Emperor of the Universe Read online

  “Like with the supernova?” Nicholas asked. “The one that blew at exactly the time most of the scientists had predicted?”

  “Good point,” Clave said. “I guess they’re probably right about this one, too. And just when I’m starting to get popular.”

  A familiar image appeared next to Stella, shimmering in its container. “Scientists are not certain, but they believe an antimatter power core, like the one seen here, might be at the center of the destruction. All attempts to reach it have proved futile.”

  Even when seen on a broadcast image, the power core filled Nicholas with an unnerving sense of dread. “We made that singularity when we destroyed the atomizer,” he said, “so we have to—”

  “Shh.” Clave clamped a hand on Nicholas’s mouth. “Nobody knows that.”

  Nicholas pushed Clave’s hand away and completed his sentence. “—find a way to stop it. The jolt from getting dumped into the atomizer must have switched on the power core. We have to turn it off.”

  “I thought you wanted to go home,” Clave said.

  Stella tapped a chart that had appeared at her side. “Here’s the estimated destruction time for some of the more popular galaxies.” The display scrolled, like a list of school closings, revealing a combination of familiar and unfamiliar names.

  “Five months!” Nicholas said, pointing at the chart. His finger followed one of the lines as it moved up the display. “Look at that. The Milky Way will be wiped out in less than half a year. My whole planet. My family. Everyone I know. Everyone I ever met. Everyone I might ever meet. Do you have any idea what that means?”

  As the words left his mouth, Nicholas tried to snatch them back. He felt like the biggest self-centered jerk in the world. Or in the universe.

  Clave stared at him with as deep a mask of sorrow as a Menmarian could display. “Yes. I believe I do.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” Nicholas said as the image of a burning Menmar flared in his mind, backed by echoed memories of his clueless words. The wave of guilt from his blunder dwarfed every bit of remorse, regret, or shame he’d ever experienced.

  “Can you forgive me?” he asked.

  “I already have. Let’s go stop this thing and save the universe,” Clave said. “I’ve always wanted to do that.” He pulled open a drawer, took out the remote control for the power core, and put it on the console.

  “Really?” Nicholas asked. “We’re going there?”

  “Really,” Clave said. “And foolishly.”

  “Foolishly is our best talent so far,” Henrietta said.

  Jeef spoke, but her voice was too faint to be heard, even by the gerbil.

  SOLE SURVIVOR

  In his final act of cruelty, not counting his desperate vitality-draining assault on his entourage, which was more based on a need for survival than a need to make others suffer, the emperor had ordered Pumplock, who appeared to be a huge fan of Xroxlotl’s, to remain on the ship while everyone else took a shuttle to the surface to attend the concert.

  Thus, the former retainer was the first to be aware of the death of the emperor, thanks to a monitor that kept track of such things. It gave him great joy to share the news with the universe.

  AT THE HEART OF THE MATTER

  It was different this time. The hyperjump felt the same as before. And there was no gold-related tumble. But rather than returning to normal at the end of the jump, Nicholas felt a subtle pull toward the back of the ship as they traveled toward the devouring singularity.

  “That’s deceleration,” Clave said. “We’re still expanding, but that thing has put the brakes on. That’s also why the ship felt tilted. We weren’t lined up back there, facing the singularity, like we are now. But if we can actually feel it, it’s definitely happening at an increasing rate. Once the expansion has been negated, it will get even worse as the universe contracts.”

  “Not if we can stop it,” Nicholas said. The compressed sphere that had once been the planet Zeng was now less than a mile in diameter. It pulsed with Nicholas’s least-favorite shade of purple and flung branching tendrils from its surface into the void around it, like dark ink dribbled into clear water. The deep crater holding the devouring singularity looked just the way they’d seen it during Stella’s report. That thought led Nicholas to an unpleasant realization.

  “They’ve been showing this on the news, right?”

  “Right,” Clave said. “So what?”

