Spirits of Flux and Anchor

by Jack L. Chalker

  Fortunately, there was an information kiosk at which to ask for what was needed. In point of fact, the kiosk was asked directly, for it was a human-looking man down to the waist, but below it he had a huge, round mass on which he could apparently swivel. He was surrounded by a rack with all sorts of handouts, particularly accessible because in place of those legs he had four hands. He looked at them as they approached and said, “May I serve you?”

  Cass swallowed hard. “Tattoo removal and hair growth?” she tried tentatively.

  The information kiosk nodded. “Corridor C, office 202,” he responded briskly. “General cosmetic alterations.” One of the arms shot out. “Right over there. Anything else?”

  “How about breaking transformation curses?” Dar asked.

  “General, group, specific, or personal?”

  “Ah, personal.”

  “Corridor F, office 509.”

  They nodded and walked away. “I’d say let’s see about you two first,” Cass said to Suzl and Nadya. “After, we’ll check on Dar’s situation.”

  “I can meet you,” Dar suggested. “I don’t need anything where you’re going.”

  It was agreed, and the three young women headed for the designated corridor and office. The sign on the door said to walk in, and they did to a small waiting room. One wall was covered with pictures of all sorts of people and creatures and combinations of same involving women, the other involving all men. Obviously, this one did quite a bit more than they were after.

  A small window slid back, revealing a very dark woman’s face. “Yes?”

  As briefly as they could, they explained what they wanted, and Cass added, “I guess I can stand some minor work myself.” She hadn’t intended to, but there was something about seeing that lady stringer embracing Matson that just changed her mind. She knew it was silly, but it meant very little one way or the other.

  The woman emerged from a rear door into the waiting room. She was stark naked, with dark brown face, hands, and feet, but her body was covered in very fine fur that was alternately black and white striped, in a spiral pattern from neck to legs. Her thick, wiry hair was snow white except for a single wide black streak running from brow all the way back, and she had long, pointed ears and a short, shaved tail with a furry white blob at the end. When she talked, it was noted that the inside of her mouth was black with a snow white tongue.

  She took note of their attention and smiled. “Do you like it? It was one of my old teacher’s last works for last year’s total body collection. It didn’t sell, for some reason, but I liked it so much I kept it.”

  “It’s—stunning,” Nadya responded truthfully, hoping not to be pressed.

  The woman seemed pleased. “Step back into here, all of you, please.”

  They followed her a bit nervously through the door, Cass starting to rethink the whole proposition of any changes in this way. There were four large chairs in back lined up in front of a single long mirror. The woman indicated that they were to each pick one and sit down, and they did, growing more uncertain.

  “Now, then. Most of my designers are off right now, but I think I can handle the three of you. Let’s start with you,” she said, going first to Suzl. “Nice build. A good foundation. We could do a lot with you.”

  “Just some hair and get rid of the tattoos,” she told the woman.

  “About twenty added centimeters and a slight body realignment will do you wonders,” the striped woman suggested. “As it is now you’ll run to fat and get chunky as you grow older.”

  She actually considered it, but finally rejected it. There followed a whole series of attempts to get her to accept hair with an unusual color or pattern, but she decided on straight, shoulder-length, and black just the way it had been. The striped woman sighed and you could see she thought that Suzl had no imagination or spirit of adventure whatsoever, but she stood back, made a pass with her hands, and Suzl gasped at her reflection. It was like greeting an old friend you’d thought lost and gone forever.

  The tattoo and thumb stain went with the hair. “Now, the hair is low maintenance,” the magical cosmetologist assured her. “It will stay at that length and style unless you change it, and if you do just wash it before changing it and it’ll remain the new style. If you wish, I can have it grow normally, but right now it can be cut shorter but’ will always grow back to that length and set.”

  “That’s fine. Wonderful, in fact,” Suzl assured her. “Now all I need are some clothes.”

