Realware

"Like a rubber bone in there, huh?" said Tempest. "Reminds me of a hog snout." Phil peered at the greasy object he'd been eating. "What is it?"

"Hell if I know," said Tempest. "I call it a yam-snoot. You should of seen some of the other vittles we tried. Alien food, I guess." She took a pull from her sack of liquid and tried passing it to Phil. "Hope you ain't a tight-ass, Phil," she said as he refused the sack.

"No, no," said Phil, though his heart sank at the thought of being in here with three drunk pheezers. "Da, tell me more about that hole?"

"It's a kind a flaw, a place where the space of this sphere has an edge. According to my reasoning, when you stick your head out there, your head is in four-dimensional hyperspace. I've only tried it for a few seconds. It's cold and you have to keep coming back for breath. And there's this freaky light. I wouldn't try it, Phil. But if, God forbid, you do stick your head through the hole, be very sure to hang onto the tree so the rest of you doesn't slide out." Da squirted a stream of wine into his mouth, and then some into Darla's. A rivulet dribbled down her chin and onto her big breasts. "Don't stare at us like that, Phil.

I know I shouldn't be getting fucked up, but I'm far enough into this run that I've got to finish. After I sleep it off, I'll get myself together and we'll talk about our chances of getting you back to Earth."

"Hey, Da!" said Phil. "This is xoxxed. Can I at least make you and Darla some clothes?"

"Oh bless his heart," cackled Tempest. "Hear that Darla?" Darla responded by striking a coy pose with one hand over her crotch and one over her boobs. Phil realized she was quite drunk.

He quickly found the clothing area of Om's Metamartian catalog and actualized two of the colorful loose caftans. He made Darla one with a pattern of unearthly biological shapes that might have been purple flowers; Da got one with flickering red shapes like flames. The fabric was some unknown material that was slippery but not sticky. A bit like silk, but with no sign of threads.

"Give me one too," said Tempest. "A blue one."

"All right," said Phil, and made Tempest a Metamartian robe that resembled a waterfall. "I'm outta here for now, losers."

He pulled himself toward the other end of the oak tree, pausing to study the glowing holographic knot of the oversize wowo. It was a roughly doughnut-shaped pattern of steadily changing mathematical curves and surfaces. Tre Dietz may have turned off all the wowos he'd sold, but he hadn't been able to reach this one. It was going strong. Phil liked to think a wowo looked a little like a glass pelican continually crawling farther and farther up its own butt, while at the same time emerging from its own beak, somehow changing into its own mirror image in the process. Mind-boggling and gnarly.

Phil proceeded onward to the other end of the tree. The toy Humpty-Dumpty was sitting there, clamped onto a branch like an owl. Phil gave him a gentle poke, and the egg smiled ingratiatingly. A low husky laugh floated up from Darla at the other end of the tree. Fortunately there were enough dead leaves between them that Phil didn't have to see what the old folks were doing. Just as Kurt had said, right beyond the end of the tree was a flawed spot like Phil had seen in his own little hypersphere. He took a deep breath and stuck his head through it.

CHAPTER FOUR

YOKE

February 23

After dropping Phil at the dock in Neiafu, the navy motorboat ferried Yoke, Cobb, Onar, and Ke

The King was waiting for them on board. He was wearing a white coat and peaked cap for this nautical occasion. His green moldie girlfriend Vaana was at his side.

"Good morning, Yoke," said the King. "And it's an honor indeed to meet the famous Cobb Anderson. Welcome aboard." He glanced around the deck. "We can speak quite freely. The sailors barely know English, while Ke

were sitting around, ready to start work. Ke

playing a game of cards with a Tongan man in a captain's hat.

"Won't the ship sink if it gets too full?" Yoke asked the King,

"Oh, I'm not so inordinately acquisitive," said the King, a

cheerful twinkle in his eye.

"Captain Pulu go

"You owe me an apology, Vaana," interrupted Cobb. He'd been staring fixedly at the sexy green moldie since they'd come aboard the ship. "You almost killed me with that betty the other night." Yoke recalled that Cobb had also mentioned having sex with Vaana.

"Ain't my look-out," said merry Vaana. "You was partyin' with the best. We do it again sometime, hey? You a lift, old Cobb."

"A man your age should have the maturity to own the consequences of his self-destructive behavior, Cobb," said Onar primly.

"You're a devil, Vaana," said the King. "Let's get started with our day's work, shall we, Yoke? I'd suggest your rhythm be to create a pair of hundred kilogram cylinders of imipolex followed by a single hundred kilogram ingot of gold. One-two-three, one-two-three, and so on. The sailors will load them onto pallets and lower them into the hold."

"I forget," said Yoke. "Why am I doing this for you?" "It's thanks to HRH and me that you have the alla in the first place," said Onar.

"I thought it was Shimmer who gave it to me," said Yoke. "Yes, but we guided you to her," said the King. "Be a sport, Yoke. Just one day's work. And then you're perfectly free to go." "But Cobb and 1 could leave right now, if I wanted to," said Yoke. "Right?"

"You should know that HRH's bodyguards are well-armed,"

said Onar. "And this is, after all, a warship, complete with a whip-ca

"No need to take that tone, Onar," said the King. "As you and I discussed earlier, our policy is persuasion, not force."

"Speaking of bodyguards, where are Tashtego and Daggoo today?" wondered Cobb.

"They'll be here in a bit," said the King. "They flew over to Fiji very early this morning. They're looking into the imipolex market for me." So Yoke grasped her alla and started turning air into gold and imipolex at a rate of one pulse every second or two. The sailors stepped lively, stowing the booty. With each transmutation, a hundred kilograms worth of air would rush into a bright-line alla control mesh, making a big whoosh and thud that caused the ship to bob. Yoke figured out in her head that a hundred kilos of air took up about as much space as an apartment's living room. The cumulative rocking effect of the repeated gusts became a little sickening after three-quarters of an hour. Yoke took a break and alla-made herself a glass of fresh orange juice. The King was sitting in a deck chair smoking a cigar. Vaana lolled on the deck beside him, looking like a thick, sexy serpent. Cobb stood behind the pair, discussing something with Onar. Now Onar patted Cobb on the back and took a chair next to the King. Cobb remained stiffly erect, his face gone oddly blank.