Pi in the Sky Read online

  “Oh, great,” Annika says. “I’m blind again.”

  “One last stop,” Ty warns us as he flips open his holoscreen so Annika can have some light. “I can’t give tours of the Afterlives all day. And if there’s any more crying, I’m tossing you both out.”

  “Don’t look at me,” I say. “I don’t think we have tear ducts.”

  “There won’t be,” Annika promises.

  “Which scientist did you want to visit?” Ty asks.

  “Carl Sagan,” she answers without hesitation. “He’s my dad’s favorite astronomer. We even named our cat Sagan. His full name is Sagan BB Klutzman.”

  “What does the BB stand for?” I ask.

  “Billions and billions, obviously. You know, Carl Sagan’s catchphrase?”

  I shake my head. “I have to study famous people from a million planets, remember? My favorite catchphrase is ‘Never turn your back on a Niffum in the rain.’ ”

  Ty shudders. “Man, ain’t that the truth.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind if I ever run into a Niffum,” Annika says drily. “And yours isn’t even a catchphrase—it’s more like advice. But Carl Sagan? He’s like, the coolest astronomer in the world. There’s an asteroid named after him, and also a piece of land on Mars where the first rover touched down. He made all these important discoveries and was really involved with the search for life on other planets.”

  “I thought you weren’t interested in stuff like that,” I say. “You said your dad was the one dragging you outside with the telescope.”

  “I never said I didn’t like it,” she insists. “Just maybe not as much as my dad.” Her face lights up as she talks about her father. “When he was young, he saw this television special that Carl Sagan made. That’s what got him interested in outer space in the first place. He really loved teaching me and Sam all that stuff.”

  Her face clouds over as she thinks about her family.

  Ty punches the name into his holoscreen. “It was your father’s telescope you were looking through when you spotted Aunt Rae baking her apple pie, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what you’re basically saying, then, is that Carl Sagan is to blame for your planet being gone.”

  “What? I… no way… I mean… he would never… I…”

  “Just ignore my brother,” I tell Annika, patting her arm. “No one was to blame, least of all the guy you named your cat after.”

  “That’s right,” she says, stomping one foot for emphasis. “Hey, wait, what happened to my cat when the world ended? And everyone else’s pets?” Her eyes start to well up. Ty can’t see her cry! I turn her to face me and say firmly, “Your world didn’t end. As it stands now, your world never was. Sagan BB Klutzman never existed. And soon neither will the other Sagan, so we have to hurry if we want to talk to him.”

  Ty leans over, suspicious. Annika blinks quickly to dry her eyes. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m fine, really.”

  “I found your guy, so keep it together.” He leads us down another passageway, and then another. I’m beginning to get an idea of how enormous the Afterlives are. I keep checking to make sure Annika hasn’t dried out. I feel better having the water with me. I keep one ear out for Kal’s drums, but the hallways are totally silent. There is no indication of all the sims being lived out on either side of us.

  “We’re here,” Ty says, finally stopping.

  This time we don’t ask where here is, we just wait for him to let us into the sim. Instead he just leans against the wall and says, “We don’t have long to wait.”

  “You’re not going to let us in?” Annika asks.

  Ty shakes his head. “It was different for your grandfather because you didn’t know if he’d hang around long enough to talk to, but in this case why watch someone you can’t interact with? His sim will be over shortly, and then you can talk to him. My records show he passed away a number of years before your grandfather, so he’s not going to disappear before you get your time with him. Have a little patience.”

  I haven’t known Annika too long, but I’m pretty sure patience isn’t one of her strong suits.

  “But if we went inside,” Annika argues, “we could learn something important. Maybe he’s in the middle of teaching an astronomy class!”

  “Okay, that’s unlikely,” Ty says. “But you’re going to drive me crazy if I don’t let you in, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, totally,” she says.

  “Fine,” he grumbles. “Just stay in the background like last time and I’ll meet you after the sim ends.”

  The wall dissolves and we find ourselves in the middle of a small, cozy library. Long wooden shelves full of books line the walls, children’s colorful drawings hang above them, and a handful of families mill about, browsing or reading. Not exactly the university classroom we’d been hoping for. I don’t see anyone who looks like a scientist. Not that I know what one would look like other than what I’ve seen on the view screens. I look around for an old guy in a white lab coat with messy hair and deep thoughts.

  The sound of weeping fills the room. Annika and I turn toward the source—a young boy, no more than five or six years old. He’s sitting on a metal folding chair in the corner of the children’s section, hunched over a large picture book. His legs swing back and forth, too short to reach the ground. His small frame shakes with his tears.

  I know before it happens that Annika is going to try to comfort the boy. I could stop her from hurrying over to him, but I don’t. I just follow. None of our brief interactions with the simulated characters in her grandfather’s sim seemed to matter. So until Dr. Sagan himself comes along, I don’t really see the harm.

  “Are you all right?” Annika asks, kneeling down beside him. “Are you lost? Do you need me to find your mommy?”

  He shakes his head and looks up from his lap. Both Annika and I take a step back. His eyes shine so bright, they seem to glow from within. And it’s not from the tears. I recognize his expression. It is one of unimaginable wonder, of pure joy. I’ve seen it on the faces of the people Kal brings to the Afterlives, when they get their first true glimpse of The Realms and the expanse of the universe around them. No longer confined by their limited senses, they often break down and weep.

  The little boy points to the book on his lap and we step closer again. The page is open to a picture of the Milky Way Galaxy. Not bothering to wipe away the tears still flowing down his red, shiny cheeks, he says, “Did you know that the stars… all the stars we see around us… they’re all SUNS?” He taps the picture with his finger. “That’s a sun.” Another tap. “And that’s a sun.” Tap. “And that’s a sun.” Tap tap tap. “They’re ALL SUNS! All billions and billions of them!”

  I guess we’ve found who we’re looking for. I reach to pull Annika away but she shakes off my arm. “Wow, billions and billions!” she says, still kneeling beside him. “That’s really amazing!”

  The young Carl Sagan beams. “I know! And around those suns, there could be a planet like ours. And to them, our sun would just be another tiny dot in the sky!” He turns the pages of his book. “The universe is soooooo big! There’s so much to learn!” Fresh tears fill his eyes as he shakes his head. He must have missed the message about not crying in the Afterlives.

  I clear my throat. We’re doing exactly what we promised Ty we wouldn’t. “Um, we really have to go now,” I tell the boy. “Are you sure you don’t want us to find your mother?”

  He shakes his head.

  Ignoring me, Annika tells him, “Don’t worry about all the things you don’t know yet. You’ll have a lot of years to learn this stuff. Something tells me you’re going to be a great astronomer. The best! You’re going to inspire a lot of people.”

  I stare at her, incredulous, but she doesn’t turn away from the boy.

  He beams up at her again, then asks, “What does inspire mean?”

  Now her eyes are welling up. She kneels down again and says, “It means that your enthusiasm, your love for science