Young Tales of the Old Cosmos Read online

  Young Tales of the Old Cosmos

  by

  Rhys Hughes

  Copyright © 2012 by Rhys Hughes

  All rights reserved. This book and any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  First Printing, 2012

  Gloomy Seahorse Press

  Swansea, Wales

  http://rhyshughes.blogspot.com

  The cover of this book was created by the artist Gonzalo Canedo

  This ebook

  is dedicated to:

  Brankica Bozinovska

  Table of Contents

  On the Shoulders of Pipsqueaks

  Buffoons of the Moon

  The Pink Giant

  The Curdling of the Milky Way

  On the Shoulders of Pipsqueaks

  The day that Pluto was demoted from a regular planet to a dwarf planet, all the other worlds in the solar system gathered together to offer their condolences.

  They didn’t really gather together, that’s just a figure of speech, and Mercury and Venus were on the far side of the sun at the time, so neither of them witnessed the actual event or saw the expression on Pluto’s face when he lost his dignity, but Mars gave them a full description later and they made do with that.

  The demotion was shocking news indeed, though Neptune claimed to have long foreseen a crisis along similar lines and blamed Pluto’s erratic behaviour for his change in status.

  “What do you mean by that?” protested Pluto.

  “Well, consider your orbit for one thing,” Neptune explained to the smaller globe. “It’s so irregular it cuts in front of my own path, causing me to wince at each crossover point. I know we travel on differently inclined planes and there’s no danger of a collision. But all the same, how can you be so reckless?”

  “I blame the parents,” was Jupiter’s comment.

  “You blame the sun?” blinked Neptune.

  “No, no, I was thinking of gravity. I should have said that I blame the parents of the parents.”

  “Parent, not parents. Singular, not plural,” prissily corrected Mars, flexing his polar icecaps. “Besides I don’t accept that gravity really is the parent of the sun. I believe that gravity is the sun’s hobby or its political affiliation, something like that.”

  “Why don’t we ask directly?” suggested Uranus.

  Jupiter shrugged his atmosphere. “Fine by me, but you do the asking. It was your idea, not mine.”

  “On no account must you disturb the sun,” objected Neptune, “with such a trivial question. Not while he’s at work, anyway, and he’s always working. It’s not easy fusing hydrogen atoms into helium. None of us can imagine what that must be like. And he never gets a day off because to all intents and purposes he is the day!”

  “We won’t ask him then,” huffed Uranus.

  In the meantime Mercury and Venus were feeling excluded from the conversation. They looked at each other, then looked at Saturn, who also happened to be far away from the action at this time, further than any other world in fact and on their side of the sun too, but he wasn’t able to provide any new information. They would have to wait for Mars to swing round and relay all the gossip as usual.

  Nobody bothered with Earth, of course. On account of an ugly chronic disease it had developed a few billion years previously, the others mostly shunned that blue and white globe. It wasn’t a true disease, more of an infestation that lowered the status of the victim to a point where empty vacuum was accorded more respect. Earth was bitter about this treatment and threatened to lodge an official complaint at Galactic Central.

  “Sexual discrimination is what I call it,” she fumed.

  “Pardon?” asked Jupiter uneasily.

  “It seems perfectly obvious to me,” continued Earth, “that in a solar system where only two of the nine planets are female, there’s bound to be a certain amount of gender based bias, even if it’s unconscious rather than deliberate.”

  “Eight planets, not nine,” whispered Uranus.

  But Pluto had overheard and began sobbing. “Written me off already, have you? That’s clear proof of a lack of solidarity and honour among the members of this system. Frankly I’m glad to be no longer part of your treacherous company. If I hadn’t been demoted already, your callous attitude would compel me to resign my definition. And I don’t even care if that statement is illogical!”

  This outburst embarrassed Jupiter. “Come now, dry your eyes,” he soothed. “Don’t let your craters overflow.”

