Harsh Oases (45 page)
Authors: Paul Di Filippo
“First I need to find them,” said Jory. “Can you, like, automatically track Una down?”
“Not presently,” said Ira. “I, the King, experience your high-plane space as disorienting. These pawky three dimensions of yours—can you point out which is the direction you call ‘width’?”
There was no sign of Bev at Jory’s office, but Hilda was there, both upset and scientifically excited.
“You really invented antigravity, Sorenson! Don’t forget to back up the settings on that gizmo of yours right away. I can help you, if you like. Oh, and where’s my mother? Don’t tell me that you two—”
“Bev’s a wonderful woman,” said Jory. “She said she’s unattached? I want to know her better.”
“How gross,” said Hilda. “But I suppose she could do worse. Tell me where she is.”
“She vowed to tup another man by nightfall,” piped Ira, who was again perched upon Jory’s shoulder. “She rampages even now.”
“Oh God. Your elves did that to my poor mom, Sorenson?”
“She didn’t seem to mind the idea so much,” said Jory. “I heard her say something about surfers.”
“Four Mile Beach,” exclaimed Hilda. “I took her there yesterday. A few miles north of here on Route One. Mom was really into those boys. Oh, I hope they’re not all laughing at her.”
“Why would they?” said Jory. “She’s hot.”
“Oh you disgusting—” Hilda caught herself and switched on a smile. “I’m going to write a big paper rehabilitating your work, Jory. Give me that talisman, and I’ll back it up for you before we go to Four Mile Beach.”
“I don’t think so,” said Jory. Just like Superman, he trotted outside the building and leapt into the air, with Elf King Ira at his side.
Jory made his way to Four Mile Beach, which had its share of surfers; the morning rain had brought on a good swell. But there was no sign of Bev Kuhl, indeed, no sign of anyone much over thirty-five. So, okay, maybe Bev had gotten lost. Joiy spent the next hour buzzing all the surf breaks north of Santa Cruz, back and forth, once and then twice. Finally, as the sun was setting, Jory spotted a pup tent on the sands of a beach he’d already written off, Bonny Doon Beach twelve miles north of Cruz.
He dropped down out of the sky next to two fit, fleece-jacketed young men lolling outside the tent in a litter of beer bottles, their eyes half-closed. Bev was visible within the tent, at her ease, resting on one elbow, calmly staring at the gold-chased sea.
“Friends of yours, Bev?” said the more athletic of the two surfers.
“Look out, Zep!” exclaimed the smaller of the youths. “It’s her old man! Don’t freak, sir. It was all Bev’s idea. She came flying down here, hopped on the back of Zep’s board out at the break, and—is that a monkey on your shoulder?”
“I am King Ira,” piped the elf. “My rule extends across a full score of the subdimensions.”
“And I’m Professor Sorenson,” said Jory. “Not her husband. Her friend. Are you okay, Bev?”
“Amazed,” whispered Bev, smiling from the tent. “Tired. Zep was very lively. But hush, Una’s asleep again.”
“Would you like to get rid of her now?” murmured Jory, hunkering down by the tent flap.
“Oh yes,” said Bev. “This has been a dream come true—but it’s not me. Really, Jory, I’m not that kind of woman.”
“Yeah she is,” said the smaller surfer. “She wore Zep out. And then she scarfed down every bit of our beer and food; not to mention the pot.”
“And she made me comb out that goddamn tail of hers like a hundred thousand times,” added Zep.
Jory got the surfers to lend him and Bev their fleece jackets. And then he took her in his arms and flew to Elf Circle Farm.
They landed in the mushroom ring across the creek behind Gunnar’s old house. Following little King Ira’s lead, they began to dance.
“This is a tail-wiggle move I learned among the squirrels. Think of your spinal marrow as glowing jelly. Raspberry jelly.”
Around and around they went, the world spinning. More and more alvar appeared, gnomish men and a few gamin girls. The ground within the mushroom ring grew gauzy and faded away. But still Una refused to leave Bev’s body.
