Across the Spectrum (4 page)

He staggered a little, as the Ektra pushed him backwards off
the mat.

Tweet!
“No points!”

Hog cursed under his breath and returned to the center of
the mat. This time he was ready.

Tweet!

He was up, turning, leaving the lagoon-creature on the mat . . .
except for the tentacle that whipped out and caught his ankle and jerked his
leg high in the air.
“Gaaahhhh!”
Hog roared, hopping . . .
hopping . . . hopping . . .

Time seemed to slow and twiddle its thumbs as he danced,
evading the second tentacle, while struggling in vain to escape from the first.
He edged slowly toward the out-of-bounds, and the lagoon-creature slowly
dragged him back.

Time took a coffee break. Time went out to an early lunch . . .

And Hog hopped . . . hopped . . .
hopped . . .

Would the period never end? he thought desperately, throwing
his weight up and down with fading strength. Would time never run out on this
eternal second period . . . ?

BLAAATTTT!
went the buzzer.

Tweeeeet!
“No points!” called the ref.

Hog gasped, as the Ektra released his leg.

“Shake it off, Hog—shake it off!” “Go, Justin—!”

He gulped air as he staggered in a circuit around the mat,
before going to assume the top position for the final period. “Whattza score?”
he rasped to the ref.

“Three to one, Ektra,” the ref informed him.

From somewhere overhead, the strains of country-western
music filled the gymnasium.

∞

For Earth, Hog thought dizzily, focusing on the form of
the creature before him. Do it for Earth. Do it for wrestling. For wrestling.
For the tricrystal medal. Just gotta do it, somehow.
You’re on camera—the
only human left.

“FREE DRINKS, HAWWWG!” yelled Harmin’.

Tweet!

He hurled his weight into the lagoon-creature, hoping to
topple it over. His only hope now was to turn it over for the fall. He felt its
weight giving way . . . altering shape under him. What the hell
was it going to be this time?

For an instant, he felt a disgusting slime under him, as the
Ektra’s form dissolved. Repulsed, he involuntarily loosened his hold a little,
and as he did so, a hundred and thirty-eight pounds of Ektra bounced up into
his chin. He almost lost his grip, but somehow recovered his balance and thrust
himself against the Ektra with all the strength his legs had left.

Boing.

The Ektra bounced back against him.

Boing.

It bounced away from him, veering unexpectedly to his right,
and doing a backflip out of his arms. He threw himself against it before it
could get completely away, tackling it and carrying it out of bounds.

Tweeeet!

Panting, Hog took a good look at his opponent as it settled,
more or less, into position in the center of the mat. It looked like a large
coil spring inside a knotted sock, and it seemed unable to stop bouncing
completely, even in the starting position. It bobbed and jittered at a sort of
idle speed, reminding Hog of his Uncle Wainwright, who could never sit still,
bouncing and gumchewing his way through entire ballgames—and who had often
belittled Hog for choosing wrestling over basketball. Hog glared at the
coil-springed Ektra, and imagined it shapechanging into his Uncle Wainwright.

With a silent snort, Hog settled behind the Ektra and placed
his hands carefully on its trunk, prepared to tackle it as viciously as he
could. The centaur-ref peered at him for a moment, seemingly unable to decide
if his positioning was legal. Then it flipped its paddle-hand.
Tweet!

Boing.

Hog lunged into the bouncing shapeshifter, and bounced with
it,
boing, boing
, right off the mat. He got up glaring even harder. Time
was running out, and it didn’t do him any good just to hold the thing down, he
needed to pin it. But how could he pin a coil spring? The one thing that encouraged
him, as he watched it bounce back to the center of the mat, was that it was
starting to look tired. Maybe all this springing was wearing it out.

At the whistle, Hog threw his weight into it again, and
landed flat on his chin. For an infuriating, flustered moment, he thought he
had lost the Ektra, and he scrambled to get up, looking around wildly. Then he
realized that the Ektra was under him; it had splatted out into an enormous
pancake with tiny, starfish legs around its outer edge. He pushed and hauled on
it, but the thing was immovable.

“Turn it over!
Turn it over!”
yelled his coach, his
mother, somebody.

He couldn’t
possibly
turn it over—unless he got off
it completely and tried to flip it like a throw rug. But that would be crazy . . .
it was too heavy and too awkward.

