7. 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Harry's shop was locked tight. I pounded and pounded, but nobody came, not even Antie. I decided to try in back. There was a two-story wooden porch. Harry was sitting on the steps in the afternoon sun. He was wearing pajamas and looking through a stack of dirty magazines.

"Hey, Harry!"

"Say, Fletch. You're in time for lunch. Antie's stewing some chicken and my pet lizard, Zeke. He got some wounds and today he died." Harry gave me one of his wet, unfocused smiles.

"The lizard!" I yelped. "I saw him in your store window yesterday! Was he the —"

"That's right. Tonight, when I go back to visit you on Friday, Zeke will jump forward from Thursday to visit you on Saturday. Fifty-five hours each way, with the visits lasting about fifteen minutes. It balances out. I noticed the marks on Zeke when I fed him Thursday, but of course I didn't realize. He was all shot up, poor thing. Antie found lots of little bullets in him when she skinned him today."

"You're lucky you weren't killed yesterday."

"If I'd gotten killed, then it couldn't have happened, could it? Poor Zeke. I'm sorry I threw those rocks at him. But the noise was just so —"

"Harry, I don't think this should go any further. I know that there'll be a time paradox if we don't build the blunzer today, but after seeing what you did yesterday, I'd almost rather — "

"Aw, come on, Fletch. Don't be so —"

"I was talking about it this morning with Nancy and Sondra."

"Sondra Tupperware?"

"She was at our church today, the First Church of Scientific Mysticism. She's the new assistant."

"Oh, yeah, she told me about that. I think mysticism's a bunch of crap. All religions are a bunch of crap."

"What do you believe in, Harry?"

"Who's asking?"

"Well, Nancy and Sondra and I were talking, and I realized how disastrous it could be for someone like you to get any kind of control over the world. Do you remember what you said to Nancy when she was talking about world hunger?"

"Sure. 'There's too damn many people anyway.' It's true, Fletcher, and you know it. Don't give me this holier-than-thou routine."

"Are you going to bring some terrible plague down on us, Harry? Would you kill off the whole human race?"

"I'd save these girls." Harry grinned and patted his stack of magazines.

"Dinner's ready," called Antie from inside the house.

The whole floor above Harry's shop was an apartment. Apparently Antie had been expecting me; two places were set in the dark old dining room. Harry and I took our seats, and Antie brought in the meal.

Besides the lizard stew, we had fried potatoes, cucumber salad, fresh rolls, a plate of hot sauer-kraut, and a bottle of good red wine. Harry ate with his hands.

"The lizard's not bad," I observed between forkfuls. The meat was pale and spongy, a bit like soft-shelled lobster. It gave me a good feeling to be eating something that had tried to kill me only the day before.

"Mmmpf," said Harry by way of agreement. He chewed with his mouth open, then swallowed. "I've always had a thing about Godzilla. It's no surprise I picked on poor Zeke for the counterweight."

"But that's just so irresponsible, Harry. You could have used a shoe or something, and then yesterday would have been no problem. A giant shoe would have blocked our way for a while, and then it would have disappeared. How do I know what other craziness you're going to pull? What if you crack the Earth in half or something? You're not into disaster movies, are you?"

"Nah, not really. I got enough of that stuff when I was little. My Dad used to read the Book of Revelations to us every night."

"Oh, brother. That's all we need. Look, Harry, it's time we had a serious talk. I've seen both you and Zeke travel through time, so I know the blunzer is going to work. We're going to build it today and tonight you'll be master of space and time, at least for a while. God knows I would have picked someone else, but at least you're my friend and I can count on you to make me rich while you have the power, right?"

"No problem. You want gold, or what?"

"Gold's too high profile. Give me five million bucks in paper currency. Used bills, small denominations."

"Okay. What else?"

"Well — this is Nancy's idea. She wants you to make something that will turn dirt into food. A machine or something that's simple to reproduce and —"

"No more world hunger," said Harry expansively. "Fine by me. If I can do it, I will. Let's go downstairs."

"One last thing. All that money isn't going to do me any good if you turn the solar system into cheese or something."

"I don't like cheese."

"You know what I mean, Harry. The blunzer's effects have to be self-limiting. It has to stop working after an hour or two. And then everything has to go back to the way it was."

"Back to the way it was? You don't want your money to disappear, do you? Or Nancy's cure for world hunger?"

"Make a few reasonable changes in our world, fine. And then let's go over to an alternate universe, like I said yesterday. First you do the jump to Friday, and make the money and everything, and then we go over to another world so you can work out without wrecking things here."

"That sounds good. As long as I'm master of space and time I'll be able to hold open a magic door to the world of my heart's desire. We'll stay two hours and then come back here just before the blunzing wears off. As soon as it wears off, the magic door'll close, and we'll be free to enjoy the few changes I made here."

"Well" — I hesitated, still worrying — "it sounds pretty reasonable. But what if one of the changes you make in our world turns out to be really lethal? If we don't realize till after the blunzing wears off, we'll be stuck with it."

"No we won't. We'll only use up half of those red gluons, so there'll be enough for you to get blunzed and fix everything."

"Like a second wish."

"Sure. The Peasant and the Sausage.' "

"Then I guess we've got an agreement."

"How do you know I'll stick to it?" Harry gave me one of his horrible smiles.

"Do I have a choice?"

"You worry too much, Fletch. Come on, let's get started."

Jack McCormack had delivered the goods. The stuff was all in Harry's workshop, stacked by the back door.

"Here's the basic idea," said Harry, slowly pacing back and forth. "We put the hotshot table in the fridge and I lie on it. It's cold in there, and we've got it electromagnetically isolated with the copper foil. Just before I get the injection, the chamber is flash-pumped to vacuum. I'll have an air tank, so no problem."

"No problem? What about the shot? What kind of shot do you get? What happens to you then?"

"Planck juice. I get blunzed." Two made-up words. Harry was flying.

"Blunzed I've heard, Harry. But what's this Planck juice?"

"Okay. That's going to be your and Antie's job. The idea is that you get Antie to pour half the gluons out of the magnetic bottle and into the microwave cavity. It makes a super-quantum fluid, right?"

"I guess."

"Do you know what gluons are, Fletcher?"

"Well, they're real small. They have something to do with quarks."

"Gluons are the particles that stick quarks together. A proton is three quarks with some gluons in there holding the quarks together. The gluons come in three colors: red, blue and yellow. Red are easiest to get."

"Fine. You've got gluons mixed with microwaves to make a super-quantum fluid. Then what?"

"The fluid is guided into the vortex coil."

"The vortex coil!" This was getting exciting.

"The vortex coil. Think of a food processor, Fletch. The super-quantum fluid plops into the vortex coil and skaaaaazzt!"

"It's blended."