The Ware Tetralogy

by Rudy Rucker

  Darla closed the door behind her and leaned against it. She noticed that Whitey was having trouble holding both the needler and the O.J. ugly stick. “Let me look at that needler, Whitey,” she said. “I’ve never seen one that big.” Whitey handed it to her and wrapped his hands firmly around the ugly stick.

  “I want to download my info onto an S-cube before we do anything else,” said Gurdle-7. “We don’t want to take any chances with my information about the Stairway To Heaven.”

  “No,” said Whitey. “We don’t.” And then he turned on the ugly stick and cut Gurdle-7 into pieces, moving the whispering stream of magnetically launched metal darts with practiced accuracy and speed. A few of the flechettes pinged off the stone walls of the room.

  “Don’t you dare call for help,” said Darla, pointing the needler at the three remaining moldies. “If I push the button, you stinkers go up in flames. Jenny! Start faking Gurdle-7’s uvvy signal, in case that nosy Shimmer checks on us. Frangipane and Ormolu! Mask your real thoughts and make your uvvy signals look like you’re watching Corey make an S-cube copy of Gurdle-7.”

  “Yaar,” said Whitey, training the muzzle of the O.J. ugly stick on the moldies. The air was thick with the astonishing stench of the shredded Gurdle-7. The frightened rath and Jubjub bird had disappeared behind the big machine in the corner.

  “We’re all riding the same wave, aren’t we, guys?” said Corey. “The aliens have to die.”

  “For sure,” said Darla. “Unless we want the human and the moldie races to end up selling souvenirs and running gambling casinos for the galactic gods.”

  “Um . . . too true!” said Jenny after a moment’s hesitation. Her voice wavered. “But poor Gurdle-7. We never thought it would turn out this way. He was so smart and so dumb.”

  “I am agree,” said Frangipane. “The aliens are a big mistake.”

  “I’m with you too,” said Ormolu. “I’ve been liking my life just the way it is. I don’t want this kind of cataclysmic change. But how do we kill the aliens? There’s twelve of them.”

  “I’ll set them on fire with this heavy-duty needler,” said Darla. “When I needled Rags this morning, he caught fire almost right away.”

  “Almost right away,” said Whitey. “But by the time you got two or three of the aliens lit, the others would be all over you. Don’t you have any more weapons, Corey? It would be stuzzadelic if all seven of us were armed.”

  “All I’ve got is water guns,” said Corey apologetically. “I’m a Dadaist artist. The whoopee cushion is mightier than the sword.”

  “I can spit things out really hard from any part of my body,” said Ormolu, stretching out his hand and ejecting something that struck against the room’s far wall with a resounding splat.

  “What was that?” asked Darla.

  “Camote truffle.”

  “That’s not going to kill anyone.”

  “We could point our ion jets at them,” said Jenny. “Except the jets aren’t hot.”

  “What about the equipment in this studio, Corey?” said Whitey. “Tell us what it all is and maybe we’ll think of something.”

  “Okay,” said Corey. “That old-timey machine in the corner is an injection molder. I use it to cast my Silly Putters into certain shapes. The workbench on the right is where I carve the models I use to make the molds. That tool that looks like an electric drill is a piezomorpher, it’s very good for carving imipolex. It uses ultrasound. Not much of a weapon, though, because you have to be right on top of the material to piezomorph it. It’s more like a dentist’s drill than like a bazooka. Now this bench over here is where I paint my Silly Putters. To some extent they can control their colors, but they need a basis to start from. You have to get the right pigments and metal oxides into their flesh for them to work with. This particular tool is something like an old-fashioned airbrush. Slightly higher-tech than an airbrush, because it shoots the color particles right into the plastic up to a depth of four centimeters. A volume-filling brush, in other words. It’s a good tool but, again, not particularly lethal.”

  While Corey talked, the three moldies grazed their way across the floor, quietly absorbing the pieces of imipolex that had been Gurdle-7. The rath and the Jubjub bird came creeping out of hiding to snuffle up the smaller crumbs.

  “I hope none of you moldies is ending up with the intact Stairway To Heaven information?” said Darla, fingering her needler.

  “Not to worry,” said Frangipane, now about thirty percent larger than before. “I have already reprogram all the imipolex I just ate.” She sprouted two new petals, hiccupped, and spit out some triangular flat ugly-stick darts as if they were watermelon seeds. “Excusez moi.”

