. Who? Lady, without me there wouldn't have been a Petya
Tcherkassoff. You know his 'Don't Be Cruel'?"
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