by Jenn Thorson
It was outside the Shockwave Room, in the very center of the long corridor, a cluster of people loaded down with tacky conference souvenirs stood, waiting for the next session. Among them, Bertram noticed the same Hyphiz Deltan RegForce officer who he’d seen on the Uninet, talking about the attack and reassembly of the Podunk Peace Guards.
Bertram couldn’t remember his name, but he was a tall, hefty wall of a man, with a placid oval face and uncharacteristically doughy middle for a Deltan. He munched from a plate of hors d’oeuvres in a deceptively casual way, Bertram thought, as a closer look indicated he was giving equal attention to the guests in the corridor as the snacks at hand. Next to him, Bertram guessed, was his partner, hands clasped behind his back in a military stance, rocking back and forth on his heels with the nervous energy of a Hyphizite who would rather be leading a foot chase than standing in a hallway scanning the tourists. That one looked taut as an overstretched piano wire and ready to snap at a second. He wore a t-shirt that read, “Aeroponic Farmers Have Higher Standards” and showed a cartoon cluster of Smorgs growing six feet off the ground.
As disguises went, it needed something.
Bertram didn’t dare let his eyes linger. He wondered whether Rollie had spied the Deltan officers, too, though they’d have to discuss that later. Right now Rollie was busy having quiet word with the door marked “The Rim Room.” It opened with a hiss and he motioned Bertram inside.
Inside was not a conference room, but a dim passageway. On the wall was a lit arrow. It pointed down the long hall.
At the end of the hall was an elevator, and as they approached it, the doors opened automatically with a rush. They stepped inside, the doors closed—and the contraption dropped so quickly, Bertram was almost sure the cable had snapped. His feet lifted lightly off the floor. The elevator careened, down, down, down. And then, with a jar, the elevator stopped. Bertram and Rollie’s feet dropped with a clatter. As the doors shooshed open, Bertram half-expected them to reveal a circle of Hyphiz Deltan RegForce officers waiting for them, their weapons drawn and glinting in the light.
It opened onto a busy, working kitchen.
They stepped into the room and strode down the hallway. Down a kitchen passageway, past robot chefs and humanoid chefs, and steaming foods and freezing foods, things on fire, and things on ice.
Further and further through the bustling room they went, no one questioning who they were, and what they were doing there. Bertram considered how he would have been really worried about that, worried they were headed for a clever trap—if he were actually worried about anything these days, which he wasn’t.
He also would have been worried when Rollie opened the giant refrigerator door at the end of the hallway and walked through it.
A worry-free Bertram walked into the refrigerator, too.
Bertram rubbed his goose-pimply arms as they moved past the shelves of alien cuisine to finally—finally—stop at a small white door at the back. “If we’re going into the freezer, I could use shoes.”
Rollie grinned and disappeared through the door …
Into a conference hall. This was The Core, and the place was packed.
“Welcome to the Intergalactic Underworld Annual Society Meeting and Marketplace” glittered an electronic banner spanning the room. The ballroom itself was a great cavern, with stalactites dropping down from the ceiling and stalagmites jutting up from the floor. There was an auditorium off one end and an exposition hall off the other. But right now it was the ballroom that was abuzz with activity, and not for any excess of Mathekites. This was the place a thousand forbidden ideas were born. Where criminal minds collided in brainstorms. Where lunch meetings nourished illicit plans. And where goods slipped quietly from one life-form to the other like well-choreographed dance.
Rollie scanned the crowd carefully, then approached a booth marked “Registration.”
“Dax Q. Phlyjollee,” Rollie said, adding, “and guest.” He passed the agent a Society card.
The life-form manning the booth entered the info into the system and nodded. “One moment, Mr. Phlyjollee. We’re printing up your entry badges.”
Rollie was still giving a wary eye or three to the beings around them. As far as Bertram could tell, no one else looked like Deltan RegForce, and Deltans, he was discovering, were easy enough to spot. Half a head taller than everyone else, and typically so fair they seemed to have no eyebrows or eyelashes at all, the look was distinctive. Of course, that didn’t mean some of them hadn’t gotten a hold of a couple of holowatches themselves.