  “So they have to have someone or something around here, transmitting the scene,” Nicholas said. “Which means they’re also showing us.”

  “I guess it does,” Clave said.

  “Which means anyone who’s watching will know we’re here,” Nicholas said. “And I’m pretty sure, since it’s such a big story, that everyone is watching. Including the Yewpees, the Craborzi, and anyone else who wants to capture or kill me.”

  “So let’s not dawdle,” Clave said.

  “Let’s not.” Nicholas took the remote control from the console. “Are you sure this will do the trick?”

  “It better,” Clave said. “We have no other tricks to try.”

  “How close do we have to get?” Nicholas didn’t like the idea of moving too near the devouring singularity. Neither of those two words sounded very inviting.

  “No idea,” Clave said. “We’ll just have to keep trying. Slowly. If we get too close, we might get trapped.”

  Nicholas pointed the remote at the singularity and pushed the ON/OFF toggle. A tiny light at the top of the switch, which is another nearly universal feature of remotes, whether or not the remote itself is of the universal sort, showed that it was working. But ahead of them, nothing changed. Nicholas released pressure and the toggle sprang back to the neutral position.

  They drifted closer. Nicholas kept trying, without success, to turn off the power core. The singularity grew in the viewport until its edges reached the top and bottom of the screen. The peak that had once been the home of the atomizer was now a depression on the surface of Zeng.

  “I can see something shimmering.” Nicholas squinted, but couldn’t make out any details. The light also seemed to pulse, as if it were being partially and repeatedly blocked.

  “I’ll zoom in.” Clave swiped the viewport. The image expanded, enveloping the entire screen. As it grew even larger, Nicholas said, “Hold it there. See that?”

  “Yes,” Clave said. “Just one blade left.”

  Nicholas watched the single enormous blade as it spun in lopsided circles at the center of the opening, making the light beneath it pulse. To either side, he could see torn, warped, and mangled blades that had been destroyed by the gold. And beyond the blade, dead center and anchored to the sides of the opening with bolts of light, sending other bolts into the depths, the mangled power core absorbed the scattered emissions and reflected energy from the various layers of the atomizer, and slowly destroyed the universe.

  Nicholas tried the remote again.

  The ship lurched forward. Nicholas screamed as the spinning blade filled the entire viewport. He dropped the remote, threw his arms in front of his face, and braced for destruction as the ship was cleaved in half.

  Henrietta leaped from his shoulder to the top of the viewport. As she slid down, the scene shrank back to normal. The opening was still far enough away that the blade was no threat.

  “Roach brains!” Nicholas shouted. “I thought we were about to get cut in half.”

  “We will be, soon, if we can’t get this power core shut off and make our escape,” Clave said.

  The ship lurched again.

  “We’re getting caught in the field,” Clave said.

  “Can you back off?” Nicholas asked.

  “Sure. But that won’t get us where we need to be. We have to get within range.”

  “And we have no idea where that will be. How much closer can we get before there’s no escape?” Nicholas asked.

  Clave went to the console and put his hands in the nav field. “Not
much. There’s already a strong pull. We’re moving forward without using any thrust. Pretty soon, we’ll have to thrust against the pull, just to slow our approach.”

  Nicholas waited for Clave to say more. Clave stared at him. Nicholas stared back. Neither wanted to explore their options.

  Clave finally broke the silence. “We’ve got to take the ship all the way in. We have to get right next to the power core.”

  “We’ll never make it past the blade,” Nicholas said. He’d played enough video games to know that this was the sort of challenge that killed you twenty or thirty times before you figured out the timing needed to survive, or threw the controller against the wall. The ship was too big to get past the blade easily, if at all, and there were no checkpoints or respawns. A person, on the other hand, had a good chance to slip through.

  Nicholas pointed toward the lockers beyond the hatch. “Somebody has to suit up and take the remote right up to the core.”

