Akiko and the Journey to Toog Read online

  “That's whatcha call the death drop. What I call it, anyway. It's the only surefire way of dodgin' a heat seeker.”

  “You idiot!” Mr. Beeba's legs poked up from the front seat, his head probably not too far from Spuckler's feet. “You're a lunatic! A lunatic, I say!”

  “Beebs, you got a mighty funny way of showin' your gratitude.”

  “IT'S COMING BACK FOR ANOTHER GO AT US, SIR,” Gax said.

  Sure enough, the white-hot fireball was already turning around.

  “Dagnabbit,” grumbled Spuckler. “The li'l upstart don't know when to leave well enough alone.”

  This time Spuckler began flying straight toward the big yellow space tanker. He eased up on the speed a bit, allowing the drobe mine to come after us like a dog chasing a truck.

  ffffffffffffff

  “Now, this one I call the old bait 'n' switch,” Spuckler explained. “Ya get the little sucker hot on your heels …”

  Mr. Beeba had stopped protesting. He was just whimpering and rocking back and forth in the front seat.

  “… an' ya start flyin' fast as ya can, straight at something real big an' hard….”

  FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

  The yellow tanker's steely surface shimmered in the starlight.

  “… This here transport cruiser, for instance …”

  FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

  The drobe mine was gaining on us. Its heat was burning the back of my neck.

  “… an' then at the last possible second …”

  FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

  The space tanker. The drobe mine. It was between crashing into one and getting crashed into by the other. I threw my head into my hands and tried to roll up into a ball.

  “… ya change course!”

  SSSHHHEEEEEEWWWWWW

  Our ship rocketed upward, rotated sideways, and shot between two enormous girders jutting out from the top of the tanker. We must have cleared them by a matter of inches.

  FFFFLLOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!

  The drobe mine exploded in a ball of red-orange flame as it slammed into one of the girders. We zoomed out into the stars, our ship shuddering as if it, too, were slightly amazed to still be in one piece.

  I peered over the front seat and saw that Mr. Beeba had fainted.

  “All right, enough sight-seein',” Spuckler said. “Let's go down and find out what's cookin' on Toog.”

  Soon we were deep within the overcast skies of Toog. The clouds came in layers, each a slightly different shade and thickness from the ones above and below. Our ship plunged through them like a submarine diving to the bottom of a vast white ocean. Occasionally we would emerge from the mist and catch a glimpse of the pale purple sky, only to drop into another layer of clouds and be blinded again.

  Gax kept making announcements, assuring us that there was indeed a planet somewhere underneath all this. Mr. Beeba—who had awoken from his fainting spell in a very foul mood—limited himself to a few mumbled gripes about Spuckler's “devil-may-care exploits” and “wanton disregard for the safety of the crew.”

  The ship grew colder. My breath came out in misty puffs, and I had to keep wiping peepholes in the windows to give myself a chance of seeing anything. Judging by the temperature, I figured we'd get to the bottom of the clouds and find nothing but snow and ice.

  “LAND HO,” Gax said. “WE WILL REACH THE SURFACE IN APPROXIMATELY SEVENTEEN SECONDS.”

  I wiped a fresh peephole in the glass and prepared to get my first look at the planet Toog. But Toog kept me waiting: The clouds were thicker than ever.

  “You sure about that, ol' buddy?” Spuckler said, fiddling with dials on the dashboard. “I can't see a dad-burned—”

  FFWWAAAAMM!

  We struck something. Hard.

  THWUUUK!

  The whole ship flipped sideways …

  KLAAAAM!

  … then upside down …

  THRUMP!

  … then began to roll.

  FWUT-FWUT-FWUT-FWUT-FWUT-FWUT

  I tried to keep my eyes open, but all I saw was a jumbled blur of whites and grays. Objects crashed into me, I crashed into Gax, and both of us crashed into everything else in the ship as we rolled, rolled, rolled….

  BA-CHUNT

  BA-CHUNT

  BA-CHUNT

  Finally …

  … slowly …

  … bit by bit …

  … the ship … came … to a stop.

  We were somewhere between sideways and upside down. A gust of wind whistled outside. Snow speckled the windows.

