Frek and the Elixir (28 page)

“Dad!” shouted Frek, running toward the stairs, all his anger temporarily forgotten.

“Frek!” called Dad, his face splitting in a smile. “The supreme Frek Huggins! You made it!” With a quick twist and jostle, he got ahead of Yessica and came loping down the stairs. They shook hands, and then Carb even tried to lift Frek into the air like he used to, but Frek had grown, and he wasn't all that eager for Carb to be lifting him, so it didn't last long. They didn't quite manage to hug. Hawb and Cawmb stood by Frek's side, listening and watching.

“Is this some goggy action, or what?” said Carb, gesturing around the room. Frek noticed that he was wearing the ring that matched Frek's. Even though the rings had caused him trouble, it still made Frek proud to be paired with his father. “We're halfway across the galaxy,” continued Carb, “cutting deals for clam-headed monsters with the branecasters from Dimension Z! I've missed you, son. You look great. How's Lora?”

“Oh, she's all right,” said Frek, unable to suppress his smile of pleasure at seeing his father. “We've all been kind of mad at you for leaving. I guess you heard Mom got you two guys unwebbed.”

“Yeah,” said Carb, looking a little sad. He glanced over his shoulder, hooking his thumb toward Yessica, who was just completing her grand entrance. “Truth be told, Yessica's the one got me to leave Earth. It hasn't really worked out like I expected. Women, Frek—someday you'll see. I know I'm a rat. But I had to bail. Gov wanted to give me the Three R's, I owed money to a gleep who was threatening to collect one of my kidneys, and when I met Yessica on the Net—well, it seemed like a point-and-click. And all to help the mighty Crufter cause! I had to sneak off without telling you guys, or Gov would have stopped me.”

“You tell him, Carb,” said Yessica, sweeping up to them in a cloud of stink. “The cause is everything.” Musk perfume wafted up from her three low-cut dress tops, a floral perfume seeped from the nostrils of the watch-me boa, incense trickled from a miniature shield-bug clamped to her left earlobe, and she even had a pheromone shelf-fungus growing upon her right ankle.

Mixed in with the sulfur smell of the silently listening Unipuskers, the combination made Frek sneeze.

“Yessica, this is my son, Frek,” said Carb, dredging up a scrap of the manners that Grandma Huggins had drilled into him. “And Frek, this is Yessica Sunshine, my special friend. I take it you met Yessica's daughter, Renata, on the saucer. You two hit it off?”

“Sure,” said Frek, not wanting to give his real feelings away. He glanced at Renata; her face was studiously blank. “Hello, Yessica,” added Frek.

Yessica stared deep into Frek's eyes, formed her lips into a smile, and held out her hand as if Frek might kiss it. Frek sneezed again, then shook the woman's hand, doing his best to avoid looking at her triple décolletage. The gongs and flutes were still playing about her, but now Yessica did something to make her watch-me boa fall silent.

“Have Hawb and Cawmb told you about our big plans?” Yessica asked Frek in a bright tone. “They're going to help us to spread the Old Ways all over Earth. The Crufter Teachings. Your father's to negotiate for the whole human race.”

“Provide Yessica and Carb with updated information that Frek has already met with the branecasters,” interjected Hawb. “Inform them that, so long as Frek lives, he is the exclusive negotiator for humanity channel production deals with the branecasters. Point out that Frek need not live very long.”

“You met the branecasters during that little blip when we lost track of you?” exclaimed Carb. “That was less than a second of realtime. And you were over in the, the—what do they call it again, Yessica?”

“The Planck brane,” said Yessica in a cold tone. “Oh, Frek—you pushed your way over there? How piggy. You really could have checked with your father first. This was supposed to be his big thing. His key to self-esteem. You must have some unresolved issues with him, if you treat him that way.”

“Come
on,
Mom,” exclaimed Renata. “Enough of your gobbledygook. It's not like Frek had a choice. He unyunched because we asked him to, remember? Frek thought Carb was hurt. Don't you remember putting the makeup on Carb to trick Frek into coming down? Hello? How could Frek possibly know they'd come down too near the transport tube and pop on through to the Planck brane?”

