by Doc Watto
Intragalactic Expo
by Doc Watto
Copyright 2015 Doc Watto
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Arrival
Chapter 2 - Crittacea
Chapter 3 - Fuglia
Chapter 4 - Earth
Chapter 5 - Mission Control
Chapter 6 - Moon
Chapter 1 - Arrival
‘Folks, shortly we will arrive at the Intragalactic Expo. Situated at the centre of the Milky Way, this jewel in the crown at the heart of our galaxy was established with a mission to advance the principles of peace and harmony through intragalactic travel. For over two millennia, the Intragalactic Expo has promoted tourism between willing civilisations.’
Benny recited the arrival information to his Warp-worm passengers cheerily and with robotic precision as he had done many times previously. Impeccable articulation and immaculate presentation were features of the ’Benny’ class of android, along with an acute sense of friendliness. Wearing a white tuxedo, black bow-tie and two-tone shoes, the robot had style. Following a deliberate pause he continued his communique, emphasising the superlative nature of the statistics he was about to quote;
‘More than one trillion travellers have journeyed from the Intragalactic Expo to planets all over the galaxy and back again via the Warp-worm. There are over five-thousand Warp-worms in operation travelling to almost fifty-thousand planets known to support life.’
At the spaceport, the arrival of the Warp-worm was routine and unspectacular, resembling the landing of an elevator on the ground floor of any building. Warp-worm travel was nonetheless a unique experience: bodily transportation and molecular transformation due to warping of the famous space-time continuum.
Standing at the controls of the lift-like doors as they slid open, Benny farewelled his passengers. Momentarily disoriented by the hang-over of warp-worm travel known as warp-lag, a handful of alien travellers staggered into the terminal. They soon blended in with hundreds of other nonplussed life forms recently disembarked at the spaceport. Spanning the length of the terminal was a travelator. On the right side of the moving walkway was a series of boutique shops, eateries, wine bars and facilities to service the new arrivals and impending departures. On the left was a corridor of Warp-worms side-by-side, each with waiting passengers beside the doorway. Regularly the doors of each would slide open to reveal an identical robot operator and usually a dozen or so passengers. The robot would stamp their passports, farewell them and welcome aboard the new ones to be whisked away to the planet of their choice in the constellation serviced by that particular Warp-worm.
Benny was patiently waiting while the last of his passengers crawled toward the Warp-worm exit. A sloth from planet Earth was making painstaking progress toward the door. Having just awoken, his unbalanced state was due more to drowsiness than to the unsettling effects of warp-lag.
Impatiently waiting outside for the unsteady sloth was another passenger, a Hoolien from the planet Hoolia. She was in her mid-twenties and although alien, looked more strikingly human than the other extra-terrestrial travellers. Her bob-style hair was platinum blonde and she wore a white dress that when the wind blew, concealed very little of her lime coloured skin. Perfect in complexion, her glowing face was adorned with apple green cheeks, rose painted lips and hazel coloured eyes highlighted by lilac eye liner.
Those two expressive eyes were now cast in the direction of the sloth. Waiting by the nearby travelator, the Hoolien summoned the sloth in her direction with hand gestures and an encouraging smile.
The sloth smiled back. He was a handsome specimen from the three-toed variety with lengthy arms and legs extended from a sturdy torso. In proportion to the rest of the body, his head was small with a pleasant face. Dark fur surrounded his eyes giving the impression he was wearing a lone-ranger mask. Dipping between the sloths unseen ears was an infectious smile that seemed to be permanently embedded below his round nose. The all-white space-suit he was wearing concealed his long brown fur. It was emblazoned with the logo of the largest space agency on Earth.
The Hoolien again beckoned the sloth in her direction, this time with folded arms and a tapping foot. Being a sloth, his progress was a slow crawl. Moments, then minutes passed. The passive demeanour of the alien disappeared and she was now restless and on edge. What seemed like an eternity elapsed and the sloth was barely a body length closer. Unable to stay still, the Hoolien disappeared from the view of the sloth, only to return and moan with anxiety at his relentlessly slow motion. This happened several times until the sloth finally reached the travelator. Pointing at her wristwatch, the Hoolien began to berate the sloth.
