Space Opera (Space Opera 1)

“Is that really it?” Dess interrupted halfway through. “We just sing better than one other beastie and we get to live?”

“Yes. Does it seem barbaric to you? Sixty-seven percent of your population used that word.”

“No, it makes sense to me. It’s perfect.”

“Why?”

Decibel shrugged. “Life is stupid and beautiful that way.”

The Esca smiled; for the Esca can and do smile. All its feathers flushed an excited shade of cobalt. He had said something good, then. Somehow, the world’s luckiest fuckup had done something right for once, though God and all his angels knew what. He’d only said what he meant, which was, when you thought about it, a minor superpower, because so few people ever did. The blue creature danced coquettishly toward him on those impossible, dumb legs that couldn’t hold up a plastic garden flamingo, let alone this living, breathing version.

“Three hundred light-years from here, there is a small world called Bataqliq flying through the black, as blue as this world, and as dear. It is my world. It is where the antique Esca first opened their eyes and looked up into a sky filled with the mutation-nurturing warmth of a single white star, burning as if for us alone, looked out beyond the bracelet of our twenty mountainous moons, into the all-possible cosmos, and first pondered whether to save some seeds and berries against the possibility of a lean and hungry winter rather than devour them all at once. Do you know what your people call that sun that gives my people life?”

“No,” said Jones.

“You call it Mira Wonderful Star.”

“I knew somebody called that once.”

“I am aware, Mr. Jones.”

“Sure you’re not after her? I’ll warn you, she’s tough to get ahold of these days.” Decibel stared out his grimy window. “She could have done your job, no problem. Save the world with a song? Just give her a minute to tune up. I’m just . . . Mr. Elmer of the Fudd. Not even that.”

The roadrunner crossed the little garret room, leaving wet, mandala-moldering footprints on the scuffed carpet. It bent its enormous head and brushed the tip of its lantern against Dess’s forehead.

It felt like a kiss.

It felt like every kiss anyone had ever laid on anyone else, the good, the bad, the all-time great, the let’s just be friends. All those kisses, all those mouths, all those feelings, electrified and painted blue.

Dess didn’t know why he did it, or even, honestly, how. It had been years since this sort of thing had been a prominent water feature in the courtyard of his life. It had been years since it was how he made friends and self-medicated and got inspired and entertained himself and borrowed a cup of confidence from friendly neighbors. It had been years since he’d felt himself enough to try. He put a hand on the roadrunner’s thin, jeweled, holey rib cage, and the hand was welcome there.

“I’m not sure I know this song,” he whispered. “How does it go?”

By the time the rest of the world was finishing its exposition, an exhausted Decibel Jones had agreed to it all, to go to the stars and sing for his species, to follow that wascally wabbit, confessed his sins, called out for breakfast, and become, entirely unbeknownst to him, resoundingly and inexplicably, though not by any human definition, pregnant.

Point to Dani.

Water

The house is full of children, the relatives have come.

I am going to put on my green dress.

—“Party for Everybody,” Buranovskiye Babushki

8.

White and Black Blues

Decibel Jones was already well on his way, but not to the Metagalactic Grand Prix.

To Whitehall.

The instant the hungriest unpaid intern shadowing the lowest-ranking secr

etary to the most unremarkable Member of Parliament saw that the only living name on the alien’s pop chart was a British subject, a nondescript black car carrying two nondescript men in black suits and black sunglasses spontaneously materialized out of a zebra crossing halfway to Croydon.

Unfortunately, that trod-upon intern was merely quick, not alone.