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

he uses those to build up a 2D image of a world. But when he’s up above Flatland looking down, he doesn’t see Flatland as a whole. Instead he sees what’s in the particular 2D world of his eye plane. The plane of his eye intersects the plane of Flatland in a 1D line. A cross section of Flatland. And if the cross-section line intersects some Flatland object, then A Square is seeing the innards of that object. In the same way, the 3D space of your eye intersects the 3D space of our ordinary universe in a 2D plane. And that’s why you’re seeing slices of innards.”

“Whew,” said Phil. “It’s easier to see it than to talk about it. I saw a cross section of my heart. Did you look down at your chest. Da?”

“I did. Right down into my tired old ticker. And when we look down at Earth, we see cross sections of the Earth. We see these giant disks of dirt or water. It depends where our eye’s 3D cross section of 4D hyperspace happens to intersect the 3D Earth in a 2D plane.”

“Yaaar,” said Phil. “But why is the inside of my heart lit up? You’d think it would be dark in there.”

“That must be because there’s a four-dimensional light in hyperspace,” said Kurt. “From that divine Light we saw.”

“The SUN!” exclaimed Phil. “Cobb Anderson talked about it at your funeral. I asked him what it had been like to be dead. The God-Light must be what Cobb called the SUN. Capital S-U-N.”

“The SUN,” said Kurt. “That’s a good name. As long as you understand that the SUN has nothing to do with our regular Sun.”

“The SUN’s light is inside everything,” said Phil slowly. “It’s like our world is made of stained-glass pieces with the God-Light shining through. A cathedral window lit by the SUN. How can you be scared, Da?”

“You know,” said Kurt after a long pause, “I have this feeling I should fly into the SUN. Maybe if I sacrifice myself, then Om will let you go.”

“Oh man, with you getting so wrecked all the time, you don’t know what you’re talking about anymore,” said Phil. “Put that shit away. I’m gonna look at the Earth again. Crawl on me, Humpty-Dumpty.”

With his father hanging onto his legs, Phil leaned way out of the flaw in Om’s hypersphere. He flopped around until he saw a huge disk of rock and dirt; this time he noticed a glowing region at its distant center. The Earth’s core. Now Phil began delicately wobbling his head to make the cross-sectional disk smaller and smaller. Right before it disappeared it became a great lake of water. He moved back the way he’d come, and this time he could see that there were some bumps off on one side of the water, some circles of dirt and—yes!—some angular shapes that must have been the cross sections of buildings. He studied it for ten or fifteen minutes, minutely adjusting his angle and focusing all of his attention down into the squares. There were moments when the image bore a more than passing resemblance to a map of San Francisco. Yoke had said she’d wait for him there. Oh, Yoke.

Da pulled Phil back inside and took another turn with Humpty

Dumpty. He said he wanted to get a good look at the SUN. After a few minutes he came back inside the hypersphere looking very jangled.

“I do believe it’s happy hour,” said Kurt. “God, I wish I had some pot.”

Sure enough, three minutes later Tempest and Darla floated over with fat reefers burning in their lips.

“Looky what I just found in the catalog!” twanged Tempest. “It’s like Om’s learnin’ herself to make ever’thang we need. This is Heaven, ain’t it?”

“Or Hell,” said Phil, and pushed himself away.

Wednesday

Phil woke up earlier than the others. He put on Humpty-Dumpty and got to work trying to see San Francisco again. This time he took closer notice of the six metallic tendrils leading kata from Om toward Earth. The tendrils seemed to be in pairs: two were golden, two silvery, and two copper-colored. All six led down toward the grid that seemed to be San Francisco. Was there any chance he might glimpse a slice of Yoke? Phil asked Om for help.

“Can you move us closer, Om?”

There was no audible answer, and Phil expected none. In last night’s dream conversations, Om had explained that she was accustomed to talking only to Metamartians, to beings who lived in endless layers of parallel time. Om’s utterances were so diffuse that a human needed to be asleep in order to achieve a state of mind subtle enough to hear her voice.

But even though the waking Phil couldn’t hear Om’s answer, he could see that his request had been noted, for now the grid pattern of San Francisco began to expand. The crazy, shifting angles of the cross-sectional buildings seemed no more than a few thousand yards off. Phil felt sure Yoke was down there. What if he jumped kata toward her? This might work—or it might not. He might end up like an animated sidewalk painting of a man with all his innards on display. Or fall through Earth-space entirely. Or not intersect it at all.

Someone was tugging on his legs. Da. Last night had been way gnarly. Tempest had gone on to find snap and gabba in the ever expanding catalog and then, though Phil managed not to witness it, the maddened Da and Darla had probably fucked. Ironic, that. All Phil and Yoke had managed so far was to kiss and to lie briefly in the same bed. Kid stuff.

This morning Tempest was nodded out on gabba, but Kurt and Darla were wide-awake on snap, very wired, very lifted. Why did people do this to themselves? “I’ll do it, Phil,” chattered Da. “I’ll go into the Light, and Om will be satisfied. Sacrifice Abraham instead of Isaac. And then Om will let you and Darla go back to Earth.”

