Чарли Андерс - Six Months, Three Days, Five Others

“You know,” said Horace. “I’ve heard it said that death is what makes life meaningful. In that case, I am about to create more meaning than all of the artists in history combined.”

Kango was a blur as he tried to steer through the flaming obstacle course.

At last, they reached the upper atmosphere… just as some terrible presence appeared directly beneath them. It was just a dark shape that blotted out their view of Salubrious IV. Sharon struggled to make out any details for a moment, and then she saw some undulating barbed tentacles, and she knew .

“No,” said Sharon. “They released the planet-eater.”

“Is that Liberty House’s last line of defense?” asked Jara, fascinated by the shape on their external viewer.

“No,” Kango said. “They made it for a party years ago. It basically just eats planets, much as its name implies. And we’re between it and The Vastness. Hold tight!”

“To what?” Sharon demanded.

The planet-eater thrashed around as it forced its way out of the atmosphere of Salubrious IV and tried to swim toward The Vastness. The planet-eater’s uncountable limbs lashed out, trying to pull everything in their path into the one enormous maw at its center. One of those huge barbed tentacles swiped within a few feet of the Spicy Meatball … which dodged, and nearly ran into another flotilla of Joykiller-class attack ships.

“Hall and Oates!” Sharon cursed.

“You are everything!” Jara cried out.

“Keep it down, you two,” Kango growled. “It’s hard enough trying to make evasive maneuvers between pretty much everything deadly without also having to listen to a lot of religious mumbo jumbo.”

“Oh, as if you have it all figured out,” Sharon said. “Your only religion is exhibitionism. I swear, the next time we have a plan that relies on a diversion—a contained, sensible diversion—that can be my job.”

“Sure!” Kango spun the ship on its axis to scoot past a planet-eater tentacle, then veered sharply to the left to avoid a spread of Obliteron missiles. “Because you’re such a genius at strategy, and that’s how we ended up with a stupid ultimate weapon on board!”

“I’ll have you know I am quite intelligent,” Horace protested. “And there are mere minutes before my devastation wave is launched from the galactic core. Once it begins, it will sweep the entire galaxy in no time at all!”

“Hey, I did my best,” Sharon said to Kango. “It’s not as if it was my idea to—” She stopped, because Jara was staring at her. “What?”

“You’re doing it again,” Jara said. “You’re acting as though each of you is The Vastness to the other. I wish I knew how you do that. I’m going to die soon too, and even with The Vastness close at hand, I’ll die alone and for no real reason. You are everything!”

“Listen, Jara,” Sharon said, ignoring her nausea as Kango did a series of barrel rolls to avoid explosions that came close enough to rattle her teeth. “Listen. The Vastness is only everything because it’s incredibly limited. It can’t even see all the things it’s not. It’s like a giant stupid ignorant blob of… wait. Wait a minute!”

“What?” Kango said. “Did you think of something super super clever?”

“Maybe,” Sharon said, praying to Hall and Oates that she was right. She ran over and pulled the stolen synchrotrix out of the strongbox, then started wiring it into Horace’s core as fast as she could. “Remember what you told me was special about this device?”

“The fact that it’s worth a lot of chits?” Kango pulled the Spicy Meatball ’s nose up so fast, Sharon nearly did a backflip while keeping one hand on Horace. “It’s got a nice color scheme? It has the ability to neutralize… oh. Oh!”

“You are everything!” Jara said.

The planet-eater had finally gotten past all of the attack ships that had tried vainly to slow it down. Now it had reached The Vastness, opening the vast gnashing maw at the heart of its starfish-like body to try and devour the mega-planetoid. The planet-eater embraced The Vastness with its many limbs.

Sharon gripped Jara’s shoulders so hard, her knuckles were white. “Tell The Vastness we’ve got the ultimate weapon, right here on our ship. We can help The Vastness to become completely unstoppable. And The Vastness really will be everything, in an even better way than before.”

Jara looked like she was about to cry. “You want me to lie to The Vastness.”

“No,” Sharon said. “Yes. Sort of. Not really. It’s the only way.”

“I’m just moments away from a glorious consummation,” Horace said. “It’s at times like this that I feel like composing a sonnet.”

“Jara,” Sharon hissed, “now!”

“I’m trying,” Jara said, shutting her eyes and concentrating. “The Vastness doesn’t really listen. It just talks. I’m sending the message as hard as I can.”

“Now! Please!”

The Vastness reached out with a beam of energy, trying to seize the Spicy Meatball . Sharon rushed to the rear airlock with Horace, cobbled together with the synchrotrix. She tossed them out, and The Vastness’s energy field captured them, pulling them through one of The Vastness’s slavering eyemouths inside its guts.

They were inside The Vastness’s own atmosphere, close enough to hear its eyemouths shouting through their countless razor-sharp teeth. “I am everything! Now I have this ultimate weapon, my power will be absolute. I will be all things, and every living being will shout my praises. I am—”

Sharon watched through the airlock as The Vastness vanished from space.

In the space where The Vastness had been, a bright purple-and-green fissure was opened up. The crack in spacetime was huge enough to let Sharon see through it as The Vastness was drawn toward the supermassive black hole at the core of the galaxy.

“You are everything,” Jara said, sorrowfully, standing next to Sharon.

And then The Vastness was no longer visible—but in its place, there was a huge distortion enveloping the black hole at the core of the galaxy.

“The biggest Embarrassment the galaxy has ever seen,” Kango breathed from the flight deck.

And then the purple-and-green fissure closed, leaving a badly injured planet-eater, several thousand confused Joykiller-class starships, and the Spicy Meatball .

“We did it,” Kango said, seeming semi-permeable with astonishment.

“The Vastness followed Horace’s program and ended up at the galactic core,” Sharon said. “And then it Embarrassed itself.”

“I just killed my god.” Jara looked as though she was too shocked even for tears.

“Look at it this way,” Sharon said. “You told the truth. Mostly. The Vastness is everywhere and everything now, in a way. And it always will be with you. And it can never be defeated. You can worship The Vastness forever.”

“I don’t know.” Jara tried saying, “You are everything,” but it wasn’t the same when it came in response to nothing.

“Well, meanwhile,” Kango said. “We lost the synchrotrix that we were counting on to pay our bills. And we lost the super-weapon, too. So, we’re even more broke than we were before. Unless we can convince Mandre Lewis that we just saved the galaxy.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Sharon said, then turned back toward Jara. “But what are you going to do? There’s a huge fleet of ships out there, full of your fellow acolytes, and they desperately need some direction. Plus, this star system is rich in resources and technology, and it just had all its planetary defenses wrecked. You could go back to Salubrious, with all your people, and become a Countess for real.”