Master of Space and Time

by Rudy Rucker

  “What do you care? You don’t love me.”

  “I do too love you, Joe. Who else would put up with you?”

  “I’m not so hard to get along with. I’m just a person who wants to be happy. A person just like you.”

  “That’s your big insight from having a woman’s body?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “As far as it goes. But the surest way to be unhappy is try to be happy all the time.”

  “That sounds like something your father told you. What a redneck.”

  “At least he has a penis.”

  “I’m going to see Harry, Nancy. I’m going to see Harry for the gluons today.”

  Eddie returned with three beers. “ID,” he said, reminding himself. “We still have to do the hard part.” He had full-color paper replicas of each of the three cards, front and back, made out to Susan Gerber and with my picture on each one. “First, sign these, Joe. Michigan driver’s license, federal citizen card, and a cash key.”

  “Write Susan Gerber,” Nancy reminded me, as if I didn’t know.

  I signed the flimsy papers, and then Eddie took them down the hall. The dogs started barking again.

  “Come on, girls,” called Eddie, “I’ll show you my machine.”

  “Which one?” I asked cautiously.

  “Look.” He had a plastics molder and—most important of all—a selection of official plastic blanks. If your card didn’t have the right field patterns, you could forget it. The fields were like invisible seals of validation. One by one he laminated the graphics onto the plastic blanks.

  “Did we talk money yet?” Eddie inquired.

  “Whatever you say.” I took the fresh IDs and admired the craftsmanship.

  “Call it five thousand.”

  “Check.” I took out my wad and peeled off the bills.

  “Can I have my tasp back now, Nancy?”

  “Sure,” said Nancy, handing it over.

  Eddie and I passed the tasp back and forth for a while. Pretty soon I was laughing harder than I’d ever laughed before. And then I was in a taxi again. Robot driver. There was a person next to me. Nancy.

  “Where are we, Nancy?”

  “We’re going to Rahway. You are. I’ll get out there and fly to Princeton. I want to get Serena.”

  “Check.”

  “Stop acting like a wirehead or I’ll leave you flat.”

  I clammed up and looked out the window. Ugly, ugly. It seemed stupidly wasteful to take a taxi all this distance. But we had money to burn. Can money buy happiness? It still seemed worth a try. I wondered how much a tasp would cost—in case this yellow gluons thing didn’t work out.

  24

  Spacetime Plumbers

  “MY cell window’s right next to a metal roof, and all day there’s a bumblebee out there. He’s beautiful, Susie, he’s just like a comic-strip bug: a big dot for a body and a lazy eight for wings. He’s always patrolling his territory, you know, going around in a sort of polygonal path, but if he sees another bug—zow!” Harry threw his hands in the air, trying to show how fast the bumblebee could move.

  “I’m not really your sister,” I hissed, “I’m Fletcher! We’ve got something important to discuss.” We were sitting at either side of a long table with an armed prison guard at the end. The guard looked too bored to be listening to us—but that could have been an act. Harry chose to ignore my whispers.

  “So what I’ve been doing, Susie, is tricking the bumblebee. I wad up a piece of toilet paper and throw it out through my bars. Zoom, he’s right on top of it. I did it a lot a lot a lot until he started getting mad. He figured out where all the fake bugs were coming from.”

  “Please, Harry.” I leaned forward, trying to get his attention. “You have to help me find some yellow gluons.”

  “Then I filled up my mouth with water. For squirting. Because I knew the bumblebee was going to come for me the next time I threw out a piece of paper. And he did! I tell you, Susie, he looked as big—as big as a dog, coming at me like that.”

  “Did you get him?” I sighed. Harry may or may not have known it was me, but right now he needed to be talking to his sister.

  “I sure did. Remember those great water-gun fights we used to have with the neighbors?”

  “You mean the Fletcher kids? Joe and Nancy?”

  Harry shot me a look of understanding. “That’s right. We had three special guns, remember?”

