The Training Master Read online

  The “big” one was no more than three feet in diameter. As it turned out, Spuckler had to give up that hole for Gax, who wouldn’t fit into any of the others. I chose a midsized hole—about two feet across at its widest—and took a peek inside. By this point the sky was so dark I could barely see a thing, but there wasn’t much to see anyway. It was a hole and nothing more, lined on all sides with cold, damp stones, with no pillow or bedding of any kind. I swallowed hard and started to crawl inside.

  BROOOOOoooo

  A bloodcurdling howl echoed down to us from the top of the wall. I was torn between climbing back out of my hole to get a better look and crawling farther in to hide. I compromised by crawling all the way in and then poking just my head out. What I saw made me wish the holes had doors that could be slammed shut and locked.

  There, making its way down the wall, was an enormous brown slug creature covered with patches of bloodred fur. It was about the size of a buffalo, and able to move vertically across the wall by way of its sticky underside. It had eight long, spindly arms with clawed hands at the tips, four of which clutched small wooden buckets.

  “Twenty gilpots says that’s Grunn Grung,” said Spuckler. No one took him up on the bet. We all knew it was Grunn Grung, just as surely as we knew that whatever was sloshing around in those buckets would turn out to be our dinner.

  BROOOOOoooo

  Grunn Grung slithered from place to place, tossing the buckets into our holes so recklessly you’d have thought he intended to spill as much of the contents as he could. When he reached my hole and slapped the bucket inside, he slid his head in after it and stared at me. His eyes were black and beady, held in place by wrinkled folds of slimy flesh. His mouth was toothless, round, and dripping with saliva.

  “Eeeeaaaaat noowww,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and choked with spittle. “Beeefooore it getsss cooooold.”

  This, I soon realized, was Grunn Grung’s attempt at a little joke: the porridge-thick stew of bluish gray sludge was ice-cold and—from what I could tell—had never been heated to begin with.

  “Taaaaa taaaaa,” he said before his head receded from view. I caught one last glimpse of him before he vanished over the top of the wall; then I decided to check on the others.

  “Mr. Beeba! Are you all right?”

  “If that hideous creature is gone for good,” came his answer from a hole to my left, “then yes, my condition is satisfactory for the moment.”

  “Gax? Poog?”

  Gax’s head emerged from his hole and rotated until it faced me. “I AM QUITE ALL RIGHT, MA’AM. THESE DAMP CONDITIONS HAVE WROUGHT A BIT OF HAVOC WITH MY CARBURETOR, BUT APART FROM THAT I REALLY HAVE NOTHING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT.”

  Poog floated out of his hole and gurgled a brief warbly reply. His face was spattered with mud, but he seemed to be in good spirits.

  “Spuckler?”

  “Say, this stuff ain’t so bad,” said Spuckler, poking his head out from where he lay two holes beneath me, his chin dribbled with stew. “I’ve had worse than this. Plenty worse.”

  I raised the mildewed old bucket to my nose and took a whiff. The contents smelled like an old dog that had been rolling in a pile of rotting vegetables. Hungry as I was, there was no way I’d be eating this stuff.

  I poked my head out of the hole, then snuck down to Spuckler, bucket in hand.

  “Spuckler,” I whispered into his little cave. “You want this?”

  Spuckler looked shocked. “Now, listen, ’Kiko. Like it or not, you gotta eat. We got a long, hard day ahead of us tomorrow. You’ll never make it through on an empty stomach.”

  “I’m sorry, Spuckler. I can’t put this stuff in my mouth. It’ll make me sick.”

  Spuckler regarded me for a moment longer. He must have seen that I wasn’t going to change my mind.

  “All right. Have it your way. But don’t come whining to me when you’re half starved tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Good night, Spuckler.”

  “G’night, ’Kiko.”

  Just then a voice echoed down from above: “Hey, you!”

  I turned to see the green long-armed guy glaring down at me from his hole, his three eyes glowing angrily. Behind him were the heads of four tough-looking aliens, the other members of his trainee crew. “Back to bed! You’re going to get us all in trouble!”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know there was a rule against—”

  “Hey, listen,” he said before I could finish, “I didn’t know doesn’t cut it around here. You just watch yourself, kiddo.”