“Here you go, Mr. Phlyjollee,” said the attendant, using a delicate suction-cupped tentacle to hand them each a badge. “The Welcome Remarks start in the auditorium there, and the Marketplace in the Expo Hall is open for any fencing or buying you’d care to do during your visit.”
Rollie offered a twitch of a smile. “Stellar, thanks.”
“Dax Q. Phlyjollee?” Bertram asked as they headed toward the auditorium.
But Rollie just shrugged as they entered the room.
Like the ballroom, the auditorium ceiling erupted with stalactites, its floor covered in rows of stadium seats carved right into the rock. To the front of the room was an immense stage, a backdrop of shining crystals sparkling in the light.
Around the perimeter of the room, friends greeted each other. Standoffs were bubbling up over old vendettas. And laser fire whizzed invisibly past Bertram’s ear over one such altercation. He had become all too familiar with the tingle of its energy.
Rollie must have spied someone he knew in the far corner, because soon Bertram was rushing to follow. In a moment, he spotted the faces of Xylith, Fess, Wilbree, and …
“Tseethe Tsardonee,” Rollie said, addressing a figure in a smoke-filled bubble-like helmet. He gave that strange, light clicking hiss to the “T’s” that so many Deltan words seemed to have.
Inside the helmet, Tseethe’s eyes glowed a bright catlike green through the smoke, then narrowed to slits. Bertram discerned what was probably a pipe slide from one corner of Tseethe’s mouth to the other. “Look, pal, I don’t know who—”
Rollie pushed the button on his holowatch, off once, then on again. As a result, his real self was just a flicker of an image, more hallucination than actual form.
Tseethe erupted with a hearty laugh that rattled from his helmet’s speaker system. “Ah yes. Dax Q. Phlyjollee.”
“None other,” Rollie agreed. Apparently Mr. Phlyjollee got around.
Tsteethe gestured at the three-eyed old woman before him. “And then I suppose this is …?”
“‘And Guest,’” supplied Bertram.
“He’s a Tryfling,” piped up Wilbree, with the same sort of awed delight from the first time they’d met on Podunk.
“Nicetameetya,” Tseethe said, shaking Bertram’s hand heartily. “And what brings ya to the GCU, Tryfeman?
“Mostly an ICV and a stun-gun,” Bertram quipped, earning an appreciative murmur from the group.
“He’s going to save his planet,” Wilbree input with a nod.
“Save Tryfe? What from?” asked Tseethe. “Meteors? Invasion? Bad haircuts? What?”
Bertram felt his face redden a moment. He wished this topic wouldn’t keep coming up. It only poured salt on the wound.
Then something occurred to him. “Maybe you can help.” Bertram lifted the Yellow Thing up over his head, and handed it to Tseethe. Given his holowatch disguise, it must have looked strange to them, to see this soap-on-a-rope-looking item appear out of nowhere. “Have any idea what this is?”
Tseethe drew it to the dome of his helmet and squinted. “Strange. Where’d ya get it?”
“Seers of Rhobux.”
“And I didn’t think the Seers of Rhobux gave anybody anything but confinement time.”
“Does it look familiar to you?”
“Yeah, like something they’d serve at one of those all-you-can-digest buffets.” Tseethe laughed.
“Really?” Bertram asked hopefully. At l
east it would have been something to go on.
But Tseethe just shrugged it off. “Nah. Sorta,” he told Bertram. “But not so much.” Tseethe passed the item to Wilbree, who turned it over in his hands, poked it a few times, shrugged, and passed it to Xylith.
She squeezed its spongy exterior and wrinkled both her noses. “It feels … squishy.”
“We’d determined it’s alive,” Bertram said, and at this, Xylith handed it off quickly to Fess. “It’s made of living cells.”
Fess held it close to his faceted bottle lenses then passed it back to Bertram with one of his many digits. “O’wun might know.”
“O’wun?” Bertram asked.
