Cosmocopia

by Paul Di Filippo

  Finished, they went out to shop for food.

  At the market square, Lazorg became intrigued by the Belkys Tower, the time-humbled remnant of vanished Fort Verveer, which in another age had occupied the market grounds.

  “Can we climb it?”

  “Certainly.” Crutchsump entrusted their purchases temporarily to the nearest vendor.

  A circular staircase with crumbling steps clung to the exterior wall of the Belkys Tower. An iron railing on the outside edge of the steps seemed more rust than rail. Pirkle, perhaps wiser than anyone, declined to follow.

  The top of the Tower afforded a small platform with waist-high crenellations. The view extended for miles in all directions, a variegated roofscape of chimneypots, orerries, spires, windsocks, ghost-traps, beetle-browed garret windows and glass-walled penthouses of the distant rich, transected by unmappably twisting streets. Numerous birds of assorted sizes and squawks—juncos, lammergeiers and questrals, among other types—parceled the sky into avian empires.

  Lazorg absorbed the view with a numb silence, pivoting slowly to take in all of Sidetrack City. Crutchsump tried to imagine his feelings and thoughts. At last the man turned to the bone scavenger. She saw tears staining his caul. Lazorg’s voice was choked with emotion.

  “It’s real. It’s all real.”

  Crutchsump understood the enormity of Lazorg’s sudden comprehension, and could sympathize. His transit across the membranes of the segmented Cosmocopian infundibulum constituted a monumental climacteric. But, ever practical, Crutchsump also envisioned trying to guide a big mystically bemused stumblebum down the precarious staircase, and so she sought to cast cold water on his epiphany.

  “Oh, yes, it’s all real—as you’ll be able to ascertain as soon as your stomach starts rumbling! Let’s get home and get supper on the table!”

  Crutchsump’s stern voice brought Lazorg’s sensibilities back to earth. “Of course. I only meant—Well, never mind.”

  On pavement once more, they reclaimed their victuals, hailed Pirkle from his rooting in a midden—the wurzel emerged with garish dotted fruitskins draped across his brow—and headed back to the basement apartment.

  Over a meal of oudknoobs and breaded, fried sea-skate, Lazorg spoke with voluntary optimism of his future.

  “Back in my previous life, I was a tired, debilitated old man. My artistic impulses were all exhausted. Now I’ve been given youth and enthusiasm. Admittedly, at the price of losing all that was familiar and safe. But earning a living should come easy, with your help and tutelage. And once I’ve gotten my feet under me, I can turn my hand to my art again.”

  Crutchsump was intrigued. “What art was that?”

  “Painting.”

  “What is ‘painting’? Is it a kind of thing like ‘writing’?”

  Lazorg’s voice contained a hint of hysteria. “No, don’t tell me—That’s impossible! I can’t believe you don’t know painting!”

  Crutchsump yawned broadly. “I’m sure you’ll discover whether your imaginary art form exists here or not. But first we have to earn some scintillas, starting bright and early tomorrow. So I’m going to sleep. I haven’t rested fully for two nights now.”

  Lazorg stood up, making an evident effort at self-control. “I’m sorry, Crutchsump. Your unease was my fault. You were very generous to give up your bed for me. But now we have two. Goodnight then.”

  Lazorg moved toward the original pallet, with its old rumpled threadbare accoutrements. Crutchsump halted him.

  “No, you take the new arrangements. I’m used to that old bed.”

  Lazorg hesitated, then said, “Whatever you wish.” He moved to his side of the room, and Crutchsump drew the thick curtains between them.

  “Don’t forget, you can remove your caul now. Otherwise you’ll develop scaly itch.”

  “I’ll do as you say.”

  Alone on her side—even Pirkle had deserted her for the allure of the fresh blankets—Crutchsump lingered a moment with her hand on the curtains. Finally though she retreated to her bed, where she removed her caul.

  The bedding smelled faintly, disturbingly, of the Mudflats, from when the dirty monster had first lain there, overburdened with the odor of Lazorg’s cleaner sweat. But despite the fragrances of her doss, sleep came easily, a welcome guest.

  But in the middle of the long night, Crutchsump was awakened by sobs from beyond the divider, as Lazorg cried out a name over and over:

  “Velina, Velina! Oh, Velina, I’m so sorry, Velina!”

