Emperor of the Universe

by David Lubar

  Nicholas listened for a while, and understood some of the basics, which were sort of cool, but eventually Spott’s train of thought got too complicated for Nicholas to follow, so he backed off.

  An hour later, Spott got up from the seat, stretched out his back, thumped his chest again, and said, “All done. I’m running it as a simulation first, to make sure it works. I’d hate to get us stranded.” He watched the display, which showed flickering green lines shooting from node to node in the star field. After a moment, two of the lines remained solid, showing a route they could follow with their remaining j-cubes.

  “It works?” Clave asked.

  “It works,” Spott said. “We can get to my home planet with two j-cubes separated by a three-hour flight.”

  “Two cubes,” Clave said. “We can manage that. But then I need to get a decent supply. I have to take this barbarian home, and then find more work.”

  “I believe I can help with the cubes,” Spott said. “I owe you a lot, and I won’t let you down. I’ll make sure you get what you need.”

  “You’ll have to sell a lot of bread,” Clave said. “But I guess we can worry about that when we get there.” He set up a j-cube for the first jump.

  Nicholas was used to the sensations, now. He was also happy that, without the gold, there was no violent tumble at the end of the jump. But something else was different. “That’s a really bright sun,” he said, squinting at the viewport. “Weird color, too.”

  “Magnitudes vary,” Clave said. “But it will get dimmer. We’re moving away from it for the next three hours, to a jump node by…” He glanced down at the console. “… Plenax V. Which makes sense, since we arrived right above Plenax IV.”

  “That sounds familiar,” Nicholas said. He tried to remember where he’d heard that name before.

  “The news,” Henrietta said. “That’s where we heard it.”

  “Supernova!” Nicholas shouted as he recalled the first time he’d seen Stella do a broadcast. It had been such a chaotic time, and her presence was so distracting, he was surprised he remembered anything other than his destruction of the Craborzi. “Don’t you pay attention to the news?” he asked Clave.

  “Just sports and entertainment,” he said. “The rest is too depressing. To be honest, most of the time I just watch that beautiful announcer and pay no attention to the stories. But we’ll be fine. These solar calamities take ages to play out.”

  “News flash,” Nicholas said.

  “And in our top story,” Stella said as she was summoned, “all eyes in the universe are on Plenax. Predictions among experts vary as to when this most violent stage of the supernova sequence will occur.”

  “See?” Clave said. “There’s absolutely nothing to worry about. Nobody really knows how long it will take.”

  “While many of the experts predict the supernova will occur in exactly one hour, others argue that it will begin in one hour and seven minutes,” Stella said. “Several radical models even suggest it could be as long as an hour and twelve minutes. We’ll keep you updated if these predictions change.”

  “Roach brains!” Nicholas cried. “We’re toast.”

  A WORD ABOUT SPOTT, AND AN AFTERTHOUGHT ABOUT MORGLOB

  Spott Vesber Delgrambi, who may or may not ever get home, had come out of the egg singing. This was not unusual for Beradaxians, who all love belting out a tune, but he sang on key, which was nothing short of a miracle. Most Beradaxians excel at producing not just the wrong note, but a horribly wrong note, and even, at times, a note so wrong it actually generates a stench.

  In general, Beradaxians can hear the flaws in everyone’s voice except for their own. (Any negative thoughts Beradaxians might pick up about their voices are attributed to the envy of the listener.) Even the most tone-deaf Beradaxians could tell Spott had a gift. Before he was five years old, he was giving concerts in his town. By the age of twelve, he was touring in nearby cities.

  He would have been famous by now had he not taken the first management offer that came to him, when he turned seventeen, and had that offer not come from someone who had recently invested a huge amount of money and time in establishing and promoting the career of Bleeta Kudop, a singer who was far less gifted than Spott, but who sang in a similar style and sported a similar appearance, though more of a basset hound than a beagle, and a rather mangy one at that.

