Ian walked up to the counter. “Can I help you?” asked the alien, a teenaged female with pink skin, purple eyeliner smeared across half its face, and a cell phone in a holster strapped to her ear. (If you don’t know how Ian could tell the alien was a teenager, you have clearly never had teenaged children.)
“Yes,” said Ian. “I would like one—er, make that two,” he looked at the Twiller apologetically. “Two tickets to … um, where does the wormhole go, again?”
“Your destination is determined by the whims of chance and fortune,” she said, clearly bored. “Where you could go is limited only by the boundless stretches of your wildest imagination. You could end up in any of the most fabulous places the Universe has to offer. The diamond beaches of Antares III. Right in the middle of the pleasure zones of Palthazar Prime. At the heart of the fabled Caverns of Gold, where untold riches await he who finds the lost treasure of long-extinct species.” She continued to rattle off exotic-sounding destinations. It was clear she had read this little speech from a training brochure and had repeated it many times. “And,” she concluded, “your twiller travels free.”
“Sounds great,” Ian replied, slapping his credit chit on the desk as a vague sense of urgency settled over him. He also peripherally noticed that the Twiller was doing its best to hurry Ian up by ramming him in the back of the neck.
The girl behind the counter swiped the credit chit and handed it back to Ian along with a form. “Please sign here, and prepare for the ride of a lifetime, the ultimate thrill ride you will never forget so long as you live.” She yawned.
Ian scanned down the form over a few words that jumped out at him like “releases all liability,” “instant death,” “high chance of sub-optimal egress location,” and “safety studies still pending.” He signed at the bottom, looked around the empty room and asked, “Um, where is the actual wormhole?”
The clerk languidly rose from her chair and walked over to the small machine on the pedestal. “Our super-advanced next-generation high-tech Worm-A-Tron Ten Thousand,” she said, waving a hand at the machine, “harnesses the very energies of space and time itself to connect you with locations across the entirety of the Universe.” She pressed a small button on the machine. There was an almost inaudible hum as it warmed up, and then a small red dot appeared in the air before it, as if someone were pointing a $3.99 laser pointer. “Behold the infinite majesty of forces strong enough to bend the entire space-time continuum to your will.” She scratched absently at one of her manicured nails.
“That’s it?” Ian asked.
“Better hurry,” she said as a wisp of smoke rose from the Worm-A-Tron Ten Thousand. “Looks like the thing might be on the fritz again.”
Ian looked at the small red dot before him, when the trailer began to shake. A couple of pamphlets fluttered to the floor. Ian looked to the Twiller, who let out a deep, keening twill and dashed ahead of him into the red pinprick of light, and then promptly disappeared. Ian swallowed hard, noting that the rumbling was starting to get more intense. He shrugged at the girl. “Seems like you hate your job, huh?”
“I’d give anything to never work here another day,” she replied.
“I think you just may get your wish.” Ian walked into the light.
. . . . .
A few moments after Ian had left the doomed planet, the cab driver decided to heed Ian’s warning. He turned the aircab back to Yeehaw Wormhole Junction. He parked near the trailer and grabbed an umbrella from under his seat, stepping outside under suddenly threatening skies. No, that’s not quite right. To say they were merely “threatening” would have been quite an understatement. No, these skies were actually hostile, actively dangerous even. They were the types of skies one didn’t mess around with, the types of skies one didn’t often see and live to tell the tale. Even now, in the distance, the cab driver could see them hurling bolts of lightning and sheets of hail at passers-by. He felt the wind gathering itself forcefully. He looked forlornly down at the puny umbrella he had just unfolded and tossed it aside.
He hurried to the trailer and stepped inside with a sense of urgency, forestalling the operator’s bored spiel. He plunked his credit chit onto the counter, took a breath, and stepped into the wormhole.
A nothingth of a second later, he rematerialized roughly three feet to the right. He opened his mouth to protest to the girl behind the counter, but she just shrugged and pointed to a small sign taped to the wall behind her. It read, “No Refunds.”
