How to Save the Universe Without Really Trying

by John Cusick

  “No!” said Lola. “Well, yes, but I wasn’t sure sure.”

  “What’s the Triumvirate of Pong?”

  “I don’t know!” said Lola.

  “Oh, so I guess you just get invited to tea across the galaxy by people you’ve never heard of, do you?”

  “Yes,” said Lola, eyes agog. “I guess I do.”

  “Well, we’re here!” said Gretta. “Hello!” she called, and pounded on the doors. “We’re here! Let us in!”

  Unsure what else to do, Lola joined in. “We have an invitation! Triumvirate of Pong? Hello!”

  Nothing happened, save for the approach of the sandstorm and whatever it presaged.

  “Well, that’s a bust,” said Gretta.

  “No, no, there’s got to be something else,” said Lola, panic beginning to clamber up her spine. “Something we’re missing.”

  Gretta sighed and sat down on one of the steps. “Well, you know what they say.”

  “Hello!” Lola was banging on the doors now. “No, what do they say?”

  “You know,” Gretta said, and chuckled despite herself. “About tea and all.”

  “I don’t,” said Lola. She banged on the door again. “Open up! There are things chasing us!”

  “How can you not know that saying?” said Gretta. “You know, it’s one of those annoying little sayings you pick up from your parents that you can’t help but say no matter how silly it is.” Gretta blinked, a memory flickering past her eyes and not quite resolving itself there. “I think my dad used to say it . . .”

  “This is Lola Ray!” Lola shouted at the door. “And Phineas Fogg is my friend, even though he’s not here right now. You invited us to tea!” Lola was nearly breathless with shouting. “Maybe that’s it? Maybe Phin needs to be here for the doors to open?”

  “They say,” said Gretta, as if trying desperately to remember something that was just at the edge of her awareness. “They say, If someone offers you tea, always think twice before saying yes.”

  Lola slowly turned. She looked at Gretta.

  “What was that?”

  “Hmm?” said Gretta, coming back to the present. “Oh, you know. If someone offers you tea,” she repeated in a kind of annoyed singsong, “best think twice before saying yes.”

  Lola turned to the doors.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Yeah—” Gretta started, and then gaped as the ground began to shake. Dust sifted from the crags and crevices of the cathedral’s towers. And then, with a great grinding wail, the doors swung open.

  Gretta leaped to her feet and rushed to Lola’s side. “What did you do?”

  Lola looked at her, blinked, and smiled a dazed, daffy smile.

  “I thought twice,” she said with a little laugh. “And said yes.”

  “Oh,” said Gretta. “Oh . . .”

  “Yeah,” said Lola.

  “That is . . . that is just so . . .”

  “Yeah,” said Lola. She turned to the now-open doors and the stairs descending beyond. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  30

  A CIRCUS TENT PLUMMETED through the artificial atmosphere of Satellite B. Its flaps rippled in the wind, the little triangular flag jutting from its peak bent back by the g-force. Then the tent shimmered, throbbed, and transformed into a Sarkusian Long-Range Exploration Shuttle, before throbbing again and turning into a Sarkusian truffle, and then a crate of avocados, then a small escape pod for a moment, before at last settling on the form of a 1998 red Volvo station wagon.

  The ship was crashing.

  Phin was screaming.

  Whether Bucky was screaming or going for the high C in the second sub-bridge of “A Black Hole Ain’t No Place for a Cowboy” was unclear.

  The Rescue Wagon swung in low over the mountains, clipped a peak, buzzed the camp of recently teleported and marooned SunStar passengers and crew awaiting rescue, hurtled up again, tumbled over another mountain, and then skipped across a plain before coming to a rest, smoldering, front fender half buried in the dust.

  The emergency impact rescue foam—a bit late but still trying its best—exploded through the interior of the ship, encasing everything in a protective sponge. The foam then retreated back into its evacuation jets, satisfied it had done its job well, if a bit after the fact.

  Phin coughed and gagged.

  He was alive. He was impossibly, excruciatingly alive.

  Something had saved his life, and it sure as Sally wasn’t the emergency impact rescue foam. Something soft was between him and the dashboard, which would have certainly smashed his brains out otherwise.

