The Ware Tetralogy, Rudy Rucker [inspirational books TXT] 📗

largest manufacturer of imipolex. Emperor Staghorn needs a pipe fitter; a master plumber.”

“The folks who make moldie plastic are gonna take the Heritagists’ advice on who to hire?” said Randy. “That don’t make sense.”

“Oh, they’ll take our advice,” said Jenny. “Indirectly. Like I said, we’ve got a lot of contacts, and a lot of people owe us favors. We can get you hired, Randy, I guarantee it. And you’ll be surprised how big the salary is. All we want is that you uvvy me every month or two and tell me about anything interesting you see. And remember, you’ll be working around moldies and imipolex every day.” Jenny smiled again and put on a Kentucky accent. “Hell, Randy Karl, you’ll be happy as a pig in a potato patch.”

“Shitfire!” Randy finally allowed himself to get excited. “India? Do they speak English there?”

“You bet! Just say the word, Randy, and you’ve got the job. We’ll even find you a place to live and buy your plane tickets.”

“I’ll do it!”

“Be at the Louisville airport tomorrow at 9 A.M. They’ll be holding your passport and your tickets for you at the Humana Airlines counter.”

Randy packed his few possessions into his panel truck, told Dr. Pride good-bye, and drove over to Sue’s house to tell her. It was six o’clock on a dark Friday evening.

Lewis answered the door. “Sue’s not here,” he said shortly.

“I’ll come in and wait,” said Randy.

“She’s not coming back till Sunday night,” said Lewis, fingering his mustache. He was twitchy from pepp. “She’s gone up to Indianapolis to visit that goddamn dyke whore Honey Weaver. Your old girlfriend. And as long as Sue’s not home, you’re not welcome.” Lewis made as if to close the door, but Randy stuck his foot in it.

“Don’t slam my own door on me, you poncey son of a bitch.”

“You mess with me, son, and you’re in for a world of hurt,” snapped Lewis. “I’ve got a gun. What the hell are you doing here anyway?” He peered out at Randy’s laden truck. “Don’t tell me you want to move back in! Xoxx-ass loser.”

“I’ll be spending tonight in the garage like I used to,” said Randy shortly. “And you’d best not disturb me.”

He cruised out for some burgers and brought a six-pack of grape soda back to the garage. The back of the garage was still set up more or less like Randy’s room; he’d only taken a few of his things with him when he moved over to the Heritage House. Randy took out the suitcase he’d gotten for his high school graduation and carefully began going through his life’s accumulation of stuff, trying to figure out which things he’d need in India. What the hell would it be like there?

Finally Randy’s bag was ready, and he spent another hour unpacking the plumbing supplies from his truck and storing them back in with Sue’s stuff. He was fooling around with his beloved pipe-gun when Lewis appeared in the garage, pepped to the pits. He had an old-fashioned Wild West gunpowder pistol in his right hand. What an asshole.

“I said you’re not welcome here, Randy,” said Lewis, pointing out the garage door like some kind of plantation overseer. “Out.”

Randy felt himself looking down submissively. He always got scared when people yelled at him; he always gave in and looked away. But tonight he caught himself doing it, and he realized he didn’t want to give in anymore. He touched the pipe-gun’s controls, which set a growing white snake of two-inch plastic pipe creeping across the garage floor, hidden from Lewis’s view by the truck.

“I mean it,” said Lewis, stepping closer and waving his gun. “Get your trashy ass out of here, Randy Karl Tucker.” He actually twirled his mustache after he said this.

Randy had the pipe form a right angle and flow out from under the truck just in time to tangle with Lewis’s feet. Lewis stumbled, looked down, and suddenly the pipe grew a tee at its end and accelerated straight up, punching Lewis in the crotch. The man doubled in pain, dropping his pistol.

Randy’s fingers danced across the pipe-gun controls, and in seconds Lewis was imprisoned in a tight cage of pipes. When Lewis opened his mouth to yell, Randy grew a skillful circle of pipe tight around his head, gagging him so that he could do no more than grunt and moan.

“How would you like it I send a pipe right up your butt and out the top of your head?” asked Randy rhetorically. “But I don’t need the hassle of the cleanup. After tomorrow I’m gone. Goin’ to India, Lewis. Not Indiana, my man, but India. It’ll be real different there, for true.” Randy opened up the back of his emptied panel truck and threw in a couple of canvas tarps. “Stay nice and quiet, Lewis, if you don’t want that there plastic pipe enema.” Randy found a dolly and used it to lever the caged Lewis into the back of the truck, loosely wrapping the cage in the tarps in case Lewis did try to make noise. “You can breathe, can’t you? Maybe I should trim off that mustache for you? To hell with it. You’ll be okay. Tell Sue good-bye for me when you see her Sunday.” Randy shut the truck door, took his suitcase, closed up the garage, and spent the night on the couch watching porno on the uvvy, just like old times, with tattered Angelika and Sammie-Jo for company.

It turned out that Randy liked India a lot. He liked the chaos and disorganization of the city streets—the sweepers, the priests, the bright-clothed women with alert eyes, the thin barefoot men in plastic shirts or no shirt at all, the older men in white jackets, the wildly bearded holy men, the nose rings and pouchy eyes and orange cloth, the hundred castes and colors and languages. There was always a hubbub, but nobody really hurried. There was always time to talk. Everyone seemed to speak at least a bit of English—idiosyncratic British-and-Sanskrit-tinged English—and to be happy to practice it on Randy Karl. People were kind to Randy in India, and kindness had been something in short supply throughout his life so far.