  Neptune was more upbeat. “You should look on the positive side, dear Pluto, and take into account that you are now part of a new set of celestial bodies more mysterious than the regular old planets. The dwarf worlds probably have much more fun than we do. You should be celebrating, not lamenting.”

  “Have you spoken to any of your new friends yet?” asked Mars.

  Pluto sighed but seemed a little less distraught. “I’ve known Ceres for a long time and we’re on fairly good terms, but as for Eris, Quaoar, Ixion, Haumea, Varuna and Sedna, I must be honest and say I find them too far out for my taste.”

  “Hippies are they?” blinked Jupiter.

  “No, just very distant. I was speaking literally. But actually I don’t think I’ll ever feel at ease in the Kuiper Belt fraternity. Truth is, a dwarf planet is just a glorified asteroid and everyone looks down on those irregular lumps as amateurs in the arts of gravitation, electromagnetism and spacetime curvature. Nobody says it openly but asteroids are the lowest caste. Only planets are respectable.”

  “What nonsense!” cried Uranus. “The asteroids are extremely valuable components of the sun’s family. We were all just a collection of small rocks and dust once. The asteroids remind even the biggest of us where we originally came from. I bet if enough asteroids crashed into you to take your mass back up to the ‘planet’ threshold you’d stop complaining about them.”

  “But that’s hardly likely to happen, is it?” sneered Earth.

  The other worlds fell silent and radiated discomfort. They hated to be reminded of occasions when the community spirit of the entire system had let down a member who requested aid and Earth was a prime example of this failure. Centuries ago Earth had made an impassioned plea to the asteroids and comets to help rid it of its disease, to scour its oceans and continents free of parasites.

  The asteroids and comets were capable of doing that, or at least a percentage of them were, for they weren’t all locked into isolationist orbits like the planets. For example, it would have been impossible for Venus to consciously overcome her angular momentum and approach Earth on a collision course, but many asteroids and comets were already scheduled to pass the blue and white world and only a minor diversion easily accomplished by an act of will was necessary for them to plummet through the atmosphere and impact on the surface. Plenty of them were big enough to survive the friction of the descent.

  “But what did the asteroids and comets decide to do?” sighed Earth.

  “They formed a kamikaze squadron and asked for volunteers to join it,” pointed out Jupiter, “and the response was overwhelming.”

  “You can’t find fault with them for that,” said Uranus.

  “It’s the thought that counts,” added Mars.

  Earth grimaced and a tremor ran through her magnetosphere. She had gone through all this many times before and the other planets never supported her indignation at the cowardice of the asteroids and comets, and yes cowardice wasn’t too strong a word, for although the kamikaze unit had indeed been formed, its members kept losing their nerve on the final approach, veering off into deep space
, sometimes even bouncing off the top of her atmosphere.

  It had been calculated that one hundred large chunks of rock and ice crashing simultaneously or even in quick succession would suffice to rid Earth of her infestation forever, a figure arrived at by the comets and asteroids themselves during emergency meetings of the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud objects, and yet among a membership of trillions not even the lowly figure quoted above could be found willing to sacrifice their molecular integrity for the sake of the health of a noble planet.

  “Steady on,” said Jupiter. “You did have a few hits!”

  “Yes,” agreed Mars, “and one quite recently, if I remember rightly. Only about sixty million of your years ago, a very large asteroid smashed into you and wiped out those awful bugs, what were they called?”

  “Dinosaurs,” muttered Earth.

  “And you were very pleased at the time. You wore your new crater with pride for several seasons, just like a dimple. So you can’t accuse that particular asteroid of running away at the last moment!”

  “Yes, he made the dinosaurs extinct,” conceded Earth, “but you don’t seem to understand what my parasites are really like. There are many different kinds and they keep changing, evolving…”

  “Sure but I still don’t blame the other asteroids for not wanting to commit suicide,” interrupted Neptune.

  “I’d do it if I could!” moaned Pluto.

