Jim and the Flims (25 page)

“I swear to you, Jim, I played no part in that tragedy.” Weena studied me, doing her best to reach deeper into my mind. “I have a theory about why you've been snubbing me,” she said after bit. “For a few hours there, I appeared old and unattractive. And so you set your sights on that bohemian little surfer girl. That's how men are. And, Jim, I know that you conjugated with Ginnie last night. But I can conjugate with you too. I'm skilled at the techniques.” She advanced on me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Have you forgotten our merry dalliances in your cottage by the sea?”

“But you're always lying to me,” I exclaimed, struggling to keep a lid on my feelings. “You're a heartless killer.” Weena held me tighter, pressing her zickzack chest and belly against mine.

“We're a good fit,” she said in a honeyed tone.

I regained control of my mind and feigned acquiescence. “Whatever you say.”

“That's my boy. You can trust me.”

I stepped onto Weena's carpet of geranium tendrils, and the wriggly little rug swept us into the air. We were gliding among the plant's enormous leaves. The leaves rocked in the gentle breeze, giving off faint bass notes like enormous drum skins. The air was filled with the pleasantly the acrid smell of geranium. Other flims were floating around on tendrils. Some seemed to be guards, others were elegantly clad nobles of the realm. Most of the flims smiled at Weena and bowed ingratiatingly, but one fellow shook his fist.

“Petty miser,” said Weena, giving him the finger, a gesture she'd learned in Santa Cruz. “He maintains that my dear Charles has overspent. But his great work is worth any price. You'll understand, Jim. I know that you're a bit of a scientist yourself.” Already she was taking my loyalty for granted again. Good.

We reached a leaf near the top of the geranium and floated in through a large hole. The leaf was all but hollow within, the size of a banquet hall, glowing with green-tinged light. The tendrils lowered us to the cushiony floor.

I'd expected to find a medieval scene in this so-called castle—oak tables, suits of armor, tapestries, blazing hearths—but it wasn't like that. Perhaps fifty flims were wandering around or lounging on turgid hassocks and couches that bulged from the floor. They were all ghosts with jivas, all of them in sumptuous clothes. The materials were shiny and richly hued, with intricate embossed patterns, a bit like brocade, or perhaps like animated bas-reliefs. The patterns were subtly changing as I watched.

“The nobles' clothes are all kessence,” Weena murmured to me. “Much more elegant that mere zickzack.”

Large plant nodules grew from the floor. These bulb-like shapes were displaying elaborate designs on their surfaces. Fairly often someone would issue a command, and a bulb would form a puckered slit, then spit out a kessence copy of the image that had been on display—a bit like an offer cap might do, but without any menacing intent. The Duke was a wealthy and generous host.

In the space of a minute, I saw several gifts appear. A guy started buzzing around the room on a soft motorcycle that seemed to be alive. Laughing shrilly and more loudly than seemed necessary, three women began bathing themselves in handfuls of jewels, pouring the vibrant gems over each other. Two couples started a badminton game, batting a blooming birdie back and forth. And a fat ghost set to work eating a newly made and golden-brown turkey. The nobles were living high on the hog.

Discarded items lay around the edges of the room—probably these were recent outputs of the special bulbs. Lesser ghosts—the Duke's guards—shuffled around, carrying the abandoned goodies to a slit in the plant where the leaf met its stem, feeding the kessence back into the great geranium.

“Recycling?” I asked Weena.

“Yes,” she said. “It's a token gesture. The effort of making things uses considerable kessence, which is lost for good. The castle is horribly in debt. Wizard Charles's great experiment has proved costlier than any of us imagined.”

A pair of things like lizards scampered across the floor in front of us. With a quick, graceful motion, Weena scooped them up. One of the creatures had two heads and six legs, the other was slightly different. Their colorful skins were bumpy all over, like broccoli, and somewhat translucent, with other colors lurking below.

“These lizards are pure kessence, and are designed by Charles himself,” said Weena, popping one into her mouth. “Quite wonderful. Taste.”

She handed me the remaining lizard. His outer layers were a milky blue, with orange channels beneath the surface. The channels were edged by curly swirls, and bore veins of deep purple in their centers. The veins demarcated the shape of his skeleton. As I considered eating the little beast, his three heads stared at me with beady eyes. And when I lifted the lizard toward my mouth, he hit me with a telepathic scream.

