Emperor of the Universe Read online

  “Whatever happens, we can still watch movies together,” Henrietta said.

  “I don’t think they’re going to be as exciting anymore.” Nicholas turned toward the viewport and leaned against it, staring at the spot where the devouring singularity had been. “I feel terrible about the Yewpees. They were just doing their job. It’s like one last way the universe is telling me I’m bad news for everyone I meet.”

  Stella popped up. “And now for our top, and only, story of the moment. In breaking news of interest to all, physicists believe the devouring singularity has ceased to exist, and the universe is no longer in danger of imminent collapse.”

  As Stella vanished, an object at the side of the viewport caught Nicholas’s eye. “It can’t be…” he whispered. He watched the tiny dot move closer. It seemed to be heading for the ship.

  “Jeef?” Nicholas called. Maybe the explosion had blown her clear of the singularity.

  “Yewpees,” Clave said as he magnified the image. “You can start feeling better about their fate, and bad for us. It looks like they managed to avoid the blade and survive the blast.”

  The Yewpee ship was racing toward them.

  A demand came over the transceiver: “Nicholas V. Landrew, you are wanted for crimes against Craborz, Menmar, Zefinora, and Zeng. Clavesnout Kittywhimper, you are wanted for harboring the fugitive Nicholas V. Landrew. Prepare to be boarded. Any resistance will be met with lethal force.”

  “Do you want to run for it?” Nicholas asked.

  “I’m tired,” Clave said. “And I suspect running might fall into the category of resistance. They’d be free to fire at us. We’d never reach the jump node.”

  “I’m tired, too,” Nicholas said. “Henrietta?”

  “Very tired,” she said. “I just hope alien prisons have cedar shavings.”

  They watched the approaching Yewpee ship.

  “Kittywhimper?” Nicholas asked.

  “You can’t choose your name,” Clave said. “But you can choose your friends, who will mock your name.” He draped his arm across Nicholas’s shoulders.

  “No slap on the nose?” Nicholas asked, remembering his first encounter with Menmarian signs of affection and farewell. “Or finger up the nostril?”

  “I’ve been studying your world,” Clave said.

  Nicholas draped his own arm across Clave’s shoulders. “I hope we get to share a cell.”

  The Yewpee ship stopped. The transceiver pinged. “All charges have been dismissed. You are free to go. Please obey the speed limits and avoid littering. Have a nice day.” The ship flew off.

  “What in the world…?” Clave said. “Oh…” He pointed to the inset images on the view screen.

  Seven enormous ships had converged from behind. The transceiver pinged again, and a message emerged:

  “Nicholas V. Landrew, you have been summoned to the center of the universe by the Syndics.”

  “What if I refuse?” Nicholas asked. He had no idea who the Syndics were, but he was tired of being summoned, and ready to go home.

  “Only the emperor can refuse the Syndics.”

  This pronouncement was followed by a laugh that made no sense to Nicholas until later.

  As he soon learned, universal euphoria at the destruction of the devouring singularity quickly turned into a universal call for Nicholas, who by now was almost universally known, universally adored, and universally believed to have single-handedly saved the day, to be put in charge of everything. Conveniently, there was a current vacancy in that “in charge of everything” job category. And everyone had always felt there was something not quite right about the previous emperor, though they couldn’t put their finger, or feeler, on it.

  Thus the summons from the Syndics, whose role it was to select and inaugurate an emperor whenever the need arose. Ironically, only the emperor could refuse to follow such an order. But Nicholas wasn’t emperor quite yet. Thus, the laughter.

  Clave’s ship was loaded into the imperial transport. Clave, Nicholas, and Henrietta were brought to the emperor’s palace at the center of the universe. By Nicholas’s count, which he’d be the first to admit got a bit inaccurate toward the end, the trip required thirty-five jumps.

  When Nicholas entered the Great Hall, all of the 128 Syndics who possessed at least two arms raised one and slapped the other hand into their exposed armpit. (Historians believe the motion is a tribute to an early emperor, Pitreek Armbeard, whose head was nestled in that fragrant location.)

