Ian looked around. “I didn’t realize there was any—”
“A-ha!” the patrolman shouted. “I knew it! Improperly sitting on a beach without a license, and you haven’t even paid your usage fees!”
“How much are the usage fees?” Ian asked.
The alien produced a long chart. “Let’s see … today is the fifth of the month, and a weekend, so that makes today’s fee … 792 bucks.”
“It costs 792 bucks just to sit on the stupid dirt?”
“Don’t take that tone with me, you miscreant. And that’s just the county usage fee. Then you have your state fee, your local fee, your city fee, your impact fee, your erosion fee, your atro fee, your sand tax, your ‘voluntary’ contribution to the beach clean-up fund, the marine layer abatement charge—which has just been tripled …”
The alien continued to tick off the various fees on his fingers—of which he had 37, and Ian feared he would use them all. “OK, fine. What’s the total, then?”
“Just for you, or are you paying for your twiller, too?”
“Forget it,” grumbled Ian, and stalked away.
. . . . .
Ian decided it was time to get out of El Leigh. He stopped by a couple of hotels, dropping Bibles in drawers, until he felt he had enough money for his travels. When he got lazy, he would do a whole hotel at once, his credit chit mysteriously increasing by 200 bucks each time he deposited a Bible. He always seemed to have enough of the miniaturized Bibles; whenever he left two of them together for any length of time, they would invariably reproduce. He got cute a couple times and considered Bibling several drawers in the same hotel room, but invariably his conscience got the better of him. Something about being dishonest as he distributed the Good Book’s teachings just seemed wrong to Ian. Besides, he was evidently not the first Gideon to think of that particular trick: his credit chit would only increase once per room.
Once he had accumulated what he felt would be enough money to last him a while—in an economy where $195 was the going rate for a hot dog—he turned his attention to finding himself a train station. With the Twiller’s aid, Ian found a train platform and approached the ticket window, absently brushing white fur from his robe. He gaped at the large sign that posted the fares. The fare for a round trip ticket was expressed in exponential notation, and Ian surmised that it was more than he would ever make, even depositing Bibles like some frantic, Bible-depositing … thing. The sign also indicated that they would not accept his travel voucher on weekends, which included the last seven days of the week.
Under the round trip fare, in smaller font, the sign indicated that one-way tickets—out of El Leigh only—were available for free, so long as the rider signed an oath promising never to return to the overcrowded city. Ian signed the oath so quickly he feared the paper would catch fire. He hesitated for a moment as he handed it to the alien in the booth, then requested another one and signed it too, just in case.
Five minutes later, Ian and the Twiller were on the train, with El Leigh at their backs. Ian fell asleep almost immediately, and, for the first time since his abduction back in Chapter One, he did not have a single nightmare.
* * * * *
Part IV
The train glided to a halt and Ian awoke from his rest when the Twiller rammed into his forehead a few times. Ian coughed up a clump of fur that he had inhaled during his sleep. The white, feathery stuff seemed to be multiplying at a more prodigious rate than the Bibles. Even though Ian had been vigorously brushing himself off at every opportunity, he was still covered in fur, which swirled constantly around him, carried on unseen eddies of air.
Ian reached for his backpack, and, realizing he did not have one, started off the train. He disembarked on a platform with an even more bizarre mix of aliens than he had encountered in El Leigh. A large sign on the platform read, “WELCOME TO BEZ ERKELEY.” An unexplainable sensation of dread momentarily overcame Ian. He looked to the Twiller, who seemed to shudder involuntarily.
Ian followed the throng of beings from the platform and emerged into a light, misting rain. He looked to the sky, finding to his immense relief that the oppressive shroud of smog that had engulfed El Leigh was mostly absent here. In its place, however, was an impenetrable ceiling of fog and dark cloud banks that completely obscured the sun just as effectively. To be honest, Ian could not actually remember seeing the sun since his arrival on the planet. He realized with a start that he had never learned the name of the planet he was on. In a blatant effort to educate even the most dim-witted readers, Ian decided to call the planet “California.”
