“Oh, great,” Annika says. “I’m blind again.”
“One last stop,” Ty warns us as he flips open his holoscreen so Annika can have some light. “I can’t give tours of the Afterlives all day. And if there’s any more crying, I’m tossing you both out.”
“Don’t look at me,” I say. “I don’t think we have tear ducts.”
“There won’t be,” Annika promises.
“Which scientist did you want to visit?” Ty asks.
“Carl Sagan,” she answers without hesitation. “He’s my dad’s favorite astronomer. We even named our cat Sagan. His full name is Sagan BB Klutzman.”
“What does the BB stand for?” I ask.
“Billions and billions, obviously. You know, Carl Sagan’s catchphrase?”
I shake my head. “I have to study famous people from a million planets, remember? My favorite catchphrase is ‘Never turn your back on a Niffum in the rain.’ ”
Ty shudders. “Man, ain’t that the truth.”
“I’ll keep that in mind if I ever run into a Niffum,” Annika says drily. “And yours isn’t even a catchphrase—it’s more like advice. But Carl Sagan? He’s like, the coolest astronomer in the world. There’s an asteroid named after him, and also a piece of land on Mars where the first rover touched down. He made all these important discoveries and was really involved with the search for life on other planets.”
“I thought you weren’t interested in stuff like that,” I say. “You said your dad was the one dragging you outside with the telescope.”
“I never said I didn’t like it,” she insists. “Just maybe not as much as my dad.” Her face lights up as she talks about her father. “When he was young, he saw this television special that Carl Sagan made. That’s what got him interested in outer space in the first place. He really loved teaching me and Sam all that stuff.”
Her face clouds over as she thinks about her family.
Ty punches the name into his holoscreen. “It was your father’s telescope you were looking through when you spotted Aunt Rae baking her apple pie, right?”
“Yes.”
“So what you’re basically saying, then, is that Carl Sagan is to blame for your planet being gone.”
“What? I… no way… I mean… he would never… I…”
“Just ignore my brother,” I tell Annika, patting her arm. “No one was to blame, least of all the guy you named your cat after.”
“That’s right,” she says, stomping one foot for emphasis. “Hey, wait, what happened to my cat when the world ended? And everyone else’s pets?” Her eyes start to well up. Ty can’t see her cry! I turn her to face me and say firmly, “Your world didn’t end. As it stands now, your world never was. Sagan BB Klutzman never existed. And soon neither will the other Sagan, so we have to hurry if we want to talk to him.”
Ty leans over, suspicious. Annika blinks quickly to dry her eyes. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m fine, really.”
“I found your guy, so keep it together.” He leads us down another passageway, and then another. I’m beginning to get an idea of how enormous the Afterlives are. I keep checking to make sure Annika hasn’t dried out. I feel better having the water with me. I keep one ear out for Kal’s drums, but the hallways are totally silent. There is no indication of all the sims being lived out on either side of us.
“We’re here,” Ty says, finally stopping.
This time we don’t ask where here is, we just wait for him to let us into the sim. Instead he just leans against the wall and says, “We don’t have long to wait.”
“You’re not going to let us in?” Annika asks.
Ty shakes his head. “It was different for your grandfather because you didn’t know if he’d hang around long enough to talk to, but in this case why watch someone you can’t interact with? His sim will be over shortly, and then you can talk to him. My records show he passed away a number of years before your grandfather, so he’s not going to disappear before you get your time with him. Have a little patience.”
I haven’t known Annika too long, but I’m pretty sure patience isn’t one of her strong suits.
“But if we went inside,” Annika argues, “we could learn something important. Maybe he’s in the middle of teaching an astronomy class!”
“Okay, that’s unlikely,” Ty says. “But you’re going to drive me crazy if I don’t let you in, aren’t you?”
“Oh, totally,” she says.
“Fine,” he grumbles. “Just stay in the background like last time and I’ll meet you after the sim ends.”
The wall dissolves and we find ourselves in the middle of a small, cozy library. Long wooden shelves full of books line the walls, children’s colorful drawings hang above them, and a handful of families mill about, browsing or reading. Not exactly the university classroom we’d been hoping for. I don’t see anyone who looks like a scientist. Not that I know what one would look like other than what I’ve seen on the view screens. I look around for an old guy in a white lab coat with messy hair and deep thoughts.
The sound of weeping fills the room. Annika and I turn toward the source—a young boy, no more than five or six years old. He’s sitting on a metal folding chair in the corner of the children’s section, hunched over a large picture book. His legs swing back and forth, too short to reach the ground. His small frame shakes with his tears.
I know before it happens that Annika is going to try to comfort the boy. I could stop her from hurrying over to him, but I don’t. I just follow. None of our brief interactions with the simulated characters in her grandfather’s sim seemed to matter. So until Dr. Sagan himself comes along, I don’t really see the harm.
“Are you all right?” Annika asks, kneeling down beside him. “Are you lost? Do you need me to find your mommy?”
