Master of Space and Time

by Rudy Rucker

  “I need some blue gluons, Professor Baumgard. Give them to me and I’ll make your dreams come true.”

  Baumgard leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Make my dreams come true. You should work in a carnival, Fletcher. You should be the barker for a freak show.” Abruptly the savant stopped laughing. “And I’m asking you to leave. Must I call Security?”

  It was time to get out the shotgun. I turned away, maneuvered the gun from under my clothes, then spun back to level the short barrels at Baumgard’s face. “Harry says that if I kill you now, we can probably bring you back to life with the blunzer. You want to try it?”

  “You’ll never get away with this, Fletcher.”

  “Where have I heard that line before?”

  “You’d better give Joe the blue gluons,” Sondra piped up. “I think he wants an excuse to kill you.”

  That wasn’t true at all, but Baumgard seemed to believe it. The guy really had a low opinion of me. Just thinking about it made me wish I had an excuse to kill him.

  But now he’d unlocked one of his cupboards and he was getting out a little magnetic bottle. “There are three and a third grams of blue gluons in here.”

  Still keeping the gun aimed at him, I unscrewed the bottle’s lid and glanced in. Ink, sky, sea, my heart. It was the genuine article. “What do you want for it?” I asked, tightening the lid back on. “You can have anything you want, Professor Baumgard.”

  He tried to tighten his face into an ironic smile, but he couldn’t quite pull it off. Whether he liked it or not, he knew there was a chance I could deliver.

  “I’d—I’d like to understand the universe,” said Baumgard huskily. “I’d like to know why things exist and what matter really is. I’d like to understand how things can be the way they are.” For a moment there was a childlike hunger on his face. “Take the gluons. I’ll give you ten minutes and then I’ll call the police.”

  “Thanks. That’s more than fair. I’ll do what I can for your wish. You might have your answer by tonight.”

  “Sure I will, Colonel Fletcher.” All at once Baumgard’s voice had turned high and sarcastic. He regretted having bared his soul. “I’ll look for the answer right next to the two-headed calf and the half-man half-woman. Say hello to your geek friend for me.”

  Sondra and I hurried out of Baumgard’s glass and metal building, picked up the windfoil, and took off. We didn’t talk much till we stopped at a McDonald’s in Geneseo, Indiana, for lunch.

  “I liked his questions,” said Sondra, biting into a Big Mac. “Those are good, heavy mystical questions. Why do things exist? How can things be the way they are?” Men all over the restaurant were staring at Sondra, but I’d gotten used enough to her appearance to be able to focus on what she was saying. She tore open a catsup and squeezed it onto her fries. “I didn’t realize that a groover like Baumgard could think about questions like that.”

  “Yeah, the guy’s not all bad. I just hope I’ll be able to make the right wishes for everyone. Old Bitter sure wasn’t much help when I asked him.”

  “Do you remember what he said?”

  “First he turned the question back at me. I’d asked what I should wish for if I was master of space and time. And Bitter replied, ‘What does God have in mind when He makes the world?’ Then he said that this world was just fine.”

  “This world? With Gary-brains and fritter trees?”

  “I mean the old world, the way it was before Harry made his wishes. Though this is the same world, really. It’s just later in time.”

  “What about the looking-glass world?”

  “All the worlds are part of our superworld. But, like Baumgard asks, why do these things exist? Why is there something instead of nothing?”

  “It is nothing,” protested Sondra. “That’s enlightenment, noticing that nothing exists. And then not noticing.”

  “God.” I sucked hungrily at the bottom of my Coke. “What the hell are we talking about anymore?”

  Sondra laughed and sipped her coffee. “How long will you be blunzed, Joe?”

  “He just gave me three and a half grams. When Harry took a hundred grams, it lasted two hours. So my trip should last a thirtieth of that. Four minutes.”

  “That’s not much time.”

  “I’ll make a list to make sure I do all the right wishes. I have to send my voice back to my car ten days ago, and eliminate the Garys, change your body, and Nancy wants a bunch of stuff too. And there’s Baumgard’s answer, and I want some more money.”