The Emperor Staghorn Beetle Larvae, Ltd., fab was about ten miles east of Bangalore. Initially Randy commuted there by train every day. The Fab was a huge rectangular building, windowless and tightly secured, lest moldies break in to steal the precious imipolex. At any given time there were twenty to a hundred moldies flying or hopping around outside the structure, drawn to the source of imipolex like bees drawn to honey. Arriving at Emperor Staghorn for his first day’s work, Randy was thrilled to see so many moldies. One of them approached him as he walked to the fab from the train.

“Hello there,” said the moldie, a womanly figure clothed in what looked like bracelets, bangles, necklaces, belts, and a golden crown. “I’m Parvati. Are you new here?” Parvati stood very close to Randy. Randy noticed that her many pieces of jewelry were, in fact, shiny bumps and ridges of her imipolex flesh.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Randy. “I’m a-startin’ on as a pipe fitter.” Surreptitiously he sniffed the air, tasting of the moldie’s odor and finding it good. “Do you work here too?”

“I wish I did,” said Parvati. “All that gorgeous imipolex. What is your name?”

“Randy Karl Tucker. I’m from Kentucky.”

“How extremely interesting. Randy, you will learn that the Emperor Staghorn employees are allowed to buy imipolex at cost from the company store. Be sure always to purchase as much as you can afford, and I can trade it for whatever you want. Food, money, intoxicants, sexual intimacy, maid service, sky rides, jungle tours, diving in the Arabian Sea—there are a plethora of possibilities.” Parvati’s voice had an enchanting lilt to it.

“Emperor Staghorn employees can buy imipolex?” said Randy. “That’s good. I like imipolex. Fact is—” Randy looked around. The other commuters had already bustled past him and were queuing up at the Emperor Staghorn entrance. “Fact is, I think I may be a cheeseball.”

“I already love you, Randy,” said Parvati, planting a divinely smelly kiss on his cheek. “Run along and enjoy your new job, dear boy. Remember Parvati on payday! We will have a very heavy date!”

Waiting for Randy inside the Emperor Staghorn building was a plump golden-skinned man wearing dirty white pants and a dirty white jacket with many pockets holding many things. He was shiny bald on top, with a wreath of iron-gray curls.

“Greetings, Mr. Tucker,” he said, extending his hand. “I am Neeraj Pondicherry, the plumbing supervisor and, by virtue of this office, your de facto boss. I am welcoming you to Emperor Staghorn Beetle Larvae, Ltd.”

“Thank you kindly,” said Randy. “I’m right proud to be here.”

Pondicherry stared out through the glass door at the figure of Parvati. She’d grown a few extra arms and was smoothly undulating in a sacred dance. “She was certainly chatting you up, Mr. Tucker.”

“Well, um, yeah,” said Randy. “She asked me about having a date with her. I think she’s kinda sexy. I hope it’s—”

“Oh, it’s perfectly all right to fraternize with moldies, Randy. Indeed, Emperor Staghorn is even employing a few moldies here and there. They provide most of our custom chip-molds. But these highly skilled moldie employees are wealthy nabobs, of a much higher caste than the moldies who beg for imipolex outside our fab gates. Shall I call you Randy and you call me Neeraj?”

“Sure thing, Neeraj.”

“Capital. Let’s continue our conversation while we are walking this way.” Neeraj led Randy off down a long hall that ran along one side of the fab building. The right wall was blank, and the left wall was punctuated with thick-glassed windows looking into the fab proper. The people inside were dressed in white coveralls, with white boots and face masks. Meanwhile Neeraj kept talking, his voice a steady, musical flow.

“Yes, the street moldies are very friendly to Emperor Staghorn employees because, of course, they are hoping you will be giving them imipolex. Some of us have moldie servants. When I was a younger man, I kept a moldie who was flying me to work like a great bird! Devilishly good fun. But finally it was becoming too great a financial outlay for a father of five. And too dodgy.”

“Dodgy?” asked Randy. “You mean like risky? To keep a moldie?”

“I will be telling you in due time what precautions you must be taking in your dodgy relations with low-caste moldies,” said Neeraj, starting to open a big door in the left wall. A breeze of pressurized air wafted out. “But that can wait a little bit. We are entering the pre-gowning area. We’ll get suited up and go into the main part of the fab, which is a clean room. Here we are allowing less than one dust particle per cubic meter of air.”

“Imipolex is that xoxxin’ sensitive?”

“Imipolex is a very highly structured quasicrystal,” said Neeraj. “While we are manufacturing the layers, the accidental inclusion of a dust particle can spoil the long-range Penrose correlations. And, of course, we are also producing the hybridized chipmold cultures here, and contamination by a wild fungus spore or by a stray algal germ cell would be disastrous. Keep in mind, Randy, that in the air, for instance, of the train you ride to work, there are perhaps a million particles per cubic meter, and very many of the particles are biologically active.”

The door to the pre-gowning room closed behind them. The floor was covered with