The Ware Tetralogy by Rudy Rucker (most important books of all time .txt) đ
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âSo either we keep the allas secret forever,â said Babs. âOr we get murdered. Or we throw our allas away. Or we figure out how to give one to everyone in the world. Four possibilities. And the first oneâs impossible. Secrets get out. Especially with the aliens hanging with random cheeseballs and lifters all day long.â
âTheyâre on the _Anubis?â _said Randy. âThatâs where, isnât it? Why didnât anyone tell me?â He was sitting next to Babs; Willa Jean had nestled in between them.
âWe assumed that if you knew, youâd instantly run over there to try and fuck Shimmer again,â said Cobb. âI, for one, wanted to see my great-grandsonâs poor bod get a few days rest.â
âIââ Randyâs voice cracked. âI ainât doinâ that no more. Not while I got a chance with Babs.â
âHow touching,â said Yoke in a voice that struggled to stay level. She paused to clear her throat. âLetâs think. What Babs said boils down to this. If we donât want to get killed, we either get rid of our allas or we figure out how to give an alla to everyone. Iâm for everyone getting an alla. We just have to find out how to tell an alla to make an alla.â
âIâm not sure about that,â said Babs, absently petting Willa Jean. âPeople are too stupid. If everyone gets an alla, every square inch of the world will be full ofâcrap. Itâs been fun making art with the alla, but I was an artist before I got my alla, and Iâll be an artist when itâs gone. Maybe Iâd rather just throw it away than have idiots use it.â
âWell, thatâs great for you, Miss High and Mighty,â said Yoke. âBut Iâm an artist too. Only there was never an art-form I felt really good at till the alla came along. Does that make me a clumsy peon? Iâm not giving up my alla, Babs.â
âYouâre great with your alla, Yoke,â said Babs soothingly. âAnd I didnât mean to sound like I donât think youâre an artist. But actually you _could _do art even without the alla, you know. I was just saying that most people arenât artists at all.â
âMost people are dumb shits,â said Yoke, still feeling feisty. âBut if everyone has an alla, then what a fool does is fixable. If one person does something stupid, someone else can undo it.â
âAre you sure?â said Babs. She projected a mesh over a potted African violet and turned it into an ugly plastic flower jabbed into a chunk of Styrofoam the shape of a cat. âThis is what people will do. Can you fix it?â
âYeah,â said Yoke slowly. âThe alla can make plants. Here you go.â And a new African violet appeared. âI had the alla give it standard potting soil complete with bacteria, bugs, and worms, though I admit I donât have any way of knowing exactly what was there before.â
Babs leaned over the plant examining it. âIâm impressed,â she admitted. âI like it. This gives me hope. And you know, come to think of it, I canât bear the thought of losing my alla. I was just scared to admit it before. This could really work.â Babs laughed happily. âYes. I have this image of some dook turning a beautiful woodsy hilltop into a gross puffball McMansion with three stories and forty thousand square feet. And then his greenie neighbor turns the house back into a woodsy hilltop. Back and forth all day long. Maybe the dook would only put up his house at night.â
âThereâd still be zoning laws in any case,â mused Yoke. âThat would put some limits on the houses. If the Gimmie could enforce them. And thereâs a limit to how big a volume the alla can transform at one go. A cube something like forty feet on a side.â
âBut even so, everyone would build out to the legal max,â said Babs. âTheyâd alla up their giant houses one section at a time. And homeless people would pitch houses for themselves just anywhere, even though they donât own any land. But thatâs actually good, isnât it? No more homeless.â
âSquatters deluxe,â mused Randy. âThey wouldnât need no plumbing hookups. Use the alla to fill your bathtub, and use it again to make the dirty water go away. Wouldnât be so bad. You could put up a house anywhere. Use the alla to make batteries for any electricity you needed.â
âBut what kind of kinky kilp would psychos make?â said Babs. âA thousand ton turd in the middle of Union Square! A _statement _turd, you wave? And of course thereâd be giant crucifixes everyplace. And just imagine solid, three-dimensional graffiti. You try to open your front door and thereâs a fifteen-foot solid chrome freestyle âYuki 37âČ in the way.â Babs laughed again. âActually I canât wait to see it.â
âPeople could alla that kilp back into air,â said Yoke. âIf everyone did it as a matter of course, then cleaning up wouldnât have to be anyoneâs full-time job. It wouldnât be as hard as picking up litter, you wave. Youâd only have to look at something and wish it away. You said turds, crosses, and graffiti? You forgot porno and political ads. Uh-oh, Iâm seeing another problem. What if someone allas something that you like into air. Like your new car, Babsâsomeone could vaporize it because they donât like the way it looks. Just like youâd get rid of a giant turd.â
âIf she saved a software map of her buggy, she can alla it back whenever she needs it,â suggested Randy. âParkinâ is hell in this city anyhow. Just turn your car back into air instead of parkinâ it. Long as you got the alla and the software map, you only need to bring back your realware when you actually wanna use it. In the end, the allas should be good for Nature. We wonât have to manufacture nothinâ. You want paper or lumber, you alla it up, âstead of cuttinâ down a live tree. Alla up oil instead of drilling for it. No more factories!â
âThis is making me dizzy,â sighed Babs, putting her hands to her head. âItâs like a beautiful dream. If only people canâoh, wait, what about nuclear explosions?â
âThat could be the biggest problem of all,â said Cobb. âIt would be easy to alla up a twenty-five-pound ball of plutonium. A supercritical mass. Instant atomic bomb.â
âShit,â said Babs. âThereâs got to be a way out. Will the alla actually make plutonium? Letâs check.â
Randy, Babs, and Yoke uvvied inward, examining their alla catalogs, and sure enough, plutonium was listed.
