by Rudy Rucker
"So you do enjoy the miraculous alla," said Peg. "And our superb catalog."
"They're okay," said Yoke casually.
"Can I have an alla?" asked Babs, interrupting Josef's science lecture. She'd been closely watching Yoke make her clothes.
"Well..." said Shimmer. She was sitting on the edge of Yoke's bed, keeping an eye on Randy.
"You barged into my house and stole my man," said Babs, not entirely joking.
"It's the least you can do."
"Oh ja, let's give Babs an alla," said Josef. "Om wants us to." Yoke's alla has worked out well enough and Om feels it's safe to try more."
"I'm down with it," chimed in Wubwub. "Allas for the people. Why not one for this Randy-neck too? That could be kinky, you know what I'm sayin'?"
"Here, Babs," said Shimmer, rolling her thumb against her fingers. A subtly flickering silver tube appeared in her hand. "Om made it look different from Yoke's so you don't get mixed up. Take it. You're wearing an uvvy? Good. That's what the alla uses for an interface. An alla registers itself as owned by the first person who picks it up. It'll show a rapid-fire series of images so Om can learn your personality, and then it'll feel around in your body to teach Om your physical form. Once that's done, it's registered."
Babs held the tube in her hand, eyes closed to better see the uvvy visions in her head. "Cathedral window, tree-branch, sand," she murmured, each word faster than the one before, and then she was going too fast to talk out loud. The descriptions sounded familiar to Yoke; probably the alla was showing Babs the same images it had shown her. Yoke could tell when the body-mapping part of the alla registration happened, because Babs briefly twitched all over.
"Stuzzy," breathed Babs, opening her eyes and looking down at the little alla tube. "I've been memorized by Om."
"Now I'll transfer our human-oriented alla catalog to your uvvy, Babs," said Ptah. "Josef and I made the catalog, and it's quite complete. We got it by combining every existing catalog we could find on the Web. Basically, I figured out how to make everything. Here it comes."
"Once you get the hang of it, Babs, you can design original realware of your own," added Shimmer. "And now for Randy's alla."
"Nay, nay!" protested Peg. "That youth is base and foul. His crafting will be full unsavory."
"Peg's right," said Ptah. "I realize that you don't need for me to defend you, Shimmer, but I really feel that this kind of degenerate individual is a serious threat."
"It good practice to include deviant in test population, I think," said Siss. She listened into herself as if silently conversing with something. "And, yes, Om agree."
"I'll do it," said Shimmer. She rolled her thumb against her fingers again, producing an alla tube in gently fluctuating shades of copper. She gracefully leaned over to tuck the vibrant tube into the sleeping Randy's shirt pocket.
"Let's wake him up so he can register it," she urged.
"Don't wake him now," said Yoke. "Not while he's still lifted. I'll make sure he registers it later. And I'll uvvy him a copy of the catalog."
"Whu-Whu-Whu about me?" said Cobb, shuddering away on the floor.
"No," said Wubwub. "We ain't ready to start in with moldie allas too."
"I'm nuh-not a moldie," protested Cobb. "I'm human." It was just like back in Tonga, when Onar had told Cobb he couldn't come to the dinner at the King's because it was for humans only. It made Yoke sad to hear Cobb insist he was human. Why not face the truth? As far as Yoke was concerned, being human meant being made of flesh and blood. And poor old Cobb hadn't had a human body since 2020.
"If you want something, I'll make it for you, Cobb," said Yoke gently. "But for now, you don't get an alla. Especially not when you're lifted. Maybe you should go get in the shower. Wash those spores out."
"Yeah," said the old man moldie. "I gotta shake this betty shit." He shuffled off towards Babs's bathroom.
Meanwhile Babs had been sitting silent on the floor, uvvying around in her alla catalog. And now she produced a bright-line shape that became a cup of coffee in a ceramic mug shaped like the head of an ant. Babs liked ants as much as Yoke did.
"Oh. My. God!" said Babs. "I love it!"
"Don't get so grateful that you let the Metamartians stay here," cautioned Yoke.
"If they don't kill you, someone else will by coming after them. I like Shimmer's idea. The Metamartians should go out and blend in. You don't have to look like exactly a pig, do you, Wubwub? And Peg, could you possibly bag the unicorn thing? I mean why not pass yourselves off as regular moldies? Unless you just want to be birds or insects. Nobody cares about them. Nobody would notice if a bird is plastic."