‘Right then! Why so slow? Didn’t you see that I was waiting for you?’
The sloth paused to contemplate an amiable response.
‘I thought I would allow you a little time for shopping,’ he said politely.
‘Thank you, I did use the extra time for shopping,’ she duly noted before adding irritably; ‘I also took the opportunity to do some other things as well: I had lunch; went to the gym; showered; freshened up; had a relaxing massage; and did some more shopping.’ Pampering her hair she added, ‘Oh, and I went to the hairdresser … and how about you?’ she asked flippantly, ‘did anything interesting happen to you on your lengthy journey of at least twenty-five metres from the Warp-worm door to the travelator?’
Uneasily he replied, ‘Well, I was feeling a bit tired so I stopped for a nap along the way.’
‘Did you?’ she answered, ‘That must have been exciting? Right then, now that you are all rested up, can we keep moving? We don’t have all day. Follow me.’
She pressed on and with a backward glance, formally introduced herself to her travel companion, ‘By the way, my name is Infinity,’
‘Hi. I’m Orrick,’ said the sloth.
‘I know. Your name is written on the tag … on your spacesuit.’
‘Oh, is that what it says? I can’t read’ proclaimed Orrick before enquiring, ‘By the way, where am I and how did I get here?
Infinity responded decisively: ‘You are at the Intragalactic Expo and you arrived here on the Warp-worm,’
After a slight pause she added, ‘… oh, and before you ask, the meaning of life is … well, you can decide on that for yourself soon enough.’
Outside the spaceport, the air was thin and the atmosphere dry. Squinting at first, Orrick, Infinity and several bug-eyed aliens nearby needed a little time to adjust to the glare of the bright, pale sky. When focussed, all eyes looked upward, rightward and leftward in order to grasp the scale of the mega-structure directly ahead of them. A monolithic construction stood like a wondrous Pyramid in the sands of Egypt, except that this piece of architecture was spherical in shape. Completely white, the globe glistened magnificently. And beside this globe was another one, slightly smaller but otherwise identical.
Moving his head from side to side, Orrick gradually rotated his body to perceive his surroundings. Near and far, in every direction, his line of vision was filled with globes, the most distant ones afloat in a watery mirage arising from the parched, flat landscape.
Then, the ground began to vibrate. Minimal at first, the tremors soon multiplied in magnitude until the terrain was thumping like a thousand sub-woofers. A long, thin shadow rolled over the globes until it shaded Orrick and Infinity. At that moment, all they could see was an enormous pair of feet standing in front of them. A thunderously deep voice echoed down from above;
‘Hello Infinity. Long-time no see.’
‘Indulgiant. Good to see you again,’ shouted Infinity at the top of her lungs. Turning to Orrick she said in her normal volume;
‘It is Indulgiant, the tallest being in the galaxy.’
‘Is he deaf?’ asked
Orrick.
‘No. Look up. His ears are a long way away.’
Orrick looked up, squinting to focus into the distance. From where the sloth was sprawled, the giant appeared to have giraffe-like ears and a long neck with a gangling snout.
‘Who’s your friend?’ enquired Indulgiant.
‘His name is Orrick. I met him on the Warp-worm.’ she screamed back.
Infinity held and waved Orrick’s hand as a greeting, standing him upright in the process, an awkward stance for a sloth. Almost twice his size, Infinity stood glancing down at a fully stretched Orrick; ‘It’s his first visit to the Intragalactic Expo,’ she said, ‘I think he is still in awe of everything.’
Indulgiant lowered his huge hand to the ground and said; ‘Well then my friends, climb aboard for a guided tour from the best view in town.’
‘Thanks Indulgiant, we would really love to but we are …’
Before she could get the words out, Orrick dived into Indulgiant’s padded paw with surprising energy for a sloth dragging Infinity with him, her hand still firmly grasping his.
