Realware

"Do it, Ke

Now that she had her alla, Yoke realized she didn't need a knife to take the leech-DIM out of Cobb. She could simply alla it into air--if she could place the control mesh steadily over the leech-DIM, that is. She explained the situation to Tashtego and Daggoo, and the three of them knelt on Cobb to hold him still, with Daggoo fending off Onar with one long arm. At the last instant Onar managed to lunge in and push his hand in as if to protect the leech-DIM. When the alla turned the contents of its control mesh into air, it took a chunk out of Onar's thumb too. He started bleeding profusely from the wound.

But the main thing was that the leech was gone. Cobb got to his feet and with one glance made Onar crouch down motionless. With no leech-DIM to counter the commands of the thinking cap, Onar was Cobb's slave.

"Good show!" called the King. "And how's Vaana doing, Daggoo?"

"She almost back," said the huge, black moldie, who'd turned his attention back to his injured comrade. "Yaaar." And indeed, the sinuous green shape of Vaana was lazily begi

"That's twice you've saved my life," said Cobb, hugging Yoke. "And now I own Onar? I'd sooner own a rabid baboon."

"I'll take him," said Vaana, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "Thank you, Daggoo. I'd like to do something special with you soon." She flowed up Daggoo's body like a vine growing up an oak, then twirled free. Even as Yoke watched, Vaana's body was continuing to heal. "Hi, Bou-Bou," called Vaana, waving to the King.

The King waved back a little uncertainly, but when he saw Vaana's smile he tried to come over. His bodyguards grabbed his arms to hold him back.

"How would I give Onar to you?" Cobb asked Vaana.

"Let me uvvy into you and I can grep your thinking cap control code," said Vaana.

So Cobb and Vaana did the info transfer, and right away Vaana set Onar to dancing a jig like an organ grinder's monkey, the blood freely dripping from his hand. Onar's jaw was pumping, but Vaana wasn't letting him say anything. His eyes were coals of fear and anger. His forced capering was a ghastly, melancholy sight.

"Oh stop," said Yoke. "Don't torture him, Vaana. We should bandage that cut."

"I've got a better idea," said Vaana, turning so she faced away from the bodyguards and the King. "A way to finish it. Come here, Onar, I want to ask you to do something." Onar stood before Vaana, tense but obedient, oblivious of his bloody hand.

Before Vaana could speak, Yoke interrupted. "Onar, did you kill Mr. Olou on purpose? Make him answer, Vaana."

"Yes," said Onar, his voice strained and cracked. "It was my idea."

"Go git HRH," said Vaana softly. "Don't slow down for them guards. Go git Bou-Bou."

Onar charged across the deck as if hell-bent on attacking the King. At this, the bodyguards reached their flash point. Moving as one, the three of them raised their weapons and blew off Onar's head.

"Takes care of the thinking cap too," said Vaana.

Onar fell heavily and lay still, his neck spurting. Yoke retched. Three days ago she'd made love to this man; his body had been warm and strong, turgid with the same blood that was puddled on the aluminum deck. What a waste, what a pitiful end.

And then the sky seemed to fall in, as something big came crashing into the ocean next to the ship. The object came down so fast that there was an ear-splitting sonic boom. A great wave rolled the ship far to one side like a tin toy, tossing Yoke and the others into the sea.

By a happy accident, Yoke and Cobb ended up next to each other, along with Vaana and the King. The ship, now some distance off, had righted itself. The other moldies and the bodyguards were out of sight. And floating between Yoke and the ship was the great object that had caused the splash. What the hell? It was a flattened disk -- a couple of centimeters thick and ten meters across -- with two dozen lively beaked heads sticking out of it. Yoke thought of the nursery rhyme about four-and-twenty blackbirds baked into a pie. A pizza pie.

"It's Cappy Jane," said Vaana, noticing Yoke's wonderment. "The Tongan geosynchronous satellite. Hi, Bou-Bou, looks like we're together again." She wrapped her arm around the King, who was struggling to stay afloat.

"Dear Vaana," said the King. "I was devastated when that fool of a captain shot you. Thank heavens you recovered."

"Don't let it happen again," said Vaana. "One more thing, Bou-Bou. You got any more leech-DIMs?"

"I don't!" cried the King. "It was all Onar's idea. He got what he deserved. Disgusting person. I never should have befriended him." He was dog-paddling hard, weighed down by his heavy clothes. "I'm sinking, Vaana." Vaana sucked in volumes of air and positioned herself between the King's legs like an inflatable sea horse.

"I hope Ke

"Remember that it's important that the moldies don't find out who Yoke and I are," Cobb whispered urgently to Vaana and the King, using his voice rather than the uvvy. "Or they're going to be hounding us for Yoke's alla. That's why you set up the Squanto and Sue Miller ID viruses for us, right?"

"That's right," said the King.

"Here, Cobb," murmured Yoke. "I'll uvvy you their identity codes."

"Beautiful," whispered Cobb. "I'll put those out for the Cappy Janes to see. We don't want them and their pals to follow us home for more free goodies."

"Where's our imipolex?" squawked one of the bird heads sticking out of the big disk of Cappy Jane. "Yeah, Vaana," said another of the heads, clacking its beak.

"You called for help and promised us more imipolex than we've ever seen, so where the fuck is it?" A third head craned toward the aluminum ship. "Is it in the hold of that tub?"

"The local moldies done cleaned us out," said Vaana. "Nothin' left in there but gold."

"Ah, the superstitious human worship of rare minerals," said one of the Cappy Jane heads bitterly. "Too bad they don't know what it's like to have to buy the flesh to make their children." A different head eyed Yoke and piped, "Is this the girl who's supposed to have the magic wand? Who is she?"

"I'm Sue Miller," said Yoke. "And this is my moldie Squanto. How much imipolex would you like? How about a thousand tons!" She felt gay and reckless from so many crazy events. If things kept up as weird as this, maybe Phil could come back too.

Yoke gripped her alla and grew a large bright-line box in the water, keeping it a safe distance from her and the others. She could sense the location of the alla box through her uvvy, as if from a phantom limb. How big could it get, anyway? Though she tried to push it farther, the cube seemed to max out somewhere between twelve and thirteen meters on each side. About forty feet. Well short of touching the sea floor.

"Get ready for a jolt!" she cautioned the others. "I'm going to turn that big cube of water into imipolex. Actualize!"