Spaceland (29 page)

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Authors: Rudy Rucker

BOOK: Spaceland
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“Don't you Dronners have machines? The Kluppers do.”
“Machines suck,” said Kangy. “We haven't used them for ten thousand years. Whoops, hang on, Joe, I see some food up ahead.”
“What about finding Drabk?”
Kangy made a Jena-type gesture, holding her Jena-hands up at chest level and flapping them up and down in my direction. It meant “calm down.” The Jena stepped over and pressed against me, as if to make sure I didn't come unglued from the inside of Kangy's huge cheek.
The great hypercuttlefish's jaws opened up and I could see outside past the fringe of her tentacles. We were in a long cave, flying along at a tremendous speed, presumably on our way to the surface of Dronia. The space was illuminated by the glowing air of the All. Rather than being solid, the walls were an intricate filigree of mineral formations, just like in the famous Indian Caverns three miles
west of Matthewsboro. My hometown's big tourist attraction, which drew hundreds of visitors each summer.
I recognized the upward-growing stalagmites, the downward-growing stalactites, the helictites that grew in any direction at all, and the sagging sheets of drapery we used to call cave bacon. The walls were covered with formations like soda straws, popcorn nuggets, and coral. The floor was rippled with slumping sheets of flowstone and dripstone.
And of course it was all four-dimensional. The stone columns, antlers, cascades and nubs were continually changing their shapes and sizes as we moved vinn and vout among them. I was glad to be flying inside of Kangy; I would have crashed the saucer in here for sure. It was beautiful. Kangy was nice. As I thought this, the Jena kissed me on the cheek.
Far ahead were some pinky-gray shapes moving among the mazes of rock. They had long feelers and stalk-eyes, any number of little flipper-legs, and curved bodies with fanned-out tails. They were moving along backwards, powering themselves by repeated snaps of their tails, their frightened beady eyes watching Kangy's approach. Hyperprawns!
Just as it seemed we'd cornered one, it disappeared through what looked like a solid wall. Kangy veered vinnward and the wall opened up into a space like a cathedral, with the hyperprawn streaking across it. Kangy gave a huge flap of her fin, and a moment later we'd caught up with the prey. Kangy's tentacles seized it, her beak bit it in half, and then the two twitching pieces of the hyperprawn went skipping across her mouth and down her gullet. The Jena held me tight lest I be pulled along.
“Yum yum,” said Kangy, opening her jaws again so I could still see the view. “We're almost there.” The nave of the stone cathedral narrowed down to another tunnel, which arced upwards to form a vertical shaft. I saw a bright ball up above, and then we powered
out of the tunnel's spherical mouth and into a hilly landscape of heavenly beauty.
The sky was the perfect bright blue of autumn, the hills the fine, crisp green of early spring. Thanks to some oddity of the fourth dimension, many of the hills seemed to float up in the sky. Conversely, there were holes in the ground holding patches of blue. In this part of Dronia, earth and sky were mixed together.
Weaving from hill to floating hill were the thick, brownishpurple stalks of enormous vines. Everything in Dronia seemed almost weightless. I guess it was the thickness of the air.
The vines had great heart-shaped leaves and pale white flowers. Gently drifting among them were legions of hypercuttlefish, feeding upon the fruits of the vines. These were the Lords and Ladies of Dronia, or so it seemed.
“There's my husband,” Kangy told me through the Jena. “His name is Stool.”
“That's nice,” I said in a strained voice. Something about my relief at having made it up here made me want to burst out laughing, and Stool's absurd name almost set me off. I was trying not even to
think
of laughing. For I knew that Kangy could read my mind.
Stool came sailing over to greet Kangy, propelled by his frilly body-fin. He approached in silence, with his tentacles tidily bunched to a point over his mouth. A riot of colors was playing across his body, and even from inside Kangy's mouth, I could see that she was flashing with patterns as well. This was how they talked. Stool docked against Kangy as quietly as an airship, twining his mouth-tentacles with hers. One of his thinner tentacles reached into Kangy's beak and felt me. A sudden bright blue eye opened up on its tip to examine me. He didn't smell quite as pleasant as Kangy. There was the same baked potato smell, but it was mixed with ammonia instead of with lavender.
