by Rudy Rucker
I turned myself the right way round, and settled back into my room, standing there naked. Immediately Jena was walking in my door, water dripping off her slicker, her woman’s eyes seeing everything. Her hair was straggly and she’d left home in such a hurry that she hadn’t put her lipstick on.
“Tulip slept with you?” she demanded. “What’s that cut on your shoulder? Did she bite you? Hussy. What if she has AIDS?”
“Hi, Jena.” I still had my calm center from being in the All. “I have to shower and get dressed. Don’t forget the MeYou folks are coming by for the hand-off at three o’clock.” I got past her and into the bathroom before she could continue. First thing, I put rubbing alcohol, antibiotic cream and a band-aid on the spot where the Wackle ball had bitten me. It was a little half-moon nick in the skin, out on the very end of my left shoulder. If I turned my head I could see it. Nothing much, but it was kind of disturbing. I brushed my teeth twice to get the taste of the Wackle flesh out of my mouth. Our smeel is one.
By the time I was dressed, Jena had settled in, eating leftovers from my refrigerator. She’d brushed her hair and fixed her makeup. She was wearing a bright yellow blouse and some electric blue slacks. She looked good.
We made some plans for how to deal with Sante, and then we did a little work in the office, tying up loose ends. It was still raining. There weren’t any calls from Sante and, equally nice, Spazz didn’t come in. Jena kept trying to get an argument going, but I didn’t rise to the bait. It was like I was finally getting over her. Sleeping with Tulip had helped a lot. It made me realize that there really were other women in the world for me.
Around two o’clock I started needing some more grolly. I was weak and achy all over. I drank a couple of Cokes, but it didn’t help. Finally I told Jena I was taking a nap, and I went into my room. locking the door behind me to keep her out.
I’d kind of hoped I might find some scraps of grolly on my floor, but there weren’t any at all. I was feeling worse all the time. Feverish, sick to my stomach. I used my third eye to peek into the Klupper side of the All, not quite daring to think about what I was about to do. There weren’t any of the Empress’s soldiers or any grolly guards around. The soldiers hadn’t been watching Momo at all; she’d long since paid them off not to observe how flagrantly she was meddling with our world. And it seemed she’d been telling the grolly guards to leave her alone as well. Nobody had seen her get shot. nobody knew I had her saucer, and the space between me and the Klupper cliffs was flat out empty. I decided to go for it.
I peeled vinn to Dronner space, losing my clothes as usual, and flapped over to the garage. There was my saucer. Some Wackles were watching nearby, more of them than before, but they didn’t say anything to me. The way their shapes kept changing, I couldn’t be quite sure they were the same guys I’d talked to before. I steered clear of them. Just untied the saucer and got into it. The Wackles still didn’t say anything. I got the feeling they were curious to see what I was about to stir up.
I took a deep breath and took hold of the stick that controlled the saucer. It was pretty much like an old-time floor-mounted gearshift. I pushed the knob a bit and—ZOOOM—I flashed through Spaceland and into the Klupper half of the All. Wow. I pushed the stick a little further, and felt myself rocketing towards the cliffs of Klupdom,. I jiggled the knob this way and that, getting a feel for the controls. They were incredibly responsive; I veered left, right, up, down, vinn and vout, always keeping my course aimed roughly towards the cliffs.
As I got closer, I homed in on a particularly bright patch of chartreuse and lavender. A fresh, unharvested grolly field. I managed to stop the saucer without slamming into the cliffs, and then I undulated over to the field. As usual, the grolly plants—or animals?—were happy to greet a harvester. The fronds stretched towards me, lining up like the stalks of wheat in a crop circle. I could see how they might be distant relatives of the Wackles. Plantimals. But the grolly didn’t talk crazy, and it tasted good.
I starting picking grolly buds, snapping the lovely little ball/bagels off the friendly fronds. I’d brought my hypersack with me, and I used it to ferry load after load of grolly to the saucer, my full mouth munching all the while. Before long I had like ten pounds of the stuff, easily a month’s supply. I would have gotten more, but now another silver saucer came flying towards me—one of the Momo family grolly guards, a bulging fellow in gray.
