The Ware Tetralogy

by Rudy Rucker

  “Greetings, Blaster,” the great moldie creature uvvied in a rich female voice. “What is your cargo?”

  “Twenty mudder moldies aboard, Flapper gal,” answered the rocket grex in deep resonant tones. “And one flesher.”

  “A flesher?!” sang Flapper, her voice rising through three registers and falling back down to purr on the r.

  “It seems our hardworking Heritagist friend Randy Karl Tucker abducted some woman’s pet moldie, a moldie named Monique. This woman, her name is Terri Percesepe no less, she came after Monique inside of Monique’s brother Xanana. We caught them during blastoff.”

  “You caught a woman?” trilled Flapper. “Where is she? I want to see her.” She shrieked the see to a lovely throbbing peak. Flapper’s voice was like the rich beautiful instrument of a grand opera diva.

  “Move your eye over here, Flapper babe.”

  An eye at the end of a stalk as thick as a leg came bulging out of the flying stingray and stopped right in front of Terri’s faceplate.

  “Oh, there she is!” exclaimed Flapper. “How remarkable. Can she hear us?”

  “Can you hear us, Terri?” boomed Blaster.

  Terri, frightened to death, remained silent.

  “Do you want me to pick her out of you?” warbled the stingray, growing a tendril with a huge claw. For these monsters, Terri was a parasite on a par with a tick. “Shall I get rid of her?”

  “Of course not,” uvvied Blaster. “She’ll be worth something. This has been a most lucrative trip. Did I mention that at the last minute I also landed Monique’s husband Xlotl and Xanana’s wife Ouish? Four moldies from the same nest! What a catch!”

  “You do well for the great Nest, Blaster. High flight!” Flapper let go and swooped away.

  Now Blaster pulled fully above the atmosphere and the sky got black. There were stars everywhere. Blaster’s ion jets roared and roared, then finally fell silent. They were on course for the Moon.

  Terri tested her uvvy contact with Xanana’s mind again. He dreamed himself adrift in a galaxy of spiral lights that were spiral galaxies made up of spiral lights.

  “Terri,” uvvied Blaster’s deep voice suddenly. “I know you can hear me. Answer me.”

  “You already know all about me,” said Terri bitterly. “What else is there to say?”

  “I’m glad you tried to save your Monique,” chuckled Blaster. “I didn’t think I could catch so many moldies so fast.”

  “What are you?” asked Terri.

  “I’m a group moldie from the Moon. I come to Earth to recruit new loonies. Moldies are better off on the Moon, instead of being your mudder slaves.”

  “How can you work with Heritagists?”

  “In some ways the loonies and the Heritagists want the same thing: we want more moldies to move to the Moon. The mad rush for the sodden pleasures of Earth has depleted our pure Nest. Many of us feel that it is only through a strong Nest that the moldie race can best pursue its destiny.”

  “Somehow I don’t think these moldies you kidnapped are going to be very happy.”

  “They just need education,” said Blaster. “And it starts now. I’m turning off their superleeches. I’ll give you an uvvy feed of your Monique so you can see how she and the others react.” And then Terri could sense the thoughts of Monique.

  Monique was awake, her old self, only not quite, for she was wedged in with a mass of other moldies, with other crankily waking abducted moldies like herself. Terri watched Monique push an eyestalk out of the ship’s bulk to see where she was, and then Terri shared Monique’s pang at the sight of the heartbreakingly lovely orb of receding Mother Earth.

  “Greetings,” announced Blaster’s voice. “My name is Blaster. You mudder moldies are getting a fresh start. You’re coming to the Moon to join your forefathers. And stop that grumbling. The loonie moldies need you, your minds as well as your bodies. You come to join us as equals.”

  “Xlotl!” called Monique into the group uvvy mind that was made up of Blaster’s members and the newly shanghaied moldies. “Is Xlotl here?”

  “Yeah, babe!” came the happy answer. “I swam after you and Randy Karl Tucker. I figure you carried him a mile offshore. He must have got in the Percesepe fishing boat and told you to dive straight down to a giant group moldie lurking on the bottom like a whale. Blaster. Blaster lashed out and got me too, got me and Xanana and Ouish. Monique, once Blaster had you, I . . . I wanted them to take me too. Blaster’s a rocket. We’re going to the Moon, Monique. Where there’s no fuckin’ air or water.”

