by Marc Landau
“I wonder if those were the Krin that found you back at the Outpost. The ones who fought the Prime fleet.”
Kat just shrugged. I guess the Ultra still wasn’t giving her any clear answers.
“Our people are mostly travelers, surveyors of the infinite. We send them out regularly to map and collect data. We are mostly watchers. We seek imbalance and change. When the universe shifts in one direction, the Ultra nudges it over the tipping point or reels it back from the edge of oblivion.”
“You’ve saved the universe from oblivion?”
“Blip. Beep,” the bot-alien laughed. “Oblivion. Extinction. Destruction. None of your words describe it. We have even saved your fleck of sand from obliteration.”
These balls of energy have saved the Earth from being wiped off the universal map?
The bot-alien chuckled again. “Over three thousand times, primitive.”
It was still irritating that it was reading my mind. “Get out of my head.”
“I have explained. I am not in your mind. You are projecting your thoughts. You are too primitive and have no control. Do not blame me.”
“Fine. Forget it. Just try not to look. It’s not polite.”
“Confirmed.”
“So, back to your story. Your people? Those multicolored balls?”
“They are not balls! They are citizens. Family. Each as important as the other. When one is lost, we are all lost. When one suffers, we all suffer.”
The warm flush of shame washed over me. These creatures loved and were connected to one another, just like we were. “Sorry.”
“The Ultra is our grand protector. You are to be our next Grand Unifier.”
“Your next? There was another Ultra?” Kat asked.
“You were born after the passing of the Ultra.”
“What happened to the one before me?”
“The energy waned.”
“It died?” I said with a hint of surprise in my voice. I couldn’t actually believe these things died. They seemed like the definition of matter transforming into matter. Matter can’t be destroyed. It only changes form.
“Matter can be destroyed,” the bot-alien interjected, reading my mind again.
“Doesn’t matter,” I replied. “It was just a random thought.”
“You are filled with random chaotic thoughts.”
I smiled. “Very true. Most humans are. That’s what makes us human, Farmy.”
“That sounds horrible. And I formally request you cease calling me that.”
“Hey, guys. It's really interesting hearing you guys argue, but can we get back to it?” Kat interrupted.
The bot-alien blipped its apologies. “The Ultra harnesses our collective energy and redistributes it as it deems necessary. Eventually the Ultra weakens and is diminished, and then returns to the cosmos.”
“So basically, it wears out after dealing with all that energy,” I said.
“Primitive. But correct.”
“How long does the Ultra live?”
The bot-alien hummed its calculations. “The predecessor over watched for approximately thirteen point eight billion of your human years.”
“That’s when the the Big Bang happened.”
“Beep. Blip. Big Bang,” the bot-alien chuckled. “Correct. That is when your predecessor facilitated the unfurling which you call the beep, giggle, blip…Big bang.”
Chapter Eleven
THE GREAT & LONG EXPLANATION PART 2
Wow. The birth of the Ultra had ushered our universe into existence? Could that even be possible? Why not? Its power was incomprehensible. Add to that the spheres outside the ship had the power to destroy ten black holes, and there were possibly millions more of them in that dome. It was plausible their collective power could shift the universe into existence or oblivion.
I wasn’t going to ask what was there before our universe existed. As much as I wanted to know, I was sure I wouldn’t understand the answer. My mind was too primitive.
I had the same problem when I read the universe was always expanding. It caused a log jam in my brain, because if the universe was infinite, how could it expand? Infinity expanding into more infinity? It didn’t make sense.
“It is because you don’t comprehend infinity correctly,” the bot-alien replied. “If you can imagine the universe expanding as a…”
“It’s okay. Don’t explain it. You can dumb down the expanding universe and the meaning of life later. Right now, finish the story.”
“You would not desire to comprehend the meaning of life? The reason humans were brought into existence is to…
I put my hand up. “Stop. I don’t want to know. I can’t handle it. Let’s just focus on what’s going on here. You can also tell me why I exist later.”
“Clearly, you exist to return the Ultra. It was ordained.”
“Well, I believe in free will. I think I exist for other purposes, not just to be a delivery boy for your Ultra.”
The bot-alien blipped and beeped and hummed and chortled. Its mouth hole made a bizarre laughing noise that was half-hellvian, half crazy person. It was laughing so hard I expected it to put its hand appendage on its belly and roll on the floor.
“What’s so fraking funny?”
“Your joke.”
“Joke? What joke?”
“You are correct. A delivery boy. Deliver a pizza! Blip, beep!”
“Okay. Cool your hover-ions.”
“Beep, blip!”
I turned to Kat, exasperated. “Can you do something about this?”
“Aw, let him have his moment. Laughter is the universal healing ointment.”
“Well, it's had enough ointment. Can we get back to figuring out what the hellvian is going on?”
“You’re right. Hey, Farmy. Can you finish please?”
The bot-alien immediately snapped to attention, collecting itself. “Apologies, Ultra.”
“No need. It was nice to see you laugh.”
“Thank you, Ultra.” The bot squinted its eye slits like it was concentrating. I started to wonder again if the alien-walrus combo was causing scrambled programming. Maybe we were both having brain issues. Maybe human-bot-alien hybrids weren’t such a great idea.
