18

Now that we’re through the Orientation bubble, it doesn’t take long to reach our destination: Elvid IX. (We humans may not be the most advanced species in the galaxy, but at least we give our planets decent names. “Earth,” “Mars,” and “Jupiter” have a lot more pizzazz than “Human Planet 3,” “Human Planet 4,” and “Human Planet 5,” right?)

Ari brings us in close to the giant ringed planet. He’s not a half-bad pilot—but he’s not a full-good pilot either. That’s understandable, I guess, seeing as he’s thirteen and doesn’t really know how to fly a ship. We only do two unintentional barrel rolls as we head into orbit.

“Meant to do that,” Ari lies both times, clenching his teeth.

It’s a rule: Everything looks epic from space. But up close, Elvid IX is an eyesore. It’s one endless city from pole to pole, packed with sky-high, rounded smokestacks that spew pillars of soot into the air. And it’s overcrowded with swarms of ships doing the same thing from their exhaust lines. Pro tip: Don’t take any deep breaths on Elvid IX. No shallow breaths either. Don’t even hiccup.

Becka’s scans tell her that the hazy atmosphere is toxic from all the pollution. And even though it’s daytime on this side of the planet, it’s dark as night down here. The air is so thick and dirty that it literally blots out the suns.

“Welcome to Nine,” the Minister tells us. “Pride of the galaxy.”

I yelp, Ari falls off his chair, and Becka snorts like a bull about to charge—until she looks down at her display.

“Just a recording,” she explains. “It started downloading when we entered the atmosphere.”

Just like in the floating picture from my Orientation, the Minister is holding her laser stick and sitting on her throne. She’s wearing a shiny black robe that looks cut from whatever the buildings are made out of on Elvid IV. And she does not look friendly.

“Can you turn it off?” I ask.

“Nope,” Becka answers. “It’s playing by itself.”

“Whether you are visiting for business or leisure,” the Minister continues, “you have made the right choice. If Nine doesn’t have it, it doesn’t exist. Your ship’s data bank should now have access to a free public map—including of our planet and many of its most prominent landmarks—along with an Elvidian dictionary that should be fully compatible with all internal reading systems. While here, you absolutely must see the sights: the tallest statue in the galaxy—”

“A thousand bucks says the statue’s of her,” Becka mutters.

“—the largest shopping mall in existence, the Great Nine Zoo, and, of course, the First Elvidian Mines. And that’s just the beginning. But remember,” the Minister adds, leaning forward on her throne, “always be on the lookout for miscreants and disruptors. Not everyone in the galaxy is as civilized as the Elvidian people and those we dutifully serve. We need you to keep us safe and secure.”

“Welcome to Nine,” she says again. “Long live the Minister.”

The recording cuts off as we dip below the clouds.

“Did she just ‘long live’ herself?” Becka says.

I chuckle, mostly out of relief that the recording is over. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to hear “Long live the Minister” again without reliving the memory of Orientation Ari and Orientation Becka. It’s not pleasant.

“What now?” Ari asks as we fly around one rising column of smoke after another.

I still don’t love the Minister. But she makes a good point.

“You heard her. We absolutely must see the sights.”

***

“I thought we were going to the zoo,” Ari grumbles.

“I doubt there’s fuel at the zoo,” I point out. He touches us down inside the mall’s parking lot and finds an open space between a purple egg rocket and a ship that looks like a mechanical butterfly.

The mall is shaped like a pyramid with a smokestack at the top. A smooth volcano, I guess, with flat sides and sharp edges. The pyramid’s surface is a giant billboard: every inch of it is covered with flashy advertisements, bright enough that you can see them through the smog from pretty far out. My digital contacts are doing a decent job translating the Elvidian words—at least for basic stuff like tables and jetpacks and ships.

But eighty percent of the ads still make no sense to me. What’s “THERMOWAVE EXOLINING”? And why would anybody need “SEVEN FLOORS OF SHREDDED HAND TOWELS”? That last one’s got to be a mistranslation. Then again, maybe not. According to the map that auto-downloaded into the 118’s data bank, the mall is over seven hundred stories tall. So it might literally sell everything.

“Where’s the fuel?” Ari asks.

Becka forwarded a copy of the map to her ring and is now staring at a miniature rotating hologram of the mall in her palm.

“Gimme a second,” she answers, turning the map halfway around and zooming in.

Ari powers down the engines and a tunnel automatically extends from the walls of the parking garage. It moves toward one of the ship’s main entrances and seals itself against the door like a jetway attaching to a commercial spaceliner.

“Got it,” Becka says a second later, holding out her hand. A small green blip is flashing toward the top of the pyramid. “There are two stores up on one of the high floors that both sell fuel for light speed engines.” She looks back down at her hand and swipes some more. “But forget that for a sec. There’s a lot of cool stuff in here.”

“Like what?” Ari asks.

“Later,” I interrupt, shaking my head. “First we get fuel. Then maybe we can explore.”

“Don’t be boring,” Becka tells me, swiping from one level of the mall to another. “There’s a zero-g restaurant, a cloning store, an arcade—”

“With alien video games?” Ari spurts out. “Like what?”

Becka accesses the listing and scrolls through. “Um, a lot of flight simulators. Some sports stuff. Skee-ball, maybe? And there’s a time machine, I think.”

“A what?!”

She reads more. “A time machine. Can take you back up to a couple days. Looks like there are a lot of rules, though.”

Ari turns to me. “We have to go.”

“We have to do what we came here to do,” I tell him.

I’m not being boring, right? I mean, we’re here for a reason. We can’t afford to be irresponsible.

“Maybe we can go later,” I say.

“It’s a time machine,” Ari explains, shaking with excitement. He grabs me by the collar of my T-shirt. “We can go earlier.”

I don’t even know what that means. “We’ll go, okay? I promise. But first let’s find the fuel. Please. I need to know we can get home.”

Ari sighs and lets go of me. “Fine. As long as you promise.”

“I promise. And in the meantime, any ideas on how we can buy fuel without any money?”

“We could ask nicely,” Ari says sincerely, as the three of us leave the bridge and head toward the exit hatch. “Explain that we need it to get home.”

“We could steal it,” Becka suggests, ignoring Ari’s suggestion.

I roll my eyes at her.

“What?” she asks, shrugging. We step through the tunnel and into the mall. “We’re criminals, aren’t we? And like you said, we’ve done well so far.”

“We’ve been lucky,” I say. And luck runs out eventually.