by Rob Favre
“Excellent. A very unusual request, but I am happy to be of service. What is the nature of your visit?”
“I’m looking for my… for a hot dog. He came in here about an hour ago. Do you know where we can find him.”
“Certainly. If you will activate your input channel, I can provide you with its location.”
I shot a panicked look at Renay. She shrugged.
“We, um, don’t have input channels.” I managed to stammer. “Can you just take us to him?”
“Just one moment, please.” The pink lady assumed a pose that looked very much like someone who was thinking hard, tapping a finger against her cheek. “You have an unusual genetic structure. Would you mind telling me a little about where you’re from?”
We didn’t have time for this. “Look. I’m from Earth. I’m from Earth from a real long time ago. I don’t have any fancy circuits in my brain or whatever. I’m sorry, but I don’t, and I’m in kind of a rush here, so if you could just point me in the right direction, I’ll get my friend and be on my way.”
“Just one moment, please.” Her voice was soothing, melodious. She tapped her finger against her cheek again, for a little bit longer this time. “I am so sorry, but I am unable to grant you access to the facility at this time. It was so nice to meet you. Have a pleasant day.” She turned and began to walk away.
“No.” Renay reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder. “You are going to show us where our friend is. We came here to find him, and we are going to find him. And we are not leaving until we do.”
She turned around, tilted her head sympathetically. “I am so sorry, but I cannot provide any further services at this time. Have a pleasant day.”
“No, she’s right.” I stood next to Renay, crossed my arms in front of my chest. I hoped I looked intimidating. “Is there someone else we could talk to? Someone in charge?”
“Just one moment, please.” She thought, for a much longer time. I glanced nervously at Renay. I tried to keep looking tough, but I was pretty sure we were about to get kicked out. Or thrown in space jail. Or vaporized.
Pink Crystal clapped her hands together in delight. “I have good news. I’ve relayed your request to the mistress and she would like to meet you.”
“The mistress? Who is that?”
“She will introduce herself when you meet. You need only wait for your transportation to arrive. Can I provide you with some refreshments while you wait?”
A gleaming tray hovered in front of us. It had a blob of something black, a glass of something green, a block of something red, and a hot dog. I wasn’t hungry.
Renay’s gaze was unflinching steel. “We do not want refreshments. We want our friend.”
“Yeah, we’re not talking to anyone until we see him.”
“Just one moment, please.” She began to make the thinking pose, but her hand didn’t make it all the way to her cheek before she got an answer to whatever she was asking. “I have good news. Your request has been granted. The brand mascot you seek is being removed from the processing queue. It will be brought here in a few minutes. Can I provide you with some refreshments while you wait?”
Renay and I unloaded a barrage of questions. What was processing? What was going to happen to Mustard? Why did he want to come to this place, and what did they tell him when he got here? To her credit, Pink Crystal did a pretty good job patiently answering them. As far as we could figure out, they were going to download his memories into an archive someplace and recycle his body for raw materials. He had been programmed to want to come back here after a certain amount of time, so he could be “retired” and replaced by a more updated model. There had never been any ice cream meteors or Moltencheese volcanos – that was just stuff they stuck in his head to make him want to come back so he could be recycled.
Once we’d exhausted our questions, she escorted us outside and told us to wait. Finally, after what felt like hours, a familiar shape squiggled into view.
“Mustard!” Renay shrieked and ran over to hug him. Two of his tentacles slid around her, delicately. He looked distant and confused.
“Tom, Renay… like, what are you doing here, dudes?”
“We came to get you, you silly sausage.” Renay buried her face in his bun. I think she might have been crying.
“But it is… I am no longer a current autonomous brand ambassador. I am no longer needed. It is time for me to end.”
I took a tentacle in each of my hands. “Mustard, we still need you.”
The tips of his tentacles quivered. “You… do not wish to have a newer model?”
Renay and I said it in unison: “No!”
“The newer models have seven percent more tentacle articulation. And thirteen percent more attitude.”
