Alien Separation

by Gini Koch

  “What did he name it?” I asked Christopher, since Jeff was looking all kinds of embarrassed and still wasn’t going to say anything audible as near as I could tell.

  “Murphy. After his stuffed toy when we were little.”

  Since Christopher’s Poof was named Toby after his former beloved stuffed animal—and Jeff had laughed his head off about that when we’d found out—this truly seemed like Ironic Justice. And I still needed someone to make that into a monthly comic.

  Saffron nudged Christopher and waved her antennae.

  “Saffron thinks she can handle the hyperspeed,” he shared. “I’m doubtful, but if we do a fast test and see if she can indeed take it, then it would be good to have her along.”

  “Super. Then let’s do that test and get Christopher’s Speedy Circus on the road.”

  CHAPTER 28

  AMAZINGLY ENOUGH, Saffron had no issues at all with hyperspeed. Don’t know why I was shocked—after all, every other being we’d ever met from this solar system was super-speedy—but since none of the natives we’d met so far on this planet used hyperspeed, it came as a surprise that the katyhoppers could handle it.

  And all three of them could. It took almost no time for Christopher to test them, after all. They used the experience to grab more waterfruit from the Purple Lands, so we scored a double that way.

  While they were doing that, Jeff, Chuckie, and I discussed where Christopher should go. Since we were going to head for the All Seeing Mountain, him searching for the rest of our lost tribe sounded like the wisest choice.

  We rejoined King Benny and explained that Binalla was going to go see what he could see, so to speak, and that we expected him to rejoin us sooner as opposed to later. King Benny seemed unsurprised by this.

  “Binalla flies on the wind,” he said solemnly. “What can we provide that you will need for your journey?”

  “Directions would be nice,” Christopher said, showing amazing restraint in not asking just what his God-powers were aside from wind. “As in, how you’re going to travel to get to the All Seeing Mountain. And a small bag to carry supplies.” We’d wisely decided that Christopher should take waterfruit with him, just in case.

  A well-worn map was found and presented while the search for a bag worthy of a God was begun. While King Benny and Skunky went over travel options with Christopher and Jeff, who wanted to weigh in on what route we actually took, Chuckie and I studied the map itself.

  The world on the map was drawn as a circle. Whether this meant the Lecanora knew the world was a sphere, or if their awareness of their surroundings said they lived on a circular continent or something, I chose not to ask at this time.

  The map was divided into seven sections, not all of equal size. The Purple Land, denoted by color, was the smallest of the sections, and had what I took to be “stay away” signs around it.

  The most interesting thing about the divisions, though, was that they weren’t random-shaped, like the countries on Earth were, and they weren’t like slices of a pie, either. They were sort of swirled, like the Yellow Brick Road, only with six other colors, or a big lollipop like you’d get at the fair or an amusement park.

  This meant that the center of the map, and possibly the center of the world, or at least the part of the world the Lecanora knew about, was where every land radiated from, or to, depending on your viewpoint. Took a bet with myself and won, because, shocker of shockers, the All Seeing Mountain was the place in the center.

  The other colors on the map—in addition to purple and the reddish-ochre that denoted the land we were on right now—were green, blue, black, white, and yellow. Green and blue were the biggest, both bigger than bronze and purple put together. The other three were all larger than the Bronze Lands. Clearly the four of us had landed in the poorer countries, or whatever these various lands were actually considered by the natives.

  Then again, Luxembourg was tiny and very affluent. On the other hand, we already knew that the rest of the population left the Purple Lands severely alone, so the idea that anyone else on the planet knew what a goldmine that place actually was seemed unlikely.

  Though having flying killer snakes would be good enough reason to never go there again. On the other hand, King Benny had said they had them here, too. Controlled a shudder. Did not want Christopher and his team running into one of those when they were alone.

  Had a thought and pulled Pinky aside. “Are the snakipedes or Horrors able to do what you all can?” Reply was in the negatory in terms of antenna waving. “Okay, why not?” More waving. “Aha, that makes sense.”