“Warning—Ektra—stalling!” brayed the ref.

“Hog—you’re running out of time! DO SOMETHING!”
hollered Harmin’, from somewhere very close to the edge of the mat.

With a snarl, Hog jumped off the pancake and yanked on the
edge of the thing. It went “Querr
reee!”
and began contracting into a new
shape. Good! Now he could go to work on it!

The change took place in a dizzying blur, and it was not
just a physical blur. Hog felt a wave of confusion pass through his mind, and
he blinked and found himself holding the hand of, and staring into the large
brown eyes of, the most breathtakingly beautiful woman he had ever seen, or
imagined.
(Come . . . come to me . . . now . . .
)
whispered the psicry. She had long, golden-brunette hair; and she was
wearing a clinging silk wrap that did not altogether cover her breathtaking . . .
her breathtaking . . .

. . . and she was breathing so hard, so
quiveringly
hard, and pulling him by the hand toward her with a smile that made his heart
stop.

“Whoaaa—Hog! All riiiight! Go for it, man, go get it!”

The sound of Harmin’s voice was strangely removed, as though
Hog and his . . . opponent? . . . had been
whisked into a private place for a special little tête-à-tête, with everyone
else suddenly a very long way away, miles away, light-years away.
(Yes, yes . . .
come get it . . . you will like it very much . . .
)
And, for a fleeting instant, Hog thought that was fine, just fine, very
fine indeed. For the glory of Earth fine. Oh yes.

And then maybe a whiff of oxygen reached his brain, or maybe
a whiff of astringent alien breath, because the hypnotic spell slipped just a
little, and his heart seemed to beat again, and with a start he realized that
he was sinking to the mat, allowing himself to be drawn into the arms of this . . .
about to pull this gorgeous creature on top of him, this . . .

“Get that goddamn tramp off you, Justin!”
screamed someone,
his mother.

. . . Ektra shapeshifter.

“Awwwww, jeeeez!” he panted, struggling to get his brain
clear, and realizing he had about one second before he’d be flat on his back
under this . . . sex-crazed . . .

The woman’s weight was already shifting for the pin. And his
mind was still fogged . . . but not quite so fogged that he
couldn’t make one last, desperate hopeless move.

He reached down and tickled her in the ribcage.

“
Breee-heee-heeeeeee!”
shrieked the shapeshifter,
erupting into helpless laughter and losing its hold.

Hog scooted out from under it, but managed to keep his
fingers in there tickling. He was gasping from the exertion, but his gasps were
drowned out by screams of laughter . . .

“Kreee-hee-hee-
(stop)
-hee-heee-kreee-
(stop)
-heee-hee-hee-
(please
stop!)
-hee—”

Hog struggled to disregard the psicry pummeling his mind. He
hugged and cradled this creature, far and away more gorgeous than any woman he
had ever even fantasized about, cradled her in a fabulous embrace . . .
tickling mercilessly.

“Kreee-hee-hee-(stop please stop!)—”

“HOG, TEN SECONDS LEFT!!!”

The thing’s laughter was contagious, and Hog fell on her,
nearly laughing uncontrollably himself. And he pressed her back down to the
mat, his left arm crooked in a careless reverse-half-nelson, his right hand
tickling just below those magnificent—

Whack! Tweeeeeeet!
“Pin! The match goes to the
human!” brayed the centaur-ref.

And he almost couldn’t make himself stop tickling her now
that he had her down, but the roar of the crowd was enough to make him look up
in a daze, and the first thing he saw, past the four legs of the ref, was
Harmin’ Harmon jumping up and down like a dancing buffalo. His friend’s voice
was drowned out, but it hardly mattered. And the second thing Hog saw was the
centaur bending down to look at him with apparent puzzlement in its eyes.

“Human, I am unsure how you did that,” the ref said, waving
its paddle-hands. “But congratulations. And if you don’t get up off your
opponent, it will be a shame that you will be required to forfeit the
match . . .”

“Huh?” Hog released the Ektra with a start and sat back on
his haunches, blinking in amazement at what he had done. He stood up shakily,
and extended a hand to help his opponent up off the mat.

