How to Save the Universe Without Really Trying

by John Cusick

  “Now, I’m going to get on your shoulders, we’re going to put on this coat and walk right out of here past those guards.”

  “What? Why don’t I get on your shoulders?”

  “Really?” said Phin.

  “Yes,” said Lola. “Why not?”

  “It’s just . . . that’s honestly not the part of the plan I thought you’d object to.”

  “Well, I’m objecting,” said Lola. “I don’t know if I can even carry you!”

  “You said you had normal-strength knees!”

  Lola glared.

  A moment later a tall but unwieldy person in a long navy overcoat and garish sunglasses tottered by the security agents guarding the exit of the food court.

  “Afternoon, gentlemen!” said Phin.

  “Weird,” said one of the agents to his partner.

  “What is?” said the other.

  “I could have sworn,” said the first, “that guy’s stomach just called him a jerk.”

  “Mall food,” said the second agent, and shuddered.

  “Okay, you can put me down now,” Phin said some time later. “I can see the Rescue Wagon.”

  Lola knelt so Phin could climb down. She stood, blinking, rubbing the feeling back into her shoulders and knees.

  “Next time, you be the feet.” She looked around. Inside the coat she’d been able to see very little, relying on Phin’s whispered directions. Now they had reached a stretch of concourse that indeed looked familiar, though the Rescue Wagon was nowhere in sight.

  “Where’s the ship?” said Lola.

  “There!” said Phin.

  “Behind the mastodon?” said Lola.

  Where their ship had been parked, a mastodon now stood sunning itself in the Lunar afternoon. It blinked at Lola and shook its big woolly head.

  “It is the mastodon,” said Phin. “It’s the Majulook SuperFake cloaking device. I must have left it on shuffle.”

  Lola processed this. “So how do you know that’s our ship, then?”

  “Well, it’s where we parked it, and I doubt anyone else brought a mastodon to the moon.”

  Given everything she’d seen today, a mastodon on the moon seemed pretty reasonable, but Lola took his word for it. The pair scrambled up the gangway, entered a hatch in the side of the mastodon, which waved at them with its trunk, and climbed inside the Rescue Wagon.

  The ship was just as they left it, with Teddy in the back seat. Lola gave him a hug.

  Phin shut the door, careful not to catch the big overcoat’s tail, and checked the ship’s controls. Then he hesitated. He turned around in his seat to consider Teddy, then turned back to what had caught his attention.

  The ship was, in fact, not just as they left it.

  “Come on, let’s go!” said Lola. Though she felt much safer back inside the Wagon, the sooner they were away from there, the better.

  Phin hesitated. There was a thing on the dashboard. Not a dangerous-looking thing, but still, a thing that had no business being there. It was small, flat, and lavender. A five-by-seven little postcard, just sitting on the dash of their super-secure Rescue Wagon, which no one could have possibly entered while they were away. Phin checked the computer and confirmed that, indeed, no one had.

  Frowning, he picked up the little postcard, holding it away from his face as if it might turn out to be radioactive.

  “What is that?” Lola asked. “It looks fancy.”

  “I think,” said Phin, scanning the small, neat text, “it’s an invitation.”

  “Someone sent you an invitation? How did they know you’d be here?”

  “No,” said Phin. He fixed Lola with a look of grim concern. “Someone,” he said, “has sent us an invitation.”

  17

  FUN FACT: THERE IS an old adage in the galaxy that goes like this: If someone offers you tea, best think twice before saying yes.

  No one knows where this adage comes from; its origins have been lost to time. Further, no one really knows exactly what it means—presumably it’s a metaphor—and there are entire university courses dedicated to exploring what “tea” might represent and why you should think twice before accepting it.

  There are also courses dedicated to deciding whether or not this “fact” is fun at all, or just a bit of nonsense taking up space.

  Lola reread the invitation for the tenth or twentieth time:

  To: Phineas Fogg and Lola Ray of Earth

  You Are Cordially Invited to Tea

  Time: Whenever You Arrive

  Location:

  Orion Arm

  Alpha Centauri System

  Proxima Centauri

  Satellite B,

  North Entrance

  Attire: Casual

  We Look Forward to Meeting You Properly,

  The Triumvirate of Pong

  “I have a question,” said Lola.

