Master of Space and Time (12 page)

“They sure are. If it wasn't for the Herber-brains everything would be perfect.”

“Let's see how it's going.” I turned on the radio.

“. . . invasion,” intoned a drunk-sounding newscaster.
“New Brunswick has been cordoned off, with reports of alien activity in some of the surrounding areas. An unconfirmed report states that the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal in central Manhattan has been taken over by the aliens. One of the most effective weapons against them seems to be good old-fashioned alcohol. These brainlike creatures are extremely susceptible to alcohol poisoning, and all soldiers in the cordon have been put on double-grog rations. Any listeners who are near the combat zone are advised to remain intoxicated for the duration. I certainly am. Annie?”

“Thank you, Greg. Bottoms up. First reports of the invasion began trickling in last night in the wee morning hours. A number of police officers have fallen under the control of the parasites who call themselves Herberites. Their objectives at this time remain unclear, although some of the individuals under alien control have spoken of converting people to God's Laws. There is no question that these organisms are extraterrestrial in origin, although . . .”

I turned the radio back down. “Sounds like things won't get out of control. I hadn't realized that Gary is that allergic to alcohol.”

“Do you think that people are going to blame you and Harry?” asked Nancy.

“Well, the brains
are
all thinking about us. So anyone who recovers—like that cop last night—is going to know we did it. Yeah, we're going to get blamed.” I turned the radio back up for a minute.

“. . . was caused by two eccentric scientists, Joseph
Fletcher and Harry Gerber. Authorities continue to seek . . .”

“You see?” I turned the radio off entirely.

“They won't be mad at you once they find out about the porkchop bushes and the fritter trees,” said Nancy soothingly.

“The government won't like free food. What about all the people who just work to get enough to eat? People with menial, subsistence-level jobs. Those people will drop out of the work force if they got some of our seeds.”

“They deserve a break,” said Nancy forcefully. “I think our mission is to drive all over the country giving out the seeds. And then let the seeds spread to other countries as well. We could drive to Mexico!”

“The police will be looking for this car,” I observed. “And I can't just leave Harry.”

“We can buy a new car. And Harry can take care of himself.”

“Well, all right.”

We stripped the fruit off the bushes and trees we'd planted, and got out the seeds. Each plant yielded some one hundred seeds. If we could get some helpers, it wouldn't be hard to turn one seed into one million seeds in the course of a day. A hundred times a hundred times a hundred. There was no limit to it.

We decided to leave the Buick with Alwin Bitter and get a new car. I headed back to Princeton.

Old Bitter was sitting on his porch, reading the morning paper.

“Hi,” I called from the Buick. “Remember us? Joe and Nancy Fletcher?”

Bitter smiled and waved. We got out of the car and joined him on the porch.

“Have you heard all the news?” I asked him. “About the alien invasion? Didn't I tell you Harry was going to be master of space and time?”

“I don't really see the point,” opined Bitter. “All for excitement, I suppose. Everyone is supposed to get drunk?”

“The brains don't like alcohol,” I explained. “They have three teachings, just like you.”

“I hadn't heard that.”

“Yeah, they're called God's Laws.
Follow Gary, Be Clean, Teach God's Laws
”

“A thought virus.” Bitter chuckled. “A parasitic system that propagates itself. And what else did you accomplish?”

“We have special seeds,” said Nancy. “Two new kinds of plants. Look.” She threw a fritter-tree seed and a porkchop-bush seed off the porch. As soon as they hit the ground you could see little shoots growing up. “They make food,” explained Nancy. “Joe and I want to drive all over the country and give them to poor people.”

“That sounds reasonable,” said Bitter. “But where will all the extra people live?”

I glanced at Nancy. She shrugged. “There's room. It's a big world.”

“And the extra pollution?” probed Bitter. “What about that?”

“Look,” said Nancy, “we're going to help people get enough to eat. There's no way you can argue with that.”

“Who's arguing?” Bitter smiled. “What do you want from me, my blessing?”

“I just wanted to leave my car in your garage,” I explained. “I think the police might be looking for me. I want to drop out of sight for a week or two.”

“Do you have any money?”

“Lots.”

“Give me some.”

“All right.”

Bitter agreed to keep our car for a thousand dollars. He took the keys and promised to put it in the big garage under the church building.

We walked down to a GM dealer's lot and bought a Corvette right off the floor. We bought it under Nancy's maiden name: Nancy Lydon. The salesman was kind of surprised to see us pay cash out of a shopping bag. But not too surprised to take the money.

Nancy wanted to drive—she said if it was in her name, then it was her car. I didn't care; I tilted back my seat and went to sleep. There was a space behind the seats big enough for Serena to roll around in.

When I woke up, the car was stopped and Nancy was talking. “Just plant these,” she was saying, “and you'll have plenty to eat.”

“Thank you kindly,” said the thin black woman Nancy was talking to. “What kind of seeds these be?”

I sat up and looked around. We were on some crummy back road, stopped in front of a broken-down farmhouse. It was too cloudy to tell exactly what time it was, but I figured it was about noon. Nancy was talking to a frail gray-skinned woman with a large brood of children. The ground around their little house was packed bare dirt.

“Let's plant them here,” proposed Nancy, scratching two holes in the clay soil. She put a seed in each, and called for water.

“Get the bucket, Cardo,” said the old woman. One of her skinny sons hastened off.

“Hello,” I said getting out of the car. Serena was already up, standing at Nancy's side. “We have a new kind of plant we're giving away,” I explained. “They grow fritters and porkchops.”

“Now that's a fib, I know,” said the black woman. “Is you folks preachers?”

