His mouth opens

He says something—

Ah! Great!

I love it!

Ideas flow from his mind,

And his eyes! They explode! Look out!

Why do big hunks of wisdom appear

Whenever he is more or less near?

Just like me,

They long to be

An isthmus of total Selfhood!

Like… Him!

And his Mother, who is Beautiful.

—from “Reflections: Poems of the Mauve’Bib Experience,” by the Princess Serutan

 

Murmurings of crowd-gatherment filled the great cavernous hall as Jazzica was led out onto the ledge overlooking the floor. She estimated more than ten thousand Freedmenmen, with many more still amassing. The light in the hall was dim, gray featherings of twi-night doubleheaded crepuscularity.

“The Revved-Up Mother has been sent for,” Spilgard, at her side, said. “Nutmen have been dispatched. Brewmasters are on call. Mug-wumps are on stand-by. All is in readiness.”

I play a dangerous game, Jazzica thought. Still more people were entering the cavern. It was getting… crowded. “In truth, I think it too early for this rite,” Spilgard mused. “But it’s the Revved-Up Mother. You know how cranky they can be. She’s been calling through space and time for this all week.”

“I will try to pass the test,” Jazzica said.

She looked up and saw Pall enter, escorted by Harrumf and two small boys. They had generous mouths, and the beginnings of the eye of the Egad, the red-on-red of beer addiction.

So young! she thought. They, too, play a dangerous game. And that broad-woman—their mother? She plays a dangerous game. Everywhere you look, somebody’s playing a dangerous game. Yet if we are to bend these Freedmenmen to our will, and hire them as help for the business, we must play a dangerous game, too. Yet it is… dangerous.

And it’s no game!

A bustle commotioned at a far end of the hall. Jazzica looked, saw the crowd part. An old woman was carried on a litter through the throng to the steps leading up to the ledge. She was ancient, an old thing in a black robe, an aged woman of many years, whose elderliness was great in the magnitude of its dimension. Yet there sparkled in her eyes a youthful glittering, although the rest of her was still old.

Loni helped her stand down off the litter and escorted her up the steps. She stood before Jazzica and examined her.

“So you’re the one,” she husked. “The Shutout Mopes said you were the one who is the One.”

“She was mistaken,” Jazzica said. “I’m not the one who is the One. I’m the one who is the Other One.”

“Close enough.” She turned to Spilgard. “Tell them.”

He nodded, faced the crowd, held up his hands until silence hushed throughout the chamber. “Two out-freekt strangers have come to us,” the nabe announced. “One is the teen-man Assol-who-is-Pall Mauve’Bib. There are those who believe he is the Mahdl-T, the Laserium al-Dilah’, the Messiah who will lead us against our enemies throughout the universe in an unstoppable jihad that will vanquish them for all time.” He looked at Pall. “Great to have you with us tonight, Mauve’Bib.”

Murmurous commentings arose in the cavern, crescendoing in a warm round of applause for Pall.

“Here too is his mother, Jazzica of the Weirdness,” Spilgard continued. “To those who ask why I have named her thus, let them get themselves a load of this.” He faced Jazzica, said, “The tribe awaits your greeting.”

Jazzica smiled at the nabe, turned to address the crowd. “Spilgard honors that self which I, the boy’s mother, have, or am.”

Spilgard threw up his arms, called to the tribe, “Weirdness, right? Yet Revved-Up Mother Caramello has verified what the Shutout Mopes reported, that Jazzica of the Weirdness shall become our next Revved-Up Mother, that we may not suffer the pain of withdrawal in our need of Revved-Up Motherings. Therefore, let the ceremony proceed.”

Spilgard turned to two solemn men off to one side. “Nutmen, is there cocktail mix?”

“There is cocktail mix,” said one of the pair. “But we have nothing to drink with it.”

Spilgard addressed two other men. “Brewmasters, is there beer?”

“There is beer,” said one of them. “But we have nothing to serve it in.”

To a third pair of men the nabe said, “Mug-wumps, are there mugs?”

“There are mugs,” came the ritual reply. “But we have nothing to nibble on.”

“Let the cocktail mix be brought forward.”

The two nutmen moved toward the front of the ledge, bearing between them a large metal bowl wrought with elaborate symbols and designs. In the bowl Jazzica saw a mound of small pebbles of various brownish hues. Her Boni Maroni trained nose detected salt, traces of sugardust, and an oddly familiar odor.

