Thousand: Three Hundred Nineteen

producer, a uniform product. He had several promising herbs going in the garden. Under the house where the fungi flourished, fruiting bodies would erupt that offered great potential. And in the pond there were frogs that secreted will-sapping compounds and tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that, when dried and mixed with fermented algae, stank deliciously of submission. The goal wasn’t near, true, but it doesn’t pay to be in a hurry if you want to be thorough. Besides, the garden gnome’s employer had the same garden gnome in several alternate universes working on the problem. You may object that the nuances of