Frek and the Elixir (32 page)

“Frek?” called Carb, raising his voice. “Are you around here, son? Don't let them get you! We've got to escape!”

“I can find Frek,” said Yessica suddenly. Her anger with the Unipuskers was already gone.

With horror, Frek noticed that Yessica was wearing Carb's ring—a gold band with cup and red dot, the twin of the ring on Frek's left hand.

“Stop it, Mom,” cried Renata. “You're a monster!”

“There's always more men,” said Yessica. “I'm trying to save you.”

“Deny that we will harm Frek,” said Hawb. “Point out that our branelink is down again. Propose that in the near term we all become better friends. Guarantee that we will protect Frek from other aliens.”

“Give me back my ring, you grinskin!” shouted Carb.

“Why are you so hostile, Carb?” said Yessica, dancing out of his reach.

“You wanted them to kill my son!”

“Oh, that was just politics,” said Yessica airily. “I thought the Unipuskers could help me make an evolutionary advance.” She hopped off the hoverdisk and ran to Cawmb. “Can you promise not to put me and my ungrateful daughter in your zoo?” she asked the Unipusker.

“Assure you of anything you desire if you help us find Frek,” said Cawmb to Yessica in his sweetest tone. “Guarantee things can still work out your way, Yessica. Estimate that we'll have the branelink up again by next week. Propose that in the meantime we'll educate Frek and bring him around. Suggest this delay is really a blessing. Let harmony prevail. Use the ring now.”

Carb leaped off the hoverdisk and lunged for Yessica, but Hawb easily pushed him away, laughing at the human's impotence.

“I hate you, Mom!” cried Renata. She too made for Yessica, but Gawrgor grabbed her wrists and held her still.

All this time, the vigs had been edging closer to the hoverdisks. Perhaps they expected something nice from the Unipuskers. Frek had been hanging out near the front of the herd the better to watch and to eavesdrop, but now he began trying to work his way toward the rear.

It was too late. The ring on his finger buzzed and tingled. Frek tried every mental contortion he knew to damp it down, but the ring wasn't to be denied. Glowing red and yellow spikes of light oozed out of his left hand—with Yessica's avid face in the center.

Wildly waving his hand, Frek rolled over onto his side and slid out of his vig suit. His chameleon mod had worn off by now, and he'd be visible. But the Unipuskers were about to find him anyway. At the very least, he wanted to keep them from knowing about his newly gained ability to craft kennies.

“I see him,” cried Yessica's face from within the ring's spiky projection ball. “He's naked with a bunch of vigs.”

Frek found it hard to believe he'd ever been glad to have his father's ring. Filled with disgust for Carb, he pulled off his ring and tossed it into the dirt. A vig gobbled it up.

“It's all black now, but I think he's right over there,” sang Yessica. Neither she nor the others seemed to realize what Frek had done with his ring.

From somewhere deep within himself Frek mustered the energy to vaar his gossamer-thin spacesuit back into invisible kenner. And then he was running across the field toward the rounded buildings of the zoo.

“Frek!” called Dad, spotting him from the hoverdisk. His voice sounded weak and foolish. The voice of a loser.

The zoo's units were arranged in a circle around a central courtyard. Each of them had a big window, looking in on captive creatures. One cage held a pair of dusty tornados writhing around each other in a jittery dance. In the next were two glowing pools of lava, their surfaces reticulated in intricately meaningful webs. Then came a unit with a misty atmosphere populated by gently bobbing jellyfish-things. Farther on were purple monkeys on a tree, four enormous snails in iridescent shells, a pair of pink-skinned dogs, giant worms in pool of mud, and a metal cage with buzzing loops of sparks. One oversize unit held a complete little jungle with giant lizards.

What made the sight of the imprisoned creatures particularly melancholy was that the captives seemed oblivious to their plight. For in each cage there were flickerballs, one ball per creature. All of them were continually esping brane. They were plugged into minds upon their home worlds, deep into vicarious secondhand lives. The whole rich vastness of a dozen races was here reduced to the uniformity of consumers esping brane.

