Master of Space and Time (11 page)

“You
. You think it's all a big adventure. Well, it's not, Harry. If you had children you'd understand.”

But Harry got in my car anyway. He had a hunting rifle, probably his father's. I floored the gas and sped off after the gray car with the two spine-riders. Was the nightmare ever going to end?

T
HE
gray car got away. At first I could glimpse it up ahead of us, but then I couldn't find it anymore. We tried the side streets, but the gray car was nowhere to be seen. After a while we heard sirens and saw some cop cars speed past.

“Sondra must have convinced them,” Harry observed. “Why don't you just drop me off at my shop, Fletch, and then go on home to Nancy. Leave the chasing to the police.”

“They don't realize what they're up against, Harry. Those Gary-brains—they could take over our world.”

“Ah, look, tomorrow we'll blunze you with the rest of the gluons and you can fix everything. Don't worry so much.”

“Maybe you're right. But listen, I know what it's like to have a spine-rider. It was inside my thoughts.
It's horrible.” Another worry occurred to me. “The slug on my back talked to the slug that the taxi driver brought over here. So it might know where I live.” I turned a corner and pulled onto Suydam Street. “What'd you think of that odalisque woman on the cushions?”

“She was nice,” said Harry. “But she killed Tad. Sondra's much prettier.”

“You better hope Sondra doesn't realize she's too neat for you.”

“Oh, it won't sink in for a while.”

I pulled up in front of Harry's shop and sat there in silence for a minute, trying to sort it all out. Sondra flew out to see what we were doing.

“I called the police,” she said, leaning in my window. “But it was hard to know what to tell them.”

“So what'd you say?”

“I said the two men were wireheads. I said they had stim-units on their backs and that they'd tried to rob me.”

“I hope you told the cops to be real careful. If the Gary-brains take
them
over, we're really going to be hurting.”

“Hey, look, Fletch,” said Harry, “if you're so worried, why don't you just get blunzed right now and fix it?”

“No, no. Not now. No more craziness right now. I'm wiped out. If the brains don't spread too fast, it might be good to wait a few days to see if there's any other bad side effects coming up.”

“Well, all right. Good night, Fletch. And thanks a lot. This has been a weekend to remember.” Harry got out.

“Goodbye, Joe,” sang Sondra, hovering next to Harry. “Say hi to Nancy for me.”

“Sure thing. Talk to you tomorrow.” I kept worrying as I drove back toward Princeton. How much about Harry and me did the invaders know? Wouldn't they want to come kill us as soon as possible? Or at least take us over? I drove faster.

The lights were on in my house, and the front door was unlocked. Serena was sleeping peacefully, the TV was on, but there was no Nancy. Before doing anything else I went to look under our bed—the money was there, stacks and stacks of bills. I stuffed a few thousand dollars in my pants pocket and went back out to the kitchen.

I noticed then that the back door was ajar. I was glad I'd kept Harry's flare ray.

“Nancy?” I called, sticking my head out. “Are you out there?”

“Joe! Come see!” It sounded like her mouth was full.

When I stepped out the back door I smacked into a tree that hadn't been there before. The whole yard seemed to bristle with exotic vegetation—very strange, as this morning we'd had nothing but crabgrass. I got back to my feet and spotted Nancy in a patch of light spilling from our living-room window. She was crouched down by a bush, eating something.

“What are you doing, Nancy? What's that bush?”

“It's a porkchop bush,” she said, waving the greasy bone she'd been gnawing. “And there's a fritter tree right next to you! You really came through for world hunger!”

I glanced at the tree I'd bumped into. Sure
enough, there were thick bunches of golden fritters hanging from its branches. I picked one and bit into it. The fritter was sweet and crisp on the outside, moist and doughy in the middle. Porkchops and fritters had been Nancy's favorite meal when she'd been growing up in Virginia. No wonder she was out here eating.

“But where did they come from?” I asked.

“I was lying in bed reading when all of a sudden—it was about ten o'clock?”

“Go on.”

“All of a sudden a little box popped out of nowhere. I knew that you and Harry were up to something, so I thought it might have jewels or something precious in it. When I opened it, there were just a bunch of seeds. I was in a bad mood, so I threw them out the window and kept reading. But then a few minutes ago I heard leaves rustling and I came out here to see what it was. It's food plants, Joey! It's the solution to world hunger, just like you promised me. You're wonderful!”

“Don't you want to hear about my trip?”

“Just taste one of these porkchops!”

I felt around on the porkchop bush till I found something fat. I snapped it off at the stem, a perfect little porkchop, grilled to a turn. I got myself another fritter and filled my stomach. Each fritter had a seed like a cherry pit in its center. The porkchops bore their seeds nestled against their bony stems. I pocketed several seeds of each type.

“This really
is
good, Nancy. And they grew in just two hours?” I looked around the yard. There were five or six of the bushes and three of the
trees. “I'm glad our trip did some good after all.”

“What do you mean?”

I told Nancy about our trip to the looking-glass world, about Gary Herber, and about the parasite that had made it back to Earth. She made me show her the spot where the brain had bitten me, and she said that she hoped I wouldn't have to get blunzed. I agreed—the idea of a big needle in the skull didn't sound too appealing—and told her how I was worried the slugs might come after us tonight.

Just then Serena appeared in the back door. “Wet.”

“You wet your bed, honey?”

“Bed wet.”

Nancy and I went in, changed Serena, looked at our five million dollars, made sure the front door was locked, then took Serena out back for a fritter. “Taste this, Serena.”

