I squinted at the alien letters, trying to remember what it meant if a big bubble had all those little bubbles queued up along the edge of it, when suddenly that same billboard got in my way again.
The line was moving, steadily. We’d take a step forward every few seconds toward whatever was going on up front—I hadn’t been paying attention. Now I watched as a light winked on over the hole and the Boov at the front of the line dropped into it.
“Whoa,” I said, stepping back. “What?”
FOOMP, went the hole. The light snapped off for a second, then back on again. The next Boov stepped over the edge.
FOOMP.
“I know that sound,” I murmured. It was the sound a big bubbleship made when it sucked a person up one of its hoselegs.
The Boov ahead of us in line turned and smiled. “Is it his first time on New Boovworld?”
“Yes,” said J.Lo from behind his helmet. “She has never traveled by sucktunnel beforenow.”
“So cute at this age. Still teething?”
This would have made me madder if I hadn’t had a permanent tooth coming in on the right. I touched it with my tongue.
“Still teething,” said J.Lo. “Makes her fussy.”
“It does not,” I muttered.
The Boov ahead of us was next. “Byenow,” she said, and fell into the hole at her feet.
FOOMP.
“We have to go separate,” said J.Lo, stepping forward. And I didn’t even have a chance to respond before the light lit and FOOMP, he was gone.
“Uh,” I said.
It was just a dark, whooshing hole. The thin accordion sides of it flapped from the suction.
The light came back on.
I stepped. But then I didn’t step.
“It is your turn, human,” said someone.
I turned and gave an apologetic wave to all the Boov behind me. I was a Barbie doll all of a sudden—stiff smile, couldn’t seem to bend at the knees and elbows.
“Humansboy! Step inside the sucktunnel.”
“Sorry!” I said. “Sorry. Just gimme a second. I’ve never done this before.”
“The tallest neckbird may choke on a single stone, human!”
“What? What does that mean?” I muttered. “Is that a fortune cookie or something?”
“Many fingers make a hand,” said someone else.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. On three.”
“The longest journey begins with a single person pushing you,” said the next Boov in line, before pushing me.
FOOMP.
And I went, “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” I’ve thought of cleverer replies since then, but that’s what I said at the time.
I whipped feetfirst through the sucktunnel, banking through curves, turning slowly along my axis like a pig on a spit. It was utterly dark, so I can’t really tell you what it looked like, or even how long it took—I think I kind of left my body for a second. But a year or possibly three seconds later I foomped out the other end of the tunnel and then SMAP, I was stuck to a safetypillow—one on a spinning pink wheel of safetypillows, which swung me around and popped me loose on the side opposite the tunnel. I landed on my feet, barely, and pinwheeled my arms around for balance. “KEEP MOVING,” said an electronic voice, so I hopped forward just as the wheel turned and the pillows dropped a Boov where I’d been standing a moment before. I glared at him.
“You didn’t have to push me,” I growled.
He walked by as another Boov dropped from the safetypillows behind him. “I have never seen you before in my life,” he said.
“Oh.” I checked out the next Boov as the pillows swung another one around. “Did you push me?”
“It is possible; I have pushed many humans,” said this new Boov. “When would this have been?”
“Aha! Never mind, it was that guy!” I said as another Boov arrived. “I recognize his little...zipper thingy. You pushed me!”
“No,” he said, “I make a point never to touch humans—that’s how you get hooties.”
“Man,” I sighed. “You Boov all look alike.”
“That’s racist,” said the Boov, clucking his tongue. He left, and I was alone.
Finally I stumbled through a door into a sort of Grand Central Station, where J.Lo was waiting.
“What kept you?” he asked. “Tunnel clog?”
THREE
This room was vast and tall, vaulted with hoops of blue glass that made the orange light outside look halfway normal.
“I love it here,” I told J.Lo. “I’m already making friends.”
“Seenow? I told you.”
“So is this it?” I asked him. “The HighBoovperial Palace?”
