Pi in the Sky

  It doesn’t take long for me to realize why he did this. Once the chemicals sink into the center of the sun, chunks of rock and debris begin flying out in all directions, some landing on this side of the hill. My planets are being born! “I have to get back!” I shout, trying to pull away from Thade’s grasp. “I’ll be careful, I promise. I have to get the planets in the right orbits! I have to get Jupiter in place to protect Earth, I have to form the moon, I—”

  But he holds me there. “Patience,” he says. “Wait until some of the rocks have stuck together. There’s nothing you can do until then.”

  So we sit. I try to think clearly as the heat from the sun grows stronger and stronger, quicker than I’d have thought possible from how it was growing. What had the professor said comes next? Comets with water need to hit Earth? Where do I find those? And then life. Where do I get amino acids? I nudge Annika.

  “Do you still have those two data dots?”

  She looks confused, then remembers. “Yes! They…” Her face falls. “They’re on my dresser at Aunt Rae’s.”

  A huge explosion drowns out my next thought. It is the single loudest noise I’ve heard in my life. I instinctively throw myself over Annika, and Thade throws himself over me. We huddle there, in a pile, for what seems like forever. Finally the air stops vibrating with noise and heat and rubble and broken things.

  “Um, I think you can get off me now,” Annika says, her voice muffled.

  Thade lifts off first, then I untangle myself and kneel on the grass beside them. Annika smooths her dress and tries to adjust the leaf hat, which is mostly in tatters now. I know without looking that my sun is gone, along with the baby planets.

  “I’m sorry, kid,” Thade says, his voice thick. “You gave it your best shot.”

  Chances are, when we meet intelligent life-forms in outer space, they’re going to be descended from predators.

  —Michio Kaku, physicist

  I’m up on my feet and running back over the ridge. The ground is scorched a deep black. But something else covers the sizzling debris. Something filmy, which bubbles and glides as it spreads. I approach cautiously, and dip my finger into it. Water! Where did water come from all the way out here? Is that what made my sun explode?

  A speck of movement in the corner of my eye catches my attention. I whip my head around in time to see a tiny figure disappear into the distance. I run back over the ledge. “Thade! Will you make sure Annika gets back to Kal’s house safely? I have to do something.”

  “Okay, but the Powers That Be will—”

  Without giving him a chance to say more, I take off at a run, back in the direction of the central Realms. Every now and again I catch a glimpse of the figure, running faster than should be possible. I concentrate hard, and my legs turn into wheels. I pick up speed as I race forward, trying not to feel every pebble and uneven patch of ground. Bruises are already starting to form, and it takes a lot for our skin to bruise. But I refuse to lose sight of him.

  As I approach the populated areas, everything rushes toward me in a blur. I slow down, stumbling to a stop. I shake my wheels into legs again, and hobble around to get the feeling back into them. I’m in a neighborhood not too far from my school. I can hear the kids talking and the occasional burst of laughter. It all seems so normal.

  I turn all around, but don’t see anyone who looks like he’d just been running from an exploding sun. In frustration and exhaustion, I plop down on the ground and lean up against one of the many Grayden-inspired statues. This one is dressed as a winged fairy-like creature with a pointy hat and a wink.

  Do I try to remake the sun? I’d have to get all the chemicals from Ash again. No, I can’t do that. He said he’d given us all the ones he had. We’d have to start with a supernova, and generate all the elements the normal way. Could I do that? Could I make a sun huge enough that it could go supernova? Did I just lose my last chance to save Kal and get Annika back to her family? My thoughts are swirling so fast it takes a while before I realize I’m being watered, like a plant. I look up to see where the drops are coming from. There, hiding atop the statue, is my brother Bren, slowly losing his grip on the statue’s pointy hat.

  Our eyes meet. Mine narrow into slits. “Hey, little bro!” he says cheerily. “Some help here?”

  I just stare up at him. I should have known. First he takes the data dots, then right when the solar system gets going, he sabotages it.

  “Help?” he asks again.

  I shake my head.

