by Pam Stucky
“You love this sort of thing. The crazy stuff,” Bek said. To his guests, he explained, “Aly not only is the Science Ambassador, she also serves on the board of the Ka’Jovo Investigatory Committee. She loves the paranormal! She loves interrogating people! For once, I won’t be the one being interrogated!” He laughed.
Emma squirmed. Paranormal? Interrogation? Was this woman going to arrest them? She seemed nice, but anything was possible.
“Now,” said Aly, “Let’s begin. Who are you all, and why are you here? And, if I may ask, how did you get here? You are clearly not Klyvnini, but they found you in the water, and I’m told you were able to breathe under water as well. And you say you only have two arms, but my eyes want me to believe you have four.” She looked at the five strangers, one by one. “Who would like to begin?”
Eve looked at the others nervously, then spoke. “Well, actually, we’re from three different planets.”
“Three different planets!” exclaimed Bek with a burst of joy. “This just keeps getting better! Can you all tell my wife I arranged this? This would be good for ten years of anniversary presents!”
Aly shook her head with indulgent amusement. “Calm down, Bek. We have not yet established the motives of these people. They could be here to harm us, for all we know.”
Bek laughed. He crossed the room to a cabinet, from which he extricated a glass and a bottle filled with fluid. “I think I need a drink for this. Anyone else?”
Charlie looked at Emma, who shook her head at him. “I guess not,” he said.
Bek filled his glass with an amber liquid, and returned to his seat. “Please, do continue,” he said.
Eve looked at Aly, who nodded. “Well, like I said, we’re from three planets. My mom, Kata,” she gestured toward her mother, “she and I are from a planet called Lero. Emma, Charlie, and Ben are from a planet called Earth.” Emma, Charlie, and Ben raised their hands to identify themselves. “And Chuck, well, Chuck is from a planet called Earth, too, but not the same one.” Chuck confirmed this by bobbing his head.
“Wait,” said Aly. “These two, they are not brothers?” Aly looked from Chuck to Charlie and back. Emma wondered what they must look like to Aly, disguised as they were by the bracelet. Whatever their appearance, they must have still looked like twins.
“Parallel universes,” said Chuck, as though that explained everything.
“There’s … well, I mean, if you’re Science Ambassador, you know there are infinite universes, right?” said Emma. She looked at Aly to see whether the woman already knew that much, but Aly’s face remained stoic, giving away nothing. Emma continued. “So, there are infinite universes, and for every planet, we guess there are parallel planets, the same but not quite the same, and last time we were out traveling we met Chuck …”
“Emma and I are twins,” said Charlie. “Chuck and I are just exact duplicates.” Charlie and Chuck high-fived.
“You’re from different planets … parallel universes,” Aly repeated, absorbing the information. “The same planet, but different.”
“Yes,” said Emma, laughing nervously. “It’s sort of confusing.”
“And you all met … traveling through universes.” Aly said.
“Right,” said Emma. “See, Eve and her dad were on our Earth trying to find this guy, Vik, who wanted to destroy the universes, only it wasn’t really him, it was The Void, which, by the way, maybe we should warn you about. Anyway, we found Eve and her dad, Milo, in the lighthouse, with Dr. Waldo, in the Hub.” Even as she spoke she realized she was making no sense.
“The Hub?” said Aly, taking in every word. “What is the Hub?”
“The Hub is … well, so, universes are all layered … sort of like how you stack your hands in your greeting. That is, we thought the universes were all layered, until we found this universe, and Kata thinks maybe your universe is interwoven with ours, but other universes are layered, and there are thin spots where they meet, and at those thin spots, there are hubs. A hub is a place where everything is possible.”
“Universes are layered and interwoven. Everything is possible,” Aly repeated, almost to herself, carefully sorting and filing away in her mind the deluge of information.
“This is good,” said Bek, taking a drink of the amber liquid. Whether he meant the drink or the conversation wasn’t clear.
“Right, everything is … and at hubs, you can travel to other universes by elevators … well, they’re not really elevators, but …” Eve said.
