Spaceland (12 page)
Authors: Rudy Rucker
“On second thought, I think I'll bring the money by your office,” I told the Realtor.
She looked me over again. “How soon?” she said finally. “We've had two other calls on this property already. It wouldn't be fair to the owner toâ”
I glanced at my watch. It was eleven. “I'll be there by one,” I said.
“We can hold it for that long,” said Kay. “But let us know if
you'll be late. If I'm not in, the girl at the desk will take care of you.” She shook my hand. “It's been nice working with you, Mr. Cube. And don't forget to call me when you're ready to put your Silva View Crescent house on the market.”
you'll be late. If I'm not in, the girl at the desk will take care of you.” She shook my hand. “It's been nice working with you, Mr. Cube. And don't forget to call me when you're ready to put your Silva View Crescent house on the market.”
The Realtor drove off, leaving me standing there next to my car. What now? I needed to talk to Momo. The sun was going behind some clouds. I put on my leather jacket and walked around behind the house to its weedy backyard. There were some back steps and a little porchâa bare platform of warped gray boards.
“Hey Momo!” I called, sitting down on the edge of the porch. “Come talk to me. One of your friends just stole my money!”
No answer. I guessed she was still off fetching those antenna crystals she'd been talking about. Well, hopefully she'd be back soon. She could always get me more money. I opened the attaché case again, checking that it was really and truly empty, then lit a cigarette and sat there thinking. That red hand hadn't looked like Momo's hand one bit. Presumably the thief was some other kind of being from the four-dimensional All.
I had a vague memory of Momo mentioning a race called the Dronners. Momo was from the Kluppers; they lived up above our Spacelandâ“up” in Momo's sense of the word. She'd said something about the Dronners being another folk who lived down below. Like Heaven and Hell, with Earth in between. If that red devil hand had been a Dronner's, I wasn't looking forward to seeing any more of those guys.
For the moment I was all alone in the yard. I hate being alone. I focused in on my subtle vision, checking out my surroundings. Next door was a complex of doctor's offices; not regulation MD doctors, but rather counselors, chiropractors, massage therapists, holistic healers and wellness consultants. And back behind the lot were the eucalyptuses and the bank down to Route 17. My third eye noticed some homeless people camped in a culvert under the highway.
Just kind of sitting there staring at a strip of sky. They didn't care about the traffic. If all else failed I could join them.
Just kind of sitting there staring at a strip of sky. They didn't care about the traffic. If all else failed I could join them.
I turned my attention to the house, checking it out again. For some reason my third eye seemed to be getting misty, but with a little effort I could still focus it. There wasn't any basement to the house, and the attic crawlspace didn't have anything in it but wires and insulation. The tiny, sealed garage was dusty and empty. And the house, well, it wasn't that bad. I kept on sitting there, not knowing what else to do.
Traffic wasn't all that loud just now. It seemed to come and go. I could do worse than live here. Just then my shaky subtle vision noticed a Lincoln Towncar turn off from the 17 exit and roll into the lot in front of the house. There were two guys inside it, one of them very fit and tan, with a Latin-lover look to him. The pit boss from Nero's. He was holding a cell phone like he was taking instructions from somebody as he drove. The other guy was pale and thin with a gimmie cap pulled down low over his eyes. Gus the shill. They were both wearing shades and, thanks to my third eye, I could peek under their coats to see that they were carrying guns in shoulder holsters. Gus had something like a knife strapped to his leg as well. Oh no. They jumped out of their car, one of them heading around either side of the house. It was like they knew I was back there.
I headed for the eucalyptuses, but Gus caught up with me before I got there. He was fast.
“Joe Cube,” he shouted. He'd pulled out his gun. “Don't make me hurt you, bro.”
I stopped and turned to face them. Gus's gun had a silencer, like in the movies. Sante was standing a little behind him.
“Hey, Joe,” said the pit boss smoothly. “Sorry to bust in on you like this.”
“Sante,” I said, trying to smile. “You guys scared me. What's the problem?”
“Health problem,” said Sante. “You feelin' okay? Can buy a lot of good care with a million bucks. Don't stand over there by the trees like that. You look scared. Whatsamatter? There don't have to be no problem. Come on and let's go in your house.”
“It's not my house,” I said. “Nobody lives there. I was just looking at it.”
“Nice and private here,” said Sante, looking around the yard. “This is a real good part of town. I grew up in downtown San Jose. My Mom's still livin' there. But enough with the light chit-chat. Let's sit on the back steps. Where you was sittin' before.”
“How do you know where I was sitting?”
