by Rudy Rucker
There was a thump.
“Commend Frek,” said Gawrnier.
Frek snapped out of his trance and looked down. A striped ball the size of a plum had dropped to the floor from between his hands. A ball of kenner. He’d vaared it from thin air. Glancing over at Gawrnier he saw that the Unipusker had made a large thin disk big enough for two people to stand on.
“I can’t believe I did it,” said Frek, nudging his little ball with the tip of his toe. “It was so easy. Why haven’t people always been able to do this?”
“Suggest two reasons,” said Gawrnier, “these being that (a) it’s much easier to do something that you know to be possible, and that(b) you, Frek, are unlike your fellow men. Repeat a rumor that before your birth you were blessed by the Magic Pig.”
Through Gawrnier’s door Frek heard voices in the common room of the kenny crafters. Hawb and Cawmb, asking questions, and that damned Yessica yelling something, too.
“What blessing?” demanded Frek. “What Magic Pig?” The phrase sounded vaguely familiar.
“Confess I know little more on this topic. Suggest you question your father, within whose somewhat addled brain Hawb found the phrase and the rumor.” Gawrnier cocked his head at the sounds from beyond the door. “Prioritize a second kenny crafting lesson,” said the Unipusker. “Promise I will then rush you to the spaceport.”
“All right,” said Frek. “Show me how to vaar my kenner into something useful.”
“Thus and so,” said Gawrnier, cocking his head and gazing down at his round plate of kenner until it grew a railing and acquired new convolutions upon its lower side. He’d made the thing into a hoverdisk, complete with railings and a stubby control rod.
The Unipusker regarded Frek with a noticeable twinkle in his stalk-supported eyes. “Suggest you vaar what might be most useful to you,” he said. “A vig-shaped spacesuit!”
“Huh?” Out in the common room, Hawb’s voice was slowly drawing closer. For the moment all thoughts of kennies flew away.
Frek looked down at his body and saw naked copper skin. Kac! His chameleon mod had worn off. No time to lose. Without even looking at Gawrnier, he pried open his fungus purse, pulled out his last mod, and rubbed it on. His skin once again took on the shadings of the room around him. The only thing left in his fungus purse was the twig of Aaron’s Rod. Add water and get a hundred-meter thicket of impenetrable tendrils. He had a feeling it would soon be time to use the Aaron’s Rod, though he wasn’t yet sure exactly how.
“Fix your mind upon your goal,” said Gawrnier, calmly regarding the agitated Frek. “Imagine the shape of a vig, and the functionality of a spacesuit. Push the image out to the rind of your consciousness and empty your mind’s center. In nothingness, merge with your ball of kenner. Let the target image collapse inward. And thus craft your kenny.”
“I—I don’t know how to design a spacesuit,” protested Frek.
“Curse,” said Gawrnier, and rapidly diddled with his flickerball. “Look and absorb,” he said after a minute. Frek gazed into the flickerball and saw that Gawrnier had tuned in on a holographic set of plans for a spacesuit similar to the ones the Orpolese had given them, though lighter and less durable in appearance. The plans were of Unipusk origin; the labels on the figures were three-dimensional squiggles resembling markings Frek had seen upon the Unipuskers’ dwellings. Perhaps a hundred sets of the images flew past: views from every angle, close-up detail shots, filigrees that must have been logic circuits. And then Gawrnier turned the flickerball off; that is, he let it revert to showing the familiar blue-edged ad-cube. “Go,” said Gawrnier.
Again Frek calmed his breath and his mind. Though he didn’t think he remembered the exact shape of a vig, let alone the intricacies of the designs he’d just seen, he found the information intact within himself. He pushed the images out so that they surrounded him like a hollow shell. He and the kenner became one and the same.
Just as the pounding on Gawrnier’s door began, Frek let the prepared images descend upon his ball of kenner. And then came the last mental twitch that Gawrnier had promised Frek would find. It was like the way Frek could sometimes look at a drawing of a cube and see it flip into its mirror image. His mind folded the target pattern right into the kenner. And now a floppy orange spacesuit lay at his feet; a kenny vig skin with a slit on one side where he could crawl in. The skin was wondrously light, no thicker than turmite silk.
“Praise my student,” said Gawrnier, hopping onto his hoverdisk. “Urge haste.”