“But Dr. Waldo, he’s a scientist from Eve’s home planet, Lero, he’s made ways to travel with other devices, like the pigeon or the Dark MATTER,” said Emma.
“A pigeon?” said Aly. She looked like she might have been a little sorry she asked.
“Not an actual pigeon—that’s a bird,” said Emma. “It’s just called that because it takes you home, and there are these birds, homing pigeons …”
“And while we were out looking for Vik,” Eve said, “we lost Mom. So then once we caught Vik, we started tracking Mom’s clues, to try to find her and bring her home. So we used the opal—the dark galaxy stone, and the magnets, and out at the labyrinth it opened up all the universes—”
“—and we saw the water universe,” said Charlie, “because Kata left us a clue, ‘water,’ so we jumped in—”
“—and that’s how we got here,” said Ben.
“—and when we lost our backpacks we lost all the Dark MATTERs and pigeons,” added Chuck, sighing heavily.
Aly sat, blinking, not saying a word.
Bek shook his head with an ever-growing smile, revealing a double row of bright white teeth. He poured himself another drink. “This is so good.”
Aly shook her head. “So, Kata is the one who was at our home first? Our caretaker said one of you was here before the rest.”
“I was,” said Kata, nodding.
“All right, they came here looking for you. Why did you come here?” asked Aly.
“Sheer curiosity,” said Kata. “It’s gotten me in trouble before, but never anything I couldn’t get out of.” She smiled sheepishly.
Suddenly, Aly burst out laughing. “Bek is right. This is good. Never in my life … do you know, at the Ka’Jovo Investigatory Committee, we’ve heard stories of aliens—we keep it quiet from the general public so as not to cause a panic—but I’ve heard reports of aliens coming here before. I never quite knew whether to believe it. Certainly never in my life did I imagine I would find some real live aliens right here in my home. You are indeed lucky you came here. Not everyone would be so welcoming. But as for me, I welcome you. This is incredible. If what you say is true … But wait. Emma, you said you only have two arms, but I’m seeing four. How are you doing that? How are you tricking my eyes?”
Emma squirmed. Were there rules in the multiverse, rules about who could know its secrets, or how they were to be revealed? Or was it all random? Did everyone stumble on the secrets of the universes in the same way she and Charlie had? Were there initiations, repercussions of sharing her knowledge? And who was she to make that decision, anyway?
While she was pondering, however, Charlie was being his usual headlong self. “It’s these bracelets,” he said, without a care for whether any interuniversal judges would rain judgment down on him. “One of these stones has … I don’t know, properties, I guess, that make us look like whoever is looking at us. Another stone is a translator; it lets us understand you and vice versa.”
“It’s never failed us before,” added Eve, rubbing her own bracelet. “It’s sort of weird that you guys can tell we’re not like you. Sort of scary, really.”
Aly reached out to Emma’s wrist and ran a finger over the stones on her bracelet. “Would you be willing to take it off?”
Emma looked at Kata. “The atmosphere stone. Will I be able to breathe without it?”
Kata frowned. “I’m not sure. Aly, do you know what your air is made up of?”
“Mostly nitrogen, a good amount of oxygen, some pil
ogen, that’s the main part of it,” said Aly. “One of your stones allows you to breathe?”
“It’s how we were able to breathe under water,” said Kata. “Pilogen, I’m not familiar with that. But with mostly nitrogen and oxygen, it shouldn’t kill us right away … I don’t think. Take a deep breath before you take it off,” she told Emma.
“Okay,” said Emma. She exhaled deeply, then took in a deep breath and pulled the bracelet off her wrist, giving it to Kata.
Aly and Bek gasped. Without the stone in her bracelet, however poorly it might have camouflaged her, Emma looked intensely different from their own species. Her two arms seemed useless in comparison with their own four. Her legs seemed stunted and clumsy. But it was her hair and face that fascinated them most. Next to their own bald, earless heads, Emma’s long auburn locks and protruding ears seemed almost wild.
“Oh my goodness,” said Aly, one of her hands fluttering to her chest, as another reached out for Bek’s knee.
