“Really? My family was the only one that watched variety shows while they were still around?”
Tito chuckled. “No, I know who you’re talking about, Kitty. And, yeah, it does look like a planet full of tramp clowns.”
“We called them the sad-face clowns, but whatever. And some of these look like rodeo clowns, which is, I guess, their form of racial variety. This is, officially, the weirdest solar system in existence.”
Chuckie was busy explaining who Red Skelton was and why people our age knew about him—mostly because our parents and grandparents had loved the guy—and also why his tramp clown shtick had been popular. I was glad he was sharing, because I was far too busy trying to tell myself that this was just a big planet of sweet old men who sometimes dressed up as tramps and other times pretended to be seagulls, versus a planet of danger. Of all the clown types, I could handle the tramp clowns the best, though that wasn’t really saying a lot. I’d been okay with the occasional mime, back in the day, but now, after seeing a planet full of them, I doubted I’d want to hang out with any in the near or distant future.
As with the last two, the planet seemed Earthlike and Tito felt that what we were seeing was natural, not face paint or any form of costuming.
What we also hadn’t seen was a wreck of any kind of spacecraft, nor had we seen anything that indicated they were spacefaring. Whatever they were doing on these planets, it wasn’t related to space.
Scan of this planet done, we headed to the next one. This one was like a harlequin offshoot, but with a lot of acrobatics involved. Everyone was in colorful garb, tumbling, juggling, bopping each other on the head. So, when “The Jester” by Sum 41 came on, it didn’t surprise me all that much. I didn’t even comment—mostly because I was too busy wondering if we had any Valium on board. We just confirmed the usual—Earthlike, they were just born this way—and moved on.
The music changed to “The Clown” by Elefant before we were near enough to the planet to see who was on it. Took this as a warning, though, and steeled myself.
Which was a good thing. Because this planet was by far the worst. Because this planet was filled with what I knew were called Auguste clowns. As in, it was the planet Bozo came from. Or, rather, as we got a closer look, where the Killer Klowns from Outer Space came from.
They all had the weird, bushy hair that only grew on the upper sides of their heads and came in every color not known to man. They had round, red noses with no nostrils. Overly arched eyebrows. Giant feet in bizarre shoes or boots. Big hands in white, Mickey Mouse gloves. Ginormous, red, exaggerated mouths with what looked like carnivore teeth, not herbivore or omnivore. And they were all, to a person, bone white, the kind of white that makes snow look dull and dingy.
“Tito,” I said carefully, “do you think those are also naturally built this way?”
“I do.”
“Gotcha. Um, I don’t care if this is the system in danger. They can all turn to dust as far as I’m concerned. And Jeff? If you say one positive thing about whatever’s down there, I will honestly never speak to you again.”
“Ah, no,” he said slowly. “They look a little terrifying to me, too. The others didn’t. But these do. These look . . . predatory.”
“They also have spaceflight,” Chuckie said, voice tight. “Or at least the means to fire weapons into space.” Sure enough, we were looking at something that reminded me a lot of Cape Canaveral.
A face came onto our screen. Realized that we had hailing frequencies opened and that meant that we could be contacted without our having to accept the call, so to speak. The music changed at the same time, “The Joker” by the Steve Miller Band.
The face staring at us looked almost exactly like the Joker from Batman. Well, the Joker on his worst day and with Bozo’s hair. Only this face was creepier, the eyes crazier, and the expression far more feral than the Joker ever had been.
He was speaking, snarling, really. Our universal translator wasn’t catching on quickly, either. Decided I didn’t care. Slammed my fist onto the external communications button. The face on the screen disappeared.
“Mother,” Tim said, before I could speak, “get us out of here. Right now. Top speed. Forget the last planet, just get us away from this solar system as fast as possible. And that’s an order.”
We zoomed away, past the last planet, and into the blackness of space. The total nothing was a relief.
“Are they after us?” Tim asked.
“Not as far as our sensors indicate,” Walker said.
“The universal translator has found the right code for translation,” Mother said. “Would you like me to play what was said?”
“Honestly? ‘Like’ is the wrong word. But yeah, we should probably hear it, in case they were asking for help or being nice or something.” And maybe they were like Hixxx—terrifying in the extreme when first encountered and yet great once you got to meet them as individuals, as people. Turned my music off so we wouldn’t miss anything.
A guttural voice came on. “We see you. Leave our solar system or die. If you come back, we will destroy you. We will find you in your sleep and murder you in your dreams. We will find you wherever you run, we will catch you, slay you, and eat your flesh. We will destroy you utterly. Leave us and never return.”
CHAPTER 74
WE WERE ALL SILENT for a good, long minute.
“No one else heard that, right?” Jeff asked finally.
“Correct,” Mother said. “I only played it for the command deck.”
“Thank God,” Reader said under his breath.
“So, they really are the Killer Klowns from Outer Space,” I managed. “And another ‘ridiculous’ movie is shown to be a documentary. I hope the kids aren’t too terrified by what they saw.” I mean, I was terrified, so why wouldn’t the kids be?
“I’ll be right back,” Jeff said. “Joe, take over.”
They switched places and Jeff hypersped out of the room.
Jerry cleared his throat. “I’m now with Kitty on the coulrophobia. In a big way.”
“How in the hell did something like that evolve?” Hughes asked.
“In a galaxy as vast as ours, in a universe that’s even vaster?” Chuckie shrugged. “Anything’s possible. By the way, Kitty, don’t panic about the whole ‘find you in your sleep’ thing. That’s just a weaker opponent trying to scare off a stronger one. Like a chihuahua telling a pit bull that the chihuahua can take the bigger dog. It can’t, but if it barks hard enough, the bigger dog may buy the threats, or just decide the fight isn’t worth it.”
“Um, dude, did you hear the same words I did and see the same face I saw? Because that guy wasn’t joking.”