Me, on the other hand, I’m an expert. I once convinced an entire group of freshmen that my name was Joe, or Fred, or Brad, or Bill, or Mike, or Brady, or Nick—I told each kid it was something different, and then answered to that name for them from then on. Kept that going for about two weeks before I ran into several of them at once, the predictable chaos ensued, and the gig was up. It was worth it for the looks on their faces when they started arguing over my name, and the awe when they realized I’d kept twelve names straight for that long. Yet somehow I can never remember the right temperature settings for my laundry. Go figure.
“Tell him you’re investigating a suspicious message,” I urge Tall. “Tell him somebody threatened to blow up the Earth, and you tracked it back to Meribau, and that’s why they sent you. Tell him that!”
Tall clears his throat again, but before he can speak the floating death-globe cuts him off. “That’s a swell story, and I’d sure love to hear how it plays out,” it says, strobing in purple again, “but how’s about you try the real deal? And without any help this time?” And that flickering shape within it darts into view again, making the whole sphere look like a great big eyeball—looking right at me.
“Oh . . . uh . . . hi,” I say, since it’s obvious this thing can hear me, or pick up my frequency, or sense my presence, or whatever.
“And who might you be?” It asks. Yep, it can hear me.
“They call me DuckBob,” I answer, and I can’t help injecting a little John Wayne into that. Hey, the Duke never would’ve let a bowling ball stare him down!
“Heidi, nice to meetcha,” it says back. “And you’re just along for the ride? What, to keep this big fella out of trouble? You his boss?”
“Boss, no,” I answer hurriedly, before Tall can reach through the camera and choke me. Trust me, he’d find a way to do it. “Just his bud, looking out for him. It’s a big bad universe out there.”
“Sure is,” Heidi says. “So, you wanna tell me the honest truth, this time?”
Tall takes a deep breath, and I just know what he’s gonna say before he says it. Sure enough, the next thing I hear is: “You want the truth? Fine. I’m not actually going to Meribau at all. I’m going to Joribau.”
Heidi goes purple again—I’m starting to think that means it’s laughing. “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? Hang on!” It turns a quick sequence of colors and the whole room spins. Literally. Then it’s shimmying again, but now a little less to the right and a little more back toward the corner. “There, that’s fixed it. So, what’s on Joribau? Can’t say’s I’ve ever been there—didn’t think anyone had, anymore.”
“I need to get to the Joribau Mines,” Tall tells him, and at least he sounds like his old take-charge-but-no-prisoners self again. “Someone’s been messing around there, and I’m going to find out who they are and what they’ve been up to.”
“Righty-ho.” Heidi’s surface shifts back to mostly blue. “Well, thanks for being honest with me. And I’m tickled, to be truthful—like I said, ain’t never been to Joribau, so I’m eager to see what all the fuss’s about.”
They settle into silence then for a bit, which would drive me nuts if not for the fact that I can sit and play a video game while I’m waiting for something to happen to Tall or because of him. Right now I’m doing a first-person shooter, except that you “shoot” descriptive phrases and whatever you hit, it takes on that quality—so, for example, when I need to get through a wall I “load” the word “ephemeral” and fire it, and then I just walk on through. The game’s called Empirical Override. It’s nice to know all those big words I learned from reading comic books are finally paying off.
Eventually, Tall breaks the silence, which surprises me—usually he’s the one who sits there stoically, and I’m the one who says pretty much anything that pops into my head just to fill that awful gap. Of course, that’s pretty much me all of the time. And usually that’s after like two minutes, three if I get distracted by something shiny. Hey, I come from a big family—if it’s quiet that means somebody’s up to no good and probably messing with my stuff. This has been about half an hour, which I guess is Tall’s limit or maybe he just figures he should make polite conversation. Either way, good to know.
“So, what do you do, exactly?” he asks Heidi. Wow, way to make a casual question sound like an interrogation, big guy! What’s next, you gonna ask him where he was on the night in question, and whether anybody can corroborate his story?