"I am proud to be a bird," said Haresh. "From scanning through your Web, I am learning very much about them. The only small cloud is that to be called a 'birdbrain' is by no means a compliment. Nevertheless there is a very famous poem of this name. Birdbrain! by your immortal Hindu bard Allen Ginsberg. So I am even proud to be a birdbrain. But I do not accept your suggestion to be a small plastic bird which nobody notices. I too would like to be freely mingling with humans and moldies on an equal basis. I want to be accepted as a full-sized moldie."
Cobb came ambling back from the shower, looking pink and fresh again. "That did me a world of good."
"What kind of look do a moldie generally have?" asked Wubwub.
"Here in the city they look like people," said Babs. "Approximately. Like caricatures. It's considered dooky for a moldie to look too exactly human, though Shimmer and Ptah are so over-the-top that they'll be okay. No humans are that beautiful.
And the way they look like marble and bronze makes it clear that they're not trying to pass for people. Now you, Wubwub, you can be a pig-man. A person with a face like a pig. Keep your snout and ears, but change your body and legs. That's good. Legs a little longer. You need more than two fingers on your hands, try three, no, four counting the thumb. All right. And, yes, keep the tail, in fact make it bigger and curlier. Like a corkscrew. Wavy. Now your mouth -- it's too scary. Here, let me -- " Babs stepped forward and began molding Wubwub's face. Wubwub generated dancing bright alla-lines to effect the changes as fast as Babs suggested them. "We'll curve the lips up at the end, put in a smile wrinkle, make the snout a little shorter, shorten those snaggle teeth, arch the eyebrows, fold that one ear over, and, oh, how about a big white spot around this eye? That's perfect. You look darling. Look at yourself through my uvvy. You don't like the white spot? Oh, all right, get rid of it, then. Fine. You look handsome but tough."
"Come to my aid, Babs," said Peg, elongating and taking on a womanly form. "What think you of my horn?"
"A unicorn horn is more of a guy thing," said Babs. "It's a dick symbol. You'd do better to have, um, two little horns."
"Like a cow?" asked Peg. There was a flicker of bright mesh-lines and her face grew broader.
"Oh yes, Peg," put in Yoke unkindly. "Be a cow."
"Don't listen to her," said Babs. "You want to be a devil-girl. Sexy and with curvy red horns and reddish skin. Yeah, yeah, okay, but make your T and A bigger. That's good -- if only it were so easy for everyone. And, um, fine, keep the blonde hair. Usually devil-girls are brunette, but you can be a Val devil-girl. Better make your skin more pink like sunburn instead of that coppery Native American hue. Oh, and don't forget to make your tail all leathery and with a little arrow at the tip. That's a dick symbol too, but on a devil-girl it's hot. Like a strap-on dildo. Oh, you've got it now, Peg, you're moanin'. Next?"
A few minutes later six of the Metamartians were the shape and size of well-proportioned humans resembling, respectively, a marble Venus, a bronze Apollo, a pig-man, a devil-girl, a snake-woman, and a bird-man. For his part, Josef stayed resolutely the same.
"I'll observe," said Josef. "A deep participation is not my style. I'll be the fly on the wall. The beetle."
"Haresh looks like that Egyptian god," said Yoke. "Thoth." The Metamartian had left his head exactly in the shape of a bird's. "What a birdbrain."
&n
bsp; "Zoom!" exclaimed Babs. "Egyptian! You Metamartians can go join the Snooks family on the Anubis. After last night, Cobb here must know those moldies pretty well. Right, Cobb? You can tell Thutmosis and Isis Snooks that these six are friends of yours just down from the Moon and that they're looking for work."
"Work doin' what?" asked Wubwub suspiciously.
"Oh, the Snookses are into all kinds of things," said Cobb. "You can tell them you're a --a burglar, Wubwub. Just secretly actualize things like liquor for the Anubis bar and say that you stole it. And that can be your contribution to the family. You don't necessarily have to fuck the cheeseballs, if that's what you're worried about."
"I'm not worried about that," said Shimmer, staring down at the sleeping Randy Karl Tucker. "It might be fun."
"I'm going to call Theodore right now," sighed Babs, walking off toward the front of the warehouse.
