by Rudy Rucker
“Use a lot,” says Jena. “I can’t wait forever.”
As Volga is misting in the desoxy-gibberlin-5, his fingers slip and he loses control of the nozzle. A tight plume of gibberlin shoots directly into Jena’s nose.
“Hoo boy,” says Volga, cutting the thing off. But it’s too late. The gibberlin is in Jena’s blood-stream and she’s aging at an insane rate. The antler shoots out of her head like a tulip in a stop-action nature movie.
Jena dashes around the High Plains Smoothie so fast that the air grows warm, one by one she tears down every single fruits and gobbles them, she’s living out weeks and months in just a few minutes. Finally the stuff wears off and she collapses, weak with hunger, her hair and fingernails preternaturally long. The antler curls up over her head like a bonnet. Durleen falls to her knees and cradles Jena in her arms.
“Whew,” says Jena, catching her breath. “Chill out, Durleen, I’m perfectly okay. I’m just glad I was wearing my uvvy for all that time. It felt like six months. I did all my homework for the rest of the year. But that could have killed me if I hadn’t been in here with all this food. Stupid Volga has to pay for it, not me.”
As Stig raises his great lizard tail and moves menacingly towards Volga, the little saucer darts back up into the sky.
Archipelago People
“We’ll be able to pick up on not one, not two, but three different transhumanity trips with the Embrey family,” says Balaam, his/er eyes rolled partway back into her/is head as s/he studies the incoming megachannel UV scan. These saucerians don’t need Frank’s help in winnowing through human data. “Archipelago people, rejuvenation, and mermen.”
“The highly optimal Balaam,” says Perl, admiringly.
“It helps to have read Saucer Wisdom,” puts in Goola, just a bit snippily. There’s some undercurrents of jealousy in this ménage à trois.
The surroundings go briefly gray, and then the saucer is angling down to a narrow gravel road. It’s just after dawn on winter’s day. They follow the icy road around a corner, take a driveway into a barnyard of rutted drifts, and catch up with a Black farmer named Otis Embrey. The rising sun gilds the snow with orange and turns the shadows purple. The sky is a crystalline blue. It’s a beautiful morning.
Otis has an expressive, thoughtful face—big eyes and a wide mouth with calm thick lips. Vertical smile wrinkles and patchy black stubble on his chin. He’s wearing fluorescent orange quilted overalls. Two small dark animals follow him across the barnyard, scampering along in the fresh footsteps he leaves in the crunchy snow. A third little animal flies through the air, circling Otis’s head.
The saucer zooms closer, and now Frank can see that the “animals” on the ground are two strong black hands, running along on their fingertips. Each hand ends with a rounded knot of muscle at its wrist. Set into the knots of muscle are small, shiny eyes. As for the thing that’s flapping in the air: it’s an eyeball with a pair of bat-wings. The three curious little creatures wear uvvy patches of piezoplastic, as does Otis.
Figure 52: Otis’s Extra Hands
“Cow, cow, cow!” calls out Otis, stepping into the barn. “Good mur-ning to you!”
Recognizing Otis’s rich, cheerful voice, the cattle in the barn raise their heads and moo. There’s six cows and a bull. Otis sets to work filling their mangers. Meanwhile his two extra hands milk the cows. Frank notices that the cows’ milk is stored in thermos bottles, each cow’s bottle with a different kind of label.
“They’re pharmaceutical cows,” explains Perl, sensing Frank’s unspoken question.
“And what about the flying eyeball?” asks Frank.
“That’s from his wife, Camilla,” says Goola.
“Let’s do a peek-a-boo on her,” says Balaam.
The NuYu Do-It-Yourself Fourteen-Day Rejuvenation Bath
The saucer skips a half hour further in time. Otis is in the farmhouse kitchen making himself some toast and scrambled eggs. His extra hands are resting by the sink, rubbing Bag Balm Ointment into themselves. The eyeball perches on the back of a chair, watching Otis.
“Let’s listen,” says Perl, and they tune in on the uvvy conversation between Otis and the eyeball.
“Only three more days,” the eyeball is saying. It has a woman’s gentle voice.
