The Computer Connection

14

At my age you learn to accept the unknowable with grace. You may ask, then, why the difficulty in accepting the Rajah, and the ease of accepting the spacehiker? Patent. The Rajah was the answer to a fact, an explanation which I could not yet accept because an integral part was missing. The hitchhiker made its appearance from an unknowable spacewhere. Neither explanations nor motivations were involved. It was a fact which could neither be denied nor fitted into the cosmic construct. That fact had to be accepted as Ding an sich, a thing in itself.

Impossible to name its original habitat. Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto, which had not yet been visited, much less explored for indigenous fauna and flora? The asteroid belt? Perhaps a refugee from the halo of millions of comets shuttling in from space, around the sun and out again? It might even be a reject from some contrauniverse, spat into our system through a minuscule White Hole.

Metabolism? N known. My hunch later — fed on the electromagnetic spectrum, which meant that out in space it was floating in a sea of food. Locomotion? N known. Possibly rides the stellar winds in space, which would account for its hitching a ride on the freighter; it couldn’t buck the solar wind without help. Reproduction? N known, period. Reason for being? No living thing can answer that. Description?

Well, when we disembarked from the freighter there it was, clinging to the hull, to the incredulity of the officers and the jetport mechs. It reminded me of a myxomycete, a “slime mold” I’d studied at Trinity College; if it was anything analogous to that order the reproduction question was answered; by spore formation. It was a giant flat slab of cytoplasm, about the size of a 3 × 5 scatter rug, translucent, and you could see thousands of nuclei inside, all connected with a demented lacework of I don’t know what. And the nuclei twinkled at you as though the thing were sharing a joke.

Naturally I insisted on taking it along with us, to Natoma’s horror — it filled her with revulsion — but Hic-Haec-Hoc fell in love with Twinkles and slung it over his shoulders like a cape. Twinkles extruded its edges to get comfortable and blinked at Hic, and damned if Hic didn’t blink back. I was glad that Hic had at last found a friend. Twink wasn’t immobile. It would take off from Hic, flapping its edges like a buzzard, and go exploring. Then it would return and they had long conversations.

We’d put down just outside Mexas City, which had ordered the compost, and we took a transit into the city to catch a linear north. The transit crashed and Nat leaped to shield me. My pride was hurt. She snapped, “Big L,” and that settled that. We flagged a free hire-pogo ambling back from the port and instead of landing in Mexas City it pancaked with a smash. My wife again. At the linear port a fuel reserve blew up and we had to scatter. I’d twigged by this time.

“He’s up,” I said to Natoma.

She nodded silently. She knew who and what I meant, and it hurt her.

“The Extro network is in action again,” I said.

“But how does it know where we are?”

“The freighter probably snitched. Now the network is gunning for us.”

“We’re being attacked?”

“Y. All out.”

“What do we do?”

“Stay away from machines and electronics. Go north on foot.”

“A thousand miles?”

“Maybe we can dig up some silent transport on the way.”

“But won’t Mexas City report where we’re going?”

“N. Only that we’re leaving. They won’t know where we’re going and we’re not going to let them know. This is going to be a tough ordeal for us. From here on we don’t talk, not a word. Hic will lead us; the Extro can’t pick up anything from him, and I’ll instruct him with signs.” I got out a slip of paper (a banknote, actually) and wrote: And any time we pass a piece of electronics we smash it.

She nodded again and we moved it out of Mexas City, me silently and patiently instructing Hic-Haec-Hoc. He finally got the idea, took the lead, and we became a lost army of three. I didn’t count Twink.

It was v. interesting. I could tell when we were approaching a town of any size when its broadcasts appeared, flickering before us like a mirage. We hoofed it to Queretaro where our Fearful Leader was sent in and picked up three horses. I’d given him cash along with my instructions but he probably didn’t know what it was for, and most assuredly stole the nags. We rode bareback until San Luis Potosi where Hic stole a small wagon. Nat plaited makeshift cords for a makeshift harness. In Durango the Fearful Leader didn’t do so well. I’d granted and signed “knives” to him. Apparently he didn’t get the message. He brought us two hammers and a shingling hatchet, but at least that made the destruction easier.

The army was spreading a trail of electronic demolition like Sherman’s March to the Sea, but the network couldn’t know it was us; machines are always breaking down for the sake of deserving Repair Syndicates. We camped nights with a sagebrush fire and roasted everything Hic and I could forage. It was tough. We had no cooking or eating utensils. We got water by crashing cactuses, century plants, and prickly pears between flat stones, but we had nothing to store it in.

