The Ware Tetralogy - Rudy Rucker (popular ebook readers .TXT) 📗

“Why?” drawled Cobb. “You’re not finished filling the ship.”

“The powerball is about to get Phil! Oh, hurry! Maybe we can save him.”

“One certainly hopes not,” said Cobb with unexpected venom. His voice sounded all different. “But, very well, I’ll take you there. It should be amusing.”

“What is _wrong _with you?” cried Yoke, but Cobb gave no answer. Silently he flew Yoke to the island’s end as directed.

When they landed on the beach, Yoke quickly popped herself out of the moldie. It was too late. A big warped ball of space had slid onto Phil, and his form was swollen up like a balloon. Even though she knew it was hopeless, Yoke ran toward Phil, calling his name, with Cobb trotting along behind her.

The warped sphere of the powerball snapped loose from normal space—and Phil was gone. A nauseating ripple of distortion passed through Yoke’s body. And then nothing. The world going on the same as before. With no Phil. Right at the end he’d said he loved her. Yoke realized that she could have loved him too.

Cobb was standing just behind Yoke, looking sarcastic and unhelpful. And down the beach a ways was a hole in the cliff with some of the aliens watching. Yoke could make out the pale glow of Shimmer and the dark snout of Wubwub.

“We have to get back to HRH and the ship,” said Cobb. “We’re not nearly finished there.”

“Whatever,” said Yoke, striding down the beach toward the aliens. “Shimmer! You have to help bring them back. I want Phil and I want my mother!” On an impulse, Yoke used her alla to create a flaming wooden torch. “Moldie flesh burns, Shimmer!”

Calmly the pale woman and the dark pig stared out at Yoke.

Did she really have any chance against these superhuman? Not likely. But she held her little torch up high. “Help me or else!”

Before the scene could play itself out, Yoke was tackled from behind. By Cobb. The old man moldie knocked the torch from her hand and flowed forward, enveloping and immobilizing her.

“We really must be on our way,” said Cobb. “HRH wants us back immediately.”

And then they were rocketing up from the beach, arcing back across the island to where the roly-poly aluminum Tongan Navy ship waited. Yoke tried to talk to Cobb, but it was no use. It was as if he’d been hypnotized or turned into a zombie.

“I put a superleech on him,” explained the smirking Onar when Cobb split open to disgorge Yoke back onto the deck of the ship. “As long as Cobb’s wearing it, he’s an extension of me. I slapped it on him while you were busy making the gold and imipolex. I let Cobb take you to watch Phil get eaten because I was curious too. Too bad about that, really. Phil was a decent sort. No mental giant, though. In any case, it’s time to get back to work, Yoke. Break’s over.”

“You heartless prick.” Now that she knew what to look for, Yoke could see the superleech on Cobb’s back, knotted into his pink flesh like a purple scar. She reached out to see if she could tear it loose, but Cobb’s body twisted away.

“Do as Onar says,” said Cobb, his voice a slavish replica of Onar’s.

“That leech is comin’ off right now!” yelled Vaana. She’d become very agitated as soon as Onar pointed out Cobb’s leech-DIM. She gave the King’s shoulder a shake. “Bou-Bou! You can’t sit here and let this skanky white dook put a superleech on a moldie. Tonga’s a free zone!”

“Yes, but a free Cobb might take Yoke and her alla away from us too soon,” hissed Onar. “Surely even you can understand that, you fat, stinking sex-toy.”

“Understand _this!” _said Vaana. Her arm lashed out snake-fast to strike a concussive blow against the side of Onar’s head. Onar collapsed like a rag doll, and so did Cobb.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have done that, Vaana,” said the King, very upset. “I’m sorry about the superleech. Onar talked me into it. Greed, don’t you know.” He waved both arms, making a broad “calm down” signal to his bodyguards on the bridge. “The guards may think they have to defend the Tu’i Tonga, Vaana. They’re obsessed with the notion that you might harm me.”

But Vaana was too agitated to pay proper attention. “You actually gave Onar the okay, Bou-Bou? You told him he could use a superleech?” She grabbed the King and gave him another rough shake. “I thought you loved moldies!”

Up on the bridge the bodyguards were frantically conferring with the captain, and now the whip-cannon at the rear of the ship twitched into life. Yoke dove onto the deck next to Cobb to get out of the way. The whip-cannon snapped like a huge towel. A heavy puck of metal flew into Vaana, cutting her completely in two. The puck punched through the deck and the side of the hull—fortunately above the waterline—and plunged violently into the sea.

“No!” screamed the King. “Vaana!”

With what seemed like her dying effort, Vaana opened her mouth and made a cracked warbling noise. And then both halves of her were still. Kennit came pounding down the companionway from the bridge. “Are you all right, Your Majesty?” he shouted. “Thank God we saved you.”

Onar began twitching, starting to wake back up, and Cobb was twitching too. If Yoke waited any longer it would be too late. Quickly she made herself a knife with her alla and rolled Cobb over so she could cut the purple scar of the leech from his back. But Kennit darted forward to take the knife and the alla from her.

“Don’t hurt the girl!” shouted the King. “You’ve done enough damage.”

