"Sure, there's been some initial problems," said Babs, "but--" "I think it sucks," said Stahn staring out his window. He was almost sixty now, and it showed.
"Medical advisory, Da," said Babs. "Your rectum's showing." Wendy tittered, set down her dumbbells and walked over to pat Stahn's head. "Poor curmudgeon. He's upset about our view. We used to be able to see a little bit of the bay." Looking out the window, the only thing Babs could see now was pieces of other houses, all fresh and pastel in the sun of a mild spring day. It seemed like most of the people in her parents' neighborhood had tacked on extra stories, cupolas, widow's walks, minarets, and sky-decks. Farther up the hill, Babs saw an entire three-story house suddenly appear on what had been a vacant lot. The big house went up in pieces--pop, pop, pop, pop.
"There goes another one," said Wendy. "It's like a sped-up movie or something. Some people have been changing their houses every few days. See the big tower across the street on the Joneses' house?"
"The one that blocks your view. What are all those boxes in the Joneses' yard?"
"They keep alla-making themselves new stuff," said Wendy, shaking her head.
"Kitchen appliances, furniture, luggage, recreational vehicles, sports equipment, home entertainment consoles, on and on. You can see from the writing on the boxes. They've been doing this nonstop for a month and their house is completely full and they can't figure out where to put everything, but they won't just turn the extra stuff back into air. People are so ridiculous. Speaking of ridiculous," continued Wendy, "yesterday your father went over to their yard and turned their big tower back into air--you would have thought he was drunk, the way he was acting, but it's just the real Stahn coming out. Of course Mr. Jones allaed his tower right back into place again. And then Stahn scuttled home, and Mr. Jones came pounding on our door and told Stahn he'd kill him if it happened again. He was carrying the most amazing gun. At least Stahn didn't zap the tower while one of the Joneses was inside it."
"I wish I had," grumbled Stahn. "And there's no use complaining to the zoning board. They've totally punted. They can't begin to deal. And it's not just the yuppie greedheads that chap my ass, it's the stoner yurts everywhere." Some homeless freak in the Haight had passed a stuzzy Tibetan hut design on to all his brahs, and now every sidewalk, alley and parking spot in the neighborhood was cluttered with the muffinlike little people-nests. In a hurried emergency session, the city had approved the use of temporary sleeping shelters up to a certain size, with the proviso that the squatters removed their structures between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. But of course people got attached to their little homes, and most of the yurts were starting to look permanent, with walls ever more bedizened with stick-on alla graffiti. Amazing stuff, really. Babs liked it.
"And more and more people keep showing up," said Stahn. "Nobody has a job anymore, and everyone wants to be in San Francisco. We're being invaded by the fucking scum of the Earth." Given that people could use their allas to make whatever they needed, most factories were going out of business. And the few people who could have kept their jobs were quitting work. You could pretty much live anywhere you wanted.
"That's probably what someone in a big house said when you showed up. Da," said Babs. "Maybe you're so uptight because you're off drugs. Not that it isn't wonderful. Are you still going to your N.A. meetings?"
"Yeah, yeah," said Stahn. "The meetings help. More people in the program all the time. The ones that don't OD. Can you imagine junkies with allas?" He chuckled briefly, his mouth spreading in his long, sly grin. "Some of these kids are going through twenty years worth of addiction in three weeks. There's definitely some learning taking place. Do you think that if I asked Mr. Jones to move his tower a little to the left he would?"
"Don't even," said Wendy. "If you care so much about the view, why not put a high deck on our house."
"I don't want to be part of it."
"Why not a tree house?" suggested Babs.
"We don't have any trees except our avocado," said Stahn. "It's only twenty feet high. We'd need more like a hundred and twenty feet."
"Then alla up a redwood!"
"A redwood," mused Stahn. "You can make a plant that
big?
"It can be done," said Babs. "Phil figured out that the maximum size of an alla control mesh is four pi meters on each side. About forty feet. I don't know what pi has to do with it, but there it is. You'd have to make your redwood in pieces.
That's okay for a house, but it's tricky for a plant. For it to work, you have to make all the pieces at exactly the same time. Otherwise the cells at the seams die off and it doesn't join up and the sections fall apart. I know about this because we put some big palm trees in front of my warehouse."
"Phil --you mean Phil Gottner?" said Wendy, sticking to the personal level. "How are he and that cute little Yoke doing?"
"They're engaged! And --" Babs broke off, still not quite ready to tell her news. She jumped to another topic. "Speaking of building, Yoke and Phil made themselves a nest in my alley. They keep adding to it; it's grown up the side of my warehouse and onto the roof. Like a shelf-fungus. Yoke's busy designing artificial coral and Phil's trying to invent the perfect personal flying machine."
"And what about you and Randy?" pressed Wendy. "Is it true love?" Even though she looked like a twenty-year-old, Wendy still had the personality of a nosy old mom.
Now would have been the moment for Babs to make her announcement, but Da spoke up before she could.
"The other day I talked to the man who was Randy's boss in India," said Stahn.
"Sri Ramanujan. He called Randy a 'degenerate bumpkin.' "
"Why do you always have to dump on my boyfriends, Da?" snapped Babs. "Is it a Freudian thing?"
"You of all people can't be prejudiced against someone who likes moldies, Stahn," put in Wendy.
"Sorry, I'm just telling you what Ramanujan said. He's a snothead, a scientist mandarin, I'm not saying I agree with him. If Randy makes you happy, Babs, that's the main thing. I wish you'd let me meet him for myself."
"Why don't you introduce him to us, dear?" asked Wendy. "There's not something you're hiding from us or from him is there? Uvvy Randy to come over right now! He could help us put up Da's redwood. With four of us using our allas at the same time we could get sixteen pi meters, which is, urn, 164 feet and 10.95 inches." Wendy's moldie brain could effortlessly crunch any calculation. "We need that much because at least thirty feet are going to get used up by the roots. Three of us wouldn't be enough to make a proper-sized tree. Randy will be happy that we need him."
"Well -- I'd like to," said Babs. "It's high time. As a matter of fact Randy and I rode over here together, but he was scared to come in. He's wandering around looking at the Haight. I told him I would uvvy him if it looked like Da could act normal. Can you, Da?"