There Goes the Galaxy Page 13

  With their course officially set for Vos Laegos, Bertram had focused his energies on answering two important questions: why was Earth in trouble?; and what the hell was the Yellow Thing the Seers gave him?

  Bertram found research and analysis a comfort in these confusing times. They gave him a sense of normalcy, power, strength. Also something to do since there was no in-flight movie. Rollie set Bertram up on the shipboard Uninet, and away he went.

  But efforts revealed that Uninet gab barely touched on Bertram’s little blue planet, unless you counted a listing in Galaktipaedia and a Heavy Meddler mention of teens buzzing backspace planets as pranks.

  So Bertram turned his efforts to the Yellow Thing, and that’s when he found P.K. Flutterbitt’s informative online work with fauna. What Bertram hadn’t been prepared for was such an … interactive … Uninet experience. The mollusk was the most memorable one so far, but all the videos were up-close-and-personal. Then there were the sounds, the smells. Various cheeps, roars, rumbles and caws pierced his ears as if their originators were roaming free overhead or twining around his feet. And musks, briny mists and general zoological stenches of the intestinal kind steamed from the system with every keystroke.

  He couldn’t navigate away fast enough from the Vernjoolsian mollusk. And it gave him second thoughts about clicking the next item on his search list: “Ratuk Flappameria.” He made the selection with nervous fingers and then jettisoned backwards in the levitating desk chair, just in case.

  A small, yellow, burst-shaped leafy creature took wing out of the computer, soaring and spinning like a miniature kite. Its movements were gentle, free, as if filled with an inner joy expressed solely through the dance of flight. It sang a light squeaking song, melodic and faint. Like someone slowly adjusting the air escaping from a teeny-tiny balloon.

  Up, down and around, it twirled and swirled, like a petal on the wind. It wasn’t what he was searching for, but the Ratuk Flappameria was entrancing in its own right. Bertram found himself gliding back in toward the computer console to get a closer look. Catching his eye from across the room, Rollie, too, rose and drew closer for a better examination.

  “What is it?” Rollie murmured, crouching nimbly, amber eyes riveted on the delicate creature.

  “Ratuk Flappameria,” Bertram said.

  Now they could see fine, almost opalescent hairs or feathers on its rich leathery surface.

  “Cosmic,” breathed Rollie.

  “Truly,” said Bertram.

  Now they could see the stem was not a stem at all, but a shimmering sprout-like antennae, waving sinuously, iridescent before their eyes.

  “The colors,” observed Bertram.

  “Stellar,” agreed Rollie.

  Now they could see the eyelash-like fuzz on the antennae, undulating like a belly-dancer to and fro with sultry rhythm and grace.

  “Hypnotic,” whispered Rollie.

  “Amazing,” Bertram nodded.

  Now they could see it suddenly expand to four times its previous size, open a mouth just about the size of that, and bear two tiered sets of razor sharp teeth, which gnawed with the brutal force of an uncontrolled jackhammer.

  “G-ahh!”

  “Bleedin’ Karnax!”

  Bertram raced Rollie for the Cancel button. Rollie dove and got to it first.

  As pixels of light vanished in the air like sparks, Bertram sunk back into the desk chair and exhaled. “Jesus, Rollie, isn’t there anything beautiful in your universe that doesn’t crush, explode, slash or bite?”

  Rising, the alien captain looked unexpectedly pale and rattled himself. “Well, er … Vos Laegos showgirls,” he suggested, a twitch of a smile, a strained attempt at levity. “Ah—no. Scratch that, what they do is—”

  “Later,” Bertram told him. Bertram was about done with acts of nature for the day. “Save it for later.”

  “So no luck yet with the yellow thingummy?” Rollie asked.

  “Hard to say. There are tons more search matches in my list, but I may have a coronary before I finish it.”

  “Mm,” Rollie agreed. Then sudden inspiration filled his eyes. “Wait, how about—?”

  “PING!” said the computer.

  “How about you—?”

  “PING! PING!”

  “You might be able to—”

  “PING! PING! PINGPING!”

  “What is that?” Bertram noticed a happy icon in the corner of the screen was hopping up and down like it had to use the restroom.

