by Adam Holt
Souvenirs, knick-knacks, and weapons were sprawled across the room, some behind panels and some in the open. We rummaged through the downstairs together. I held up a box of cologne.
“An alien’s got to smell good,” said Sunjay. “They probably have wives or whatever. They need things to bring home.”
“Classy choice,” I said, holding up an “I Love Alaska” coffee mug. “Seriously? Nobody’s bringing that home to a wife.”
“Maybe he would,” said Janice. “Oh, look at these seeds. They’re roses and lilies. He’s bringing them home for his garden.”
“Seven foot tall tattooed mercenary aliens do NOT have gardens!” I said.
“Don’t get all defensive about it,” she said. “I’m just thinking out loud.”
“You haven’t seen them,” I said. “You don’t know what they’re like.”
“Look, just because they’re muscular and tattooed doesn’t make them completely evil. My cousin Chris has muscles. He’s also got a girlfriend and a mohawk. He’s smart, too. Astrophysicist. He would so grow roses for his girlfriend.”
I picked up a black staff and turned it on. “Does your sweet cousin carry weapons that can shoot purple fireballs and pin people to the wall?”
“No, but he’s got a lacrosse stick.”
“Stars, don’t touch those, Sunjay,” I said.
“Those aren’t going to hurt him,” said Janice. “Everybody wears them.”
“What are they—oooh,” he said, tossing them down.
Yes, aliens wear underwear, too.
Janice never accepted anything I said as the truth. Why did she have to turn everything into a debate? She pretended like she knew everything about the Ascendant, even though she had never seen one.
There were, however, plenty of things we had not seen before on the ship. We got a better look at the alien food supply.
“Stars, it smells like tuna and spinach!” Sunjay yelled, throwing down the hose and splattering Janice. She picked up the hose and slapped him with it.
“Guys, easy! That stuff could melt your face off,” I said. Probably not, but they stopped. Janice punched Sunjay again anyway. He pretended to pick up the hose and drink it. Were they, could they have been flirting? Weird.
One of the bunks also had a music player—the old ones that made you scroll through all the songs on a screen and shove plastic speakers into your ears. Nasty earwax issues, Tabitha would have said. Sunjay saw the player first, but I pounced on it before he did. “Hey, that could melt your ears off,” he said. I pocketed the player and laughed.
Finally, there was the box in the corner. Shaped like an old timey telephone booth, it was pitch black with two footpads in the middle and one door. A mirror was on the far wall.
“Ooh, I know what that is,” said Janice. “The one thing we haven’t found on the ship so far. Go for it, Sunjay.”
“Huh?” said Sunjay. Then it dawned on us. Like I said, the Ascendant aren’t that different than humans. “Oh, no way.”
“But we’re all going to have to,” she told him. “Why don’t you be the brave one?”
Sunjay looked perplexed. He didn’t like uncertainties, but girl pressure got the best of him. He took another swig of water and handed me his beef jerky. “I’ll be right back. Eat my snacks and you die.” The door opened like an accordion when he approached, snapping shut behind him. Janice raised an eyebrow at me, like she had won some sort of battle. Moments later, after a few cranking noises, Sunjay’s muffled voice said, “All clear so far. Purple lights are on. Ooh, a seat appeared! I’m sitting down on the seat, looking at myself in the mirror. I’m dropping my—”
“Look, we don’t need a play-by-play of everything,” Janice said.
“Okay, sorry. Just going to take my—wait, what is that?”
A high-pitched whine came from the box. “Ooh, guys, uh, that thing looks grabby. It’s coming out of the toilet. Is that a…whaahhh!” Sunjay banged on the door. “Whoa, ho, whoa. No-no-no, AHHH! It’s got me. AHHH GAHHH!”
Janice and I ran to the door and yanked, but it didn’t budge. Sunjay stopped screaming after a few seconds. “No, don’t open it. I’m okay. I’m, AHHHHH! No, I’m good, it’s fine. Noo. AHHHH!”
This went on for about a minute. Janice and I didn’t know what to do. One thing you don’t do. You don’t break down the bathroom door when your best friend is in there, even if he’s dying. Some things are worse than death.
