by Rudy Rucker
Like many women, Giselle thought first and foremost of her family and her home. If Karl was increasingly unpleasant to live with, there were still things to be set right in their hut and, above all, there was the Xday visit of the children to prepare for.
Six weeks before Xday, Giselle began talking to Karl about the coming holiday. Karl tried to put her off with sullen grimaces and discouraging words, but Giselle kept up her happy plans and chatter. What Giselle thought, she frankly said, and now she was thinking about the holiday.
“You say we can’t afford a goose, but at least we have to put up some garlands, Karl. And the hut needs to be cleaned from top to bottom.”
“Oh, what for? The hut looks fine. And you didn’t like the garlands I put up for you last year.”
“I think that this year we’ll use ivy for the garlands,” continued Giselle. “Ivy will stay nice and green.”
“Where are we supposed to find ivy?”
“Don’t you remember? There’s a big patch of ivy near the top of Summer Hill! When the children were younger, you and I used to walk there with them all the time. It’s not far. Come, Karl, let’s go to Summer Hill and gather ivy.”
“You’re always asking for something, Giselle. I’m about to go to the inn. I’ll get ivy another day. Or you get it.”
“The inn is what you love, Karl, and I don’t begrudge you; you worked hard for many years. Now you’re an idle red-faced lecher who stares at hussies, fine. Nobody’s perfect. But come with me to Summer Hill for an hour now.” Giselle smiled fetchingly at Karl and ran her gentle hand across his stubbled cheek.
“I’m not a red-faced lecher,” blustered Karl.
“Then don’t act like one. The inn’s empty at this time of day anyway. If you go there now, you’ll be a desperate red-faced lecher.” Giselle laughed so merrily that Karl’s anger was undone.
Karl and Giselle left their hut and wound their way through their neighbor’s huts and up the slopes of Summer Hill. Soon there were no more dwellings. Hilltops were viewed as sacred on planet X, and all hilltops were left empty for the wind, the people, and the Gaia of X.
As they gathered ivy high on the hill, the peasant couple could see out over the great imperial city of Mur which lay to their north. In the center of Mur rose the far tiny spires of the emperor’s palace. The air near the palace was enlivened by the comings and goings of the gleaming metal flying saucers that the emperor Klaatu and his court used.
Karl and Giselle had often been into the city for market day, but neither of them had ever stood directly before the imperial palace. Peasants were not much welcomed in Mur outside the market district, and a peasant who tried to walk all the way to the palace was likely to be beaten and robbed—if not by a thief then by an officer of the imperial watch.
Though his palace was off-limits to the peasants, the emperor’s airships often came to claim goods from the market. Over the years many of the great silvery saucers had grown to a size of over fifty feet across—yes, grown. The metal saucers were living things that grew and learned and eventually died. The saucers’ silver surfaces were intricately chased with filigreed coppery lines that branched and intertwined as a saucer grew. No two saucers were the quite the same. With exercise, polishing, and plenty of sunshine, a flying saucer could grow for many a year, perhaps as much as two centuries. When a saucer got quite old, its skin would thin out to nothingness and the whole thing would suddenly crumble into a drifting dust like mushroom spores.
Where did the saucers come from? They spawned on the ribs of planet X herself. Every few years in some deep cave of planet X—and never twice the same cave—a few baby saucers would be found stuck to the walls like limpets. All saucers that were found became the property of the Klaatu dynasty. And the finder—invariably a hardy young peasant—would be granted imperial favor, a purse of gold, and the rank of baroness or baronet.
The sages of planet X classified the saucers as Spore Magic. Spore Magic included all the inexplicable events that had puzzled the citizens of X throughout history. The fact was that very odd things happened regularly on planet X—especially around Xday.
When the bright shape came flying down at Karl and Giselle on Summer Hill, they may have thought for an instant that it was a saucer—but it was a goose with snowy white plumage and a wedge-shaped orange beak. The goose stood there on her orange webbed feet, curving her neck this way and that, looking at Karl and Giselle. Finally she began slowly to waddle about, pecking up snails from beneath the ivy.