A few dozen Unipusker tourists were gawking at the talent race specimens. Just then Frek saw something chilling. It was a cage with no creatures in it, a freshly outfitted cage with a natural habitat in readiness for some new arrivals. It held a couch, a couple of chairs, and four beds. The beds were molded from shelves on the walls; the couch and chairs bulged organically up from the floor; the smooth-cornered walls were covered with softly glowing skin. The Unipuskers had fitted out a cage to look like the inside of a house tree. This was the cell where they intended Frek, Carb, Yessica, and Renata to spend the rest of their days. Four flickerballs sat at the ready, each of them quietly displaying the rotating blue-edged logo cube.

Frek changed direction so fast that he nearly twisted his ankle. He ran past the Unipusker tourists, desperately looking for a shed or an access door behind which he might hide. But everything was sealed. He raced off to the left, heading for the zoo exit—but right then Gawrgor swooped down on him with the hoverdisk.

 

Carb tried to talk to Frek on the ride back to Hawb and Cawmb's mansion, but Frek didn't answer. He was too mad. Right now he felt like he didn't have a father anymore. Meanwhile, Yessica did her best to cozy up to Carb, rubbing against him, whispering things and sending out her clouds of scent. Frek could see him weakening.

As for Gawrnier, he'd chosen the moment of struggle to head off on his own.

Back at the mansion, Renata threw such a fit that Angawl took her upstairs along with Frek and locked them in with Gibby and Wow, using the same complex series of knocks to control the door. At Yessica's urging, Cawmb and Hawb let Carb stay downstairs with her. She promised them Carb would help their cause. Frek half believed her.

And then Frek was alone with Renata, Gibby, and Wow in the room at the tip of the rickrack tree branch. Though Frek would have preferred to cover up his nakedness immediately with some kenny crafted clothes, he didn't want the Unipuskers to see him doing this on their flickerballs. So to begin with, he tackled the issue of getting them full privacy.

With only a few hours' practice it had already become second nature for Frek to keep the brane espers away by means of his sky-air-comb exercise of expanding the glow, making his mind untouchable, and massaging his thoughts into their normal shapes. The insidious espers had all but stopped trying to ooze into him. Now he needed to find a way to expand the immunity to his companions.

He tried explaining it to them. Renata understood, and could almost do it, but Gibby didn't. He could barely perceive that he was being peeked at all. And Wow of course was hopelessly open to the espers; the dog's eyes might as well have been a pair of cameras staring at them.

So Frek drew again upon his powers of mind. Learning how to kenny craft had made a difference; it had taught him how to let his mind flow out of his body and into his surroundings. He entangled his consciousness with Renata, Gibby, and Wow, and repeatedly stepped them through sky-air-comb routine—enabling them to resist the pleasure of the glow, to make their thoughts as mobile as air, and to massage their own thoughts into their familiar, personal shapes.

“What are you doing?” said Renata. “It feels good. Like I'm free all of a sudden.”

“I'm helping you block the espers,” said Frek. “Sky-air-comb.”

“I get it now,” said Gibby. “It works.”

“Don't
you
go reading my mind, Frek,” said Renata, giving him a really nice smile. “I wouldn't want you to see what I think of you. You'd get a swelled head.”

“It gets better,” said Frek, and crafted himself some kenny clothes. He started with turmite-silk blue pants, leather shoes, and a yellow turmite-silk T-shirt just like he'd worn before. Renata and Gibby were suitably impressed. To show off more, Frek made fern-patterned green ribbons for Renata's pigtails. Renata got Frek to put light and dark pinstripes in his blue pants—and to make his shirt purple. She said purple looked better with his skin—and she added that she liked his skin.

“There's got to be a way you can use your power to help us to escape,” murmured Renata.