He shakes his head and looks up from his lap. Both Annika and I take a step back. His eyes shine so bright, they seem to glow from within. And it’s not from the tears. I recognize his expression. It is one of unimaginable wonder, of pure joy. I’ve seen it on the faces of the people Kal brings to the Afterlives, when they get their first true glimpse of The Realms and the expanse of the universe around them. No longer confined by their limited senses, they often break down and weep.
The little boy points to the book on his lap and we step closer again. The page is open to a picture of the Milky Way Galaxy. Not bothering to wipe away the tears still flowing down his red, shiny cheeks, he says, “Did you know that the stars… all the stars we see around us… they’re all SUNS?” He taps the picture with his finger. “That’s a sun.” Another tap. “And that’s a sun.” Tap. “And that’s a sun.” Tap tap tap. “They’re ALL SUNS! All billions and billions of them!”
I guess we’ve found who we’re looking for. I reach to pull Annika away but she shakes off my arm. “Wow, billions and billions!” she says, still kneeling beside him. “That’s really amazing!”
The young Carl Sagan beams. “I know! And around those suns, there could be a planet like ours. And to them, our sun would just be another tiny dot in the sky!” He turns the pages of his book. “The universe is soooooo big! There’s so much to learn!” Fresh tears fill his eyes as he shakes his head. He must have missed the message about not crying in the Afterlives.
I clear my throat. We’re doing exactly what we promised Ty we wouldn’t. “Um, we really have to go now,” I tell the boy. “Are you sure you don’t want us to find your mother?”
He shakes his head.
Ignoring me, Annika tells him, “Don’t worry about all the things you don’t know yet. You’ll have a lot of years to learn this stuff. Something tells me you’re going to be a great astronomer. The best! You’re going to inspire a lot of people.”
I stare at her, incredulous, but she doesn’t turn away from the boy.
He beams up at her again, then asks, “What does inspire mean?”
Now her eyes are welling up. She kneels down again and says, “It means that your enthusiasm, your love for science
and the universe, is going to make a lot of people want to learn more about it. And the more people know about how the universe works and how we came to be here, the more we’ll be able to connect with each other and our planet. You’ll keep everyone reaching for the stars.”
“Me?” he asks, bouncing up and down so fast I’m afraid he’s going to fall off the chair. “I could be a scientist? You really think so?”
“I really do.” She pats him on the knee and stands up, looking pretty pleased with herself.
“Where’d you get that speech from?” I whisper.
“Guess some of what my father said sank in after all.”
The young Carl jumps up and runs right past us. He throws himself into the arms of his mother, nearly knocking over the pile of books she’s carrying into the room. While he tells her about all the stars being suns, I take the opportunity to steer Annika behind a tall bookshelf before she goes up and introduces herself to his mother, which I would not put past her at this point.
“Okay, seriously?” I ask, to borrow one of her own favorite catchphrases. “Remember what Ty said before? Even he doesn’t totally understand how the Afterlives work. You could have just changed the whole course of this guy’s life. You weren’t there the first time he found that book. What if he would have turned out to be a truck driver, or a veterinarian, or a chef, and it was because of you that he didn’t?”
She grins. “Then everyone would thank me.”
“I don’t think Ty will thank you.”
“You worry too much,” she says, which is totally untrue. I can hardly remember worrying about much of anything before those sirens wailed at Kal’s house.
“C’mon, Joss. This is just a simulation, right? It’s not like one of those science fiction stories where a character travels back in time and then when they get back to the present everything’s different because of something they did in the past. We didn’t travel anywhere.”
“I guess you’re right. The Afterlives work in weird ways, though. We probably shouldn’t mention it to Ty.”
“Agreed,” she says, only half paying attention. She’s busily scanning the books on the nearest shelf. She pulls out one titled Earth from A to Z. “Quick,” she says, “grab some more! Maybe Ty will let us take them with us!”
That’s actually a great idea. I pull book after book off the shelf. The Solar System and You. Single-Celled Organisms. Asteroids and Comets: Friends or Foes?
“The sim is going to end really soon,” I tell her. “Let’s take what we have and get ready for Ty.”
We gather the books into two stacks. She hands me the bigger pile and says, “Nice outfit, by the way.”
I notice for the first time that I’m wearing long plaid shorts, knee socks, and brown loafers. Also a white button-down shirt and a blue blazer. Annika has on the same outfit, except instead of shorts she’s wearing a pleated skirt. I look superdorky, but somehow she carries it off.
One of her books slips off the pile and falls open. She reaches for it, glances at the page it fell open to, and frowns. “These books aren’t going to help us much.”
“Why? Because they’re old?”
“No,” she says, holding it up to me. “Because they’re blank.”
I stare at the white, empty pages, deflated. “Figures. I guess only the book your young friend needed has actual pages.”
As we begin reshelving the books the sim dissolves, leaving us in a small white room, identical to the first except without the armchair. Annika, still damp I’m happy to see, is back in the clothes she got from Aunt Rae. I look down at our empty hands. Guess the books wouldn’t have come with us anyway. Ty steps through the wall into the room. “How’d it go?”
“Fine,” I say, maybe a tiny bit too quickly.
“Anything unusual to report?” he asks.
“Nope,” Annika replies. “Same old, same old.”
“Good,” he says. “Because the guest of honor has arrived.”
