by Rudy Rucker
“See those orange tubes coming out of the floor? That’s where the kenner can come out. Dark matter. We have a fair amount of it around Unipusk anyway, but to get it in bulk, we process the stuff in the transport tube. The kenner’s invisible until a kenny crafter vaars it.”
“Vaars it?”
“A Unipusker word. It means that a kenny crafter can look at a spot where you wouldn’t see anything, and he sees the dark matter there, the kenner, and he’s able to reach out and make it want to let us see it. Flop it over into ordinary reality. And then the crafter shapes the kenny with his mind.”
“Just by thinking at it? How?”
“Some people say that kenner is free-floating consciousness.”
“People like who?”
“Like Mom.” Renata giggled.
It was hard to keep up a conversation with the hoverdisk racing around so fast. Finally Frek and Renata gave up talking and simply sat it out. Renata passed the time by sketching Frek’s profile on her turkle. For his part, Frek was watching the kenny crafters down below. Every now and then one of them would stare at his floor tube for a while, the tube would swell up, he’d move his hands, and there’d be an object next to him. And then he’d mess with the object for a long time. Vaaring. Frek was going to have to get a closer look when they landed. Meanwhile they had to work their way through what amounted to a very large catalog fixed to the ceiling. It really did take more than an hour. Renata went ahead and drew a second picture of Frek, which was flattering, and then, without thinking about it too much, the two began holding hands.
Finally Gawrgor set the hoverdisk down on the floor, right near a slender kenny crafter with extra long eye stalks on his head. Though most of his companions were busy, this one seemed not to be doing much of anything just now.
“Greet Cawmb and Hawb,” he said, languidly aiming an eye stalk toward them. “Inquire how many new kennies you want. Greet Renata as well.”
“Greet Gawrnier,” said Cawmb. “Transmit our order form.” One of the stubby antennas on his head twitched, presumably sending information to the kenny crafter.
“Propose delivery in two weeks,” said the kenny crafter. “Apologize that we have a considerable backlog, what with the transport tube only having come back online yesterday.”
“Politely inquire why you nevertheless appear so idle,” said Cawmb.
“Huffily declare that I was thinking,” said Gawrnier. “Remind you that I’m an artist, not a machine. Condescendingly explain that the finest kennies take more advance planning than a laypusker can imagine.”
“Accept your delivery date,” put in Hawb. “Apologize for my partner’s rudeness.” The two producer Unipuskers seemed a bit in awe of the kenny crafter.
“Tell Gawrnier about Frek,” piped up Renata.
“Present the negotiator for a new talent race,” said Hawb. “Introduce Frek Huggins to Gawrnier; introduce Gawrnier to Frek Huggins. Prepare to say good-bye.”
“Wait,” protested Frek. “We spent all that time circling around up there, and I still haven’t gotten a good look at what they do.”
“Frantically jabber about a shortage of time,” said Cawmb. “Stress that the branelink is finally coming online in just a few minutes. Announce that we need to fetch Yessica and Carb before taking you to the branelink. Explain that we expect them to help convince you to play along. Threaten to kill you otherwise. Scold that you should be fully satisfied with your Unipusk tour by now.”
“You wasted an hour looking at a geevin’ catalog,” exclaimed Frek, by no means wanting to go the branelink yet. “That’s your idea of a tour?”
“Propose you leave Frek and Renata with me,” put in Gawrnier unexpectedly. “Suggest they watch me working while you get the other members of your party.”
“Assent,” said Cawmb quickly. “Remark that we can fly faster without the flimsy humans on board. Thank Gawrnier. Caution Gawrnier not to let Frek escape. Estimate that we’ll return in ten to fifteen minutes.” And then he, Gawrgor, and Hawb were gone.
“Inquire if you want to watch me craft a kenny,” asked Gawrnier.
“Sure,” said Frek, mainly wondering if this might be the last thing he ever saw. He stuck one hand in his pocket and glued his fungus purse to the palm of his hand, trying not to think too clearly about his half-formed plan. The golden glow and the espers were pressing in. Sky-air-comb, he thought. Sky-air-comb.
