The Ware Tetralogy Read online

  “Where are my parents?” Sta-Hi said finally.

  “They’re in there fucking. One of them thinks you’re dead. It’s hard to hear when you’re excited.”

  “It’s hard when you’re stupid, too,” Sta-Hi said with a slow smile. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The two walked out of the housing development together. The houses were government-built for the spaceport personnel. There was plenty of irrigation water, and the lawns were lush and green. Many people had orange trees in their yards.

  Cobb looked Mooney’s son over as they walked. The boy was lean and agile, tall. His lips were long and expressive, never quite still. The shifty eyes occasionally froze in introspection. He looked bright, mercurial, unreliable.

  “That’s where my girlfriend lived,” Mooney’s son said, with a sudden gesture at a stucco house topped by a bank of solar power-cells. “The bitch. She went to college and now I hear she’s going to study medicine. Squeezing prostates and sucking boils. You ever had a rim-job?”

  Cobb was taken aback. “Well, Stanny . . . ”

  “Don’t call me that. My name’s Sta-Hi. And I’m coming down. You holding anything besides your truss?”

  The sun was bright on the asphalt street, and Cobb was feeling a little faint. This young man seemed like a real trouble-maker. A good person to have on your side.

  “I have to get to the spaceport,” Cobb said, feeling the money in his pocket. “Do you know where I can get a cab?”

  “I’m a cab-driver, so maybe you’re in one. Who are you anyway?”

  “My name is Cobb Anderson. Your father was investigating me. He thought I might have stolen two cases of kidneys.”

  “Wiggly! Do it again! Steak and kidney pie!”

  Cobb smiled tightly. “I have to fly to the Moon this afternoon. Why don’t you come with me?”

  “Sure, old man. We’ll drink some Kill-Koff and cut out cardboard wings.” Sta-Hi capered around Cobb, staggering and flapping his arms. “I’m going to the mooooooooon,” he sang, wiggling his skinny rear.

  “Look, Stanny . . . ”

  Mooney’s son straightened up and cupped his hands next to Cobb’s head. “STAY HIGH,” he bawled. “GET IT RIGHT!”

  The noise hurt. Cobb struck out with a backhanded slap, but Sta-Hi danced away. He made fists and peeked over them, glowering and back-pedaling like a prizefighter.

  Cobb began again. “Look, Sta-Hi, I don’t fully understand it, but the boppers have given me a lot of money to fly to the Moon. There’s some kind of immortality elixir there, and they’ll give it to me. And they said I should take you along to help me.” He decided to postpone telling Sta-Hi about his robot double.

  The young man feinted a jab. “Let’s see the money.”

  Cobb looked around nervously. Funny how dead this housing development was. No one was watching, which was good unless this crazy kid was going to . . .

  “Let’s see the money,” Sta-Hi repeated.

  Cobb pulled the sheaf of bills half-way out of his pocket. “I’ve got a gun in my other pocket,” he lied. “So don’t get any ideas. Are you in?”

  “I’ll wave with it,” Sta-Hi said, not missing a beat. “Gimme one of those bills.”

  They had come to the end of the housing development. Ahead of them stretched the parking lot of a shopping center, and beyond that was field of sun-collectors and the road to the JFK Space Center.

  “What for?” Cobb asked, gripping the money tighter.

  “I got an unfed head, old man. The Red Ball’s over there.”

  Cobb smiled his tight old smile deep in his beard. “That’s sound thinking, Sta-Hi. Very sound.”

  Sta-Hi bought himself some cola-bola and a hundred-dollar tin of state-rolled reefer, while Cobb blew another hundred on a half-liter flask of aged organic scotch. Then they walked across the parking-lot and bought themselves some traveling clothes. White suits and Hawaiian shirts. On the taxi-ride to the spaceport they shared some of their provisions.

  Walking into the terminal, Cobb had a moment of disorientation. He took out his money and started counting it again, till Sta-Hi took it off him with a quick jostle and grab.

  “Not here, Cobb. Conserve some energy, man. First we get the visas.”

  Erect and big-chested, Cobb glided on his two shots of Scotch like a Dixie Day float of the last Southern gentleman. Sta-Hi towed him over to the Gimmie exit visa counter.

  This part looked easy. The Gimmie didn’t care who went to the Moon. They just wanted their two thousand dollars. There were several people ahead of them, and the line moved slowly.