  “Less of that gloomy talk,” counselled Jupiter.

  But Pluto wasn’t going to be dissuaded from changing the subject back to his tragedy and the despair it had engendered. “Now I’m a Kuiper Belter I ought to be eligible to join the kamikaze squad. I’ll zoom towards you just as fast as I can, dear Earth, and we can bid farewell to our respective problems!”

  “Don’t speak nonsense,” snapped Neptune. “You’re a dwarf planet and banned from taking part in meteoric or cometary activities. Besides, if you did collide with Earth you would probably shatter a large portion of her, as well as vaporise yourself, and what she wants is to be free of disease, not crippled.”

  “Dwarf!” wailed Pluto. “I’m a dwarf! This day, whatever it is, will live in infamy until the universe expands itself to nothingness!”

  “August 24th, 2006,” said Earth quietly.

  “What was that?” cried Uranus.

  “I was merely stating the name of today, the day that Pluto was demoted.”

  “But in what language were you speaking?”

  Earth blinked nonchalantly. “The language of my fleas.”

  “What did you call them?”

  “Fleas. They call themselves ‘humans’ but I call them fleas. My parasites. I’ve lived with them long enough to realise they aren’t like the dinosaurs. In fact, by wiping out the dinosaurs but leaving some life unscathed, that one courageous asteroid seems to have made matters worse. I’ll tell you why.”

  “Do so, if you must,” grumbled Neptune.

  “They are intelligent! My fleas, I mean. Not intelligent in the way planets are, of course, with a deep philosophic understanding of the cosmos, but intelligent in a very selfish and dangerous way. Mars quoted a saying at me, “It’s the thought that counts.’ I’m in a position to reveal that my fleas have formulated an identical maxim.”

  “So what? Coincidences happen. That example doesn’t indicate an awareness of reality or the stirrings of any true wisdom, let alone an egotistical consciousness. After all, even your dinosaurs had proverbs. I recall you quoting some of them at us. How we laughed! ‘Pride comes before a rahrahgnarrah!’ was one, and ‘A stitch in grrrungrhungh saves time’ was another. But they weren’t very clever.”

  Earth regarded Neptune sadly. “You misunderstand again. It’s not that my fleas have invented proverbs independently, but that they utter them without believing them!”

  “That is sneaky,” whistled Jupiter, “and much more serious.”

  “What has any of this got to do with me?” bellowed Pluto. “I suppose that because I’m now a dwarf you feel I ought to be ignored?”

  “By no means,” said Earth, “and in fact my fleas also have a saying about dwarves. How does it go? ‘Dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants can see further.’ Something along those lines, anyhow.”

  “What are they talking about now?” asked Saturn.

  “No idea. I can’t hear a thing. I’ll ask Venus,” answered Mercury.

  But Venus wasn’t entirely sure. “I think Pluto wants to stand on Jupiter’s shoulders, so he can see further. I find that hard to believe.”

  “Jupiter doesn’t have shoulders,” sniffed Saturn, aggrieved because he did, though the others always referred to them as rings.

  “Don’t be aggrieved with me, I’m just the messenger,” said Venus.

  Meanwhile Neptune was yawning ostentatiously. “I’m bored with hearing about your fleas.” Then he stopped and squinted. “Having said that, I wonder if your fleas have fleas of their own? No, that’s too absurd a concept to entertain! Besides, I’ve just thought of a witty response to your dwarf quote. Here it is. A dwarf on the shoulder of a giant can only see further than the giant if he’s taller than the giant’s head…”

  “Oh, very droll!” approved Mars.

  “It certainly is,” beamed Neptune, “and maybe we can end the subject on that note?”

  Earth blushed greenly above her Arctic Circle with a crackling aurora borealis and there was an undertone of spite in her next statement. “You’ll be sorry you didn’t heed my warnings when my fleas jump across interplanetary space and infest the rest of you. Believe me, they’ll soon be able to do that. They can already journey beyond my atmosphere for short periods and they seem to have an implacable desire to push outwards. They even managed to land on my pet a few decades ago.”