Indulgiant completed the sentence for her, ‘… in a hurry?’ he said, laughter in his voice, ‘Infinity, you haven’t changed a bit. Always in a rush. No harm to stop and take in the world around you occasionally?’ he pronounced calmly.
Gradually Indulgiant began to lift his hand as if it were a giant forklift. Infinity and Orrick were laying securely within its palm. Indulgiant rose from his knees and began to stand upright while a spectacular view unfolded beneath them from their own personal lookout in the sky.
Rising steadily and to the left, Orrick and Infinity could see the top of the highest globe; to the right, the knees of Indulgiant. At waist height the globes looked like soccer balls. By the time the hand of the giant had risen to be adjacent to his neck, they resembled golf balls stretching as far as the eye could see.
At full stance one kilometre up, Indulgiant had his audience quite literally in the palm of his hand and began to commentate in a commanding voice;
‘In the sky above us there are two large objects visible to the naked eye, our sibling planets called Crittacea and Fuglia. And below us are globes representing every planet known to support life in the galaxy.’
One hundred and fifty storeys high, Infinity imagined herself as the girl in the hand of King Kong on top of the Empire State Building. Day dreaming, she gazed into the eyes of Indulgiant like they were a couple of mega-size cinema screens.
Meanwhile Orrick, somewhat envious, tried to attract Infinity’s attention by leaning across to the protruding snout of Indulgiant. Steadily he climbed it as though it were a tree in the South American jungle.
‘Ouch!’
The cry of Indulgiant jolted Infinity from her mesmerised state. Orrick’s claws were gripping the more sensitive parts of the giant’s nostrils.
Sensing the danger to Orrick, who was dangling upside down from the snout of Indulgiant, she cried; ‘Orrick! What are you doing? Hang on!’
The sloth’s grasp on the snout caused Indulgiant to balk several times to prevent a sneeze until he could refrain no longer. A contortion of the snout and rapid expulsion of air caused Orrick to lose grip and drop back into the palm of the hand with Infinity. The same chain of events made Indulgiant stumble. Visitors on the ground ran for cover as the giant sneezed, tripped and fell with an almighty thud, narrowly missing the globes in his path. It didn’t matter though because globes were specifically designed to withstand the impact of falls from ungainly giants. Displaying the dexterity of someone accustomed to falling, Indulgiant managed to hold his hand horizontal throughout the descent, buffering and protecting Infinity and Orrick. Slightly shaken but otherwise unstirred, they eased away from his outstretched hand. Clumsily prostrate on the surface of the planet, Indulgiant attempted an awkward pass at Infinity;
‘The view is even more spectacular at night. Perhaps you would care to join me for a nocturnal visit?’
Infinity did not reply. His tones sounded more dull than dulcet at ground level. Anyway, she was more preoccupied with Orrick, berating him for his act of stupidity while hugging him because he survived.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ moaned Infinity to Orrick, ‘we haven’t got all day.’
‘Where are we going?’ Orrick asked.
‘Just follow me,’ she said sternly.
Orrick motioned one foot forward … rested … then advanced an arm, ever so slowly.
‘Come on, keep up!’ she insisted.
Orrick then asked assertively but in courteous manner, ‘Why won’t you tell me where we are going? And why are we in such a hurry to get there? What’s your rush?’
Infinity paused, something she was not prone to do. After several deep breaths, she considered a measured response and then completely ignored it.
‘What’s your rush!?’, she cried in anguish, repeating the second part of Orrick‘s question but ignoring the first, ‘What do you mean by that? Why are you so slow? So sluggish? So lethargic? You have two arms, two legs and I happen to know that your space program has the highest standards of fitness and intelligence. You are an astronaut. I want to see what you are capable of.’
Orrick shrugged his shoulders and quietly pleaded;
‘An astronaut? I’m not an astronaut. I’m a sloth!’
‘I think you are mocking me. Right then, if you are not an astronaut and you are too lazy to walk, I will just have to carry you. Is that what you want me to do? Yes or no!?’
There was no reply from Orrick, so she reached down, placed her arms around the sloth’s torso and lifted him to her chest. The mood changed and a sense of ease overcame them both as she held him close to her.
