There Goes the Galaxy

  THERE GOES THE GALAXY

  by Jenn Thorson

  Waterhouse Press

  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

  Copyright © 2011 Jenn Thorson. All rights reserved.

  Published by Waterhouse Press. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or other—except for brief quotations in reviews, without the prior permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead or actual businesses and products likely inanimate, is purely coincidental, unless it isn’t.

  Kindle Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9838045-1-2

  Nook Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9838045-2-9

  Cover Art by Dave White

  Printed in the United States of America

  I don’t pretend to understand the Universe—it’s a great deal bigger than I am … People ought to be modester.

  —THOMAS CARLYSLE (1795-1881)

  Outer space is no place for a person of breeding.

  —LADY VIOLET BONHAM CARTER (1887-1969)

  Yeah, it’s a real chance you take coming to an unevolved system. Some places just everyone’s curious to meet your vital organs.

  —CAPT. ROLLIAM TSMORLOOD

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There were many fine folks who helped make There Goes the Galaxy become the quirky space fantasy and/or creative beverage coaster it is today. Many thanks to Scarlett Townsend, for lending her Super Copyeditor Powers to Bertram and the gang. Thank yous also go to Dave White for all his great advice and for sharing his mad artistic skillz on the cover. Cheers to Claire Pitt for the long-distance brainstorming and all the kind encouragement on days I felt a little lost in space myself. Thanks to Jessica Enos and Lynette Guerino for back-checking my brain. Much gratitude to all the terrific online folks who’ve offered both support and wisdom throughout the process. And special thanks to my cat, Alice, for examining the work and deciding an entire page of “Gs” was just what the story needed. Sorry, Alice, I couldn’t use it for this particular book, as it didn’t quite fit the tone. But maybe next time.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  How To Talk to Anyone, Anywhere, in the Greater Communicating Universe

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  DiversiDine Entertainment Systems and Aeroponics: The Captivating Case for Invasive, Cross-Pollination Marketing

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  MetamorfaSys Inc. and the Buzz on Musca Mij: Mathekite Marketer to the Masses

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  A Dose of Healthy Pre-Made Decisionry: Spectra Pollux and the CapClub

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Sects, Plugs and Music: In Tune with Popeelie Marketing

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chapter 1

  Bertram Ludlow’s head felt twice-baked, his skull scooped out and restuffed. He tried to sit up, but his body wasn’t his. It was three sizes too big and filled with sand.

  He moved to look around, but the sand rushed to his right ear. It buried his equilibrium, sinking him back onto the cold, tile floor.

  What the hell happened?

  Oh, that’s right …

  That guy happened, taking the day from coffee to kidnapping in record time.

  The morning had started out well enough, Bertram thought, still groggy from both The Incident and general Caffeinatus Interruptus. He had jarred himself awake three minutes before his alarm, as routine, because spotty apartment wiring meant he couldn’t trust a timely beep.

  He grabbed a cold shower, like most days, because Mrs. 1B had to be running either a Roman Bath or Chinese Laundry in the creaking morning hours before daylight. He liked imagining it was a Roman Bath, a wry contrast to her cardigan sweaters and polyester pantsuits. Either way, hot water was a rare commodity for those who rose past dawn.

  Bertram nuked himself a bowl of ramen noodles—the Breakfast of Frugal Aspirations—per the usual, too, and put on the Jumpin’ Jimmy Jive swing album he’d found last week, poking from a trash bin outside his building. Probably part of the dramatic domestic fluctuations in 3A, he guessed. But he’d played it a dozen times now, and he liked it—liked it almost as much for its retro hipness as the fact it was free. It wasn’t even scratched.

  He enjoyed the ramen and was just waiting for the coffeemaker to finish perking the strong, black java that brought each morning to life. He looked over his class notes then shrugged into a t-shirt, plaid flannel over-shirt, and a pair of jeans—the working uniform for a great day of student teaching.