Quick as a knife, I turned myself to stare straight at him, which aligned me so that—to his eye—I was only the thinnest of lines. I was like an angelfish that hides from a shark by pointing towards him. The purplish-skinned guard pulled up next to Momo’s saucer, looking it over. Clearly he recognized his mistress’s vehicle, for now he started calling her name. Moving with incredible grace and cunning—at least to me it felt that way, high on grolly as I was—I kept adjusting myself to be edge-on towards the guard. He bellowed Momo’s name a few more times and then, to my horror, he took out a rope and prepared to tie her saucer to his own, as if to tow it away.
Before I’d really thought through the consequences, I gave a great flap of my body, sending myself into the seat of Momo’s saucer. I leaned on the control, yawing the machine around and roaring it back towards Spaceland. It took the guard a second to get the picture, and then he came after me in hot pursuit. He didn’t catch me, though. I had a good head start and, unlike the guard, I had no qualms at all about flying through Spaceland into Dronia. By aiming carefully, I crossed Spaceland through the empty space inside my garage. So the neighbors wouldn’t see.
The Wackles cheered to see me reappear. There kept being more of them, as if they were massing here for something. Like in The Birds. I slowed, looped around, tethered my saucer to the garage beam again, and flapped back to my room, bringing along as much grolly as I could stuff into my hypersack. The rest could wait in the saucer till later. Still the Wackles just watched.
Back in my room, I put on my khakis and paused, fingering the bandaged Wackle-bite on my shoulder. It felt itchy and sore. I was about to take off the band-aid and have another look at it, but now Jena started knocking on my door.
“Joe! Are you finally awake? I heard something. What did you lock yourself in for? Lucky for you the MeYou people are running late. Clement called half an hour ago. But listen, Joe, I heard something in the garage.”
I used my third eye to peer vout over the door at Jena. She looked energetic and nosy. “Open up,” she repeated. “There was this big whoosh and thump. What if it’s Sante?”
I undid the lock and pulled on my shirt, a burgundy linen number. I could check my cut later.
“Since when do you get undressed for a nap?” Jena wanted to know. “Are you trying to seduce me?” She gave me a pert, inviting smile. Should I respond? No. I put on my socks and shoes.
“Don’t worry about the garage,” I said. “That was me out there.” I hefted my hypersack. “I was vout in Klupdom replenishing my stash. I’ve got my game face on now, Jena. I’m ready to rock and roll.”
“That grolly stuff’s not good for you, Joe,” said Jena. “You’re not the same anymore. You’ve gotten so—cold. Could and heartless.”
“Maybe I’m just that way around you,” I said. “Protecting myself. You wiped your butt with my heart, I seem to recall.”
“What if we go to a marriage counselor?” said Jena, nibbling on one of her fingernails. “Give ourselves a fresh start. We’ll both be rich after the IPO. Maybe we could be happy again. You’d have to quit grolly, though.”
“As if your drinking wasn’t an even bigger problem.” In my normal state of mind, I might have welcomed Jena’s offer. But right now it was the grolly in me doing the talking. Cold and heartless. “Forget it. The point is, Jena, I really don’t want to get back together with you. All we do is make each other miserable. It’s hopeless. Now lay off me, okay? We’ll do this last meeting and it’ll be adios. Stu Koblenz can help us get the divorce.”
“Go to hell!” shouted Jena, and stormed o
ut of my bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
I looked around the room for a good place to hide my grolly. I had this uneasy feeling that Jena might find it and throw it away. Finally I wrapped it in some dirty laundry and slid it under the far corner of my futon.
As I was bent over doing that, somebody kicked me really hard in the butt. At first I thought it was Jena, even though I hadn’t heard her come back in. But no, it was a wiry little figure from hyperspace. A Klupper. Momo’s son-in-law Deet. His cross section looked jagged and mean. He hit me in the side of the head before I could get up. The blow knocked me all the way across the room.
“Jena!” I shouted. But the only answer I heard from Jena was the slamming of the front door. Deet grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me so hard that I was bouncing in and out of space. I heard Jena’s Beetle start up and putt away.
“You killed Momo, you flat piece of dirt,” hissed Deet.
“It was the Wackles,” I cried. “They ambushed her. It wasn’t my fault!”
