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"Antie told me you tried using the red ones again and it didn't work. I was thinking maybe there's some sort of exclusion principle: each color of gluon will work once in this universe, and that's it."
"Fermi statistics," said Harry musingly. "It makes a sort of sense. But blue gluons, Fletch? I doubt if there's more than two or three grams of them in the whole world. And guess who has them?"
"Someone we know?"
"You remember Professor Baumgard?"
"Oh, God. Him?" Dana Baumgard was a bigtime establishment physicist who'd hated Harry and me for years. The feud had started when we beat out his lab for a weapons contract — it was for a special beam that would make the enemy's water supplies radioactive. What made Baumgard so mad was that although Harry and I had put together a working model, we'd been unable to explain how or why it worked. As far as Baumgard was concerned, I was a sleazy carnival barker and Harry a dangerous, tinkering geek. I didn't look forward to visiting him.
"Where's the professor these days?"
"He's the head of the Super Intersecting Proton Loop out in Iowa. SIPL is the only facility in the country that can reach the energies needed to produce blue gluons."
"Iowa?"
"It's nice and flat. Makes it easier to build the loop, which is in the shape of a figure eight, ten kilometers long. One loop of the eight holds protons, and the other loop holds antiprotons. The particles circle and circle around their loops till they get up to speed and then someone throws a switch to make the two beams collide."
"Can you fly me all the way to Iowa, Sondra?"
"Can't you take a plane, Joe?"
"You can do it, Sondra," said Harry, sitting up on the edge of the bed. "I'll build you an electronic windfoil."
"Joe has to promise to change my body back if he manages to get blunzed." Sondra was trying to scoot out of the bed without having her robe flap open. "I'm tired of everyone staring at me all the time."
"Anything you want, Sondra. I'll get breakfast while you get dressed." I went into the kitchen and got some stuff out of the freezer. Ham steaks and frozen waffles. Antie set to work heating them up. "I'm going down to my workshop," called Harry. "I want to build that windfoil for you two."
"Hold on," I shouted, hurrying out into the hall.
I could hear some of the guards moving around downstairs. I grabbed Harry and put my lips to his ear. "Put something under your clothes so they think you still have a spine-rider. Otherwise —"
"Gotcha," murmured Harry. He rummaged in the hall closet and found a small knapsack to wear under his sweater. There were a lot of pretty dresses in the closet; apparently the spine-riders had let Sondra do some clothes shopping. I reached into the closet and touched the prettiest dress of all: a red-and-white-candy-striped number.
"I'll be right back," said Harry. He clattered downstairs and called a bright hello to the guards.
Sondra stepped out of the bedroom, looking great in tight jeans and a frilly white top. I reminded myself to stop staring at her.
By the time we'd finished breakfast, Harry was done with the windfoil. It was a little box with a parabolic ante
"Where exactly in Iowa is the SIPL?" I thought to ask.
"Just north of Ames. Follow I-80 west to Des Moines and turn right — you can't miss it."
"And what happens when Baumgard refuses to sell me the gluons?"
"You kill him." Harry handed me a sawed-off shotgun and a handful of shells. "You blow his stinking head off."
"But, Harry —"
"That's illegal," chimed in Sondra. "We'll go to jail!"
"Listen," said Harry, gri
I couldn't stop myself from chuckling. What a plan!
"Well, I guess so," said Sondra. She turned and walked into the bedroom. She bellied down across the bed, her face toward the open window. "Come on, Joe. Sit on my butt."
I sat on her butt. It was big and hard, but not too hard. Once again I caught myself wishing that I could have such a beautiful body myself. I pocketed the shells and put the shotgun and the windfoil in my lap.
I was on Sondra like a rider on a horse. To fit through the window I had to crouch down like a jockey in the stretch, but then we were out over the street. It was raining. The Herberites cheered when they saw us; they must not have noticed that our backs were flat.
We followed the Raritan River out of New Brunswick. There were troops on most of the bridges; some idiot even took a shot at us. We gained altitude and headed west.
The wind was starting to tug at my face now, and the rain was hurting my eyes. Gripping Sondra's waist with my knees, I sat up and adjusted the windfoil. I diddled the knobs until an invisible energy net reached out in front of us to wedge a break in the wind and rain.
"Isn't this great, Sondra?"
"Yeah, I really love to fly. It's been a lifelong dream of mine. Could you stop squeezing me so hard? If you do fall off, I can always catch you."
"Oh. Sorry." I let up on the knee pressure, and Sondra angled upwards. Now that the wind had stopped, there really wasn't much danger of slipping off. "When I change your body back to looking the old way, you still want to be able to fly, right?"
"That's right. That's what I wanted in the first place."
We were up above the clouds now, and the air was clear and cool. The hot morning sun beat on my back. Now and then through a rent in the clouds I could see Pe
"I-o-way!" I shouted as we crossed the Mississippi. "I've never been here before."
"I have," said Sondra wearily. "And I hadn't pla
18. Why Things Exist
The Super Intersecting Proton Loop looked like some primitive earthwork: a giant figure eight in the midst of empty cornfields. There was a glass and metal building where the rings intersected. We touched down in a field nearby.
"When were you in Iowa before?" I asked Sondra.
"In the fifth grade. My father took some horticulture courses at Iowa State so he could grow better marijuana. But then they expelled him for not paying any bills. We lived in the married student housing in Ames. Quonset huts. It was a long time ago." She stumbled on a cornstalk and caught my arm. "Don't you think you ought to hide that shotgun?"
"Right." After checking that the safety was on, I slid the barrel of the gun down under my waist-band and pulled my shirt over the stock. I set the electronic windfoil down at the edge of the cornfield.
Though it was only about nine in the morning, Iowa time, Baumgard was in his office. For a moment he didn't recognize me.
"I'm Joe Fletcher, Professor Baumgard. Harry Gerber's friend?"
"Oh, Lord. Fletcher and Gerber again. I hear that you two are responsible for those mind-parasites invading New Jersey. I don't suppose you can tell me how you did it?"
The guy was a real square. He had long, greasy gray hair and a beard. A microcomputer in the pouch of his sweatshirt. And — ugh — Beatles music playing softly on his radio.
"I can try." I started to tell him about the blunzing chamber and the way the vortex coil could churn the gluons into Planck juice and…
"That's enough, Mr. Fletcher. That's quite enough gibberish for today."