“Catch the goose, Karl,” exclaimed Giselle. “We can eat her on Xday!”
Karl was reluctant. The goose looked alert and powerful. Karl didn’t much fancy being pecked, clawed, and wing-beaten by the beast. “Why can’t our Xday meal be turnips like it is every other day?” said Karl. “Leave the goose alone, Giselle. They’ll have goose at the inn on Xday in any case. If I happen to go there, I can bring a wing home for you.”
“Selfish old fool,” said Giselle. “I’ll catch the goose.”
Giselle marched towards the plump white bird. Far from looking alarmed, the goose looked interested. She stuck her neck up to full height and regarded Giselle. The goose had shiny blue eyes. Giselle made feeding motions with her fingers, though she had no food to give. “Nice goosey loosey goosey girl,” sang Giselle. “Goose, goose, goose!”
The goose honked, and when Giselle turned and walked away from her, the goose followed. When Karl, Giselle and goose were down among the huts, the goose willingly jumped into Giselle’s arms and let herself be carried back to the peasant couple’s hut.
Giselle cut a turnip into small bits and fed them to the goose, who gobbled them down avidly, stretching out her neck to swallow each morsel. Before letting the goose go outside, Giselle tied a heavy stone to one of the goose’s legs. Slowly dragging the stone, the goose waddled about the yard, contentedly rooting for slugs, bugs, and snails.
“What a beautiful bird, Karl!” exclaimed Giselle. “We’ll fatten her till the day before Xday, and then you can butcher and bleed her for me. I’ll pluck, singe, draw, and cook her! We’ll have goose for Xday! The children will be thrilled!”
“I hope Tolstan, the cook at the inn, can help me with the butchering,” grumbled Karl. “I don’t know anything about killing a goose. Yes, I’d better go talk to Tolstan.”
“That’s fine, Karl, but before you go off to the inn, I still want you to help me put up the ivy.”
“Will you never be done, woman?” cried old Karl, but help with the ivy he did, and only then, finally, could he go to the inn to smoke and drink and stare at women until it was time to totter home and fall into his and Giselle’s bed.
In the coming days, the goose became more and more Giselle’s pet. The goose quickly found a way to free her foot from the rope and stone, and could easily have flown away—but she chose not to. At every hour of the day she was inside or outside the peasant couple’s hut. When Giselle was active in the hut, the goose would honk plaintively until Giselle would pull aside the hut’s wicker door and let the goose in. Once in the hut, the goose delighted in following Giselle, who often fed the goose scraps. The goose liked meat as well as vegetables, indeed she would even eat small pebbles and pieces of wood. Not that the goose was going hungry—the more time she spent in the hut, the more snails and bugs there seemed to be on the hut’s floor. Giselle noticed that, for a special wonder, the goose seemed to know not to foul the floor, no matter how much she ate.
A few days later, Karl was due to pay off his quarterly debt at the inn. He and Giselle dug their small bag of savings out from under a stone at the back of the hearth. There was no way to reach the hoard without getting ashes all over oneself, which was the peasant couple’s way of being sure that neither of them dipped into the savings alone.
The small leather bag held some silver and copper coins saved from Karl’s occasional earnings, along with sixteen gold coins that remained from the inheritance which Giselle’s parents had left her several years
before. Ever since Giselle got her inheritance, Karl had worked as little as possible. He thought of Giselle’s money as his own.
As was their custom, Karl and Giselle spread the coins out on the table and counted them together, a ritual they went through each time the coins appeared from beneath the stones of the hearth. The goose stood next to the table, watching with glittering eyes.
“Let me take a gold coin to the inn,” wheedled Karl when they were done counting. “Then I’ll have credit clear into the spring.”
“Very well,” said Giselle. “And I’ll take a gold coin to spend on gifts for the children.”
“One silver coin would be more than enough for them, woman!” snapped Karl. “The children are grown; they should take care of themselves!”
“It’s my gold, Karl. You should be grateful that I’m so foolishly generous to you.”
“Then I get some coppers as well,” shouted Karl. “I earned the copper and silver in the turnip harvest this fall!” Giselle nodded curtly, and slid two gold coins and three coppers to one side of the table. Leaning forward, the two peasants began telling the remaining coins back into the bag.