Ian emerged from the train station into a mass of protesters waving picket signs. Even a cursory examination revealed the signs to be disparate, and, in some cases, completely contradictory. Everyone was, however, shouting in unison, each vehemently denouncing something or other. It seemed the bulk of the signs and voices were decrying the recent election of some new governor. But there were others railing against nuclear energy, fossil fuels, and even electricity in general. Several of these signs were actually bright video displays, with flashing lights and sounds of their own. Ian backed nervously away from the protesters, shielding the Twiller from the flailing electronic signs.
Ian turned suddenly as a huge behemoth of a vehicle roared up behind him. After his recent experiences in El Leigh, the sight of a moving vehicle of any kind would have shocked Ian. But the sheer size and scope of the vehicle that nearly barreled into him was beyond comprehension. It was some sort of hovering truck, or perhaps a military transport of some kind, or quite possibly a floating building. It was huge and angular and shaped like a brick, and waves of hot exhaust rippled from beneath as massive engines struggled to keep the giant vehicle a foot or two above the ground. It settled down into a parking spot, pushing aside the two aircars parked in the adjacent spaces and denting them badly. The colossal machine was several stories tall and clearly weighed a few thousand tons. To Ian’s astonishment, a door popped open to reveal a tiny alien—not much larger than the Twiller, actually—who descended from the vehicle’s cabin with the help of a long rope ladder. It headed directly for a huge gasoline pump, and, with a heroic effort, inserted the nozzle and began refueling the giant beast. Apparently satisfied to leave the fuel hose running, the small being climbed another rope ladder in the rear of the vehicle to pop a massive hatch, from which it withdrew a small, electronic picket sign before descending back to ground level and joining its fellow protesters. As it jogged away from Ian, he could read the back of the flashing protest sign. It read “NO WAR FOR OIL.” Ian turned to the steadily increasing display on the fuel pump, which showed a number that Ian realized represented several lifetimes’ worth of Gideon earnings. He began to cry very softly.
Had Ian known, of course, what else awaited him in Bez Erkeley, he would have been crying far, far louder than he already was.
. . . . .
Ian tried to put some distance between himself and the picketers back at the train station. The Twiller loyally followed along, or perhaps Ian loyally led the Twiller somewhere—Ian wasn’t really sure which. After walking for some time, Ian paused to survey the strange city of Bez Erkeley. The sun was still shrouded by clouds—although clouds were an improvement from the smog of El Leigh. And, while there was a steady stream of aircar traffic stacked as high as the eye could see, they did appear to be moving, although Ian easily outpaced them as he walked. Well, it’s progress, he thought.
Ian did notice that the aliens he encountered in this strange new city appeared, well, less well-kept than those he had seen in El Leigh. (It was hard for Ian to describe exactly how this mix of bizarre aliens in their outlandish attire looked more grungy than their El Leigh counterparts, so you’ll just have to take his word for it.) One thing Ian did notice was a decidedly unpleasant aroma from many of the aliens—even more so than he had experienced in his travels to date. And the buildings appeared older, more run-down, and less uniform. In a kind moment, Ian would have said they had “charact
er.”
The Twiller let out a low, breathless twill, and Ian followed the direction of its gaze. The landscape was pretty, here in Bez Erkeley, with mountains to one side and a great bay to the other. There was a colossal bridge that spanned the bay, leading off into the gloom. On and above this bridge, the aircars appeared to be as immobile as those in El Leigh. Ian distantly wondered why the aircars didn’t simply cross the bay at some other point, but he surmised that they had to pass through the stack of tollbooths that rose interminably from the bridge’s surface up into the thick layer of clouds above.
“Sign my petition?” shrieked a nearby alien, startling Ian and sending the Twiller zooming behind his shoulder for protection. The alien stood in front of a long table covered in posters and bumper stickers that read “Vote YES on Prop 17.” [Author’s Note: I just picked the number 17 out of thin air. Don’t go looking it up.] “Will you sign?” the alien asked again.