The alvar formed a circle around the two humans in the center of the ring. “You must return home in any case, oh Una,” intoned King Ira. “I regret, Bev and Jory, that you will accompany her.”
Before Jory or Bev could cry out, Ira and the encircling alvar twitched at the fabric of space, as if manning a blanket-toss. “Zickerzack,” said Ira, and they were all in the subdimensional world.
The corridors were like those of a mine, but with way too many directions branching off at the intersections. The glistering foamy walls were translucent, filled with melting jellyfish spots like you see when you’re falling asleep, half-familiar and half-unrecognizable, the shapes of thoughts, the fragments of dreams.
“Set Bev free,” insisted Jory.
“What will you give me in return?” demanded Una, still speaking through Bev’s mouth.
Jory felt in his pockets; he had no silver or gold. All he had was his talismanic antigravity device.
“How about—how about this?” he said, holding it out. “As I understand it, each time you turn it off and restart it, you’ll make a thin spot in the walls between worlds.”
“Take the trade, Una,” urged King Ira. Ensconced in his native realm, he no longer seemed clownish, but rather haughty and regal. “The high-plane will be ours to plunder as we please. We did well to bring the professor here. Take the trade and I promise you a high post in my court.”
Colored gems rode out on Bev’s next exhalation, weaving themselves into haughty Una, very nearly the same size as Jory here, and more formidable than ever. Impatiently flicking her tail, she extended her hand.
As Jory passed over the talisman, he sacrificed his years of research: he keyed in the reset/erase sequence.
Not yet realizing this, King Ira leapt at Una, trying to snatch the device away from her. They wrestled and snapped at each other, their bodies flurbbing together, then separating apart. Finally King Ira emerged as victor. He looked younger and crueler all the time. Holding out the talisman, he pressed the button to—precisely no effect.
Angrily King Ira declared the mushroom circle portal to be closed. “We’ll excavate no further here,” he cried. “May your prison walls grow ever thicker with quantum foam.” Cackling and screaming abuse, the elves disappeared around an abrupt subdimensional turn in the corridor, which closed off in their wake, leaving the two humans trapped together in a small chamber whose uneven, flickering walls continued to constrict.
Bev was shocked, tearful, and remorseful although, Jory could tell, she was also more than a little proud of her day’s exploits, if those must be her last. He could understand her so very well. Looking down, he saw that his foot had merged into hers. They were flurbbing, losing their identities, fusing into a common wave function in order to fit their information into a dwindling amount of phase space. And soon, to make things worse, they were flurbbing into the wall and its alien ideations.
Jory sank to the tingling floor as everything grew indistinct. Staring up with his eyes like a pair of fried eggs in a puddle, he saw a series of gauzy four-legged forms—the ghosts of the cows who’d disappeared from Gunnar’s farm, eaten by the elves. In their wake limped a two-legged herdsman: the shade of his beloved uncle.
“How can I escape?” Jory asked Gunnar’s ghost.
“Love,” whispered Gunnar. “Only love can save you.”
With his last vestige of energy, Jory pulled his body free of the quantum foam and embraced Bev, long and true. He sensed every cranny of her ego-soul and how it complemented his.
Their bodies firmed up and, as they broke apart into non-flurbbed individuals once more, they found themselves above ground, amid the enchanted mushrooms, beneath the dark sky of a new moon.
For a time they merely drank in the plain fragrant air of their native domain, feeling rich and dmnk on high-plane reality.
“I’d like to retire here with you, Bev,” said Jory eventually. “I can quit the game now and enjoy my pension. If only the property titles weren’t all screwed up. A fourth of this land is mine.”
“Elf Circle Farm,” said Bev. “I know all about the case. Like I said, I’m the county clerk. I can shuffle some papers, say a few words, and—zickerzack!”