“Little bird phoned me,” said Sante. “Little pigeon. You don't got such good friends, Joe. Fella told us you cheated at the big game last night. Nero's don't like that. Good thing you got the case with you.”
“Go on,” said Gus, gesturing with his gun. “Go on over there and sit drown.” He took the case out of my hand as I passed him.
The three of us sat down on the edge of the porch. It pretty much had to be Spazz who'd phoned them. But why? He already had my wife. And I'd said I'd give her half the money. Why was Spazz doing this to me?
“It's empty,” I said, just as Gus flicked open the case. Gus cursed and threw the empty case halfway across the yard.
Sante did that thing with his eyebrows. Looking all mature and long-suffering. A this-hurts-me-more-than-it-hurts-you kind of face. Jerk. “Help us out, Joe,” he said. “You cheat at Nero's, you pay Nero's back.”
“I didn't cheat,” I protested. “I don't know who you've been talking to. It's a lie. I got lucky is all. How would I cheat? We
played with your cards. I didn't even freaking
touch
the cards. You can't just go threatening everybody who wins at your casino.” I was hitting my stride now. “You can't do this, Sante. I'll tell the cops.”
played with your cards. I didn't even freaking
touch
the cards. You can't just go threatening everybody who wins at your casino.” I was hitting my stride now. “You can't do this, Sante. I'll tell the cops.”
“You ain't goin' to no cops, Joe,” said Sante. “We know where you got your seed money.”
“What are you talking about?” I said, trying to keep my voice level.
“The seventeen thousand dollars you used to buy your chips,” said Sante. “You stole them from the vault at a Wells Fargo in the north part of San Jose. We checked the numbers on your bills and matched them to a report come out on the police wire. Nero's is connected, Joe. We got friends all over the place. We ain't passed the word on you yet, though. None of us needs to snitch to no cops. You give us back our million and we keep your seventeen. It's like a gentleman's agreement.”
“Gee,” I said, a little recklessly. “Will you comp me next time I come to Nero's?”
Gus grabbed me hard by the arm. “You think we're playin' with you, Joe? You ever step in a casino again, you're a dead man. Where's the million at?”
“It'sâit's not here. Maybe I can get it for you.”
“Maybe?” said Sante, grabbing my other arm. “You're disrespecting us, bub.” He pushed me down onto my back. “Show him the pick, Gus.”
Gus pulled up his pant leg and pulled out the knifeâor no, it was an ice pick. The dull gray of its steel was shiny silver where the tip had been ground to the sharpest of points. Gus pulled my shirt tail out of my pants and ripped my shirt open, popping the buttons and uncovering my bare belly. I tried to roll away, but Sante had me pinned tight. And now Gus sat down on my legs.
“Don't,” I said. My voice wasn't as loud as I wanted it to be.
“Don't,” I shouted, finding my volume, and then I broke into a shriek. “Help! Someone help me!”
“Don't,” I shouted, finding my volume, and then I broke into a shriek. “Help! Someone help me!”
“That's loud traffic, huh?” said Sante pulling a rolled-up pair of cotton sweat socks out of his coat pocket. He forced them into my mouth, wedging my jaws so far open that the hinge made a pop. “We're gonna give you a taste of what your Mom did to your Dad. What a piece of work she musta been, what a psycho. Yeah, Nero's knows all about you, Joe. We done our research. Boss was laughin' about this. Gut-stab this Cube guy, he was sayin'. That'll get his attention. Boss is like a psychologist, he likes to tailor our approach, know what I mean?”
I tried to scream, to beg, to make promises, but nothing was coming out past the socks. I threw myself against Sante and Gus, struggling like never before.
“Take it easy there, Joe,” said Sante, enjoying this. “Don't have a coronary. It ain't really nothin', gettin' stabbed with an ice pick. We know a nice spot so you won't even need a doctor. But next time we use the knife. Do him, Gus.”
“Right here?” said Gus, patting a spot on the left side of my pale, trembling stomach. Sante nodded, his eyebrows slanting down to the sides. I tried again to squirm away, but they had me completely immobilized.
Gus poised the ice pick like he was about to throw a dart, and then whipped it down towards me. With all my will, I drew my stomach away from the point.
I heard the ice pick thud into the wood of the porch. The musical sound of it quivering. Suddenly I remembered my dream of last night. It was like the dream had gotten me ready for this, had prepared me so I'd know what to do.
“What theâ?” said Sante. “He broke in two?”
“Jesus, Sante,” said Gus. “We've killed him.”
