The Ware Tetralogy

by Rudy Rucker

  “So it’s true?” said Kurt. “I hadn’t been sure. Om only talks to me when I’m dreaming. But it’s slow going because I’m always drunk. Hard to think logically. The shock. I keep thinking we’re all dead.”

  “Pass around the wine, Tempest,” said Darla.

  “I’m half in a bag already, Phil,” said Kurt apologetically. “I should explain that we’ve been partying hard. Tempest figured out how to make wine. Well, it’s similar to wine, anyway. We’ve been drinking enough of it.”

  “Could you make me some food?” asked Phil. His stomach was rumbling. “I haven’t figured out how to find it.”

  “These things are tolerable good,” said old Tempest. She made a gesture and a bright alla mesh pattern formed to whoosh out a big crisp golden shape, fat in the middle and pointed at both ends. Phil nibbled at it. It seemed to be something like a deep fried sweet potato. Fibrous, oily, not too bad. He took a big bite, and then another and—crunch—hit something like a vein of wiggly cartilage.

  “Like a rubber bone in there, huh?” said Tempest. “Reminds me of a hog snout.”

  Phil peered at the greasy object he’d been eating. “What is it?”

  “Hell if I know,” said Tempest. “I call it a yam-snoot. You should of seen some of the other vittles we tried. Alien food, I guess.” She took a pull from her sack of liquid and tried passing it to Phil. “Hope you ain’t a tight-ass, Phil,” she said as he refused the sack.

  “No, no,” said Phil, though his heart sank at the thought of being in here with three drunk pheezers. “Da, tell me more about that hole?”

  “It’s a kind a flaw, a place where the space of this sphere has an edge. According to my reasoning, when you stick your head out there, your head is in four-dimensional hyperspace. I’ve only tried it for a few seconds. It’s cold and you have to keep coming back for breath. And there’s this freaky light. I wouldn’t try it, Phil. But if, God forbid, you do stick your head through the hole, be very sure to hang onto the tree so the rest of you doesn’t slide out.” Da squirted a stream of wine into his mouth, and then some into Darla’s. A rivulet dribbled down her chin and onto her big breasts. “Don’t stare at us like that, Phil. I know I shouldn’t be getting fucked up, but I’m far enough into this run that I’ve got to finish. After I sleep it off, I’ll get myself together and we’ll talk about our chances of getting you back to Earth.”

  “Hey, Da!” said Phil. “This is xoxxed. Can I at least make you and Darla some clothes?”

  “Oh bless his heart,” cackled Tempest. “Hear that, Darla?” Darla responded by striking a coy pose with one hand over her crotch and one over her boobs.

  Phil quickly found the clothing area of Om’s Metamartian catalog and actualized two of the colorful loose caftans. He made Darla one with a pattern of unearthly biological shapes that might have been purple flowers; Da got one with flickering red shapes like flames. The fabric was some unknown material that was slippery but not sticky. A bit like silk, but with no sign of threads.

  “Give me one too,” said Tempest. “A blue one.”

  “All right,” said Phil, and made Tempest a Metamartian robe that resembled a waterfall. “I’m outta here for now, losers.”

  He pulled himself toward the other end of the oak tree, pausing to study the glowing holographic knot of the oversize wowo. It was a roughly doughnut-shaped pattern of steadily changing mathematical curves and surfaces. Tre Dietz may have turned off all the wowos he’d sold, but he hadn’t been able to reach this one. It was going strong. Phil liked to think a wowo looked a little like a glass pelican continually crawling farther and farther up its own butt, while at the same time emerging from its own beak, somehow changing into its own mirror image in the process. Mind-boggling and gnarly.

  Phil proceeded onward to the other end of the tree. The toy Humpty-Dumpty was sitting there, clamped onto a branch like an owl. Phil gave him a gentle poke, and the egg smiled ingratiatingly. A low husky laugh floated up from Darla at the other end of the tree. Fortunately there were enough dead leaves between them that Phil didn’t have to see what the old folks were doing.

  Just as Kurt had said, right beyond the end of the tree was a flawed spot like Phil had seen in his own little hypersphere. He took a deep breath and stuck his head through it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  YOKE

  February 23, 2054

  After dropping Phil at the dock in Neiafu, the navy motorboat ferried Yoke, Cobb, Onar, and Kennit to a big aluminum ship anchored in the harbor. The flagship of the Tongan Navy. Its rounded lines made Yoke think of a beer keg. Amidships was a tower of cabins surmounted by the bridge; aft was a flexible whip-cannon poised like a cobra head.