“Uh,” Ian stammered, “what’s it for?” He wondered how much influence his signature would have in a realm where he was not a citizen, did not vote, and had not lived for more than an hour.
“We’re trying to pressure the university to refuse to allow some blockhead—this Dr. Furbar—from giving a speech denouncing Proposition 17. I mean, what kind of intolerant fascist could possibly be against Prop 17?” The alien gave Ian an incredulous look, which was completely lost on Ian, who was staring at the creature’s dozens of nostrils.
Ian braced himself, feeling helpless to escape or avoid the alien’s tirade. He sighed. “And what’s Prop 17?”
“You don’t know?” (Another wasted look of incredulity.) “Prop 17 guarantees and expands on one of our most fundamental rights—the right to free speech! Without it, democracy as we know it will crumble, our most basic freedoms will perish, our intellects will stagnate …” The alien paused in its diatribe. “You do have free speech on whatever backwater planet you’re from, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” replied Ian, insulted.
“Good—then you’ll sign the petition?” The alien waved an electronic clipboard in Ian’s face.
Ian reached for the clipboard, but drew back in a moment of clarity. “Wait a second—what is this petition for again? Supporting Prop 17?”
“Well, yeah,” said the alien. “Not directly, of course, but we’re aiming to prevent Dr. Furbar from spreading his lies and propaganda attacking and denouncing Prop 17.”
“So … you’re actually trying to prevent him from speaking … ?”
The alien gave Ian a condescending look. “How can we protect the freedoms and liberties we hold most dear—the freedom to hold and express a viewpoint different from what THEY want you to believe—if we have government puppet propagandists like Furbar out repressing freedom of thought by spouting his silly nonsense to brainwash free-thinking people? Is that what you want?” The alien’s glare on Ian grew cold. “Do you want to live in a world where everyone thinks exactly the same way? Where people fear expressing their own opinions and their own voices in support of Prop 17? Is that what you want, man?”
“I … I just want to go home.”
“Fine!” shrieked the alien. “Bury your head in the sand! You’re one of THEM, I see. You’re against us! Against free speech! Against equality! You support the rich and powerful, the machine trying to repress us and keep us down. You’re just a puppet, rattling off the same propaganda you all do!”
“Good luck with your petition,” said Ian, trying to disengage and back slowly away.
“Hey—hey!” called the alien. “What about your friend?” It looked to the Twiller. “Will it sign?”
The Twiller sped away ahead of Ian, and Ian hurried to keep up.
. . . . .
Ian decided that he had spent just about enough time wandering about, hopelessly confused, in this new and bizarre Universe he suddenly found himself in. One thing the crazy alien had said did make sense to Ian—there was a university nearby. Ian intended to find its library and learn something about the strange people and places he continually encountered.
The library at the University of Bez Erkeley was a vast, subterranean complex, almost an entire underground city. Down here, the frenetic traffic of aircars and the ramblings of deranged petitioners faded away into silence. Ian liked the silence and serenity very much. It was a tad strange, though—Ian doubted if there was such an underground library anywhere back on Earth.
Ian looked around the library entrance as the Twiller yawned and decided to take a nap in the front pocket of Ian’s robe. Ian approached the front counter, behind which were two identical aliens wearing thick glasses. Ian scratched at his face, which was still covered in white fur, and succeeded only in spreading it around his face.
“Hello,” Ian mumbled from behind the fur, “I’m here to do some research.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” replied one of the aliens, “but we don’t allow cats in the library.”
Ian coughed up a hairball. “Ack! I’m not a cat!”
“Did you hear anything?” said the second alien.
“All I heard was ‘meow,’” said the first.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to leave,” said the second.
“But I need to do some research,” protested Ian. “Besides, it’s nice and tranquil down here. Very comforting and dry and warm.”
The first alien was unimpressed. “At least you’ll keep warm outside with all that fur.”
“Oh, no,” said Ian, “it’s just a white terry cloth robe.”
“Sure, sure. And what about all that fur on your face?”
