Rudy Rucker - The Ware Tetralogy

Not that there was going to be much of Kurt to carry. The Gimmie had scraped together maybe an ounce of blood and tissue-fragments. After freezing a sample of the DNA, the Gimmie had incinerated the remains for Willow, who’d placed the ashes in a tiny octagonal madrone-wood box. The box sat before the mourners on a small Oriental rug on the ground.

Isolde got up and talked about Kurt as a child. She was a little woman with white hair and a strong voice. “Kurt was a wise soul,” said Isolde. “He knew more than other people. He was shy and he didn’t like to talk about it, but I could always see it in his bright brown eyes—he knew. He knew more than anyone could teach him, and he spent his life exploring the world of ideas. Nothing else mattered to him. I used to say, ‘Kurt, why don’t you get a Ph.D. and work at a university?’ ‘I don’t have time, Mom,’ he’d say. ‘I’m too busy.’ And all he’d be doing would be sitting in his armchair looking at a sunbeam. Too busy. Maybe Kurt knew he wouldn’t have as much time as the rest of us.” She gave a mild, rueful laugh and wiped her eyes. “Kurt was so excited about his last discoveries, about his dimensions and his wowos. I only hope that some good can still come of them. We’re all trying to understand this death. What happened? I’d like to think that Kurt knew—and that somewhere he’s still knowing. My son was an explorer.”

Willow spoke next. The Gimmie had cleared Willow of any wrongdoing; the cause of death had been written off as a freak electrical phenomenon, perhaps ball lightning, perhaps a corona discharge from Kurt and Tre’s holographic wowo projection equipment. Willow looked stunning, slim and chic in a black wool suit, her face composed and perfect below her shiny bright hair.

“He was the best man I’ve ever known,” Willow was saying. “He shouldn’t be forgotten. And I’ve been working to set up a fitting memorial. The trustees of the Bass School have agreed to start a Kurt Gottner Scholarship Fund. An anonymous donor has agreed to match dollar-for­-dollar any pledges made to this fund today. So please give generously.”

“ Sell it, Willow,” Phil murmured to Jane.

Pretty soon one of the Bass administrators was speaking, a Doctor Peck, stringing together a line of fund-raising platitudes. “Bass School one big family . . . Kurt Gottner the quintessential . . . quick mind and open inquiry . . . such a special place . . . your unique opportunity . . . Kurt Gottner Scholarship Fund . . . “

Phil couldn’t listen anymore. There were as many people standing as sitting, so he felt free to sidle out of his seat and wander over toward the deck of the school building where some little kids were already nosing around a big table full of canapés catered by the Bass School parents. Funeral meats. Phil cast a professional eye over the spread. He could have done a much better job, but oh well. He ate a salty deviled egg and a crustless triangle of bread with tank-grown salmon. Now a town councilman was butt-kissing the mourners, marveling at how “eukaryotic” was the nucleus of the Bass School community relative to Palo Alto at large.

Phil pushed open the big glass-paned front door and went inside the school, flashing back to his years here as a student. Fourth through eighth grades, with Da a genial distant figure teaching math and uvvy graphics to the seniors. Eve happy at home, taking care of them all, doing uvvy work for her family’s olive-import business by running a dragonfly camera that talked to farmers in Greek. Those had been cozy years. The little family, the parade of days.

Phil walked down the creaky wood-floored hall, looking at the rows of pictures by primary-school students on display. Lots of hearts; odd as it seemed, today was Valentine’s Day. Monday the hearts would come down, and spring flowers would be next. Or perhaps dead presidents. George Birthington’s Washday, his English teacher had liked to call it—a bit of wordplay that Phil had found the very apex of worldly wit. The old school smelled the same as ever. Yes, it had been peaceful here until Willow appeared. She’d flown in like some bright magpie, snatching up Phil’s woolly father for her nest.

“Are you a teacher?”

Phil’s reverie popped. A slender dark-haired girl his age was looking at him. Her jawline was strikingly angled, her eyes clear, her mouth intelligent and kind. Her one nonidealized feature was her nose, which was a bit larger than normal, though it sat quite harmoniously in the calm oval of her face.

“Me? My father was the teacher.”

“Oh God, I’m sorry, you’re Kurt Gottner’s son, aren’t you? You must be so weighted that you don’t know what to do.”

“Yes, exactly. Thank you. My name is Phil.” He held out his hand.

“I’m Yoke.”

“That’s a nice easy name. What was your connection with my dad?”

“Oh, I’m visiting Terri and Tre Dietz, so I came along with them to pay my respects. Tre’s been so excited about your father’s work, he talks about him all the time. Your father must have been a great man. How horrible that the wowo killed him.”

“It’s a nightmare. Everyone’s scared to sleep in his house anymore. I’ve been down here in a motel since Thursday—today’s Saturday, right?”

“Yes. Time’s strange for you now, isn’t it? My mother died at Christmas— which is another reason I’m here—and for the few days afterward it was like there was this glowing light everywhere and time wasn’t moving at all. I even started smoking for a week, something about the cigarettes made it easier to chop up the time. And where I come from, smoking is practically impossible.”

“Cigarettes, what a concept,” said Phil. “I’m sorry to hear about your mother. She died on Christmas Day?”

“Christmas Eve. She was alone. I feel terrible.” Yoke’s eyes moistened.

“Poor Yoke,” said Phil, and went on talking lest the two of them break down. “You’re right about the kind of glow everywhere. Luminous. Realer than real. My father’s ashes are in that little box on the rug on the lawn and the rest of him is who knows where, he’s really dead and someday I’m going to die too. This—” Phil gestured at the old building around them, at the misty trees and the people outside. “This is what there is. We’re like ants under lichen. Actual organisms crawling around in this shallow layer of fuzz on the Earth.”

“Lichen?” smiled Yoke, wiping off her eyes. “I just saw natural lichen for the first time this week—forest lichen instead of the stuff inside moldies. Terri took me on a tour of the Big Basin redwoods. The ranger said, ‘Alice Alga took a lichen to Freddie Fungi, and ever since, their marriage has been on the rocks.’ “ When Yoke hit the “lichen” pun, she giggled and raised her eyebrows.

“Or maybe we’re like beetles under bark,” said Phil, trying to stay poetic and serious. “Or rabbits in a briar patch. I keep having this funny vision of how glued to the Earth’s surface we are. And how shallow the atmosphere is. Gaia’s skin.”

“I totally know,” said Yoke in a heavy Val accent. Phil couldn’t tell if she was mocking him or if that was a way she really talked.

Outside, the last speaker had finished and people were standing up and starting to mill around.

“Everyone’s going to hit the canapés now,” said Yoke. “Big-time. Before the crowd gets here I need to go to the bathroom.”

“So that’s why you asked if I’m a teacher,” said Phil. “It’s up those stairs, Yoke.”

“Thanks, Phil. It’s nice to meet you. Let’s talk some more in a minute.”

Phil watched Yoke go up the stairs. She had a high, perfectly rounded butt. But she moved up the stairs very slowly, taking one step at a time. It was so painful to watch that Phil looked away for a minute. When he looked back, Yoke was at the top. She smiled and waved as if she’d just mounted some great peak.