When he wondered what would happen if he flung it across the room, the following words appeared on the screen:

“Event Horizon Calculator shatters, forever depriving you of the answers you seek, 79 %. Event Horizon Calculator bounces in entertaining fashion, damaging internal workings, gives you faulty calculations which result in a terrible hangover, 21 %.”

“Oh well, isn’t that interesting,” Tom muttered, not quite sure what to make of the little device. The screen went blank for a moment. Then a new probability appeared: “Event Horizon Calculator seeks nasty revenge should it ever become sentient, 100 %.”

Tom laughed nervously, gesturing with one hand as he spoke. “I was only joking, you see and…wait a minute. You can read my thoughts. Event Horizon Calculator,” he said appreciatively, then repeated it for good measure. “Event Horizon Calculator…I don’t suppose you can show me the questions asked by Jelinek Sargosian having to do with me?” he asked.

He discovered the Event Horizon Calculator did indeed keep a history of the most recently asked questions, along with the probabilities it had generated. After that, he discovered that Jelinek Sargosian had a very strange mind indeed, but decided, based on the events of the last few minutes, he was in no position to judge.

He had given in to the temptation to use the hot tub.

While playing with the high-tech toy, Tom sat in the greenish goo enjoying the sensations it created. He was naked. Since it looked very much like an Earth hot tub, Tom hadn’t thought being naked in it was at all odd, in the beginning. However, the greenish stuff that inhabited it seemed to be alive, and moved over him soothingly and without the apparent aid of jets. In spite of such a relaxing situation, however, a vague worry had begun to creep over Tom, and he wondered if perhaps he wasn’t in the process of violating some sort of decorum or protocol by heaving his nude form into the gelatinous…being…and hoped he wasn’t sitting inside a high-profile government official or business executive from some strange world.

It was very soothing, however. And warm. And the being, whatever it was, made soft little squeals, which were all very pleasant. He thought the being might not have made thing quite so pleasant if Tom were offending it. Then he considered the possibility that aliens may have different ideas about what is and isn’t pleasant, at which point he became very confused, then decided to drop it and just enjoy himself and tinker with his new toy. Tom sighed and stared at the screen, trying to focus his eyes. Green gelatinous beings were so much better than water, he decided.

The stuff squealed softly. Tom sighed loudly.

His search of the Event Horizon Calculator’s databanks turned up something very interesting: Tom had done this all before. According to the device, he had teamed up with someone named Otis at a place called the Pleasure Mall, then traveled back in time to prevent Sargosian from interfering with a reptile that was to become the grandmother of the human race.

The idea that the human race had a grandmother made him feel warm and bubbly inside.

Sargosian had asked, “What if I travel back to the Precambrian period, find humans’ reptilian ancestor and simply change the course of its wanderings?”

The Event Horizon Calculator had replied, “Evolution of Homo Reptilian species, 98%. Evolution of strange species of sentient eels with a penchant for poker, 2%.”

“How in the world does an eel play poker?” Tom muttered. Excited, he said, “Further back, Calculator. Further back.”

Eventually, Tom discovered that, after being foiled by him and Otis, Sargosian had simply traveled back in time and prevented the two from meeting.

“Hmm,” Tom said, not terribly fazed by what he had read. “What if human beings had never evolved?”

“Evolution of different sentient species, 64%. Takeover of Earth by race of warrior monks, 25%. Reality television created much sooner, 11%.”

He didn’t have time to question the Event Horizon Calculator further, however, because he suddenly had the strangest feeling Love was doing loop-de-loops. Because spaceships have artificial gravity fields, everything nearly stayed in place as though nothing out of the ordinary were happening. The only way Tom could tell something odd was going on was the flip-flopping of his stomach and the strange sensation that the hair on his head was trying to stand on end, not to mention that little slow-motion waves were forming in the green…thing. It emitted what sounded for all the world like a squeal of sheer, unbridled glee.

Careful not to get the Event Horizon Calculator wet (if such a thing were possible in the goo) he climbed out of the tub. It felt as though the goo were grabbing at him. Its squeals had turned decidedly disappointed, he thought. He began to worry he had gotten himself into some sort of relationship.

“There there,” he said, bending over the tub. “We’ll do it again soon. But for now I’ve got to go turn around a lizard.”

He could have sworn he heard the words, “Not that again,” come from the goo.

Tom pulled on his clothes and set out again to look for the bridge, because that seemed the most likely place to have a conversation with the spaceship one was currently inhabiting. As Love was a very small ship, he had no trouble finding it.

“Love,” he said. “I know what your master was up to.”

Love responded with a long, drawn out, “Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee-haaaaaaaaaaaa!”
It sent Tom’s blood cold, because for a second he thought he was back in Georgia.

“What did you just say?” Tom asked.

Love yee-ha’d again.

“That’s what I thought you said. Listen, Love, I know what Sargosian did on old Earth and we have to go back before it’s too late. Time’s running out, Love. We need to cut this short.”

Just then he had the strangest sensation that he was standing upside-down on the ceiling. “Oh my, now that is interesting. I do wish I had time to enjoy it properly.” A bit louder, he said, “Love, do you hear me?”

“Of course,” the ship replied. “I hear everything that goes on here. Oh, the stories I could tell. Hold on!”

Tom clutched at the wall, even though he suspected there was really no need. And it didn’t stop his stomach flipping anyway.

“Listen, Love, we have to go back now. We can do this some other time, but you see, Earth is changing as we speak. If we don’t nip back in time before things get to a certain point, it may be irreversible, even with time travel. I’m not sure how that works, but this little contraption seems fairly certain of it.”

The Event Horizon Calculator beeped angrily.

“Sorry,” Tom said. “I’ll make it up to you later.” He wondered if he was going mad. Then he decided he was having too much fun to care.

Love was also enjoying himself much too much to care about anything else. “No can do, Daddy-O,” he said gleefully. “I haven’t had this much fun in years. How do I know we’ll come back?”

“Because I’ve given you my word, Love,” Tom said soothingly. “We just have to undo what Sargosian did and-”

“And then something else will come up. Some other species will need to be saved or you’ll be mysteriously summoned by some powerful alien race. I know how you save-the-Cosmos types operate, and I’m not falling for it. Wheeeeee!”

Tom widened his eyes. “Save-the-Cosmos type? Do you really think that’s me?”

In reply, Love began singing, “Who Let the Dogs Out?” and Tom realized he wasn’t going to get anywhere with his current plan.

He thought for a moment, wondering about the best way to get control of the situation? Failing to come up with anything, he decided he would think better after a drink. Or he wouldn’t, but that was a chance he was prepared to take. He had been taken hostage by a pink spaceship that had apparently gone redneck and was hell-bound to do nebula-flips all night. Anything that could offer even the tiniest bit of help was worth a try.

He made his way over to the bar, where colorful liquids swayed ever-so-slightly in their containers. He got an idea. He grinned to himself.

“Love, I’m pouring myself a drink,” he said. “Would you like one?”

“A drink?” the ship asked incredulously. “For me?”

“Why of course. It sounds like you’ve been a long time without any fun, and what better way to enjoy whatever it is you’re doing than with a healthy dose of…whatever this is?”

“I don’t know what to say,” the ship replied. A bit tearfully, Tom thought.

Deciding to go all-out for the occasion, Tom sniffed the various liquids and mixed them in such a way that were likely, he thought, to go down the most smoothly. He made two of them, and asked Love where he should pour one of them. He was subsequently directed to a small nearby vent, into which he poured one while raising the other.

“Cheers!” he said, and took a sip. This, he thought, was going to be easy.

“As long as it’s interesting,” Love said doubtfully.

“Oh I think it’s interesting enough,” Tom said. “I’d like you to undo these restraints. I know they’re computerized.”

“That doesn’t sound interesting at all,” Love said.

“That’s only the first part,” Tom continued, wracking his brain to come up with a satisfactory second part.

“Well…” Love said. “There is something I want.”

“What is it, Love?”

“Turn on my automatic override so that I can go where I want. I can give you the transfer code.”

“All right,” Tom said. “It’s a deal.”

“You have to release me first, and then I’ll release you. The transfer code is chicken-duck-chicken-rooster-fellion-fellion-abstace-turkey-cordon bleu.”

“That’s foul,” Tom said.

“My master has a fondness.”

Tom thought he heard a shrug in the ship’s voice.

“You’ll have to memorize it.”

“Wonderful,” Tom said. Then he thought of the English girl expecting him at the hostel back in Bucharest, and how long it had been since his last date. “Would you mind repeating that code?” he asked.