  Pouring a mug of the eye-opener, Bertram noticed Mr. 1C’s Rottweiler anointing the azaleas outside his basement apartment window. He was right on schedule, too.

  The pounding that followed, however … that was entirely new.

  The sound was heavy and insistent, like a man kicking his way out of a cask of Amontillado or the Ghost of Christmas Past trying to make a big entrance. At first, Bertram wondered if the water heater pipe had finally broken. Or if Mrs. 1C was driving the Bonneville with a flat again.

  But then he realized the sound was coming from the other side of his door. Bertram turned down ol’ Jimmy right in the middle of “Swingin’ on Saturn’s Ring” as the door banged open, and it looked like Death himself had gotten into the building.

  This man filled the doorway, dressed shoulder-to-boot in black, hands thrust into the folds of a long, shiny coat. The only colors surrounding him were his ruddy complexion, the pale jaundice-yellow of his wild, cropped hair, and the whisky-tint to his aviator glasses. In a quiet, urgent voice, he asked, “You Ludlow?”

  “Ludlow.” Bertram blinked up at him nervously. “Yes … Ludlow. I’m Ludlow.”

  “Bertram Ludlow?” A serrated smile cut across the man’s face.

  “Yeah, but who—?”

  “Stellar,” said the man, pulling a weapon. It was a gun, a pearlescent silver with no hammer, chamber or visible safety. He aimed it at Bertram, peering over his shades with eyes a disconcerting amber orange and, so simply, pulled the trigger. It was a quick sting and then nothing—nothing at all.

  Bertram was there. And now Bertram was here.

  Here was a tiny, narrow room with bright ceiling lights and dull metal walls. As his vision slowly sharpened, Bertram noticed the trunks, enclosed shelves, piles of books, strange flags, record albums, single socks, cases, and questionable containers littering the floor.

  Some appeared to host hopeful ecosystems.

  It was storage and Bertram stored. But why had anyone stored Bertram Ludlow?

  The question was long-contemplated but fast-forgotten once the door slid away again. Death was back, clomping in on black, buckled boots. The man crouched beside Bertram in one surprisingly lithe movement and frowned over him exhaling an irritable booze-laced sigh. The kidnapper’s sunglasses were off now and his eyes were, yes, a bright, eerie orange. (Contact lenses, of course, contact lenses, Bertram told himself.) But the depth of color looked all too real, and eye contact between them caused a pang of unsettling foreignness to shiver down Bertram�
��s nerves. His eyelashes and eyebrows were such a pale yellow they almost weren’t there, while the man’s bone structure seemed to come in excess—an effect that turned his expressions striking, though not comfortably handsome.

  The stranger scrutinized him, dispassionately pinching Bertram’s arm, a knee, a wrist, a toe, and gauging reaction.

  Finally in his odd, clipped accent, the man asked, “Your fingers. You can feel your fingers, then?”

  Bertram’s tongue was rubber. “Yyyuh,” he managed.

  “Hindered motor and verbal response.” The foreigner gave a curt nod and rose. “It’ll likely wear off.”

  Likely? Bertram’s stomach spasmed because of this guy and his “likely.” His eyes fell on the belt system at the man’s waist, visible now his coat had been set aside. There were at least ten different cases strapped to it, not counting the gun holster. “Hhhwwwhoo—?”

  “Introductions aren’t productive, what with our time together so brief.” The man was rolling up his shirt sleeves to reveal lean, corded forearms that were a battlefield of burns and jagged scars. Similar marks, Bertram now noticed, crossed his hands, his temple, and lurked at the open throat of his shirt—old wounds that stood out white on ruddy skin. The man’s right thumb was a mess. It looked like it had been severed off and sewed back on again by a sixth grade home ec student sporting a C+ average. It jutted at an unnatural angle.

  Bertram felt panic welling up inside him and the words just wouldn’t come. “Yuh … you … gonna … kuh-kill … muh … m—”

  The man offered the razorblade smile by way of comfort. “Could’ve done days ago.”