  This someone who had stopped Spott’s career, coincidentally, had one trait that rose even higher than his excessive pride and greed, or his total lack of ethics. Morglob suffered from jealousy in the truest meaning of the word. He couldn’t tolerate the idea that anyone would ever own something that was his. And he had a somewhat excessive fear of pirates, since they had a well-deserved reputation for taking whatever they wanted from whoever they encountered. That was why he had installed the self-destruct mechanism in his estate in a secret location, with a trio of triggers no inelastic creature could operate. If pirates ever tried to steal away his precious mansion, they would be in for a huge surprise.

  As for his current whereabouts, he was still adrift, nowhere near any planets, but would be spotted and rescued in a little more than a month by the scurvy crew of a pirate ship, proving that irony is even more abundant in the universe than iron.

  SUPER DUPER

  “We have to get out of here,” Nicholas said. “Can we get to the next jump node any faster?”

  “Maybe two hours, if we overthrottle the engines,” Clave said. “But that’s as fast as we get.”

  “Then let’s jump back,” Nicholas said.

  “To Zeng?” Clave shook his head. “You saw what Zeng looked like when we left. And there’s no other inhabited planet in that solar system.”

  Nicholas took a deep breath. Then he took a hard swallow. Then he sucked up his gut, harvested his courage, put on his big-boy pants (which he was actually already wearing), strapped on his parachute (which he didn’t have since that would be pretty useless in space), bit the bullet, grabbed the bull by the horns, cut the mustard, and said, “But we can call for help from there. I’ll tell the police it was all my fault. If I’d done that when I had a chance, we wouldn’t be in this mess. They’ll let you go. Maybe there’s even a reward. I’ll bet there is. So you two will be okay. And you can get Spott to his home. Just promise you’ll take care of Henrietta and Jeef. Okay?”

  “That’s very noble,” Clave said. “But if we broadcast the information that we’re out of j-cubes, we’ll get swarmed by raiders. There’s nothing worse than getting picked up by pirates.”

  Nicholas pictured the holo-pirates from before, and imagined how much worse it would be if they were real alien pirates. “You don’t have to say that we’re stranded. Just say you want to turn me in.”

  Spott put a hand on Nicholas’s shoulder. “That would bring just as many fortune seekers, hoping for a ransom or reward, along with anyone out for revenge, and anyone who wanted to use your talents for evil purposes.”

  “I have no talents,” Nicholas said.

  “None that you are aware of,” Spott said.

  “Forget about Zeng,” Clave said. “We have to check the other nodes, and pick the best one.”

  “How many are there?” Spott asked.

  Clave ran his hands over the console and pulled up a display. “Four, counting Zeng. Let’s see…” He activated a stream of data. “This one leads to a spot above a gas mega-giant. It’s fine if you’re just passing through to the next node. But if we stayed there, we’d be trapped by the gravity, with no way to escape before we were pulled down toward the core and crushed flat.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Henrietta said.

  “Maybe for you,” Nicholas said.

  “Oh, right,” she said. “Sorry. Sometimes, I forget your limitations.”

  “So two of our possible destinations are ruled out,” Spott said. “What are our other choices?”

  Clave pulled up more data. “Good grief. Who arranged these things?”

  “Bad?” Ni
cholas asked.

  “Worse than bad,” Clave said. “This one is so close to a star, we’d burn up moments after arrival. Let’s check the last one.”

  Nicholas flinched when he saw the new data was purple.

  Clave smacked the console and shouted, “Why? Why?! Is it too much to ask for one safe place to go? Really? Is that just too much to expect from this huge disappointment of a universe?”

  “How bad?” Nicholas asked.

  “It’s presumed to be a black hole,” Clave said. “So, we’re dead. We just have to decide whether we want to be crushed or crisped.”

  “Wait. I have an idea,” Nicholas said.

  Spott and Clave both stared at him. “That’s how we got to where we are,” Clave said. “Following one of your ideas.”

  “Hey, it was a good idea,” Nicholas said. “Except for the supernova part.”

  “True. Except for that tiny little detail, it was totally perfect,” Clave said.

