Interstellar Pig by William Sleator Read Free Book Online Page B

a duplicate of one of the planets from the board and its name. We rolled dice to determine who picked first. I chose my planets without thinking too much about it, and distributed my cards among them. When we had both finished, Zena put all the filled envelopes into a black bag, reminding me that no envelopes could be opened until one's character had landed on the corresponding planet on the board. She placed a little black figure representing Zulnia on Vavoosh, her home planet. She placed a pink one, representing the lichen, on Mbridlengile. Then she placed a small white disk, about an inch in diameter and half an inch thick, beside the bag of envelopes. "This is the timer," she said, one finger poised above a button on its edge.
    She stared at me. "Ready to go?" "Wait," I said. "How long do we have before it goes off?"
    "You'll be able to see. Now can we please play?" "Go head."
    She pressed the button. Zena won the first roil and moved first. "One two three four five six," she counted, moving her piece along the curving pathway of stars.
    I rolled a 9, and moved nine stars in the direction of the planet Flaeioub. It was the planet Zena had picked first, and so I figured it was important to her, and that maybe she had hidden The Piggy there. But as I set the lichen down on the ninth star, the star began blinking on and off. "What does that mean?" I said, startled.
    "You have to pull an instruction card. It's right there."
    The edge of a white card was poking out of a slot in the middle of the board. "Is it random, or what?" I asked.
    "Yes, Barney, it's random. It can happen on any star," Zena said, her voice sounding a little strained, "And will you speed up? Observe how much time is elapsed already!"
    I glanced over at the timer. A small curved area of black had appeared at the right-hand edge of the disk.
    "Oh, I get it," I said brightly. "The time's up when the whole thing goes black."
    "Brilliant induction!" Zena snapped. "Pull out the card!"
    I pulled it out. Once again, the sun's glare made the writing seem to squirm for an instant. Then I read, "Minor malfunction in communications system. Go into orbit around nearest foreign planet and sacrifice next two turns making repairs."
    "That's Ja-Ja-Bee, right there," Zena said. "Go on, go into orbit."
    "I have to miss my next two turns?"
    "That's what it instructs." She smiled at me.
    I orbited impatiently around Ja-Ja-Bee, which had a climate so frigid that glaciers covered the entire planet. At least the card had not instructed me to land there.
    Zena, meanwhile, whistling happily, rolled a 9 and then a 12, moving ever closer to Flaeioub, the planet most important to her, because she had picked it first. Was she trying to get there ahead of me, to protect The Piggy? Or was she merely leading me on a wild-goose chase? I whiled away the time in orbit checking out the information about Flaeioub from the rule book. There was enough data there to keep me occupied for weeks. Flaeioub was inhabited by gas bags, flying octopi with claws who were kept aloft by their inflated heads. The atmosphere was high in hydrogen, which didn't matter to the lichen, but meant that Zulma would need breathing gear. Under the surface of the planet was an intricate maze of deep, lightless caverns, which would make it a good hiding place for The Piggy. Zulma would need special glasses in order to see in the caverns, but the lichen would be able to get around without equipment, since they could "see" without light, according to the rule book.
    The planet Flaeioub, on the whole, seemed a more comfortable place for the lichen than for Zulma. Had she really hidden The Piggy there? And if so, why?
    I checked her vital statistics and found that her intelligence rating—IRSC—was only 10. The lichen's was 150. She had been bluffing, and was actually much less intelligent than the lichen! And so the poor idiot had hidden The Piggy on a planet where the lichen would be more comfortable than she was. I