“Yes,” urged Nancy. “Mommy used to like them when she was little.”

Serena bit, chewed, swallowed, and approved. “More.”

Just then I heard the sound I'd been half waiting for. A police siren.

“Nancy, I think that might be the slugs coming to get us. We better run.”

“That's just the police, Joe.”

“But they might have been taken over by Gary-brains. Quick, let's head for the woods.”

“There's bugs in there, Joe, and snakes.”

“Please.” The siren was drawing closer.

“Oh, all right.”

I picked up Serena, and we ran for the woods.
Thick and viny, the woods came right up to the edge of our housing development. It was kind of swampy in there, and the built-up land the tract houses were on sloped down at the edge. We slid down the slope and stared back at our house.

Sure enough, a motorcycle and two squad cars with flashing lights were pulling right into our driveway. Five cops with riot guns—they all had round shoulders. Serena started to ask a question; Nancy stuffed another fritter in her mouth. We crouched lower, barely daring to watch.

Bang, bang, bang
. Pounding our door. One of the cops circled around to our backyard and noticed the kitchen door open. He went right in and opened the front. They stomped around in there for a while, shouting my name. I wondered if they'd gotten Harry yet. This was bad, this was very bad.

“You think they have those brains on their backs?” whispered Nancy.

“Yeah.”

“What can we do?”

“Shhhhh.”

One of the police cars was driving around on the grass now, shining its lights this way and that. We pressed ourselves down into the underbrush. Serena started to whimper. I got my mouth against her and whispered to her. “Be quiet, honey. The bad men are after us. Be quiet like Mommy and Daddy. Real quiet.”

She obeyed. The police tried pounding on some of our neighbors' doors. No one knew where we were. An hour went by before they finally gave
up. The cop with the motorcycle stayed in our house and the others all left.

“Why don't you shoot him through the window,” suggested Nancy. She'd noticed my flare ray.

“Killing a cop is a pretty serious crime. If people don't understand about the Gary-brains, I could end up in jail.”

“Couldn't you focus it to just kill the slug? I don't want to stay in the woods all night. The mosquitoes are eating me alive.”

A plan occurred to me. “Okay, Nancy, let's try this.”

A few minutes later we were at our back door. Nancy laid the sleeping Serena down under a porkchop bush. I peered in the kitchen window. There was a tired cop with a sawed-off shotgun in his lap. He had a big bump on his back under his police shirt, and he was staring blankly at the front door.

“Excuse me,” I said, walking right in. “We'd better have a conference.” Nancy had stuffed a lot of leaves under my shirt, so it looked as if I too had a spine-rider.

The policeman whirled and started to raise his gun.

“Take it easy,” I said, smiling and walking forward. “I got my Gary-brain already.” I would have been scared to chance this if I hadn't known that Nancy was right outside the window with our flare ray aimed at the cop's head. “Come on, slide your shirt up and we'll let the masters talk.”

The policeman nodded and began pulling his shirt up. He had to set his gun down to do it. I came closer, pulling at my own shirt. Now the
cop's back was exposed, a big, strong back with the parasitic brain nestled between the shoulder blades. I made my move.

With one swift gesture, I slid my hand up under the brain, caught hold of the soft probes where they sank into the policeman's spine, and ripped the thing free. The policeman screamed and slumped forward. The loose Gary-brain twisted and tried to sink its tendrils into my arm. Surprisingly strong, it was more than just a brain; it had muscles. I tried to fling it across the room, but couldn't get it free of my arm. It began slithering up toward my shoulder and I cried for help.

Then Nancy was in the kitchen with me. Aiming carefully, she sizzled the Gary-brain with our flare ray. It released its grip on me and fell to the floor.

“Is he going to be all right?” Nancy asked, jerking her head at the policeman. There was a raw, bloody patch on his naked back.

“I don't know.” I got some water and poured it over the man's head.

He moaned a little and then sat up. “What happened?”

“You've been under the control of a mind-parasite. How did it happen?”

“I—I haven't been myself. We were chasing a gray car, and when we stopped it, Muldoon started acting funny. He stuck his head into the gray car and something happened to him. I went over to see, and the—it got me.” The man broke off to stare at the dead brain on the floor. “It was one of those. They kept splitting and getting more and more of us. They must have everyone down at the station house by now. Are you Joseph Fletcher?”

“That's right. They're after me and Harry Gerber, I think.”

“Gerber, yeah. Some other guys went off after him. What are we going to do, Mr. Fletcher?”

“If I can think of a way to get to Gerber, I can fix the whole thing. Right now I'm going to hide. Meanwhile, why don't you go to the state police, officer? The parasites can't have spread very far yet. Go get in touch with some higher-ups.”

“But what shall I tell them?”

“We're being invaded by an alien life form. If they don't believe you, show them your back and this dead spine-rider. We don't have a minute to lose.”

The policeman sped off on his motorcycle. I filled a shopping bag with money from under the bed and locked up the house. Then Nancy and Serena and I got in the Buick and took off. The main thing I wanted right now was a chance to sleep.

I
woke to the sound of Nancy's and Serena's voices. We were parked on a back road some fifteen miles south of Princeton. It was as far as we'd been able to come last night before falling asleep. Fortunately I'd remembered to throw some seeds out the window before dropping off, so there was a nice little stand of porkchop bushes and fritter trees right by the car. Nancy and Serena were having breakfast. I joined them.

“How much money did you bring?” Nancy asked.

“A few hundred thousand at least. Whatever's in that bag I put in the trunk. These fritters are really good.”