Harsh Oases

by Paul Di Filippo

  And when he learned of the first historically recorded splice philosopher, an individual named Modest Mouse, Thomas made up his mind to become one himself.

  The path to this ambitious goal was not easy, and had taken many years of travail and suffering, years of heartbreak and setbacks overcome by perseverance and ingenuity.

  Thomas and his fellows had been manumitted when the cellphone plantation went bankrupt, in the wake of the introduction of communicator earwigs into the marketplace. This gesture was not as altruistic as it sounded, amounting merely to turning loose helpless plantation mosaics into the restored primitive veldt where they had to contend with wild basal predators. Somehow, Thomas had managed to survive and make his way to the nearest big city, Jo’burg, where he found a job as a house servant for a conservative family that disdained the new mycoflesh servitors. There, Thomas was able to continue his education, eventually even surreptitiously taking degree-level courses in the ideocosm.

  After ten years, Thomas managed to compose and post several philosophical treatises in the ideocosm without revealing his true identity. They were accepted by the intellectual community. After a string of such successes, Thomas came out of the closet. A small media firestorm resulted among several granfalloons, which only had the effect of solidifying his new status. Grants and stipends followed, allowing him to abandon his lowly job. Since then, Thomas had become well established among both humans and splices, traveling around the world to speak and teach. He owned his own home now in the Republic of Snows, near Stockholm.

  And it was here he sat now, contemplating the egg containing Swee’pea.

  Thomas Equinas could pride himself on being a free, self-made splice, with several virtual books to his credit, respected by open-minded humans around the globe.

  All because of a chance encounter with a generous woman.

  The miracle of this was beyond any philosophy Thomas had yet managed to formulate.

  But what good did all his personal success amount to, if his kind was doomed?

  The predicted Redaction was well underway. Each year, fewer and fewer splices were being commercially bred, as soulless creations of ultra-pliable mycoflesh animated by aphylumic artificial intelligences came to occupy the societal niches that had been the domain of the splices for well over a century. It was a mass extinction on the order of that which had ended the Permian age. Well, okay, maybe that was stretching matters a little. But it was at least as big as the Cretaceous die-off.

  Facing the end of his own inherently abbreviated natural lifespan, the elderly Thomas was more troubled by the decline of his race than by his own personal mortality.

  Which explained why he had agreed to become Swee’pea’s guardian.

  A month ago, Thomas’s servant—yes, he acknowledged the irony of employing splices in the same capacity in which he had once been employed—a badger-weasel mix named Gromo, had ushered into Thomas’s study an imposing mosaic. Tall, broad-shouldered, tawny-furred, muzzle packed with teeth, the splice had announced himself as Felix Navidad.

  Studying the visitor’s half-familiar somatype, Thomas was shortly moved to ask, “Are you perchance any relation to the infamous Krazy Kat?”

  “My great-grandfather,” rumbled Felix throatily.

  “I hope you do not espouse his radical beliefs.”

  “Not entirely. Warfare between the basal humans and we mosaics is both impractical and nihilistic. But I do believe in the preservation of our kind. Which is the mission that brings me here. A small, secret group of concerned cultivars has formulated a plan to insure that all the myriad splice genotypes survive any effort, however uncoordinated or gratuitously intentioned, to expunge them. We wish to enlist your help in carrying this scheme forward.”

  “What can I possibly do?”

  “All our hopes and dreams are to be embedded in a unique individual whom we call the Teleological Ark. This being will need a tutor and guide until he matures. We have chosen you, as one of the wisest among us. You must raise our heir to honor and protect his lineage. Teach him to carry our glory into futurity.”

  Thomas pondered the breadth of this challenge. It required more energetic activity than he had been accustomed to in a long time. But what better use of his waning years could he ask for?

  “I accept.”

  Tension flowed out of Felix Navidad’s bunched muscles. “This decision relieves me. I had no wish to kill you to insure secrecy.”

  Thomas smiled. “I appreciate both your honesty and forbearance.”

