by Rudy Rucker
Flipsydaisy, Pinchley, Scud, Zoe, and Villy clamber down from the purple whale. Villy and Zoe have their guitars, but there’s no time to bring anything else. And by the time they’ve gone thirty feet, their battered, hard-working, heavily modified whale is totally on fire—lit off a grenade and an intense saucer zap. The awesome wagon that carried them a million miles from Earth is gone. Tragic. And how will they get home?
Pinchley’s as upset about the whale as Villy, maybe even more so. He and Villy stand there staring at the car’s collapsing frame, the greasy flames folding over themselves, and the disintegrating quantum shocks doing strange things to the perspective. It takes Scud, Flipsydaisy, and Zoe a minute to get the two gearheads moving again.
With Flipsydaisy and Pinchley leading them, the kids wend their way through the carnage. Flipsydaisy’s gold coronet grants them some measure of high-class Rubtan status. And perhaps it helps that Flipsydaisy has a wand. The shiny patch on her left wrist seems to be the hilt or the handle of the wand, although Scud’s none too clear on where the rest of the wand is.
It also helps that Villy’s looted a saber from a saucer zombie’s corpse. The blade is thin, as if only a few molecules thick. Flipsydaisy says it can slice anything whatsoever in half. Even so, Scud is deeply afraid. And then he hits on the idea of wreathing them in a Flatsie cloud of unknowing. After all, he still has his teep slug. Scud does the deed, and now their party moves on unseen.
By the time they reach the edge of the square, they’re clear of the melee. And the two patrol saucers seem to have lost track of them. Short-legged Flipsydaisy walks with her head high, coronet in place, her left hand extended in a fashion-model pose—leading them along a stone arcade lined with deluxe shops. She signals an abrupt right turn into an alley off the arcade, and they proceed through a mazy series of ever-smaller lanes, ending at the entrance to a courtyard the size of a handball court.
It’s calm here, far from the thuds of the grenades, the beeping of the ambulance pods, and the sinister baying from the tower. Scud tilts back his head and gazes upward. No saucers in sight. Windowless walls stretch towards the low sky. Swirls and spits of rain drift down, sprinkling his face. Thanks to the shared cloud of unknowing, Scud’s companions can only be seen as holes in the mist.
“You can turn off that crude Flatsie invisibility charm now,” says the citified Flipsydaisy. “More fun if we see each other. Lady F. has her lair beneath a trapdoor at the center of this yard. Don’t you adore how I’ve decorated it?”
Decorated? At first glance the little square resembles a flea-market, crowded with bric-a-brac. Single shoes, twisted forks, Szep headrests, portrait gourds, arcane technokipple. Standing amid the debris are five Trubans—pale, thin fellows. They chatter to each other in a twangy sliding dialect of the Szep tongue. They’re keenly aware of Scud and the others.
“Merchants?” Scud asks Flipsydaisy.
“Guards,” she says, saluting them.
Right about now Scud notices the really odd thing. The stuff in the courtyard isn’t, well, it isn’t lying on the ground. All the goods are floating at waist level. Suspended by a levitation field. So when you wade on in, as Flipsydaisy now makes them do, you’re surrounded by random junk that bobbles against your butt and thighs and crotch. It feels creepy.
Yellow Pinchley and adobe-red Flipsydaisy are in front, heading towards the center of the pool. They’re erect and solemn, as if approaching a throne room. Scud walks behind them, with Zoe and Villy in the rear, doing their lovey-dovey thing, holding hands and gesturing with their guitars as they gloat about the great riffs they played during their stratocast.
Scud is nervous about tripping and falling down. So nasty to have all this flea-market-type crap touching him, none of it new, most of it dirty. Tiny items like fasteners and machine parts fill in the spaces between the bigger things. He can’t even see his feet. Filthy, semi-transparent alien cockroaches are down there, no doubt. And—ew—did he just now step on a turd?
It’s too much. Scud feels like he might puke. He stops walking and breathes through his mouth. Flipsydaisy pauses, waiting, all the while holding forth about the elegance of this floating pool of crud. Supposedly she hand-curated the choice of each individual item, and there are deeply significant links between them, and their cumulative impact is, in some sense, a dynamic mandala representing the ancient and noble lineage of Lady Filippa’s Aristo race.
“Look out!” yells Zoe right about then. “A snake!” Off to the side, something bright is slithering amid the levitated sheet of debris.
“Is that what I think it is?” Pinchley asks Flipsydaisy.