  “Your pet? Luna! How terrible!” sympathised Uranus.

  “Yes, Luna, my moon,” nodded Earth, “but they couldn’t sustain a colony and retreated to my surface shortly afterwards. Not enough food for them there, I guess. All the same, it was a worrying development.”

  “I remember all the fuss,” said Jupiter, “and when Luna started barking my own moons quickly joined in. The din was horrendous. Do you suppose our pets are able to communicate with each other intelligibly?”

  Neptune burst into laughter. “What a suggestion! Pets talking to each other! Moons are very loyal and very dumb, that’s the truth.”

  “You’re right, of course,” acknowledged Jupiter.

  “I think they’re talking about pets now,” Venus said to Mercury and Saturn. “It’s a topic I don’t much care for, as you well know.”

  “They are an encumbrance,” agreed Mercury.

  “Oh no!” protested Saturn. “I think pets improve the quality of life. I have more than fifty now and I’m always willing to take in strays.”

  “I have no time for moons,” sniffed Venus, “and like Earth said, they are an attraction to fleas, so it’s just not healthy.”

  “You also believe the parasites might spread?” Mars gasped at her.

  “That’s females for you!” cackled Neptune.

  Before Venus or Earth could respond to this provocation, Pluto shouted across the void in his most dismal voice, “I doubt the fleas would ever want to settle on me, and not because I’m too remote, but because I’m a dwarf. What parasite would want to inhabit a dwarf!”

  “Nobody is going to be infested with anything,” growled Neptune. “There’s no way that Earth’s disease can ever spread to any other world.”

  “You’d be surprised at the ingenuity of my fleas,” asserted Earth.

  “In what way exactly, pray tell?”

  “Well, they are already working on a new type of propulsion drive much more powerful than the crude rockets they used to reach Luna. I’ve already hinted at their mastery of proverbs and in fact they are working on a so-called ‘proverbial drive’ right now. It’s based on the saying ‘More haste, less speed.’ If that maxim is true, and all our experience and sagacity suggests it is, the
n the inverse must equally be true: ‘Less haste, more speed.’ That is the principle my fleas hope to exploit to enable them to colonise the entire solar system!”

  “I don’t quite follow,” confessed Uranus.

  Earth adjusted the ozone hole that had slipped off her chin. “My fleas intend to seal a very lazy man, perhaps the laziest example of the species, into a metal room. Inside this room the lazy man will do nothing at all. Hence his haste will be virtually zero. With such a fractional level of haste, his consequent speed will be tremendous! It follows logically from the aforementioned proverb. The metal room containing this man will be connected to a spaceship…”

  “I don’t like the sound of that!” boomed Jupiter.

  “Bah! This ‘proverbial drive’ sounds like a semantic fantasy. It’s a load of cometswallop and I’m not concerned in the slightest,” said Neptune.

  “But maybe my fleas have already taken over,” darkly intoned Earth.

  “What are you saying?” shouted Mars.

  “I don’t mean physically but on some subtle psychic level,” continued Earth. “I keep picking up certain vibrations that seem to represent an active outpouring of willpower and this enigmatic force appears to have its origin in the opinions and desires of my fleas. For instance, where did the decision to demote poor Pluto actually come from? Has anyone asked that question yet?”

  “From Galactic Central, naturally!” exclaimed Neptune.

  “Are you certain about that? Or is it just an assumption? We know it’s impossible to work out the direction of such radiated orders. Has anyone ever communicated directly or even indirectly with Galactic Central? I thought not! Who among us has even spoken to our own sun? Nobody! The real reason I don’t take my complaint of sexual discrimination to Galactic Central is because I don’t think I would be understood there at all. Are planets even regarded as sentient beings by the stars?”

  “You’re suggesting we are just the pets of the sun!” blurted Uranus.