Paul Di Filippo - WikiWorld

Jay hastily re-sealed the crate, and removed its PLSS unit. All he had to do now was cycle it back out to the airless cargo bay, and the unprotected bugs would die.

He pushed the crate toward the airlock. At the last moment, SpongeBob offered counsel.

“Man, somebody went to a lot of trouble to get these up here. These things must be valuable! Why not save at least one… ?”

“Good idea!”

Jay soon had a single grub hidden inside an empty suit, tethered by netting to the wall of the workspace. With luck, it would survive and not be found until he could get it back to his quarters. His humour was mellowing again. Hey, who knew what might hatch out of it? Something pretty cool, maybe.

“Great job!” said SpongeBob. “Let’s hit the dining hall for a Crabby Patty now!”

“Yeah!”

“You son of a whoring bitch!” Kay shrieked, gazing at the pink-tipped strip of paper in her trembling hand with its pink-mauve + sign. A drop of urine dripped off of it, splashed her bare foot. If the kit did not lie, her uterus was flooded with chorionic gonadotropin. Was invaded . She rooted frantically through her packs of pills. A rushed count showed none missing. What the hell ? Had the bastard purchased some exhausted stock from a crooked Bolivian recycling pharmacy, via Web2Bay? Substituted the past-use-by dud product for her own contraceptives? The print was too small to tell. “I informed you it was too soon for this! I have my diplomatic career to consider, you ridiculous sentimentalist.”

In the living room, Elwood had his forehead pressed to the new patterned mat he’d extended over the parquet. Outside, the usual unearthly wailing rose from a plasticized carbon-bonded minaret erected with grudging city approval just across from the Farmer’s Market. The Adhan rose and fell, calling the faithful to early morning salat prayer. “ Ash-hadu anna Muhammadan rasūlullāh ,” El murmured ecstatically. “ Hayya ‘alā Khair al-’amal .”

“Make haste toward the best thing yourself, you pig of a pig.” Wasn’t it enough that she had to put up with this ululating in Cairo, where she’d spent six weeks in a crash Arabic course using the powerful mnemonic principles of the Pole, Piotr Wozniak. “What’s the idea? And get up off the floor, you fool, you’re an Episcopalian and a third-degree Mason, not a Muslim.”

El lifted his spirochaete-laden head dazedly. “We are all part of the body of the Umma,” he explained. “So mote it be.”

“Well, something else is part of my body now, you sorry excuse. I’m pregnant !”

After a pause for pious thought, El told her, “I forgive you.”

“Will you be taking breakfast, madame?” asked the roach, putting its head in from the kitchenette. “And congratulations on the baby—I’m in the family way myself.”

Kay seized a bright green apple from a decorative bowl of wax fruit in the centre of the table, flung it at the creature; the fake apple caught in the plates of its back. “And I know who the hell the father is! Elwood, you disgust me. How could you fuck a thing like that, and then bring your soiled seed to our marriage bed?” It’s affected his mind , she thought. In fected his mind . And probably his body as well . She shuddered, feeling befouled.

“Verily,” El expounded, “prayer prevents the worshipper from indulging in anything that is undignified or indecent. That’s Surah Al-Ankabut, chapter 29, verse 46.” He got to his feet, a look of crazed passion in his eye. “They can all grow up together. They can attend Naval Prep School, in historic Newport, Rhode Island, as I did, and my father before me. Imagine them in the rigging! Six legs good!” Foam was starting to seep from the edges of his mouth.

A hideous peeping came from the kitchenette, as of a nestful of baby chicks calling their mother. Kay’s face drained of blood. No, not chicks. They probably hunted down chicks and ate them raw. And what the hell was growing inside her?

“I’m going to kill you,” she told her deluded spouse. She picked up an ornamental brass poker from the set of Ralph Lauren accessories resting beside the ornamental fake fireplace, and hoisted it lustily above her head. “I’m going to fucking murder and skin you, and then I’m driving straight to the Prince George’s clinic.”

Elwood Grackle grabbed a defensive dining room chair by its cushioned back, but left it dangling. “Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you,” he warned, “but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors. Kill them whenever you confront them and drive them from where they drove you. Surah 2, verses 190–191.”

“We’re fresh out of eggs,” Emma called in her abrasive voice. “Anyone for a sliced sausage?”

Aboard Google PowerSat #9, Jay Stoner was entertaining a visitor in his private room, a room admittedly smaller than the average terrestrial capsule-hotel accommodations. Luckily, the visitor could be cradled and compassed completely within the circle of Jay’s arms.

The gently squirming peristaltic mass of the lone surviving smuggled larva, retrieved from its hiding place, radiated a kind of numinous pet-like comfort into Jay’s quiveringly drug-sensitized brain, traversing all interspecies communication gaps and barriers. Waves of wordless approbation laved him. Damn! This thing was just like a Tribble! Shame he had killed all the others, he could’ve sold them to his fellow crew members. Life aboard the solar-power station could be harsh and boring, despite both management-approved and illicit recreations, and any additional source of comfort was always eagerly sought. But all the other bugs were irrevocably gone now, and Jay wasn’t one for crying over spilled bongwater.

Suddenly a floating copyright mark akin to Jay’s own anime tats drifted up to display itself beneath the larva’s epidermis, much like an answer appearing in the window of a Magic Eight Ball.

“N-5397-batch5,” read Jay aloud. “Aw, is dat your widdle name-ums? Uncle Jay is gonna call you Enny. Enny-wenny-wenny-henny-penny!”

Jay began to tickle the bug, and gushes of telepathic gratitude swamped his senses. “What does Enny-wenny want now? Sugar water? A widdle sweater to stay warm?”

The flood of love pouring out of the larva almost instantly transmuted to hate. Jay was stunned and saddened. But then he realized that the hate was not directed against him. Oh, no! Enny’s anger and pain represented a lashing-out against the bug’s creators, the men who had placed Enny and cousins on a one-way trip to space, away from all familiar earthly pleasures, to carry out their greedy schemes like disposable grunts on the front lines of corporate wars.

“Tell me, tell me, Enny! Who did it to you! Who must suffer your sweet, sweet ichorous revenge!”

Images marched through Jay’s brain. Arabs in their robes, state offices, a seaside city, signage—

“Yes, yes, Enny, I know who they are! Bastards! We’ll make them pay! Soon, soon, just when the shift’s about to change—”

Jay smooshed his face into the warm pulpy haggis of the larva and smothered it with kisses.

Enny seemed content to wait.

“Nothing has gone wrong, qua wrong,” Professor Al Nahyan assured Sheikh Khalifa. His glowering master did not look especially assured. “The package was intercepted somehow. We had no way of perceiving in advance—”

“Quiet.” The Lion’s fingers, scented and beautifully manicured, drummed on an acre of black glass. The great office, blue lit, was refrigerator cold, its master wrapped in a fur-lined dishdasha . Qutaybah shivered. “One larva is still minimally responsive, you say?”