The Streetcar to Andromeda. Celeste Hammond Streiff
done that Bug —not to the Mighty Moscovitch!”
With that said, Moscovitch yanked him close and faster than you could say ‘Stalagmite,’ Moscovitch thrust his head forward, hitting the Nymi-nog’s head so hard, that he knocked him out. Needless to say the Nymi-nog saw stars. Swaying back he lulled a moment as his eyes rolled up in his head. His snaky body quivered and shuddered as his mouth fell open in a gape and out rolled his long blue tongue. Moscovitch let him go, and he slumped to the ground in a heap.
Then Moscovitch, as he always did when he’d finished a most exhilarating battle, wiped his hands together, turned on his heel and strutted away without ever touching his trusty sledgehammer.
Well, I can tell you I was surprised by the strength of this powerful hero and became a fan of his immediately. Jesse told me that according to legend Moscovitch often dispatched these Nymi-nog beasts with his bare hands.
Eventually The Mighty Moscovitch tamed and ruled Sytris Major and later on Elysium and in AL + Two Hundred Billion; all of Mars was unified under the rule of The Mighty Moscovitch. He cleared out most of the strange ferocious beasts and wild creatures that had flourished there, allowing traders to travel through, thus ending the Dark Ages of Mars.
Another thing Jesse told me that night was that the boy’s arrival in our hometown of Wichita, Kansas was in the form of a stalwart band of Martian Exiles — and so from Jesse’s imagination and the stories of their exploits and adventures I will fashion for you in the pages that follow — a cosmic empire teeming with strange and wonderful characters and beings.
CHAPTER 3
VARIOUS AND SUNDRY THINGS
One bright night while we were out star gazing, I asked Jesse about space flight and when Martians had first begun to fly.
He said: “Ah! That was a long, long while before Parker and I formed The Parker and Randall Construction Company. AL + One Hundred Billion marked experimental inter-stellar space flight and atomic engines came along a little later. In AL+ Three Hundred Billion we developed Inertia-less Drive along with Radiant Drive and that’s when everything changed.”
“Wait a minute! You guys had a Construction Company on Mars? You and Parker?”
Jesse leaned back, and gazed at the heavens in amusement and sighed. “Yeah, what a great time that was. When Moscovitch became ruler, he commissioned Parker and me to build the famous “Martian Canals.” Jesse got excited as he explained. “Ya see, we diverted the mighty river’s course into the canals for our water supply and built all the pumping stations and hydroelectric power plants. After that we built all the stately roads and intricate bridges and paths that run through the countryside.” He smiled and sighed dreamily, “The sky was a beautiful lavender hue then and the air was filled with the scent of honey suckle. It was all quite lovely.” Suddenly his mood changed and Jesse frowned. “That was before Moscovitch and I had our run in with Madman Roth the Renegade and his sidekick Tok Loor, the cranky dwarf pirate.”
“Madman Roth and a cranky dwarf pirate?” I asked.
“Yeah, Madman Roth, he was Evil Per-Son-I-fied! Everything got worse because Roth wanted to be appointed King when Moscovitch retired from Elysium. His lust for greed and power alienated him from everyone and earned him the enmity of The Mighty Moscovitch. All I know is that when Moscovitch did retire, Roth left Elysium in an extremely angry state.
“Who is Roth? Where did he come from?”
“Well, no one really knows for sure. He just showed up in the Virgo Cluster one day and crowned himself Prince.”
Jesse paused, debating whether to tell me more or not then he said in a low voice, “There was a rumor going around that he may have originally come from somewhere most terrible… somewhere that maybe I shouldn’t mention.”
Well, Jesse really had me now. “Wu, woo, Where?” I stuttered in fear, “what terrible place do you mean?”
Jesse stared at me with what I could only perceive as a trace of fear around his eyes and mouth and his face turned ashen as he whispered, “The dreaded Black Hole!”
I involuntarily sucked in my breath, and with apprehension in his voice Jesse continued. “Well, it’s a very small hole in space, but three million times its weight is pressed down to the size of a speck.”
“Whoa!”
Jesse nodded his head and continued. “It stands at the center of our galaxy with a gaping open mouth appearing like a swirling dark vortex. There’s one in the Virgo Cluster now and we think it’s the one Roth may have come from. Where ever you see stars cluster you usually find one. Stars whip around it moving at huge speeds and anything that gets pulled in too close is sucked inside the massive black giant. I’ve seen rivers of gas and stars flowing into its greedy mouth. Only something supremely evil could withstand its pull.”
“Gosh!!! What can we do?” I whispered, terrified.
“Our only hope against it was uttered by the great philosopher Confucius himself when he said, “When darkness has reached its highest level it then it destroys itself and the light returns once more.” Jesse lightened a little as he went on. “ And, that‘s very true, cause one day when a Black Hole is compressed down to almost nothing after gobbling up Tellus and the entire universe, it then turns inside out and explodes in a white electrical mist like a Big Bang— and then everything starts all over again.”
“WOW! I exclaimed in fear and awe. “When will all this happen?”
Jesse lay back and nonchalantly pulled on some grass calmly remarking, “Oh, a Billion Million, Trillion years from now maybe.”
I surely then sighed, a great sigh of relief.
Then he added, “There’s also a theory that Black Holes can become dormant too.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Well, they just sort of die out and stop sucking stuff up, But they’re not really dead.”
“So Black Holes are kinda like a huge vacuum cleaner, huh?” I chuckled a moment and asked, “How do you know about these Black Holes and stuff? Can you see them through a telescope?”
“Well, nobody knows much about them now, but when my Martian friend Paulo invented his first Time Machine, the first place we went of course was into the future. They’ve discovered Black Holes in the future.”
Then Jesse continued on about Madman Roth, “Anyways, after Roth left Elysium, we heard that he had formed a huge army and was in league with the Ex-Robot Dictator of Sirus. The Lady Mordine said Roth had even considered employing ‘The Horrible Jovian Things” for his army, but decided against it cause they were just too greedy and argumentative, even among themselves. Also it was about that time that Tok Loor joined up with him.
“The dwarf pirate?”
“Yeah! Ya see Parker had been a good friend of Tok’s for a long, long time. They used to carouse and play poker together, but when Tok saw Roth’s power was growing he figured he’d better get in on the action ‘cause he didn’t want to miss out on any looting — I mean being a pirate an all, well, let’s just say it came natural. Anyway, together with Tok Loor, and the Ex-Robot Dictator, and a few greedy Martian Aristocrats, Roth attacked the Statosians. Tok had been a sworn enemy of the Statosians for thirteen generations and that particular skirmish caused Carter, an alien friend of mine who lives in Blackfoot Idaho and a Statosian by nature, to enter into the fray against them. —As Roth’s power grew he conquered one planet after another and made slaves of their citizens. You see, Roth’s goal is to conquer the entire universe! — Even Tellus! Anyway, that was the