Million Mile Road Trip

by Rudy Rucker

  Not only is Kirkland Zoe’s father, he’s Maisie’s father too. Those fine young women have grown like roses in a garden bed of decomposing manure. And now Kirkland lives with the saucer Meemaw. In a way, Kirkland is Nunu’s stepfather, and Nunu is Maisie’s half sister. The tangled family tree is like a logic puzzle that Scud has trouble keeping straight.

  Scud now notices that Meemaw has scars on her skin, and that she hangs a little crooked in the air, poor old thing. He excuses himself and makes his way across the field to Maisie. She regards him with the demeanor of the most wholesome girl next door imaginable. She’s holding a purse.

  “So, what’s your part in our plan?” Scud asks her.

  “You just come up to me and talk as if you know me?” says Maisie, a smile playing across her lips. She cocks her chin to indicate haughtiness.

  “I see you at school all the time,” says Scud.

  “But you’ve never even said hi. Do you think I’m such a weirdo?”

  “Not weird,” says Scud. “Exotic.”

  “Feel this,” says Maisie, and puts Scud’s hand on the bulge at her waist. It’s a fleshy little rim circling her body. A saucer disk.

  “Zoe told me,” says Scud. “It’s cool.” His face is glowing and his breath is coming fast. “I think you’re great.”

  “I’m glad,” says Maisie. She gives him a really nice smile and squeezes his hand. “I’ve thought you were cute all along.”

  By way of responding to that, awkward Scud can’t manage much more than a grin. But that seems to be enough. At least for now.

  Villy comes walking over to them, even though old Kirkland Snapp is bawling after him. “No, Villy!” comes Kirkland’s voice. “You need to sit down and hear me out. You don’t understand the plan.”

  “Senile dementia,” Villy says to Scud, not even looking back. “The heartbreak of Alzheimer’s.”

  “Mucus voice,” goes Scud, knowing Villy understands that this refers to the hypothetical membrane of spit that blocks the back of Kirkland Snapp’s throat. The phrase is part of the brothers’ shared lexicon.

  “Imagine him being my father-in-law,” says Villy. “May Goob-goob have mercy on my soul. You could end up like Kirkland yourself, Scud. If you stay here in Berky boning saucers for the rest of your life.”

  “I’m not staying with Nunu,” cries Scud. “And I never did bone her. All we did was kiss—and she sampled some of my DNA.”

  “Vhatever vorks,” says Villy in an accent, infuriatingly insouciant.

  “Maisie’s the one for me now,” blurts Scud. “Not Nunu.”

  “With me in the Kirkland zone just the same,” says Villy, smiling and shaking his head. “We’ll stick together, you and me.” He uses the tip of his forefinger to pet the head of the inch-high saucerboy who’s resting on his wrist. “I like my little nephew. I’m calling him Duckworth. Your son. You mind if I keep him?”

  “How do you mean keep him? You want to take him back to Earth?”

  “If I ever get there,” says Villy. “Near term, I’d like to have Duckworth with me for my big commando foray. Like my mascot, for good luck. And who knows—Duckworth might be some help against Groon.”

  “Can he talk?” Scud asks.

  “Some father you are,” goes Villy, shaking his head. “Not knowing a thing like that about his son. This saucerboy is lucky he has a kindly Uncle Villy. Right, Duckworth?”

  Duckworth makes a high-pitched twittering noise—which Villy insists is comprehensible human speech. But maybe Villy’s teasing Scud. Often Scud has trouble telling if people are joking. He tries to turn the conversation serious again.

  “What kind of commando foray?” he asks Villy.

  “What you and Zoe were talking about. It’s gonna be me pinching off the two ends of that big unny tunnel with Groon inside it. Remember?”

  “Of course I remember,” says Scud. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “You’re always claiming that,” says Villy, that old teasing smile at the corners of his mouth.

  “Look, wiseass,” goes Scud. “Do you have any idea how to close off the ends of a four-dimensional tunnel?”

  “Villy will use the two super-strong, stretchable Neptune’s tablecloths that I brought from Surf World,” says Maisie. “Each of them is a big disk with an edge that shrinks to make a pouch. I’ve already stashed them inside Yulia. Villy will wrap the tablecloths around two spherical cross-sections of the tunnel, one on either side of Groon, and the tablecloth edges will shrink way down, pinching off the tunnel, and Groon will be isolated in a hell-world island universe on his own. Ta-da!”