“Our Lady’s gift to the humans, yes,” says Flipsydaisy with a nod. “Who gets it?”
“Scud,” says Pinchley, waggling his lumpy jaw. “He’s the one.”
Flipsydaisy raises a dark, elegant finger and points at—
“Don’t!” cries Scud. “Not me!”
The bright shape wriggles closer. She’s a living female being with a flat crystal for a head. Her supple body glows gold. And she’s heading for Scud, yes indeed. The pale guards show no interest.
“That’s your Aristo wand,” goes Pinchley. “You gonna like it, son.”
“Help me, Villy!” yells Scud.
So Villy rallies to his little brother’s defense and begins taking wild swings with his super-sharp saber. Effortlessly the wand evades the blade—it moves with preternatural speed and guile, weaving loops and knots, crooning all the while in a high, thin voice. Villy’s manful but futile swings intersect, in turn, a hovering anvil, a red glove, a really big vacuum tube, a large dead rat wearing a cloth jacket, a triangular book, a gemmed crab shell, a meaty orchid, a porcelain soup tureen, and very nearly the neck of one of those pale, thin guards, who ducks just in time.
Repeatedly, in between dodging Villy’s saber strokes, the singing wand jabs Scud’s butt with her sharp tail, as if tasting him, or teasing him, or savoring his cries. For the finale, the wand writhes around Scud’s left arm like a stripe on a barber pole and sinks into his flesh, completely disappearing—save for a flat, crystal-like head, which now rests upon the back of Scud’s wrist like the face of a watch.
“Rad,” goes the unsympathetic Zoe.
The crystal on Scud’s wrist bears an iridescent pattern like the spot on a peacock’s tail. Oh, it’s an eye. So—the wand can see.
“My name is Skzx,” the wand’s voice whispers inside Scud’s ear. She’s using teep. “I like your feel, Scud. Kinkier than I expected. I thought you’d be dull. Maybe I really will help you stop Groon and his saucers.” Her voice is husky and intimate. “I wasn’t sure if I’d do it or not.”
“Get out of me,” yells Scud, waving his left arm, longing to eject the parasite.
“We’re only starting,” murmurs the wand. “But I have a feeling this partnership is going to work. I’m savoring your panic. So jagged, your mind. Later you’ll come to love me. Have a taste of candy.” A warm glow runs up Scud’s arm and into his chest. For the first time in hours—or maybe it’s days—Scud’s all-consuming fear retreats.
“You can open the door to Lady Filippa’s lair now,” Flipsydaisy tells Scud. “It seems that you are worthy.” She’s smiling at him as if he’s handsome. And Villy is looking at Scud with new respect. For, yea, Scud Antwerpen is destined to be a man of the wand.
Scud makes what he supposes to be a commanding gesture, and the floating garbage moves to the sides, exposing the center of the courtyard. No cockroaches, no dog turds. Blank stone, set with a sturdy trapdoor a full fathom wide, chased in bronze, and bearing a mighty handle in the likeness of a Szep. The door swings open at Scud’s first touch. He can see a spiral staircase below.
The four others gather round, with the five pale guards at their perimeter.
“If you permit,” says Flipsydaisy stepping first onto the stair. “Rank hath its privileges. Scud, you come last. Protect our rear. Come now, Zoe and Villy.” Flipsydaisy makes a curious gesture with
her wand hand—like she’s laying a spell on the lovers.
Meanwhile Scud’s wand continues diluting his fear, giving him a confidence that is not well founded. For not only is that creature from the tower still wailing, its yowls are growing closer. Might it be hunting them down?
One by one, and all too slowly, Scud’s companions go down the staircase. The slender guards shift uneasily; they watch the alley and jabber to each other. Flipsydaisy, Pinchley, and Villy have descended out of sight. Zoe is starting down the stairs, and Scud is next. But then the self-dramatizing Zoe pauses on the stairs to cock her head and stare dreamily at the sky. Oh, the wonder of it all.
“Hurry up, goddamn you!” screams Scud, losing control of his voice.
Too late. Just as the now-frowning Zoe disappears down the stairs, a gray, ravening, wild-eyed, six-foot-tall dog-thing comes loping down the alleyway into the courtyard, loudly baying, closing in on his quarry. The spindly sentries fire some weak-ass beams at the beast, but the monstrous dog is completely unfazed. The guards might as well be white asparagus stalks. No way is Scud is going to have enough time to get down those stairs and slam the hatch.