Gawrnier took hold of the floppy tube leading up out of the floor; it was made of a material resembling shiny cloth. He focused his two eye stalks on the tube, vaaring it, and suddenly the tube grew firm, as if air were blowing out of it. Dark matter? Frek leaned forward and stuck out his hand. He felt the ghost of a breeze. The tube was rippling with the passage of something.
Gawrnier let go of the tube, which was temporarily able to stand up on its own. He held out his arms as if hugging a big ball; he brought them high up into the air and began staggering back and forth as if he were carrying something awkward and heavy. Frek glimpsed a flicker above Gawrnier, like the wiggling in the air above a fire. And then a big box on legs took form; Gawrnier jumped to one side to let it drop to the ground.
The thing was shaped a bit like a four-legged mahogany piano, but with no keyboard and with a circle of gold pads on its top surrounding a cut-out hole. The legs had an archaic animal look to them; they ended in claws tipped with gold talons. One of the legs had splintered when the thing dropped from the air. Gawrnier vaared at the leg until it healed itself. Frek forgot about the life-or-death decision hanging over his head. This was goggier than anything he’d ever seen. Could Gawrnier perhaps teach Frek to be a kenny crafter?
Gawrnier circled the object, examining each part. Frek could see greater or lesser alterations taking place at the touch of the kenny crafter’s eyes. Embossed images of lizards like the ones Frek had seen in the flickerball appeared upon the gold disks on the thing’s top surface. Wonderful. The edges of the top rounded themselves off, then became scalloped. Carvings of prehistoric ferns appeared upon the sides of the table. The legs roughened their texture and developed knees, becoming still more like dinosaur legs.
“Unbelievable,” breathed Frek. “What’s it for?”
“Dismiss it as merely another lizard-world-style table to be used as a flickerball-stand,” said Gawrnier. “Impugn my customer’s taste for having ordered it. Remark how uninspiring most of my orders are. Suggest that the glut of kenner coming in through the Jumm transport tube lowers our customers’ level of taste. Assert that I would much prefer reworking our existing stocks of kenner into more interesting creations. Remark that certain kenny crafters are in fact pleased by the transport tube bombings, as these slow down our all-but-mindless order fulfillment process.”
Gawrnier kicked at the limp orange tube on the floor till it perked up again. This time he drew off a smaller amount of kenner—the tube went flat quite soon, and Gawrnier’s hands weren’t very far apart.
Gawrnier vaared the space between his hands, that is, he fixed his attention on it with a marvelous intensity that Frek could almost feel. The air wavered, thickened, became like a lens. And then Gawrnier was holding a brand new flickerball, already displaying the blue-edged branecaster logo.
“Question the purpose of making yet another one of these,” said Gawrnier with a sigh. “Remark that my countrymen esp entirely too much brane.”
“But you have all those flickerballs set up around the edges of your studio,” said Frek.
“Explain that we’re expected to draw inspiration from them,” said Gawrnier. “Regret that the customers want us to ape the worlds that they esp. Confess that, personally, I’d be content to make nothing but statues of vigs.”
“Did you make the marble statue with the golden bowl on his back?” asked Frek ingratiatingly. Maybe, if he played his cards right, Gawrnier could be of help to him. He was worrying about the branelink. Maybe Gawrnier could help him escape. “The one that Cawmb and Hawb have? It’s beautiful. I’ve nev
er seen anything so skillfully crafted. And the wishing-well feature, it’s like magic.”
The kenny crafter’s shell head parted in a long smile. “Express appreciation for your astuteness. Confirm this creation as mine. Gloat that I call it Dream Vig, that it’s filled with a reserve chamber of liquid kenner, and that I crafted it so that whatever one wishes for, within reason, will appear within the golden bowl. Explain that Dream Vig’s telepathic interface is my invention, based upon a clever repurposing of flickerball technology. Declare that this is the noble kind of project I’d like to be spending my time upon instead of filling orders for stupid kac like a flickerball stand with dinosaur legs!”
In a sudden fit of pique, Gawrnier vaared so hard at the newly made table that its entire surface became covered with spidery hair-line cracks. The cracks gave the thing a crackle finish that was kind of interesting; it made the table look as if it were covered with irregular transparent tiles. Cocking his head at the table for a moment, Gawrnier vaared again, so that now the bits of crackling took on alternating colors, making a bizarre checkerboard effect.