"Babs likes Randy," Yoke explained to Shimmer. "It makes her unhappy to think of him having sex with you. So don't do it, please."
"Oh!" said Shimmer. "I hadn't realized."
"It's not our affair if the vile youth lacks wholesome passion for Babs," said Peg snippily.
"What kind of sex system do you Metamartians have?" asked Yoke. "Do you have any kind of clue?"
As usual, Josef wanted to be the one to answer the question, but Siss made as if to swat him.
"I the one who sexy, Josef. You let me speak."
Siss had a face of pale humanlike skin with large, almond-shaped eyes. Her nose was little more than two flattened holes and her mouth was immensely long and thin-lipped. Instead of hair, she had a skull-fitting hood of shiny green snakeskin that flowed down to join the snakeskin which covered the rest of her body, save her hands, which had humanlike skin and long green fingernails. The hood had a dramatic widow's peak in the middle of her forehead. Siss looked decadent, Asian, androgynous.
"We have something like boy/girl too," she explained. "One got stick, one got hole. Each of us is 'stick' in some lives, 'hole' in others. Many lives across two-dimensional time. Stick to hole, hole to stick, like big crocodile sex zipper." Siss showed her fangs and made a gentle biting motion, her long curved fangs sliding into matching sockets in her jaws. "Everyone both girl and boy."
"But there's more to it than that," piped up Josef. "We zipper together in loops of seven. Why seven? It has to do with a feedback resonance in the strange attractor of our metagenome. In ancient times we mated only on Metamars, but now we've chirped out into the cosmos. When seven of us nomads can meet and mate -- it's a wonderful thing. Seven of us landed here, but eight of us shall leave."
"I for one am eager to be getting on with our adventures," said Haresh. Other than Josef, he looked the least human. "Can we go and meet the Snooks family now?"
"Stay uvvied in with me." said Cobb. "If they ask you any hard questions, I can feed you the answers. Now is a good time to show up. Most of them are going to be asleep or hung over. Remember, you guys come from the big Nest on the Moon. And you're going to promise to give the Snookses half the imipolex you earn, in return for them letting you join their family."
"Let's do it!" said Shimmer.
They waited by the warehouse's front door until they could see a time-line in which no passersby would notice them. Cobb and the six big Metamartians jumped out onto the street with little Josef buzzing along above them.
"Look at them go, Yoke," said Babs, just ending her uvvy call with Theodore.
"What a sight."
"Anubis, ahoy!" said Yoke. "We better not stare after them. We don't want it to be totally obvious that your warehouse is where they came from. How was Theodore?"
"Oh, fine. Thrilled that I called. We made a date, not a dinner date, a meet date. We're going to meet at the Fillmore and see Larky's brain-concert. Larky's this guy who uses really big sheets of imipolex for his audio and video. Sort of like Saint and Onar were doing the other day, but more professional. I like Theodore -- I guess."
"I told Shimmer to leave Randy alone," said Yoke.
"What? I don't believe you, Yoke. What'd she say?"
Yoke put on her Val voice. "Shimmer was like, 'Oh I didn't know.' And that swilly Peg is all 'It's not our problem.' And I'm like 'Do you have any clue about sex?' And Siss goes, 'We're bi.' But then Josef says they do it by sevens."
Babs laughed and gave Yoke a hug. "Whatever. Randy is pretty skanky. Let's get our allas and do art!"
"What about Randy's alla?" said Yoke.
"Maybe we should take it away?" said Babs. "Maybe give it to someone else?"
"At least hide it for now," said Yoke. "He might do something really gnarly with it if he's still lifted when he wakes up."
So they tiptoed back to Yoke's sleeping corner. Willa Jean had perched herself on Randy's chest, as if guarding him. Though Cobb and Randy hadn't yet fixed up a new DIM link between Randy and the plastic chicken, Willa Jean was still quite loyal to the Kentuckian.
Yoke held Willa Jean's beak shut while Babs took Randy's alla out of his pocket.
"This is what happens to stoned rednecks," hissed Babs, pocketing Randy's alla.
"Their powers disappear." Willa Jean let out an outraged cackle when they released her, but Randy slept on unperturbed.
And then Yoke and Babs went out to the front of the warehouse and started making things.
