by Robert West
“I don’t know,” said Beamer. “Maybe the tree is worried about Scilla’s feelings or — ”
“No,” insisted Ghoulie, “all that the field around the tree does is sense the brain-wave pattern.”
“He’s definitely not nice,” Beamer said with a grimace, “but maybe it’s because he has no intention of physically hurting anybody or anything.”
“Sticks and stones, huh?” muttered Ghoulie.
“I guess,” said Beamer with a shrug. “I never did like that saying, though. It always seemed to me that cuts and scratches healed a lot faster than hurts from words.”
As the transporter drew closer to the tree ship, Dashiell had even more things to say: “Talk about a rat trap!” he said with another twisted laugh. “That ship is nothing but splinters in the making. Are you sure it’s not going to blow down with the next breeze?”
Ghoulie was really getting tired of hearing Dashiell’s laugh. At that moment the wind picked up and he felt his hopes reviving.
But then the transporter bumped into its dock near the ship. “Hey, Scilla!” Dashiell shouted down to her. “Where did you say you’ve been in this termite nest? You have a better chance of finding aliens on a skateboard!”
Then the door to the tree ship opened, and someone stepped out. Dashiell screamed, and they both disappeared!
For a moment, nobody said anything.
“What . . . what happened?” Scilla finally asked.
“Where did they go?” Ghoulie asked at almost the same time.
Two heartbeats later, all three of them were scrambling up the tree.
“Somebody was up there with him,” Scilla gasped. “Somebody who came out of the ship.”
“Did anybody see who it was?” Beamer asked.
“I just heard the door open,” Ghoulie said. “Then there was the scream.”
“Who could it be? Jared? Jack?”
“Don’t know,” said Beamer as he pulled himself up on the ramp. “But we gotta find both of them faster than light!”
14
Rock and Roll
Dashiell had no idea where he was, except that it was dark. Wherever he was, the sound of his scream still echoed around like he was in an underground cavern. What did I see? It was a monster — that was for sure. Where is it now? He backed away from what he could not see. Then he began to sense a faint light. His eyes were adjusting. Slowly coming into view before him was the same creature he’d seen in the tree. He screamed again!
“What are you screaming about?” the creature asked, pumping her arms and fists down to her side in irritation. “Could you please quiet down before you break my eardrums?”
It’s a girl, thought Dashiell in amazement, the ugliest girl I’ve ever seen. “I . . . I . . . What . . . Where . . .?” he gasped. “You . . . you’re — ” he started. But then a whole sea of yellow eyes emerged from rocks and crevices behind the girl. Their eyes seemed to glow in the dark.
Dashiell backed away as these new creatures approached.
The ugly girl, who didn’t see them behind her, looked puzzled at his reaction. Then, when they were close enough that she probably felt their hot breath on her neck, she finally whipped around. She gave a shrill squeal and bolted back into Dashiell, who jumped immediately back from her.
The faces of the creatures with the glowing eyes became more visible. Their skin, which was very wrinkled and pale, glowed a light, phosphorescent green. But what puzzled Dashiell the most was how they crowded around the ugly girl. They shied away from him like he was a leper. But they were all over her, fondling her blonde hair and her clothing. If they kept this up, she had a good chance of being both bald and dressed in shreds very soon. In fact, they seemed to be fawning over her like she was a beauty queen or a goddess.
Ghoulie had concluded that Dashiell and his unwilling companion had been sent somewhere by the ship’s transporter, which was suddenly acting like a real transporter. They had no idea how to find out where they had gone, though, not as long as the ship remained in the tree.
But something was happening. Beamer was already wearing his uniform, and the tree ship was slowly morphing into something other than plywood.
“It couldn’t have sent them too far,” said Ghoulie as he ran to his crayon-painted instrument panel. “Come on, ship, take off!” he muttered, banging the plywood panel. “Take off!” The trouble, of course, was that, until the ship “took off,” those instruments would stay just paint on plywood. There was nothing to read. But even as he stared at it, the panel began to transform into the razzle-dazzle display familiar in their adventures.
