Master of Space and Time by Rudy Rucker Read Free Book Online Page A

distinguishing characteristic features whatsoever. It doesn’t know what the value of Planck’s constant is supposed to be. ”
    â€œIt doesn’t know.”
    â€œBut I’ll tell it! I’ll lie to it! The first thing I’ll show the Planck juice will be a one-meter tunnel of wave guide! So the Planck length will seem like one meter instead of 10 -33 centimeters! That’s a hundred-decillion-fold amplification, Fletcher!”
    â€œHarry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    â€œThe Planck length is the size level at which quantum uncertainty takes over. The Planck juice will be manipulated into behaving as if the Planck length were one meter. And I’ll absorb the juice. What the blunzer is going to do for me is to greatly magnify the uncertainty around me. Things will do what I tell them to!”
    â€œLet’s backtrack a little, Harry. We’ve got the Planck juice in the wave guide now. The wave guide takes it to the hotshot table, which injects it into your brain and—”
    â€œI get blunzed.” Harry jumped up and down with excitement. “Let’s get to work, Fletch. You’re going to be in charge of the sequencing.”
    â€œIs it dangerous?”
    â€œIt’s possible that all of central Jersey’ll go up when those gluons hit the vortex coil. But of course—”
    â€œWe know it’s going to work,” I chortled. “Or you wouldn’t have been able to make Godzilla happen yesterday.”
    Harry and I went over the procedure a few more times, and then he and Antie and I got to work putting everything together. Time passed.Before I knew it, night had fallen. Someone was pounding at the front door.
    â€œWho is it?” called Antie in her old woman’s voice. “Who’s there?”
    â€œSondra. Let me in, guys.”

8
Magic Doors
    â€œS ONDRA , the point is to see it work. We know it works. That’s why we built it. Fletcher, you talk to her. I’m going in the chamber now.” Harry hovered near the heavy, copper-swathed door like a fat man entering a steam-bath.
    â€œGood luck, Harry.” I stepped forward and shook his hand. “The effects will last till midnight, right?”
    â€œIf I’ve got it calibrated correctly. We’ll only use a hundred grams of the gluons. First I’ll take care of the time travel and then I’ll open up a door to another world.”
    â€œWhy?” Sondra burst out. She’d been asking questions ever since we’d let her in, and she didn’t seem to like the answers she’d been getting. I wished she would go away and let us destroy the universe in peace.
    â€œLook,” I said, “could you please just get out of the way?”
    â€œSo it’s no girls allowed, huh? What if I call the cops?”
    â€œAntie’s a girl,” said Harry. “Sort of. We’re not doing anything illegal.” He stood there, thinking, his hand on the fridge’s door latch. “Sondra, I’m going to be master of space and time for two hours. Is there something you’d like me to do for you during that period of time? Wouldn’t you like to have blond hair and a bod that won’t quit?”
    â€œHe can make you look like Beva LeClaire,” I suggested. Beva was the latest Hollywood sex symbol, the Marilyn Monroe of the 1990s. “Wouldn’t you like that, Sondra?”
    â€œI’d rather be able to fly.”
    â€œDone,” said Harry. “Now shut up and watch.” With a last nervous smile Harry stepped into the cubical blunzing chamber. A cloud of frost crystals billowed out, and then the refrigerator door slammed shut.
    I slid aside a piece of the copper sheathing and peered in through the window we’d set into the door. Harry lay down on the hotshot table, waved his fist, and fitted on a breathing mask.
    â€œTurn on the microwave, Antie.”
    â€œCheck, Dr.