by Rucker, Rudy
At the very last minute one more passenger appeared, a tall, pale-faced young American rushing along the wharf, sweaty in a tie and ill-fitting dark suit, his teeth bared with effort, his hair cropped down in a burr. Was that the man whom Alan had seen lying in the alley? He had a curious, undulating gait. Alan overheard the fellow’s name as he booked a passage to Miami: Ned Strunk. Spotting Alan, Strunk gave him a hungry, blank-faced stare, and Alan turned away, repelled.
With hoarse, full-throated blasts from her steam-powered hooter, the Phos churned out through the Straits of Gibraltar and into open sea. Alan’s heart rose to see the land slide away. He was in every sense a new man. Unimaginable adventures lay ahead.
As dusk fell, the dinner bell rang.
“Right this way, Bill,” said Vassar Lafia, ambling by on the deck, eyes red. “Down the hatch.” He led Alan to a low-ceilinged mess-room where the dozen or so passengers took their seats with the captain and three lower-ranking officers.
“Katje,” said Lafia with an exaggerated yet courtly bow to the younger of the two women whom Alan had noticed. Even though her figure was so emphatic, Katje was dressed in a demure blue frock. “And Frau Pelikaan,” continued Lafia, addressing the older woman at Katje’s side. “May we join you? This is my old friend William Burroughs. Scion of a wealthy family and a sought-after tale-spinner. Bill, meet Katje and Frau Pelikaan from Brussels. They’re headed for—was it Lake Okeechobee?”
“You will behave tonight, won’t you, Vassar?” said Katje. She had a throaty Lowlands accent.
“Yesterday makes nothing,” said Frau Pelikaan. “With so few passengers, we shouldn’t hold the grudge. Sit, sit. What does your family do, Mr. Burroughs?” She peered at him near-sightedly, her soft face friendly.
Alan groped for the Burroughs’s memories—it was like catching carp in a muddy pond. “Business machines,” he announced as he took a chair. “Originally, that is. And now they run a gift shop in, ah, Palm Beach.”
“We’re in sugar,” said Frau Pelikaan. “My husband has an enormous plantation in Florida. Katje and I have been back to Brussels to renew our wardrobes.”
“You two look very top-shelf,” said Vassar. “Like stained-glass butterflies.”
Frau Pelikaan looked down in a gesture of modesty, tripling her chin. And then she threw back her head and laughed. “Let’s order champagne. Really, it’s still Christmas.”
“Apple cider for me,” said Alan. Hosting a skug had rather put him off spirits.
The portholes showed the dark and moonlit winter sea, its swells as smooth as oil. The Phos was knifing through the waters at a remarkable speed. Candles lit the tables, and the steward served a very nice turkey velouté in pastry shells. Alan’s apple cider went down well. The others started on a second bottle of wine.
Alan was glad to note that the disturbing Ned Strunk was off at the other end of the room, sitting with a Norwegian couple and a Spanish businessman. Strunk’s face was empty, his long arms were like vines.
“Not bad for leftovers,” Vassar said, as he spooned the last of his sauce off his plate. “You missed the rubber gut eat-orgy yesterday, Bill.”
“I do hope they have more of that bûche de Noël cake,” put in Frau Pelikaan.
“Are you single, Mr. Burroughs?” asked Katje.
“Indeed,” said Alan. “A confirmed bachelor by now.”
“Bill here was running wild when I met him in Tangier,” volunteered Vassar, who now seemed quite drunk. Evidently he’d prepped himself before the meal. “Let me tell you girls about it.”
“Are you sure this—” began Alan, but Lafia was not to be stopped. Gesturing for a third bottle, he leaned back in his chair, and began his narration.
“Bill here may not remember this tale, but I’ll unspool it just the same. You ever heard of a magic carpet ride? There’s a reason they talk about that in this part of the world. Those oriental carpets are windows, you might say, and travel devices as well. Bill and I rode a carpet to inner outer space. We started out at the Café Central. There’s a bunch of drifters, con-men, expats, and degenerates that hang there—it’s a party every day. I’d just come in from Gibraltar, and I found Bill here loading up a hookah with kief. The guy next to him, a chump name of Brian Howard, had tossed in a ball of opium. The tears of the poppy. Magic carpet fuel. I’m a student of the Thousand And One Nights.”
