At last Loghoz quieted the crowd enough to begin. “By Great Jalasu Jhuk of the Stars,” it cried in a piercing voice, “let this, the eight hundred twentieth Grand Conclave of the Xotonian people, commence! The first to speak shall be Chorkle. . . .”
I greeted the crowd and recounted the events on Kyral—with a few key omissions, of course. The humans stepped in at points to help tell the tale. Little Gus was particularly excited to describe the contribution of Pizza, who had apparently defeated a hundred Vorem legionaries all by himself. The crowd gasped and many wept as they heard what happened to Kalac. I found it hard not to cry myself. But when they learned that we had recovered the nyrine quantum inducer, a huge cheer went up over the plaza.
Four resolutions were proposed that day. The first was to hold a new election for the position of Chief of Council in three weeks’ time. In the interim, Loghoz, the Custodian of the Council, would assume the duties of the Chief. This passed almost unanimously. Loghoz cried a little and tried to give a speech but somehow got sidetracked and descended into an extended rant about the importance of proper hygiene. At some point, Glyac nodded off.
The second resolution was for the immediate release of Hudka and the dismissal of the charge of sedition that had been leveled against it. This too passed easily, though not with as many votes as the first one. Hudka had irritated enough Xotonians in its day that more than a few were happy to see it rot in jail for a while longer.
The third resolution proposed was for the immediate and permanent imprisonment of Sheln. Loghoz would not allow it to come to a vote, though, since Sheln had technically violated no law. I have no doubt it would have passed. I can’t say for sure how I would have voted.
The fourth and final resolution was to hold a complete performance of the Jalasad the following day. At this, the crowd gave another wild cheer.
After the Conclave broke up, we proceeded to the Hall of Wonok for Hudka’s release.
“I missed you,” I said.
“Eh, it’s not the first time I’ve been arrested, and it won’t be the last,” said Hudka as it gave me a big hug.
“Yo, Hudka!” said Little Gus. “You get any cool tattoos while you were on the inside?”
“Yup, I got one of me kicking your butt at Xenostryfe III.”
“That sounds like a very complicated tattoo,” said Nicki.
When we were alone, the humans and I told Hudka everything that had happened. This time we held nothing back. And this time I did cry when I spoke of Kalac’s capture. Hudka cried too. It was the only time I’d ever seen it do so.
“Don’t worry,” said my grand-originator, drying its eyes. “Kalac will be all right.”
“How can you be sure?” I asked.
Hudka stared at me. “Because it’s got an offspring like you looking out for it.”
Just then, Eromu walked past us toward the hall. The guard captain was leading Taius Ridian by the arm. Taius turned, and for a second his red eyes met mine. I wanted to say something to him, but I didn’t know what. He turned away, though, and the heavy doors closed behind him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
We looked out from the Observatory on a sea of lights twinkling in the darkness. We weren’t looking through some telescope at the stars though. We were staring out a window, down upon Core-of-Rock. The nyrine quantum inducer had been successfully reinstalled, and the ancient reactor had hummed back to life. Again, the Stealth Shield concealed us from outsiders. The city glowed once more.
“It’s kind of beautiful, isn’t it?” said Becky.
“Yep,” I said.
“Are you guys talking about my hair again?” said Little Gus, sidling up to us.
“Nope,” said Becky, “I’ve never actually looked directly at your hair. I’m worried about retina damage.”
“Witty repartee!” said Little Gus. “We’re having fun! I love it!”
Becky cocked her head and squinted at him. “Dude, you’re a special case, you know that?” And she left to join the others.
Little Gus beamed. “You hear that, Chorkle?” he whispered, nudging me with his elbow. “She said I’m special to her.”
“Well, that’s not exactly what she—”
“She. Said. I’m. Special. To. Her,” he repeated.
“She sure did,” I said, clapping him on the back. Gus smiled and nodded.
“Are you two ready?” asked Hollins.
We joined him and the twins in the center of the Observatory. Nicki was fiddling with the tachyonic ansible we’d recovered from Kyral, adjusting various nobs and sliders. Hudka stood beside her, “supervising” (acting as if it knew what was going on). So did Ydar, the High Observer, who was a nervous wreck.
The Observers had spent weeks studying the device’s manual and connecting it to various power sources, intakes, and outputs within the Observatory. In fact, there was every indication that the chamber had held its own ansible once, but it had been deliberately removed. Still, the High Observer feared that activating the device would cause some irreparable damage to the other systems.
“I just need to make sure that the synchronistic convergence is set to zero,” Nicki muttered to herself.
“If possible, please set it below zero,” offered Ydar.
“Aw, lighten up, Ydar. It’s all just stuff,” said Hudka, waving at the priceless technology that filled Observatory. “You can’t take it with you to the Nebula Beyond.” Ydar was not comforted.
Nicki and the Observers had calculated Gelo’s approximate distance and direction from Earth and calibrated the device accordingly. If the ansible functioned properly, it would transmit a message instantaneously, where it could be received as radio waves. Likewise, it could detect a reply along the same radio frequency. The humans’ anticipation was palpable.