Then we got a break. We passed an abandoned dump. I explored the rusting, moldering rubbish and, hallelujah! produced cooking and eating tools from forgotten automobile parts; two deep old fenders, eight hubcaps (for plates), and a gasoline tank which I had to hammer loose from the remains of a chassis. That was for water storage. I hammered one of the fenders flattish for a frypan, and raised the sides of the other for a stewpot. We were in business.

Now we really foraged. Natoma taught me how to catch rabbits, Indian-style. When she spotted a big jack sitting up and surveying the terrain, she’d give me the sign and I’d sort of meander past, not getting within spooking distance. The jack would keep his eyes on me suspiciously while I wandered about aimlessly. Meanwhile Nat was creeping up on him from behind. A quick grab and she had him. Not always, but often enough.

We had a windfall once. We’d just crossed a dry arroyo when I noticed black clouds laced with lightning many miles to our left. I stopped the party, pointed to the distant storm, then to the arroyo, and lastly to the gas tank. We waited. We waited. We waited. Then there was a distant ramble followed by a growing roar, and a foaming flash flood torrented down the arroyo. I washed the gas tank repeatedly and finally filled it. The water was full of sediment but it was potable. Then came the windfall; a thrashing, kicking sheep was borne down to us by the tumbling water. I grabbed a leg. Natoma grabbed the other. We hauled it out. I now draw the curtain on the godawful business of butchering and skinning a sheep with a shingling hatchet.

Curiously enough, Twink didn’t seem to need any food, and that’s when I first began to suspect that it was feeding on something outlandish like high-tension wires. It had intelligence. After a week of watching Hic and me foraging it got a piece of the idea. It would blink at Fearful Leader — I wish I knew what language they were speaking — and take off. It would return with all sorts of junk clutched to its plasm; rocks, sage, dead branches, bleached bones, a bottle turned purple by the sun… But one glorious evening it brought back a thirty-pound peccary. More hatchetwork.

Ozymandias crashed in on us the night we’d caught a twenty-pound armadillo and were wondering how to cook it. I don’t exaggerate his advent. It was heralded by approaching bangs, crunches, breakage, flounderings; it sounded like a blind brontosaurus blundering through a jungle. Then he appeared in the firelight, threw his arms wide, knocking over a cactus, and nearly tripped into the fire.

Merlin nicknamed him Ozymandias, from the last sentence of Shelley’s poem: Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away. Oz was colossal. He stood two meters high and weighted 150 kilos. (That’s 6'8" × 330 lbs.) He was a wreck. He’s eaten and drunk his way around the entire system hundreds of times, leaving lone and level sands where once fine food flourished. He was also a wrecker. Oz can’t go anywhere or do anything without breaking something, including himself. Hardly an asset for our expedition, but I was grateful to him for rallying ‘round.

He’s strictly a metropnik — you never find him outside of a Center City — and his idea of action clothes for the wilderness was hilarious: heavy mountaineering boots, tasseled wool stockings, leather shorts, canvas safari coat, and a Tyrolean hat, including the shaving brush. But the dear maladroit had an impressive hunting knife hung from his hip, and that would come in handy. He had a rucksack slung over one shoulder, and from the bulges I could tell it was filled with wine bottles. From the spreading stain and steady red drip I could also tell that at least one of them had been wrecked already.

Ozymandias opened his mouth for a hearty roar of greeting but I signed him off. He shut his mouth, winced, and felt his tongue. Bit it, no doubt. From then on our conversation was conducted written on banknotes, like a couple of deaf Beethovens. I won’t reproduce our shorthand, and anyway Oz broke my stylus. What it got down to was this: The Group knew I was fetching Hic-Haec-Hoc, and Pepys told them Hic was on Titan. Oz did something v. brilliant, he thought. He sent a reply-paid telex to the Titan authorities requesting the return date and destination of Edward Curzon and wife. But — clever, clever — Oz used an alias. The information was sent, and that’s how the network knew. Oz picked up our trail of smashed electronics — he’s not altogether a nudnik — and followed. He surmised that others might do the same.

He greeted us all the same way; hugged, kissed, and tossed us into the air. Oz is a tosser. You have to be prepared to land on your feet; he misses his catch as often as not. He fell in love with Natoma at first sight; he’s always falling in love at first sight. He was taken aback by Twink but tossed it anyway. No kissing. When I asked his advice about the armadillo he was assured and brief. Roast it in the shell, he wrote. Then he inspected the rucksack, pulled out a broken bottle, and wept, pointing to the label. Vosne-Romanée Conti, the finest and rarest of burgundies. However, he cheered up the next moment, shrugged, laughed, tossed the broken bottle in the air, and threw it away, cutting himself in the process.

We had a transport difficulty with Ozymandias. He couldn’t ride a horse; he’d break its back. Natoma got out of the wagon to ride the horse I’d been on (the other two were hitched to the wagon) and Oz got in. He overturned it, scattering our gear. We put it all together and Oz tried again. This time I made him crawl over the tail and sit. It worked. We were now a lost army of four, on the march.