“If it's so easy to ‘pop through,' as you put it,” said Yessica, changing her tack, “then why did we just fritter away two weeks sitting here off the grid? Cawmb? You know perfectly well how essential a role I have on the Sick Hindu asteroid. I can hardly imagine how my people are getting along without me. It's not acceptable for you to waste my time like this.”

“Remind you that we suffered a Jumm bobblie bomb in the transport tube,” said Cawmb. “Question your presumption in using such a peremptory tone with me. Threaten to kill you.”

“I'll use any tone I like, you freaking monster,” said Yessica. “Threaten, threaten, threaten, all day long. Why don't you chew on
this
idea with your disgusting toothless mouth-shell: you've got Carb's flesh-and-blood son now, which means you have all the leverage over him you could ever need. Send back my daughter immediately. It's criminal that she's being endangered. Surely you recognize that a person of my status is entitled to have her gene-line preserved. Send Renata back today, but, yes, you may keep me a bit longer. I admit to being intrigued by the branecast production negotiations. I think there's still a chance I can do something significant to synergize the process.”

Three little vigs came frolicking across the room, bouncing on the stubby bumps they had instead of legs, their eye stalks dancing. Wow took off after them, and they burrowed under one of the enormous chairs. Unable to get at them, Wow ran to the other side of the room, where more vigs were vheenking.

“Inform you that the transport tube's force fields are fully repaired and that our branelink will be operational by noon tomorrow, Yessica,” said Cawmb. “Don't make us feed you to the vigs.”

Cawmb and Hawb dragged over a pair of huge thronelike chairs with tail holes and seated themselves beside a couch and the chair where the vigs had hidden. The calm, tasty beasts hardly seemed like man-eaters, but presumably bigger, meaner ones could be found. Not that the Unipusker's threats seemed very likely to be carried out any time soon. Right now they seemed in the mood for extensive conversation.

“Obviously you'll help the Unipuskers, correct, Frek?” said Yessica, flopping down onto the chair with the vigs. Dad perched himself on the chair's plush arm. He silently studied his fingernails and picked at the cuticles, listening with an amused expression.

“I might,” said Frek, taking a seat on a nearby couch with Renata. There was no point in antagonizing Yessica and the Unipuskers just now. Might as well gather more information. With the golden glow as big as the sky, his thoughts as elusive as air, and his brain fresh-combed, Frek didn't have to form opinions before he was ready.

A few meters off stood Gibby, still esping the big flickerball. The buzzing truly was unpleasant. And if you looked at the ball even a little bit it was hard to look away. Frek disliked branecasting more all the time.

“Help them or else—” put in Dad, cutting off his phrase with a shrill razzing noise and running his finger across his throat. He meant it as a joke, and Frek laughed. Rebellious old Dad could make anything official seem ridiculous. Even a death sentence.

“It's not funny, you two,” snapped Yessica. “I have been absolutely depending on Carb to get the Unipuskers to let me transmit Crufter lore to everyone on Earth. Can we depend on you to support your father and me in this, Frek? Giving me open access to humanity could be a major evolutionary step forward for our human race.”

A major step toward killing everyone with boredom, thought Frek. But, for Renata's sake, he came on glozy. “My idea is to have the branecasters give us an elixir to restore the biome of planet Earth,” he said mildly. “To bring back all the missing species.”

As Frek said this, he briefly wondered if the elixir really
was
his idea. Hadn't Bumby actually been the first one to suggest it? But, come to think of it, Bumby had probably esped the notion from Frek's mind, esped how intensely Frek wanted to restore the biome.

“Oh,” said Yessica, not exactly able to argue with Frek's worthy goal, but not wanting to support it either, since it wasn't something she'd come up with herself. “But—”

“But I'm also wondering if we'd be better off without any branecast at all,” continued Frek, drowning her out, glozy or not. “Even if that means not getting any goodies.” He glanced at Hawb. “What's the precise appeal of having us as one of your talent races, anyway?” he demanded. “And what would happen to us if you produced our channel?”

“Confess that, on our own, we Unipuskers are unexciting and unoriginal,” said Hawb self-deprecatingly. Angawl was moving among them, offering glasses of vig milk, mounds of rickrack shoots, and platters of raw and cooked vig steak. “Amplify that we're always looking for something new from outsiders,” added Hawb, tossing off a glass of the foamy gray milk. “Single out Cawmb and myself as the very hungriest for novelty. Assert this is why we're the best producers.”