“I’ll be glad to have you back,” Otis answers through his uvvy. “Mighty cold in bed by myself these long winter nights.” He sets his plate down on the table and begins eating. “You feelin’ okay today, Camilla?”
“I—I guess so. I looked at myself this morning and it scared me. I look like a skinned rabbit. At least my joints and organs are done, and my muscles are back in place. Thank goodness I can’t feel anything.”
“Me, I sure wouldn’t go through all this mess,” says Otis.
“But I’ll be so healthy and so—beautiful.”
“Hope you don’t end up too good-lookin’ for me,” says Otis. “Hope you don’t go out and find you a younger man.”
“You still look good to me, darling.”
“And you looked good to me just the way you was befo’. It’s that Rize put this crazy idea in your head. Our son the fish.” Otis finishes his eggs and pours himself a fresh cup of coffee.
“I thought maybe we could try and call him today,” says the woman’s voice. “After you tend to me.”
“I’d like that,” says Otis. “I miss the boy.” He gets to his feet and puts his dishes in the sink. His extra hands set to work washing them.
“Hang on, Mama, ‘cause here I come,” calls Otis as he starts up the staircase to the second floor. The farmhouse is an old-fashioned human-built structure with creaky wooden steps. The eyeball flutters along in Otis’s wake as he heads down the hall and into the bathroom.
The tub is filled with a straw-colored liquid that reminds Frank of automotive transmission fluid. Pale winter light slants in through the window, lighting up the depths of the tub. Submerged there lies the form of a woman, a woman with no skin, a flayed figure of sinew and muscle. The eyeball alights on the shower-rod and sits over the tub.
“Whew,” says Otis, averting his gaze. “Sho’ hope this works, Camilla. Guess I’ll fire up today’s instructions.”
He accesses a program stored in his uvvy, and a to-do list seems to appear in the air before him. Hooked in as he is, Frank can see it too.
“Day Eleven,” reads Otis. “Step One. Replenish amniotic fluid with six liters of lukewarm water and one envelope of NuYu SkinGro.”
Figure 53: The Tub And The Eyeball
There’s a large cardboard box of NuYu supplies sitting on the floor by the tub. The box has a NuYu logo on it, which is a picture of a smiling sun.
“Only white people could of made up something this dumb,” mutters Otis as he measures out the water and tears open a wax-paper envelope of powder. The envelope has a NuYu logo on it too. “I hope you still a Black woman when we done with this, Camilla.” He sprinkles the powder into the tub.
“Of course I will be,” says Camilla. “I specifically ordered light bronze skin. You helped me pick it out. Doesn’t it say so on the envelope? Hold it up.” The eyeball leans forward to peer. “You see? Says Light Bronze right there.”
“Well, it might turn out like when you pick out a can of paint and it never look the same as the sample,” grumbles Otis, discarding the empty envelope. “Be just like the Man to try and turn everybody white.”
“You’re feeling ornery today, aren’t you?” says Camilla.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” sighs Otis. “Gettin’ lonely.” He reads again from the floating list. “Step Two. Place the NuYu Aesthetician Sluggie into the amniotic bath.” He walks over to the window and picks up a sluggie that’s sunning itself on the sill. “You got work today,” he tells the sluggie, and drops it into the tub. It writhes and stretches itself before settling onto the bare muscles of Camilla’s belly.<
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“Step Three,” reads Otis. “Wait eight hours, remove the NuYu Aesthetician Sluggie from the tub, rinse it off, and place it in a warm, well-lit place.” He ventures one more glance into the tub, where the NuYu Aesthetician Sluggie is very busy. Otis shakes his head and turns off the floating list. “We done for now, Camilla. Let’s go back down in the kitchen and give that boy Rize a call.”
Mermen
Frank and the saucerians follow Otis and Camilla’s remote eye back downstairs. Otis starts trying to make an uvvy-call to Rize, but he’s not getting through. He goes outside to scrape the snow and ice off his special antenna dish. His extra hands help him; for this intensive task they’re wearing leather gloves.
The day is spoiling; the wind has picked up and the sun is behind clouds. Otis finishes with the antenna and hurries back into the kitchen, cozy with a wood fire burning in an old metal stove. Now at last Otis and Camilla make contact. Frank and the saucerians listen in.