We proceeded to Obregon where Hillel picked us up. He was in a hover, took one look at our scene, and didn’t stop. Acute and fast. He’d no doubt smashed the instrumentation and I couldn’t understand his exaggerated caution. He went straight on over the horizon as though he’d seen nothing. We heard an explosion and a half hour later Hilly came running back to us. Then I understood. His left arm was gone. I was aghast.

The Jew nodded and smiled.

The Rajah?

Y.

How?

Too complicated for writing. It was brilliant.

But you escaped.

At a price. Poulos was the warning.

Regeneration?

Perhaps. You’re the next candidate. Be careful.

W me?

He’s killing in descending order.

Hilly spoke a greeting to the horror-struck Natoma with his eyes, popped a handful of candy into Hic’s mouth, patted Ozymandias on the cheek, and examined Twink with fascination. Twink had never come across a three-limbed Terran before and had to explore the Hebe. Hilly twitched through the examination as though he were receiving electric shocks. Then he took off and was gone for a few hours while we rested and I tried to stop Natoma from crying. Oz produced a flute d’amour from his rucksack and played sweet, mellow sounds.

Hilly rode back on a vintage bicycle which he’d promoted somehow, and the army continued on to Chihuahua where M’bantu joined the party. Five deaf Beethovens. M’b left us and returned, riding a donkey, his long legs scraping the ground. Twink was bewildered by M’bantu’s color and had to examine, naturally. The Zulu understood and immediately stripped. He twitched and jerked through the inspection and finally went over in a dead faint. We pulled Twink off his head and hovered over the Zulu, doing things, until he recovered consciousness. When he’d regained some strength I wrote, Suffocated?

N. Brain drain. Lost brain energy.

Sucked out by it?

Y.

Electro nerve charge?

Y. Don’t let it come near you naked.

W naked?

Clothes insulate a little.

By now our silent army was foraging a path nearly a half mile wide and destroying any possible tattletale machine. M’bantu was an old hand at living off the land and brought in a delightful change of diet; wild yams, wild onions, wild parsley, lily bulbs, parsnip, and strange roots. Hilly, smart as ever, had the sense to bring in a few pounds of rock salt. I must esplain that although a Moleman can consume anything, we do prefer good food. Ozymandias proved himself to be a master chef and improvisor.

Erik the Red joined us outside Hermosillo, and that will give you some idea of the continuous zigzag course we were pursuing. We had to cross the Rio de la Concepcion to get to Nogales. The river was in flood. We were grateful for the chance to have a wash, but we had to leave all our heavy gear behind. We hoped to live off the land as before. We were dreamers.

The farther north we got the more pop. ex. we encountered plus all the mecho-electronic amenities which civilized people demand and take for granted today. We started to travel by night, holing up in obscure places by day, always in the same deadly silence. No more smashing anything. Too much to destroy. We turned into Artful Dodgers.

Between Chula Vista Del Mar and San Diego Erik left us one rest period and returned an hour later and gestured us to follow him. We follow. He led us to a railroad track and an abandoned hand-flatcar. We got on and began pumping our way north, taking turns. It was exhausting work and I was grateful when we ran out of track south of San Diego.

We camped and M’bantu left us. He returned, yanking a camel, two zebras, and a buffalo after him, persuading them to cooperate in animal language. No doubt stolen from the San Diego Zoo. We were now mounted again. North to San Clemente (now a national shrine) where Oz left us and returned slightly damaged with emphatic gestures to follow him. We obey. He led us to a wharf and an empty lifeboat. We rowed north up the coast. Exhausting work and murder on the hands and ass. Thank heaven the leaky relic foundered off Laguna (another tribute to the Wrecker) and we had to swim ashore, me hauling Hic-Haec-Hoc in a cross-chest carry. He could breathe water but the idiot had never learned to swim.

We stripped to let our clothes dry in the sun and lay down to rest, with the exception of Twink, who took off to explore the sea. The last I saw of Twink before I fell asleep was it soaring up out of the water with a furious dolphin flopping away in its plasm. When I opened my eyes again there was a majestic diva in a scarlet caftan standing over us. Queenie.

“Well,” he said. “Trespassing on my private cruising ground. I didn’t know you were so well hung, G—” At this point he was cut off by Hilly’s hand over his mouth. With a finger Hilly wrote in the sand, N talk.

W? Queenie wrote.

Extro.

?

On way to kill it.

Knows you’re here?

Hopefully, N.

That’s why you can’t talk?

Y. Or go near electronics.

Can help?

Y. Stay here and be conspicuous.

Always am.

Be more so now.

Decoy?