But Heidi doesn’t seem offended by the question. At least, his color doesn’t change any. “I’m a trucker,” he answers—I don’t know at what point he went from an “it” to a “he” in my head, but somehow he has, and now it’s stuck and I can’t think of him as anything else. Weird. “Long hauls, mostly, though I’ll do short runs if the pay’s good enough.”
“Really? What sort of cargo?” Again, I’m picturing Tall recording this for analysis later, or at least jotting down notes on a little pad. If this is casual conversation for him, it’s no wonder he doesn’t make a lot of friends outside work! I shudder to think what his pickup lines are like: “You there, what’s your dress size, your favorite food, your astrological sign, and your mother’s maiden name? Stat!” I’m sure that works wonders—though it might explain why Jones was chatting him up so awkwardly. Ew.
“Oh, anything and everything,” Heidi says. “I’ve hauled food an’ booze an’ livestock an’ furniture an’ medical supplies an’ ship parts an’ stuff I’d’ve said was plain ol’ junk ’cept the client was payin’ good money for it. I draw the line at drugs, firearms, basically anything that might be illegal wherever I’m takin’ it—that just ain’t worth the trouble. As long as it’s legal, though, I’m happy to take it from Point A to Point B.”
“Wow, you’re a regular connect-the-dots,” I mutter, and then curse under my breath when he swivels around to “look” at me again. He’s flickering violet, though, so I’m guessing he’s more amused than offended. Phew! Not that he could do anything to me anyway, but I don’t much like the idea of him getting annoyed and jettisoning Tall as a result. Midflight.
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Tall admits, and there’s a wistfulness to his voice that I’ve only ever heard before when he’s wondered what his life would have been like if he’d never met me. “I bet you get to see a lot of different places and people.”
“Oh, you betcha.” I swear, Heidi’s accent is shifting faster than his color scheme. “And I work when I want, for as long as I want—if I decide to take a break, I do, until I’m bored or broke or both. I’m my own boss, and that suits me just fine.”
Tall nods and starts to say something, I think, but he gets interrupted as a loud noise blares through the cabin and all the monitors go bright red. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you what’s going on!” Heidi snaps back, turning chartreuse for half a second, and the biggest monitor right in front clears and shows a section of space filled with stars and with a single solar system expanding toward us rapidly. There’s only two planets swimming around an anemic-looking little star, and one of ’em’s got a series of concentric circles superimposed on it—I’m guessing that’s Joribau.
It’s also the one that’s got something shooting away from it and heading right for us.
“We’re under attack!” Heidi shouts. “Looks like whoever you’re looking for, they know we’re comin’, and they ain’t too keen on visitors!”
Great, I think as I watch those glittering shapes zoom closer on the monitor. Just once, couldn’t we meet the intergalactic equivalent of my old Aunt Sadie? Some harmless little alien who offers us pickled herring and crackers and matzo ball soup whenever we knock on the door? Though, admittedly, Sadie’s herring was sometimes lethal. Each of her three husbands never knew what hit him. And the third one disappeared mysteriously, right around pickling season. We stopped visiting Aunt Sadie right after that, or least we always claimed we’d just eaten and couldn’t manage another bite.
<
br /> Chapter Twenty-Four
I’ll swallow you whole!
“You got any weapons on this rig?” Tall demands, and I can’t help thinking of that scene in Star Wars, where the Tie Fighters are after the Millennium Falcon and Han and Luke each head to one of the gun turrets and start picking them off. I bet Tall’s hoping for something like that, too—I happen to know that under that stuffed shirt and cheap suit beats the heart of a true-blue fanboy. That’s gotta be at least one of the reasons he became a MiB in the first place, the chance to play with alien ray guns and ride in spaceships. And, y’know, write off sunglasses as a work expense.