âDonât try making any of it,â cautioned Cobb. âItâs highly poisonous, even in small amounts.â
âWe have to get the aliens to talk to Om,â said Yoke. âTo tell Om not to let the allas make nuclear fuel. Uranium, plutoniumâno evil heavy metal. Om ought to be able to control what the allas can do. Theyâre all connected to her, you know.â
âYes,â said Babs. âAnd then everyone gets an alla.â
âHere we are gettinâ all worked up,â said Randy. âAnd we donât know how to copy no alla in the first place.
âThe Metamartians do,â said Cobb. âRemember, Yoke? Josef said they know how to use the alla to make an alla. We should ask them how to copy the allas and at the same time get them to tell Om to not let allas make uranium or plutonium. Letâs go to the _Anubis _now!â
âHave you ever been on the _Anubis _before, Babs?â said Yoke.
âMy brother and I went there right before I moved in here,â said Babs. âJust to look it over. It seemed kind of sad. Lots of xoxxy people. If we go over there, I think we should have a plan. Weâre supposed to beg the aliens to tell us how to make an alla with the alla? And to block plutonium?â
âBegging is about all we _can _do,â said Yoke. âWe canât really threaten them or anything. I mean, they have built-in alla power, and they can see a little way into the future. No way we can hurt them.â
âMaybe I can get Siss hot for me,â said Cobb. âWhen Randy and I got onto Kleopatra and Isis the other night, Kleopatra said I was good. I think Siss is kind of interesting.â
âWho knows, Babs, if we beg, maybe the Metamartians _will _help us,â put in Randy, eager to move the conversation forward. âFrom what Yoke and Cobb say, Om does plan for everyone to get the alla. And itâs not like sheâs out to destroy the planet. All Om wants is to memorize us each and every one. Itâs like the allas are the ultimate reward for filling in your questionnaire.â
âDo you think you can handle being on the _Anubis, _Randy?â asked Babs. âWithout going on another sporehead cheeseball rampage?â
âIf you with me, girl,â said Randy sticking out his hand. âYou all I see. Weâll leave Willa Jean here to watch over things.â
Phil, February 23-25
Phil spent four days in the powerballâfrom the Monday when Yoke flew back to San Francisco through the Thursday when things came to a head on the _Anubis. _The first three days went as follows:
Monday
While his dad guzzled wine with Darla and Tempest, Phil pulled himself to the other end of the oak tree. Right near the last branch was the flaw in their hyperspherical space. Things looked funny near the flaw. Goaded on by the inane chatter of the drunk pheezers, Phil got a firm grip on the branch, took a deep breath, and pushed his head out through the hole.
His viewpoint swung about with uncontrollable rapidity, like the view from a video camera left running while it dangles from a wrist-strap. Phil saw an endless landscape of curved pink surfacesâit was a bit like an antâs-eye view of a million-mile tall womanâs body, not that the surfaces had the order and symmetry of a human form. Awed and dizzy, he let his eyes follow along six metallic tendrils that led out of the cosmic pink form. The tendrils eventually ran into a great circular expanse of rock and mud that wavered and became a disk of water. When Phil turned his head a bit farther, he saw blinding bright light. Around then, Philâs face began to feel frostbitten and he realized he was desperately out of breath. For one panicked instant he couldnât figure out how to pull back his headâso formless and disorienting was hyperspace. It took a special effort to remember to bend the arm belonging to the hand holding the branch. This quickly brought his gasping head back in through the hole. Anxiously, Phil patted his face, but the skin wasnât frozen, just very cold.
He needed something like a limpware bubbletopper space-suit if he were going to explore out there. But it seemed futile to try and find a human spacesuit in Omâs Metamartian alien alla catalog. The âyam-snootâ Tempest had fed himâhad that even been food? His mouth felt greasy and nasty.
Philâs eye fell on the Humpty-Dumpty doll, big as a watermelon. It was made of good moldie imipolex and could, in principle, serve as a spacesuit. But would he be able to get it to stretch itself over him? It didnât look very intelligent. Silly Putters werenât exported to Earth from the Moon, so Phil had never actually handled one before. They were said to be poised halfway between DIMs and moldies in intelligence. Supposedly, the famous inventor Willy Taze had developed an algorithm to keep them from unexpectedly tunneling into ungovernable moldie consciousness.
âCome here,â he said, beckoning ingratiatingly to the Humpty-Dumpty.
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