But he’s got his wand. Before he even knows what he’s doing, he’s holding out his left arm with his fingers spread—just like he’s a videogame sword-and-sorcery wizard casting a spell. Whump. He feels a full-body pleasure wave as Skzx the wand pumps out the baddest-ass zap-ray ever. It’s like firing a bazooka, man. Way better than a saucer pearl zap. And, check it out, the giant dog is gray ashes.
Scud grins, savoring the glory of the moment. He’s a superhero. But wait. The ashes sift and spiral. They’re spinning themselves into dust devils, taking on shape, undead and implacable. Eeeek! The five guards take off work for the day, running out that alley to the town. For his part, Scud hurries down the spiral staircase after turning the handle that locks the hatch shut.
Meanwhile Pinchley and Flipsydaisy are engrossed in a conversation with Lady Filippa. And Villy and Zoe are gaping at the Lady’s hideaway like hicks dropped into the lap of inconceivable luxury. They’ve wandered over to a table with food and drink.
To Scud’s eyes, the Lady’s room is a low, littered den—and his companions are literally eating garbage. The room is lit by some glowing knobs of fungus on the walls. Thanks to his wand, Scud sees the true nature of these quarters. And he sees Lady Filippa for what she is: a meaty, yam-like form on a heap of rags. She’s wide in the middle and pointed at both ends, with about three dozen eyes set into her surface. She has a slit mouth at one end. Just now she’s slurping at a cracked bowl of water. Presumably this what an Aristo looks like. In no way does she resemble a Szep.
Flipsydaisy sashays over and makes a languid, knowing gesture. She favors Scud with an arch smile. “Can you find it in your heart to see our Lady Filippa as she wishes to be seen?”
“Never mind that,” hisses Scud. His heart is pounding from his near escape. “There’s a monster outside, the thing that was wailing in the high tower. It’s like a giant dog.”
“Groon grows those things,” says Flipsydaisy, speaking too quietly for Zoe and Villy to hear. “We call them Tollah dogs. Tollahs are worse than saucers—they eat Szep alive, and I suppose humans as well.”
“I zapped the one outside into dust,” says Scud. “But— ”
“But he’s not dead,” confirms Flipsydaisy. “He’ll soon regain his vigor and his vim. The Lady and I mean to open the hatch and let him come in. You epic heroes are to be the bait. Handling the Tollah will be one of your tests, hmm? To ensure that you are worthy of your mission. But meanwhile, Scud, can you be a gentleman as I asked? Do us the favor of honoring our Lady’s artifice.” With another of her odd smiles, Flipsydaisy raises her left hand, as if proposing a toast.
Not fully sure what Flipsydaisy is playing at, Scud echoes her gesture. A quick flash passes between the wand crystals the two of them wear on their wrists. A spell. And now Scud’s seeing this room the way he’s meant to.
“Quite stimulating, all this to and fro,” says a woman’s plummy voice. “I welcome you, Sir Scud. I think the wand likes you.”
It’s Lady Filippa. To Scud’s now-ensorcelled eyes, she looks like a distinguished Szep lady, at ease on a low, elegantly curved velvet lounge-chair, with a fizzy drink at her side. She’s more filled out than Yampa was, and redder. Like a high-ranking Rubtan.
Seen as the Lady wills it, this cellar resembles an old-school British club, with oriental carpeting, burnished walnut wainscoting, plump chairs, stained glass windows, and walls of books. Triangular books.
“Why are you so uptight?” Zoe asks Scud. “This place is great.”
“Great,” echoes Scud. In the courtyard above, the Tollah dog whines and scratches at the trapdoor. Zoe doesn’t seem to hear him.
“Might the three of you perform something as a trio?” asks Lady Filippa. “Scud might test his proposed partnership with Skzx the wand. And Zoe and Villy might use their guitars.”
“Ah—what kind of song?” asks Villy. He’s munching on what he thinks is a cookie, and sipping what appears to be a cup of tea.
“Song?” replies Lady Filippa. “Well, an improvisation. Your clever brother Scud can lead.” She glances over at the staircase.
Flipsydaisy stands beside the stairs, one foot on a step. “Shall we begin?” Flipsydaisy calls.
“I’m not ready,” blurts Scud. “The caraway seeds—I have to give Lady Filippa the seeds. As a way to impress her and the Aristo wand, right?”
