Emperor of the Universe Read online

  I’m just happy rolling along, Jeef said as she rolled over Nicholas’s foot.

  “It looks like they’ve been waiting a long time for someone to show up,” Nicholas said. Everything inside the Sanctuary was covered with dust. Even the dust had dust on it, topped with yet more dust. Nicholas’s steps kicked up a cloud of dust that instantly made itself at home in his nostrils, and set about exploring deeper into his nasal cavities and throat. He sneezed a painfully hard sneeze that brought back recent unpleasant memories of Morglob. Pulling his shirt over his nose and mouth, Nicholas walked through the rooms. Nothing was designed for bipeds, and there didn’t seem to be anything that might serve as a bed, but he figured he could be comfortable enough standing around while they waited to find out what sort of ceremony they’d stumbled across. After that, he didn’t imagine it would take Clave long to patch the hull and whisk them away.

  “If you need help, Spott and I can give you a hand with the patch,” Nicholas said. He looked over his shoulder, and then all around. “Hey, where’s Spott?”

  Clave, who had followed Nicholas, said, “I don’t know. He was right behind me when we went down the ramp.”

  “I haven’t seen him since we left the ship,” Henrietta said.

  I’ve been busy not running into things, Jeef said as she bumped into a wall.

  Nicholas opened the door, which he was pleased to find was unlocked, and stepped outside. “Maybe he stopped to look at something.”

  “He’s definitely an odd creature,” Clave said. “Wait! What? Why?” He pointed toward the ship, which was lifting off. “No! Stop! Come back!”

  “Roach brains!” Nicholas yelled. “That thief.” He watched Clave’s ship ascend until he lost sight of it. “Now what?”

  “I don’t know.” Clave pulled out his sfumbler. “I could report it was stolen.”

  “Right. To the Yewpees.” Nicholas sighed and looked around, as if there might be a spare ship within view. “Any other ideas?”

  “My fans would help me. I could post a sfumble asking for a lift,” Clave said.

  “Letting everyone know where we are?” Nicholas said.

  “We’ll think of something.” Clave headed back inside the Sanctuary.

  “Maybe the police gave up searching for us,” Nicholas said. He followed Clave through the door. “Do you think they have news here?”

  “News is available everywhere, as long you aren’t on a petro-cloaked planet.” Clave tapped a tattoo on his right little finger against the sfumbler, and said, “News flash.”

  Stella appeared in the center of the room. She was as breathtaking as ever. Nicholas forced himself to pay attention to her words as she announced breaking news. “In a stunning and treacherous assault that has sent shock waves through the entertainment field, Cloud Mansion Intergalactic, the headquarters of Universal Talent Management, has been destroyed. Its beloved founder, Morglob Sputum, has disappeared. Security footage recovered from the wreckage indicates the villainous act was carried out by none other than that ruthless slaughterer, Nicholas the Assassin.”

  Nicholas winced as Stella listed a string of other adjectives of destruction now attached to his name, and reminded viewers that the whole rampage had started with the murder of seventy Craborzi.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Nicholas said. That phrase echoed in his head. I didn’t do anything. He’d said those words more than once to his parents and teachers. Far more than once. And it was generally true. Or, at least true more than half the time, or half true more than half the time, which he felt counted as “nearly always.” Or, at least, almost nearly always.

  He checked the windows. Hundreds of Zeng stood in the streets all around them, staring at the building and slowly tilting their heads side to side, as if listening to music only they could hear. “They seem to think we came here for a reason.”

  “They’re probably fans of my sfumbles,” Clave said. “It’s a shame I have to hold off. Maybe I can just show a shot of the fans out there without saying where we are…”

  “We can’t take that chance,” Nicholas said. “Someone might recognize the place. I doubt there are a whole lot of planets with creatures shaped like that.”

  He looked past the crowd. Not far beyond them, to the west, he saw a small red mountain. Apparently, not everyone had come to stare at the aliens. There was a line of Zeng on a path leading up to the base of the mountain, and some sort of zigzag stairway rising from there to the flattened top. Each step was wide and deep enough for the four-legged Zeng to stand on. The Zeng all wore tunics of yellow fabric draped over their backs.