“Do not be ridicumulous. This is a sucktunnel terminal. The palace—”
Suddenly there was some Boov guy in our face. “YOU THERE, FRIEND WHO WALKS WITH A HUMAN! Do you not agree that New Boovworld needs a modern leader for a modern age?” he shouted.
“The palace is probablies...this way,” J.Lo finished, sidestepping the shouter. “What is this business?”
“A capable leader, a DYNAMIC-STYLE leader! One who is not content to rest on his laurels!”
J.Lo gasped. So did a lot of nearby Boov.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
J.Lo lowered his voice. “We do not talk about a person’s...laurels. They are private.”
I gave my new mole a poke. “I’m not sure this thing’s working right.”
The Boov doing all the shouting was standing atop a little platform that he appeared to have brought and inflated himself. Above his head were some letters, spelling something, and a floating image of a Boov in a green jumpsuit with a flag undulating in slow motion behind him.
“PONCH SANDHANDLER is the leader we need! Respected by all for her-his excellent sandhandling, she-he could have been the fanciest officer in the Boovish fleet.”
Everyone made thoughtful noises.
“And yet now! SURPRISE! Ponch Sandhandler volunteered for the Four Hundred Thirty-Seventh Floating Infantry!”
This was super impressive, apparently—everyone recognized that division. “The Furious Fightpunchers,” someone whispered.
“This is very strange,” J.Lo told me. “It is almost aslike he’s saying this Sandhandler ladyfellow should be HighBoov. Instead to Smek.”
“Eh,” I shrugged. “Somebody’s always yellin’ somethin’.” Then my view of the speaker was blocked by a cluster of bubbles.
“GAH!” I shouted, waving them away. “Another one?”
“The same one, actualies,” said J.Lo. “It seems to have followed you here.”
“Say ‘NO MORE’ to the HighBoov who needed a humans man to fight his Gorg for him! The humans have a saying: ‘See ya—would not want to be ya.’ The HighBoov should be as an inspiration, but who would want to be Smek now? Elect Ponch Sandhandler!”
His voice faded from our ears as we exited the terminal and walked, blinking, into the sunshine. I squeezed J.Lo’s shoulder pad for balance. Only by sort of mincing along could I keep from launching into terrible gymnastics.
“It’s following me, isn’t it,” I said.
J.Lo glanced back at the billboard. “Yes.”
It was like a dog. Like I let it finish my sandwich and now I was going to have to ask Mom if I could keep it when we got home.
I sighed. Mom.
There was a patch of mossy green here that smelled like swimming pool. A dozen koobish grazed amid plush-looking palm trees. J.Lo plucked the tip off a koobish’s ear as he passed and chewed it pensively. I’m probably never going to get used to seeing that, but the koobish couldn’t have cared less.
“Some bonkers things happening here, I can tell you,” J.Lo said.
“What, because of that speaker back there?”
“Because therenow is an uncertainness. An uncertainness about our leadership. This is not the homeland I was remembering.”
“It’s a whole new world,” I told him with a wave of my arm and
consequently a fall to the ground. “Ow.”
“A whole new world,” repeated J.Lo.
“Yeah. I know people say that and they just mean they bought a new phone or found a diet soda they really like, but this is literally a whole new world. It makes sense that things would change. Plus the Gorg are leaving the Boov alone for the first time in, what—a hundred years?”
“I never thought I would have seen it.”
“You’re not just seeing it; you helped make it happen,” I said, smiling. “And soon Captain Smek is going to thank you personally.”
The palace was right ahead of us. It was one of those buildings that had been built out of an old starship. Through the pumpkin-colored haze I saw a big bubble dome up top, then a couple of stories like a gleaming coaster underneath, then hoselegs snaking wide, rooted to the ground or forming breezeways between buildings.
I hadn’t seen much of Boovish art, apart from the stuff J.Lo draws. I guess when you’re always in exploration-and-battle mode you don’t have a lot of time for nice things. But here I could see what the Boov had done to this former spaceship now that they had some time on their hands, and it looked like it had been decorated by a bunch of ten-year-old Japanese girls: lots of round, cutesy animal shapes, bright colors, mirrored trinkets, and plastic fins sticking out every which way. And here my memory abruptly ends because the palace got hidden behind a billboard. Whatever.
