imitating Edna in a shrieking falsetto. “They’re not Type III a-life? Oh dear! How I hate those anorexic blondes! Oh my!”
“Look, Tug, if Edna was a little underwhelmed it’s just ’cause I didn’t tell her everything!” said Revel. “A trade secret is a trade secret, boy, and three’s a crowd. That gal’s got a brain with the strength o’ ten, but even Edna Sydney can’t help droppin’ certain hints in those pricey little newsletters of hers.…”
Revel whistled briefly, pleased with his own brilliance.
Tug’s eyes widened in sudden, cataclysmic comprehension. “I’ve got it, Revel! I think I’ve got it! When you first saw an Urschleim air jelly—was it before or after you put my plastic jellyfish in your swimming pool?”
“After, compadre. I only first thought of blowing Urschleim bubbles last week—I was drunk, and I did it to make a woman laugh. But you sent me that sorry-ass melting jellyfish a full six weeks ago.”
“That ‘sorry-ass melting jellyfish’ found its way out a crack in your swimming pool and down through the shale beds into the Ditheree hole!” cried Tug exultantly. “Yes!That’s it, Revel! My equations migrated right out into your goo!”
“Your software got into my primeval slime?” said Revel slowly. “How exactly is that s’posed to happen?”
“Mathematics represents optimal form, Revel,” said Tug. “That’s why it slips in everywhere. But sometimes you need a seed equation. Like if water gets cold, it likes to freeze; it freezes into a mathematical lattice. But if you have really cold water in a smooth tank, the water might not know how to freeze—until maybe a snowflake drifts into it. To make a long story short, the mathematical formations of my sintered jellyfish represent a low-energy phase space configuration that is stably attractive to the dynamics of the Urschleim.”
“That story’s too long for me,” said Revel. “Let’s just test if you’re right. Why don’t we throw one of your artificial jellies into my cooler full of slime?”
“Good idea,” Tug said, pleased to see Revel plunging headlong into the scientific method. They returned to the aquaria.
Tug mounted a stepladder festooned with bright-red anti-litigation safety warnings, and used a long-handled aquarium net to fetch up his best artificial jelly, a purple-striped piezoplastic sea nettle that he’d sintered up just that morning, a homemade, stingless
Chrysaora quinquecirrha
.
Revel and Tug strode out to the living room with the plastic sea nettle pulsating gamely against the fine-woven mesh of the net.
“Stand back,” Tug warned and flipped the jelly into the four inches of Urschleim still in the plastic picnic cooler.
The slime heaved upward violently at the touch of the little artificial jellyfish. Once again Revel blew some Texan hot air into the goo, only this time it all lifted up at once, all five liters of it, forming a floating sea nettle the size of a large dog.
Revel shouted. The Urschleim jelly drifted around theroom, its white oral arms swaying like the train of a wedding dress.
“Yee haw! Shit howdy!” shouted Revel. “This one’s different from all the Urschleim ones I’ve seen before. People’d buy this one just for fun! Edna’s right. It’d be a hell of a pool toy, or, heck, a plain old land toy, as long as it don’t fly away.”
“A toy?” said Tug. “You think we should go with the recreational application? I like it, Revel! Recreation has positive energy. And there’s a lot of money in gaming.”
“Just like tag!” Revel hooted, capering. “Blind man’s bluff!”
“Watch out, Revel!” One swaying fringe of the dog-sized ur-jelly made a sudden whipping snatch at Revel’s leg. Revel yelped in alarm and tumbled backward over the living-room hassock.
“Christ! Get it off me!” Revel cried as the enormous jelly reeled at his ankle, its vast gelatinous bulk hovered menacingly over his upturned face. Tug, with a burst of
“Look, Tug, if Edna was a little underwhelmed it’s just ’cause I didn’t tell her everything!” said Revel. “A trade secret is a trade secret, boy, and three’s a crowd. That gal’s got a brain with the strength o’ ten, but even Edna Sydney can’t help droppin’ certain hints in those pricey little newsletters of hers.…”
Revel whistled briefly, pleased with his own brilliance.
Tug’s eyes widened in sudden, cataclysmic comprehension. “I’ve got it, Revel! I think I’ve got it! When you first saw an Urschleim air jelly—was it before or after you put my plastic jellyfish in your swimming pool?”
“After, compadre. I only first thought of blowing Urschleim bubbles last week—I was drunk, and I did it to make a woman laugh. But you sent me that sorry-ass melting jellyfish a full six weeks ago.”
“That ‘sorry-ass melting jellyfish’ found its way out a crack in your swimming pool and down through the shale beds into the Ditheree hole!” cried Tug exultantly. “Yes!That’s it, Revel! My equations migrated right out into your goo!”
“Your software got into my primeval slime?” said Revel slowly. “How exactly is that s’posed to happen?”
“Mathematics represents optimal form, Revel,” said Tug. “That’s why it slips in everywhere. But sometimes you need a seed equation. Like if water gets cold, it likes to freeze; it freezes into a mathematical lattice. But if you have really cold water in a smooth tank, the water might not know how to freeze—until maybe a snowflake drifts into it. To make a long story short, the mathematical formations of my sintered jellyfish represent a low-energy phase space configuration that is stably attractive to the dynamics of the Urschleim.”
“That story’s too long for me,” said Revel. “Let’s just test if you’re right. Why don’t we throw one of your artificial jellies into my cooler full of slime?”
“Good idea,” Tug said, pleased to see Revel plunging headlong into the scientific method. They returned to the aquaria.
Tug mounted a stepladder festooned with bright-red anti-litigation safety warnings, and used a long-handled aquarium net to fetch up his best artificial jelly, a purple-striped piezoplastic sea nettle that he’d sintered up just that morning, a homemade, stingless
Chrysaora quinquecirrha
.
Revel and Tug strode out to the living room with the plastic sea nettle pulsating gamely against the fine-woven mesh of the net.
“Stand back,” Tug warned and flipped the jelly into the four inches of Urschleim still in the plastic picnic cooler.
The slime heaved upward violently at the touch of the little artificial jellyfish. Once again Revel blew some Texan hot air into the goo, only this time it all lifted up at once, all five liters of it, forming a floating sea nettle the size of a large dog.
Revel shouted. The Urschleim jelly drifted around theroom, its white oral arms swaying like the train of a wedding dress.
“Yee haw! Shit howdy!” shouted Revel. “This one’s different from all the Urschleim ones I’ve seen before. People’d buy this one just for fun! Edna’s right. It’d be a hell of a pool toy, or, heck, a plain old land toy, as long as it don’t fly away.”
“A toy?” said Tug. “You think we should go with the recreational application? I like it, Revel! Recreation has positive energy. And there’s a lot of money in gaming.”
“Just like tag!” Revel hooted, capering. “Blind man’s bluff!”
“Watch out, Revel!” One swaying fringe of the dog-sized ur-jelly made a sudden whipping snatch at Revel’s leg. Revel yelped in alarm and tumbled backward over the living-room hassock.
“Christ! Get it off me!” Revel cried as the enormous jelly reeled at his ankle, its vast gelatinous bulk hovered menacingly over his upturned face. Tug, with a burst of
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