Spacetime Donuts by Rudy Rucker Page A

ZZ-74?
    "Well, the stuff we were taking was usually a clear gelatin capsule. It was like there was either some gas or a very small pinch of powder inside."
    Kurtowski smiled and shook his head. "No gas, no powder. Didn't you take it on the street once?"
    "Yeah," Vernor said, remembering, "Sure. My first time. Andy gave it to me. It was a little white pill like an aspirin."
    "Perhaps it said aspirin on it, no?" Kurtowski's smile broadened. What was he getting at? He continued the dialogue. "Why doesn't everyone take ZZ-74?"
    "Because the Us can't get the formula to legalize it and go into production," Mick said. "God knows they'd like to."
    Professor Kurtowski held out a closed hand and opened it. "This is ZZ-74" The hand was empty. As the truth hit him, Vernor felt the room around him recede. They were sitting in the light of a single lamp, magicians three, null and void. The wind of Eternity swept through him.
    Mick reached out and took a pinch of air from the Professor's hand and snorted it. "A righteous hit, old man," he said, stretching out on his back.
    Vernor popped a pinch of the air into his mouth. "The perfect drug cannot exist, lest it be dragged through the dirt by the infidel?" he questioned.
    Kurtowski nodded. "Ja, I had this idea after watching what happened to LSD. You had squares taking it to improve their sex-life, even ad-men eating it for inspiration to sell cars—it was too accessible. These people would take it, but they would not see the sublime mystery, the white light, the All in Nothing . . . and then they would say that I lied when I said that LSD had showed these things to me. I began to doubt, and acid no longer worked for me. I went into the laboratory to create a better drug—I was a materialistic fool like the others. But one day, deeply absorbed in a synthesis, I dropped a beaker on the floor. As it shattered, so did my delusions and I saw the All in Nothing again. I was there and I had never left. To remember this moment I named it  . . . ZZ-74. Later Andy had the idea of giving it to the people. Since there was nothing there, they could not destroy it."
    Professor Kurtowski's voice seemed to come from somewhere inside Vernor's head. Immortality and freedom were man's birthright. ZZ-74. He lay down to enjoy the trip.
     

PART II

Chapter 10: Escherichia Coli
    A shaft of sunlight slanting in through one of the laboratory's street-level windows woke Vernor. The other two were asleep on the floor near him, and the transparent globe of the scale-ship loomed over him. He was still high . . . on what? He smiled as he realized, saying the word softly to himself, "Nothing." Had Kurtowski been putting them on? ZZ-74. Last night they had taken it in its purest form. He was still high.
    Mick Turner was rubbing his large mouth. He sat up and looked at Vernor. There was nothing to say. They sat watching flecks of dust float in the shaft of sunlight; then got some food out of one of the crates near the door. When they came back to the scale-ship, Kurtowski had vanished.
    "Let's do a test before I get in, Mick."
    "O.K."
    They rigged a timer switch to the control board to send the scale-ship down for three minutes, local time, and then back up to normal size. Professor Kurtowski appeared from behind a mound of electronic components and watched silently, finally saying, "Ja, ja, a little test is all right." He seemed no more eager to talk than they. Everything was poised in such beautiful clarity that one hesitated to muddy the vibe with opinions, desires, facts and figures.
    Vernor clicked on the timer switch. The VFG cones began to hum. The field would build up to appreciable strength in about sixty seconds.
    Suddenly there were feet pounding down the stairs to the basement laboratory. At the other end of the huge room a door was blasted open. It was the loach. The leader was yelling, "We see you, Maxwell! Don't make a move! You too, Kurtowski!"
    Back to prison? Never to find out if Circular Scale