“Change is good,” I said, maybe a little blithely.
“Ha,” J.Lo huffed.
“What?”
“I have been watching the Americans. You like to think you decide things, but you only ever decide not to change. Because you are afrightened of change. You are the man who likes a big menu but always orders hamgurbers.”
I frowned. “Come on. You’re freaking out just because your people are thinking about changing leaders. We have a presidential election every four years.”
“Ah, and what a crazy amusement ride this is,” said J.Lo, wiggling his fingers. “Remembers when you elected that really fat lady? Or that Hindu man? How ’bout the unmarried short guy?”
“Or the black man?” I answered. “How about that time we elected the black man.”
“Eh, a fluke. Your presidents cans not even have a beard anymore. He cans not even have a hat.”
I tried to think of how to answer this, and while I was thinking, we entered the palace through an open hoseleg that was only half buried in the foundation. The ribs of it formed arches over our heads as we walked through the hall. Thin light filtered in through the accordion membrane and gave everything a kind of milky sameness.
I looked up and all around, so of course I caught a glimpse of that bubble billboard floating behind me. I thought I saw how it worked, kind of. In the center of the billboard was a plump little silver doodad—a floating chrome Christmas ornament with six spindly legs and a pair of wiry antennae and a fat trumpet in the back where the bubbles came out. The Boov called them bluzzers. During the invasion we humans called them bees. Some were microscopic; others were pickle-sized like this one. There were bees for tracking people, bees for exploding and sabotaging things. And bees for advertising, apparently.
I looked it in its three little eyes. If those even were eyes. And as I watched, it changed its message—just for an instant, but it changed. Like it was a secret between it and me. I found myself wishing that I knew what it was trying to tell me.
But that was ridiculous—it was a billboard. A commercial. As a little kid I’d always had a habit of giving personalities to every little thing. I’d talk to the faces in the electrical outlets. I’d try not to have favorite outfits because I didn’t want any of my clothes to feel left out. I would have starved if only you’d made me name all my food before I ate it.
I jerked my head at the billboard and asked J.Lo, “What is that thing even trying to sell me, anyway?”
“Eh,” said J.Lo as he tried to think of how to explain it. “Is a kind of strap for people whose eyes are too big. Aslike a bra for your face.”
“Super.”
At the other end of the hoseleg hallway was a checkpoint—probably a metal detector or whatever the Boovish version of a metal detector would be. A pleasant-looking Boov wearing what appeared to be shingles was flanked on either side by serious guards. It was only then that it hit me what a stupid idea this was. It was like we were walking up to the White House gates and asking for a sit-down with the president. I think it hit J.Lo, too.
“Hello, visitors!” said the pleasant-looking Boov. “Welcome to the HighBoovperial Palace. Your billboard will have to stay outside.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “Tell it.”
The pleasant-looking Boov opted not to do that. “Are you here for the exhibit on how a bill becomes a law?”
The Boov motioned toward the exhibit—which was in Boovish, English, and Chinese—but it was just a picture of Smek thinking hard with a caption that read:
1. A BILL IS PROPOSED.
2. CAPTAIN SMEK DECIDES IF IT IS A LAW OR NOT.
“Huh,” I said. “Is that it?”
“Of course that is not it. On the opposite side there is a microphone for asking for new laws! And a button that says ‘no’ when you press it. Would you like to ‘take it for a spin,’ as I’m told you humans say? You are forbidden to actually spin it.”
“No, please,” said J.Lo. “We would like to...see Captain Smek?”
It was quiet for a bit after that. The guards looked at each other.
“We, um, do not have an appointment.”
I smiled a wan little smile. “Pretty cray-cray, huh?”