Vassar’s cheerful, reckless voice was filling the room. The subtle motions of Ned Strunk’s head indicated that he was listening to every word. At one level, Alan was in fact delighted to see Vassar shocking the stuffy crowd. But, given Alan’s peculiar circumstances, it seemed prudent to stem the flow. “Vassar, I’d really rather that you—”
“So Bill and me are blasting on the happy hookah, and suddenly there’s this wild stink and I’m so wasted I think maybe I’ve crapped my pants,” boomed Vassar. “But it’s just a mangy dog has come in and is rolling on his back on the carpet by our table. Old cur’s got his legs spread, wanting a friendly rub. And then Burroughs here gets down on all fours and starts sniffing the dog’s dick! I nudge Bill with my foot, I’m like, ‘Don’t do that, man, they’ll eighty-six us,’ and Bill yelps back, ‘We’re dump dogs on a magic carpet! Come down here and ride!’ You don’t remember any of this at all, do you, Bill?”
Turing shook his head, fighting back a bark of laughter. He’d always found it amusing when someone’s behavior was utterly beyond the pale.
“Now, really,” interrupted Katje, her cheeks gone red. “These are no table topics.”
“Well, it wasn’t me did that to the pooch,” said Vassar with mock primness. “It was Bill. I pulled him off the dog, moved the hookah down to the carpet next to him, and we sailed that funky rug around the Moon and Saturn too. When I came to, I was in Marrakesh. Mislaid Bill along the way.” Vassar gestured extravagantly with his dripping spoon, mapping out the course of his imagined trip. “But let’s turn to a more properly touristic topic. Did you ladies know we’ll be in Madeira tomorrow night? We’re allowed to go ashore for the evening. Charming town, Funchal, I passed through it this summer on my way out from America. I noticed a deluxe restaurant right by the docks there. O Portao. They say the scabbard fish is a pluperfect delight. Bill and I’d be happy to escort you there.”
“I don’t believe so,” said Frau Pelikaan. “Maybe we see each other across the room and wave hello.”
“Did I offend you just now?” pressed Vassar. “Katje, let me talk this over with you on the deck. We’ll take a stroll in the moonlight.”
“I have to wash my dress,” said Katje, getting to her feet. Vassar had managed to flick several drops of velouté sauce onto her bodice.
“Can’t we let the maid take care of that?” whispered Frau Pelikaan. “We haven’t had dessert.”
“Stay if you like, mother. I’ll see you in the room.”
“Oh, very well, I’ll come with you. I want to be sure you hang the dress outside to dry. Our suite is so tiny.” With curt nods at Vassar and Alan the women were off.
Vassar quickly ordered a brandy for him and a coffee for Alan. “This meal goes onto Frau Pelikaan’s account. I charge the meals to my tablemates and write on a fat tip. The steward loves me.”
“I must confess that it gives me an agreeable sense of irresponsibility to be in consort with you,” said Alan. “You remind me of a school friend who was expelled for ragging the masters. But that story about the dog...”
“Could be I pumped it up,” said Vassar, favoring him with a friendly smile. “Just to make them squirm. It was my opinion that you were sniffing the dog’s dick, but it could have been you were merely lying on the floor. Seems like you’ve cleaned up since then.”
“One could say that,” said Alan. “This has been a very peculiar six months. And, as I say, I don’t really mind your outrageous lines of talk. They hearten me. The social order is, after all, oppressive and absurd. So why not cock a snook?” Vassar seemed to have no idea that this meant to thumb one’s
nose, so Alan acted out the gesture, cheerfully waggling his fingers. Right about then, he realized that he could diddle his body’s biochemistry so as to feel some of the same intoxication that Vassar felt. And this he did.
“Cock a snook,” echoed Vassar, returning the salute. “It’s what I do, yeah. I’m always on the edge of things. Grew up in Jersey City, started work on the docks during high-school, latched onto a mob widow and drove her to Miami. Switched to a music teacher down there, then broke off on my own. I see things my own way.”
“How come you’re called Vassar?” asked Alan, almost flirtatiously. “Isn’t that a name of a woman’s college?”