  “All right, all right,” I said, scaling the mossy wall as quickly as I could. “My name is not ‘kiddo,’ by the way. It’s Akiko.”

  “Friends call me Dregger. That means you call me sir.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said before crawling back into my hole. I was trying to be polite, but I’m sure he knew that meeting him was anything but nice.

  Dregger said nothing in return. But then, a moment later, he whispered to one of his friends, loudly enough for me to hear: “Earthians: they’re all scrawny and snot-brained.”

  I wanted to say something mean in return but decided against it. Better just ignore him. I don’t want to make any enemies my first night.

  Lying on my side, I rolled myself up to conserve as much body heat as possible. My jeans and T-shirt were soaked with mud, and every minute or two a frigid gust of wind blew straight in on top of me. I’d have given anything for a blanket right then, or even just a bath towel.

  All this mud and misery is for a good reason, I told myself. King Froptoppit needs us to graduate and become Smoo’s first space patrollers. If I can just stay focused on that I’ll be okay.

  I closed my eyes and thought of Chibb. He’d seemed like such a nice guy when we’d first met him. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  I shuddered when it occurred to me that we hadn’t even made it through a full day yet. Seven days. Seven long days.

  If I can make it through this, I can make it through anything, I thought.

  I rolled over and tried to get to sleep.

  Chapter 6

  After what felt like just a few hours of sleep, a piercing squeal blasted me awake. I opened my eyes to find it was still pitch black outside, and very, very cold. Sticking my head out of the hole, I saw Grunn Grung at the base of the wall, holding a torch and blowing into a long, curved horn.

  “He’s got to be kidding,” I said. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  I rubbed my eyes and stared in amazement at the other students climbing eagerly out of their holes for the first day of training. They were all wide awake, as if they had no need for sleep.

  “C’mon, ’Kiko!” shouted Spuckler. “Look alive!”

  By the time I’d climbed down from my hole, all the others had lined up behind Grunn Grung and begun marching through the swamp to get back to the training center. I took my place at the end of the line and braced myself for the icy-cold waters of the swamp. Since my clothes had only just begun to dry, it was heartbreaking to get them wet again.

  “ONE NIGHT DOWN,” said Gax, trying to sound encouraging, “ONLY SIX TO GO.”

  Grunn Grung led us all through a tunnel in the artificial hill (they evidently reserved making us climb it for the end of the day, when it would exhaust us the most) and bid us farewell on the other side.

  “Tooooniiiiight,” he said to me as I marched away, stretching his toothless mouth into an ugly smile, “yooou wiiill eeeeat.”

  Don’t bet on it, I thought. I was already hungry from the missed meal, though; there was no denying it.

  After marching back down the long, crumbly path, we all eventually wound up in a place called the Gathering Plaza, a wide circle of concrete just outside the training masters’ quarters. I rubbed my arms and hoped that the sun—only now making its way over the horizon—would warm me up in a hurry. Everyone stood at attention as the training masters emerged from their front door and rejoined their assigned students. Chibb was the last to arrive.
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  “Breakfast,” he said to us without smiling as he opened a sack and handed each of us a black lump that had the look and feel of a piece of coal.

  Spuckler tore into it with gusto, while Mr. Beeba and I nibbled more cautiously. It took me three bites to determine that it was indeed food, a further three to discern that it had flavor (it wasn’t the least bit salty or sweet, but possessed a faint trace of bitterness), and a final three to decide that it was some sort of bland, rock-hard bread.

  “All right,” said Chibb before any of us had finished. “Enough standing around. Off to our first lessons.”

  Without another word he led us back into the Zarga Baffa complex and through about a dozen different corridors. Finally we arrived at a vast space with a sloping glass ceiling like a greenhouse. The floor was covered with rolling hills of grass and flowers, everything glowing orange with the first rays of morning sunlight. After all the mud and misery it felt great to be in such a beautiful place. The fresh, clean air was enough to make me feel a little better about Zarga Baffa.

