"Rudy Rucker - Freeware" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

part of the office held a four-room apartment in which Terri lived with her husband Tre
Dietz and their two children: four-year-old Dolf and one-year-old Baby Wren.

Monique was making her way from room to room, changing the sheets and towels,
enjoying the feel of the bright sun slanting down on her and on the faded blue walls of the
motel buildings. She'd already finished the rooms in the two upper rows and was now
busy with the rooms of the lowest terrace, which sat directly above the well-worn shops
of Beach Street. It was almost time for Monique's midday break; as soon as her husband
Xlotl called up, she'd go down for an hour on the beach with him.
Monique looked like a woman, sort of, most of the time, which is why it was customary to
refer to her as a she. Moldies picked a gender at birth and stuck to it throughout the few
years that they lived. Though arbitrarily determined, a moldie's sex was a very real
concept to other moldies.

Each moldie was passionately interested in mating and reproducing at least once before
his or her short life should expire. The moldies reproduced in pairs and lived in nests that
were like extended families. Monique was in a nest of six: herself, her parents Andrea and
Everooze, her husband Xlotl, her brother Xanana, and Xanana's wife Ouish.

Monique's mother Andrea was very strange. Sometimes, under the influence of certain
chelated rare-earth polymers, she would form her body into a giant replica of the Koran
or of the Book of Mormon and lie out in front of the beachfront Boardwalk amusement
park, babbling about transfinite levels of heaven, chaotic feedback, and the angels Izra'il
and Moroni. Her body was more mold than plastic, and it looked like she might fall apart
anytime now, but Andrea had gotten rejuvenation treatments for herself before, and she
planned to do it againтАФif she could get the money.
Monique's father Everooze worked as a liveboard for Terri Percesepe's kid brother Ike,
who ran a surf shop called Dada Kine out at Pleasure Point in south Santa Cruz. Like
Andrea, Everooze was quite old for a moldie and had been rejuvenated several times. Ike
had been going out surfing with Everooze every day for the last few years, and
occasionally Ike might lend or rent Everooze to friends or to stuzzy big-time surfers. For
his own part, Everooze got a kick out of giving free lessons to beginners and spreading the
gospel of surf. Like Andrea, Everooze was starting to flake pretty badly. Without a retrofit
he'd die this winter. But Ike worshipped Everooze and was prepared to pay for his
rejuvenation.
When Terri had heard about Monique's birth to Everooze and AndreaтАФlast
AugustтАФshe'd thought of hiring the newborn moldie right away, and she'd been able to
convince Andrea and Everooze that it was a floatin' idea.
Monique quickly learned the ins and outs of running the Clearlight, and her diligent
efforts left Terri and Tre plenty of free time. Not only did Monique make up the rooms
quickly and beautifully, she managed all of the motel's books. Terri went out surfing most
every day, and Tre liked to sit in an easy chair behind the motel office desk, whiling away
the hours smoking pot while wearing an uvvy on his neck and doing complicated things
with his brain. Although most people thought of an uvvy as a communication device, you
could also use it as a computer terminal, which was something Tre did a lot. "Uvvy" was
pronounced soft and cozy, like "lovey-dovey."

Tre earned a middling amount of money designing intricate uvvy graphics effects for
Apex Images, a commercial graphics shop that did contract work for ad agencies and
music producers. The number-crunching and brute programming of Tre's visions could