Right about then the hoverdisk came swooping back, with Gawrgor, Hawb, Cawmb, Carb, and Yessica aboard. Yessica was glued to Carb’s side, stroking his cheek, working on him. Carb looked a little heavy-lidded, as if he still wasn’t quite awake. He hadn’t groomed his Mohawk today; it was flopped halfway down to the left.
Cawmb was briefly distracted from his mission by the sight of the new flickerball stand. “Express admiration for that finish,” he said, his eye stalks stretching down. “Add a copy of this to my order.”
“Kac on copies,” muttered Gawrnier. “Praise the bomber of the transport tube.”
“Tolerate the ravings of crazy artists,” said Hawb dismissively, then turned his attention to Frek and Renata. “Urge haste,” he cried. “Report that the branelink is ready!”
“This is it, Frek,” murmured Carb as Frek and Renata squeezed onto the crowded hoverdisk. Though his father was acting sleepy, he was, Frek now realized, poised and alert. “I won’t let them hurt you,” breathed Dad.
And then they swept out of the kenny crafters’ studio and over the mounds of dirt to the ball-like building on stilts next door.
“The branelink’s inside of it,” fretted Renata. “Don’t pressure Frek, Mom. You don’t have to always try to win!”
“Stay out of this, dear,” snapped Yessica. “You have no idea what’s best for you.”
The hoverdisk rose up above the golden ball on legs. The ball had a hole at the top. Looking down into its interior, Frek saw a racing whirlpool of fog with a shiny green ball in the center. Evidently the ball was the mouth of the branelink. It looked like the leafy canopy of an earthly tree, pleasant enough. But Frek could readily imagine the unkind faces of the branecasters down there past the vegetation—the branecasters and the warped bright toony curves of the Planck brane landscape.
“Explain that all you have to do is jump in,” said Hawb, taking hold of Frek’s elbow.
“Inquire one final time if you will secure the humanity channel production deal for us,” said Cawmb, holding Frek’s other arm.
“No,” said Frek, a little surprised at how calm he felt. “I’m not.”
“Command you to kill him, Hawb,” said Cawmb. “Plan then to send his father in his place.”
“Stop it!” cried Renata.
“You’d be wasting your stinking time,” said Carb in a hard, level tone. “I won’t do it either.” He placed himself between Frek and the Unipuskers.
“Kill Frek and I’ll go,” said Yessica suddenly. “I can negotiate the deal for you. I’m more trustworthy than Carb.”
“Damn you, Mom,” shrieked Renata, and gave her mother a shove. Yessica very nearly fell off the hoverdisk. Gawrgor had to drop the little craft down about five meters to keep her aboard, while Hawb and Cawmb released their hold on Frek to steady themselves. Frek seized the moment and jumped off the hovercraft onto the ground.
He had a chameleon mod out of his fungus purse in a second, and when he hit the ground he tore off his clothes and smeared on the mod. At the same time, he used his ever-growing mind powers to sky-air-comb the espers from being able to read his mind or even to see through his eyes. He was free and, if not invisible, at least reasonably hard to find. Even so, Gawrgor would probably have caught him right away—but just then there was a boom followed by a prolonged screaming noise from the sky.
Not taking time to look up, Frek bent low to the ground and ran away from the branelink as fast as he could, his skin the same stippled blue as the soil of Unipusk. By the time the two Unipuskers started yelling for him, he’d lost himself in the dirt piles. Only when he’d put the kenny crafters’ studio between himself and the slowly circling hoverdisk did he pause to look up.
He saw a giant finger frantically color-painting the sky. It took a moment to grasp that this was the transport tube. The new bobblie bomb had gone off—not way out in space, but less than a kilometer overhead. The transport tube was completely severed from its Unipusk terminus. The force fields were steadily unraveling in either direction. The stub attached to the ground was already gone, and overhead the receding mouth of the tube flailed around like an out-of-control garden hose. Plumes of ammonia-scented Jumm stuff shrieked from the mouth, blotting out the sky.
The gas was chilling the air. And then all of a sudden it began snowing red and yellow methane crystals.