Mercy Bocuse! Jazzica thought with a shock. That smells exactly like decomposed pretzels!

“This is the cocktail mix,” intoned Spilgard. “The nuts of Schmai-gunug—Remnant of His body, Seed of His Nuggets, Essence of Beer, Snack-Nibble of the Gods. Jazzica of the Weirdness—eat you then of these nuts.”

One of the nutmen scooped a handful of the nuts out of the bowl and held it before Jazzica’s face. The entire cavern was silent. Jazzica carefully took a single small nut in her fingertips.

Salted peanuts, she thought. Highly addictive. It will be virtually impossible to eat only one.

Spilgard held up his hand to stay her momentarily.

He addressed the congregation.

“We have no meat, no fish.”

As a single voice they replied, “Stix nix hix pix.”

Spilgard said: “We have no vegetables, nor pasta.”

“Stix nix hix pix.”

The nabe said: “Because we have no entrees, therefore let us eat nuts.”

In unison, the twenty thousand Freedmenmen replied, “Boffo.”

“Nuts to me,” Spilgard said. “Jazzica of the Weird-ness: nuts to you.”

“Boffo,” chanted the crowd.

He nodded to Jazzica.

Carefully, she placed the nut on her tongue. The congregation gave a collective intake of breath.

The nutman shoved the handful of nuts into her mouth.

There was a salty tang, and a presence of many slick rounded smoothnesses and flat-sheared little surfaces. Their woodenish hardness gave way to her grinding teeth in a collapsing, mealy crunch of nutpaste and in-her-mouth munchnoise. She masticated, feeling the nuts crumble into undifferentiated nutmass, making dry her mouth and lodging in her teeth. She swallowed, instantly felt an overwhelming craving for something to drink.

“Let us drink the beer of Schmai-gunug,” Spilgard proclaimed. “Brew of His death, and of the plains of Arruckus.”

The brewmasters came forward with watertight bags of sloshing liquid, held one over a mug proffered by a mug-wump, and filled the vessel. The mug-wump handed it to Jazzica.

“Jazzica of the Weirdness: bend the elbow.”

“Boffo,” sighed the tribe.

Jazzica took the mug, sensing the beer’s yeasty tang and seeing the ragged white foam-head subsiding. She took a mouth-filling gulp, and swallowed.

Smooth, she thought. With a rich, full-bodied flavor.

One of the brewmasters intoned with ritual solemnity, “How about a refill on that?”

“Boffo,” replied the tribe.

Jazzica held out the mug, had it refilled, drank. An airy inflatedness began to accumulate inside her. And an eerie plume of spirit-haze seemed to rise from her stomach to her head. Unaccountably, she felt buoyant, giddy, unreasonably happy.

She held out the mug. “More,” she commanded.

The brewmasters refilled the mug, and again she drank. “Jazzica of the Weirdness,” Spilgard said, drama edging his voice. “Hold out your arms at fullest length, thus.”

He showed her how, stretching out her arms to either side, making of her body a T-shape.

I know this sign! Jazzica thought, struggling to retain her normally superior awareness. It is the emblem of the crucifixation of Jesus H. Christ, Patronizing Saint of the Christian Dior Church. She gasped. Has a Self-Manipulator of Religions been here on Arruckus?

“Now,” Spilgard said, “touch your nose, woman.” The vast gathering of Freedmenmen held its breath as a single breathholder. Instinct failed to warn Jazzica of the trickiness of the thing; she swiftly brought her hands toward her face, and with a slashing, highly-honed movement put a finger from either hand in her mouth, and eye.

Spilgard turned to face the congregation.

“She is potchkied,” he intoned. “It is done.”

And the Freedmenmen abruptly cheered in a lusty, ringing voice, raising their arms and leaping about throughout the cavern. Jazzica looked at Spilgard, saw a trace of relief on his face.

“Come with me, girl,” said a rough, scratching voice. “We have much to discuss.”

Jazzica looked up, and saw the Revved-Up Mother Caramello motioning her to a pair of seats in the rear of the ledge. Between them, on a small table, was a pitcher and two mugs. She nodded and joined the old woman at the table.

“Sit,” said the Revved-Up Mother. “And pay attention—”

Jazzica listened as the old woman went on at length about what it meant to be the holy woman of these fierce and disciplined people. As she listened, she drank. And as she drank, a profound change overtook her.

