Realware

Cobb and Yoke continued to sink, and Yoke stared upward at the whale and squid as, incredibly, the whale swallowed the violently squirming squid whole, leaving only a few tentacles dangling from its mouth like live macaronis.

"We're here!" cried Cobb just then. Looking down, Yoke saw a wall of white light come rushing up at them. There was a clunk as they hit something, then a wild explosion of air bubbles, and then they dropped through a hundred feet of empty space to plop onto--a grassy meadow?

Cobb's body opened up like a blossom spreading its petals. Yoke stepped free to find herself standing in a diamond-roofed dome of air: a half-sphere dome like on the Moon, several hundred yards across, with the deep black sea outside. They'd fallen in through the roof, but whatever hole they'd made had instantly healed itself.

Cobb drew himself back into his old man form and stood by Yoke's side. Far from being ocean-floor ooze, the ground underfoot was springy green turf bedizened with wildflowers. The air was fresh and dry, though perfumed with tangy odor of moldies. The light seemed to come from all around. And Shimmer and five others of her kind were coming across the field toward them.

The aliens had shiny imipolex bodies like moldies, but iridescent, luminous, and shaped with infinite perfection. Two were formed like humans, and four like animals, with each shape an archetypal paradigm, a Platonic ideal, perfection incarnate. Shimmer resembled a marble Venus, and her partner was a bronze Apollo. The four animals were a unicorn with yellow-blond hair, a gem-like beetle, a muddy black pig, and a pale green python -- each of them the correct size for the creature epitomized.

"Greetings, Yoke," said Shimmer, reaching out her hand. Her voice was sweet and resonant. "I especially wanted you to come, because you're the most reasonable and sympathetic human I've met. I'd like you to be the first to test out something we want to give your people."

Yoke took Shimmer's hand and squeezed it. The other aliens gathered around.

"Ptah," said the man, shaking Cobb's hand. His voice was a warm rumble. The four animal-shaped beings greeted them and named themselves: the unicorn Peg, the iridescent beetle Josef, Wubwub the pig, and the snake Siss.

"Where do you come from, Ptah?" asked Cobb.

"We're all from the same place," said Ptah. "All six of us. It's in a different domain of the cosmos. We travel as encrypted signals inside cosmic rays. Personality waves. They're like gamma rays but with a higher-dimensional component. Shimmer here's been decrypting us into moldie flesh one at a time. We had this idea that each of us form our body into a different shape. I was the first one she brought in. Josef's the most recent arrival --he talks a lot. He's just as smart as us, even though he's small. He found a way to miniaturize the moldie information representation."

"But what's the name of the place you come from?" pressed Cobb.

"You want one single name?" asked Ptah, smiling.

Wubwub made a sound like electric guitar feedback. Siss added a series of clicking sounds. Peg tacked on the sound of a gong being struck, and tiny Josef put in a clap of thunder. Wubwub stretched out his snout and made a sound like wind moaning in the trees. It was hard to be sure, but it seemed as if the aliens were making fun of Cobb's question.

"Oh, why not say we come from -- from Metamars," said Shimmer. "And we can be Metamartians." She turned to Ptah.

"Cappy Jane's employer is called Meta West Link, you know. 'Meta' means 'beyond.' Like metaphysics."

"Yes, I am coming from very meta," said Josef, his voice loud and firm. For whatever reason, he chose to speak with a German accent. "And only just now have I arrived, as Shimmer has said." He lifted his wing covers and buzzed through the air to land lightly on Yoke's wrist. "This seems a very marginal place." His eyes twinkled and the little fans of his ante

"Duh!" said Yoke. "Death's not frightening for you?"

"In two-dimensional time death isn't so much of an issue," said Josef. "Yes, perhaps I die in one time-line, but I'm still alive in another."

"Not here you aren't," said Yoke. "I could squash you and that would be that."

"Now, now, Yoke," said Shimmer. "I'd just been telling my fellows how kind you are. There's no need to be afraid of us. We don't plan to stay on Earth for very long. We're nomads and this is only one stop on our endless journey of discovery. How do you like these temporary bodies we've made ourselves? We're imipolex with algae and mold nervous systems like your moldies. We programmed our personalities right into the limpware."

"How many of you are going to come here?" asked Yoke. "Six is one thing, but six billion would be -- "

"Too many?" asked Siss the serpent, then laughed. She sounded Chinese. "No worry, Yoke. Only one more of us going come. We form a family of seven, make a baby, help Om memorize all about your race, and then we move on and probably no Metamartian ever come here again. Your world not so very nice, I think. You know, Shimmer, I thinking perhaps we should be more small. Could we be ant, Josef? So tiny as germ?"

"I ain't go

looked up at them, a few tubers hanging from the side of his mouth. "I'm too important for that, you know what I'm sayin'?"

"Too fat," put in Siss the serpent, striking at the pig's side.

"Me and Josef are the ones go

"Cease your soothsaying, O Swine," said Peg. "It's time for Lady Yoke to bleat her plaint." The unicorn spoke as if at a Renaissance Faire, with the speech ma

"Thank you so much," snapped Yoke, not really understanding what they were talking about, but having a vague sense she'd been insulted. "What I want to say is that I hope Siss is telling the truth. And even six or seven of you could be a problem, frankly. If you start changing things, it could ruin our ecology. Your technology might overwhelm our civilization."

"Indeed it will," said Peg. "But is your way of life so fine? Dare to dream of more than grubbing in the mud. Yoke, we bring you the power to alter matter with a touch of mind. This is a power our god Om bestows upon us -- a power she now sees fit to grant to you. You're lucky. Thanks to Shimmer's having been decrypted here, Om has noticed you. Your race will live as sorcerers."

"I suppose that sounds nice," said Yoke uncertainly.

"Give Yoke her alla now, Shimmer," said Ptah. He kept glancing around expectantly, as if someone or something else were about to appear.

"Yes," said Shimmer. "Om willing." She rubbed her thumb against her palm, and a little hollow gold tube appeared in her hand. It was almost cylindrical, with four smooth indentations like a hand-grip. "This is Om's gift through me to you," said Shimmer, and handed the object to Yoke.

The alla fit Yoke's hand comfortably. It had a live, vibrant feel to it. Looked at more closely, the substance of the alla tube was not gold --nor was it any other substance Yoke had ever seen. It felt smooth, even slippery. Another odd thing about the tube was that, rather than being a fixed color of gold, it was repeatedly flickering through a cycle of perhaps thirty subtly different shades. As she held the alla in her hand, Yoke felt a link between it and her uvvy.