The Ektra-woman was pouting as it rose. But after a moment,
its lips quivered and reformed into a smile . . . and then into
a beaming grin.
A grin?
Hog thought.

“Earth!” “Earth!” “Earth!” “Earth!” “Earth . . . !”
A chant had started in the stands and was growing in intensity. They were
banging their seats now. “
Number One!” “One!” “One . . . !”

“WAY T’ GO, HAWWWWWG!” bawled Harmin’ Harmon, striding up
and down the sidelines, fists in the air.

“Look at the camera, Justin—look at the camera!”
His
mother was practically on the mat, pointing up into the stands at his father
and the fastcam.

Hog grinned weakly and looked back at the Ektra. It was
still a dazzling creature, but her grin had continued to widen, bright teeth
sparkling, until the grin seemed to take up most of her face. And then Hog
realized dizzily that her face was slowly disappearing, leaving
only
the
grin. And he stood, blinking, watching the grin fade last of all, until the
Ektra was gone altogether. And Hog turned in bewilderment to the ref, who was
looking toward the scoring table and didn’t see any of it happen.

“Justin! Ask it to do that again! Your father missed it!”

Hog turned around, waving in confusion. “Say, uh—” he
croaked to his absent opponent, “nice match!” And found himself thinking, Is it
true? Is it really true? Did I win the tricrystal medal for Earth?
The only
human in history to win a tricrystal?
And then the centaur-ref trotted back
to him, and hoisted his hand in victory, and Hog forgot his doubts and waved
triumphantly to the crowd. And when he turned, he saw a large, iridescent
lizard rising up as if from the very substance of the mat and turning to
shuffle away.

“Hey, Ektra!” he cried.

“Breee?” said the lizard, looking back.
(We like
semiconductor medals better, anyway. (I lie!) (I lie!))
it whispered in a
psicry.

Hog laughed happily and patted it on the back. “Great match,
guy. Next time don’t be so ticklish!”

“Breee,” said the lizard. (Done well. Next match I get the
home crowd, okay?)

“Okay. See you around.” Hog trotted off the mat, waving
again to the crowd, and fell into the congratulating arms of his mother and
Harmin’ Harmon. He hardly even heard their voices, or the voice of Coach Tagget . . .

“Drinks on me, just like I said . . .”

“Where’d you learn to
do
that sort of a thing with a
woman, Justin . . . ?”

“Donovan, just like I been tellin’ you, the brain is the
most important . . .”

But if he didn’t hear what they said after that, he did hear
the chants of
Earth! Earth!
and he could already feel the tricrystal
medal glistening and breathing in his hand. And he heard a centipede voice
hissing, “Kreeeepy kreeepy earthman—sssee you nexxxt yearrr on Meetsssnepp
Fffive, hah-hahhh! Zerrrro grrravity unlimited, suckahhh . . . !”
Only this time Hog just laughed out loud and didn’t even bother to look as he
headed for the cameras, as the Vegan’s voice faded back into the waves of
HOG
DONOVAN! HOG DONOVAN! TRICRYSTAL EARTH . . . !

Bye-bye Lotusflower, Lotusflower bye-bye!

“Feef’s House” is one of my few science fiction pieces, which
means I stretched to write it for the original editor; because I enjoy that
editor so much, I felt confident enough to really go for it. And in the end, it
does a lot of things that I wanted it to do; it feels like all the layers come
together in a big click of completion at the end—and every darned time I read
it, it makes me cry a little. This story is also one of the ways I dealt with the
events of 9/11.

∞ ∞ ∞

The interact screen stared sternly at Shadia, showing her
a form full of questions to which she had no answer. To which
no
duster
would have an answer.
Local personal reference
. No chance of that. It
was why she’d chosen the temp form.

Commonly known as the duster form, but only if you said it
with a sneer.

Local address
. Wherever she landed on any given
night.

Last posting
. Three weeks Sol-ward on Possita IV.

Shadia scanned the form with the contempt of a duster for
the mag-footed perms and then, recalling that she sat in front of an interact
screen connected to Toklaat Station’s temp job placement system, hastily
schooled her expression to something more neutral.
Jobs no one wants, jobs
with no guarantee of security
. The first she was used to; the second suited
her. She didn’t want to be here still in the first place and she certainly
didn’t want to tie herself to work or community.