  “D-days?”

  But the stranger just grabbed Bertram’s feet, dragging him through the threshold and into another room. He thumped them back to the floor, then stepped away to a counter.

  Bertram struggled to sit, but the sand in his bag of a body shifted his arms out from under him, settling him again to the icy floor. As he stared up at the riveted ceiling beams, he heard a snap, then the sounds of heavy liquid slopping against crackling ice.

  Like the too-orange eyes, this kidnapping was hard to even wrap the brain around. Obviously, the foreigner had meant to target some other, more fortunate Bertram Ludlow—one with global influence, money, prestige, intrigue. One who didn’t owe over 100 thousand dollars in student loans at 29% interest. “Misss …” began Bertram, “misss …”

  “Mister,” corrected the man.

  “Mistake,” finished Bertram.

  “Oh, is it?” The voice sounded coolly amused. “Let’s see: Bertram Ludlow, graduate student, Plus-D’Argent University, cognitive psychology. Your acute knowledge of the human mind helps you understand why you don’t like people. You subsist entirely on ramen noodles. You stare for hours at a game where men slide about with sticks. You secretly wish you were taller. You sing. In the shower. Badly. Mistake?” said the kidnapper. “Doubtful.”

  Bertram Ludlow’s jaw was too slack to drop. He was a target—and that just proved what a shoddy kidnapping outfit this was.

  It must be his research They wanted. (The idea that the amber-eyed foreigner soldiered for a secret “They” agency did hold some guilty James Bond appeal. It also went pretty far toward explaining the advanced stun-gun technology.)

  The thing was, sure, Bertram’s thesis had its merits. But was it so cutting-edge as to be useful to dangerous self-interest groups? He doubted international intelligence cared much about how humans prioritize and procrastinate tasks; and even if they did, no reason they couldn’t put it off until his dissertation published.

  Now the foreigner returned, clutching a glass of murky pink-gray liquid, a light scum swirling ominously on top. He crouched down, clamped onto Bertram’s jaw with long, thin, bruising fingers and poured the drink down his throat. It was a chunky primordial soup that smothered Bertram’s senses, enveloping them in a fetid pool and sucking them under. Bertram struggled back to the surface, gagging and choking. “Whaaa’ss—?”

  “High concentration of carbs, electrolytes and proteins. I highly suggest,” the foreigner said firmly, “you keep it down.”

  Since Bertram had no taste for threats or seconds, he fought his gag reflex for control. His captor was still crouched, elbows on knees and watching silently over the tapered steeple of his hands.

  Watching, contemplating, waiting. The piercing appraisal seemed to last entirely too long. Something must have gone as planned, though, because as Bertram’s waves of nausea ebbed, the man gave a nod, set the empty glass aside and hoisted Bertram into one of the chairs that lined the wall. He propped Bertram up like some crash test dummy and pushed a button on the side of the chair. This released a padded metal harness that flipped over Bertram’s head, clamping to his ribs and across his knees like an amusement park ride. “Wwwh …?”

  “For touch-down,” said the man. He yanked the harness and, satisfied it was secure, turned his attention to a control panel embedded in the wall. With a punch of a button, a door slid away and the kidnapper stalked through it, disappearing. Bertram wobbled a little in his wake.

  Touch-down? Was Bertram actually on some kind of renegade plane headed out of the country? He took the leash off his research/kidnapping theory and let it stretch its legs again. After all, Bertram Ludlow was not an otherwise productive kidnap. How long before anyone even noticed he was gone? A few hours? A day? A week? After that, how slim was a chance of rescue and how anorexically thin the chance of escape?

