“The I’ve got a secret tone you keep using.”
“But I do have secrets.”
Thelma paused for drama.
“The secrets of the dead.”
“Terrific for you. If you aren’t going to share them, I don’t give a damn.”
“If you knew what I knew—”
“I know more than you know,” said Connie.
Thelma laughed. “You only think that because you’ve never been beyond this side of death.”
“I’ve been dead. A couple of times. Once a whole week. You didn’t know that?”
“Of course I did.” Thelma didn’t sound convincing.
“You want to have a secret contest? I can tell you things that would make you crap your ectoplasmic shorts.”
“Like what?”
“The original recipe for Coca-Cola. The final digit of pi. The reason it’s almost impossible to find a word that rhymes with orange.”
Thelma chuckled. “Trivialities. Do you think I fear those answers?”
“You should. Did you ever wonder about the origins of the color periwinkle?”
Connie started revealing the terrible truth, but after a few seconds, Thelma begged her to stop.
“By Oberon,” said Thelma in breathless terror. “I had no idea.”
“Nobody does,” replied Connie. “So, tell me what you know or keep it to yourself. But stop hinting or I’ll share some of the truly terrifying secrets.”
“I’m only saying that I expect you’ll have some luck. I don’t know more than that. The secrets of the dead appear to be fading from my memory the longer I’m on this side.”
“They’ll do that. But I wouldn’t have survived this long if I relied on luck. Luck is a sucker’s bet.”
She had gotten lucky. Many times. It’d even saved her life a dozen times. More. But she didn’t count on it. This might be her blessing or destiny or whatever, but she had to believe there was more to it than simply a path she had to follow. She was more than a body filling a role.
Charlotte entered the room. “Any luck in your search, Honored Snurkab?”
Connie grunted, shook her head.
“We are saddened to hear this.” Charlotte warbled, and the sorrow in her voice caused Connie to shed a tear. “We have brought the Muroid employees, as you requested.”
“I didn’t request that.”
“Apologies. We must have misunderstood the nature of your request. We shall dismiss them.”
“Wait. Were any of them stationed here thirty-five years ago?”
“Yes, several. Supervisor Klat has been with the park for longer than that.”
“Hell, I might as well talk to them.”
Charlotte whistled with delight. “Right this way, Honored Snurkab.”
The dozen Muroids had been assembled in a break room. They sat around the tables, dressed in their maintenance uniforms. Klat wore a patch marking him as a supervisor.
“Rise for the Legendary Snurkab,” said Charlotte.
Connie waved them back into their seats. “No need to get up. Just wanted to have a little talk. I’m looking for a Muroid. I have no idea what he or she looks like, and I know it’s a long shot, but I was hoping maybe one of you could help me find him or her.”
The Muroids murmured amongst themselves. Except for Klat.
“I’d like to talk to all of you, one at a time, if that’s all right. It shouldn’t take long.”
They murmured and croaked. For Muroids, croaking was like yawning. Once one did it, they all did it. The room echoed with the sound of a dozen frog aliens.
Except for Klat, who stood quietly in his corner, nursing a beverage of Snurkab Cola. The soda was too sour for her tastes, and she hated the picture of her they used for it.
Connie went to the office next door and instructed Klat to be brought first. She had a seat behind a desk in a chair that would’ve been more comfortable if she had two more legs.
Klat stood before her, not looking directly at her. It was against Muroid custom to do so. That didn’t mean much. But Klat’s vestigial gills flapped and his knuckles paled. They were all signs of more than idle nerves.
“Something bothering you, Klat?”
“No, Honored Snurkab.”
“You seem awfully nervous.”
“I don’t appreciate your accusations.”
“I didn’t accuse you of anything.”
“Good. Because I didn’t do anything.” His voice vibrated. Muroid hearing didn’t notice such things, but it made them terrible liars to everyone else. “Can I go now? We have work to do.”
She didn’t reply. Interrogation was all about giving someone enough time to incriminate themselves.
“You can’t keep me here,” he said. “You have no authority.”
“The Snurkab is recognized as the highest authority on Earth.” Saving the universe had its advantages. “I can detain you officially or we can continue to talk. Politely. Up to you.”
“I demand a defense representative.”
“He knows something,” said Thelma.
“Of course he knows something. We’re past that. We’re trying to figure out what he knows.”
“Is this good cop/bad cop?” asked Thelma. “Can I be bad cop?”
“Quiet,” said Connie.
She leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “You’re a lousy liar, even for a Muroid. We can play this game for the next couple of hours, or you can just tell me what I want to know.”
He blinked his small red eyes. He glanced toward the door.
His mucous sac swelled as he prepared to spit out a glob of paralytic phlegm.
“Don’t do it, Klat,” she said. “Even if you make it out of this room, you’ll never make it out of this base.”
With a painful gulp, he swallowed the glob.
15
Connie let Klat stew a little in her impromptu interrogation room. She watched him through the glass. It wasn’t a one-way mirror, just a window in the doorway where she could keep an eye on him, and where he could see her keeping an eye on him.
He’d glance up every so often, only to avert his gaze.
After twenty minutes, it was obvious he was ready to break.