  “No problem here either, Darla,” said Ormolu, who was staring down at his body with evident satisfaction. “I turned all of my Gurdle-7 share into muscle.” He flexed his legs and made taut ridges spring out along them.

  “I didn’t save any of Gurdle-7’s science information,” said Jenny. “But I’m keeping some of his feelings, no matter what you say. He was a bold explorer. And we loved each other.” For a giant carrot, she looked quite humanly miserable.

  “How about those cans and bottles on the shelves?” Whitey asked Corey. “What’s in them?”

  “Chemicals. Like resins and polymers for doctoring the imipolex. And paints and solvents for coloring the Putters.”

  “Solvents!” exclaimed Whitey. “We could make firebombs!”

  “Oh right!” said Darla. “Like we’ll walk back into the conservatory lugging buckets of gasoline. If the aliens see what’s coming, they’ll attack us first. Or take hostages. I don’t want anything to happen to Yoke or Joke. No, we have to think of a way to hit those freeware slugs giga fast and yotta vicious.”

  “I have an idea!” said Frangipane after a minute’s thought. “We can spit out little balls of imipolex and have them move like the smart kinetic-energy bombs.” She flicked one of her petals and sent a little lump of shiny gold imipolex bouncing across the room. “It is a waste of imipolex, but now after eating poor Gurdle-7, we can spare a little.”

  “So how’s a bouncing glob going to hurt an alien?” asked Corey. The little gold ball bounced past the rath, and the rath sprang forward in an effort to gulp it down. As if in reaction, the ball took a sudden backward bounce, hit the rath in the nose, then bounced several more times with increasing amplitude, finally caroming off the wall and ceiling to return to Frangipane.

  “Voila,” said Frangipane. “The bouncing glob is clever.”

  “We can control pieces of ourselves, even after we split them off,” explained Jenny. “Though, of course, if you get totally minced like poor Gurdle-7, there’s nothing left to do any controlling.” She whipped the thin tip of her carrot body to one side and sent another ball a-bouncing, and this time the Jubjub bird tried to catch it. Just as Frangipane had done, Jenny used her uvvy signals to guide the ball safely back to herself.

  “Big xoxxin’ deal,” said Darla. “A smart plastic ball.”

  “Attendez!” said Frangipane. “It is the next part that is the really new idea. If I put a sufficient amount of my quantum dots into a smart little ball, then I can make it commit the suicide.” She spat another nugget of imipolex off into the air, but this time, just as the little ball neared the ceiling, it made a popping sound and fiercely caught ablaze. Flapping its flames like a burning mothball, it fell to the stone floor and consumed itself. “La poof!” exclaimed Frangipane.

  “Yaar,” said Whitey admiringly. “Flamin’ poofballs!”

  “Uvvy us how to do that, Frangipane!” said Ormolu. A few seconds later, Ormolu and Jenny had learned the trick. Ormolu splatted a fat poofball against the stone wall, where it burst into flame like a sticky glob of napalm. Jenny shot a barrage of four tiny flaming poofballs toward the rath, sending it out again for cover.

  “You moldies can act like machine-gun flamethrowers!” exclaimed Darla. “The aliens won’t have a chance!”

  “But—whoah
—that one poofball used up a lot of quantum dots,” said Ormolu, feeling down into himself.

  “Yes, I am afraid if I shoot very many poofballs, I won’t have enough energy left to use my jets,” said Frangipane. “I would not like that.”

  “But I have a huge stash of quantum dots!” exclaimed Corey. “I use them to charge up my Silly Putters before I sell them. Look here.” He opened a cabinet and took out a shiny flask with little tubes and wires all over it. “It’s a magnetic bottle. Ten grams in there! Stoke yourselves up to the max, guys.”

  “Save some for me to put into the needler and the ugly stick as well,” said Whitey. “We want them at full charge.”

  Frangipane decanted a hefty splash of the quantum dot superfluid onto herself. It was odd silvery-gray stuff that didn’t move like an ordinary liquid. Then she passed the bottle on to the other two moldies. They practiced firing off a few more flaming poofballs while Whitey charged up the needler and the ugly stick.