  “I could give you a treatment similar to mine—no design if you prefer, color of your choice—that would make clothing unnecessary up to forty degrees or down to ten below.”

  Suzl passed.

  Nadya got much the same spiel from the woman, who was obviously aching to be “creative” and not finding any takers. Nadya chose a permanent dark brown pageboy and declined even the modest offer to do something about her slight overbite. By the time the striped body wizard got to Cass she was resigned. “Just hair and tattoo, right?”

  “I don’t have any tattoos. They were taken care of before,” she replied. “Actually, I’m not really sure what I want.”

  The magical cosmetologist brightened. “Tell you what. Let me try a few things out on you. No charge if you don’t like them, and I’ll change anything back at any time.”

  It was tempting. She looked over at the other two. “Suppose you go check with Dar? I’ll meet you there or back at the hotel.”

  They agreed, signed the required small papers they were handed, and were gone, although Nadya remained a moment and said, “Don’t get carried away. You may hate yourself tomorrow.”

  She grinned. “I’ll remember. Nothing radical.”

  But, the fact is, what was done was a lot of fun. Rejecting the exotic or freakish, the cosmetologist tried a variety of hair styles and colors, subtle facial adjustments, and body adjustments. She found out exactly what it was like to have large breasts and a sexy figure and decided that it wasn’t her style. At least now she knew, she told herself.

  But is was finally a matter of small changes that she settled on, mostly after telling Miss Rona, as the cosmetologist was known, that she was, after all, a mule whip on a stringer train who had to remain both practical for the job and human for entry to Anchor. She had an odd impulse for long hair, and finally Miss Rona suggested a reddish brown, thick and straight, coming just below the shoulders, and showed her how to tie it up or into a pony tail, the last her preferred style. Her face was softened a bit, losing a little of its boyish look while not changing all that much, and her complexion was darkened to a light olive to complement the changes. On her body, she wanted strong, hard muscles that would not have to be maintained but would not give her a mannish look, and this proved amazingly easy.

  To balance, her shape was slightly recontoured, her hips slightly widened so now her work pants would hang on them at the waist, and her breasts were slightly redone so that they were still small and required no support but were clearly there and perfectly formed. In the end, most of the changes were so subtle that, except for the hair, it was difficult to really point to them, but the overall effect of the changes was to make her unmistakably female.

  Miss Rona, in fact, was delighted. “This sort of very small detail work is the most challenging,” she told her. And so was the forty kil bill, which couldn’t really be disputed since the whole thing could be withdrawn with a few waves of the striped woman’s hand. She sighed, decided that it was worth it but that this was it, no matter what, and signed the slip.

  No one was at the kiosk except the kiosk, but he told her that the others had gone back to the hotel. Nadya was in the room, just relaxing, and she was enthusiastic over the change in Cass. “Perfect! Just perfect! It’s more you than you, if you know what I mean.”

  She appreciated the compliment. “For what it cost, it better be. If I have any money left, I’ll buy some spare clothes. I think it’s time for you to get some, though.”

  She sighed. “I su
ppose. It’s been so long they’ll feel funny just to wear.” The merchandise building, though, changed her mind, and they both spent quite a while just trying on various things. Both finally opted for practical wear, more or less stringer fashion, yet in colors other than the stringer’s basic black. Although she bought a pair of boots, Nadya carried them back to the room, finding that the clothes actually made her feel human again but that her feet and lower calves revolted against footwear. For the moment, she decided to remain barefoot.

  Dar and Suzl weren’t back in their rooms yet, so the two women decided to eat without them.

  “I forgot to ask—how did Dar’s session go?” Cass wanted to know.

  “Not good. They said it was powerful and complicated and would take real experts to work out. They wanted over a thousand kils up front to do it, too, with no guarantees.”

  Cass whistled. “How’d he take it?”

  “Pretty well. A lot better than Suzl, I think.”

  The handsome young man approached them in the bar and stood there for a second. He was young, perhaps only a couple of years older than they, and extremely human, although his hair was white save for a small reddish spot near the peak. “Ah, you are the man with the problem?” he asked tentatively.