  “But be warned,” continued Felix, “it is possible that you will face an antagonist far less charitable than I. A segment of humanity wishes to speed up the Redaction, claiming that an earthly paradise will occur only when our world hosts but a single species. You can imagine that the favored species is not a spliced one. They call themselves the New Adamists, and they have enlisted a formidable monster to hasten the day they await. He is called the Manticore. So far, we believe, the New Adamists have no inkling of our scheme. But if they learn, then they will surely send the Manticore after you and the Teleological Ark.”

  “How can I possibly protect myself and the Ark from a professional killer?”

  “When the Ark is a year old, he will have formidable abilities of his own. Till then, you must rely on your wits and subterfuge.”

  Felix recounted to Thomas then the features sartorized into the Ark. Thomas mulled them over, marveling at the ingenuity of splice-kind. The measures seemed adequate.

  “I will have to leave my beloved home then?”

  “So we advise. We are relying on you to find secure places to raise our prodigy.”

  “When will the Teleological Ark be given into my custody?”

  “A month from now.”

  “That is enough time for me to prepare a retreat.”

  Felix held up a paw to forestall Thomas. “Tell me nothing. The fewer who know of your plans, the safer you will be. Goodbye, Thomas Equinas, and good luck.”

  The Teleological Ark had arrived, cased in his brood-pod, some weeks later. By then, Thomas had made his plans. One of the first things he had done was to rechristen the embryo in its incubator. No surrogate child of his was going to have to answer to so clumsy and determinative a name.

  Thus, Swee’pea.

  Now Thomas picked up the brood-pod from its cradle, holding it under one arm.

  “Time to leave, Swee’pea.”

  With Gromo carrying his few bags, Thomas made his way outside to his personal entomopter, parked on a broad lawn now summer-green. After stowing the luggage and the brood-pod onboard, Thomas turned to Gromo.

  “I have established a trust to maintain this property for you and the other servants, Gromo, for as long as you live. Tend it well. Who knows, I might even return some day.”

  “We will miss you, Varplus Equinas. Please take our best wishes with you.”

  “Only the wordless support of splices everywhere gives me the strength to fulfill this mission, Gromo.”

  Behind the controls of the dragonfly, Thomas prepared for ascent. The entomopter began to rise, scissoring its gauzy wings.

  Emerging from the bordering forest a hundred meters across the lawn, a figure was bounding toward the arm-waving Gromo. Fearing the worst, dreading what he was about to witness, knowing he could offer no aid, Thomas poured more power into the wings.

  Incredibly fast, the newcomer disclosed more and more of his identity the closer he got, until finally his unique nature was undeniable.

  A pugnacious, snarling human head sprouted twisted oriental dragon homs from its brow. The brawny neck merged seamlessly into a powerful leonine body covered with sharp quills. A jointed scorpion’s tale writhed from the hindquarters.

  The Manticore. Crafted in some dark sartorial crucible as a dedicated killing machine.

  Some eight meters above the lawn, Thomas felt safe. Still, he jerked back in surprise when the Manticore made a startling leap and came within venom-spitting distance of the entom
opter’s undercarriage.

  Thumping unharmed to the ground, the fiend took out his frustration on hapless Gromo. Enfolding the servitor in a spiny embrace, the Manticore stabbed Gromo over and over with his barbed tail, issuing a defiant roar of frustration and challenge.

  Weeping for the doom he had brought on his friend, Thomas flew off toward the south.

  The Manticore managed to keep pace below the entomopter for nearly a kilometer, before falling behind.

  Truly, Thomas was on the run now.

  He just hoped Swee’pea was worth the sacrifice.

  Scyphozoa City changed location continuously, but at a gentle pace.

  The buoyant undersea community consisted of some ten thousand colorful sartorized jellyfish, each as big as an aerostat hanger, supporting jungles of tentacles hundreds of meters long, submerged in the warm, nutrient-rich Pacific waters near the Philippines. These living structures served as homes for some one million individuals.