  A motion nearby drew Nicholas’s attention away from the mountain. The crowd around the square parted, creating a clear path for Marrow. The door opened. “We’re ready for the ceremony,” he said. “It is a joyful time. I never dared hope the fulfillment would happen in my lifetime.”

  “This should be interesting,” Nicholas said. He picked up Henrietta, who’d been quietly chewing on the corner of some unidentifiable piece of furniture, and followed Marrow out the door, along with Clave, and trailed by Jeef, who barely crashed into anything.

  Had Nicholas known a bit of Zeng history, he would have chosen a word other than interesting. And he would have run for his life.

  ONE FOR ALL AND … EWWWW.… ICK … YUCK …

  This is what Nicholas and Clave did not yet know. Many of the Zeng believed immortality was achieved by becoming one with the universe. The Zeng’s primitive ancestors thought the universe was made of rocks. This led to them throwing themselves from great heights onto various arrangements of boulders. Only the purest acolytes were allowed to leap from the highest sacred summits on the planet, after years of fasting and prayer. Modern Zeng realized the futility of this. And since Zeng scientists eventually discovered that the universe, rocks and all, was made of extremely tiny particles, those Zeng in search of immortality attempted to achieve a state of oneness through a device which can be best thought of as an atomic blender. The device was built on the outskirts of Lix, a city that had become a center for members of Zeng’s Fragmentation Cult, and the landing spot for four very unfortunate travelers.

  Set in the opening of Mount Pumice, a dormant volcano, the earliest version of the atomizer used a series of massive spinning blades, powered at first by geothermal energy, and later by nuclear fusion. As the Zeng progressed technologically, the blades were enhanced by a descending series of ever-more-powerful means of slicing and dicing, including sonic pulses, high-frequency polarized rays, magnetic inversion, absolute-zero ionic shattering, and most recently, a mere quarter century ago, quantum fragmentation.

  Over time, conveniently meshing with a growing population on the fertile continent, the requirements for acolytes grew less strict, eventually reaching a point where the only requirement to seek oneness was the ability to join the line. A steady stream of pilgrims now moved toward the mouth of the atomizer at all times of the day and night. Each pilgrim would climb the 843 steps that had been constructed on the southeast face of the mountainside, that number being the number of stars in the sky. At the summit, the pilgrim would perch on the edge of the atomizer, and then leap to his meeting with oneness.

  Or, more likely, many-many-many-ness.

  Or messiness.

  That, by itself, would not have caused problems for our travelers, since atomization was voluntary. But the Zeng believed that when a stranger descended from the stars, and that stranger was atomized, all of Zeng would instantly become one with the universe. Since they couldn’t tell which of the strangers who had descended from the stars was the chosen one, the only reasonable solution was to atomize them all.

  THE DAILY GRIND

  They were led directly to the base of the steps, cutting in line. The stairs were wide enough that Marrow could take them past the slowly moving pilgrims who were trudging toward the top. Nicholas and Clave took turns lifting Jeef up the base of each step, but she insisted on rolling across the length of them on her own. Thro
ughout this, Marrow remained silent, despite a barrage of questions from Nicholas about their destination and the nature of this ceremony. It wasn’t until Nicholas was halfway up the mountainside that he noticed something very wrong was happening at the summit.

  “Oh, roach brains! They’re leaping,” he whispered to Henrietta.

  “So it seems,” she said. “I’ve been able to hear the screams since well before we reached the steps.”

  “Maybe there’s a big mattress inside,” Clave said. “Or something bouncy.”

  “I don’t think they have mattresses on this world,” Nicholas said.

  “Trampoline?” Clave said.

  “They don’t appear to be built for that.” Nicholas tried to picture a Zengite doing a backflip. “I’m pretty sure there isn’t anything pleasant on the other side of our climb.” He turned to look back the way they’d come, but Marrow clamped a painfully strong hand on his shoulder and pushed him toward the next step.

  “Rejoice,” Marrow said, finally breaking his silence. “The prophecy comes true. We shall all merge with the universe.”

