"Damn!" Max glared at the curtain in the back room. "That little creep."
"He's not back there, you know," Hochstader said.
"What do you mean? I just left him."
"No doubt he re-tuned the portal. Go back and look."
"I will," Max said.
He strode to the curtain and peeked through.
The lab was there, and again it had undergone a rearrangement. Less clutter, more neatly arranged. Hochstader 2 was nowhere in sight.
Max returned to the office. "The runt must've ducked out."
"No, I told you," Hochstader 3 said. "He and his world are gone. You're in my world now."
"It doesn't matter," Max said. "You'll do. I want to try it again?"
"Try what again?" Hochstader asked.
"Try a different world."
"You mean play musical bodies with one of your doubles? I'm afraid I don't indulge in that sort of thing. Very unethical."
"What? I thought that was your whole shtick."
Hochstader 3 leaned back in his swivel chair. This variant was different from the other two clones, hair less unruly, clothes impeccable-he wore a jacket and tie.
He said, "I'm well aware of what some of my alternates do. It's entirely their business. My organization, which is spread out over several million aspects, is nonprofit and dedicated to probability research. We collect and process data on different civilizations."
"Look," Max pleaded. "I'm a man without a world. You've got to help me. It was one of your alternates who got me into this."
Hochstader was shaking his head emphatically. "No, I'm very sorry."
Max paused. "I'm pretty desperate," he said meaningfully.
"Oh?"
"Very desperate."
"I see," Hochstader said cautiously, casually moving his left hand toward the middle desk drawer.
Max sprang. After a short tussle, he managed to wrest the bell-ended weapon out of Hochstader's small hand.
"You nearly broke my finger!" Hochstader 3 yelped, nursing a reddened left pinkie.
"What's this thing called, anyway?"
"Did you hear what I said?" Hochstader yelled, then put the hurt finger in his mouth and sucked. He popped it out and snapped, "It's called a minitranslator, you bloody twit!"
"Sorry to be so rough." Max leveled the strange pistol at him. "Shall we go?"
"Go where?" Hochstader growled.
"I want you to take me back to the world I came from-my world of origin."
"I don't know where you come from! I have never spoken with you before this instant!"
"Sorry, but I'm getting a little desperate. You have to help me.
"Absolutely not."
"Okay, then. I guess I have to zap you." Max raised the minitranslator.
Hochstader's eyes went wide. "Wait! All right, you're in trouble and you need help. I'm willing to help, really I am. But finding the exact Hilbert coordinates for the kind of minute variant factors you're talking about would take a month of calculation."
"But I have a landmark to look for."
"Finding the landmark will not guarantee that it's the exact world you want. You could blunder into that world and find an alternate self occupying it. You might be-"
"I'll take my chances. Let's get going."
"How do you propose we go about this?"
Max thought about it. "How many alternate worlds are there, total?"
"Total? There is no total," Hochstader said.
"What do you mean?"
"There are an infinite number of possible worlds. Infinite universes! No end to them."
"No kidding," Max said, amazed. "Well, I guess it's just a matter of spinning the wheel until we hit the right one."
"You mean, we just randomly…?"
"Yeah, just pick a universe, any universe. Come on. Let's go back to the lab."
"But searching for it like that could take forever!"
"Time is subjective," Max said. "By the way, do you know a good mantra?"
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was a long trip back to Zin.
After two days the cart's right wheel came apart. Benarus hammered it back into lopsided shape; then he and Rance proceeded slowly and painfully on their way, the iron sky-stone making a heavy load.
It had stormed most of the first two days, a cold wind pushing a cold stinging rain out of the north. Lightning crackled around them, barely missing Benarus on several occasions.
On the third day out, the rain ceased and an infestation of flies began. Biting flies. The bites first itched like mad, then turned infectious and began to ooze pus. Following close on the flies' heels, as it were, came gnats, swarms of them. They went for the eyes, mostly.
On the fourth day, the mule died. Rance and Benarus took turns hauling the cart. It was backbreaking labor. Benarus pulled a shoulder muscle and spent the night whimpering.
Late on the fifth day they crossed high mountains and came down into the valley of Zin. There mosquitoes attacked, huge mosquitoes the size of moths. These monsters were allied with fire ticks, stinging chiggers, and more gnats, of a variety that liked to fly up the nostrils and nest.
The ground crawled with army ants. There was an infestation of toads this year in Zin, and these added to the nastiness. Harmless they were, except if accidentally touched. The toads' skin secreted poisons that produced a suppurating rash. Benarus managed to persuade several toads to leap up against his bare legs. (His pants had been ripped when he had blundered into a rock-strewn defile concealed by overgrowth.)
On the sixth day, Benarus stumbled over a boulder and broke a toe. His left foot bound in rags, he stumped along while Rance dragged the cart.
At last, they reached their destination, the stepped pyramid at the edge of the desert.
Rance let the yoke drop. "Well, we made it, all right. Could have been worse. Something really dreadful might have happened."
Benarus, covered with sores and lesions, his foot throbbing, gnats plying their stinging trade routes in and out of his eyes, gave him a skeptical look.
"For instance?"
He found Bruce lying against a wall in the crypt with the never-ending inscription. He stooped to pick it up, brandished it, then returned it to its long-empty scabbard.
Ah. You have returned. This is unusual.
"I simply can't get enough of your hospitality," Rance informed the disembodied voice that emanated from the gloom.
So happy to accommodate you. Who's your friend?
"Benarus, meet… Sorry, I never did learn your name."
Mur-Raah. King Mur-Raah. You can call me Murray.
"Benarus?… Get away from there!"
Benarus was examining the fine bronze door to the inner tomb. "What? I was just-"
"Don't go near that door, and whatever you do, don't try to force it."
"I'll take your word for it," Benarus said as he crossed the crypt. "By the way, who are you talking to?"
Rance was puzzled. "You can't hear him?"
"Hear who?"
Rance opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it. "We'd best get started. If you see a huge scary red thing with eyes that glow in the dark, don't worry. It only nibbles your toes."
Benarus regarded him silently for a moment. Then he turned away, shaking his head wearily.
"Like flies to manure. I don't know what it is about me that attracts 'em."
It was hours later when Benarus finally finished inscribing a magical device on the stone floor of the crypt. It was elaborate and complex. Pentacles nested within circles which in turn were subsumed by larger designs. A web of crisscrossing patterns covered the flagstones.
"You'll stand there," Benarus told Rance, pointing to a circle near the center of everything. The partially melted mass of the sky-stone sat amid a reticulated pattern that Benarus had marked off in one corner: a power grid, with the power of the stone feeding the whole device.
"What's this other, smaller circle over here?"