  Chuckie came over. “You had the same thought and question I did. Good to know that a high enough sentience level is required.”

  “Yeah, very much so.” The others were done and we rejoined them.

  “Do you have the map memorized?” Chuckie asked, as the beaver-chick, whose name appeared to be Nanda, handed Christopher a decent-size knapsack made out of what looked to be bosthoon hide. Got this impression this was hers and she’d emptied it out in order to be the one whose bag was used by a God. Hey, whatever made her happy.

  “Ah . . . somewhat,” Christopher said.

  Chuckie and I exchanged a look. “I know you have it committed to memory, dude. Within a minute of looking at it. And we just proved that Turkey can handle all Christopher needs to do, too.”

  “Seriously?” Jeff asked. “You want Chuck to go with Christopher?”

  While he was stressing, I took the knapsack from Christopher and transferred waterfruit and a couple of food bars in there as surreptitiously as possible.

  As I did, noted that I had a lot of food bars. More than I remembered from the night before. Tossed several more into Christopher’s knapsack and a few more waterfruit. Wondered if Algar had turned my purse into an “ask and ye shall receive” receptacle, like all A-C refrigerators and most cupboards were.

  Decided I’d find out when all the Lecanora weren’t standing around watching. Though as a God-like move, it would be hard to beat the whole “ask and ye shall instantly receive” trick. Though I knew how the cosmos enjoyed its little jokes, and the very moment I had an appreciative audience for that trick it wouldn’t work in a big way.

  “It makes sense, Jeff. That way, no one’s alone.” Chuckie grinned. “Try not to miss us while we’re gone and you two have some alone time. You know, just you and everyone else here.”

  “The romantic ambiance is overwhelming. Yeah, Christopher, you good with it?” I was. It made more sense, and I had to figure that Chuckie had always figured he’d go with Christopher and had just let Jeff get acclimated to the idea slowly. Plus they’d have plenty of food and waterfruit. Sadly, my purse wasn’t tossing up extra guns and ammo. Maybe Algar wanted a formal request.

  “I am. Let’s get going. We don’t have a lot of light left.”

  “Speaking of which,” Chuckie said, “based on where we are and who we’ll be with, if we have to spend the night somewhere, we will, so don’t panic if we don’t come back immediately.”

  “You’re sure you’ll be safe?” Jeff looked at the katyhoppers. “Not that I’m insinuating that your traveling companions are wrong.”

  Turkey and Saffron waved antennae.

  “They’ll be fine,” I said quietly. “The katyhoppers now know the sounds we make when we sleep, and they have ways to muffle us and mask our scents. They just hadn’t realized they’d need to do so last night.”

  “I don’t want to know,” Christopher muttered. “Because I’m just sure it involves them spraying things out of their rear ends.”

  It did, so I didn’t share. He’d find out soon enough.

  Hugs all around, then I handed the knapsack to Christopher and Bruno to Chuckie. The katyhoppers reared up on their hind legs, grabbed each other with one of their middle legs and their respective guys with the other, and waved to us with their front legs.
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  Well, for a moment they waved. Then Christopher kicked the hyperspeed up to eleven and they all disappeared in the blink of an eye.

  CHAPTER 29

  THERE WERE APPRECIATIVE gasps all around from the Lecanora. Nice to keep the locals entertained and impressed.

  A thought nudged—I’d known how the Alpha Four force would show up during Operation Invasion in part because I knew they’d want to impress the backwater idiots they’d decided we were on Earth. Gave myself a stern reminder that the Lecanora weren’t stupid—and we had to watch ourselves, because my dad loved the movie and therefore forced me to watch The Man Who Would Be King many more times than once, and I didn’t want anyone trying to cut off Jeff’s head and use it as a soccer ball.

  This led me to another thought—if the katyhoppers and Lecanora were right, and there were spaceships amassing in their orbital space, then there was a high probability that an impressive arrival meant to awe and terrify the yokels was being planned. Hoped Christopher and Chuckie would be able to find at least some of our scattered team before that happened.

