by Rudy Rucker
“Good to meet you, Huckle,” said Pede, setting Gibby’s moolk down next to him. “Should I give him a mug on your tab, Gibby?”
“No moolk for Huckle,” said Gibby sharply. “He’s too young to be getting messed up.”
“Young?” said Pede, cocking his head and giving Frek a careful once-over. “If you say so.” He turned his attention to some other customers.
The moolk had a powerful effect on Gibby, who immediately began cursing and slurring his words. It was unpleasant to see, and the other moolk-drinkers weren’t nice to be around either. A plate of free anymeat and grobread sandwiches sat upon the bar; Frek snagged two of them, wormed his way out through the crowd and headed across the pasture. Deanna the toonsmith was the only one to notice him leaving. She didn’t exactly wave or smile, but she didn’t frown either. Maybe he could get her to give him a tour of the Toonsmithy one of these days.
Down on the riverbank Frek sat a little upstream from the elephruks, eating his sandwiches and drinking from the clear River Jaya. It was getting dark. A crescent moon hung low over Stun City, exquisite against the skyline’s fantastic shapes.
Idly Frek watched the images atop the Toonsmithy. Before long they cycled back to the Skull Farmers: Gypsy Joker, Strummer, and Soul Soldier. Seeing them set Frek to thinking about all the stuff that had happened to him.
The adventure had started last Saturday when he’d been gaming with the Skull Farmers at Stoo’s. The counselors had come to ask about the Anvil and he hadn’t told them it was under his bed. Then in the middle of the night, the Anvil had opened up, the alien cuttlefish had talked to him, and early Sunday morning the counselors had peeked him. After that he’d been fubbed in the fog till Thursday afternoon, when Ida and the Goob Dolls woke him up. Then right away Mom helped him run away and he’d ended up with the Grulloos. Jeroon had fixed his brain with stim cells, and today, Friday, he’d ridden to Stun City with Gibby, disguised as a gump. Tomorrow he was supposed to sneak a peek at the Anvil.
Gibby was up by the torch-lit cowloon drinking moolk; even from here Frek could hear him yelling and playing his fiddle. Frek’s new pal. It was hard to believe he was friends with a Grulloo. Downstream the elephruks were making a peaceful, rumbling noise. And out across Stun City, dogs were barking, especially near the Kritterworks.
Frek rubbed the stump of his arm, feeling a slight tingle. Was it starting to grow back? Hopefully not before tomorrow afternoon; till then he’d need his disguise. He wondered if he had any chance of finding the Anvil within the fortresslike puffball. And, assuming he could get the Anvil open, what would he find inside it? It was a shame the counselors had killed the cuttlefish. For the first time since he’d gotten his memory back, Frek remembered that one funny-looking seed he’d planted. And the way it had immediately grown into something that burrowed off beneath the soil. Surely it had been from the alien. Mom had said the counselors burnt and poisoned the ground all around Giant’s Marbles. But by the time they got there, the mysterious digging thing would have been long gone.
Frek looked out across Stun City. The sliver of moon was higher now, cupped upward like a bowl. And, hard as it was to believe, two of the buildings on the skyline had changed shape. One of them definitely had a new spire that hadn’t been there before. Those aircoral polyps were fast.
There was so much he didn’t know about Stun City. Frankly, it seemed hopeless to try to loot the Anvil with Gibby, especially after seeing the Grulloo hitting the moolk. Being like a chameleon for half an hour wouldn’t make that big a difference. Would the NuBioCom guards just stand there and watch while a funny-looking patch of floor coaxed open the Anvil—or shoved it out a window to land on Gibby’s elephruk? The idea was kac.
What to do? Fred couldn’t go home yet or the counselors would get him. Go live with the Grulloos? Not an appetizing thought. Maybe he could get a job in Stun City, or if things were too hot for him here, go farther down the river to some other town. Grand-sounding words, but the thought of having to travel even farther from Mom, Ida, Geneva, and Wow made Frek feel sick and hollow. And how far would he have to go to escape Gov’s influence anyway? Carb had gone all the way to the asteroids. Must Frek find a space bug and ship out, too?
School and the toons didn’t teach all that much about the government. The basic setup was that the planet was divided into little regions, with each region run by its own Gov, all of them more or less the same. They had one top-level Gov called Prexy. They weren’t told more than that; the main message was don’t worry about it. Thinking of Gov set Frek to remembering the Raven toon pecking him. To get his mind off that, he lay down flat on his back and stared up at the stars.