“It’s happening,” said Beamer, who was already looking more mature in his uniform, “just much slower than usual.”
“We need to get out of this tree now!” yelled Scilla, becoming more distressed by the second.
“Hit the thruster switches, Ghoulie, and see what happens,” Beamer said.
Nothing happened. “Okay, okay,” Ghoulie said as he took some deep breaths. “Let’s all calm down. It’s just not ready yet.”
They all breathed deeply and either sat down or leaned against something. Scilla, whose jeans were turning into an ensign’s uniform, looked up at Beamer. “Didn’t you once say that when the meteor struck this tree, it was like . . . uh . . . ‘the finger of God touched the earth’?”
“That was Old Lady — I mean Ms. — Parker who said it,” Beamer answered. “But you’re right. God’s in charge even if his timing sometimes seems a little slow.”
The next thing Scilla heard was a lot of bleeping and clicking and whirring. She turned and saw that her instrument panel was all lit up. Then she wasn’t Scilla anymore.
Ensign Bruzelski quickly flicked through a number of screens on her monitor. That’s when she noticed a holographic image visible in the middle of the room. She had the strangest feeling that she hadn’t seen this holographic 3-D star chart before. But the thought faded, and she continued as if it had always been available. One point in the chart was highlighted. She zoomed in and said, “Hey, y’all, like I thought, they’ve been transported away, all right, but not too far away — well, within the solar system, anyway.”
“Then get us there!” Captain MacIntyre ordered. “Ignition!”
Suddenly they were traveling through what seemed to be a many-colored fog bank. They felt heavy, like their feet and legs were chained to concrete — their skin stretched like it was made of rubber.
“Ives!” the captain said. “Where have you put us?”
Something that looked like a huge jellyfish splattered onto a window. “I’m not sure, Captain,” Commander Ives said. “Looks like we’re in the middle of another ocean.”
“Then why do I feel like I’m wearing lead underwear and my stomach is in my big toe?” asked Ensign Bruzelski.
“Big sea . . . big planet,” groaned the commander with the enormous gravity stretching his lips across his face like splattered bubble gum.
Their ship gave in to the massive gravity and started to fall deeper into the multicolored sea. They fell faster and faster until it seemed as if they were dropping in an elevator. They and everything loose on the bridge hit the ceiling with a splat! Stomachs don’t really like all this confusion about up and down, so they rebelled.
I knew I should have skipped the anchovies, thought Scilla as she turned green.
“Come on, baby,” Commander Ives belched as he fired all thrusters, the antigravity array, as well as the electro-trashmatic, goonjammer defense array. The ship gradually slowed its fall and began to struggle back up. Everything — people and yecch — fell to the floor in a major splash.
Stars began to fade into view as the ship surged out of the soupy atmosphere.
At the same time, three huge boulders struck one another and blew apart. A spray of tiny rocks spattered across the hull like a hailstorm. Pretty soon, though, Bruzelski noticed that they were in a whole field of tiny rocks that kept splattering against the hull. Some of them stuck like chewing
gum and began to build up into globs.
“Take us somewhere else!” the captain commanded as he and Bruzelski stuffed chewing gum into the tiny airholes created by the stones.
Commander Ives hit the aft thrusters. They burst out of the hailstorm — not exactly into empty space, but to where you could see the rocks coming at least one at a time.
“Give us a view aft,” ordered Captain MacIntyre.
Aft . . . aft . . . aft . . . Scilla couldn’t remember what aft meant. Her ensign self knew, of course, but, in all the excitement, she’d sort of lost . . . herself.
“Get a move on, Ensign,” the captain growled.
Aft . . . What’s aft?
“I’m on it, Captain — just a little technical difficulty,” the ensign said, feeling more like Scilla than Ensign Bruzelski.