Frek grinned at the Unipusker. He almost felt like, in just ten minutes, Gawrnier had been more of a father to him than Carb had been in the last ten years.
They skittered out Gawrnier’s back door an instant before the door to the common room gave way. And then they were flying across the monotonous Unipusk landscape. Methane snow, blue dirt, rickrack, vigs. Frek hunched down, with his new spacesuit wadded into a little bundle between his feet. His skin was streaming with colors matching the crystal-dusted fields.
The sky was a low mass of billowing red and yellow clouds from the ruptured Jumm-to-Unipusk transport tube. But the screeching of the sabotaged tube had faded away—the tube’s dissolution had advanced up past the Unipusk atmosphere. A fresh breeze was blowing, bringing in clean air.
Rather than heading straight for the tall rickrack plants on the horizon, Gawrnier angled a bit to one side, as if to approach the spaceport from another direction. Low rickrack homes and fields of vigs flew past below.
They were just drawing even with a curious collection of shiny linked kenner domes when a crackling bolt of green light shot past them. Hawb and Cawmb’s hoverdisk was closing in on them, moving recklessly fast with its cargo of three Unipuskers and three humans. Even if, to all appearances, Gawrnier was alone, the producers were suspicious of him.
Gawrnier instantly steered his hoverdisk for the ground, managing to land near a small herd of vigs. Besides the mysterious domes, there were a few wide-based twenty-meter rickrack trees that served as Unipusker dwellings.
“Go, Frek,” exhorted Gawrnier. “Run to the vigs and put on your suit. Then try to make your way to the spaceport. There’s a bar called Taz where you can seek passage offworld.”
“I’ll never forget you,” said Frek, unable to say more. It hurt to leave this incredible new teacher.
Holding the suit bunched against the side of his body that faced away from the rapidly approaching hoverdisk, Frek sprinted across the field toward the vigs.
His chameleon mod was still in effect; it was sufficient to make his image blend in with the snow crystals, the tufts of rickrack, and the blue dirt. Frek circled around the vigs and lay down behind them so as to wriggle into his vig suit before his last bit of mod wore off. The anomalous weather had put the vigs into a quiet, somber mood.
For a first effort, the vig suit was well made. Once Frek was inside it and on all fours, he blended right in.
The softly vheenking vigs ambled toward the hoverdisks, their muzzles nosing the tender rickrack shoots, with Frek in their midst, watching. Being among them reminded him of Earth’s extinct pigs, and of course set him to wondering about his father seeing a Magic Pig.
Meanwhile Hawb and Cawmb were yelling at Gawrnier in Unipusker. Gawrgor stood to one side holding his blaster. Carb, Yessica, and Renata were still on the hoverdisk, Yessica apart from the others.
Though Frek had no real idea of how he’d achieved the effect, his spacesuit was sensitive to sound. Staring at the others was enough to bring their voices into focus.
“Inform you crass bullies that I was upset by the explosion,” Gawrnier drawled, switching the conversation into English. “Point out that I am entirely alone. State that I have no idea whatsoever concerning the fate of your precious Frek. Speculate that you clumsily dropped him into the branelink. Assert that you’d be too coarse and stupid to notice.”
“Demand again why you sped away from us,” roared Hawb. “Request that you justify your actions.”
&n
bsp; “Reassert my superior status as a sensitive artist,” sneered Gawrnier. He made a sinuous gesture toward the domes on the other side of the field. “Grudgingly confide that some vagrant impulse brought me here to observe the specimens in the Talent Race Zoo.”
“Silence yourself,” hissed Cawmb.
But it was too late. Yessica had overheard.
“What’s that about a zoo?” she cried, a flamingo of fury taking flight in her voice. “Don’t tell me you keep sentient beings locked in those cages!”
“Inform you that these quarters are where Hawb and Cawmb plan to permanently display you four humans,” said Gawrnier in a loud, clear tone. “Clarify that you will enter the Talent Race Zoo as soon as they obtain their production contract. Reassure that you’ll barely notice, as you’ll spend the rest of your lives in a dream. Innocently wonder how soon Frek will return from his meeting with the branecasters.”
“Insist that Frek isn’t in the Planck brane,” bellowed Hawb. “Reiterate that he ran away, aided by his skin camouflage, by his ability to block out brane esp and, most probably, by a ride from you, Gawrnier. Deny that we would imprison you or your daughter, Yessica. Categorically forbid any further talk of a zoo.”