  “I sure do. I wish I had one of them now. I wish I had a lot of things. Oh, Harry, I hate looking like this. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “I wish I could help you. I’m not too crazy about being in jail, either. The feds keep grilling me, but I haven’t told them anything. One of the FBI guys told me I’m going to get twenty years.”

  “Wow. I’ve got money, you know. I’ll get you the best lawyer.”

  “Gee, thanks. You want to hear about the cockroach under my bed?”

  “Come off it, Harry.” We were both leaning across the table, with our faces almost touching. The guard was definitely not paying attention any more. “I want to try running the blunzer again. Where can I find yellow gluons?”

  “I’ve been racking my brain. Someone at Princeton might have some. Do you know any of the physics guys?”

  “Alwin Bitter!”

  “Beautiful. But do you think you can operate the blunzer? You don’t really understand how it works, Joe.”

  I felt like laughing in his face. “I don’t understand? I happen to be the one who told you how to build it, Harry.”

  His face clouded over in sudden anger. “You? Don’t try to hog the credit, Fletcher. I designed and built it. It’s my invention.”

  “Sure it is,” I sneered. “Where did you get the original idea though, huh?”

  “In—in a dream. But it was my dream, and—”

  “It wasn’t your dream, Harry. I fed it to you. When I got blunzed yesterday I went back in time and gave you the dream about how to build the blunzer.” Harry was shaking his head and holding his eyes squeezed shut. “It’s true, Harry. Remember the river with the duck that walked on water?”

  Harry’s eyes snapped open. “Oh. Oh, my. Didn’t you have to trade some mass to move back like that? The way I had to move Zeke forward to go see you in the car?”

  “I just sent my image. You don’t really have to trade mass. You just did it that way so you could make a Godzilla.”

  “This is confusing.” Harry glanced over at the guard. The guy was out on his feet. “Assuming Bitter gets you the gluons, what are you going to wish for this time? You’ll only have a second or two.”

  “I’d just like things back the way they were. Of course I’ll keep my money.”

  Harry studied my face for a minute. “You’re still the same underneath, Fletch. You’re the one who’s really crazy. That’s what I always tell people, but they never listen. Have you gotten laid yet?”

  “I’m scared to.”

  “What about the answer to why things exist? Weren’t you going to find that out for Baumgard? You rushed off so fast yesterday that I never got to ask you.”

  “You didn’t have to keep calling me a homo.”

  “Well, face it, Joe, anyone who—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll tell you about Baumgard’s question. Why things exist. What I did was to look way, way back in time to try to see how it all started.”

  “How far back?” Harry’s eyes widened with interest.

  “I went all the way back to the Big Bang.”

  “And?”

  “I caused it.”

  “You caused the Big Bang?”

  “It was like nothing was happening and I got impatient. I was spread out all over space and time, so I just took energy from all over and focused it back on the starting point.”

  Harry’s eyes glazed over in thought. “The universe as a self-excited system,” he said slowly. “I like it. It makes sense.”

  “So in a way I’m God, are
n’t I?”

  Harry gave me a look of mingled pity and amusement. “Sure you are, Joe.”

  “Well, look, if I was the one who—”

  “I. Who invented the blunzer? Nobody did, Fletch, it invented itself. It came out of no place and told us how to make it. I put the parts together, you got the shot . . . Can’t you see it was just using us? The universe was using us to help excite itself. There’s probably lots of these sort of drains where energy gets fed back through time. We’re the guys who help hook up the pipes, is all. Spacetime Plumbers.”

  We’d been talking too loud. The guard was paying attention again.

  “I guess I’d better be going,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “It certainly was nice to see you again, brother Harry. Though it’s a shame it had to be like this.”

  “Well, Sis, God works in mysterious ways.”

  They processed me back out of prison. It took half an hour. So many doors, so many walls. Nancy had flown on ahead, but our robot taxi was still waiting for me. The meter was up to seventy-two dollars.

  On the turnpike I tried to think through the course of events thus far. I felt like making notes. It had all started on Friday afternoon, September 20. I felt in my pockets for pen and paper and, finding none, asked the driver for writing utensils.