Infinity carried Orrick to the taxi-stand outside the nearest globe. From here she was expecting to catch a madcab, a convenient if not erratic mode of transport between globes.
Madcabs were driven by highly skilled monkeys from the planet Monkus that were specially bred to mentally plot the shortest distances between globes. They would then drive finely-tuned sports cars at break-neck speeds to get their customers there in the shortest possible time. In over two millennia of operation, there had never been an accident. Although in recent times the ever-increasing number of globes had placed greater stress on the intellectual capacity of the monkeys to calculate the optimum path between destinations. Sadly, several madcabs were now caught in an infinite loop racing around the expo with the monkeys endlessly attempting to recalculate the shortest route.
Infinity had always found madcabs to be a quaint, if not out-dated service. They were too slow for her liking. Still they fulfilled an immediate need. But today they were missing.
‘Where are all the madcabs? I haven’t seen one since we arrived,’ she said aloud, but not really expecting an answer from Orrick.
‘And you won’t see any either,’ came a reply from a voice behind her, ‘Hello Infinity. Long-time no see.’
‘That’s the second time I have heard that today,’ she said, ‘sounds like Flatterfly - I can tell from the fluttering of your hands.’
Flatterfly hovered above Infinity like a helicopter. Landing on the taxi-stand seat, he positioned himself between Infinity and Orrick. At full stretch, he was roughly the same size as Orrick, but that’s where the similarities ended. The head, torso and legs of Flatterfly all merged into one triangular shape while his short arms branched out directly from the top of his head.
‘How are you?’ Infinity asked Flatterfly, ‘how‘s business?’
Flatterfly was a spruiker for Crittacea. His job was to entice passers-by to visit the planetary exhibition inside the globe and to promote the planet as a tourist destination. He worked on commission based on Warp-worm ticket sales to Crittacea.
‘A bit slow, but I’m in a better position than many of the other globes, especially the ones in the outer suburbs of the expo. This strike is causing havoc.’
‘Strike? What strike?’
‘You have been away a while. The ma
dcab cabbies strike.’
‘But I need to get to … well to one of the outer globes … ASAP.
’Infinity, you always need to be somewhere as soon as possible,’ Flatterfly quipped, ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘That’s the second time I have heard that today,’ Orrick responded before Infinity could answer, ‘we met on the Warp-worm.’
‘Have you been to Crittacea?’ Flatterfly asked Orrick.
‘No,’ Infinity cut in before Orrick could answer, ‘he hasn’t been anywhere outside the vicinity of his own planet.’
‘Which is?’ enquired Flatterfly.
Infinity seemed detached, pleading into the unknown; ‘If the madcab cabbies are on strike, how will I get him there? We can’t walk - he is too slow, and I can’t carry him the whole way.’
‘I can find a way to get you there,’ said Flatterfly, ‘… but where? You still haven’t told me where he is from or where you are going.’
Orrick started to reply; ‘I’m from …’
‘NOKO!’ Infinity sharply interjected, ‘he is from Noko.’
‘Noko?’ replied Flatterfly, ‘never heard of it. Where’s Noko?’
‘There are over fifty-thousand globes in the Intragalactic Expo. You can’t know all of them. Will you help me or not?’
‘If Noko exists, I’m sure I can find a quick way to get you there,’ Flatterfly replied confidently, ‘but first, I’m sure our friend from Noko would love to see inside the globe and learn wonderful things about the remarkable planet of Crittacea.’ Holding aloft a couple of Warm-worm tickets to his home planet, Flatterfly added, ‘and be inspired to visit.’
‘We don’t have time!’ implored Infinity.
‘I want to see inside the globe,’ said Orrick, boldly.
‘Good man … or whatever you are,’ said Flatterfly, ‘follow me.’
Flatterfly raised his arms into a vertical position. Frantically he began flapping them. To Orrick, this seemed like a pathetic attempt to fly until the flapping sound turned into a motorised hum. Flatterfly ascended effortlessly and turned toward the globe. Infinity sighed, shook her head with indignant resignation and followed on foot, carrying Orrick.