  Dar looked up at him. “Yeah. Are you the budding god the guy near the kiosk talked about?”

  The young man chuckled and sat down. “I suppose so, although I have no ambitions to carve out any little worldlets and preside. I am entirely interested in research, in learning everything there is to learn about these powers. Until I can get a position here, though, I have to support my researches on my own, hence my friends over at services. They get a small percentage for sniffing out people like you, pardon my language.” He looked over at Suzl. “I can see why you are anxious to be rid of the problem, sir.” She smiled at him.

  “Can you do it?” he asked.

  The young wizard shrugged. “I don’t know until I take a good look. But I won’t charge unless I can at least help. Is that not fair?”

  Dar looked at Suzl, who nodded. “Sounds fair to us.”

  “Then come with me now, if you can.”

  “We can. But how much will it cost?”

  “Shall we say a hundred?”

  He thought a moment. “That’s almost all I got. I have to eat for the next couple of days, you know.”

  “Seventy-five, then, but no less.”

  “I’ll make it up,” Suzl told him. “I’ll take it back in trade.”

  They left and followed the young man outside, then down a side street and out of the Market area. Dar started getting a little nervous.

  “Just in here,” the young wizard told them, and they stopped by a small pyramidal building, then went inside after him. It was a small pyramid on the outside but a large rectangle on the inside, crowded with all sorts of junk as well as the remains of half-eaten meals and lots of dust. There was, however, a carpeted clear area in the back near a bed that obviously had last been made when the boy arrived in Globbus. “Now, take off your clothes.”

  Dar did, and was subjected to a minute and somewhat embarrassing physical examination. “Fascinating,” the wizard muttered. “Just fascinating.” He stepped back and looked at Dar again.

  “It’s superior work,” he told them. “Among the best. I’ve seen many variants of this—there are lots in Globbus—but the math here is simply brilliant. Who did it, did you say?”

  “The former goddess of Persellus.”

  Brows went up. “Former?”

  “She was overthrown and, I assume, killed a few days ago.”

  “Too bad. A great loss to the science. Still, I can follow the basic formulae.” He closed his eyes and appeared to be in deep thought. Finally he said, “I think I have the spell’s complement. If I understood what she did correctly, that is. There is, however, some risk.”

  “To his life?” Suzl asked apprehensively.

  “Oh, no, nothing like that. The application of the complement could, conceivably, go more than one way, since it’s not an undoing of the spell—we don’t have the weeks necessary for that and you don’t have the money to shorten that period—but an effort at applying an equal and opposite spell superimposed over this one. I think it will work, but there is a slight percentage that it could push him all the way to the female matrix, physically and psychologically, or it might split him—twelve hours totally and completely female, twelve hours totally and completely male. There is always a risk in this sort of thing, you must understand. That’s why the specialists demand their money up front.”

  Dar looked over at Suzl. “You really want it?”

  She nodded. “I do. If you’re willing.”

  He shrugged. “What have I got to lose? Go ahead.”

  The young man closed his eyes once more, and his head snapped back, then forward once again. He staggered but did not fall. Suddenly he came fully erect, his eyes opening, and he seemed to struggle with his right hand. A single gesture was made with the trembling hand, and Dar felt a slight tingling. “Now!” the young wizard shouted, and Suzl screamed.

  Dar turned towards her, concerned, and the young man looked slightly upset. “Now that’s a curse! Damn!” Suzl fainted, and both rushed over to her, picked her up, and put her on the bed.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Dar demanded to know. “She wasn’t even in this, damn it.”

  “I’m afraid she was, and I didn’t notice it,” the wizard replied. “That is one tricky curse you have. It took the complement and deflected it to the nearest receptor. Here—let’s get these pants off her.”

  They did, and Dar gasped. “She said she wanted it, and that was all the curse needed for implied consent,” the wizard explained. “Now she’s got it, as solidly as you got yours.”