Tia had been disappointed by the Snurkab Museum. It didn’t have much she didn’t already know about Connie. There was indeed an exhibit about Tia, consisting of a pair of photographs of her labeling her as Connie’s pet.
“That’s the guy?” asked Tia.
“That’s the guy,” replied Connie.
“How are we doing this?” asked Tia.
“Are you trying to be a tough guy?” asked Connie. “If so, I’d recommend putting down the snow cone.”
Tia took a bite of her ice. “But it’s so good. I don’t know what they put in it—”
“Buzazabog blood.”
Tia examined the crimson shavings in her hand. “I thought it was some kind of space cherry.”
“Nope. Blood.”
Tia shrugged. “As long as it’s not artificial sweeteners, I can live with it.” She took another bite. “Are we going to question him?”
Connie pushed her way into the room and had a seat across the table from the Muroid. Tia stood behind, mustering all the no-nonsense attitude she could while holding a snow cone in one hand and a complimentary Snurkab doll tucked under her other arm.
Connie slapped the table. Klat stopped croaking.
“Thirty-five years is a long time to hang out on a planet so far from home,” she said.
He belched nonchalantly. “This is an inoffensive world. My job is union. Pay is good.”
“Just seems to me that if there was someone I was worried about finding me, there are a hell of a lot of better planets out there. Like any other planet.”
“My spawnpair likes it here.” He twisted his round head to the left in the Muriod version of a shrug. “And I wasn’t hiding.”
“Where’d you get the fairy dust?” she asked.
“Some guy. It was a
long time ago.” His eyes receded deeper into his skull. “What fairy dust?”
“It’s too late to play dumb.”
“Yeah. Way too late.” Tia snorted and bit loudly into her snow cone.
“This is against intergalactic law,” said Klat.
Connie slapped the table again. “I’m losing my patience, buddy. We put in your request for a representative, but the galaxy is a big place. We have plenty of time to talk in the meantime. Time for things to happen.”
“Bad things,” added Tia.
Connie glanced over her shoulder. “You’re not helping.”
“Sorry.”
“Okay, I’ll talk,” said Klat. “But you have to understand. It’s not my fault.”
“Whose fault is it, then?” said Connie. “You’re the one who gave my fairy godmother the special dust that threw this spell on me. I killed her for that. Give me a reason not to kill you.”
“It was imperative that the Snurkab come into being,” said Klat. “If there was no Snurkab in the present, then there would be no Snurkab to journey through the space warp into the past and save the galaxy.”
Connie closed her eyes and cleared her head. “God, I really hate time travel sometimes.”
Time travel always complicated things. It didn’t help any that the rules were so damned inconsistent. She’d gone back and changed the past on more than one occasion. Other times, it was all about creating a stable time loop where effect and cause were twisted together in a giant knot. Then there were those incidents where independent alternate timelines were created. There wasn’t any consistency to any of it, and if there was a problem/cliché of time travel, she’d run across all of them. And she didn’t like any of them.
Of all the complications she regularly found herself in (and that was a hell of a lot of complications), she liked time travel the least.
“Where’d you get the dust?” she asked again.
“It was given to me by my government when I was sent to this world, along with a list of candidates. Our computers and oracles predicted the time of birth of the Snurkab on this world along with the list of potential candidates.”
“Do you know what you’ve done? How many people you might have destroyed with that list?”
“It’s not my job,” said Klat. “We weighed the potential risk to the candidates and viewed it as a necessary sacrifice. Our mathematical models predicted most would reject the role, leaving them to resume their previous uneventful lives. A small percentage would perish, but their lives were deemed a necessary sacrifice for the greater good of a thousand inhabited worlds.”
“You couldn’t get it down to one?” asked Connie.
“One hundred and twelve candidates from billions of humans is statistically miraculous in itself.”
“So, why hire the godmother? Why not do it yourself?”
“Expedience. I don’t understand. Would you prefer it if a handful of souls lived as the rest of the universe perished?”
“Now you’re putting this on me? I didn’t ask to be your Snurkab.”
“I didn’t ask to make you the Snurkab,” he replied. “I was only doing my job.”
“A lot of that going around,” said Thelma from Connie’s pocket.
“Okay, so I saved the galaxy,” said Connie. “You can take this spell off me now.”
“I don’t know how,” he said.
“Who does?”
“Our mystics, perhaps. I’m not a mystic. I don’t know anything about magic. I’m just the delivery agent.”
“Mystics? In outer space? Space wizards?” asked Tia.
“Muroid sorcerers are renowned throughout the galaxy. You didn’t think your world was the only one with scholars of magic, did you?” said Klat. “But this isn’t simply an enchantment. This is a singular cosmic identity. You are the caretaker of the universe. It’s an honor beyond your imagining.”
“I don’t want it anymore.”
“You are the Snurkab. You cannot simply stop being the Snurkab because it inconveniences you.”
“I get it. You needed me to save you. I did it. Now, can’t you get your sorcerers to undo the spell, destiny, or cosmic whatsawhoosit you forced on me.”
“It isn’t as easy as that.”
Connie studied his face for signs of dishonesty. She saw none.