  Sta-Hi sized up the blonde waiting in front of them. She wore lavender leg-wrappings, a silvery tutu and a zebra-striped vinyl chest-protector. Stuzzy chick. He eased himself forward enough to brush against her stiff skirtlet.

  She turned and arched her plucked eyebrows. “Yew again! Didn’t ah tell you to leave me alone?” Her cheeks pinkened with anger.

  “Is it true blondes shave more buns?” Sta-Hi asked, batting his eyes. He flashed a long smile. The chick’s mouth twisted impatiently. She wasn’t buying it.

  “I’m an artist,” Sta-Hi said, shifting gears. “Without an art. I just move people’s heads around, baby. You see this cut?” He touched the spot over his eyebrow. “My head is so beautiful that some fools tried to eat my brain this morning.”

  “OFFICER!” the girl shouted across the lobby. “Please help me!” In what seemed like no elapsed time at all there was a policeman standing between her and Sta-Hi.

  “This man,” she said in her clear little Georgia belle voice, “has been annoying me for the past hour. He started off in the lounge over there, and then he followed me here!”

  The policeman, a Florida boy bursting with good health and repressed fruit-juice, dropped a heavy hand onto Sta-Hi’s shoulder and clamped down.

  “Wait a minute,” Sta-Hi protested. “I just got here. Me and gramps. We’re goin to Disky, ain’t we, gramps?”

  Cobb nodded vaguely. Crowds of people always threw him into a daze. Too many consciousnesses pushing at him. He wondered if the officer would object if he took a little sip of scotch.

  “The young lady says you annoyed her in the bar,” the policeman stated flatly. “Did he make remarks of a sexual nature, ma’am? Lewd or lascivious proposals?”

  “Ah should say he diyud!” the blonde exclaimed. “He asked if ah would rather be wined and dined or stoned and boned! But ah do not want to be bothered to press charges at this tahm. Just make him leave me a-lone.”

  The person ahead of her left the counter, his business completed. The blonde gave the policeman a demure smile of thanks and leaned over the counter to consult the visa-issuing machine.

  “You heard the lady,” the cop said, shoving Sta-Hi roughly out of line. “Beat it. You too, grandpa.” He dragged Cobb out of line as well.

  Sta-Hi gave the policeman a savage, open-mouthed smile, but kept his silence. The two ambled across the lobby towards the ticket counter.

  “Did you hear that cunt?” Sta-Hi muttered. “I’ve never seen her before in my life. Stoned and boned.” He looked back over his shoulder. The policeman was standing by the visa counter, vigilance personified. “If we don’t get a visa they won’t let us on the ship.”

  Cobb shrugged. “We’ll get the tickets first. Do you have the money? Maybe we better count it again.” He kept forgetting how much there was.

  “Power down, fool.”

  “Just don’t get us arrested by accosting strange women again, Sta-Hi! If I don’t get on this flight I may miss my connection. My life depends on it!”

  Sta-Hi walked off without answering. Cobb sighed and followed him to the ticket counter.

  The woman behind the counter looked up with a quick smile when Sta-Hi approached. “There you are, Mr. DeMentis. I have the tickets and visas right here.” She patted a thick folder on the counter in front of her. “Will that be smoking or nonsmoking?”

  Sta-Hi covered his confusion by d
rawing out the wad of bills. “Smoking, please. Now how much did you say that would come to?”

  “Two round-trip first-class tickets to Disky,” the woman said, smiling with inexplicable familiarity. “Plus the visa fees comes to forty-six thousand two hundred and thirty-six dollars.”

  Numbly Sta-Hi counted out the money, more money than he’d ever seen in his life. When the woman gave him back his change she let her hand linger on his a moment. “Happy landings, Mr. DeMentis. And thank you for the lunch.”

  “How did you swing that?” Cobb asked as they walked towards the loading tunnel. The ten-minute warning for take-off was sounding.

  “I don’t know,” Sta-Hi said, lighting a joint.

  There were quick footsteps behind them. A tap on Sta-Hi’s shoulder. He turned and stared into the grin of Sta-Hi2, his robot double.

  Fucked your head good, didn’t I, Sta-Hi2’s grin seemed to say. He gave Cobb a familiar wink. They’d already met in Mooney’s garage.

