by Rudy Rucker
I pressed him to tell me what he meant by this and he made the following comments. “At any given time it’s entirely possible that an invisible alien might be right at your shoulder. Instead of denying this, or believing it but being frightened, why not accept it as true and rejoice in it! If I have an alien at my side, I can share in its wonderfully fresh view of things. I can see the world through new eyes. The more I see our world as an alien might see it, the happier I am.”
Chapter Seven: Notes on Biotechnology
By Tuesday, June 21, 1994, I had the first two chapters based on Frank’s notes written up in much the same form that you see them here. I was excited about the stuff and I was cranking pretty hard, writing all day long every day, weekends and evenings as well. Audrey thought I was overdoing it, but she was pretty busy herself with her paintings. Her show at the Coffee Roasting was due to start on the first Saturday in July.
On the morning of Wednesday, June 22, 1994, Frank phoned me up and I was able to tell him that I was all done and ready for more notes.
“Bring the chapters down to my cabin so I can read them,” he said.
I sort of wanted to say yes. But I remembered having made a big issue about not wanting to have Frank reading the book before it was done. And I remembered why. Frank would be too likely to give me a hard time about the details of what I’d written. I mean, to me it might seem funny and accurate to call Frank a “mental guttersnipe” for dragging Pink Poodle stripper gymnastics into a discussion of rolled-up higher dimensions—but an edgy loner like Mr. Shook would probably take that kind of remark as a mortal insult. Even more problematic, Frank might object to things that I didn’t even suspect might be offensive.
“So what if he were to object?” you might say. “Big deal.” The problem is, when someone criticizes something in one of my works in progress, I start doubting myself and changing things—and then changing them back—all the while expending huge amounts of energy on silent internal arguments with mental straw-man simulations of my critic. So I said no to Frank’s request.
“I’m sorry, Frank, I don’t want to. Remember when we made our deal at the Jahva House? You get your twenty percent, but you have to trust me while I’m writing the book.”
“But what if you get something wrong? Don’t you care?”
“We’ll have one big correction session when I’m all done, and for sure I’ll fix anything that’s a mistake. But I’m worried that if I start going back and forth with you now, I might lose my momentum. I’m always in this state of anxiety when I’m writing. Like that the Muse might leave.”
“I’m honored to be working with such the literary artiste,” said Frank sarcastically.
“Okay, let me put it another way. It’s like I’m fucking and I don’t want anyone to interrupt me before I come.”
“What a way for a professor to talk! Well, all right, so you’re not gonna show me the book till it’s done. Are you writing it on your computer?”
“Yeah, I always use a word processor these days. It’s a lot easier. Could you get some more notes for me? Try and ask about my other Great Work question. The future of robots and artificial intelligence. Something practical to counterbalance all that wild alien stuff, not that I don’t love it.”
“I could try and attract a saucer for a session today. I haven’t been with the aliens since June 8. I’d been hoping to spend the day with you, but since you’re being such a prima donna about showing me what you’ve written, I might as well be a good collaborator and get you more material.”
“Good man! Do it. And then I’ll come down and see you tomorrow and you can give me the notes and explain them to me.”
“All right. We can meet at Carlita’s.”
So on Thursday, June 23, 1994, I had lunch with Frank at Carlita’s again. It was much the same as before. I had chicken soup; Frank had an enchilada platter; we both drank beer. Frank had brought in a sheaf of notes on future biotechnology; it seemed the aliens hadn’t been interested in doing research on robots. We sat at Carlita’s for a couple of hours, going over the biotechnology notes together. They were good.
When we finished with the new notes, our conversation drifted around for awhile. Frank talked some more about the general issue of why the aliens liked to visit Earth. He made a remark that stuck in my mind: “Maybe there’s something we have that the aliens like. Something we take for granted.”
Then I brought up a problem that was still bothering me a lot: Peggy Sung. “Should I be worried about this woman? Is she going to try and do something to me?”
“Well, as it happens, I ran into her Sunday at the supermarket. In the flesh. She knows all about what we’re doing, and she thinks she ought to be getting a cut of the book money too. Like she said on the beach. She wants ten percent.”
“What!?!”