  “C’mon, Joss, don’t be that way.”

  I purse my lips and cross my arms.

  He sighs. “Fine.” Then he lets go and drops to the ground. Instantly he’s up and running.

  He’s fast. But I’m faster. I tackle him before he can reach the other side of the statue.

  “Why, Bren?” I ask, holding down his arms. “Why did you do it?”

  A small part of me registers that Thade is sprinting up the street toward us, with Annika on his back. Bren tries to pull away, but I hold him down.

  “Kal told me to,” he says.

  “Kal?” My grip loosens slightly out of surprise and Bren takes the opportunity to wiggle out of my grasp. He doesn’t run away, though. “I was right around the corner from his house when I heard his voice coming from nowhere. I thought it was a trick, but he convinced me it wasn’t. He told me the box outside his house was his, that he’d left it there by mistake before he went to visit his parents OnWorld somewhere. I was just doing him a favor by holding on to it. Or so I thought. It wasn’t until I saw the labels on the data dots that I thought maybe he’d lied to me.”

  I sit back on my heels, dumbfounded by all this. “That makes no sense. Kal wants me to rebuild the solar system. He wants me to get him and his parents back.”

  Thade and Annika reach my side. “Are you all right?” Annika asks. She looks down at my banged-up legs and gasps. “What happened to you?”

  “Wheels,” I reply, only half paying attention. My head is spinning from Bren’s revelations.

  “Rats,” she says. “I missed it!”

  “Hi, I’m Bren,” Bren says, extending his hand to Annika.

  She narrows her eyes at him. “You’re the one who stole Joss’s data dots!”

  “I was going to give them back,” Bren says. “Eventually.”

  She still doesn’t shake his hand. “We could have rebuilt the solar system twice by now if we’d had those!”

  Bren lowers his arm. “That’s the point. Kal didn’t want you to rebuild it. Well, he does, but not yet. He thought taking the box would put the project on hold. Then when he realized that you’d made the sun on your own, he sent me to put it out.”

  I stare at my brother, my second-best friend. What kind of story is he making up? Maybe he really is jealous. Maybe he knew about the seventh-son thing all these years and has now decided to ruin things for me.

  “Turns out,” Bren continues, “that you can’t put out a sun with water. It just made it hotter till it grew and grew and then exploded.” He widens his arms. “Boom, like that.”

  “You’re not making any sense,” I tell him. “Why wouldn’t he want me to rebuild it as soon as possible? He and his parents—”

  “You mean the Sheinblatts,” Annika interrupts.

  I groan. “No, not the Sheinblatts.”

  Thade breaks in. “Annika! How did you know their OnWorld name?”

  I whip my head toward Thade so fast my neck hurts. “What? She’s right?”

  Annika lifts her chin. “Told you.”

  Thade stares at Annika with such intensity that she flinches a bit. “Well?” he demands. “How do you know their names? The OnWorlders’ code names are closely guarded.”

  Annika moves slightly closer to me, then says, “Um, they were friends with my parents. I didn’t know they had any kids, though. They lived down the street. The husband—Marvin, I mean—used to stargaze with us. He made the best homemade chili on the block. Next to my own father’s, of course
.”

  The three of us just stare at her. Kal’s dad made homemade chili? The men in The Realms really aren’t that skilled in the kitchen.

  “Was he there with you the night you looked into the scope and found us?” Thade asks.

  Annika nods. “He gave my dad a new telescope that night, so we could look at Mars. It was a gift for my dad’s forty-fifth birthday. It was really fancy, like with a computer attached to it and everything, you know, where you put in the coordinates, and then the telescope moves to the right place?”

  Her words sink in. My brothers and I exchange a look. I know we’re all thinking the same thing. But it’s too outrageous. Too unbelievable. Had spending so much time OnWorld made Kal’s parents so uncaring about what would happen after someone looked in that telescope?

  “Maybe,” I begin, my voice shaking, “maybe Kal’s dad gave Annika’s father his own scope by mistake? The co-ordinates of Aunt Rae’s kitchen would have been in there so he could check on Kal. That makes sense, right?”