“We don’t need articulation, buddy. Come on, we’ve still got work to do. And I guess we have to talk to a ‘mistress.’ You have any idea who that is?”
Mustard’s eyes went wide, his tentacles rigid. “Mistress Juliana? You wish to meet her?”
“Not especially, but it sounds like she wants to meet us. You know anything about her?”
“I know that she is great and wise, ancient and beautiful, wealthy and benevolent. Of course, until about an hour ago I knew this whole part of the planet was covered in cheese, so nothing I know really counts for much.”
We sat in silence, watching the endless stream of glittering containers rising steadily into the sky. Mustard explained that they were parts and materials for Mistress Juliana’s yacht. I wondered how big her yacht must be to have room for all of that.
A sleek silver teardrop fell from the sky. We watched it get bigger and bigger, until it whispered to a sudden stop just above the ground, a few meters from where we were standing. The wind from its arrival blasted us and blew some dust into my eyes. A door formed in the seamless side, and golden stairs appeared leading up to it.
“Guess this is our ride. I’m glad you’re coming with us, buddy.”
“Oh, I’m not coming with you.” He curled in the direction of the ship. “That’s for breathing creatures only. I’ll be going with the rest of the cargo.”
A golden box formed around him, and he started to rise into the air.
“Well, fly safe then, I guess. And Mustard?”
“Yes?”
“You’re part of the team. We aren’t leaving you behind. No matter what.”
He gave me a double tentacles-up, and rose steadily out of view, until he was just another shining dot in the stream.
Renay looked at the ship apprehensively. “Are we sure this is a good idea?”
“Not at all. Ready?”
She nodded. I took a deep breath, grabbed her hand, and stepped toward the silver teardrop.
“It’s time, boys. Pack your things and get ready for a vacation!”
The boys were excited. “Where are we going, Uncle Rick?”
Her brother’s smile was tired. “We are all going camping in the main hall.”
Will made a face. “That is not a very exciting vacation.”
“It’s the best we can do for now, boys, but you get to sleep in a tent!”
The boys ran around the chamber grabbing their papers and balls. She had packed their clothes earlier that day. The council had announced last night that they were going to have to shut down ventilation in the living quarters to save power, and everyone was going to sleep together in the main hall. They’d already been down here three months longer than they’d planned to, and things were starting to fail.
Phase Six still loomed on the horizon, but nobody wanted to talk about it. So, they made do with less food, and less space, staler air and fewer baths.
Will tugged on his uncle’s sleeve. “Uncle Rick, this isn’t really a vacation, is it?”
Rick shook his head slowly.
Will glanced at his brother across the room. “Don’t worry, Uncle Rick. I won’t tell Marka.”
He ran off grab the last of his toys.
Chapter 20
Renay and I sat in cushioned comfort on a couch made of light. A soft breeze murmured through the bamboo beside the rocky stream bed. A pair of small birds, one red and one blue, flitted around the cabin and chirped two melodies that wove in and out of one another in a musical dance. A projection of a star-filled sky extended over our heads out into infinity, as the last, faint glow of a yellow-green sunset faded behind some distant mountains.
But nobody was here.
This was not what I’d expected to find inside the metal teardrop. It was tough to make out exactly how big the shuttle was from the inside, since the walls were covered in projections of sky and horizon, but it certainly felt bigger than it looked from the outside. And compared to the sparse travel conditions we were used to, this was paradise.
A glowing disc of yellow light drifted toward us from the other side of the bamboo grove, carrying two delicate, long-stemmed glasses of bright blue liquid. It stopped between Renay and me, hovering in the air.
I took a glass and tried some. It was sweet and rich, like the most sophisticated, refined Berry Blast Kool-Aid imaginable. Renay sniffed hers, took a sip, wrinkled her nose, and set her glass back on the tray. “This is all lovely, but what do you suppose it is for?”