It was just as well at that point that the entire planet ceased to exist.
* * * * *
Part VI
Ian awoke with a sense of total peace and tranquility. He seemed to be floating, curled up in a fetal position, and felt as if he were suspended in warm liquid. His eyes were closed, and he could tell it was dark and quiet all around him, save for a gentle, calming thrumming sound. For a long moment, he sat contently in womb-like bliss, his mind not even registering where he might be or how he might have gotten there.
Gradually, it began to dawn on Ian that he had just escaped certain death by leaping into a wormhole that had instead promised merely a very high likelihood of certain death. He really just wanted to lay still and enjoy the sense of peace, serenity, and protection he currently felt for the first time in as long as he could remember, but a nagging sense of urgency began to disquiet his restful, trance-like state. What could possibly be so important? he thought to himself. Just then he realized that he was suffocating.
Ian began to thrash madly about, but he was fully surrounded by something wet and soft and sticky and pliable. He squirmed about and felt around the confines of his prison, finally finding a small hole in the material. He worked his way toward it, sticking his arms and then his head through it, and flailing desperately with his feet. The hole merely opened into a tunnel made of the same slimy material, but Ian slithered down it as he rapidly ran out of oxygen and began to feel as if he would lose consciousness. Just then, he saw a small slit of light and worked even more frantically toward it. With a final, heroic effort, he braced his feet against the wall of the corridor and lunged for the light, emerging into a bright, startlingly cold room.
Ian gasped for breath, wiping a sticky, membranous film from his face and mouth and eyes. He shivered as his body absorbed the shock of leaving what seemed like a warm, nurturing place for one that seemed cold and hard and very, very bright. He turned back the way he had come, and squinted as he tried to open his eyes against the light.
“It’s a human!” someone shrieked, and Ian was suddenly aware of a number of aliens clustered around him, one of which smacked him crisply on the back. Ian gasped as someone wiped his face with a towel, and he finally blinked his eyes open.
He was staring at a dark hole the size of a car tire, which appeared to be surrounded by a mass of black shrubbery. Before he could get his bearings, he was lifted from the ground, wrapped in a blanket, and placed in a snug wicker basket.
“What the—what is going on here?” Ian demanded. As his eyes grew accustomed to the light, he was glad to see the Twiller nearby, vigorously rubbing itself on the blanket to clean off. Bright lights shone down into the basket, and Ian could see a quartet of alien faces, each half-covered by what appeared to be surgical masks, staring down at him.
“Can I hold him?” came a deep, rumbling voice.
Ian was plucked from the safety of his wicker basket and placed into the arms of a great bulbous creature. Were it not for strict copyright laws and a litigious team of lawyers at Lucasfilm Ltd., Ian would describe the being as having an uncanny resemblance to Jabba the Hutt. Instead, he forced himself to just think of it as a large, flabby, worm-like creature with an enormous mouth.
Ian began to scream, but something about the way the creature cuddled him close to her breasts (or, at least, a pair of slightly more bulbous growths on the creature’s chest that were presumably her breasts) let Ian know that she meant him no harm. She touched his cheek delicately with a long, slimy tentacl
e and smiled at him. It was a horrid smile, true, but she was clearly trying.
Ian bravely smiled back.
“My baby,” the great flabby thing cooed.
Ian threw up.
. . . . .
Ian ran, screaming, from the hospital, belatedly realizing that he was naked. He instinctually covered up, until he realized that half of the aliens milling around were naked. The other half seemed to wear clothing over most parts of their body other than what appeared to be their reproductive organs. So Ian said the heck with it.
Ian ducked into a hotel—thoughtfully holding the revolving door for the Twiller, who hated those things—and quickly got a room. He fished around for the white terry cloth robe he knew he would find and settled into it comfortably. He looked around his hotel room and placed a Bible in the drawer. Work before play, and all that. Then he slumped down in a chair by the window and started leafing through a brochure that was lying on a table.