  Again, they stared at each other, like two reluctant gunfighters, each waiting for the other to draw first.

  “You’re young,” Clave said. “You have a whole life ahead of you. A barbaric life wallowing in the primitive mud of Earth, shielded from all the splendor of the universe, but still a life marginally worth living. And you have absolutely no experience moving in space or wearing a space suit. It has to be me. My courier career probably ended when all my packages got dumped. And, as much as I’ve gotten more fans for my sfumbles, I guess the truth is they’re really your fans. Without you, they’d forget about me in a nanosecond.”

  “No,” Nicholas said. He thought about that moment on the platform above the atomizer, when he reconciled himself with death. It looked like he had to do that again. But this time, it was his own decision, and it would save countless lives. “All of this is my fault. I’ll go.”

  “None of it is your fault,” Clave said.

  “Okay. Not my fault. But my responsibility. It has to be me. I can’t pilot a ship. If you go, I’m trapped here.”

  “You can call for help,” Clave said. “You’ll be a hero.”

  The ship jolted again. But this jolt was different. It was accompanied by a deafening thump.

  “Shields at ninety percent,” the ship said.

  Another jolt.

  “Shields at eighty-one percent.”

  The console display turned into a shower of violet lights.

  Clave shouted a swear word that had no translation. “We’re being fired at.” He pulled up an inset display. Three ships were zooming toward them from behind. One was a Yewpee craft. It wasn’t firing. But the other two, which were closer, didn’t seem to have any hesitation.

  The transceiver squawked.

  “Prepare to experience Craborzi justice,” a voice said.

  “Menmarian vengeance is swift,” another voice said.

  “They’re after me,” Nicholas said. “If I leave the ship, they’ll chase me. You’ll have time to escape. They probably won’t even care about you once they have me. I’m getting in that suit and turning off the singularity.”

  “Activation of breaching-harpoon targeting system detected,” the ship said.

  Nicholas wasn’t sure what that was, but it didn’t sound promising. He looked down at the floor by his feet for the remote. It wasn’t there. He realized it must have slid across the bridge during the jolts. He dropped to his knees to search. “I need to get out there.”

  “But the atomizer will destroy you,” Henrietta said. “Even if you turn off the power core, you’ll fall the rest of the way into the depths of that thing.”

  “It will destroy everything, anyhow,” Nicholas said.

  “At least you’ll be famous,” Clave said. He pulled out his sfumbler. “I’ll make sure the whole universe knows of your valor.”

  “Just make sure my parents know,” Nicholas said. “Can you do that without scaring them to death?”

  Clave nodded.

  “And take care of Henrietta and Jeef,” Nicholas said.

  “Of course,” Clave said.

  Another jolt struck.

  “Shields at seventy-two-point-nine percent. Approaching vessel nearing harpoon range.”

  A light far more purple than any before flashed on the console, along with a siren that echoed through the cockpit.

  “Breach!” Clave shouted. “Why aren’t the shields holding? Don’t tell me we’ve been harpooned already.” As he rushed to the console, the warning light went out.

  “Are we okay?” Nicholas asked. He hated the thought that the ship could get destroyed before he saved his friends.

  “For now,” Clave said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to tell the whole universe your story? It’s a pretty amazing tale.”

  Nicholas realized how important this was to Clave. Fame was basically the only gift Clave could give him at this point, and it was his responsibility to accept that gift. “Just a quick one. Okay? Really quick.”

  He stood there while Clave recorded a sfumble and told the viewers, “Nicholas V. Landrew is about to save the universe.”

  “I really don’t care about fame,” Nicholas said after Clave had collapsed the sfumbler. He reached up and stroked Henrietta, who was still perched at the base of the viewport. “I care about saving everyone. Especially my friends. You understand, don’t you, Jeef?” he asked as he looked around for the cart.

  There was no answer. And no sign of the cart.