“My Mom’s bright idea,” said Vassar with a short laugh. “Really we’re from Spanish Jewish stock, not that I go pushing that line in Morocco. Mom wanted to lay some class on me, so she picked that name Vassar. She knew it was upper crust.”
Alan felt more and more attracted to this man. On a sudden impulse, he verbalized the emotion.
“I could fall in love with you, Vassar.”
“Thanks, Bill, very kind of you to say that,” replied Vassar, patting Alan’s hand. “But I like my chances with that Belgian chick. Those beaky lips. Peck, peck! Maybe I could bring Vrouw Pelikaan into the mix. Squaaawk! I’m overdue for some action.”
“I’m available,” said Alan, who’d never been shy about pressing for sexual favors. But Vassar gave no answer to that. Mildly abashed, Alan made his way alone to his room.
His thoughts kept circling back to Katje Pelikaan’s dress. Presumably it was drying unguarded in the night. Alan could steal it and wear it—and reshape himself into a woman! Why not?
Alan had already gone partway down that road two years ago. After he’d been convicted of having sex with a man, the Crown had sentenced him to their notion of biocomputational tweaking—injecting him with estrogens, supposedly to destroy his libido.
But that hadn’t been enough for them. This summer the Queen’s minions had sent a crew around to murder Alan with cyanide in his tea. He was well outside the tribe now, free to act according to his own lights.
Getting back to the subject of becoming a woman, Alan recalled that, while he’d been on estrogen, his skin had smoothed, and he’d begun to grow breasts. It hadn’t been entirely disagreeable. He’d felt, at times, a rare inner peace. Now that he had the power of the skug within him, why not finish the job—and bed Vassar Lafia?
A big decision. But for starters, all he needed to do was to steal the dress.
Chapter 5: Shapeshifter
A little unsteady on the rolling deck, Alan made his way to the clothesline that the passengers shared. There was Katje’s gown, swaying gracefully in the night. Quickly Alan folded the garment into a bundle, tucked it under his arm and turned to start back towards his room.
“Hey, there. I’ve been wanting to introduce myself. I’m Ned Strunk.”
Blast and damn. This, this—yahoo was standing much closer than Alan might have expected. He had some regional American accent. From the south? He’d popped out of the nearby passengers’ lounge. And now he was intent on the absurd and unsanitary custom of shaking hands. Alan had to shift the blue dress from beneath his arm, with Strunk blankly gawping at him.
“Yes, I’m William Burroughs,” said Alan, grasping Strunk’s bony hand. “And I bid you good night.”
“You’re talking kind of funny.” Strunk’s eyes were like holes in his haunted face. “If you’re supposed to be American.”
“I’m an American who’s lived overseas for much of his life,” said Alan, moving away. “Not to be rude, but it’s been a long day, and my head’s like a wedge of cheese. Let’s enlarge our acquaintanceship at a more propitious time, shall we? Cheerio, Ned!”
“I’d like to get kind of personal with you,” said Ned, slinking after him. “I think you’ll understand.”
Was this a sexual proposition? If so, it was unwelcome. Giving no answer, Alan headed down the gray passageways to his room, his feet ringing on the metal floor. He double-locked the door, and set Katje’s dress to dry on his chair.
Why deny your fellow? It was the voice of the skug within him, forming words in his head.
I want nothing to do with Strunk, thought Alan. For all I know he’s from the CIA. Like an American Pratt.
He’s like Pratt, but he’s not an agent, said the skug. Strunk’s one of us. He needs your help.
Possibly these were hallucinations. Cutting off the stream of thought, Alan splashed cold water on his face and went to sleep. He was much too tired to pursue Vassar tonight.
When he awoke the next morning he felt very strange. Where were his arms and his legs? His visual field was a mismatched pair of fisheye views.
Bending one of his eyes downward, Alan realized that, in his exhaustion, he’d relaxed into the form of a seventy kilogram slug. He was a glistening shade of ochre, with a darker zone along his slick, body-length foot. Two feelers bracketed his mouth, and his eyes were mounted upon short, muscular stalks.
Oh hell. Once again, Alan focused inward, coaxing his bodily structures into the desired Burroughs form.