“I cannot believe this,” said Bek. “An alien. A real live alien.” He laughed again, his chuckle contagious and deep.
Aly reached out to Emma’s hair. “May I?”
But Emma, without the bracelet on, suddenly couldn’t understand anything Aly or Bek was saying. She could tell from the inquisitive expression on everyone’s faces that one of them had asked her a question. She looked helplessly at Charlie and pointed at her ears, then his bracelet.
“Oh!” said Charlie. “The translator stone! She can’t understand without the translator stone! Aly wants to know if she can touch your hair.”
Emma nodded, still holding her breath, her lungs starting to burn.
With her two right hands, Aly caressed the waves of Emma’s shoulder-length hair. “It’s so smooth,” said Aly. “It’s like the hair of an animal.”
Unable to hold her breath anymore, Emma exhaled. Instinctively, before she could catch herself, she inhaled again.
“Oh!” she said. “I breathed!” Cautiously, she inhaled and exhaled shallowly. “I think it’s okay,” she said.
“Better safe than sorry,” said Kata, handing Emma’s bracelet back to her. “Put this on.”
Emma stared at Kata. “I can’t understand you, either. This is weird. I mean, it’s normal, because why would I be able to understand aliens? But it’s weird.”
“Put your bracelet on,” translated Charlie.
Emma did as she was told.
“We couldn’t understand you, either, with your bracelet off,” said Aly. “That is a powerful tool. I would like to study it more later, if I might?”
Emma nodded.
“Now it’s my turn,” said Kata.
On hearing this, Emma realized that other than the photo Eve had shown them of Kata, she had never actually seen either Kata or Eve without their bracelets. Emma usually almost forgot Eve wasn’t from Earth.
Kata threw a glance at Eve, and together they removed their bracelets, Kata handing hers to Emma and Eve handing hers to Chuck.
“Why do you give them to someone else?” asked Aly. It was clear why she was a scientist: she was curious about everything, full of questions, eager to learn.
“I think if we were still holding them we might still be protected,” explained Emma, realizing that Kata and Eve would not be able to understand any of them now. Aly nodded.
On seeing Kata and Eve, the shock was less for Aly and Bek; to them, these two were not much different from Emma. This time it was Emma, the Charlies, and Ben who stared.
“Your hair,” said Emma. She remembered the first time she’d met Eve, how she’d been jealous of the girl’s long white-blond hair. She remembered thinking it shone like a full moon. Seeing it now, unmasked, she felt the assessment was more accurate than she’d realized. Eve’s hair, and Kata’s too, was so shiny and smooth it almost glowed. No curls or waves interrupted the cascades of hair that fell from their heads to well past their shoulders.
“And your skin,” said Charlie. The skin of the Leroians was so delicate as to seem almost translucent. Emma thought if she looked closely enough she might be able to see not just veins but organs; that she might even be able to see straight through to their bones.
As for their bodies, they were, more or less, like those of the Earthlings. Their fingers were slightly longer and more delicate, as were their necks. Their eyes were spaced slightly wider apart; their pupils were similar but slightly larger than those of the people they’d been traveling with, round and dark in contrast to Aly and Bek’s wide rectangular ones. Eve was about Emma’s height; Kata was a little taller.
Aly nodded: she was done with her assessment. Kata and Eve put their bracelets on again.
“And these three?” said Bek.
Ben, Charlie, and Chuck removed their bracelets.
“Are you sure these two are not twins?” asked Bek, looking at Charlie and Chuck. “They look exactly alike.”
“Parallel universes,” said Emma. “Parallel Earths. There’s another Emma, too, Chuck’s sister, but he says she didn’t want to come along. I wish she would have.”
“So there is a parallel to every being?” asked Bek, his curiosity intense, his delight overflowing. “There is a parallel me somewhere?”
“Infinite universes,” said Eve, “so infinite everything. Probably several parallel yous. Technically, I suppose there are infinite parallel yous.”
“One is enough,” said Aly with a twinkle in her eye. Bek roared with laughter.
Charlie, Chuck, and Ben put their bracelets back on so they could join in the conversation.
