Max and the Snoodlecock

by Zachry Wheeler

  “He checks out,” Perra said while scanning the output of her comdev. “Either he is who he says he is or he’s a damn good liar. But, given the nature of our predicament, I don’t see any reason not to take him at his word.”

  Steve bobbed his head.

  “Still,” Zoey said. “I would like to get a second opinion. In the meantime, we need to figure out what to do with him. Call me crazy, but I’m not comfortable with a mind melder running around the ship.”

  Steve flapped a fresh round of feathers into the air. “If it will make you feel better, I am happy to remain quarantined inside a guest cabin.”

  “Seems reasonable,” Perra said.

  “But we only have two cabins,” Max said.

  “Your point?” Zoey said, tossing him an unsympathetic glare.

  “Well, I can only assume that you two aren’t sleeping in the cockpit, so what am I supposed to do?”

  Zoey narrowed her gaze. “I dunno, figure it out?”

  Max huffed, pouted like a scolded child, then turned for the guest cabin he shared with Ross. He grumbled under his breath as he slipped through the door. Steve watched with minor interest before returning his full attention to Zoey.

  “Yankar is my home planet,” he said. “It is located on the outskirts of the Perseus-Pisces Supercluster. You can plot a course f—”

  “No,” Zoey said. “We’re on our way to Ursa Major and we’re marked by unknown assassins. With all due respect, I don’t know you and I don’t trust you. You’ll get off at our next port and go where you please.”

  Steve moaned. “Awe c’mon. Don’t make me say it.”

  Zoey clenched her lips.

  “Say what?” Perra said.

  Steve glanced away and shook his head. “She’s going to make me say it,” he said to some cargo netting as if it could burst into life and take his side.

  Zoey glared at him, then gestured to get on with it.

  Steve huffed. “Fine. I saved your life. You owe me.”

  “Ha!” Max emerged from the guest cabin with a wad of linens underarm and a mattress dragging behind. “Sweet, delectable karma.” He dropped a sour gaze to Steve. “Enjoy the cold floor, bed stealer.”

  Steve glanced at the mattress. “It would seem to me that you are the bed stealer.”

  Max stammered, then dropped the mattress. “You know what I mean, dammit!”

  Ross smirked. “Not to point out the obvious, but if the bird is clairvoyant, what difference does it make to lock him inside a cabin? You could toss him in a spacesuit and float him in the black, wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.”

  Zoey glanced at Perra, who shrugged and nodded.

  “Just give him the cargo bay and lock up everything else. And besides, if he’s going to shit all over the place, I’d rather it be in here.”

  “Good point,” Zoey said.

  “Works for me,” Perra said.

  “You slow-rolling bastard,” Max said, then grabbed the mattress from the floor and dragged it back into the guest cabin.

  * * *

  Fio grumbled at the head of the table with all eyes locked on his cloaked visage, anticipating a response. He shifted in obvious discomfort, trying his best to wrangle some menace. Stony eyes reflected the soft glow of the table surface. Wall sconces flickered with the ambience of a dungeon, filling the room with malaise. Fio rapped his fingers upon the table, as if pondering a poker move. The galloping taps of fingernails amplified the tension. His chest raised and lowered beneath a statuesque stillness. After a long stint of contemplation, he balled his hand into a fist and slammed it upon the table.

  “Fine!” he said. “From this moment onward, we will no longer use literally when we mean figuratively. Anyone caught using the terms incorrectly will be banned from the High Council meeting for three sessions.”

  Mumbles of satisfaction floated around the table.

  Fio expelled an over-exaggerated sigh. “I am figuratively melting with rage that you grousing ninnies have literally pissed away hours on this nonsense. Can we get on with the meeting now?”

  “Well, you can’t literally piss time aw—”

  “Shut up, Carl!” Fio jumped to his feet and flipped his hood, exposing ashy skin, nubby horns, and a pudgy round face. He pointed a rigid finger at the yellow humanoid. “So help me, if you say another goddamn word, just one, I will literally clip those eyestalks and feed them to Jerry!”

  Jerry perked up.

  Carl puckered his fishy lips.

  Fio’s gaze darted around the table. “Anything else?”