  Annika shakes her head. “It was definitely not theirs. I saw him take it out of a new box. He set it up for my dad and everything.”

  “But was he still there when you were looking through it?” Thade asks.

  “No,” Annika says. “It was really late, and he had to go to the office the next day. I think he worked in insurance or something.”

  Bren stifles a laugh. An insurance-selling, chili-making version of Kal’s dad is just too ridiculous. Then I remember that last data dot, the one Annika was watching in her room. The only way her family would have wound up being recorded was if the OnWorlders had been nearby. Down the block would certainly be close enough. My head feels like it’s going to make a bigger boom than the sun did.

  “But why?” I ask. “Why would they have wanted Annika to see The Realms? They knew what would happen after. They loved Earth. Why would they want to see it destroyed?”

  “The Sheinblatts would never destroy the planet!” Annika insists. “Rose had just planted tomatoes!”

  We look at Bren for answers. He shrugs. “Dunno. I just did what Kal asked. Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

  “How can I do that?” Then I hear it, too. The drumbeats. “Do you hear Kal’s voice?” I ask Bren.

  He shakes his head. “Not yet. It’s been harder for him to make contact lately.”

  “Make contact from where?” Thade asks. “Where is he hiding?”

  “He’s in another universe,” Bren replies. “Pretty cool, eh?”

  “Told you,” I can’t resist saying to Thade.

  “But there are no other—”

  “Have any of you looked in a mirror lately?” Kal says, cutting off any further argument on the subject of other universes. His voice seems to come from behind the winged statue. “You guys are a mess!”

  We all jump up and start talking to the statue at once. “Where are you, Kal? What’s going on? Why did your parents—”

  “Let the statue talk!” Annika shouts.

  Bren leans toward Annika. “It’s not really the statue talking, you know.”

  “Hey, I’ve seen some strange things lately,” she says, glaring at him. “A talking statue wouldn’t surprise me one bit.”

  I step out of the group. “Kal, please, what’s going on? Why did your parents want to destroy Earth by letting Annika see into The Realms? That’s pretty much the complete opposite of their job description.”

  “Hey there, old pal!” Kal says, almost cheerfully. “Been crazy lately, right?”

  “Kal!”

  “Okay, okay, sorry! They weren’t trying to destroy Earth. They were trying to save it. They needed to get everyone out of the way for a while. They didn’t have much time, and this was the best solution they could think of. They knew the Powers That Be would pull the planet out of time after Annika spotted The Realms.”

  “But how did they know that?” I ask. “The PTB could have exploded it instead.”

  “They have a contact person on the inside,” Kal says. “Someone who had promised to help them. The contact also promised to help them restore it. They couldn’t reveal too much, though, or risk being pulled from the operation.”

  I have a feeling I know exactly who their “contact” is, and his name ends in “the Yuck.” I guess I’ll have to come up with a nicer nickname. Although maybe not, since he kept so much from me. Unless he didn’t know it himself.

  “Joss,” Kal says, “I never thought—and my parents never thought—that it would be you who would have to do this, I swear.”

  Before I can reply, Annika reaches out and touches the statue’s wing. “Kal?”

  Bren leans over to her and whispers out of the corner of his mouth, “I told you he’s not really in there.”

  “I know!” she hisses. Clearly she hasn’t forgiven him for stealing the films. I’m not so sure I have, either. “Kal,” she repeats. “It’s Annika. You know, from Earth? I don’t understand. Why did your parents need to do this? To get everyone out of the way, like you said?”

  Kal doesn’t answer immediately, and I feel a rising panic that we’ve lost him again. Finally, he says, “It’s because of the Niffum, Annika-from-Earth. They’re on a direct course through the Milky Way. Next stop, your home planet.”

  At the mention of the Niffum, Thade, Bren, and I stiffen.

  Annika looks surprised. “Isn’t that the species you’re not supposed to turn your back on in the rain?”

  I try to say Yes, or any other time, but it comes out more like a whimper.

