“Caller?”
Glenn couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
He double-took and looked at his forearm, “Uh. You’ll never guess what’s j-just h-happened. A bunch of cats has c-comm—” he spluttered and tried to keep from laughing, “Commandeered a… c-car.”
“Very funny, caller,” the voice sounded extremely put-out, “Please stop wasting our time. Good evening.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The tree that wasn’t a tree had grown in size since its re-emergence from the ocean. Standing one thousand feet in height, it sprouted a second stump and root and now resembled a nightmarish hell of pure black.
Its two stumps stormed through the water, carrying Space Opera Beta at the end of one of its twelfth branches. It twisted the spacecraft upright in its ‘palm’.
Hundreds of thousands of Shanta scurried around the sandy shore hundreds of feet below.
A large number of them crawled over the tree’s bark-like stumps. Most of them tumbled back down to the ground. Despite having twelve limbs themselves, they weren’t able to climb very far up the root.
The tree hulked its way through the water and headed for the dunes. It arched its mid-section and squealed as the blinding light from the converged three suns blossomed in the pink-black sky.
The rumbling from the celestial event taking place thousands of miles above Pink Symphony forced the grains of sand to shimmy around. If something fantastic had already happened then perhaps the crew had been misinformed, or gotten the wrong end of the stick.
The real fantastic event had yet to occur…
Tripp led the charge along the revolving walkway. The door to the deck lay on its side in the distance as he, Bonnie, Jaycee, and Tor raced along the wall. The bizarre geography resembled a tumbling carnival ride that threatened to return to normal any moment.
“Guys, make sure you keep your center of gravity,” Tripp hopped over three wall pipes like a racehorse.
“What the hell is happening around here?” Bonnie asked.
“I don’t know. Hopefully Manuel can give us some answers,” Tripp reached the panel on the wall and slammed his palm onto it.
The door slid across and allowed them inside.
They were used to seeing the communication console on the left-hand wall. Due to the imbalance of gravity it was technically on the ground.
Tripp walked over it, careful not to damage the panel, “Tor, get Manuel online.”
“Yes, okay,” Tor snapped his fingers and tested the environment, “Manuel?”
“Be careful with your weight, Jaycee. Don’t tread on anything important,” Bonnie tiptoed over the screen and ran to the windshield at the far end of the room.
“It’s not easy, you know,” Jaycee clomped his way past Tor and looked up at the flight deck – which was now on the wall, “What in the hell?”
“A-W-A-K-E,” Tor lifted the keyboard and sat next to the panel, “Four, five, seven.”
The console whirred to life and attempted to boot up.
“Success,” Tor clapped his hands and turned to Tripp at the windshield, “We’ve got—”
Tor’s eyes grew with disbelief at the view from outside.
“Jesus Christ.”
“I know. Look,” Tripp pointed at the view of Pink Symphony.
The horizon staggered up, down, left and right, due to the tree’s transportation of the vessel. They could see the edge of the universe due to the height they had.
Pink Symphony wasn’t a globe as previously thought. It was a disc – the quasi-planetary equivalent of a dinner plate. Where the horizon would naturally curve, instead, it simply ended.
Thousands of tiny white dots scrambled hundreds of feet below them. The Shanta.
The enlarged sun provided a brilliant light source for the view. Worse, it seemed to be growing by the second.
“Is this heaven?” Jaycee attempted to take in the spectacular view, “How are we moving?”
CREEAAAKK-WOOOOSH
The ‘floor’ tilted up and around, forcing the communication console to climb up the wall to its regular position.
Tripp, Bonnie, Tor, and Jaycee barrel-rolled down from the wall and hit the ground. They were finally upright once again.
“I think that black tree is carrying us,” Tripp turned to Tor for an answer, “Where’s Manuel?”
“Waiting for him to boot up,” Tor tried to ignore an unusual shifting noise coming from the ceiling, “What do you mean carrying us?”
Tripp pointed at the edge of the universe through the windshield, “Look out there, we’ve—”
CREAK-THWUCK!
A giant Shanta carcass slammed to the ground. Its pink, gloopy remains splattered in all directions.
“Gaahhh,” Tripp kicked himself back, scared it would attack him.
“No, no. Wait,” Tripp held the others back and approached the gory miasma of flesh and limbs with trepidation, “It’s dead.”
Everyone turned to face the flight deck. A cylindrical metal disc rolled from under the desk and fell onto its side.
“The Decapidisc?” Tor said in fright, “It’s been used.”
Jaycee thumped his fists together, “Yeah, I think that one was for your friend.”
Tripp looked around for something, “Speaking of Baldron, where is he?”
THWUMP!
Baldron’s decapitated android corpse crashed against the ground behind the crew.
Everyone jumped back in fright.
“Damn,” Jaycee stepped back onto Baldron’s severed head, “That’s one dead Russkie.”
His boot accidentally kicked the severed head toward Tor. The jumbled fusion of synthetic skin and protruding neck wires sparked and fizzed as the football of a head rolled toward Tor’s knees.
Tripp stomped his feet to the floor, “Okay, everyone. Just keep calm. They’re dead. We know about them. We know what happened.”
The console produced a succession of beeps.
Manuel’s holograph appeared in the middle of the room, swinging his pages around like a flailing Octopus.
“Duh-duh-duh… ¿Dónde estoy?”
“Huh?” Tor pressed the return key on the keyboard, “Say that again?”
“Estoy confundido. ¿Qué me pasó?”
“Eh?” Bonnie asked, “Is that Spanish?”
“He must have taken a serious knock, or something,” Tor punched in a command on the keyboard, “Wait. Let me try something.”
Manuel flapped his pages like an angry pigeon, “¿Compréndeme? ¿Holaaa?”
“Nah, this is no use,” Tor hit a button the keyboard, “Let me try something else.”
“¡Oh, por Dios! Es ridículo…”
As Manuel spoke, his sentence shifted from Spanish to English.
“…You changed my language, you morons,” Manuel slowed his speech down and realized the crew understood the latter half of his complaint perfectly well, “Umm, did you hear that last part?”
Everyone nodded, taking great exception to what he’d said.
“Yeah,” Tripp said. “We did.”
“I apologize.”
“You can make amends by telling us what’s going out there.”
Manuel’s shivering covers caused some consternation in the crew, “My scan suggests we are still on Pink Symphony.”
Jaycee grabbed Baldron’s ankles and dragged him over to the door, “Yeah. We figured that out on our own. What’s going on out there?”