“Except there ain't no way past this,” said Gibby, thumping his elbow against the tough, rubbery door. “Wow and me been drummin' on it all morning.” He got a thoughtful expression. “Say, I wonder if I could cut our way out with a knife? Can you make me a knife, Frek?”

So Frek kenny crafted Gibby a knife. His memory of Gibby's old knife was clear enough that he was able to make the new one a faithful replica. Gibby immediately tested the knife against the rickrack tree's flesh. Though the knife sliced through easily enough, the living rickrack flesh instantly sealed itself up in the wake of the blade. There seemed to be no way to use the blade to cut themselves an exit door.

It was a long afternoon. Frek maintained a slight continuous pressure to keep the espers off his companions. And he spent nearly an hour trying to teach Renata and Gibby how to kenny craft. Neither of them could get the hang of it.

For now there was nothing better to do than lie around and talk with Renata, which actually wasn't a bad way to pass the time. She explained how her turkle organized its memories, and showed him more of her favorite drawings.

And then Frek asked Renata again about her real father.

“Sri-Sri Krisna,” said Renata with a sigh.

“But he's been dead for centuries!” exclaimed Frek.

“He set up a—a fertility center before he died,” said Renata. “With a zillion copies of his genetic code. All the really devout Sick Hindu women go there. I'm closely related to a lot of the Crufters.”

“Wow,” said Frek, letting it sink in.

“I'm glad you're not my half brother,” said Renata.

“Me too.”

Neither of them cared to push any farther on this topic. Fortunately Gibby interrupted with a new Grulloo song, this one about their trip thus far, with the first verses going like this.

Right before supper, Frek considered crafting a gun to shoot the butler. But with so many Unipuskers between them and the exit, it didn't seem practical. They needed a better plan.

When Angawl's rapid tapping sounded at their door, Gibby hid his knife, and Frek slipped off his new clothes and sat on them. Angawl appeared with a tray of vig milk, vig steaks, and rickrack shoots.

“What's up?” Renata asked the butler, who was certainly too obtuse to notice her new hair ribbons. “When are we getting out?”

“Inform you that our space crews were able to pinch off the unraveling transport tube,” said Angawl. “Anticipate a functioning branelink by next week. Relay Hawb and Cawmb's earnest advice that Frek join our cause.” Yawn.

In the middle of the night Wow woke them all up, just like the night before. Frek immediately made the mental effort to drive the alien espers from their brains.

“Woo barking,” squeaked Wow.

Once again Frek lifted Wow up to one of the room's tiny windows. The weary Gibby and Renata grumbled as Wow barked his head off. As before, the Unipuskers next door started pounding on their wall.

“Wow can open door now,” Wow reported when Frek set him back down. “Woo tell.” The dog trotted over to the wall with the door and began carefully tapping it with his paw.

“Just a minute, Wow,” said Frek. “Stop. Give us a chance to get ready. The Unipuskers aren't going to let us walk straight out. The little ones will make noise, and Cawmb and Hawb will come down from the top with Angawl.”

“Sweet whistle,” said Wow. Apparently the Radiolarians as well as Woo were calling to him.

“Oh, lie down and lick your butt,” said Gibby, pulling Wow away from the door. “Frek not ready.”

“I'll make us Unipusker disguises,” proposed Frek. “Like the vig suit I made myself before.”

“Unipuskers with
ickspot
!” suggested Renata. “It's very contagious. When they see us, they'll go gollywog.”

“What does ickspot look like?” asked Frek.

“We'll want a few dozen scabby craters on our bodies,” said Renata. “Four or five centimeters across. Black and gooey in the middle, gray and flaky around the edges. Our eye stalks should be crooked too, with kinks in the middle. And our shell heads will need moldy white fuzz. Like this.” She chuckled a little as she sketched the images on her turkle, telling the little kritter what colors to shade the shapes she made.

“Looks gumpy all right,” said Frek. “Calm
down,
Wow, we'll be ready in ten minutes.”

Actually it took over an hour, with Frek blocking out the alien espers all the while.