Moonfin (26 page)

“Look! Someone walked into that star cluster near Saturn.”

“
How—
” Jeff wandered over to the basalt wall and placed his hand on a passing planet. Nothing happened. Then a voice startled them from behind—

“Can I help you?” it said smoothly.

The three children swung around to find a short tubby man, dressed in a white tunic and matching white oxfords, standing before them. His two eyes were stark and bulbous, set in the regular places found on a person's face, and then a crease in his forehead blinked open, and a third unusually large eye, sitting in a metal socket, appeared above the other two. And while his two regular eyes stared directly ahead, his third eye bounced wildly about like a frenetic, flinging ping-pong ball.

“If you wish to
travel
, I can help you. My office is right over there—” He waved a hand grandly toward a sign that read
PAVLINI'S PEREGRINATION
. “I am Pavlini, at your service.” He swept a large monocle up to his right eye and took a deep ceremonious bow, lingering over their shoes for several seconds before coughing a satisfied “Uh-huh” and standing back up again.

They couldn't help staring at his one roving eye, which at one point had left its metal socket and floated on a folding arm above their heads. It rotated back and forth, and seemed to be probing the air for something, occasionally halting in place, like a satellite collecting information, or maybe to watch a fly on the wall. They weren't sure, but it was spooky.

“
Blimey
—errm—where—d-do you help people travel to?” Jeff spluttered as the mechanical eye darted toward his face.

“The Constelluliary accommodates only the Milky Way Galaxy.
Of course
, for a price”—he craned his neck around the room and continued in hushed tones—“if you wish to go to another
neighborhood,
I can help you there as well. Even the Catastraptos Realms have their back doors,” he said. His third eye winked profusely.

Lizzy stepped up to the wall and placed her hand on a gaseous planet whizzing by. “So you sell tickets to travel through the … uh—what's it called?”

“Brane—yes, you need a code, to be sure, unless you are only traveling within the confines of the mountain. In which case, those gates are free.” He eyed them up and down, disgusted that they would choose
those
gates instead of an exciting trip into the cosmos. “The directory is posted up there.” He pointed vigorously with both index fingers to a flashing sign hanging from the ceiling.

They looked up and nodded politely, not fully understanding his meaning. Pavlini saw their confusion and puffed his cheeks irritably.

“Humph! You must be new. I'm surprised you made it this far without the mandatory training. I will have to report this to the Chamber of Tourism!”

Hearing the word “report” made them shift nervously.

Jeff looked over the directory as it scrolled above their heads, with moving timetables and strange symbols and spellings of words. He didn't recognize any of the destinations and wondered something.

“Tell me, Mr. Pavlini, can the, uh … Brane—take us to other places in Blowing Prawn or beyond?” He was trying to find an easy way back to the mainland.

“
Certainly not!
That is strictly against the rules. The Constelluliary is only for interstellar travel, not intraplanetary. You must take the traditional modes of transportation once planet-side. Don't want to draw attention to ourselves, now
do we
?

“And by ‘traditional' you mean …”

“Why, the Tarantulas transport, as you should know!”

They blinked at the strangely spider-like sound of that. Mr. Pavlini's mechanical eye shuddered startlingly open.

“Ah, I see, tough customers you are indeed! We do have a special going on right now—a free thirty-minute trip to the famous geysers of Charon, Pluto's moon. We call it the ‘Farewell to Pluto' tour in homage to the blue rock getting kicked out of the solar system—”

“But Pluto wasn't kicked out, just demoted to a dwarf planet,” corrected Lizzy, more than a little skeptical of the claims he was making about traveling to Charon, or anywhere else for that matter.

“Yes, yes,” he waved a hand impatiently, “whatever the case may be! Quite the buzz in all the travel circles, and now everyone wants to visit the humble little—er,
planet
. Call it what you want these days! It makes no difference to me (
as long as I sell tickets
). How about it? Would you like a sneak-peak?” He eyed them vigorously with all three pupils.

“One small problem,” said Kai. “How do we
breathe
on Charon?” She, for one, was very interested in trying out another planet, if it were possible.