“The Ultra’s passing brought the tempest.”
Kat furrowed her brow. “Tempest?”
“It is a transitional period between the expiring of the predecessor and the…birth, as you would say, of the new Ultra.”
Kat made the face everyone makes when they’re trying to understand. If she had a beard she would’ve stroked it. “So the universe was a mess in the time between when the old Ultra died, and you were waiting for the new Ultra to be born.”
“Confirmed. The tempest was a time of great upheaval. Billions of stars collapsed. It was the time of the great revealing. It brought our people the great fear and joy.”
“Why? What happened?”
“The great revealing gave the great knowledge.”
I rolled my eyes. This thing was either too detailed, or too cryptic. It was driving me mad. “What the frak are you saying? Can you be more specific?”
The bot-alien glowered at me, then continued. “The revealing is when knowledge was revealed.”
“Yes. We get it. Go on.”
It turned pleadingly to Kat. “Ultra. Would you please make it stop interrupting? Then I could be more specific. As it requested.”
“Sorry, I’ll shut up.” I gave it the universal zipping-the-lip gesture.
“Beep. Blip. Finally,” it muttered. “May I continue?”
I nodded silent approval and it beeped a throat-clearing noise.
“The great revealing is when the great knowledge was revealed.” It paused and glanced at me to see if I was going to interrupt again. I responded with the universal please-continue hand motion. When it was satisfied I wasn’t going to blurt, it went on. “That is when the knowledge was discovered, and the Krin came to take the newborn Ultra.”
“Hold on a se
cond,” I said. “What exactly is a Krin, and why did it come for the Ultra? And how could they ever get the Ultra, anyway? Who’s more powerful than you guys?”
“No one,” the bot replied.
“Then why would it matter if someone was trying to kidnap the Ultra?”
“Because the Krin are the highest form of galactic thieves. They can transmute dimensionally and camouflage themselves on a subatomic level.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded impressive.”
“You can’t stop them?”
“Usually, yes. But not infinitely. We are not thieves. We are surveyors and creators. Chances cannot be taken with the Ultra. Even a point zero zero zero zero zero zero one chance. It is too risky. The damage would be irrevocable.”
Okay, now I knew the bot was in there giving its statistical expertise.
“But why would it even matter? The Ultra is too powerful. Once they stole it, it’s not like they could do anything with it. And the Ultra could just teleport back if it wanted to.”
“That was true before, but not after the great revealing.”
“Why?” Kat asked.
“The great revealing is when the Krin gained the great knowledge and learned how to control the power of the Ultra. That is what was revealed. Once they knew how to control the Ultra, all they had to do was steal it.”
It turned out maybe these aliens weren’t so different from the rest of us, after all. They were living a good old-fashioned kidnapping story. Baby Ultra being the victim.
“So they stole Baby Ultra?” I said.
The bot-alien gave a quizzical look with its eye slits. “Baby Ultra?”
“Sorry. Forget it. So they stole the Ultra?”
“No.”
Ugh, this is so frustrating. “So how did the Ultra wind up so far away?”
“We sent it away to increase the probability that the Krin would not find it.”
“Oh you sent it away like Superman? With baby Kal-El in his space-cradle rocket?” I said.
“Superman?”
“Forget it. Go on.”
The bot-alien paused and ran calculations. “Beep. Superman yes. That is a close proximity of the action we took. They had already tried stealing the newborn Ultra on several occasions.”
“How many?” Kat asked.
“Fourteen million, three hundred, seventy thousand and eight.”
“Wow. You were good at stopping them,” I said.
It looked at me with an incredulous expression. “Good? How could you speak that word? Probability suggested that they would capture the Ultra in under three billion attempts. Less than eighteen thousand years.”
It was like the bot-alien had said it would only be seconds before the Ultra was captured. And I guessed for them, it was seconds. Humans still didn’t even rank a sneeze on the universal timeline. Aliens who lived for billions of years must have a different perspective on time. It made sense for them that millions or billions of theft attempts would be the same as one or two on Earth.
“So you sent the Ultra away?”
The bot-alien nodded solemnly. “Yes. To protect the Ultra and the Group and the universe from the Krin.”
“So it looks like the Krin are bad guys,” I muttered.
“They are greedy, lust-driven, gluttonous creatures who destroy for pleasure and gain. They pillage the universe for all of its splendors, leaving nothing but carnage and darkness in their wake.”
“So yeah, they’re definitely bad guys.”
“Why did you send me—I mean, the Ultra to Deliva?” Kat asked.
“Beep. We did not choose that location. We randomly chose a time and place in space, and sent you there so that not even we would know where you went or when you arrived.”
Kat lifted her eyebrow, impressed. “Pretty cool.”
“Thank you, Ultra.”
“So you sent the Ultra away to protect it, but then what? What about the Krin?”
“They are searching. Now that the Ultra is…” It stopped to process and find the right word. “…Now that the Ultra is an adult they will return.”
“Can you stop them?”
“Now that the Ultra is an adult, it can defeat the Krin. But it must be returned to the seat of power. That is why we need it so badly.”