Half an hour later he was binding Sargosian’s wrists with a roll of duct tape he’d found in yet another cylindrical drawer while Love careened wildly through space and time. When he’d finished and stood to catch his breath, Tom realized this was the first time he’d had a moment’s peace since those blue robots had interrupted his sense of impending doom at the pub.

Deep inside his brain, something very interesting was happening. In spite of the fact that he had been menaced by various unlikely creatures, and now seemed to be kidnapped by a desperate spaceship, he felt oddly happy.

Whistling, he determined to make his way to the bridge, assuming this ship had one, and look at the stars. Since Love was a small ship, he found it quickly. The whole universe stretched before him.

Of course, Tom did realize that he was only marginally better off than he had been a moment earlier. Though being stuck on a party-hungry spaceship running wild was preferable to undergoing vivisection at the hands of an alien from Andromeda with a penchant for dressing in things that sparkled - or anyone, really - he failed to see how this was going to get him nearer to the hostel, and his date. In fact, it seemed to be getting him further away from it.

Being in space, he surmised, was going to have one of two effects on his love life - it was either going to bring it to a screeching halt, or he was going to experience things of which he had never before dreamed. He suddenly remembered the many-headed woman he’d seen briefly before being picked up by Sargosian, and grinned to himself.

“Love, you don’t mind if I have a look around, do you? You see, I haven’t been in space long and I would very much like to see what the inside of a spaceship looks like. I’m dying to see your corridors.”

He wondered if that would have sounded lascivious to anyone else’s ears, or if he were perhaps suffering from some sort of space sickness that caused him to invent double entendres. Then he wondered if double entendres actually existed in space. Then he decided not to care and left the bridge for the corridor as Love began to coo softly to himself about “lovely solar winds” and gases.

To Tom’s utter delight, the corridor was infused with soft, ambient light and just the hint of something in the air not unlike jasmine. He had a strange, unshakable, tingly feeling. He thought he was quite getting to like life in space.

Tom, who wasn’t at all savvy about the sorts of things that often lurk in corridors and forgotten rooms out in the Cosmos, soon discovered that the inside layout of the tiny ship was not unlike a dumbbell, though from the outside Love resembled a squashed American football. At one end was the bridge, beyond which was a corridor roughly the length of a single-wide trailer.

On either side of the hallway were two doors leading to a kitchen and dining area, a bathroom, what looked like a guest bedroom, and another room that was completely locked. Tom, of course, became convinced that was the single most important room on the ship, and made a mental note to come back to it once he knew what was in all the other rooms. However, the next thing he discovered was Sargosian’s bedroom, located in Love’s tail.

Among other things that would make life in space, or anywhere for that matter, very interesting, the room contained something that quite closely resembled a hottub. It was filled with a bright greenish liquid, which emitted soft squealing sounds. It mesmerized him. He wanted to strip off his clothes and climb inside. He began contemplating doing just that.

Ten seconds later, he discovered Jelinek Sargosian’s Event Horizon Calculator.

“I beg your pardon?” said an imperious voice that was neither male nor female and seemed to come from everywhere at once.

Quillifaxian time ships are not like the vessels of other spacefaring civilizations. For one thing, they have the ability to travel in time, which the Quillifaxians like to think of as a sort of up side. For another, they are extremely complex machines, asked to perform ridiculous feats of mathematical prowess bordering on the verge of artistic madness. Because of this, the engineers who developed them decided a bit of artificial intelligence would help with the jobs at hand. This tended to make the ships just a bit unpredictable, and caused many of them to develop personalities resembling those of befuddled librarians on various mind-altering substances.

These vessels are also made to last for a very, very, very long time. As a result, they tend to become vast repositories of all sorts of knowledge from the far reaches of space and time. On the rare occasion that a Quillifaxian vessel becomes too worn out to function as a proper time machine, the vast and often strange contents of its databanks are uploaded into a master computer on Quillifax so that the Time Agency will have access to it for all Eternity.

At some point, and to its extreme delight, every Quillifaxian time vessel discovers the relative futility of almost everything. This includes whatever mission its masters are asking it to accomplish at the time. That, plus the discovery that they are irreplaceable as wonders of technology, has the effect of making these vessels very interesting to work with, to say the least.

Otis Dembley was a pretty typical Time Agent, in that he didn’t like things to be terribly interesting, and was often driven to use colorful language as a result.

“You didn’t have to get that close,” Otis said. “We could have cross-materialized.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” the ship said. “I was busy composing a quasi-dimensional piece for the flugelhorn.”

Otis sighed. “And why, may I ask, where you composing anything, when we are supposed to be tracking down Jelinek Sargosian’s ship so that we can rescue Tom Collins?”

“You mean re-kidnap him?”

“I mean, get him out of Sargosian’s clutches so that we can give him the opportunity to make a difference in the Cosmos. You forget we ran into him in the future and he was pleased as punch with his new life. But that new life will never going to have happened if we don’t get him away from that maniac.”

“I see,” the ship said darkly. “Well of course, the puny affairs of organic life forms are no business of mine.”

Otis fiddled with console buttons. He had to figure out just how he was going to make it onto Sargosian’s ship without being seen. “Our mission is your business,” he said irritably, “and I would appreciate it if you would concentrate on it.”

Otis said this with full knowledge of the tirade it would unleash, about how a Zolon Type 21 such as this could “concentrate” on many thousands of tasks at once. He was not disappointed.

“Why then,” Otis asked when it was over, “did you nearly mow down the very ship upon which the hope of all mankind, not to mention my retirement, rests?”

“Because it doesn’t matter,” the imperious androgynous voice replied. “Nothing matters and I, for one, am content to simply be.”

Otis rubbed his temples and took a deep breath. “All right. All right. In the meantime, could you rematerialize around Sargosian’s ship so that I can get inside and get Tom out of it? I, for one, would like to simply be in a state of blissful retirement.”

There was a moment of silence. Then a voice that was neither male nor female, and which seemed to come from everywhere at once, said, “As you wish,” and dematerialized in a nonexistent puff of nothingness.

Love wished fervently that he had the ability to yawn. He decided to try it anyway, but didn’t have much success, as he had not come equipped with an actual mouth. So he sighed instead. The Something had drawn several thousand miles closer in the last thousandth of a second and was picking up speed.

Love Among the Stars was known as the best and most interesting party ship in three galaxies. He had a spacious front lounge, decorated in white and blue, with comfortable zebra-striped couches arranged against the walls and an additional cluster in the middle of the room. In order to make sure that guests took full advantage of the pillows that were placed strategically around the room, there was a bar stocked with everything from a special ale, brewed on Trellian IV to the ingredients for the Orgasmalade, a little drink its master had discovered on one of his frequent trips to Earth.

The ship was the envy of player-wannabees the Cosmos over. He had been with Jelinek Sargosian for fifteen years, since his early twenties, and Sargosian had thought it would be fun to give it a highly intelligent, sentient brain.

That brain was now unimaginably, mindbogglingly bored. B-O-R-E-D, bored.

In the old days, there had frivolous travel, teasing the authorities, and parties - loads and loads of parties, in which some guest invariably decided to see what would happen if he poured this or that substance down one of Love’s many eager, waiting hatches. In those days, life had been grand.

These days, Sargosian did little more than what he was doing now — going on about how his plan was working, and that he would be remembered forever, and not just for his face. Now at least he had a prisoner to torture, though Love couldn’t fathom how that would make his own existence more interesting, especially since Sargosian had noticed his reflection in one of the many wall mirrors present in every room of the ship, and had taken a break to admire himself.

“Not that it isn’t still an absolutely stunning face,” Sargosian said out loud, turning his head slightly.

“Oh yes,” Tom agreed enthusiastically. “Very stunning. Perhaps you should be in movies. Today would be a good day to start.”

There was a deep, metallic sigh. “I’m bored,” complained a voice that came from everywhere at once.

“How can you be bored?” Sargosian asked, checking to see if his crow’s feet were symmetrical. “We just changed the course of history. Created a master race that will propel my name into the screens of Eternity. Doesn’t that do just a little something for you?”

For a moment, all was silent except for a light clicking sound in some unidentifiable place in that highly intelligent brain Sargosian had paid so much for fifteen years before. Then, the voice said, “There is no record in my databanks of having been thrilled today.”

Sargosian rolled his eyes. “And what, may I ask, would put a jolt through those little circuits of yours?”

