Rudy Rucker - The Ware Tetralogy

“Om not really ask me what to do either,” sang the pale green snake. “She already decide to go flip Kurt’s ring to make another sign and see if any humans get excite. I do give her small idea to swallow some of oak tree so she can find out about plant.”

“I’m last,” said the iridescent beetle Josef. “And I told Om to swallow Ptah. It was time for her to take one of us, so why not the most perfect?” There was perhaps a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“Who you think be next?” Wubwub asked Phil. “We wonderin’ ‘cause we ‘bout ready to decrypt Metamartian number seven. And like we been tellin’ you, every time there someone new, Om celebrate by eatin’ something.”

“Don’t do it!” cried Phil. “She might get Yoke!”

“Cappy Jane has a nice new Metamartian personality wave prepared for us to incorporate, Phil,” said Shimmer. “We’re not about to waste it. It’s important that there finally be seven of us. A complete family.” The bland sweetness of her voice sent chills down his neck. “Sit back and watch.”

Phil shoved Peg’s horn to one side and tried to push his way past her into the passage, but Wubwub nudged the backs of Phil’s knees in just the right way to make him fall down. Siss the snake was on the ground to cushion his fall—and to wrap herself around him.

Lying on his back, Phil noticed for the first time that the light in the cavern was coming from a small hole up above, a hole that opened to the sky.

Shimmer used her body’s internal alla to project a bright-line cube that actualized itself into a knee-high block of imipolex. “All right, Cappy Jane,” called Shimmer. “Beam it down.” Some signal must have come to her from the satellite then, for as Shimmer laid her gracious hands upon the cube of plastic, the stuff began to twist and writhe. A figure formed and rose up in the shape of a man-sized bird, a black and white Indian mynah bird with yellow feet and a great yellow beak. Its dark head was decorated with a pattern of yellow feathers that made it look as if it were wearing a burglar’s mask.

The mynah cocked its head and stared at them with its bright, inhuman eye. It made a preliminary cawing noise that sounded almost like “Hello.” Phil felt like the bird was about to peck him. “Let me go!” he cried, struggling against Siss’s tight coils.

“Not yet,” said the snake. “We no want you go shit crazy.”

Shimmer must have uvvied some information to the mynah, for now its demeanor grew less blank, a subtle effect achieved by a softening of the lines of its beak.

“Good afternoon,” said the giant mynah. It cawed to clear its throat, whistled a few musical notes, listened to the echoes, and spoke again. “Something’s badly wrong here, isn’t it?”

“We’re in a land with but one line of time,” said Peg, gesturing with her red horn. “This is all there is. Seek as you will, you’ll find no other time but the short woven threads of brief ghost futures. Praise Om that you’ve come, for now we are seven and soon we can mate.”

“Who—who is seeing this for real?” asked the mynah, tentatively stretching out its wings. “Why this very one thread?”

“Ain’t got no notion,” said Wubwub. “Could be the Light do it. What you gonna use for a name, mynah bird?”

“Call me Haresh,” said the mynah. “An Indian name. I find it most oppressive here. It is jolly good that we are seven. We’ll help Om, and mate, and then we’ll chirp further.” The bird twitched his head as if hearing something. “Om is speaking to me. It is almost time for her manifestation. I must pick something. She has already swallowed a Metamartian?”

“Yes,” said Ptah. “Me. So don’t do that again.”

“This here is a ‘human,’ “ said Wubwub, using his snout to nudge Phil’s foot. “Om got three of those already, but might be she want some more.”

“How soon is the powerball going to spang out?” asked Phil anxiously. “That’s the word you use, right? ‘Spang.’ Floaty word. You guys are so brilliant. Let me go, Siss!”

“Not till powerball come,” said Siss. “Om still looking things over, waiting for Haresh form some impressions of world. Since we see little bit of future, we going know just before Om decide. But until then very hard to guess what she going to do. Om follow odd kind of logic. Odd for you, not quite so odd for us. Logic of higher dimensions. Like human dream maybe.”

Siss kept chattering, and Phil had a bad feeling about what she was getting at. He kept thinking about the sequence of what Om’s powerballs had swallowed so far: a toy Humpty-Dumpty moldie near Shimmer on the Moon; Darla near a wowo on the Moon; Tempest Plenty and Planet and a big wowo in Santa Cruz; Kurt Gottner and part of Friedl in Palo Alto; half an oak tree near Kurt’s ring in Palo Alto; Ptah; and—

“Yes, she going to take you, Phil,” said Siss, suddenly slackening her coils. “Run.”

“Praise Om,” said Peg. “She calls Phil to be with his father.”

“Don’t wrassle with her, Phil,” said Wubwub as Phil got to his feet. “If you wrassle Om, you end up like that wiener-dog, know what I’m sayin’? When Om come, you just ball yourself up and let her gulp you down. Look out fo’ the churnin’ when she break free.”

“Will it hurt?”

“I think very much,” said Siss. “Run, Phil, run! I no want powerball come near me.”

“Thanks for nothing,” snarled Phil, aiming a kick at Siss but—of course—the prescient snake flipped her body to where Phil’s foot wasn’t.

“You have but two more minutes,” said Peg. “Pray use them nobly.”

So Phil walked out of the cave to the beach and sat hunkered there, staring at the blank sky and the eternal waves, no different than before. And now he would probably die. So this is how it happens, thought Phil. It’s not really so hard. Part of him felt weary, paralyzed, and almost glad.

But there was another Phil that knew he hadn’t really started to live yet. He called Yoke on his uvvy. She picked up almost immediately. “Phil?” Behind her Phil could see laboring Tongan sailors and the great open hold of a ship. Vaana and the King were there as well.

“Hi, Yoke. The powerball is about to get me. I’m on the beach at the other end of the island. The aliens are holed up in a cave here. They just decrypted a new Metamartian, and Om’s going to celebrate by swallowing me.”

“Oh noooo!” Yoke’s face bunched up and she burst into tears.

“I love you, Yoke.”

“Don’t die!”

“The Metamartians claim I won’t be dead. That I’ll be in a bubble in hyperspace. But I—I don’t really believe it. The fourth dimension is bullshit. I’m just glad I met you, Yoke. I always said my life was good, but it wasn’t really until I met you. At least we had one day together.” Phil thought he saw something flickering out over the water. An isolated glint of strange perspective. “It’s coming for me, whatever it is. And, Yoke, it was definitely Om that got Darla. Shimmer told her to. Stay away from the Metamartians, or they might kill you too.”

“Wait, Phil, wait. How is it that you might not die?”

“Some crufty math fabulation. I’ll find my way back if there’s a way. Here it comes.”

“I’ll wait for you in San Francisco.”

“I love you.”

The powerball came in across the water, low down at Phil’s level, flying straight at him. Phil braced himself, wrapping his arms tight around his knees. The powerball looked like a big, glowing crystal ball, reflecting and refracting light, though not so smooth as a glass ball, perhaps a bit more like a drop of water.

As it drew closer there was an odd effect on the rest of the world: things seemed to melt and warp, distorting themselves away from the magic ball.