“Yes,” said the Boov, looking at an agenda. “Normally this would be considered big-time cray-cray. Normally we would have some funny neckties we’d make you wear for suggesting such a thing. But...you are here at the luckiest time.”
“Yes?” J.Lo looked hopefully at me. “Are we?”
“Captain Smek is trying to be”—the Boov tilted its head—“more available to the little persons this week. A dynamic, listening sort of HighBoov.”
“Uh-huh,” I smirked. “Wonder what could be bringing that on.” J.Lo elbowed me.
“Yes. So.” The Boov affixed a sticker to J.Lo’s helmet and another to my dog tag. “The pink lift will take you to our great leader. Kabaap.”
They moved aside, and J.Lo and I stepped through. I shot a final glance over my shoulder at the bubble billboard. It was hanging back a bit. And I thought it looked nervous, because I’m an idiot like that. I gave it a frown and a curt wave.
This section of the palace was like a vast hollow ring, with gently curving corners that were buttressed against the ceiling. Light came in a hundred portholes and through the rafters. More Boov dressed in shingles walked this way and that, as tubaharp music faintly played.
“My mole didn’t translate the last word that Boov said,” I told J.Lo. “It sounded like...‘kabaap’?”
“Ah. It is like...‘good luck, you are going to need it.’”
“Oh. And the stickers we’re wearing?”
“They only to say ‘visitor.’”
We got on the pink lift and it shot us up so fast my legs almost gave out. We rose up and out of the elevator shaft and kept going through the open air of the great glass globe that formed most of the palace—past platforms bustling with Boov, past smaller globes and big pearly baubles that must have been private offices. All of it gleamed, apart from a spaghetti of dull orange tubes that connected everything to the coaster section below. We shot up and up to nearly the highest point of the globe. Then the door of the lift opened, and we exited onto a dizzying skywalk.
It was transparent, which was bad enough, but then it didn’t have any side rails either. I looked down and immediately wished I hadn’t. Below was a kaleidoscope of crystal curves and moving bodies. As we stepped, our footfalls sent ripples through the skywalk, as if the whole thing might disappear if I stopped believing in it.
So I was super happy to pa
ss through a door and into a saucer-shaped room with a solid floor and walls. There was a solid desk here too, and a receptionist who was as solid as any Boov. Which is to say not exceptionally solid.
“Greetings, brother!” said the receptionist as she stood. “Plus one. The checkpoint monitor said you would be coming. Is this your first time calling on our Beloved Leader?”
“First-time caller, longtime listener,” said J.Lo, in Boovish. Not that you could see his face, but he actually seemed kind of excited. Bouncy. “Is he in there? Can we go in there?”
The Boov smiled. “You will have to lower your helmet.”
Blue-headed J.Lo said, “But I do not want to lower my helmet.”
The receptionist’s smile zippered up a notch. “But you will have to. You will have to do that.”
“But I do not want to.”
Clearly this had never happened before.
“This has never happened before,” said the receptionist. “In my...in my position as secretary to Captain Smek it is my responsibility to ask visitors to remove their helmets. Or hats. I have other responsibilities. Sometimes I am sent for pastries.”
“I understand,” said J.Lo.
“It was in my capacity as secretary to Captain Smek that I asked you to remove your helmet. Before. Sooo...” she said, twirling her hand at the wrist.
One of the nodes atop her desk winked on.
“Ms. Yogurt!” said the voice of Captain Smek. “What is all that mumbling out there?”
“There’s a mysterious Boov to see you, Captain.”
“Interesting! Sounds mysterious! Why is he mysterious?”
“I can’t see his face, sir. He won’t remove his helmet.”
“Ms. Yogurt, it is one of your responsibilities as secretary to ask him to—”
“I know! I know, sir! I did ask him, but he says he does not want to remove his helmet.”
“Fascinating. Can you put him on?”
The receptionist covered the node with her hand. “He wants to speak with you,” she told J.Lo.
“Hellonow,” said J.Lo.
“Am I talking to the mysterious Boov who doesn’t want to remove his helmet?”