  “Tell him your idea,” Spott said.

  “First, can you show me where both planets are? And both jump nodes?” he asked. “And the sun.”

  Before Clave could refuse, Nicholas added, “This is serious!”

  Clave brought up a display of the Plenax system. Five planets, and five tiny disks near them, blinked, along with a larger disc, farther off.

  “We land here,” Nicholas said, pointing to the side of Plenax IV away from the sun. “The planet shields us from the blast. The force of the nova pushes the planets outward. But it pushes us, too, since we’re on the planet. We can survive the supernova and get a boost to the next node. It’s a good thing we’ll be shoved in the right direction.”

  “That’s insane,” Clave said.

  “It might work,” Spott said. “The nodes have no mass, so they won’t get pushed by the blast.”

  “It has to work,” Nicholas said.

  Clave and Spott looked at each other for a very long minute, as if in silent discussion.

  “Let’s do it,” Clave said. “And I’m recording it.”

  “Of course you are,” Nicholas said. “The Yewpees are welcome to come here, since we won’t be sticking around.”

  Clave turned back to the navcom. “Now be quiet. I have to figure out where to land. We want to be directly opposite the sun when it goes nova.”

  Twenty minutes later, they landed on the night-side surface of Plenax IV, which was wrapped in what could be best described as an eerie glowing darkness.

  They strapped Jeef to the console and put Henrietta in a padded drawer. Nicholas and Clave took the seats, reclining them all the way back. Spott had volunteered to take the floor, explaining that he had a high tolerance for acceleration.

  “I can’t stand this waiting,” Clave said, right after they got seated. “Somebody amuse me.”

  “I could sing,” Spott said.

  “I’d rather go back into space and face the supernova,” Clave said.

  “I know lots of jokes,” Nicholas said. He paused to think up his best one, and realized he could barely remember any jokes at the moment. In desperation, he went for a classic. “Knock, knock.”

  Nicholas waited.

  “I don’t get it,” Clave said.

  “You’re supposed to say ‘Who’s there?’”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s part of the joke. Knock, knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Orange,” Nicholas said.

  This led to further silence.

  “You’re supposed to say, ‘Orange, who?’”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s part of the joke. Knock, knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Orange.”

  “Orange, who?”

  “No, wait. Oh, roach brains! I messed up. I meant banana.”

  “No, wait. Oh, roach brains! I messed up. I meant banana, who?”

  “No, just banana.”

  “No, just banana who?”

  “Forget it!” Nicholas shouted. He placed his hand over Clave’s mouth to stop him from saying Forget it, who? “I got it backward. It’s supposed to start with the banana a couple times, and end with Orange you glad I’m not banana? It’s a really funny joke if you do it right.” He let his hand drop.

  “Well, that certainly helped pass the time,” Clave said.

  Not all that long after that, they were pressed flat by a force that made everything else Nicholas had experienced feel like a kiddie coaster. He couldn’t even scream. The pressure seemed to last forever. Through the viewport, night turned into sheer light surrounding the dark tunnel cast by their shadow, until the filter kicked in to prevent their retinas from burning.

  Eventually, the force tapered off.

  “We’re alive!” Clave said. He pulled up the navcom. “Now we just have to lift off and head for the node.”

  “It worked!” Spott said.

  “We rode the supernova! We rock!” Nicholas leaped up and held his hand in the air. “High five!”

  Spott responded instantly. Clave, seeing this, followed suit. “Strangely pleasant,” he said, after also slapping Spott’s hand. “Not all barbarian customs are repulsive.”

  “Not all aliens are, either,” Nicholas said. He opened the padded drawer and held his finger out. Henrietta tapped it with her paw. Then he held his hand toward Jeef, before he realized she couldn’t slap anything.

  “Sorry,” he said as he patted her.

  I wish I had hands, Jeef said.

  “Imagine the damage you could do,” Henrietta said.

  “Stop it, you two,” Nicholas said. But he was grinning. With good reason. He’d just ridden a planet that had been kicked out of orbit by a supernova. This has to be about as amazing as it ever gets, he thought, incorrectly.