  “Must’ve bumped the fragging—”

  “PINGPINGPINGPINGPING”

  It was growing louder, and faster, like submarine sonar with a stuttering problem. The icon in the corner was now bigger on the screen, too, and performing a more desperate dance for attention.

  Rollie raised his voice over it, “—Bumped the fragging Uninet News Update. It defaults—”

  “PINGPINGPINGPINGPINGPINGPINGPING”

  “—To ping every time a new bit of news comes in.”

  “PINGPINGPINGPINGPINGPINGPING”

  “All of those are new news items?” Bertram shouted, but Rollie couldn’t hear him over the rapid-fire sound.

  Rollie motioned Bertram from the desk chair and commandeered it himself. He attended to the icon, which was, at this point, contorted into an elaborate and painful-looking mosh, taking up the whole screen.

  It responded by popping up four different squares onto the display. Four different videos played, all of them talking at once. In the blink of an eye, this doubled, then tripled, quadrupled, and on and on. Soon there were hundreds of little squares on the screen, and hundreds of different languages clashing and vibrating from the sound system. Bertram’s Translachew gum was having a hard time processing it all, so intelligible snippets only came to him in bursts. Frowning, Rollie surveyed the newscasts and selected a small section from their ranks, collapsing them back down to four.

  “—Foobaz Frabblagundger, leader of the hit band Dumbbell Nebula, had a hangnail today,” one newscaster droned. “Close friends speculate on his ability to perform in the band’s current tour, or whether he can brave through this bleak personal crisis. Fans reacted to the shocking news with a flood of get well wishes for the Calderian heartthrob, and the development of the GCU Foobaz Frabblagundger Hangnail Prevention Awareness program …”

  Rollie closed that window.

  “—Forwardists welcomed 450 new fiction pills into the CapClub library today. The new infopills will be available no later than ten Universal minutes from now in more popular LibLounge locat—”

  With a click, that window vanished.

  “—Celebrating Stella Cygnus’ and Jet Antlia’s successful adoption of their 438th Biblucian orphan. Census experts for the planet Bibluciat indicate that there are now more progeny under ten residing with the famous poet and dancer than there are on the planet of Bibluciat itsel—”

  “Zap,” went that window.

  “—Podunk Peace Guards are in stable condition with experts currently determining the best way to restore the victims’ physical forms to their original arrangements. Hyphiz Deltan RegForce officer, W.I. Tsmarmak Mook is cited as saying, ‘Not since our brethren in law enforcement broke up that orgy on Caligula-19 have I seen such a startling discombobulation of body parts.’

  “The suspects are described as one Rolliam Tsmorlood—” Here Rollie’s likeness projected from the screen in perfect 3-D realism, if looking wild-eyed and a bit hung-over. “—An exiled Hyphiz Deltan mercenary well-known within GCU Underworld circles for his erratic behavior, cutthroat leadership and quick work with an XJ-37. With him was this life-form …”

  Here the image of Rollie was swapped for one of Bertram, an unflattering shot of him stunned and snoring on the cot in the Podunk jail cell.

  Bertram groaned. Rollie cackled.

  “The being is believed to be a humanoid male from Tryfe, a backspace planet not previously thought to have had off-planet contact with GCU inhabitants. This suspect’s identity remains
unknown, while Tsmorlood is already wanted in conjunction with his escape from the historically-inescapable penal colony planet, Rhobux-7. The Seers of Rhobux-7, wardens for the planet, are currently unavailable for comment as Rhobux-7 is, remarkably, no longer located at its expected coordinates.

  “In an exclusive Heavy Meddler Live interview, renowned astrophysicist Krut Tangin examines this never-before-seen phenomenon.”

  A silvery-haired, humanoid female projected into the room. She had a bald spot at the top of her head comprised of a giant protuberance of lumpy skull matter like a fleshy peak from the higher Alps. She stared at a live image of the coordinates of Rhobux-7.

  “So hey, you peoples,” she greeted cheerfully, “you want to know of Rhobux-7, yes? Well, in expert opinion of mine, me, I say is completely gone. Missing. Not for being there no more. So too freaky! Wowee, baby! It just not should do that thing. Why?—Well, I get back to you, yes? Maybe next Universal year. More maybe.”