  “Yippee…” Nicholas said. He searched desperately for a way out as he was led toward the summit. Unlike below, where everything smelled like stale blood, up here, the air was drenched with the slaughterhouse scent of fresh blood.

  Nicholas flinched as another pilgrim leaped from the top. Each leap was followed by an unbearable silence, or an unbearable scream, and then, a far worse sound filled the air. Nicholas could hear tearing, grinding, hacking, slicing, ripping, and crunching. A moment later, a fine reddish mist sprayed upward, tinting the air. Despite the horror, Nicholas laughed.

  “What could possibly be funny?” Henrietta asked.

  Nicholas fought down the laughter and struggled to speak. “My mom usually…” He broke up again, nearly doubling over as a spasm of laughter shook his body.

  “I’ll wait,” Henrietta said.

  After catching his breath, Nicholas managed to spit out, “She usually buys ground turkey. Imagine that.” He nodded his head toward Jeef, then whispered, “I just happened to pick beef for a change of pace.”

  “I see very little difference,” Henrietta said.

  “Gobble, gobble,” Nicholas said. He fell to his knees, laughing. Marrow grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and lifted him back to his feet.

  “I still don’t get it,” Henrietta said.

  “What would we call ground turkey?” Nicholas said. “GT? Yeah, Jeet. Hey, Jeet yet? Get it? Sounds like did you eat yet? Ground lamb would be Jeel. Jeel of Fortune! Ground pork would be Jeep. Hey, Jeep! That’s a good one. Honk! Honk! Honk!” He thrust out his hand with each honk, pressing an imaginary car horn with his palm, then put out his other hand and steered the imaginary wheel.

  “You’re hysterical,” Henrietta said.

  “Well, it is pretty funny.” Nicholas let out a cackle that rose in pitch and seemed dangerously close to turning into a scream.

  “No. I don’t mean hugely funny. I mean you’re in the grip of hysteria,” Henrietta said. “I’d slap you if I could. Though even if I could, I don’t think you’d feel it.”

  The near scream morphed into a stream of words that rose steadily in volume. “Jeet beat heat seat treat meat—”

  “Hang in there.” Clave reached out to Nicholas, but Marrow pushed him away.

  “Wait. I have an idea.” Henrietta leaped from Nicholas’s pocket, clambered up his face, and bit him on the nose. She let go and dropped back in his pocket before he could swipe at her.

  “Ouch!” Nicholas rubbed his nose and checked his fingers for blood. “What was that for?”

  “Shock,” she said. “You’d lost control. I needed to snap you out of it. And it’s not like I could do that with a slap.” Henrietta threw the hardest possible slap a gerbil could muster, hitting Nicholas in the chest. It was unbearably cute. “You wouldn’t even feel that. I had no choice. I had to bite you.”

  “Thanks. I think…” Nicholas took a deep breath and decided that Henrietta was right. He suspected he’d been gripped by a crazy urge to laugh as a way to avoid dealing with fear, or accepting the cold reality of their situation. “We’re going to die,” he said. He was surprised how unemotional his voice now sounded.

  “It looks that way,” Henrietta said.

  “You could make a run for it,” Nicholas told Henrietta.

  “For what purpose?” she said. “I’m not leaving you. Especially not to spend the rest of my life stranded here with these feather brains. We’re staying together.”

  “Thank you,” Nicholas said. He thought about flinging Jeef to the ground so she could escape, but the fall would probably shatter the cart, or burst open the wrapper, which had already taken a beating since the start of this adventure.

  To everything, there is a season, Jeef said.

  “In your case, salt and pepper,” Henrietta said.

  Nicholas stared at her. “Really? Even now?”

  “Sorry,” Henrietta said. “Just trying to end on a happy note.”

  “We have arrived at your magnificent destiny,” Marrow said, guiding Nicholas across the platform toward the edge of the abyss.

  “At least this time I’m not getting anyone else killed. So I won’t get to be the bad guy in another of Stella’s top stories,” Nicholas said, adding more proof to the abundant stockpile of evidence that indicated he lacked even the slightest pinch of omniscience.

