Diggers: The Sharp Edge of the Universe (15 page)

The alien searched the area for the source of the music. They quickly formulated a short sentence they hoped wouldn’t be offensive to the alien, which proved difficult given how the music made it freak out.

“Greetings,” ELAINA cooed. “We are from the microscope slide named ‘The Milky Way.’ We found this place by accident, but now we are in need of your help.”

The alien shot out of his chair and backed toward the wall.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to talk to this alien without freaking him out every time!” Mikayla said.

“I have an idea,” Finn said. “ELAINA, please translate everything I say to the alien.”

“Okay, Mr. Finnigan O’Reilly,” she purred.

“Alien being.
Please stop freak…uh…being afraid.” Finn didn’t know why he shouted, and forced himself to speak in a calm tone. “You can’t see us because we are very small—a piece of dust to your eyes. We are from the microscope slide named 'The Milky Way' and we can prove it. Go over to the microscope and look through it.”

Finn handed the navigational commands over to Reggie. “Take us under the microscope so the alien can see us.”

With ELAINA’s help, Reggie maneuvered the DUMP to just under the optical viewers. They waited and waited, but the alien stayed in the corner shooting glances in every direction.

“Please trust us,” Finn said. “Just come over to the microscope and look into it.”

The alien shook its neck-less head.

“We’re a speck of dust to your eyes. The only way we can prove anything is if you come and look at us in the microscope!” Finn felt his patience falter.

They’d found a way to communicate with the alien, but the only good it did was to make the alien think it’d gone crazy.

“Apparently, hearing voices isn’t a good thing in this world either,” Mikayla said.

“We had to plant a transmission device in your ear. It was the only way we could talk to you. Please, just go over to the microscope and we’ll prove we’re real.” Finn forced himself to stay calm.

The alien kept shaking its head and searching for the source of the voice.

“Let’s try a different kind of music,” Finn said as he pressed his finger to the screen.
“Something soft and slow.”

“Maybe.”
Reggie said.

“No—” Mikayla said, but her words were cut off by the DUMP’s sudden blaring and bumping.

The alien screamed even louder than the music. Its massive pupils rolled up in its head and it crumpled to the floor in a mass of flailing arms and legs.

Reggie shut off the music, and in the silence the alien twitched a few more times and then—nothing.

“You killed it,” Mikayla screamed.
“OhMyGosh.
OhMyGosh.
Holy asteroids! We’re dead. We’ve failed. This is our one chance to save our galaxy and you killed the first alien we meet.”

Finn turned to run for the bathroom, but Mikayla stood in his way.

“You killed it,” she screamed in his face.

Finn opened his mouth and, as Mikayla fell into tirade of accusations, Finn puked all over her.

Chapter 22: Greetings and Salutations

Finn didn’t move.

Neither did the alien.

Finn lay on the seat bench, curled up in a ball facing the view screen so he could torment himself more and more with each passing moment. Mikayla didn’t help him feel any better. It had only taken her a minute in the Insta-cleanse to completely clean herself and her uniform, and she’d used the rest of the past five minutes listing all of the interstellar laws Finn had broken.

“I figure you’ll be in jail for about five hundred twenty-three years unless you get time off for good behavior,” Mikayla said, “which I seriously doubt will happen.”

“Yeah?”
Finn finally found his voice. “And how many years will
you
get for shoving the transmitter in his ear and for being a constant, irritating
know-it-all
?”

That shut her up, but being left with silence, and
his own
thoughts, felt much worse than anything Mikayla could say. No matter how irritating Mikayla could be, he had to admit she might be right.

Finn’s stomach
tightened,
and he forced back another wave of nausea as his thoughts took him to the worst possible punishments saved for truly terrible people. He’d be shackled alongside killers and live on the planet Alcatraz Major, an entire planet of interstellar criminals where only the worst villains went. Even more terrifying was the penal complex on the orbiting moon, Pelican Island. The pleasant name didn’t fool anyone. If criminals got shipped off to Pelican, they were never seen or heard from again.

“Movement.”
Reggie pointed toward the alien’s head.

Sure enough, the giant removed its arm from atop its head and peeked around.

“No way.”
Finn jumped to his feet. “It’s been faking dead this whole time.”

“Fainting goat trick,” Reggie said.

Finn couldn’t hide his relief. He even let out a small giggle when the alien slowly rose to its feet and took a long look around.

“ELAINA,” Finn said. “Translate my words again.”

“Please begin, Mr. Finnigan O’Reilly.”

“We’re still here…under the microscope.” The poor alien flew backward against the wall. “Since you’re not dead, you might as well come over and look at us so we can prove to you we aren’t figments of your imagination.”

The alien didn’t move at first, but after looking around the entire room to make sure no one else was there, it made its way over to the microscope. Finn noticed that, even though it definitely walked, its side-to-side sway resembled a fish swimming.

It looked around the room again before picking up the chair and taking a seat. Finn had never seen
a
alien so paranoid. Its eyes shifted around one more time before it finally peered into the microscope.

Finn, Mikayla, and Reggie stood in front of the view screen and waved at the massive alien. The alien gave a gurgled scream and fell back in the chair. Finn started to laugh.

“Well, how would you react if you’d just seen a microscopic spaceship with tiny people inside waving at you?” Mikayla tossed a wad of golden hair over her shoulder as if to say
I'm going to ignore you, Finn
. “ELAINA, translate for me please," she huffed.

“Whenever you are ready, Ms. Mikayla Fishborne.”

