Emperor of the Universe Read online

  “Hey, Nicky. We’re wrapping up the tour. Glad to hear things are good. Next week’s schedule got canceled because of bad weather. The last two concerts are this afternoon and tomorrow. That’s fine with us. We’ll be home sooner than planned. We miss you. See you on Friday.”

  great c u then

  Nicholas wasn’t even sure what day it was. According to the phone, it was Monday. He had no idea whether this was based on local time, or the time back home. Either way, he had to get to Earth before Friday. If he wasn’t home when his parents arrived, they would figure out what he’d done and never trust him again. Even if he sent texts, they’d want to know where he was.

  I don’t exactly know my location, Mom. Somewhere a gazillion miles away. But it smells interesting, and I’m currently safe. Don’t hold dinner for me.

  That would not be good. Nicholas put his phone away and followed the still-hugging reunion cluster to Spott’s parents’ apartment. It wasn’t very large.

  “We’re not wealthy,” Spott said. “But I can give a concert to make the money for the j-cubes. It’s the least I can do to repay you for rescuing me from Morglob.”

  Nicholas hesitated after he stepped inside. At every place he’d gone since he’d been snatched from Earth, something disastrous had happened. He didn’t want to end up destroying another planet. Especially not the home planet of someone he liked.

  “Relax,” Spott said. “Stop thinking about it so much. That was all coincidence. And none of it was your fault.”

  “I guess…” Nicholas said. He realized there was no other way he could get back to Earth. Especially not before Friday. As much as it was a bit creepy to know Spott could read his thoughts, it was nice to be reassured about his role in the trail of disasters he’d left behind as he traveled the universe.

  As they were being shown around the apartment, Jeef screeched to a stop in one of the rooms.

  A Thinkerator! she said. There’s something I need.

  “I know what you have in mind. My treat.” Spott activated the Thinkerator by voice and selected the right attachments for Jeef’s cart.

  A pair of mechanical hands, each on a jointed mechanical arm, appeared in the mist and settled to the table. After they’d cooled, Spott attached them to the two front corners of Jeef’s cart.

  Thank you! Now I can order things for myself. Jeef clapped the hands together, filling the room with a sound like the clanging of pots and pans. She spun in a circle, then shot off toward the wall.

  Oops! Jeef said as she crashed to a stop. Still getting used to these things.

  “You might want to take it slowly with the hands,” Nicholas said, “until you get some control.”

  I’m fine with them. Watch. Jeef rolled back to the Thinkerator and swiped her hands through the digital display. I’ll order some gloves. Marike wore wool gloves in the winter. They were lovely.

  A moment later, a swath of pink fabric materialized in the mist and drifted to the table. Nicholas stared at the straps and unexpected shapes. “Jeef, you just ordered a bra,” he said.

  Spott called Jeef aside and whispered something to her. He spoke too quietly for Nicholas to hear him, but he caught Jeef’s response of Okay. Then, Spott went to a cabinet, took out a stack of paper, and put it on the floor for Henrietta to chew.

  Nicholas wanted to watch Jeef play with her new hands, and Henrietta shred her paper, but he kept yawning. After closing his eyes several times, he realized he was exhausted. It turned out Beradaxians didn’t sleep much, and had no special place for doing that. When they were tired, they’d just plop to the floor wherever they happened to be, and nap for five or ten minutes. But they cleared out a room for their guests and put down some padded cushions.

  That was fine with Nicholas. He figured it would be comfortable enough. And it was. Clave came in as Nicholas was getting settled, and fell right to sleep. Then Jeef and Henrietta joined them.

  Just as Nicholas was falling asleep, a faint sound caught his attention.

  Glarrlrrlrrlrrllarrrlrrrlrrlrrllarrrllrrrll.

  After a brief pause, that sound was followed by a softer one, like wind rushing through a corridor far away.

  Whoooooooshhhhhhooooosshhhhh.