  “This is a robot built to look just like you,” Cobb told Sta-Hi in a low voice. “There’s one for me, too. This way no one knows that we’re gone.”

  “But why?” Sta-Hi wanted to know. But they weren’t saying. He took a puff of his joint and held it out towards his twin. “Do . . . do you want a hit?”

  “No thanks,” Sta-Hi2 said, “I’m high on life.” He flashed a long sly smile. “Don’t tell anyone on the Moon the old man’s real name. There’s some boppers called diggers that have it in for him.” He turned as if to go.

  “Wait,” Sta-Hi said. “What are you going to do now? While I’m gone?”

  “What am I going to do?” Sta-Hi2 said thoughtfully. “Oh, I’ll just hang around your house acting like a good son. When you get back I’ll fade and you can do whatever you want. I think they can set up that immortality deal for you, too.”

  The two-minute warning sounded. A last few stragglers hurried past.

  “Come on,” Cobb boomed, “Time’s a-wasting!” He grabbed Sta-Hi by the arm and dragged him down the ramp.

  Grinning like a crocodile, Sta-Hi2 watched them go.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  With no transition at all, Ralph Numbers was back. He could feel the patter of little feet inside his body-box. He’d been rebuilt. He recognized the feeling. No two arrangements of circuit cards can be exactly the same, and adjusting to a new body takes a while. Slowly he turned his head, trying to ignore the way the objects seemed to sweep with his motions. It was like putting on a new pair of glasses, only more so.

  A big silver tarantula was crouched in front of Ralph, watching him. Vulcan. A little door in Ralph Numbers’s side popped open and a tiny little spider of a robot eased out, feeling around with its extra-long forelegs.

  “Copacetic,” the little spider piped.

  “Well,” Vulcan said to Ralph. “Aren’t you going to ask how you got here?”

  Vulcan had worked for Ralph before. His workshop was familiar. Tools and silicon chips everywhere, circuit analyzers and sheets of brightly colored plastic.

  “I guess I’m the new Ralph Numbers scion?” There was no memory of a tenth visit to the One, no memory of disassembly . . . but there never was. Still . . . something seemed wrong.

  “Guess again.” The little black spider, Vulcan’s remote-controlled hand, hopped onto the big silver spider’s back.

  Ralph thought back. The last thing he could remember was Vulcan taping him. After the taping he had planned to . . .

  “Did I go meet Wagstaff?”

  “You sure did. And on your way back, someone lasered your parasol. You’re lucky I’d just taped you. You only lost two or three hours of memories.”

  Ralph checked the time. If he hurried he could still meet BEX when it landed. He started to turn around, and nearly fell over.

  “Slow down, bopper.” Vulcan was holding up a sheet of transparent red plastic. Imipolex G. “I’m going to coat you with flickercladding. Nobody uses parasols anymore. You’ve looked like a file-cabinet long enough.”

  The red plastic was not quite stiff, and rippled invitingly. “It might be good for you to look a little different,” Vulcan went on coaxingly. “So the diggers can’t spot you so easily.” He had been trying to sell Ralph some flickercladding for years.

  “I wouldn’t want to change too much,” Ralph said uncertainly. After all, he made his living by selling curious boppers his memories. It might cut into his business if he stopped looking like the moon’s oldest bopper.

  “Gotta change with the times,” Vulcan said, measuring out rectangles of the red plastic with two of his legs . . . or arms. “No bopper can afford to stay the same. Especially with those new big boppers trying to take things over.” Leg to leg he passed a sheet of the gelatinous plastic around to hold against Ralph. “This won’t hurt a bit.”

  One of Vulcan’s legs ended in a riveter. Eight quick taps and the red plastic was firmly mounted on Ralph’s chest. The little robot-remote spider-hand scuttled up Ralph’s side, patching some thread-like wires from the plastic into Ralph’s circuitry. A light-show blossomed on his chest.

  “It looks nice,” Vulcan said, rearing back for a better look. “You’ve got a beautiful mind, Ralph. But you should let me give you a real disguise. It would only take another hour.”

  “No,” Ralph said, acutely conscious of the time. “Just the flickercladding. I’ve got to get out to the spaceport before the ship lands.”