Right before he fell asleep something funny happened. He’d turned his heavy new ring around so he could rub the little dent with his thumb. It was soothing to feel the nice curve. It was something he’d been doing off and on all day. But now it was as if he’d finally triggered something in the ring, for one of the stars high up in the sky suddenly seemed to get brighter. In his drowsy state, this didn’t seem all that remarkable. The bright star flew down; it found its way to him and hovered over his ring. A spiky yellow halo surrounded the glowing ball. In the center Frek saw a girl with pigtails and a friendly, open face. “Come to me, Frek,” she said. “Come soon and help me.” She smiled, and the smile shone like the sun.
When Frek woke he was cold and damp. It was the middle of the night. Having a stub for a left arm surprised him at first, but then he remembered what was going on. By tomorrow afternoon he’d be back to normal. Briefly he recalled the image of the girl in the ball—but surely that had been a dream. He checked his ring; it wasn’t doing anything.
Frek could hear a few drinkers still at the cowloon; their voices were fubbed and mean. But he didn’t hear Gibby, which was good. He headed up through the pasture toward the inn. The six-legged elephruks were standing in the high grass now, sleeping with their heads and trunks hanging down.
Frek bent his path so as not to get too close to the guttering torches and noisy people by the cowloon. The toonsmiths Sooly and Deanna were long gone of course; they weren’t the type to stand around getting messed up. At first Frek saw no sign of Gibby. He was hoping his friend had made it safely to bed. But then he noticed a small still form lying in the dirt by the inn’s back door, with someone leaning over him. Phamelu was going through the unconscious Gibby’s pockets.
“What are you doing?” asked Frek, walking up to her, his pulse beating fast.
“Oh, hi there, Huckle,” said Phamelu, flashing an easy smile and pushing back a hank of her thick blond hair. “I’m just loosening his jacket so he can breathe better. I would have liked to have carried him upstairs, but I think there’s some kind of watch thingie in your room?” She gave Frek a concerned look and shook her head. “When I checked your room, I heard this fierce croaking sound and I figured, careful, Phamelu, don’t go in there. Anyway, I think he’s too heavy for me to carry. Good thing you’re here.”
“Yep,” said Frek shortly. He wasn’t sure if she’d been trying to rob Gibby or to help him. Maybe just help. Phamelu did seem so nice. “I can carry him,” he said, and hoisted Gibby onto his shoulders. Gibby’s fiddle lay smashed on the ground where he’d collapsed. Poor little thing.
“You’re strong,” said Phamelu. “Come back down when you’ve got him settled. I’ll give you a snack.”
Frek didn’t know what to answer, so he didn’t say anything. Upstairs, the toad gave a warning croak when Frek pushed open the door. Frek held Gibby out in front of himself and pinched the Grulloo’s tail until he made a noise. This seemed to mollify the toad. To seal the deal, Frek found Gibby’s pod of grub worms and fed some more of them to the toad. The warty little creature gazed up at him with a kindly look in the pupil-slits of his yellow eyes.
“If I go downstairs for another minute, will you let me back in?” Frek asked the toad as he tucked Gibby into his bed. The toad didn’t say anything one way or the other. Frek fed it a
nother grub and took the pod with him when he went downstairs.
Phamelu was perched on a stool behind her inn counter. “I don’t know if you ever got any supper,” she said. An anyfruit apple sat on the counter between two mugs of moolk. “Pede said you’d wandered off, and then nobody could find you when Gibby got sick.”
“Sick?” said Frek. “He drank too much.”
“He always does,” said Phamelu, smiling and shrugging her shoulder. “You’d think he’d learn. Not that there’s anything wrong with moolk, if you know how to handle it. Here’s a nice apple with some moolk for you. On the house.”
“Well—” said Frek. “I’ll be glad to eat the apple, but I think maybe—”
“Pede heard Gibby say you’re too young for moolk,” said Phamelu, nudging one of the mugs forward and giving Frek an encouraging smile. “Funny you don’t look young.”
“Uh-huh,” said Frek, once again at a loss for words. He took a bite of the apple and then, just to show Phamelu he wasn’t scared, he took a tiny sip of the moolk. It tickled the back of his throat.