Scilla had never heard Beamer growl before. But then the captain wasn’t exactly Beamer, was he? She didn’t think they’d taught her the word aft in her first six grades. That left TV and movies — oh yeah, aft, that’s the rear, yes, rear view.
“Got it, Captain,” the ensign who was Scilla said.
Their view screen wasn’t Star Trek size, but it was still twice as big as most home-theater gizmos. So, when the lower-left corner of a huge yellow planet filled the top-right half of the screen, it was a sight that took their breaths away. Circling around the planet was a massive set of rock-strewn rings that cut diagonally all the way across the screen.
“It’s Saturn,” the ensign said in hushed reverence.
Yeah, Scilla knew all about Saturn. Ten times the size of Earth, it was the second largest planet in the solar system. Let’s see, last I heard it had over sixty moons —
Blee, blee, blee! An alarm sounded!
“Watch where you’re going!” the captain shouted at the same time.
The view screen switched to the front. Straight ahead, filling most of the screen, was a cloud-shrouded moon.
“Land — uh, moon dead ahead!” cried the ensign.
“Not the best choice of words,” the commander said as his hands flew over the instruments. “Whew, sure is crowded around here!”
“Get her nose up,” the captain yelled as they dived into the murky atmosphere.
They jostled around a bit, and finally the clouds began to clear.
“This doesn’t fit at all!” said the captain. The surface looked earth-like. “Zoom in!” he ordered.
“Aye, Captain,” answered the ensign. The picture adjusted and they could see that the surface was covered with forests, lakes, grasslands, and waterfalls. “We’re a long way from the sun. It should be as cold as ice down there. Which moon did you say this was?”
“Didn’t have time to figure it out,” said the commander, “but I think the thick layer of clouds must have caused a greenhouse effect that heated up this moon.”
“It would be pretty if it weren’t for the pimples,” said the ensign.
“What do you mean, pimples?” asked the captain.
“I saw them too,” said the commander. “Gray-colored bumps scattered a hundred miles or so apart across the surface.”
“And we’re going to crash into one of them if you don’t pull up,” the ensign shouted at the commander.
Commander Ives pulled the ship up at the last second, enough for them to skid across the surface like a rocket-powered sled. Slowing down the ship, though, was another thing.
“Uh . . . Commander,” the ensign said with a gulp. One of those pimples was growing pretty big in their view screen.
The commander punched the reverse thrusters. Gradually their skid slowed. It looked like he might pull it off. But then Bruzelski felt a slight bump. That was apparently enough to trigger some-thing. The pimple didn’t pop but it began to open, layer after layer, like an onion being peeled.
“What in blazes have we bumped into?” asked the commander in a hushed voice.
15
Mole People
Inside the pimple, or bubble, was something that looked like a honeycomb . . . actually more like a mountain of honeycombs. The honeycombs were connected by steps and walkways and bridges that crossed streams or rock gorges or streets.
After testing the atmosphere, the captain and Ensign Bruzelski emerged from a set of steps that folded down from beneath the ship.
A faint part of the captain that was still Beamer remembered that they didn’t have a door like this on the tree ship.
The captain didn’t see any trees or plants in the bubble city, except for what looked like several varieties of fluorescent moss and some mushrooms big enough to be small trees.
“The city must be a mile across,” said Bruzelski as she surveyed the honeycomb structures, which spread through the giant circle into the distance. “But where are all the people?”
Hardly anything was moving except the wind. Then they heard tiny voices.
The ensign shielded her eyes from the bright circle in the sky behind which the ringed planet hovered, and she peered across the honeycomb landscape. “Captain, over there,” she said, pointing toward the right. “Two figures appear to be running this way.”
Captain MacIntyre took a device out of his pocket, which he put on like a headband. A small screen flipped out from the band and expanded in front of his eyes. Now he could see clearly two people running, waving, and yelling at them.
Beamer thought the device was pretty cool, but it was apparently old news to the captain.
