The Ware Tetralogy

by Rudy Rucker

  “Tell me about Onar.”

  “Onar sucks,” chuckled Cobb. “Just ask Yoke. She can’t stand him anymore.” Cobb did an imitation of Yoke’s voice. “ ‘Onar’s dishonest and a bad lover and he acts British and all British things suck. Except for Lewis Carroll.’ ”

  “Who’s Lewis Carroll?”

  “Tsk, Phil. Alice in Wonderland? And your father a math teacher. Never mind. Onar and the King are so bummed about Yoke getting the alla. They want one of their own, but for now they have to be satisfied with Yoke making stuff for them. Mostly imipolex. She gave me some too.” They’d reached their apogee, and now they were hurtling down toward the great blue sea with its tiny white-edged dots of green islands. “The alla makes realware; it uses direct matter control.”

  “Oh man, this is too much,” complained Phil. “You’ve only been down here two days and I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about anymore.”

  “I haven’t even mentioned the powerball yet,” said Cobb. “The hand of Om. Om is the god of the Metamartians. She ate your father.”

  “You mean the wowo thing?”

  “The wowo was what attracted Om. Like a flower for a hummingbird. Or a candle for a moth. Or a book for a scientist. And Om is—well, the Metamartians say she’s God. Whenever the Metamartians go somewhere, Om shows up too. The powerballs are like fingers of Om.”

  “Cobb!” shouted Phil. The islands were rushing up insanely fast. “Stop the bullshit and pay attention! Slow down!”

  “Aw, I’m getting really good at this,” said Cobb, unfurling a bunch of wildly flapping imipolex ribbons. The ribbons flexed themselves, tearing at the air. Cobb continued to drop like a stone, but at least he’d stopped accelerating. They were fluttering toward a large, hook-shaped island with subsidiary islands scattered around it like appendages. It reminded Phil of a flea seen through a microscope, a big flea riddled with watery lagoons and intricate inlets, the island’s harbor like a stomach. There were yachts floating in the harbor, and a small cluster of buildings beside it.

  “The island of Vava’u,” said Cobb. “The little town is Neiafu.”

  Cobb’s ribbons fused into great wings, and he sailed serenely over Neiafu and across the harbor to home in on one of the tiny islands that peppered the harbor straits. Cobb’s target island stuck out of the sparkling water like a verdant muffin; it had a high, round crown leading down to vertical, undercut sides. The summit of the island had been cleared down to the bare stone, and perched there was a single house, a sturdy yellow concrete building with a tin roof, much weathered. Beside the house was the aquamarine gem of a small swimming pool, seemingly carved right into the rock. Steps ran down the steep side of the island to a dock floating in the blue sea. Cobb touched down beside the pool, right next to a young woman sitting at a wicker table. Yoke.

  “You’re welcome,” said Cobb, disgorging a shaken Phil onto the concrete pool apron.

  “Thanks, Cobb. Hi, Yoke!”

  “Phil.” Yoke was smiling so hard that her cheeks were bunched and her eyes were slitty. Phil sprang forward and hugged her; she hugged back. Now, finally, they kissed. But only briefly.

  “You smell like moldie,” said Yoke. “Let’s take a dip.”

  Phil had a bathing suit in his backpack, and in a minute they were in the pool, swimming back and forth, laughing and splashing. Cobb wandered over to the house, which had a veranda shaded by woven mats of palm-leaves. There were two other moldies lying slack in the sun, and a few Tongans were sitting in the shade, some of them playing cards. Phil counted four big men and two women. All of them were staring, but Phil did his best to ignore them.

  “It’s beautiful here,” said Phil, taking in the house, the palms, the ocean, the blue sky. “Whose is it?”

  “It’s the King’s,” said Yoke. “He’s turned it over to me. I’m really important all of a sudden. Thanks to the aliens. You showed up just in time. I was starting to get lonely.”

  The jewel-like beetle that had been sitting on Yoke was buzzing around overhead. “That’s an alien?” said Phil, pointing at it.

