Frek and the Elixir

by Rudy Rucker

  It was a long afternoon. Frek maintained a slight continuous pressure to keep the espers off his companions. And he spent nearly an hour trying to teach Renata and Gibby how to kenny craft. Neither of them could get the hang of it.

  For now there was nothing better to do than lie around and talk with Renata, which actually wasn’t a bad way to pass the time. She explained how her turkle organized its memories, and showed him more of her favorite drawings.

  And then Frek asked Renata again about her real father.

  “Sri-Sri Krisna,” said Renata with a sigh.

  “But he’s been dead for centuries!” exclaimed Frek.

  “He set up a—a fertility center before he died,” said Renata. “With a zillion copies of his genetic code. All the really devout Sick Hindu women go there. I’m closely related to a lot of the Crufters.”

  “Wow,” said Frek, letting it sink in.

  “I’m glad you’re not my half brother,” said Renata.

  “Me too.”

  Neither of them cared to push any farther on this topic. Fortunately Gibby interrupted with a new Grulloo song, this one about their trip thus far, with the first verses going like this.

  A Grulloo and a Nubbie boy threw in their lot one day,

  They rode off to the city to try and make it pay.

  The Grulloo got drunk, the boy got stunk, and things was looking grim,

  Along came an alien cuttlefish and flew them off with him.

  Flying’s easy until you crash, and that’s just what they did.

  They met some cold-heart branecasters in a secret world that’s hid.

  Now branecast’s a light inside folks’ heads what makes ’em into a show,

  The bossy clam-head Unipuskers sell it to make their dough.

  The clam-heads was a-winnin’ out, but things weren’t all that tragic.

  The boy met an asteroid princess and learned to do some magic.

  He made the Grulloo a knife, and some ribbons for the girl,

  You can bet your stim-cell nuggets they was gonna move up in the world.

  Right before supper, Frek considered crafting a gun to shoot the butler. But with so many Unipuskers between them and the exit, it didn’t seem practical. They needed a better plan.

  When Angawl’s rapid tapping sounded at their door, Gibby hid his knife, and Frek slipped off his new clothes and sat on them. Angawl appeared with a tray of vig milk, vig steaks, and rickrack shoots.

  “What’s up?” Renata asked the butler, who was certainly too obtuse to notice her new hair ribbons. “When are we getting out?”

  “Inform you that our space crews were able to pinch off the unraveling transport tube,” said Angawl. “Anticipate a functioning branelink by next week. Relay Hawb and Cawmb’s earnest advice that Frek join our cause.” Yawn.

  In the middle of the night Wow woke them all up, just like the night before. Frek immediately made the mental effort to drive the alien espers from their brains.

  “Woo barking,” squeaked Wow.

  Once again Frek lifted Wow up to one of the room’s tiny windows. The weary Gibby and Renata grumbled as Wow barked his head off. As before, the Unipuskers next door started pounding on their wall.

  “Wow can open door now,” Wow reported when Frek set him back down. “Woo tell.” The dog trotted over to the wall with the door and began carefully tapping it with his paw.

  “Just a minute, Wow,” said Frek. “Stop. Give us a chance to get ready. The Unipuskers aren’t going to let us walk straight out. The little ones will make noise, and Cawmb and Hawb will come down from the top with Angawl.”

  “Sweet whistle,” said Wow. Apparently the Radiolarians as well as Woo were calling to him.

  “Oh, lie down and lick your butt,” said Gibby, pulling Wow away from the door. “Frek not ready.”

  “I’ll make us Unipusker disguises,” proposed Frek. “Like the vig suit I made myself before.”

  “Unipuskers with ickspot!” suggested Renata. “It’s very contagious. When they see us, they’ll go gollywog.”

  “What does ickspot look like?” asked Frek.

  “We’ll want a few dozen scabby craters on our bodies,” said Renata. “Four or five centimeters across. Black and gooey in the middle, gray and flaky around the edges. Our eye stalks should be crooked too, with kinks in the middle. And our shell heads will need moldy white fuzz. Like this.” She chuckled a little as she sketched the images on her turkle, telling the little kritter what colors to shade the shapes she made.

  “Looks gumpy all right,” said Frek. “Calm down, Wow, we’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

  Actually it took over an hour, with Frek blocking out the alien espers all the while.