“You helped them,” said Deet, jabbing a finger into my body and sending a preliminary tingle of pain up my spine. “One of our guards saw you in Momo’s saucer. Degenerate fool. Do you think you can trifle with the Kluppers?”
“I found the saucer floating around,” I protested. “I thought Momo didn’t need it anymore.”
“Give it to me,” said Deet.
“Huh?”
He adjusted his head so that I saw something like a human face. A thin face with a small, twisted smile. “I have no saucer of my own. I borrowed Voule’s to fly here when we got the word. I deserve to inherit my mother-in-law’s saucer. Give it to me and I’ll row it home.”
“I—I don’t know where it is,” I said.
A huge jolt of pain raced down my spine and out into every nerve of my body.
“It’s in Dronia,” I shrieked. “Right vinn from my garage. Go and get it.”
Deet stopped, thinking. “Another ambush,” he said finally. “Your Wackle friends lurk vinn there, do they not?”
Moving quickly, he fattened up one of his arms and drew a hyperbazooka down into the space of my room. Like Momo had done before, Deet shoved his head and shoulders vinn to Dronia, clutching the weapon and blasting away. A red piece of Wackle-smeel bounced off my bed and disappeared vout into Klupdom.
Deet kept up his shooting until, apparently, the hyperbazooka had used up its charge. He drew a partial cross section of his head back in the room with me, leaving some of his head still on the vinnward side of the All, to watch for Wackles. “They’re obscenely numerous,” he remarked. “Ever more of them approach.” He looked crooked and anxious.
“I can fetch the saucer for you,” I offered. If I could peel vinn to Dronia, I’d be safe from Deet.
“Scum,” he said slapping me again. “Trifler. I’ll claim the saucer in a few hours time. The Empress will see fit to properly clean out the Dronners once your Spaceland is no more.” He looked at me, gauging the effect of his words.
“No more?” I croaked. Somehow, deep down, I’d known this was coming.
“Indeed,” sneered Deet, pulling himself back from Dronia. “Your filthy membrane of a world will be gone before you sleep again. Even as we speak, your chattering fellow apes destroy the integrity of your cosmos. It’s safe to tell you now, I deem. The Mophone antennas send out more energy than they receive. Your Conservation Law is broken, your film of space wears thin. It is as my family planned. Spaceland will burst, and we’ll rain destruction upon the Dronners. Their kingdom shall be ours. The cliffs of Dronia can become one vast grolly farm.”
The red snout of a Wackle came pushing into my room; at the first sight of it, Deet was gone.
11
Pop!
Using my third eye, I could see Deet vout on the Klupper side of Spaceland, frantically trying to recharge his hyperbazooka with a cord from his borrowed saucer. In the distance, a couple of grolly-guard saucers were approaching.
The Wackle snout in my room grew to a full devil-sized body. He’d heard what Deet said about destroying Spaceland. “Kill the Mophones fast,” he told me. “We’ll cover you. Our smeel is one.” The last phrase sent a tingle through the bandaged spot on my shoulder.
The Wackle dwindled, heading voutward after Deet. But he wasn’t going alone. A cascade of red flesh went pouring through the space of my room like a midair cattle stampede. Wackle after Wackle appeared, swelled up, and then shrank down to the size of a persistent golf ball. My room was abuzz with the red balls of smeel, a hundred of them or more, each ball the cross section of a long tail connecting a Wackle to his home cliff. With my third eye I could see the horde of Wackles vout on the Klupper side of Spaceland; they were tearing the hapless Deet into little pieces. The grolly guards were just starting to arrive too late to save Deer, but not too late to fight the Wackles.
I snatched up my Mophone—surely one more call wouldn’t matter at this point—and called Spazz. He answered on the second ring.
“Yo?” It was hard to hear him; there was a whistling roar in the background. Was space already coming apart?
“Spazz, we have to turn off the Mophones!” I shouted. “It’s an emergency! I know you made a script for pumping out Motalk upgrades to the users. How can I use it?”
Spazz answered something, but with the background noise, the only word I could make out was “uptight.” I fumbled at my Mo phone, turning up its volume.
