Master of Space and Time (13 page)

“What are all these nuts doing here?” I wondered. We reached the New Brunswick exit and crawled off amidst troop trucks and buses. The actual road into town was barricaded. An unsteady sergeant with two flares waved us toward a parking area.

“It must be that stuff about God's Laws,” remarked Nancy. “People are so into religion these days.”

“I can hardly believe it. They didn't say anything about this on the radio.” A big light-blue bus lumbered into the space next to us. Elderly seekers began swarming out.

“I'm going to leave before someone baptizes me or something,” said Nancy. “Look out for the brains, Joe. Get yourself some whiskey.”

“All right, baby. And be sure to hire a good lawyer before you go on television. Just in case. There's still a lot of money in the trunk. This week has been fun, hasn't it?”

“It has. It's been like a honeymoon.”

“A frittermoon. I love you, Nancy.”

“I love you, Joe. Say bye to Daddy, Serena.”

“Bye.”

I kissed my two girls and then they drove off. I walked back to the parking-lot entrance and asked the sergeant where I could get some booze. He was a swarthy kid in his early twenties.

“There's a liquor-store someplace out that way,” he said, waving one of his flares vaguely. He seemed quite drunk.

“Can I just buy some from you? I don't have a car, but I've got lots of money.”

The sergeant glanced around, looking for officers. “You ain't a looter, are you?”

“No, man, I'm a tourist. Here's fifty bucks.”

The sergeant pocketed my bill and handed me the flares. “I'll just be a minute.”

I directed another bus into the parking area, and then the sergeant was back with a canteen full of grain alcohol.

“Government issue,” he said, smiling broadly. I took a swig, retched a little, then took another.

“Thanks, sarge. This stuff keeps the brains off?”

“For sure. Gary don't like it.”

“What are all these groovers doing here?” I jerked my head at a group of flower-print ladies doddering past.

“They started coming in a few days ago. The evangelicals got some idea that Gary is the new Messiah. We can't stop 'em from going in, and so far none of them has tried to get back out.”

“Weird.”

“You know it, brother.”

I handed him back his flares and joined the throng marching toward New Brunswick. I fell into step with a pale-faced little man in a red windbreaker. It said “Virginia Beach Rescue Squad” on the back.

“Would you like a drink?” I offered.

“Praise Jesus, no,” he said. His voice was sweet and reedy. “It'd be a shame to meet the Lord all messed up, now, wouldn't it?”

“The Lord's not here,” I countered. “It's a bunch of brains from another dimension. They're parasites.”

“Gary Herber's here,” said the man stubbornly. “I seen him on TV. Gary's come to roll out the scrolls.”

“What—what does Gary Herber look like?” I asked. I had a pretty good idea of what the answer would be. “Does he look sort of like a toad? A short fellow with ropy lips?”

“That's right, friend. And he has an angel with him. A blond angel what really flies. Our minister brang us up here to join salvation.”

At the edge of town there was a welcoming committee, round-shouldered young men with wholesome smiles. They herded the new arrivals into a big building and—presumably—slapped Gary-slugs on everyone inside. I sidestepped this action by stuffing my sweater under my shirt and saying I was already saved. The whole scene seemed amazingly disorganized on both sides. The Herberites didn't give much more of a damn than the soldiers did. If you wanted a slug on your back, you could have one, and if you didn't want a slug, that was fine, too.

I walked up Suydam Street, wondering where I'd find Harry. His apartment seemed like the logical place to look first. He'd either be there or at the local TV station.

There were a lot of people in the street, all of them wearing brains. Despite the chill, most of them had their shirts off so that the Gary-slugs could touch each other and converse. I hung onto my canteen of booze and enjoyed staring at the women's tits. Weird to see so many of them at once.

When I was still a couple of blocks from Harry's, a cry went up from the people around me. “The angel of the Lord! Gary's angel!”

It was Sondra, stark naked and with a Gary-brain on her back. She flew about fifteen feet overhead, staring down at us with a glassy smile. I covered my face lest she recognize me.

“These are the last times!” bellowed a woman next to me. “Praise Jesus!” I took another drink and pushed my way forward. I hoped the blunzer would still work. I had to undo this madness.

The closer I got to Harry's, the denser the crowd got. It was like Mardi Gras—except everyone was high on slug-stim instead of booze. Some zealot ripped my shirt off, exposing my naked back. Herberites rubbed up against me so their spine-riders could split onto me, but by now I had enough booze in my system to be unpalatable.

“Follow Gary!” chanted the crowd. “Be Clean! Teach God's Laws! Follow Gary! Be . . .”

So far they'd been totally nonviolent, but I was getting more and more nervous. I kept pushing forward, smiling a lot, and occasionally splashing a
little alcohol on my back. It was hard to see why the army didn't move in and clean up this mess. I guess they were too drunk.

Finally I was in front of Gerber Cybernetics. There were some guys guarding the door. One of them was really big. I lurched forward and made my request. “Can I go in? I'm an old friend of Harry Gerber's.”

“Thou art not saved,” stated the big black-haired guard, frowning down at my naked back. He looked vaguely familiar.

“I'm a mystic,” I said ingratiatingly. “I love you people too.”

“What is thy name?”

“Joe Fletcher.”

“Behold!” exclaimed the guard. My name seemed to mean something to him. “It's the prophet's herdsman who hath fed the kine. Welcome, Joseph Fletcher!”

“WELCOME, JOSEPH FLETCHER!” roared the crowd behind me.

I couldn't resist turning to bow and wave. And then the guards let me in.