  “Just one?”

  “What is the Triumvirate of Pong?”

  She blew some foam from her macchiato, which the Rescue Wagon’s onboard Conveen-U-Slurp beverage downloader had made for her. Lola believed one couldn’t really tackle a problem without coffee, and this particular problem required an extra espresso shot. The macchiato tasted vaguely of motor oil and space dust, but she assumed it was caffeinated and so slurped it thirstily.

  They had been puzzling over the invitation for an hour, sitting in the Rescue Wagon, Lola wrapped in the big cozy overcoat, Teddy propped between them. To the outside world it appeared as if a mastodon was contentedly sunning itself in a one-hour parking spot. Phin had used the Majulook cloaking device to fabricate a parking ticket on the end of the mastodon’s trunk—but this had been unnecessary, since no meter reader wanted to tangle with a mastodon, never mind cared where it was parked.

  “I don’t know,” said Phin.

  “Wait, really?” said Lola. “I thought you sort of knew everything.”

  She hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic, but clearly she had, as Phin gave her a nasty scowl. He’d been scowling pretty much nonstop since they’d discovered the invitation, and now his scowl was so deep it might have had spelunkers climbing through it.

  “I don’t know what it is because it isn’t anything,” he said. “Who’s ever heard of the Triumvirate of Pong? No one! It’s just some made-up nonsense.”

  “Well, for something made up, they have some very fancy stationery,” said Lola. “And more important, how do they know who we are? I mean.” She meditated over the steam from her mug. “You’re rich and famous I guess. But how do they know me? Who here knows me? I mean, no one, right?”

  “No one but the people trying to kill us.”

  “Yeah,” said Lola, shaking her head, “but these people aren’t trying to kill us. They’ve invited us to tea!” She considered her coffee. “I never liked tea, really.”

  “Give it to me,” said Phin with finality, reaching for the invitation.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to throw it out the window. It’s probably just an advertisement for something. Triumvirate of Pong breakfast cereal or tea cakes or something like that.”

  “What?” Lola jerked away, nearly spilling what remained of her macchiato. “You can’t throw it away! We need to go!”

  “Go where?”

  “Here,” she said, indicating the location marked on the card. “Alpha Centauri. Satellite B. The North Entrance. Whatever that is!”

  Phin threw his hands up in exasperation and turned to face the window.

  “Phin,” she said, “these people, the Triumvirate of Ping—”

  “Pong.”

  “Whatever. They knew we’d be here. They knew I’d be here! In the future! With you! Maybe they know how I got here.” Her voice softened. “Maybe they know how to get me home.”

  “Maybe they’re elves! Maybe they’re ravenous triple-headed pythons!” Phin said, not meaning to raise his voice but absolutely raising it nonetheless.

  “Why are you shouting?”

  “Because we do
n’t know who they are! It could be a trap! It could be anything!” He snatched the invite from her fingers. “And you just want to shuffle off to Alpha Centauri and ring their bell?”

  “Yes,” Lola said. “That’s exactly what I want to do. Look.” She met Phin’s eye, refusing to be cowed by his tantrum. “Someone is trying to kill us. And we need to get away from them, yeah? Well, of all the places to run to, why not there? Why not this Satellite B? Phin,” she said, “I want to go home.”

  “Do you?” he said. “Why? I don’t.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How so?”

  “Because . . .” Lola struggled to find the words. “Because I miss my family!” She missed them. Even her sisters. She missed her home. She missed normal things, like the moon being called the moon and robots almost never trying to kill you. “I can’t just run forever.”

  Phin crossed his arms. “Why not? Sounds good to me.”

  “Why are you like this?”

  “Because I don’t know what’s going on!” he shouted, and then, more quietly, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  The blush had engulfed his entire face now. He hadn’t meant to be so honest.

  “Isn’t that the point, though?” Lola asked.

  Phin blinked. “Huh?”