Rize is a merman; they see through his eyes. He’s looking at a mermaid who swims by his side. Her finned legs are separate, not fused into a fishtail like the traditional mermaid image. Her face is green and pretty. There are gill-slits in her neck.
Rize looks down at his own green body, at his finned legs and webbed hands. His eyes can see remarkably far down into the deep. There are fish below, and a school of small, silvery squid. “Hello, Rize,” calls Camilla. “How are you?”
“Fine, Mom. How’s your rejuvenation going?”
“Tolerable. I’m tired of thinking about it. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
“Lots of work, lots of play,” says Rize. “Look back there at the development I’ve been working on.” Rize turns his head, and Frank can see scores of glowing round Sea Homes hovering like Christmas ornaments.
Figure 54: Silla the Mermaid
“I miss you, boy,” says Otis. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Silla,” says Rize. “We’re going to get married next month!”
“Is she Black?” Otis wants to know.
“She’s green, Dad,” says Rize. “Green like me.”
“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Embrey,” says Silla. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Are you in construction, too?” asks Camilla.
“I talk to the dolphins,” says Silla. She makes a sharp chirping noise and two bottlenose dolphins appear at her side. “They help us find good places to anchor the house-kelp holdfasts.”
“You can understand them?” marvels Camilla.
“A little bit,” says Silla. “I have part of a dolphin’s brain grafted into mine. The hearing lobes. Dolphins can see by sound, you know. And since their faces don’t show much expression, they also use their sound patterns to show emotion.” Silla opens her mouth and lets out a prolonged twitter. The grinning dolphins nod vigorously to Rize.
“They’re saying hello to you, Mom and Dad,” says Rize. “They’re going to come to our wedding.”
“Well, I ‘spect we’ll be there too,” says Otis.
“It’s going to be underwater,” says Rize. “But I can get you some really nice piezoplastic dive-suits.”
“We can hardly wait,” says Camilla.
They talk a little more, and then the connection breaks. Otis sits in the winter kitchen talking things over with his wife’s remote eyeball. They’re happy about the coming wedding and the chance to see their far-away son.
Copying The Body
A sick old man like a medieval painting of “The Death Of The Miser”. Mr. Sloane. He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s dying. They use a life-box to put his mind in a clone. And squeeze juice out of his brain. The clone walks!
I think Goola likes me. I wonder if I have a chance at her. It’s been such a long time since I had a woman.
Boba Shekk is a guy like a screenwriter. 26th C. He can’t keep up. He gets two ohmies, these are better clones than Mr. Sloane had in the 24th C. Mark and John. Boba programs them by sneezing all over them. John takes Boba’s place.
The Ang Ous. Funhouse mirror of the thousand minds. The people’s will vs. the kamikaze clones. Turn them into space bugs and shoot them into orbit.
“In another couple of centuries after the Embreys, the human race masters a primitive technology for copying one’s body and mind,” says Perl. “It’s something I’m particularly interested in, so now I’m taking over. Good job, by the way, Balaam.”
“Thanks,” says Balaam. “You’re going to show him Shekk’s ohmies?”
“Spot on,” says Perl. “But first we’ll watch an old-fashioned brain juice extraction.”
“Things were so wild and shaggy in ancient times,” exclaims Goola. “So whatever. Can you imagine driving an automobile? Oh, I bet Frank’s done it! Is it mad and wonderful?”
“Well it takes a steady hand,” brags Frank, basking in Goola’s warm attention. “I’m considered quite a good driver. I wish you could come for a ride in the van I just bought, Goola. Solid as a rock at eighty-five miles per.”
“Oooh,” says Goola, her eyes sparkling. “And with the other cars careening by only inches away! Full of drunk drivers? How exhilarating. And all the stage-coaches? Have you ever been ambushed by Native Americans?”
“Just last month some kids outside an Indian gambling casino asked me for five bucks for watching my van,” says Wild West Frank. “But it was no big thing. I was ahead seventy bucks from the craps table.” Goola is sitting down next to him now, all ears.