Unfortunately for him, it seems Heidi never saw that movie. “’Course I got weapons,” he snaps, going a splotchy red for a second. “What’d you think, you were dealing with some greenhorn?” Greenhorn? Really? Does Heidi even know what that term means? Hell, I’m not entirely sure I know what it means, or at least where it came from, and I rock at Scrabble. Mainly because I still maintain that onomatopoeia is completely legit. “Thwppt” for the win! Regardless, Heidi flashes through a rapid sequence of colors, and then there’s a whooshing sound from the back of the cabin as a panel opens, and out come—
—more bowling balls.
Seriously, for a second I feel like I took a wrong turn somewhere and wound up in a ball return. Which I’ve done a few times, back in my college days, but never completely sober.
Though, admittedly, the bowling balls never floated in midair the way these do. Except that one time, and we were really wasted then.
My first thought, after reassuring myself that I’m not just having flashbacks, is that Heidi’s called in reinforcements and teleported in a whole bunch of siblings and cousins. They’re all the same size he is, after all, and they all have that same glow about them, and the swirly patterning. But then I realize the glow on these is a lot dimmer, and the colors don’t change and shift the way he does.
And none of them seem to have a giant armored slug or whatever that is living inside.
“So, what, you’ve got spares?” I ask. I’m not even sure how that’d work, to be honest, mainly because I have no idea how he works. Is he the bowling ball himself, or just what’s inside it?
“Something like that,” he confirms, and he’s shaded a pale pink. Am I crazy, or is the bowling ball blushing? “These’re old shells,” he says less boisterously than anything else I’ve heard from him so far. “They can only take the pressure and the heat for so long afore they start getting unresponsive, so then I’ve got to change out to a fresh one.” Now he’s a brighter pink. “I meant to toss these, but just keep forgetting.”
“So, wait, you want to fling your discards at them?” I shake my head—it’s getting so I keep forgetting I’m not in the cabin with them and they can’t actually see me. “This is eerily like flicking toenail clippings at somebody, which is taking me all the way back to junior high.” Hey, at least I used clippers—some of the other guys weren’t so considerate. Or so tidy. “And how’s this gonna help, exactly? I don’t think whoever’s shooting at us—at you—is in the mood for a swap meet.”
The pink turns purple. “Oh, trust me, they’re about to get a whole lot more than they bargained for.” He whistles, and the main monitor closes in on those fast-approaching objects. Which, now that we can see them better, look an awful lot like lawn darts. Only I’m guessing they’re probably a bit bigger, and moving a lot faster. And trust me, getting pelted with a regular old lawn dart hurts plenty!
“I count five, that look right?” Heidi asks, and I study the screen. So does Tall, I guess, because he answers before me.
“Five it is.” Show off. He knows numbers aren’t my strong suit.
“Right, then!” If Heidi had hands, he’d be rubbing them together right now. Instead he whistles, and clicks, and five of those other spheres converge on him. They ring around him, each one touching his own shell, and then—
Okay, this is gonna sound weird.
I mean, weirder than floating bowling balls and zombie-inducing cookies.
But it looks, for just a second, like the thing inside Heidi—which I’m beginning to suspect is Heidi—taps the glass against each of those other globes in turn—
—and, well, breathes on them.
I can actually hear the exhalation each time, like somebody blowing out heavily. But in each case, when it happens, the colors swirl within that other sphere and the glow around it brightens.
Almost like he’s actually breathing into them, through both his globe and that one.
Like I said, weird.
It works, though, because when he’s done the five other globes line up in front of Heidi, and it’s clear they’re more responsive now.
Then he flickers some more—it makes sense that he’d have rigged his ship controls to be color-sensitive, and I’m already starting to get used to it—and another panel slides open, this one in the front just below the main console. The globes head for that, and file in one by one. When the last one’s in the panel shuts again, and all’s quiet.
Until we hear a whump.
Shit, they got hit! But no, the monitor’s still showing five dart-like missiles streaking toward them.
And now one swirling glass globe heading straight for one of those missiles.
Ah.