  “But I still got a woman’s crotch!”

  “And in my judgment you always will have. And, unfortunately, she will now always have what you lost, the complement being as strong as the original.”

  “But—it’s so big! And she’s so short!”

  “Well, it is a scaled-down version of yours,” the wizard told him. “I did what I could to keep it proportional, but it is the complement to your curse, and so basically your pattern. Uh—of course there will be no charge. I admit I have learned a great deal from this curse.”

  Dar shook his head. “And what I learn about guys in bars is of no value. Damn!”

  Suzl stirred and came to, having fainted mostly from the shock. She looked puzzled, then felt gingerly in the crotch area. “Oh, by the Heavens! It’s real!” She groaned, then sat up on the side of the bed, then got to her feet. “How do men walk with these things?”

  “The same way women walk with breasts like yours,” Dar responded. “You just are used to it.”

  “But it’s—huge! On you, it’d be okay. On me, it’s grotesque.” She looked over at the wizard. “Take it away! Take it back!”

  The young man looked sheepish. “I can’t. It’s beyond me. It may be beyond anybody but the best. That goddess wasn’t only good with curses, she was devious as Hell.”

  She stared at him. “You mean I have the same curse he does—only backwards?”

  The wizard nodded. “That’s about it. I’m afraid -the curse construed you to ask for it, and since it couldn’t give it to your man, here, it gave it to you. You’re stuck.”

  She sat down again on the side of the bed and sighed. “And I never even found out what it was like to be a woman, damn it.” She sighed again. “But, then, neither do men.” She looked up at the wizard. “Will it work?”

  “It’s a proportional model of his. It’ll work if your mind wants it to.”

  She stood up and put her pants back on. “Ugh! More shopping to do. Something to support this thing and some pants with real give in the crotch. These hurt!” She looked over at Dar. “Well, it isn’t exactly the way I wanted it, but I think at least in one way that you and I were made for each other.”

  14

&nbs
p; COUNCIL

  “Now let me get this straight,” Nadya said, sounding confused and bewildered. She stared at the small, attractive, well-built woman and the huge muscular man in front of her. “You, Suzl, are the man, and you, Dar, are the woman? Holy Mother protect me!”

  She and Cass had now heard the complete story but still couldn’t quite believe it. Even so, Cass, relaxing in a chair and chewing idly on a stick of hard candy, said, “I have to say, Suzl, you’re taking it a lot better than I would.”

  She shrugged. “I was real upset for a while there, but then the more I thought about it the more I—accepted it. You know, I think I’m the only one ever taken in the Paring Rite who wasn’t really sorry to go. I used to sit there and dream of what was beyond dull, stodgy Anchor Logh. Sometimes I’d imagine myself as something different. Part horse, maybe, or cat, or something. I always knew there was something else out here, beyond the Flux wall. I imagined it as something like it is—a world full of freaks.”

  They, Nadya in particular, started to protest but she silenced them, and, at the moment, she had the floor.

  “Uh-huh. Freaks. You know, like in the old children’s stories of fairies and trolls and all that. Well, thanks to Cass and Dar I’m out here and I’m free, and now I’m a freak. Maybe I’m Flux crazy now, but I kind of think that this was like, well, my dues. I’m one of them now, and it’s not so bad. I’m still sort of getting used to it, even with the wizard’s help. He said something about men and women’s centers of gravity being different, whatever that means. All I know is that every time I don’t think and cross my legs the old way it hurts like hell, and I’m always aware that it’s there.”

  “You’d hardly know it, what with those black denim pants hanging so low on your hips,” Nadya said.

  Suzl shrugged. “It was either that or get ‘em super-baggy in the crotch. Besides, I kind of like it this way. I can still be me and still be a freak, like Dar. And you wouldn’t believe how fast and how easy it turns on, with all the sensations concentrated in that one place. I think I understand men a lot better now.”