  “Before we begin,” said Chibb, “I just want to make sure you all know about crying blue.”

  “Crying blue?” said Mr. Beeba. “That’s the Zarga Baffian term for quitting, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed,” said Chibb. “It’s a good deal more than simply quitting, though. When a trainee cries blue, he or she admits complete and utter defeat. If you feel that you cannot endure even a single second more of Humbling Week, the solution to your troubles is as simple as can be: just shout out the word blue as loudly as you can, and your training will instantly come to an end. You will be sent back to your home planet while the rest of your crew carries on without you.”

  “Blue?” I asked. “Why blue?”

  “It goes back to Hubbly Golgiddy, the first Zarga Baffa student to abandon his training. Hubbly was making his way through one of our obstacle courses when he fell headfirst into a vat of blue slime. For whatever reason, that was the breaking point for him, and he gave up his training then and there. The sight of Hubbly Golgiddy weeping and covered in blue slime became the very image of a quitter in the minds of trainees and training masters alike. And so it is that when trainees quit, we say they have cried blue.”

  He gave us all a look of great seriousness.

  “But remember this: crying blue is an indelible mark of shame, a stain on your character that will haunt you for the rest of your life. You will be known until your dying day as feeble and weak, a person of little consequence. Such is the fate of one who cries blue on Zarga Baffa.”

  I swallowed hard and folded my arms, making sure Chibb saw the toughest-looking Akiko possible.

  There’s no way I’m going to cry blue, I thought. I don’t care how bad it gets.

  Chapter 7

  Chibb directed our attention to the field before us. “We’ll start with something simple: a test of motor skills called the Yoodoo Egg Rescue.”

  Spuckler’s eyes lit up. “Ya mean ya got a yoodoo bird here?”

  “We do indeed, Spuck.”

  “Mighty tasty bird.”

  “We won’t be eating it, I assure you.” Chibb pointed to a blue and yellow speck at the far end of the dome. “Over there is the mother yoodoo bird, waiting in her nest.”

  I shielded my eyes from the morning sun and tried my best to make out the shapes of a nest and bird. The distance forced me to use my imagination.

  Chibb then pointed to three blue objects in three different parts of the pasture. “The eggs are there … there … and there.”

  One of them was close enough to see quite clearly. It was about the size of a basketball. Its surface was sky blue with yellow spots, and very glossy.

  “And that’s about it, really,” said Chibb, clapping his hands together. “Pick up the eggs, carry them across the field, and put them in the nest. You’ve got to do it all in one trip.”

  “That doesn’t look so hard,” I said.

  Chibb snapped his head to one side and stared at me with a look of surprise and mild annoyance.

  “Oh, it doesn’t, does it?” It was as if I’d insulted a member of his family. “Well, perhaps you’d like to go first, then.”

  I looked at the others. Spuckler was grinning a go-for-it grin. Mr. Beeba and Gax shivered as if they thought I was making a big, big mistake. Poog smiled and nodded approvingly. He had a slightly worried look in his eyes, though.

  “Sure,” I said, doing my best to sound confident. “Someone’s got to go first. Why not me?”

  “Be my guest,” said Chibb, pulling a silver stopwatch from his pocket. “You’ve got three minutes.” His smile was definitely hiding something. “Starting …” He lifted the stopwatch to his eyes. “Now!”

  I tore off across the field as quickly as I could. First I had to go up and over a gentle hill. The ground was a bit soft, making it hard to run at top speed, but otherwise I could see nothing to stop me from getting those eggs to the nest in well under three minutes. Two minutes, tops.

  I arrived at the first egg, lifted it, and tucked it under my right arm. It was about as heavy as a gallon of milk. Not enough to slow me down, not by a long shot. I was halfway to the second egg when …

  Ssssssssssshhhhhhhh

  POOOOAM

  … something struck the ground somewhere behind me. I spun to see an enormous red boulder half submerged in the field just beyond the hill, smoke billowing up from it in big black clouds. It was a meteor, freshly fallen from the sky.

