The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com

by Various

  “Hop lively, Jack!” yelled Stanley. “And hold your breath!”

  Instants later, Jack had been yanked beneath the luminous sea. Glancing up at the ocean’s receding surface—like a wrinkled mirror when seen from below—Jack realized that, yes, this sea’s surface was literally the Planck length scale frontier that shrouds the infinitesimal subdimensions. Everything above was dual to what lay below.

  Relentlessly the weight dragged Jack into the abyss. He was in the subdimensional zone for true, passing the reciprocals of alef-null, alef-one, and more. And, by thinking in terms of mathematical duality, he could see the small as the large. He drifted past a mauve sea-fan that branched alef-four times, with alef-five polyps waving from the fan’s fringed rim. just as Stanley had claimed.

  Deeper and deeper Jack sank, falling past fantastic architectures of undersea cliffs. Whales beat their way past, singing alef-seven-toned songs; sea-monsters gestured with alef-eight arms. Whenever he glimpsed a branching structure, Jack checked the numbers, filing away data about the Generalized Continuum Problem. Contrary to expectations, was a bulky although was a svelte

  So far Jack was having no trouble holding his breath—but he had a sense that he hadn’t progressed nearly far enough to have any hope of matching Ulla’s progress. He almost wished Anton had tied an even heavier weight to him. As things stood, this quest was up to him.

  Looking into his own mind, Jack found an inner sun, the very core of his sense of self. He merged into it and shrank to radically smaller levels of the infininitesimal—leaving the pyramidal weight behind. He drifted like an animalcule in the all-pervading deep-sea light. Smaller, deeper, and—aha. A school of subdimensional paramecia were flowing towards a vent. He followed along, wriggling into glittery fissures. He could sense that Ulla was nearby.

  Jack consciously flipped from one mindset to the other, turning his surroundings into an icy gray puddle at the lip of a glacier’s crevasse. Gathering his wits, he molded his body into its customary shape, taking a deep draught of the tenuous alpine air. An articulated drone filled his ears. Overhead arched the vault of the sky, an unblemished cobalt dome, curiously low.

  Jack picked his way off the glacier and up a scree of stones with inconceivably many facets. At the peak stood a marble palace, looking out upon subordinate ranges of peaks in every direction. Was this the top? Absolute Infinity?

  The droning chant was coming from within the temple. Peering in through the portico, Jack saw a host of singers, praising a figure on a high altar: a large eye resting upon a golden platter. Lo and behold, one of the choristers was Ulla, her skin a bit darkened from the lightning bolts, but otherwise in fine form.

  “Jack! You found me. I hate this place. That big bossy eye up there, his name is Jayvee. He thinks he’s so great. Get us out of here. I can’t figure out how to get down.” Her gentle voice was breathy in the thin air.

  Jayvee twitched as Jack ushered Ulla out. The big eye didn’t want to lose his new recruit. His golden platter rose into the air, and he followed the couple onto the temple’s porch. The eye extruded a snaky arm bearing a flaming sword. Jayvee was preparing to smite them.

  “Dear infinity, please help me,” said Jack once again. The sword swung, Jack and Ulla ducked, and a faint pop sounded from high above.

  In an instant, the blue dome became crazed all over with cracks—and fell apart, revealing a much higher range of mountains, stretching up towards a mighty sun. The bullying Jayvee quailed and took refuge in his little temple.

  “We are not going any higher!” exclaimed Ulla, guessing Jack’s thoughts.

  Jack and Ulla went tobogganing down the slick curves of the glacier’s crevasse—and as they neared the base, they flipped to the dual view of things, becoming subdimensional plankton in the glowing sea’s benthic abyss. From here they drifted effortlessly upwards.

  As they rose, Jack watched the branching marine forms even more closely than before—and reached his own conclusion about the Generalized Continuum Problem: the powers of the successive alefs obeyed no uniform pattern at all. was a shocking was a tame was a near-miss and was There was no overarching pattern at all.