“Explain that production has to do with crafting a talent race's behavior to be pleasing to us,” added Cawmb, pausing to flip his mouth wide open and shovel in a large raw vig steak. “Caution that too much novelty isn't good,” he continued in a muffled tone. “Inform you that Unipusk citizens adhere to a Unipusk Branecast Code, designed to avoid witnessing thoughts and behaviors deleterious to the stability of Unipusk society. Politely stipulate that our espers will in fact be tailoring human behavior to pull it into conformity with the Unipusk Branecast Code.” He swallowed, then wiped the vig blood from the rims of his mouth shells. “Assert this will be for your own good. Guarantee as a sweetener that we will let Yessica broadcast her Crufter teachings to one and all for five minutes a day.” He snapped down another vig steak. “Add an insincere promise to try to obtain your genomic elixir. Weaken this unenforceable noncommitment by remarking that we can honor it only to whatever extent the application of so radical an alteration to the talent biome would prove fully consistent with the Unipusk Branecast Code. Stand back to observe your furious but entertaining reaction.” Another great swallow and more shell-wiping. “Remind you that if you oppose us we will kill you and feed you to the vigs.”

One thing about the Unipuskers, they certainly spoke their thoughts. Bad as the news was, it didn't really surprise Frek. Cawmb's remarks simply confirmed what Frek had subconsciously realized as soon as he'd met the Unipuskers and tried the flickerball. By now, Frek had no intention of voluntarily giving the Unipuskers the humanity channel production deal. Come what may, no branecast at all was the proper answer. Desperate as the situation seemed, Frek had a deep sense that things would work out. He felt power within him, more power than he'd ever imagined before.

“Give it a rest, clam-head,” he said to Hawb, and helped himself to a handful of rickrack shoots and a nicely seared vig steak.

Cawmb and Hawb got into one of their squabbles then. Amidst the drainpipe sounds of their native tongue, Frek kept hearing his name. Probably they were arguing about what Frek had said to them or what one of them had said to Frek. But for now they were done talking to him directly.

“They bicker all day,” said Renata. “It drives me nuts. Try the vig milk. It's not as pukeful as you'd expect.”

The stuff was sweet and mild, almost like a vanilla milk shake, although you
could
kind of taste that it came from the underside of a vheenking vig.

While Frek ate, Dad wandered over to the other side of the room to fiddle with the golden bowl resting on the back of the marble statue of the ideal vig. All at once a white balloon appeared in the bowl; it looked like a pod of moolk. Dad glanced over, and seeing Frek watching him, he winked at Frek and dropped the moolk pod inside his shirt rather than drinking it right away.

“Mention one other thing to you, Frek,” said Cawmb, surfacing from his dispute with Hawb. “Inform you that the Orpolese like to push their branecast worlds into chaos. Point out that this is the opposite extreme from our Unipusk production style. Remark that your race might very well be worse off with the Orpolese than with us. Urge you to thoughtfully consider your options.”

“Where's my room?” said Frek. Wow was lying at his feet. The dog had given up on chasing vigs and had come back to enjoy some of Frek's free vig meat. So far Frek and Wow hadn't had a chance to talk about Woo's disappearance. And Gibby was still mesmerized by the flickerball he was watching, his mouth slack and half open, his eyes rolled partway back into his head.

“The 'Puskers want you and Wow and the Grulloo to share a room that's to hell and gone at the end of the second branch up,” said Carb. “Nice and far from Hawb and Cawmb; they sleep at the tippy-top. Angawl has to take you to your room to lock you in. But I'll come along so we can talk.” He hunkered down and rubbed Wow's head. “Good to see old Wowie again. Remember me, Wowie-Zowie?”

“Carb,” squeaked Wow in his back-of-the-throat voice.

“Good dog. It was nice of you to help Frek on his big adventure. Maybe tomorrow we can finish the job off, Frek. No reason you can't ask the branecasters for that elixir and for Yessica's broadcast rights both, huh?” Without waiting for an answer, Carb walked over to Gibby and tweaked his tail. “Bedtime, you!” Like most normal humans, Carb didn't like Grulloos.

“What!?” shouted Gibby, snapping out of his flickerball trance. “I was—I was climbing a tree. I had arms and legs. What'd you have to bother me for? Who the geeve are you, anyhow?”