Tseethe’s helmet bobbed in agreement. “Sure, sure, yeah. O’wun’d know. He’s got a whole database of stuff like that rattling around in his brainpan.”
“O’wun is a Non-Organic Simulant,” Rollie explained.
“A what?”
“A humanoid replicant. What’s the word you use on Tryfe?” Rollie cracked his knuckles as he tried to recall. “An android.”
“And where is O’wun?” Bertram asked the group.
Tseethe snickered. “He’s living large on Ludd, right now.”
“Ludd!” This was Rollie. Bertram guessed being in confinement had really left him out of the loop with a few things. “Bleedin’ Karnax, that’s the most willfully backward planet in the GCU. And he’s a sentient machine! The Luddites hate technology. They’d bash him to fraggin’ bits if they knew what he was.”
“Don’t I know it,” said Tseethe. “And he loves it. Got himself a real setup. Fezziwig Towers, it’s called, I think. Posh home-unit, real member of the social scene. Guess he’s got ’em all convinced he’s a natural life-form.”
“Thrill issues,” confided Wilbree to Bertram.
“Speaking of absent parties …” Rollie leaned on the back of a chair. “Anyone seen that old prib, Backs? Y’know, after he hid, leaving me and Ludlow to deal with the Podunk Peace Guards? I’d like to have a word or two with him about solidarity between mates.”
Bertram never heard the response because a voice piped over an announcement system while the ceiling lights flashed. “The Opening Remarks for the Intergalactic Underworld Annual Society Meeting will commence shortly. Please take your seats.”
“Here’s where we get to vote out that big-headed brooquat, Zenith Skytreg,” said Tseethe, rubbing his hands together.
“He’s very popular, though, isn’t he?” piped up Wilbree.
Tseethe rolled his eyes behind the smoke. “Just sit down, man.”
The group filed into a row, Bertram taking a seat between Xylith and Fess, and soon the crowd settled to silence. Any lasered bodies were carted out of the pathways for later safe-exiting. The lights dimmed. And suddenly, a glowing lavender fog began to pour in. Enterprising music played. Lights flashed onto the stage like lightning bolts.
The crystals on the stage reacted to the overhead lighting, refracting a variety of colors. And soon, a chorus of showgirls came kicking out in a line from one side of the stage.
Well, show life-forms, anyway. An assortment of unnaturally exotic females and males, all of one species Bertram hadn’t yet encountered, with silvery hair, pearlescent skin that shimmered in the light, and costumes that weren’t so much on, as hovered strategically.
They sang with an inconceivable chime-like beauty. Their chorus of voices had no sooner reached Bertram’s ears when he began to think, This is what Jason and the Argonauts had faced with the siren’s song. Amazing sound to drive sane men mad.
Bertram figured he was already half a stack of Pringles short of a full can, anyway, so he might as well just enjoy it. But he wasn’t sure he actually did enjoy it. Tears had sprung to his eyes, completely beyond his control.
He looked around the crowd and it seemed as if every being with tear ducts had liquid streaming down their cheeks. The strange part of it was how the words of the singers’ song didn’t compare with the ethereal output of their phenomenal voices. It seemed wrong to find hundreds of hardened criminals—life-forms who’d frag you soon as look at you, as Rollie would say—weeping over lyrics so cheesy:
Welcome to Vos Laegos
It’s a special day
The Underworld has gotten together
Here, to vote our say
Who will be our leader?
Who will lead the show?
Who’s the bossest crime boss?
We can’t wait to know!
So please don’t make us wonder.
Please don’t make us beg
Let’s call the toff to start us off …
He’s criminally glorious!
Genius!
Uproarious!
He’s one of us!
Zeeeeee-nith Skytreg!
Bertram heard Fess let out a groan next to him. Xylith muttered, “Typical.” And Bertram noticed Rollie, on the other side of Xylith, shaking his head at the introduction and saying “self-important slaggard.” They still wiped away tears of awe, but none of them seemed terribly impressed with the man of the hour’s big build-up.