But now all at once the goose darted forward and gulped down the two gold coins, pumping her neck to get the hard metal disks all the way down from craw to crop to gizzard.
“No, Goosey!” cried Giselle.
“Grab her,” said Karl, drawing his knife. “I’ll cut her open!” The goose made a frightened noise like a rusty metal hinge, and waddled rapidly out of Karl’s reach.
“Stop, Karl!” cried Giselle. “She can’t digest gold. The coins are safe in her stomach. It’s still four days until Xday. If we butcher Goosey now, her meat will spoil.”
“What if she shits the coins into the street?”
“I’ll make a nest for her inside our hut,” said Giselle. “Anyway, haven’t you noticed? Goosey never shits. She just grows.”
“Well, nobody’s taking any more of our gold,” snapped Karl. He pocketed his three coppers, swept the remaining coins into the little sack, tied the sack tight, and crawled into the hearth to bury the sack again. “The inn’s coin and the children’s presents will have to wait until your precious goose is ready,” he told Giselle. And then Karl went down to the inn to spend his coppers.
The next morning, Giselle found four gold coins in the nest beneath the goose. She bit them and rang them, they seemed true as any coin. Karl, waking late, sat up blinking to stare at Giselle. “What’s happened?”
“The goose, Karl! She turned our two coins into four!”
“What!” The old peasant sprang out of bed to see. Four bright coins lay in Giselle’s dainty hand.
“Give me my two,” demanded Karl.
“You get one, Karl,” said Giselle and gave it to him. “I’ll keep one for the children, and I’ll feed these other two to Goosey to see if it works again! Then we’ll have four extra gold coins! Here, Goosey!”
Karl watched excitedly as the goose ate two gold coins from Giselle’s hand. He stayed in the hut at Giselle’s side all day, and finally, near dusk, the goose gave a warbling honk and rose to her feet. Gold glittered from the goose’s nest—and this time it was not just four coins, it was a heap that Karl feverishly counted as seventeen coins! Their fortune had more than doubled in one day!
Karl snatched up two gold coins for his own and hurried off to the inn, leaving Giselle to hide the new treasure. Once at the inn, Karl behaved very foolishly: he got drunk and began bragging about his white goose that laid golden coins. One of the emperor’s soldiers happened to hear him, and the next morning Karl awoke from his sodden slumber to hear Giselle arguing with someone while angry Goosey made her rusty hinge sound.
“It’s just an ordinary goose,” Giselle was saying. “We caught her on Summer Hill.”
“The goose may be Spore Magic,” came the stranger’s voice. “I’m here to claim her for the emperor.”
Any miracle that might be as valuable as the flying saucers was called Spore Magic. And, by ancient imperial decree, all Spore Magic was the property of the Klaatu dynasty.
Goosey came running to the corner of the hut where Karl lay. If the goose is Spore Magic like the saucers, thought Karl, then the emperor will grant imperial favor to the one who brings her to him. Karl grabbed Goosey in his arms and went out to face the stranger.
It was a young knight of the emperor’s guard, smartly dressed in flowing silks and furs. One of the emperor’s flying saucers rested in the dirt of the peasants’ yard; the saucer was a young twenty-footer, still but lightly filigreed. All the peasants from the neighborhood had gathered, or were still gathering, to watch. None of the emperor’s saucers had ever landed here before, and none of the peasants had ever been inside a saucer.
“I will come with you to bring the goose to the palace,” said Karl, his voice trembling at the enormity of the proposal.
“No, Karl,” cried Giselle. “The goose is mine. And I fed her two more coins this morning.”
“Silence,” said Karl. “We cannot argue with the emperor. I will bring the goose to him, and he will grant me imperial favor. He will give me a bag of gold and the rank of baronet. Have a care, woman!” Karl held the goose tight and stepped away from Giselle.
The young knight looked at Karl doubtfully, but then said, “Very well. Carry the goose into the ship, peasant. But don’t touch anything. You’re filthy and you stink.”