  Happily, coming to find us hadn’t put the caravan off course too badly on its way to the All Seeing Mountain. Unhappily, the caravan’s wagons were pretty well filled with Lecanora, meaning there weren’t a lot of places for us to sit, and Jeff point-blank refused to allow any of the Lecanora to walk in order to give us their seats.

  “They’re not just ostracized,” Jeff said quietly after we’d looked at the last of the packed wagons and once again said we weren’t making anyone else walk so we could sit. “They’re refugees.”

  “Yeah.” I’d seen how basically ragged everything looked up close, too. Nanda’s bag had looked pretty good. So she’d given one of her best possessions to Christopher. Really hoped the bag would make it back in good shape. “Meaning that we’re aligned with the least likely people on this planet that anyone will listen to.”

  “Are you suggesting we leave them?” He sounded shocked and more than a little bit protective.

  Managed not to snort a laugh, but only because it would probably be considered un-Godlike. “Hardly. I’m just saying that we shouldn’t expect to be greeted like saviors by anyone else we meet, and if we need to convince those in power that we’re right—about anything—then it’s going to take more than just saying that we have the trust of these folks to do it.”

  Amidst a lot of murmurings about the goodness of Leoalla and all that, Jeff and I opted to ride on one of the catapult wagons. There was actually a lot of room, at least by comparison to the cramped covered wagons. And until it got dark and cold and we needed to be inside, it was also a lot less odiferous. Which was a nice way of saying that a lot of the weasel family smooshed in together created a very musky odor.

  Ginger and Wilbur joined us on the wagon. Most of the ocellars and chochos were trotting along next to their respective wagons or, in the case of some of the ocellars, hanging about on the catapult wagons. But Ginger was the only ocellar on ours. Got the distinct impression she’d told all the other fox-cats to back off, which impression was made stronger by the fact that she snarled and hissed at a couple of ocellars who tried to join us.

  “Is this their catapult?” I asked her.

  She gave me a look that said she didn’t particularly care, because she’d traded up and I was hers now, thank you very much. Decided not to argue.

  Wilbur was just jazzed about being on the show, basically. Had no idea why he’d been considered weird or dangerous, since he was acting like the happiest pig-dog in the galaxy about being with people who actually petted him.

  Pinky was a little problematic. I didn’t want the katyhopper to get tired out, especially in case we needed to fly off to help Christopher and Chuckie. But there wasn’t room in the catapult wagon for a pony-sized insect, especially with the rest of us in it.

  We compromised and Pinky sat on the top of King Benny’s wagon, which was enclosed. Pinky was good with this, especially since it meant he could be on watch.

  All set up to look like a bizarre traveling circus, we trundled along at a pace that wasn’t glacial, but certainly wasn’t what Jeff and I were used to. Ignoring hyperspeed, bicycles went faster than this caravan managed to, and the less said about the comparison between a car and a bosthoon-pulled wagon the better. Oxen were faster than bosthoon.

  Jeff leaned against the side of our wagon and put his arm around me. “We’ll get there, baby. Just try to enjoy the journey.”

  “I am. Somewhat. You seem a lot less worried than you were earlier.”

  He sighed. “I’ve forced myself to accept that Jamie’s likely to be safe. ACE will protect her and so will Paul, and vice versa. It helps that you think she was pulled to be an option for the Alpha Four throne. I’m hoping that Alexander is okay, and all of us being yanked here just means Renata or someone else we know wants our help, versus our enemies having kidnapped all of us.”

  Leaned against him as Ginger settled herself into my lap and Wilbur snuggled up on my other side. “We were taken away at a bad time.”

  “There’s never a good time. Your mother will advise Vince about what we know.”

  “What, you think Mom’s going to tell the President that her daughter did a universal body switch with her daughter in another universe and therefore we now know who the Mastermind is?”