  “The poofballs are perfect,” exclaimed Corey. “I love them. I want to make a fire-breathing Silly Putter dragon when we get through with this. And maybe a mad fire-farter. Hey! Not so near the supply shelves, Jenny! We don’t want to explode those cans of solvents, do we? Speaking of safe fire practices, has anyone thought about what happens after we light the aliens? We’re talking about nearly a ton of flaming imipolex. What’s that going to do to my isopod? And how are we going to breathe with all the smoke?”

  “This place is compartmentalized against blowouts,” said Whitey. “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard you or Willy bragging about it, Corey. We just leave the conservatory and seal it off. The floor and walls are stone, and if the flames melt a hole in the titanplast ceiling, so much the better. The vacuum will put the fire out. According to what you’ve always said about the isopod’s design, the blowout won’t spread past the conservatory.”

  “Well, yeah, that’s how it’s supposed to be,” allowed Corey. “But remember, it’s just Willy who designed it. And we’ve never tested it. Getting out of the conservatory in time is gonna be hella chaotic.”

  “Give me that needler and let’s get going,” interrupted Darla, taking the big weapon back from Whitey. “My plan is simple. I’m going to stand near Joke and Yoke and blast every alien in sight.”

  “Yaar,” said Whitey “And I’ll use the ugly stick, and the moldies here can be spitting poofballs. What are you going to do, Corey?”

  “I’m going to stand by the door and make sure everyone gets out in time. Especially me.” Corey hunkered down and called the rath and the Jubjub bird. “You moldies better hurry up and do that vaccination thing before we go back. We’ve been in here so long that I bet the aliens are starting to get suspicious.”

  “I’ve been like listening to them talk,” said Jenny, cocking her body to one side. “They’re not suspicious at all. Somebody who used to be a quasar vortex or a giant crystal has no idea about how long things are supposed to take here people. Terri’s fast asleep and Willy, Joke, and Yoke are asking the aliens questions.” Jenny gave one of her inane giggles. “They’re asking about God and the meaning of life.”

  “Here you go, wigglers,” said Corey, offering the rath and the Jubjub bird to the moldies. “You can do the vaccinations yourselves. We didn’t really need to come back to my limpware studio for this at all. You just uvvy into one of these Putters and grep through the Limplan code to find the routine labeled ‘Cubic Homeostasis’. Shell it around your uvvy reception ware and you’re vaccinated. But be careful not to put it anywhere in your main action group or you’ll turn into a Silly Putter and get real simple.”

  Frangipane wrapped her petals around the kicking, squealing rath. She looked like a Venus fly-trap eating a fat green beetle. Meanwhile Jenny ensnared the cawing Jubjub bird with the tentacles at the blunt end of her carrot. Then Frangipane passed the rath to Ormolu and he held it tight under his arm, absorbing the Cubic Homeostasis algorithm for himself. Meanwhile they discussed the plan of attack a little more.

  A few minutes later, they were walking back down the hall toward the conservatory Corey was holding the rath and the Jubjub bird. He’d temporarily paralyzed them so that he could cradle them in one arm Darla carried the needler and Whitey carried the ugly stick, both of them holding their weapons casually dangling. Jenny and Ormolu were pretending to argue, getting ready to distract the aliens.

  They found things in the conservatory much as they had left them. Terri was stretched out full-length, asleep on one couch, Joke and Yoke were perched next to each other on one of the other couches, and Willy was excitedly pacing about on the far side of the room. Four of the aliens were grouped near the fountain, dabbling their fingers in the water and talking with Yoke and Joke. The other eight freeware-possessed moldies were off on the far side of the room, examining S-cubes and conversing with Willy.

  “You are such a bully!” screeched Jenny as they entered. She tossed the fat end of her carrot from side to side and then thudded it into Ormolu. Ormolu seemed to lose his footing and tumbled like an acrobat, knocking over a plant and pin-wheeling his arms. He wound up on the other side of the couches, right near the far wall where the eight aliens were gathered.

  “It’s not my fault I love you, Jenny!” shouted Ormolu, kneeling with his back to the eight aliens and holding out his hands supplicatingly toward Jenny.

  “What’s going on?” demanded Joke.