  Spuckler was the first to speak.

  “Sorry 'bout that, gang. Ever'body still alive?”

  “I'm okay,” I said, struggling to get myself upright.

  “Good, 'Kiko, good. How 'bout you, Gax?”

  “STILL FUNCTIONING NORMALLY, SIR, SO FAR AS I CAN TELL.”

  “Beebs?”

  There was a grunting noise.

  “You're gonna have to speak up, Beebs. I can't hear a thing you're sayin'.”

  “I said,” Mr. Beeba said, his voice still quite muffled, “that I'd be feeling a lot better if you weren't SITTING ON MY HEAD!”

  “Oh!” Spuckler jerked his body around, prompting further groans from Mr. Beeba. “Sorry 'bout that.” Several Ouch es and You idiot s later, Spuckler and Mr. Beeba finally managed to free themselves of each other.

  After a brief discussion about what to do next, we all agreed it would be best to get out and have a look around.

  So we got out.

  And had a look around.

  We were in a snow-covered valley, surrounded by walls of ice that rose hundreds of feet into the sky. It was surprisingly warm for a place that looked so much like Antarctica. Apart from a wide white gash created by our ship, the surface of the snow was unbroken as far as the eye could see. It absorbed every sound we made, leaving nothing but the soft blowing of the wind.

  Mr. Beeba cleared his throat. “I know this isn't going to make me very popular, but I'm afraid I must insist that we leave the ship behind. The rest of the journey will have to be on foot.”

  Spuckler spun around, his eyes bulging. “On foot? What are ya, crazy?”

  “The inhabitants of Toog are highly suspicious of advanced technology. They are ascetics, and as such will look upon us with extreme disfavor if we go rocketing about their planet like a bunch of hot-rodders.”

  “Beebs,” Spuckler said, “we're here to help save these fellers. If they don't like the way we get around, that's just their tough luck. Beggars can't be choosers.”

  “This is not a matter for debate,” Mr. Beeba said, folding his arms.

  I stepped between the two of them. “Spuckler, I think Mr. Beeba's right. We're already breaking one of their rules just by being here. We shouldn't push our luck by breaking two of their rules at once.”

  “Rules,” grumbled Spuckler before making a face and spitting in the snow. He went over to the ship and bid it farewell. “We'll be back for ya. You jus' sit tight.”

  With our movement limited to where we could go on foot, the prospects of finding Poog seemed slim indeed.

  “Well, one thing's for sure,” said Mr. Beeba, “his purple skin will stand out quite vividly against all this snow. Something of a chiaroscuro effect, if you will.”

  Spuckler snorted, as if he were having an allergic reaction to Mr. Beeba's vocabulary.

  I took a good long look at the valley. It rose to our left and descended sharply to our right. “Which way should we go?”

  “Left,” Spuckler said. “Folks always build shelter on high ground, so as they can defend themselves 'gainst predators. Poog would do the same, you can betcher boots on that.”

  “Ah, but Spuckler,” Mr. Beeba said, “we must make our decision based not upon whims and fancies, but upon logic and reason. Gax, from which direction is the wind blowing?”

  Gax raised his head up on his spindly neck and, with a few mechanical clacks and clicks, extended an antenna into the air.

  “FROM THE LEFT.”

  “Ah! You see?” Mr. Beeba made a grand gesture with his arms. “Clearly we must follow the valley to the right if we are to have the wind at our backs.”

  There was a pause. I started to say something but stopped.

  There was another pause. “The wind at our backs?” Spuckler threw his hands in the air. “You're sayin' we should make decisions based on which way the dadburned wind is blowin'?”

  Mr. Beeba turned to me. “Akiko, surely you'd agree that having the wind howling in one's face whilst on a strenuous uphill hike is a drearily unpleasant affair, to say nothing of what it does to one's complexion.”

  “Um, Mr. Beeba …”

  We were interrupted by a high-pitched warbling sound from above.

  Poog!

  I craned my neck, trying to find him among the icy cliffs that towered above us. My jaw dropped.

  I was looking at not one Poog, but dozens of Poogs!

  “Heavens,” Mr. Beeba said. “T-Toogolians.”