“Frek?” called Carb, raising his voice. “Are you around here, son? Don’t let them get you! We’ve got to escape!”
“I can find Frek,” said Yessica suddenly. Her anger with the Unipuskers was already gone.
With horror, Frek noticed that Yessica was wearing Carb’s ring—a gold band with cup and red dot, the twin of the ring on Frek’s left hand.
“Stop it, Mom,” cried Renata. “You’re a monster!”
“There’s always more men,” said Yessica. “I’m trying to save you.”
“Deny that we will harm Frek,” said Hawb. “Point out that our branelink is down again. Propose that in the near term we all become better friends. Guarantee that we will protect Frek from other aliens.”
“Give me back my ring, you grinskin!” shouted Carb.
“Why are you so hostile, Carb?” said Yessica, dancing out of his reach.
“You wanted them to kill my son!”
“Oh, that was just politics,” said Yessica airily. “I thought the Unipuskers could help me make an evolutionary advance.” She hopped off the hoverdisk and ran to Cawmb. “Can you promise not to put me and my ungrateful daughter in your zoo?” she asked the Unipusker.
“Assure you of anything you desire if you help us find Frek,” said Cawmb to Yessica in his sweetest tone. “Guarantee things can still work out your way, Yessica. Estimate that we’ll have the branelink up again by next week. Propose that in the meantime we’ll educate Frek and bring him around. Suggest this delay is really a blessing. Let harmony prevail. Use the ring now.”
Carb leaped off the hoverdisk and lunged for Yessica, but Hawb easily pushed him away, laughing at the human’s impotence.
“I hate you, Mom!” cried Renata. She too made for Yessica, but Gawrgor grabbed her wrists and held her still.
All this time, the vigs had been edging closer to the hoverdisks. Perhaps they expected something nice from the Unipuskers. Frek had been hanging out near the front of the herd the better to watch and to eavesdrop, but now he began trying to work his way toward the rear.
It was too late. The ring on his finger buzzed and tingled. Frek tried every mental contortion he knew to damp it down, but the ring wasn’t to be denied. Glowing red and yellow spikes of light oozed out of his left hand—with Yessica’s avid face in the center.
Wildly waving his hand, Frek rolled over onto his side and slid out of his vig suit. His chameleon mod had worn off by now, and he’d be visible. But the Unipuskers were about to find him anyway. At the very least, he wanted to keep them from knowing about his newly gained ability to craft kennies.
“I see him,” cried Yessica’s face from within the ring’s spiky projection ball. “He’s naked with a bunch of vigs.”
Frek found it hard to believe he’d ever been glad to have his father’s ring. Filled with disgust for Carb, he pulled off his ring and tossed it into the dirt. A vig gobbled it up.
“It’s all black now, but I think he’s right over there,” sang Yessica. Neither she nor the others seemed to realize what Frek had done with his ring.
From somewhere deep within himself Frek mustered the energy to vaar his gossamer-thin spacesuit back into invisible kenner. And then he was running across the field toward the rounded buildings of the zoo.
“Frek!” called Dad, spotting him from the hoverdisk. His voice sounded weak and foolish. The voice of a loser.
The zoo’s units were arranged in a circle around a central courtyard. Each of them had a big window, looking in on captive creatures. One cage held a pair of dusty tornados writhing around each other in a jittery dance. In the next were two glowing pools of lava, their surfaces reticulated in intricately meaningful webs. Then came a unit with a misty atmosphere populated by gently bobbing jellyfish-things. Farther on were purple monkeys on a tree, four enormous snails in iridescent shells, a pair of pink-skinned dogs, giant worms in pool of mud, and a metal cage with buzzing loops of sparks. One oversize unit held a complete little jungle with giant lizards.
What made the sight of the imprisoned creatures particularly melancholy was that the captives seemed oblivious to their plight. For in each cage there were flickerballs, one ball per creature. All of them were continually esping brane. They were plugged into minds upon their home worlds, deep into vicarious secondhand lives. The whole rich vastness of a dozen races was here reduced to the uniformity of consumers esping brane.