  “You’ll like it anyway,” uvvied Blaster’s big voice. “We’ve got a huge underground Nest with no fleshers. It’s the same place where the boppers used to live. We need you moldies—and not just to be maids and cooks.”

  Blaster allowed Monique to squirm through the massed moldies and to press against Xlotl’s side.

  “Whaddya think, Monique?” uvvied Xlotl.

  “It might work, Xlotl. A new start. I’m willing to try.”

  The rocket pushed forward, leaving Earth behind. The reunited lovers were content. But Terri was frantic.

  “I want to go back to Earth,” Terri told Blaster. “To my husband and children. To my life.”

  “Not until I find a way to make some profit off of you,” said Blaster.

  “Send me back!” insisted Terri. “Spit me and Xanana out right now, and Xanana could fly me home. Couldn’t you, Xanana?”

  “I could,” said Xanana. “But I have to admit I’m curious about what it’s going to be like on the Moon. I’d never have had the nerve to go there on my own.”

  “I might zombie box her and sell her as a pink-tank worker,” said Blaster.

  “Don’t do that,” said Xanana. “She deserves better. Why don’t you try and get a ransom for her?”

  “Maybe from the Percesepe family,” said Blaster. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. But they’re like allies of mine through the Heritagist connection, and it would look bad to be holding them up for ransom. Is there anyone else who might pay, Terri? Do you have any important friends?”

  “Stahn Mooney!” exclaimed Terri. “Ask him. My husband Tre works for one of Stahn’s companies. You moldies have a lot of respect for Stahn, right?”

  “We don’t respect any fleshers,” said Blaster. “Can’t you understand that? In any case, I’d want to hand you over to someone on the Moon. Do you know anyone on the Moon, Terri?”

  Terri racked her brain. Starshine had mentioned some friends of Mooney’s—a man named Whitey Mydol who lived with a woman named Darla.

  “Uh . . . have you ever heard of Whitey Mydol? And Darla?”

  “Yeah, I have,” said Blaster. “Maybe I’ll get in touch with them. So long for now.”

  “Wait,” cried Terri. “How long is this flight going to take? What am I going to eat and drink?”

  “You fleshers,” growled Blaster. “Always asking for more. The trip takes a week. Can’t you wait for food and water till we get there?”

  “No.”

  “Let Xanana worry about it. He’s the one who brought you.”

  Terri focused on Xanana’s uvvy feed. He was happier and happier about going to the Moon.

  “Xanana, can you make food and water for me?”

  “Well, I can drip out some moldie juice for you. It’s sort of like sap, except you won’t like the way it smells. It’s nourishing. How are your nose filters holding up?”

  Terri hadn’t thought about them for a while. She felt her nose, stiff with the palladium sponges inside its nostrils. “The filters are fine. I guess I’d like to try some moldie juice. My mouth is awfully dry.”

  “I’ll push out a nipple by your mouth. Just suck on it.”

  Terri put her lips around the slick imipolex nipple and cautiously sucked. Her mouth filled with a lukewarm salty flow of slippery fluid. Thanks to the nose filters, she couldn’t really smell it, and she was able to swallow it down without gagging.

  “Thank you, Xanana. I’ll re
pay you somehow.”

  “No need. I’m happy you got me into this.”

  Terri drifted off into a dreamless nap. At some point she began having a vision of Tre. It took her a minute or two to realize that this was an uvvy call and that she was again awake.

  Tre was standing on the patch of lawn in front of the motel office. It was night and he was staring up at the sky. “Terri! Finally! Are you okay?”

  “I’m alive, but it’s a pretty iffy situation. I’m inside a moldie grex that’s flying to the Moon. What a freak show. Are the children all right?”

  “They’re scared. It was hard to get them to sleep. We saw that moldie rocket blasting off; we were looking at the ocean just then. Then Everooze came over and told us the bad news. Can you breathe? Is there water?”

  “So far Xanana’s taking care of me. But it’s going to take seven days.”

  “Oh, Terri. I can’t stand to think of you alone up there in outer space. Will the moldies let you go when they get to the Moon?”

  “They want to sell me for ransom. You’re supposed to get Stahn Mooney to call Whitey Mydol and Darla on the Moon. If Mooney will pay.”

