Руди Рюкер - Master Of Space And Time

"Can we look around now?" I asked. "We'd like to start upstairs and then check over the workshop."

"We'll have to search your purses for weapons."

"Fine." I opened my purse. There was my compact in there, the Susan Gerber IDs, some more money, and the magnetic bottle of gluons.

"What's this?" asked the first man in black, picking up the bottle.

"That's — that's my deodorant."

"Oh. Sorry."

They let us go upstairs alone; it was the workshop they were really interested in guarding.

"How are we going to get rid of them?" Nancy whispered.

"Maybe we should get knives from the kitchen?"

"No killing, Joe. You'll just get us in even more trouble. And those men have guns."

"So what do we do? Seduce them?"

"Why don't we start a fire up here? They'll run up to put it out and then we can lock ourselves in the workshop. Does it take long to start the blunzer?"

"Not that long. If we can get ourselves locked in the workshop, we'll have time before they break in." We wandered into the bedroom.

"Let's light Harry's bed," suggested Nancy. "It's nice and greasy."

"You don't like Harry, do you, Nancy?"

"Why should I? He doesn't like me." She found a half-empty bottle of over proof vodka and poured it out on Harry's pillow. "This ought to help. Can you find a match?"

I found some matches in the kitchen, and another bottle of vodka. I brought a bunch of newspapers as well. Nancy had a whole plan of action figured out now. It sounded good to me.

We got the bed sluggishly burning. It gave off a lot of smoke. Nancy flew up to the ceiling by the bedroom door. She was holding a thick broom handle.

When the smoke started to trickle down the stairs to the shop, I ripped open my blouse and began screaming. "There's another Gary-brain up here! Oh, help me!" I stood at the head of the stairs looking desperate.

"I'll save you!" shouted one of the men in black. He came surging up the stairs, and I pretended to stagger backwards into the smoke-filled bedroom. Nancy was waiting right overhead, broomstick at the ready. When the man in black came in, I embraced him and held him steady so Nancy could whack him on the top of the head. It took three whacks to knock him out.

I got the gun out of his hand, shoved it under my skirt's waistband, and ran downstairs. I ran right into the other man in black. "One of those brains is loose up there," I cried. "I think it got Mrs. Fletcher!"

The man pushed past me. I hurried into the shop and locked the door to the stairs. Then I went to open the front door. Nancy was waiting out there. She'd flown down from Harry's bedroom window.

We ran into the workshop and got that door locked, too. Antie was in the workshop, turned off and lying on her side. I switched her power on and we got to work on the blunzing machinery. You could hear the footsteps of the men in black running around upstairs. They were busy putting out the fire.

"Go lie on that table in the blunzing chamber," I told Nancy. "Put on the breathing mask and get ready for the shot."

"I'm scared, Joe."

"Do you want me to go instead of you?"

"No. I'll do it." For the first time today Nancy kissed me. "I'll make a better world, Joe."

"The microwave cavity is ready," called Antie.

"Get the gluons from my purse!" I shouted. "Good luck, Nancy."

Now Nancy was in the blunzing chamber. I switched on the sheathing field. Antie poured the gluons into the microwave. There was noise out in the shop. I fired a random gunshot through the door. Antie fed the gluons into the vortex coil.

Noise and confusion took over. For the third and final time, someone got blunzed — but not just Nancy.

Everyone got blunzed this time, everyone on Earth. For that was Nancy's wish: that the Planck length be ten thousand kilometers big for the 2.4 seconds that her gluons lasted. Everyone got to make a wish at once.

28. Earthly Delights

The guards were gone and it was raining outside — raining fish. The big rain-fish would hit the pavement, flop a little, and then melt into water.

"You really did it," I said to Nancy. I had my arm around her, and she was leaning against my long, lean frame. I was back to normal.

"Where's Harry?" asked the old woman behind us. Antie had turned herself into a flesh-and-blood copy of Harry's dead mother. The blunzing had even affected her. Nancy's little echowomen had flown out of the chamber and helped each of us make our wish. Antie's had been to be just like Harry's mother. I wondered what kinds of wishes everyone else had made. The rain-fish were probably the idea of the crazy old sailor we'd seen. Everyone had gotten what they wanted most. "Where's Harry?" repeated Antie.

I waited for Nancy to answer, but she seemed too drained. Her feat had taken a lot out of her.

"I don't know where Harry is," I told Antie. "He probably got himself out of prison. Maybe hell turn up here soon."

"You ought to hide," fretted the old woman. "Now that the police can recognize you again."

"That's all fixed," I reassured her. "After I changed my body I got us all pardons from the governor. And I bet Sondra brought those seventeen dead people back to life."

"That's right," murmured Nancy. "And the men in black took their vacations. One to the Bahamas and one to the Rockies."

A man-sized beetle marched past, the rain of fish beating on his iridescent green back. What a weirdo he must have been. Leaning out the door, I could see that it was sunny down by the railroad station. A fish struck me on the head and splatted onto the sidewalk.

"Let's find an umbrella and take a walk." I suggested.

"I'm waiting here for Harry," said Antie stubbornly. "And I have to clean up the mess in his bedroom."

"Fine. Nancy and I'll go out alone."

We got an umbrella and went outside. There was a startling roar as a race car shot past, its tires throwing up sheets of fish-water. It looked like an Indy 500 racer — which is what it probably was. A block away from the store I spotted the old sailor, staring up into the sky and catching fish in his mouth. Another block and we were in sunlight. I folded up the umbrella and looked around.

The train station had been transformed into a graceful lacework of metal and glass, a veritable crystal palace of transportation. A fine steam locomotive was just pulling in.

"Isn't she a beauty?" yelled the engineer, leaning out and waving. "I've always wanted to run one of these!" We smiled and waved back.

The Terminal Bar across the street had become a huge old saloon of the same period as the locomotive. You could hear a honky-tonk piano inside. The mustached bartender stood in the door, grinning and holding an inexhaustible schooner of beer. He gave us a happy salute. It was almost like being in Disneyland — except everything was real.

"Did everyone make good wishes?" I asked Nancy.

"Yes," she smiled. "I made sure they did."

"But how?"

"I sent out my echowomen. I sent one to watch each person on Earth. If I could see a mean wish in someone's mind, I reached in and made them change it. And if two people's wishes conflicted, I made one of them change too."

Farther down the street was a sidewalk cafe — formerly a scuzzy German coffee shop. I recognized the owner sitting at one of the tables and eating a roast chicken.

"There's a buffet inside," he called to us. "Help yourself. I'll make out the bill later."

"Are you hungry?" I asked Nancy.

She nodded and sat down at one of the sunny tables. I went into the cafe and filled two plates. I brought them out and then fetched some white wine and soda.

We ate in silence for a minute. It was the best food I'd ever tasted. One of the things on my plate was a crisp white veal sausage. I held it up for Nancy to see, remembering the fable.