  The King was waiting for them on board. He was wearing a white coat and peaked cap for this nautical occasion. His green moldie girlfriend Vaana was at his side.

  “Good morning, Yoke,” said the King. “And it’s an honor indeed to meet the famous Cobb Anderson. Welcome aboard.” He glanced around the deck. “We can speak quite freely. The sailors barely know English, while Kennit and the bodyguards are completely to be trusted. Greetings, Onar! Anyone need a coffee? Champagne? No?” He led them aft to stand by a big open hatch in the deck. Above the hatch was a crane mounted on a high triangular brace. “You’ve brought the alla, Yoke? Ah, it’s that little tube thing. Excellent. I look forward to seeing it in action. Slugs of gold and imipolex all morning long. Yum yum!” He smiled and rubbed his hands. A dozen Tongan sailors were sitting around, ready to start work. Kennit joined two of the King’s bodyguards, who were ensconced up on the bridge, playing a game of cards with a Tongan man in a captain’s hat.

  “Won’t the ship sink if it gets too full?” Yoke asked the King,

  “Oh, I’m not so inordinately acquisitive,” said the King, a cheerful twinkle in his eye.

  “Captain Pulu gonna keep an eye on the tonnage,” said Vaana, waving toward the bridge. “And Yoke, child, I want you to make twice as much imipolex as gold.”

  “You owe me an apology, Vaana,” interrupted Cobb. He’d been staring fixedly at the sexy green moldie since they’d come aboard the ship. “You almost killed me with that betty the other night.” Yoke recalled that Cobb had also mentioned having sex with Vaana.

  “Ain’t my look-out,” said merry Vaana. “You was partyin’ with the best. We do it again sometime, hey? You a lift, old Cobb.”

  “A man your age should have the maturity to own the consequences of his self-destructive behavior, Cobb,” said Onar primly.

  “You’re a devil, Vaana,” said the King. “Let’s get started with our day’s work, shall we, Yoke? I’d suggest your rhythm be to create a pair of hundred kilogram cylinders of imipolex followed by a single hundred kilogram ingot of gold. One-two-three, one-two-three, and so on. The sailors will load them onto pallets and lower them into the hold.”

  “I forget,” said Yoke. “Why am I doing this for you?”

  “It’s thanks to HRH and me that you have the alla in the first place,” said Onar.

  “I thought it was Shimmer who gave it to me,” said Yoke.

  “Yes, but we guided you to her,” said the King. “Be a sport, Yoke. Just one day’s work. And then you’re perfectly free to go.”

  “But Cobb and I could leave right now, if I wanted to,” said Yoke. “Right?”

  “You should know that HRH’s bodyguards are well-armed,” said Onar. “And this is, after all, a warship, complete with a whip-cannon that can shoot a sea gull out of the sky.”

  “No need to take that tone, Onar,” said the King. “As you and I discussed earlier, our policy is persuasion, not force.”

  “Speaking of bodyguards, where are Tashtego and Daggoo today?” wondered Cobb.

  “They’ll be here in a bit,” said the King. “They flew over to Fiji very early this morning. They’re looking into the imipolex market for me.”

  So Yoke grasped her alla and started turning air into gold and imipolex at a rate of one pulse every second o
r two. The sailors stepped lively, stowing the booty. With each transmutation, a hundred kilograms worth of air would rush into a bright-line alla control mesh, making a big whoosh and thud that caused the ship to bob. Yoke figured out in her head that a hundred kilos of air took up about as much space as an apartment’s living room. The cumulative rocking effect of the repeated gusts became a little sickening after three-quarters of an hour. Yoke took a break and alla-made herself a glass of fresh orange juice.

  The King was sitting in a deck chair smoking a cigar. Vaana lolled on the deck beside him, looking like a thick, sexy serpent. Cobb stood behind the pair, discussing something with Onar. Now Onar patted Cobb on the back and took a chair next to the King. Cobb remained stiffly erect, his face gone oddly blank.

  “Are you all right, Cobb?” called Yoke.

  “Yes,” said Cobb shortly. Perhaps he and Onar had argued?