“Ah, the seeds,” says Lady Filippa. In Scud’s eyes, her image jitters between Rubtan lady and many-eyed yam. “I relish those seeds when sprinkled upon a very particular food,” continues Lady Filippa with a self-effacing laugh. “I’m the greedy one, aren’t I. I’m expecting you to provide me the special food as well as the seeds. But first I’ll fully execute my part of our deal. I’ll teach you how to work with your proposed wand. Skzx is a close relative of mine.” And with that, Lady Filippa locks every one of her eyes on Scud’s—and they enter a moment of deep teep.
With the silent singing of the wand mixed in with the teep voice of Lady Filippa, the experience is heavenly. Scud doesn’t want it to end.
24: Lady Filippa
ZOE
Zoe and Scud are compulsively feeding at a table of canapes in Lady Filippa’s fancy underground apartment. The cookies, petit fours, and crustless sandwiches are toothsome in the extreme. But Zoe’s starting to feel sick to her stomach. Maybe she should be drinking tea like Villy, instead of champagne? For sure she feels gross. Is the food maybe spoiled? But it smells and tastes so good.
Zoe and Villy have barely spoken to Lady Filippa, even though meeting her was supposed to be the big reason why they drove a million miles to get here. Instead they’ve been pigging out on the free food. Meanwhile, the drop-dead-elegant Lady has been talking to Flipsydaisy and Scud. But just now she looked over at Zoe and Villy and said that the three kids should play some music for her. As a trio. Not that Zoe feels all that much like playing—not right after that marathon stratocast session. Not while she feels like puking. And not with Scud.
Thanks to the glowing wand inside his arm, Scud’s weirder than ever. He was screaming at Zoe like a crazy person right before she went down through the trapdoor. And why? Just because some dog was barking, and Zoe wanted to take a thoughtful look at the romantic, otherworldly sky? And then when they all got down here, Scud began frantically whispering to Flipsydaisy. And now he’s staring at Lady Filippa like he’s in a trance.
Speaking of trances, why do Zoe and Villy keep eating the snacks on this table? Not only does she feel sick to her stomach, the snacks don’t really look normal. They change when she looks away from them. And when she looks back, there’s more of them, or they’re shaped differently. And whenever she thinks of something she’d like—such as a square of lox on a slice of peeled cucumber on a tiny round of rye with a squirt of lemon juice—well then, bam, it’s right there. Something’s wrong. Come
to think of it, right before they came down the stairs, Flipsydaisy flashed Zoe and Villy with her wand crystal, and—
“Bogosity,” Villy mutters to her. “Fake. Hold tight to your guitar and get some sanity. This is a basement and we’re eating rotten meat and rancid fat and I think maybe we’re drinking, uh, urine? But we’re, like, under a spell, and that’s why we don’t want to stop.”
It helps to clear Zoe’s head to hear this out loud. She drops her glass to the floor and bends forward, wanting to vomit, but she can’t bring anything up. She clutches her curly black guitar, hoping for strength. He moves in her hands like a sturdy, reassuring pet, and she feels reality return.
Scud is still fixated on Lady Filippa—they’re doing teep. And Flipsydaisy’s heading back up the corkscrew stairs. Is she planning to leave? Zoe hears some kind of faint sound, a tiny scratching and mewing, like from way, way out on the edge of the world. Or no, wait, the sound’s not far away at all. It’s right outside the hatch at the top of the stairs. And that’s why Scud’s been so uptight. Flipsydaisy’s not going to open the hatch is she? Is she? Is she?
Zoe clutches her soft strong guitar, clarifying her focus. By the gloomy light of the fungus on the grungy walls, she truly sees the manky burrow, and the saggy thing on the pile of rags, and the nauseating crap on the table beside her, and the two pitchers of—is it really pee? She sniffs. No, it’s stagnant water. With a trillion insane alien microbes in every sip. Champagne, right? Or does milady prefer English Breakfast tea?
Scud is still obliv. “Look at us!” Villy yells at him. “Pay attention.”
Dire though the situation is, Zoe’s glad to have Villy in it with her. Ah, the stories they’ll tell when they’re safe back in Los Perros, married, living in a basement or a trailer, with Zoe giving music lessons, and Villy a car mechanic—and that’ll be enough, because success doesn’t matter, and love conquers all, and—
Now Scud is back. He flips his hand, and his wand slides out. The wand’s not acting snaky now. It looks like a gold baton with a flat crystal on the top. Scud points the wand at Zoe like a band leader about to signal the downbeat. He pauses to share some words of inspiration.