  “I mean, isn’t that the point? To explore? To go into the unknown? Here’s something new. Something you haven’t read about. It’s a question without an answer! It’s the inexplicable!” Lola grinned at him, and then she said something that would have knocked Phin’s socks off, if he ever wore any. “I know you’re not afraid,” she said, “so what is it?”

  He looked at her. Her eyes were wide, questioning, but sincere. She wasn’t making fun of him. She believed he wasn’t afraid, even when he’d just told her the opposite.

  But sometimes all it takes is someone seeing you the way you want to be seen. Suddenly, Phin wasn’t afraid at all.

  “Right,” he said. “Fine. We’ll still need to hitch a ride to get there, though. The Rescue Wagon is too small and too slow to make the journey on its own.”

  Lola grinned. “Okay! So what do we do?”

  “Just buying a ticket’s out. They don’t have flights to places no one’s ever heard of. We’ll just have to sneak onto a craft that’s headed in that general direction.” He tapped his chin, then brought up the ship’s computer. “Bucky, are any ships leaving for Alpha Centauri? It’s not Satellite B, but it’s as close as we’re likely to get.”

  The UI’s voice crackled from the dashboard speakers. “Well, twiddle my chits and slap my chicken, the luxury liner SS SunStar will be passing through the Alpha Centauri system on its way to Sirius Jinx.”

  “Hmm,” said Phin, scrolling through the vessel’s flight plan. “That could work. But there’s no way we can get on board without buying a ticket, and we know my card’s been flagged.” He glanced at her. “And judging by the fact you’re not carrying six duffel bags, I’m going to assume we don’t have enough hard cash.”

  “Phin,” said Lola. “Come on, there’s got to be a way! We’ve got to go!”

  Phin pushed back from the screen. “Unless you’ve got two tickets to the SS SunStar sitting in your pocket, there’s no way we’re getting on that ship.”

  Just for the heck of it, Lola peered into the navy overcoat’s ticket pocket. She sniffed. She set down her coffee. She cleared her throat. She peered into the ticket pocket again.

  “What?” said Phin.

  “Yeah,” said Lola.

  “What?” Phin said again. “Wait . . . no.”

  “Yeah,” said Lola.

  “That’s just . . .” Phin shook his head. “I mean, that’s just unbelievably . . .”

  “It is,” said Lola. “Very.”

  From the pocket Lola produced two first-class tickets to board the SS SunStar, all expenses paid, with unlimited pool access and a complimentary caviar and salmon buffet.

  18

  THE SS SUNSTAR IS one of the most luxurious ships in the galaxy. The pride of Sun-Liner Space Cruises, it boasts three hundred first-class cabins, thirty-five megasuites, twelve full-size holodecks, a dozen zero-G swimming pools, a handful of five-star restaurants, and more hors d’oeuvres per square foot than any other cruiser in its class. Rather than rocketing through hypergates, long-distance dark matter steamers like the SunStar proceed through space at a leisurely two hundred and eight times the speed of light, turning the instantaneous jump from Luna to Alpha Centauri into a week-long excursion with unbeatable views of the galaxy. For the discerning trillionaire in no rush to get where he’s going, it’s really the only way to travel.

  Lola lowered her sunglasses as she craned her neck to look up at the still-docked ship gleaming in the Lunar sunset. To her eye, the SunStar resembled an ocean liner more than a spacefaring vessel. It had three smokestacks along its spine, rows of circular port windows, and half a dozen lounge-chair-packed decks.

  Lola thought of the Titanic—and then immediately wished she hadn’t.

  “Just follow my lead,” said Phin as they made their way along the pier.

  “Why,” said Lola, “do people always say that? Why can’t they just talk about the plan ahead of time?”

  “And remove all the drama?” said Phin.

  “You don’t actually have a plan, do you?”

  “Nope! But I will in a moment,” he said. “I hope,” he added, flipping up his collar in a way he imagined looked brave and dashing.

  Lola was about to respond when something bumped into the back of her knees. To onlookers, it appeared to be a large leather steamer trunk with the letters VRW stamped on the side in a repeating pattern. The fact that it skittered along under its own power on squealing little wheels, and seemed to follow its owners wherever they went, wasn’t unusual (plenty of luggage did that). But what no one could have known was that the trunk was in fact a Volvo Rescue Wagon, expertly disguised by its Majulook cloaking device. Lola would have found the transformation impressive if the thing didn’t keep bumping into her.