  There, about thirty yards above us, was a big group of spherical creatures with pale purple skin and glassy black eyes. No arms, legs, or anything else. Just like Poog, except …

  … different.

  Some of them had eyes that were smaller than Poog's. Others were bigger than Poog, and still others were more perfectly round. The Toogolians floated down until they surrounded us on all sides, then stopped and just hovered there. They weren't smiling. Far from it. They looked angry.

  “Well, I'll be ding-dang-diddled,” Spuckler whispered. Obviously I wasn't the only one who had never seen other members of Poog's species before.

  The Toogolians said nothing, allowing the silence to stretch on and on. Two of them floated forward. They were apparently the leaders of the group, and th
ey looked very angry.

  I put one hand on Mr. Beeba's shoulder. “Um, maybe you should say something, Mr. B. You know, apologize for us, uh, breaking all their sacred rules and stuff.”

  “An excellent suggestion, Akiko.” He coughed. Cleared his throat. Coughed again.

  “In Toogolian, you mean?” He looked very nervous.

  “Of course in Toogolian. They wouldn't understand if you spoke in English, would they?”

  “Oh, but they would, Akiko,” he said. “They are capable of understanding any number of languages, but their vocal cords limit them to speaking only in Toogolian.”

  I thought this over.

  “Okay, but I still think you ought to use their native language. They'll have a better impression of us that way.”

  “Yes. Quite. Yes.”

  He coughed again.

  Our Poog-like visitors looked increasingly hostile.

  Spuckler turned to Mr. Beeba. “Come on, Beebs. Say something, for cryin' out loud! You're always blabbin' on and on about everything till we wanna stick a rock in your mouth and tape it shut. For once we wantcha to talk—we want cha to talk—an' now we can't get a peep outta ya!”

  Mr. Beeba's eyes were darting around like crazy. I felt a big confession coming on.

  “Look, the fact of the matter is …” He looked at the ground. He looked at his hands. “… I've always been better at listening comprehension than, er, conversational Toogolian.”

  That's when it hit me. In all the time I'd known Mr. Beeba, I'd never once heard him actually say a word in Poog's language. I knew from personal experience that it was not an easy language to pronounce. No wonder Mr. Beeba was so nervous.

  “Look,” I whispered, “it doesn't have to be anything fancy. Just, uh, ‘We come in peace,' or ‘Please don't kill us.'You know, something like that.”

  Mr. Beeba frantically scratched his forehead. “Peace … peace … I used to know that word in Toogolian…. It was on the final exam … just after the multiple-choice questions….”

  A loud, warbly gurgling noise erupted from the two Toogolian leaders. Our hosts—captors, I might as well call them—had clearly run out of patience.

  “They want to know why we're here,” said Mr. Beeba. “They're asking who we work for.”

  The two Poog look-alikes bobbed up and down in the air, angrily awaiting an answer.

  “Beeba,” whispered Spuckler, “it's now or never, buddy. You can do it. I know ya can.” It was just about the gentlest thing I'd ever heard Spuckler say to anyone.

  Mr. Beeba cleared his throat, opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, closed it again, licked his lips, and opened it again.

  He said …

  … something.

  Toogolian is a very hard language to describe. It's gurgly. It's warbly. It's wiggly and bubbly. It slips, slides, bounces, and burps. It's nearly impossible to write it out in letters of the alphabet.

  It's fun to try, though.

  Mr. Beeba said something like this:

  “Oodily-abbily-eedle-a-dabbily-oodle.”

  Only he said it about five times fast, and once or twice backward. It was very loud and high-pitched.

  After he finished, Mr. Beeba had to cough several times. I think he'd hurt his throat.

  The Toogolian leaders narrowed their eyes. I'd have expected them to be impressed, but they only looked suspicious. They turned to each other and had a brief gurgly conversation. I noticed that they talked more quickly than they had a moment before, and much more quickly than Poog ever had with us. It made me think that Poog was always forcing himself to speak slowly, so that Mr. Beeba would be able to understand and translate for the rest of us.

  As the rapid-fire conversation continued, Mr. Beeba tried to explain what he had said to them.

  “I apologized for our desecration of the most holy soil of Toog, and promised that we'd break no further laws.”