“Don't you hear that?” I asked Weena, nearly dropping the lizard. He was furiously twisting in my grip.

“Well, of course there's a human ghost within,” said Weena, carelessly. “Ghosts give our lizards pep. You eat the lizard, and the resident soul shrinks to a sprinkle. It's no great affair.” She picked at her teeth and flicked a sparkling fragment out into the air—the ghost from the creature she'd just eaten.

“I—I'm not hungry.”

Weena shrugged, then took back my lizard and bit into it. A crescendo of teeped anguish rolled over us—and came to an abrupt stop.

“I'll present you to the Duke now,” said Weena, striding forward. “Come.”

The Duke was sitting with his Duchess and some other nobles. He was a small man with a big jiva inside him. He wore a flowing purple robe embossed with tiny green dragon's heads that were animated so as to toss their snouts from side to side. His chest was swelled out, and his little legs dangled. The skin of his face was beef-pink, and a smeary white mustache perched above his droll, round mouth. I stepped forward and bowed.

“Welcome to the castle, Jim,” said the Duke. “It's damn rare to see astral travelers make it in this far—aside from Weena and the Wizard. You came at a real good time.” I'd been expecting a well-kippered British accent, but the Duke sounded like a random guy from a blue-collar bar back home.

“I've told Jim but few details, my Duke,” said Weena. “He knows only that he made the tunnel, that he opened the door, and that when he revisits Earth he'll be delivering a package.”

“Yes, and I'm wondering what that would—” I began.

“We're taxing Earth to pay my debts,” said the Duke with a wheezing chuckle. “That's all there is to it. A pretty little birdie put the idea in my head.” He smiled at the Duchess.

“Tax them how?” I asked.

“You're gonna carry ten thousand jiva eggs over there,” said the Duke. “There'll be some bleeding-heart protesters, sure, but I'm betting that the regular folks are gonna be happy with their jivas. You don't have to sweat no details. The eggs'll know what to do.”

“It's not like those debts are our fault,” said the Duchess in a low tone. She had the same coarse style of speech as her husband. “Don't jump to conclusions. The debts are from our so-called Wizard, Charles Howard. Him and his Atum's Lotus scam. The Duke and I keep thinking the guy's shot his wad—and then Weena begs us for more time. These two con artists have been stringing us along for—shit, this is crazy—about a century. All we ever wanted was a simple tunnel back to Earth where our kessence and zickzack bodies can pass through. We're not interested in Charles' crazy bullshit about a ladder to God. Okay, it's been exciting to watch the Atum's Lotus grow, but by now...”

She trailed off and shook her head. Despite her diction, the Duchess looked very much the part of a grande dame. Her body was outstandingly graceful. Wavy brunette hair framed her handsomely angular face, and she wore a teal and purple suit with subtly moving sequins on its surface.

“Charles Howard's put us on the map, hon,” the Duke told her. “Everyone who matters wants to visit here to see our Atum's Lotus.”

“I thought Charles Howard was an archaeologist?” I put it, hoping to figure out what they were talking about.

“My Charles has broadened his interests,” said Weena. “He's always had an interest in Darwin's theory of evolution. He sees archaeology as a psychic zoology, if you will. Now—as the Duchess says, Charles and I were originally commissioned to build a tunnel back to Earth. The Duke and his associates wanted to be able to revisit Earth without being obliterated by Flimsy's central light. They wanted to be able to bring their kessence bodies and their personalities and their jivas through. And of course Charles and I wanted to go back as well.”

“And now that you've set up that border snail, we've got our tunnel, Weena,” said the Duchess. “So—face it—your and Charles's boondoggle is done.”

“Charles's goals have moved beyond any mere tunnel,” said Weena. “We've discussed this, Your Grace. The ladder, as you term it. A discreet and non-destructive pathway to the core of Flimsy. That's what the current iteration of Atum's Lotus is for.”

“Look, if someone wants the goddess of Flimsy to clean their clock, all they gotta do is sink into the Dark Gulf and ride the current across the sky,” said the Duchess. “Or just teleport there if they want a frikkin' V.I.P. route to the drain hole.”