  Through the smoke I could just make out the face of Chibb Fallaby, who was smiling and chuckling to himself. He consulted his stopwatch and shouted: “Two minutes, forty-five seconds left! Better get a move on!”

  Ssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhh

  POOOOOOOAM

  A second meteor struck the ground, this time off to my left, but considerably closer than the first. I followed the trail of smoke up to a chute at the center of the glass ceiling. A third meteor had already emerged and was on its way down. This time it looked as though it was heading straight toward me.

  I ran as fast as I could without dropping the egg, realizing too late that I was actually heading back toward Chibb and the others.

  Sssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhh

  POOOOOOOOOAM

  It missed me by a good ten yards. But if I hadn’t moved, it could easily have landed right on top of me.

  “Only two and a half minutes left!” Chibb shouted. “You’re pushing it!”

  “What—” I began, then switched to the only question that mattered to me at the moment: “Are they real?”

  Chibb grinned and kept his eyes on the stopwatch. He was fiddling with it for some reason, as if it needed winding or something. “They’re real enough.”

  Real enough? What is that supposed to mean?

  “I’d keep moving if I were you,” said Chibb, pointing up at the chute. “It’s almost finished reloading!”

  “C’mon, ’Kiko!” hollered Spuckler. “Show him whatcher made of!”

  I turned, located the second egg, then sprinted toward it, dividing my attention between the ground ahead and the sky above. Sure enough, more meteors were already on their way, this time two of them at once.

  Sssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhh

  The first was coming straight down into the path in front of me. I changed direction just in time.

  POOOOOOOOOAM

  Ssssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhh

  The second had looked like it was heading toward the same spot as the first, but then—was it my imagination?—it seemed to change direction in midair. Now it was rocketing straight to where I stood! Clutching the egg as hard as I could, I leaped to one side and somersaulted out of the way.

  POOOOOOOOOOOOAM

  This is insane. They’re following me!

  There was a brief break in the meteor shower. It was almost as if the meteors were waiting for me to get up on my feet again.

  “Two minutes!” shouted Chibb.

  I’ve got to at least get the second eg
g. If I don’t I’ll be a complete reject.

  I took off again, this time cutting and weaving unpredictably through the field, all the while moving steadily closer to the second egg.

  SssssssshhhhhhPOOOOAM

  SssssssssshhhhhhhPOOOOOAM

  The meteors began raining down again, fast and furious. They were crashing into the field all around me. I dashed, dodged, leaped, and lurched: whatever it took to get to that egg without turning into meteor meat in the process.

  ShhPOAMshhhPOOAMshhhhPOOOAM

  Finally—miraculously—I made it to the second egg and scooped it into my left arm. That’s when I realized …

  … I had absolutely no idea how I was going to carry the third egg.

  “One and a half minutes!” I heard Chibb call from far away.

  This is impossible. Impossible!

  I located the third egg. It wasn’t that far off, but under the circumstances it might as well have been light-years away. How was I supposed to pick the thing up? Sprout a third arm?

  “Move, child!” came Chibb’s voice from far away behind me.

  Did he just call me “child”?

  “Mooove!”

  ShhhhPOAMshhhPOAMshhhhhhhPOAM

  Meteors pounded the field on all sides as I sprinted back and forth, cutting a wild, jagged path through the tall grass. Holding both eggs meant that I no longer had the full movement of my arms, which made it really hard to maintain my balance. The added weight was slowing me down too. Suddenly, just four feet to my right …

  ShhhhhhhhhBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

  … a meteor the size of a minivan thundered into the grass. The ground rocked as it exploded like a bomb within inches of me. The air was thick with plumes of black smoke and the stench of burning grass, and my skin burned as if it were being roasted over a bonfire. I came to a complete stop and just stared at the thing, dumbstruck. It had almost flattened me: if I’d been any farther to the left, I’d have been so completely obliterated it would have been as if I’d never even existed. That was when my strength—and my will to go on—gave out altogether: I totally lost what little nerve I had left.