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29', LONGITUDE 0° 18'. HAVE ANOTHER DAY, MR MUNDI.
'I certainly will.' Rex bounced up and down, cracking his head on the gilded cherub. 'Gotcha,'
he chirruped. 'Oh, ouch.' Rubbing his skull he danced over to the terminal and bashed
through a direct line to Dalai Dan. The Inmost One's face filled the screen.
'Nice work,' he said, before Rex had even had time to speak. 'Very ingenious, we will take it
from here.' The screen went blank. Rex's jaw fell. 'What the . . .'
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A sudden commotion upon the landing below drew Rex's attention. And a sudden sense of
approaching danger that he was unable to explain.
Something told him that big trouble was coming his way.
'There, said a company medic. 'As good as new.' Mungo Madoc examined his ears. You
could hardly see the joins. 'Very good, a quick clean job, expertly per-formed. We can all
learn something from this, can't we, Fergus?'
'I pride myself on a job well done,' he replied.
'And Mr Presley. Back in the right place and the right time, I trust?'
'Have no fear of that, sir. We've seen the last of him.'
Jason Morgawr burst into the room. 'It's Presley, he gasped. 'He's back on Earth.'
'Yes thank you, Morgawr. We all know that, he's back in 1958, about to take the draft.'
'Oh no he's not, sir. He's sitting down there right now, plotting to overthrow the Dalai Lama.
Mr Madoc? Could someone help me pick Mr Madoc up? Are you all right, sir?'
Rex peeped down through the roof hatch on to the landing below. He saw Deathblade Eric
and Rambo Bloodaxe creep up the stairs and approach his doorway. Rex had left the door
ajar. Rambo put his finger to his lips and nudged Eric, who was carrying an enormous
handgun. Half of Eric's head appeared to be missing. At a signal from Rambo, Eric burst
into Rex's apartment. Rambo followed him in. Rex gave them a moment before shinning
down the metal ladder, slamming shut the door and engaging the anti-theft devices. 'Like
rats in a trap,
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he observed. Much shouting and beating issued from within, but once locked and bolted the
door wouldn't be bothering about that. Rex gave it a little pat.
'Two in the can for later.' He upped the ladder once more and climbed into the air car.
Canopy down, straps on, identification confirmed.
'Latitude fifty-one degrees, twenty-nine minutes. Longitude, zero degrees, eighteen minutes.
And fast please.' The car dragged itself clear of the roof and swung away into the gloom.
Rex belled through to the Dalai. Old Inmost One's face appeared on the dash screen.
'Rex, my dear boy. Something I can do for you?'
'I have further good news to report.'
'You never cease to amaze me.'
'The bounty on Rambo Bloodaxe.' Bounty was a poorly chosen word. 'The bonus I mean.'
Rex wondered just how far Dan's telepathic powers extended.
'The bonus, yes, said Dan.
'Does it still hold good?'
'My word is my bond, Rex. But Bloodaxe and his flesheaters died during the Fundamentalist
missile attack, surely.'
'Happily not. Although I have no idea how they escaped. There's another one with him. I have
them held prisoner in my apartment. You have only to have them collected.'
'Most enterprising, Rex. My congratulations.'
'You'll have my account credited then?'
'Most certainly. Where exactly are you now, Rex?'
Rex made crackling sounds with his mouth. 'Sorry, getting a lot of static. I'll have to call you
back.' He switched off the dash screen. The air car flew on, its engines coughing fitfully.
Rex was left alone, or so he hoped, with his thoughts.
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Something strange had happened. Somehow he had known that Rambo and Eric were on
their way up to kill him. But how? ESP? The Dalai's gifts couldn't be rubbing off on him,
could they? He wasn't altogether sure that the Dalai's gifts were all that reliable anyway. The
Living God King seemed somewhat fallible, to say the least. But something strange was
going on and somehow the mystery man in the photograph was at the heart of it. A word or
two with him, in private, might yield up all manner of interesting information. The air car
informed him that it was about to land and ran through its programmed routine of solace . . .
should any accident occur . . .
'Om-mani-padme-hum,' sang Rex Mundi. It was a catchy little number after all. The air car
whacked down on to familiar territory. Rex screwed on his weatherdome and lifted the
canopy. He climbed out.
'Aunty Norma's, he whistled. 'Now there's a thing.'
A Nemesis security craft was parked near at hand and two heavily-armed thugs swung
round to face his arrival. Rex recognized them as his former torturers. 'Hello Rex,' Mickey
Malkuth addressed him on the open channel. 'How's your luck?'
'It varies,' he cautiously approached the stun-suited duo. 'Have you made any arrests then?'
'Arrests? Naughty, naughty. Wanted for questioning is all.'
'Questioning? Yes, I see. And you have apprehended your suspect?' Rex stepped warily
across the rubble-strewn landscape surrounding his former home. It was grim and somehow
it now seemed even grimmer than he remembered.
'Flown the coop, said Malkuth. He indicated the open bunker door. 'There was an old girl
down there. But
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we couldn't get any sense out of her.' Rex's stomach dropped. He stumbled towards the
bunker.
'I shouldn't go in, if I were you, Rex. It's a bit messy, if you know what I mean.' Malkuth's
laughter rang in Rex's ears. He fell through the bunker door and tore off his weatherdome.
And he remembered that smell. That stale rancid smell. The smell of hopeless doomed
poverty.
The bunker was as it always had been. Candles burned in the tiny wall shrine, where an [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]