“It's not possible to teleport to the core,” said Weena firmly. “The goddess and the jivas don't allow for that. At present, the only beings who see the goddess are the sprinkles and destitute ghosts who are swept there by the living waters. They rain onto the goddess, perhaps to be sluiced through her navel into the white hole of reincarnation.”

“But you're offering something better?” said the Duchess.

“Charles feels those who reach the center via the chants of Atum's Lotus will have the ability to orbit the goddess,” persisted Weena. “You might say that Charles and I are presenting a new touristic possibility for our upper-class flims. Our Atum's Lotus will bring yet more cachet unto the Ducal residence. I implore Your Grace to ponder this new benison.”

“I'm not saying it's all crap,” grunted the Duke, finally speaking up. “Look at the Duchess's brooch, Jim. A bud from Atum's Lotus.”

He gave a little tap to the pin that the Duchess wore upon the lapel of her coat. At the moment, it resembled a gem-encrusted orchid—but the brooch's form was continually changing. The orchid lips opened and folded back, the pistils pushed out and grew tiny reflective spheres, and now these spheres blossomed into starbursts of spikes. A faint little song came from the thing, hauntingly sweet.

“Amazing,” I dutifully said. “Lovely.”

“An ever-renewing form,” said Weena. “A satellite fragment of Atum's Lotus. Charles trained this bud to accompany the Duchess wherever she goes.”

“I'm proud to have Charles working here,” said the Duke to his wife. “It gives our castle a high tone.” Studying the brooch, he sighed with pleasure. “This thing is amazing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said the Duchess impatiently. “My point is that we've got the nice, solid Earth tunnel we were looking for in the first place. So we don't need these expensive flourishes anymore. I could ditch this brooch in a minute. What's amazing is that you let busy little Weena write up a contract for a loan from the sleazy frikkin' Bulbers. And now they're in a position to be making threats?”

“There were certain terms that the Bulbers sought,” said Weena, smoothly. “I was merely a facilitator.”

“Facilitating a fifteen percent commission for yourself,” said the Duchess, stamping her foot. “You'd already be a gone goose, Weena, if you hadn't of found that snail tunnel. At least we can use your tunnel to bail us out. We'll pay off the debt and close down Atum's Lotus for good. Enough's enough.”

“I humbly offer the thought that Wizard Charles's work has justified any and all expenses, Your Grace,” said Weena. “And I admire the ingenuity of your solution. It is well if the Earthlings pitch in! Though they know it not, Atum's Lotus is the shrouded peak of their civilization's creations, a flower of song that blooms from their history's mud.”

“Oh, you just act all high-flown about that Lotus because you're screwing Charles,” said the Duchess dismissively. “For a while there, you were talking the same way about the Graf.” The Duchess studied Weena for a moment, as if thinking something over. “Too bad you didn't let that little Durkle boy come in here. You never do anything right. I could have jumped the kid and eaten his tasty little soul.” The Duchess laughed harshly.

“I—I hadn't realized...” stuttered Weena. This was the first time I'd ever seen her on the defensive.

“Did I tell you we've got a woman with a yuel-built body coming for a little stay?” continued the Duchess. “A hot little tramp. She'll be here soon. It's gonna be wild, hooking into that pure kessence funk. The yuels are sending us this girl to repay us for giving them that ghost who'd glommed onto Jim.” The Duchess regarded me coolly, waiting to see my reaction.

“Let's not unpack every goddamn bit of our dirty laundry,” chided the Duke. “Let's tell Jim about his delivery job now.”

“Uh, yes,” I said, fighting to control my anger. I could hardly even hear or see. “About the—the eggs?” I temporized. “I'm still not sure if—”

“You'll be upping the quality of people's lives,” said the Duchess, in a tone that brooked no contradiction. “Forget about it! Jivas are great. Tonight you sleep in Weena's room, and tomorrow we'll be ready with the eggs. End of story. And don't go thinking there's any way to skeeve out of this. The jiva inside you is keeping close watch. Right, Mijjy?”

“Indeed, Your Grace,” said my voice, taking on a fruity, obsequious tone. Mijjy was making me play the courtier. “Your will is mine.”