  She shakes her head. “Honestly, you’re scared of something called a Niffum? Sounds so cute and cuddly. Like a kitten.”

  It’s not. The Niffum from the Cygnus Galaxy are one of the oldest and most advanced civilizations in the universe. Their planet was so well protected from harm that life started very early and thrived longer than any other. But all good things come to an end, and as their star burned out, they began to seek out new homes. They set a course for any planet with the right kind of atmosphere, and they don’t even bother to learn if life already exists there. They simply take over the planet, destroying every living thing that isn’t compatible with their own biology. Which is mostly everything. I’m sure all of us are thinking about what would happen to the people of Earth if the Niffum showed up.

  Well, all of us except for Annika, who breaks the silence by asking, “Does anyone notice this statue looks a lot like Grayden?”

  The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics.

  —Galileo, mathematician

  Wake up!” Annika shouts in my ear. “I thought no one slept in The Realms.”

  “Once a month,” I mumble, throwing the pillow over my head. “Just let me sleep a little longer.”

  “I thought you didn’t care about time.”

  I groan. If she’s going to throw everything I’ve ever said back at me, I’m NEVER going to get any sleep. I toss the pillow off in defeat and sit up. “Fine. I’m awake.”

  She giggles. “You have bed head. And a long crease on your cheek.”

  I close my eyes, shake my head, and my hair and cheek puff out nicely. I’ve been practicing maintaining my appearance better.

  “I kind of liked it better the other way,” she teases. “Oh well! Get out of bed, we’re going to school.”

  I groan again. Ever since my failed attempt at building a sun (otherwise known as Bren’s Enormous Act of Sabotage and Treachery, or BEAST), Annika hasn’t let me miss a day of school. It’s been nearly two months (her time) that she’s been stuck here, and she’s trying to make the best of it. Each day the Niffum get closer to where Earth used to be, and each day we try to pretend we aren’t worried about what’s going to happen when they get there. Going to school takes both of our minds off it, at least for a little while.

  Annika likes to tag along with me, which in the beginning was a bit annoying. She got a lot of attention from the other kids (obviously, being so solid and all) and a lot of sympathy from the teach
ers (who don’t know anything about the real reason her planet was pulled out of time, nor our plans to try again to restore it once the danger has passed). Other than Bren and Thade, no one except Mom and Aunt Rae knows that Kal’s parents were behind all this. The fewer people who know, the safer their secret (and they themselves) will remain. It is expressly forbidden to choose the well-being of one intelligent species over another. Yet that’s exactly what Kal’s parents did, and now the rest of us are doing it, too. I’m fairly certain Dad’s pretending not to know anything in order to protect everyone involved and because he secretly likes humans, too. The first time I saw him at dinner following BEAST, I got a vague mumble of “I’m proud of you, son” when he passed by my chair. That’s good enough for me.

  Kal has only been able to reach us once since that time at the statue. Annika and I were with Aunt Rae in her kitchen when he found us. It was the first time Aunt Rae got to talk to any of them, so, needless to say, she was very happy and we got extra helpings of cherry pie later. Annika asked Kal’s parents—or the Sheinblatts as she still insists on calling them—why they wanted to save Earth so badly that they’d risk so much for it.

  “Well, Annika, it was your dad’s chili cheese fries,” Kal’s father had admitted. “They were just delightful. Couldn’t let the Niffum take those away from humanity.”

  At the mention of her dad and his fries, Annika’s eyes got bright red, and she didn’t ask anything else after that.

  “And the soap operas!” Kal’s mother had added sheepishly. Aunt Rae laughed, but this made no sense to me. We have plenty of soap here in The Realms and who likes opera, anyway? Whatever their real reasons, I’m glad they did it, and I’m doing what I can to protect their secret. We haven’t heard from Kal since then, though, and I try not to dwell on what that might mean.

  “C’mon, Joss,” Annika says, tugging on my arm and basically hauling me into a standing position. “I want to get to the view screens before the other kids get there today. The Niffum are getting closer and closer to where Earth used to be.”