Rudy Rucker - The Ware Tetralogy

Xanana rolled back over and began swimming steadily deeper. The light grew dim. Up ahead of them a great dark chasm lay open in the ocean floor. Terri recognized this as the Monterey Submarine Canyon that she’d seen on proud local maps her whole life. Wider and deeper than the Grand Canyon! Were they actually going down in there?

“I’m pickin’ up Monique.” Xlotl’s voice came from behind them. “She’s in dark cold water, swimming down toward a fuckin’ whale? Some flesher dook was inside her, but he’s gone—that’s gotta be Randy Karl. I think she let Randy off at the surface next to the Percesepe fishing boat and now she’s sounding for the bottom. The whale-thing is glowing; it’s fuckin’ green .”

“Affirmo,” uvvied Everooze. “I wave Monique too. But what’s real and what’s dream? The age-old question. Let’s go ahead and dive way deep into this mighty crack. I’ve lingered too long in the airy lands of the fleshapoids.”

“You might as well start using my eyes now,” Xanana told Terri. “I’ll uvvy the video to you. Photon to photon to photon to photon to—”

“Thanks,” said Terri. To her naked eyes, the seafloor looked dark and monochromatic. She let her eyes go out of focus and let the uvvy come in. The new images showed a vast sparkling space filled with delicate shadings of bright colors. The walls of the Monterey Submarine Canyon ahead were an inviting symphony of pink and green. A school of silver anchovies swept by, followed by several huge fish with solemn unwavering eyes. Everooze’s red-and-yellow body darted down over the lip of the submarine cliff . His body was a flat, elongated ellipse that wriggled as he moved. Xanana dove after him, and a sharp watery pain crackled in Terri’s head.

“My ears!”

“Pinch your nose and blow,” Xanana advised her. “Like you’re trying to burst your ears. It’ll equalize the pressure. Can you get your hand up to your face? Yeah, that’s the way. That’s the ‘That’s the way’ way. That’s the ‘That’s the “That’s the way” way’ way.” Terri snaked her arm up flat along her chest, pinched her nose, and blew. Her ear pressure equalized itself with a swampy pop.

The Monterey Submarine Canyon had any number of smaller subcanyons branching off it. If Randy Karl Tucker had sent Monique to hide down here, it might take a long time to find her. Terri tried to relax and enjoy Xanana’s uvvy images of the colored cliffs and darting sea life. Everooze and Ouish swam gracefully ahead of them, and Xlotl lagged a bit behind.

“Everooze,” uvvied Ouish suddenly, “I think Monique is down in the next ravine.”

“I smell her! I smell Monique!” cried Xlotl, rushing forward past Xanana, Ouish, and Everooze. “Follow me.”

The moldies’ sharklike bodies arched down over yet another subterranean cliff into a final deep sea crevice.

Terri’s breathing grew fast and ragged. It was so dark that she could see next to nothing through her faceplate. How deep were they now? She was crazy to be trusting a moldie this much. All Xanana would have to do would be to push her out of his body and she’d be over a hundred feet deep in the cold, dark, airless sea. She’d drown before she could ever swim to the top.

“Xanana,” she said, “take me back. I’m getting scared. Take me up the fishing boat so I can confront Randy Karl Tucker.” She visualized and realized Xanana turning back. This would have worked on her DIM board, but on Xanana it had no effect and he failed to actualize her wish.

“We’re not going back yet,” said Xanana. “Stop worrying and look around. It’s beautiful down here. Look at my uvvy. All the patterns on top of patterns on top of patterns on top of—”

Terri focused her wandering attention on Xanana’s video feed. The uvvy images showed flat Everooze and sharky Ouish down below them, led by the vigorous lumpy Xlotl, all of them pumping their bodies to dive deeper. The cliff’s false colors were purple and vermilion now, with sprawling splashes of orange. There were some large drifting blobs—giant jellyfish—and school after school of rockfish, wheeling about like flocks of birds. Long, wavering kelp stipes festooned the cliffs. Prancing spot prawns, cautious Dungeness crabs, and skulking octopi moved slowly across the cliff rocks, with wolf eels and monkeyhead eels hanging from the crevices. A glistening drift of squid jetted past.

“I see it!” exclaimed Xanana. “Down at the bottom there!”

Down below them was a green light, a light that coiled about, thickening and thinning its shape. As Xanana’s great tail beat them closer, his uvvy showed Terri that the light source was a huge wriggling form.

Terri popped her ears again, wincing at the moist crackle. She was feeling a chill, despite the wrapping of Xanana. Suddenly she remembered a tall tale her Uncle Carmine had told her when she was little—that ice in the ocean is heavier than water, and that the whole bottom of the Monterey Bay is covered with chunks of ice. The deep light they were swimming toward was like a glistening iceberg, gleaming so brightly that Terri could even see its glitter through the faceplate with her naked eyes. Light down here in this deep trench?

“I’m scared, Xanana,” she repeated.

“Hold on,” answered the moldie. “We have to see what’s down there.”

“It’s a big group moldie,” reported Xlotl from farther down. “Monique’s merged into them. And— uh-oh —they channel me.” He raised his voice in anger. “I’m Monique’s husband and I want her back!”

“Look out!” blared Everooze. “It’s spitting out superleeches. Fast purple-colored little things. Don’t let them touch you!”

Everooze bucked away from the green grex and shot up past Xanana and Terri, with a dozen fuzzy purple imipolex creatures chasing after him. Before Xanana could react, one of the little superleeches, no bigger than a baby’s hand, had flicked over and attached itself to Xanana’s side. Suddenly Xanana’s steady swimming became chaotic and uncertain.

Terri focused on the uvvy images Xanana was feeding her. There was still the same canyon around them, except now there was a glowing red line leading from them down into the deeps and Xanana was swimming straight along the line. Ouish and Xlotl were still down there, and at the other end of the virtual red line was the thing like a giant green moldie, nearly the size of a whale and— whoosh —it darted forward and snatched at Ouish while the fast purple superleeches flocked this way and that—

“Get out of here!” screamed Terri. “It’s going to eat us!”

“Help!” came Ouish’s voice. “The superleeches are—” Her voice broke, changed, and resumed, an octave sweeter, sounding like a possessed woman in a horror viddy. “I’m joining the happy throng!”

Xlotl swooped aggressively at the green monster, evading the superleeches, but he was no match for the huge green group moldie. It lunged forward and caught Xlotl with a fast, sudden tentacle, and now Xlotl was screaming too.

“It’s got me! Swim like hell, Everooze! Get outta here, Xana—” Then his voice stopped.

Xanana swam calmly forward.

“Go!” screeched Terri, visualizing and realizing a great kick of Xanana’s tail as hard as she could, but to no avail—until suddenly Everooze came swooping back down after them and scraped the superleech loose from Xanana’s side with a seashell. “Jam, Xanana, jam!” screeched Terri, and Xanana went shooting upward in Everooze’s wake.

“Breathe out, Terri!” cried Xanana. “Breathe out or your lungs will burst! Breathe out breathe out! Breathe out breathe out breathe out—”

Just as they neared the lip of the precipice at the start of the monster’s canyon, there was a sudden dull thud. All around them, the water streamed upward. Everooze and Xanana went tumbling, and the big heavy lit-up grex came pushing after them. Everooze was off to one side, and the group moldie went right past him, but Xanana and Terri were directly in its path. With a quick gulping grab, the green shape engulfed them, snatching them out of the water as it went hurtling by. There was a concussive blast of sound and then they were shooting up into the sky like a rocket.