  The hardest part about making the lightweight Unipusker-shaped spacesuits was finding enough dark matter in the room’s air. The Unipusker spacesuit pattern that Gawrnier had showed him was still intact in his mind; indeed, making the suits seemed to make the pattern that much clearer. And vaaring each suit to truly resemble a Unipusker with ickspot took only a little more effort. But each time Frek got a suit finished, he’d have to wait ten or fifteen minutes for enough dark matter to diffuse into the room so that he could vaar out a fresh glob of kenner. Though it didn’t take much kenner for a suit, there wasn’t much to be found.

  As a final step, Frek vaared himself a little bulb of water that he stuck to his suit’s waist, and he glued his fungus purse to the palm of his suit’s hand. He was ready.

  “Open the door, Wow,” said Frek.

  Wow looked comical walking across the floor with his head inside a Unipusker clamshell. Even so he had, as always, a certain inalienable doggy dignity about him. Solemnly, carefully he tapped the door with his front paw. He got it right on his first try. The door irised wide open, revealing a chamber with six sleeping Unipusker youths. Clam-headed Renata stepped forward with icky Gibby in her arms. Frek swept Wow up into his own arms and shrieked the Unipusker word for the dreaded warning.

  “Ickspot!”

  The young Unipuskers went into a total panic. And whenever one of them came too close, Frek or Renata would hold out Gibby or Wow—as if brandishing a flaming torch at some crude, wild beast. The Unipusker’s little shell would gape wide in terror, and he would turn and race off hollering, “Ickspot!”

  It was great.

  When Frek and Renata got near the central shaft, they set down Gibby and Wow to walk on their own. The four of them made a reverse feint to drive the young Unipuskers back from the center toward their sulfurous dorm rooms, then the four jumped into the shaft, dropping down beside the column of negative gravity. Frek caught hold of Wow again, and slowed their fall by tugging at the elastic vines they passed. Gibby and Renata were on their own, a bit farther down.

  As they neared the bottom, Frek heard Hawb bellowing far overhead. It was time for the next part of his plan. Frek caught hold of a rubbery rickrack rope and nestled himself and Wow in a sling some fifteen meters above the floor level. Moving carefully, Frek pried open his fungus purse and took out his twig of Aaron’s Rod.

  His hands were a little damp from anxiety. At the slight touch of moisture, the rough bark of the Aaron’s Rod grew bumps, with the bumps sending out little sprouts that in turn branched again. The thing was twitching in Frek’s hand; it was all he could do to keep from dropping it.

  Quickly he separated his water pod from his suit and squirted it onto the Aaron’s Rod. The vegetal tangle sent out an explosion of tendrils, each new branch leading to three or four more. Frek hurled it upward.

  Wiry pale green tendrils sprouted from the missile as it flew. Before it had gone more than ten meters, the vigorously branching plant had formed a plug all the way across the rickrack shaft. A pleasant smell came off the foliage, a Gaian odor of breezy forests with rich humus floors. The tendrils seethed down toward Frek as if in speeded-up motion—and at the same time, the growth was rushing up into the length of the shaft, penning in Hawb, Cawmb, and Angawl.

  Fr
ek and Wow met Renata and Gibby on the big room’s floor. It was the wee hours; the lights were very low, with pools of shadow everywhere.

  “Can I trash my costume now?” growled Gibby. “I can’t hardly see.”

  “Hang on a minute,” said Frek. He took a quick look around the room. A number of the young Unipuskers had ended up down here, but seeing the four “diseased” Unipuskers come down the shaft had sent them off to the gloomy far perimeter of the room. Other than that, he saw no life but a few sleeping vigs, some on the floor, some in the armchairs.

  The next problem was how to get through the high round door that led outside. Frek had never seen anyone exit the door save upon Hawb and Cawmb’s hovercraft, which was lodged with Gawrgor in the darkly shadowed garage that bulged out into the room. Never having seen the designs for a hoverdisk, Frek doubted if he could craft one. They’d have to steal the one in the garage.

  As Frek pondered how best to get the hoverdisk from the sleeping Gawrgor, something nudged him in the backs of his legs. The thicket of Aaron’s Rod was pushing out from the shaft after them, spreading across the floor and mounding itself into wobbly hedges.

