Hylozoic by Rudy Rucker Page A

the shore, Bixie andChu were already paddling back toward them, having caught a breaker the minute they’d arrived.
    Thuy was teeping a coolness between these two. It seemed Bixie was annoyed with Chu for having gone so far as to try and kiss her after their first ride. Poor Chu. Now he was feeling rejected and unlovable. But what did he expect? Bixie was a bit skeptical of boys in general, and not all that interested in Chu in particular.
    Meanwhile—oh, oh—here came a wave with Thuy and Jayjay’s names on it. This was almost literally true. For, like every other natural system, the wave had a resident silp, and the wave-silp knew that the two kiqqie surfers were awaiting her. In fact the wave was in teep contact with Thuy, helping to plan her launch.
    â€œNow,” said the wave-silp as she slid past. “Cowabunga.”
    Kicking hard, Thuy made it over the foamy lip and slid down the liquid precipice, first kneeling on the board and then standing up, with Everooze suggesting muscle moves to improve Thuy’s balance. The wave, the board, and Thuy were thinking as one.
    Teeping over her shoulder, Thuy observed that Jayjay had missed the wave. She rode the breaker another sixty meters before shooting back over the wave’s lip. Everooze helped her paddle toward her husband.
    The big wave had been the first of a set, so Thuy had to duck under two successive walls of water. When yet another wave loomed up, she stopped ducking and teleported straight to Jayjay, teeking Everooze along.
    Something was wrong. Jayjay was lying on his back on the board, slightly twitching. A fit? The twitching amped up; he was shaking all over. His skin was covered with vibrating goose bumps, like a pond in a rainstorm. His wetsuit bulged at his crotch.
    Thuy took hold of Jayjay’s board; she cradled his head so the seawater wouldn’t slop into his mouth. He was making an off-key droning sound and gently bucking his hips.
    â€œJayjay?”
    No answer but his rhythmic hum. Peering into his mind, Thuy saw part of his vision: a symmetric, overripe woman dressed in feathers, her breasts and sex exposed. A girlfriend? A porn show? Her face was very strange—oh. She had no eyes. Just smooth skin.
    Thuy delved into the Gaian mind for help; Gaia was right here watching, dragonflies haloing her face. “That’s not a woman,” said Gaia. “It’s an alien projection who latched onto Jayjay last night. She’s called a Pekklet. She’s controlled by Pekka, the world-mind of a bird planet.”
    Slavishly obeying the feathered fantasy Pekklet, Jayjay was repeatedly spewing out a particular psychic pattern, an insanely intricate construct that resembled a gear-based Swiss watch with innumerable colored worms inside it, each worm twisted into a different knot. Jayjay was using his whole body to send this teek pulse to—how weird—each and every atom in the vicinity, his manic spray of femtohertz data fanning fifty kilometers out to sea, fifty kilometers inland, and a hundred kilometers deep into the Earth’s crust.
    â€œCan you set him free?” Thuy implored Gaia. “Can you block the Pekklet’s teep?”
    â€œIt’s not teep,” said Gaia. “It’s a quantum entanglement connection to the Pekklet’s flesh body, hidden in the subdimensions of your cabin floor.”
    â€œWhat’s all this for?” demanded Thuy.
    â€œI’m not sure yet.”
    Jayjay’s spell had passed; he was staring glassy-eyed into the sky.
    All around them the ocean had turned tame. The water’stiny ripples were gone, as were the big rollers—there was nothing left but smooth, medium-sized waves.
    Stabbed by jealousy over her husband’s susceptibility to the Pekklet’s sexual teasing, Thuy gave his shoulder a rough shove. “You think she’s sexy? An eyeless alien bird?”
    â€œI can’t help myself,” said Jayjay despairingly.