  “Money? That’s all you care about?”

  “Well, God, at least you can count it. And you don’t have to decide how to use it right away. I’m going to ask for ten million dollars.”

  “It’s counterfeit money, though, isn’t it, Joe?”

  “You call this counterfeit?” I pulled out a crumpled twenty and handed it across the table. “It’s flawless.”

  “But money has to come from somewhere, Joe. It’s supposed to stand for something that someone did. Caught a fish, made a shoe, told a story.”

  “Well, I’ll say I stole blue gluons and shot them into my head. And that I made wishes for a lot of people. I call that doing something.” In my excitement my voice had risen again. Everyone in the place was staring at Sondra and me. Our conversation and appearance were kind of unusual for Geneseo, Indiana.

  There were two college kids at the table next to us, a bearded fat boy and a pimply girl with glasses. The girl was staring at me so hard that she didn’t notice when my eyes met hers. It was as though she were watching television.

  “Can we have some wishes too?” asked the boy. He smiled to show that he was kidding if we were.

  “No way,” I snapped. “I got my hands full already.”

  “Don’t be like that,” Sondra reprimanded. “Charity cleanses the heart.” She shot the beard a Monroe tooth dazzler of a smile. Her lips, her dimples, her spit. Oh, Sondra, I thought, I’d give anything to look like you.

  “I think,” said the beard in his wet, nerdy voice, “I think I’d like some marijuana ice cream.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said his date, tittering and rocking back and forth in her seat. “With cocaine whipped cream.”

  “And an LSD cherry,” whispered the boy.

  “Beautiful,” I said, getting to my feet. “Mellow.” Other people were pressing toward us. I had half a mind to unlimber the shotgun and commit Midwest mass murder. I didn’t like for strangers to make fun of me and rip me off at the same time. “You coming, Sondra?”

  “When I’m ready.” She took out a little pad of paper and licked her pencil. “Can you two give me your addresses? Joe will send you each a special cone. Won’t you, Joe?”

  There was a state trooper sitting at a table not too far away. He was looking at us like he’d heard the drug words. If it kept up much longer, I figured to shoot him first.

  “Sure, Sondra. Anything you say. Give her your addresses, kids.”

  “You first,” said the boy to the girl.

  “No, you.”

  “You tell.”

  “You.”

  Somehow we finally got out of Indiana.

  19

  I Wish I Had a Wish

  THE clouds over Jersey had cleared off, and I could get a good look at the countryside. Unlike those in Pennsylvania, most of the Jersey trees and bushes were still green. At first I thought they must all be pines, but then a chilling thought hit me. The porkchop bushes and fritter trees had taken over!

  “Could you fly a little lower, Sondra? I want to see something.”

  “Okay.”

  Sure enough, the trees were heavy with orange fruit, and the bushes were greasy with meat. These mutant plants seemed to actually be undermining the other vegetation; as I watched, a stately elm tottered and crashed to the forest floor. The fritter trees had eaten its roots.

  “What are those big plants?” Sondra asked. “Are those the food trees you were talking about?

  “Yeah. Let’s land and
take a look.”

  The porkchop-bush thickets were so dense that we couldn’t reach the ground. Instead we perched in the fork of a two-hundred-foot fritter tree. From below you could hear the porkchop bushes growing—they made a steady rustling. In the distance, a mighty oak went crashing down.

  “Like kudzu,” said Sondra. “The vine that ate Dixie.”

  “Kudzu?”

  “It’s a Japanese vine they brought into the South to stop erosion. It stopped the erosion, but pretty soon it covered all the other plants up. Not really all of them, but—”

  “Well, these things are killing all the other plants. They’re tearing down the other trees and eating them!”

  “It’s really out of control,” said Sondra. “You feel how this tree is growing?”

  Indeed, our tree was lifting us upward like a slow-motion Jack’s beanstalk. Peering down through the leaves, I saw a deer that had been strangled by a porkchop bush’s runners.

  “These things are going to take over the whole planet!”

  “Looks like you’ve got another wish to make, Joe.”