“Comfort, I guess.” Another small light tray appeared, this one with juicy slices of peach and ripe strawberries. I hadn’t eaten anything but protein paste in so long I almost grabbed them all, but I somehow managed to wait and let Renay take the first one. “It sure beats our smelly old cabin.” I bit into a strawberry and it was the third happiest moment of my life.
A circular door appeared in the wall behind us, and a woman’s voice told us something I didn’t understand in a pleasant tone.
I set down my glass of fancy Kool-Aid and looked at Renay. “You ready?”
She nodded. Without a word, we grabbed the rest of the fruit and stepped through the door into a long corridor. The wood paneled walls were polished to a reflective shine, and the floor was a delicate white carpet, almost as soft as the pink fur back on the planet. The air smelled like jasmine, and the whole corridor glowed with a warm light that cast no shadows and didn’t seem to be coming from anywhere in particular.
I spoke to Renay in a whisper. I’m not really sure why. I guess it felt like we were in a museum or a library or something. “Not too much like the corridors on the old Heifer, huh?”
“No, they certainly are not. These are much nicer. Why did you not build them in this way?”
“I wanted to, but I was just a kid when they made the plans. Nobody listened to me.”
I can’t say how long it took us to reach the end of the corridor, but it was several minutes at least. When we got to the end, another circular door opened, and we stepped out into the heart of a volcano.
The chamber was huge, hundreds of meters across, with a ceiling at least that high. The walls were glassy black, a jumble of flat surfaces and sharp angles, reflecting the fiery orange glow of the lava beneath our feet, hundreds of meters down below the glowing floor made of yellow light.
So, you can see why it took me a minute to notice the man and woman waiting for us by the door.
He was short, just over a meter, maybe. In fact, at first glance, I thought he was a child, but he had a long beard molded into elaborate rococo curls. She was tall, two and half meters easily, and slender to the point of looking frail. She had green skin, indigo hair, and two arms emerging from her right shoulder. Her left shoulder, thankfully, had only a single arm. They both wore elaborate hats and outfits that somehow looked like a combination of a Navy dress uniform and a formal ball gown.
As soon as we stepped out of the corridor, they looked us over. Then they exchanged a glance, and started crying.
Much later, I would learn that Xerxes and Hyacinth were weeping about our outfits, and the unimaginable hardship that we must have gone through to be reduced to wearing relish onesies in public. It simply wasn’t done. As they learned more about us, they became much less sympathetic. But in that first moment, they sprang into action to ease our suffering.
Xerxes dashed off across the room, while Hyacinth leaned over and touched us lightly with her willowy arms, whispering soothing words in a melodic tone to reassure us. She wiped the tears from her cheeks with her third hand.
“It’s okay, we’re okay.” I gently pushed her hand away. “We’re not hurt or anything. We just need some help.”
She took a step back and looked at us blankly. The soothing patter stopped. Xerxes arrived, breathless, pulling a floating clothes rack stocked with enough outrageous outfits to clothe the entire LA Dodgers team back on Earth. Hyacinth whispered to him, and his expression hardened from concern into wariness. They took a few steps away from us, stared off into the distance, and burst into laughter. Hyacinth gave us a mysterious smile and left without a word. Xerxes plucked two outfits off his rack and handed them to us. For Renay, a shimmering, flowing purple-black dress. For me, a red sleeveless shirt with a floral pattern, and a white skirt.
“Um, do you have anything more… masculine?”
“Don’t be a fool, young man.” Xerxes was suddenly speaking in an American accent with a hint of upper-crust New England snobbery. “That is a Chrisoxer original, one of a kind. If you had any conception of what a privilege it is to even touch it, you would not be asking such a preposterous question.”
Renay and I shared a confused look. “You know English?”
“Of course I know English. Everyone knows English.” His mouth curled into a wicked smile at a joke that only he understood. “Most of us don’t go around speaking it to our rescuers, however. Now, kindly put on the outfits I’ve given you before I die of shame at your appearance.”