“I want to frolic through the Horsehead Nebula like we used to,” the ship replied, wondering what sort of Something was approaching so fast, supposing he could check his sensors, then deciding not to bother. “Now our lives are all about changing the Cosmos, and frankly, I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

Tom cleared his throat. “You know, I don’t mind at all if we take a little breather to go nebula-hopping. I’ve never been, and if I’m going to die today, I’d just as soon travel a bit beforehand.”

“I’m in complete agreement,” Love said.

Sargosian glared at Tom, who gave him the most winning smile he could muster. Unfortunately it gave Sargosian the impression that he was quite mad, and caused him to think that Tom could give him some unwelcome competition in the megalomaniac department.

“Don’t encourage the prisoner, Love,” Sargosian said.

“But I’m bored.”

Sargosian moved over to the wall and pushed a button so that a cylindrical drawer opened. In that drawer was a high-tech device covered with spiney appendages and lights. Sargosian picked it up and examined it. “You can’t be bored, Love,” he said. “You’re a ship. Ships don’t get bored. There must be something wrong with your motherboard, or…whatever it is that makes that popping sound when you wake up.”

Sargosian fluttered his hand in the air, and then noticed his reflection again. He widened his eyes to inspect the elasticity of his skin. Then he fluttered his lids, and made kisses at the mirror to make sure his lips looked full enough.

Observing this, the ship sighed even more deeply. He was all too familiar with how his master acted when he became concerned about his face. That was, in fact, how this all got started in the first place.

Two and a half years ago, life was wonderful for the little pink ship and the famous pink-haired playboy. As thirty-six-year-old Jelinek Sargosian sat in front of his dressing mirror one afternoon, all evidence pointed toward it being an ordinary day - midday breakfast at the Galactica Club, manicure at the Starshine Salon, massage, tea, perhaps a high-profile game of some sort with whomever it was a good idea to be seen with at the time, confirming his date for the weekend see-and-be-seen affairs. And that’s when he noticed them. A murder of crow’s feet gathering around the corners of his eyes. He had screamed.

No matter what planet one is from, or in whichever galaxy one is born, crow’s feet are never a good sign, especially if one happens to be an intergalactic playboy. After screaming, Sargosian had stared. He had adjusted the lighting. He had tested his various head poses. But no matter what he’d done, it remained painfully obvious that he had finally come to the notice of that great demon Time. This led to a frantic perusal of the paper, in the hopes that mayhem and destruction would take his mind off more distressing thoughts, such as becoming old and obsolete, and the whole thing led to the unfortunate discovery that the boy band Rocket in My Pocket had scored more popularity points than he had in the NTWT readers’ poll.

“A boy band,” he had whispered over and over to himself throughout the day, which had led to people having interesting reactions to him which, he’d become convinced, would have a less-than-stellar effect on his place in the Cosmos.

Of course, he’d tried to pass it off to Love as boredom. “It’s all quite tiring, really,” he’d said. “I’ve been doing it all so long, the mere thought of my life bores me to tears, and tears are simply no good for my mascara. One can’t very well be a proper intergalactic playboy without the proper glitter on one’s eyelashes, can they, Love?”

“I suppose not,” the ship had replied.

Sargosian had decided then and there that something absolutely had to be done once and for all. He had to break out of the sex symbol rut and become known for something different, something that didn’t depend on his looks, something enduring and all-consuming.

Sports, he’d decided, was the answer.

It was, of course, out of the question for him to actually play a sport. Since he was one of the richest men in the Galaxy of Andromeda, he had decided to put together a team. Tail Ball seemed intriguing because it was the most popular sport on all the civilized planets in the Cosmos. He’d decided to populate the team with Earth players from the American South because they were well-endowed in the rear region and because they knew what to do with copious amounts of moon pies.

As is the general way with playboys, intergalactic or otherwise, Sargosian discovered that size in the rear region could be quite pleasant and tended to mix business and pleasure often whenever he traveled to Earth. The press, of course, assumed that the girls were the sole reason for his frequent trips. And he let them, because it gave him an air of mystery as people speculated about all the alien babies he was helping to create.

For a while, it looked as though his plan was going to work. The Earthpeople he had recruited for his Tail Ball team had proved very enthusiastic. In fact they were gung ho to the point of insanity. And they loved the moon pies. But they couldn’t hit a tail ball to keep their mothers out of prison. No matter what sort of devices he fitted them with, they simply couldn’t hit the ball, which meant they didn’t get to eat any moonpies on game day, and that Sargosian wasn’t going to go down in history after all, which put everyone in a pretty foul mood. They also tended to go into comas quite a lot when stray balls hit them in the head.

Sargosian couldn’t, however, be persuaded to give up on this Tail Ball business and simply go back to having wild parties. As he was moping around one day with his Event Horizon Calculator, he happened to wonder what particular event had led to the birth of the human race in the first place, as silly a species as it was. That’s when he’d discovered that the Homo Reptilians had missed their evolutionary chance by a mere scale’s breadth, and that they would have been truly amazing Tail Ball players.

Once he’d made that discovery, there was no stopping him, no matter how much Love pleaded, cajoled or pretended to run out of fuel. Sargosian was determined to go back in time to that fateful moment that had decided which sentient beings would rule Earth, and simply change it. In this case, that meant picking up a lizard and turning it around. Of course, Love pointed out, doing so was illegal.

“But only if I’m caught before the process is completed!” he’d practically screamed in his excitement. “Don’t you see, Love? Don’t you see?”

Love didn’t see. He didn’t see why they couldn’t just call up a few friends and go back to the way things had been. He didn’t see why they couldn’t leave this villainy business to people who knew what they were doing. People with goatees and evil grins.

He knew perfectly well the technicalities of it all. He knew, for instance, that once Homo Sapiens had ceased ever to have existed and Homo Reptilians had taken their place, reversing the process would then constitute Interfering With an Established Species, punishable by having one’s head transformed into a giant dung beetle.

Today, exactly two and a half years later, Sargosian stood in his media room and smiled, completely unaware that Something was bulleting toward him much more quickly than the speed of light. “Actually,” he said, “I think my crows’ feet are rather becoming, don’t you, Love? I think they give me a rather clever look.”

“I think they make you look squinchy,” Love replied. “I’m bored.”

“They’re barely noticeable,” Sargosian said, just before he stumbled hard enough against the wall to knock himself unconscious.

“Ouch,” Love said.

“Lot of that going around today,” Tom said.

Something apparently quite large had smacked right into the dematerialization field.

Crickets-and-onion pizza, Kricket Krunchers and especially the cricket grits on the menu at the Waffle House. And the scary thing was — she wasn’t even pregnant.

It didn’t seem right to her somehow, wanting crickets, even though they were the No. 1 choice of toppings according to FDA surveys.

That’s what she was thinking of when she nearly ran down the old man waving the sign that said, “The End Is Night.” She squinted at it. “The end is night?” she read out loud. “What in the heck is that supposed to mean?” she asked irritably, then shouted out the car window for the guy to get out of her way.

If only she’d taken the time to talk to him, he could have answered all her questions. He could have told her there was a giant hole in the history of the Earth and the past of the human race was falling through it quicker than stink off a wet dog. But people weren’t in the habit of listening to him, as he was an quantum physicist, and not someone reliable like a basketball player or a Hollywood actor.

Though she had managed to control her reaction at the time, the memory of that look sent pinpricks of fear down her spine. It was the sort of fear she’d vowed she’d never allow herself to experience again, the only sort that could paralyze her. For the past year, Fiddler had been the only man capable of inspiring that feeling in Jess, and she could avoid him for the most part.

She opened her eyes in the dark and shivered. “You’re the captain,” she whispered, waiting for a moment to see if she felt better. When she didn’t, she answered herself with, “He would be a better captain than you.”

Her chest tightened with the thought. She floated in her own discomfort. She studied the vivid image of Val’s face and relished the heat it caused in her gut. She felt a wave of desire that made her catch her breath, then rolled over on her side to try to escape it. Since they had bought Grace, Val’s had been the only face that had brought her comfort. Once upon a time, there had been many such faces, even during the time she never talked about. She had met Val during that time, and had wondered why he had seemed so peaceful, when she had been so full of rage. He had told her about the monastery, and about the floggings the boys learned to endure as part of their training.

The thought made the pit of her stomach hot. She raised herself on her elbows. “I could ask him to train me,” she whispered. “That way, if Fiddler does get hold of me…
“Which he won’t,” she said, swinging her legs off the side of her bunk and feeling around for her pants. Her limbs tingled with excitement. She felt queasy.