“Stool says ‘Howdy pardner,'” said Kangy's Jena, laying her hand upon the tentacle. “He wants to know if you'd like to ride on his bank. He'll he better than me at taking you the rest of the way to Drabk.”
“All right,” I said. The idea of getting out of Kangy's mouth sounded pretty good. “But can Stool talk to me like you do?”
“He'll he able to if you let him touch you for a minute. He can model your brain even faster than me. Stool's smart.”
So I held still while Stool broadened his tentacle tip into a flat paddle that he laid along the vouter side of my body, right against my brain. I felt a creepy tingling all over the inside of my skull, and then the tentacle drew back and formed itself into a shape like a Western saddle.
“You can get on him now,” said Kangy's Jena. “Good luck!”
“Thank you,” I said, seating myself on Stool's tentacle. He'd even grown little stirrups for my feet. “Will one of you take me back to Spaceland after I meet Drabk?”
“Drabk can put you there himself,” said Kingly. “Distances are nothing for him. God speed your journey, Joe Cube. And remember. Love, don't deal.”
The two hypercuttlefish released each other, and Stool swept me up to a spot on his head between the two bulging mounds of his eyes. It was like an elephant lifting up his rider. I felt pretty grand up on top of Stool. His endlessly changeable flesh shaped out a seat for me there, with a hole for my legs, a back for me to lean against, and handgrips on either side. And right there in his skin near my knees was the vertical slit of a mouth.
“We're gonna hightail it to that there Sharak of Okbra,” said the mouth in a cowboy accent. “Hang on right, you hear me, pardner?” Stool sounded like my Dad, or like Dad would have sounded if he'd been a slit in the back of a four-dimensional cuttlefish named Stool.
That last thought finished me off. “I'm r-ready, S-stool,” I said, the giggles growing into guffaws. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. This was so far beyond anything that made sense.
“What's so all-fired funny?” said Stool in mock anger. He was beating his big fin, flying up into the sky. Since the back of the chair was touching the vinner side of my brain, he could feel everything I was thinking. “My name means ‘turd' to you, eh? I been called worse'n that, boy.”
“I'm sorry,” I said, tears of laughter running from my eyes.
“Don't make no never-mind,” said Stool equably. “You here to do a good deed. Savin' your world, and protectin' the Kluppers from gettin' their asses handed to 'em. I'm right proud to help you.”
We rose higher and higher. The floating hills were like islands, each of them seemingly rounded off and grassy on every side. Only by moving my third eye could I see the Doctor-Seuss-style natural bridges connecting them to the ground.
Some other Dronners were flying along with us, their hyperskins flowing with the colors of their speech. The patterns included tilings, paisley swirls, networks of light, photorealistic images—all at once. The patterns were three-dimensional; they were modulated all along the vinn/vout axis of each Dronner's hyperskin.
It occurred to me that Stool was probably showing the others my thoughts. Well, that was fine, for I had nothing but pleasant feelings about this place. It was a paradise—the clear sky, the graceful vines, the floating hills, the hypercuttlefish aglow with 3D colors—it was paradise, and I was happier than I'd ever been.
Still we mounted higher. There was only one more island of green, all by itself a half mile above us. The air was getting thin, and Stool's fin was working harder than before. One by one, his companions turned back, unable to continue the ascent.
With a last push, Stool reached the final floating hill. It was no
more than a hundred yards across. There were small white and yellow blossoms in the bright green grass. Stool latched onto the grass with his mouth tentacles. “End o' the road, pardner,” he said. “I expect you'll find ole Drabk here”
I scooted down the sloping backs of his tentacles and set foot upon the floating hill. We were maybe two miles above the surface of Dronia. The little ball of a hill slanted down on every side. I felt distinctly uneasy about the possibility of slipping off it. On the crest of the hill, one of those thick vines rose up into the air before swerving into another dimension and out of sight. I decided I'd sit next to it. Something to hang onto.
