Realware

"What kind of look do a moldie generally have?" asked Wubwub.

"Here in the city they look like people," said Babs. "Approximately. Like caricatures. It's considered dooky for a moldie to look too exactly human, though Shimmer and Ptah are so over-the-top that they'll be okay. No humans are that beautiful.

And the way they look like marble and bronze makes it clear that they're not trying to pass for people. Now you, Wubwub, you can be a pig-man. A person with a face like a pig. Keep your snout and ears, but change your body and legs. That's good. Legs a little longer. You need more than two fingers on your hands, try three, no, four counting the thumb. All right. And, yes, keep the tail, in fact make it bigger and curlier. Like a corkscrew. Wavy. Now your mouth -- it's too scary. Here, let me -- " Babs stepped forward and began molding Wubwub's face. Wubwub generated dancing bright alla-lines to effect the changes as fast as Babs suggested them. "We'll curve the lips up at the end, put in a smile wrinkle, make the snout a little shorter, shorten those snaggle teeth, arch the eyebrows, fold that one ear over, and, oh, how about a big white spot around this eye? That's perfect. You look darling. Look at yourself through my uvvy. You don't like the white spot? Oh, all right, get rid of it, then. Fine. You look handsome but tough."

"Come to my aid, Babs," said Peg, elongating and taking on a womanly form. "What think you of my horn?"

"A unicorn horn is more of a guy thing," said Babs. "It's a dick symbol. You'd do better to have, um, two little horns."

"Like a cow?" asked Peg. There was a flicker of bright mesh-lines and her face grew broader.

"Oh yes, Peg," put in Yoke unkindly. "Be a cow."

"Don't listen to her," said Babs. "You want to be a devil-girl. Sexy and with curvy red horns and reddish skin. Yeah, yeah, okay, but make your T and A bigger. That's good -- if only it were so easy for everyone. And, um, fine, keep the blonde hair. Usually devil-girls are brunette, but you can be a Val devil-girl. Better make your skin more pink like sunburn instead of that coppery Native American hue. Oh, and don't forget to make your tail all leathery and with a little arrow at the tip. That's a dick symbol too, but on a devil-girl it's hot. Like a strap-on dildo. Oh, you've got it now, Peg, you're moanin'. Next?"

A few minutes later six of the Metamartians were the shape and size of well-proportioned humans resembling, respectively, a marble Venus, a bronze Apollo, a pig-man, a devil-girl, a snake-woman, and a bird-man. For his part, Josef stayed resolutely the same.

"I'll observe," said Josef. "A deep participation is not my style. I'll be the fly on the wall. The beetle."

"Haresh looks like that Egyptian god," said Yoke. "Thoth." The Metamartian had left his head exactly in the shape of a bird's. "What a birdbrain."

"Zoom!" exclaimed Babs. "Egyptian! You Metamartians can go join the Snooks family on the Anubis. After last night, Cobb here must know those moldies pretty well. Right, Cobb? You can tell Thutmosis and Isis Snooks that these six are friends of yours just down from the Moon and that they're looking for work."

"Work doin' what?" asked Wubwub suspiciously.

"Oh, the Snookses are into all kinds of things," said Cobb. "You can tell them you're a --a burglar, Wubwub. Just secretly actualize things like liquor for the Anubis bar and say that you stole it. And that can be your contribution to the family. You don't necessarily have to fuck the cheeseballs, if that's what you're worried about."

"I'm not worried about that," said Shimmer, staring down at the sleeping Randy Karl Tucker. "It might be fun."

"I'm going to call Theodore right now," sighed Babs, walking off toward the front of the warehouse.

"Babs likes Randy," Yoke explained to Shimmer. "It makes her unhappy to think of him having sex with you. So don't do it, please."

"Oh!" said Shimmer. "I hadn't realized."

"It's not our affair if the vile youth lacks wholesome passion for Babs," said Peg snippily.

"What kind of sex system do you Metamartians have?" asked Yoke. "Do you have any kind of clue?"

As usual, Josef wanted to be the one to answer the question, but Siss made as if to swat him.

"I the one who sexy, Josef. You let me speak."

Siss had a face of pale humanlike skin with large, almond-shaped eyes. Her nose was little more than two flattened holes and her mouth was immensely long and thin-lipped. Instead of hair, she had a skull-fitting hood of shiny green snakeskin that flowed down to join the snakeskin which covered the rest of her body, save her hands, which had humanlike skin and long green fingernails. The hood had a dramatic widow's peak in the middle of her forehead. Siss looked decadent, Asian, androgynous.

"We have something like boy/girl too," she explained. "One got stick, one got hole. Each of us is 'stick' in some lives, 'hole' in others. Many lives across two-dimensional time. Stick to hole, hole to stick, like big crocodile sex zipper." Siss showed her fangs and made a gentle biting motion, her long curved fangs sliding into matching sockets in her jaws. "Everyone both girl and boy."

"But there's more to it than that," piped up Josef. "We zipper together in loops of seven. Why seven? It has to do with a feedback resonance in the strange attractor of our metagenome. In ancient times we mated only on Metamars, but now we've chirped out into the cosmos. When seven of us nomads can meet and mate -- it's a wonderful thing. Seven of us landed here, but eight of us shall leave."

"I for one am eager to be getting on with our adventures," said Haresh. Other than Josef, he looked the least human. "Can we go and meet the Snooks family now?"

"Stay uvvied in with me." said Cobb. "If they ask you any hard questions, I can feed you the answers. Now is a good time to show up. Most of them are going to be asleep or hung over. Remember, you guys come from the big Nest on the Moon. And you're going to promise to give the Snookses half the imipolex you earn, in return for them letting you join their family."

"Let's do it!" said Shimmer.

They waited by the warehouse's front door until they could see a time-line in which no passersby would notice them. Cobb and the six big Metamartians jumped out onto the street with little Josef buzzing along above them.

"Look at them go, Yoke," said Babs, just ending her uvvy call with Theodore.

"What a sight."

"Anubis, ahoy!" said Yoke. "We better not stare after them. We don't want it to be totally obvious that your warehouse is where they came from. How was Theodore?"

"Oh, fine. Thrilled that I called. We made a date, not a di

"I told Shimmer to leave Randy alone," said Yoke.

"What? I don't believe you, Yoke. What'd she say?"

Yoke put on her Val voice. "Shimmer was like, 'Oh I didn't know.' And that swilly Peg is all 'It's not our problem.' And I'm like 'Do you have any clue about sex?' And Siss goes, 'We're bi.' But then Josef says they do it by sevens."

Babs laughed and gave Yoke a hug. "Whatever. Randy is pretty skanky. Let's get our allas and do art!"

"What about Randy's alla?" said Yoke.

"Maybe we should take it away?" said Babs. "Maybe give it to someone else?"

"At least hide it for now," said Yoke. "He might do something really gnarly with it if he's still lifted when he wakes up."

So they tiptoed back to Yoke's sleeping corner. Willa Jean had perched herself on Randy's chest, as if guarding him. Though Cobb and Randy hadn't yet fixed up a new DIM link between Randy and the plastic chicken, Willa Jean was still quite loyal to the Kentuckian.