A Lesson in Wormholes (Sequel to Ectopic)

A Lesson in Wormholes

About 4,600 words

A Lesson in Wormholes:

By Rhys Lee

    Sand.

    That's all there seemed to be.

    Large rock formations dotted the horizon and background: rising, almost vertically, into the air to make plateaus; aside from those there was just the red, extremely-compacted sand.

    Three people walked across this God-forsaken planet: a Glok, a human, and a Tav-tan. They wore the robes of the native people of the planet: a thick dark brown cloak much like wool, or clothing you find among the desert Terrans (humans) but made out of the fur of an extremely ugly beast that looks like a mammoth. Under these cloaks they wore backpacks and their space suits, easily purchased from any Inter-Universal Exchange Mall. The Glok rubbed two of his insect like hands together, not necessarily out of fear or nervousness but out of habit. The human walked with his hands swinging on either side of him. The Tav-tan, two feet taller than the human, walked with his top two hands together in a steeple—each of his three fingers on one hand touching the other three of the other. His bottom two hands angled downward with the backs touching and fingers pointing diagonally away from the meeting point of his hands. He muttered prayers to Yoev, the monotheistic universal God of Vrex-tu--the third largest religion of the Universe. His tough leathery skin, capable of protecting him from any sun, was wrinkled from age; his three eyes--each a deep emerald color--flicked here to there across the landscape, seeing the eroded cracks on the far off plateaus that his companions couldn't see from this distance.

    The Gloks have four arms also, but they are insect-like. Their bodies are stretched out like grasshoppers, but their heads vary in how they look. They can have human heads, or Tav-tan heads, or even Vrint heads. But this particular Glok had a head that looked like a grasshopper with a small human mouth, where the mandibles would be, and four smooth black eyes. The Gloks are naturally nervous most of the time, which gives them their tell-tale insect-like rubbing of hands. This one, though, was merely bored.

    They walked in silence. Each man, being a convicted criminal, thought about his supposed crime. The Glok was wanted for manslaughter; the human for multiple robberies; and the Tav-tan for murder in the underground gladiator fights. The Glok was framed, the human was forced at laser point, and the Tav-tan had to kill his opponent to survive. (Normally, in the underground gladiator fights, the biggest rule is that there's no killing—only tap outs like in ultimate fighter championships. For this Tav-tan, he had made his opponent tap out but his opponent ended up turning on him to try to kill him. So he had to defend himself and kill his opponent to live. The news and police misinterpreted the information and think he maliciously killed his opponent.)

    Thus they traveled the wasteland of Gravitax of Betelgeuse-A in the BTA-6980 sector. They were trying to find a hospitable place outside of the jurisdiction of the Inter-Universal Contingency (IUC), or at least a place they didn't check on often. This was their thirty-second try.

    They started passing Juk-tuk-a-mmnutok-tok-tu-nok, a rock formed into a plateau that was a tourist attraction on this planet, when the Tav-tan stopped dead, staring off to his left. The human and Glok kept walking for a few steps before realizing their companion had stopped. They turned to look at him and to see if he would continue or not. When he didn't move, the human asked him in the Tav-tan language, which is a strange euphonious language that sounds more like music mixed with grunts, "What is it? Why do you stop?"

    The Tav-tan responded in the human's language while pointing off into the distance, "What is that over there?'' The human's language, if one traced it far enough, was a descendent of German from the 21st century. The human and the Glok looked to where the Tav-tan was pointing and saw something that looked like an orb of blue light. The human turned to the Glok.