I lay still, watching things with my feebly functioning third eye. A foot-wide strip of my body had disappeared; it had bowed vout into the fourth dimension. My legs had slid up the steps a little to take up the slack. I'd done just like Dad had done in Flatland. The spots where my body bent away into higher space were sealed over with tough pink hideâthe hyperskin I'd gotten when Momo cattleprodded me. There was a big pink oval at my waist and another at the bottom of my chest. With nothing in between.
I let my head loll to the side like I was dead. I was having a bad enough day that acting dead felt natural. Sante and Gus stood over me, not sure what to do next. And then Momo appeared in the yard, looking for all the world like an overgrown yuppie homeowner on the warpath.
“Foul villains!” she exclaimed, striding towards us. “You'll pay for this crime!”
“Waste her,” said Sante. Gus already had his pistol out; he leveled it at Momo's head and fired off a shot. With the silencer, the gunshot was nothing but a hissing pop. Like an air gun. The bullet struck Momo right in the forehead. A little dimple formed where the bullet hit; the bullet popped out and fell to the ground; the dimple smoothed over. She kept on coming. Sante got out his gun and shot Momo too, this time in the chest. The bullet had no more effect than a finger poking a loaf of dough.
Sante and Gus took to their heels. With my spotty subtle vision, I watched their Towncar go fishtailing out of the driveway and onto Route 17. My stomach slid back into visibility. I got to my feet.
Klupdom
“Well done,
Joe,” said Momo, walking over to me. “Practice the motion again, before you forget the trick of it.”
Joe,” said Momo, walking over to me. “Practice the motion again, before you forget the trick of it.”
I looked down at the ice pick, still stuck in the wood of the porch, and tried to reproduce my feelings of terror. But for the moment, my bare stomach stayed stubbornly in place, butt-white in the pale winter sunlight.
“Come come,” said Momo taking the ice pick in her hand and waving it at me. “You can do it.”
Seeing the ice pick move towards me was enough. It was like that first instant when your skis unfreeze and you start sliding down a run. It takes only the slightest twitch to get started. With a steady, even motion, my midsection rose vout into the fourth dimension.
“Now your arm,” said Momo.
It was easier this time. The trick was to take a part of my body and to want it to be somewhere else. My arm disappeared from view, starting at the hand and working its way up. Oddly enough, the sleeves of my shirt and coat stayed behind. I looked like an amputee, but I could feel my hand off in hyperspace somewhere, and I could dimly see it with my failing subtle vision.
“Your head,” said Momo.
That went too. And now, like a magnetic sticker peeling off the side of a refrigerator, the rest of my body joined me. And all of my clothes stayed behind. Khaki pants, underwear, Banana Republic shirt, Patagonia jacket, socks, shoesâeverything stayed on that back porch. Even my Swatch. I'd slipped vout of everything I owned and landed naked in another world.
It was nice being vout beyond our world. It was just warm enough to be comfortable. The four-dimensional All was filled with four-dimensional air, and I was augmented enough to breathe it. The air was bright, though nowhere did I see a higher Sun. As I'd noticed before, our Spaceland seemed to be floating inside an enormous four-dimensional cavern, fully blocking off half of the view.
I turned to look at Momo. Though my subtle vision was ever weaker, my third eye showed Momo as a solid three-dimensional form resembling a translucent mass of coral. Her eyes were down inside the flesh like raisins in a muffin, but now, as she turned towards me, the eyes migrated out to the closest part of her. Her arms and legs stuck out of her middle like the branches of a mutant forked radish. She was sitting on that comical little chrome saucer of hers.
She reached out toward me with one of her flowing pink arms. To my regular vision the arm seemed to break up into pieces as it moved; to my third eye it looked like a long water balloon being filled at one end and emptied at the other. Momo's hand was holding out something like a small, mildly glowing dinner roll, pale blue in color. It was a roll in my own three-dimensional space, that is, but just a few inches vout from there it was a bagel. My third eye combined the two versions, showing the object as a bagel nested inside a translucent roll, with both shapes clearly visible.
“You must be famished,” said Momo. “All you've been getting is three-dimensional food. Your third eye and higher musculature
need four-dimensional nourishment. Eat this. We call it grolly. A great delicacy with tremendous strengthening powers. It's a sort of fruit that grows only in the Cave Between Worlds, that is, upon these walls around us. Grolly is the foundation of my family's fortune.” She gestured towards the distant sides of the cavern, which indeed had some pastel patterns that could have been growths of plants.
need four-dimensional nourishment. Eat this. We call it grolly. A great delicacy with tremendous strengthening powers. It's a sort of fruit that grows only in the Cave Between Worlds, that is, upon these walls around us. Grolly is the foundation of my family's fortune.” She gestured towards the distant sides of the cavern, which indeed had some pastel patterns that could have been growths of plants.
