Rudy Rucker - The Ware Tetralogy

“I had the alla put rubber cushions under it, Yoke, so we don’t get cold. See?”

“Don’t come a-knockin’ if this nest’s a-rockin’.” Yoke giggled, feeling relaxed for the first time since she’d popped back. “Looks like Babs and me are gonna scooore!” She stuck her head back into the warehouse. “Hey, Ma, good night!”

“You’re sleeping outside?”

“Phil made us a little house. You can use my bed. Just for fun I made it a bunk-bed like Joke and I used to have at home. It’s in the corner over there. Cobb will show you.”

“How cute. Well, good night, dear. What a scare you gave me today. Thank God you survived. I’m going to uvvy Whitey in a few minutes.”

“Don’t whip him up too much about Kevvie. Just say I’m fine and tell him hi from me. The big news is that you’re back, Ma. He’s going to be so glad.”

“I hope so.” Darla’s face hardened a little. “I might just blow Kevvie’s head off tomorrow morning. And as for your father—he better not be with one of his little chippies.” She held out her arms. “Give me a kiss.”

So Yoke walked across the room and kissed her mother good night, and then went back outside to get into the little nest-house Phil had made them. Phil had put a bed in their nest, and three lit candles for light. They lay there cuddling for a long time, talking a little, and then, finally, they made love.

“That was even nicer than I expected,” said Yoke when they were done.

“Me too,” said Phil. “I love you, Yoke.”

“I love you.”

“June wedding?”

“Maybe.” Yoke found herself smiling uncontrollably. “We’ll see. What’s going to happen to everything in the meantime? After everyone gets an alla.”

“We’re really going to give them to everyone?”

“We were talking about that while you were gone,” said Yoke. “If other people can’t get allas, they’re going to kill us to take ours away.”

“Does getting killed matter? If your alla can bring you back?”

“If someone shreds you with like an O. J. ugly-stick, and then your alla asks them if they’d rather actualize a new Phil or register the alla for themselves, they’re not going to make a new you.”

“And— myoor!— I just thought of something,” said Phil, running his fingers through his blond hair. “When your alla brought you back, Yoke, it made a realware copy of you just the way you were before you died. And that was fine—since you were in perfect health right up until the instant Kevvie turned you into air. But if I bleed to death from an O. J. ugly-stick attack, then when the alla actualizes a fresh Phil, it’s gonna be me lying there all trashed and bleeding to death—and I die all over again.”

“Gnarly! It would be torture!”

“Actually, I have a feeling that recorporation only works if it was an alla that killed you in the first place,” said Phil. “It’s probably a kind of fail-safe feature to keep the allas from becoming a weapon. I think the aliens would have told us if an alla also had the effect of making its owner immortal.”

“Why don’t you ask Om?” said Yoke. “Didn’t you say she’d been talking to you?”

“Yes, I could hear Om when I was inside her, up there in hyperspace. But even there I could only do it when I was dreaming. I don’t think I’ll be able to hear her at all down here in regular space.”

It was raining hard now, and the drops were drumming on their little roof. The window was open a little to let air in, with a red silk curtain over it for privacy. Yoke alla-made herself an orange.

“Want some?” she said, peeling it by the warm candlelight.

“Thanks. This is such fun. I’ve never been so happy. It was good to see my dad.”

“What was that like?”

“He was nice to me,” said Phil. “And I told him I was sorry I’d been mean to him. He told me I was smart.”

“I knew that already.” Yoke smiled and touched Phil’s cheek. “Are you going to use your alla to make blimps?”

“I have been thinking about it. I have an idea how to keep blimps from getting pushed around by the wind. People are always looking for new ways to fly. Getting a moldie to carry you isn’t that pleasant. I mean, then you have the moldie to deal with. It’s like taking a cab instead of driving.”

“I don’t understand why people don’t use DIMs to make big brainless flapping things that aren’t moldies. Kind of like Randy’s giant snail?”

“The problem is that safely flying a person takes enough mass and enough computational ability that you’d have to give a flapping thing a fairly elaborate mold-based nervous system. And then it would end up turning into a moldie and not being willing to work for you. A blimp’s brain can be a lot simpler. My secret is that I’m going to give my blimps a kind of hair. But what giant snail of Randy’s are you talking about?”

Yoke was expecting to start laughing about Randy again, but her recent contact with the White Light had sapped the meanness right out of her. The story ended up coming across as something pathetic that had happened to a friend.

“Poor Randy,” said Phil when she was done. “What a story! If all the snail needed to do was to repeat things and to crawl on him, it could perfectly well be a wad of dumb imipolex with a DIM. Like those little dinosaurs Babs just made. The mind boggles at the kilp that’s gonna come down when everyone gets an alla. What was all that talk about plutonium on the Anubis?”

“Cobb told Siss to tell Om to not let people make atomic bombs,” said Yoke. “Just in case. We feel like everyone on Earth should get an alla—and there’s bound to be someone who would make an atomic bomb on purpose. And even if there weren’t, somebody might worry about it so much they’d end up accidentally making an atomic bomb themselves while they were dreaming. Having a really bad dream.”

“Isn’t there a way to turn off your alla before you go to sleep?” asked Phil.

“You just take off your uvvy,” said Yoke.

“Oh, right. Which of course I always do.”

“Once I forgot and slept with my uvvy on and people were coming into my dreams. Pervs. Some of them make a point of sleeping with their uvvies on.”

“Bad news. Are you tired yet?”

“Almost,” said Yoke. “I’m looking at my necklace.” She’d set it down next to a candle. The gem was lazily cycling from square ruby to round diamond and back.

“Oh, let me show you the other two things I brought back,” said Phil, reaching out to get his pants off the floor. He took out a pearl-handled pocketknife and a black ball with bright spots in it. “The knife has a fuzzy blade, it’s pretty nice,” continued Phil. “I already carved your name on a tree with it, Yoke.”

“Good boy. What’s this little ball?”

“I think of it as a fish bowl with luminous tadpoles,” said Phil, handing it to her.

“They’re more like brine shrimp and flat little jellyfish,” said Yoke, peering in. “Funny how they jump around when I look at them. I mean—how can they tell?”

“Alien tech. Who knows? But I like it. I think I’ll keep it in my pocket for good luck.”

“I know what it is!” exclaimed Yoke after studying the toy a bit longer. “It’s an alien star map!”

“Oh, I like that idea,” said Phil. “I bet that’s why Wubwub seemed interested when he noticed me holding it.”

They played with the star map a little longer, and indeed, the bright spots were like stars and galaxies—and once or twice Yoke thought she recognized one of the constellations.

“So far, so good,” said Yoke, yawning and handing the star map back to Phil. “We still haven’t figured out what’s gonna happen next.”