  He could feel the little spider tip-tapping around inside his body box again. The patterns on his chest gained depth and definition. Meanwhile Vulcan riveted the rest of the plastic onto his sides and back. Ralph extruded ten extra centimeters of neck and slowly moved his head around his body. The flickering patterns coded up the binary bit-states that were his thoughts.

  One of the reasons Ralph had been able to survive so long just by selling his thoughts and memories was that his thoughts were neither too simple nor too complex. You could see that by looking at the light-patterns on his body. He looked . . . interesting.

  “Why do the diggers want to kill you, Ralph?” Vulcan asked. “Not that it’s any of my business.”

  “I don’t know,” Ralph said, frustration showing all over him. “If I could only remember what Wagstaff said out there. Didn’t I tell you anything before . . . ”

  “There were some signals just before melt-down,” Vulcan said. “But very garbled. Something about fighting the big boppers. That’s a good idea, don’t you think?”

  “No,” Ralph said. “I like the big boppers. They’re a logical next step of our evolution. And with all the human brain-tapes they’re getting . . . ”

  “And bopper brain-tapes, too!” Vulcan said with sudden heat. “But they’re not going to get me. I think we should tear them all down!”

  Ralph didn’t want to argue about it . . . time was too short. He paid Vulcan with a handful of chips. Due to the constant inflation, boppers never extended credit. He stepped out of Vulcan’s open-fronted workshop onto Sparks Street.

  Three hover-spheres darted past, resting on columns of rocket exhaust. It was an expensive way to live, but they earned it with their scouting expeditions. These three moved erratically, and looked to be on a party. Probably one of them had just finished building his scion.

  A little way down the street was the big chip-etching works. Chips and circuit-cards were the most essential parts of a new scion, and the factory, called GAX, had tight security. It . . . he . . . was one of the few really solid-looking buildings in Disky. The walls were stone and doors were steel.

  For some reason there was a crowd of boppers right in front. Ralph could sense the anger from half a block away. Looked like another lock-out. He crossed to the other side of the street, hoping to stay clear of the trouble.

  But one of the boppers spotted Ralph and came stalking over. A tall spindly-looking thing with tweezers instead of fingers. “Is that you, Ralph Numbers?”

  “I’m supposed to be in disguise, Burchee.”

 
; “You call that a disguise? Why don’t you wrap yourself in a billboard instead? No one thinks like you, Ralph.”

  Burchee should know. He and Ralph had conjugated several times, totally merged their processors with a block-free co-ax. Burchee always had a lot of spare parts to give away, and Ralph had his famous mind. There was something like a sexual love for each other.

  The heavy steel door of the factory was sealed shut, and some of the boppers across the street were working on it with hammers and chisels.

  “What’s the story?” Ralph asked. “Can’t you get in to work?”

  Burchee’s beanpole body flared green with emotion. “GAX locked all the workers out. He wants to run the whole operation himself. He says he doesn’t need us anymore. He’s got a bunch of robot-remotes in there instead of workers.”

  “But doesn’t he need your special skills?” Ralph asked. “All he knows is buying and selling! GAX can’t design a grid-mask like you can, Burchee!”

  “Yeah,” Burchee said bitterly. “Used to be. But then GAX talked one of the maskers into joining him. The guy fed his tapes to GAX and lives inside him now. His body’s just another robot-remote. That’s GAX’s new line. Either he eats you up or you don’t work. So we’re trying to break in.”

  A metal flap high up in the factory wall opened then, and a heavy disk of fused silicon came flying out. The two boppers hammering on the door didn’t look up in time. The tremendous piece of glass hit them edge on, cutting them in half. Their processors were irreparably shattered.

  “Oh, no!” Burchee cried, crossing the street in three long strides. “They don’t even have scions!”

  A camera eye peered down from the open flap, then withdrew. This was a depressing development. Ralph thought for a moment. How many big boppers were there now? Ten, fifteen? Was it really necessary that they drive the little boppers into extinction? Perhaps he was wrong to . . .

  “We’re not going to stand for this, GAX!” Burchee’s skinny arms were raised in fury. “Just wait till you have your tenth session!”

  Every bopper, big or small, had his brain wiped by the One every ten months. There were no exceptions. Of course a bopper as big and powerful as GAX would have a constantly updated scion waiting to spring into action. But a bopper who had recently transferred his consciousness to a new scion was in some ways as vulnerable as a lobster who has just shed his old shell.