  “Lllookkk in the storage comparrtment,” the machine intoned. I turned around and snapped up the lid on the storage compartment behind my seat. It held a first-aid kit, some cans of food, a flashlight, and a type-screen. The type-screen was like a child’s slate, with a keyboard at one end. You could type onto the screen and, if necessary, produce hard copies. I set the thing on my knee and made a list.

  Friday

  9/20

  I see Harry in Buick. Harry dreams he sees me.

  Saturday

  9/21

  We shop Stars ‘n’ Bars. Godzilla.

  Sunday

  9/22

  Go to church. Harry blunzed. Trip to Looking-Glass World.

  Monday

  9/23

  Gary-brains invade. Start trip with Nancy.

  ***************

  Monday

  9/30

  End trip with Nancy. Slugs in New Brunswick.

  Tuesday

  10/1

  Fly to Iowa. Nancy arrested. I get blunzed. Manhattan.

  Wednesday

  10/2

  Today.

  Thursday

  10/3

  Tomorrow.

  I stared at the list for a while, and then erased it. I’d get those yellow gluons from Bitter today. Since I was Harry’s sister and Nancy was Fletcher’s wife, the police would let us into Harry’s shop to look around. We’d say we wanted to inventory the valuables. And then I’d get blunzed. But if yellow gluons were as scarce as Harry said, I wouldn’t have much time to maneuver. I’d need to pack everything into one fast wish. I groped for the best way to put it.

  Make everything be just like it was on the morning of Friday, September 20.

  No, that wouldn’t work. That would just throw us all into a horrible time loop. If everything was just like that Friday, then it would be that Friday again, and the whole crazy string of events would happen over again, ending with me wishing us back to that Friday again—no, thanks. Try again.

  Undo all the wishes that Harry and I have made up till now.

  That would be stupid! Just for openers, I’d lose my money. Not to mention the fact that Antie—and maybe Harry too—would be dead. And I wouldn’t get to do my part to start the universe. No, no. I had to get more specific.

  Make my body be like it used to, and have the governor pardon Harry, Sondra and me.

  That seemed fine. I made a hard copy and folded it into my purse. I fell into a light doze and dreamed about Harry and the bumblebee. I was the bee.

  “Ma’am?”

  I sat up and looked around. We were off the turnpike and nearing Princeton. The robot driver was talking to me.

  “Do you need instructions?”

  “Nnno. The otherrr llady gavve me the address.”

  “Of Alwin Bitter?”

  “Yesss.”

  “Well, what do you want, then? I was sleeping.”

  “I’m bored. Do you knnow anny logic puzzles?”

  I glanced at the meter. A hundred and sixty-seven dollars now. Two hundred bucks and I was supposed to entertain the driver as well?

  “No, I don’t know any logic puzzles.” The robot made such a disappointed sound that I relented.

  “Well, maybe I do. What about this one. A genie promises a man that he can have exactly one wish come true. Now, what if the man’s one wish is that he gets all the wishes he wants?”

  “He willl get all the wishes he wannts.”

  “But remember! An initial condition is that he is allowed to have only one wish.”

  “I ssseee. So he willl get nno wishes.”

  “But he was supposed to get one wish.”

  “Butt perhaps the mann’s rreal wish was that he get nno wishes at all. He does gett his wissh.”

  “But then he doesn’t.”

  “I ssee. Thannk you forr the puzzle. I willl ponderr it.”

  25

  Levels of Uncertainty

  “WOULD you like some iced tea . . . Mr. Fletcher?”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bitter. I would.”

  The four of us were sitting in their living room. Five of us, counting Serena. She was sitting on my lap, though she didn’t understand who I was supposed to be. I took her little arms and clapped her hands together. She laughed gaily; at least I could still make my daughter laugh.

  “So the wishes haven’t worked out well?” Bitter asked me.

  “Not entirely. I’m stuck in a woman’s body, and we’re all in trouble with the police.”

  “Nancy was telling me a little about the machine that you and Harry Gerber built. How did you two come to invent it?”

