Master Of Space And Time

"Our machine worked, didn't it?" My voice was rising. Baumgard really knew how to get under my skin.

"How should I know if your machine works or not. I don't even know what it's supposed to do."

"It grants wishes. Look at her. Harry gave her the power of flight." I pointed to Sondra, who'd been standing quietly to one side. "This is Sondra Tupperware, by the way. She's a minister in the Church of Scientific Mysticism. Could you float in the air, Sondra?"

Sondra hovered halfway between floor and ceiling. Baumgard looked away in disgust. "Have you come here simply to show me your parlor tricks, Mr. Fletcher? Have you brought a deck of cards as well?"

"No," I said, trying to control my voice. "I've come to ask for your help in stopping the alien invasion."

"Oh, my. How exciting. Why doesn't Gerber reinvent his inertia-winder and fly the bad monsters away?" Baumgard was referring to a sort of rocket drive that Harry had come up with a few years back. Somehow we'd forgotten how to build it — the conclusion of the affair was a little hazy in my mind — and we'd ended up losing a lot of money.

"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."