  It made a kind of sense. Of course the transfinite numbers should be as quirky and individualistic as the finite integers. Why would the behavior of the transfinite cardinals be any simpler than the distribution of the primes, or the set of integer solutions to whole-number equations, or the indices of Turing machines? Why would set theory be simpler than number theory? Why wouldn’t the march of alefs be an inexhaustible source of surprise? There was no simple answer to the Generalized Continuum Problem. Once Jack got past his initial sense of disappointment, the new wisdom filled him with joy.

  He didn’t bother telling his insight to Ulla—for one thing they couldn’t talk while in the undersea subdimensions, and for another, she wouldn’t have been that interested. Rather than counting things, she seemed to be studying the curves and colors of the wondrous subdimensional forms.

  Jack tensed as they approached the gleaming sheet of the Planck frontier. Would this mean a return to the conniving aktuals of Alefville? With all his heart, he wished to be back home with Ulla. And it was so. The two of them oozed up from the rug on their living room floor.

  “I knew the outline of Alefville reminded me of something,” remarked Ulla when they were done exulting. “Alefville is exactly the same shape as this smear of cadmium red that I made on the rug when I was painting your portrait.”

  “Alefville is the smear of paint,” exclaimed Jack. “Physical space is absolutely continuous. Every level of the transfinite exists in the small. What a day. And I’m—I’m done with the Generalized Continuum Problem, too.”

  “You solved it?”

  “Not exactly. But I found a way to let go of it. The thing is—”

  “Please don’t start writing a paper about this,” said Ulla. “It is really and truly time for our dive trip. Hey—wait! You already wrote your paper before we left!”

  “Sweet,” said Jack, going to fetch the printout. He sat silently on the couch, flipping through the pages. Outdoors the sun was below the horizon and the rain was setting in.

  Ulla made a pot of tea. “So?” she said, coming back into the living room.

  “It’s all here,” said Jack. “But not in the right form.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not an academic paper at all. It’s, um, like a science fiction story. About what happened to us today.”

  “But you ran that giant computer search to generate this paper. Did something go wrong?”

  “Kind of,” said Jack. “Now that I think about it, there would be infinitely many programs that can write my twenty-six papers and then generate a brand-new twenty-seventh paper entitled ‘Physical Applications of Transfinite Set Theory.’ It looks like I didn’t happen to pick the right kind of program. This is the wrong kind of paper.”

  “Oh, so what,” said Ulla, pouring out the tea. “Maybe someone will publish it anyway. Our true-life adventure. Hey, don’t forget to write in that your backache went away.”

  Jack penciled in the change and sat up, stretching his arms and smiling. “Done! I feel better already. Let’s head for the South Pacific, Ulla.”

  “What about those two aktuals?”

  “I think they’re done with us,” said Jack, studying the pencil stub in his hand. Out on the deck sat a toad, enjoying the fitful patter of the rain.

  Copyright © 2008 by Rudy Rucker

  Cover art copyright © 2008 by Marcos Chin

  Books by Rudy Rucker

  White Light (Virgin, 1980)

  Spacetime Donuts (Ace, 1981)

  The Sex Sphere (Ace, 1983)

  Master of Space and Time (Bluejay, 1985)

  The Secret of Life (Bluejay, 1985)

  The Hollow Earth (Morrow, 1990)

  The Hacker and the Ants (AvoNova, 1994)

  Saucer Wisdom (Tor / Earthlight, 1999)

  Spaceland (Tor, 2002)
>
  As Above, So Below: A Novel of Peter Bruegel (Forge, 2003)

  Frek and the Elixir (Tor, 2004)

  Mathematicians in Love (Tor, 2006)

  Postsingular (Tor, 2007)

  Hylozoic (Tor, 2009)

  THE WARE SERIES

  Software (Ace, 1982)

  Wetware (Avon, 1988)

  Freeware (Avon, 1997)

  Realware (Eos, 2000)

  STORY COLLECTIONS

  The 57th Franz Kafka (Ace, 1983)

  Transreal! (WCS, 1991)

  Gnarl! (Four Walls Eight Windows, 2000)

  Mad Professor: The Uncollected Short Stories of Rudy Rucker (Thunder’s Mouth, 2006)

  ANTHOLOGY

  Mathenauts: Tales of Mathematical Wonder (editor) (Arbor House, 1987)

  NONFICTION

  Infinity and the Mind (Birkhäuser, 1982)

  The Fourth Dimension: Toward a Geometry of Higher Reality (Houghton Mifflin, 1984)

  Mind Tools: The Five Levels of Mathematical Reality (Houghton Mifflin, 1987)

  Artificial Life Lab (Waite Group, 1993)

  Seek! Selected Nonfiction (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999)

  The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul (Thunder’s Mouth, 2005)

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.

  Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  Contents

  Good Night, Moon

  “They say the moon’s gone missing,” said Carlo Morse. He set another fabule on the checkered tablecloth at Schwarz’s Deli.

  Jimmy Ganzer examined the growing collection of dream nuggets. The fabules were tightly patterned little pastel spheres, pockmarked and seamed, scattered across the tabletop like wads of gum. “Nobody goes for space travel dreams anymore,” said Ganzer. “I don’t want to work on that.”

  “I don’t mean the moon’s supposed to be in our new fabule for Skaken Recurrent Nightmare,” said Morse. “I’m telling you that the moon has really gone missing. Reports from Shanghai say the moon faded from the sky a few hours ago. Like a burnt-out firework. Everyone’s waiting to see what happens when night hits Europe and the U.S.”

  Ganzer grunted.

  Morse adjusted his augmented-reality necktie, whose dots were in a steady state of undulation. “That’s gotta mean something, don’t ya think?”

  “It’s not even sunset yet in L.A.,” said Ganzer carelessly. “So what if there’s no moon?”

  Schwarz’s Deli had fed generations of Hollywood creative talent. The gold-framed celebrity photos on the walls were clustered thick as goldfish scales. The joint’s historic clientele included vaudeville hams, silent film divas, radio crooners, movie studio titans, TV soap stars, computer game moguls, and social networkers. The augmented-reality mavens were memorialized by holographic busts on the ceiling. Business was in the air, but it was bypassing Morse and Ganzer. Especially Ganzer.

  “We’ve got our own problems,” admitted Morse.

  With a practiced gesture, Ganzer formed a vortex in the deli’s all-pervasive bosonic fluxon entertainment field. Then he plucked a lint-covered fabule from the pocket of his baggy sports pants. “Check out my brand-new giant paramecium here.”

  Ganzer’s creation oozed from the everting seahorse-valleys that gnarled the fabule’s surface.

  Morse rotated the floating dream with his manicured fingertips, admiring it. “I can see every wiggly cilia! This dream is, like, realer than you, man.”

  Ganzer nodded in a superior, craftsmanlike fashion. “Yeah, the blank for this fabule uses high-end Chinese nanogoo. It’s got more sensory affect than the human brain can parse.”

  Morse smiled at his collaborator. “Jimmy, you’ve brought in the awesome, once again. I knew that you could pull it off. I can’t wait till Presburg shows up to sample this.”

  Ganzer’s plain face wrinkled with a sheepish grin of triumph. With a sweep of both his arms, he corralled the dozen other fabules on the tabletop. “Lemme admit something to you,” he said, stuffing the wrinkly spheres into a logo-bearing plastic storage tube. “I haven’t viewed all these episodes of Skaken Recurrent Nightmare. I did pick up on the basic gimmick, though. Bugs.”

  “Yeah, Skaken Recurrent Nightmare conveys a different stark raving insect terror every night. The haunting dream you can’t escape.”

  “A little corny, though, huh?” said Ganzer.

  “I scraped my skull down to the rind for those insects,” said Morse, looking haggard and worn. “They’re festering in my unconscious right now. I can see bugs in the daylight sometimes. They’re in my food. They’re in my shower.”

  “Your praying mantis riff in the first episode was pretty classy,” said Ganzer, using his finger to scrape the last glob of cream cheese off his plate. “Having the woman you love devouring your face, bite by bite, while you’re mating? A primal riff like that one hits home. Kind of a turn-on, too.”

  “Can I level with you?” said Morse. “We haven’t had another megahit since that first episode of Skaken. Every night, half the human race falls asleep and boots up a total mental inferno. If this new episode doesn’t strike big and—”

  “You were right to call on me,” Ganzer assured him.