  “Greetings, Phil,” said the beetle, settling down to float on the water’s surface. “I am Josef.” His six legs twitched, sending off tiny ripples. “A Metamartian.”

  “Cobb claims you can see the future?” asked Phil. “Okay, what number am I thinking of? Between one and ten.”

  “You have not yet made a decision,” said Josef. He had an odd, Germanic accent. “You are wavering between three, five, and seven. But now that I have given you this information, you are narrowing in on—”

  “Four!” said Phil and Josef at the same time.

  “Do you require further proof?” said Josef. “Try if you can touch me.”

  Phil reached out with his finger, but no matter how rapidly or abruptly he moved it, the little Josef was always where the finger wasn’t. The beetle wasn’t darting around or anything, he was just drifting this way and that, his legs mildly kicking. He had a preternatural gift of doing a zig whenever Phil did a zag.

  “So I’ve got Josef’s precognition going for me,” said Yoke proudly. “And I’ve got a magic alla. Each of the aliens has one of these inside their body.”

  Phil had noticed that Yoke had a shimmering gold cylinder in a mesh pouch dangling from her waist. Yoke got out the alla and held it in her hand. “I’ll turn some water into air,” said Yoke. “Actualize!” There was a bluish glow underwater, and right away a big bubble came surging up out of the pool. Fomp.

  “Like a fart in a bathtub,” said Phil, not quite sure what was going on. The glow had looked like a spherical mesh of lines. “Do it again?”

  “Yeah!” said Yoke. “But now I’ll make a bubble of hydrogen and oxygen. And I’ll put in a spark so it explodes!”

  “Not so big!” warned Josef, buzzing back into the air. “Not too near! Remember that the alla’s transmutation zone does not need to be immediately adjacent to the alla.”

  Yoke said “Actualize” again, and a bright glow appeared beneath the water at the far end of the pool, followed by a sudden, concussive jolt. Phil could feel the shock of the explosion all up and down his legs. A dome of water shot several feet up into the air.

  “Yaaar!” said Phil. “How are you doing that, really?”

  “Ready for another blast?” said Yoke.

  “The housekeeper is going to come and scold you,” said Josef, hovering fretfully above them.

  “Do it, Yoke,” said Phil.

  Another explosive fomp and, sure enough, a glossy-haired Tongan woman appeared at the poolside.

  “Don’t you be cracking my pool, Yoke. And who is this man?”

  “This is my friend Phil,” said Yoke. “And Phil, this is Ms. Teta. Can you make up a room for Phil, Ms. Teta?”

  “HRH doesn’t want anyone here but you and me and the cook and the guards. The alla is supposed to be top secret.”

  “Yeah, and the King tells someone new every time he turns around. I’m not a prisoner! That was the deal. I can have a guest if I want to.”

  “I’ll ask Kennit.”

  “Here’s some more gold,” said Yoke. She paddled to the water’s edge and held her alla out over the patio. “Actualize twenty-five gold coins.” A shimmering cylinder appeared near one end of the tube. The cylinder filled with a pattern like ghostly marmalade and then a pile of twenty-five gold coins fell jingling to the stone. Phil felt a little puff of breeze.

  “This is too good to last,” said Ms. Teta, stooping to scoop up the coins. “This is making me most uneasy.”

  “I could give some gold to Kennit too,” said Yoke.

  “He won’t take it,” said Ms. Teta. “Kennit is an upright man. Would you like some breakfast, Phil?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll tell the cook.”

  “Oh, let me make it with the alla,” said Yoke. “It’s more exciting.”

  “The devil’s food,” said Ms. Teta, shaking her head. “I don’t know how this is going to end
.”

  Yoke and Phil dried off and sat down at the little wicker table. Yoke grasped the alla and made, in succession, a hot cup of coffee, a sourdough roll, a ramekin of honey, and two halves of a papaya. The bread was a bit dense, but on the whole it was remarkably good.

  “All right,” said Phil, chewing. “Explain.”