Becky took a deep breath. “So . . . shall we phone home?”
“Absolutely,” said Nicki. “I just hope this thing doesn’t blow up.”
“Wait, what?” said Ydar. But she’d already activated the ansible. It made an oscillating whine as the screen lit up with red static.
“My dad is never going to believe it,” said Little Gus quietly. “I made soup on another planet.”
Nicki made one small adjustment to a particular dial, then nodded to Hollins. He began his familiar message: “Hello. This is Daniel Hollins, Nicole García, Rebecca García, and Augustus Zaleski of the Nolan-Amaral mining vessel Phryxus. We are safe on the asteroid Gelo, orbiting a habitable planet called Kyral, approximately forty-two light-years from earth. Is anyone out there? Over.”
There was silence.
Hollins began again. “Hello, this is Daniel Hollins, Nicole—”
“Did you say . . . forty-two light-years?” crackled the ansible.
The static on the screen resolved itself into a face. It was a human face, kind and female and somewhat more lined than the faces of the children. Tears shone in the woman’s eyes.
“Hi, Mom,” said Hollins.
“Danny, you’re alive,” she said. “I can’t believe it. You’re all alive.”
“Yes. And we’re coming home.”
“No. No, Danny. Listen to me. You can’t come home,” said Commander Hollins. “Not yet.”
The human children looked at one another.
“Why?” asked Hollins.
“Because,” she said, “Earth has been conquered.”
LOOKING FOR ANOTHER OUT OF THIS WORLD ADVENTURE?
More secrets await behind the second-to-last door at the end of the hall in Robert Paul Weston’s fantastic series:
CHAPTER 1
In which Elliot doesn’t want to go to Foodie School, and Leslie would rather be in Paris
Elliot von Doppler, you come down here right now or I swear, I’ll boil you in soup and serve you to your father!”
Elliot pulled the covers ov
er his head. This soup ultimatum was the third such threat in the last five minutes (his mother had also promised to flash-fry one of his kidneys and pickle his fingers in vinegar).
Of course, it is important to stress that Elliot von Doppler’s parents had never eaten anyone, nor did they intend to. They weren’t cannibals. They were food critics.
Peter and Marjorie von Doppler edited the Food section of the Bickleburgh Bugle. Together, they wrote a daily column called “Chew on This,” offering reviews of local restaurants. Occasionally, they even went on tasting trips across the country and around the world. In short, they had haute cuisine on the brain (even when they were trying to get their son out of bed in the morning).
“I’m not kidding, Elliot. You know how much your father likes a good borscht!”
Elliot groaned.
“I’m going to count to three, young man. After that, I’m coming up there to drown you in hollandaise sauce.”
(Don’t worry, Elliot’s mother would never do this. In fact, she doesn’t know how to make hollandaise sauce. In spite of their jobs, both Elliot’s parents are terrible chefs.)
“One!”
Elliot rolled out of bed and dressed himself. He put on shorts and a T-shirt, topping them off (as always) with a bright green fishing vest.
“Two!”
Elliot reached for his most prized possession: an original DENKi-3000 Electric Pencil with Retractable Telescopic Lens. It had been a gift from his uncle Archie, and it was an antique. The electric pencil was the first product DENKi-3000 ever produced.
“THREE! That’s it, young man. I’m sending your father up there with a garlic press.”
“I’m coming!” Elliot called back. He slunk down the stairs to the kitchen and saw breakfast was on the table. Soggy boiled tomatoes and burnt toast.
“We spent a lot of time on this breakfast,” his father informed him. He sat at the head of the table, the morning’s Bickleburgh Bugle in his hands. “So I don’t want to hear any complaints.”
“Have a seat,” said Elliot’s mother, eyeing him carefully. “Tell us what you think.”
Elliot did his best to moisten the blackened, rock-hard toast with the juice of the tomatoes. It didn’t help.
He was halfway through eating (more like forcing down) his breakfast when he noticed an envelope sitting in the middle of the table.
It had his name on it.
“What’s that?”
“Your uncle stopped by on the way to work this morning,” his mother told him.
“What? He was here?” Elliot was astonished.
His mother nodded ruefully. “He vanishes for weeks on end, as usual, and then—POOF!—he shows up looking for you.”
“Me?” Now Elliot was even more astonished. Uncle Archie practically lived at DENKi-3000 headquarters. The company’s unusual buildings were just on the other side of Bickleburgh Park, but Uncle Archie never “stopped by,” not for anything. He was famous for missing birthdays, Christmases, soccer games . . . all the usual stuff. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I have enough trouble getting you up at the regular time. Anyway, he left you that note.”
Elliot (happily) gave up on his breakfast and tore open the envelope. Inside was a brief, hastily jotted letter.
Dear Elliot,
For years, you’ve been asking me for a tour of the company, but I’ve always been too busy. With the way things are going, though, I’ve decided that now is the time. Why don’t you stop by today and I’ll show you around.
Yours truly,
Uncle Archie
PS: You’d better bring your friend, Leslie, too.
Elliot squinted at the letter, his mouth hanging open.