The inside of the saucer was of smooth silvery metal delicately veined with copper. There was a bulge in the wall that made a bench that ran all around the circular cabin. As well as the open arch of the cabin door, there were round, open portholes ranged along the walls. So as not to sully the fine fabric of the cushions on the seats, old Karl sat on the floor with Goosey cradled securely his arms.
The knight controlled the saucer’s flight simply by talking to it. “Fly back to the courtyard of Emperor Klaatu’s palace,” said the knight, and the saucer lifted into the air. Wind whistled through the open door and portholes. The view was dizzying. What with the uneasiness in his stomach from last night’s debauch, it was too much for Karl, and as the ship turned to angle down to the emperor’s palace, he vomited between his legs onto the floor. Goosey pecked at the vomit.
“You cursed old fool,” cried the young knight, and favored Karl with a sharp kick in the ribs. Karl endured the abuse with no complaint. At least he had now flown in one of the emperor’s airships.
The saucer landed in the palace’s walled courtyard. The knight called for a scullion to clean up Karl’s mess, then led Karl across the courtyard and into the palace. Still clutched in Karl’s arms, the goose turned her head this way and that, watching everything with her clear, blue-irised eyes.
The emperor Klaatu was a small bald man with a dark beard and a penetrating gaze. Sitting at the emperor’s side was his fool, or minister, a fat clean-shaven man with a loose smile.
“Is this is the goose that lays golden coins?” demanded the emperor.
“Yes, sire,” said Karl. “And I freely bring her to you. Will you grant me imperial favor?”
“Favor?” asked the emperor.
“A purse of gold,” said Karl. “And I should like to be made a baronet. I could rule my neighborhood in the name of the empire. Even my wife would have to obey me.” He bowed low and set the goose down on the floor at the emperor’s feet.
The goose gave a rusty honk, waggled her bottom, and squeezed out a foul-smelling puddle that resembled Karl’s vomit.
“I’m to grant a baronetage for goose-droppings?” roared the emperor. The fool, or minister, cuffed Karl on the head, and the knight screamed for a scullion to clean up the mess.
“I think you have to feed the goose gold coins first,” stammered Karl. “She needs gold to make gold. She shits out copies of whatever you feed her. Do you have a coin you can feed her, sire? Or a large gem?”
“Oh, so I’m to give you jewels as well as gold?” cried the emperor. “Knight, lock this charlatan and
his goose in the dungeon. If the goose lays no gold by tomorrow, then put them both to death. I’ll have the goose roasted with turnips.”
“Oh, wait, please wait,” cried Karl, as all his courage fled from him. “If you want gold from the goose then you should cut her open right away. She still hasn’t shit out the two coins my wife fed her this morning.” The goose gave Karl a startled look as the peasant caught hold of her.
“Go on,” Karl begged the knight, stretching out the goose on the floor with her neck in his left hand and her feet in his right. “Cut the goose in half with your sword, sir knight. Cut right where she’s the fattest. I know there’s gold in her. Take the gold and flog me and set me free. Please spare me, my lords, as it is nearly Xday. I thought the goose was Spore Magic. I meant no harm.”
The emperor nodded to the knight, and the knight brought his razor sharp sword down on Goosey’s back, quite severing her breast and head from her feet and tail. What a shriek the poor goose gave!
Instead of gushing blood, the cut surfaces of the goose’s body were damp but firm, with the consistency and color of a ripe avocado. In the center of each surface was a hemispherical depression: Goosey was hollow at the center, hollow as an avocado without a pit. From the two halves of the cut-open cavity there oozed onto the stone floor a shiny fluid that quickly hardened into a puddle of gold.
Karl had let go of the goose as the sword struck. Now the goose’s rear section rocked back and began waddling around on its feet, while the front section settled its flat cut surface onto the floor and began honking and beating its wings. As the seconds passed, the rear section bulged up its top surface to grow a new breast, neck and head. At the same time, the front half of the goose rose slowly up onto a fresh-grown belly and legs. The flesh and feathers of the geese flowed and shifted as these transformations happened, so that the two new geese were each of half the weight of the original goose, with each new goose being about four-fifths the original size.