  The Chatterant Fields occupied a hundred acres or so outside Sidetrack City to the north. Hauling a small wain thence (borrowed from Rheaume on the promise of imminent profit for the ostealist) through the city streets starting before dawn took Crutchsump and Lazorg many hours. (Pirkle had been forced to remain home, noisily argumentative, for fear of slowing down the enterprise.) But the journey passed pleasantly enough, as Crutchsump answered Lazorg’s many questions about the urban sights and activities they passed.

  At last though the easygoing preliminary stage of their workday ended, at the green margins of the place the volvox frequented.

  Chatterant Fields hosted a wild monocrop of blue gasplants. At these gasplants, the volvox could oft be found, having dropped from the skies at necessary intervals to sip.

  One volvox was in place now.

  The volvox was an entity voluminous as the main room of Crutchsump’s apartment. A symmetrically multifaceted geometrical shape, the volvox boasted a bright, slightly damp green skin whose macroscopic cellular structure was quite apparent, each cell with its own nucleus and apparatus of life. Faintly beneath the skin of the otherwise hollow being could be seen its intricate lightweight skeleton—the very prize which Crutchsump had in mind to win, with Lazorg’s help.

  Adhering to the trumpet of the gasplant by a suction valve, the volvox now sought to replenish its cargo of lighter-than-air lifting gases. When finished, it would detach and float away above any clouds, to absorb maximum sunlight that powered it.

  Crutchsump produced a sharp knife, newly obtained on credit that morning from Grippo, the local dealer in cutlery.

  “Once we rip through its skin, it will deflate and die. Then we secure the skeleton for sale!”

  Lazorg studied the volvox dubiously. “Why can’t one person do this?”

  “The skin is tougher than it looks. It takes some sawing to get through. So: I’m alone, and I jump atop the volvox and start sawing. It panics and lifts my meager weight up into the skies. Even if I succeed in killing it, we both plummet to injury or death. But you’re big and heavy, bigger than anyone else I know. You’ll serve as an anchor while I stab it.”

  “Can’t they be rushed by a group?”

  “Too skittish. Even the pair of us might alarm it. So proceed delicately!”

  “All right. Let’s give it a try.”

  Lazorg and Crutchsump began stalking the blimpy creature. Whatever it used for sensory organs were not obvious, so they could not reliably select a “blind” side to focus on.

  Sure enough, the volvox detected their approach, and took flight.

  The scavengers retreated to the edge of the field.

  “Next time I’ll go alone,” said Lazorg. “Then, when I’ve got it, you race in.”

  “Agreed!”

  Under the shade of a geazel tree, they were just finishing the tasty cold lunch they had packed when a second volvox made its descent.

  Lazorg dropped to his belly in the grass that grew around the gasplants, and began to worm toward the green faceted balloon.

  Closer, closer—and a bold leap!

  Even as she dashed forward, Crutchsump watched Lazorg’s fingers dig into the rubbery skin of the volvox. The creature attempted to lift, but Lazorg’s straining muscles and mass kept it from rising far.

  Crutchsump leaped likewise through the air, landing on the upper irregular hemisphere of the volvox. She held on with one hand, while raisin
g high the knife in the other. Down came the blade—and bounced off!

  Crutchsump struck again, where skin seemed stretched thinner, over a ridge of bone.

  The knife went in! She jagged the sharp side of the blade downward.

  The lips of the wound vibrated with the expelled gas, making an uncanny animalistic moan that seemed to carry a freight of pain and despair.

  The volvox hit the earth.

  “Jump on it!” yelled Crutchsump. “Crush its bones!”

  The two scavengers began to kick and mangle the relatively fragile skeleton inside the green skin. Soon the volvox had been reduced to a heap of calcific flinders, all inside a handy squishy sack much more compact than the inflated live creature.

  Together, Lazorg and Crutchsump hauled the dead volvox back to the wain and heaved it aboard. They rested, panting, against the sides of the wagon, before refreshing themselves with some livewater.

  “This one alone will net us a hefty sum,” said Crutchsump. “Shall we call it a day?”