“What does it say?” asked his father.
“Uncle Archie wants to give me a tour—today.”
Perhaps noting his bewildered expression, his mother asked, “Shouldn’t you be happy about that?”
“I am, but . . .”
“But what?”
“But who’s Leslie?”
“I’m not sure I follow,” said his mother.
“Look,” said Elliot, pointing to the bottom of the letter. “It says, ‘PS: You’d better bring your friend, Leslie, too.’”
“Nice of him to invite her as well,” said his father from behind his newspaper.
“But I don’t have a friend named Leslie.” Elliot didn’t want to admit it, but he didn’t have many friends at all (or any).
“Wait,” said his mother. “Isn’t that the name of the girl from the science fair?”
“Leslie Fang?”
“Of course,” said his mother. “That must be who he means.”
“It can’t be,” said Elliot. He hardly knew Leslie Fang. She had arrived only a couple months before school let out for the summer, so there wasn’t time for anyone to make friends with her. “Why would he want me to bring her along? We’re not even in the same class.”
It was true. The only reason Elliot knew Leslie was because they had tied for third place in the Bickleburgh City Science Fair. (They had both designed nearly identical model rocket ships, which was kind of embarrassing, even if you ended up tying for third place.)
His mother thought about the question for a moment. “I often see that girl on my way to work, just sitting all by herself in the park. She’s been there nearly every day since school let out for summer, and to be honest, she looks quite lonely. Maybe Uncle Archie noticed the same thing.”
Elliot slumped in his chair. He didn’t much like the idea of sharing his uncle with someone else, but what could he do? Leslie Fang was the only Leslie he knew, and there was no way he was going to pass up a once-in-a-lifetime tour of DENKi-3000.
“Fine,” he mumbled. “I’ll ask her. If I see her. Can I go now?”
“Not until you finish your breakfast,” said his father.
“And give us your review,” added his mother.
Elliot looked glumly down at his plate. He pushed some black crumbs across a puddle of tomato juice. Struggling to gulp down the rest of the meal, his eyes wandered to the front page of the newspaper in his father’s hands.
There was a large photograph of the DENKi-3000 headquarters. Spanning across it was a headline:
Technology Giant to Close Its Doors?
Elliot choked on a mouthful of breakfast (which wasn’t hard to do at all). “Close its doors?” he spluttered. “As in shut down?”
His father nodded. “That’s probably why Uncle Archie is finally giving you a tour. It’s now or never.”
“What does that mean?”
“There’s another company,” his father explained. “Some big investment firm. They’re gonna buy the whole thing. People expect them to move the headquarters overseas.”
“But . . .” Elliot couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What will happen to Uncle Archie?”
“Hard to say,” said Elliot’s mother. “Nobody really knows.”
Elliot stared at the newspaper. In the bottom corner of the majestic image of DENKi-3000 was an inset photo of a very old man. He had shaggy gray hair and a thick gray beard and he was dressed in a brown cardigan and circular, gold-rimmed spectacles. The caption below the old man said: Sir William Sniffledon, DENKi-3000’s longtime CEO, admits serious financial difficulty.
It was odd to think this old man, who looked more like a doddering librarian, was the high-powered CEO of a company as big as DENKi-3000. Elliot’s eyes moved to the first few lines of the article:
The head office of DENKi-3000, the fifth-largest technology producer in the world and one of Bickleburgh’s largest employers, could be set to close its doors in a matter of months.
Following a year of less-than-stellar profits, the company seems ripe for acquisition by Quazicom Holdings, a private capital investment firm. DENKi-3000 CE
O Sir William Sniffledon said, “It would be a sad day for Bickleburgh if . . .
Elliot returned his eyes to the photograph. The DENKi-3000 buildings were the most interesting things in the city: four glass towers climbing up from a vast oval of land. In spite of having an uncle who was head of the company’s Research and Development Department, Elliot had never set foot inside the heavily secured gates.
He pushed his plate away, finally finished. “If Uncle Archie invited me, I’d better not keep him waiting.”
“Not so fast, mister.” His father pointed to the red-and-black mash drizzling across his plate. “Not until we get our review.”
“Do I have to?”
All his parents cared about was describing food. Was it really so crazy to just want to eat it?
“How are you going to get into Foodie School if you don’t start practicing?” asked his father.
“What if I don’t want to go to Foodie School?”
“Don’t you want to grow up to be a famous food critic, like your parents?”
“Maybe I’d rather be more like Uncle Archie.”
“I’m not sure he’s someone you want to emulate.” His mother glanced at the newspaper.
Elliot, of course, had no intention of becoming a famous food critic. However, he knew if he wanted to see his uncle, he would first have to appease his parents.
“So?” asked his mother.
“Be as descriptive as possible,” said his father.
Both of them leaned anxiously across the table.
“Well . . . it was . . .” Elliot struggled to find the words. “Crunchy. And wet.”
His father frowned. “That’ll never get you into Foodie School.”
“Can I go now?”
“I suppose,” said his mother, a little reluctantly. “Say hi to your uncle for us.”
For the Love of Gelo! Page 23