With a supreme effort, Ian cleared away enough fur to reveal the skin on his face. The second alien even seemed to take pity on him and handed him some kind of advanced electronic lint roller, which was a technological marvel but could only do so much.
“Sorry about that,” the alien offered. “We get a lot of cats down here. Also, some vagrants, Republicans, even a few humans from time to time. We have to be careful. Can’t have them running around in here, ruining things for the students.”
“Of course,” mumbled Ian, hurrying through the gate and into the library.
It took Ian some time to become accustomed to the alien library. First of all, it was incredibly vast. But, more importantly, Ian could not comprehend the complex organizational system used by the aliens to classify and catalog the books. Sure, they used the Dewey Decimal System back on Earth, too, but Ian didn’t know how to use it there either.
Ian tapped his shirt pocket gently. “Sorry to wake you, but I might need your help, little buddy.”
The Twiller groggily hovered out of Ian’s pocket and looked around, blinking its large eyes as Ian looked around in bewilderment. Sensing his confusion, the Twiller let out a soft twill and led Ian over to a great stack of books. It indicated one volume in particular—by ramming into it with its body—and Ian removed it from the shelf and began reading.
A Brief History of the Universe, Vol. I (of MMCLXQRZ.5)
by Alfred E. Newman
Ian thought the author’s name sounded somehow familiar, but he chalked it up to a cosmic coincidence.
There are no cosmic coincidences (the book began). If the study of the Universe has taught us anything, it is that everything that happens, happens for a reason, except perhaps the formation of the Universe itself. Unfortunately, it is not at all agreed that the study of the Universe has, in fact, taught us anything at all, so it is entirely possible that …
… And so on. Ian skipped ahead to something a little more definitive.
What is known is that the Universe is fairly vast, and that its vastness is the only thing about the Universe that is fair. A map of the Universe, drawn to the smallest readable scale, would encompass millions of volumes the size of this one, so don’t even ask.
So much for that, thought Ian. He flipped ahead again.
Known Species. The Universe has 7,483,298.4 known species, and 12,780,412 unknown ones. Some of the more common and/or dang
erous ones are listed below.
Cheez: Only one of this bizarre creature is known to exist. Generally peaceful and harmless itself, it causes adverse effects on the psyche and has been known to drive others in its company to intentionally inflict great harm on themselves.
Human: Hairless apes. Eh.
Space Dragon, Ravenous: If you need an explanation of why you need to avoid this creature, it is highly unlikely that you are able to read. STAY AWAY.
Ian scanned past Twellyboggin and Twiddle, Three-Toed, finally finding the entry he was looking for, Twiller. There was a red star next to the name. Ian started reading.
Twiller: One of the most fearsome predators known to—well, anyone, really—twillers are known for their stealth and incomparable viciousness. Known to take down creatures many, many times their own size, a single twiller with a nasty hangover is believed to be responsible for the Great Samirian Massacre of 37903-14.
Ian shook his head to clear it, and continued reading.
Though sometimes kept as pets by the unaware, exceptionally foolish, or mentally ill, twillers inevitably end up killing and eating their “masters.” Well, not always.
Ian breathed a sigh of relief.
Sometimes the twiller just kills its master, and does not eat him, and other times it just eats him without bothering to kill him first ...
Ian threw the book to the floor, looking furtively over his shoulder.
“Twill,” said the yellow monster hovering behind him.
. . . . .
After a few minutes of whimpering, scampering, and sheer terror—wherein Ian was kicked out of the library for making too much noise (also, he had failed to see the sign that read No Twillers Allowed)—Ian was able to calm down and think about the situation a bit more rationally. He figured that, had the Twiller wanted to kill him, it could have. Ian searched his memory. He had always been nice to the little yellow death machine, hadn’t he? The Twiller let out a friendly twill and Ian felt less afraid. Once convinced, Ian walked the streets of Bez Erkeley with considerably more confidence than he had felt before. He almost hoped some alien would give him a hard time now. He would sic his killer Twiller on them.
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