Re kept Harlan away from the cube for the next week.

  Instead, every day—or every other day—Re picked a new process or phenomenon, lectured Harlan on the theory, then sent him to stare at the same thing under the microscope. After that came the oral exam: explain the mechanics in detail—causes, sequence, outcome.

  Re repeated the same line like a spell:

  “If you can’t explain it in words, you didn’t understand it. Go study.”

  Harlan got good with the microscope fast. He stopped sleeping.

  Re didn’t cancel a single household duty. First: plant readings, beds, cleaning, cooking, cleaning again… Lessons started only when everything else was done.

  “Move,” Re urged. “You’re dragging your feet today.”

  “Easy for you, Gramps,” Harlan muttered back. “You sleep three hours and call it a night.”

  “What a disgrace,” Re snorted. “I’m a hundred and thirty-something. You’re not even thirty. And you still can’t keep up. Better keep your mouth shut.”

  The scientist dragged a small cart of meat out of the icebox. It needed to thaw by evening.

  “Today you feed the animals,” he announced without turning around.

  “No way,” Harlan fired back instantly.

  Re straightened. His gaze went steel—the look that always made the back of Harlan’s neck prickle. Harlan knew it well: once the scientist dug in, moving a mountain was easier.

  “Fine,” Harlan surrendered. “Then give me the revolver.”

  “It’s been hanging on the wall by the menagerie entrance for ages,” Re said, the edge leaving his eyes. “Make sure it’s loaded. And here are the portion norms for each.”

  He handed Harlan a thin, worn notebook.

  “You can take Pinky with you. Some of the beasts are wary of him. They’ll stay calmer.”

  ?

  Harlan checked the revolver three times and strapped the holster to his belt.

  Then he practiced the draw a couple of times—fast, clean, no snags.

  The chopped meat finished thawing. It turned a gray-brown color and reeked of something sour. Time to go.

  The only question was whether to take the crocodile.

  “Ah, to hell with it,” Harlan said aloud.

  He went back into the hall and headed for the main room. The last time he’d seen Pinky, the furred crocodile had been sprawled on his bedding by the fireplace.

  He was still there.

  “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” Harlan called.

  The crocodile didn’t even turn his head.

  *How do you lure a crocodile, anyway? The book didn’t cover that.*

  “Pinky. Hey…”

  Pinky heard his name and stirred.

  “Pinky, food.”

  The word *food* worked better than any spell. Pinky snapped up onto his feet, and a couple seconds later he stood in front of Harlan, tail wagging happily.

  “Wow,” Harlan murmured. “Come on. I’ll give you a treat.”

  He turned toward the greenhouses. The crocodile padded after him, heavy steps from paw to paw.

  They passed both greenhouses, picked up the cart of meat on the way, and entered the menagerie.

  A low, drawn-out growl greeted them.

  ?

  “Alright, Pinky. You first,” Harlan said.

  The crocodile seemed to understand. He circled Harlan once.

  Harlan opened the notebook and found two entries marked *furrodyle*.

  *Wait. Two of them? The other one just walks around too?* Harlan recoiled. *No. If that were true, I would’ve seen it by now.*

  “Sorry, Pinky, but I need to figure out whether you’re number fourteen or twenty-seven.” Harlan smacked his lips at the crocodile.

  Then, seeing Pinky shift impatiently, he added, “Here. An advance.”

  He tossed Pinky a piece of meat and headed to cage No. 14.

  Lucky him—an enormous furrodyle sat inside.

  Or unlucky. The beast slammed into the bars and roared, mean and raw. Just like the wild furrodyle in the Wildlands.

  Harlan jumped back on instinct.

  The furrodyle went feral—hissing, growling, whipping its tail. The cage rattled under the impact.

  Harlan’s hand shook as it reached for the revolver—and in the same instant the furrodyle froze, as if someone had yanked an invisible string.

  “Okaaay,” Harlan breathed. “So the gun works on you?”

  He turned toward the cart.

  “Shit!” He sprang so hard he almost fell—something hot and heavy breathed right behind him.

  A furrodyle loomed at his back.

  His heart punched up into his throat. Harlan clawed for the pistol, but it snagged in the holster.

  The crocodile moved in. And then it rumbled, “frf-frf-frf,” and wagged its tail.

  Harlan froze—eyes wide—then exhaled.

  “Ffff. Pinky. It’s you.”

  He drew a rough breath and looked down at the pistol. Then at furrodyle No. 14. Then at Pinky.

  “Pinky, how long have you been here? You’re supposed to give a sign. What if I’d shot you?”