“Welcome to Huh? Why E?” it proclaimed in large, happy-looking letters across the front cover. Confused, Ian opened to the first page, which gave a description of the planet’s unique name. Apparently, it used to just be called “E,” but so many people asked “Huh? Why E?” that the new name stuck. Ian shrugged and flipped back to the cover.
The cover portrayed an idyllic picture of palm trees by a beach and an expanse of deep blue ocean beneath a perfect sunset. Ian drew the shades and looked out the window. The view was identical to the picture. Not just similar, but identical in every detail. Ian looked from one to the other and even as the trees swayed and the waves crashed to shore outside, every time Ian looked at the picture it was the same as the view outside. At one point, the Twiller even floated in front of Ian and was immediately depicted on the brochure. He carefully placed the magic brochure back down on the table.
Ian tried vainly to clear his head, but it was no good. Too much had happened. Just when he thought he was getting a handle on things, he was teleported by wormhole to some alien being’s womb. (Ian had heard of storks and sperm and even test tubes, but he had never thought that was where babies came from.) He had no idea where he was, or how to adapt. He needed some answers.
Ian grabbed the phone off the stand by the bed and dialed the front desk. The phone rang only once before it was answered, a delay that seemed exquisitely measured to be pleasantly brief but not so instantaneous as to be actually startling. A melodious voice answered. “Hello, Mr. Harebungler. My name is Yelsha. How can we possibly make your stay more pleasant today?”
Ian took a steadying breath. “Yelsha, I find myself in need of answers,” he replied. The voice on the other end of the line made an understanding “mm-hmm” of agreement, as if that were a perfectly normal way to feel, and a perfectly normal request to make of a hotel’s front desk, which of course it wasn’t. “What I mean is, do you know of a place where, I don’t know, people can answer some unsettling questions that they have? You know, ‘Who am I?’ ‘Why am I here?’ ‘What happens if you rip the tags off of mattresses?’ That sort of thing.”
Yelsha gave a small, reassuring chuckle, as if Ian was silly to sound so nervous over such a normal, reasonable request. As if the receptionist answered this very question at least twice an hour. “Of course, sir. I think you might find what you’re looking for at the Ivory Tower Oracle.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Ian. “An oracle! That’s precisely what I need. Someone to answer my questions—factual and philosophical. Can you tell me where this Ivory Tower Oracle is, please?”
“I would be more than happy to, sir. In fact, when you are ready to go, simply stop by the front desk and I will prepare a map for you, where I will show you the best way to get to your destination, as well as some lovely sites and some of my favorite restaurants in the area. My auntie runs a wonderful little sushi place out that way.”
“Aren’t you thoughtful?” Ian replied, stunned.
“My pleasure,” the voice replied. Ian thanked her and hung up.
Ian readied himself quickly and headed down to the lobby, Twiller in tow. For a moment, Ian looked about nervously for “No Twiller” signs, but there didn’t appear to be any. In fact, several hotel employees waved cheerily at Ian and his Twiller as they passed.
Ian ambled up to the front desk where a graceful, tanned alien sat smiling. Ian had no way of knowing if she was actually tanned, or in fact what her normal skin color was, or what reaction it had to the sun. Yet, somehow, he knew.
The alien receptionist looked up to Ian with friendly, even attractive—for an alien—eyes. The fact that there were five of them only increased the effect. “Why hello, Mr. Harebungler,” she began, mysteriously recognizing him. “Here is the map I promised you, along with the number for some aircab companies for your trip back. I also highlighted an alternate route if you wanted to go on foot, along with distance markers and a list of good restaurants that specialize in various culinary styles along the way. Also, built into the map is a direct comlink back to the hotel, in case you have any questions or get lost.”
Ian took the map, dumbfounded. “I do think this is the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed at. And the most welcoming. I’ll be sure to put in a good word for you with the Gideons.”
“You are very kind, sir.”
Ian blushed and waved farewell. He was beginning to think, for the first time on his travels, that maybe he wasn’t in such a rush to get home after all.
. . . . .