“
And
not freeze to death?” added Lizzy crisply. “There isn't any atmosphere on Charon.”

Mr. Pavlini shook his little bald head and exhaled dramatically, which in turn made his third eye bounce even more insanely.“
I
do not know
how you got to this Waystation without proper debriefing! They are letting just
anybody
vacation these days!” he grumbled deeply.

“Put simply, each code comes with the Condensed-Oxygen-Nitrogen-Chip, a ‘CON-ch' for short. It keeps your body systems all in check, with adjustments to a wide range of environmental conditions, including, but not limited to, cryonic ice volcanoes, poisonous gases, and even ultraviolet protection from all starlight exposure. But you should stay away from nebulas—the nurseries are
highly
protected zones these days.”

“C-c-conch?” stammered Lizzy, surprised to hear that word again. She knew he wasn't talking about the
conch
shell
, but it was odd, considering the names were similar, and she had used one to breathe underwater.

“Yes, an optional feature—obviously the Sightseers don't need to use one, but it makes for a more comfortable trip, overall, in these forms.”

He took both hands and patted his round belly.

Lizzy couldn't take any more of his blithering nonsense and exploded. “What
forms
? I have no idea what you're talking about! I'm a scientist and sorry, but people
cannot
travel to other moons! It's not physically possible and—”

But before either she or Jeff could object further, Kai accepted his offer, and Mr. Pavlini whizzed off to collect their travel supplies.

Lizzy turned on Kai. “You know that's a bunch of crock! This is all just a money-making scheme!” she said hotly.

“And a good one,” snorted Jeff, very impressed.

“You're probably right, but look at these people going in and out of these walls! What's the worst that could happen? And it's free, after all!” said Kai, who danced around with such excitement, it was like her toes were on fire.

“We don't make it back though this Brane thing alive,” said Jeff glumly. “That's what could happen.”

“Don't be a kill-joy, Jeff!”

“Don't be such a thrill-seeker!” retorted Lizzy, even though, deep down, she was a little curious as well.

Mr. Pavlini returned a few minutes later with the CON-chips and snapped one to each of their ears; and a small rectangular silver box, on which he busily punched various colorful buttons. The box flashed with a series of green bulbs across the top.

“Now, listen carefully. Normally you would each have your own polyoscillationdulceter box to bring your molecules into harmonics with the Brane, but since this is a freebie, you will need to come back through the Brane port within the
allotted thirty minutes
,” he said sternly.

Jeff was sweating.

“And if we don't.”

“The Brane will close and you will be stuck. Forever. Only harmonized molecules can travel back and forth. Your time begins now. Charon will light up green as it passes along the Constelluliary wall, and your CON-ch will alert you when it will open up again on the other side. Good luck and good sightseeing.” He shook his shiny head and plodded off muttering something about the new ones being such a nuisance.

Just as Mr. Pavlini said, the moon Charon lit up green and glided across the ceiling and down to floor level, near to where they stood. Lizzy, Jeff, and Kai followed it slowly for several yards, staring intensely at its bumps and craters, wondering if this would be an adventure of a lifetime, or the last time any of them would ever see earth.

Lizzy could see something fluttering beneath the wall like a massive flower, its petals waving and overlapping, rotating and transversing. “It's beautiful,” she breathed.

They took the plunge and stepped one by one into its green glow; it was like walking into a gigantic fleshy rose petal suspended in a clear ball of water. In the blink of an eye, for it was as simple as that—shutting their lids and opening them again—they found themselves standing in an ice valley. Gazing at the vast sparkling landscape, they stood frozen from awe—not from cold, thanks to the CON-ch—taking in all the sights and gentle sounds.

Gasps poured out of them with each new sight, and it was many long minutes before anyone could move or speak.

In the distance massive craters shot straight up into a twinkling arctic sky and continuous rows of jagged peaks formed half-circles and nautilus shapes that flowed in and out of one another so evenly, it was hard to tell where one range began and another ended. Oval and pillared skylights of black starry pockets spattered the ice walls, presenting an incredible vista of cathedral-like spires.