  “Oh, these dooky slugs are in some kind of tussle,” said Darla dismissively. “Gurdle-7 and Ormolu are both hot for Jenny—if you can believe that. They had an argument, and Gurdle-7 is sulking in Corey’s studio.” She flopped down on the couch next to Yoke and Joke, setting down the needler beside her so that it pointed at the four aliens by the fountain, one of whom was Shimmer.

  “Hello, Darla,” said Shimmer, but Darla acted like she was too busy staring at Jenny to answer.

  “You’re saying you love me?” Jenny paraded across the room, tossing and undulating for all she was worth. Running her shrill voice up and down the octaves. “What will you do to prove it?” Now she was standing over the kneeling Ormolu.

  “This oughtta be very weightless,” Whitey announced loudly. “You aliens oughtta check this out.” He went and perched on the other end of the couch with Yoke and Joke, holding the O.J. ugly stick with exaggerated casualness. Frangipane circled around and stood near the other end of the grouping of eight aliens.

  “Do you know any floatin’ chaotic attractors, Ormolu?” shrilled Jenny. “Make one for me. Make the Nguyen Attractor!”

  “What the hell is wrong with you moldies?” said Willy, turning away from the aliens to yell angrily at Jenny and Ormolu. “We’ve just been having this incredibly fascinating philosophical discussion, and you stinkers barge in here and start acting like—good Lord, I didn’t know moldies could do that!”

  On her couch, Terri sat up and rubbed her eyes. Darla shifted the needler to her lap and prayed that Terri wouldn’t take it into her mind to walk between her and the four aliens by the fountain.

  Ormolu’s upper body had broken into threads that were looping around in hypnotic weaving patterns of standing waves. Like a hydra head of a thousand thin filaments, with the envelopes of the filaments’ motions forming a hallucinatory shape of warping, mutating curves.

  “Big xoxxin’ deal,” griped Yoke. “That’s nothing compared to what Syzzy here has been telling us about—”

  “But wait!” called Corey, still standing off by the door that led from the conservatory to the hallway. ”Everyone watch very closely to see what Ormolu does next!”

  “Oh, I am so ready!” screeched Jenny, dancing around to stand to the side of Ormolu. “I’m ready now!”

  At this signal, Frangipane, Jenny, and Ormolu began spewing out withering streams of flaming poofballs, Ormolu shooting from out of a freshly formed pucker in the center of his back. Meanwhile Whitey began firing the ugly stick into the bodies of the aliens by the fountain. And at the same moment, Darla p
ressed the needler button and sent a slow straight line across the aliens by the fountain and—yes!—three of them burst into flame. With its strong fresh charge, the needler was much more powerful than any she’d ever used. It instantly grew hot in her hand, but she hung onto it, flicking the dazzling violet laser beam back and forth across the three aliens, setting them alight here, there, and everywhere, even as Whitey’s ugly stick chewed them to pieces.

  The only problem was that the fourth alien kept moving out of the way each time that Darla or Whitey shot. This was Shimmer. No matter how hard you tried to shoot her, Shimmer was always just out of the line of fire. Whitey stood up and moved around her, blazing away with the ugly stick, but hitting Shimmer was impossible. She wasn’t moving particularly fast, but magically, effortlessly, as if by repeated strokes of luck, Shimmer was never in the spot where a flechette or needler beam ended up.

  Darla glanced over to the far wall—Jenny, Frangipane, and Ormolu had killed all eight of their aliens, the eight bodies a great heap of smoking, crackling flame. Someone shoved Darla. It was Joke. She was screaming, “Stop!” Darla realized then that Joke had been screaming the whole time. “Stop hurting them!” Joke struck Darla’s hand, and the blisteringly hot needler clattered to the floor. Darla clawed for it, but Joke kicked it aside. Shimmer was standing right in front of them by the fountain.

  “We missed one!” shouted Darla to the three moldies. “We missed Shimmer!”

  A dozen pellets of imipolex whistled past Darla’s head. Shimmer bent slightly to one side and lifted her leg. All the poofballs missed her and burst harmlessly into flames against the fountain’s basin. Whitey got around behind Joke, Yoke, and Darla to shoot the ugly stick toward Shimmer some more and completely missed her again and again. Shimmer turned and ducked and hopped and pirouetted, moving in dreamy slow motion, always in the right place at the right time. The room was filling with thick black smoke, oily with plastic and—Darla realized in a sudden wave of disorientation—loaded with the psychedelic vapors of camote.