I looked around the cavernous volcano chamber. It was wide open, without so much as a rock to duck behind. “Is there… someplace we can go to change?”
Xerxes burst out laughing. “Oh, how precious. Yes, your privacy must be very important to you. Sadly, we simply haven’t the time. You will put those on, without delay.”
Renay was staring down at the ground, clutching the dress tightly in her hands. She looked extremely uncomfortable with this whole situation. My voice became sharper. “Look, we appreciate you saving us and all, but you can’t expect us to just take our clothes off here in the middle of the room. If you want us changed, you have to at least turn around. Otherwise we’re staying in these.” I tugged on the sleeve of my worn and smelly relish onesie.
Xerxes sighed. “Oh, very well. But do get on with it. Juliana has cleared several minutes of her very busy schedule to see you two, and I am just…” He sighed again, crossed his arms, and turned around.
“You as well, Old One.” Renay did not sound amused. For some reason, I giggled anyway.
So, I turned around. For the first and last time in my life, I changed out of a relish onesie and into a skirt in the middle of a volcano.
“You all done?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I turned around. Renay had somehow transformed into a refined, elegant woman, with fiery light glinting off her dress like thousand orange fireflies.
“Wow,” I said before I could stop myself.
“Is it that bad?”
“No, no, it’s not bad at all. You look… not bad at all.”
She shook her head. “I feel ridiculous.”
“I know what you mean.” This was the first time I’d ever worn a skirt. I can’t say I felt completely at ease in it, but was it really any worse than the relish onesie? It was surprisingly comfortable to wear. I tried to remind myself that Scottish highlanders wore kilts into battle. It almost helped.
Xerxes turned around, glanced us over, and nodded. “Wasted on you two, of course, but I can mold even the coarsest clay. Come.” A two-meter cube of light appeared and Xerxes stepped inside. “We have just a few minutes until your audience with Juliana, and you will not want to keep her waiting.”
Renay stepped inside, and I followed. In a flash, the vo
lcano was gone.
We were traveling at an incredible speed. Our surroundings whipped past us in a blur. I couldn’t tell you how much distance we covered, but it took us around ten seconds to skim over the tops of some jungle trees, and five seconds to weave a complex path through a black space lit by floating blue crystals, changing direction four or five times a second to avoid colliding with them. I had to close my eyes to avoid feeling sick. When I opened them, we were either motionless in a bright orange fog, or moving through a bright orange fog at thousands of meters per second. It was impossible to tell the difference. Through the entire trip, I never felt the slightest push or pull from the sharp corners and sudden stops.
After about five minutes of passing through a different room every few seconds, I stopped paying much attention to them. We were going so fast that I couldn’t see much, and it’s not like I would be able to trace a path back to where we came from anyway. I decided to make some conversation.
“So, who is this Juliana we’re going to see?”
Xerxes raised a single eyebrow. “If you have to ask that question, no answer I give will be sufficient to convey everything you need to know. I will counter with a question of my own: The Reprieve of Colonel Gregory?”
I shook my head.
“Fantasticalia?”
I stared blankly.
“The Gemini Triplet?”
“I don’t think these are even questions. Are you just saying random words?”
“No, you monkey, I am asking if you have…” Xerxes paused and thought for a moment. “I suppose there isn’t a word in English for it. ‘Seen’ is as close as any, I suppose. But your blank expression tells me everything I need to know. Not only have you not seen them, you have not even heard of them.”
“I’ve been traveling for a long time.”
“And I am certain you have many fascinating stories of eating things you found under rocks. Meanwhile, here in the world of things that actually matter, Juliana is the single most talented producer of brainies that has ever lived. The luminaries of the galaxy are gathered down on the planet you just left to experience her latest masterpiece, Flow State of Grace. You probably walked right through it without even knowing it was there. I cannot imagine what is so interesting about you that she is taking time to see you, but please, when you see her, try to avoid scratching yourself in primitive ways.”