“All right. Thanks. You can go now.”
Klat blinked. “What?”
“You heard me. You can go. I’m done.”
She walked out of the room without saying another word. Tia chased after her.
“That’s it?” Tia asked.
“That’s it,” said Connie.
“But you’re just giving up?”
“Yep. Everyone keeps telling me this is a waste of my time. Who am I to argue?”
Charlotte said, “Is everything to your liking, Honorable Snurkab?”
Connie forced a thin smile. “Everything’s just peachy.”
“If it would please you, we can arrange immediate transport to the Muroid homeworld. Perhaps they would be more amenable to your request in person.”
“Thanks, but I’m good.” Connie kept walking.
Thelma said, “Too bad you didn’t have this revelation before killing me.”
“You killed yourself.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“Either way, you’re dead. No point in debating it now.”
“That’s a bit rude, isn’t it?”
“No, but this is.” Connie clicked the pen quiet.
Leaving Area 51 was more of an ordeal than getting in. Once word of the Legendary Snurkab being in the park spread, a small crowd gathered around her. She could’ve taken the back way out, but instead, she signed autographs, took holo images with strange beings from outer space, and shook countless odd appendages (some that were best left unidentified). Simply watching left Tia exhausted. It took ninety minutes to get back to the car.
The base disappeared in the rearview mirror. They drove in silence. Connie ignored the haunted pen vibrating in her pocket.
Tia couldn’t contain herself any longer. “All right. So, what’s the deal?”
Connie stared straight ahead. She took a bit to answer.
“It just keeps going. There’s no end to it.”
“It has to end somewhere,” said Tia. “Right?”
“Does it? Let’s assume we head out to the Muroid homeworld. What are the odds that it’ll just lead us somewhere else? And wherever that goes, some other place. Another planet. Another dimension. Back here. A wild goose chase throughout the universe looking for answers.”
“Does that mean you don’t think the spell can be broken?”
“Oh, it can be broken,” said Connie. “And I’m going to break it. But I’m not going to break it by following the path they’ve set before me.”
Tia hesitated to ask the question, but it became clear Connie wasn’t going to offer the answer.
“They who?”
“Beats the hell out of me, but whoever they are, I’m through playing their game. I’ll be damned if I’m blasting off to outer space on the whims of someone or something.”
“I’m not following,” said Tia. “You’re saying this has been planned somehow? That someone knew you’d track down your fairy godmother and that it’d lead you to Area 51?”
“It was only a matter of time,” said Connie. “One day, I was going to get sick of this and track Thelma down.”
She could no longer ignore Thelma shaking in her pocket. Connie clicked the pen.
“I was set up? They wanted me to die?” asked Thelma.
“No, if they wanted you dead, they could’ve killed you. They wanted you alive for me to find. You died because you were dumb. Don’t blame it on anyone else.”
“You are at least tangentially responsible,” said Thelma.
“Get over it,” said Connie.
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one stuck in here.”
Connie clicked Thelma quiet and
tossed her in the glove compartment.
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you,” said Tia. “You’re usually right about this kind of thing. But isn’t it a stretch? Thelma didn’t know anything.”
“She knew enough. She pointed me in the right direction. Think about it. If you’re trying to keep a low profile, you don’t send a Muroid to hire a fairy godmother. Muroids are distinct. You might as well put down a big red X over Area 51 when you do that. To make it easier, you even banish the fairy godmother to Earth.”
“But you went to the Fae Realms to find her. We almost got eaten by a dragon.”
Connie said, “I don’t think the plan is that specific. They put her where I could find her and trusted I’d use my own methods to do so. They didn’t plan on her death, but I got around that. I can get around lots of problems ordinary people can’t. The important thing was that I found her and that she gave me the one piece of information she had.
“And once I came to Area 51, Charlotte practically threw Klat at me. She knew I was observant enough to spot a nervous Muroid. Maybe I wouldn’t have noticed him right away, but once I talked to him, it wouldn’t take me long to put it together.”
“You are a master detective,” said Tia.
“I wouldn’t say master. I’m fortunate enough to be a trained observer and have a smattering of knowledge in exobiology. Enough to know that you don’t hire a Muroid if you want to keep a secret, and if you do, you don’t leave that Muroid on Earth, waiting to be discovered.”
“Is this a conspiracy or the caretaker spell?” asked Tia.
“It’s both, I think. I’ve busted enough secret societies to know that most of their schemes involve a hell of a lot of luck. When they work—and they don’t usually—all the leaders claim to be masters of manipulation. When they fail, they claim it’s all part of the plan. The truth is that for most members, these conspirators are a social club rather than a shadowy cabal. Like the Loyal Order of Water Buffalo without the public face. They all pledge undying loyalty to the Grand Poobah, but as soon as the shit starts to unravel, they all hang up their robes and admit they don’t know what they hell they were doing beyond sitting in dark rooms and playing elaborate games of make-believe.”
“Like fantasy football with world governments,” said Tia.
“Not far off. But once in a while, I’ve run across genuinely sinister conspiracies that accomplish long-term goals. They all have two things in common.
The Last Adventure of Constance Verity Page 10