  “Thank you, Krut Tangin, for that enlightening analysis,” said the newscaster. “In the meantime, the Hyphiz Deltan RegForce is on the lookout for both Tsmorlood and the unidentified Tryfling. They urge anyone spotting Tsmorlood or the Tryfling suspect to contact Hyphiz Deltan authorities immediately. Consider them armed and extremely dangerous.”

  Bertram moaned and closed the screen. “See? This is exactly what I was worried about. And—” Bertram cursed at the latest interruption, “What now?”

  The vis-u buzzer had just sounded, giving Bertram’s heart another stutter-step. Surely the RegForce hadn’t found them already. Surely, they wouldn’t call first.

  In a flash, the screen panel on the cabinet revealed a cloud of gray smoke, and within it, a figure moved like a shadow. “Tsmorlood, ya there?” The figure leaned toward the camera, and Bertram could almost discern a ruddy-skinned blond man, eyes glittering a keen peridot green through the haze. In his hand was some kind of pipe. It poured forth charcoal clouds.

  “Tseethe! Long time, mate,” Rollie exclaimed, dropping into a seat in front of the vis-u. “What goes?”

  “You’re all over the Uninet, man,” Tseethe told him with a toast of his pipe.

  “So we learned,” Rollie said. They both looked a little too pleased with this news to suit Bertram.

  “Yeah, well, you’re coming here to Vos Laegos, right? For the vote? Xylith said she talked to ya, and you said ya were.” Tseethe had a way of speaking that transformed each sentence into short, urgent bursts of words collapsing in on each other, like a verbal avalanche.

  “Xylith was right,” Rollie said. “I’ll be there.”

  “Okay, then I’m telling ya right now, rethink it. Word on the street is, the RegForce knows about the meeting, and they’re coming here. You’re here, they’ll be here, understand? And while you’re at it, you’d better cloak up, pal. Or you won’t know what hit you when those RegForce tractor beams lock on, knowwhatI’msayin’?”

  “I was just getting to that.” Rollie turned to Bertram. “Ludlow, push that button there.” He indicated the shipboard computer wall panel just to Bertram’s left.

  Bertram moved to the panel, his finger hovering over a big red button. “That one?”

  “Down.”

  “This one?” He indicated a large black button.

  “Left.”

  “Here?” He pointed to a square yellow button.

  “Lower still. There!” directed Rollie. “That there.”

  That area was completely empty. “Excuse me?”

  “Just that button there. Press it. Now.”

  Bertram pushed at the painful space between his eyes instead. “I don’t see a button there.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Rollie snapped. “It’s a cloaking button. Why would you want to see it? Just press it without all the fragging backchat, would you?”

  Bertram pressed the button he couldn’t see. To the touch, there did seem to be something there.

  “Boy,” Tseethe shook his head slowly, pipe between his teeth in a grin, “you got a winner there, Rollie. That’s the Tryfling?”

  “Yeah,” Rollie snickered.

  “Why’s he even here? Did ya get him on a bet, or something?”

  “More like progeny-minding,” Rollie told him. “Look, Tseethe, thanks for the heads-up, but I got some things to do before I hit Vos Laegos airspace. See you at the meeting?”

  “You’re not still comin’?” Bertram could see Tseethe tense even through the smoke. “Aw, come on, did ya even hear what I said, or was I just wasting a lotta fraggin’ time telling myself a story? The Regimental Enforcement Squad knows about the meeting. They’ll be waiting.”

  “I got it covered,” Rollie assured him.

  “Well, I hope ya do. Otherwise, I hope you willed me your …” Tseethe seemed to search his recollections for just the right thing, “Nah, you don’t have anything I want. Nevermind.” He gave some sort of military salute in the fog. “Captain …” And he reached for a button.

  “One thing,” said Rollie, and Tseethe paused. Rollie indicated the pipe. “I thought you’d quit that.”

  Tseethe eyed the pipe in his hand with a grimace. “Yeah, for like, two Universal hours. Turns out I’ve evolved to actually feed off the stuff. It’s weird, I’m drawing nutrients from it. I stop smoking, I’ll lose vital stuff my body’s depending on now and I’ll die.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I’m a fraggin’ marvel of Deltan medicine, if ya can believe that,” said Tseethe. He gave a last resigning look at the pipe and tucked it back between his teeth. “Well, I won’t keep ya. Paar too, man.”