February 26
"I'm kind of waiting to see what's going to happen next," Yoke was saying. It was two days later, Thursday, February 26, 2054, about two in the afternoon. Yoke was on the uvvy with her twin sister Joke on the Moon. The to-and-fro response time for a message was about five seconds, due both to the large Earth-Moon distance and to the intricate diffusion-encryption software they were using for the call. Diffusion-encryption sent each byte of the message along a different path -- to prevent there from being any traceable signal binding the speakers together. It took a lot of computation.
With the five-second lag, the best way to converse was to take turns sending long blocks of speech and images. It was more like a fast E-mail exchange than a normal conversation.
Yoke continued her turn: "Babs and I have been making the best things. I already showed you some of my static sculptures, but now let me show you one that moves." The uvvy transmitted the images direct from Yoke's vision centers. She was looking at a sweeping loop of shiny wire with bright shapes sliding along the wire. "I made this on Tuesday. The rail is chrome steel and there's a linear induction field in it. The power comes from a quantum-dot generator embedded right inside the rail. The shapes are the Platonic and Archimedean solids, remember them?" Two of the polyhedra collided and reversed directions. They swooped along the track's twists and loops, rising and falling. The beautiful, shiny polyhedra were tinted crystal, grown around magnetic metal cores. "It's a magpie kind of thing. And I keep making myself more clothes. Look at my outfit." Yoke stepped in front of a fancy full-length wood-framed Art Nouveau mirror to show off her latest clothes, a short thin red leather jacket over baggy shin-length pants and a white T-shirt inset with lace spirals. "And Babs made a bunch of furniture. Like this mirror for instance. It was from a Sotheby's auction catalog. And she made a silk couch with ants embroidered all over it and a canopy bed. I made myself a bunk bed like we used to have on the Moon, only big enough this time. The thing Babs is proudest of so far is over here, check it out. Like a glass bowl of living spaghetti." Yoke pointed her gaze at a cubical quartz box holding a wriggling mass of imipolex worms of every color and thickness. The sharp edges of the square box contrasted with the lively antics within. "Babs could never have afforded this many plastic worms before. I think there's two hundred thousand of them, all custom made by her--well, you can tell the alla to make a whole lot of copies of something in a row, but I guess that's still custom. Custom mass-produced? Anyhoo, see how the same-colored ones band together and flow along like gouts of lava? I love it. Okay, now you talk." Joke's message started coming in: "Your clothes are floatin', Yoke. I have so many clothes ideas I want
you to make. Like polka dots with the dots being cutouts. Look." The signal showed Joke's hands quickly sketching a girl with an outfit. Beyond Joke's hands was a lunar workshop crowded with equipment for making Silly Putters: shelves and shelves of chemicals, a hulking injection molder, and a workbench with imipolex-machining tools such as a piezomorpher and a volume-filling airbrush. Joke was living with her somewhat gnarly artist boyfriend, Corey Rhizome, who was visible at the other end of the workshop. A few of Corey's Silly Putters were hopping around; they were plastic pets a little like Willa Jean, but smarter and more autonomous. Yoke recognized two of the Silly Putters: the small green pig of a "rath" and the football-shaped, orange-beaked "Jubjub bird," the two forever engaged in mutual battle. Joke set down her pen and continued talking. "I hope you bring that alla back here really soon! Oh, and your sculptures are terrific. I never knew you could be such the artist, Yoke. That wire thing with the sliding blocks is sooo weightless. I guess you could make a really big one? I mean, like as big as a carnival ride, with each of the sliding thingies hollowed out so that a person could ride inside? I'm wondering if there's any limit to the power of the alla. I mean, could you hollow out a huge biosphere under the Moon's surface and fill it up with dirt and rivers and lakes and an atmosphere and maybe even a little fusion sun? There's no end to what people might ask you for. So you're right that it's really important to figure out how to copy the allas so that it's not just you and Babs being golden geese when everyone finds out. I'm glad that the people and moldies from Tonga haven't tracked you back to San Francisco. I guess the King is keeping quiet and the Cappy Janes really fell for the decoy. The tofu Sue Miller! We knew a girl just like that, remember Simmie Lipsit? I wonder if one of the Cappy Janes has chased down the tofu Sue by now. You know, I'm going to ask Emil and Berenice to check on the moldies' chat lines right now. While I do that, tell me what's up with Cobb's great-grandson. Did you ever give him his alla?"