“Dr. F.,” said Antie, hurrying forward, “I'm so glad to see you. I don't know what's gotten into all these people. My Harry's not been himself.”

“Where is he?”

“Upstairs in the throne room.”

“Throne room?”

“He gets sillier every day.”

I followed Antie upstairs. Sure enough, the dining table had some rugs and a chair on top of it. This was Harry's
cathedra
. To my relief he was pacing around the table instead of sitting on it. He
had his shirt off, and he wore a huge brain in the center of his back. Aside from Antie, we were all alone.

“Grab him, Antie, it's for his own good.”

“Check, Dr. F.”

Before Harry could say anything, Antie had him in a double hammerlock. Moving quickly, I poured a half pint of booze over the the big brain on Harry's spine. Shocked by the poison's contact, the brain drew itself together. I slid my hand under it and pried it loose like I'd done with the policeman's Gary-brain. The heavy alien plopped to the floor.

“Stomp it, Antie.”

She did.

“W
OOD”
groaned Harry. He was leaning on the dining table and shaking his head. “I feel like everything's made of wood. God, and you stomped my poor brain, Antie? Help me, Fletcher, I'm hurting bad.”

“You want a drink?” I handed him the canteen. Harry tilted it up and worked his throat for a while.

“Plastic,” he sighed, finally lowering the canteen. “At least now everything's plastic.”

“How long have you been under Gary's control?”

“Ever since the night we came back. The brains got Sondra and me while we were sleeping. What day is it today?”

“Monday again. It's been a week.”

“Time goes fast when you're having fun.” Harry twisted his head around, trying to get a look at his back. “Did it leave much of a mark?”

“I'll get a bandage,” volunteered Antie. “And some germ cream. Don't worry, Harry dear.” She bustled off to the kitchen.

“I—I was on TV,” said Harry. “Sondra and I were sort of starting a religion.”

“Sort of? You've seen the crowds outside, haven't you?”

Harry laughed and shuddered at the same time. “It's perfect, isn't it? It just goes to show that everything I've ever said about religion is true. The sky's the limit when it comes to religious stupidity. Here we have a race of alien invaders, and the evangelical true believers are flocking here to get taken over. And meanwhile—”

“Before you get too snotty, Harry, just remember that you're their leader. Did you like wearing the brain?”

Harry shrugged, finished my canteen, and padded out to the kitchen for more. We passed a bottle of Scotch back and forth while Antie bandaged the raw spot between Harry's shoulders.

“Sure I liked it,” said Harry finally. “You've been through it. There's the constant nerve stimulation, and even more important, there's the feeling of working for a larger whole. Normally I never have any real reason for the things I do. Believing in Gary felt good.” Harry fell silent for a moment, then went on: “What's the public reaction to all this? Aside from my—followers, I mean.”

“I don't know, it's kind of weird. The army's got New Brunswick surrounded, but they don't seem ready to move in. Last week everyone was very excited about the invasion but now—now they're all talking about the food plants. Since the Garybrains
aren't doing much of anything, people have sort of lost interest.”

“Food plants? You mean those seeds I made for Nancy?”

“That's right. Porkchop bushes and fritter trees. Nancy and I have been handing out the seeds all over the place. That's one wish that really seems to have worked out well. But speaking of wishes, what about Sondra? I saw her flying around naked outside. We should try to get the slug off her back.”

“My angel,” said Harry in maudlin tones. The booze was hitting him hard. “My poor fallen angel.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“She—roosts here with me at night. In my bedroom.”

“So Antie and I will get her slug off when she comes back. Or maybe I should get blunzed and make all the Gary-brains disappear at once?”

“I used the rest of the gluons up,” muttered Harry. He seemed to be having trouble staying awake. “And it didn't work, did it, Antie?” He pushed off from the counter he'd been leaning against and lurched across the room. “Need to lie down. Look out for Sondra.”

Antie and I stretched Harry out on his bed and prepared to ambush Sondra. Holding a big tumbler of straight booze, I stood pressed against the wall next to the window like a forties gangster listening to the cops outside. Antie stood against the wall on the window's other side. We passed the time by chatting a little about the past week's events.

Apparently Harry and Sondra had tried to crank the blunzer up again. Gary wanted the door to his
universe reopened so that some of him could go back there. And he'd wanted a few changes made in our world as well: slugs everywhere, a centralized dictatorship, no booze, et cetera. Antie and Sondra had run through the sequence just like before, but when the hotshot table jabbed Harry, nothing had happened.

“I was glad,” said Antie. “I think Gary would have gotten rid of all the robots too.”

“Did you sabotage the blunzer, Antie? Is that why it didn't work?”

“No, no, I was scared to. Last time it almost killed me, you remember? There were still enough red gluons, but they just didn't work.”

Suddenly I remembered something. The strangely familiar voice I'd heard on my car radio when I'd been in the infinite regress in the Softech parking lot that last Friday after work. “
The red gluons only work once
” the voice had said. “
Use blue gluons the second time
” Blue gluons? I wondered if Stars ‘n' Bars would have them. Could the voice on the radio have been my own? Perhaps I was destined to take my turn as master of space and time.

The sound of wild cheering snapped me out of my reverie. The crowd outside was really getting excited. Peeking out the window's corner, I could see that most of the people had taken off all their clothes. They were writhing around with all the Gary-brains splitting and sliding from back to back. I guess you would call it an orgy. And hovering above the worshipers was their queen: Sondra Tupperware, lovely as Marilyn Monroe, weightless as a cloud, naked as a wet dream.

“She'll come any minute now,” said Antie. I took
a little taste from the glass I was holding. Harry's steady snoring filled the room.