“Well, it can be argued that she invented the triple feedback idea. And there’s a sense in which triple feedback is the fundamental technology that’s making Saucer Wisdom possible. It’s like if you were using someone’s camera for a photography book, you might have to pay them a licensing fee. I don’t necessarily agree with her, but that’s the way she looks at it. And I’m afraid she can tell the aliens not to come for me anymore. Basically it’s either kill her or pay up. And if I killed her I’d get in too much trouble.”
“You practically tried to kill her on the beach. Throwing that rock at her.”
“Aw, I knew it was gonna miss. Do you think I’m a psycho or something?”
I sighed and looked out the window. There was a Pacific Bell truck slowly driving by. The driver was a dead ringer for Guster; he was staring at me, but he didn’t wave. And sitting next to the driver was a longhair who looked a lot like Spun. The truck tooled past and was gone.
“Spun and Guster!” I exclaimed. “I think I just saw them again! Driving by in a Pac Bell truck! Guster was at the Pot Of Gold phone-booth across the street the first time I met you here, and then he and Spun were at Jahva House two weeks ago. Do they have something to do with Peggy Sung? Are they spying on me? For that matter—are you spying on me? Is that how you found out I was going to call our book Saucer Wisdom?”
“Don’t turn all paranoid on me, Rudy,” said Frank. “It’s a small world up here in the mountains.” He’d had several more beers while we were talking about the future of biotechnology. “I’m the one who should be paranoid, the way you won’t show me your manuscript. I think you’re way out of line on that. Why the hell shouldn’t I know what you’re writing about me? What if you’re calling me a nut and an asshole?”
“If you want me to, I’ll say it to your face, Frank. You’re a nut and an asshole.” I forced a laugh. “Christ. You people are driving me crazy. So now I’m gonna go home and work on the actual book. Give me a call next week, maybe Wednesday.”
Despite the tension, the biotechnology notes were great fun.
Chimerical Beasts
Herman the starfish again. Robots are junk. Wavy nature. Dog that licks your floor, all tongue, no dog, brain of a worm, hyper mole guts, Big Tongue. Better than LuvSlug, it’s alive. Sausalito Suzy Creamcheese likes it, her airhead me-show.
Biobot engineers can see DNA, high-level. Anti-sound bees glue motors shut, psychedelicize thy neighbor. Neatnik bird pecks trash. Super blowfish in pool.
A purple dog with orange spots, very cute. And then—look out for the compsognathuses! Mean as dachshunds. Dona and Chu tame them with spaniel-brains and simulated evolution. Pet dinos at last! Roar! A pterodactyl pecks a cat and misses.
Machines Suck
Around noon on Wednesday, June 22, 1994, Frank starts up his three video cameras and TV sets. This time, it takes a little longer than usual to zero in on the right kind of alien-attracting fractal. The idea is to crank all of the cameras’ sensitivities down to very low values and then to inch them up more or less in synch.
Eventually
the organic-looking little feedback shapes are twitching around on the monitors and the screen thickens up. The effect reminds Frank of those pictures which turn into a three-dimensional image if you look at them with your eyes crossed. One instant he’s looking at patterns on a screen, but then his focus somehow changes—and he’s looking at a hovering bright-line saucer which moves slowly forward to engulf him.
The aliens hook into Frank’s mind, and he recognizes the vibe. It’s Herman the starfish again.
“Hello, Frank,” says Herman. “We’re here for another excursion with you. How’s it going with your book called Saucer Wisdom?”
“Oh, fine, I guess, but Rudy won’t show me what he’s writing. He wanted me to ask you about the future of robots.”
“Robots?” says Herman. “What a stupid question. It’s strange how obsessed you humans are with your machines. You’re so monkey-like, so simian. Fiddle fiddle. There’s no reason why there should there be a clockwork machine that acts like a person or like an animal. The idea of making things out of machinery is childish; it’s magical thinking. Like making goddesses out of clay. Or putting pictures of money in your wallet. Or pasting cardboard on your arms and thinking that’ll help you fly. Look.”
