The Sex Sphere Read Free

and dimples in at the poles. The sound of the hooter is faint and musical, synched to Babsi’s growing buzz. Jimmy Hu’s voice is shouting something, but the sound warps into gabble.
    “Z-axis,” hisses Lafcadio. “Donut.”
    Zsuzsi is playing the console like this year’s high-scorer. Babsi’s polar dimples dig in and meet. The mottled matter flows in one pole and out the other. It’s a torus now, a spinning vortex ring.
    But then…as we stare at the Babsi the…spinning stops and…goes over to the room.
    Babsi, Lafcadio and Zsuzsi: the three are motionless, while all around them the blurred room races. Engine, impresario and operator: poised at the center of a merry-go-round gone mad.
    “Tie the knot,” urges Lafcadio. He is gaunt, gray and wild-eyed. “Use XZ surgery and a W-axis hyperflip.”
    You have the feeling the Babsi particle wants to escape, for the flowy little torus jerks back from Zsuzsi’s touch of ruby laser light. She throws a switch and a glowing blue net of field-mesh holds Babsi fast. The surgical red ray cuts in.
    The alarm’s sound is a dull, repeated scream: aenh-aenh-aenh-aenh-aenh . Look at Zsuzsi’s fingers, slick with sweat.
    Now the Babsi folds in on itself, and two circles link. The shifting outline of a Klein bottle is there, a meaty bag whose neck stretches out and punches in to eat its own bottom: a tortured hairless bird with its head stuck in its navel and out its ass. The world-snake. Klein-bottle Babsi-bean slides in and through itself, tracing impossible curves. Slowly it settles down, smoothing out and shrinking a bit.
    The room has stopped spinning. Zsuzsi throws a relay, and the machines idle down.
    Lafcadio laughs and hugs her. “Ready to take our baby to Venice?” As Zsuzsi watches, he draws out a tiny gold key and twists it in a little lock next to the console screen. There is a hiss of air and the screen swings down like an oven door. Lafcadio reaches in.
    The space in there is funny. As Lafcadio thrusts his arm in the front , we see his hand angle in from the side . Undismayed, he seizes the little bean and takes it out.
    Close shot of Lafcadio’s palm. Resting on it is a spherelet. It glows slightly. There are lightly shaded lines on it, as on a peeled orange-pip.
    “ Babsi ,” croons Zsuzsi, motherly bosom aheave. “ Edes kicsikem .” Sweet little one. She prods it with a trembling finger. It shrinks away, avoiding her touch.
    When the little sphere shrinks, the surrounding space distorts…. It’s like suddenly seeing Lafcadio’s palm through a wrong-way lens. But then the Babsi bounces back, bigger than before. It tries again to shrink away, and again bounces back. The space-knot is holding.
    “Come zee, Jimmy,” calls Zsuzsi. “Vhe have really trapped a hyperobject.”
    Jimmy Hu edges back in the room, loosely laughing, shaking his head….
    PPPPFFFFFFWWWAAAAAAPP!
    A huge ball of tissue is flowing over Zsuzsi… eating her! Suddenly only one hand is still showing. Blood drips off the fingers as they clench, unclench, go lax. Bones crunch.
    Lafcadio has been flung back against a bank of machines. His face is rigid with horror. Tubes and cables snap, gas is whistling out in foggy plumes, sparks are jagging, and now a sheet of flame sweeps across the room.
    Lafcadio falls to his knees, gone all to pieces, moaning, eyes rolling, tongue lolling. The blood-flecked superparticle edges towards him. Jimmy Hu grabs Lafcadio’s foot and pulls him away. The giant Babsi bulges forward, hesitates, then SLAMS down to point-size as fast as it can. The floor beneath it bulges up with space-pressure…but the hyperblob can’t get free.
    Lafcadio’s clawed fingers rake the floor as Jimmy drags him out of the room. The door slams. The little bean lies on the concrete, angrily buzzing in a puddle of blood.

CHAPTER TWO
    Alwin

    Sybil and I were making love. 69 is LXIX in Rome. She moaned. It all felt so good. I moaned back.
    But softly. Two of the children, the