  Silence responded.

  “Good.” Fio plopped back into his throne. “Now, on to the matter at hand. The Earthling remains unfettered. The Orbed Enforcer has failed us.”

  “Oh fuck off, Fio,” Jerry said.

  Fio whipped a wide-eyed death stare to Jerry. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me, bro. I literally just told you to fuck off.” Jerry added a visual aid, a crook-fingered gesture known to his species, but foreign to everyone else at the table. “You stuffed me into gimp suit and sent me to acquire an Earth human from a pair of highly trained PCDS couriers. What the hell did you think would happen?”

  “You ungrateful turd! We gave you a highly advanced stealth ship and a highly advanced weapon to combat those highly trained couriers.”

  “You can also mount a laser to a wiener dog, don’t make it a good idea.”

  An awkward silence ensnared the room. Jerry and Fio traded heaving scowls, piercing each other with resentment. Everyone else froze. Suth’ra members, as passive-aggressive weirdos, regarded petty disputes with the same paralyzing fear as stumbling across a bear in the woods. Every so often, tensions built to a fever point, requiring a skilled diffusion to retain peace. Luckily, Jerry held a black belt in nerd fu.

  “Do you want a donut?” he said.

  “I would love one,” Fio said.

  The group exhaled a collective sigh and rose to raid the snack cart.

  * * *

  A small bank of asteroids floated in empty space, content to twist and tumble without a care in the world. Every now and then, a wayward rock would bump another, creating a brief bout of pinball chaos that ejected an innocent boulder. More often times than not, the rock floated away into the black abyss, never to be seen again. Some wander into solar systems and become permanent additions to orbital debris. Some disappear into black holes. Others slam into habitable planets and exterminate giant reptiles.

  A tiny freighter ship floated alongside the asteroid field, spinning with a slow pitch as a pseudo rock. Inside, the dim cockpit glowed with the yellow hues of scanners. The vessel remained in stealth mode with the control panel showing an array of disabled systems. The occasional ping of a passing ship echoed around the cabin, oblivious to their presence. Zoey and Perra slipped through the narrow passage and into the cockpit without a word, their mirrored faces taut with concern. They dropped into their respective seats and started prepping the ship for departure.

  “So what do you think?” Perra said as she strapped herself in.

  Zoey took a deep breath. “Well, he’s locked in the cargo bay, which is the best we can do at the moment. I dunno, feels like my stomach is tied in knots. I’d much rather be focusing on the whole assassin thing.” She closed her eyes and plunked her head back onto the headrest. “A smooth-talking snoodlecock is an unfortunate distraction. But he’s right. He saved our lives and we have to honor that. We have a debt to repay.”

  Perra spun up the engines and jump drive, maintaining focus on the console. “We gonna take him home?”

  “Maybe.” Zoey tightened her buckle straps. “I think we should run this by Phil.”

  Perra groaned and grimaced.

  “Trust me, I know. But given the situation, what choice do we have?”

  “Fair enough.” Perra lowered her gaze and shifted to a somber tone. “Any word on Gamon?”

  Zoey frowned and shook her head. “No. I pinged him through every lat
ent proxy I could find, but nothing yet. Of course, that could mean anything. Maybe he’s lying low. Maybe Durangoni is on lockdown. Who knows? I can’t do any real recon without blowing our cover.”

  “He made it out,” Perra said with a hesitant nod.

  “I truly hope so.”

  The jump icon pinged green, breaking the sullen silence. Zoey gripped the yoke and thrust the ship away from the asteroid field. She tapped coordinates into the console and thumped the icon with a limp fist. Perra grasped her hand as a sliver of purple light engulfed the ship.

  CHAPTER 4

  Evolution is the improv comedian of the natural world. It just rolls out mutations and hopes for the best, like a blind man playing darts. Its shtick may receive praise, ridicule, or slack-jawed confusion. Some ideas are great. Take eyes for instance. Seeing is pretty darn cool. Some are not so great and end up in the slush piles of biologic history. And yet, some mutations slip through committee and leave everyone dumbfounded. Notorious examples include Galwock’s 42-fingered goobergobble and Earth’s duckbill platypus.