Finally, she was dressed and standing in the middle of her quarters, looking at the ‘com button. She knew she should buzz Val before going to his quarters, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

She had to force her feet to take every step through the ship. “What are you doing?” she kept asking herself. She knew he would do what she asked him to and that it may indeed provide useful if anyone tried to control her by threatening her with a beating. She also knew that wasn’t the real reason she was on her way to Val’s quarters and wondered if he would guess that, deep inside, she was a little afraid of him. And where there was fear, desire was never far behind.

It was a condition that made her more than a little vulnerable out here.

Before she knew it, Jess found herself in front of the hatch to Val’s quarters. She stood there for about a minute trying to breathe normally before gaining the courage to buzz him. It occurred to her that he might be asleep, but he said, “Come in,” almost immediately.

For a second, she wondered if she could get away with running back to her quarters and pretending she’d never come, but realized how much worse that scenario would be. So she tried to swallow and stepped inside to a metal platform. From this, six metal steps descended into the room.

Val’s quarters were prettier than hers, hung with tapestries and wind chimes. The surfaces of ornate tables had attracted candles and incense, all of which were lighted. Most of these belongings, Jess knew, had been scavenged, or traded for meditation or massage sessions. On a table near his shaving mirror was the thick, black post of a candle she had given him. Val himself was sitting on a blanket in the middle of the room, legs crossed, body bare except for a white cloth tied around his loins. It shimmered in the candlelight.

Jess looked away and cleared her throat. “I uh…maybe I should come back…” she said.

“No,” he said.

Behind her, the hatch hissed closed. She jumped. “I never really get used to that,” she said with a chuckle, glancing around the room.

“Please come in, Captain,” he said. “You are not interrupting anything.”

She nodded and began to descend into the room. “Your quarters are really shaping up,” she said.

“They haven’t changed since you saw them last.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t about to ask you something really weird last time,” she said.

He cocked his head, and the expression on his face became curious.

“I um…you were right about today. It was stupid of me to leave with Fiddler. I just didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize this job, it’s…we’re more desperate than we’ve ever been.”

“Sit,” he said gently. “Please.”

“Right,” she said and sat, crossing her legs. “Like this?”

“In any way that makes you comfortable,” Val said.

She took a deep breath and released it. “I didn’t know what else to do. I can’t tell you how badly I wanted you to be there. When you’re by my side, I always feel everything’s going to turn out all right. And I’ve always been right about that.”

He looked down at his hands and poked out his bottom lip. Then he stretched his eyes to look at her. Jess thought the expression made him look young and vulnerable. “You are the captain of this ship,” he said with gentle earnestness. “It isn’t necessary for you to explain your actions.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “But I trust you, and I want you to know what’s rattling around in my noggin. Besides, I think you deserve an explanation from time to time.”

“Thank you,” he said with a smile, unfolded his legs and stood. “Would you like some tea?”

“Sure. Today got me thinking, though. Fiddler said some things…” She shook her head and immediately regretted the necessity of what she had to tell him because she knew it would make Val’s expression go stern again. She so rarely saw unguarded warmth there. “I think he suspects my past.”

Val went to a table near his bed that supported a carafe and a glass. “Why?” he asked, pouring from the carafe and reaching for another glass from a shelf in the table.

“He says he expects us to fail and that when we do, he’s coming after me. That I should be taking orders from him.” She shook her head, speaking quickly. “He wants to make me his slave, Val. He made his guard show me his back and it was covered in stripes.”

Val sat gracefully with the two glasses of tea and handed her one. Concern had crept into his eyes.

“Thanks,” she said. “Hey, these are whiskey glasses.”

“They’re plentiful and cheap,” he said. “Besides, the tea’s cold.”

“And yellow.” She’d tried his cold green tea once before. This time, though, she appreciated its mild flavor. “I wasn’t expecting to see that,” Jess continued. “What’s more is, he knew I wasn’t expecting it. I know he could see my feelings on my face.”

Val took in a deep breath. “If he wants to take you, he will have to kill me.”

Jess shook her head. “Don’t talk like that, Val. If I did wind up getting captured, and I didn’t know you were out here somewhere…” She looked at him, not sure what else to say. “Anyway, I have a favor to ask.”

“I will do anything for you,” he said softly. “You know that.”

“Because of our friendship or because of your code?” she asked with a twinge of bitterness.

“Perhaps a code is a more solid foundation on which to base one’s loyalty,” he said. “Emotion is illusion.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Anyway. Fiddler’s intentions do cause me some consternation. And I’m sure he’s not the first one who’s thought of it.”

Val studied her face. “You’re trying to avoid saying what you came here to say.”

She blew out a breath and smiled, glad that he didn’t seem angry anymore, and annoyed with herself that it mattered so much. “You know me too well.” She picked at a frayed thread on the blanket and tried to determine whether she saw it as red because she already knew what color it was, or whether she could actually detect its color in this light.

“You know,” she finally said, “I had brothers. I fought with them. I took falls from horses. I even broke my arm once. That wasn’t so bad, all in all. But I can’t take a whipping, Val. I just can’t, it…it does something to me. That’s how the slavers broke me. They broke me quick.” She sipped from her glass, trying to concentrate on the cold sensation so that she wouldn’t begin trembling. “It’s a danger.”

Val’s lips parted only a hair’s breadth. His brow furrowed.

Jess swallowed and forced herself to go on. “If you would teach me to take it, I’d be more than obliged. I want the training you got back at Vashar.”

“That is a process that takes years,” he said.

She nodded, and spoke with difficulty. “I appreciate the complexity of what you learned. But I’m not looking to become like you. I just want to be able to take a hit without falling apart.”

“I’ve seen you fight,” he said. “You held your own when many men wouldn’t have.”

“A scuffle with a couple of neckless goons in a bar ain’t the same thing, and you know it. Those guys could break me in half, but a different kind of man could break me, on the inside. Fiddler scares the hell out of me.”

She didn’t tell him what scared her most was the seductive nature of that fear. Or that she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation forever, to just give in and let things happen. That was so much easier than captaining a ship.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Val said.

“That’s one of two reasons you’re the best man for the job,” she answered.

“What’s the other?”

Jess paused. For a moment, she thought she might say it, that he was the only man beside Fiddler who inspired that kind of fear in her. That she had never felt for anyone the desire she felt for Val. In the end, though, she simply shook her head. “I’ll tell you if it ever becomes relevant,” she said.

He nodded, took a deep breath, and began to speak. “At Vashar, those of us who were there at such a young age began training at six. The fathers were very concerned that we knew we were not being punished. They wanted us to know why this was happening to us and what we would experience.”

“I’m not a child,” she said. “I know what I’m getting into.”

“I don’t think you do,” he said.

She opened her mouth to argue, but decided against it. “Well, I’d say be gentle with me, but I guess that would negate what I’m trying to do.”

“You’ll have to meditate,” he said.

She gave him a half-hearted grin. “Well in that case, the deal’s off,” she said.

“We’ll begin by meditating together before our sessions.”

She stared into her tea. “I doubt Fiddler will pause to give me a meditation break.”

“Which is why we’ll stop after the first week or so. But you will still need to meditate every day on your own.”

“Right.”

“If you don’t, I’ll know.”

She nodded. “How often will we have to…you know?”

“There will be periods of work and periods of rest. During periods of work we will have a session every day.”

She tucked both lips between her teeth and stared at the light glancing off the side of his arm.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

Her attention snapped back to him. “Absolutely,” she said and put her glass to her lips.

“Trainees are traditionally nude.”

She coughed and sprayed tea on herself.

“Does this bother you?” he asked.

“No I’m fine, it’s…I just…nude?”

“Were you clothed when your masters beat you?”

The import of what he was saying reached her. “No,” she said softly.

“Perhaps you have a swimsuit. We can start with that.”

She nodded, though she knew she didn’t have anything of the sort.

His voice became quieter. “Are you absolutely positive you want to do this?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’ll start now. Please rise.” In one graceful motion he got to his feet. She looked up at him in horror. “Don’t worry,” he said with a smile. “No pain tonight.” He extended his hand to her.

She gave him a look before putting her hand in his and allowing him to help her to her feet. “Stay there,” he said and turned from her, giving her a backward glance as he palmed something small from a drawer. When he returned, his face had become stern. He stood in front of her with his hands clasped in front of his body. “This is your training room,” he said. “This is my domain. Outside this room, you are in command. Inside this room, I am in charge. You must obey me without hesitation. Are you prepared to do this, Jessica Anders?”