We waited. The sounds diminished.
“I guess he’s not dead?” asked Janice.
I shrugged. Then the whine slowed down. The door creaked open. Sunjay stepped out, looking pale.
“You don’t look so good,” Janice said. “Wait, is your shirt on backwards?”
Sure enough it was, and his hair was shiny and slicked back with some sort of alien hair product. He tried to shake his hair into his eyes but it was glued backwards. We both started to laugh but he held up his hand.
“Two words—awkward and suction,” said Sunjay. “Laugh all you want. It’s only a matter of time until you have to use it.” Good point. After that, we didn’t laugh.
CONSTANT ACCELERATION
So our downstairs inventory, including the mysterious bathroom, continued for another twenty minutes before we climbed upstairs. Janice beamed our notes onto the wall, where a glowing shark was swimming in front of a coral reef.
“Thanks,” my dad said. “Useful stuff.”
“Two questions, Commander,” said Janice. “Question number one: besides being tall, what do the Ascendant look like?”
My dad referred her to Sunjay and me. Janice rolled her eyes and tried question number two. “Commander, why do we still have gravity? We ought to be in zero G in outer space.”
My dad nodded. Much better question. “Constant acceleration. You know how in a hovercar, you can feel the acceleration? It pushes you back in your seat as long as you keep pressing the accelerator. Well, the physics are the same on this ship. See this?” A number scrolled up and up and up beside the map. “That’s our speed. We have gravity because we are constantly accelerating.”
“You mean the ship is still speeding up?” she asked.
“All the time. The constant acceleration keeps us standing up and feeling normal. It’s exactly 1G. I think it’s how the Ascendant tried to prepare for Earth’s gravity. My guess is that we will keep accelerating until the halfway point between Earth and Europa. That’s about a week from now.”
“So we will be in zero G after that?” I asked, hoping for some gravity-free fun.
“Maybe for a little while, but we have to decelerate, too.”
That sounded weird. It seemed like we should just keep going as fast as we could until we arrived at our destination.
“It ain’t like slammin’ on the brakes at a stoplight,” said Buckshot. “If we accelerated all the way to Europa and then hit the brakes, we’d fly right by the planet. If we did manage to stop, we’d feel a lot more G’s than our bodies could handle. 8, 10, 100 G’s? We’d be plastered to this floor like bugs on a windshield.”
“100G’s? That would make me like 10,000 pounds,” said Janice.
“Okay, lightweight. I’d be 22,000 pounds,” he said, “and pretty dead.”
“So that’s one week acceleration,” my dad said, “and one week deceleration. We will plan for some microgravity in the middle. We’ll use that time to train for Europa.”
I tuned out from their conversation thinking about zero G. Nothing would be more fun than floating around the upper deck. The domed ceiling was forty feet high. We would have an enormous free space to play. I imagined myself running up the walls, spinning through the air, and battling with the black staffs. Oh, yes, those. Where are those staffs hidden in the wall? As they kept talking and pointing to our route on the star map, I searched the wall until I found the right storage compartment. I pulled the black staff from its holster. As soon as I did, the starmap shot toward the ceiling and flattened to form a starry night s
ky.
“Tully, what the stardust!” said Janice. I looked at the staff in my hands. “You made the map disappear, and, whoa…”
Whoa, indeed. The star map was nothing: the entire room transformed. The floor suddenly looked like sand under our feet. I could almost feel its grittiness. A new projection covered the dome. An ancient Roman arena with stone bench seats encircled us. Jupiter, its moon, and its rings filled the sky.
Then from the archways between the seats came an Ascendant crowd, tattooed, rowdy and gesturing at us, some cheering and some booing. The crowd swelled to thousands. Tattooed aliens with long black braided hair filled the stands. They wore tunics of different color and sat in sections according to those colors. It was a rude introduction to their way of life.
“Unreal,” I said. “Dad, it’s a virtual room like your office.”
“Your dad’s office ain’t nothing compared to this,” said Buckshot. “No offense, Mike, but this is a full-blown virtual combat simulator, complete with nutso alien fans. And we’re the entertainment.”