  And then there was Phil, evolution’s booby prize.

  Phil was literally the only sentient being on his planet, and remained that way for billions of years. His original species, a simple form of unicellular pond algae, enjoyed life on a relatively inert planet. It had beautiful landscapes, a balmy climate, plenty of freshwater, and a healthy amount of sunlight. But, the world was chemically barren, not that the algae minded. It’s not like they yearned to be anything other than algae. The planet simply enjoyed them as algae and the algae enjoyed the planet enjoying them. Thus, the partnership persisted.

  That is, until Phil evolved a random neuron.

  Burdened with a shiny new thinky part, Phil decided that floating in a sunlit pool wasn’t interesting enough. He started to pulsate, which pushed his single-celled body in different directions. This amused Phil, so he decided to keep the mutation. Yes, keep. This particular algae species enjoyed a peculiar form of immortality. Every few months, the cells regenerated from the inside out, rebirthing themselves over and over and over. They could even revert to a previous iteration, like ditching a crappy new operating system, not that any of them did. The difference between one version and the next was, well, nothing. But in Phil’s case, it gave him a unique superpower. If he fancied a new mutation, he could keep it forever. If not, he could discard it and go back to a previous version, like balking at the latest smartphone in favor of your tried and true.

  And therein lay Phil’s monumental hardship. While all his asexual siblings floated in ponds thinking about nothing of concern, Phil was busy trying to figure out a good use for tails. Year after year, century after century, era after era, Phil mutated and rebirthed himself. Running was fun, until he tired of it. Flying was a blast, until he tired of it. Telekinesis was a fabulous party trick, but he had nobody to show it off to.

  Before long, depression set in. Thinking persisted as the only activity he enjoyed. As a result, he shed many of his mutations in favor of general maintenance. Or rather, he let them atrophy like a dodo bird giving the middle finger to flight. After all, he had seen every nook and cranny of his planet a million times over. He was bored. And depressed. He took the form of a gelatinous blob, basically a giant brain encased in flesh and apathy. He did keep the ability to roll, because an annoying itch is no fun for anyone.

  Phil thought and rolled around his lonely planet for millions of years. Then, on one fortuitous day, he acquired the ability to absorb radio signals. A curiosity at first, he enjoyed the tickle of static until he uncovered some notable patterns. He forged numbers into mathematics, then shapes, pictures, words, and language. The entire universe opened up to him, turning apathy into elation. An endless stream of data flooded his ravenous mind. He learned about stars, planets, galaxies, aliens, the whole enchilada. Giddy beyond words, Phil decided to belch his own radio signals into the cosmos, hoping to converse with his newfound neighbors. After all, he had all the time in the world to await a reply.

  Everything was peachy awesome, at least for a time. Phil spent his days tidying up the planet on the off chance that someone might fancy a visit. He arranged rocks, cleaned out caves, and sought the best landing plots. He obsessed over tiny details, smoothing dirt and scooching pebbles into more aesthetic positions. The hulking mass wandered the planet in search of things to spruce, like an eager grandparent on the cusp of winter break. During the evenings, he stared up into the sky, wondering if and when the time would come.

  And then, after eons of rolling, cleaning, and dreaming, Phil received a response.

  Being alone for billions of years and then suddenly not is a thrilling proposition. That is, until you discover just how unbelievably stupid everyone else is by comparison. Phil, a brain blob with a billion-year study history, pulsated at the opportunity to chat with another sentient being. But, his enthusiasm faded after receiving his first batch of replies. No advanced mathematics or quantum theory, just an “oh hai” followed by reality shows, news feeds, and rom-coms. Phil spent years dissecting the signals, desperate for any signs of intelligence. He was appalled by his thinking brethren, like Einstein trying to make sense of a Kardashian.

  Phil came to the sobering conclusion that he was the smartest being in the known universe, and indeed he was. The stupidest among his connected civilizations deified him, much to his chagrin. He would have rolled his eyes, but he had de-evolved them a million years prior. Most regarded him as a curiosity, like a caged animal across the cosmos. Instead of engaging his intellect, they just wanted to know how he pooped. The smartest civilizations sought to milk his wisdom, like a jock cheating off a nerd’s exam.