“Well, Bruzelski,” he said calmly, “it looks like we’ve found your stepbrother. The other one appears to be a civilian woman.”
Beamer was startled. The captain knew about Dashiell! It was funny, though, he didn’t seem to know him personally like Beamer did.
“Scilla . . . Beamer!” Alana cried happily when she was close enough to recognize them. Then she twisted around and called back, with her hands circling her mouth. “It’s all right! You can come out! They won’t hurt you!”
At least that’s what she meant to be saying. What the captain heard coming from her mouth was a flood of clicks and other sounds you might mistake as someone gargling in the bathroom.
Cringing and shielding themselves from the outdoor light, creatures began to stir out of their hiding places. With their big yellow eyes, very pale, wrinkled skin, and long, white hair, they gave a whole new meaning to the word ugly. Of course, they probably had a similar impression of the Star-Fighters.
As word spread on back through the city, crowds of them — hundreds and then thousands — soon appeared. Like little two-legged blobs of wrinkles, they moved up steps and walkways toward the edge of their flattened dome to look out in wonder over the landscape.
The captain tapped his communicator. “What do you have, Ives?” he asked. “What’s going on here?”
He immediately heard the commander’s voice. “Captain, I’ve been running their electronic transmissions through the universal translator. They seem to be thanking some golden goddess for saving them.”
The captain turned off his communicator as Dashiell and the girl he now vaguely recognized as Ms. Franck approached the ship. Their clothing looked strange — just colorless cloth wrapped around them, mummy-like, from their shoulders to their knees.
Almost out of breath from her long run, Ms. Franck stopped abruptly, giving them a puzzled look. “You are Beamer and Scilla, aren’t you? You look like them but older or something.”
The captain shook his head thoughtfully. The name Beamer did sound familiar, though he wasn’t sure why. “Not exactly, but I think we can take you to them.”
“What took you so long?” Dashiell asked. “We’ve been here for weeks!”
“Weeks?” exclaimed Ensign Bruzelski. “But we just left — ” Suddenly she wasn’t sure where they had left and when. After all, Star-Fighter patrols could last months at a time. Like the captain, her connection to her earthly counterpart was very faint. Scilla and her memories were like shadows in the ensign’s mind.
“These creatures haven’
t been on the surface of their world for eons!” Ms. Franck said excitedly.
“It took us a while to learn their language,” said Dashiell. “Actually, they wouldn’t talk much to me,” he said almost timidly. “Would you believe, they were grossed out by the sight of me?” He gave an embarrassed laugh and went on. “Not by her, though. She was Beauty and I was the Beast.”
“Yes, and I don’t understand why,” the girl said sheepishly. “I think he’s very handsome.”
“Anyway, what’s their story?” the captain asked, taking out his recorder.
“Well, one day very long ago, their world was pelted with rocks from the sky,” Ms Franck explained. “More and more came each day, bombarding their houses and streets.”
“Their moon must have veered into the orbit of Saturn’s rings,” the captain said, looking up toward the brightest part of the cloudy sky.
“A moon? This is a moon?” Dashiell asked in amazement. “Wow! Well, anyway, they moved underground to avoid the bombardment. Then they covered their settlement with large, unbreakable metal shells and just stayed there.”
Commander Ives’s voice erupted from the captain’s communica-tor. “Hey, Captain,” he said. “Inhabitants from this settlement are trying to persuade the inhabitants of the other shells to open up. Talk about a major squabble! The universal translator isn’t picking up everything, but it sounds like most of the others are afraid. In fact, I just heard one transmission in which another settlement accused this one of trying to deceive them. Here, let me patch you in.”
“Don’t you understand?” the captain heard a deep, rumbling voice ask above the other screeching voices online. “The bombardment stopped centuries ago. The danger is gone!” More voices rose in protest, but the first voice shouted above the others, “Take heed, I’m seeing green hills, rivers, and waterfalls. We’ve let our fears keep us from enjoying the beauty and bounty of our world long enough.”