  “I still don’t get why we can’t just tie off the damn tunnel with two ropes,” protests Villy.

  “Everything’s a dimension higher,” says Maisie. “A regular tunnel is a stack of disks, but an unny tunnel is a stack of spheres. And it takes a sheet to wrap up a sphere and squash it. And thus to cut off the unny tunnel.”

  “You’re so right,” says Scud. He appreciates the fact that Maisie understands these things. More proof that he and she are meant for each other.

  Villy throws up his hands, as if admitting defeat. “Okay, Scud, so I’m the idiot, and you’re the savant. Help me.”

  “I need to draw pictures,” says Scud, looking around. “The fourth dimension is too gnarly for words. What can I draw on?”

  “Use my rim,” says Maisie, cutely flopping her disk out from under her shirt. “I draw on it all the time. Or sometimes I project patterns. I’m like a cuttlefish or an octopus that way. Polka dots, checkerboards, paisley, lace, whatever. Draw with your finger, Scud.”

  Scud sets the tip of his forefinger onto Maisie’s bared rim. A creamy black dot appears, and when he moves his finger, the dot extends into a curved line. Maisie makes a purring sound.

  “Awesome,” says Scud. “Can I draw, like five or six pictures? A science comic?”

  “Decorate me,” purrs Maisie, a trace of excitement in her voice. “All around my rim.”

  Zoe joins their group. She’s left old Kirkland Snapp alone with Meemaw, and now the old couple are drifting back to their cottage. Zoe is strumming a nervous little tune on her Gibson SG guitar.

  “My father is sulking,” Zoe tells Villy. “At least his precious Meemaw always tells him he’s wonderful. I can’t believe that man. Abandons his family to have a completely disgusting affair with a flying saucer, covers it up by marrying that floozy Sunny Weaver, and then gets miffed when we don’t want to listen to his self-aggrandizing drone.”

  “Does your father disapprove of me?” asks Villy. His tone is light, but Scud can tell his brother cares about the answer.

  “Not particularly,” says Zoe. “Disapproving of people means focusing on someone other than himself.”

  “I myself focus on you all the time,” Villy tells Zoe.

  Zoe smiles at him. “You make me glad.”

  “Well, check out what we’re doing here,” says Villy. “Scud’s giving us an illustrated lecture about how we’ll kill Groon.”

  Scud smiles at Zoe. He’s glad to have her here too. She’s Maisie’s half-sister! Which kind of puts her in a better light. Overhead the jet stream of saucers arcs across the sky like a confetti rainbow. And even now, if Scud makes an effort, he can hear the faint, meandering bagpipe bleat from the stream—Groon calling to his slaves. How strange a trip this is. His brother and the two young women are looking at him.

  “For my illos, I’ll draw Van Cott and Los Perros as if they’re planes,” Scud begins. “So you can see them as being parallel.”

  Scud makes a first drawing on Maisie’s flap. “So we’ve got two universes drawn like planes,” he says. “And we’ve got creatures in both worlds, and I’m drawing them flat too. Here’s my Figure 1. A saucer and a boy in mappyworld, and a girl with a trumpet in ballyworld. Zoe and her horn. Normally these characters can’t travel from one world to the other.”

  Figure 1: Two Parallel Worlds

  “And you want to show how they do so
metimes go back and forth,” says Maisie.

  “Exactly, says Scud. “They use what we’ve been calling an unny tunnel. Scientists call it a wormhole or, ahem, an Einstein-Rosen bridge.”

  “Don’t do that,” warns Villy.

  “Okay, it’s an unny tunnel,” says Scud. “The idea is that you bulge down the space of one world, and bulge up the space of the other, and they meet and join together like soap films, and then there’s, like, a throat connecting the two worlds. Unny tunnel, yes! There it is. With Zoe sliding up. And that saucer or that guy might slide down.”

  Figure 2: Unny Tunnel

  “They float through the hole in the middle of the wormhole?” says Villy.

  “No,” says Scud. “They need to stay inside the surface of their world’s smooth soap film. So they creep up and down the sides of the wormhole. Like living tattoos in your skin.”