“Adult?” Kat asked.
The bot-alien beeped. Hemming and hawing again, trying to translate our primitive language. “You were hidden for three million years. Now you are an adult. More specifically, a young adult. Very young. A teenager.But you are now powerful enough to defeat the Krin.”
“If you’re in such a rush, why are you waiting until I die?”
“The Ultra will not permit the extraction. And because your life span is a fleck, it is hard for our species to even comprehend hundreds of human years. It is smaller than a speck of dust on a grain of sand. Can you comprehend a milli-micro-second?”
“Okay, immortal spheres. No need to rub it in. We get it. Humans don’t live very long.”
I think it chuckled. “You barely live at all."
At least the Krin probably weren’t going to return during my or Kat’s lifetime, and once the Ultra was back on the seat, it would be invincible again. Or whatever.
“Okay, let’s recap,” I said. “The Krin figured out how to harness the Ultra’s power. So you hid it until it was old enough to protect itself. Now all you have to do is wait for us to expire then put it on the seat of power, and everything will be great.” I turned to Kat. “So all we have to do is stay here until you die, and the universe is saved.”
The bot beeped. “Correct.”
“Sounds like a pretty easy way to save the universe. No fighting, no close calls with death. Just spend the rest of our lives in this alien-made paradise.”
“Correct.”
“Then why do I feel weird about it?”
Kat looked at me with concern. “Me too. Something feels off.”
“So you agree?” the bot-alien asked.
“Hold your hellvians, Farmy,” I replied.
It made frustrated, beeping blips. “The Ultra must not leave!”
“You said it was our decision,” I replied.
Again the bot-alien glowered at me. “No decision is yours. You are meaningless. The only reason you are still existing is because the Ultra has deemed it to be so.”
“The Ultra likes me. So I guess I’m not meaningless, am I?”
That got some more snorts and angry blips. “You are correct.”
I had to admit I enjoyed watching it acquiesce.
I turned to Kat. “So Ultra, what do we do now?”
She shrugged, then pointed down below.
END OF THE GREAT AND LONG EXPLANATION
Chapter Twelve
The clone was starting to move and I spotted Poka edging cautiously closer.
“Uh-oh. We better get down there. It looks like that thing is about to be fully baked.”
As if the alien read my mind—and maybe it did—another two-dimensional circle appeared in front of us on the rooftop. Finally, the walrus (or the Ultra) had done something useful. It would be much quicker to jump through the disc than hoof it all the way back down to Poka.
I gave the walrus a suspicious glance. “No weird throne rooms right? It’s going to exit next to the dog, right?”
“Correct.”
“And no pushing me.”
“Confirmed.”
“You swear?”
“What is swear?”
“Forget it.” I stepped through the circle and closed my eyes, hoping I wasn’t about to be sent into space or some black hole. I knew how much this bot-alien wanted me gone. It would make it so much easier to extract the Ultra without me around.
Before I could blink or hold my breath, I was through the portal and out onto the soft grass below with Kat and Farmy exiting a few seconds later.
Poka was no longer growling; she was more like, “Hey, I’m kinda fraking out about this unknown thing that looks
like someone I recognize, and is it dangerous? Oh my universes! It might be dangerous! I better step back. You take a look. If it’s dangerous, I want you to check it out.”
“Don’t worry, girl. It’s okay,” I told her, unsure if that was true. I turned to the bot-alien. “That thing’s not dangerous is it?”
“It is an exact copy of your subspecies. Is your subspecies dangerous?”
Only to herself, I thought.
The Poka clone was now moving. Not a lot, but it had gone from total statue to quivering statue.
“Is it okay?” Kat asked. Of course her animal activism roots had her worrying even about the welfare of a clone.
“Blip. Yes Ultra. This is the normal process. It should ignite in three, two, one.”
And just like that, the clone-Poka’s eyes blinked and then did the universal doggie full-body shake, usually reserved for rain or bathwater.
The original Poka jumped back and gave me a look that clearly said, “Holy hellvian. Did you see that? It moved! It fraking moved!”
“Don’t worry, girl,” I repeated, but I had to admit I was worried. I had no idea what to expect from a newborn Poka clone.
The clone did another full body shake then suddenly realized it was alive on a planet full of grass and trees and people and dogs and robots and aliens.
Her reaction was the same as the original Poka when she came flying out of the sphere. The clone sprinted wildly. Some people call it the cheetah, others, the Tasmanian devlin. A wide-eyed, full-bore gallop. Back and forth as fast as she could run. Slipping and sliding on the grass as she tried to cut back, then run in the opposite direction.
It only lasted a minute or two, but we all stood wide-eyed, watching an exact replica of Poka doing the exact same crazy run Poka did. The original Poka sat close to my side, safely watching and occasionally looking up to me as if to say, “Hey, she’s doing my moves!”
When the turbo burn ended Poka-clone was still pretty hyped up. She sniffed and licked at the plants and flowers. Then she did what we all do when we wake up. She peed. A really long one. I could tell by the expression of relief on her face that it felt good. Her first bathroom break as a living organism. Who knew how long she’d been holding it in?