“If you’re interested, I might be able to offer you a job,” said Phamelu, taking a sip from her own mug. “I need an extra hand around the inn. Just to help the suckapillar clean out the rooms, you know. And tend to the elephruks. I don’t have any extra money these days, but I could give you a place to sleep and plenty of food.”
This sounded very glatt. It was right along the lines of what Frek had been thinking of doing, in fact. Lie low in Stun City. Phamelu smiled at him and he took another sip of moolk. It tingled all the way down to his stomach. He quickly took a big bite of apple. The apple was delicious. Frek felt wonderful. He smiled happily at Phamelu.
“You’re not really old, are you, Huckle?” said Phamelu, looking deep into his eyes. “Tell me. Once I know the truth, you can have the job. Tell me. We can work things out.”
She was certainly insistent. “Well—I might look younger tomorrow afternoon,” allowed Frek. “But you say I can still have the job even if I’m young?”
“Of course,” said Phamelu in a caressing tone. “You can keep the room you have right now. It’s just a Grulloo room. I’ll let you have it for free and you can work here as long as you like.”
“That’s really nice of you, Phamelu,” said Frek. Things were happening faster than he could think them through.
“A toast,” said Phamelu, raising her mug.
They clinked mugs, and Frek took a much bigger swallow of moolk than before. When he set the mug down it made a loud sound on the counter. His ears were ringing.
“I imagine that’s quite a valuable ring,” said Phamelu, nodding toward the shiny cup with its dot of red light, then tossing her head a bit to get her blond hair away from her eyes. “You’re lucky to have it.”
“I got it from my dad,” said Frek carefully.
“I wonder what you look like without the mods Gibby put on you,” said Phamelu in a dreamy tone, as if she were just thinking out loud. “I bet you’re a nice-looking boy. I wonder what your real name is.”
“Frek,” said Frek, before he knew what he was saying. And then he put his hand over his mouth and giggled. The moolk was seriously getting to him. He reached for the apple and, as usual, knocked over the mug. The moolk rushed across the counter and dripped onto Phamelu’s lap.
“Oh oh,” she said mildly, not acting a bit mad. She drew out a rag to wipe up the moolk. But as she glanced up from the rag, Frek saw something hard and mean in her face. He remembered what Gibby had told him: there’s razors in that apple pie. He was in way over his head.
“I better go to bed,” said Frek. “We can talk about this tomorrow. I’m sorry about the spill.”
“Good night, Frek.”
The counselors came just before dawn.
Frek woke to a great croak from the watch-toad, followed by the sound of a man screaming. The wall lights came on. The counselor who’d been bitten by the watch-toad was on his knees clutching his hand. It was Zhak. And the other counselor was PhiPhi. She needled the toad with a pulse from a fat laserbug mounted on one of her fingers. Phamelu stood blocking the door. PhiPhi drew out her webgun and aimed it at Frek, once again ready to tangle him up.
But she hadn’t reckoned with Gibby. With a snap of his tail, the little Grulloo sent himself flying out of his bed and into the wall. He caromed off the wall into PhiPhi’s head, knocking her flat on her back.
“You gleeps ain’t stealin’ my eggs this time!” hollered Gibby. “Stun City’s a free trade zone!”
Phamelu had the door covered, but the window was wide open. In seconds Frek had his feet out the smooth aircoral window hole. He paused to glance back, bracing himself with his flipper arm. Desperate though things were, it was wonderful to see his friend back to his old self again, not like the pitiful unconscious figure of last night.
“Come on, Gibby. We gotta run!”
“I ain’t done nothin’ wrong,” protested Gibby. “I’m stayin’ to protect what’s mine.” Zhak and PhiPhi were still on the ground. “Take this,” said Gibby, passing Frek the sticky purse-fungus with his chameleon gel and his Aaron’s Rod. “Now git.”
Right then PhiPhi sat up and splatted one of Gibby’s legs with a glob of goo from her webgun. Gibby whirled and grabbed her wrist with his free hand, shaking the webgun loose, all the while arguing with her about his rights.
Frek slid down the slightly slanted wall, his ring clattering on the coral. He took off running toward the river. The sky off to the left was the faintest shade of pinky gray. Some birds were starting to chatter.
When Frek got to the high, dew-soaked grass, he encountered two wet, prancing shapes. Dogs. He started to dodge around them, then stopped.