The saucer darts through some near-future scenes of clunky mechanical robots falling over, crashing into things, getting stuck in unproductive oscillations. One image shows a robot’s metal-strut arm bumping a doorframe over and over again, finally gouging out a hole in the frame and the wall, with the arm getting bent and battered as well; at the end of all the clumsy bashing, the robot totters through the ruined door and immediately falls down a flight of stairs.
“Robots are such a stupid idea,” repeats Herman. “Piezoplastic will change the situation a little, but even soft robots are just machines. Biotechnology is much more important than anything humans can do with machines.”
“All right,” says Frank. “What does Rudy know? Let’s do biotech instead of robots.”
Biobot Inc.
Frank and the aliens skip into the future and zoom in on a startup company called Biobot. They’re in a flat building near the Bay in San Mateo. Frank and the saucer hover there to watch Biobot’s techie founders making their pitch to the venture capitalists.
“Our first product will be called Big Tongue,” says one of the techies, an Indian man standing in front of the room. His name is Saleem; he has inspired, liquid eyes. “Big Tongue will be positioned as a robot vacuum cleaner—although it is not a robot. It licks off your floor all the time, like an eager dog who slurps up a spill. Note that Big Tongue is not mechanical, it is bio-engineered from a cow’s tongue crossed with the nervous system of a flatworm and the digestive tract of a shrew.” Saleem smiles, takes a drink of ice-water. “Such a collage creature is called a chimera, after the Greek myth of a beast that was the combination of a lion, a goat and a serpent.”
“D’oh!” says one of the venture capitalists, a fat yellowish man. “How in the world are you going to market this, Saleem?”
“I’m glad you ask,” says Saleem. “Big Tongue has four selling points which we are summarizing as Big Tongue licks clean, Big Tongue cares, Big Tongue keeps mum, and Big Tongue licks you.” A sample ad appears on a big Abbott wafer screen behind Saleem, prominently featuring the four slogans.
“The first point is the obvious one,” says Saleem, pointing to the screen. “Big Tongue will be keeping your floor impeccably proper. Big Tongue licks clean. No artificial substance can match the flexibility and roughness of a real tongue.
“The second selling point is that Big Tongue is organic. A mechanical device is something which many people fear and mistrust—with good reason! Machines—and I include computers and piezoplastic in this category—require upkeep, they malfunction, and—this is the most significant—they are an entirely different order of being. Big Tongue is our kin, Big Tongue is based on DNA, Big Tongue cares. It participates, if you will, in the Gaian morphic resonance.
“The third point is that Big Tongue is no a burden to have around. Unlike with a maid or a servant, you don’t feel guilty towards it. Big Tongue is organic, but at a scale so low that it does not carry the responsibilities of a pet, not even of a goldfish. Nobody need have a bad conscience towards a cow’s tongue. Big Tongue keeps mum.
“A final selling point is that Big Tongue is readily amenable for use in personal grooming. Think how pleasant it is to be a kitten washed by a mother cat. Big Tongue will lick the user wherever he or she likes. Big Tongue licks you.”
A short-haired man in a silvery suit raises his hand. “This personal massage angle, Saleem. We’re not going to take a low road on that are we?”
“Oh no no no,” says Saleem. “Leave the low road to people’s low imagination. We mention only that Big Tongue is naturally antiseptic, and is always clean enough to be used on one’s own body. And we will perhaps remark that Big Tongue might be playing the role of a sponge in the shower to wash off the areas which are difficult to reach.”
Big Tongue vs. Lickin’ LuvSlug
Big Tongue hits the market and Frank gets the aliens to zoom in on a user, a Suzanna Quarkaese in Sausalito, just north of San Francisco. She’s in the kitchen talking with her friend Benny Gay. On the floor are a Big Tongue and a piezoplastic LuvSlug.
“You bought both of them, Suzanna?” exclaims Benny. “You are such the rich bitch.”
“I couldn’t decide,” said Suzanna. She’s actually not bitchy-seeming at all; she has warm features, long brown hair and a generous mouth made bright with yellow lipstick. “I think they’re both super exciting. The new model LuvSlugs clean the floor too, you know. It’s a just-in-time feature so that they can compete with Big Tongue. They’re called Lickin’ LuvSlugs. I’ve been testing them out all morning. Can you run my dragonfly, Benny?”