So Bev and Jory married, and Jory took possession of his chosen portion of Gunnar’s land: the house, the creek, and the mushroom glen. They fixed the place up, and got a pair of cows for old times’ sake. Once or twice, Jory thought he detected a glitter of subdimensional ectoplasm in the bam where Uncle Gunnar had hung himself, but the shade spoke no more with his nephew. No need: Jory never again contemplated suicide.
In the evenings, comfortably tired from the light chores, he and Bev would sit around the crackling hearth drinking caraway-seed-flavored aquavit, spinning tales about Elfland, academia, and the Gold Country. Over time, Jory came to see himself as an incredibly wise and fortunate man, as did his new step-grandson Jack, who often came to visit in the summers.
Dropping the boy off, Jack’s mother Hilda always conversed pleasantly with Jory, realizing she owed him credit for her professional successes extending his rhizomal subdimension theory—not that she was ever able to replicate his antigravity breakthrough.
As for the alvar, they never returned—at least not to Elf Circle Farm.
And, oh, yes, Bev’s tail. It was there for good. During the first months of living on the farm, Bev hid the tail by wrapping it around her waist But then, at Jory’s urging, she began letting it hang out. Her theater group approved.
“Aurorae” and “A Game of Go” are previously unpublished; “Bad Beliefs” first appeared in
Pirate Writings
, 1994; “Leakage” first appeared in
Pirate Writings
, 1995; “Everywhere is Now” first appeared in
Dreams from the Strangers Café
, 1996; “Shipbreaker” first appeared in
SciFiction
, 2002; “Harsh Oases” first appeared in
Interzone
, 2005; “Daydream Nation” first appeared in
Cosmos
, 2005; “Escape from New Austin” first appeared in
Jigsaw Nation
, 2006; “Pinocchia” first appeared in
Sex in the System
, 2006; “The Singularity Needs Women!” first appeared in
Forbidden Planets
, 2006; “Lignum Crucis” first appeared in A
Cross of Centuries
, 2007; “Femaville 29” first appeared in
Salon Fantastique
, 2006; “The Perfect Lover” first appeared in
Nature
, 2006; “Cootie Box” first appeared in
The Flash
, 2007; “Personal Jesus” first appeared in
The Solaris Book of New SF
, 2007; “Elves of the Subdimensions” previously appeared in
Flurb
, 2006.
* * *
Harsh Oases is the author’s thirteenth collection of short fiction, but he chooses to regard that number as a lucky one, since this volume assembles some of his newest, most well-received personal favorites along with some of his older work either little reprinted or never before available.
In the first category is “Femaville 29” a much-lauded fantastical tale of love and salvation among the ruins of America’s Eastern Seaboard. “The Singularity Needs Women!” pits human against posthuman over a woman’s love. In “Shipbreaker,” a common laborer in an interstellar salvage yard finds his destiny altered forever by a strange pet. And in “Escape from New Austin,” a young girl leaves her liberal home seeking the conservative dream.
Two stories appear here for the first time: “Aurorae” and “A Game of Go.” Both are set in the cyberpunk future of the author’s seminal “Kid Charlemagne.” Two short, sharp satires, “Bad Beliefs” and “Leakage,” resurface from their initial publication in the alternative press.
The title story, “Harsh Oases,” is the first addition to the Ribofunk canon since the publication of that pivotal collection in 1996. Nearly a compressed novel, it spans many strange milieus in the bio-engineered future of that series. On two radically different notes, “Pinocchia” chronicles the erotic adventures of a sexy android, while “Personal Jesus” and “Lignum Vitae” address, with varying degrees of solemnity, the topic of religion. A collaboration with gonzo creator Rudy Rucker explores levels of quantum weirdness that underlie our familiar world. Finally, some flash fiction packs a few startling SF conceits into bite-sized stories.
Running the wide gamut of Di Filippo’s myriad concerns and styles, this collection extends and solidifies his reputation as one of the finest short-story writers working today.
Table of Contents