Her head seemed to swim. Her body felt loose, supple. Her timesense slowed, until each moment seemed to pass at a leisurely pace.

She felt marvelous.

Everything’s great, she thought. Yeah.

The Revved-Up Mother Caramello was saying, “—anything that comes into your head, honey. And don’t worry—they’ll believe it. They want to believe it. It offers them comfort. And don’t worry, pretty soon you’ll believe it, too. And you’ll look up and say, ‘I must be going crazy, ‘cause I actually believe this stuff I’m saying to them.’ And that’s when you’ll know you’re a real Revved-Up Mother.”

“Right,” Jazzica said, suffused with goodwill toward this old woman. “Absolutely. Right.”

” ‘Course, me,” the woman sighed. “—I been hittin’ the beer. Oh yeah. Comes with the job, Jazz. The beer, yeah. You’ll see. You’ll see.”

“Oh, I know,” Jazzica said, not knowing what she meant but, under the influence of the beer, inexplicably overcome by a poignant sympathy for the woman. “I know.”

“You know,” the woman said with a lightly mocking tone. “Three mugs and you know. Well, you’ll know one day. I’m just glad you got here. I’m old, honey. I’m about ready to go. And there wasn’t anybody in the hootch to take my place. If I’d’ve had a daughter, it would’ve been her. But it was just boys.” She poured a mugful, and with a sudden forceful breath blew off its roiling white head. Jazzica stared, amazed. “You got any kids?” the Revved-Up Mother asked, then gulped a mouthful, swallowed. “Besides the Messiah, I mean?”

“Well,” Jazzica allowed herself to allow herself to say. “As a matter of fact, I’m pregnant—”

The woman’s face went white. “What? Now?”

Jazzica nodded, giggled, hiccupped lightly.

But the Revved-Up Mother Caramello looked grim. She suddenly snatched Jazzica’s mug off the table from and dashed the beer from it onto the ground. “You should’ve told us!” she said sternly. “You can’t go ‘round quaffing brew with a bun in the oven!” She shook her head. “Well, it’s done, anyway. All we can do’s hope for the best.”

Jazzica looked away, distraught. What’ve I done? she thought.

Then she became aware of a barely-perceptible sensation of otherness, seeming to radiate from within her yet seeking contact with her brew-heightened consciousness.

My daughter! she thought suddenly. The child within me is a girl!

Yet how could she know such a thing?

Somehow the knowledge manifested itself in the mind of her brain, the datum exposing its meaning to her suds-brimmed awareness out a who-knows-where-it-comes-from nowhere place.

By Wolfgang’s puck! she thought. This beer gives one tremendous mental powers!

Jazzica tried to focus her awareness on the presence within, to narrowcast comfort and apology to it. I’m sorry, my poor unformed daughter, she thought. I imbibed a consciousness-altering agent and exposed your fragile prenatal awareness to its mood-modifying effects.

And from that indistinct point somewhere within, Jazzica thought she sensed a tiny response of love-comfort, and a thought-impression of: I forgive you.

But I have placed you at risk, she thought, and subjected you to possible intrauterine psychic trauma and physiological aberration.

No problem, came the reply-within. Absolutely. No problem. More beer.

From the main floor of the cavern, Pall saw his mother and the Revved-Up Mother Caramello come to the edge of the ledge and look out over the massed tribe. Spilgard joined them, held up his hands.

“Let Jazzica of the Weirdness pronounce the blessing,” he said, and gestured to Jazzica.

She stepped forward as the crowd was hush.

“Let the tribe bend elbow,” she said. “Let there be commencement of the roiling of the good times.”

Pall heard a voice at his side say, “Your mother is the new Revved-Up Mother, Assol.”

He whirled, saw Loni standing there, her elfin mouth and generous face the same mouth and face she had had previously.

“Yes,” he said.

My mother plays a dangerous game, as usual, he thought in his own private code, which he used for thinking things to himself. She had better not “blow” this for us, or we are doomed!

Then he was surprised to find Loni clutching him by the arm and dragging him forward to where the brew-masters were pouring and distributing the beer.

“Come, Assol,” she said. “Time it is for cold frosties.”

They reached the mug-wumps and brewmasters, were each given a full mug.