  “Emperor!” they shouted, as the sixteen first-tier Syndics touched Nicholas with their staffs, which had been dipped, as demanded by a tradition nobody understood, in a rare, exotic mix of fermented slime-gibbon dung and crushed corpsefly larva. Now, having been hailed and anointed, he was officially Emperor of the Universe.

  “What?” In his life so far, Nicholas had been amazed, astounded, nonplussed (though that word was not yet part of his vocabulary), startled, surprised, and nearly gobsmacked. But he had never, until this moment, been truly flabbergasted. Right now, his gast was definitely flabbered.

  “I can’t … I mean … But…”

  He looked over at Clave, who had regained his enthusiasm for sfumbling and was recording everything. “Royal robes provide a far better ride than coattails,” Clave said.

  Nicholas looked down at Henrietta. “I share your surprise,” she said.

  Despite the chaos running wild in his brain, Nicholas smiled at the familiar words from the first moments of their adventure.

  “We await your orders,” the Prime Syndic said.

  “I can’t do this,” Nicholas said.

  “All hail Nicholas,” they said, as if they were incapable of hearing any sort of abdication from their brand-spanking-new flabbergasted and dung-scented emperor.

  “No. Listen to me. I can’t do this,” he said. He thought about all the destruction he’d brought about when he didn’t even have any power. He could barely imagine how much damage he’d do as emperor. He’d already nearly destroyed the whole universe once. He really didn’t want a second chance. “Seriously, I cannot be your emperor. I can’t possibly do the job.”

  Yes, you can.

  Nicholas’s shattered heart, which hadn’t even begun to heal from the tragic loss of a friend, jammed back together, jolting him with the force of a miniature fusion explosion, or a collision between matter and antimatter. He stared around desperately, afraid to invest too much belief in the unbelievable, and shouted a name.

  “Jeef?”

  It was a question, a prayer, and a hope, all in one. Maybe, in a large enough universe, the impossible could become possible. The lost could be regained. The shattered heart could be made whole.

  The Syndics screamed back “Jeef” in unison, eager to echo the exclamations of their glorious emperor, even if they didn’t understand them. It would not be the first time this had happened. Or the thousand and first.

  I’ll be with you, always.

  “You’re alive?” Nicholas said. “Henrietta, Jeef is alive!”

  “I heard,” she said. She let out a joyful squeak and sniffed the air, as if searching for the location of the voice.

  Nicholas scanned the chamber. “Where are you?”

  Everywhere.

  “And nowhere to be seen,” Clave said. “What a shame. This would make a great sfumble.”

  “You’re okay?” Nicholas asked.

  I believe I am.

  “And in one piece?”

  Quite the opposite.

  “Holy cow!” Henrietta said.

  Not exactly. Just wholly present.

  It seems the Zeng had the right idea with their Fragmentation Cult. They just had no means to carry out a total, universal dispersion. Jeef, who had already been ground, was overlaid by the dying singularity and the remains of the atomizer onto the Ubiquitous Matrix. Essentially, thanks to the sonic pulses, high-frequency polarized rays, magnetic inversion, absolute-zero shattering, and quantum fragmentation, enhanced by the energy of the
antimatter power core, Jeef had become one with the universe.

  “So you’re everywhere?”

  As far as I can tell, Jeef said. As a certain newly self-aware gerbil once said, there’s a lot to sort out.

  “I think I said a lot of other things,” Henrietta whispered to Nicholas. Louder, looking up toward the sky, she said, “I never meant a word of any of those nasty comments.”

  Yes, you did, Jeef said. But I still love you. And don’t bother looking up, or whispering. I really am everywhere.

  “Can everyone hear you?” Nicholas asked.

  Only if I want them to, Jeef said.

  There was one more thing Nicholas needed to say. “If this whole thing hadn’t happened, I would have fried you.”

  I know, Jeef said. I still love you.

  Nicholas couldn’t quite manage to say I love you, too. But he was pretty sure Jeef knew what was in his heart.

  We can talk about all of that, and many other things, later, Jeef said. Right now, you have some emperoring to do.