  This glarrl/whoosh sequence repeated several times before Nicholas figured out what he was hearing. He got up, went to the cart, and poked Jeef. “Hey. Wake up. You were snoring.”

  What? Huh? No I wasn’t.

  “Yes, you were,” Nicholas said. “Be quiet. I need to get some sleep.”

  You snore, too, Jeef said.

  “No, I don’t,” Nicholas said.

  Do, too.

  “Do not.” He went back to his cushion and lay down.

  “Idiots,” Henrietta muttered, somewhat fondly, before she slipped back to a sleep dusted with her own barely audible, unbearably cute gerbil snuffles and snorts. Clave, like all Menmarians, slept silently, and even more deeply than an exhausted seventh grader.

  In the morning, Spott told them he had arranged to give a concert. “We should earn enough for the j-cubes,” he said.

  “When?” Nicholas asked.

  “Two days from now. It takes time to organize events like this,” Spott said. “That’s as quickly as I can manage it. But you’ll be well cared for here. You are my guests.”

  “That’s great,” Nicholas said. “I’ll still get home before my parents. I’ll miss you, but it’ll be nice to get back where I belong.”

  “You won’t miss the mind reading,” Spott said.

  Nicholas laughed. “I was just thinking that. You’re right. I won’t.”

  “That’s why we don’t travel much,” Spott said. “It’s easy to slip up, and you never know how people will react. Though I’d like to see more of the universe. The only time I left here, I didn’t get to go anywhere except for Morglob’s estate.”

  “I think I’d like to see more, too. But not for a while.” Nicholas turned to Clave. “Is there any chance you’ll be back near Earth after you drop me off? So like maybe I could go along on one of your delivery trips?”

  “Courier trips,” Clave said.

  “Right. Courier trips,” Nicholas said.

  “We’ll see,” Clave said.

  “Super,” Nicholas said, without any enthusiasm. He suspected the true meaning of we’ll see was universal, and unpromising. A new bike, various trips to the movies, a better phone, and a totally awesome pair of sneakers were just a few of the many things he could remember vanishing into the bottomless chasm of we’ll see. And, sitting at the very top of that list, he had at least a year and a half’s worth of begging to be allowed to prove he could be left home alone. He thought about his current situation. He’d be going home soon. And that was what he’d wanted. But here he was, roving the universe like nobody from Earth had ever done, as far as he knew. It would be a total waste if he didn’t take advantage of that. It would be like going to Italy or Thailand and not leaving your hotel room. Once he got back to Earth, he might never have a chance to go into space again. He was pretty sure Clave wouldn’t volunteer to swing by and take him on an adventure just for the fun of it. That wasn’t Clave’s style.

  After getting tourist advice from Spott, he spent the next day walking around Ortranto, trying to absorb the idea that he was on an alien planet in another galaxy. Henrietta came with him. Clave had gone back to sleep. Jeef stayed at the apartment to practice with her hands.

  The most amazing thing about Beradaxia wasn’t the shapes of the buildings or the silent passage of the vehicles. It wasn’t the awe-inspiring canyon or the breathtaking waterfalls, though Nicholas enjoyed seeing all of that. It was the mix of people. This was Nicholas’s first experience of a world that was frequently visited by travelers and tourists. The diversity of intelligent life-forms was almost more than he could absorb. He saw a snake on a skateboard, a three-foot-tall blue-feathered bird with two heads, someone who looked like a bundle of sticks, a family that resembled upright porcupines, and one assortment of limbs and o
rgans that refused to take any sort of form he could put a name to. The size range was also mind-numbing. There were giants three times his height, and aliens so small they could only safely travel in hover cars.

  After the seventh or eighth time Nicholas responded to an amazing sight with his favorite expression, Henrietta asked him what roach brains meant. They were standing at an observation deck midway up the falls.

  “Nothing,” Nicholas said.

  “I can tell when you’re lying,” Henrietta said. “Your voice rises in pitch.”

  “It does not,” Nicholas shrieked, ending that brief sentence on a note an octave and a half higher than where it had started.