  The soft thing was big, fuzzy, and slightly mildewed. It was Teddy.

  “Oh, buddy,” Phin said, resting his head on the bear’s familiar old tum. “Thank you thank you thank you thank you.”

  “Let’s play a game!” said Teddy.

  Phin glowered, or tried to glower—he was so relieved to be alive it was hard to affect a good scowl. “So, I suppose you’d have me believe that you were just tossed up here and that you saving my life is a lucky coincidence.”

  “Let’s play a game!” said Teddy.

  “And that you’re really just a toy bear with nothing special about you at all.”

  “Let’s play a game!” said Teddy.

  “Fine,” said Phin. “Have it your way.”

  Unfortunately, the crash had cracked the Wagon’s aft window, or rather, shattered it in a spiderweb pattern, making it impossible to see through. Which simply meant Phin couldn’t see the things approaching his Wagon from the rear.

  He heard them though.

  It was a strange sound. An eerie sound. A skittering, clicking, clacking sound. Images of asteroid crabs and deep-space vampire spiders flooded Phin’s mind.

  “Bucky? Bucky, you there?”

  The dashboard was dark. The ship’s computer was offline. Phin swallowed.

  The skittering sound was getting closer. They—whatever they were—had reached the ship. He heard their little feet (claws? talons?) clattering across the roof. Coming for him.

  Phin decided to shut his eyes.

  He kept them shut as the things began to surround his vessel. He heard them on the windshield, on the hood now. He heard them clicking against the side paneling, clacking against the windows. Phin’s breath came in ragged gasps. His pulse raced, it rocketed, it skipped several beats, did a somersault, jumped on a motorbike and sped away without him.

  On the window just inches from Phin’s left ear, something went click-click.

  It was different from the other clicks. Deliberate. It had a purpose. It was a message.

  Then again. Click-click.

  Something was knocking on his front window.

  “Nope,” said Phin. “No thank you. No.”

  Click-click.

  “I’d really rather not, thanks,” said Phin. “Please go away.”

  Click-click . . . CLICK.

  “All right, fine!”

  With fearsome, mad force, Phin wrenched his eyes open and turned to look at whatever it was that had been doing the clicking.

  It was a mushroom. And it was adorable.

  It was the size of a footstool, with big, curious, blinking eyes that glowed slightly beneath its large, bell-shaped head. It had a tiny slit of a mouth, and little feet in what looked like tiny steel-toed work boots. It had little arms with little hands, one of which it was using to hold itself to the side of the Wagon. In its other hand it held a cute little wrench, which it had used to tap on the window. And around what could be called its waist was . . . well, a tool belt.

  Phin glanced around. His ship was covered in mushrooms. Cute little mushrooms with cute little faces, all of them wearing cute little tool belts that clicked and clacked as they moved, their tiny tools clinking together. The clattering he’d heard on the roof was the sound of their steel-toed boots on their tiny little feet. There were smaller, rounder mushrooms, taller willowy ones, brown ones, red ones, ones with flat wavy heads like cha
nterelles, and others rounded and umbrella-like, like shiitake.

  “Fungi,” said Phin.

  “Boop,” said the mushroom at his window. “Boop moop boop?”

  “Sorry?” said Phin. “You’re a bit muffled. Through the glass I mean.”

  “Boop boop,” said the little mushroom. It tapped again on the window with its wrench. “Moop?”

  “I can’t roll it down,” said Phin. “It’s jammed.”

  The little guy nodded, tucked the wrench into a pocket on his tool belt, and pulled from another a small flat piece of metal. In a moment, he’d jimmied the door open. Phin felt a flash of panic as the asteroid’s cold atmosphere rushed into the Wagon, but he found the air was breathable and actually, quite refreshing.

  The little mushroom climbed up onto Phin’s lap, the pressure of its little feet pressing into his knees, but then his new friend produced a third tool—this one a small electronic device—and waved it over Phin’s hands. There was a feeling like pins and needles all up and down his arms, and then, poof, Phin’s wrists were no longer stuck together.

  “Thank you,” he said, rubbing the feeling back into his wrists.

  The mushroom held out his little hand.