  Shading his eyes, Lazorg looked to the sunny skies. Another volvox, only a distant dot, seemed to be heading their way.

  “No, we made a long trip out here. Let’s get the most for our efforts. And besides, I need my freedom as soon as possible—to paint.”

  5. The Ideation Maker

  PIRKLE RUSHED PAST AND got underfoot as Crutchsump, burdened with string bags full of groceries, descended the grit-strewn stairs to her flat, nearly causing his mistress to fall. But the bone scavenger recovered herself with a natural agility, and remonstrated with the wurzel.

  “Pirkle! What’s the matter with you! Calm down!”

  But the wurzel did not heed her words. Instead, he was capering about as if on the scent of some tasty quarry. A symphony of buzzes issued from his various diaphragms and sonic membranes.

  As Crutchsump laid a hand on the doorknob, her own olfactory pits registered odd smells emanating from beyond the door. From inside the flat came explosive grunts and wordless exclamations.

  Hastily, Crutchsump opened the door and entered, calling, “Lazorg! What’s the trouble!”

  The privacy curtain was drawn, dividing the room in half, and Lazorg’s coarse cries issued from behind the drapes.

  Pirkle darted below and past the barrier, buzzing furiously.

  Crutchsump dropped the groceries and dashed the curtains apart.

  Besieged by the jack-legged wurzel but ignoring the creature, Lazorg stood before an odd apparatus, the likes of which Crutchsump had never before seen.

  A piece of cheap white shirt cloth had been stretched tight and nailed securely across an old window-frame. That assemblage had been propped at head-height on an improvised tripod of sticks lashed together with twine.

  Lazorg held a cracked dinner plate in one hand. The plate was heaped with a variety of gelatinous colored stuffs. These mixtures were the source of the odd odors. In his other hand, Lazorg flourished a stick with a clump of longish animal whiskers bound to its tip with thread.

  Even as Crutchsump watched, Lazorg continued what he had been doing. He furiously scooped up portions of the colored stuffs onto his whiskery stick, then stabbed at the cloth, smearing trails across the already-clotted fabric.

  Lazorgs’s angry grunts cohered into words. “Damn you! Come together! Take shape! Obey me! Show yourselves! Why can’t I see!”

  Crutchsump tentatively approached Lazorg. When she laid a hand gently on his arm, he finally registered her presence, as if waking from a dream. He ceased stabbing the cloth. His eyes betrayed his immense agitation. Suddenly, he dropped his tools and clung to her, weeping.

  Awkwardly, Crutchsump patted Lazorg’s broad back. The big weight of him felt solid and comfortable in her arms, natural and acceptable—intimate.

  This was the first time they had so embraced.

  Reminded inescapably of past intimacies—mostly hurried, casual couplings with acquaintances of the Telerpeton slum at her own hardscrabble level, all now far in the past—Crutchsump half expected to feel Lazorg’s throbbing introciptor resting on her shoulder, just as hers now did on his, token of intercourse to come. The lack of any such mate to her organ left her emotions feeling thwarted, prevented them from attaining a higher stage.

  Gradually Lazorg ceased his tears, and Crutchsump relinquished his embrace. She felt free to question him.

  “Whatever were you trying to do?”

  “I was trying to paint!”

  “Painting is smearing smelly stuff on cloth?”

  “Not smearing. Oh, yes, I was smearing madly at the end. But that’s just because I was so frustrated. Painting is carefully applying color to make a representation of something.”

  “A representation? You mean, the way an ideation can represent a real object? But any ideation has to have the same number of dimensions as whatever it represents. How could something flat stand for something tangible?”

  “It can, it just can! At least, it can where I come from. But here—here, I can’t make lines do what I want. I literally can’t see shapes on the canvas. Nothing coheres in my vision. It’s all just random blotches.”

  “There’s simply no way to make something of lesser dimensions stand in for something of higher dimensions. Every child knows that.”

  “I’m more foolish than a child then.”

  “This matter is important to you? You can’t be happy with our current security?”