  “Emperor Nicholas,” Nicholas said, trying to make his position seem less absurd by putting it into words.

  The Syndics outlined the few basic powers and responsibilities that were essential to the job, finishing with the three most crucial ones.

  “Do you swear to defend the universe from all attacks?” the head Syndic asked.

  Nicholas took a moment to puzzle over how such a thing could happen, and then decided it was safe to say, “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

  The head Syndic asked the second question: “Will you solve that which cannot be solved?”

  “I’ll try. As long as it’s not algebra,” Nicholas said. “Or in French.”

  That seemed to satisfy everyone.

  The head Syndic asked the final question. “Will you accept blame for all things for which there is no blame?”

  Clave laughed, jabbed Nicholas in the back, and said, “You were born for this job.”

  “I doubt that,” Nicholas told Clave. “But maybe I can grow into it. Starting now.”

  If he had to do the job, he planned to do it right. “I will accept that blame,” he said. He waited to see if there was anything else, but the Syndics were finished.

  “Give us some privacy,” he told them, as several nearly unimaginable ideas came to mind. “I need to speak with my inner council.”

  He explained his ideas to Clave, Henrietta, and Jeef, got their approval—which, while unnecessary for any Emperor of the Universe, was pretty important to Nicholas of Yelm—and then summoned the Syndics back in. “I want to establish my reign with an unforgettable act,” Nicholas said. “We need to end as many wars as possible. Especially those that have gone on for far too long, and for far too little reason.” He ordered two planet torchers to be escorted to the planets involved in the Sagittarian war. He sent a third one to Earth, with specific instructions on where to find a deserted landing area.

  His orders were immediately obeyed without question.

  Emperor Nicholas was pleased.

  LAST WORDS

  This is nearly my last opportunity to share information, and to shed light on the story, before we reach the end. It’s not enough. Not even close. There’s so much about the universe I didn’t have a chance to tell you. I really could use five hundred more pages, no matter what universe we’re in. Or a thousand. But you’re probably eager to see how all of this ended. So I’ll let you get back to our emperor, and the earthshaking launch of his reign.

  THE END OF LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

  Nicholas dropped into his seat in algebra. It was his first class after spring break. His two-week suspension was over. His new punishment had just begun. While he’d arrived back home on Friday just moments before his parents, he’d stepped out of his bedroom into a stomach-wrenching stench that made him yearn for the scent of tacos or the gentle aroma of slime-gibbon sweat-gland stew. A mad dash to the kitchen revealed his vague suspicion was actually a harsh reality. He’d left the fridge door open.

  He’d slammed the fridge door shut, but that didn’t help. The air dripped with the putrid smell of rotting food. His frantic thoughts about the best way to deal with the situation were almost immediately interrupted by the last thing he needed to hear. The sound of the front door opening was followed by a cheerful we’re home from his mom, which was immediately followed by shrieks of disgust as his parents entered the reeking house. A brief interrogation led to the inevitable confession about his deception, though he decided not to share any details of his off-planet adventure. His parents slapped him with a one-month grounding. That seemed fair to him.

  To soften the blow, since Mr. and Mrs. Landrew were softies at heart, they’d let him keep the gifts they’d brought—an authentic boomerang and a Krazy Kool Kangarule T-shirt with an enormous pocket. He knew better than to take the boomerang to school. But he did wear the shirt. It was a perfect fit, in more ways than one.

  “Welcome back, you eager young scholars,” Miss Galendrea said after the bell rang. “And brace yourselves. This is going to be the toughest challenge you’ve ever faced in your lives, but by the end of the month, you’ll be able to solve it.”

  She wrote an equation on the board. It looked like gibberish to Nicholas.

  Jeef explained the solution in a way that made sense.

  Nicholas smiled and settled into his seat. “It’s good to be emperor,” he whispered in the direction of his shirt pocket.

  “Very good,” Henrietta whispered back.