  “Captain Pulu’s estimates make it that you’re one-third done, Yoke,” said the King, squinting up at the man on the ship’s bridge.

  “What are you going to do with all this stuff?” asked Yoke.

  “Refurbish Tonga’s credit in world banking circles!” said the King happily. “I’m going to ship this load straight to Suva in Fiji and sell it. Tonga will be in the black for the first time this century. Not that our debt is all that large, mind you; it’s well under a hundred million dollars. We’ve been prudent, but we can never quite get onto the good side of the ledger. This will make me a hero to my people.”

  “You’re going to give every bit of it away?” asked Vaana. She sounded surprised. “I thought you said half the imipolex would be for the Tongan moldies.”

  “Strictly speaking, there are no Tongan moldies,” said the King. “Only a native-born flesh-and-blood Tongan can be a citizen. This isn’t the U.S. with its quixotic Moldie Citizenship Act. I have to take care of my own people first. You moldies are only our guests.” He held up his hand to stave off Vaana’s anger. “You of course can have all the imipolex you require for your personal needs at any time, dear Vaana. And I promise you that once I’ve taken care of the Tongan national debt, I will try and do something for our very honored guest moldies.”

  “A promise ain’t enough,” snapped Vaana, standing up in her full womanly form. “My people been counting on me to get us a fair deal.”

  The King shook his head. “My local standing is already shaky due to the gossip about our relationship, Vaana. For my own political survival, I can’t be put in a position of seeming to give a too preferential treatment to—”

  At this point Yoke lost the thread of their conversation because a nightmarish call came in on her uvvy. It was Phil, standing on a beach looking desperate. He’d encountered Shimmer and the aliens in a cave at the end of the island. The powerball was about to eat him.

  When Yoke sprang across the deck and pulled Cobb around her, the old man moldie was maddeningly sluggish in his responses. “Faster, Cobb,” urged the frantic Yoke. “You have to fly me to the far end of the island!”

  “Why?” drawled Cobb. “You’re not finished filling the ship.”

  “The powerball is about to get Phil! Oh, hurry! Maybe we can save him.”

  “One certainly hopes not,” said Cobb with unexpected venom. His voice sounded all different. “But, very well, I’ll take you there. It should be amusing.”

  “What is wrong with you?” cried Yoke, but Cobb gave no answer. Silently he flew Yoke to the island’s end as directed.

  When they landed on the beach, Yoke quickly popped herself out of the moldie. It was too late. A big warped ball of space had slid onto Phil, and his form was swollen up like a balloon. Even though she knew it was hopeless, Yoke ran toward Phil, calling his name, with Cobb trotting along behind her.

  The warped sphere of the powerball snapped loose from normal space—and Phil was gone. A nauseating ripple of distortion passed through Yoke’s body. And then nothing. The world going on the same as before. With no Phil. Right at the end he’d said he loved her. Yoke realized that she could have loved him too.

  Cobb was standing just behind Yoke, looking sarcastic and unhelpful. And down the beach a ways was a hole in the cliff with some of the aliens watching. Yoke could make out the pale glow of Shimmer and the dark snout of Wubwub.

  “We have to get back to HRH and the ship,” said Cobb. “We’re not nearly finished there.”

  “Whatever,” said Yoke, striding down the beach toward the aliens. “Shimmer! You have to help bring them back. I want Phil and I want my mother!” On an impulse, Yoke used her alla to create a flaming wooden torch. “Moldie flesh burns, Shimmer!”

  Calmly the pale woman and the dark pig stared out at Yoke.

  Did she really have any chance against these superhuman? Not likely. But she held her little torch up high. “Help me or else!”

  Before the scene could play itself out, Yoke was tackled from behind. By Cobb. The old man moldie knocked the torch from her hand and flowed forward, enveloping and immobilizing her.

  “We really must be on our way,” said Cobb. “HRH wants us back immediately.”

  And then they were rocketing up from the beach, arcing back across the island to where the roly-poly aluminum Tongan Navy ship waited. Yoke tried to talk to Cobb, but it was no use. It was as if he’d been hypnotized or turned into a zombie.

  “I put a superleech on him,” explained the smirking Onar when Cobb split open to disgorge Yoke back onto the deck of the ship. “As long as Cobb’s wearing it, he’s an extension of me. I slapped it on him while you were busy making the gold and imipolex. I let Cobb take you to watch Phil get eaten because I was curious too. Too bad about that, really. Phil was a decent sort. No mental giant, though. In any case, it’s time to get back to work, Yoke. Break’s over.”

