Realware

"Good afternoon," said the giant mynah. It cawed to clear its throat, whistled a few musical notes, listened to the echoes, and spoke again. "Something's badly wrong here, isn't it?"

"We're in a land with but one line of time," said Peg, gesturing with her red horn. "This is all there is. Seek as you will, you'll find no other time but the short woven threads of brief ghost futures. Praise Om that you've come, for now we are seven and soon we can mate."

"Who--Who is seeing this for real?" asked the mynah, tentatively stretching out its wings. "Why this very one thread?"

"Ain't got no notion," said Wubwub. "Could be the Light do it. What you go

"Call me Haresh," said the mynah. "An Indian name. I find it most oppressive here. It is jolly good that we are seven. We'll help Om, and mate, and then we'll chirp further." The bird twitched his head as if hearing something. "Om is speaking to me. It is almost time for her manifestation. I must pick something. She has already swallowed a Metamartian?"

"Yes," said Ptah. "Me. So don't do that again."

"This here is a 'human,' " said Wubwub, using his snout to nudge Phil's foot.

"Om got three of those already, but might be she want some more."

"How soon is the powerball going to spang out?" asked Phil anxiously. "That's the word you use, right? 'Spang.' Floaty word. You guys are so brilliant. Let me go, Siss!"

"Not till powerball come," said Siss. "Om still looking things over, waiting for Haresh form some impressions of world. Since we see little bit of future, we going know just before Om decide. But until then very hard to guess what she going to do. Om follow odd kind of logic. Odd for you, not quite so odd for us. Logic of higher dimensions. Like human dream maybe."

Siss kept chattering, and Phil had a bad feeling about what she was getting at. He kept thinking about the sequence of what Om's powerballs had swallowed so far: a toy Humpty-Dumpty moldie near Shimmer on the Moon; Darla near a wowo on the Moon; Tempest Plenty and Planet and a big wowo in Santa Cruz; Kurt Gottner and part of Friedl in Palo Alto; half an oak tree near Kurt's ring in Palo Alto; Ptah; and --

"Yes, she going to take you, Phil," said Siss, suddenly slackening her coils.

"Run."

"Praise Om," said Peg. "She calls Phil to be with his father."

"Don't wrassle with her, Phil," said Wubwub as Phil got to his feet. "If you wrassle Om, you end up like that wiener-dog, know what I'm sayin'? When Om come, you just ball yourself up and let her gulp you down. Look out fo' the churnin' when she break free."

"Will it hurt?"

"I think very much," said Siss. "Run, Phil, run! I no want powerball come near me."

"Thanks for nothing," snarled Phil, aiming a kick at Siss but--of course--the prescient snake flipped her body to where Phil's foot wasn't.

"You have but two more minutes," said Peg. "Pray use them nobly." So Phil walked out of the cave to the beach and sat hunkered there, staring at the blank sky and the eternal waves, no different than before. And now he would probably die. So this is how it happens, thought Phil. It's not really so hard. Part of him felt weary, paralyzed, and almost glad.

But there was another Phil that knew he hadn't really started to live yet. He called Yoke on his uvvy. She picked up almost immediately. "Phil?" Behind her Phil could see laboring Tongan sailors and the great open hold of a ship. Vaana and the King were there as well.

"Hi, Yoke. The powerball is about to get me. I'm on the beach at the other end of the island. The aliens are holed up in a cave here. They just decrypted a new Metamartian, and Om's going to celebrate by swallowing me."

"Oh noooo!" Yoke's face bunched up and she burst into tears.

"I love you, Yoke."

"Don't die!"

"The Metamartians claim I won't be dead. That I'll be in a bubble in hyperspace. But I -- I don't really believe it. The fourth dimension is bullshit. I'm just glad I met you, Yoke. I always said my life was good, but it wasn't really until I met you. At least we had one day together." Phil thought he saw something flickering out over the water. An isolated glint of strange perspective. "It's coming for me, whatever it is. And, Yoke, it was definitely Om that got Darla. Shimmer told her to. Stay away from the Metamartians, or they might kill you too."

"Wait, Phil, wait. How is it that you might not die?"

"Some crafty math fabulation. I'll find my way back if there's a way. Here it comes."

"I'll wait for you in San Francisco."

"I love you."

The powerball came in across the water, low down at Phil's level, flying straight at him. Phil braced himself, wrapping his arms tight around his knees. The powerball looked like a big, glowing crystal ball, reflecting and refracting light, though not so smooth as a glass ball, perhaps a bit more like a drop of water.

As it drew closer there was an odd effect on the rest of the world: things seemed to melt and warp, distorting themselves away from the magic ball. Closer and closer it came, yet taking an oddly long time to actually arrive. It was as if the space between Phil and the ball were stretching nearly as fast as the ball could approach. The ball was like a hole opening up in the world. Everything was being pushed aside by it; the sky and waves were being squeezed out along its edges.

Phil looked back over his shoulder; there was still a little zone of normality behind him --the nearest section of the rocky cliffs looked much the same. But so strong was the space warping of the powerball that the beach to the left and right seemed to bend away from him and, as Phil watched, this effect grew more pronounced. In a few moments it was as if Phil stood out on the tip of a little finger of reality, with the glowing powerball's hyperspace squeezing in on every side. Back there at the other end of the finger, back in the world, Wubwub and Shimmer were peeking out of their cave entrance watching him, the cowards. He fought down an urge to run at them, and forced himself to turn back to face the engulfing ball. What could he see within the ball? Nothing but funhouse mirror reflections of himself: jiggling pink patches of his skin against a blue background filled with moons and stars --his shirt.

And then, like a mighty wave breaking, the warped zone moved over Phil. He felt a deep shock of pain throughout his body, as if something were pulling and stretching at his insides. His lungs, his stomach, his muscles, his brain --every tissue burned with agony.

"Phil! Phil!"

Phil didn't dare turn; he felt as if the slightest motion might tear his i

Phil's guts snapped back to normal; the pain and its afterimage faded. He found himself comfortably floating within an empty, well-lit space that contained glowing air, his body and seemingly nothing else. The Metamartians had been right, up to a point, but where were the others that had been swallowed? When the powerball finished examining him, would he dissolve?

"Hello?" called Phil. "Om?" No answer.

The space bent back on itself so that Phil saw nothing in any direction but endless warped barbershop images of himself, of his sunburned hairy limbs and his billowing shirt's blue field of moons and stars.