  “Roach brains!” Nicholas ran out to the corridor. The lower locker was open. He realized the ship hadn’t been breached. Jeef had taken the remote, then managed to strap on a jet pack. She’d gone outside the ship from the cargo hold and launched herself toward the singularity.

  “Come here,” Clave called.

  Nicholas joined Clave and Henrietta by the viewport. “Jeef! No!” he screamed.

  As he watched, the image shifted from a package of ground beef jetting a wheeled cart and clutching a remote control into a space-suited boy roughly the size of the notorious assassin and destroyer of worlds, Nicholas V. Landrew.

  “Brilliant,” Clave said.

  Thank you for treating me like I mattered, Jeef said. She entered the opening of the devouring singularity. Bits of vapor wisped from the image, then glittered as the water formed ice crystals.

  “She’s freezing,” Nicholas said. He realized Jeef had not only sacrificed herself, but she’d jumped into one of her worst nightmares—a place far colder than any freezer on earth. He held his breath as Jeef jetted past the enormous blade. The two ships that had been firing at Clave’s ship shot by it, pursuing Jeef. Both were small, fast, and skillfully piloted. Both managed to avoid the blade. Both did so by jetting to the same safe spot where they could slip past the obstacle unharmed. Both tried to occupy exactly the same spot at exactly the same time. Not being massless thoughts, this proved to be impossible. Hence, both exploded in one merged, strangely beautiful fireball. That didn’t seem to dissuade the Yewpee ship, which was seeking its own safe path past the blade.

  “Jeef…” Nicholas said. Beyond the blade, the power core flickered, and then faded toward darkness. Nicholas’s heart shattered as he watched Jeef crash directly into the core. The bolts that had spread from the core vanished. Jeef and the core were absorbed by a blackness so dark it hurt the eyes like a thousand suns.

  For another instant, the universe held its breath.

  And the devouring singularity, unbalanced by the sudden loss of the power core, expanded in a flash that was the exact opposite of total darkness. It was unbearably bright. The flash, which was made of the fabric of the universe, and not bound by the limitations of light, enveloped the ship, the solar system, the galaxy, and ultimately, the universe.

  And one small spot in the universe, once occupied by Jeef, became unbearably empty.

  Unless …

  “Do you think she could have survived?” Nicholas turned to Clave with the same blind faith and bottomless hope he’d had when he’d turned to his parents as a toddler and
asked whether his dying goldfish could maybe get better.

  “I’m sorry,” Clave said. “Between the collision, the explosion, the cold vacuum, and whatever other horrors lay beneath the blades…” He let it go at that.

  Nicholas blinked, still dazed by the flash, still numbed by the loss. He realized he’d scooped Henrietta up and was clutching her to his chest. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so,” Henrietta said.

  “You?” Nicholas asked Clave, who looked equally stunned.

  “I guess.”

  “Aren’t you going to post about this?” Nicholas asked, wiping a tear from the corner of one eye.

  Clave looked at the sfumbler dangling from his hand. He seemed surprised he’d even pulled it out. “Maybe later…”

  Nicholas inventoried his own body and mind. He was alive. He was unharmed, except for an aching sadness from his loss, which was somewhat eased by the knowledge that countless others, including Beradaxians and Earthlings, had survived, as had he and his friends.

  “It’s over,” Clave said. “The universe can continue to exist for far longer than three years.”

  AND THEN …

  It was hardly over.

  AND STILL PRETTY MUCH THEN …

  In some ways, it had just begun.

  YOU’RE ELECTED

  “I guess we can head to Earth,” Clave said. “You’re finally going home.”

  “We’re going home,” Nicholas said, picking up Henrietta. He remembered the discussion he’d had with her about Jeef. “When we get back to Earth, will Henrietta still be able to speak?”

  “I doubt it,” Clave said. “Not with the Ubiquitous Matrix shielded.”

  “That’s okay,” Henrietta said. “We got along just fine before I could speak.”

  “We’ll always understand each other,” Nicholas said.