I took the grolly and bit into it. It was satisfying like nothing I'd ever tasted before. It was like having a whole long meal all at once. All of my augmented body's parts were enjoying it. This food of the All was a bit like a higher form of bread, but firmer, springier, and with a taste that combined the moist succulence of fresh sliced peaches with the melting sweetness of fine chocolate. I ate my way through the middle of it, gnawing it in two. I wished Jena was there to try some too. The pieces drifted away, but I caught hold of one and ate some more, making new grolly fragments that all escaped from me. I was clumsy at holding onto things in the fourth dimension. My hands seemed as awkward as cardboard pincers. Momo snagged the loose pieces and ate them herself.
As I was wolfing down the grolly, my subtle vision grew strong and clear. I'd been weak with hunger, that's all. I looked around for more food. Off in the distance were the walls of the cave, spotted with those pastel patches, the colors a shimmer of pale blues, purples, and yellows. The patches looked a lot farther than I wanted to go into the fourth dimension. It seemed wise to get back to Earth soon. Jena and Spazz would be in town. I still needed to figure out where I stood with Jena. And as for Spazzâmore than ever I felt like killing the guy. The business with the gangsters had gotten me into a really disturbed state of mind.
“What happened to my money?” I asked Momo, remembering my emptied-out attaché case. “Was that a Dronner who took it?”
“It was Wackle,” said Momo. “An hydra-headed enemy indeed.”
She paused, and again I studied her form, thinking about the difference between subtle and regular vision.
She paused, and again I studied her form, thinking about the difference between subtle and regular vision.
With my regular eyes I saw three dimensional cross sections of four-dimensional things. Well, strictly speaking, I saw two dimensional patterns on my retina which my brain, through lifelong habit, knew how to interpret as three-dimensional things. By twitching my higher muscles in a certain way, I could turn my head a bit in the vinn and vout directions, and by wobbling vinn and vout I could see complete sequences of cross sections. If I looked at one edge of Momo, I saw a little ball, and as I moved my head, the ball changed into her full womanly form.
My subtle vision was a different story. I was still getting used to my third eye, perched on that stalk from the center of my brain. It was a little disgusting to even think that I had such a thing; it made me feel like a crab or a lobster. But the third eye's subtle vision gave me a much better view of the fourth dimension than any series of three-dimensional slices. If an ordinary eye's images are like photographs, my third eye's images were like stacks of film frames, with one frame for each layer of four-dimensional space. To my third eye, the world resembled an art-glass paperweight filled with colorful blobs.
I saw Momo as a solid mass with subtle shadings all through her. That was one of the odd things in my third-eye images up here. Shadows went right into the middles of things. The third dimension was no barrier at all. Momo's eyes were buried inside her flesh like dots of blue inside pink glass. But the things that looked as if they were inside Momo weren't really inside her. They were vinn or vout, that's all. Not that I understood all this right away.
Momo was talking to me about Wackle, gesturing with a hand that bloomed out of her insides. It was like seeing a sandy spot in a tide pool open up into a sea anemone.
“Wackle is most troublesome,” she was saying. “Not only did
Wackle take your money, it was Wackle who telephoned those ruffians. I plan to kill Wackleâat least as much of him as I can. You'll be of use in this matter.”
Wackle take your money, it was Wackle who telephoned those ruffians. I plan to kill Wackleâat least as much of him as I can. You'll be of use in this matter.”
“What? No way!” Did she really expect me to get in the middle of a four-dimensional feud? I ran my hands over my face. I needed to be patching things up with my wife, not starting in on some weird new battle.
“Let's go back,” I said, turning towards Spaceland. It was no more than a few feet away. Rotated out into the fourth dimension as I was, my regular eyes saw Spaceland very poorly. My regular eyes could only see ghostly slices of that back porch I'd been sitting on. But my third eye could see the porch and house and yard as clearly as beforeâa familiar three-dimensional shape that looked as desirable as a dock would look to a drowning man. My watch and my clothes were lying there. I reached out towards them, not sure how to move myself through empty hyperspace.
“Not yet, Joe,” said Momo. “As long as you're up here in the All, let me show you my home. Don't worry about your thingsâhere, I'll put them into your car.” She reached down and grabbed my stuff, getting a tight grip on my watch so its innards wouldn't fall out, and then she used her saucer to dart us over to my locked car, easily setting my watch and clothes onto the seat. “We'll be on our way, then,” said Momo. “To Grollyton in the mighty land of Klupdom. We'll fetch your cell phone antenna crystals while we're there. I'm sure Voule has a batch by now.”