We turn to see Carl Sagan, the gray-haired grown-up version, rise from the metal folding chair that I’m sure wasn’t there when we arrived. He is still short, and slight, and his eyes are as bright and his smile as wide as when he was a child. Ty steps forward to introduce us.
“No need, no need,” he says. “I’ve been waiting to see this young lady again for a long time.” And with that, he grabs Annika and pulls her into a tight bear hug. She flashes Ty a sheepish grin.
“Nothing unusual happened in the sim, eh?” Ty asks, narrowing his eyes at me.
I widen my eyes and try to look innocent. “Maybe he’s just superfriendly?”
Dr. Sagan begins to swing Annika around while shouting, “It’s you, it’s you, it’s really you!”
Ty shakes his head. “No one’s that friendly.”
Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.
—Carl Sagan, astronomer and professor
Ty steps forward, holding up his official badge. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to stop spinning the girl.”
Dr. Sagan slows, then stops.
Ty directs his attention toward Annika. “Would you care to explain why this esteemed astronomer, whom you’ve supposedly never met, seems so fond of you?”
Annika shrugs guiltily. “Some people just take an instant liking to me.”
“Not all of them,” I assure her.
Ignoring my comment, she says, “It’s a curse sometimes, really. The responsibility that comes with being so widely adored. I tell you, it is not easy.”
Ty rolls his eyes. “Dr. Sagan, would you care to take a better shot at an explanation?”
“Call me professor,” he replies, holding out his hand for Ty to shake. “It reminds me of the eager faces of my students at Cornell.” He starts reciting a poem. “ ‘As you set out for Ithaka, hope the voyage is a long one, full of’—”
A stern look from Ty cuts him off.
“All right, all right, no poetry. How wonderful is it to be here! How lucky I am to get to relive the moment the enormous scale of the universe first revealed itself to me. And on the very day I met the girl who told me I could be a scientist!” He makes a move to hug Annika again, but Ty holds up his hand.
“I’m sorry, the girl who what?”
Annika tries to make herself look smaller by slumping and lowering her head. It does not work. I take Ty by the arm and pull him aside. “Okay,” I whisper, “I know this looks bad, but Professor Sagan’s going to disappear soon anyway, so whatever unintended consequences came from Annika’s meddling in the sim won’t matter for much longer. Please let us use the time we have left to get some answers. I’ll owe you one.”
Ty glances over at Annika and Sagan, now talking and laughing like old friends. “Fine,” he snaps, turning back to me. “Do what you need to do to rebuild Earth and get the residents of the Afterlives back where they belong. That’s how you can repay me.”
“I’ll try my best. I promise.”
He looks me straight in the eye. “You know you’ll never be able to do this, right?”
I swallow hard. “I can’t think that way. I have to believe I can.”
“Your job is to deliver pies, little brother, not rebuild solar systems.”
“Don’t you think I know that? Thanks for the support.”
“I’m sorry, Joss,” he says, heading for the nearest wall. “I’m trying to be realistic so you don’t get your hopes up.” Without saying good-bye to the others, he slips through the wall. I guess we’re on our own.
Professor Sagan begins laughing at something I didn’t hear. It’s a loud, hearty, joyous laugh. Annika hesitates only briefly, then starts laughing, too. The two of them are laughing so hard it’s impossible not to join in. The three of us laugh and laugh, and it feels good, like I’m laughing the worry out of my body. Eventually I choke out, “Why are we… ha ha ha… laughing?”
The professor dabs his eyes with his sleeve, and slowly regains himself. “Ah, that felt good. We were laughing because of something dear Annika said. Go on, tell him.”
Annika’s laugh peters out into giggles, then a chortle, then a hiccup. When she finally composes herself, she says, “Um, it’s actually not all that funny. I asked him how we would rebuild Earth exactly the way it was. You know, if for some reason it got destroyed, or like, taken out of time or something.”
“And?” I prompt.
“Well, that’s when he started laughing.”
“Oh. You’re right. That’s not so funny.”
“Come now, young man,” Professor Sagan says. “Don’t look so down. I didn’t know you were serious. Why would anyone need to rebuild Earth?” Then he looks startled. “We haven’t gone and blown ourselves up, have we?”
“No, no,” Annika assures him. “It’s more that, well…” She trails off.
Clearly she’s having a hard time telling him the truth. He’s going to disappear any minute, why does it really matter now? So I blurt out, “It’s because Earth has been taken out of time and we have to put it back exactly how it was before Annika saw Aunt Rae with the pie so that everyone comes alive again and people stop disappearing from the Afterlives.”
The professor grabs the back of the chair for support. “Taken out of time? Everyone’s gone from Earth? From here?”
Annika’s eyes widen and she gives me a quick shake of her head.
“Um, uh.” I scramble to find the right words. “Not for real, of course, I mean. It’s a project we’re doing for school. Extra credit.”
“That’s right.” Annika jumps in. “Joss here got in trouble for not paying attention and this is the only way he’ll pass his Planet Building class.”
“Way to oversell it,” I mutter.
“Ah, I see!” the professor says, brightening. “Phew! I’d be happy to help with your project. Anything for a friend of Annika’s.”