And here it came. Down from the rafters of the stage, a giant softly-illuminated planet glided, mystical wings sprouting from its sides and sweeping up to frame the figure standing atop it in proud silhouette. Suspenseful fanfare reverberated from every wall as this globe sank, sank, sank …
Then the lights hit him. POW!
And a voice rang out. “Helloooooooooooo, Underworld! Are we ready to blast the vote tonight?” Zenith Skytreg looked left and right, beaming over his constituents, and he motioned for crowd response.
The crowd hooted and clapped, the enthusiasm rippling across the auditorium like electricity through a live wire. Laserguns blazed skyward, loosening a few stalactites, which rained rock and dust on those below. Fess grumbled. Rollie uttered a Deltan oath. Xylith said, “Typical.” Here and there, small pockets of Society members remained unmoved through the room’s enthusiasm.
Zenith Skytreg appeared to be of the same species as the members of the chorusline. Like them, his skin had a pearly sheen. His teeth had a pearly sheen. He wore a pearly white suit, with an impressive pearly white collar. On his head, was a very full mane of silvery hair, thoroughly pomped into some dramatic ski-jumplike sweep. He was not what Bertram imagined the ladies would consider handsome; his eyes were too close together, his lips a thin line, his jaw too strong for the rest of his face. And, not that Bertram was an expert on these things, but the guy still projected a handsomeness, somehow. Perhaps it was the reflective halo of light that bounced off of him. Bertram just knew he wouldn’t want to be competing for the attention of girls at a bar with this dude.
“Friends,” began Skytreg, motioning the group to quiet, “as Official Leader of the Intergalactic Underworld these past three Universal years, I felt I would be remiss if I did not speak to you today.”
“And get in a little last-minute campaigning,” said Xylith under her breath. Both of her faces seemed to be of a similar mind about Skytreg. Her mouths pursed like they’d tasted something bitter.
“I have held many positions in my life,” Skytreg continued, his voice solemn. “Professional songster, melody-maker and well-known raconteur … Devil-may-care heist-master … High stakes dealer on the dazzling Emperor’s G’napps tables … Confidential yoonie card lender—shhh! Don’t tell anyone.” Here the audience laughed. “… Biblucian orphan broker, bless their little parentless hearts … Freedom fighter on behalf of the innocent Klimfal people … and Underworld Ambassador representing my very own birth world—this great big beautiful planet of Vos Laegos.” He beamed, adding quickly, “Yes, that’s right; this Society meeting is like coming home for me!”
Many in the audience murmured with interest at the poetic nature of this.
Fess folded several sets of appendages, defiantly. “Maybe that’s ’cause you’ve always lived here, ya froob.”
The life-forms one row up turned and shooshed him.
“But never,” continued Skytreg, “never in all of the amazing things I have done during my lifetime, never have I felt the joy I’ve experienced in leading the Intergalactic Underworld Society and all you good people who gave me your vote of confidence not one year, not two, but three prosperous Universal years in a row.”
Here spontaneous applause broke out.
“Your drive to make the criminal element be its best … Your ideas for new Underworld opportunities that I’ve been able to grow and shape in my hands into something wonderful … our support of the fine sponsors who truly understand the importance of our mission and aren’t afraid to step up and say, ‘Hey, I get it: well-done crime is an artform!’” Here, Skytreg turned around to reveal a number of business sponsor logos rotating electronically on the back of his pearly suit. He then spun to face the crowd. “You have made me grateful every day that I’m the gaseous celestial body you orbit around in the darkness of space. You make me proud to be a part of the best fragging Society of thieves, scoundrels and reprobates the Greater Communicating Universe has to offer!”
The cheering was simply thunderous.
“Smooth,” grumbled Fess.
“Typical,” sighed Xylith.
“Now, I understand that Underworld Voting Organizer, Twerk Xanthwoggle, has a few things to say to you before we vote and find out who will officially guide the Underworld for the next glorious Universal year. So thank you, Underworld members! You’ve been a supernova crowd.” Zenith Skytreg gave a bow of his head, beamed and jogged off the stage to a seat up front, waving all the way.