  “He’ll pay all right—if I have to kill him. He owes me big-time. Remember how he gave my 4D Poultry source code to Emperor Staghorn Beetle Larvae, Ltd.? This afternoon I found out that Emperor Staghorn used my poultry to invent the superleeches. And thanks to the superleeches, my wife is on her way to the Moon. Oh, Terri. I’m sorry I haven’t been nicer to you. I love you so much.”

  “Just get me out of this, Tre, and don’t waste energy guilt-tripping yourself. I don’t want to end up down in the loonie moldies’ Nest.”

  “I’ll talk to Stahn again right away. And then I’m gonna jam some math. This stuff Emperor Staghorn came up with is pretty exciting.”

  “Take good care of the kids. Maybe they can uvvy me in the morning. The view from here is stunning. I’d like to show it to them.”

  “We’ll call early tomorrow. In about ten hours. Hang in there, darling. I’ll call Mooney now and make sure Whitey and Darla ransom you as soon as Blaster hits the Moon. I love you so much, Terri. You’re so small and precious, up there in the sky.”

  “And I love you, Tre.”

  Tre’s image jittered away, and Terri stared back at shiny soft small Gaia with her own eyes.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WILLY

  March 17, 2031 - July 2052

  The day after Willy Taze got off death row, he met Stahn Mooney.

  Willy and his rebel friends were bopper lovers; they thought artificial life forms were just as good as people. The rebels busted Willy out of the Louisville jail and smuggled him down to Florida, where he could do some good. Willy made the trip hidden in a truckload of meat, garbed in an imipolex bubble-topper spacesuit for warmth and air. The minute he hit Florida, Willy got on a computer and gosperized the Gimmie’s air defenses with turd bits and foo series so that the a-life invasion could come down. Around dawn an old woman named Annie Cushing drove Willy to a particular beach on Sanibel Island, Florida, Willy still wearing his bubbletopper, the date March 17, 2031, a day that would be forever known as Spore Day.

  There was a sound of ion jets, abruptly terminated, and then Stahn and Wendy came coasting down from the sky on big Happy Cloak wings; they were each wearing about a hundred kilograms of chipmold-infected imipolex. In the firmament high above them, quadrillions of chipmold spores formed a barely visible cirrostratus cloud made wavy by the steady nibbling of the subtropical jet stream. The rising sun glinted off the spore cloud, tracing a great halo that would soon circle the heavens worldwide. Spore Day marked the death of Gaia’s boppers and chips, the birth of her moldies and DIMs.

  “It’s good to be back,” said Stahn. “Thank you, Willy. Thanks, Annie.” He slung his right wing across Willy’s back. The heavy wing pulled loose from Stahn and stayed on Willy, merging its plastic with Willy’s bubbletopper and sinking thin probes into his neck.

  Willy smiled to feel the boiling rush of information. The Happy Cloak spoke to him and transmitted direct messages from Stahn and Wendy. It was like having them whisper in his ears.

  “Let’s stride,” murmured Stahn. “I don’t want a lot of goobs to see me here.”

  “I’m for it,” answered Willy. “The farther underground I go, the better.” He turned to Annie. “Thanks for helping.”

  “God bless you, Willy,” said old Annie. “Your grandfather Cobb would be proud of you. Keep it bouncing.”

  And then the smart moldie ’Cloaks formed themselves into dolphin shapes, and Willy, Stahn, and Wendy took off undersea. The clear Gulf waters were shallow out to about a mile, where the bottom dropped off steeply. Huge surgeonfish and groupers sped away from the moldie-encased humans.

  “Where we going?” asked Willy.

  “I want to swim around to the other side of Florida and get near Cocoa Beach,” said Stahn. “At the right moment, we’ll blast up out of the water like old-time submarine-launched missiles.”

  “I’ll blast off?”

  “No, man, just me and Wendy. We’re going to fly up to the spaceship Selena that’s landing at the spaceport tomorrow. Of course the Selena’s bopper slave computers are already dead, but this woman Fern Beller is piloting the ship down. Fern is very together. She’s wearing a Happy Cloak and doing the astrogation in her head. She’ll let me and Wendy aboard so quietly that nobody will know how we really came down.”