  “Show me the part about trapping him in the unny tunnel,” goes Villy.

  Scud’s finger moves caressingly on Maisie’s rim. “A three-panel drawing for this, Maisie. If you don’t mind.”

  “Do it. I like the attention.”

  Figure 3: Lassoing the Tunnel With Groon

  Scud draws his next image and explains. “In my Figure 3, Groon has slid down along the side of the wormhole from mappyworld on top. And the girl slid up from the world on the bottom and Groon happened to swallow her. And meanwhile Villy has torn himself out of ordinary space, and he’s free-floating off the surface of space.”

  “And that stands for unspace,” puts in Maisie. “Hyperspace.”

  “Notice also that Villy has lassoed the two ends of the tunnel,” says Scud.

  “I don’t like seeing that woman being inside Groon!” breaks in Zoe, an edge in her voice. “That’s supposed to be me? Go to hell, Scud.”

  “The pictures are hypothetical,” says Scud. “Consider them a cautionary warning. Let’s continue.” His finger moves rapidly. “Now look at Figure 4. This is where Villy tightens up on two cross-sections of the tunnel. Pinches them down to points.”

  Figure 4: Pinching Off the Tunnel Section With Groon

  “But instead of lassos, Villy will be using disk-like Neptune’s tablecloths,” says Maisie. “And tightening up their edges to pinch off spheres.”

  “Because of the fourth dimension,” says Villy, kind of weakly. Like he’s parroting a phase in a language he doesn’t understand. Or like he’s beaten-down political prisoner reciting an official pledge of allegiance.

  Scud nods. He’s enjoying this. “The Neptune’s tablecloths are like higher-dimensional lassos, you might say.”

  “Might say,” echoes Villy. “Might not.”

  Scud draws another image.

  Figure 5: Groon’s Island Universe Shrinks!

  “And here’s the happy ending in Figure 5!” he says. “Villy tightens up the tablecloths so much that the tunnel pinches off in two spots and the universe flattens back out, and Groon is a pig in a poke. Trapped on the hypersurface of a pocket universe. No more Groon!”

  “Eff you for drawing me in there at the end,” Zoe says to Scud.

  “Oh, probably you’ll find a way out,” says Scud. “The thing is to make sure you’re not inside Groon and make sure to scoot out of the tunnel before Villy completely ties it off. I’m just drawing this way so you understand the risk. I’m your friend, Zoe.”

  “I wonder,” she goes.

  “I have a problem too,” says Villy. “If I’m going to wrap Neptune’s tablecloths around two cross-sections of the tunnel, I have to be floating in—4D unspace? How would I get there?”

  “I’ll carry yoooou!” says Yulia, very loud. “I’m ready to goooo.”

  This is the first time that any of them have heard the flat cow talk. And now that Scud hears Yulia’s voice—well, naturally it’s like a cartoon cow’s. And a little like Goob-goob’s voice, too. With an eerie buzz of transcendent power.

  “So, great, the flat cow is finally talking!” Scud exclaims. “What are you, anyway, Yulia?”

  She’s not ready to give a straight answer. “A hyperspace coooow? But you can call me flat cow toooo. I’m ready for the cosmic beatdown on Groooon. You’ll kill the bagpipe for Goob-goooob.”

  “Yulia and Villy’s commando raid,” says Villy, not showing much enthusiasm. “This hyperdimensional rump steak tosses me into the fourth dimension so I can pinch off a section of the tunnel ends with two monster disks from Surf World. And meanwhile I’m hoping my innards don’t fall out.”

  “I’ll keep you whoooole,” says Yulia. “Get inside me and let’s goooo.” She waggles the visible section of her cow tail in an intricate pattern. The tail-section oscillates between short and long, like it’s dipping in and out of four-dimensional space. Little Duckworth buzzes after the tail’s motions. As always, no actual tip of the tail is ever visible. No telling how long it really is.

  “I don’t think we need to leave right this minute,” says Villy.

  Right about then the arcing jet stream shudders and—stops. Stray saucers scatter all about. Groon’s stopped pumping them in and out of New Eden. A deep silence fills the air. The subtly irritating thread of Groon’s faint music is gone.

  “Uh-oh,” says Zoe. “I bet that means the giant bagpipe is on his way now. Flying a million miles from the Pit. How long will it take him, Maisie?”