9
The Spaceport Bar
The snow stung Frek’s bare feet, and the fumes made the air hard to breathe. The shrill roar from the burst tube was stupefying. He wanted to head for the spaceport—he had a vague plan of getting aboard some alien ship. But just now, more than anything, he needed shelter.
Glancing up at the kenny crafters’ building, Frek noticed a lone figure standing in an open door. Gawrnier. The languid Unipusker’s eye stalks were pointed straight at him. Even though Frek’s skin was cunningly stippled with blue, red, and yellow to match the methane crystals and the Unipusk dirt, Gawrnier could see him. The kenny crafter made a quick beckoning gesture.
The smell of the Jumm gas and the melting crystals was sickening. Frek could hear a threatening buzz beneath the shriek of the broken transport tube. The hoverdisk was about to appear from around the clam-shaped building’s edge. Frek darted up a spindly staircase toward Gawrnier, and a moment later he was safe inside the kenny crafters’ building.
Though Frek had expected to end up in the same big-domed room he’d seen before, he found himself in a Spartan two-room apartment with some odd, minimalist chairs, a dark steaming tub that he recognized as a Unipusker bed, and an inactive little flickerball. A door across the room led out to the big workshop.
“Welcome Frek to my private studio,” said Gawrnier. “Explain that I prefer this to my mansion by the spaceport. Offer you a seat.” He cocked his head, peering at how Frek’s skin had changed color to blend in with the room’s shades of gray and pearl. “Observe that if I weren’t able to vaar the kenner in your body, you’d be hard to see. Admire your camouflage, not to mention your forceful autopoietic blocking of branecast visibility. Propose that you relax.”
“I’ll try,” said Frek, gingerly perching himself upon a kind of coiled spring. It rocked beneath his weight. “Please don’t tell Hawb and Cawmb you found me. I have to get to the spaceport to escape. And I want to take the others with me. Carb, Renata, Gibby, Wow, and Woo. Not Yessica.”
“Praise your determination,” said Gawrnier. He closed the door to the big workshop. “Reveal that I despise Hawb and Cawmb. Reassure that I’ll do what I can to help you. Inquire if you want to be a kenny crafter?”
Frek’s heart leaped at the thought. “Uh—how did you guess?”
“Reply that I can sense your desire and your latent skill. Confess that I am eager to teach you so as to spread my noble occupation to your world. Propose that we begin immediately.”
But surely this was impossible. “I don’t have time for le
ssons,” exclaimed Frek. “I’m on the run.” He glanced down at himself. His skin was nicely patterned to match the opalescent curves of the spring-seat. This dose of chameleon mod would only last another few minutes—but he still had one more dose in the purse-fungus glued to the palm of his hand. Though he could feel the delicate touch of the golden branecast glow trying to seep back into his mind, he was finding it easier and easier to sky-air-comb it away. Maybe he could spare some time after all. “How—how long would it take to learn?” he asked.
“Propose ten minutes to begin,” said Gawrnier. “Predict the rest of your life for mastery.” He held out his hands to shape an invisible ball. “Observe and imitate.”
Gawrnier had no tube of Jumm gas to get material from; he was going to work with whatever ambient kenner—that is, dark matter—could be found in the air of the room. Frek held out his own hands, imitating the Unipusker. He studied the empty space between his hands, wondering how to vaar the dark matter. Supposedly it was everywhere. Outside the broken transport tube was screaming in the sky, though bit by bit the sound was dwindling.
“Think smoothly,” said Gawrnier. “Be like ripples in water. Don’t grasp. Forget as fast as you notice. Let the space between your hands be part of you.”
Frek peeked over at Gawrnier and, as before, he saw a shimmer between the Unipusker’s hands.
“Don’t watch me,” admonished Gawrnier. “Don’t think words. Be the kenner.”
Frek flexed his fingers, focusing again on the ball of air between his hands. Nothing there, and nothing to say about it. Nothing—instead of starting up a new thought, he dove into the mental space at the end of the word. Holding back his own thoughts was no different than holding back the prying eyes of the espers. He breathed evenly and gazed straight ahead. At some point he had a sense of his head growing forward to fill the space—he hacked away the perception like weed in a garden and sank back into emptiness. The space between his hands was like part of his head. Emptiness. Something was flickering, but he didn’t try and name it. Nothing.