“Gorg,” I repeated. “There was only one Nimrog named Gorg.”
“By this time, yes. Beforethen there were many Nimrogs named Gorg. Gorg was a popular boy name, like Ethel.”
I was aching to mention that Ethel was neither popular nor a boy’s name, but I felt we were really getting somewhere.
“But then…did the Gorg…did the Nimrogs always…” I trailed off. “How did Gorg make more Gorg?”
“He cloned. With teleclone machines, likewith I make the gasoline.”
“But you said that was impossible.”
“Impossible for the Boov,” sighed J.Lo. “The Nimrogs found a way. They took the Boovish telecloners and changed them up.”
“How did they get Boovish telecloners?”
“We…gave them.”
“J.Lo!”
“I know, I know.”
J.Lo explained that it was good strategy at the time. A lot of the early Nimrog wars were over resources like fuel. It was common for the Nimrogs on the losing side of battle to destroy their food and fuel and whatever so it wouldn’t fall into enemy hands. The Nimrogs eliminated everything good on their planet this way. So different groups started raiding other planets, stealing what they could. The Boov thought teleclone machines could stop all that—if the Nimrogs could clone what they needed, they wouldn’t need to leave home. So the Nimrogs got the machines by promising to stay in their own neighborhood. It worked for a while, but somehow they managed to start cloning and teleporting complicated things. No one knows how they did it.
“At firsts they cloned and teleported only dead things, like food. No one Nimrog wanted to be the first to try. But when Gorg was left onto the planet by himself, he had not anything to lose,” said J.Lo. “Gorg became the worst kind of enemy. He had outlived all other Nimrogs. He was the most tough and strong. He could not get sick, and would not ever tire. And he had only to set one teleclone booth onto your planet, and soon there could there be a thousand Gorg, or a million. They could have Gorg everywheres. They could even cover their ships with them.”
“Wait,” I said. “You lost me.”
“Yes?”
“Cover their ship—?” I said, then gagged. I remembered the way the big Gorg ball seemed to move on the surface. Its skin seemed to crawl, I thought, just like mine is crawling now.
“You don’t mean they…”
“Yes,” said J.Lo. “The shipskin is made of Gorg. Mixed-up Gorg, like from a blender. Is not even that hard—not hard like Boovish metals or plastics—but it heals. They can keep onto making more and more skin for replacing the old—”
J.Lo stopped talking when he saw the look on my face. I wanted to escape from the tight little car and run for it, now more than ever, but there would still be a whole black ocean of stars all around, pressing close, closing in.
“That is the grossest thing ever!” I shouted at the clear desert morning.
I’d gone to sleep thinking about a ship covered in skin and woken up the next morning thinking about a ship covered in skin. In between I’d dreamed of being captured by Gorg, who all looked like Curly from Happy Mouse Kingdom. They demanded to know what made Slushious float, so I popped the hood, and the engine had changed to guts and organs, pumping and growling from hunger. I’ve had better nights.
“The grossest thing!” I said again. “Look at it. Look at it back there. It’s closer than yesterday, isn’t it.”
J.Lo, who was driving, glanced at the rearview mirror.
“Yes. Closer, I am thinking.”
We’d found our way through the desert brush to another wide, western highway. Down a six-lane road with a concrete divider big enough to have its own gift shop, we passed plaster box buildings and signs for chain restaurants. On the side of an antique mall, which I suppose was either a mall that sold antiques or else a really old mall, was a quote spray-painted in slashing letters:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
T. S. Eliot
It made me feel strange.
“What happens when the Gorg get closer?” I asked. “What are they going to do?”
J.Lo sighed. “When they arriveto Smekla—to Earthland, they will take some of the young and strong as for slaves, and some of the less young and strong for furniture.
I looked again at the Gorg ship. It was definitely closer. But the Boov seemed to have done some damage—there were long red scars and a scattering of something like bits of toilet paper stuck with blood all over its surface. In the near distance I could also see schools of Boov ships kicking through the air like shining octopi.
“The Boov willto hold them offs as long as is possible. Could be weeks, could be months.”
“Make the next right,” I said.
“Yes.”
We passed out of the town and into the great wide nothing again. I wasn’t even sure what state we were in, until a sign passed that read ROSWELL 50 MI.
“Huh. That’s funny,” I said.
“Funnies strange or funnies ha-ha?”
“A little of both. That sign just said we’re gonna pass through Roswell.”
“Yes?” said J.Lo, watching the road. “This is a city?”
“I guess so. It’s just that it’s famous for being where a UFO supposedly crashed like…sixty years ago or something.”
“What is ‘you if oh’?”
It was crazy that he didn’t know this. “It stands for ‘Unidentified Flying Object,’” I said. “A flying saucer. An alien spaceship.”
J.Lo hit the brakes. I was dumped off my seat and hit my head on the dash.
“Ow!”
“Seat belts,” said J.Lo.
“What was that for?”
“We have to stop in the Roswell! We canto see the spaceship!”
I winced. “Yeah…except…I don’t really think there ever was a spacesh—”
“You said! Tip saidto it crashed-landed!”
“No. No, it’s…there’s no proof. It’s just something people say, but there’s no proof. Like with Bigfoot, or Nessie.”
“Bigfoot? Nessie?”
I sighed. Then I explained about Bigfoot, and about the blurry photos. And I told him about the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland, and about the blurry photos of that. Then I had to explain where Scotland was, and he asked what was a loch, and I didn’t know so I made something up.