  “Frankly, yes. Out of all the politicians out there, Vince is the one who’s been through the most with us, if you think about it. He knows what’s going on more than most, and he’s bound himself to us tightly enough that he staked his entire political career on our being a help to him, rather than a hindrance. And if it’s you, me, or your mother telling him, he’ll believe it.”

  “Okay, great. So she tells him. What, if anything, can anyone do? And what about Gideon Cleary and the situation with Stephanie?”

  “No idea what they’ll do about Goodman. Probably what we would if we were at home—determine where he is and watch him, then wait for him to make a mistake while searching for hard evidence. Frankly, the biggest positive about our being here is that Chuck is here, too, and therefore he’s nowhere near Goodman. He’ll have some time to process everything before we’re back in a situation where he could do something that would ruin his career or his life.”

  “I suppose. Of course, him being on an alien planet isn’t exactly going to give him tons of time to ponder how he’ll kill Cliff without any backlash hitting him or anyone else he cares about.”

  “Exactly. I think he needs the cooling off time. I would, if I were in his place. And despite him being a patient person, he’s absolutely got a breaking point. I think we’re all better off with him here, as opposed to being at home. As for the situation with Cleary, Uncle Richard and Doreen are at least as capable as you and I are of handling anything diplomatic, and you know it, and hunting for Stephanie was already falling into Siler and Buchanan’s bailiwick. They’ll handle it until we get back.”

  “Who are you and what have you done to Jeff?”

  He chuckled. “While we were looking at the map, I realized that I had to stop trying to fix what I couldn’t and focus on dealing with the situation we’re in. We can’t find our daughter, family, and friends using our normal methods. I can waste energy railing against that, worrying and complaining, or I can focus on doing the best I can right here and right now.”

  “Good philosophy.”

  “It’s Vince’s. I’ve honestly learned a lot from him. And he’s a good guy—he’s not going to turn on our people just because you and I are off-planet. He’ll be able to cover for why I’m not visible—and I know your mother will brief him so I also know the story they come up with will fly—and hopefully we’ll be back home sooner as opposed to later.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure more’s going on here than we have a clue about. More than what we think, I mean.” Algar was being too helpful without my having asked for assistance for m
e to think otherwise.

  Only a few of us knew who and what Algar was. Me, White, and Gower, ACE and the other superconciousnesses out there, so Naomi probably knew, too, at least now. Gladys Gower had known, because she’d been the head of Security for all of Centaurion Division worldwide. William might know about Algar now. I didn’t know. In part because I hadn’t asked. Had no idea if I hadn’t asked because Algar had prevented it or if I was just that blithely uninterested in key facts. Sadly, time in Bizarro World had confirmed the blithely uninterested option.

  Couldn’t speak for the others, but White, Gower, and I couldn’t talk about Algar to anyone else unless Algar allowed it. If William did know, he’d be under the same restriction. Algar also blocked any thoughts we had about him from anyone else somehow. Being a Black Hole Universe Being had its advantages.

  Had a thought and dug around in my purse, moving the Poofs gently. Murphy was in my purse now, too. My purse was Poof Snooze Central at all times. I was okay with this, of course.

  Found several things I was and wasn’t looking for. My iPod, speakers, earbuds, and phone were all here. All fully charged. And I had a snazzy external charger with a fancy USB universal charger cord that meant I could recharge needed things. Which had not been in my purse the last time I’d looked into it any more than the food bars had.

  Pulled my iPod and earbuds out and took a listen. Algar liked to give me musical clues, and it might be nice to get some clues while nothing deadly was going on.

  Sure enough, there was a new playlist—Traveling Songs. I’d never created that one. Had a listen and laughed as “Everyday Superhero” by Smash Mouth came on.

  “Music making you feel better?” Jeff asked.

  “Just helping me remember that, regardless of where we are, we always have a job to do. Saving the day, protecting the innocent, and foiling the evil bad guy schemes.”

  Jeff grinned. “Ah. Or as we call it, routine.”