  SPEAKING OF DEATH

  One of the more delightful paradoxes entwined with existence is the fact that in an infinite universe, almost nothing—no goal, no passion, no habit, no desire, no trait, no quirk, no belief—will be universal.

  Love? Try to explain that to the Monosloths of Vega 47, who believe all beings other than themselves are actually intricate clockwork creations. Or take a shot at talking about it with the Ineptara, who are born with the knowledge that everyone else is real but that they are an illusion incapable of forming attachments.

  Greed? Obviously, you’ve never spent time on Alpha Grena XII, where the citizens will give you their own skin, right off their backs, if they suspect you are cold, or even just a little bit chilly.

  Hate? Close, but there are a few rare civilizations where that concept is unknown, or at least tamped down enough so it only manifests as snarky comments or invitations to dance recitals.

  Taxes? Even those aren’t universal, except for the one dollar each civilized planet is asked to pay to the emperor (providing an endless stream of funds to keep the palace running). And that’s called a tribute, since taxes, no matter how small, inevitably lead to rebellions.

  Death?

  Yeah, that’s the one thing that’s pretty much everywhere. The inhabitants of Bemona III don’t suffer from any form of disease or age-related degeneration. But they are incredibly clumsy, and not very bright for a dominant species. It is rare for a Bemonarian to make it past the age of thirty.

  The Forzoy that envelops its entire world is made of millions of individuals. Though each of the individual Forzettes is mortal with its own hopes, dreams, annoying quirks, and an inexplicable abundance of self-importance, the aggregate creature the combined individuals compose has its own identity and will essentially live as long as there are sufficient Forzettes to generate the megabeing’s higher-level self-awareness. But that terminal moment will come, inevitably, when enough Forzettes die from disease, predation, or some other cause to slip below that threshold, and the Forzoy will cease to exist.

  Some creatures fight against this inevitability, as the Zeng were doing. Others find comfort in this cycle of life, seeing it as part of nature or a higher plan. For Nicholas, death wasn’t just inevitable. It was imminent and unexpected. Which gave him very little time to develop a coping strategy or a comforting philosophy.

  OH-GLITTERATED!

  They’d reached the platform, which was placed about two feet above the rim of Mount Pumice. Ahead of Nicholas, another pilgrim jumped into the maw of the atomizer, plungi
ng toward the thousands of spinning blades that ranged from enormous to microscopic. The atomizer, when you set aside its grisly purpose, was an amazing mechanical construction, enhanced with layers of advanced technology, and worthy of great admiration and awe.

  Nicholas jerked his head away as the Zeng fell. He didn’t want to see what would happen when the body met the blades, even though he already pretty much knew.

  “Why are you doing this to us?” he asked.

  “To fulfill the prophecy,” Marrow said.

  “No way! I have things to do,” Clave shouted. “Fulfill your own prophecy. And cower before my true form!” He touched his shoulder and was cloaked in the image of a small dragon. He gave Marrow a shove. He might as well have been pushing against the side of the mountain. The Zeng, who weighed at least three or four times as much as Clave, didn’t budge. Clave shifted the holo-suit through a series of images, including fanged monsters, wraithlike screamers, a grilled sardine, a bale of hay, and a giant panda. Marrow barely blinked.

  “Nice try, Clave,” Nicholas said. “That was very heroic.”

  Clave smiled. “Thank you. Hey, since we’re about to die, do you mind if I…?”

  “What?”

  “You know…”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Go ahead,” Nicholas said.

  Clave activated his sfumbler. “Well, look where I ended up! And look who’s still with me. We’re on the verge of our last adventure, here on Zeng. Thank you for being fans. Remember me.”

  “Good one,” Nicholas said. He rubbed his thumb across Henrietta’s back. “I’m glad we got to talk.”

  “Me, too,” she said.

  “I’m sorry about this,” Clave said.

  “It’s not your fault,” Nicholas said. He felt Marrow’s hand pressing against his back.

  “Exactly!” Clave said.

  “What are you talking about?” Nicholas asked.