  “Paar too,” Rollie responded. He turned away from the vis-u.

  Bertram was shaking his head in disbelief. “There’s a manhunt on for us, we’re going to Vos Laegos, the cops know we’re coming, and half the Underworld’s expecting us. Your own friend is begging you not to attend. Can’t we just go on to Nett?”

  “Look, I said I had it covered, didn’t I? The question is …” Rollie stood in the center of the room and surveyed all the cabinets, “… where on flaming Altair did I put it?”

  “Put what?”

  Rollie strode over to a wall, pushed a button and disappeared into the storeroom.

  “Hey, put what?” Bertram asked the door. “Rollie?”

  Inside the private Vos Laegos office, W.I. Tsmarmak Mook offered the manager of the Crater Club a warm, beneficent smile.

  “Please do pardon the intrusion,” he said, after introducing himself, “I know you must be extraordinarily busy, managing a bustling business such as this. But I can only assume that someone who has his digits on the very pulse of intergalactic life, as you do, has already heard about the two fugitives we’re seeking?”

  He paused just long enough to let the compliment soak in through the pores. “Shortly,” he leapt in as the manager opened his mouth to speak, “we expect these fugitives to turn up here for the Intergalactic Underworld Society meeting. And we’d like to ensure that while they may come here with nefarious plans, they will leave safely within our custody. I was hoping you might allow us access to that meeting.”

  “Ahhhh,” responded the manager, one Mr. Otar Eeday. “I would love to help you, W.I. Mook. In fact, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to provide assistance to your solar system’s illustrious keepers of justice. But it appears there has been some mistake. I’m afraid we have no Underworld Society meeting scheduled here at this time.” The manager was a long, lean life-form, with an expensive suit, a pointed face, soulful eyes, and a pale blue complexion that caused him to look perpetually chilled. Hairs jutted from beneath his nose in a handful of stiff long bristles. It could be less called a mustache than whiskers. It gave him a somewhat prickly, unyielding appearance, particularly when he smiled tautly. As he did now.

  “Why, you can see our schedule here.” Mr. Eeday motioned to the wall at his left, bearing a large screen showcasing all the events on the Crater Club’s calendar in the coming days. “No Underworld
Society meeting. I am so sorry to say, you’ve been misinformed.”

  W.I. Mook nodded. He’d been prepared for this sort of protective behavior from Crater Club staff. It wasn’t that the Intergalactic Underworld Society wasn’t legal, per se. Actually, the GCU’s organized criminal element was looked upon quite favorably by the public as a good way of getting stuff done. The thinking was, the Underworld was only slightly more corrupt than legitimate corporate business, anyway. And the Underworld was a lot more fun at parties.

  So the need for secrecy really was more a question of image than necessity. As Underworld pickpocket, Retty Fingfowcher, once famously said, “What’s the point in being a part of the deep, dark, skulking underbelly of the Universe, if everyone can talk to you about it over a sandwich?” The Underworld enjoyed its mystery. And if retaining that sense of mystery meant the Society members would be happy repeat guests who spent lots of money on food and drinks and the gaming tables? … Well, the Crater Club was clearly willing to play along.

  “Ah, yes,” W.I. Mook agreed heartily, peering now at the event schedule with exaggerated interest. “Why, look at that; you’re quite right! I see no Underworld Society meeting listed here. There’s clearly no Underworld Society meeting about to begin. And, well, color me just so embarrassed!”

  W.I. Tstyko was staring at Mook with those bulbous eyes of his, like his friend and colleague was suffering from bends of the brain. His mouth hung open on its hinges. His brow furrowed. It was true, the blushing apologist before him was laying it on a bit thick even for Mook’s personal style, but Mook felt sure Tstyko knew better than to comment. Mook supposed they’d be having an interesting discussion about it later over mootaab toasties.

  The Crater Club manager, on the other hand, was acting like the issue was resolved and Mook should be about to make his grand exit. “Well, we all make mistakes,” Mr. Eeday told him, offering another tight smile that made his whiskers stand out straight, like quills. He stepped toward the door in a final gracious gesture.

  But Mook just stood rooted to the spot, an introspective expression washing over his poetic face. “And even if there were an Underworld meeting being held here—”