  “Oh, brother. Nancy’s going to be sore about hunger. Nothing is working out the way it was supposed to. You see now why I just ask for money? It’s the only safe wish.”

  I remounted Sondra and we flew back up into the sky. Here and there were a few remaining patches of real trees, but the green stain of the mutant food plants was spreading steadily. A few isolated farmhouses had been taken over as well. I wondered if the farmers had been able to escape.

  New Brunswick looked the same. Troops all around it, and the streets full of Herberites. We whisked in through Harry’s bedroom window and hurried down the hall.

  Harry was passed out at the kitchen table, his face in a plateful of candied yams. Antie was busy keeping Harry’s followers from coming up to visit the throne room.

  “Our leader is meditating,” she called down the stairs to them. “He is receiving truth.”

  “Looks like he received a whole fifth’s worth.”

  “Oh, Dr. F., I’m so glad you’re back. Those vulgarians keep asking for Harry.”

  “We’d better pour some water on him. I’m going to need his help to get the blunzer going.”

  “You found the blue gluons?”

  “Yes,” said Sondra. “And we didn’t have to shoot anyone.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  Sondra and I drank a little vodka to keep the Gary-brains off, and then I got to work.

  “Harry,” I crooned, dribbling a glass of water over his scalp. “Wood, Harry. Wooden thoughts, wooden moods, wooden sensations.” I reached down and began pinching his cheek. “Dry martinis, Harry. Cold beer. Fried chicken. Naked women. Come on, you fat slob, wake up!”

  Slowly he righted himself. There was a big orange smear of yam around his mouth. “Those brains,” said the mouth. “They won’t get me again.”

  “I have the gluons, Harry. Three and a third grams.”

  “Four minutes’ worth,” he said, brightening. “Do you know what to wish for?” He dabbed daintily at his mouth with a filthy handkerchief. “I seem to have dropped off for a minute.”

  “Here, Harry,” said Antie, proffering a mug of sweet coffee. “Drink this to clear your head.” Harry slurped down the coffee while Sondra and I knocked back a little more vodka.

  Finally our leader lurched to his feet. “Let’s do it.”

  “What about the disciples?” fretted Sondra. “They’ll smell the liquor and try to—”

  “Fletch’ll kill them,” said Harry. “Did he waste Baumgard?”

  “I don’t kill anyone,” I protested. “I’m no gunsel.”

  “Then give me the shotgun. Lead the way, Antie.”

  Antie told the disciples to leave, but one of them wouldn’t budge. It was the big fellow I’d spoken to yesterday, the jerk with the stained-glass vocabulary. Suddenly I realized where I’d seen him before. He was the chauffeur who’d carried the first Gary-brain over here!

  “Behold,” he intoned, walking toward us with open arms. “The flesh of our Lord’s udder hath been milked to anoint the Father’s wen.”

  “Beat it,” snapped Harry. “Or I’ll blow your stinking head off.”

  “He likes that expression,” whispered Sondra with a giggle.

  “But, master, surely it is written that the oxen low. And where His hoof hath sucked . . .”

  The shotgun blast was very loud in the small store. Fortunately Harry was so ripped that only a few pellets struck his looking-glass disciple. The fellow took off like a whipped dog. A lot of people pressed their faces against the store window to peer in. Antie locked the front door.

  “We better go in back,” I urged, taking Harry by the arm. He was trying to reload the shotgun. I had the gluons in one hand. “Come on, Harry, don’t antagonize them.”

  “It is the Anti-Gary,” the big disciple was wailing outside. “His milk is sour!” An angry mutter swept through the crowded street. The people looking in the window could see we had no slugs on our backs. Harry was leaning over now, trying to pick up a shell he’d dropped.

  “Goddamn, Harry, come on!”

  Sondra and I dragged him back into the workshop. Antie had already started the blunzing chamber’s refrigeration unit.

  “Okay, Fletcher,” said Harry. He was suddenly sober. “Give me the gluons and go on in there. Just lie down on the hotshot table and put on the breathing mask.”