Cardo came back and poured water on our two seeds. The green shoots started up, and some of the children gathered around to watch. I went over and gave Serena a hug. This was more fun than working for Susan Lacey at Softech.

“It'll take about an hour, Mrs. Johnson,” said Nancy. “Do you mind if we watch?”

“I don't mind. With Luther gone, I'm happy to have some grown-ups to chat with.”

“Luther was your husband?”

“He say.” No more information was forthcoming. Well, so what. The seeds were for everyone—nobody was going to need to fill out a form to get them. Free food. The more I thought about the idea, the more I liked it.

Mrs. Johnson's children took a liking to Serena. They showed her how to swing in their tire swing, and one of the little girls brought out a greasy rag doll for Serena to play with. The clouds broke up and let the warm autumn sun beat down. There was a horse chestnut nearby, and Serena set to work collecting shiny buckeyes.

In an hour's time the porkchop bush was the
size of a big spirea, and the fritter tree was eight feet tall. The bush had shiny reddish leaves and fat little white flowers. Bees buzzed from blossom to blossom. Now the petals dropped, and the fruits began to grow.

In another half-hour it was harvest time. I reached up and plucked the fritters, big and bright as oranges. The children gathered around for the treat, and Nancy showed them how to snap the porkchops off the bush.

“Be sure to save the seeds,” I cautioned. “You can give them to your cousins.”

As soon as the plants had been picked clean, they started to bloom again. There seemed to be no end to their productivity.

“Cardo,” Mrs. Johnson called, “go get Emmylou and the Curtises, too. Tell them we're having a picnic.”

Cardo ran off down the road, yelling with high spirits. By the time the next crop of fruit had appeared, there were twice as many people milling around the dirt yard. Someone had thought to bring Kool-Aid; I took a long drink.

A number of the kids had dropped seeds on the ground, and these were shooting up too. The more we ate, the more plants we started. And the more food there was, the more mouths there were to eat it. Pickups and big battered sedans lined both sides of the road. Nancy and Serena and I were the only white people there, but no one seemed to mind. Mrs. Johnson kept telling everyone that we'd invented the magic seeds.

“I think we can move on now, Joey,” said Nancy. “It's off to a good start here.”

“Okay. Can I try driving?”

“Sure.”

Over the course of the next week we handed out seeds all over central Jersey. Sometimes we ventured into the towns, but mostly we stuck to the back roads. You'd be surprised how rural New Jersey can be. What with the new depression, there were plenty of folks out there who didn't have enough to eat.

After a few days they started talking about us on the radio. Some people thought the new plants had something to do with the invasion of the Gary-brains. Others thought we must be communists. The authorities in general didn't like the idea of free food. Extensive tests were conducted on our plants, but the fritters and porkchops were just what they seemed: good, wholesome food. What with people passing the seeds around, the plants had pretty well covered the state before long. The Department of Agriculture obtained a court order for our arrest. But nobody wanted to tell them where we were.

“N
ANCY.
I've got to go back and see about Harry.” We were slowly cruising downtown Trenton, looking for people to give our seeds to. It was dusk and there was an autumn crackle in the air.

“Wait, there's an old bum.” Nancy pulled over next to a man lying on a park bench. I bounced Serena on my lap while Nancy showed the man two seeds and put them in the ground next to his bench. He seemed more interested in her breasts than in the prospect of free food.

“He's heard of us,” said Nancy, getting back behind the wheel. “He said some of his friends already had the seeds.”

“Face it, honey, everyone in the state's going to have our seeds before long. And it's spreading to New York and Pennsylvania.”

“Then we should drive down south before winter
sets in. Mexico's where they really need food.”

“Can't you just mail some of the seeds to your do-gooder friends? I want to get back up to New Brunswick and see how Harry's doing. Those Gary-brains may not be spreading, but who knows? Maybe they're getting ready for a big assault.” The setting sun gleamed coldly on the state capitol's gold dome. Winter was just around the corner.

“Oh, all right, Joe. I'll take you up there and drop you off. Do you think it's safe to go home yet?”

“No. They're after me for helping Harry, and they're after you for the seeds. You shouldn't have told so many people your name.”

“Well, I like to get a little credit, too. And they aren't really
after
us. They just want to ask us questions. I wouldn't mind answering some questions—in the proper setting.”

“You mean you'd like to get on TV.”

“Well, I don't see why I shouldn't. I could be on the cover of
Time
magazine, Joe. I've found the solution to world hunger.”

“Can't argue with that.”

We powered out of Trenton and onto the Jersey Turnpike. “I'll drop you off in New Brunswick,” said Nancy, “and then I'll mail seeds to hunger contacts all over the world. And tomorrow I'll show up at the ABC studios in Manhattan.”

“Fine. Meanwhile, do you think we could stop for some supper?”

“At one of those crummy turnpike restaurants?”

“Ah, why not. I'm kind of sick of porkchops and fritters.”

We stopped at a Savarin. Not surprisingly, the
day's special was—porkchops and fritters. Even the merchants were getting hold of our plants now. I had soup and a salad instead. According to the radio, our fritters contained every vitamin known to man, but I still felt the lack of green veggies. Serena ordered ice cream.

As we got closer to New Brunswick, the turnpike became more and more congested. There were numerous army trucks, but what was more surprising, there were lots and lots of school buses, most of them with crosses on them. “Killeville Christian Children's Crusade,” read one. “Shiloh Baptist Old Folks Home,” read another. “Shekinah Glory Gospel Fellowship,” “Sunshine Open Bible Network,” “Women's Hope-a-Glow Ministries.”