The Caryatids

Twenty minutes passed, in which Radmila said nothing. She had already lost everything.

Biserka had no safe house anymore. Her blackspot safe house was on fire. Rocket flares were flying. The glare of flames lit the dark interior of the hearse. The flames backlit capering figures, running, dancing.

"Oh Lionel, Lionel, that gangster bad boy...that tasty morsel, Lionel," mourned Biserka. "I had such plans and hopes for him. Now he's found my hideout and I want to kill myself. I think I will. Right now! I will ignite this hearse and I will blow both of us into little pieces and there won't be anything left here but a cloud of your own DNA."

Radmila rolled her eyes in contempt.

Biserka crawled into the front of the hearse, to mess at length with its interface. Distant sirens were howling, but the fabled rapid-response corps of Los Angeles were slow to fight these fires. Maybe because the fastest and most agile gangs on the street were the arsonists.

"Lionel and his friends are getting out of hand, Radmila! That's a whole lot of pretty fire! I've seen towns on fire in China that were burning less than your town is burning tonight."

Biserka was frightened suddenly. "All right, you're always claiming you love them so much. Go stop them from rioting. Go on, I'll untie you. Go be superhuman. You can do that. You're superperfect." She pulled the wadded tape from Radmila's lips.

"Kill us both," Radmila said. "It's easier."

"You stink," Biserka decided. "I think I'll go help them, instead. I'll say that I'm you, and I'll tell them to burn everything. I'll burn everything you ever built here! Because I look like you. I look more like you than you do."

Flames lit the horizon. A dense, oily wave of smoke rolled over them. Biserka kicked open the door, left the hearse, slammed it behind her.

Radmila hated her life.

The hearse suddenly started again. It rolled, slow as a minute hand and just as inexorable, into the Pacific surf. Like every form of networked machinery, the car showed a supreme contempt for its own survival.

The hearse wobbled. Pacific surf rolled rhythmically over the windows. Seawater seeped under the doors.

Radmila managed to wriggle sideways in her bondage. She got her knees up, her legs up.

The foaming tide would not drown her until it reached the coffin.

The tide rose steadily. The coffin began to float.

PART THREE SONJA The Gobi desert

HE WAS BOWLEGGED, he had lice, internal parasites, and tubercular lesions, and he was nineteen years old. His life was one long epic poem about heat, cold, thirst, hunger, filth, disasters, and bloodshed. His fellow tribesmen called him "the Badaulet," which meant "Lucky."

Sonja tuned her clinic lights to a mellow glow and turned up the infrasound. Lucky's tough, tireless, scrawny body went as translucent as glass. His sturdy heart jetted blood through the newly cleansed nets of his lungs.

Sonja had killed off Lucky's parasites, filtered his blood, changed his skin flora, flushed out his dusty lungs and the squalid contents of his guts...She had cut his hair, trimmed his nails...He was a desert warlord, and every pore, duct, and joint in him required civilizing.

"Lucky dear," she said, "what would you like more than anything in this whole world?"

"Death in battle," said Lucky, heavy-lidded with pleasure. Lucky always said things like that.

"How about a trip to Mars?"

Lucky stoutly replied-according to their machine translation: "Yes, the warrior souls are bound for Heaven! But men must be honest with Heaven and rise from the front line of battle! For if we want to go to the garden of Heaven, yet we have not followed in the caravan of jihad, then we are like the boat that wants to sail on the dry desert!"

"Mars is a planet, not Heaven. It's a planet like Earth."

"Even a pagan woman with your pitiful ignorance can follow the path of jihad!" said Lucky, grunting a little as her oiled fingers readjusted the bones in his neck. "Women can equip a man for righteous battle with their gold and jewelry!"

"I have no gold or jewelry."

Lucky reached out deftly and seized a thick hank of her hair. "Then cut and sell these golden tresses! Your beauty will buy me guns to punish all of Heaven's enemies!"

"What a sweet thing to say."

There was no use her denying it, especially to herself: she had fallen for him. He was a dismal, bloodstained creature from what was surely one of the worst areas on Earth, yet he radiated confidence and a sure sense of manly grace.

This was not another impulsive fling, though Sonja had never lacked for those. This time was one of those serious times.