  Much to his relief, his plan to end the Sagittarian war had worked perfectly. The planet torchers, which could selectively target any specified molecule, had extracted all the petroleum from both planets and teleported it to waiting disposal ships. Each of the two battling sides now heard the other use the proper length for a year. So each thought the other had finally conceded and admitted they’d been wrong all along. Which was all anybody ever wanted. That ended the war, and marked the beginning of Nicholas’s reign. The universe rejoiced at having a peacemaker as emperor.

  That was actually his second act as emperor. But he would never have agreed to retain the title if the Syndics hadn’t agreed to his first act. The emperor ruled from the center of the universe. Nicholas declared Earth the center. And then, he had all the petroleum removed from Earth, preparing his fellow Earthlings to eventually become citizens of the universe, and putting an end to vanishing socks, since tourists were only allowed to mess with petro-cloaked worlds. (He was also putting an end to mysteriously appearing crop circles and inexplicable spontaneous traffic jams, among other things, though he was not yet aware of this.)

  But, to balance this loss of a major fuel source, he posted the plans for the electron harvester on the internet, giving every country free energy. The wealth of nations would rise or fall because of this, and the balance of power would shift in small and large ways, but all in all, life would become better for most people. And, as a bonus, now that everyone could understand each other, French class was a piece of cake. Or gateau.

  Each evening, Nicholas would step into Henrietta’s cage at the selected time, and his advisor, publicist, chronicler, and friend, Crazy Clave, one of the most popular and beloved sfumblers in the universe, would teleport him and Henrietta to his ship, The Nick of Space, where they would deal with official emperor tasks and reminisce about the good old days. At least once a week, while his parents were out at an auditorium or birthday party, entertaining infants, they’d jump somewhere amazing and slightly dangerous, because it’s a big universe and there’s a lot to see.

  And they never missed one of Spott’s concerts.

  But let’s get back to class, to observe one more incident in the increasingly amazing life of Nicholas V. Landrew, Emperor of the Universe, and enjoy the wonderful moment that he experienced toward the end of algebra.

  “Class, please welcome our new student,” Miss Galendrea said. “Come on in, Stella.”

  Nicholas’s head snapped around so fast, he almost ended his reign
with a broken neck. Then his jaw dropped, falling slightly farther than it had ever dropped before—though with good reason—and his eyebrows rose high enough to prove, beyond any doubt, that he was not a Menmarian.

  It was her!

  “This is my cousin,” Miss Galendrea said. “Please make her feel welcome.”

  Nicholas managed to send a smile toward Stella. She smiled back, as if he mattered. Which, he realized, he did.

  And so, you now know the story of how Nicholas V. Landrew, a seventh grader from Yelm, Washington, became Emperor of the Universe. And how I, your narrator, became one with it.

  Moo.

  READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK AT

  THE CLONE CONSPIRACY

  THE SECOND BOOK IN THE

  EMPEROR OF THE UNIVERSE TRILOGY!

  JAMMED UP

  When Cloud Mansion Intergalactic, the massive spacecraft that served as his home and base of his operations, self-destructed, Morglob Sputum, the universally famous talent agent, was in his office, near the center of the complex. Thus, he wasn’t ejected into the bleak vacuum of space at a high velocity. It was more of a nudge. Four days later, he was still traveling at pretty much the same speed, since Isaac Newton had nailed it when he observed that a body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force.

  Morglob was basically coasting.

  The pirate ship he encountered was another matter. It was moving fast, running toward a rumored incapacitated freighter carrying a precious cargo of Swerdlian tongue swords. Morglob met the ship head on, splorking into it with enough force to smear himself into a thin jelly across several dozen square meters of the outer hull. While this did him no harm, it also did nothing to improve his mood.

  The ship’s captain noticed a glitch in the instrument readout, indicating a minor collision. He ordered a crew member to suit up and examine the hull.

  While the crew member was pushing herself into a spacesuit, Morglob was pulling himself back into a thicker form. When the crew member entered the airlock, Morglob was in the process of flowing toward the small hatch on the outside of the airlock. When the outer hatch cycled open, he splashed inside, startling the crew member, who was in the process of attaching her safety line. She lost her footing and stumbled into space, untethered.