  “Jimmy, are you sure you’re up for this job? I mean—Skaken isn’t like our old indie scene. I’m working with sponsors. We’re government licensed. We’ve got global distribution.”

  “Speaking of global—should I try that Chinese oneirine?” said Ganzer. “You gotta respect the rate at which those Chinese fabbers churn out the dream product.”

  “I use that stuff when I’m working,” said Morse with a shrug. “On oneirine, I can start work the instant I close my eyes. I lucid-dream while I sleepwalk around my home office. But you do that anyway, Jimmy. You don’t need oneirine. You can hardly tell dreaming from waking.”

  “People make too much of that distinction.” Ganzer shrugged. “Reality is socially constructed.”

  “The moon isn’t socially constructed,” said Morse.

  “Then why’s it gone?”

  “The moon’s still up there, Jimmy. The moon has gotta exist in one form or another. The moon is a huge physical object. The moon is like half the size of a planet, even. The moon has gravity and tides.”

  Ganzer smiled indulgently and leaned back in his seat. “I bet you think the dark side of the moon really existed before we took pictures of the dark side of the moon.”

  “Don’t start on me with the dreamer head games, Jimmy. Presburg is gonna be here any minute. Bitch about the biz, talk about the pastrami, act normal, listen to his rap. Bobby Presburg is easy if you let him talk.”

  Under this scolding, Ganzer shifted restlessly in his seat. “The pro dream biz is all about relentless mental focus,” he declared. He wiped his greasy hands on his stained football jersey. “You know what our real problem is? Presburg doesn’t respect our craft! Presburg thinks that us fabbers just idly slumber around, waiting for inspiration! He doesn’t get it about us creatives! We plunge to the red-hot core of the psyche and we seize the deeper reality! That’s how I deliver unique material like my giant flying paramecium.”

  “You’re a good guy,” said Morse with a short laugh.

  “These days, any punk eight-year-old kid can dream up zombies and vampires! No wonder a pimp like Presburg likes to peddle insect paranoia.”

  “Look, Presburg is smarter than you know. The insect theme has been good for Skaken Recurrent Nightmare. We’re getting ads from insecticide manufacturers and exterminator services.”

&nbs
p; Ganzer pounded at the checkered café table with his pudgy fist. “Carlo, the truth is that guys like Presburg have polluted dreamland—made it dull! You know why I’m dreaming about single-celled monsters now? Because Presburg hasn’t been there. Germs are special. They’re real, but you can’t see them.”

  “You’ve always been the go-to guy for lurking invisible menaces,” Morse admitted.

  “Deconstructing reality’s physical subtext is the core of my art! Seeing the unseen, naming the unnamable, and dreaming the undreamable—that’s what Mr. Jimmy Ganzer is all about!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Morse, fondling Ganzer’s new fabule. The dream-recording had a knobby surface, with clefts between the knobs, and the knobs themselves were tight clusters of smaller knobs. “I’ve been around the dance floor with you a few times. You’re the ultimate old-school indie dreamer, Jimmy. You’re the session man. You’re the fixer.”

  “Yeah, okay, sure,” Ganzer admitted, mopping his plate with a last scrap of whole wheat bagel. “I’m a cynical outsider artist, curiously endowed with an ability to slip reality’s surly bonds.”

  Morse looked up as the deli’s door jangled aloud. The sun was low in the sky outside, gilding the dusty streets. A strikingly handsome pair of youngsters had slipped into the café, bribing their way past the gateman—a mocking, weather-beaten Ukrainian named Yokl.

  “Look at those wannabes,” said Morse. “The kid with the pink tentacles growing out of his neck? And his girl’s got a third eye in the middle of her forehead. They’re here to flash their demos and beg for a deal.”

  Ganzer tugged at the elastic waist of his velour track pants. Ganzer always wore sports gear, despite the fact that he never exercised and spent his creative working life soundly asleep. “She’s hot. Costume-play sure has changed, hasn’t it? We’ve gone from dorky hats to riding the bosonic flux.”

  The aspiring fabbers slipped into a nearby empty booth. The boy shoved the dirty plates and cups aside with a busy flurry of his pink tentacles.