Postsingular

POSTSINGULAR
by Rudy Rucker
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Book Website
Further information about Postsingular can be found at
www.rudyrucker.com/postsingular.
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Publication Information
POSTSINGULAR is Copyright (c) 2007 by Rudy Rucker.
A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC 175 Fifth
Avenue New York, NY 10010. www.tor.com Tor® is a registered
trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and
events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rucker, Rudy v. B.
(Rudy von Bitter), 1946– Postsingular / Rudy Rucker. --1st ed. "A Tom
Doherty Associates Book." ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-1741-4 ISBN-10:
0-7653-1741-9 1. Nanotechnology--Fiction. I. Title. PS3568.U298P67
2007 813'.54--dc22 2007020210
First Edition: October 2007. Printed in the United States of America
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Electronic License
Electronic edition, November 4, 2007.
The electronic version of the text is distributed under the terms of a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative
License. Go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0 to see
a full description of the license. In brief, the license has the following
terms. You are free * to Share -- that is, to copy, distribute and transmit
the work under the following three conditions. * Attribution . You must
attribute the work as "POSTSINGULAR by Rudy Rucker, Tor Books,
New York. Copyright © 2007 by Rudy Rucker," and you may not
suggest in any way that Rudy Rucker or Tor Books endorses you or
your use of the work. * Noncommercial . You may not use this work
for commercial purposes. * No Derivative Works . You may not alter,
transform, or build upon this work. With the author's permission you
may, however, convert the electronic text into different text formats.
Any such conversion must be distributed only under the same Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative License, making
clear the terms by including a link to the Creative Commons web page
describing the license.
This license specification supersedes any license specification made
prior to November 4, 2007.
Nothing in this license impairs or restricts Rudy Rucker's moral rights
to this work.
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Dedication
For Georgia, Rudy, and Isabel!
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Acknowledgments

Chapter 2
, "Nant Day," appeared as "Chu and the Nants" in Isaac Asimov's
Science Fiction Magazine, June 2006. This story also appeared in
Year's Best SF 12, edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.
Chapters
3 and 4, "Orphid Night" and "Chu's Knot," appeared as a single story,
"Postsingular," in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, September
2006.
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Contents
PART I
Ignition
Nant Day
Orphid Night
Chu's Knot
PART II
The Big Pig Posse
Nektar's Beetles
The Grill in the Wall
PART III
Thuy's Metanovel
The Attack Shoons

The Ark of the Nants
PART IV
The Hibrane
Lazy Eight
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PART I
CHAPTER 1
Ignition
Two boys walked down the beach, deep in conversation.
Seventeen-year-old Jeff Luty was carrying a carbon-fiber pipe rocket.
His best friend, Carlos Tucay, was carrying the launch rod and a cheap
bottle of Mieux champagne. Gangly Jeff was a head taller than Carlos.
"We're unobservable now," said Jeff, looking back down the sand. It
was twilight on a clear New Year's Day in Stinson Beach, California.
Jeff 's mother had rented a cheap cottage in order to get out of their
cramped South San Francisco apartment for the holiday, and Carlos
had come along. Jeff 's mother didn't like it when the boys fired off
their homemade rockets; so Jeff had promised her that he and Carlos
wouldn't bring one. But of course they had.
"Our flying beetle," said Carlos with his ready grin. "Your program
says it'll go how high? Tell me again, Jeff. I love hearing it."
"A mile," said Jeff, hefting the heavy gadget. "Equals one thousand, six
hundred and nine-point-three-four-four meters. That's why we
measured out the fuel in milligrams."
"As if this beast is gonna act like your computer simulation," laughed

Carlos, patting the thick rocket's side. "Yeek!" The rocket's tip was a
streamlined plastic cone with a few thousand homegrown nanochips
inside. The rocket's sides were adorned with fanciful sheet metal fins
and a narrow metal pipe that served as a launch lug. Carlos had painted
the rocket to resemble an iridescent blue-green beetle with toothy jaws
and folded spiky legs.
"We're lucky we didn't blow up your mom's house when we were
casting the motor," said Jeff. "A kilogram of