  Slowly, not quite sure how they would work it, Frek, Renata, Gibby, and Wow started across the dimly lit room toward Gawrgor’s garage, talking over their possibilities in whispered voices. As they moved along, Gibby scavenged for loot, happily pocketing a finely carved little statuette of Hawb. Suddenly someone called from the shadows.

  “Frek?”

  It was Carb, blinking at Frek from a couch facing away from the shaft. He looked disoriented. He’d recognized his son’s voice—but he was seeing a diseased Unipusker. Yessica was at Carb’s side, asleep against his shoulder, a half-empty moolk pod in her limp hand.

  “Oh Brahman,” said Renata. “Them.”

  “Come with us, Carb,” said Frek with a sigh. Much as he might be tempted to, he couldn’t leave his father behind. “We’re breaking out. Heading for the spaceport.”

  “Where are we?” asked Carb. The old man often had a few seconds of that old peeker-induced confusion when he woke.

  “We’re here,” said Frek impatiently. “It’s now. I’m me. Get your butt in gear.”

  From somewhere far overhead he heard Cawmb hollering again. And now Carb came to. His features tightened and his eyes lit up. When Frek made the mental effort of reaching out to push the espers from his father’s mind, he found, to his surprise, that the espers weren’t there. Carb had the glow pushed off as far as the sky, his thoughts were as imperceptible as air, and his mental quirks were very nicely in place. It was like he was doing sky-air-comb too. Frek could hardly believe it.

  “Gaud costume, Frek,” said Carb in his normal tone. “And your friends, too. You guys look like gundo sick ’Puskers.” As he got to his feet, Yessica slumped sideways on the couch, limp as a rag doll. Carb glanced down at her, his expression a mixture of pity and impatience. “She’s gonegone,” he said. “But don’t worry about me, I’m fully gitgo. Mean and clean. Power is my drug, not moolk. I was sitting up with Yessica, is all. Making sure she doesn’t try to cut another deal to kill you. Don’t worry, Frek, she’s old news, I got no more feelings for her at all.” He laid his arm on Frek’s shoulder and stared intently, unable to make out his son’s expression inside the disguise. “Forgive me. You’re the one who counts, Frek, not me.” Frek liked the sound of this, but he didn’t want to let his father off the hook by saying anything back. He just looked at him, noticing that Carb had gotten his ring back from Yessica.

  Carb continued after a bit. “We’re breaking out, you say? I’m on. Main thing’s gonna be to get that hoverdisk off Gawrgor.”

  “Wake up, Mom,” said Renata, nudging her mother.

  “Nuuuh,” went Yessica, pawing the air in front of her. And then she opened her eyes and saw Renata’s costume. “Wuuuh?” Maybe Frek should have sky-air-combed her, but he couldn’t stand the thought of touching her mind.

  “I can’t see!” complained Gibby again. With a quick burst of angry wrestling, he got himself out of his suit. Wow immediately did likewise—rolling, clawing, and biting until he’d ripped free of the kenny disguise. Frek and Renata slipped off their Unipusker suits as well.

  “Time to mow the lawn,” joked Carb, noticing the Aaron’s Rod churning across the floor toward them. “Yo, what we need to take out Gawrgor is a gun.”

  Urgent as all this was, Frek couldn’t resist taking the time to ask Carb about what he’d just noticed. “How come the espers can’t read your mind? I thought I was the only one who could—could comb his brain.”

  “Comb your brain?” said Carb, with a laugh. “Good way to put it. Me, I’ve always called it—remembering myself. I’ve been able to do it since I don’t know how long, since around the time you were born, I guess. Like father, like son, like father, eh? If it weren’t for me being able to remember myself, the peeker uvvy would have killed me. Once I got to Unipusk, I learned to remember myself and keep off the espers so I could keep being me.” He glanced at the Aaron’s Rod again. “Man, that crud’s coming fast. We gotta get past Gawrgor and out that door. We can comb our brains later, eh?”

  “I can make a gun,” said Frek. He’d been thinking about it since suppertime. A gun would be perfect for stopping Gawrgor. And not some organic NuBioCom-type spider gun, no, a real old-fashioned blaster made of chips and metal. A machine. Nobody made machines on Earth anymore, but Frek had seen some of the antique designs on the Net.