  The majority of the citizens were merpeople: basal humans modified somatically but not genomically to support an underwater existence. Thus they retained the legal genetic purity that conferred on them full enfranchisement, at the cost of some laborious postnatal kludges for each new generation. Allied with the mers were a variety of piscine splices. A smattering of short-term visitors from the airworld could always be found within city limits, accommodating themselves with various artificial devices.

  Beneath the enormous pillowy cowls, those tissuey inverted saucers of the coelenterates, the daily routines of the city took place. Trading, eating, discussions, education, politicking, gossip—all the standard activities of sentient life. Meanwhile, the enormous jellies maintained themselves mindlessly, insensible to their internal parasites, stinging and capturing their prey with their nematocysts, and digesting their food gastrodermally, right alongside the oblivious merpeople.

  Living in Scyphozoa City was like living under acres of billowing rainbow tents abstractly tethered with numinous cables. During the daylight hours, sunlight illuminated the translucent jellyfish from above, producing breathtaking stained-glass lighting effects that tinted the residents a thousand gemlike shades. By night, the internal bioluminescence of the living city produced a more fairy-like ambiance conducive to sleep, leisure and romance.

  The last-named of these activities was what occupied the interests now of a handsome merboy named Swee’pea.

  Although only four months old, Swee’pea was already as big as the average merchild of thirteen years. Physiologically an adolescent, Swee’pea was less mature mentally. But even lacking many realtime years of experience, Swee’pea possessed a sharp, probing intelligence and common sense—traits engineered into him to aid his survival.

  Generally happy and easy-going in his daily dealings with his fellow citizens of the submarine city, Swee’pea found his limited world a delightful place.

  Of course, the instructions and advice and affection tendered to him by his dear Uncle Thomas had invaluably supplemented his congenital wit and appreciation of life. Uncle Thomas’s tutoring on matters philosophical and practical had engendered in Swee’pea an openness and curiosity about life.

  But Uncle Thomas had never yet tutored him in the ways of love. And Swee’pea, urged on by deep, newly ascendant longings, was intent on learning.

  Dropping down through the twilit waters below the lowest ends of the dangling tentacles, leaving the safety of Scyphozoa City above and behind for his illicit assignation, Swee’pea sent out sonar clicks to alert Snagtail of his coming. Arrowing through the water with efficient strokes and kicks of his webbed limbs, Swee’pea was soon rewarded with an answer from his potential lover.

  The boy could picture Snagtail vividly. A sleek basal dolphinoid body with a corona of lively ultra-sensitive and capable squid arms around the midsection, Snagtail sported a signature notch in his back flipper.

  Swee’pea had grown up side by side with the splice, and considered the male his best friend. But lately, that friendship had begun to blossom into something else. Something not generally sanctioned between humans and splices in this community.

  And as far as Swee’pea knew at this moment, he was fully as human as the other mers.

  From below Snagtail rushed up, a darker blackness among the dusk, as if to ram into Swee’pea, turning aside only at the last second, and coming to a stop beside the boy.

  The two communicated in their common language of clicks and whistles, less information-dense than the hyperflexive sign-language employed between humans underwater.

  Missed you, said Snagtail.

  Missed you too, replied Swee’pea.

  Want you. Want you now. No more waiting.

  But how?

  Don’t know. Just try.

  With some trepidation, Swee’pea allowed himself to drift closer to Snagtail, and soon found himself wrapped in a tentacular embrace, his dorsal side pressed into Snagtail’s ventral side.

  And that’s when the change commenced.

  Never before had such a thing happened in Swee’pea’s short life.

  Great waves of peristalsis traversed Swee’pea’s body. Internal organs shifted, exterior forms flowed into new configurations. Cradled in the many aims of his friend and lover-to-be, Swee’pea found himself morphing in protean fashion, until at last he resembled his partner down to the signature defective fluke.

  And resonating in response to some hormonal wavefront from Snagtail, Swee’pea had assumed the female gender.

  Swee’pea could feel Snagtail’s penis probing for a home. Wrapping her own squid arms around Snagtail, Swee’pea accommodated his thrusting.