  “I don’t know how it works,” said Yoke. “It’s like magic. The alla has this virtual catalog that I can see in my uvvy. The aliens gave me that too. I pick something from the catalog and the alla makes it when I say ‘Actualize.’ ”

  “But you don’t have to think of every detail of each thing?” asked Phil. “The molecules of the coffee, the air bubbles in the bread, the sugar-crystals in the honey?”

  “No,” said Yoke. “The aliens already programmed all that. But I think I can put the alla-catalog materials together in new ways. I haven’t really tried that yet. I might be able to make some very complicated things, like by designing a program to put things together. That’s a type of problem I enjoy. How to simulate Nature.” Yoke nibbled at a slice of the papaya. “This is good. I’ve never had papaya before.”

  “But it’s in the catalog?”

  “Josef and Ptah said they made the catalog based on all the things they could find on the Web. First they figured out the materials, and then they figured out the things we make with them. A lot of research. The alla catalog combines all the existing human mail-order catalogs into one.”

  “Right,” said the beetle, who was perched on the edge of the honey, dipping in his little legs. “While we were waiting for Yoke, I programmed a complete set of Earthly substances into the catalog. All of the chemistry and materials science that we could find on your Web. The formulae of molecules, the structures of crystals, the linkages of polymers, things like that. And then Ptah generated macros for essentially all human objects which are manufactured from these materials. Anything that’s ever been advertised for sale is now free in our alla catalog. Ptah even ferreted out the limpware designs for the special DIMs that come in so many products. As Yoke said, our alla catalog incorporates the contents of virtually every human product catalog in existence. A big job—but remember that we’re superhuman.”

  “How does the alla work?” asked Phil.

  “With Om’s power, it transmutes one kind of atom into another,” said Josef. “And then it links together the atoms as specified. The breakfast you eat is of transmuted air.”

  “Air?” said Phil, hefting his coffee mug.

  “A cubic meter of air has the mass of one kilogram,” said Josef. “This is well-known. Air is very freely available.”

  “Can I have some avocado?” asked Phil. “With prosciutto and Emmenthaler cheese?”

  “Yes,” said Yoke, after a second. “I can find all of them. I’ll make a special plate.” She cocked her head and looked inward, then moved her lips and—whoosh—there was a fancy china plate with slices of Swiss cheese, prosciutto, and delicate sections of avocado. The topper was that the plate itself was glazed with a photographically accurate image of Phil: mussed, blond-haired, unshaven, smiling, bewildered, and with a palm tree in the background. Yoke leaned forward, admiring the plate. “That’s exactly how you look to me right now, Phil. It came out perfect! It’s the first alla thing I’ve really designed myself. My first piece of original realware!”

  “Realware,” mused Phil. “You can make anything you can imagine. What’s going to happen if everyone gets an alla? Nobody will work anymore. They’ll all have everything they need. What will people do with themselves?”

  “Oh, one keeps doing things anyway,” said Josef. “Even after one’s material needs are filled, one wants to bloom and to create. Grow or die—it’s in the nature of things. And don’t forget that if one does something interesting, one has a better chance of having sex with a desirable partner.”

  “But even if I were to make something wonderful with an alla, something like a new kind of blimp maybe, then everyone could copy it,” protested Phil.

  “Ah, but only if they have the exact design,” said Josef. “Remember that only what is in the public catalogs is free for everyone. If you invent something that has more to it than meets the eye, then you have the possibility to sell your invention’s design to the individual alla owners.”

  “Can the alla make living things?” interrupted Yoke.

  “It can,” said Josef. “Haven’t you noticed yet? There’s a large section of plants and animals in your catalog. You can customize them to a limited extent—keeping in mind that reprogramming the wetware of a living biological system is difficult. Everything must be at extreme synchronization. Living systems embody a very deep fractal density of information patterns.”

  “And can the alla make a person?” pressed Yoke. “I’d like to make a new copy of my mother.”

  “The allas don’t ‘copy’ things,” said Josef. “They actualize instances of objects that have been completely specified in the catalog software or in user descriptions. To make a fresh instance of your mother, you would need an accurate representation of both her body and mind. Just knowing her DNA and having an S-cube personality backup aren’t sufficient. So, no, your alla cannot make your mother without some further programming that is quite beyond your means.”