  The trunk seemed to wait patiently as she regarded it with a wrinkled brow. The luggage was all part of their disguise, like the oversize overcoat, which Phin now wore, and the kiosk sunglasses, which Lola had perched on the top of her head.

  “I hope Teddy is okay in there,” she said, tapping the trunk’s lid.

  “He’s fine. It’s all fine. Just do what I do,” said Phin. He slapped on a grin, brought himself to full height (which still looked awfully short in the coat he was wearing), and marched up the gangplank. Lola had no choice but to follow.

  Most of the passengers were already aboard, but a harried-looking porter waited to take their tickets. This porter was called Lucky, a nickname he’d acquired in the casinos of Singularity City, where he’d lost his savings and then some betting on the wrong sloth in the 300th Annual Frickle East Ultraslow Single-Meter Races, when by an amazing upset, Speedy McCree beat Fuzzy Lightning with a record-breaking time of three hours, forty-five minutes, and twelve seconds. Now penniless and miserable, Lucky worked for Sun-Liner Space Cruises to pay off his considerable gambling debts, and if you think that made him a touch ornery and suspicious, you get a gold star.

  Lucky was required to wait at his post until final boarding call. He had been harassed and abused all afternoon by impatient and jetlagged rich people who were not used to standing in line. He was underpaid, overtired, and in no mood for shenanigans. Staring warily down the gangplank, he now saw two oddly dressed children hurrying toward him—one in an oversize overcoat, the other in a pair of gawdy kiosk sunglasses—followed by an enormous steamer trunk. He knew that shenanigans of some kind were exactly what was in store.

  “No,” he said when they reached him. “No. What do you want? Whatever it is, you can’t have it. Go away.”

  The children were grinning. Their luggage seemed to wait patiently.

  “Are we too late? I don’t think we are,” said the boy. “I told my wife if we didn’t hurr
y, we’d miss final boarding call!”

  “Wife?” said the girl as if he’d just called her a hairless triple-headed zumbuloid.

  Lucky stared at them. The children stared at each other.

  “I mean . . . ,” said the girl, recovering. “Yes, I, uh . . . I told my husband”—the word seemed sour in her mouth—“we had plenty of time. And I was right!”

  “Why, you’re always right, my . . . love,” said the boy, struggling with that last bit. “You’re such a good, um, spouse.”

  “Buzz off, kids,” said Lucky, checking the time. “I’ve got to close this gate in a minute.”

  “Kids?” said the boy. “Did you hear that, my little moon petunia? I told you these new bodies made us look too young.”

  Lucky’s eyes narrowed. “New bodies?”

  “Yes,” the boy said with a chuckle. “We’re test-driving some new bodies. What do you think? I told my wife they were too childish. But those are the times, I suppose. Everything’s got to be young, young, young!”

  “Right,” said Lucky. “And you are?”

  “Ah! Our tickets,” said the boy. He patted his overcoat—somewhat dramatically, Lucky thought—then, smiling in satisfaction, pulled two SunStar tickets from an inner pocket. “Here you are, my good man.”

  Lucky considered the tickets. There was no doubt they were the genuine article, complete with holographic interface and a diamond-plasma watermark. “This ticket is in the name of His Royal Ursine Majesty, the Archduke of Sagittarius. And this one”—he raised the second ticket to the light to double-check its authenticity—“is in the name of his wife, the Duchess of Sagittarius.”

  “Yes,” said the boy without hesitating. “That is we. I mean I. I mean both of us. We are they. Them.”

  “I’m a duchess,” said the girl, though Lucky couldn’t quite make out if it was meant as a question or a statement.

  “The Archduke and Duchess of Sagittarius,” said Lucky, “are phenomenally important people.”

  “Why thank you.”

  “They are also seven feet tall,” said Lucky, “and blue. And bears.”

  “Ah, were seven feet tall,” said the boy who claimed to be the archduke. “And blue.”