  “Why can’t I come too?” asked Willy. “If the Gimmie catches up with me—”

  “Exactly,” said Stahn. “Which is why you don’t want to be on the Selena when she lands. There’ll be customs inspectors, reporters, xoxxin’ Gimmie pigs, and quarantine for all aboard. It’s no prob for me because I’m a hero; for you it would be back to the death house. Once the pig truly grasps that the chipmold’s already infected everything, they’ll let me and Wendy out of quarantine. Probably take six weeks, tops. ISDN’ll pay off whoever they have to pay. And dig it, man, then me and Wendy move to San Francisco and I run for the U.S. Senate.”

  “I think Willy should move to the Moon,” said Wendy’s light voice. “It’s nice there. Not so heavy. The gravity’s too strong on Earth. I could hardly stand up on the beach just now. Go to the Moon, Willy.”

  “Affirmo!” said Stahn. “The Moon is where it’s kickin’. Fern can take you when she goes back, Willy. Lay low for a month or two, however long it takes, and then sneak aboard when the Selena gets cleared for takeoff. You can hook up with Fern when she gets out of quarantine. You lucky dog. Fern, Fern, Fern—the woman is hot.”

  “You’re married now, Stahn,” warned Wendy. “And I’m pregnant.”

  “I’m only saying that she’s hot. I won’t act out. I promise. Anyway, she doesn’t like me.”

  “While I’m waiting for Fern—” put in Willy. “I should hang around Cocoa?”

  “It shouldn’t be a problem,” said Stahn. “The Gimmie is going to be xoxxed as of today. Spore Day! In a week there won’t be a computer working on the whole planet. Not one.”

  Stahn was right about that; in fact, most computers were dead by the end of the day. He and Wendy took off for the Selena the next morning, and that evening Willy and his Happy Cloak swam ashore and landed in a small estuarial swamp.

  “I’ll stash you here in these mangrove thickets,” Willy told his ’Cloak.

  “If you do that, I won’t wait for you,” said the ’Cloak. “I have not traveled all this way to cower in filth. Keep me with you; wear me as a garment. I’ll slide down low and emulate a workman’s heavy boots and trousers. I can shift my plug-in to the base of your spine.”

  “If you’re going to be a long-term symbiote with me, I ought to have a name for you,” said Willy.

  “Call me Ulam,” said the ’Cloak. “It’s an abbreviated form of a dead bopper’s name: Ulalume. Most of my imipolex used to be Ulalume’s flickercladding—Stahn had a couple of boppers’ worth on his back. Ulalume was female, but I think of m
yself as a male. Be still while I move the plug-in, and then we can go.”

  So here’s shirtless Willy under the star-spangled Florida sky with eighty pounds of moldie for his shoes and pants, scuffing across the cracked concrete of the JFK spaceport pad. The great concrete apron was broken up by a widely spaced grid of drainage ditches, and the spaceport buildings were dark. It occurred to Willy that he was very hungry.

  There was a roar and blaze in the sky above. The Selena was coming down. Close, too close. The nearest ditch was so far he wouldn’t make it in time, Willy thought, but once he started running, Ulam kicked in and superamplified his strides, cushioning on the landing and flexing on the takeoffs. They sprinted a quarter of a mile in under twenty seconds and threw themselves into the coolness of the ditch, lowering down into the funky brackish water. The juddering yellow flame of the great ship’s ion beams reflected off the ripples around them. A hot wind of noise blasted loud and louder; then all was still.

  Ordinarily a fleet of trucks might have surrounded the Selena to unload her, but on this evening, the day after Spore Day, there were no vehicles that functioned. A small group of Gimmie officials walked out to the Selena and waited until its hatch was hand-winched open. Watching from his drainage ditch, Willy saw Stahn, Wendy, and the others being led away. He spotted the one who was probably Fern Beller, the tall willowy brunette who was doing all the talking.

  “Looks like they left the Selena all alone,” Willy observed to his Happy Cloak.

  “The Selena can act by herself if need be,” said Ulam. “Fear not.”

  “I’m really hungry,” said Willy. “Let’s go into town and find some food.” As they walked the rest of the way across the spaceport field, they encountered a crowd of aggrieved Florida locals, many of them senior citizens.

  “Y’all come from that ship?” demanded one of them, a lean Cuban. His voice was tight and high.