Realware

By the time they got back to the harbor, a full-blown mob was squeezing in on them. Someone tried to grab Phil's lofa bean, but he hung onto it. He thought to uvvy for Cobb, and the old pheezer moldie came surging out of the ocean like Neptune come to rescue his children. Yoke created three dogs, who came into existence wildly barking --clearing out some space for Cobb. Cobb wrapped his arms around them and shot up into the air. But now Tashtego and Daggoo were homing in on them.

"Josef's gone!" Yoke exclaimed, touching her ear. "I don't know how to escape them, Cobb!"

Cobb dove down into the harbor water. He covered them over and fed them air. But now here were the coppery Tashtego and big black Daggoo, clamping tight bands around Cobb, Yoke, and Phil. The five of them swam back to the island together, staying beneath the surface so it wouldn't be easy for the agitated locals to pursue them. Phil still had his lofa bean and Yoke still had her shells.

"I hear you've started a riot in Neiafu," Ke

"So?" said Yoke. "What are you going to do about it?" And to that Ke

"The ship is going to be a day late," said Ke

Phil and Yoke had supper with the Tongans at a long table on the veranda, real Tongan food prepared by Ms. Teta. Fish, taro, and squash. Ke

While they talked and ate, Cobb was hanging out with Tashtego and Daggoo off at the edge of the clearing. Despite old Cobb's misgivings about the Tongan moldies, the three of them seemed to be getting along very well. Indeed, from their hoarse cackles, it seemed likely that one of them had brought along some betty.

Soon it was full night, with an incredible clear sky. Phil was intoxicated by the stars, the full moon, and Yoke's low voice. And then it was time to go to bed.

"Now I am not going to do it with you tonight," said Yoke as they closed the door to her room. "I want that clear. I don't want to make a mistake and rush things. So no pushing, okay?"

"That's fine," said Phil. "I'm just happy to be with you, Yoke. We have plenty of time -- I hope."

Phil took a shower and put on boxer shorts and a T-shirt for pajamas. Yoke was in a nightgown, sitting at a table playing with her alla. She'd just made a big rough prism of green glass with little whorled bubbles in it. The glass sat on one fat edge, rising up maybe ten inches. It had some fu

"It's beautiful, Yoke."

"Thanks. This alla --it's the ultimate art tool. I can make anything that I can think." She closed her eyes, looking inward. A control mesh of bright lines formed above the tabletop, a foot-wide knot of twisting curves. There was a whoosh of air, and a ribbon of smooth metal formed inside the cube, a Mobius strip with comical hieroglyphics of ants embossed all along it. Yoke cocked her head, critically examining her creation.

"Did you know we have ants on the Moon, Phil? They snuck up there. I should have made these guys thicker."

"Can't you revise it?" Phil asked. "My housemate Derek, he says that his sculptures do half the work themselves. Like he's talking with them. He keeps looking at what he's made and changing it. I do that with cooking too. Taste it, spice it, taste it, spice it."

"Good idea," said Yoke. She popped the same shimmering bright-edged control mesh out and positioned it around the ant Mobius strip which she then--whomp -- turned back into air. Now she made the ant-shapes in the glowing mesh bulge out a bit more and said, "Actualize." The Mobius strip was back, but with its ants much more swollen, bulging out of the metal ribbon into high relief. "Yes," said Yoke, setting down the alla. "Thanks, Phil."

"Can I try using the alla now?"

"Shimmer said nobody can use this alla but me," said Yoke possessively.

"She's not here watching us, is she? Come on, Yoke, let me try."

"Don't break it." Yoke handed Phil the little gold-colored tube. It sat in Phil's hand, subtly flickering. Phil held it up and looked through it--and saw a dizzying view of the room eternally spi

"It's like staring down through a tornado," he said. "How do I make it do something?"

"You have to uvvy into it," said Yoke.

Phil tried, but the alla gave no response.

"I guess it's registered only to respond to my uvvy signals," said Yoke. "You'll have to uvvy to me and I'll pass your signals to the alla."

Phil tried for a minute to organize this co

"I hate this software bullshit," he muttered.

"Let me," said Yoke, and in an instant she had herself hooked in as an intermediary between Phil and the alla.

"Hello," the alla seemed to say in a squeaky cartoon voice inside Phil's head. It displayed an image of something that wasn't anything in particular: an amorphous gray glob, roughly spherical, floating against a white background.

"Think your target to me," said the alla voice.

Phil could think of nothing better than that he'd forgotten his toothbrush. The gray glob elongated itself and grew bristles at one end. Its color and dimensions remained -- indeterminate. At the slightest push of Phil's velleity, the specific features of the toothbrush warped this way and that.

"Really sensitive, huh?" said Yoke.

"It's like I'm exploring toothbrush space," said Phil, finding more and more qualities to vary. Tuft stiffness, handle bend, transparency, bristle density--it wasn't like he was fully imagining the toothbrushes himself, it was more like surfing through an incredibly vast multidimensional online mother of all catalogs.

"Try and actualize one," said Yoke. "It might work."

"I want that one," said Phil to the alla, and a mental image of an excellent green toothbrush froze in place. "No wait, let me personalize it." With a special effort of will, Phil stamped his name on the image's handle and filliped its tip with a nonstandard kink. "Now make that sucker for me, little alla. Actualize."

But nothing happened. Wish as he might, Phil couldn't force the magical lines of bright mesh to appear.

"I guess I have to say it," said Yoke.

"That is correct," squeaked the alla. "I allow only one registered user."

"So actualize the toothbrush already," said Yoke, and Phil's toothbrush dropped into his lap.

Phil handed the alla back to Yoke, who quickly returned to revising her two sculptures. Popping out the old mesh, dissolving the existing version, adjusting the mesh, and making a new one. "The alla remembers the exact format of each of the things I've actualized," said Yoke. "So it's easy to keep changing them." She adjusted the bends of the metal loop, and shaved bits off the curved sides of the big glass prism.

Phil set his lofa bean down next to Yoke's sculptures and tried to get her to admire it some more. He didn't like for the alla to be getting all the attention. The bean was something remarkable that he himself had found. "What a beautiful green color our lofa bean is, Yoke." Yoke was tired of talking about O

the bean, but Phil kept on trying to riff on it, trying to get Yoke to look at him. "Could it be the larva of an alien centipede? The bean's vine was hanging right down out of the sky. Jack and the Beanstalk! What if it splits open and eats my brain tonight, Yoke?"