“Wow!”
“I smell you,” squeaked Wow from the back of his throat. “I wait.” He sniffed the stub where Frek’s arm ended and whined in sympathy.
“Run away,” said the other dog. “Follow me home.” She looked much like Wow, though her hair was perhaps a bit curlier. She might have been a 3000 or a 3001 model.
PhiPhi was yelling from the inn window, but she wasn’t coming after him yet. Gibby was probably still hanging onto her. And there was no sign of Zhak. Frek had been thinking he might need to use the chameleon mod, but now it was looking like he could just run away.
He followed Wow and the other dog down to the river’s edge, the tall grass rippling around them. They turned left and cut under the abutments of a bridge that crossed the River Jaya less than a hundred meters downstream. Beyond the bridge, the waterfront got complicated.
In the growing light of dawn, the dogs led Frek through a maze of wharves, boatyards, warehouses, and ruined old dwellings, finally coming to a stop in a big ironwood culvert just behind the Kritterworks. If anyone had been following, Frek and the dogs had lost them on the way.
“This Woo,” said Wow, introducing his friend. “Woo have heat.”
“Home,” said Woo. “Woo den.” The culvert held piles of rags and bedding, some bones and chewed-up old shoes, and a pervasive doggy aroma. Wow and Woo had long since shaken themselves dry. They lay down side by side, tongues lolling, looking calm and friendly.
“Thanks, Woo,” said Frek. “You came by at just the right time, Wow. How did you get here?”
“Run in water,” said Wow, meaning that he swam. “I smell Woo.” He gave Woo’s muzzle a lick.
“I smell Wow,” said Woo. “Wow strong. Make good puppies.”
“Puppies!” exclaimed Frek. He didn’t have the heart to try to tell the dogs that they couldn’t have puppies unless someone gave them doses of the latest update of the NuBioCom antidote for the ever-changing knockout virus. Not that the dogs would understand. All over the planet, plants and animals were fruitlessly trying to reproduce themselves the same way they always had, enjoying sex as much as ever. But these days—unless the would-be parent or parents owned a paid-up NuBioCom reproduction license and installed the latest twenty-four-hour wetware upgrades
into themselves—making babies didn’t work. The knockout virus threw a monkey-wrench into reproduction’s intricate genetic dance, fouling up the proteins used in meiosis.
Frek patted Wow on the head. “Tell me, Wow, did the counselors do anything bad to Mom when they came to get you?” Wow didn’t understand, so Frek made the question simpler. “Lora okay?”
“Lora lie down,” said Wow simply. “Lora crying.”
Frek felt an anger stronger than any he’d ever felt before. He had to do something to stop the counselors, something to show Gov he couldn’t ride roughshod over everyone forever. Frek wasn’t going to run off down the river. He was going to fight Gov here and now. Yes. What had the alien cuttlefish told him? “You’re the one. You’ll save the world.” Somehow, some way, the cuttlefish had come to help Frek smash Gov’s power. Even though the counselors had incinerated the alien being, there just had to be some remaining trace of what he’d come to do. Maybe that funny seed had already made a difference. And the answer would lie in the Anvil.
“Can you take me to the puffball?” Frek asked Woo. The curly-haired dog didn’t answer. Frek gestured with his arms. “Big, big round building. I want to go there.”
Woo didn’t understand, or wasn’t interested. She could talk, but she was still a dog. She got up, walked a little farther back into the culvert and came back dragging a rather large bone. You rarely saw bones like this, since all the meat these days was from anymeat loaves. Frek guessed the bone was from the Kritterworks trash. Maybe from a recycled elephruk. Wow began chewing one end of the bone, and Woo the other.
“I’m going to the puffball,” repeated Frek after resting for a while. He would have liked to have Gibby along for this—but he had a feeling that the counselors might not release the Grulloo anytime soon. And if Gibby was in fact free, he’d probably think of going to the puffball too. One thing for sure, Frek wasn’t going back to the Brindle Cowloon.
He took Jeroon’s special mod-pod out of his pocket and looked at it. When Dha Na Duc had used it in the toon, each of his feathers had begun automatically tinting itself to be the color of the nearest background object. It hadn’t always worked right, particularly when enemies were looking for Dha Na from two different sides. And a dose of chameleon mod only lasted half an hour. Well, he’d just have to see how it turned out. He was going to the puffball no matter what.