“No weapons near the King,” said Kennit. “I’m going to handcuff her till I figure out what’s happening.” And then he yanked Yoke’s hands behind her back and snapped some tight bands of plastic around her wrists. Kennit pushed her down into the deck chair next to the King, then threw the knife into the ocean and handed her alla to Bou-Bou.

“I’m sure Yoke’s no danger,” said the King, taking the alla. “She was only trying to help her friend. As was Vaana. You were glad for an excuse to kill her, weren’t you, Kennit? You and the guards have been waiting for—for—” The King’s voice broke and he put his hand over his eyes. “You can’t understand this, Kennit, but I loved her.”

“Yis,” said Kennit.

There was a minute of silence. At Yoke’s feet lay the two halves of Vaana, inert in a reeking puddle of straw-colored moldie ichor. Onar was sitting woozily upright on the deck next to the dismembered moldie. It seemed as if the bad guys had won.

“If I give you back your alla, will you finish your work for me now, Yoke?” the King asked. He was fiddling with the alla as if desperate for a distraction from the sight of the shattered Vaana. “Curious,” continued the King. “Just an empty tube, though if I look through it the world seems to be twirling.” He knitted his brows as if willing something to happen, but nothing did. “It won’t make anything for me. Yes, yes, it really is keyed to you, Yoke. You’re the goose who lays the golden eggs. A fine role.”

“No eggs if the farmer mistreats the goose,” said Yoke. “Unshackle me so I can take the superleech off of Cobb. Until then I’m not making you anything more. Once you free us, I’ll still keep my promise to fill your ship with imipolex and gold.”

“Oh, but we can make her do much more than that, Bou-Bou,” said Onar, his voice slurred. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the side of his head, gathering his forces. Moving slowly and carefully, he got to his feet and sneered down at Yoke with something like his old energy. “Yes, Bou-Bou, I have another trick up my sleeve. I can make little Miss Snooty Britches do anything I want her to. Look.” Onar pulled a twitching piece of imipolex out of his pants pocket, a fat dark red slug of a thing.

“Be careful, that’s a thinking cap!” exclaimed the horrified Yoke, who’d been warned about them many times before. “A moldie can make it crawl up a person’s nose to take over their brain!”

“Yes, my dear,” said Onar. “Up _your _nose. I’ll use the superleech to run Cobb, and Cobb will use the thinking cap to run you. A baroque little chain of command, no?” He paused and giggled. “I have an idea, Bou-Bou. Why don’t I smear Yoke with Vaana’s ichor and get her to have sex with you. Little Yoke’s a rather good shag, don’t you know.”

“How revolting,” said the King coldly. “I’m shocked at you, Onar. Set the girl free, Kennit. She’s perfectly willing to finish filling our ship. And do something about having poor Vaana’s body stored away. I’m going to give her a proper funeral.”

“But Yoke was holding a knife, Your Majesty,” said Kennit. “I have to protect you.”

“Do you presume to disobey my direct command?” said the King, rising to his feet. Kennit temporized by continuing to talk, and the two of them went to stand over the remains of Vaana. Meanwhile Yoke was still sitting in the deck chair with her hands cuffed behind her back.

While Kennit and the King continued debating, Onar handed the nastily twitching thinking cap to Cobb—who had no power to do anything but accept it. At the activating touch of Cobb’s moldie fingers, the thinking cap bloomed like a blob of ink in a glass of water, sending out long, greedy feelers. Now Onar darted around behind Yoke and held her by the shoulders. The enslaved old Cobb shuffled forward, holding the excited thinking cap out toward Yoke’s face.

“Help!” said Yoke, but her voice came out small and squeaky. Stupid Kennit and the King weren’t even looking at her. It was like a dream where you try to run and your legs are knee-deep in molasses. Onar had her shoulders pinned in a grip of steel. The dark red thinking cap was coming closer. This was happening too fast!

It occurred to Yoke that perhaps she could control her alla even when she wasn’t holding it. She reached out for mental contact with her alla and—yes! She alla-made a quick hydrogen-oxygen explosion at waist level between Kennit and the King.

The blast was encouragingly loud. The King bellowed, Kennit roared, and Onar and Cobb were so startled that Cobb dropped the writhing thinking cap onto Yoke’s lap. Yoke quickly exploded a much bigger sphere of hydrogen and oxygen in a spot that she guessed to be behind Onar. He came tumbling onto her from over her right shoulder. The chair collapsed. With a quick twitch of her legs and torso, Yoke maneuvered Onar’s head to be near the thinking cap. The thinking cap crawled onto Onar’s face and shimmied into his left  nostril. Onar screamed for Cobb to catch it, but he was too late. With a last filthy wriggle, the thinking cap had disappeared all the way into Onar’s nose. Onar’s limbs twitched as if in an epileptic fit.

And now Cobb began twitching too. He and Onar were in a feedback control loop. Onar’s superleech was controlling Cobb, but Cobb’s thinking cap was controlling Onar. They sprang together like wrestlers, like magnets. The Cobb-directed Onar tried to claw the superleech out of Cobb’s back and the Onar-directed Cobb probed into Onar’s nose in search of the wily thinking cap. Yet at the same time, Onar