Realware

"I'm sure Yoke's no danger," said the King, taking the alla. "She was only trying to help her friend. As was Vaana, you were glad for an excuse to kill her, weren't you, Ke

There was a minute of silence. At Yoke's feet lay the two halves of Vaana, inert in a reeking puddle of straw-colored moldie ichor. Onar was sitting woozily upright on the deck next to the dismembered moldie. It seemed as if the bad guys had won.

"If I give you back your alla, will you finish your work for me now, Yoke?" the King asked. He was fiddling with the alla as if desperate for a distraction from the sight of the shattered Vaana. "Curious," continued the King. "Just an empty tube, though if I look through it the world seems to be twirling." He knitted his brows as if willing something to happen, but nothing did. "It won't make anything for me. Yes yes, it really is keyed to you, Yoke. You're the goose who lays the golden eggs. A fine role."

"No eggs if the farmer mistreats the goose," said Yoke. "Unshackle me so I can take the leech-DIM off of Cobb. Until then I'm not making you anything more. Once you free us, I'll still keep my promise to fill your ship with imipolex and gold."

"Oh, but we can make her do much more than that, Bou-Bou," said Onar, his voice slurred. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the side of his head, gathering his forces. Moving slowly and carefully, he got to his feet and sneered down at Yoke with something like his old energy. "Yes, Bou-Bou, I have another trick up my sleeve. I can make little Miss Snooty Britches do anything I want her to. Look." Onar pulled a twitching piece of imipolex out of his pants pocket, a fat dark red slug of a thing.

"Be careful, that's a thinking cap!" exclaimed the horrified Yoke, who'd been warned about them many times before. "A moldie can make it crawl up a person's nose to take over their brain!"

"Yes, my dear," said Onar. "Up your nose. I'll use the leech-DIM to run Cobb, and Cobb will use the thinking cap to run you. A baroque little chain of command, no?" He paused and giggled. "I have an idea, Bou-Bou. Why don't I smear Yoke with Vaana's ichor and get her to have sex with you. Little Yoke's a rather good shag, don't you know."

"How revolting," said the King coldly. "I'm shocked at you, Onar. Set the girl free, Ke

"But Yoke was holding a knife, Your Majesty," said Ke

"Do you presume to disobey my direct command?" said the King, rising to his feet. Ke

While Ke

"Help!" said Yoke, but her voice came out small and squeaky. Stupid Ke

It occurred to Yoke that perhaps she could control her alla even when she wasn't holding it. She reached out for mental contact with her alla and--yes! She alla-made a quick hydrogen-oxygen explosion at waist level between Ke

The blast was encouragingly loud. The King bellowed, Ke

And now Cobb began twitching too. He and Onar were in a feedback control loop. Onar's leech-DIM was controlling Cobb, but Cobb's thinking cap was controlling Onar. They sprang together like wrestlers, like magnets. The Cobb-directed Onar tired to claw the leech-DIM out of Cobb's back and the Onar-directed Cobb probed into Onar's nose in search of the wily thinking cap. Yet at the same time, Onar was directing Cobb not to direct Onar to tear out the leech-DIM, and Cobb was telling Onar not to tell Cobb to try and get the thinking cap. Not to mention the fact that Cobb both was and wasn't trying to choke Onar. With all the contradictory impulses in the loop, nothing was accomplished, and the two could only flail about in chaos, their spastic motions cycling through a Wrestle-mania strange artractor.

Meanwhile Ke

Now a new complication arrived. Moldies were flying in from every side, seemingly drawn by Vaana's distress cry. Up on the bridge the captain began using the whip-ca

"Hold your fire!" the King called to his bodyguards. "These are my best agents! Tashtego, Daggoo, can you revive Vaana?"

Instantly taking in the scene, the great Daggoo bent over Vaana, his rapid fingers begi

There was a steady thud of more and more moldies landing on the deck. Each of them went immediately belowdeck and moments later flew back out of the hatch, two or three times as big as before. Most of the ship's crew had jumped overboard. Cobb and Onar continued to wrestle.

"Who dealt this mess?" said Ke

"Let's not leave quite yet, Ke

"Take off my handcuffs," called Yoke. "And give me back my alla. I can use it to save Cobb."