“Yes!” Sunjay grabbed another staff from the holster. He spun it over his head, did a flying back kick, and faced off against me. The crowd roared with approval. “This is going to rule! En garde, Tully!”
“Uh, what exactly are these?” asked Janice, pointing to our weapons. “I’ll add them to our inventory.”
“A black staff,” said Little Bacon, “is an Ascendant weapon designed to toss, freeze, or fry a foe.”
“Pretty good definition, LB,” I said.
“Hold on,” my dad said. “These look like training staffs, but let’s test the equipment before we start freezing or frying each other.”
In the stands the crowd booed. They expected a fight, but we tested the staffs instead. Fortunately, they weren’t as powerful as the real thing. Sunjay and I showed Janice how to use them:
1.) TOSS. The easiest. All it takes is a twist of the wrist, like turning a key in a door, and you can catch, grab, or toss any small object or person. The only problem is it is hard to lock on to a moving object.
Sunjay tossed me across the room as an example. My dad shook his head.
2.) STUN. Also pretty easy. Rear back and then punch toward your opponent to send a stun shot their way. They’ll be frozen for a few minutes or maybe an hour, depending on your accuracy. It’s effective but your opponent can block it with another black staff.
I stunned Sunjay’s arm and he dropped his staff. Then I stunned Buckshot’s leg and he fell on the floor. I couldn’t resist.
3.) INCINERATE. The trickiest maneuver. It requires you to spin the staff once above your head. That produces the ball of flame. Then you have to fling the fireball toward your opponent. It’s slow but there’s no way to block this one. If you don’t dodge it, you’ll be burned or turned to ashes.
For this one, Sunjay took off his shirt and threw it into the corner. He “incinerated” it, which only made it feel like it came out of the world’s hottest clothes dryer.
“Okay, four staffs added to the inventory,” said Janice. “Let’s move on.”
“Enough inventory,” said Sunjay. “Let’s fight.”
“Uh, let’s not,” said Janice. I gripped my staff and motioned her aside. She rolled her eyes and backed up to let us fight.
“Take it slow,” said my dad. “Just spar for a minute and put them away.”
Sunjay and I shrugged. We had hoped to toss and stun each other, but this was better than nothing. So Sunjay let out a war cry, circled me, and then unleashed a flurry of kicks and staff attacks, most of which I dodged and the rest I blocked. He spun the staff over his head. The virtual crowd cheered for him and jeered at me. Then Sunjay looked over at Janice and winked.
“Oh, my gosh, did you just really?” she said, laughing. “Tell me there’s something in your eye.”
“Oh, no, not the wink attack. Janice, you’re doomed,” I said.
Sunjay frowned and redoubled his attacks. The crowd went roasters, cheering him on as I backed away. I played defense, as usual, and was blocking fine until his staff contacted the back of my scarred hand. The pain shot up my arm, and memories flooded my mind – of fighting Sawyer in the Hamster Wheel, of the last seconds with Tabitha. My anger rose. It was time for offense. Sunjay wasn’t ready, and I felt an extra jolt of power and speed. Were my powers kicking in again? I wasn’t sure, but in a nanosecond he was in retreat mode. I heard the clack of my staff against his staff, then against his shin and his head, and I was about to strike again when something rattled behind me. Sunjay dropped his staff and pointed over my shoulder. Everyone else backed away from me. I turned around and noticed that it wasn’t me they were backing away from. I had bumped the crate of dynamite with my staff.
The word “DANGER!” glowed red for a moment, like the box was angry with me. I placed my staff on the wall and backed away. The dusty floor changed to shiny black, and the arena, with its roaring crowd, disappeared as if it had never been there. The star map and music returned. Fortunately, the crate no longer glowed.
“I said to take it slow,” my dad said.
“Are you serious?” I said. “You’re the one that brought a box of dynamite on board. Inventory that, Dad!”
Silence. Tension. Whoops.
“Janice,” my dad said coolly, “please add box of dynamite to your inventory at Crewmember Tully’s request.”