“Calm down, Da.” Humpty-Dumpty slid off of Phil, but Phil kept a good hold on the fat egg, lest Da try something rash. Today was going to be xoxxy. This was definitely Hell—or at least that’s what these pheezers were making it into.

“He’s right,” said Darla, her eyes looking glazed and jittery. She was naked again, with Planet at her side. “Kurt and I have been fabbing about it all night. Om must want one of us to jump all the way out of that hole. She’s like curious to see what happens. And if Kurt does the deed, then Om will put us back. Why can’t you wave it, Phil?”

It occurred to Phil that—duh!—he hadn’t yet thought of directly asking Om to return them. So now he tried.

“Dear Om, please put us back on Earth. Please take us back.”

Kurt and Darla were quiet for a minute, looking around, but nothing happened.

“I’m going out now,” said Kurt, tugging at Humpty-Dumpty.

“Stop it!” said Phil.

“Give it to him!” said Darla, prying at Phil’s arms. “It’s the only way!”

“You guys are too spun to know what you’re talking about,” said Phil. “Forget it.”

But then Kurt and Darla set upon him in earnest. The excited Planet began wildly barking. It was hard for Phil to fight back, to strike out at his father and at the plump, nude mother of the girl he loved. But he managed to stave them off—until Darla woke Tempest.

“We need to get the Humpty-Dumpty doll,” Darla told Tempest after jabbing her into wakefulness. The old cracker woman’s eyes were goofball pinpoints of instant rage. “Phil won’t give us the doll,” hissed Darla. “Work out on him, Tempest.” The lean Tempest joined battle with a streetwise savagery.

A minute later Phil’s face was bleeding from where Tempest had clawed him, and he was doubled over from being kicked between the legs. And now Darla had managed to bind his wrists with a knotted loop of material from her discarded clothes. Tempest looked like she was ready to beat up on him some more.

“No, we’re done now, Tempest,” said Darla, shoving the vicious crone away. “We’ve got the Humpty-Dumpty doll. See? Kurt’s putting it on. Time for you to get weightless, Tempest. Take another hit of gabba. That’s a girl. Curl up with Planet there, Yaaar, nice furry dog. Wavy dreams, sistah.” And then Tempest was asleep again.

“I hope you’re all right, Phil,” said Darla, dabbing at his wounds. “I didn’t viz that Tempest would come at you so giga nasty.”

“I’m sorry, son,” said Kurt. “And don’t worry, I’m not just doing this for you. My life’s garbage, has been ever since I left Eve for Willow. I don’t want to go back to Earth. They’ve already had my funeral! I’m moving on. Into the SUN. Can’t be any worse than this. And maybe Om really will set you back down.”

“Da—”

“And one other thing, Phil. I’m sorry I ever dumped on you for not finishing college. It doesn’t matter. You’ll do fine, whatever you do. You’re a good man. You have heart and soul. And you’re every bit as smart as I ever was.”

Hearing that made Phil feel wonderful. Like a weight falling from his shoulders. “Thanks, Da.” He smiled. “You’re good too. Now please take that suit off and tell Darla to let me go.”

“Sorry.” And with that Kurt pushed himself out through the flaw and disappeared.

“Set me loose, Om!” cried Phil. And the knots around his wrists slipped free. Phil peered into Om’s ever-expanding alla catalog, and there, just where he needed it, was a bubbletopper spacesuit. “Actualize,” he said, and when Darla snatched the first spacesuit, he made another one. And then he was halfway out the hole in Om’s hypersphere, peering out through his imipolex visor to look for his dad.

At first he couldn’t find him. He saw a cross section of the Earth, the mountainous pink curves of Om, the six shiny tendrils leading from Om kata toward Earth, and the great SUN ana everything.

And then way out there, silhouetted against the Divine Light, appeared the brave little figure of his father, moving steadily ana.

It would have been nice to end like that, but now something shocking happened. A jagged beaklike form streaked across hyperspace toward his father. Wobbling his head this way and that, Phil could make out a few more sections of the intruder—each view was fierce and angular, like shark jaws, like a heraldic predatory bird. And then the beast struck at his father and ripped him in two.

Phil groaned in agony, as did Darla, who was next to him now, watching as well. Phil had been wondering if he might retrieve his father, but he now knew there could be no restoration. The hyperspace monster tore his father to bits. It was too sad. Da would never make it to the SUN.

But wait—now Phil glimpsed a final resolution. A form like a tattered butterfly lifted out of the torn fragments of Da’s body. Gently beating its wings, the gossamer shape continued ana, ever closer to the final Light.

Phil passed the rest of the day grieving, looking through the alien alla catalog, and praying for Om to take him back to Yoke in San Francisco. He avoided Tempest, but he had a pretty good conversation with Darla, who was supertalkative from all the snap. Finally he was tired enough to go to sleep.

Babs, February 26

Babs and Yoke alla-made themselves some nice new outfits for the evening’s outing. Yoke made herself a plush green crop-top and black leather pants