Young Tales of the Old Cosmos

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 o
f
the Moon

The Pink Gia
n
t

The Curdling of
the Milky Way

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 24
^th
, 2006
,” said Earth quietly.

“What was that?” cried Uranus.