“Are you going to be able to find a good brain-juice scene in Rapid City, Perl?” asks Balaam.
Perl quietly tries for a minute, scanning away, then suddenly slaps his forehead. “Right-o, there aren’t any here! Don’t you remember from Saucer Wisdom? We take Frank back to California for the rest of his tour. Rapid City doesn’t have the things we need to show him.”
“Hold on there!” cries Frank. “I don’t want to have any more missing time!”
“Not to worry,” says Perl. “If we bring you back here to Rapid when we’re done, it’ll all come out roses.”
“You won’t be missing but a nanosecond, Frankie-pie,” adds Balaam. “We’re doing you a big favor burning up all those glorks on you. Mektoub, isn’t it?”
Sloane’s Clone
The saucer makes a curious roaring sound and tears across the Western plains, the sky flickering from day to night to day many hundreds of times a minute. Though Frank’s not sure of this, it looks as if the hurtling Sun is sweeping across the skies from West to East. Which seems good, because this ought to mean an accumulation of extra time to make up for the missing time that the trip back to Rapid will produce. Frank starts to ask about this, but Goola forestalls his question with a reassuring pat on the leg.
Below them is Russian Hill in San Francisco. It’s a stormy winter night of gusty wind and pouring rain.
The saucer homes in on a great castle-like house grown from fine, rare woods. In a vaulted bedroom lies a frail old man in a great ebony bed. The room is lit by candles; there are thick red velvet curtains and mirrors in golden frames.
Sitting by the dying man’s bed is a trim little woman with a tight blonde bun. She wears a gray flannel skirt and jacket. Resting on a delicately lacquered table beside her is a small, glowing red cube.
“Can you hear me, Mr. Sloane?” asks the woman.
“Yyesss, Carol,” wheezes the old man. His fingers are picking distractedly at the sheet. Frank recalls having heard somewhere that dying people do this, and that there’s even a special word for it, which he can’t remember.
Balaam senses Frank’s wondering about the word and murmurs it to him. “It’s called ‘floccilation,’ Frankie. Mr. Sloane is floccilating.”
The saucer moves around to get a better view of the dying miser. His nose and Adam’s apple protrude hugely. His toothless mouth gapes, sucking in air. And attached to the
back of his neck is a piezoplastic uvvy.
“We’ve made a very complete life-box file for you now, Mr. Sloane,” says Carol. “It’s right here in the S-cube. You can rest easy about passing on.”
“I can’t see,” whispers Mr. Sloane. “The light is too bright.”
“I’ll put out another candle,” says Carol, pinching out a flame that’s within reach. “You’ll be happy to know that your new body is almost ready.”
The old man’s eyelids flutter and his mouth twitches. “Not ready yet? Body not ready?” His fingers continue to pluck at the sheets.
“To do it properly we can’t grow it any faster,” says Carol. “Otherwise there might be anomalies. Even with gibberlin, a top-quality clone still takes a year to grow to adult size. But as soon as it’s ready we’ll use your life-box file to program you right in. You’ll only be—out of circulation—for a short time.”
“Don’t tuh-tell,” murmurs Mr. Sloane, and dies.
Carol leans over him, holds a mirror to his mouth, pulls the sheet over his face. She stands, picks up the glowing red S-cube, and walks next door to a laboratory room that is as futuristic as Mr. Sloane’s bedchamber was medieval.
The most prominent feature of the room is a long glass tank in which floats the partially formed figure of a young man. Two high-cheekboned, burr-cut Vietnamese men are in the lab, already on their feet as Carol enters.
“It’s time?” says one.
“Yes, Dieu,” says Carol. “Quick, you and Thieu get the body and cut it up.”
Dieu and Thieu hustle into the bedroom and carry Mr. Sloane out on a stretcher. To spare Frank and themselves the sight of the corpse’s dissection, the saucerians jump an hour forward in time.
Figure 55: A Sluggie Sack Brain Injection
Now Dieu and Thieu are using the corpse’s tissues to help seed and nourish the clone in the tank. And Carol has the dead man’s brain in a sluggie sack which is distilling out memory molecules. Three little tumor-like bumps on the sides of the sack are accumulating the refined juices.