  “Don’ hurt Renata,” mumbled Yessica, slapping at the Unipusker costume dangling from her daughter’s hands.

  Rather than vaaring fresh kenner, Frek wadded up the four Unipusker-colored spacesuits and crafted them into a solid little blaster, a silvery L-shaped chunk of metal with a ruby crystal at one end, exactly like the one he’d seen on the Net. It was a mystery how he remembered the gun’s exact inner details but, just as with the spacesuit, when he’d needed it, the information was there. Merging with the kenner gave him an incredible clarity of mind.

  “Let me use it,” said Carb, trying to take the blaster. “I like guns. I had one on Sick Hindu.”

  “Okay,” said Frek, “In a minute.” The old man might be good for something after all. But first Frek wanted to try out their new toy. “Let’s see if it works,” he said.

  Ever since they’d taken off their disguises, the little Unipuskers had been edging closer. Four or five of them kept peeking out from behind a nearby couch. Frek aimed the blaster at the couch and squeezed the blaster’s trigger-stud.

  Fa-toom!

  The couch exploded into burning scraps. The Unipuskers went shrieking off to the farthest recesses of the room.

  “Gimme,” said Carb, eagerly snatching the blaster.

  If they’d been wondering how to rouse Gawrgor, the problem was already solved. A slit of light appeared around the garage door, and now it swung open, revealing Gawrgor himself, perched upon the hoverdisk. With a roar, the Unipusker dug against the control stick with his foot. He flew straight toward them, brandishing his blaster.

  “Run and dive for cover,” said Dad, slipping behind his couch and giving Frek a shove to the right. “I’ll get him.”

  Frek took off full tilt, with Renata, Gibby, and Wow at his heels. Drawn by their motion, Gawrgor sped after them, giving Carb a perfect shot at the Unipusker from the side.

  When Frek heard their blaster’s percussive whoosh, he looked over his shoulder. Yes. Dad’s first shot had taken Gawrgor’s head right off. But—the Unipusker still rode his hoverdisk. Silhouetted against the wavering forest of Aaron’s Rod, he looked like a headless horseman.

  Gawrgor was turning the charred stub at his neck this way and that—it was almost as if he could still see. He raised his blaster, and a bolt of green light crackled past Frek, narrowly missing him. In the brief flash of the explosion Frek glimpsed the glint of a fresh eye stalk growing from Gawrgor’s neck.

  Carb fired off another shot, taking off one of Gawrgor’s arms and par
t of his shoulder. Staggered by the impact, the Unipusker lost his footing and fell off the hoverdisk, still clutching his blaster in his remaining hand. He landed heavily, crushing a hole in the spreading thicket of Aaron’s Rod.

  The empty hoverdisk went slashing by low over Frek’s head. As it passed, Gibby made a sudden pinwheel motion with his body, springing up into the air and catching hold of the hoverdisk, climbing aboard as it raced on. Renata cheered.

  But now Frek’s attention was drawn back to Carb and Gawrgor. The scaly, glistening creature was on his feet, fighting free of the tendrils and stumping after Carb, all the while laying down a withering series of lightning bolts from his blaster. Carb fell back, dragging and half-carrying the muzzy Yessica, now and then pausing to fire another shot at the dogged Unipusker. And then Yessica stumbled over some vegetation and fell to the floor. Carb bent over her, pushing away the lashing fronds.

  Renata shrieked at Gawrgor to distract him; she broke up a spindly table and hurled the broken legs at the Unipusker’s back. Slowly the monster turned, firing a few blasts her way.

  Frek quickly vaared a fresh lump of kenner and formed the mental image of the NuBioCom jo nets that the counselors liked to use. Jo nets were primitive kritters made up of giganticized muscle cells stiffened with monomolecular crystals. Frek knew the DNA codes for jo nets from the bottom up; as one of the very earliest NuBioCom kritters, jo nets were a standard example in the online genomics tutorials. Frek put every bit of his concentration into his task, overlaying the kenner with the jo net pattern. Could he indeed craft a living kritter? Yes. In just a moment a big swatch of jo net lay twitching at his feet, scintillating with pale silver light.

  Frek bent to pick it up—too late? Gawrgor was standing over Dad and Yessica, sighting his little eyestalk down his outstretched arm, ready to fire the final shot.