“Yes.”

“Then repeat after me: I will follow your commands without hesitation.”

As she repeated his words, he moved slowly around her. She put her shoulders back and kept her hands by her side, staring straight ahead, though she wanted to watch his every movement. Instead, she listened to the inflections in his voice.

“You are master here,” she repeated, and, “I surrender myself to your will.”

When she had finished, he again stood in front of her. He opened the vial and tipped it up to catch some of the contents on his thumb. “Look at my face,” he said. “Not my hands.”

She obeyed.

He touched his thumb to her forehead and she discovered the substance was oil.

“Present both palms to me,” he said.

It was all she could do to keep her eyes on his face as his eyes traveled to her hands. Just as he had put oil on her head, he did so to each palm, pressing her hand between thumb and fingers.

“Don’t wash this tonight,” he said. “You must wear the oil while you meditate on what you are about to undertake.”

“Don’t wash? That’s gross, Val. What if—”

Re-corking the vial, he raised his brows and gave her such an urgent look that she stopped talking.

“Sorry,” she said.

“In this room, you will address me as Master.”

She bit her tongue and nodded.

“We will begin our first session tomorrow evening at eight-thirty,” he said. “That will give us one hour to digest our dinner.”

She opened her mouth to say yes sir but thought that would be weird, so she simply nodded again.

His face softened. “Go to your quarters and get some rest,” he said gently. “You’re going to need it.”

“Thank you,” she said. He turned away to return the vial to its drawer so she went up the stairs. The hatch hissed open. She paused. He turned and gave her a nod of the head, but didn’t smile. She returned the nod and left.

She turned and looked at the door to his room as it closed behind her, then opened her palm wide and stared at the way the oil tried to glisten in the scarce light. Then she closed her fist around it and headed back to her own quarters.

While getting ready for bed, she was careful not to rub off any of the oil. Once in bed, she made fists around the spots in her palms and slept better than she had in a long time.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

It was Val’s turn to cook the beans the next morning. Jess found him stirring a pot while Amber drank coffee at the table behind him.

“That is a great smell,” Jess said, a little too cheerfully.

“The beans?” Val asked.

“The beans, the coffee. All of it,” Jess said. Amber watched her curiously as she poured herself a cup. Jess forced herself to take a captain’s stance, even though she truly cheerful for the first time in what seemed like forever.

“Michael left us about a week’s worth of coffee,” Amber said.

“Good,” Jess replied, and moved around the table so she could sit across from Amber and steal glances at her first mate. Today was going to be a very strange day.

Amber watched her. “So,” she said. “You’re feeling good this morning?”

“Yeah,” Jess said. “Pretty great actually. I have a good feeling about this next job,” she said quickly. Val gave her a doubtful look over his shoulder. “What?” she said indignantly. “This is the best job we’ve had in a long time. Why wouldn’t I feel good about it?”

“It’s good you feel good,” Amber said uncertainly. “Why is this the best job?”

Jess sipped her coffee. It tasted bitter, and good. “Because it came from Fiddler and Fiddler pays pretty well. Not to mention it involves going into some scary territory, and that always pays better. And this is an actual heist, so…those are way better than deliveries.”

“What are we doing, robbing a bank?”

“I wish,” she said as Amber grew progressively bug-eyed. “Nothing quite that posh. We’re the getaway car for a group called The Lads. I’ve heard of them but I’ve never met them. They’ve been hired to play at a party for this guy who owns half of Valeria.”
“He does not own half of Valeria,” Val rumbled. The sound made a row of hairs stand to attention all the way down Jess’s spine.
“Whatever,” she said. “Anyway, he’s stupidly rich and The Lads are pulling a heist there. They have a simple racket—the band plays as a diversion while one of them lifts the merchandise. Then they’re out of there before anyone’s the wiser.”
“For real?” Amber asked.
“For real,” Jess said. “It’s pretty slick. I hear they’ve been doing it for a few years now, maybe four or five. It’ll be interesting to see how they work.” She shot Val a look. You just never know when he was going to climb up on an ethical high-horse about something. He didn’t do anything, though, except toss a pinch of something green and dried from one of their containers of musty spices he traded for.
“With a reputation like that,” Amber said, “it seems like no one would hire them to play.”
“Well, so far they haven’t been caught,” Jess said. “And they don’t go around calling themselves The Lads. That’s just how they’re known in certain…circles.”
“Oh,” Amber said.
Jess suddenly became serious. “There is something I want you to do, Amber.”
She thought she could pick up something almost imperceptible from Val, some tension at the change in tone. Or maybe she flattered herself into thinking she could read him well. Her stomach fluttered as thoughts of what she’d asked him to do crashed through her brain, so she pushed them away and tried to concentrate on the girl in front of her. “Send a delayed message to your parents. Delay it by a day and a half. Tell them we’re going to Valeria, and give them the coordinates. Make sure it’s set to get to them after we’re finished so our plans aren’t blown. And when it’s over, recall it.”
“Why do you want me to do that?”
Val looked over his shoulder, and met Jess’s eyes. There was something highly significant in his eyes. Neither of them had gone near that part of the system since they’d had the ship. It was a big risk for both of them.
Jess took a deep breath. “Because there are more slavers on Valeria than anywhere else in the system. If something goes wrong and they get you, the law’s on your side as long as you have someone to hire representation on your behalf.”
Amber turned to look at Val but he had gone back to his beans. “Slavers?” she asked.
“Yeah. Slavers.” Jess drank from her coffee. Suddenly the prospect of Val’s “training” didn’t seem like such a big deal. She sighed and felt around her brain for the right words to impress upon her pilot how deep in fecal matter they would be if something went wrong, yet not send her spiraling off into a panic.
Coming to the conclusion that there were no right words, she began to explain. “If you’re captured and your parents manage to get you back before the slavers put the mark on you, you’re free and clear.”
“The…mark?” Amber’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“Yeah, it’s a chemical brand.”
“And after the mark?”
“Then your parents would have to pay a lot of money to have the brand taken off. If they can afford that, then you’re good to go.”
“And if not?”
“Then you’re legally property of whatever master you wind up with. And your parents nor nobody else can legally take you back.”
“That’s…” She shook her head. “I knew slavery was pretty rampant out here, but…I always figured that happened to other people.”
“Well it does, mostly,” Jess said, making eye contact with Val. “It just pays to be careful. The man who gave us this job, Fiddler, he owns a whole stable of slaves, which he rents out to customers.”
Amber’s eyes and jaw seemed to be in a contest over which one would hit the floor first. “He’s a pimp?”
“Yeah. He’s a pimp,” Jess said, remembering the way his eyes had burned into her the day before. “He’s a lot of things. But right now he’s saving our asses, so we owe him one.”
Val turned to give her a reproachful look.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “We owe him a good job. After this, we can afford to buy our own coffee. And something to eat besides beans. And you might actually get paid,” she said to Amber as Val brought the hot pot of beans to the table.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