  He didn’t believe it himself. On the expedition, four people hadn’t been able to drop a crocodile quickly. Most likely he would’ve only startled Pinky, and a startled animal would’ve torn him apart in return.

  But the reaction from furrodyle No. 14 was interesting.

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  “So, Pinky,” Harlan said, forcing a thin smile, “you’re a big shot around here. Is that it?”

  He breathed out, steadied himself.

  Then he pulled the notebook from his back pocket, rolled into a tube, and checked.

  “No. 14. Mountain furrodyle. Thirty kilograms.”

  “No. 27. Mountain furrodyle. Twenty-five kilograms.”

  “Pinky,” Harlan said, “you’re owed four more pieces.”

  They returned to the cart, and Harlan got down to business, working through the list from No. 1.

  But first he waited until Pinky finished chewing.

  The process turned out simpler than he expected. The animals knew the routine and waited at their bars. Only a few growled—and Pinky walked alongside him with quiet importance. His presence seemed to calm the cages.

  At cage No. 17, Harlan stopped.

  “No. 17. Common Ghentuvian scroot. Twenty kilograms of potatoes.”

  A massive wild boar with four tusks sniffed the bars, staring at him.

  “You didn’t say there were herbivores,” Harlan said out loud, offended.

  “Oink-oink,” the boar replied, then squealed something else.

  Harlan had to go back for three sacks of potatoes—for it and the other herbivores. The same potatoes he spent so much time dealing with.

  “Damn,” he said, looking at the hog. “You eat too much. I'm craving a pork chop just looking at you.”

  After that, no new surprises.

  An hour later Harlan came back with an empty cart, wiping sweat off his forehead. Pinky trailed behind him.

  He and Re crossed paths in the living room. Re warmed himself by the fireplace.

  “Well? You manage?”

  “Barely.” Harlan wiped his face with his sleeve. “Pinky helped.”

  “See? The devil is not so black,” Re nodded.

  “You didn’t tell me there’s another crocodile,” Harlan said. “Why is it so wild?”

  “Furrodyle,” Re corrected. “It’s not wild. Pinky is unique. He’s a walking prize for scientific work.”

  Re tossed a log into the fire.

  “Meet me in the training room in half an hour.”

  He said it and slowly closed his eyes, leaning back. Harlan opened his mouth, thought better of it, and went to change. The crocodile hurried back to his bedding.

  ?

  Half an hour later, Harlan sat in his usual spot in the training room.

  The cube lay in front of him.

  “Today you try again,” Re said. “A week of theory should’ve done something.”

  Harlan nodded. He sat straight, palms on his knees.

  Inhale. Exhale.

  He pushed the emotion out of his head and left only mechanics. Hours at the microscope had changed how he saw things.

  Now he didn’t look at the object as a solid block. He focused on the material. It wasn’t just wood anymore—it was compressed wood composite.

  He remembered what he’d seen under the microscope when he studied the cube: elongated tubular cells, fibers, a checkerboard web of micro-cracks, thin layers of lignin. Then he shifted to the air—its density, how individual molecules created pressure, how you could tilt the balance between regions without anyone noticing.

  *The cube and the space around it are just surfaces, lattices, bonds,* he repeated like a mantra, and slid into resonance.

  Once he understood the principle, the connection to the Field became simple. It took less than a second.

  The familiar sensation of a deep-water dive struck his head. The world narrowed. His ears stuffed up, as if someone had muffled reality itself.

  *Now the main part.*

  Harlan locked his attention on the target. He found a single plane—center of the nearest face. A support point. His mental impulse, sharpened by weeks of studying “the sequence and the outcome,” became a command. Not just force—an aimed, surgical vector of pressure.

  *Come on,* he whispered in his head, encouraging either himself or the piece of wood.

  He issued the command to the Field as best he could.

  And, against all past experience, he didn’t black out immediately.

  That alone was a victory.

  Instead, he felt the blood drain from the edges of his body. A brutal, rising pain hammered into his temples. It felt like the Field wasn’t lending energy to the transformation at all. It felt like he was paying—pouring everything he had out of himself, fast, in one hard stream.

  But his attention, his will, his whole body fused into a single narrow beam—one impulse.

  The cube shuddered.

  Slowly—almost crawling, scraping against the stone—it moved.

  A millimeter.

  Maybe less.

  But it moved.

  Re’s eyes widened. Through the haze Harlan heard him start:

  “It mov—”

  He didn’t hear the rest.

  The world snapped back—from a dull roar into crushing reality. Harlan pitched forward, his body going slack.

  "Weakling," Re said again.

  But this time he smiled, satisfied, and wrote something in his notebook.

  When Harlan showed his face the next morning, he had a new nickname.

  “Millimeter-Man.”