  “Oh,” said Phin. “Uh.” He reached into his pocket, found it empty, reached between the seat cushions, found about seventy-five cents there, and dropped it in the little mushroom’s hand.

  “Boop,” said the mushroom, and nodded, then hopped down off Phin’s lap and joined his brethren outside the ship.

  Phin wrapped one arm around Teddy and stepped out onto the dusty, musty surface of Satellite B—home, he guessed, of the mushroom people. Or mushroom mechanics, anyway.

  “Do any of you speak . . . well, anything other than what you’re speaking?” Phin said, talking loudly in that annoying way people do when speaking to someone who doesn’t speak their language. “I speak a bunch of languages, actually. But I don’t speak, um, Moop.”

  “Moop,” a few of the mushrooms on the roof said in chorus. “Moop boop!”

  Their words had a note of apology to them, so Phin waved and said, “That’s okay. Could you just point me in the direction of the North Entrance? I’m looking for the Triumvirate of Pong.”

  “Boop. Boop-a-loop,” said the little mushroom who’d freed him, and took Phin by the hand. Together, the family of mushroom mechanics led Phin, with Teddy under his arm, away from his ship and across the barren wastes. Except for a few, who stayed behind to repair the Rescue Wagon—a job for which they would overcharge him exorbitantly.

  31

  LOLA AND GRETTA DESCENDED into the catacombs beneath the cathedral. The staircase was not steep, but it was slippery, and wound in lazy curves, corkscrewing away from the surface, the air within growing closer and damper. The torches along the walls seemed to dim the lower they went, as if the flames were working all the harder to burn and sputter in the thickening humidity.

  Gradually the gentle slope of the staircase leveled itself until they were walking on nothing but a winding ramp. Rivulets of moisture trickled freely past them, dribbling down the hollows. Here the stone had been worn away by centuries of exposure to these slow, steady streams. Images of slipping pried at Lola’s mind. If you started sliding, how far would you go? The bottom could be miles away. An endless tumble to nowhere. She shivered despite the heat.

  The ramp came to an abrupt end at the start of a long, wide, torchlit corridor. The open space only reinforced Lola’s claustrophobia, the knowledge that she was somewhere underneath a mile of rock and stone. A little voice in her head was telling her to scream, but she told the little voice to go off and play with its friends for a while; she would listen to what it had to say later.

  “Do you hear that?” said Gretta.

  “This is scary enough,” replied Lola. “You don’t have to add to the atmosphere.”

  “No, really!” said Gretta. “It sounds like music!”

  Lola listened. And it did sound like music. Soft, warbling, echoing music. Old music played on a gramophone, the kind that might accompany a silent film.

  And it was coming from the end of the hallway.

  The music grew louder as they approached. At the end of the corridor was another archway. It opened onto a larger chamber from which a gentle hot breeze pressed itself.

  Together they stepped into the darkened vault. It was impossible to tell how large it was, but a small area just through the entrance was lit from above as if by a spotlight. In the center of the circle of light were a few objects of note.

  Firstly, there was a medium-sized Victorian tea table, set with five places. There were five little tea saucers, five bone china teacups, a teapot, and little bowls for sugar and cream. There was also a tower of cucumber sandwiches and scones.

  Beside the table, on a spindly platform of its own, was a large, old-fashioned gramophone, a record turning on its table, music issuing from its large, bell-shaped mouth.

  And finally there was a sign set in an iron stand, the way one might find a menu displayed outside a fancy restaurant. It said:

  Welcome!

  Please seat yourself.

  We suggest you take a moment to relax

  Before

  Looking

  Up

  The effect of the sign had the opposite of its intention, for immediately upon reading it Lola felt the intense urge to look up in the darkness of the cavern and was only able to stop herself by sheer force of will.

  “I suppose we better seat ourselves,” she said.

  “No,” said Gretta.

  “What?”

  “I said no.”

  It was a clear, quiet, firm refusal. It was a no that said You do what you want. I won’t make a fuss. But I am not moving from this spot, and I won’t feel the least bit bad if you go ahead without me. This is my life and my choice, and what you make of it is your business.

  She stood on the threshold of the chamber, folded her hands behind her back, and did not budge.

