Rudy Rucker - The Ware Tetralogy

‘Thank you for your wonderful support, you selfish prick. Now go away.”

“Let’s cut the jawing and make tracks,” snapped Xlotl.

“Tell us, Pop,” said Xanana to the red-and-yellow-striped dome that was Everooze. “Which way did she go? Which way did she go? Which way did she go?” He put the phrase through maybe two hundred repetitions in two seconds.

“I’ll ask Zilly if he can lead us,” said Everooze, making a popping noise and flipping his shape into that of a giant potato chip. “He’s been surfing here all day, and he says he saw Monique go in. But, Ike, what with the negative vibrations and so on and howsomever, it will indeed be wavier if you don’t come. Get the bus back to the shop, chill, and I’ll see you there later, your humble worker till wigdom come or I retire, whichever comes first.”

“Fine,” said Ike, stomping off. “To hell with all of you.”

Xanana lay down flat and split his backside, opening up like a seed pod.

“Undress and snuggle on in, Terri. You’ll be able to see out through my face. It’s transparent there. Let’s practice while Everooze talks to Zilly.”

“I haven’t done this before,” said Terri, recalling her dead father’s hypocritical tirades against intimacy with moldies. “Are you sure I’ll be able to breathe?”

“Of course,” said Xanana. “I have enough algae and other stuff in my tissues to make air twice as fast as a person can breathe. Or just as fast as any two people can breathe. Or half as fast as four people can breathe. Or—”

“Yeah, but your . . . your air is going to stink.”

“Just wear nose filters. I usually keep some—” Xanana’s flesh rolled about for a minute, and then a small slit opened up in his skin to disgorge two small metal sponges. “Palladium filters. Never heard of them? I’m beginning to think you’re moldiephobic, Terri. You sure you’re not a Heritagist? I know a lot of the Percesepes are.”

“Well, I’m not ,” said Terri bravely. “I admit my uncles are xoxxy. They’re all Heritagists, yes. Sons of Adam. My father was too—at least we thought he was. But it turned out he was a cheeseball. Maybe he was really on the moldies’ side by the end. Maybe it wasn’t a moldie that killed him, maybe it was a Heritagist. You don’t know anything about it, do you, Xanana? It happened five years ago.”

“That’s before my time,” said Xanana. “I’m sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”

Terri folded her clothes and set them under a rock, then got inside Xanana and pressed her face up against the inside of the transparent silvery membrane that the moldie used as a face. Air rushed to her steadily through two grooves in the membrane. Once she got the filters well settled into her nose, the smell was not too major. But how could she talk to Xanana?

“I’ll uvvy you.” Xanana’s voice sounded in Terri’s head. “And I can channel my vision to you too—if we go deep and it’s too dark for your eyes. Are you ready?”

“Let’s dive in,” uvvied Terri back.

Xanana humped along the cliff’s edge like an elephant seal, found a spot overlooking a deep pool, and dove in. Terri watched in wonder as the water flew up toward them. And then they were undersea. Xanana could pick up Terri’s mentally realized wishes far more easily than a DIM board, and for now he chose to let her steer him.

They went out a few hundred yards, away from the surfers, swam to the bottom, and began slowly looking around. It was like the ultimate tide pool. Terri saw starfish of every color, green sea cucumbers, frilly yellow nudibranch slugs, and a red gumboot chiton. A cascade of tiny pink strawberry anemones covered a rock, looking like a carpet of purple verbena flowers on a Santa Cruz cliff .

“Can I touch things?” uvvied Terri.

“Yes. Just push out your arms.”

Terri did, and Xanana’s flesh flowed and stretched, forming sleeves and gloves to warmly cover Terri’s skin. She prodded a long-stalked plumose anemone, causing it to draw its feathery pale tendrils back into its body.

“You’re cozy to be in, Xanana,” uvvied Terri.

“ Yeah I am. Would you like me to fuck you?”

“What?”

“The others won’t be here for a few minutes. I can grow a penis shape and push it into you. A lot of the women passengers like it. To relieve tension.”

“No thank you! What if you planted a meatbop in me?”

“Nobody has the wetware tech for that anymore. Anyway, you’re not fertile right now. I know the smell.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Xanana, but I’m just not interested.”

“It’s all the same to me. We’ll hang here and wait for the others.”

As she and Xanana lay there drifting on the seabed, sudden shapes rushed at them and spun them around—Terri drew her arms back inside Xanana’s bulk, lest she smash a wrist against a rock. It was Everooze, followed by Ouish and Xlotl. Xanana gave Terri a sound feed of the moldies’ conversation.

“So Zilly says Monique swam off toward Monterey,” Everooze was explaining. “With the skungy cheeseball inside her. Big day for that dook, no doubt.” Terri cringed silently at the thought of doing it with Xanana. No doubt he would have broadcast it to his friends. No way she would ever be a cheeseball.

“Zilly should of come with us,” complained Xlotl. “Instead of wasting our time chewing the fat.”

“He’d rather surf,” uvvied Everooze. “Get over it. He downloaded his info to us, so what’s the diff? Zilly declines to interrupt his deep daily study of the breaking wave; he’s liftin’ and floatin’! Parenthetically, Terri and Xanana, did you know Zilly says the optimal liveboard attends to the negative space of the wave? To the tube and not to the water? In any event, let’s now swim toward Monterey while keeping our senses stretched for visions of Monique. Poor Monique, my darling daughter. Bested by a stinking fleshapoid. Phew.”

The four moldies headed offshore together—Everooze in front, followed by Xanana and Ouish, followed by awkward lumpy Xlotl.

“Don’t lose me,” clamored Xlotl. “I ain’t the world’s fastest swimmer.”

“You should spend more time in the water,” said Ouish in her low thrilling voice. “Undersea is the best. There’s hardly any fleshers here. No offense, Terri.”

The bottom was about forty feet down and falling rapidly. They swam near the bottom, avoiding the giant kelp beds, thickets of rubbery tendrils that grew from the ocean floor clear to the surface. Some harbor seals swam by overhead; Xanana rolled over and began swimming on his back so that Terri could stare up at them. The seals seemed intent on giving the moldies a wide berth.

“Do you ever interact with whales and dolphins?” Terri asked Xanana. “It almost seems like moldies should be able to talk with them.”

“Almost,” answered Xanana. “But so far it hasn’t happened. We’ve decoded some of their songs, and all we’ve heard whales talk about is sex and food and territory. Almost like birds. Though, yeah, whales also talk about the stars. We’re not sure how they can even see them, but they talk about the stars all the time. The stars. The starry stars. The starry starry stars—” Xanana did one of his speeded-up infinite regresses with that word and then continued. “Moldies are a lot more like people than they are like whales. It’s no wonder, given that we evolved from human-designed robots. From the boppers that you annihilated with chipmold.”

“Don’t blame me,” said Terri. “Not while you’re carrying me like a baby in the womb. Not after you asked if you could fuck me. Ugh. Like—I would do that !”

“I notice you’re still talking about it,” sniggered Xanana. “And as far as blame goes, there isn’t any. If it weren’t for chipmold, there wouldn’t be moldies. Also Monique always said you treated her well. Hey, there goes the Percesepe deep-sea fishing boat. I bet they’ve got something to do with this.” Xanana was still on his back and they were out quite deep. High above on the wrinkled mirror of the water’s surface was a dark oval, a large boat’s hull heading back toward the wharf.