  “But it could make a person if it had the code?” pressed Yoke.

  “Yes,” allowed Josef. “And I may as well tell you, Yoke, that during registration your alla did in fact create and store an eidetic map of your body and mind. But Om doesn’t allow an alla-owner to arbitrarily use this code. There is no magic command for instant self-reproduction. In order to use an alla to reproduce oneself, it’s necessary to understand the working of one mind and body well enough to fully specify the design.”

  “And I guess you guys are at that high level already, huh?” said Yoke.

  “In our first meeting, you have observed how Ptah copied himself,” said Josef.

  “Oh, right,” said Yoke. “Well, let me try making an animal.” She knit her brows and looked inward at her uvvy catalog. “Actualize.” A scrap of space webbed over with bright lines, grew opaque, and a small writhing object fell to the tabletop.

  “A slug?” said Phil. The slug oriented itself and began briskly sliming into the shadow under one of the plates.

  “I’ll try a jellyfish next,” said Yoke. “They’re so beautiful.” She used the alla to create a little aquarium, then projected into the water a bright-line disk-shape that actualized into a clear bell of jelly—which began steadily beating. “Can I change its color?” wondered Yoke, and produced a shocking pink jellyfish—which quickly dissolved into rags and tatters. She tried a series of variations on the catalog jellyfish, but none of them so much as twitched.

  “Life is hard, Yoke,” said Josef. “And so is wetware engineering.”

  The unsuccessful customized jellies were floating on the aquarium’s surface. Yoke alla-converted them back into water and filled the tank with a selection of other standard catalog life: some more jellies, a shrimp, a clam, a scallop, and a few tropical fish.

  “Can the alla make an alla?” asked Phil. “That’s the biggest question of all, isn’t it? Like in the fairy tale where someone wishes for more wishes.”

  “Yes,” said Josef. “There is a way to use an alla to make another alla. And sooner or later one of you will learn the trick of it. But I am not intending to be the one to teach you. It is better that the knowledge should come to one of you directly from Om.”

  “Do you plan to give out more allas?” asked Yoke.

  “As Om wills it,” said Josef. “First we want to watch a bit what Yoke does. And then we’ll test it with a few more individuals. And then I suppose Om will tell you how to spread the allas to everyone, human and moldie alike. I think it should work out for the best, but it’s hard to be sure. We’ve never seen a place like Earth, you know. You can’t imagine how really pathetic your one-dimensional time appears. I hope that the allas can really help you.”

>   “Hoes for the savages,” said Yoke. “Farming tools. What’s in it for Om?”

  “Om collects copies of sentient beings,” said Josef. “By giving out allas and having the users register themselves, Om obtains the exact information codes of the users. As for your analogy to farming, perhaps an alla is more like a bulldozer than like a hoe. Restraint and caution will be called for. Especially for a race that’s limited to a single dimension of time.”

  “You think there’s a chance we’ll kill ourselves off with the allas, don’t you?” said Yoke. “Is that what you actually want? So that the Metamartians can take over the Earth?”

  “Yoke, we already told you that we plan only for one more of us Metamartians to arrive here,” said Josef. “Once we are seven, we will have reached the canonical family size. We’ll conjugate to create a fresh Metamartian and then we’ll move on—provided we can figure out the right direction toward a region with two-dimensional time. No Metamartian would want to stay here.”

  “We still haven’t talked about the killer powerballs,” interrupted Phil. “What’s the story with them?”

  “The powerballs are but manifestations of our god Om,” said Josef. “Be assured that Om is no killer. Those whom Om touches are elevated, not destroyed.”

  Before they could press Josef any further, a large Tongan man came walking over from the veranda. He wore a white shirt, a necktie, and a blue skirt. He was squinting in the bright sun.

  “Hi, Kennit,” said Yoke. “This is my friend Phil. I want him to stay here with us.”

  “Yis,” said Kennit. “I’ve just been in contact with HRH and he has no problem. Would you be willing to have Phil stay in your room? That way we won’t have to wonder which shell conceals the pea.”