Frek and the Elixir by Rudy Rucker

Author:Rudy Rucker
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2004-11-22T16:00:00+00:00

9

The Spaceport Bar

The snow stung Frek’s bare feet, and the fumes made the air hard to breathe. The shrill roar from the burst tube was stupefying. He wanted to head for the spaceport—he had a vague plan of getting aboard some alien ship. But just now, more than anything, he needed shelter.

Glancing up at the kenny crafters’ building, Frek noticed a lone figure standing in an open door. Gawrnier. The languid Unipusker’s eye stalks were pointed straight at him. Even though Frek’s skin was cunningly stippled with blue, red, and yellow to match the methane crystals and the Unipusk dirt, Gawrnier could see him. The kenny crafter made a quick beckoning gesture.

The smell of the Jumm gas and the melting crystals was sickening. Frek could hear a threatening buzz beneath the shriek of the broken transport tube. The hoverdisk was about to appear from around the clam-shaped building’s edge. Frek darted up a spindly staircase toward Gawrnier, and a moment later he was safe inside the kenny crafters’ building.

Though Frek had expected to end up in the same big-domed room he’d seen before, he found himself in a Spartan two-room apartment with some odd, minimalist chairs, a dark steaming tub that he recognized as a Unipusker bed, and an inactive little flickerball. A door across the room led out to the big workshop.

“Welcome Frek to my private studio,” said Gawrnier. “Explain that I prefer this to my mansion by the spaceport. Offer you a seat.” He cocked his head, peering at how Frek’s skin had changed color to blend in with the room’s shades of gray and pearl. “Observe that if I weren’t able to vaar the kenner in your body, you’d be hard to see. Admire your camouflage, not to mention your forceful autopoietic blocking of branecast visibility. Propose that you relax.”

“I’ll try,” said Frek, gingerly perching himself upon a kind of coiled spring. It rocked beneath his weight. “Please don’t tell Hawb and Cawmb you found me. I have to get to the spaceport to escape. And I want to take the others with me. Carb, Renata, Gibby, Wow, and Woo. Not Yessica.”

“Praise your determination,” said Gawrnier. He closed the door to the big workshop. “Reveal that I despise Hawb and Cawmb. Reassure that I’ll do what I can to help you. Inquire if you want to be a kenny crafter?”

Frek’s heart leaped at the thought. “Uh—how did you guess?”

“Reply that I can sense your desire and your latent skill. Confess that I am eager to teach you so as to spread my noble occupation to your world. Propose that we begin immediately.”

But surely this was impossible. “I don’t have time for lessons,” exclaimed Frek. “I’m on the run.” He glanced down at himself. His skin was nicely patterned to match the opalescent curves of the spring-seat. This dose of chameleon mod would only last another few minutes—but he still had one more dose in the purse-fungus glued to the palm of his hand. Though he could feel

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