Frek and the Elixir (61 page)

 

Skywatch Mil.
A system of jellyfishlike space stations circling Earth, ostensibly to provide a protective network.

 

space bug.
A flammable kritter used as a single-passenger rocket ship. (First described in my
Saucer Wisdom.
)

 

spheromak.
A standard fusion-science word for a vortex ring of superheated plasma. (I learned this word in a conversation with Gregory Benford at Con Jose 2002.)

 

stim cell.
A tweaked cell that serves to repair and improve anyone who eats it. A necessity of life for Grulloos.

 

suckapillar.
A kritter that functions as a vacuum cleaner.

 

Three R's.
The physical removal, recycling, and replacement of a person's brain. Used by Gov as a dramatic and irreversible treatment to bring rebels into line.

 

toon.
A cartoon creature that acts as an autonomous agent. Toons are artificial life-forms that evolve and have a high level of intelligence.

 

toonsmith, Toonsmithy.
Most toons are initially designed by toonsmiths working at the Toonsmithy in Stun City. Once they are released, of course, toons continue to learn and to change.

 

turkle.
A kritter resembling a turtle. Its back can be used as a drawing pad. A turkle remembers all the images drawn upon it. (The word comes from the Mr. Turkle character in Ken Kesey's
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
)

 

turmite.
An enhanced social insect something like an ant or a termite. Turmites can be instructed to weave fabrics or to build papery structures. (The term puns on the name of computer pioneer Alan Turing. “Turmite” was originally coined by computer scientist Greg Turk to describe a certain kind of two-dimensional Turing machine which was later popularized by A. K. Dewdney in a
Scientific American
column collected in his
The Tinkertoy Computer.
)

 

tweet.
An insubstantial colorful object created from dark matter by an Orpolese. Tweets function as a visible language. They can also fly through a person's head and pick up his or her thoughts.

 

Unipusk.
The habitable moon of the gas-giant planet Jumm.

 

unny.
Spooky, unnatural, scary.

 

url, urlbud.
An url is a Web site, and an urlbud is a soft little vegetal object that includes the address and access permissions that allow a Nubbie to access a given url on a wall skin.

 

uvvy.
A universal communication device that rests upon the back of the user's neck. The uvvy interfaces directly with the user's brain by means of gentle electric currents. Uvvies were originally made of computational plastic, but in
Frek and the Elixir,
they're organic kritters remotely related to electric eels. (First described in my books
Saucer Wisdom
and
Realware.
)

 

vaar.
A term used by kenny-crafters in two senses. The process of turning invisible dark matter (kenner) into a visible substance is the first type of vaaring. The second type of vaaring is the process of forming the kenner-derived matter into some specific shape or device, that is, into a kenny.

 

vark, vheenk.
Noises made by vigs.

 

vig.
An edible piglike creature living on Unipusk; you can slice off a piece of vig and eat it. (Inspired both by the schmoos in Al Capp's
Li'l Abner,
and by Philip K. Dick's “Beyond Lies the Wub.”)

 

wall skin.
The living wall-covering in the rooms of a house tree. Like the skin of a squid, a wall skin is rich in chromatophores, and is capable of showing any possible color. A wall skin acts as a large, flat graphical display.

 

watchbird.
A hummingbird-sized kritter devoted to following and spying upon a suspect individual. The watchbird wears a small uvvy that allows it to function as a remote camera for some central control. (The name is from Robert Sheckley's classic story, “The Watchbird.”)

 

webgun.
A spiderlike kritter that shoots out entangling strands of silk.

 

wham.
The amount of credibility or recognition that an individual citizen has in the Planck brane. (The notion is related both to Google page rank and to Cory Doctorow's whuffie, as described in
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.
)

 

yubba.
Hi, hello. Common greeting in Y3K.

 

yuga.
A standard Hindu word for a long period of time. Used in the Planck brane to mean the time between successive renormalization storms.

 

yunch, unyunch.
Yunching is a string-theory–based method of changing size. Yunching makes you big, and unyunching makes you small. (The idea comes from Brian Greene's
The Elegant Universe,
in which he describes a duality between a particle's size and how tightly its elementary strings are wound. My notion of using this method for faster-than-light travel was anticipated in Harry Harrison's
Bill the Galactic Hero,
where it's called the Bloater Drive.)