  “Well . . . that’s a little complicated.” I paused, trying to think how to say it. “The plans for the blunzer came to Harry in a dream. He dreamed he saw someone who told him how to build it. So he went ahead and built it, and later I got blunzed. I didn’t understand the machine, but after I got blunzed I was able to figure out the plans by looking at the machine and reading Harry’s mind. So then I went back in time and put the plans in Harry’s mind while he was dreaming. I was the person he saw in his dream to begin with. It’s a circle. The universe made it happen, is what Harry says. He says the universe was using us to excite itself.”

  “Like a writer reading his own dirty books,” sniggered Nancy. She didn’t take me seriously anymore.

  “More like a fountain that recycles its water.” I frowned. “Or a battery that runs its own re-charger.”

  “The self-generative Absolute,” said Bitter non-committally. His wife, Sybil, came back from the kitchen with four glasses of iced tea on a tray. She was a slender lady whose tall body shaped a graceful S-curve. She kept giving me curious looks—as if I were some kind of carnival freak.

  “I’ve come to ask for your help,” I told Bitter. “Harry says that with your connections here you might be able to get me some yellow gluons. Each color of gluon just works once, and we’ve already used the red kind and the blue kind. I need the yellow gluons so I can activate the blunzer one last time and—”

  “Dr. Bitter’s the one to ask?” Nancy exclaimed. “I hadn’t realized. What a wonderful coincidence! Will you help us, Alwin?”

  “I don’t know if I should. Things aren’t perfect for you now—but they could, after all, be much worse.”

  “I’ll do the wishing,” proposed Nancy. “I won’t ask for anything stupid like Harry and Joe did.”

  “What would you ask for?” I demanded angrily. Serena left my lap for safer territory.

  “Just leave it to me, Susan’’

  “No way! I’ve thought this through, Nancy, and I know just what—”

  “I will try to get you the gluons,” interrupted Bitter. �
��On the condition that Nancy be the one to make the wish. I like Nancy.”

  Nancy and the white-haired old man exchanged a smile. Sitting here in my tailored tweed earth-tone suit I felt like a fool. I needed help and these people were playing games with me.

  “I don’t think you understand what kind of forces we’re dealing with, Dr. Bitter.” I rapped out his name like a curse.

  “Call me Alwin. Let’s all be friends here. What kinds of forces are we dealing with, Joe? How do you and Harry think the blunzer functions?”

  “Why do you ask? If you’re so enlightened, you already know all about it. You just want to laugh at me, don’t you?”

  “No, please!” Bitter made a placating gesture with both hands. “I’m simply asking for information. It is obvious that your machine works. I’m curious about the method. Tell it to me as best you can.”

  “A person gets blunzed by having the value of Planck’s constant change in his brain tissue,” I began.

  “Her brain,” interrupted Nancy.

  “The person’s brain,” I snarled. “Can you shut up and let me explain it just one time? The idea is to treat the gluons so they become an utterly featureless fluid known as Planck juice. This fluid is in what might be termed a second-order quantum state. It is doubly indeterminate. Not only is there the usual indeterminacy at the scale of Planck’s constant, there is a second-order indeterminacy: an indeterminacy in the actual value of Planck’s constant.” Harry and the blunzer had taught me well.

  “So this Planck juice is, so to speak, unsure of the value of Planck’s constant?” asked Bitter.

  “Correct. It is fed into a one-meter-long subether wave guide leading to the subject’s brain. In the wave guide, the field symmetry breaks, and the Planck juice becomes the carrier of a new value of Planck’s constant ‘seeing’ the wave guide’s one-meter length, the fluid chooses that for the new Planck length.”

  “One meter,” said Bitter, measuring the length out with his hands. Instead of ten-to-the-minus-thirty-third centimeters. “That’s a very large amplification.”

  “One hundred decillion fold,” I confirmed. “When the fluid is injected into the subject’s brain, the entire brain becomes arbitrarily indeterminate, for the brain’s size is now less than the one-meter Planck length. The personality associated with the brain becomes able to do anything whatsoever.”