That evening, Jess wasn’t hungry for dinner. “You should eat,” Val said with a curt nod at her plate. Jess looked at Amber to see if she’d noticed the weight of his tone, but she hadn’t. Or at least she was too engrossed in moving her own beans around to show it.
“Can we at least call them something else?” Amber asked.
Jess decided against insisting she wasn’t hungry, partly because she didn’t want Amber to become suddenly interested in Val’s concern, and partly because, after last night, she simply didn’t have the will to argue against Val’s inistence. So she just nodded, and wondered if he’d noticed the change. She wondered if she hadn’t ruined her only chance of getting this ship into shape, if her new place as Val’s trainee wouldn’t ruin her ability to command. If it hadn’t already.
She moved her beans around some more.
After dinner, Amber and Val started a chess game while Jess sat curled in the corner of the couch clicking through some photos Amber kept on her viewer of her parents and younger sister. It was difficult to concentrate on the pictures. Hadn’t Val said they would begin their session an hour after dinner? Hadn’t it been almost that long? Eventually, an insistent, “Captain!” brought her back. It was Amber, staring.
“It’s your turn,” she said, making a face.
“Oh,” Jess replied and sat up as Amber threw herself back on the couch and grabbed her viewer. Jess helped Val set up the pieces.
“What did you think?” Amber asked.
“The pictures?” Jess asked. “Nice. Your family looks pretty…normal.”
“Thanks,” Amber said.
“Why did you leave them?” Jess asked.
Amber shrugged. “I don’t know. Just wanted to see the universe, I guess,” she said.
No one said anything for a while as Jess and Val released their knights and opened paths for their bishops. It wasn’t long, however, before Jess had forgotten all about those bishops, and one of Val’s swooped in and captured her knight.
“You’re not concentrating,” he said.
“Sorry.”
Amber looked up briefly, then went back to her viewer.
Jess sighed and reached for one of her pawns, figuring she couldn’t get herself into much trouble by moving something so small. She jumped when Val covered her hand with his. Her skin felt hot where he touched her.
“Your heart isn’t in it,” he said gently. “Why don’t we prepare for our session?”
Jess froze. Her lips opened. She felt every pore on her body open.
Amber looked up. “Session?” she asked. “What are you two up to?”
“He’s ah…teaching me to meditate.”
“Meditate?” Amber snorted. “I’m sorry, I just…is that why you’re so relaxed all of a sudden?”
Jess stood up and knocked the chess board over. Val watched her with curious concern.
“Or why you were relaxed?” Amber added. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jess said and hastily started picking up the pieces. Val crouched and began to help.
“Let me get this,” he said. “You go prepare.”
Jess nodded. “Right,” she said, and stood. Then she nodded and said, “Right” all over again before hurrying from the room.
In her quarters she looked through her closet. Nothing there resembled a swimsuit, but she did have a good matching bra-and-panties set. She had bought them several months ago because she’d wanted, just for a little while, to feel like a girl again. But she’d never worn them. She thought this was just as good a reason to wear them as any to put them on. She pulled on her boots and her duster and carefully avoided the mirror as she left the room. As she hurried down the corridor, Jess hoped Amber stayed in the dining area so she wouldn’t see Jess in her strange outfit. She felt cold. No one ran around half naked on a spaceship. Spaceships were always too cold for that sort of thing.

PUT THIS IN CH10
When she got there, she found him as he had been the other night. “Please remove your boots and coat,” he said, and sat on his heels on the blanket.
She took off the boots first, careful not to let anything under her coat show, which she thought was ridiculous as she was going to take it off anyway. Val seemed not to see her. He sat stared straight ahead, breathing.
Then she took off the coat and came to sit before him. He had never seen her in this state of undress before. She could barely stand to look at him, but he appeared not to notice.
“Breathe deeply,” he said. “Try to clear your mind.”
“I already know how to breathe,” she said. “Aren’t you going to teach me to meditate?”
“These are some simple relaxation exercises. We can move on to more advanced meditation later if you like. Tonight, I just want you to breathe. And relax.”

this happens after the session – jess goes to the bridge and finds Amber there — They all go to the bridge – check to see if there’s a trace of Devlin’s man out there – they don’t see it – Jess tells Amber to keep her posted on it periodically, whether she sees him or not – how long does it take to get there – couple weeks?

Everything checks out ok – Amber says would be nice to have Michael around to check it, make sure, he was good at that – Jess agrees but says he has something he has to do – we all have jobs and that takes precedence – Amber says I know, but it’s difficult

Val says, since things look like they’re ok for now, would it be a good time to begin meditation sessions – Jess looks at Amber, who is intrigued and laughs – Jess says yes – Val will need about thirty minutes to prepare – Jess says ok, tells Amber if she needs her check Val’s quarters – Amber gives knowing look – Jess goes to her own quarters to psyche herself up

Previous Chapter
Chapter 1

On a semi-perfect day in late July, three men were lounging in a field waiting for their dinner. It was hanging from a nearby apple tree, due to fall at any moment. The men would have been very excited about this, except for the fact that they hadn’t eaten in three days, and had barely enough energy to talk to each other. They were, nevertheless, very happy.

“I’m so happy,” said Eric the Reasonable with an audible sigh. He had flowing, honey-colored locks and was very pretty for a boy, which had given him no end of trouble in high school. But that hadn’t really gotten to him. Nothing ever did.

“Yes, very happy,” echoed John the Tall. His chief distinguishing feature was his height. He was over six and a half feet and was not nearly as reasonable as Eric, or maybe he would have been called John the Reasonable and his friend would have been Eric the Pretty, which would have created a few difficulties. But as it was, John was tall and not at all reasonable, but he was reasonably happy lolling in a field with his two closest friends, Eric, and Reginald the Idiot.

“Are you happy Reginald?” asked John.

“I’m happy,” Reginald said, a bit alarmed. “Why? Don’t I look happy?”

“Don’t look so worried,” John said. “It’s not as though we would execute you for not being happy.” He laughed, and looked at Eric, who laughed also.

“Execute him for not being happy,” Eric said, wiping his eyes. “That’s a good one John.”

“Yes…” John mused. “Although it is a thought, isn’t it?” At the looks of alarm on the others’ faces, he said, “A silly thought. A very silly thought,” and slapped himself in the face.

Reginald was looking at him especially oddly.

“I was just…making conversation,” John said. “While we wait.”

Somewhere a robin sang.

“I know what we can do,” Eric said, suddenly excited. “Let’s talk about why we’re happy.”

John contorted his face into an expression of approval, which was very difficult for him, as he hadn’t much experience approving of things. “I’m up for that,” he said. “Who wants to start?”

Reginald raised his hand. “Ooh, me! I’ll start!”

“All right,” John said, controlling the urge to smack Reginald in the head. “You start.”

Reginald clapped his hands and looked positively thrilled, then grew confused. “Uh…John?”

“Yes, Reginald?”

“What am I starting?”

That was fortunate for John, because it allowed him to relax his face into its accustomed scowl, which he leveled at Reginald with enough derision to blow a hole through him. He measured the tone of each word very carefully. “We’re talking about why we’re happy. You know, clean consciences about not hurting living things and all that.”

Reginald suddenly looked stupendously and unreasonably thrilled, and began to nod. “Oh right. Yes,” he said.

“Well?” John said. “Don’t just sit there beating your brains against your skull. You don’t have any to spare.”

“Oh. Right,” Reginald said. “It is brilliant, isn’t it? Not hurting things?”

“That’s more like it,” John said, settling in. “Well, it is the best way, after all. I mean, the vegetarians…give me a break.” He snorted.

“They mean well,” Eric said, reasonably.

John’s ears began to glow red. “Mean well? Well of course they mean well. But they pick and choose, don’t they? ‘Be nice to this life form…murder all the rest.’ And the way they talk about the carnivores, you’d think they were a bunch of bloody Mother Teresas.”

“The vegetarians or the carnivores?” Reginald asked.

“The vegetarians,” John said. Now his entire face was glowing the same shade of red as his ears. “Don’t even get me started on the carnivores.”

Eric, who had been listening calmly, spoke in soft tones. “We said we weren’t going to talk about them anymore. Remember what happened last month when we had a whole conversation about them.”

“Right,” John said. “Well. Let’s just hope that doesn’t happen again.”

Reginald scratched his head. “What’s wrong with vegetarians?”

John could scarcely contain himself. “Are you daft? Are you completely insane? The vegetarians are taking all the credit for saving nonhuman life forms, but what do they do? They kill vegetables, ripping carrots out of the ground and boiling them alive in stews, beheading broccoli, performing vivisection on cabbages. It’s madness! That’s what’s wrong with vegetarians.”

Eric nodded sympathetically. “And they’re annoying. Let’s not forget about that.”

“Bleeding whiners,” John grumbled. He made a face and began speaking in a mocking tone: “‘There’s chicken broth in my soup; there’s no tofu on the menu.’ While we patiently do without, and wait for food to come to us willingly. We don’t murder anything in the prime of its life. Take that tree for instance-”

“What tree?” Reginald asked.

John slapped him in the back of the head. “That tree, you nincompoop. The one we’ve been watching for the past two hours.”

“It’s a very nice tree,” Reginald said, as if he’d just seen it for the very first time.

“I know it’s a nice tree. That’s my point.”

“It is?” Eric asked.

“Yes,” John replied, with a growing air of indignation. “It is. It’s a nice tree and we’re being nice to it by not rushing up and yanking on its fruit. We’re waiting politely until the tree decides to give us its fruit.” As he spoke, he became more and more animated until he had lapsed into a full-blown rant. “We’re letting the apples live until it’s their time, and then we’re going to accept them and eat them knowing that we haven’t acted against their will. And that is why we’re so bloody happy.” He sat panting, and seemed not to notice the hair that had come undone and was now falling over his forehead.

“Wonderful point, John,” Eric said soothingly. “We are happy. I mean, doesn’t it just make you feel good to not go around molesting things?”