Bits of rock swirled through glaciers from behind and below, and peering closely, they could see that the ice “grew” in sinewy stretches of fiber all across the walls and outcroppings, shooting up and up. Jeff, Kai, and Lizzy were also surprised to realize that underneath the ice were the outlines of buildings, eternally frozen in place.

Spinning to gaze the whole valley, they could see hundreds of flowing cryo-geysers—at least they guessed as much from what they learned from astronomy in school. And people—very
large people
—who gathered around little vents, laughing, seeming to be having a splendid time, like a big party on the deck of a cruise ship.

One group of people rolled flaming bowling balls into geysers, each of which popped back out and exploded magnificently. And then someone would measure the distance the pieces traveled—it looked like whoever blasted theirs the farthest won the game. Others sipped tropical drinks with little umbrellas in them, lounging on rafts suspended over a steaming pool-sized geyser, which burst out gases at intervals, bobbling them up and down along with it.

Jeff let out a terrific, “
Whoa
!” and Kai spouted, “It's a winter amusement park!” all at once, and were very keen to try their luck with the geyser-bowling.

“Pinch me! I can hardly believe this is happening,” squealed Lizzy. “Charon has no atmosphere, and yet here we are standing right on it … still
alive
!”

Kai tapped the CON-ch attached to her ear. “We have less than thirty minutes—better get a move-on.”

“Uh-oh, do you
not
see what I don't see?” moaned Jeff.

Lizzy and Kai followed his gaze to the wall where they had just come through and noticed it didn't look anything like the Constelluliary wall port—no star clusters or planets swirling across it.

“Okay, let's not panic,” said Lizzy. “There must be a way to get back! Otherwise, all of these people would be stuck here.” She fought to stay calm, genuinely wanting to be brave this time. It was a dream for a scientist to even
think
of travel to the outer limits of the solar system.

“Look—there's a couple of, er … giants ahead,” she said, turning toward them.

“Lizzy—noooo! They're
giants
!” squeaked Kai, but Lizzy had already run off. Jeff and Kai followed reluctantly behind, spitting out complaints as they went.

They reached the edge of a small volcano where two very tall men—at least fifteen feet in height by Lizzy's estimation—sat in rickety wooden chairs, hunched over a bubbling geyser. They had overly elongated heads, which seemed chiseled from solid stone, and reminded Lizzy of those rock-head statues she read about on Easter Island. Buckets and tackle boxes littered the ground near their enormous hairy feet. They were holding fast to long fishing poles, checking their lines as fisherman were wont to do, completely ignoring the presence of the three children, who listened carefully to their conversation. They spoke in quiet mumblings, very slowly, with deep, earthy voices that clacked as their lips touched, how a boulder might sound if it were blessed with speech.

“Boy! I sure am glad they opened up this moon for ice fishing. I'll tell ya, Bernie, I was going plum crazy with nuthin' to do after they closed Triton to the Sightseers.”

Bernie gruffed forcefully.

“Me too! Wonder why they shut that whole operation down—that was the best hatchery around this system!”

“I heard Triton's on lockdown. After the
disappearances,
it's no wonder no one wants to go back there.”

“Do ya know where they took the poor buggers? I hear it's to that place—Catastraptos, they call it. Don't ever want to get hauled off to that place. It'd be the end of me, fer sure. Check yer line, Joe, I think you might have got one.”

Joe leaned in and plucked a nylon thread, sending a
twang
off the ice-walls.

“Eherrm,” Jeff cleared his throat loudly, his fear of giants overcome only by his dread of being stuck on Charon forever. “We were wondering if—”

“Hush up, boy!” snapped Bernie. “You'll scare 'em away with yer loud talk.”

Jeff jumped five feet backward and looked furtively around. “
Scare what
? I don't see anything.”

“Why, the Muddies, of course!” he jawed slowly, nodding his rather large head toward the small volcano. Lizzy's mouth fell open and a sudden shocked look took over her face.