  Clave turned to Spott. “Let’s get you home.”

  SO MUCH HASN’T HAPPENED SO FAR

  At this point in Nicholas’s adventure, there are so many things that didn’t happen, it’s difficult to resist telling you about some of the more fascinating ones. But you’re probably nearly as eager as Spott to get to Beradaxia, so let’s move on.

  SPOTT GETS HOME

  While Clave was navigating toward an available dock at a spaceport in orbit above Spott’s native city of Ortranto, Spott used the cockpit transceiver to send a message to his family, alerting them to the good news that he was returning home.

  The air in the spaceport, in the shuttle, and on the ground in Beradaxia smelled to Nicholas like pistachios that had been simmered in chicken noodle soup. The trip to the ground itself would have been not much different than a ride in a large airplane, except that Spott insisted Nicholas sit by a window, so he could see the city, which lay between an immense gorge and one of the tallest waterfalls in Beradaxia.

  A cheering crowd awaited them just outside the ground terminal. Nicholas’s heart tugged a bit when he saw all the beagle faces. He blinked hard as pressure built behind his eyes. Then he turned on his phone and discovered he’d gotten three messages since he’d sent his most recent text. He had a feeling at least two of them would contain some form of his mother’s not-so-subtle why haven’t we heard from you questions. Even so, he wanted to listen to them, just to hear his parents’ voices, but it was too noisy at the moment.

  The crowd rushed forward.

  “Not again.” Clave spun back toward the ship.

  “It’s okay,” Spott said. “They’re fans.”

  “Fans?” Clave asked.

  “I sort of sing,” Spott said. “It’s no big deal.”

  “Apparently, it is,” Henrietta said. “At least, to them.”

  Clave reached for his sfumbler. Nicholas grabbed his wrist. “Please. No. Just let us have one peaceful day. If this works out the way Spott said, we’ll get those cubes, and you can bring me home. Okay?”

  “It’s not worth recording. Nobody knows me anywhere except here, and maybe in some of the other cities nearby,” Spott said. “I’m just a local kid with a bit of
talent. I’m not famous like Xroxlotl. Morglob was supposed to change that. But I doubt my voice would appeal to anyone who didn’t grow up here. Beradaxian song cycles are something of an acquired taste.”

  “Oh, all right.” Clave stashed his sfumbler.

  A cluster of Beradaxians rushed up to Spott, including his three parents, seven sisters, two brothers, four sibros, five aunts, seven uncles, eight ancles, and nineteen cousins. Nicholas watched the reunion turn into various permutations of fifty-six people hugging each other in groups and clusters of two or more.

  Eventually, the crowd had quieted down enough for Nicholas to hear the messages from his parents.

  “Hey, Nicky. It’s Dad. Hope you’re behaving.” This was followed by a description of the previous day’s concert, and the details of what his parents had for dinner.

  “Hey, kiddo. Mom here. How’s everything?” This, also, came with additional details, called him at least one embarrassing nickname, and terminated with the usual, “Miss you. Love you.”

  The third message didn’t have any travel or meal descriptions.

  “Hey, kiddo. It’s your mother. The one who worries about you. I wanted to make sure you’re okay. I tried to call your uncle, but he isn’t answering. I’d hate to have to ask your aunt to drive all the way out there to check on you. Please let us know how things are going. Miss you. Love you.”

  Nicholas tapped out a text: Phone died. Sorry. I’m good.

  An instant after he hit SEND, his phone rang. Nicholas was so startled, he almost answered it. The call was from his parents. He was torn. He wanted to talk to them, but he knew they’d figure out he was hiding something the instant they heard his voice. Or the cheerful voices of Spott’s family reunion, rising in the background. Nicholas had no idea what those voices would sound like without the effect of the Ubiquitous Matrix, but he suspected it would not be reassuring to a pair of parents who thought their son was a mere eight thousand miles away. He waited until they left a message, then listened to it.