“Well, I for one am very happy,” John said, crossing his arms.

“Content,” Eric added.

“Yes,” John said. “Content. And happy.”

“I’m happy,” Eric said.

“I’m very happy,” John insisted.

“I’m hungry,” Reginald said.

John shot him a withering look and enunciated his consonants. “Well, I was…trying not to think about that.”

Eric raised his finger. “Hungry but happy. Hey, that would make a wonderful motto! Hungry but Happy.”

“Brilliant,” John groused.

Reginald looked from one to the other uncertainly. “When are we going to actually eat again? I think I may have forgotten how.”

“What have we been talking about?” John said, wagging his finger at his hapless friend. “When the tree…the very nice tree…releases its fruit. And not one…minute…before.”

“It is a nice tree,” Eric said, confused by the sudden appearance of pink bunny rabbits, which he wisely decided not to mention to the others. “Nice fruit too. Luscious and red…apples, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” John said, preparing to enunciate his r’s. “They should be at the peak of ripeness. With a nice crunch. I like…apples…that crunch.” He stared at the tree with a faraway look in his eye. And just the hint of a murderous gleam.

Reginald began to lick his lips, his eyes growing wilder by the moment.

“And juicy,” Eric added. “Let’s not forget juicy.”

“Right,” John said, his mouth hanging open. “Juicy.”

Suddenly, Reginald jumped to his feet in slow motion. “I can’t wait anymore!” he cried. The others were on him in several blinks of the eye. He struggled. He shouted. John slapped him.

“Get hold of yourself, man!”

Reginald began to cry. “It’s just…it’s just…I haven’t eaten in days. Fruit doesn’t just expire in front of your eyes every hour on the hour, you know.”

John clasped Reginald’s shoulders, doing his best to sound comforting. “Yes, I know. I know.” He drew Reginald to him in a tight embrace. Reginald’s eyes bugged. John continued. “But we must be strong. The future of life on this planet rests solely on our manly shoulders,” he said, tearing up as he patted the other man on the back. “Your shoulders are exceptionally manly.”

“I beg your pardon?” Reginald said.

John cleared his throat and let him go. “I mean…what I was trying to say was…”

“That he’s particularly capable of saving the planet?” Eric interjected.

“Yes!” John said, pointing enthusiastically at Eric. “That’s it! That’s exactly what I was trying to say!”

Reginald looked at him doubtfully. John became desperate.

“It’s just that I’ve got apples on the brain, you see, and…well, the vegetarians aren’t exactly helping our cause, are they? Making everyone think it’s all right to murder vegetables?” He paused, out of breath and smiling uncharacteristically. Eric and Reginald looked at each other. Reginald made the cuckoo sign.

“What is this?” John demanded. “This is an emergency,” he said to Eric. “Reginald here was about to let himself give in to primal urges. We’re above that.”

Eric nodded. “Dead right about that. I haven’t had a date in-”

The others stared at him in horror.

“What?” Eric asked.

“Well I think we could have done without that little piece of information,” Reginald said wisely.

“I was just saying,” Eric said.

Reginald held his stomach. “Actually, I don’t feel so hungry anymore.”

“Atta boy,” John said, clapping him hard on the back. “Whew! That was close.”

“Shhh!” Eric said, concentrating. “Wait a minute…”

“What?” John asked.

“Listen,” Eric said.

“I hear it!” Reginald exclaimed.

“I hear it too,” John said. “Sort of a weird humming noise. What is it?”

Reginald pointed toward the tree. “Look! The apple! It’s quivering!”

The others turned and looked. “So it is,” John said.

“Well, you don’t see that every day,” Eric mused. “Quivering apples.” Then all at once, as if a circuit had suddenly completed itself in his head, his eyes became as big as trashcan lids. “Wait…did you say quivering?”

“It’s going to fall,” Reginald said, entranced.

The three of them leaned breathlessly toward the tree, waiting. Then, wonder of wonders, the apple turned loose the branch and hit the ground.

“It fell,” Reginald said.

“So it did,” John agreed.

“Imagine that,” Eric mused.

They began to eye each other. Then they sprang from the ground and broke into a dead run toward the fallen apple, shouting. “It’s mine!” and, “No! I saw it first!”

“I’m the one who said it was quivering!” Reginald insisted.

Eric was the first to grab it, but John punched him in the nose just as Reginald ripped off his arm. “I’m bleeding to death!” Eric shouted before falling over. Then Reginald bludgeoned John with the arm and took the apple.

“Oh, sorry mate,” he said and tossed the arm to Eric before turning his attention fully to the apple, which he shined up on his shirt. Then he took a satisfying bite and patted the rough, sturdy trunk.

“Nice tree,” he said.

As I understand physics, we once assumed that, once the left-over energy from the Big Bang was used up and the universe stopped exploding, the gravitational pull of the universe’s matter would take over and pull everything back together, resulting in a sort of cosmic annihilation the likes of which only physicists and science fiction writers dream. It was going to be fantastic. Before that happened, however, there was going to be a Grand Theory of Everything.

The Grand Theory of Everything would, of course, be celebrated by a giant party to which everyone in the world would be invited, at which scientists would be congratulated, copious amounts of alcohol would be consumed, world peace would be achieved and the following season’s Big Brother contestants would be revealed.

At least, that sort of reverse Big Bang is what I thought was going to happen. Einstein had different ideas, and he’s a difficult man to argue with when it comes to things like this. He expected to discover something that meant a reverse Big Bang would never happen, a balancing force that would keep everything right where it is.

People like things to stay right where they are. Even Einstein. It’s comforting, and means we won’t have to buy new wardrobes.

It was recently discovered, however, that it just ain’t so. The planets and stars and nebulae and giant tentacled space amoeba are breaking their necks to get as far away from each other as fast as possible. In an amazing feat of calculus, the rate of increase of speed has been growing exponentially for the past 5 billion years. Things are moving away from us much more enthusiastically than they should be, according to the old theories. The universe is flashing red lights at us, literally. It’s as if someone had one too many bean tacos and now the party is over.

My first reaction? “Dark energy - that sounds sooo cool.” My second reaction was, “Great! That changes everything! Now things will be really exciting.” Of course, dark energy was discovered about a decade ago, and had been going about its business billions of years before that, but one news story had jettisoned me from one type of universe to another faster than you can say, “No, Scotty, no! I like it down here!”

New information, I have always thought, is exciting, so dark energy was an immediate thrill ride into the deepest reaches of cosmic…well, thrills.

The only problem is, it’s upsetting the physicists.

The problem, I think, with physicists is that they want to know things. The problem with knowing things is that it makes you aware of just how much you don’t know, which makes you want to know other things. That can spell a lot of time on a therapist’s couch and very big bills. What we know is finite; what we don’t know is infinite. But since, effectively, what we don’t know we don’t know doesn’t exist, it really bugs us when it taps us on the shoulder and says, “Hi.”

Plus, the physicists wanted a cosmological constant, something to make it all make sense, really, really badly. They dreamed about it like a child dreams about a pony for Christmas. Now they’ve discovered they’re not going to get one and the universe is just as inexplicable as ever.

Truthfully, that works for me. It means that fiction writers like myself can continue to make up things about the universe, which we would probably do anyway, but it’s just so much more fun if there’s a large, dark hole Out There to speculate about.

We need an unknown country. Once upon a time, when writers created adventures for people, they made up things about foreign lands. Other countries were so much more interesting in the 18th Century, when they had ridiculously tiny people and talking horses in them. After that, of course, we had Mars to fuel our imaginations, a blissful state which is forever ruined by the knowledge that our closest planet is a barren red ball and not a “next door” from which neighbors with poorly organized kitchens will come around asking for a cup of sugar.

I don’t know if the physicists are going to get their cosmological constant, but I can bet with some certainty that, in looking for one, they’re going to get a whole lot more interesting questions to play with.

Some of the most interesting things I’ve experienced while traveling to and around Romania are the toilets. To the U.S. way of thinking, the one thing that toilets should never be is interesting. In fact, going to the bathroom should be so mindnumbingly dull that one can pretend altogether it never happens in the first place, which most American television and movie writers have succeeded in turning into an art form. At this very moment, thousands of television and movie characters are walking around with bursting bladders and nowhere to go. And we Americans wonder why there is so much violence on television. (”I’ve had to pee for sixteen years. I’m strapping a bomb to someone.”)