“Take 'er easy, son,” called my father's voice from the slit in Stool's back. “God bless.”
“You're leaving me up here?” I said.
By way of an answer, Stool let out a “Yee-haw!” He released his hold on the hill and dropped fin-first towards Dronia. I peered down, watching him enjoy the fall like a sky-boarder, steering himself through spirals and loops.
And now it grew very quiet. I made my way to the vine and sat down at its thick base, waiting to see what would happen next. The stalk was thick, with a barky texture. Almost like a tree. There was a slight whisper of wind in its large, heart-shaped leaves. I wondered how the Wackles were doing in keeping the Kluppers away from that hole in our space. I hoped to God that Jena had managed to convince Spazz not to turn on his Mophone again. Even though the Dronners didn't care all that much about Spaceland, for me Spaceland was everything. My heart lived there. My Jena.
More time passed, and finally I thought to call Drabk's name aloud. Something like a face with a heavy mustache popped out of the trunk of the vine, a little knob of a face with floppy pointed ears and a thick, Middle Eastern kind of mustache. The mustache—
that was the caterpillar thing I'd seen in the Wackles' minds. Drabk's face had bright, bulging eyes with slanting slits for their irises. The overall effect was of something old and wise and sly.
“Drabk?” I repeated.
“You have traveled far,” he said in a low, silky tone. His accent matched his mustache. “What is your purpose?”
“I need a space patch,” I said. “The Kluppers made a hole in Spaceland and I need a 3D piece of space to cover it up.”
“This one wonders where we might find such a patch,” said Drabk, cocking his head to one side and blinking.
I had a sudden mental image of the RCA Victor dog, harking for His Master's Voice. But Drabk was supposed to be the Master here. The Sharak.
I figured that when he said “this one,” he meant himself. Running a guru routine. I didn't much like gurus. When I was growing up, there'd been one who'd gotten his followers to buy up some ranches near Matthewsboro. We'd see the followers in town sometimes, educated people who talked softly and kept their mouths set in smiles. But they'd turn mean as snakes whenever there was any kind of disagreement, like over sewage or cattle or dogs or property taxes.
“The Wackles and the Dronners said you'd know how to make a patch,” I said carefully. “They said you could do anything.”
“
You
can do anything,” said Drabk, his eyes glinting. “You have the patch already.”
“No I don't,” I said, feeling impatient. “That's why I came here. They said you could give me a patch and that you could set me down next to the hole in Spaceland. You do know what Spaceland is, don't you?”
“This one knows nothing,” said Drabk flatly. “This one doesn't think. Climb past the words and thoughts, Joe Cube. You already have the patch.”
“That crummy significant crud doesn't mean jack to me” I snapped, suddenly losing it. “So thanks for nothing.”
“You don't have it yet,” said Drabk, and twinkled at me while I figured that one out.
And then the bump that was his face began sliding up the vine. He paused just before the bend where the stalk disappeared into another dimension—the fifth? Drabk stared provokingly down at me, his mustache unreadable, his floppy ears hanging over his brilliant eyes. “Follow this one,” he said. “Climb the beanstalk.” And then he moved out of view.
I sighed and looked longingly down at Dronia. I was feeling weak and shaky. It had been too long since my last piece of grolly. Maybe I should go home.
If I turned my third eye far enough to my vinner side, I could just make out a narrow path of green land leading down and down from my tiny hill, an inches-wide strip that forked and merged with other airy paths like lace. Theoretically I could scoot along it and make my way back down. Or, hell, I could probably just jump off and sky-surf my way down like Stool had. But then what?
I put my hands on the vine to nowhere. I was scared to climb it, but deep down I knew I had to. I took hold of a coiled, dangling tendril overhead. When I pulled on it, the tendril pulled back, helping me. It was like the vine wanted me to climb it. I started on up, from tendril to leaf to tendril.

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