  Bertram turned to the dingy white walls and the sparse gray furniture for answers, but the most striking thing about the room was the absence of things striking. It was as if all frivolity had been locked in the storeroom to keep this functional exterior uncorrupted. Just a series of smudged wall panels, a scuffed floor, four harnessed chairs lining the outer edge, a console on the side, an empty counter, and a few angular couches bolted to the room’s core. Did four harnesses indicate a four-man operation? Three other (South African? Nordic?) mercenaries lurking behind that sliding door, equally armed and efficient? Then those were unevenable odds.

  So when Bertram Ludlow actually noticed the window, he’d expected it to overlook some snow-capped European mountain or jungle rebel retreat. He might have concocted hazy plans of breaking free and slipping down narrow cobblestone streets to the U.S. Consulate, or begging local authorities for help using a friendly smile and persuasive bits of first-year languages.

  Instead, beyond that window lay a black endlessness, unfettered by countries or borders. Embedded there in that unfathomed dark was a planet of deep rust, a planet baking under the fury of three small flaming suns. Bertram looked twice and a third time for good measure, the scene as obvious and yet as innately wrong as a Philadelphia Flyers jersey in a Pittsburgh sports bar.

  Bertram Ludlow had not been kidnapped and hidden in an abandoned warehouse, a plane, or a secret government hideout. He hadn’t been spirited off by some free-lancing Dutch operative.

  Bertram Ludlow was the victim of alien abduction. And it wasn’t even a Monday.

  Bertram came-to lying at the bottom of a ramp, and any embarrassment at having fainted was nicely smoothed by terror as the ramp rattled to life and grinded its way back inside the spacecraft.

  He leapt to his feet, fear of abandonment tossing aside his nausea, prickling limbs, worries about breathable atmosphere and any other more practical concerns. Being abducted by aliens was bad enough. But being abducted and then dumped off on a planet that wasn’t even yours? He found himself waving his arms at the craft, a lumpy, graceless ship that bore more resemblance to a brachiosaurus in need of a diet than Earthen concepts of alien transport. “Wait! Wait!” he shrieked. “Don’t go!”

  He sprinted to the slowly retracting ramp, getting a foot up onto it, then another, before the ramp slipped out from under him, burying itself into several thousand tons of metal. Leaping to his feet, Bertram pounded on the ship’s hull with bruising fervor, before realizing that all had gone silent. No rumble of rocket
s. No whine of turbine.

  Bertram stood. He paused.

  “We don’t have big skulls you know,” a voice said from behind him. And Bertram Ludlow turned, squinting up in the burning sunlight to see his extra-terrestrial kidnapper. Under the blazing suns, the stranger’s short, untamed hair looked precisely as full of white light as his clothes didn’t. And in a single spidery hand, he clutched some sort of remote control.

  Bertram’s knees wobbled. “Uh …?”

  “Big skulls,” repeated the alien conversationally. “We don’t have them. And very few of us are actually green. That,” he continued, “should be made abundantly clear.” He dropped the gadget into a pocket at his thigh.

  “My God,” Bertram breathed. Because now it was clear. Now he understood that this was never about alien abduction. It was never about stun rays and parallel evolution, worm-holes and other too-slim probabilities. It was about only one thing …

  Bertram Ludlow had cracked under the pressure of getting his Ph.D. It had been known to happen. He’d just expected to pick up on some warning signs first.

  “It’s what you Tryflings are always flapping on about, aren’t you?” persisted the figment of Bertram’s imagination, wiping his brow. He patted his pockets and, after one trial-and-error, withdrew a pair of sophisticated-looking binoculars. “Aliens: the hairless little slaggards with big heads and eyes, dialing home and giving everyone enemas? I mean, you people, you’ve got the universe just dripping with rampaging acid-spitters, half-breed progeny, and lizard babies, don’t you?” He peered through the binoculars, scanning the vast empty horizon. “In my experience, only one species bears lizard babies. And you wouldn’t want to call them that. Unless you were up for one fragging huge fight … Ah! Hello, there we are!” The man tucked the binoculars back in a pocket and motioned. “Come on, then.”