  “Not as long as you think,” says Maisie. “Maybe three hours. He moves even faster than stratocasting. But finishing that giant unny tunnel in Van Cott could take till tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Villy, we should goooo,” moos Yulia. “We’ll hover in unspace beside the big hoooole. Go noooow. Get in place before Groooon.” The flat cow is being very pushy.

  “Do you think you’ll be all right?” Scud asks Villy, suddenly worried about his brother. “I mean—me drawing pictures is one thing, but you’ll be putting your body on the line.”

  Villy studies Scud for a minute. “I’m glad you care,” he says, fingering his guitar strings. “And I’m sorry I always teased you. Maybe I was just jealous of how smart you are at math.”

  “Me, I was jealous of how brave and coordinated you were,” Scud tells Villy.

  “We made a good team,” says Villy. “When we weren’t fighting. Brothers.”

  “We need to stop talking like we’re about to die,” says Scud. “We’ll win.”

  “I like our odds,” says Villy. “We’ve got Goob-goob, the wand larva, the flat cow, two idiots (you and me), plus Maisie and Zoe, to whom no insults apply.”

  Villy tells the flat cow to hold on for a goddamn minute, and he takes Zoe by the hand. The two of them walk off a little ways from the others and stand together, hugging and kissing and whispering promises. Watching them, Scud wonders how it is to be that way with a girl. Will he ever get there?

  Villy and Zoe’s farewell is over. Villy unzips the side of the Yulia the four-dimensional-and-not-so-flat-after-all cow. Or whatever she is. Little thumb-tip-sized Duckworth perches on Villy’s shoulder, going with him on the trip. Villy settles inside Yulia and pushes his face against the eyegoggles in her skin. Zoe watches in silence, her eyes brimming with tears.

  Working the drama of the moment, Yulia rotates herself ninety degrees sideways in the fourth dimension—and don’t ask what that means. The effect is that Villy, Maisie, and Scud see a two-dimensional cross-section of Yulia, with her third dimension out there in hyperspace. Yulia looks like a slice of flat-cow salami with a Villy filling—they see a rind of hide, a layer of beef, a little air-gap, and then an inner rind of Villy-skin containing a way gnarly cross-section of Villy’s head, as caricatured in Figure 6, although of course the real Villy is more handsome than that.

  Figure 6: Cross-Section of Villy’s Head

  “Ugh,” goes Zoe and plays a dissonant chord on her guitar. “So wrong.”

  “It’s perfect,” says Scud. “Science on parade! Dig the slice of skull. Don’t worry, Yulia will keep my brother’s innards in place. He won’t spill. This is
wonderful.”

  “It’s a nightmare,” says Zoe, her voice breaking. “It’s horrible.”

  “Higher geometry,” goes Scud. “You gotta love it.”

  As Yulia moves off into the fourth dimension, the effect is that her visible cross-section tracks down through the flat cow’s body, and through the two folded-up Neptune’s tablecloths, and through Villy’s body, the cross-section wobbling and diminishing, reaching a zone where they see the two round slices of Villy’s legs for a while, and then cross-sections of Villy’s feet, and then no more Villy but still a little bit of cow-meat, and then nothing but the wobbly circular cross-sections of the cow’s long tail. The tail part seems to go on for a very long time. Finally it morphs into a long sausage and twitches out of sight. Yulia and Villy are in unspace.

  “What now?” Scud says to Zoe.

  “I hang myself,” says Zoe, consoling herself with sarcasm. “The love of my life is gone.” She begins playing a schmaltzy, tear-jerker-type tune on her guitar, barely touching the strings with the tips of her fingers. It sounds like “Lara’s Theme” on the short strings of a harp.

  “Oh, stop it,” says Scud, who by now knows Zoe’s penchant for drama.

  “Okay, right,” goes Zoe, abandoning her plaintive tune. “What now? We go back to Los Perros. And then we get ready to stall Groon while he’s inside the tunnel. Get in his way. So Villy and the flat cow will have plenty of time to pinch off the tunnel’s ends.”

  “How will we know when the bagpipe’s in the tunnel?”

  “I have a distinct feeling it’s gonna be a huge deal and very readily apparent to all,” says Zoe. “Like the gigundo finale of a lumbering, overblown, high-budget SF movie.”