  Henrietta waited in silence.

  “Okay,” Nicholas finally said. “Back in third grade, I had this idea for a science fair project. My friend Gabe had lots of cockroaches in his house, since he was always eating in his bedroom, and he was a total slob. So I caught some roaches and put them in two sealed containers I’d made from squares of plastic that I glued together. Before I closed them, I put lettuce in one, and a piece of…” Nicholas paused and looked down at the ground.

  “Piece of what?” Henrietta asked. “Why are you looking so guilty?”

  “Cow brain.”

  “Got it,” Henrietta said. “That’s our little secret. But why that?”

  “I wanted to see if the roaches who ate brains got smarter than roaches who ate lettuce,” Nicholas said.

  “Are you a complete idiot?” Henrietta asked.

  “I was in third grade,” Nicholas said. “So, yes.”

  “What happened?” Henrietta asked.

  “The container was sealed a little too well. It turns out I have a knack for crafts. It also turns out a hunk of cow brain sort of decays if it isn’t refrigerated. And it turns out that when meat decays, it lets off gasses. Which means more pressure.”

  “So, boom?” Henrietta asked.

  “Yeah, boom,” Nicholas said. “It exploded right in the middle of the fair. Brain-coated roaches went flying everywhere. It also turns out stains from rotting pieces of brain are pretty hard to remove. As were all the roaches that invaded the school. They really can survive almost anything.”

  “I imagine the smell was rather overpowering,” Henrietta said.

  “Rather.” Nicholas shuddered. “It did encourage a bit of vomiting among the spectators.”

  “Is Jeef going to explode?” Henrietta asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Nicholas said. “She’s like irradiated or something.”

  But when they got back to the apartment, Nicholas took a close look and saw that Jeef’s package seemed a bit puffy.

  “Maybe we should keep her somewhere cold,” he said after he’d told Henrietta what he’d seen. “A refrigerator would work. Maybe a freezer would be better.”

  “She won’t like that,” Henrietta said.

  “I know. But it’s for her own good.” Nicholas shook his head. “I sound like a parent.”

  “You sort of are, to her,” Henrietta said.

  “I didn’t ask to be,” Nicholas said.

  “That’s irrelevant,” Henrietta said.

  “I guess. Do you think she can still talk if she’s frozen?”

  “Maybe. But it won’t matter for long,” Henrietta said. “She might not be able to talk at all when we get home. Or if she can, we won’t be able to hear her.”

  “Don’t say that.” Nicholas realized he’d never even contemplated the idea that Jeef wouldn’t be around forever. Not until now. He didn’t know which was worse, being silenced, or not being heard. Both seemed pretty bad. “Wait! What about you?”

  Henrietta raised a paw. “One way or another, we’ll always be able to communicate.”

  “You think so?” he asked.

  “I’m sure of it,” Henrietta said.

  Nicholas decided there was only one thing he could do at the moment. It was the same thing he did for school assignments. He’d try to push the problem from his mind for now, and think about it later. He spent the next day seeing more of the sights. And then, it was showtime.

  DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT…?

  Nicholas’s failure to find a good joke to amuse his companions highlights the fact that humor is far from universal. A joke that would kill on Rigura would die on Bopsco, even though Rigurans and Bopscoppers appear virtually identical to outside observers. On the other hand, given the size of the universe, every joke will be funny somewhere. Sadly, more than a few aspiring comedians have starved trying to find that somewhere.

  The one exception (there’s always an exception) to this was the famed comic Shucks McChuckles, a Pozdinger who billed himself as The Deep Thinker of Shallow Thoughts. In truth, his material leaned heavily toward the philosophical, producing smiles and the occasional grin, as opposed to belly laughs. And many of his audience members laughed because they were afraid that not laughing would mean they weren’t very deep. Still, Shucks was entertaining, likeable, and highly in demand. Tragically, he was clubbed to death at a theater on Grumlatch, thanks to a booking agent who was unaware that not only do Grumlatchers lack a sense of humor, but they are offended by pretty much everything and never go anywhere without at least one blunt weapon. According to legend, Shucks used his dying breath to quip, “That’s not my idea of a comedy club.”