  With difficulty I made myself hand Harry the bottle of gluons. I couldn’t believe it was already time for me to get blunzed. I hadn’t even made up my list of wishes. But the crowd outside was increasingly noisy. Someone was hammering at the back door. They’d be breaking in before long.

  “Does the needle hurt much?” I wanted to know.

  “Turning chicken?” snarled Harry as he clicked on the microwave cavity. “Would you like me to get blunzed instead of you?”

  “Don’t let Harry go again,” cried Sondra. “It has to be you, Joe. You’re the only one with enough sense.”

  “All right,” I sighed. “But I wish I had something I really wanted. I wish I had a wish.”

  “Maybe you’ll think of something,” said Sondra soothingly. “I’ll try to help you.” Lord, she was beautiful.

  “Antie, get the gluons,” said Harry. “Well, go on, Fletch. Go on in.”

  The street noise had grown to a steady roar. I opened the blunzing chamber’s door and peered in at the grim death table. Flakes of frost formed in the frigid air.

  “Is there anything you want, Harry? Any wishes for you?”

  “Just get Gary Herber off people’s backs. I’ve had enough excitement for a while.”

  “Don’t forget about me,” called Sondra. “Or the fritter trees.”

  There was a crash from the store’s front. They’d broken the big window.

  “Here goes,” I said, and hurried into the blunzing chamber. It was cold and dark. I lay down on the hotshot table and slipped the breathing mask over my mouth. Sondra slammed the door shut, and then one of them energized the chamber’s copper sheathing. The electrostatic field set most of my hair on end. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see faint glow-discharges at the tips of my fingers.

  Now came the singing sound of the gluons merging into the microwave field, and then the crash blast of the gluons being fed into the vortex coil. There were yelling voices in the workshop—the Herberites. Harry’s shotgun roared; the voices drew back.

  The vortex coil grew louder, so loud that the struggle was drowned out. The hotshot table shook with the chatter scream. I braced myself for the instant when the long needle would plunge down through my skull.

  There was a heavy thump. Agony in my ears, chamber at vacuum, the swift crunch of needle through bone. I tried not to scream.

  The Planck juice was in my brain now, I could feel the white heat of it. My whole body felt prickly and soft. I was a hologram made of pure light.

  The needle slid back out. I sat up.
Copies of me twisted off like soap bubbles from a bubble wand. It was still dark in the blunzing chamber. I could see perfectly. I felt no need to breathe. A crowd of tiny Fletchers flew around me. My little echoes, correction terms to the blunzing process. This felt good. This felt good.

  I wished myself out of the chamber, and there I was, out in the workshop. A terrible fight was in full progress. Five of the Herberites had broken in. Harry had killed the big looking-glass one with his shotgun, but just now one of the others had slashed Harry’s throat open with a machete! Covered with blood, Harry was lying dead on the floor!

  Seeing me, Sondra began screaming for help while the Herberites with the machete charged at me and . . .

  I WISH EVERYTHING BUT ME WOULD STOP MOVING. The trick for stopping the world is basically to turn your time axis at right angles to everyone else’s. It’s nothing for the master of space and time.

  The room around me grew still. The struggling people were like so many waxworks.

  I WANT A DIGITAL DISPLAY OF THE TIME I HAVE LEFT. Purple numbers appeared in my field of vision: 3:50. Only ten seconds gone so far. Good. Now what? First bring Harry back to life—he’d done the same for Antie.

  I glanced over at Harry—but that’s not quite correct. I could see in every direction at once, all the time. When I say, “I glanced over at Harry,” what I really mean is that I focused part of my attention on him. A few hundred of the little Fletchers flew over to transmit my wish. I healed up his wound, and as an afterthought, got rid of his headache. Now it was time for the real work. Too bad I’d had to hurry into this half-cocked.

  3:42.

  I WISH I HAD MY LIST OF WISHES.

  20

  God Goes Trans-Sex

  1. Send voice back.

  2. Sondra’s body.

  3. The Gary-brains.

  4. Ten million dollars.

  5. Plaza penthouse.

  6. Power of flight for Nancy.

  7. Porkchop bushes and fritter trees.