Free Frek and the Elixir by Rudy Rucker Page B

elephruk’s mahout began screaming at his beast. He was a wiry old man in orange tights and a turban. His shrill, cracking voice was so instantly and disproportionately furious that it made Frek laugh to hear it. The elephruk paid the mahout no mind at all. The dusty behemoth rocked from side to side, settling his load, then began making his way around the slough toward the mossy lane that followed the River Jaya to Stun City. The mahout stopped yelling, bid the farmer good-bye, and hopped onto the elephruk’s back.
    â€œFrek! Frek Huggins!” The voice came from above, mixed with a clattering in the air. It was PhiPhi, leaning out of the same shimmering green-blue lifter beetle that had carried Frek off to the peeker session last week. No! Frek had forgotten he was running away!
    He spurred his wings to a supreme effort, darting toward the river. The high clay riverbanks were green with bindmoss. Frek’s mind was empty of any idea about whether to turn left or right, so he took the direction the elephruk was walking in. He had a bit of a lead on the lifter beetle; perhaps he could outfly it.
    Frek sped downstream just above the river water, putting every bit of his nerve energy into making his angelwings beat faster.
    The River Jaya was crystal clear to the bottom, inhabited only by mosquito larvae and the amplified trout who fed upon them. Frek envied the calm of the great trout, hanging there in the clear water like birds in the sky, gently beating their fins against the current.
    He made it past two bends of the river before PhiPhi’s lifter beetle drew even with him. PhiPhi was alone, sitting sideways to face him. She was holding a large, hairy, crooked webgun: a heavily tweaked spider. Its spinnerets pointed Frek’s way.
    â€œIt is easier on you if you land over there and let me take you in,” PhiPhi called to Frek. She gestured toward the high bank of the river. “Otherwise I have to net you.”
    Squeak-clank, thought Frek. They want to eat my brain.
    He went a little gollywog then. With a sudden lurch, he dug his angelwings into the air, managing to get behind and above the lifter beetle. And then, faster than thought, he swooped down at the lifter and slashed the edge of his badminton racket against the base of beetle’s tiny head. The shock sent the racquet twisting out of Frek’s grasp.
    Though the lifter’s chitinous head was too tough to break, the blow was enough to stun it. The teal-blue beetle dropped its passenger pod and fell to the river itself. The pod and the beetle skipped across the surface like a stones. A wad of web stuff came shooting up from PhiPhi, treading water in the stream. Frek dodged the web and flew on. Yes!
    He made it past another bend of the meandering River Jaya. And then he realized he had no idea where he was going. PhiPhi would be uvvying in for reinforcements. What had Mom told him to do? Frek couldn’t remember.
    He’d pushed his wings so hard that they were drawing strength from the muscles of his chest and arms, not only from his normal energy molecules, but from his body’s hidden reserves of dark matter. The alchemical transformation of dark matter was essential to balancing the angelwings’ prodigal energy budget. At first his arms had ached, but now they were starting to go numb. He glanced back and saw the glint of a lifter beetle two bends behind him. It was time to go to ground.
    Here came another river bend. The carved-out left bank was bluff-high with a fringe of roseplusplusses and please plant fronds against the cloudy sky. Frek went part way round the bend, then quickly angled up to the top of the bank, his arm muscles a mass of pain. Above the bank he found an overgrown slope with no sign of human habitation. In a momentary flash of insight, he realized he’d ended up in the Grulloo Woods. He’d never been here before. Well, it was better than letting the counselors get him. A deep gully gouged