A few dozen Unipusker tourists were gawking at the talent race specimens. Just then Frek saw something chilling. It was a cage with no creatures in it, a freshly outfitted cage with a natural habitat in readiness for some new arrivals. It held a couch, a couple of chairs, and four beds. The beds were molded from shelves on the walls; the couch and chairs bulged organically up from the floor; the smooth-cornered walls were covered with softly glowing skin. The Unipuskers had fitted out a cage to look like the inside of a house tree. This was the cell where they intended Frek, Carb, Yessica, and Renata to spend the rest of their days. Four flickerballs sat at the ready, each of them quietly displaying the rotating blue-edged logo cube.
Frek changed direction so fast that he nearly twisted his ankle. He ran past the Unipusker tourists, desperately looking for a shed or an access door behind which he might hide. But everything was sealed. He raced off to the left, heading for the zoo exit—but right then Gawrgor swooped down on him with the hoverdisk.
Carb tried to talk to Frek on the ride back to Hawb and Cawmb’s mansion, but Frek didn’t answer. He was too mad. Right now he felt like he didn’t have a father anymore. Meanwhile, Yessica did her best to cozy up to Carb, rubbing against him, whispering things and sending out her clouds of scent. Frek could see him weakening.
As for Gawrnier, he’d chosen the moment of struggle to head off on his own.
Back at the mansion, Renata threw such a fit that Angawl took her upstairs along with Frek and locked them in with Gibby and Wow, using the same complex series of knocks to control the door. At Yessica’s urging, Cawmb and Hawb let Carb stay downstairs with her. She promised them Carb would help their cause. Frek half believed her.
And then Frek was alone with Renata, Gibby, and Wow in the room at the tip of the rickrack tree branch. Though Frek would have preferred to cover up his nakedness immediately with some kenny crafted clothes, he didn’t want the Unipuskers to see him doing this on their flickerballs. So to begin with, he tackled the issue of getting them full privacy.
With only a few hours’ practice it had already become second nature for Frek to keep the brane espers away by means of his sky-air-comb exercise of expanding the glow, making his mind untouchable, and massaging his thoughts into their normal shapes. The insidious espers had all but stopped trying to ooze into him. Now he needed to find a way to expand the immunity to his companions.
He tried explaining it to them. Renata understood, and could almost do it, but Gibby didn’t. He could barely perceive that he was being peeked at all. And Wow of course was hopelessly open to the espers; the dog’s eyes might as well have been a pair of cameras staring at them.
So Frek drew again upon his powers of mind. Learning how to kenny craft had made a difference; it had taught him how to let his mind flow out of his body and into his surroundings. He entangled his consciousness with Renata, Gibby, and Wow, and repeatedly stepped them through sky-air-comb routine—enabling them to resist the pleasure of the glow, to make their thoughts as mobile as air, and to massage their own thoughts into their familiar, personal shapes.
“What are you doing?” said Renata. “It feels good. Like I’m free all of a sudden.”
“I’m helping you block the espers,” said Frek. “Sky-air-comb.”
“I get it now,” said Gibby. “It works.”
“Don’t you go reading my mind, Frek,” said Renata, giving him a really nice smile. “I wouldn’t want you to see what I think of you. You’d get a swelled head.”
“It gets better,” said Frek, and crafted himself some kenny clothes. He started with turmite-silk blue pants, leather shoes, and a yellow turmite-silk T-shirt just like he’d worn before. Renata and Gibby were suitably impressed. To show off more, Frek made fern-patterned green ribbons for Renata’s pigtails. Renata got Frek to put light and dark pinstripes in his blue pants—and to make his shirt purple. She said purple looked better with his skin—and she added that she liked his skin.
“There’s got to be a way you can use your power to help us to escape,” murmured Renata.
“Except there ain’t no way past this,” said Gibby, thumping his elbow against the tough, rubbery door. “Wow and me been drummin’ on it all morning.” He got a thoughtful expression. “Say, I wonder if I could cut our way out with a knife? Can you make me a knife, Frek?”
So Frek kenny crafted Gibby a knife. His memory of Gibby’s old knife was clear enough that he was able to make the new one a faithful replica. Gibby immediately tested the knife against the rickrack tree’s flesh. Though the knife sliced through easily enough, the living rickrack flesh instantly sealed itself up in the wake of the blade. There seemed to be no way to use the blade to cut themselves an exit door.