“Steak for dinner sometime soon,” Loni said, handing him a full mug and clicking the rim of hers against it. She drank deep, gasped, and smacked her lips. “Ah. Primo brewski.”

Pall hesitated, then drank.

Once again the chill tang of the liquid assailed him, and the lightheadedness he had experienced during his first taste of the beer returned. He was aware of much commotion around him, and realized that the entire tribe was drinking.

“C’mon, Assol, let’s play,” Loni urged, tugging at his arm.

She dragged Pall through clusters of drinking, roistering Freedmenmen. Many waved at him as they passed, holding up a raised fist and crying, “Mauve’Bib! All right!” or “Laserium al-Dilah’! Yeah!”

All offered Pall a mugful of beer.

I have never this much drunk this much before, he thought as he elbowbent his fifth mug. What’ll it… do? To… um… me?

They left the cavern and moved through a series of passages until they came to a private chamber. Loni led Pall in, let fall the beercloth curtain that was the room’s only seal. The din and heat of the massed tribe were a distant thing.

Loni sat on the edge of a beermattress and looked at Pall. “The tribe believes you to be the Laserium al-Dilah’,” she said. “Is it so?”

Now is the first test, Pall thought. “I am something more, Loni,” he said. “I am… the Kumkwat Haagendasz.”

She smiled, as though to a crazy person, murmured, “That’s nice…”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I do!” she protested. “It’s just… I know not what such a thing is.” She shrugged apologetic. “But I am sure it is a holy thing, Assol. Else why would you be it? You are ours. The legend is fulfilled, more or less.”

Pall sensed a nexus-node at that event-juncture. A series of possible futures presented itself, and he had to choose. Some entailed a careful marshalling of his unique Boni Maroni culinary abilities. Others required the use of sheerest fraud.

Yet all had a thing in common—they meant ascension to power among the Freedmenmen, and contained within their dynamic the possibility of shutting his mother up and showing her he could make it on his own.

Oh, he knew her plan: he was to recruit the Freedmenmen tribes in the service of House Agamemnides, then overthrow House Hardchargin and get back in business.

But what then? A life of fear of conquest by the next Great Big House capable of allying with the Emperor and his Hardehaurhar?

Pall shook his head.

No, he thought. Businesses come and go, and their emergences and dwindlings’re as the waxing and waning of the moons. Religions stay around forever, tax-exempted to boot. What could be better than an organization where the consumer blames himself for product failure?

Pall then revelated that, merely by proclaiming himself a thing—Mahdl-T, Laserium al-Dilah’, Kumkwat Haagendasz, King of the Potato People—he would in fact become it. The desire of the Freedmenmen for a savior was such that, by now, it would be difficult for him to prove that he was not the one they sought. He was the right man-child at the right place-location at the right time-moment—to become, for these people, their Messiah.

Who in his right mind-brain could then be content with the family business?

Yet there must be the having of a gimmick, he thought. A thing to mark my coming, and the emergence of my Freedmenmen from obscurity into power. A dessert—for it must be that, given the severe restrictions of Arruckus’s resources—to top all desserts.

And the answer came to him in a single word.

Liqueur.

Beer liqueur! he thought. Great Maida’s Heater! It’s a natural!

“You’re so quiet, Assol,” Loni said. “Why?”

He smiled. “Liqueur,” he said. “Made from beer. With all this sugar around here? It cannot miss.”

“When you talk like that, Assol, I grow frightened,” she said.

Perfect, he thought. As though it were a sacramental thing—beer liqueur, the dessert of desserts, made only on Arruckus. As used by the Freedmenmen in their savage-but-beautiful rituals, and so forth and on-so.

Needs a naming, though…

“Loni,” Pall said gently. “What would you name a liqueur made from beer?”

“A… liqueur?” she asked. “A cordial thing?”

“Yes.”

And the girl-child paused a moment in thought-trance, then said, “Benedictdoon?”

Pall sighed. “No, my sugar baby.”

“Assol, what is this you speak of? Liqueur—from the brew of Schmai-gunug?”

And he began to tell her of his concept-plan: that one day Arruckus, the dessert planet, would be transformed. There would be liqueur, and profits, and from these, there would be arable soil for the cultivation of produce. There would be pastureland and forageturf for the raising of livestock.

There would, in a word, be entrees.

“And you will lead us to that time, Assol?” she asked softly.

“Oh, yes,” Pall said. “Oh, yes.”