  Beneath Scyphozoa City hanging like a vast gaudy chandelier above them, the two dolphin splices made love.

  After they had finished, they separated, drifting in post-coital bliss.

  After some time, Snagtail squeaked.

  So nice! Do it again!

  Swee’pea was not quite so enthusiastic. Although she had enjoyed the experience perhaps fully as much as her partner, she was confounded by the easy and speedy alteration of her morphology. Such a thing had never happened to her before—nor to anyone else in her ken. And beyond any explanation of how she had changed hung a more vital question: would she be able to change back to the only other form she had ever known?

  There was only one recourse when faced with such a quandary. The same strategy Swee’pea had always employed when in doubt.

  Go talk to Uncle Thomas.

  Snagtail was bumping his snout playfully against Swee’pea’s midsection. She flicked him away with her tentacles and messaged, No more. Not now. Must talk with Uncle Thomas.

  Skipping out on any attempt to cajole her otherwise, Swee’pea rocketed off toward Uncle Thomas’s home.

  Coming upon a pod of merpeople, many of whom she recognized, Swee’pea instinctively used her tentacles to message hello. But not only did her new limbs fail to accurately mimic the greeting mudra, but the humans completely ignored the anonymous splice in their midst.

  Feeling lost and alone, Swee’pea hastened toward the one being who might be able to help her.

  Uncle Thomas resided in a living purse that clung remora-like to the outer cowl of one enormous jellyfish. The purse had been biofabbed from several different sea creatures—anemones and sea cucumbers among them. Its walls extracted oxygen from the sea and scavenged carbon dioxide from the interior. Homeostatic mechanisms spliced from hot-blooded animals insured that a livable temperature was maintained for its inhabitant

  Uncle Thomas refused to modify himself for submarine living. He claimed he was too old and set in his ways to make such a stressful adaptation. Consequently, he spent every hour of every day immured in his protective purse. He occupied himself with reading and viewing material downloaded from the ideocosm.

  And with raising his protégé, Swee’pea.

  Uncle Thomas had taught an intellectually voracious Swee’pea everything the child knew. But the wise old horse had dangled in front of Swee
’pea the promise of much more knowledge to come, when circumstances demanded or permitted dissemination.

  Swee’pea hoped that now would qualify as such a time. If not now, when?

  At this late hour, Uncle Thomas’s home was dark. A school of basal angelfish were nibbling at some of the purse’s exiguous fronds. The fish darted away as Swee’pea arrived. She tickled the purse’s wake-up node and waited.

  A pearly light swelled inside the translucent sac. Uncle Thomas was bestirring himself. In a moment, his familiar blocky face appeared at a transparent oval in the mottled wall. Below the window, a set of rubbery green lips formed themselves out of the smartskin, preparatory to issuing dolphin-speak. Uncle Thomas’s blunt fingers could not manage the hyperflexure mudras.

  Who are you? Uncle Thomas asked. What do you want?

  It’s me, Uncle! Swee’pea!

  Uncle Thomas did not seem surprised.

  Your first change has overtaken you then, my boy. Congratulations! You are coming into your own.

  Why? How?

  Your body is unique. Your cells are infinitely plastic. And you contain within you a library of forms. The genomes of all the mosaics ever spliced. You can recreate them at will. And other shapes as well.

  Then I can go back to what I was?

  I believe so …

  Teach me how!

  I can’t. You’ll have to find that knowledge inside yourself somehow.

  Uncle Thomas continued to look out the window with earnest sympathy, but offered no further words of encouragement or advice.

  For the first time in his life, Swee’pea grew angry with his mentor. He tried to scowl, but his cetacean face was unsuited for the expression. So he whipped around, flicking his tail disrespectfully in Uncle Thomas’s face, and flashed away.

  For half the night, hiding among the lower tentacles of Scyphozoa City, Swee’pea strained to re-express her old merperson somatype, to no avail. She grew more and more frustrated and angry, emotions which only seemed to interfere with whatever mental discipline might be needed to trigger the transformation.