“Talk louder!” I screamed. “We have to shut off the Mophones immediately!”
Spazz’s voice floated free of the drone, finally audible. “Why?” he asked in a lazy drawl. “Some kind of snag in the MeYou meeting? You need to put a scare into Clement Treed?”
“No, no, we’ve got a disaster, Spazz! One of the Kluppers just told me the Mophones are a trick. The antenna crystals are draining our energy away! Space is gonna pop.”
“Pop?” I thought I heard Spazz chuckle.
“Like a bubble film that gets too thin,” I said. “Like a mildewed sail in a gust of wind. Spaceland’s gonna tear open and disappear. Nothing’ll be left. We gotta turn off those Mophones!”
“What you smokin’, dog?” said Spazz, still not taking me seriously. “Or is it the grolly?” The cross sections of the Wackle strands were flailing all over the room, bashing holes in my floor, ceiling and walls. One of them shattered the glass of my window and swooped outside. Several others followed. A floorboard at my feet splintered.
“Please please please help me, Spazz. Can you come to the office right now?”
“I’m a mile high, dude. Taking a test ride in a jet I might buy. Look up, you can probably see me. I’m the Gulfstream IV-SP over Los Perros. Heading southwest. I’ll be over the beach in thirty seconds.”
“Make them turn down the engine, Spazz! I can barely hear you! I’m going to sit down at my computer now. Tell me what to do.”
“Hold on.” I could hear the faint sound of Spazz talking to the pilot. Instead of damping down, the background roar grew shriller and louder.
I walked out of my bedroom and into the office area. The Wackle balls followed me, some going through my open door, but most of them crashing through the wall. Plaster dust went flying. Another platoon of Wackles came tumbling through the room on their way vout to fight the Kluppers, their shapes shifting like flames. The strands of their tails made more balls in the room. A few of them had even made holes in the roof, and rain was starting to drip in. My house wasn’t going to last much longer.
I sat down at my computer and for a horrible second, I couldn’t remember the first thing about how to use it. “Spazz!” I yelled into the buzzing Mophone. “Help me! Are you there?”
The background roar slid down the scale and finally I could hear Spazz properly. “We’re at ten thousand feet now,” he said. “Coasting. The ocean looks great. I was just thinking about what you said. That the vacuum’s gonna decay? Dude, I saw a physics article about that once. Written up as a hypothetical scenario. That maybe our v
acuum is only metastable, and maybe somewhere it’ll tunnel down to the true zero, and once that happens the decayed state will fill a sphere that expands forever. Supposedly the hole would grow slowly at first, but then it would speed up. Destroying everything in its path.”
“Pop,” I said. “Space is gonna pop. We’re pumping energy out the antennas, more than they’re taking in. You know that law in physics? The Conservation of Energy? The Mophones are breaking the Law.”
“Funny Tulip didn’t think of that,” said Spazz. “Her kind of thing. Why didn’t you ask Tulip to help you, instead of asking me? She knows how to access the user Mophones as well as I do.”
“Tulip thinks I’m possessed. She saw some creatures from the fourth dimension. She left. You got no idea what’s been going on today, Spazz. The Wackles killed Momo. Jena was here after that, but now she’s gone too. We had another fight. And—oh no, I forgot—that gangster Sante’s back in town. I have to see about Jena.”
“Poor Joe,” said Spazz, breaking into his wheezing laugh. “Such the loser. Married to Jena. Phew. Look, can’t we stall on crashing the phones? I want to buy this jet. Let’s wait a week till we scam our money from the IPO. You and me are talking on Mophones right now and I don’t see any like ball of Nothingness eating up the fabric of reality.”
A Wackle glob thumped me in the back, rolling my chair away from my desk. There were more of them darting around outside the window and in my front yard. Cars on the street were slowing to look at my house, at the weird red balls and the fleeting devil figures.
“Things are coming apart fast,” I said. A hole in the ceiling had dripped a puddle of water onto my desk. “Please please tell me what to do. For the love of God, help me, Spazz.”
“Oh, all right,” said Spazz. “Begging is good, Joe. I like it. You should always talk to me that way. And, what the hey, if this is bogus, I can always turn the Mophones back on. I wonder if—”