“We are so happy to finally meet you, uh, sir,” Mikayla said. “My name is Mikayla Fishborne and I’m the daughter of a scientist. We live on a Space Station that searches the galaxy, our
galaxy—the Milky Way—for new discoveries. Our Space Station,
Vortex
, ran into a huge piece of glass in the middle of what seemed like the universe, and my friends and I decided to check it out. We dug a hole through the glass and found ourselves here. Please don’t be afraid of us. We don’t mean any harm. We put the transmitter in your ear so we could tell you we’re here. We have an urgent message for the…uh…alien in charge.”

The DUMP sat there under the microscope lens, and they watched the alien listen to ELAINA’s translation. The alien sat slumped in its chair for what seemed like ages, but finally straightened up and looked through the lens again. “Hel-lo-Mick-ail-yeah,” ELAINA translated.

“Hello,” Mikayla waved.

Finn moved forward. “Hi. I’m Finn O’Reilly, and I’m the one who tried to make first contact with you.”

The alien looked at Finn for a long time. “Are you the one who played that horrible beating sound in my ear?”

Finn had a sudden urge to study his shoes. “Well, um…yes.
Just the second time.
I wanted to find a way to communicate with you. I’m really sorry.”

The alien didn’t smile. “Please refrain from using that method of communication again.”

Finn nodded.
"Sure thing."

Mikayla nudged Reggie forward. He stammered, “Hi. I’m Reggie. I dig and fly.”

“Hello,” the alien said. “I am Manuaar. I am a scientist on this world, Quiglar.”

Finn stifled a giggle. “Manure,” he said under his breath. He elbowed Reggie, who shot him a small grin.

“My people are great adventurers. We collect many things. Your galaxy, The Milky Way, is one of many things we have collected,” Manuaar said.

Mikayla threw the boys a scathing glare and pushed them aside. “That’s what we need to talk to you about, Manuaar. Our galaxy is in the box marked ‘Trash.’ What happens to the slides in the trash box? Are they put in storage?”

“Mikayla,” Manuaar said, “they will be destroyed because they are no longer useful.”

Mikayla gasped and the smiles on Finn’s and Reggie’s faces vanished.

“Manuaar, please.
Isn’t there anything we can do to save our galaxy?” Mikayla began to tear up.

The alien paused so long Finn almost forgot the question.

Finally, he said, “Let me talk to the authorities, and I will be back in touch with you soon. Do not go far from the microscope. It will not take long.”

The alien pushed out of his chair and they watched through the view screen as he swayed back and forth toward the door at the far end of the room.

# # #

An hour later, a long line of enormous aliens all similar to Manuaar waited to greet the three new discoveries. After thirty or so greetings, with Manuaar speaking for them, Mikayla finally noticed the females had a very long stripe of flowing golden fin, much like hair, running down their spines. The female names also ended in “A,” just like her name. The males had either very short fin-like hair or none at all.

They all wore a type of clothing similar to human clothing, but the alien clothing shimmered, just like their skin. The clothes ranged in color from light lavender, a color the men seemed to prefer, to a peach color the women tended to wear. The most obvious difference between alien and human clothing seemed to be that the aliens never wore bright colors like Mikayla’s red uniform or earthy colors like Finn’s and Reggie’s brown uniforms.

“Greetings, Malva,” they said together to one of the female aliens who had stepped forward. “Thank you for the warm welcome, and we offer it back to you.”

Manuaar had been kind enough to explain this formal greeting before he started introducing the line of beings.

“Geesh,” Finn said under his breath. “How many more introductions are there?”

“Lots.”
Reggie looked past Malva, who continued to go on about her family lineage.

They stood at the view screen greeting aliens until their backs were sore and their feet fell asleep. Finally, Manuaar stepped up to the microscope.

“Manuaar,” Finn said. “We, um, appreciate meeting all of your people, but what’s going to happen to our galaxy?”

“Finn.”
Manuaar's wide eyes focused in on just him. “You have just met our world’s Leader Council. I summoned them here to meet you all so they could decide what should happen. They are good leaders and will make the wisest choice.”

“What choices do they have?” Finn asked.
“Like, voting to destroy our galaxy?
That kind of choice?”

“Finn.”
Manuaar hesitated for a long moment. “It is certainly one choice.”

Finn’s heart raced. They’d done everything they could and had broken about a million laws in the process only to find that their galaxy might still be in jeopardy?

Finn’s thoughts wandered to his family. He’d love to have his brother call him Noodle just one more time. He wished he could sit at his kitchen table on a Tuesday spaghetti night and listen to Quinn joke about eating him for dinner. He wished he could tell his mom how really, truly sorry he felt for sneaking around the Space Station with a copy of her ID badge. He wondered what it would feel like to have his dad actually be proud of him for once in his life.

“What can we do,” Finn’s voice cracked, “to make them vote to save our galaxy?”

Manuaar fell silent for a very uncomfortable amount of time. “I think you will just have to wait for their decision.”

Reggie and Mikayla clasped each other’s hands and collapsed onto the seats. Finn slumped down into the Captain’s chair, but the seat felt suddenly awkward—uncomfortable.

Makes sense,
Finn thought.
I’m not right for this chair.

Chapter 23: Waiting Game

“Let’s try them out.” Mikayla slipped the ear buds into each ear. “Can you understand what I’m saying?”

“Nope,” Reggie said.

They’d spent the last three days working on personal communications and translation devices so they wouldn’t have to go through ELAINA every time they wanted to talk to Manuaar.

“Good. Now you talk to me,” Mikayla said.

“Don’t know what to say.” Reggie shrugged.

“Wow. It works,” Mikayla said.

“Can you hear me now?” Finn joked.