There’s another whump, and another, and another, and one more, and after each one another sphere appears on the screen. All five of them are out there now, and each one targets a different missile, locking on and heading right for it.
I’m not quite sure what a glowing bowling ball can do to stop a lawn-dart missile, but I get the feeling I’m about to find out. And Heidi looks pretty confident—he’s a clear sky-blue again, and I’m pretty sure he’s humming to himself.
The first sphere closes on its missile, and Heidi says, “Okay, here we go.” And we watch as the sphere and the missile zoom toward each other, the missile’s tip looking set to puncture or shatter the globe’s glass surface, but instead—
—it passes right through it.
The rest of the missile follows, the whole thing flowing into the sphere like it was made of water instead of glass. But then the missile’s tip touches the sphere’s other side from within—
—and it explodes.
The flash is bright enough to make me wince and to cause my nictating membranes to slide into place—hey, I’m not being gross, go look it up! They’re like built-in goggles or sunglasses—and I see Tall’s hand come up to shield his eyes, too. Guess he’s missing those sunglasses right about now. We don’t hear anything, of course, since sound doesn’t travel through space—something I learned from watching 2001, thanks very much—but the important thing is, the ship doesn’t rock back from the shockwave or anything. The other globes don’t get tossed about, either. In fact, it looks like that explosion didn’t go anywhere.
Somehow, the bowling ball contained the whole thing.
Now that sphere’s glowing bright as a mini-star—it’s not swirling or anything, and it’s a steady yellowish white, but it’s still more than any reading lamp I ever had—and it swoops about and heads back toward us.
“Uh, are you sure that’s a good idea?” I ask. “What if it’s radioactive now or something?”
“It’ll be fine,” Heidi promises, and he sounds completely relaxed. “My shells are made to hold energy, and they can take a lot more than those little things can dish out.”
“I thought you said these were your cast-offs,” Tall points out. “Doesn’t that mean they have diminished capacity now?”
“Sure, but not for energy absorption.” Heidi sighs. “They don’t respond as well to commands, and they don’t color-shift as easily—which you probably guessed could cause me all kinds of trouble.” He chuckles. “One time I waited too long to swap spheres and I got locked out of the ship! There I was, hovering by the airlock, trying to go chartreuse, and all I was getting was rose and a little dull amber. Took me two hours afore I finally coaxed the
right shade out of the darn thing!”
There’s a mild thunk from the front, and Tall turns to look—allowing me to do the same—as that front panel slides open again and that first bowling ball sails back in. Up close it’s even brighter, throwing lots of big shadows around the cabin and making the black velvet shimmer like a waterfall.
“Come here, my pretty,” Heidi coos at it, and the globe obediently drifts over to him. “Now, what’ve you got inside, exactly?” They tap surfaces, and the slug-thing makes another appearance. I think it flicked a long, thin, forked tongue out to taste the other globe’s contents, but I’m trying hard not to think about that. “Hm, interesting! That’s a lot of energy for a simple missile!”
Something clicks in my head. “Hey, maybe it’s Jorbinate!” I suggest. “That’s what they mine down there, right? And it’s used for fuel cells?”
If Tall could turn around and look at me right now, I bet he would. “Just when I think you’re an idiot, you say the darnedest thing,” he mutters, but nods. “That’s probably exactly what it is. Makes sense they’d have the stuff laying around, why not use it?”
Heidi’s alternating blue and green. “Ooh, yeah, that would do it,” he agrees happily. “I don’t think they use Jorbinate anymore—there were some problems with it being unstable under certain conditions, if I remember rightly—but as long as that didn’t happen it was supposed to be some primo stuff.”
“Unstable under certain conditions, but otherwise great?” I repeat, mostly to myself. “Isn’t that like ‘a single bite could kill you, but if it doesn’t it tastes amazing’? There’s a reason I’ve never tried fugu. That, and it’s pretty much like buying a brand-new car just to have dinner—I’ll stick with ‘fish that doesn’t kill you or bankrupt you’ for a hundred, Alex.”
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