  “You heartless prick.” Now that she knew what to look for, Yoke could see the superleech on Cobb’s back, knotted into his pink flesh like a purple scar. She reached out to see if she could tear it loose, but Cobb’s body twisted away.

  “Do as Onar says,” said Cobb, his voice a slavish replica of Onar’s.

  “That leech is comin’ off right now!” yelled Vaana. She’d become very agitated as soon as Onar pointed out Cobb’s leech-DIM. She gave the King’s shoulder a shake. “Bou-Bou! You can’t sit here and let this skanky white dook put a superleech on a moldie. Tonga’s a free zone!”

  “Yes, but a free Cobb might take Yoke and her alla away from us too soon,” hissed Onar. “Surely even you can understand that, you fat, stinking sex-toy.”

  “Understand this!” said Vaana. Her arm lashed out snake-fast to strike a concussive blow against the side of Onar’s head. Onar collapsed like a rag doll, and so did Cobb.

  “Oh, you shouldn’t have done that, Vaana,” said the King, very upset. “I’m sorry about the superleech. Onar talked me into it. Greed, don’t you know?” He waved both arms, making a broad “calm down” signal to his bodyguards on the bridge. “The guards may think they have to defend the Tu’i Tonga, Vaana. They’re obsessed with the notion that you might harm me.”

  But Vaana was too agitated to pay proper attention. “You actually gave Onar the okay, Bou-Bou? You told him he could use a superleech?” She grabbed the King and gave him another rough shake. “I thought you loved moldies!”

  Up on the bridge the bodyguards were frantically conferring with the captain, and now the whip-cannon at the rear of the ship twitched into life. Yoke dove onto the deck next to Cobb to get out of the way. The whip-cannon snapped like a huge towel. A heavy puck of metal flew into Vaana, cutting her completely in two. The puck punched through the deck and the side of the hull—fortunately above the waterline—and plunged violently into the sea.

  “No!” screamed the King. “Vaana!”

  With what seemed like her dying effort, Vaana opened her mouth and made a cracked warbling noise. And then both halves of her were still. Kennit came pounding down the companionway from the bridge. “Are you all right, Your Majesty?” he shouted.
“Thank God we saved you.”

  Onar began twitching, starting to wake back up, and Cobb was twitching too. If Yoke waited any longer it would be too late. Quickly she made herself a knife with her alla and rolled Cobb over so she could cut the purple scar of the leech from his back. But Kennit darted forward to take the knife and the alla from her.

  “Don’t hurt the girl!” shouted the King. “You’ve done enough damage.”

  “No weapons near the King,” said Kennit. “I’m going to handcuff her till I figure out what’s happening.” And then he yanked Yoke’s hands behind her back and snapped some tight bands of plastic around her wrists. Kennit pushed her down into the deck chair next to the King, then threw the knife into the ocean and handed her alla to Bou-Bou.

  “I’m sure Yoke’s no danger,” said the King, taking the alla. “She was only trying to help her friend. As was Vaana. You were glad for an excuse to kill her, weren’t you, Kennit? You and the guards have been waiting for—for—” The King’s voice broke and he put his hand over his eyes. “You can’t understand this, Kennit, but I loved her.”

  “Yis,” said Kennit.

  There was a minute of silence. At Yoke’s feet lay the two halves of Vaana, inert in a reeking puddle of straw-colored moldie ichor. Onar was sitting woozily upright on the deck next to the dismembered moldie. It seemed as if the bad guys had won.

  “If I give you back your alla, will you finish your work for me now, Yoke?” the King asked. He was fiddling with the alla as if desperate for a distraction from the sight of the shattered Vaana. “Curious,” continued the King. “Just an empty tube, though if I look through it the world seems to be twirling.” He knitted his brows as if willing something to happen, but nothing did. “It won’t make anything for me. Yes, yes, it really is keyed to you, Yoke. You’re the goose who lays the golden eggs. A fine role.”

  “No eggs if the farmer mistreats the goose,” said Yoke. “Unshackle me so I can take the superleech off of Cobb. Until then I’m not making you anything more. Once you free us, I’ll still keep my promise to fill your ship with imipolex and gold.”