“Stiff upper lip,” he said aloud, as soon as he had something like a human mouth again. “One keeps up appearances.”
He noticed that Katje’s dress was dry. Carefully he folded it in two and hid it beneath his mattress.
Looking for a place to pass some time without being further importuned by Strunk, Alan made his way to the ship’s bridge. The radio operator was a congenial Australian using the default nickname Sparks. Alan had a pleasant talk with Sparks about his equipment, and even offered a suggestion for healing a buzz in the system. The fix worked, and Sparks willingly lent Alan his circuit diagrams and his repairs manual. Alan loved reading about the latest kinds of radio tubes. Studying the possibilities back in his room, he began sketching out a design for a circuit that could send a signal to make his skuggy body still more malleable and easy to control.
At lunchtime, Alan dropped his researches to stake out the mess-room, watching from a perch on the deck. He managed to enter the mess just as Katje and her mother were leaving. Dexterously he seated himself at their now-empty table, and stuffed Katje’s used napkin into his pants. Neither Vassar nor Strunk were around just now. After a quick bite to eat, Alan locked himself in his room with his treasure and began examining the napkin’s stains. And there, yes, was just the bit he’d been hoping for.
With a sense of high ceremony, Alan undressed and lay naked on his bed, draping the napkin over his face. He dropped his perceptions down to a deep biological level and urged on the autonomic functions of his inner skug. Make me into her.
Katje had left a tiny fragment of skin from her lip on the napkin, and Alan was pressing it to his own mouth. His lower lip twitched and tingled, gathering in the scrap of Katje’s flesh.
Alan’s heart pounded, his ears buzzed with the happy chanting of the skug. His flesh and bones began to flow, subtly on the whole, but with occasional lurches, as when his pelvis broadened to being half again as wide. Cell by cell, Alan’s tissues were learning Katje’s genetic code.
After an indefinite period of time, he sat up and regarded himself in the mirror. He’d morphed into a very close semblance of Katje indeed, complete with breasts and a vagina. He wondered if the genitalia were shaped right. Although he’d been engaged at one time, and had even spent a couple of awkward nights with his fianceé, Alan had no clear image of the details. But surely Katje’s genes knew.
It was very odd to be shorter and wider than before. And a little disturbing to have no penis—just that triangular little wisp of hair with a line at the bottom. Alan began thinking of the swarthy Vassar pushing his way into him, with his strong arms holding Alan tight. The image made him almost unbearably aroused.
There was a lot of noise from the deck, and it had been going on for some time. Alan realized that they’d maneuvered into the port of Funchal in Madeira, and were hoisting cargo on board. In due time, people would be
going ashore for dinner. Excellent.
Slowly, almost in a trance, Alan donned Katje’s dress, and sat on his bunk, studying himself in the mirror. It wouldn’t do to appear as an exact copy of the Belgian woman. He rubbed and kneaded his face, guiding the features into a more foxy and feral form—effectively making the new face more like his own.
He had no make-up, nor any notion of how to apply it. But it was easy to amplify the redness of his lips from within. He wouldn’t worry about underwear—the lack might well titillate Vassar. And as for shoes—oh, botheration. Certainly Alan’s cracked old oxfords wouldn’t do. There was nothing for it but to go barefoot. They were, after all, in the tropics.
When the voices and footfalls of the crew and passengers had finally damped down, Alan issued forth. The air was pleasantly damp and warm. And the decks were nearly deserted, save for the blasted Ned Strunk, who was sitting near the gangplank, doing nothing whatsoever, his expression as vacant as a dog’s.
“Howdy, it’s me again,” called Strunk as soon as he glimpsed Alan in his womanly form. “You look all different.”
Alan felt a pulse of interest from within. Something about Strunk appealed to his inner skug.
“I’m just a visitor,” said Alan quickly. Although he was still using his native British accent, his voice was higher, with a bit of a purr.
“You’re coming from Bill Burroughs’s room, right?” said Strunk in a low voice. “Number 17.”
“Don’t ask a lady her secrets,” said Alan, playing the belle. He had no time for this fool. He bent his lips in a simper, archly wagged his finger, and made his way down the ramp to the Madeira wharf, swaying his hips, comfortable in his bare feet.