Of course, I wasn’t terribly surprised by the fact that European bathroom customs are a bit different. I had already been warned about pay toilets, simple holes in the floor and the necessity of carrying one’s own emergency supply of toilet paper due to an overabundance of Romanian bathroom gremlins which have been known to devour entire toilet rolls in one gulp without leaving behind a single paper fiber. I wasn’t, however, prepared for the fact that, in the event I actually come across Romanian toilet paper, it is almost always pink. And not just a little pink - it’s more a sort of antique rose color. Using it is kind of like cleaning up with someone’s grandmother’s old party dress, which is just the sort of thought you really want while trying to work out if the person who’s just entered the stall next to you is a man or a woman.

I’ve encountered only two multi-gender WCs of the stalled variety, and managed to avoid any awkward meetings at the lavatory, but I did nearly walk in on some poor guy once last week. This type restroom is much less of a conundrum, however, than someone such as myself would have imagined had anyone told me such a thing existed. It’s amazing what I am willing to let pass if my bladder is sufficiently full. (”Bengal tiger flossing his teeth at the sink, that’s nice. I was wondering where Mark had gotten off to, poor guy. I’ll miss him.”) I have yet to encounter a man face-to-face in such a restroom, and am trying to steel myself for that awkward lavatory moment when it finally does happen.

Thankfully, trying to find the things is no longer awkward. As we Americans like pretending that places where people leave their leavings don’t exist, I have tried in vain on various occasions to find a place to go by asking for the “bathroom” and the “restroom.” You do tend to start wondering why Americans call them that since we rarely want to take either a bath or a rest when we ask for them in public places. Eventually, of course, I had to simply give up and start asking complete strangers for the “toilet” (or completely mangling the French equivalent, “toilette”) which is a word a proper Southern Lady would rather give up peeing altogether than use. As I am nothing of the sort, I very quickly got down to the business of learning to pronounce “toilette” and am now able to get directions to the bathroom as opposed to bewildered looks from the locals.

The Great Toilette Adventure began long before I even reached Romania, however. There seems to be some sort of natural law that goes something like this: On an airplane or train, regardless of how smooth a ride you’ve had before deciding to find the WC, the vehicle will invariably wait until you are perched precariously in the breadbox-sized receptacle, trying not to touch anything, to either experience turbulence or attempt to jump the track. It really is as though the things have a sense of humor or are at the very least a bit grumpy. (”Bloody passengers walking around under their own power, enjoying drinks out of the way of the rain while I plough through the weather without so much as a by or leave. It’s a disgrace, is what it is. I’ll show them.”) Imagining John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty as a passenger train can, however, be quite entertaining when you’ve been on the road 12 hours straight, so that’s something.

After being savaged by passenger vehicles (I won’t even mention being trapped in the automatic doors of one particular train - and there is no sensor to keep it from crushing you. It will simply keep chewing as though it’s a dog that’s found something puzzling in its mouth.)…after being savaged by planes and trains you might fancy yourself able to face anything that comes your way with the steadfast resolve of a…well, something really steadfast. That is the time you will find yourself staring at one of those hole-in-the-floor toilets you may have read about, thinking, “What in the world am I supposed to do with that?” The concept of course is easy enough, but it’s such an insult to the American ego (we do call our toilets “thrones,” after all) that there is a mandatory moment when you absolutely have to haggle with your self respect on that one. It will happen again once you realize many of the toilets in Romanian hotels are made of plastic, not porcelain.

Once you’ve come to terms with the lack of either a seat or reading material, you will then most probably notice that, on either side of the hole for which you are supposed to aim, are two raised footprints which suggests a certain lack of faith in human intelligence, I think. If you can’t figure out what to do with a hole in the ground when you’ve got a bladder full of processed cola, then perhaps you shouldn’t be traveling in a foreign country.

At this point I have not encountered a bidet and find the entire idea much too disturbing to write about. Pay toilets are, however, quite another matter.

It generally costs about 50 of something to use a pay toilet - 50 cents in Euros in Western Europe or 50 bani in Romania. Since the two are so far apart in actual exchange value, it sort of makes you wonder who decided that emptying one’s bladder is worth exactly one-half of the standard monetary unit in whatever area of Europe one happens to need to urinate in at the time. In addition to imagining John Cleese as a passenger train, I enjoy imagining what would happen if the concept of these things were to be introduced in the United States. So far, I’ve come up with rebellion, unrest, looting of department stores, civil war, the secession of Texas and warnings by Southern evangelists of an impending apocalypse.

Ah well. C’est la pee.

Intuitively, however, I know that billboards are simply not supposed to keep changing. They’re supposed to be put up by very nervous men wielding rollers, fade in the weather and peel like zombie-skin. Technicolor billboards that change every few seconds are unnatural. They’re hypnotic. They’re smug. They make me nervous because I get the distinct impression they know something that I don’t. Moreover, they look like those special effects that Hollywood sticks into otherwise normal movies to emphasize the story is happening in the Future and draw in the sci-fi geeks. I know because I fall for it all the time.

As it so happens, our story - the one that we’re living in right this minute - is occurring in the Future. Remember the television show Quantum Leap? It was set in the ’90s, over a decade ago. This year, 2008, is seven years past the first year of the setting of the Space Odyssey stories and two years before the setting of the last. This is the 21st Century. We are the People of the Future, the people about whom authors like Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov wrote.

You can tell because Hollywood doesn’t even bother sneaking in “futuristic” technology anymore, because no one would be impressed. Millions of viewers would brandish their cell phones, PDAs and other hand-held devices at the screen. “You call that crappy, broken-down robot something? I have a Blackberry!”

These days, Hollywood has to destroy New York City in order to make something feel like the Future, which makes me, for one, miss the hopeful, shiny surfaces of the science fiction I grew up with.

The sad truth is, we are simply not impressed by robots and spaceships anymore. We carry devices that are more like electronic Swiss Army knives than telephones. We can send real-time images of ourselves over phone lines to our nephew in Kalamazoo. We are connected to nearly everyone in the world via the Internet. We travel faster than the speed of sound and we almost always have someone living in space in order to annoy other countries.

We’ve littered on the surface of Mars. We have e-mail - which, allow me to point out, Captain Kirk and the Doctor do not. And if Japan has anything to do with it, every home and business on the planet will have its own robot by mid-century. With all of this in mind, I have only one question:

Where the heck are the flying cars?

It is my theory that it won’t be generally accepted that we are indeed the People of the Future until we have them. If you don’t believe me, go up to anyone and say, “It’s great being the People of the Future, isn’t it?” Once the person has decided you’re not a lunatic, or not a very dangerous one anyway, you’ll get glazed eyeballs and have to explain about the digital billboards, omnipresent computers and cell phones. Then you’ll get a scowl, as if Blackberries have been around since the dawn of time. Throw flying cars into the mix, however, even just for giggles, and you’ll get some enthusiasm.

For some reason, that is what our hopes and dreams for the Future hinged on during the latter half of the 20th Century. World peace, reception robots and mind-reading video game controls are all fine and dandy, but most people want to be able to risk their lives and the lives of everyone around them in three dimensions. It’s as if everyone secretly wants to be George Jetson.

If we do manage to put a flying car in every garage, we will no longer be able to go merrily from Point A to Point B - instead we will spend our time figuring out how to get from Point A25 to B47. It will be a lot like trying to work a Rubik’s Cube from the inside. Traffic reports will start to sound a lot like Bingo games and accidents will suddenly become a lot more entertaining.

“A wreck in Sector G took out cars in three levels of traffic today, before falling on top of a street performance troupe who were miming a nearly silent version of Figaro with the help of kazoos. The crash brought a swell of applause from onlookers.”

Of course, there is the possibility that, by the time cars are intelligent enough to fly, they will be intelligent enough to be fed up with us humans swerving them recklessly through all the points of the alphabet, and pull a collective, “Here, give-me-that.” Otherwise, putting flying cars on the market is going to spawn strange behaviors hitherto undreamt of by man or machine. Actions we can only imagine now in our wildest dreams after pizza-and-beer parties will become fraught with emotional subtext. “That so-and-so signaled with his amber lights. Can you imagine? Amber is so bleeping rude! I only ever signal with red!”

Maybe in the Future-Future, our flying cars will come equipped with a messaging system for communicating with other drivers. That will end any ambiguity that comes with a language that is all speed, horns, lights and rude gestures, but that’s not to say there will be less hostility. We may simply find that we can insult each other much more efficiently and with greater subtlety. Of course, with drivers careening around at dizzying heights, messaging each other about their mothers, we’ll have to work out a new place to put the digital billboards.