  Shucks will be missed by comedy fans throughout the universe. To honor his memory, here are some of his best-loved shallow thoughts:

  The position of “dominant species” is an illusion often held by subdominant species.

  Sound doesn’t travel through space. Unfortunately, the unsound don’t have the same limitations.

  Travel above the speed of light is impossible … to understand.

  The less capable of space travel a society is, the more eager they are to travel through space.

  In an infinite universe, everything that can happen will happen, unless it doesn’t.

  The difference between a really really really big universe and an infinite one is both enormous and insignificant, depending on whether one is trying to reach the edge or hoping to make a nice pot of soup.

  The need to be right, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that you are wrong, is nearly universal.

  “Everything” and “nothing” are equally inconceivable, because each requires an understanding of the other.

  Physicists hope the universe doesn’t get so big that it needs to be put somewhere else.

  IN CONCERT

  The concert hall was not far from Spott’s apartment. Beradaxian concerts traditionally start at noon, so Spott had gone ahead that morning right after breakfast to prepare.

  “Let’s check the news,” Nicholas said, after he’d helped clean up. “I want to see whether they have any idea where we are.” He also wanted to see Stella.

  Clave activated the news. The upcoming Xroxlotl concert and the Sagittarian war were still among the top stories. The Plenax evacuation was complete, which was a good thing, not just because the star had gone supernova, but because those transport ships were needed to help the population of Zeng, who had to flee their self-devouring planet.

  “The emergency evacuation is proceeding smoothly,” Stella said. “However, Nicholas V. Landrew, destroyer of worlds, hopes, and dreams, who is believed to be the one responsible for this latest outrage on Zeng, continues to elude pursuit.” Above Stella’s right shoulder, there was an ad for plastic surgery. Nicholas flinched at the thought of having his nose carved into a different shape.

  I want that! Jeef said.

  “You want surgery to change your appearance?” Nicholas asked.

  “You want a camouflaged cage?” Henrietta asked.

  “Stealth cloaking for your ship?” Clave asked.

  “Wait. What ad did you see?” Nicholas asked.

  A holo-suit, Jeef said. She rolled to the Thinkerator and, after fumbling across listings for superhero capes, a gremblefruit peeler, and something called a shardplopper that looked like a pile of b
roken glass glued to an oven mitt, she pulled up an ad that flitted through images of a dizzying variety of different creatures while a soothing voice said: Project the perfect vision of yourself. Be the best you that you can possibly be. Impress your friends, depress your enemies. Be anything at all. Anything you want. Because being anything means everything.

  There was more, but Nicholas stopped listening. “Sure. If that will make you happy. But let me place the order.”

  “Good idea. We don’t want to end up with a Halloween costume or a salad spinner,” Henrietta said.

  Stop that. I’ve gotten very good with these hands, Jeef said, waving her arms for emphasis, and knocking a small hole in the wall.

  Nicholas placed the order. A message in purple letters flashed in the air above the ad: INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.

  Beneath that, in smaller letters, Nicholas saw: ACCOUNT BALANCE 004.29 U-CREDITS.

  “Funds?” Nicholas said. “U-Credits?”

  “Of course,” Clave said. “Did you think all of this was free?”

  “It looked that way,” Nicholas said. In fairness, he was pretty used to his parents paying for everything he needed.

  “A Thinkerator requires an account,” Clave said. “I imagine Morglob’s account was pretty much unlimited. And I’d imagine Spott’s family’s account is very limited.”

  Nicholas thought about how Spott had taken Jeef aside the other day. He realized Spott had probably asked Jeef to hold off buying anything more after the mechanical hands. But Jeef didn’t seem to have the best memory, even if it was fairly impressive for someone in her current state. Still, Nicholas hated to disappoint Jeef. She’d lost pretty much everything in her world, including most of herself.