  So far, so good.

  “At least I think I used the right word for laws.” He frowned. “I might possibly have said the word for enchiladas.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “They have enchiladas on the planet Toog?”

  “Not necessarily. They simply have a word that means enchiladas.”

  “Yeah, but why would they invent a word that means enchiladas if they didn't have enchiladas to begin with?”

  Mr. Beeba looked at me blankly. “I can't answer that question, Akiko. But I can tell you this: The Toogolian word for enchiladas is devilishly close to the one for laws.”

  The Toogolian leaders finished their conversation. They turned to us. One of them, the smaller one, said something short and warbly.

  “They still want to know who we work for,” said Mr. Beeba.

  “Tell 'em we don't work for nobody!” said Spuckler. “We're freelancers.”

  “No,” I said. “Tell them we work for Poog.”

  Mr. Beeba's eyes popped a bit in surprise, then settled into an expression of understanding. “Yes. We work for Poog. Perfect.”

  He turned to the Toogolians, cleared his throat again, and spoke in their language, this time much more confidently.

  They reacted with skepticism, but after another warbly chat they seemed to accept Mr. Beeba's statement as the truth. For the time being, anyway.

  One or two more sentences were exchanged. It was decided that we would follow them to a nearby city, where our fate would be determined by a group of Toogolian elders. The last thing they said to us was the scariest. Mr. Beeba translated it like this:

  “Don't try any funny business or we'll brainmelt you.”

  “Brainmelt us?”

  “Poog told me about it once,” Mr. Beeba said.

  “Toogolians possess the ability to turn brains to the consistency of thin porridge. They're not terribly proud of it, mind you. But they hold it in reserve as a means of self-defense. Indeed, it is the threat of brainmelting that has kept Toog free of intruders for so many years.”

  I shivered a bit. “Man. Here I was thinking Toog would be filled with happy purple Poogs floating around smiling at one another. Turns out they're a bunch of scary little brainmelters.”

  “Well,” Mr. Beeba said, looking as if he wanted to say I was wrong but couldn't, “they're not all cute and cuddly, no.”

  We left the ship where it was and began our march. The troop of Toogolians took positions on either side of us like bodyguards. (Or prison guards, depending how you looked at it.) They led us down the valley, to the right, as it turned out.

  “What did I tell you?” Mr. Beeba said. “They don't like the wind in their faces any more than I do.” Spuckler rolled his eyes at me and—for once—let the comment go unanswered.

  As we marched, the icy walls gave way to black stony cliffs and the snowy path changed into a gravelly stream, forcing the Toogolians to guide us to drier ground off to one side. Clearly there was more to Toog than snow and ice: It was starting to feel downright tropical.

  After about an hour's hike we came to a place where the valley opened up into a vast plain surrounded by mountains. The area was almost entirely hidden beneath clouds of mist, which rolled lazily from one mountainside to another, never allowing more than a small patch of ground to become visible at any one time. In the center of the plain stood about a dozen jagged outcroppings of stone, tall black towers rising from the mist like cliffs in a Chinese painting. It was a breathtaking scene, but also just a little spooky.

  “Shring-la Rai,” said Mr. Beeba. “I never thought I'd see it with my own eyes.”

  “Shingle-Roy?” I asked.

  “No, Akiko: Shring-la Rai. It is the planet Toog's capital city. Poog has spoken of it many times, always with great reverence.”

  “City?” asked Spuckler. “I don't see no city. Just a bunch of rocks.”

  “Look carefully, Spuckler. Toogolian architecture is designed to blend into its surroundings. The tops of those peaks—the upper two-thirds, I'll bet—are not peaks at all, but buildings. Toogolian buildings.”

  “Hmf,” grunted Spuckler. “These guys're even weirder than I thought.”

  Our escorts led us onward, down into the clouds of mist covering the plain. Every once in a while I'd see other gray Poog-like shapes—or even a small procession of them—somewhere deep in the whiteness, floating silently from one place to another.

  We came to the base of one of the stone towers. Spuckler rubbed his jaw. “Don't like the looks of this place. Don't much care for this prisoner-of-war treatment we're gettin', neither.”