Ian stepped outside the hotel, where it was pleasantly warm, but not hot, thanks to a refreshingly cool breeze off the nearby water. The sun was still setting over a magnificent bay, and the palm trees still swayed majestically. Of course, they weren’t palm trees, but their leaves were an altogether more pleasant shade of lime green and actually complimented the sunset perfectly.
An aircar pulled up and the driver hopped out and opened the door with a bow. “Aloha, my friend. Can I take you anywhere this evening?”
“Yes, please,” Ian said, stopping in a moment of rare caution to check the posted fares on the window. They were eminently reasonable. Almost cheap. Ian smiled, much too happy to read the smaller print beneath them. “I would like to visit the Ivory Tower Oracle, please.”
“Excellent,” said the cab driver. “My cousin works there. I know the quickest way to the tower. And it just so happens to pass by several of our most beautiful sights along the way.”
“Of course it does,” Ian said contentedly as he settled into the plush seat.
As promised, the ride skirted Ian and the Twiller along the coast of what appeared to be one big island, or maybe a series of smaller islands, so that no matter which direction they drove in, they were always near the water and the spectacular sunset. Ian was transfixed as he watched the sun gradually set over the azure waves, the light changing from yellow to orange to pink to reddish-yellow and back to yellow again. No matter how long he watched, the sun never actually set. It just seemed to be perpetually about to set. It would have been disconcerting, if it weren’t so serene and beautiful.
The aircab stopped at the base of a tall, slender white tower along the coast. In great, flowing writing, sparkling golden letters on the awning over the front entrance read, “The Ivory Tower Oracle.” Smaller, less ornate letters just below those read, “And Sundries.”
Ian turned to the cab driver and readied his credit chit. His eyes bulged as he saw the display on the dashboard. The price was easily several times more than he anticipated for any cab ride. He looked back to the rates posted on the window and made some small gasping sounds.
The driver apparently understood. “Ah, must be your first time on the islands. I see you were looking at our kama’aina rates.”
“Your whosie whatsie rates?”
“Kama’aina,” the cabbie repeated pleasantly. “Those are the rates for locals.” He pointed below those rates at the smaller print. “Those are the rates for tourists.”
Ian did not care for the way he said “tourists.” For the first
time on Huh? Why E?, he heard a hint of unpleasantness. It startled him. “Well, how often do you actually pick up locals?” Ian challenged.
The cab driver shrugged dismissively. “Never.”
“So … you’ve never once actually charged the rates posted prominently on your window?”
The cabbie laughed, taking the credit chit from Ian’s outstretched hand. Before Ian could absorb what was happening, he drained it completely. “You think I could afford to live here charging those rates? Have you seen what things cost here?”
“I’m starting to,” Ian said dejectedly as he stumbled out of the cab. The driver wished him a good day and pleasantly thanked him for his patronage as he sped off into the sunset.
Ian supposed he would be pleasant too if it allowed him to charge people so exorbitantly. He shook his head and started toward the Ivory Tower, as the Twiller flashed him a sympathetic glance. Ian wondered if Twillers used money.
Ian walked up a red carpet into the entrance to the tower, expecting to find a grand foyer, something majestic and full of knowledge and wisdom. What he found instead were knickknacks, T-shirts, chocolates, and souvenirs.
“Welcome to the Ivory Tower Oracle,” boomed a voice. “And sundries.”
“And sundries?” Ian repeated.
A wide alien behind the counter shrugged. “Much more popular than the whole oracle bit,” it admitted.
“But that’s the bit I’m here for,” Ian explained.
The alien seemed a bit surprised, but simply shrugged and pointed to a small door in the back of the room. “Through there.”
Ian passed rows of Huh? Why E? T-shirts, alien figurines wearing hula skirts, keychains with hundreds of names in thousands of languages (but no “Ian”), small Twiller-shaped stuffed animals, bottles of ravenous space dragon repellant (which would have come in really handy earlier), and rows of little spoons. Why little spoons? Ian wondered absently. It made no more sense here than back on Earth.
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