Master of Space and Time Read Online Free

pleasant. She slept here last night. I just wish I could get her to stop talking about God.”
    â€œWhat’s her name?”
    â€œSondra Tupperware. Sondra with an o .”
    I burst out laughing. The name was too ridiculous to be believed. “You lying toad. Has anything you’ve told me yet been true?”
    â€œIt’s all true. You’re the one who saw me come back from the future.”
    â€œNobody’s called Tupperware.”
    â€œYou want to phone her up?”
    â€œI’ll have another beer instead. Tell me more about what you think the blunzer will do.”
    â€œWe’ll talk about the technical details later. The main thing is that it’ll make me master of space and time. For a while, anyway. Whatever I wish for will come true.”
    â€œAnd me? Do I get a turn?”
    â€œSure. First I’ll do it, then you.”
    â€œThat’ll be safer,” I observed. “So I can undo anything you screw up too badly.”
    â€œLike The Peasant and the Sausage,’” said Harry. “You know that story?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWell, there’s a peasant who finds a little man trapped in a bramble bush. He gets the little man out, and the little man says, ‘In return for your help I grant you three wishes. Use them wisely!’ So the peasant runs home and talks it over with his wife. They’re trying to decide what to wish for. They’re talking and talking and suppertime comes, and she’s been too busy to fix anything, and she’s real hungry. ‘I wish I had a nice big sausage,’ the wife blurts out, and there on the table in front of her is a crisp white bratwurst. ‘God, you’re stupid!’ the husband shouts, beside himself with rage. ‘I wish that sausage would grow onto your nose!’ So there’s the poor wife with the big gross sausage grown onto her face.”
    â€œAnd they have to use the third wish to get the sausage off, right?”
    â€œYeah. Three wishes and all they end up with is a sausage.”
    â€œBut the blunzer gives you more than three wishes, doesn’t it?”
    â€œIt gives all the wishes I make, but only for a limited period of time. A session with the blunzer is like one super-wish.”
    â€œCouldn’t you wish for infinitely many wishes?”
    â€œI don’t think so. You have to wish for something concrete.”
    â€œSo what are you going to wish for, Harry?”
    Harry smiled and rubbed his face. “That’s thehard part, isn’t it? I’ll get you some money—I know you’ll want that, and—”
    â€œThat’s right,” I put in. “Five million bucks.”
    â€œYeah. And I wish Sondra was prettier. And I wish the blunzer would work. And . . . I don’t know. I’d like to have some big adventure happen. Subconscious wishes count too, which means that—”
    â€œTry to do the big adventure in some other universe,” I suggested. “So this one doesn’t get totally wrecked.”
    â€œThat sounds like a good idea. I’ll wish for a magic door to another world and we can go over there for a while.”
    â€œHey, I’m psyched, Harry!”
    â€œLet’s go shopping.”

4
Stars ’n’ Bars
    W E left Antie in charge of the store and took off in my Buick. Without Harry having to tell me, I knew where we were headed. Jack McCormack’s Stars ’n’ Bars Government Surplus.
    Harry handed me a pretzel and an open beer. “Utz and Blatz, Fletcher, just think about it.”
    â€œTzzzz.”
    We were on an incredibly built-up divided highway. There were lots of potholes. The traffic was light but intense. The government had recently repealed all speed limits in an attempt to boost oil consumption.
    Businesses were slotted in side by side, not only along both edges of the highway but also all up and down the broad median strip. Such dense social tissue needs