  Depression returned. He stopped sending out signals in favor of a monk-like isolation. The occasional Suth’ra signal tickled his interest, but not enough to kick the funk. Most of them fell onto deaf ears (or rather, an internal collection of fleshy radio antennae). He thought and rolled, rolled and thought, content to live out his days in solitary confinement. A hundred years passed. Then a thousand. Then a million, and another million. Time marched on, indifferent to the ceaseless sorrow it wrought. But then, halfway through the fifth million, something extraordinary happened.

  One day, a spaceship broke through the tranquil clouds and floated down to the surface. Nothing hostile or brazen, just a simple shuttle with common components. The crew, a small group of transporters passing through the system, had no interest in harming or exploiting the planet. They just needed to refresh their water stores. The ship settled next to a large lake, lifting shimmering waves in the bright sunlight. A pair of amphibious humanoids exited the ship as the main engines spun down. They unlatched a hose, dragged it over to the beach, and plopped it into the water. An automated filtration system siphoned the water it needed. A simple pit stop, then back to the black.

  Phil watched them from afar, like a curious kid with a magnifying glass. (In lieu of eyes, Phil’s skin absorbed the entire color spectrum from gamma to radio. It could also change color, shape, and adopt alluring textures. Not that he knew what constituted alluring, although his favorite form resembled a flamboyant koosh ball.) Disguised as a boulder, he marveled at the presence of other thinking beings, despite their inferior intellects. As the crew completed their task and prepped for launch, Phil found himself overwrought with an emotion he didn’t fully understand, a fierce longing of sorts. At that moment, he broke his silence.

  “Please don’t go,” Phil said through telepathy.

  The pilot, a greenish humanoid with bulging eyes and a comically large mouth, turned to her co-pilot and scrunched her brow. “Huh?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” the co-pilot said.

  The pilot turned and eyed the small crew sitting behind her. “Who said that?”

  Shrugs and confused looks responded.

  “That was me,” Phil said to everyone, his tone sheepish yet pleasant.

  The startled crew shot worried gazes around the cabin.

  “
Who the hell is that?” the pilot said with a mixture of shock and annoyance. “Yanthu, if you’re doing that damn ventriloquist thing again, I am not amused. Impressed, yes, but not amused.”

  “Not me, boss,” Yanthu said, adding a brow lift.

  “Again, it was me,” Phil said.

  The entire crew, minus the co-pilot, flinched in unison. The co-pilot was too busy prepping the ship to get the hell off the creepy planet. His spidery green fingers blurred atop the console. An array of status icons reflected off widened eyeballs that screamed shit-shit-shit.

  The pilot took a slow breath. “And who, might I ask, is me?”

  “You are Renny,” Phil said.

  Renny narrowed her eyes. “No, I mean, who are you?”

  “Oh, yes. My name is Phil. I live on this planet, which I have named Phil’s Place. And might I add with the utmost hysteria, it is an acute pleasure to meet you all.”

  “Meet us? We don’t even see you. Are you in the ship?”

  “No.”

  “Then where are you?”

  “On Phil’s Place.”

  The pilot sighed. “No, I mean, where are you in regards to our ship?”

  “Oh, my apologies. I am disguised as a giant flesh rock on the hill behind you. And if I might be so bold, it would be an explosive thrill to touch each and every one of you in the most intimate of fashions.”

  All eyes grew wide with horror.

  Renny joined the co-pilot in shit-shit-shit launch prep.

  An enthusiastic Phil shed his craggy exterior for a more natural fleshy state, then spun into a frantic roll down the hill. Goody goody goody he thought as his bulky mass carved through the dirt and flopped over rocky terrain. The shuttle, having reached launch capability in record time, ignited its thrusters and hovered above the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. Renny punched the boosters icon, spewing pillars of flame from the rear. Phil, having none of it, blasted the ship with an electromagnetic pulse that fried all of its circuits. The engines died and thrusters ceased, thumping the lifeless hull back onto the ground. Moments later, Phil’s beefy mass skidded to a halt just outside of the airlock.