  Since the day they had captured their first volvox of many, Lazorg and Crutchsump had enjoyed a much higher standard of living—nicer clothes, better food in greater quantities—thanks to Rheaume paying them well for exclusive rights to the rare blimp bones. Crutchsump had dared to begin to imagine moving from these shabby quarters, this benighted neighborhood of her birth and childhood and maturity. Perhaps some job opportunities less rude and objectionable would even present themselves with the change of scenery, a new career before she became too old and tired to scavenge bones. Then she and Lazorg could—

  Could what? She never managed to envision any aspect of their new life beyond a finer apartment.

  And what guaranteed that the ex-monster would even stay with her, once he got his feet fully beneath him?

  But now Crutchsump pondered instead Lazorg’s obvious sincerity and puzzlement and drive to achieve his odd dreams.

  “Plainly you believe in the possibility of this thing called ‘painting.’ But just as plainly, it doesn’t exist here. So we’ll have to see Palisander to solve the contradiction.”

  Lazorg’s eyes brightened and his voice lifted. “That’s a fine idea! Let’s go now!”

  “One moment. Let me clean up this mess.”

  Crutchsump bent to pick up the fragments of the plate which had shattered on the hard floor when Lazorg dropped it. Her fingers came into contact with some of the substances thereon, and she brought them to the olfactory pits under her caul and behind her ears.

  “Is this fish paste? And what else?”

  “Oh, various foodstuffs from the market that exhibited the colors I wanted. All blended together to make the crudest paint.”

  Crutchsump clucked her tongue. “Well, maybe at least we can salvage some condiments out of this artform of yours.”

  A poor but proud and presentable family of six occupied the anteroom of the Cosmocopian temple where Palisander reigned. The parents were dedicating several sheafs of pungent chorny-scented incense in front of the model of the Cosmocopia, while the older children hung back. Rather irreverently the kids picked at the wax drips hanging like stalactites from the candelabra, at the same time they responsibly held the hands of the younger siblings. But then a guardian child pressed a blob of warm wax against the arm of another, causing the younger one to begin crying.

  Lazorg chuckled. Crutchsump kicked his ankle.

  The chagrined parents turned around to hush their children and hustle them out of the shrine. On the front of one of the parents was a smallish papoose-lik
e carrier, its hypothetical rider concealed.

  After the family had departed, Lazorg said, “What did that mother have strapped to her chest?”

  “That was the father. Couldn’t you tell by the smaller size of his introciptor, relative to his mate’s?”

  “I don’t have the same upbringing as you. I can’t gauge such things quickly and instinctively. Besides, I didn’t want to stare.”

  “So long as a person’s caul is securely in place, there’s no way to embarrass someone with a look. As for the carrier—it held a newborn.”

  “I would have liked to see that.”

  “They can’t be exposed for too long during the first week after birth. They need protection.”

  “Oh. Well, let’s go see our neighborhood noetic.”

  Clatter of bead curtain and scent of a more rarefied private incense preceded their entry into the back room.

  Palisander was taking his midday meal, caul knotted above his upper lip. He waved a spoon at his visitors, inviting them to take a seat on the floor, then licked the utensil clean.

  “Ah, such exquisite looby porridge Lindfors makes! But it’s not cheap, no, not cheap at all….”

  Crutchsump heeded the not-so-subtle prompting and deposited a handful of scintilla into a hammered brass plate meant for such offerings that would support Palisander and the shrine. She could hardly begrudge the noetic’s abstemious needs.

  “Now,” said Palisander, after the coins had clinked, “what brings you two here today? Is it marital advice you need, perhaps? The whole district is buzzing about your new arrangements, Crutchsump. That Rheaume is a gossip! I know there’s been no official enactment of vows between you, but as you well know, relations are naturally looser here in the Telerpeton. After all, we live far from the Grand Shrine at Shamoo, and the salons of Arcuze!”

  Crutchsump tried to interrupt the mistaken flow of advice, but Palisander rushed on.

  “Lazorg, pay heed! I suspect your alien trepidations are at fault here, the burr beneath the saddle. You’ve got a splendid mate in Crutchsump. How many beings would have taken pity on a disquietingly crippled exile from another plane and offered them shelter and a shared bed? And you physically unable to satisfy her natural desires, like any normal husband! What a paragon she is! You must cherish her and do your best to be a good spouse, despite any minor differences of temperament, any ordinary hardship which circumstances might erect in your way.”