“You still didn't bring them?”
“It takes some time,” said Momo. “It's delicate work. I came back down to check on you because I had a feeling that Wackle would start making trouble as soon as I was well out of the way. Oh, before we go, let's bring something for you to give the Empress. Pick something from your car.”
“Umâwhat does the Empress like?”
“You decide.” One of the things I'd put into the car was an old mouse from my computer. For Christmas, Jena had given me a new improved cordless mouse with optical tracking and a mouse wheel, and I didn't know what to do with the old one. It still worked, so I hadn't thrown it away. But I didn't have any use for it anymore. I reached vinn towards my car and snagged that. My gift for the Empress.
“How do I carry it?” I asked Momo. “I'm naked. I don't have any pockets.”
“You can have this,” she said, and gave me a four-dimensional sack with a four-dimensional cord that I tied around my waist. The sack was of a soft cloth like dark blue velvet. The mouse fit easily inside. The sack's mouth was a sphere that the cord was somehow able to pull closed.
Momo reached out and took hold of me, then tucked me under her arm like a painter carrying a canvas. “Klupdom ho!” she cried, and sent her little saucer darting upwards towards the great spotted walls of the cavern. Though I had no way to judge distances here, it seemed as if they might be several miles away.
In fact the cliffs were farther than that, and it took some time to approach them, even though the saucer seemed to move incredibly fast. It had a nice high windshield that automatically curved further around us as we accelerated. Finally the cliffs were close enough that I could make out some details. The gray stone of the rocks was mottled with the patches of pale glowing light that Momo said were colonies of grolly. Many of the grolly patches had been partly cleared away, leaving a beige stubble. In the midst of some of the half-cleared patches I could see Kluppers at work. Each group of workers was accompanied by a large, trucklike saucer that they were loading up.
“Your people harvest the grolly?” I asked Momo.
“Indeed,” she said. “Grolly is more than a victual; it's an elixir. As it happens, my family owns the rights to harvest from all the grolly fields in these parts. We manage our plants with great care. You'll notice some guards about; they watch for Kluppers who might think to come down here and poach from what is my family's. Our guards watch for Dronners as well. There's no grolly left in Dronia. The fecund and profligate Dronners have eaten their plants into extinction. They're like a race of locusts. It's a common thing for them to sneak up through Spaceland and steal from us. We can't see through Spaceland, you know. The Dronners use it to hide from us.” Momo's tone was stern and unforgiving. She reminded me of someone, but for the moment I couldn't place the memory.
“I'm surprised there aren't a lot of Klupper tourists around,” I said. “Don't you guys like to come down here just to look at Spaceland?”
“The Empress and her High Council discourage travel to the Cave Between Worlds,” said Momo. “Her Highness fears that some casual visitor might harm Spaceland. She lends great credence to an ancient legend that links Klupdom's well-being to the health of Spaceland. As above, so below, eh? She cares not that the cover of Spaceland makes it so easy for the Dronners to get within striking range of my family's grolly.”
Momo was a fanatic on the subject of Dronners and grolly. Instead of answering I kept looking around. I needed all three eyes to make out what I was seeing.
To my regular eyes, the walls looked like rock, except that, as we moved, the rocks were morphing into different shapes. A minute ago, for instance, the closest outcrop had looked like a range of mountains, but as Momo's saucer moved us onward along some direction that was a combination of up and vout, the mountains
smoothed over into rolling, lavalike mounds, and as we traveled further, the valleys between the hills deepened into ragged canyons.
smoothed over into rolling, lavalike mounds, and as we traveled further, the valleys between the hills deepened into ragged canyons.
It wasn't like these landscapes were next to each otherâno, they were all in the same direction. It just depended on where in hyperspace I looked at them from. It reminded me of a computer-animated ad I'd seen for an SUV. In the ad, the hills around a guy in a car got big and turned into snow-capped mountains. The fourth dimension was like an animator's morph knob.
My third eye was able to see all three versions at once, the mountains, the hills, and the canyons. My third eye saw them as inside each other; the mountains inside the hills inside the canyons. I think the order had to do with how far away they were.
A shape flew past. It was a muscular, gray-suited Klupper on a ridiculous little flying disk like Momo's. He was carrying a tube that looked like a weapon: a science-fiction bazooka with wires and radiator fins. I wasn't into science fiction, but for some reason Jena got a kick out of
Star Trek
, so we'd seen every one of the however many
Star Trek
movies made. She'd like imprinted on the show when she was growing up in Arizona.
Star Trek
, so we'd seen every one of the however many
Star Trek
movies made. She'd like imprinted on the show when she was growing up in Arizona.
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