My dad gave me his “I’m the commander of this ship” look. It’s twice as scary as the “I’m your father” look because it’s not a look. It’s just him in total command of our situation, and it made me remember why we were there. We promised to find Tabitha, he was the commander, and I was a crewmember. That settled me down.
“Wow, sorry,” I said. “It’s just…sorry, sir.”
“Apology accepted,” he said. “I’m glad you found the training simulator. It will give us something important to do for the next two weeks – and fun if we can keep our emotions in check.” That stung a little. The royal “we.” He should have said, “If Tully won’t be so spastic and emotional.”
“Stars, two whole weeks?” said Sunjay, rubbing his shin. “I can only fight, sleep, and beef jerky so much. This could get boring.”
“People bore themselves, Sunjay,” my dad said, running his hands along his streaked hair. “Two weeks is fourteen days. It’s 336 hours,” my dad said. “It’s 20,160 minutes. It’s over a million seconds, Sunjay, until we land on a hostile alien world. We need every last second to prepare.”
THE BULL AND ITS RIDER
That night Dad and Buckshot stayed on the upper deck and the three of us went below deck to sleep. Exhaustion crept over us like an invisible blanket. The Mini-Mane could tell. It dimmed its lights to an eerie, relaxing red glow, like the vampire cave at the Houston Zoo. Three beds much bigger than we needed extended from the wall.
As tired as I was, I could not sleep. Too many images crept through my mind that wanted me to stay awake and keep them company. I kept picturing the Sacred asleep somewhere, like a bear in hibernation. When I opened my eyes, the red sleeping light only reminded me of that fact. I rubbed my eyes and scrolled through songs on the Ascendant’s old music player that I had claimed. Who knew the Ascendant would like music? The Beatles, U2, Beethoven, the Daisy Chain Gang, even Queen Envy. Then there was a whole playlist written in Greek, not English. I would have to get Janice to translate.
Thud. My bed shifted. I looked up from the playlist and sitting there was Janice. She wore one of Buckshot’s rodeo t-shirts as a nightgown. Janice was our luggage, so she had packed none of her own.
I popped out one of my earbuds and held it out to her. She shrugged, put it in, and then demanded the player. Janice liked to be in control as much as I did, I guess. She flipped through the playlist and we listened to music together.
“How are you?” she asked.
“I’m glad I didn’t blow us up today with that stupid crate of dynamite,” I said.
“How are you?” she asked again. H
er dark eyes twinkled in the dim red light.
“Really? Uh, confused, angry, optimistic,” I said. “Pretty good for a guy that left his friend in the hands of aliens.”
“You’re going to save her.” She looked back at the music player. “I didn’t know your powers would make you so fierce. You terrified me, Tully. You moved so fast.”
“Seriously? I wasn’t sure they were even working. My powers scare me, too, Janice. I have to be really focused and in control to use them. They are coming in spurts right now, and I don’t know when to expect them.”
“Why not?”
“Because the Sacred is still asleep.”
“The what?”
“That’s what the Harper Device calls itself.”
“So it talks directly to you?”
“Uh, most of the time it just gives me visions, but we did have some conversations. In the last one, I asked the Sacred to go to sleep. If I hadn’t, it might have wrecked the Earth. Not like it wanted to do anything wrong. It’s good, but it’s dire powerful.”
“Bangers.”
“Yeah, bangers. So I’m not sure how to wake it up, or even if I should try. If it awakens, I’ll have more control. Right now my powers only pop up when things get dire bad.”
“Dire. That’s such a Tabitha word,” she said. I smirked and nodded. She ran her finger along the wheel of the music player, clicking through its content. “I love this old technology,” she said. “It reminds me of my grandma. She used to…wait.”
“She used to wait?” I asked.
“No, look.” The clicks stopped as she pointed at the title of the song. Only it wasn’t a song. It was a story. In English. “Check it out, Zeus and Europa.”
A story about Europa? Something besides the wheel clicked. Oh, mythology! Just like I had never thought about the Rathmore Chaos as a place, I had never thought about the name of the moon we were about to visit. Europa was a girl’s name, and names mean things. Janice pushed play and the narrator’s deep voice filled my mind.