“You want to shoot this?”
“Of course, that’s why I asked you over, duh. I’m going to make a little news feature comparing the Big Tongue and the Lickin’ LuvSlug—for the Suzanna Quarkaese Me-Show. For my hundreds of fans. Once I had four-hundred-and-sixty-three viewers!”
“Ooooh-kay,” says Benny. He puts a piezoplastic uvvy patch the size of a silver dollar onto the back of his neck, and a little plastic dragonfly hops up off its perch on a kitchen shelf and begins flying around.
“Ta da!” says Suzanna. “It’s me again, Suzanna Quarkaese. Guess what I just bought? A Big Tongue and a Lickin’ LuvSlug. One’s meat and one’s smart plastic. Watch along as we compare and contrast!”
Suzanna opens the fridge, gets out a pint of nasty, moldy old yogurt and dumps it on the floor in two piles, one near each of the two cleaning products. The Big Tongue is pink and rough, very like a cow’s tongue. The LuvSlug is gray and iridescent. Each is about a foot and a half long, and some four inches in diameter. Neither one is particularly pleasant to look at.
When the yogurt plops onto the floor, it’s the Big Tongue who notices first. It must have something like a sense of smell, for no sooner do the curds hit the linoleum than the Big Tongue writhes over to the spot and starts licking. There seem to be fissures in the Tongue, for the yogurt disappears right into it. As it continues to lick, Big Tongue begins giving off a low purring sound, like a mother cat tending a kitten.
“Wake up, Lickin’ LuvSlug,” says Suzanna and nudges it into its patch of yogurt with her foot. Once the LuvSlug feels the moisture it begins rapidly scouring the floor, absorbing the stuff into its body just like the Big Tongue, but soundlessly. The Lickin’ LuvSlug finishes off its spill and begins casting about for more to clean. It bumps up against the Big Tongue, which is still ruminatively licking its area of floor. The two dumb sausage creatures bump and nuzzle each other. Big Tongues’ purring takes on a questioning tone.
“Get a close-up of that, Benny,” says Suzanna. “It’s too absurd.”
“Throw something else on the floor,” suggests Benny.
So Suzanna tests the cleaning-creatures with butter, ketchup, flour, a box of cereal, and a big spill of water. The Big Tongue is consistently more responsive and thorough, but the Lickin’ LuvSlug moves faster. After the tests, both of the slug things are somewhat distended from all the stuff they’ve absorbed.
Figure 32: Suzanna In the Shower With Big Tongue and Lickin’ LuvSlug
“I bet you’re wondering how I empty them?” asks Suzanna. “First the bad news.” She picks up the Lickin’ LuvSlug and squeezes it over the sink. A thin milky gruel leaks out of one end of the LuvSlug and runs down the drain.
“Gross!” exclaims Suzanna. “And don’t forget to rinse.” She runs water over the Lickin’ LuvSlug until the stream from its bottom end runs clear.
“And now the good news!” Suzanna makes a lo-and-behold gesture with both hands, pointing at the Big Tongue, which is sitting on the floor quietly shivering. “Big Tongue metabolizes its meal away! Now let’s see how they work on carpeting and woodwork.”
Frank’s getting a little bored with this, so he gets the aliens to skip ten minutes forward, to the inevitable shower scene.
Suzanna is in her shower-stall, nude and attractive, and she’s got the Big Tongue in one hand and the Lickin’ LuvSlug in the other. Benny Gay is sitting in a chair in the bedroom, flying the dragonfly around the bathroom. “Am I the lucky girl or what?” says Suzanna, holding up the two slug things, one pink and one gray. The Big Tongue reaches over and slurps against her cheek, while the Lickin’ LuvSlug rubs her arm. Suzanna closes her eyes and presses the two soft, writhing objects against her neck, then opens her eyes very wide.
“Oooo! Big Tongue’s totally the best. I guess there’s nothing like DNA. ‘Scuse me!” The Lickin’ LuvSlug drops to the tile floor outside the shower and Suzanna disappears into the steam. Loud purring. Benny flies the dragonfly out and away.