“I would like to have a Bek convention!” Bek continued. “For all the infinite Beks to come together and meet! Can you imagine! Charlie and Chuck, I envy you. What a treasure, meeting your alternate self! What an extraordinary opportunity.”
Charlie nodded heartily. “We have to agree, twice the Charlie is a pretty fabulous thing.”
Emma rolled her eyes so hard she thought she might break her eyeballs.
“So that’s us,” said Eve.
“Inadvertent travelers, exploring while we can,” said Kata.
“I am jealous,” said Bek. “Maybe I will come with you sometime.”
Kata smiled. “So what about you? Where are we? What is this planet called? And who were those creatures who so generously brought us here?”
Bek got up to refill his glass. “Is anyone hungry?” he asked. “I can make us up a plate of something.”
Charlie and Chuck shot their hands in the air.
“Starving,” said Chuck.
“Ravenous,” said Charlie.
While Bek went to the kitchen to prepare some food, Aly started in on the story of their planet. “This planet is called Jovo,” she said. “Or rather, that’s what we, the Ka’Jovo, call it. Ka’Jovo means the people of Jovo. We share this planet with those creatures you saw. We call them the Klyvnini. They call themselves oo’broo, and they call us ah’broo.”
“They speak?” said Chuck. “Those octopuses?”
“Octopuses?” said Aly, pronouncing the word carefully. “I am not familiar with octopuses. Can you explain?” Her peaceful demeanor and air of profound interest made it clear why she’d been selected for the office of Ambassador.
“Octopuses,” said Chuck, “they’re animals in the sea where we live. They look a lot like your … uh … oo’broo.”
“That’s right, oo’broo or Klyvnini,” said Aly.
“I’m not an octopus expert, frankly,” said Chuck. “They’re sea creatures. They have eight tentacles with suckers on them, and I think they’re smart, and that’s about all I know.”
“Your octopuses,” said Aly, “you don’t communicate with them?”
Charlie laughed. “Well, no. They’re animals.” He squirmed.
“But you say they’re smart,” said Aly. “How do you know they’re smart? And if they have intelligence, why don’t you communicate with them?”
“Well,” said Emma, “they’re … they’re not that smart.
I mean, they don’t have language.” Even as she said it, Emma realized the error in her argument. “That is, they don’t … I guess they don’t understand our language.”
“But do you understand theirs?” asked Aly. Her questions were non-judgmental, pure curiosity.
“No,” said Ben. “We don’t. At least I don’t. I’m sure some scientists do, or at least they know part of it. Our language is a lot more sophisticated than theirs, I guess. They have intelligence, but not like human intelligence.”
“‘Human,’ that’s you?” asked Aly.
“Yes,” said Emma. “Charlie, Chuck, Ben, and I, we’re humans. Our planet has lots of creatures, but we’re the only ones … well, we’re the smartest.” She blushed, realizing how arrogant that sounded, even if it was true.
Aly nodded. “We Ka’Jovo thought the same here, not so long ago. We thought we were the only intelligent life. Just a hundred years ago, even. Because the Klyvnini are under water, and we are above water, we didn’t really see or study them. We dismissed them. And I will tell you,” she shifted her eyes left and right, as though she was checking to see who might be listening, “to be honest, the intelligence of the Klyvnini is … not the same as the intelligence of the Ka’Jovo. But they are sentient beings. They have consciousness. They have awareness of themselves and their society. They have some degree of community and civilization. And they are aware of us. More than we have been of them.”
“Why is that?” asked Eve. “How can they know more about you, if you’re above ground and they’re under water?”
“We were somewhat careless about the oceans,” said Aly. “They’re vast. Our planet is almost all ocean, about eighty-seven percent is covered by water.”
“What percentage of Earth is covered by water?” Eve asked, looking at Emma.
“I think … like seventy percent?” Emma replied uncertainly. “Somewhere around there, I think.”
Ben raised his hand. “I actually studied that recently in a project back at the Hub. You’re right, Emma. It’s about seventy-one percent. So Jovo has even more ocean than Earth does.”