  Lola shrugged. She’d come this far, and she certainly wasn’t going to stop now. Feeling nestled in the hands—or perhaps trapped in the jaws—of incontrovertible fate, Lola sat herself down to tea.

  She took a moment to relax.

  She looked up.

  She couldn’t see anything. The chamber stretched far above her head into an impenetrable darkness behind the spotlight. She could sense . . . something large in the gloom. Or perhaps it was only her imagination.

  Again, Lola shrugged.

  She helped herself to a cucumber sandwich. It was disgusting and flavorless, which is to say, it was a perfectly normal cucumber sandwich. She tried a scone instead.

  “Excuse me! Excuse me!” a tiny voice called from somewhere in the chamber. “Please wait for the others! Please! Don’t be rude now. Others are coming. Let’s wait for them, please! I’ve put the kettle on. Sorry to ask you to seat yourself, but please if you would, please hold off on the scones and things. They’re nearly here.”

  Lola, mouth full, replaced the half-eaten scone and sat straight in the uncomfortably fancy chair, feeling chastened.

  “Sorrah,” she said, a few crumbs leaping from her mouth and landing on the floor.

  She was about to swallow and try this again, when a new sound filled the chamber. It was a scuttling, tinkling, clacking sound, identical to the one she and Gretta had heard on the surface. Lola nearly choked. She looked around at Gretta, who was staring off in the direction of the noise, frozen in terror.

  Then, a new voice echoed around them.

  “So I was standing right there,” the voice said, halfway through some long and rambling story, “and I was like, you know, just take the teleport! But then I thought, no, she needs my help. So I stayed. I mean, I think that’s pretty heroic.”

  The tinkling clanging sound drew closer, as did this new voice.

  “And like, yeah, she was basically doing all right for herself by that point. She was helping a bunch of Bog Mutants escape the crashing
ship, but I mean, come on. I didn’t know that. She could have been captured! Or trapped under a bed somewhere! All I’m saying is, you know, it was a moment of personal growth for me. Oh, hey, Lola. I met some mushrooms.”

  32

  IT WAS PHIN. HE emerged from the dark surrounded by half a dozen little mushroom people wearing tool belts. None of them seemed particularly interested in his story.

  “Phin!” said Lola, blinking so hard she nearly bruised her eyelids. “How did you get here?”

  “Service elevator,” he said, jerking a thumb in the direction he had come. “Did I mention I met some mushrooms? Say hello, guys.”

  “Moop,” said one of the mushrooms, and waved. “Boop boop.”

  “I call this guy Bertram,” he said, referring to one of the smaller, round-headed ones.

  In a flash she was on her feet and hugging him. “I thought you might be dead,” she said.

  “So did I. Still not completely sure I’m not. Hello.” And he hugged her back.

  “Oh good,” mumbled Gretta. “More hugging.”

  “You!” said Phin and picked up a mushroom to throw at her. “Stay back! I’ll shroom you!”

  “No, no, it’s okay,” said Lola. “She’s lost her weapon, and besides, I think she’s sort of okay.”

  “I am not,” hissed Gretta, crossing her arms, “in any way okay.”

  “Moop!” shrieked the mushroom Phin was holding. He gently put it back on the ground.

  “Oh, relax, Bertram. I wasn’t really going to throw you.” He straightened and grinned at Lola. “So, pretty awesome right? You thought I was dead, then, bam, here I am, totally alive and hanging out with some awesome fungi.”

  “Don’t gloat,” said Lola.

  “I see you found the tea,” he said, nodding toward the place setting. “And you’ve got crumbs on your chin, by the way.”

  “Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Lola said.

  “I’m not sure exactly,” said Phin. “But I’m hoping the three-legged cat can explain.”

  He was looking over Lola’s shoulder. She turned. Waiting very patiently a few feet away, not wanting to interrupt, was a three-legged cat. It wasn’t a very peculiar cat, perhaps a little overlarge, with orange fluffy fur, long whiskers, and a tail that twitched. It was, as Phin pointed out, three-legged. The only unusual thing about this particular cat was that it stood upright and leaned on a small sleek cane, on account of its left rear leg, which was a metallic prosthesis. It also wore glasses and a nice tweed suit.